by Sebastian Kluth
"Already Dead... But Alive!" is the debut EP of the Laval based progressive power metal band Eclipse that is now called Eclipse Prophecy. When I saw the Quebeckers in concert three years ago, they were quite ashamed when I asked them if they had put out...
Durant les dernières journées, vous avez sûrement vu une panoplie de gens portant une fleur rouge avec un centre noir sur leurs vêtements: les animateurs à la télévision, les fonctionnaires en centre-ville et même les professeurs et plusieurs étudiants...
I've been a big fan of the very first "Resident Evil" movie because it had a unique horror film atmosphere, a twisted story and many intriguing characters. When I saw the second film, I was completely disappointed because it only focused on action scenes...
Omertà is inspired by a legendary French Canadian series of the same name and lives some sort of revival this summer with a quite well done feature for the cinemas. The movie convinces with gripping characters that are portrayed by some of Quebec's best...
OSI are an abbreviation for “Office of Strategic Influence” which was also the band’s first release nine years ago. The group is composed of the two famous Progressive Metal musicians Kevin Moore who has been in Dream Theater as well as in Fates Warning...
This was the record that finally put the Japanese metal pioneers Loudness on the map for the Western metal world thanks to an emblematic cover artwork, a simple but very effective album title and songs that are now entirely performed in English. Thank...
Artcell is a rather unkown progressive metal band from Bangladesh that has been around for far over one decade by now. Even though they might never get an international breakthrough, the band mostly skips annoying solo passages and concentrates on diversified...
After the highly promising and short appetizer in form of the well entitled “Ignition” EP, the new German Power Metal supergroup with ex-Helloween singer Michael Kiske, ex-Helloween and Gamma Ray mastermind Kai Hansen on the guitars and some background...
In the past years, I have always tried out a couple of Children Of Bodom records and came to the conclusion that the band always quite sounded the same and always included a bunch of predictable but heavily addicting party tracks on their records and...
Dead Mariners are a melodic symphonic black metal band with a couple of gothic and progressive influences that comes from Patan which is one of the biggest cities in Nepal. The band is comparable to other amateur bands of the same genre such as Cryptik...
I have always defended the style of DragonForce towards the incredible high amount of haters of this band. Many metal fans claim that DragonForce are too commercial and only gained success thanks to the youth that bought the Guitar Hero series. Others...
This super-band power metal project featuring for the first time in nearly twenty-four years a collaboration of the two Helloween masterminds Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske delivers everything European power metal stands for. This first output features...
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...
After the release of many legendary progressive heavy metal records with his main band Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson decided to stick back to his roots and to release a more grounded and honest hard rock and heavy metal album which would become his first...
I have never been a big fan of Rhapsody Of Fire because I thought that their early works included to many fast and hectic tracks and a lot of useless bombast and silly orchestrations. On "Triumph Or Agony", the Italians reduced their speed and focused...
Seeds Of Iblis play a very interesting kind of raw underground black metal with harsh but also very atmospheric vocals and some dark spiritual chants. The four songs on their most important release to date are all quite short, intense and surprisingly...
During the last years, X Japan have more and more shifted away from their powerful power and speed metal roots and created more and more complex rock opera symphonies that highlighted with the release of the twenty-nine minute masterpiece "Art Of Life"....
Metallica's legendary "Master Of Puppets" is without the glimpse of a doubt a record any true metal maniac should sooner or later have in his or her collection. Without questioning the great status of this record, I must though admit that the record has...
I discovered this exotic band from Tunisia with a song from their second album last year on a sampler included in the normally pretty weak British Metal Hammer magazine but I forgot to check them out. With the release of their new third record, I remembered...
"Le Grand Guignol" is the name of a famous theatre in Paris that is known for its grisly horror shows and also the name of this outstanding avant-garde metal band from the beautiful Luxembourg. In comparison to other avant-garde bands like Adversus, UneXpect...
NewOldLive sounds indeed somewhat old and seems to present some filler material from the early days of the ambitious Senmuth project. Some tracks are reworked versions from previous records, others are mediocre bonus tracks and we don't get the high quality...
I always knew and felt that Within Temptation were a creative and promising band with some good and innovating ideas. Even though I don't adore any of their albums, I think that every output they have released has a special and unique flow and a couple...
This beginning of an era and one of the most unique music projects of the twenty-first century is a very strong start to kick off a unique career. It's still far from being perfect but should nevertheless especially please to fans of gothic and industrial...
There are some things I don't understand in the metal world and one of those things is the popularity and the high ratings of this record. Let's say that the debut album of the Swiss metal legend is not bad at all. It has its own style but the record...
The band name sounds like kitsch, the cover artwork looks like kitsch, the music sounds like kitsch but Magic Kingdom from Belgium eventually deliver some truly entertaining high quality symphonic power metal kitsch. The special edition of this record...
