Latest Reviews

"Swedish metal Vikings Amon Amarth are back with a new album! The band stays firmly rooted in their lyrical themes and musical identity, but this time they're playing around with some new elements." Label: Metal Blade / SonyRelease…

»Black Moon« comes remarkably close to what Lucifer's Friend were putting out in their prime, and it's a worthy follow-up to the previous record, which already made it clear that this band was going to be a force to reckon with after the…

On the predictably eclectic "Pop Sided," Mr. Belew captures the more accessible side of his creative voice in his trademark energetic, witty way, though fans of more experimental sounds will find plenty to chew on here too.

For "Contribution To the Common Mandess", his fourth solo album overall, Aleksander Arsov transformed into his alter ego Unhappy and poured out an electronic record of remarkably alluring avant-garde provocation and genre fusion."

"Šinobusi could have pulled off a fully retro-sounding prog rock album, but they'd rather stick to shorter, tightly arranged little tunes that pack in absolutely everything."

"A band with character, a fully formed vision and a potent creative drive that isn't afraid to flirt with "otherness" and try the untried, so it would be no surprise if the third album turned out significantly different again, from both the…

Alkaloid don't disappoint the second time around, either. Liquid Anatomy was crafted by exceptionally skilled and seasoned musicians who could soon be leading the pack in the extreme metal scene if they keep heading in this direction.

“I Loved You At Your Darkest” is without a doubt a record that newer fans will see as a career peak, but older fans will probably find it no better than average.

"A new Prekmurje quintet of seasoned musicians is devoted to crossing traditional folk songs from Prekmurje and Porabje, which in their musical vision they dress up into a fresh musical conglomerate, delivering a new, hugely interesting and…

“Svetilnik” is an album you need to spend real time with, because it's packed with vivid arranging and sonic fullness. Although it's blessed with big musical appeal, Čedahuči pulled quite a few sonic-experiment moves on it, which for the…

"Welcome to the vivid, one-of-a-kind, timeless and utterly unique mantra of seven wonderful bards, who will move you, wake you and stir you up when you meet them together on the night of “Prvi krajec”."

"Stik is a gorgeous proof that Jernej Zoran is becoming a great artistic aesthete, and one more confirmation of his flexible, expressive knack for blending the lightness of pop with bold, playful, even lucid, but always full-blooded,…

"An album signed in sweat and blood. With the pedigree to grow into a classic of Slovenian hard rock, that's Mary Rose on "Resničen svet"! Thirteen years after the release of "Feniks", they're happily back among the living!"

"The EP "Sinner" in one word? It drives. With the character this EP shows off, Fed Horses are absolutely on the right track. Not just in a burst of perfectionism, but in wholeheartedly developing and enriching their own homegrown character…

"“Flesh And Blood” is, generally speaking, a very good hard rock album, written, composed and produced just the way it should be for the Whitesnake name in 2019"

“Empath” takes us on a fun, thrilling ride through every corner of Devin's restless soul and all his many musical mutations, then wraps it all up with an epic masterpiece that's exactly what you'd expect from a musical genius like him.

"»Conundrum« is everything we want from Alex Skolnick and his trio. This seven-year cycle between the trio's album releases works out great."

" Up N' Downs, as heralds of a new generation, use this album to build a bridge between old and new and hold up a mirror to their generational peers, showing where Slovenian hard rock is headed, so we don't have to worry about the genre…

"»Alkimija« is its own album with its own story. Its strength, despite being highly predictable and trivially easy to crack, lies precisely in the fact that it's generationally lost in time and space, or rather that its release is showing…

" The Slovenian craftsmen of modern "musical prose" in gypsy swing, Teo Collori in Momento Cigano, haven't just matched their wildly bold and fun predecessor with »Kamerato Muzikante« — they've topped it, and that's the record they stepped…

"The band's big win is that on the new album they've found an expressive niche that, in the crowded field of Slovenia's alternative rock acts, is still unclaimed."

"»Attitude« is, and we say this with zero modesty, already one of the highlights of 2019 for AOR/melodic rock albums! "

»Life« is a quality new album from Hardline, packed with righteous rock slaps in the face, with three average ballads wedged in between. That doesn't take away from the essence of the record, which is its credibility.

With "The Secret", Mr. Parsons has made a very likable album that turned out almost exactly as most of his fans wished and expected. Even though it mostly doesn't reach the high standards of The Alan Parson Project's golden years, it's one…

I can't remember a band that has climbed into the ranks of the more prominent names in the Slovenian metal scene as fast as Ljubljana heavy metallers SkyEye. Last November they crowned their journey so far, which began with the EP Run For…

"The whole confessional "circus" served up by this devilishly titled album could be a sublime answer to the band's hidden pact with the devil. The artistic growth in the punch of its message is plain to hear."

"Agora" is the debut studio album from seasoned, battle-tested musicians, the Slovenian jazz and blues rock sextet Emil And The Detectives, and it sounds like the seventies never ended."

"»Strip« hits its target. We couldn't have expected anything less. After six Kočevje špila compilations, even we've gotten a little spoiled, and the seventh one gratefully keeps on spoiling us."

If you've been following modern-day Focus and liked their previous three studio outings, you'll find plenty to enjoy on "Focus 11."

"All in all, an exceptionally beautiful jazz album, and really an elegant culmination of the maturity of all the knowledge, experience and skill picked up along the musical road of one of the greatest drum masters in Slovenian jazz."

"Home Invasion", also out on Blu-ray/DVD, is a real live treat for anyone who loves everything about the one-of-a-kind Steven Wilson, who was in great spirits at the Royal Albert Hall and served up a near-perfect selection from his colorful…

"After two excellent albums, “Hymns for the Broken” (2014) and “The Storm Within” (2016), both truly top-notch, the question was whether Evergrey could hold on to that incredible creative streak and carry it over to a new record. The…

"Knjiga pohval in pritožb is the expanded edition of the album "Milo za drago", and the moment Dan D keep taking successful steps down the road of artistic self-evolution and individuality."

"With this much talent among young Slovenian jazz musicians, as radiated by the third generation of Zlatko's protégés on the album »Petelin iz Noznega«, there's really no need to worry about the future of good jazz in Slovenia."

"While in every way a worthy successor to the last four Overkill albums, “The Wings Of War” isn't among the hardest, sonically sharpest and most possessed Overkill releases that remain burned into the minds of the band's longtime devotees.…

"With »Nouvi sad«, ŠKM Banda have soared straight to the zenith of their creativity, delivering an album we can already call one of the best Slovenian rock releases that 2019 has given us or ever will!"

Label: ZARŠRelease date: September 18, 2018 It's a curious story, how this compilation showed up in my hands totally unexpectedly, long after its official release date. On top of that, you wait for the right reviewing moment,…

" "Kill Or Get Killed" is a true-blue, hardened shrapnel shell that hands fans of Iron Savior, as well as fans of the whole Euro power metal genre, immodestly put, a true heavenly manna of fresh, boundless delights from the classic metal…

"However "Shock" ends up splitting the band's fanbase, one thing is clear. It's a different Tesla album. Different from everything Tesla have recorded so far. That was the band's wish, and they pulled it off. At what cost, though? We'll…

"For fans of Hardline, Axel Rudi Pell and Crush 40, adding the album »One Voice« to your CD collection is an absolute must."

"All in all, the mission is more or less accomplished. Sammet sounds fresh again on the project's new release, even if it still holds a few things back."

“Distance Over Time” is once again a more listenable moment in Dream Theater's career. No artistic progress, then. But in everything it embodies, it's a Dream Theater album from head to toe. And of course, a very good Dream Theater album.…

"“Lotus” is yet another excellent studio album from Soen. With it, the band keeps hardening its artistic focus and expressive stance. It feels remarkably unified, and it's the most focused of everything they've released so far."

"This one's a must for every King Diamond fan, and for anyone who swears by the good old school of classically tempered metal riffs dressed up in a signature "horror show" theatre. "Abigail" has been born again, and with it, of course, that…

"The Verdict" is a good album. It has a different character, which is a good thing, but it could once again get some fans turning up their noses.

"»Srce imaš tako veliko« is an album that grabs you and holds you close from the first moment to the last. It's a manifesto of Leon Matek's remarkable maturing and one of the strongest singer-songwriter albums to come out of Slovenia in the…

Label: AFM RecordsRelease date: 08.02.2019Produced by: Herman FrankAlbum length: 68.58 minGenre: Heavy Metal Ever since he joined the legendary Accept in the early eighties, Herman Frank has been one of the key figures forging heavy…

Label: Celinka Release date: 01.09.2018 Producer: Dejan Berden Over the years Ethnotrip have developed a chemistry all their own. It's a singular weave of instrumental playing, ruled of course by an endearing, endlessly yearning female…

"»The Nature Of The Beast« is so good that it deserves a spot right next to the debut »Stand In Line« (1988). "

"»Dysphoria« takes the Starbreaker project to a completely new level of expression and character. Strikingly fresh in both production and style. Given the consistency and quality of this new effort, it would be wonderful if the project ever…

"Toby Hitchcock is back with an album that's exactly what you need if you've been missing a new record from Pride Of Lions for a good while now."

"The material used on the Devil's Hand debut must be a leftover stash of songwriting for a possible new Seveth Key album, which has been nowhere to be seen for ages now, years in fact."

"After »Najlepši neuspehi« (1992) and »Bendologija« (1999), this is actually the third compilation from the famous singer and musician, whose one-of-a-kind, instantly recognizable, incredibly distinctive, warm and totally velvety voice has…

With their fifth studio album, Obscura show no signs of letting up. You can feel the consistency, the thoughtfulness and the progressiveness.

With "At the Edge of Light," Steve Hackett proves once again why he enjoys the greatest respect among prog rock fans of all the former members of the unforgettable Genesis, especially when it comes to studio work, which remains at an…

"Mob Rules are back with a great new album, "Beast Reborn", one of the few standard-bearers of the first power metal generation still defiantly carrying on in their basic, old-school form of ossified Euro power metal."

"Zemljin sin" is really a continuation of the story that stalled at the point where his band Eskobars left off."

"Yes. »Iz konteksta« keeps all the originality, all the piercing and shattering confessional distinctiveness of its predecessor, the studio debut."

"So what we have here is an exceptionally strong act, firmly rooted in alternative rock (all the way to metal), whose presence gratefully enriches an otherwise perpetually undernourished Slovenian rock scene."

"'Duša' is a really lovely, polished pop and rock album. In a way it reflects a distant, yet (in terms of Slovenian musical heritage) deeply internalized, 1980s pop-song sentiment, judging by its structure and emotional vibe. A personal,…

"»Metal Souls« is a real "bomb" of an 80s hard rock and metal revival. Stylistically it's an astonishingly precise album. Precise in the sense that it was composed by a Japanese musician who, at the same time, knocks so effectively on the…

Label: Office 4 Music Release date: 09.01.2019 Production: Žarko Pak EP length: 27.32 Genre: Alternative Rock / Indie Rock Buy the album! And here it is! The new release from Bališ, the Austrian-Carinthian band with Slovenian roots, and…

!The band rules the revival of that original school of guitar phrasing, walking the path of the legacy it wrote, together with a few elemental bands of the first American wave of heavy metal, back in the eighties."

"Along with its fascinating character and its painstaking fusion of musical moves, the album »Open Your Eyes« stands out as one of the most interesting and daring pop releases to come out last year on the sunny side of the Alps."

"Dave Bruebeck, who?!?! Ha, ha."

Judging by the setlist alone, this live document can also double as a great entry point for anyone who doesn't know the band yet. It's a superb cross-section of the discography, and an introduction to the band's output from 1988 to 2018.

The Canadian masters of unconventional art rock feats, who have always had their strongest backing in Germany, are in superb form throughout the whole set captured on “So Good So Far”, a live document that will delight fans of every…

"»Second Coming« is yet another album tailor-made for fans of Pretty Maids, Eclipse and W.E.T., while also aiming at the wider crowd of melodic-but-bristling hard rock lovers."

Soft Machine are back! Along with Gryphon's new record, »Hidden Details« is another big surprise of 2018: a hugely successful comeback studio album from a legendary prog rock band we thought would never set foot in a studio again

"With their debut, D'Neeb come across as artistically mature and just plain fun the whole way through, with a pile of catchy, nicely varied little tunes that bring a good time and a proper party. "

"»Untold Stories« is considered one of the best hard rock releases of 2018, or AOR too, if you like. With it, Airirace bridge the influential seventies with incredible juiciness, add a nostalgic AOR flirt from the eighties, and fuse the two…

Label: Zavod OrbitaRelease date: 05.10.2018Production: SmetAlbum length: 46.15Genre: Country / Blues Smet is an interesting musical hybrid! Special and downright unique. Independent and homegrown. In its whole essence and expressive…

"If »Alpska psihadelija« was truly yet another Renaissance »one man band« outpost, »Sammy Automatic« is still technically a »one man band« album, but it doesn't necessarily feel like one. The arrangements are more varied. Samuel Blues is…

"“Live At Red Rocks Amphiteater” is a true snapshot of where Opeth's creativity stood in 2017 and 2018. With a bit less of Akerfeldt's chatter between songs and a better-balanced setlist, it could have delivered more. As it is, it's still…

"Miha Renčelj is a master of mood. That's what makes him a one-of-a-kind artist, and it's why his original music is so special, which is of course the whole point, the key ingredient that draws the listener in and "enchants" them.…

"An album that grumbles with style."

"The album is wildly bold and varied in its ideas. The opening, more subtly pitched Jesenska already signals that it comes across a touch more serious, let's call it more focused and concise in how it hones its arrangements, compared to the…

"It took Gary Hughes just one year to create an excellent new album, which proves the man is at the peak of his creative powers, especially considering that Ten are a band almost 30 years old, one you could say left their best years far…

With the gorgeous ambient journey »Earth Is Sleeping«, which will be most interesting to anyone who knows her story and her work, Dyble has proven once again that it's never too late to come back from musical retirement, or from near-total…

"Over the years, Siddharta have become true masters of their craft. They know exactly how to command their own musical vocabulary. They keep repackaging their musical recipe and serving it up again so well that the whole thing feels fresh…

"Last summer, Accept played an exclusive show in front of 80,000 fans at the eternal Wacken Open Air festival, joined by a symphonic orchestra. A full dose of fun and a one-of-a-kind experience for the band, but ultimately, from a fan's…

Seven Days In May are a special, one-of-a-kind band. They're building their own unmistakable musical dossier. They draw their inspiration from the heyday of mid-'90s alt rock and translate it into the present incredibly well in their…

Right out of the gate with debut "Persona", Imset have absorbed the fashionable aesthetic of Slovenian alt pop-rock culture remarkably well. This is the real launchpad for a band that's now got the doors open to growing their popularity on…

"A shift is needed. A move. So that the feeling that Lumberjack occasionally come across as a Big Foot Mama clone disappears in the future. Admittedly a thankless remark, but still. At least you know this is a 100% pure-blooded Slovenian…

"We old farts who listen to Nazareth and wrote the band off after McCafferty left have had to eat our words. 'Tattooed On My Brain' puts the band back in an upright rock'n'roll stance, fired up with truly erect fervor. They come across with…

No hiding places here: true fans of this band will gladly add this new album, a proven fusion of German-school power and thrash metal orthodoxy, to their already enviable Brainstorm discography.

A band with untapped creative potential that turned it into something concrete on its studio debut, stepped it up artistically, and ended up with "Where If Not Now", a work of great artistic aesthetics and a gorgeous tribute to shoegaze.

"After an excursion into heavier experimentation, Dan D have gone back to more defined arrangements, delivered a dozen infectious tracks, tried out new things, skillfully folded them into their musical body, and grown another step through…

»Victory« is also going to go down a treat with fans of classic AOR sound, decently "reheated," "translated," and "repackaged" for new times. That said, White Widdow have started repeating themselves, and at this rate they'll have a hard…

An album tailor-made for true Symphony X fans, and for anything that, in compositional terms, taps into the refined, filigree fine mechanics of Michael Romeo's "hands of God."

»Crossing the Tracks« was a bold undertaking and a totally atypical album for Cross's solo career so far. After some possible initial hesitation over a few unexpected moves, it will probably win over most of his followers

If anyone stands behind their deeds after more than 30 years in the game, we can say it without a second thought about the cult British N.W.O.B.H.M. heavyweights Satan! With "Cruel Magic" they've once again passed every test of time and…

At a time when new, quality releases in the prog folk rock world are almost chronically missing, the new Gryphon album arrived right on cue, even though it took a full forty-one years to get here.

Big Big Train were in outstanding form at Cardogan Hall, backed by an extra brass section, and you can hear it all the way through "Merchants of Light", which is stuffed with a varied selection of some of their best moments from the past…

"“Groundbreaker” is easiest to describe as a kind of Work Of Art album, but with the FM singer on vocals."

Boltendahl hasn't handed fans another pig in a poke with »The Living Dead«, but his 'gravediggers' still aren't in the kind of form that promises anything beyond a solid-to-average effort that stays firmly in the shadow of their classic…

"With "Wasteland", Riverside have kept all of their musical brilliance and credibility, passing the big "artistic endurance" test with flying colors. Without the key man in the lineup, no less. Inspired, sensual and bursting with artistic…

Release date: 31.08.2018 Label: AFM Records Production: Jacob Hansen Rating: 9.0 / 10 Udo Dirkschneider hardly needs an introduction. Where did the last three years even go? So much has happened for the man known as the former lead…

release date: September 28, 2018 label: El Pueblo Records production: Necronomicon rating: 8.5 / 10 Not the krautrockers of the same name. This Necronomicon are an old-school Teutonic thrash metal outfit from the German town of Lörrach.…

»Swan Hunter« is basically a teaser for the most impatient Big Big Train devotees, who needed a fresh musical 'fix' from their favorites before the release of the current live offering »Merchants of Light«.