I should be ashamed. Kong is a band that already exists for over 25 years, but that I’d never heard of before.
Of course this might have to do with the fact that what Kong brings us, is not your typical metal or hard rock. To start with all their songs are purely instrumental. So no vocals. As if that alone wasn’t enough, what they bring us is not typical metal either. I would even be tempted to call this industrial metal, or techno-metal, whatever.
Originally formed in the Crete town of China (situated on the West side of the northern Coast of the Island) during 2007, Playgrounded only stabilized its line-up around lead singer Stavros Markonis, guitarist Michael Kotsirakis, keyboardist/ electronics man Orestis Zafeiriou, bassist Odisseas Zafeiriou and drummer Vasilis Podaras in 2010.
I hadn’t realized Royal Hunt already exist 20 years. Time flies by. To celebrate their 20 years of existence, Royal Hunt have released a Special edition set, which contains no less than 3 CD’s, and one DVD. On it is an anthology of songs coming from their 11 albums, but also one brand new song, and three acoustic songs. The DVD features all promotional clips shot by the band over these 20 years.
Yet another female fronted metal band I thought. But boy did I make a mistake.
I’d never heard of this US band before, yet this is already their third album, and the second with Sabrina Valentine on vocals. And contrary to many other female fronted bands this lady doesn’t try to mimic an opera singer, but instead sings more in the lower and mid range of the spectrum; yet at the same time being able to reach rather high notes as well.
The band’s name attracted my curiosity, since back in 1993 there was a band with the same name that released a reasonably good album ‘Smoke And Mirrors’. But when I put the CD on, I was brought back to reality, this Snakecharmer sounded totally different from the 90ies Snake Charmer.
Triggerfinger I guess, needs no introduction. Their reputation precedes them. This is a band you have to see, to feel live. Which implies that a live album really does them no justice.
They are known to play loud, and this has greatly affected the sound on this CD. If you ask me the sound quality is rather poor, it’s almost as if you’d be listening to some obscure bootleg, which is not the case, since this album was recorded over 3 days of concerts in the ‘Amsterdamse Melkweg’ in November 2011.
Yurei is one of the projects Bjeima is involved with. Some might know this Norwegian guy from his solo projects Alfa Obscura or The Ghost Conspiracy, his work as bass guitar player in Virus, or his key contributions in, for example, -M-, Delirium Bound or Swarms. -M-, by the way, will release a full length through this very same label, Norwegian / Belgium co-operative Adversum, in a couple of weeks / months.
I recently got a record of the band named Züül, A band with little info to be found about. so for those who missed it, Züül is an American metal band from Illinois. These guys play a mix of heavy metal with hard rock with here and there some pro elements. The sound of this band reminds me of "The Sword".
This split-record has been released on vinyl (12”EP) in a limited edition, in 333 copies. 2/3rd of it will be sold at live shows exclusively, 1/3rd was made available via mailorder, yet I guess this edition has been sold out in mean time. So check it out at the band’s live performances.
Finally, the wait is over! Twenty years in the business, the LA rockers of Buckcherry are back with their sixth full length studio album, which goes by the holy name Confessions. Now that I have your attention, there's no real secret to it. The entire album has been inspired by the seven capital sins, referring to frontman Josh Todd's childhood. In addition, on Confessions, it's time for Buckcherry to confess what they've been up to these last months/years.
