by Sebastian Kluth
Before Kruiz became one of the first and most important speed metal bands in Eastern Europe that also gathered some attention outside of the Soviet Union, the band played commercial hard rock that is clearly influenced by European chart breakers such...
If you like traditional classic heavy metal bands from Russia such as "Aria", "Master" or "Kruiz", this consistent and yet diversified debut album from a rather unknown band outside of Russia is definitely worth your attention. "Chornyi Kofe" is clearly...
Almost anybody gave the highest possible rating to the debut record of "Psychotic Waltz" and that's why I got intrigued by the band. As a fan of progressive rock and metal music I expected something outstanding here. In fact, the band really varies from...
“A pale horse named death” is a band with a very cool name and a great album cover that plays first of all a melancholic mixture of gothic and doom metal in the key of “Type 0 Negative”. Even though the influence of this band is omnipresent and weighs...
With the release of this record, In Flames continue in the style of their great and diversified predecessor "A sense of purpose...". That means that they do further experimentations and get away from their death metal roots. Anybody that is waiting for...
Adverus is a band that doesn't sound like anything else. Their sound is very intellectual, diversified and sometimes almost schizophrenic. The band is mostly influenced by the Gothic genre with its dark and emotional lyrics, its harmonic male vocals,...
There are so many and even way too many female fronted symphonic metal bands out there in the world nowadays and this trend has also reached out for the Hispanic peninsula. "Diabolus in Musica" is a brandnew band with an intriguing and yet rather stereotypical...
Dimmu Borgir have never been a very stereotypical and traditional black metal band and people who claim that the band "betrays the genre", "dishonours a philosophy" or "forgets about its roots" are completely wrong. After the last albums, this step was...
"Adrenalin" is a quite rare to find live album of "Die apokalyptischen Reiter" that play an intriguing mixture of Stockholm melodic death metal and folk rock or medieval metal. This works really well during their concerts as this disc proves. The interaction...
Elvenking's first strike is already amongst the best works this band has ever done and shows a degree of diversity and fresh ideas that many other bands of the genre don't have any more. The band mixes folk influences with majestic power metal sounds...
After the rather calm and progressive first strike with the new singer Timo Kotipelto, the enjoyable "Fourth Dimension", Stratovarius follow the path and go even further on this release. There are in fact only two kinds of tracks on the record. There...
Avantasia are surely one of the more interesting so called super groups and I have to admire Tobias Sammet for what he has done on this first album. Let's not forget that his main band Edguy wasn't that well known back when this album came out, they were...
When I first heard about this project I expected another rather slow paced instrumental album with pointless guitar solos and weird experiments that bands such as "Gordian Knot" have done. But the guitar player Chris Steberl has much more to offer and...
This first official studio album by Dream theater and the only one featuring the singer Charlie Dominici is a very strong, soft and dreamy progressive rock record in the key of "Rush". There are even some very sligthly disco pop influences in a couple...
Usually, greatest hits albums are quite unnecessary for fans of the band but that isn't the case with this compilation album. First of all, the band re-recorded some of their old classics that had a really awful quality back in the day. "Hiemali tempore"...
"Liam" has been chosen as a third single from the masterpiece "Mein rasend Herz" because the band represented the land Thuringia with this song during the German television event Bundesvision Song Contest. They played a mixture of the German and the original...
This second single of the "7" album presents us the single, one exclusive song and the very well done video clip of the hit single "Küss mich" and is a nice gimmick for the collectors and true fans but not for someone else. "Erdbeermund" is a very epic...
This is In Extremo's second live release and first live release of their Medieval Rock material and I was really looking forward to purchase this album as I've known the band as a really good live band. But the performance and especially the fans during...
Schandmaul are a really energizing live band and have some really talented musicians in their rows. Their lyrics are mostly interesting and talk about old German folk tales, “Märchen” or historical events and sometimes invented stories by the band of...
"King of fools" was a very well done EP, but this single or EP hasn't the same quality. A part of the very solid and funny hard rock driven title track, you can find a couple of acoustic songs on this very calm EP that has nothing to do with power metal...
This is a modern European power metal album that has everything it needs to be a masterpiece. It is tight, melodic, epic and diversified. I would even say that this record is maybe the best power metal record of the decade and easily Edguy's greatest...
The original term of this movie called "Gungnyeo" refers to women waiting on the king and other royalty in traditional Korean society. A "gungjung yeogwan" is therefor a lady officer in the royal court, serving the royalty. "Shadows In The Palace" portrays...
"Dororo" is an epic Japanese fantasy movie adapted from a manga series. The story features a male orphan whose body parts have been given to forty-eight demons by his vindictive father and who grows up with an old farmer who puts an artificial body with...
This movie is a remake from a film of the same name released back in 1960 but both movies are quite different and don't have the same story line. In the original feature, the housemaid seduces a composer and menaces his family until a bloody ending. In...
As a matter of fact, Chernobyl Diaries is another rather generic horror movie with only a few truly shocking scenes and a quite predictable ending. The only thing that makes this release a little bit more special than other horror movies of the same kind...
