Sacrocurse are a very young act, formed in 2012 by Mexican sweetheart Carlos ‘Zolrak’ Montes, whom you might know from acts like Unholier, Obeisance, Nokturnel, Adumus, Morbosidad or Nodens. With friendly assistance of a friendly guy called Godslaying Hellblast, Zolrak and his Sacrocurse-project debut with a four-track demo-tape, Sulphur Blessing.
Rock Ignition are a fairly new band coming from Germany. Best known member would probably be Jûrgen Steinmetz who played with Headstone Epitaph some 15 years ago. But if you live in Germany, and are into rock opera’s, the name Heather Shockley also might ring a bell, since she’s performed in shows like ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and ‘We Will Rock You’, but also did some background vocals for US metal band Kamelot.
Revocation’s fourth album is a fair slab of modern thrash metal from USA. This album got a production of nice quality, heavy and stomping, and generally the band sound fairly good even though the vocals can appear quite less inspired Phil Anselmo like at times. Musically the outcome is not too bad, just quite unsurprising to say the least. While it may be difficult to point out any blatantly copied elements, you cannot avoid a recurring sense of déja-vu every now and then.
The Swedish act Quest Of Aidance was formed by Christian Lundgren (Carnalized, Miseration) and Christian Älvestam (think: The Few Against Many, Incapacity, Solar Dawn, Unmoored, Miseration and many others).
Our dearest Concreteweb’s headquarters did recently receive a cd-r / mp3 with seven Folk-oriented albums. As a matter of fact, Strawberry Oracle Promotions will give some renewed attention to seven bands / projects within the Folk scene by having this material put on the foreground again. It deals with both recent as well as pretty old recordings, and in order to give this stuff a boost, I will be so kind to have it reviewed.
Majalis (named after the flower?) were originally founded as an In Mourning side-project (Björn Pettersson and Tobias Netzell; the latter was also formerly active in e.g. Volturyon or October Tide), but it was a rather silently-existing act with only few activity. Last year, the duo recruited two friends, Jonas Martinsson and Daniel Jansson, and they recorded the three tracks for this debut-EP, Cathodic Black.
Lycus are an American band, originally located in Oakland, then moved to Sacramento, with a rather successful promotional demo done in 2011 (Demo MMXI, released via Graceless Recordings on tape and Flenser Records on vinyl). It caught the attention of Olympia-based 20 Buck Spin, whom the band signed to recently.
Wow... Locrian is fucked up….but beautifully fucked up.
Of Swedish’origins, apparently originally released in 1985, this delayed release of Levictus only full-length album is certainly not too groundbreaking. The Strongest Power is somewhat fair ‘80s metal that stays too much on the generic side. The tracks are pretty heavy stompers, not exactly too imaginative but with some nice details; especially in the guitar department, throughout.. Despite the convincing delivery and very consistent style this album is still strained by some dullness as the songs sound a little too samey.
There’s hardly a year that goes by without Jorn releasing a new album. Of course the man has a fantastic voice and most of the time is accompanied by a great band, so you’ll not hear a real complaint from me.
