Cokegoat are a very young (formation: 2011) Chicago-based six-piece (Jeff Wojtysiak-g, v; Chase Bentley-g; Tim Baldwin-b; Ed Nudd-g, v; Jordan Schultz-d; and Rebekah Brown-k, v), that debut with Vessel, which will be released on vinyl, and which will get available as well via digital download.
Satan’s Rock ‘n’ Roll was originally released on CD in August 2012, and gets now re-released on vinyl, once again via Invictus Productions. Even though Chapel were formed more than five years ago, it isn’t but this Canadian trio’s sole official release (except for a demo in 2008). And the only reason for this re-release is to please the vinyl-freaks.
Arvas hail from Norway and were originally formed during the first half of the nineties as Örth by V-Rex aka Vassago aka Willie (ex-Ancient, ex-Aeternus, ex-Frozen Cries, ex-Dødsfall, ex-Cold Eternity). Örth recorded an album with legendary producer Pytten at the legendary Grieghallen Studio, but it was never released officially.
Apostolum are a band from Lombardy, Italy, formed about a decade ago. After a demo, the band released a first EP / album in 2006, called Anedonia, but it was one of the many releases within a huge grey mass of pulp. Result: Apostolum faded into silence…
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’.
