When Black Anvil released their debut album Time Insults The Mind, I was enormously surprised; the positive way! The band was formed in New York City with members who were active in the NYHC-scene (the founding members were active in Kill Your Idols, for example), but Black Anvil’s 2008-debut had nothing to do with Hardcore whatsoever. And what’s more, their thrashing and Doom / Death-injected Black Metal truly was of a very high quality.
I’ll skip every unnecessary introduction about the huge discography, lengthy history or influential theory by Swedish act Vintersorg. I have no intention to go into Andreas Hedlund’s enormous curriculum vitae either. Just read what I think about this new Vintersorg-album, whether you like it or not.
This Frontiers Compilation offers you a choice of 14 tracks from different Frontiers signed bands of projects. Among them the fantastic and already well known W.E.T., but also I.R.S., and some as yet undiscovered gems like Moon Land. If you want to have a sample of the quality bands that Frontiers Records have to offer – as if you didn’t know that already – then you should at least by this compilation, discover some of their bands, and subsequently buy some of the full albums, of which you were given a taste.
Finally New York-based Tombs (Mike Hill-g, v; Ben Brand-b; Andrew Hernandez-d; and Garett Bussanick-g) return with the successor of the splendid Path Of Totality, which was released in June 2011. In the Archive of this site you will find the review within one of the Relapse-specials I did; see update September 18th 2011.
Since their founding in Sacramento in late 1982, but at that time under the name of City Kidd, changed into Tesla during the recording of their first album ‘Mechanical Resonance’, this is only their seventh studio album. So despite their six year break you cannot say these guys have been very productive. On the other hand you can also state that they never delivered bad quality material.
California Breed is a new band, consisting of two old timers – so to say – in the persons of Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham, both formerly busy in Black Country Communion and newby Andrew Watt, a singer-guitarist.
Formerly a member of Stratovarius, guitar wizard Timo Tollki with his new band/project Timo Tollki’s Avalon are in a period a bit longer than one year, already at their second release. Since the first album received good reviews, I was surprised if this second album was going to be another success, or instead couldn’t stand up to it’s expectations.
‘High Road’ is ‘Nightrangers’ eleventh Studio album. ‘Nightranger’ is known for its feelgood- and catchy songs. And on ther latest album it’s not so different, and it’s a great album as usual. Of course they can never beat the years where they brought out albums such as: ‘Down Patrol’ (1982), ‘Midnight Madness’ (1983) and ‘Big Life’ (1987) but that goes for all the bands that exist more than 25 years.
The older rock fans among us will undoubtedly remember that Sebastian Bach started his musical career in Skid Row, but before Skid Row he was in another band called Kid Wikkid. He fronted Skid Row from 1987 until 1996. His first solo album ‘Bring ‘Em Bach Alive was released in 1999, it was partially a live album with songs from his Skid Row period, and partially a studio album, containing five new solo tracks. He also performed on some Broadway shows, and on TV.
What you cannot say is that in its existence Winger has been a prolific band. Between 1988 and now they’ve released only six studio albums. Nevertheless they had their fair share of fans, which might not sound as a wonder, since musically these guys have always stood their ground. OK, not all albums were that good, but they do have a few memorable songs.
