Dawn Of Winter were formed in 1990 (!) as Cemetery, paying tribute to bands as Candlemass, Trouble, Saint Vitus, Witchfinder General, Black Sabbath etc. After a short period, the members did choose to change the band’s moniker into the current one, and at the same time they decided to change their style into the initial approach (tributing the gothfathers of Doom), mixed with specific own-faced structures. Dawn Of Winter were born…
“World War II-Metal Of Honor” is the name of Steel Assasin’s brand new studio album. As you might have already guessed, it’s a concept album. Their guitarist Kevin put a lot of effort into researching the concept. World War II is such a vast topic, it’s no wonder Steel Assassin had to find their own approach to the subject.
Witchgrave form Sweden are a new phenomenon like we had Ghost and now these days Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats. The play N.W.O.B.H.M. just like it came straight from the old days of glory. Their mini-album “The Devils Night’ sold out very quickly. In those days Witchgrave excisted only out of two people. Since then they have ground into a proper four-piece band.
This South Wales based 5-piece Metalcore act was founded in late 2001, has since released a demo, 2 EPs, and a preceding debut full-length, and have toured ll over the UK and Europe with the likes of Parkway Drive, Suicide Silence, The Chariot, Everytime I Die, Becoming The Archetype, Bury Your Dead, Raging Speedhorn, Funeral For A Friend, Crowbar, and many, many more...
Spanish metal band Zarpa comes across with a definite verve and energy, but ultimately falls prey to such things as unoriginality and cliché.
I first came across this relatively prolific (this is his 7th studio album since 2002's To Let – not counting two live albums, that means he comes with a new album every two years) Australian singer/ songwriter/ multi-instrumentalist “World Music” artist thanks to his previous album Koonyun Sun, which was released through the elitist Anti- label (review posted...somewhere in April 2010, I guess – I am quite unable to check that at the time of writing, and forgot to do so when I would've been able to).
There’s three dutchmen flying through my speakers as we speak and you best clear a path for Barry van Esbroek – drums, Willem Verbuyst – guitars and Jochem Jonkman - vocals, bass.
While hardly the most original band in the world, In Aevum Agere treats the listener with slow and mid tempo doom and epic metal. The riffing and vocal melodies show the unmistakable influence of Solitude Aeturnus, Candlemass, Warning,…but the production could be punched up a little bit. The vocals fit the gloomy music very well, but next time he has to put more emotion and power into his singing lines. The band sounds tight and tends to work in the service of the songs rather than to showing off their technical chops.
Polish Death-combo Hell United (Rzulty - g and lyrics, Void - v, g, Bartollo - b, and Dugy - d) did record Aura Damage at Roslyn Studio (engineering, mix and mastering) with Krzysztof Godycki.
It's very possible that this band was originally started as a solo project by the artist (composer/ guitarist/ singer) known only as J. Ahola (a member known amongst others from multi-gold selling act Teeräsbetoni, super group Northern Kings, and popular Christmas act Raskasta Joulua), as the info sheet we got along with the promo copy of the album speaks of putting the age of the combo as having started in early Summer 2008, counting from when the first song (which is included in the album, by the way) was written.
