A live in studio record featuring old Aria tracks recorded with the brand new vocalist instead of a real live record or a new regular album, who needs that? This was my very first impression when I got my first information on this release that was not promoted very well and is still rather hard to purchase. I felt quite sceptical when I tried this record out but you see me positively surprised.

The tracks are all close to the originals but have had a well done face-lifting and sound very energizing, fresh and straight forward. The production is an excellent mixture of a certain raw live energy with some small playing mistakes and a very precise mixing where you can clearly distinguish every single chord that is played. The vocals are also amazing and must not hide behind the performances of the original vocalists Kipelov and Berkut. The new man Zhitnyakov underlines the great impressions he left with the last studio release "Phoenix" and proves that he can also nail the classics.

Especially the old tracks sound very pure on this release and I prefer them to the charming but often limited production in the eighties. The classic opener "Hero Of Asphalt" already blows you away with its crystal clear guitar sound, pumping bass guitar, tight drumming and melodic vocals. With your headphones on, you really feel like being in the studio next to these five guys having a lot of fun. It's the same thing for the majestic "Play With Fire", the other essential epic "Blood For Blood" and especially the breathtaking, head banging, sweating performance of "Rose Street". Among the modern tracks, "Coliseum" truly stands out and is a perfect classic heavy metal track with a modern sound that is hard to be found nowadays.

It's a little bit sad that the band skipped a few albums as I would have liked to hear some new performances from the first record "Megalomania" which is still my favourite record of the band or the follow-up "Whom Are You With" that had some promising tracks but a lack of energy and a too tame production. The band should have also included some songs from the last records "Armageddon" or "Phoenix" that are both equally great. A few tracks on this record like the slow paced and atmospheric "Hangman" or "Calm" that was simply one of the last amazing efforts by original singer Kipelov with the help of the German singer Udo Dirkschneider don't work as well as the originals and should have been replaced by other songs from the numerous back catalogue of the Russian heavy metal legend. On the other side, this record is filled with seventy-seven minutes of diversified heavy metal music from three decades and leaves me wanting more.

Any Aria fan should try to get this surprisingly energizing and spontaneous release. For anybody else, this record is a better idea than any boring greatest hits collection and a good way to start your journey through the music of Russia's most essential metal band. In the end, this release was a fairly better idea than another live record and truly convinced me. Maybe other heavy metal bands that tend to release way to many compilations and live records like Iron Maiden should think about this kind of release instead in the future.

Albiorix Requiem is a quite atmospheric doom metal band from Japan with some tiny but interesting gothic elements in their sound.

Dreamy and fairy background choirs supported by hypnotizing keyboard sounds meet tribal drums, slow but heavy guitar riffs and crispy growls with a haunting and ritual touch. The doom music makes rather think of occult underground progressive sounds from the late sixties and seventies than of modern doom metal bands. The gothic parts help to visualize the concept and create images on your mind while you listen to the music.

The two songs on this first official EP could both fit to the soundtrack of a slow paced and mysterious horror movie or might fit to dark autumn nights, black messes or as an inspiring background music for Halloween parties or similar stuff. The songs also vary enough to remain interesting without losing their atmosphere and clear guiding line. In comparison to other doom metal bands that sound redundant after a while and repeat themselves in overlong song structures, this Japanese band is easier to digest and finds the right path between hypnotizing repetition and addicting diversity.

Let's see if the band might maintain this very solid level of song writing on a full length release. I'm definitely looking forward to hear more of them and suggest you to try their music out if you like traditional doom metal, slow and atmospheric gothic metal and anything in connection with occultism. The band sounds like an interesting underground version of a mixture of early Moonspell and Opeth with some psychedelic influences from the early seventies.

Stormtroopers Of Death are a sort of super group with members from legendary bands such as Anthrax that just wanted to have some fun and created a short and entertaining record around a strange character called Sergeant D. who hates pretty much everything. Just take a look on the hilarious cover artwork by guitarist Scott Ian. The record has the vibe of a party album with many hilarious lyrics such as in the engaging title track "Speak English Or Die" that portrays a special view on immigration coming from a closed minded racist, in the amusingly chaotic interlude "What's That Noise" or in "Pre-Menstrual Princess Blues" which is a parody of a young female teen in her starting puberty. Just the titles of the tracks are quite amusing when we take a look on "Pussy Whipped", "Fuck The Middle East" or an "extended" version of "Diamonds And Rust" that lasts for exactly four seconds.

So far, so good, so funny. I don't want to seem severe or boring and know that the project doesn't take itself very serious but there is nevertheless the musical side of this album. From that point of view, the record is a huge letdown. The vocals are horribly weak and exchangeable. The guitar riffs are one dimensional all the time. The best thing from a musical point of view is the solid and diversified bass play and the precise drumming. The song structures and lengths are all quite alike and the record only focuses on its nasty lyrics. Musically, we have a mixture of hardcore punk with some thrash and speed metal bits which may have been a rather original crossover fusion back in the time but after three tracks, everything sounds the same and the experiment isn't quite interesting to observe anymore as everything has already happened. The band is composed by excellent musicians that could have added a little bit more into the band's sound in my opinion. As it is, I know a lot of hardcore punk bands from the early eighties that have been there before as they sound quite similar and even better than this at some points and maybe this formation wanted to pay a tribute to them or introduce some metal fans to this genre. As we can see from the number of reviews and the record’s reputation, these guys have succeeded and were right to feel free to do whatever they wanted to on this piece of musical freedom that takes no prisoners.

As is it is right now, this record is a party album for punks and metal heads after a couple of beers and has a cult status for its nasty attitude, its straight simplicity and its weird lyrics. It's an album one should have listened to once in a lifetime but nothing you would like to listen to more than only once in a while when the moment has come to lose yourself in a pitiless mosh pit. That's what this courageous album was made for and it's definitely effective from that point of view and that's why it still merits a solid rating. As the whole thing gets though quite redundant in its short running time, this record won't get an excellent note from me, though and my final verdict seems rather neutral. In the end, I give you an advice: You're definitely better off to be in a hilarious mood, accompanied by some wild friends and you should also switch your brain off to fully enjoy this record.

Pantera's "Vulgar Display Of Power" is one of the most controversial releases in the whole metal genre and recently got some fresh popularity with the release of the track "Piss" that didn't make it on the original album and was released twenty years later as a single years after the band split up. This is an occasion to take a look on this famous record again as there will be a new edition coming out quite soon.

This album has nothing to do with the band's early glam rock music or the thrash metal genre and is a rather straight record with some hardcore and groove metal influences. The guitar riffs go in your face but sound one dimensional and the same patterns always come back and lack of surprises. The bass guitar sound is rather inoffensive but has a few good moments on this release at least. The drumming is fast and technically accurate but the sound is not professional at all and sometimes it feels as if you were listening to the table tennis finals in China or a broken drum computer instead of an actually gifted drummer that plays on a real kit. The vocals are aggressive and dominated by angry shouts that bring the offensive lyrics to life but they lack of any other emotion than this. The final result sounds like a mixture of groove metal tracks, hardcore bashing passages and some grunge worship in a few calmer moments. The lyrics are simple and seem to be written by a bunch of angry kids that get mad about anything and felt like using as many swear words as they could find. The most redundant example might be the infamous "Fucking Hostile" as you might have guessed from its title.

A couple of tracks from this record rose to fame, for example "Walk". The track is still played in any hard rock discotheque or in a track list of any metal festival in the whole wide world during the shows of the different bands. The lyrics are very one dimensional and childish, the riff is boring and the track lacks of surprises. I don't get warm with this groove track at all but must admit that it has a catchy flow and won't easily get out of your mind once you've heard it. It's the same thing for the shallow ballad "Hollow" that sounds rather like a grunge track than a metal anthem but even this failed epilogue has something addicting somehow and I must give the band some credit for get a maximum of success with a minimum of ideas.

The only track I truly appreciate on this record is "This Love". The sudden changes between calm and psychedelic passages and the angry chorus is predictable but effective and the contrast works very well while the other tracks only focus on the aggressive or the psychedelic side. This kind of music has a certain kind of vision and is a hint at the sound of modern alternative rock music around bands such as System Of A Down who would later base their sound on these kinds of contrasts. My second favourite track is indeed the new bonus song "Piss" that has some minimalistic but effective changes of style between slow groove passages, faster parts dominated by a catchy and melodic riff and a change of drum patterns even though the sound of these drums is still a disaster and hasn't been changed in twenty years. Even the bass guitar is audible and the middle part adds another dose of energy to this catchy song that should have made it on the regular record without a doubt. Anybody who likes the original record will adore this new tracks as even those like me who didn't appreciate the original album much are able to recognize the hit potential of this solid effort. Apart from these two songs plus the shallow but catchy "Walk" and "Hollow", the record is though not quite spectacular and also fails to grow.

In the end, we have a quite consistent record that has a coherent flow with some catchy and emotional moments. On the other side, the music has been adapted to the trends of its time and remains a superficial mixture of hardcore, groove metal and grunge with some worn out thrash riffs. Anyway, people may still discuss about this album in the next twenty years to come and that's why it has such a special status that not many other records have. This controversial energy is what makes this album so strong and this is what it's all about. From a subjective point of view, I might only give a forty percent rating but from a more objective point of view, this unforgettable record is easily worth eighty percent and I decided to choose the middle path of neutrality. Try this record out at your own risk but you should at least listen to this once to get an idea of what everybody's always talking about and what made Pantera so famous along side the record "Cowboys from Hell" that you might also check out while the rest of the band's discography is more or less forgettable.

The record of the band Onmyo-Za attracted me because of the stylish band photo, the unusual cover artwork and many positive experiences with diversified, stunning and sometimes surreal Japanese metal bands from classic groups such as Loudness or X Japan to modern acts such as Dir En Grey, Gonin-Ish or Sound Horizon.

This rather unknown act from Japan has also a hell load of potential. We have these weird and typically Japanese atmospheres in tracks as "逢魔刻" that send shivers down my spine. We have tracks with multiple changes of style on a rather short length that sound sometimes incoherent and overloaded but never get boring and find their time to grow like the slightly irritating "文車に燃ゆ恋文" or the well constructed album highlight "鬼斬忍法帖" where the band mixes all of its best influences without losing the listener for the very first time. This track could also be included on a classic album by X Japan but it sounds a little bit straighter and not as symphonic and gets to the point. If the band is able to write this kind of music on the upcoming records, they are definitely on the right lane and should find their place in the circle of great and innovative Japanese metal music. At this point, the song is rather isolated and can't catch up for several weaker tracks.

Some things definitely don't quite fit together on this record. On one side, you have sweet miniature symphonies that are definitely too cute for the majority of the metal maniacs out there; even for those who have a romantic side. A track like "氷の楔" is not only too cheesy but also way too long to convince. It’s definitely one of the weakest songs on here. This might maybe please to fans of Within Temptation. On the other side, you have short tracks with death metal elements as the album closer "亥の子唄" that makes me think about the earliest efforts of Amorphis. The song is definitely a good one but feels completely out of space on this album and gives the whole thing a compilation or filler feeling.

The band simply doesn't dose its experimentations very well. Some tracks are overwhelmingly emotional, other rather cold and lack of passion. Sometimes the guitar dominate and the players prove that they are rather gifted and play some great solos and at some points the keyboards take the lead and completely change the face of the band sound, often in a rather negative way. The combination of male and female vocals can be a good thing and if we take them and analyze them separately, the voices are definitely strong and charismatic. But when they work together in duets, there is no connection and they simply don't harmonize at all. Both singers sing their thing and don't seem to care about the other and that's a strange concept that simply doesn't work and makes it very hard to approach this record.

As many Japanese bands, this one should focus on its strengths and try to sound more coherent and structured instead of trying out everything at the same time on a short length record. The potential is definitely there but the band needs a better producer and sound engineer that creates a more vivid and yet structured sound instead of an overwhelming melting pot where very instrument, sound effect or vocal effort is recorded in the same volume. This album simply gets you out of breath with all its details and the band needs better transitions, more running time and well catalyzed song writings. If they adapt these skills, they could still become the next big thing in the metal scene of their country. The tendancy is positive but the first result still somewhat disappointing.