This is the debut album of Sweden rockers Saffire who, despite being around the block since 2005, have as yet only released a few demos. What they bring us seems to be a mix of 70ies and 80ies hard rock, mixed with some heavy metal from that same era, and finally some progressive elements have been mixed in the blend.
There have been but a few albums where upon the first listening I got an immediate ‘Whow’ effect. Well this second album by Greek/German band Redrum had that effect on me.
Funny inconsistency : at this San Francisco based Alternative Rock/ Metal band's facebook page, it is mentioned in the biography that they got together in 2010...yet the page itself was already opened in September 2009! Less funny, is that I've come across very little info on the band...but I am glad to share with you what I have found!
Floor Jansen must be one of the busiest women in metal at the moment. Not only is she now taking all live duties with Nightwish, she's been working her ass off with her own metal band ReVamp. All this work might get to you and Floor knows this better than anyone. Fortunately enough, her illness hasn't stopped her creative vibes and Floor and her band are now ready to treat us with Wild Card, the second full length album of ReVamp.
Although perhaps best known for his work as bassist in Swedish Prog Metal act Pain Of Salvation, it is now several years ago that Kristoffer Gildenlöw (younger brother of Daniel, whom started that band in 1993) left Sweden for Holland, where he's been living with his wife Liselotte Hegt (a journalist for Dutch renowned music magazine Aardschok, and apparently also musician on the bass and keyboards) from 2006 on, and been active as session musician (in several bands, including ) and the band
This California based Prog Rock band, which originally started out under such working titles as Family and Family Report, was initiated by lead singer/ guitarist Billy Sherwood and keyboardist Tony Kaye.
Frontiers Records has released the new album of this band, and has in the same time re-released their 1999 debut albut and it’s 2011 follow up album ‘Pleasure To Burn’, who were originally released on Z Records, and have since a long time been out of print. Center piece of this band was of course guitarist Doug Aldritch, who later shot to fame with Dio and has been part of Whitesnake for the past ten years or so.
Amberian Dawn, a Finnish symphonic metal band released a compilation album “Re-Evolution” of the most successful songs from their four previous albums as a way to introduce and show off the talents of their new singer Capri after the departure of Heidi Parviainen. It is not a groundbreaking album, there are no real new songs to review but Capri does change something, from a technical standpoint the sound is very different and leaning more and more towards power metal compared to the Heidi era.
Almost Failed, a hardcore band from Austria, released their third EP “1155”. With four tracks and a playtime of eleven minutes it is short, too short actually, especially because as a listener you only really get into the rhythm of the EP by the last song. The tracks mostly consist out of heavy riffs with down tempo breaks and a melancholic touch.
The EP is rather dark, the lyrics are not very innovative and it hardly stands out from the crowd but if you like bands such as Gallows, you will appreciate these guys as well.
Melodic death metal / metalcore band Six Reasons to Kill, based in Germany recently released their fifth album “We are Ghosts”.
It is obvious that the band put a lot of time in constructing their songs and building this album. It contains an excellent arrangement of blast beats, breakdowns, tempo variations, melodic parts, lyrical elements and powerful riffs taking their hybrid of aggressive metal and modern hardcore to a higher level.
