Bertus

Hah...now there's a novel thing: a band describing themselves as “Austrian Alpencore”. As to what that entails, I will tell you later...first we do the history bit, okay?

Aahhh, Hawkwind...masters of Psychedelic Space Rock! You know, it's the first time I'm being asked to review an album by this great band revolving around guitarist Dave Brock? Due to our usual Spaced-out specialist temporarily being unavailable, you see, and although it means extra work in my to-do box, I'm not exactly complaining!

Dark Forest are a UK quintet, who present us on “The awakening” a slab of traditional  heavy metal.

The people at Victory Records really have a nice taste of music, concentrating on bands which are musically special, and somewhat “out-of-the-box”. Originally concentrating on the Hardcore and Punk genres, the guys have meanwhile broadened that palate to include bands from other genres...but at all times, there's still that somewhat special side to the bands, which stems from a will to bring something slightly more progressive.

Wasted Bullet is a Melodic Hardcore band from the Netherlands. The band consists of: Robbert  (vocals), Joel (drums), Lesley (bass), Max (guitar) and Jasper (guitar). They form a rather young band because their websites contain little to nothing of info or band history. Now the band released an album last November, and to be honest they do an awesome job at it. Especially when you realize this is the bands first full album.

From Central Florida comes a powerhouse band in the metal world from a familiar presence. Guitarist Shane French, is prepared to unleash his new project along with guitarist / vocalist Morrie Vozdeck. The called themselves “Voz”. Joining Morrie and Shane is drummer John Teer.

Nashville Pussy is a band that of course I’d heard of before, but never paid any attention.  I thought with a name like that they would either play some indigestible mix of punk and heavy metal, or pure glam rock.

Oh my, what the heck have they put in my to-do box now! No, wait a minute Tony, before slaggin' this thing down, first get to the history bit! Yeah...well okay!

There is apparently a history of friendship between this Liverpool based artist, and 359Music's CEO & producer Alan McGee, which goes back to 2007, when Chris was fronting the band The Grants and played at McGee's West London night club Death Disco. According to McGee, they clicked on the basis of both being “a round peg in a square hole”, and if he'd had a label back then, the band would've been signed on the spot!

Fans of Axel Rudi Pell can buy this new album without any hesitation.  Once again, this band, who started out in the late eighties, has brought us a very good album. If, like me, you’re old enough to have lived in the eighties, and are a metal fan, you might probably still remember Axel Rudi Pell’s  work with Steeler (The German Steeler, not to be confused with the band  that featured Ron Keel).