Reviews

What Primarna play is utterly elemental, thoroughly genuine, stripped bare, without a speck of added kitsch, and true to their name: primary rock'n'roll. With an added dash of Goriška sentiment.

It's not just the brain bursting at the seams, but the whole skull vault! "Breaking Brain" is yet another, modestly put, brilliant piece of work from under the adventurous musical vision of jazz-metallers Panzerballett.

This time it feels like we've got a softer, more pop-leaning Houston album. So there's nothing new or undiscovered here, except that "III" drifts a bit stylistically from both of its predecessors.

Even though plenty has already been said about punk in Slovenia, bands as fiery as Pigs Parlament, who hit you with their message straight up and with no sugarcoating, are simply in short supply.

An easygoing, upbeat, positive-minded album, seasoned with a pleasantly mild but effective pinch of melancholic longing. Short, punchy, relaxed songwriting moves. Compared to its predecessor, 2B sound even more confident here, and even more…

Geoff Tate, former frontman of Queensryche, delivers the third part of his conceptual story. Plenty of people reckon he'd be better off sticking to winemaking, but his new artistry still holds enough musical interest.

A mix of incredible looseness and fun moments in the studio, virtuoso brilliance, and a subtle implant of tangible hard rock groove. In other words, just progressive enough and just compact and musical enough, which makes for a record that…

Victor Smolski and his crew of outstanding singers are back on the scene with a gorgeous new studio release. Given how quickly it came together, it's remarkably high quality and very ambitious in its songwriting, and he attacked it with…

»Change The World« is yet another extremely polished and lovely studio album from a seasoned master of the bible known as AOR / melodic rock.

The album »Srceder« simply has to come alive on stage. And not just as a regular gig, but as a concert fused with a proper theater production. In its sheer ambition, it delivers Slovenia's cultural and artistic standout of the year!

"Hard to Kill" is, without false modesty, a contender for one of the best hard rock albums to hit the market in 2017! Anyone who loves the pioneering spirit of Deep Purple, Rainbow and eighties Whitesnake will be all over it.

"The Colour Suite" is the work of a one-of-a-kind sextet organism, and it's a thoroughly free-jazz-minded album that never runs short of quirky tomfoolery or flirtations with avant-garde music.

Label: Clean Feed RecordsRelease year: 2017Production: Samo ŠalamonAlbum length: 54.29Rating: 9.0 / 10 A promise is a debt. I've been promising Samo this write-up for half a year now. Jazz is jazz. Jazz is "weird." Quirky, and that's…

»Topographic Drama« is an interesting live document, packed with strong performances of songs Yes have 'forgotten' about far too often over the years, especially those from the album »Drama«.

So. After the February release of the vinyl edition of the new Hamo And Tribute 2 Love album, titled »3p«, this November we got its follow-up, out on CD.

The Rolling Stones have gone back to their "childhood," waking up the fire, the magic and the passion inside them. On "Blue And Lonesome," a tribute to the legends of Chicago blues, they sound like a quintet with the incredible camaraderie…

A thoroughly solid piece of work. The guy isn't opening up any new creative horizons, but he stays as obscene as ever, i.e. "culturally shocking", even if this time Manson is "shielding" and "guarding" his artistic trenches.

Given the setlist, this live recording doesn't leave a particularly strong impression, but on the flip side it's an outstanding keepsake. If you happened to be part of this tour, this live document is a must for your CD collection!

On the new album, Stray Train present themselves as an even more mature and more focused rock entity. In this respect it's even more polished and full of ideas, with an even bigger dose of fired-off rounds of primal rock'n'roll engraving,…

Akami boldly take their first step into the music world, presenting themselves as a band with an unusual, which is to say unconventional, take on musical expression. They fuse familiar musical dogmas in their own way and dispel them with…

What Marty Friedman pulls off on this album is yet another smashing of conventional musical patterns and clichés, plus a conceptual expansion that carries this artist's expressive stamp out into the fields of undiscovered musical…

George Lynch and Michael Sweet. On paper, an unlikely combo, yet it works brilliantly, in a totally distinctive way. They've proved it a second time, with the excellent new album "Unified".

»Black Country Communion« are back with an excellent 'comeback' album on which they once again sound like a tight, inspired unit, back on healthy creative footing.

An excellent studio debut from a visionary quartet building on the foundations of a homegrown musical culture. With it, King Foo present themselves as a band built on a concise original premise of art pop and rock.

This is the real L.A. Guns album, and the first in 15 years, since »Waking the Dead« (2002), with founding member and guitarist Tracii Guns and the band's famous golden-voiced singer Phil Lewis finally joining forces again.

»Best Of Fear« is a double compilation that gives a cross-section of the band's last decade, from the album »New Religion« (2007) to the current »Rulebreaker« (2017)

»Headstrong« is nothing less and nothing more than a superb new record from this battle-hardened, hugely experienced band, who flirt with the raw, elemental sound of their first albums in a new sonic transition.

»Defying Gravity« carries on the band's musical tradition. It's a proper Mr. Big album, and then some. In the nature of its compositions and its energetic vibe (if you will), it reaches back (very effectively) to the band's first era.

A selection of seventeen songs from the two marathon concert nights Pearl Jam played at Wrigley Field in August 2016. It's the soundtrack to the film about the Cubs baseball team, who became champions that same year.

In sheer insight, shocking originality and expressive individuality, Living Colour remain, even with "Shade", unique masters of their craft, with no equal. The famous funk metal fusion, reaching back to the first three albums of the band's…

Almost fifty years after its original release, The Who have finally pulled off the entire »Tommy« rock opera without a single track skipped, and spiced the whole thing up with a closing medley of their best stuff.

Where »Bag of Bones« leaned a bit more toward the bluesy side, the more musical »War of Kings« was Europe's stepping stone to the latest »Walk the Earth«, one of the darkest, gloomiest records of the band's entire career.

»Get Off Your Ass« is a document that shows Autograph, with the deft flexibility of seasoned masters, credibly carrying the essence of their eighties sound into new times.

Kee Of Hearts is yet another musical story with the Italian label Frontiers Records behind it. The "quirky" name of this freshly formed act comes from mashing together two stage names: Kee Marcello and Tommy Heart.

»Unify« is, in every respect, a credible successor to World Trade's 1989–1995 era, as well as to the band's gradual musical transition into the Conspiracy project.

A thrilling new chapter in the career of this wildly prolific, multi-layered, seasoned musical "multi-tasker" and producer. Once again he played everything and sang everything himself. Over the years he's pushed all his skills to their…

Newman offer nothing new here, just a fresh, skillfully placed wrapper full of classic AOR tricks. "Aerial" is a record Newman knocked out with the excellence of a seasoned, battle-tested old tomcat.

At the end of this past March, another seriously fascinating release landed on the music market. Its creators are Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter: a wonderfully wacked-out King Crimson drummer and an even more wacked-out inventor of the…

The new record picks up right where the studio debut from a year and a half ago left off. Voss and Lessmann remain the main songwriters, of course, and the songs stay loyal to the classic mold of the German hard rock school

So what we've got here is a high-quality, tightly built follow-up to the studio debut, with no songwriting slip-ups and no arrangement misfires, proving the trio has lost none of its artistic freshness or creative drive.

Swedish newcomers CyHra drop their debut album on Friday. They may be a brand-new band, but this modern melodic metal record comes from some seriously seasoned musicians.

Slovenia needs catharsis. Kočevje HC/Punk Rock trio Sintetika has known that for a good while now, and they've put out a studio album with a title to match. What can you say about a record like that? Simple. These are the kind of albums you…

»Lower the bar,« or maybe even better, »take it down a notch,« brings a few musical things Steel Panther haven't tried yet, but they're not reinventing the wheel here and still stay loyally in their musical niche.

"Anyone who swears by epic, manly and smart power metal will be more than thrilled with »The Deviant Chord«. It's a thoroughly classic album with just the right dose of modern songwriting and production touches, which means it's exactly…

Jag Panzer have made a hugely successful return to the power metal scene. If you swear by epic, manly and smart power metal, you'll be more than thrilled with "The Deviant Chord". It's a thoroughly classic album with just the right amount…

»Children of Tomorrow« is an interesting, truly one-of-a-kind-sounding and unusual blend of thrash metal, hardcore and punk. Nčdonč are anything but what their band name suggests.

"Animals" is a really lovely, high-quality studio debut from Gorizia-area band HairX, drawing its inspiration from the golden era of glam metal. It delivers a bold foundation, built with passionate drive, fire and plenty of heart!

With their new album, Minotauro cement their international standing as a musical entity staunchly loyal to the doctrine of symphonic power metal. The record is an all-around upgrade on their studio debut.

A rough-cut gem of cabaret chanson with a female voice front and center, garnished with a pop and jazz dessert, where many genres live together in easy harmony: this is an album of a special kind.

You could say "Phoenix" is a successful album of sonic and stylistic transition for the band. It's what "The 8th Sin" tried to be ten years ago, but flopped at. A mature comeback record!

"Cabaret chanson with a female voice front and center, where different genres deftly pass the baton to one another, ends up as a blend of them all and a real eclecticism. That was also the core aim of the album 'Nemi film'."

»One quarter« of the legendary Pink Floyd, so, keeps successfully cashing in on the famous name and legacy of his former band. A top-notch packaged live document, in line with strict standards, that simply delivers a new kind of…

»Procol's Ninth« is far from a bad album, but some imposed production moves wrecked the original plans. On top of that, Procol Harum had made so many better records in the past that comparing it with them is rather thankless.

A very good new album from a band that's only occasionally nagged by the feeling that it's playing things a bit safe, that it delivers a little less variety than its predecessor, and that it's still missing a more distinctive, ravenous…

The new album from the metal old guard doesn't bring the ferocity and expressive punch of the previous three. For all its routine quality, it drifts a little into average territory.

»Into the Great Unknown« is yet another leap upward in creative maturity for the band, one its fans will worship and treasure long after release. In time, this album will take its place among the best of H.e.a.t.'s entire career, no doubt…

By the way, plenty of the ideas you hear here could easily have found a home on one of Simon Phillips' albums with his Protocol. This is a bravura piece of work by a great perfectionist and an unsuspectedly masterful craftsman.

Dramatic changes at the mic clearly do Threshold good, since they keep coming out of them even stronger and more vital than before. The concept treat »Legends of the Shires« is a triumph of some very welcome, refreshing ideas…

All the incurable romantics will be swooning again. In terms of songwriting and atmosphere, »The Second Brightest Star«, the third chapter of Big Big Train's folklore trilogy, doesn't bring anything particularly new compared to its two…

This album doesn't waver in quality, holds a strong consistency and coherence from start to finish, though it could've been shorter. The band still delivers the pomp without any cheesy keyboards. Jack Starr's Burning Starr keep their fire…

"The man sticks to his signature musical premise with the new album, too. As always, what jumps out most is his mastery of the guitar-exposé craft and his classical polish. "

From »Concrete Gardens« to »Chrome Castles« – that's how you could sum up the next step for guitar virtuoso Tony MacAlpine. Having beaten a sneaky illness, Tony is back and delivering the best he's got!

New fans will find the album tailor-made for them, but longtime followers will hear that Arch Enemy have simply run out of inspiration and real ideas, and delivered a generic, forgettable product with bright moments in seriously short…

With »The Vision, the Sword and the Pyre – Part 1«, the first chapter in the story of the legendary Joan of Arc, Eloy have made their first masterpiece of the 21st century, an album that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of their…

Label: K-Scope Year of release: 2017 Production: Steven Wilson & Paul Stacey Album length: 59.46 Genre: Progressive Rock / Art Rock Steven Wilson, the leading patron of modern progressive rock, returns with his latest studio album,…

On his latest studio outing, "To the Bone," Steven Wilson once again proves his incredible eclecticism as a composer and arranger, hopping across genre borders with ease while still staying true to himself.

A new compilation marks the first 25 years of the beloved German power metal and hard rock jokers Edguy, packing in a bunch of goodies that will satisfy even the most devoted fans of the band.

It's been a good while since Venom with Kronos put out an album as primal as the one the venomous trio of Abaddon, Mantas and Demolition Man delivered under the Venom Inc. banner with their "debut" called »Ave«.

Finally. That was the main goal for the new Quiet Riot: to put out a top-quality record that gives the band back all the credibility they partly squandered with the seriously subpar previous album »10«.

These days it's hard to find a band that has kept going without a break for over four decades, putting out albums full of fire and enthusiasm the whole way and wowing us again and again with consistently high quality.

With »Second Nature«, Lionheart have delivered a really lovely, polished, consistently high-quality and compact album that walks the thin line between classic metal elements and the distinctly melodic-rock side of hard rock and AOR.

With »Seasons of the Black«, the new incarnation of the cult band Rage has found the right creative platform, pushed the energy and mood of the previous album to an even higher level, and delivered a record that's looser and hungrier. Fans…

"There's no shortage of authenticity in everything that went down in Brno, and this document proves it. The concert energy and atmosphere are superbly captured and transferred to both audio and visual media."

Another rock-solid record of Udo Dirkschneider's hugely successful decision to bring the Dirkschneider band to life. Accept fans will snap this one up, especially since it comes with a DVD too.

What this release brings home, unpleasantly, is that a copy just isn't better than the original, and that the whole move feels more forced than heartfelt and sincere.

The concept-album treat »The Mission« is a major comeback for one of the best and most successful American rock bands of all time, and probably one even their most optimistic fans didn't see coming.

Hard rock and blues rock connoisseurs got to witness the birth of one of the most exciting bands in the genre with Black Country Communion. Their ambitious debut was worthy of the famous names that made up this star-studded collective, and…

With »Somewhere Far Beyond« in the early nineties, Blind Guardian became the leading lights of German power metal, while Helloween slid into an identity crisis and Gamma Ray were still searching for their true sound.

It was a long wait for a new Blind Guardian live document, but it was worth it: »Live Beyond the Spheres« is their best 'live' album to date, and with its superb atmosphere and excellent production it delivers a hugely successful…

"Romantic Warrior" is an album that still thrills today with its romantic atmosphere, compositional vision, and wildly successful blend of jazz and rock elements.

This collection of ballads from the distant and not-so-distant past, with nothing new on offer, will delight only the most devoted Magnum fans, while everyone else would do better to wait for their upcoming studio album, titled »Lost on the…

Jacobs Dream are back with a new album, and they're doing it in style.

Fusing with other genres just gives them a headache, so this time around Dragonforce serve up some conditionally forgivable musical enjoyment with »Reaching Into Infinity«.

"Sunbound" is a seriously decent album that brings nothing new and nothing you haven't already heard. It definitely won't come anywhere near satisfying AOR purists. But it's a quality piece of work that fans of the band will surely enjoy.

Even though the production is pleasantly organic, what really stands out is the cautious songwriting, which far too obviously "sells" the old tricks. Maybe the culprit is simply how the band came together. And that, of course, was staged by…

Despite a few shortcomings, Blood Moon Rising deserves all the praise, offering some excellent moments that stick with you!

"Gothica" keeps the compositional polish of its predecessor »Isla De Muerta« while bringing a somewhat different atmosphere, so you'll have to decide for yourselves which of the two albums you like better.

Mistermarsh knows where the trends in popular indie and urban pop rock are heading on the international scene. That makes "Altamira" a logical follow-up to his seriously exemplary urban pop debut "Home" (2015).

With »To Kill A King«, Manilla Road prove they're not ready for the scrap heap just yet.

»Secrets and Lies« is another outstanding record from this project, drawing on the very best of the melodic rock and AOR legacy. Both stylistically and production-wise, it couldn't sound any more British than it does.

The »Legendary Years« collection marks the start of a new era for Rhapsody of Fire, a band some had all but written off after Lione's departure. The two new members have passed their 'baptism by fire' with flying colors.

»Incorruptible« is yet another very good studio effort from this long-lived band. Nothing more. It's seasoned from head to toe with all the right trademarks that have always defined the music of Iced Earth.

"Anyone who knows the studio original of the cult ‘Awaken the Guardian’ well will be blown away by how evergreen it is and how incredibly expressive and punchy this album still is after thirty years. The same goes for the stage performance,…

"Live and Louder" takes us straight back to where real rock'n'roll was born, in all its raw, primal glory. And there it hits with everything it's got, full-blooded. Given the reputation of the guys behind the band's name, you wouldn't…

If you know the studio original of the cult classic »Awaken the Guardian« well, you'll be floored by how evergreen this album still is and how incredibly punchy it sounds thirty years on. The same goes for the stage performance,…

On their new album, Great White present themselves as incredibly skilled and polished songwriters. With »Full Circle« they remain a proven byword for high-quality musical consistency, one that keeps maturing healthily, developing and…

Even though its starting point is painting the cruel reality of everyday life, this is a new album of supple, clever silliness and cheerfulness, the kind Slovenian artists are desperately short on.

A damn good melodic hard rock album with insanely wound-up, noisy guitar voltage that shamelessly flirts with elements of heavy metal. At the same time it's ultra-melodic, catchy, and just different enough. Exactly what the trio actually…

For the new album »Life On Death Road«, Jorn Lande has completely rebuilt the crew of musicians in his band Jorn. And these are players sporting serious international pedigree!

»Cirkus« is one of the most beautiful and most interesting achievements in music that courts mid-wave radio favor, yet never once denies its firmly emphasized, auteur-driven paradigm of self-grown artistry.