by Sebastian Kluth
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...
German groove metal quartet Hämatom had finally shown off its true potential earlier this year, when releasing Berlin (Ein akustischer Tanz auf dem Vulkan), an acoustic record inspired country, folk, jazz and swing sounds of the twenties and thirties...
Colour me surprised! For years, movies have been inspired by witty scripts, intriguing novels or even great video games but this is the first time I know of that a film has been inspired by a riverboat amusement ride. While the idea might sound puzzling...
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is the third entry in the survival horror video game series whose first season is going to conclude next year with The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me. This is also the strongest entry in the series...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Back in the early years of the millennium, progressive metal veterans Dream Theater honoured several of their favourite bands by playing their records from start to finish. These renditions include Deep Purple's Made in Japan, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of...
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...
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...
Ten years had passed between Japanese progressive power metal group Galneryus' first studio album and this wonderful release. The band had already accomplished much in those ten years, including the release of eight studio albums, nine extended plays...
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...
Gamera, the Giant Monster was Daiei's answer to Toho's Godzilla franchise. Despite a low budget that also explains why the movie was still shot in black and white in the mid-sixties, this first film of the franchise was crafted with care, imagination...
Quebec's cult quartet Les Cowboys Fringants has just released a surprise record in form of Les nuits de Repentigny, honouring the group's musical, geographical and cultural origins. The generous album includes twenty-three songs with a total running time...
April Rain is a post-rock quartet from Saint Petersburg that has just released its eighth release in only five years with the stunning Mirror of Ether. The album includes ten songs with a total running time of fifty-nine minutes. Right from the start,...
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...
BlutEngel is a German darkwave, Electronic Body Music and futurepop project by renowned vocalist, songwriter and programmer Chris Pohl who has been and is active in numerous other similar projects such as She Hates Emotions. The group is particularly...
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...
Silver Talon is a young heavy metal sextet whose members have already played in quite a few bands such as speed metal group Spellcaster, power metal outfit Sanctifyre, thrash metal band Sabateur and gothic metal group Idle Hands. The sextet's first extended...
Fake Island is a Japanese metalcore quartet founded three years ago in Tokyo. The group released its self-entitled extended play that very same year. This release included five tracks with a total running time of eighteen minutes. This year, the group...
Perennial Quest is a power metal band from Boston that is clearly influenced by European bands and most obviously by DragonForce and its first four studio albums. Seven musicians were involved in the release of this ambitious demo that includes six songs...
Outside the Coma, formerly known as Outpatients is a British-Japanese electronic rock quintet around singers Mikee W. Goodman and Yuuri B Joux. The former is known for his work in progressive metal band SikTh while the latter is now the singer of metalcore...
Freaks is a fresh contemporary American-Canadian science-fiction drama. The story revolves around a seven-year old girl whose mother died in her early childhood and whose paranoid father overprotects her. As she grows older, she starts questioning her...
