Reviews

The concept piece »Pepper's Ghost« was clear proof that Arena still had plenty of fuel left for forging new masterpieces, and that the lineup formed in 1998 had developed incredible chemistry by then.

Uroš Planinc's specialty is still his polished guitar technique, and this precise, richly layered musician, tuned in to musical information on every level, is now paying more attention to the blues.

Another uncut diamond, with a truly special character in how it speaks. It's rare for the language of guitar playing alone to sum up, so effectively and so unfaked, the emotional intelligence of the very person playing that guitar!

»Paradise Filter« is a seriously solid effort from prog-rock icons whom hardly any fan expected or demanded new music from, though the decision to head back into the studio ultimately proved the right one.

With the release of the concert film Through the Never, Metallica also put out a double album of the same name, and what stands out most is how great it sounds

Considering the raw ambition, and at times the naivety, of its predecessor »Nori mlin«, »The Dreamcathcer« is an album Stone Orange can rightfully be proud of. It gives them real springboards of songwriting credibility to keep building on…

The instrumental cohesion of three separate influences weaves a filthy sludge fairy tale without a single hiccup. Even without vocals, Drone Hunter manage to confess their deepest secrets.

The Americans have been enjoying probably the biggest comeback of their career since 2011, but it was clear that only Dystopia's successor would be the real test. So did Iced Earth pass this stress test better than our banks?

Label: EMI Records Release year: 1986 Production: Tim Friese-Greene Album length: 45.40 min Genre: Art Pop / Post Rock By the time the cult British new wave/art rock outfit Talk Talk were recording their third album, »The Colour of…

With »Frankenstein Monster«, a decidedly guitar-driven effort, Francis Dunnery has made a successful return to his progressive rock roots and paid a very fitting tribute to his late brother, whose spirit hovers over every one of these…

With »The Colour of Spring«, Talk Talk created one of the few art rock masterpieces of the 1980s, one that has aged beautifully over the decades, which says a lot about how far ahead of their time their sonic vision was.

Mothermound are living proof that Tolmin isn't a town whose mighty metal heart beats only for a festival.

More than a nostalgic trip back to the best years, Mef shows for the third time, with help from the Narodno osvobodilni bend, in a more rocking singer-songwriter light.

Kreslin's year wrapped up with a step to the south, and in the manner of well-worn tunes, the magic of Čarobnice doesn't quite repeat itself to the same degree this time.

Label: EMI Records Year of release: 1984 Production: Tim Friese-Greene Album length: 43.16 min Genre: Synth Pop / New Wave British new wave greats Talk Talk released their second album, "It's My Life", right after original keyboardist…

With »It's My Life« Talk Talk finally stepped into the league of the great masters of the experimental take on synthpop, announcing loud and clear that every album of theirs would uncompromisingly bust out of genre boundaries.

There really aren't many reasons to want to dig into the rest of Spiral's discography after hearing »A Parasite's Guide to Rewriting History«, a painfully boring entry in modern space/post-rock production.

An album that, in the honesty of its musical expression, knows no limits in space or time. A prime example of jazz and ethno colliding head-on, courtesy of the brilliant minds of three brilliant musicians.

"The point of fusing accordion, tuba and percussion into one unconventional, out-of-the-ordinary musical body hits its mark with sheer audacity. It serves up a completely autonomous musical experience that's hard to pin down with any real…

Karmakoma are a welcome breath of fresh air for the Slovenian alternative rock scene, building on the band's already recognizable musical profile right from the start of their journey, with a debut full of tangible, self-authored material.

Tomorrow We Die ∆live may not be a stunning achievement, but it's solid proof that the band isn't repeating itself and is trying new things.

"Rockabilly in reverb" - a hunt for blues & rock n’ roll roots under a British baton.

A dark world of loneliness, mental illness, and an autistic vision of interpersonal coldness and rejection cuts like a scalpel straight to the very core of what we call the Aesthetic.

»Wishbone Four«, a solid effort but an artistic step back from its predecessor, marked the end of an era: the early Wishbone Ash years, when for a brief moment it looked like they might become bigger than some of the far more…

"Salvatio Analogum" sounds alive. You can feel how the building blocks of the sound fit together and the bond between the band members, and you can feel the chemistry between them! It's a genuine hard rock document, recorded under the glow…

Three solid hours of one-of-a-kind music. A whole "battalion" of special guests on stage! Forged under the free Pivka sun and nowhere else! Here's to Ana Pupedan's first fifteen years!

»Crazy Peoples Right to Speak« proved that the Kaja camp still had plenty of fuel for interesting adventures beyond the conventional new wave playbook, which makes it a real shame the band split after its release and only got…

»Islands« was a leap forward artistically compared to »White Feathers« and laid bare the foursome's yearning to make an art rock album with the best elements of 'both worlds', even though their commercial success started plummeting from…

Apart from »Too Shy« and »Hang On Now«, »White Feathers« still doesn't give anyone much reason to guess the band would take a giant leap forward musically with its very next release.

With its sixth album, Everblack, the band mostly shows stagnation. There's no sense of progress anymore, not even a hint of experimentation — they're just working to keep their heads above water with some pretty average records. These days,…

This two-CD, one-DVD package is a cross-section of last year's March–April stint in Las Vegas, where Def Leppard played the entire album "Hysteria" front to back and rounded off the spectacle with a set of nearly forgotten songs from their…

A love letter to the home crowd and to the giants who shaped rock 'n' roll. A document bursting with all the grandeur and power of the one and only Europe! A whopping 28 tracks made it onto this release, which celebrates the 30th…

Things still hold firm at REO Speedwagon shows, and in 2013 the band's body of work proves that rust isn't sticking to it anytime soon.

It's very hard, really impossible, to pick the best instrumental album in Frank Zappa's astonishingly varied and prolific career, but "Jazz From Hell" earned its cult status mainly because one single man played pieces that would give plenty…

"Talisman" is a truly authentic gem lost in time and space, yet its sincerity leads you straight to the cradle where it was born. Welcome to the vast, rugged gorge country of the Poljane Valley.

Label: EMI Records Year of release: 1982 Production: Colin Thurston Album length: 36.47 min Genre: New Wave / Synth Pop "The Party's Over" was the debut from the cult British outfit Talk Talk, a band whose character and body of work…

With Mouths of Madness, Orchid prove the seventies tradition is far from dead. Between the sound and the riffs, it sometimes really feels like the clock has been turned back a few decades.

Controversy, lies, sex and betrayal, ups and downs: »Welcome to the Pleasure Dome« is one of the most interesting and unusual albums of the 1980s ever made by a pop-rock band.

Talk Talk were already pulling back the curtain on the new wave's seemingly hidden 'darker' side on their splendid debut, so it's no surprise that the parties in the lyrics of individual songs almost always ended in a sad epilogue, which…

An atmospheric British trio bets everything on a rustic sound with a modern twist, plus hefty doses of Lana Del Rey, island-style.

Despite their creative differences, these two acts found common ground, and the result showcases two young creative hopefuls and two labels that matter a lot to the alternative scene.

Exceptional jazz talent Marko Črnčec draws a circle of trust around some outstanding young jazzmen from Brooklyn, and squeezes a ton of passion and devotion to the muses of music onto the record.

After their demo, I Vs. I swear allegiance to the blooming of blackness and a hard-hitting barrage of excellent riffs.

Williams' tenth album is a very solid piece of work. Swings Both Ways is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but Robbie still deserves thanks for breathing new life into some classics.

With their seventh album, Trauma prove their strength isn't fading. They've stayed true to their sound and the principles of death metal.

The second album from multilingual garage standard-bearers of new wave-tinged alternative, top-shelf stuff with rock-solid sub-Alpine directness.

The misadventures of the typical clueless, snooty English tourist who winds up somewhere in the Caribbean with an empty head have never sounded as much fun as on »Bloody Tourists«, one of the key albums in the 10cc discography.

Frank Turner has put out the most sonically and arrangement-wise defined, mature album of his career so far. The same goes for his poetry, whose openly personal confessions hit the listener with real sincerity in places.

»Wintersmith« is proof positive that Steeleye Span are one of the very few legendary bands around today that age like fine wine: the older they get, the better they are.

With "North," John Lees has managed to make the best Barclay James Harvest album since the end of the seventies, which is undoubtedly an achievement worthy of respect at his age.

Given the musically challenging flexibility and the big impact of its ambitiously mapped-out arrangements, you could argue that with »Mosquito« Yeah Yeah Yeahs may well be closing their evolutionary circle.

Of all the BJH albums made in the post-Wolstenholme era, when the band operated as a trio, »Eyes of the Universe« comes out the most convincing, even if not all the songwriting ideas were exactly original this time and you could…

Shore's latest soundtrack, this time for the second Hobbit film, is a practically mandatory purchase for every fan of Tolkien's world. The renowned Canadian composer once again proves himself one of the most skilled visionaries at marrying…

»Long Distance Voyager« may have been made in the early eighties, but quality-wise it easily belongs among the classic The Moody Blues albums. In fact, it's the last record of theirs that can still rightfully be called a 'classic'.

The EP "Hvala za ribe" is proof that the high-profile art prism of this respected pop rock outfit remains a constant of quality, which bodes well for what we're waiting for. That is a new studio album, which Tabu are announcing for the…

After holding up a spectacular mirror to Slovenian shallowness, N'Toko has tried to top even himself with a trip into the realm of the critical consumerist mindtrip, Japanese style.

Two words sum up the path Siddharta chose: acoustics and orchestra, brought together for the first time in their career into one story! Just as you'd expect from a band like this. With flying colors, then!

Volition is yet another outstanding achievement from the Canadian madmen. It's not a better record than Fortress, but it's more than solid proof that Protest The Hero still have plenty left to say.

The "ancient" pastoral spirit of the trio Antorino looks to the values of medieval troubadour culture and breathes the pulse of the present into them in a way that makes sense.

»Thrive« is the debut studio album from Swedish vocalist Angelica Rylin! A "bubbly, charming vocal princess" in whom the top brass at Frontiers Records spotted the next potential commercial hit.

Benedictum are a heavy metal four-piece from San Diego, California. "Obey" is their fourth studio album, a fresh, aggressive manifesto of the primordial heavy metal stance inherited from the legendary American standard-bearers of the first…

»X in Search of Space« is the definitive space rock album, one that shoots you straight into the stratosphere of the wildest sonic ideas this side of the galaxy, so it's no surprise it soon became one of the cornerstones of the fresh…

With their new album »Skrivnost«, Feedback offer clear proof that they're sticking to their guns musically, since in terms of quality and consistency they remain (still) one of the brightest stars of the otherwise super-obscure…

Saxon went about refreshing the material masterfully, just as is expected and demanded of them. The compilation is a must for every untamed Saxon fan and, as a harmonious musical experiment, an extremely bold enrichment of the rich Saxon…

»Life, Love & Hope« is definitely a brighter, more upbeat album than its predecessors »Corporate America« and »Walk On«, both of which are weighed down with a lot more hard-riffing heft. It has a more retro sound, which brings it closer…

After bands like Šank Rock, Chateau, Rdeči baron and so on… the Brežice boys of Broken Arrow have, with their studio debut, taken the torch of Slovenian melodic hard rock and AOR heritage into their own hands and carried it into new times,…

The one real point of the new version of "The Snow Goose" is that this almost 'cloned' take on a conceptual masterpiece alerts the narrower music community to the happy fact that Camel are 'alive' again, and maybe, in doing so, brings the…

Aleš Klinar, known to everyone as »Klinči«, is without a doubt one of the central figures of Slovenian »mainstream« rock and pop, especially in the eighties and nineties. The album »63 Special« is basically a cross-section of Klinar's…

Mist sound like the love child of Bobby Liebling and Messiah Marcolin, and their first demo would put a wicked, diabolical grin on Vincent Price's face too.

With Šank Rock behind him, it's time for "Nov dan" – a gorgeous solo studio album from Matjaž Jelen, wrapped in a contemporary sound and carrying all the hard rock heft you'd expect.

Absence to the max, yet so full of essence – that's the gospel of the exceptional Poles for the new age and the new "reborn" human of the 21st century.

»All Hell Breaks Loose« proves with surprising success that 'the boys are back in town', even if under a different name and in a thoroughly 'American edition'. That's still a lot more than most longtime Thin Lizzy loyalists expected, since…

Once upon a time they were Heat. The same Heat who opened for Gotthard at Ljubljana's Cvetličarna back in 2005. Today they go by Minotauro, and they've got a full-blown metal opera of a studio debut in their pocket, with renowned musicians…

The official soundtrack for "The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Enhanced Edition)" easily sweeps listeners into the layered, mysterious world they got to know while playing the game of the same name, and it's undoubtedly on par with the…

Max Cavalera and Soulfly are back with their ninth studio album!

August Burns Red have definitely shown with this album that there's a difference between metalcore and a Lady Gaga song.

A superb blend of different styles and rhythmic influences from world music and from all over Slovenian folk music, addictively pleasing yet so tantalizingly familiar ...

»Spacehawks« offers a lovely, vivid sonic look at the past, present and future of the Hawkwind spaceship, while the new tracks are a really good sendoff for further studio adventures.

»Desolation Rose« is a classic The Flower Kings album, made exactly to the wishes and expectations of most longtime fans, i.e. by the trusty formula that earned them a reputation as one of the most interesting and important prog…

With »Octane Twisted«, Porcupine Tree prove once again that they can sound at least as convincing live as in the studio, this time with a slightly more aggressive edge, which won't come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with their…

Overflow in top form on the latest record of a 20-plus-year career, sounding a call to arms and a wake-up call, and doing it for the first time in their mother tongue.

Placebo's seventh album is full of irony, alienation and echoes of their former power, but without full-on Molko power ...

An anti-cathartic record that keeps pace with modern standards.

Even with Brian Welch back in the fold, Korn haven't managed to make an album that can stand up to their first five records. It's only a near miss.

After a string of weaker albums, Children of Bodom are back with their eighth record. Will they finally win us over this time?

Can we say that, with the perfection of their new studio effort, Seventh Key are stepping into a fairly credible role as heirs to the musical legacy of the legendary progressive masters Kansas?

Polished to a shine and detailed down to the last note, the new Place Vendome album won't give the average melodic rock fan much to gripe about, even if it's running low on fresh ideas.

A brilliantly polished new studio album from the band now regarded as legends of Christian rock, delivering the heaviest and darkest record of Stryper's entire career on top of some brilliant songwriting.

»Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention« contains content that a 'truly free society would never fear or persecute' and a guarantee that 'the lyrics will not cause eternal suffering in the place where the guy with the horns and the…

The curse and the lust aren't dying down for The Quireboys, not even with their latest effort "Beautiful Curse", their seventh studio album in all. The new record is the very definition of raw, unadulterated rock 'n' roll brilliance.

Essence over stylistic sameness, duality over monotony, darkness over lightness – the collaboration between Elvis Costello and The Roots offers all of that and then some.

On their debut, the band squeezes doom for everything it's got and lays out all its dark hallmarks – melancholy, crushing riffs and an ominous atmosphere – while wrapping them in a thick layer of something we've never heard before.

"Darkness And Light" is the album where Bluerose have cemented their recognizable musical platform and sharpened it even further. The new record is a shift into harder waters. The waters of metal occultism and doom.

So what we've got here is roughly ninety minutes of fantastic execution of the entire "Flying Colors" album, plus renditions of the favorite cuts the band members picked from their past work in their home bands.

Jesper Strömblad returns to the scene with a seasoned crew

Gore Obsessed Violent Exhibition is a new beast awakened in the Kranj underground, and riding on its back, GMB could become the dominant force in Slovenian death metal.

"Za vesoljke in kavboje" is an album of tightly crafted creative focus that effectively brings the artist's musical vision to life. It's Neisha's manifesto, the record where she has matured and deepened her self-made sense of authorial…

Pelagial isn't just a standout album within its (sub)genre, but in metal as a whole. These days, albums with interesting concepts and good arrangement writing are rare. The Ocean remain oddballs at exactly the right intellectual level. And…

With Back To Where You've Never Been, Hacride prove what they do best. They stay groovy and complex, but don't overdo it.

With »New«, McCartney hasn't made a boundary-pushing album that deserves comparison with his greatest masterpieces, but he's still cooked up an impressively varied blend of classic and newer songwriting tricks.