Bertus

The Post / Sludge genre is permanently growing, and for sure the French scene is one of the most prominent ones worldwide. One of my most beloved acts from France is Dirge, hailing from Paris, and active for almost twenty-five years. In the earliest years, the band brought some kind of industrialised and psych-grinding Metal (also quite ‘popular’ in their home country), yet throughout the years they evolved a lot. Dirge recorded and released six albums in the meantime, but the last one, Hyperion (*), was released four and a half years ago.

Cultus Profano is the name of a new entity from the Californian city of Los Angeles. It is meant to promote cocktails on the beach, fast cars and colourful bath fashion… Not! No, it is an outfit by Arthur Mendiola aka Advorsus, knows as (former or current) drummer (and vocalist) in e.g. Sadistic Intent, Vesterian or Blaskyrkh. He joined forces with (female) guitarist / vocalist Strzyga with Cultus Profano as moniker.

I’ve always been impressed by bands and projects that involve Matron Thorn: Crowhurst, Benighted In Sodom, Midwinter Storm, Andacht and, especially, mighty Ævangelist. And hurray, recently he started a new project, called Death Fetishist.

If I’m not mistaken – and since I’m a smart guy the chance is almost nihil – ‘Arkona’ is the name of a cape on the Rügen island, nowadays in Germany (Baltic Sea, close to Poland), where the Slavic fortress Jaromarsburg was built. Like many castles, it has been a source of inspiration for many Metal bands. Behemoth’s first recordings, for example (at the time that they did still play ‘real’ Black Metal), referred to that era / area, but there are quite some bands named after that specific historical place too.

Rob Moratti started his career in the nineties as lead vocalist and songwriter of the band Moratti.  Around the millennium he teamed up with songwriet Mladen and they formed Final Frontier.  In 2008 he became the singer in famous Canadian rockband Saga.

Being a fan of Journey himself, he decided it was time to bring a tribute to them, so he recorded these 12 songs. Among them some of my all time Journey favorites like ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ or ‘Anyway You Want It.

Limb Music is re-releasing Wizard’s back catalogue, and instead of writing a review for each separate album, I’ve decided to write one review for the two albums I received, the 2001 ‘Head Of The Deceiver’ album, and the 2005 ‘Magic Circle’ album.

This album must have been gathering dust at the back of a drawer I guess, since I only received it some two weeks ago to write a review.   When I looked at the bands name, and the graphics it was written in, together with the picture on the album’s sleeve, I got visions of eighthies German trash metal band, but I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.  These guys come from the US, and play melodic metal.

Finnish horde Archgoat was formed at the end of the eighties, and after the recording of some demo tapes, they wrote some new material that was supposed to be released via Necropolis Records (which, at that time, was one of the most impressive underground labels, I think), along with some older stuff that appeared on the demonstrational recordings. Normally it would come out in 1993, but because of some specific circumstances, the release got postponed.

Talon is an American band, born from the ashes of Voxen, a band I personally hadn’t heard of, yet they seemed to have scored some success with their releae ‘Sacrifice’, an album that included a track that was used in the motion picture ‘Outbreak’, a movie that starred Dustin Hoffman.  The band was formed in 2002, and this is their fifth release so far.

After nine years existence, Eden’s Curse now releases their very first live album, recorded in Glasgow’s  Classic Grand on November 28^th 2014.  Before, they released 4 studio albums that received good reviews.  Mixing and mastering of these recordings was handled by none other than Dennis Ward, their longtime engineer.