The very young Tampere, Finland-based label Saturnal Records suddenly came out of the blue with three highly interesting releases; Hellspirit with Dawn Under Curse and On Death’s Wings by Blood Red Fog were the first releases, available as from May 26th 2014 on; check out the reviews I did, posted respectively on August 16th and July 18th 2014.
The Megs are a hard rock quartet from Italy. So far they’ve released a full LP ‘Jealousy’ in 2011 and an EP ‘Start’ in 2013.. So this is their second full album.
As a matter of fact calling them a hard rock band is hurting the truth, because it is quite difficult to categorize their music in a particular genre. They really have a sound of their own, that is very hard to compare to other bands. Let’s say they play rock’n’roll, but with many angles. At times they almost sound like D.A.D., but on the next song they almost sound poppy.
Teramaze returned and released their 4th full length album. After completely grabbing the attention of the underground Prog-Power Metal fans with their 2012 release “AnhedoniA.” Teramaze blends tight and speedy syncopated guitar/drum riffs and rhythms, with melodic hard vocals. You could compare this style with bands like Dream theather.
Finnish band Rippikoulu was formed at the very end of the eighties, singing in their native tongue (now this isn’t that unusual anymore, but in the early years, most bands from all over the globe used the English language specifically). The band split up in 1995 after the death of guitarist Marko, and despite this tragic loss, their 1993-demo-tape Musta Seremonia was cool enough to be re-issued on both vinyl and CD via their current label, Svart Records.
Although a band that has been around since the 80’s….I never actually heard of them. Although it is rather hard to find info about them. They are Spanish and only have a little info on the web about them here and there, but it’s all in Spanish.
So basically i can’t really tell anything about hem besides that they have a new record out. That record doesn’t really make it on my favorites list as it just lacks power, sounds dull and isn’t really interesting but rather typical. Overal an average album.
Not contenting themselves with the re-release of ‘The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell Part One & Part Two", Steamhammer are also at the same time re-releasing Virgin Steele’s 1998 album ‘Invictus’.
The original release of these two albums, was in 1994 respectively in 1995, so it’s a good initiative by SteamHammer to reissue them together, including not only the original songs in the original running order, but also adding two live tracks and an alternative version of ‘The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell’. Nothing has to be said about the albums themselves, they were very good when they were originally released, and of course still are very good. That is if you like Virgin Steele, of course.
Seven is a band that has it’s roots in the late eighties, and who got signed by Polydor, releasing two singles on that label. Not having a contract for a full album, and being dropped by the label, the band finally broke up.
Since their last full length Mind control, Uncle acid have released number of singles, the last one is called “Runaway girls” It’s not a coincidence that it’s released only a couple of weeks away from th start of the band’s first proper US tour. “Runaway girls” is yet another slab of 70’s psychedelic heaviness, served in the recognizable sound of Uncle acid & the deadbeats. The “b” side of this single is an acoustic version of “devil’s work” of which the original can be found on 2013 full length Mind Control
If I have to go by what certain English “specialized “ press had to say about this album then the THE HELL are the future of hardcore…….well I don’t think so. What is on display here is a bunch of second rate hardcore mixed with blunt English humor. Now personally I am a fan of English humor of all kinds, but in this format spread over 13 tracks and a secret track… and pretty one dimensional (how many times can we say fuck shit dick kill on one album) than it becomes very quickly very boring…..
