Radius is a side project by the Russian singers Vladimir Radionov and Anastasia Simanskaya who already worked together in the melodic power metal band Citadel. Radius are though much more gothic metal inspired but they still have a small heavy and power Metal touch in their sound. They employ a few electronic samples, some piano melodies and a slightly modern touch but all these elements aren’t overused and only details. The songs are melodic and catchy and sound more elegant and positive than many other gothic metal bands apart of the closing track that is a little bit darker and employs an almost apocalyptic atmosphere one would rather expect from Dimmu Borgir or Therion. But this band is of course far away from the quality of these Scandinavian legends and should rather be compared to genre bands such as Lacrimas Profundere or Lord Of the Lost and would be welcome additions to festivals such as the Amphi, Castle Rock, M’era Luna and so on.

The first song surprises with the fact that both singers sing exactly at the same time. This modern and almost radio friendly gothic rock track impresses with melancholic but still harmonious melodies. I especially appreciate the fact that the grounded voice of Radionow and the higher pitched but never too dramatic vocals of Simanskaya harmonize so well together and make this track rather catchy. It’s probably the strongest song on this short EP even though it has no big surprises despite a well done modern bridge that almost reminds me of Linkin Park. It’s just a simple hit track with great melodies and well crafted vocals. Even though this track is in Russian, I feel like singing along to this track. My Russian is quite rusty, though and it might sound terrible.

At the same time, the song introduces us also to the main problem of this release a part of its short length. The sound quality is awful and not dynamical at all. The instruments sound a little bit lifeless apart of a few guitar parts. This is not due to a bad song writing but due to a bad production.

The second track on here is more dramatic and also heavier than the first track. This piece is dominated by the dark male vocals that are so low that they are only one step away from throat chants at some points. The verses are rather soft and based on a more limited instrumentation. The female voice sings a few angelic background choirs. Acoustic guitars are mixed with modern keyboard sounds while the chorus is heavier. In these parts, female and male vocals perform together and create once again a quite catchy hook. This second song delivers all genre Trademarks fans are waiting for but it even goes further and sounds quite creative.

The last song is heavier and sounds a little bit like any gothic rock or metal band these days. The male vocals have some almost rap influenced parts and spoken word moments that don’t please me. The chorus is performed by female and male vocals and quite catchy once again but it works less than in the other two songs. It’s probably the song I like less on this release because it sounds a Little bit too Commercial and modern to me. On the other side, I have never heard any gothic band do an experiment like this and the band deserves at least some credit for the courage to put this Kind of song on their first release. You have to be very open-minded to like this and I must admit it's not quite my cup of tea.

In the end, any fan of modern gothic metal should give this a try. While the band deals with all Trademarks of the gothic scene, they have the creativity and talent to explore yet undiscovered grounds. The first full length release will tell us more about These Qualities. The band’s biggest strengths are the good balance between female and male vocals and the catchy choruses on here. Fans of the aforementioned bands should try these Russians out as well.

Originally written for The Metal Observer

This brand new band comes from Mexico City? Well, that sounds rather exotic, I should try this out! The band is composed by five women that perform vocals, guitars, bass, drums and keyboards? Great, an all female band could sound rather interesting! The vocals and lyrics are mostly in Spanish? That’s another reason for me to give this release a few spins as I really appreciate languages and am glad to hear something other than just English vocals. The band plays a gothic rooted version of symphonic metal? That’s very fine because both genres are among my favourite ones.

As you can see, there were many motivations for me to check out the thirty minutes long debut release of the Mexican band Feather Crow that is entitled “Arlekin Memories”. Despite a really open-minded attitude and some enthusiasm, I though got quickly disappointed. Almost everything about this band is bad. The production is thin and way too old school but this wouldn’t be too bad as what we have here is still a self-produced debut release. The vocals remind me of a less expressive and quite thin version of Within Temptation’s Sharon Den Adel. This sounds not too bad in the first few songs and the singer definitely has some potential but it gets rather redundant after a while.

What really makes this release a flop is the mostly faceless song writing and the ordinary instrumental performance. Especially the guitar riffs are thin and lack energy. The bass guitar is not much audible as well. The drumming is exchangeable and lacks diversity and dynamics. The keyboards are well performed but far too dominant which makes them sound rather artificial instead of adding an atmospheric background note. The most ridiculous parts of the album are the incredibly bad black metal vocals in a few songs. I have no clue if they are performed by some of the female members or by a guy but they just sound plain bad. I don’t even understand any word of what this thing is yelling in the microphone. It’s not because I don’t speak Spanish. If these sick growls had been done in English, French, German, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin Chinese or Russian I wouldn’t have understood a thing as well. Add to this that the vocals don’t harmonize well with the main singer. The final result only gets worse instead of adding some diversity which was probably the main goal.

In the end, there is not much interesting about this release. The production and the keyboards sound cheap. The riffs are exchangeable and the drumming lacks energy. The vocals are thin but have at least some potential. The song structures are mediocre and the tracks lack of memorable parts. Maybe one and a half songs of this release are at least listenable but that’s it. Just avoid this at all costs. This band adds nothing new to the genre and is a lot less impressive than one might think at first sight.

Originally written for The Metal Observer

First of all, let me explain you who Satan Jokers are. This is one of the very first French heavy metal bands. The band was founded in Paris back in 1981 and in the first five years of their career, they released two albums and one EP with classic heavy metal tracks sung in French, including “Les Fils Du Métal”, “Trop Fou Pour Toi”, “Pas Fréquentables” and “Sorcier”. The band features no Satanic image, despite its name, but rather sings about heavy metal lifestyle, lust for life, psychological and social issues, rebellion, sex, and vices. The band split up in 1985 to eventually reunite in 2009. In the last four years, the band has released four new albums that got a little bit lost amongst many great modern releases. This is a shame, because these releases are equally great.

Addictions is the third of four new records, and a conceptual one about addiction and its dramatic consequences. The lyrics of the release do some preventative work explaining the horrors one can live through when taking drugs such as heroin and other ugly stuff. From that point of view, this educational and moral goal comes as quite a surprise, since many bands rather tend to glorify the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll lifestyle.

This album is divided into two parts. The first five tracks, as well as the album closer, take no prisoners. The band still plays as if it were 1985 and it had never split up. To my surprise however, this doesn’t sound too old fashioned. These tracks are short, hard, mostly fast, and no second is wasted for all-too-commercial approaches, modern sound experiments, progressive breaks, or other stuff. These six tracks could come straight from one of their releases out of the eighties. I find them quite representative of everything heavy metal is about.

The vocals remind me of a rougher version of Helloween’s Andi Deris, along with Udo Dirkschneider of U.D.O. fame, and fit very well with the dirty and energizing sound that knocks you straight in your face from the amazing opener “Reine Cocaïne” onwards. The band doesn’t forget about catchy hooks in the form of sing- or shout-along passages, seen in the simplistic but very efficient chorus of “Dealer (Docteur Vice)”.

From an instrumental point of view, the band is as convincing as ever. The riffs are straight and easy to digest, the guitar solos are emotional and well executed, the bass guitar is audible without taking too much space, and the drums are energizing and boast shining moments. One can really hear that these guys have played together for quite a while, because they clearly don’t want to steal each other’s show, and everything sounds coherent and refreshingly tight for this style of metal.

The other seven songs in the middle of the album are a bit softer and more rock-oriented. “Une Semaine En Enfer” and the acoustic guitar-driven “Lune De Miel” remind me a little bit of Guns ‘N Roses ballads in a very positive sense. “Effet Parano”, “Detox” and especially “Puzzle Cérébral” (which even includes a few Asian folk sounds), have a few modern sounds here and there. They are maybe a little bit hard to follow in the beginning, but turn out to be more than solid growers with some catchy hooks. These three tracks include more thought-out and almost progressive sections that create an intriguing atmosphere. The musicians, including the singer, show off their diversity and talent through these songs. Even though I preferred the six heavier tracks at first, these three have happened to become my favorites after a few listens.

In the end, this album offers six excellent straight-hearted heavy metal tunes, as well as seven very well-executed and more experimental rock songs. In addition to this, the French vocals add a slightly exotic touch, but fit very well despite the accent. This release includes no stinkers at all, and even grows with each try. Out of many more or less useful reunions of the past few years, the return of Satan Jokers is surely one of the most effective ones. This band still has a lot to say, and they manage to sound old school and the best sort of juvenile at the same time – and are clearly a better alternative to many retro rock bands that have emerged during recent years. If you didn’t know this band before, be smart and take advantage of this second chance. This release is worth a few spins and more, and the band should definitely get more attention than they’ve managed up to this point.

Originally written for Black Wind Metal

"Two Guns" is a very entertaining action movie that mixes brutal and tension filled moments on one side with a lot of addicting dry humour on the other side. The chemistry between the two outstanding main actors Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg is simply great. The first one portrays a cynic and sometimes even misanthropic cop with strong nerves who has only one weak point which happens to be his superior Deb with whom he has a complicated romantic relationship. The latter one portrays a smart but quite offensive US marine who naively believes in justice and truth at all costs. Denzel Washington somewhat portrays the true face of modern America while Mark Wahlberg stands for idealized illusion of it. Both characters are quite different and complement each other very well in this movie.

They are both working on an undercover mission without knowing each other's identity. They have infiltrated a Mexican drug cartel and are led to steal three million US dollars from a bank that is used by the drug cartel. When they finally rob the bank, they discover that there are not only three million but forty-three million dollars. The US marine gets away with the money and encounters his superiors but they want to eliminate him for not having killed his partner and done his job properly in every detail. The cop is not only followed by his superiors but gets also tracked down by a mysterious gang who is after the money. In addition to this, the drug cartel is also seeking for revenge and wants to get its money back. The two quite different partners need to team up to fight against drug cartels, the police, marines and members of the secret service to get rid of the money and out of this disaster alive.

The movie works great because of many explosive action scenes, a good dose of dry humour and an authentic acting performance from all main and supporting actors. The story is your usual conspiracy flick which gets a little bit predictable. In the end, there was one scene that happened a little bit too quickly for me to fully understand it when one of the main actors found the stolen money but apart of that the movie has a vivid but not hectic pace and is easy to follow. The side story with the cop's superior portrayed by Paula Patton was too constructed and somewhat unnecessary to me and took the attention away from the main issue but nothing's perfect.

Fans of the two main actors and conspiracy flicks shouldn't miss this one out. This movie is far from being revolutionary but it's entertaining and definitely worth a walk to the movie theatres. I wouldn't though recommend to purchase this film. You can see it once and truly enjoy it from the beginning until the end but it doesn't request more attention.

Frost Tears est un jeune groupe taïwanais qui mélange des genres aussi diversifiés que le métal gothique, le métal symphonique et le power métal tout en s’inspirant aussi de chansons religieuses, de différentes comédies musicales sur Broadway, de l’opéra chinois et de plusieurs éléments de la musique traditionnelle chinoise et taïwanaise comme l’emploi du guqin, un instrument à cordes pincées de la famille des cithares qui se trouve sur la liste représentative du patrimoine culturel immatériel de l’humanité de l’UNESCO. Fondé dans la capitale de l’île à Taipei en 2010, le groupe a sorti deux maxis et se prépare en ce moment pour la sortie de son tout premier album qui est prévu pour 2014. Après la montée en popularité internationale du groupe de métal symphonique taïwanais Seraphim et du groupe de black métal symphonique Chthonic, Frost Tears a tout ce qu’il faut pour devenir une autre exportation à succès de la République de Chine. Pour découvrir davantage ce groupe prometteur, j’ai décidé de faire une entrevue avec eux et j’ai pu faire la connaissance de jeunes artistes très ambitieux, illuminés et optimistes.

Griffonnier: «Bonjour et merci d’accepter cette belle occasion d’entrevue. Pourriez-vous vous introduire brièvement à nos lecteurs et nous parler des origines de votre groupe?»

Frost Tears: «Notre guitariste Taku et le claviériste Yu se sont rencontrés dans le groupe d’un ami qui jouait des reprises de power metal. Ils ont quitté le groupe pour écrire leurs propres chansons et ils ont fait la connaissance de Len. Elle avait étudié le chant classique pendant plusieurs années et a même gradué académiquement dans ce domaine. Le trio a ensuite rapidement recruté le guitariste Lee du groupe Silent Hell et la bassiste Peggy du groupe Roughhousen. Frost Tears ont uni les forces respectives de chaque musicien en 2010. Après quelques changements, notre groupe est aujourd’hui composé de la chanteuse Len, du claviériste Yu, du batteur Van qui joue aussi pour Seraphim, du guitariste Ken qui joue normalement pour R’aie XIII et du bassiste Mone du groupe Sonar. Nous nous connaissons depuis longtemps maintenant et comprenons bien nos styles musicaux individuels. Nous sommes confiants de rester ensemble pour longtemps.»

Le métal occidental rencontre les instruments folkloriques et l’opéra chinois

Griffonnier: «Comment est-ce que vous décriviez votre groupe et comment est-ce qu’il fonctionne? Quelles sont vos inspirations conceptuelles et musicales?»

Frost Tears: «Vu que nous avons une chanteuse classique, un claviériste inspire de la musique classique et un guitariste qui adore les genres du power et speed metal, notre style commun se compare au métal gothique et symphonique. Notre ancien batteur Ibara nous a aussi amené une sonorité plus progressive. Nous sommes inspirés de plusieurs groupes de métal occidentaux comme Dream Theater, Epica, Helloween, Lacrimosa, Nightwish, Rhapsody Of Fire, Tarja et Within Temptation. Pourtant, nous écoutons aussi Abba et sommes inspirés de plusieurs comédies musicales du Broadway. Le groupe Seraphim nous a inspiré pour son côté avant-gardiste et le groupe Chthonic encourage les groupes taïwanais à ajouter l’utilisation d’instruments traditionnels à leur son. C’est pour ça que nous prévoyons utiliser des guqins et nous inspirer de la musique d’opéra chinois. Notre musique est très ouverte et nos processus de composition et d’enregistrement peuvent varier fréquemment. Nous tentons de créer notre propre style à nous au lieu d’assimiler nos créations à un genre en particulier. C’est pour cela que nous avons enregistrés de courts maxis avec quatre chansons sur un même sujet plutôt que de sortir un album entier jusqu’à date. Après quelques expérimentations sur nos deux maxis, nous écrivons nos chansons en mandarin maintenant. Nous tentons de changer les méthodes de prononciation de cette langue car son grand désavantage est qu’elle n’a que peu de rimes. Bien sûr, nous aimerions bien écrire des paroles en anglais, en mandarin et même en japonais un jour si cela s’avère être possible.»

À l’inverse des clichés de la scène gothique

Griffonnier: «Vous avez également tenté une reprise de la chanson chrétienne «Amazing Grace». Comment est-ce que c’est arrivé?»

Frost Tears: «Nous avons fait cette reprise car nous aimerions exprimer notre reconnaissance pour tout ce qui se passe autour de nous. Il y a beaucoup de cœur dans cette chanson et nous l’avons enregistrée peu de temps avant la date que les prédictions mayas avaient ciblé pour la fin du monde. Cela n’a donc pas de raisons religieuses. Taiwan est un pays multi-religieux qui respecte les croyances de tous. Yu est par exemple baptisé et vient d’une famille catholique. Taku et Len ont grandi dans des familles taoïstes. Le métal gothique nous suggère souvent des sentiments de noirceur, d’horreur et de solitude tandis qu’«Amazing Grace» fait tout à fait le contraire. Cette chanson représente nos attitudes dans la vraie vie. Nous ne faisons qu’extraire certains éléments de la musique gothique et certaines inspirations de son esthétique visuel en les appliquant à nos chansons et performances. Mais la scène gothique n’a pas d’influence sur nos paroles ou nos vraies vies.»

L’existentialisme et les questions humanistes au ménu

Griffonnier: «À quoi ressemblera votre premier album qui sortira en 2014?»

Frost Tears: «Cela ressemblera un peu à notre deuxième maxi «Reminiscences», mais la musique sera plus dramatique qu’auparavant. Ce sera un mélange de métal gothique et symphonique d’un côté et de power métal mélodique de l’autre. Les genres musicaux seront encore plus diversifiés et riches comme nos propres vies. Au niveau des paroles, le sujet principal sera l’existentialisme et on touchera à des questions humanistes.»

Griffonnier: «Cela sonne très détaillé, diversifié et philosophique et me semble être prometteur. Pour terminer, parlez-nous un peu de la scène musicale taïwanaise.»

Frost Tears: «Durant les années 1990, la musique rock et métal taïwanaise a beaucoup été influencée par des groupes américains. L’influence européenne est venue plus tard et s’est plus ressentie dans la musique pop avec les succès du groupe Mayday. Le genre du britpop est encore un des plus populaires de notre pays. Ce n’est qu’avec le succès de Chthonic que de plus en plus de groupes de death métal mélodique ont émergé. Les groupes de rock et de métal à chant féminin ont connu une forte croissance au courant des dernières années. La culture gothique n’est pas la nôtre et nous la trouvons plutôt abstraite, fantastique et nostalgique. C’est plus au niveau de l’atmosphère de la musique que nous pouvons faire des comparaisons avec la culture diversifiée et l’histoire bouleversée de notre propre pays. Nous essayons d’imiter la scène gothique tout en tentant d’y ajouter une touche typiquement taïwanaise au niveau de la culture. Nous aimerions un jour avoir un propre style de musique gothique taïwanaise. Si ce style vous intéresse, je vous recommande d’écouter les groupes Crescent Lament, Renascimento et Seraphim. Au niveau des concerts, nous jouons dans des petites salles de spectacle. Nous participons aussi aux festivals. Il y a le «Spring Scream Festival» en avril, le «Ho-Hai-Yan Gongliao Rock Festival» en juillet et le «Taoyuan Hakka Music Festival» au mois d’août à chaque année qui sont les festivals les plus importants. Nous n’avons pas encore joué à l’extérieur du pays, mais nous espérons un jour faire partie du «Wacken Open Air Festival» en Allemagne et du «Metal Female Voices Fest» en Belgique.»

Griffonnier: «Merci beaucoup pour cette entrevue très informative et sympathique. Est-ce que vous voulez dire quelques phrases pour terminer?»

Frost Tears: «La musique enrichit nos vies. Elle remplace la langue pour exprimer nos sentiments. Elle est même au-delà de la barrière des langues.»

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