Hailing from Berlin, Germany, Heat brings their brand of stoner /classic rock n roll to the table with a taste of Zeppelin, Cactus, Sabbath, Hendrix, the Beatles, Cream, Pink Floyd and more. Ingo Börner (guitars) Marco Rischer (guitars) Richard Behrens (bass) and Marcus Töpfer (drums) bring their varied backgrounds in music together in the form of Heat.
Sainte Anthony’s Fyre is a slab of molten Blue Cheer, Grand Funk and Jimi Hendrix inspired psychedelic bluesy, blistering rock. Each track roars or thunders off this disc, streaming off Gregg Ohm’s lead guitar, Tomm Nardi’s rolling, looping bass, and Bob Sharpless explosive drumming. This has to be one of the most aggressive and hardest albums the seventies have ever laid out on record.
Usually I have a hard time with sludge music, and especially the ongoing flood of sludge metal bands is more than I can take. But Moghul (great name) do manage to capture my attention. At a first glance, the two songs don’t sound too spectacular, but the more time you spend with them, the more fascination evolves from this psychedelic doom foursome. Attentive listening reveals how multi-layered the music actually is. The CD contains 2 long tracks running between nine and thirteen minutes and subsists on countless mood swings.
Dali’s Llama. from Palm Springs, CA have been around already for two decades, and still their mix of stoner, punk and bluesy metal manages to win me over. Dali’s Llama certainly have used more originality with their band name than with their sound, but from the opening track “Bad dreams” onward, it's perfectly clear that we are in the presence of a quartet who know how to transform themselves into a sonic bulldozer that's doing anything but taking prisoners.
Five years later ... and the wait was well worth it. Cult of Luna is back with a new record deal (on Indie Recordings) and a new album, Vertikal, that shows there has been no loss of power or post metal attitude over the years. Vertikal is a CD that fits nicely in with all those previous Cult of Luna CDs.
Fans of bands like Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, and others: Rejoice! Audrey Horne’s Youngblood is yet another fine example that hard rock is far from dead and gone.
Avatar from Stockholm are not that well known outside their native country where they have already built themselves quite a reputation. After releasing three albums, Swedish metal band Avatar is back with their fourth full-length album Black Waltz. Avatar surprise with overwhelming song writing and a lot of variation.. Although it has a strong industrial Manson versus Ramstein touch, it’s comes across very refreshingly. It’s just fun listening to the entire album.
Two man band Kroh brings to the table a mixture of several different metal genres that some might say shouldn’t may be crossed. Their style is a cocktail of industrial, shoegaze, alt rock, sludge, doom and 70’s rock. Musically, the band is pretty tight and adventurous. The guitars maintain a fuzzy sound and hovers between the kinetic drums and 70s horror bands such as Jacula, Black Land, Antonius Rex–like synths, all done by multi instrumentalist Paul Kenney.
Ocean Mind is a stoner rock band that unleashes their 11 demons on the Leaders Records. They could have at least brushed of the cobwebs and the dust before recording it. 2 Ready 2 Live shows that these Greeks have the necessary musicianship and down to earth basics. The songs “Leather messiah”, “Scissor tongue” and “End of time” are injected with a lot of good solos, but listening through the whole album gets tedious very quickly as it sounds the same to me.
Active for nearly 15 years, Riverboat Gamblers play on their sixth studio album once again a healthy mix of punk, grunge and rock’n’roll... A fair share of true rockers, like the exquisite “Comedians” and “Bite my tongue” make it next to impossible to sit still. But there is also a melancholy side to the band, as can be heard on “Gallows bird”.. Some tracks like “Heart conditions” and “Loser neck” are quite catchy and would be ideal to be released as singles.
