by Sebastian Kluth
Legendary German heavy metal quartet Grave Digger has certainly been very prolific throughout the past decade, releasing seven studio albums in the past ten years. However, the releases had significant ups and downs with atmospheric, creative and epic...
The Killer Reserved Nine Seats, originally titled L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone, is a giallo that combines elements of a psychological thriller with mild softcore pornography. The plot is closely inspired by the works of Agatha Christie which...
United Forces is a compilation by German power metal legends Helloween released with German Hard Rock magazine one month before the release of Helloween's self-titled album featuring three different singers and an intriguing combination of the band's...
Ever since I started listening to metal music, I have come across Arch Enemy on numerous occasions. While the occasional song was much appreciated at different parties, I could never listen to one of the group's records from start to finish because the...
German quartet Lacrimas Profundere has received quite some attention in the German gothic scene in the early years of the millennium and I remember several very good songs being included on samplers by magazines such as Sonic Seducer and Zillo back in...
Roughly a year after the release of masterful extended play The Raging River, Swedish sextet Cult of Luna offers a full length effort with nine songs and a generous running time of sixty-nine minutes. The band's style is often described as atmospheric...
Challenging Progressive and Psychedelic Sounds with an Ominous Tone Less than a year and a half after the release of its predecessor, Japanese psychedelic rock, progressive rock, heavy metal, hard rock and doom metal trio Ningen Isu has released its fourteenth...
Psychedelic Flower Power Meets Tight Sweating Rock Japan's powerful trio delivers the goods once more on "Burai Houjou", Ningen-Isu's eighteenth studio album in only twenty-four years. The band convinces once more with its mechanical chemistry between...
Lost Not Forgotten Archives: The Majesty Demos (1985-1986) is the sixth release of Dream Theater's Lost Not Forgotten Archives that goes into its second year of existence. This collection of demos has been published for the first time nineteen years ago...
Hellryder is a side project by Grave Digger singer Chris Boltendahl and Grave Digger guitarist Axel Ritt. The quartet is completed by bassist Steven Wussow of Orden Ogan and Xandria fame as well as drummer Timmi Breideband who has played for Bonfire and...
Voodoma is a gothic metal band from Düsseldorf that has been active for nearly two decades but that has been unfairly overlooked by large parts of both the gothic and the metal scene in Germany. Gotland is the group's seventh studio album and features...
One Take Only, also knows as Som and Bank: Bangkok for Sale, is a gangster drama from Thailand. Directed by renowned Oxide Chun Pang who would later on direct movies such as action films The Storm Warriors and Out of Inferno, horror films like The Eye...
Japanese female power metal quintet Lovebites has rightfully gotten quite some attention in recent years. The four ladies don't only have stylish looks but impress with technically appealing musicianship and fast execution that would even make groups...
Ice Road is yet another action-thriller starring Liam Neeson in a typecast role he has played over and over again throughout the past two decades and counting. And this is perfectly fine. In this particular film, Liam Neeson plays a tough, resilient and...
The Paper Tigers is an intriguing action-comedy movie that convinces with its interesting characters and their dynamic relations. The story revolves around three middle-aged men who were trained by a martial arts master three decades ago. Now that their...
Willy's Wonderland is an absurd, creative and surreal horror movie with a few comedic elements. The story revolves around a nameless protagonist who gets stranded in an isolated town after a car accident. Since he cannot pay for repairs, he is given the...
No Time to Die is the twenty-fifth movie in the James Bond series created by Eon Productions. This is also the longest of these movies. It's the fifth and final movie with Daniel Craig and concludes the more emotional and personal sequence of films on...
Playful, dynamic and beautiful as the rabbit on the cover artwork Hoochie Koo is the thirteenth studio album by Japanese rock and metal trio Ningen Isu. It's the second release in the group's most consistent line-up that still exists as I'm writing this...
This extended play's title track is the song that made me appreciate In Flames back when I was eighteen years old. I have since attended two concerts of the band and purchased all its studio albums. In my humble opinion, ''The Mirror's Truth'' represents...
Progressive power metal emperors Galneryus are back with an extended play that stands out for multiple reasons. For starters, it's the first release with new drummer Lea who only joined the veterans last year and is also involved in heavy metal band Zygote....
Geom-gaek, internationally known as The Swordsman, is an epic historic action drama from South Korea. The story revolves around Tae-yul, the best swordsman in Joseon who is unable to protect the king during an uprising. He decides to live as a recluse...
A purpose that hasn't aged very well Oshie to Tabi Suru Otoko which translates to The Traveler with the Pasted Rag Picture refers to a novel by Japanese horror author Ranpo Edogawa and is the title of Ningen-Isu's second compilation. This anthology picks...
Byeonshin, internationally known as Metamorphosis, is a supernatural horror movie from South Korea. The movie starts with a scene where a priest tries an exorcism on a girl who is possessed by an evil spirit. The exorcism ends in a disaster and the reclusive...
Nuclear Power Trio obviously initially grabbed my intention with the humorous artwork for its debut extended play A Clear and Present Rager. The song titles also looked quite amusing to say the least. Since I found the record in the metal section, I expected...
Don't worry, Japanese Folk Metal isn't as unimaginative as its genre specification, band name and album title might suggest. The sextet from Tokyo and Yokohama plays an entertaining mixture of folk metal and melodic death metal that recalls European bands...
