Helker was formed in Buenos Aires, Argentina by guitar player Mariano Ríos and bassist Christian Abarca. The current line-up features guitar player Leo Aristu, drummer Hernán Coronel metal vocalist Diego Valdez. Helker is widely considered as the leading South American heavy metal band to emerge from Argentina.
Canada is one of those countries with more than one single official language, i.e. English and French. Since most bands from all over the world have their lyrics in English, I have a passion for those who dare to use their mother tongue. Especially in Germany and Poland that’s the case, but I guess all existing languages have been used in mean time.
ASG hail from North Carolina and have been around for about a dozen years. I am always pleased when an album exceeds my expectations and this one does. Shifting from stoner to metal to blues to effective yet eerie space rock, Blood Drive never gets stuck. Each song is weaved nicely and is chock full of creativity..The musicianship is extremely tight with plenty of killer guitar solos and very impressive vocal harmonies enhanced by the amazing voice of Jason Shi, whose style is very similar to Perry Farrell.
A still quite young band from Germany is offering its debut here. The band’s name is This Is Ghost! Country, comes from Berlin & the first official release is a 8-track album via Electric Magic Records.
The Lone Crows is a US psych blues rock quartet composed of Tim Barbeau - Lead Vox, Guitar; Julian Manzara – Guitar, Andy Battcher - Bass and Joe Goff – Drums. Musically, this is the basic blues rock formula perfected by Wolfmother, Triggerfinger and Black Keys, a liberal dose of Jimi Hendrix, a pinch of Muddy Waters and flavoured with a whole wild bunch of fantastic guitar solos.
As the name of this Swedish band implies, Memory Garden are more than a little familiar with Trouble. Memory Garden was found in 1992 in Sweden and have since then released four albums, two of them under the flag of Metal Blade Records Doomain is the fifth album by Swedish doom/heavy metal band Memory Garden.
So Svart’s label heaves themselves upon the occult folk/psych bandwagon and it is a winner. When listening Iron Marsh one it perceives like they expand the barriers of their material , a cunning mixture of psych, folk, medieval, progressive rock and spiritual music whose final result is an unique sound with its unmistakable stamp, and that despite the acoustic guitar presence, the music is not sterile in this area, giving also prominent roles to good ol’ hammond, violin, flute, horns as well as a good range of percussion.
The first W.E.T. album, released in 2009, was critically acclaimed. For a ‘band’ that had been created by a record label to create such a stir was quite sensational. Of course the musicians involved had all proven themselves previously.
Now the world is ready to receive the next installment. And just like the first album, it’s sensational. It’s in the same vein as it’s predecessor, so fans of melodic rock don’t need to hesitate for a moment and can blindly buy this album.
Although Snowfall hails from Norway, their vocalist is none other than British singer Lee Small (Shy, Phenomena). The band started with PB Riise and Tore Meli when their previous band Winter Parade. The band was further completed by Perra Johnson (Coldspell).
How on earth I have missed out on this band up to know remains a mystery. Right from the start this band reminded me of Shotgun Symphony, a band whose first album I bought upon it’ s release. Yet for Serenity this is already their fourth album since their creation in 2004.
