Bertus

I think it’s time fans of sludge and noise core discover the Beringen, Belgian outfit 30 000 Monkies. Their second EP contains four pieces, each one containing its fair share of noise, disoriented and frightened passages. However, the songs “Czarring”, “Imperial Staches”, “Amazones” and the longest 13-min “Battering” don’t go through a variety of tempo and style changes, 30 000 Monkies does an excellent job of building and maintaining a suffocating atmosphere ending on the darkest possible note.

Dutch band Vengeance have been around since 1983 already, but if you don’t count the album that was only released in Japan, and the live album, this is only their eleventh album.  Line-up changes have been countless over the years, but with one or two constants always returning, that being singer Leon Goewie –  he’s been replaced one some occasions, and guitarist Jan Somers.  Sadly enough Jan Somers died in 2011 from a heart attack, but his son Timo who had already played in the band together with his fathe

Silent Voices is a Finnish band that I’d never heard of before.  Yet so far they have already released 3 albums since 2002, but since their 2006 album ‘Building Up the Apathy’ it had become quite silent, as if they went in wintersleep.  On top of that they lost their vocalist Michael Henneken (Sentiment, Adamantia).

Line up:

Jens Carlsson - Vocals

Emil Norberg - Guitar

Daniel Sundbom - Guitar

Fredrik Hedström - Bass

Efraim Juntunen - Drums

Persuaders’ fourth album is coming out in January 2014 and it’s a great new year’s present for the Powermetal fans.

Edward Box is a UK guitarist, whom you probably know from his work with Vendetta, who have so far released 3 albums on Lion Music.  It’s clear that he’s a prolific guitar player, because you get to hear some parts which could as well have been played by Joe Satriani, whilst other parts remind you of George Lynch but the list goes on.

Psych 44 is a stoner/garage rock band with electronic influences from Antwerp, Belgium. After reaching the finals of HUMO’s Rock Rally in 2010, they released their first EP “Demon” in 2011.

Kayser funded in 2004 when Spice (ex-Spiritual Beggars), Mattias Svensson (also The Defaced), Bob Ruben (ex The Mushroom River Band) and Fredrik Finnander decided to join forces to create a pure metal band. The 100% Swedish pure metal band returned after their last album “Frame The World…Hang It On The Wall” (2006).

Mystic Prophecy is a power metal band that comes from Germany. The band was formed R.D. Liapakis and Martin Albrecht. Gus G. was also part of this outfit, he played all guitars on their three first albums, but left in 2005 to spend more time in his other band Firewind. But do to other line up changes, the band almost gave up. Luckily for the fans, they kept going and just got stronger and stronger.

Ektomorf Was founded in 1993 in Hungary. Line up Zoltan Farkas (vocals, guitar), Zsabolcs Murvai (bass), Tomi Schrottner (guitar) and Robert Jaska (drums) playing some groove metal – Neo – Trash metal. The Danish producer Tue Madsen (Antfarm Studio) produced their albums sinds 2003. Madsen helped the band to find their very own, super fat, modern and powerful sound that EKTOMORF evolved since “Destroy” (2004) steadily.

As many of you will know by now, Iron Mask is the more popular side-project of Belgian Neo-Classical Power Metal guitarist Dushan Petrossi (of Magic Kingdom), formed in 2002 (with MK bassist Vassili Moltchanov also joining in the band, Youri De Groote behind the keyboards, and Phil Letaw as lead singer) and for which Petrossi signed to Finnish label Lion Music.