From Prague comes a very nice Progressive Rock/ Metal act (with additional elements), formed in 2006 by singer/ guitarist Martin Schuster (formerly of Arawn and currently also a member of Pessimist), bassist Adam Palma, and drummer Filip Kittnar (formerly of Hell, he also bashes the drums in the band Lammoth).
I have to admit: I’ve never been a ‘fan’ of this Dutch band. Holland is known for its huge so-called ‘female fronted’ scene, i.e. Gothic, Symphonic or Epic oriented (Heavy) Metal with a female singer, and more than once this country exceeds the international colleagues / competitors easily. In many cases, the Netherlands indeed are spectacular country (I won’t start enlist a selection of bands, because whatever…), but La-Ventura did never please my ear drums or grey cells at all (cf. a full length and an EP during the first decennium of this century).
Only recently received, even though originating from the end of last year (so are many releases, so WTF…).
Objective info: Alms And Avarice was recorded at Black Coffee Sound by Clay Neely (Elder, Black Pyramid, Killslug) during last year’s summer.
Half-and-half, subjective versus objective info: Doom stuff with a chilly atmosphere and powerful sound, balancing in between tradition and experimentalism.
Process are a Danish act that did work for more than three years on their debut album, Through Acknowledgement Only; main reason: line-up issues (especially in finding a suitable drummer). They did work with renowned producer Jacob Hansen (think: Destinity, Submission, Yyrkoon, Xerath, Aborted etc.) to create a technical approach of modern Extreme Metal.
This Melodic Rock/ Metal Czech quintet was founded in 2007, and as far as I know their line-up has always consisted of lead singer Ray, guitarists Jeff (also backing vocals) and Sasha, bassist/ backing singer Marian, and drummer Frankie.
By all means, the guys from Austin, Texas based Prog Metal act Ethereal Architect deserve an apology, as their sophomore album has been due a review for a couple of months. Sorry dudes, but all kinds of things have happened to cause this delay. First of all, there was the usual Summer pile-up at Headquarters Office, which caused my editor-in-chief a delay a delivering everything that came out during those two months in one big package.
Always Fallen is an industrious young Belgian Thrash Metal band that was founded in the summer of 2005. After writing and rehearsing for almost a year, the band started playing live gigs, in February 2006. After a minor line-up change consisting of lead singer Kenny Devos whom at that point joined the band, they released their first demo entitled No Mercy for Sinners upon the public in February 2007. Nearly exactly one year later they released the mini-CD-album See my Blood.
Death Metal from Argentina, it’s a love-it-or-hate-it relationship, at least for me. In this case: ‘love it’!
The material was released in early 2012 through Cumpa Records in the band’s home country, as well as the rest of South America, but now it has been made available in our countries as well.
The music the progressive metal guys of Tempus Fusion put forward can easily be described as some of the biggest recent/new progressive metal I've heard in a while. It’s British progressive metal with clear stress on the power element. The production of To End It All is majorly polished and every single instrument is used in an innovative way. It's all incredibly powerful and this entire album sounds very harmonic, definitely in the vocal parts..
From London hails a new metal band which can already be seen as a new NWOBHM band. We're talking about Breed Of Burden who have released their very first full length, called The World Is Sick.
