CD

This untitled split-EP/MCD starts with three tracks by pretty young Swedish act Usurpress (formed in Uppsala in 2010), which includes former and current members of e.g. Embalmed and Tyrant (the one from Eskilstuna).

In 2006 4 bandmembers met each other on the Mannheimer popacademie and appear on 2006 under the backname of the singer “Hessler”.  After 3 years performing on stage they changed their name in “The Intersphere”.The current members are:

Christoph Hessler (vocals), Thomas Zipner (guitar), Sebastian Wagner (bass) and Moritz Müller (drums).

I put this CD on without reading the accompanying info.  And my first impression was :am I listening to some Ozzy Osbourne tribute band, or a band that’s trying to clone his sound ?  So I started reading the info, and it soon became clear to me as to the why and how of this sound.

Nocturnal was formed out of the ashes of Bestial Desecration (a Teutonic trash metal band) somewhere in the year 2000. There was a new line up, but with the same vision: Trash metal highly inspired by bands from the German metal scene like Destruction.

Australian act Moon (one of the hundred bands with that moniker), a solo-project by a guy called Paul Marsh aka Miasmyr (also formerly known from e.g. Urgrund, Forn Valdyrheim or Catacombs), return with the second full length, after a couple of minis and splits. The first album easily made it into my top-five of 2011; Caduceus Chalice was, just like the mini-albums done before, a pleasure for ear and brain in case ‘Underground’ is your thing.

Ian Stewart is a guitarist, songwriter, singer and producer, best known for his work with Strangeways. With them he was responsible for ‘Native Sons’ and ‘Walk In The Fire’, which are both classic albums in the AOR genre. However don’t expect anything similar on this solo album which he describes as ‘rock music for grown-ups’.

Conan a stoner/doom metal group, founded in Liverpool, UK in the year 2006. They can permit everything like the openings sentence of their bio on the site: “Conan are as heavy as interplanetary thunder amplified through the roaring black hole anus of Azathoth”. Yes you can expect everything. Members are: Phil Coumbe (Bass, Vocals), Paul O'Neill (Drums) and Jon Davis (Guitars, Vocals).

Stockholm-based outfit Circle Of Chaos return with their second full length, after 2010’s self-released Black Oblivion. The band also released the mini-album Twoheaded Serpent in 2012, by the way, and last year the band was joined by former Necrophobic-member Anders Strokirk on guitar, for your information.

If I’m not mistaken, this Dutch band called itself after a song by Ebonylake, taken from their 1999-album On The Eve Of The Grimly Inventive.

Occasionally, some really great musical gems come out of the dark fogs of Northern Italy, and his band from Mantova certainly counts in that category. Well, actually the city (with some 50,000 inhabitants) is an exception in the usually very industrial north of Italy, as being surrounded by three lakes and having a rich and beautiful historical center (the town dating back to the 6^th century!) rather makes it a touristic attraction.