Reviews

Well, this time around the new album is just a total standing-still! Not to mention far, far below the level of the brilliant "Devil's Ground" (2004). Primal Fear simply don't show anything new. They stick doggedly to their trademarks,…

This is no joke! Pallas are back after four years. Back straight to the greatness of their debut »The Sentinel« (1984). At first I was afraid the guys had picked another overly demanding concept and, in the pursuit of

This excellent singer really doesn't know the phrase "peaceful rest". Always busy, whether in Masterplan or in projects like his most recent one, a joint effort with another top-class vocalist, Russel Allen

Brutal! With "The Last Supper," Grave Digger head back to 2001, to the spirit of their album "The Grave Digger." "Rheingold" (2003) was the record with the most epic pomp in the history of the band, those raw Teutonic lumberjacks. This time…

Why do we need a compilation that's as good as identical to "Best Of The Beast" from a good six years ago? Iron Maiden are really pulling our leg. I wouldn't say a word if they'd put out, say, five studio

The debut 'Rocka Rolla' (1974) flopped when it came to breaking the band in the media. Judas Priest only got a few noteworthy lines in the press after playing Reading Festival in the summer of 1975. Emboldened, they went back into the…

"Rogues en Vogue" tries to win back the band's battered reputation after the total shipwreck that was "The Brootherhood" (2002). From stamping-machine songwriting to imagination-free riffs and illogical semitone turns

So let's break this progressive treasure down too, in the spirit of the empiricism we follow and believe in without question. The guitars are razor-sharp again, the solos are sawed off with real feeling, the arpeggios are brilliantly clean…

This is only the second solo album from the legendary Black Sabbath vocalist, though this excellent singer has stayed active the whole time in other projects (Rondinelli, The Cage, Giuntini Project,…). "Scream" is a great album! Top…

Lately there are loads of newly born bands, often formed when members of already established acts team up, either for the fun of it or to cast their line farther from the shore and earn a few bucks along the way

Even though it lacks that spirit of exploration, "Fallen Angel" is a great album. It won't make you pass out with excitement over some oddity that catches you off guard, but it still delivers polished compositions, tasteful production and…

Aha, there it is. The first official live record from the gravediggers. And how damn alive it is! That's why it's a must for every fan to add it to their collection. Recorded smack in the middle of Wacken Open Air last August. The taped…

The incorrigible old tomcat Joe Lynn Turner has gone back to his tried-and-true recipe. He stayed on home turf, where he's naturally strongest and most self-assured. So he served up a record

The future was uncertain for Judas Priest. After "Sad Wings Of Destiny" (1976), which failed to put the band on the rock scene's radar, the lads found themselves in a dead end. Stick it out or call it quits? Faith proved stronger, and…

Oh well... Rock'n'Rolf has been left without a band, and now he IS Running Wild. What is there to say about the new album from the German heavy metal legends? Once again, Rock'n'Rolf serves up synthetic drums programmed on

Threshold have run out of steam. The British progressive metallers have started repeating their motifs and are turning one-dimensional, which only proves that this album was made far too soon to have produced any truly "spicy" fresh ideas…

Once they were Accept, now they're U.D.O.! And their boss Udo just doesn't know the word "break"! Though he could really use one. Ugh, I have to keep this short. Short! Why? Because it's all the same again! U.D.O. are serving up a new…

'Fragile' (1972) gave Yes a solid creative foundation, and with it they stepped into their most prolific period. Yes kept building on that foundation. Stronger and more confident than ever, they decided to go for their first truly

"Live After Death" was spruced up. Only the best bits of the four-night run in Long Beach were picked and stitched together. "Live At Donnington" too. The real "The Evil That Man Do", for example, Dickinson totally botched in the first…

Kai Hansen, still one of the most respected German guitarists around, left Helloween at exactly the right time, as if he'd sensed how rough things would get for the pumpkins down the road. With his longtime friend, the German Rob Halford,…

Unlike its predecessor "JLT" (2003), which is basically also packed with everything the name Joe Lynn Turner has to offer, "The Usual Suspects" sounds like something you could call "more retro eighties"! Quite a

Aha, so Priest suddenly shifted into a "higher" gear, and with "Stained Class" (1978) they finally defined the outlines of their trade and their mission. Their essence was revealed. Heavy metal. From start to finish. Here, two classics saw…

And now you're asking: "What the hell, why another live album, wasn't there a triple live CD not that long ago?" Rush actually had a few good arguments for the move, because roughly speaking, the only thing "Differ

Budgie could hardly wait for the day they'd step through the studio door and record their debut! Roger Bain, who had also produced Black Sabbath's debut a year earlier, took the producer's seat. Budgie are a band whose riffs aren't the most…

'Tormato' is an album that has stayed inexplicably underrated to this day. Why? Yes ditched the long, dreamy epics they'd spoiled people with up to then and mostly focused on writing shorter songs, songs with a beginning and an end. The…

The year is 1991. Tough times for the power metallers of the day, or rather, the classic heavy metallers. Thrash and grunge were booming. And the German heavy metal scene? Plenty of "true" metal bands caved to label pressure. &qu

Honestly, it's hard to accept this record at all if you're weighed down by the name Judas Priest and the albums that came before "Turbo". But anyone who manages to hop over that hurdle will simply be enchanted.

The band's comeback with "Solid Ball Of Rock" gave them wings, and the steel eagle took flight again in 1991. "Forever Free" was the logical next step on that road back, following the aforementioned "Solid Ball Of Rock"

The dinosaurs are alive and kicking. The legend of Accept, reborn as U.D.O., rolls on. Udo Dirkschneider isn't budging from his musical comfort zone by even an inch. So every record from the pen of this legend is a trip back to the golden…

The album opens with a fragile sweetness in a song with a gentle title full of dewdrops, croaking little frogs and nodding reeds, The Marsh. That these guys went to Fripp's school is most obvious in the second track, Atlantis, with an…

Unlike 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' (1974), 'Relayer' has way more straight-up rock'n'roll sawing and grinding. This is the record where Steve Howe first started bringing flashy guitar 'glissando' acrobatics into the Yes sound in a big…

This re-release is a one-of-a-kind document of the beginnings of the metal earthquake that shook the music world. We've got a double disc here. The first is the original live release of the album "Live At Last" from 1980. The second has…

The keyboards were getting more and more active. Gamma Ray worked hard on their sound, and the production was fuller than ever. Even though we can only wish Gamma Ray still wrote compositions like the opener "Tribute To The Past", "No Retu

"The Priest is back!!!" Really? Well, on paper, yeah, with Halford back in the band and a new record out. Of course, a much-praised reunion and the band back in action in the golden "Painkiller" lineup. But...

With five studio albums under their belt, the time had finally come for the band to put out their first live album. This live album is in fact the only truly historic, officially released live document that captures the beating heart of…

As we know, Saxon started getting steadily heavier, album after album, with "Solid Ball Of Rock" (1991), while the flirting with the rock'n'roll feel that ran all over their records fr

Unbelievable! Yet another live U.D.O. album! A slick move that keeps U.D.O.'s devoted followers busy, so they can kill time more easily in the stretch between 'Man And Machine' (2002) and the freshly released 'Thunderba

"Going For The One" (1977) is the album where, to the great delight of "Yes fans," the most beloved "Yesman," the "cape crusader" Rick Wakeman, (first) came back to Yes ("crusader" because

One of the greats of his trade is back with us again. And his new musical style is really an old outfit in disguise, a return to his hard rock roots. Just listen to the chorus of opener In My Blood. A sonic spectrum filled to the last…

A real sequel to "Land Of The Free". We're witnessing new, drastic but obviously very well thought-out lineup changes. Dirk Schlächter, by now a legendary member of Gamma Ray, has returned to his first love, the bass

Some might say the title of this record was picked on purpose because it sounds so familiar to British ears, but on the flip side, it totally earns it. It went off in Great Britain, and right then Judas Priest

"Demolition" is one of the most controversial albums to come out of the metal scene in 2001. Controversial because the result didn't match what the public was expecting. But that's the problem of everyone who was still hoping for a new

Its predecessor "Destiny" was pretty syrupy. Of course, in 1986 Saxon caught the glam metal bug, the music trend of the day. After the more or less clichéd "Destiny" album, when critics, especially in their native Britain, literally…

Quick tip! Slap on your headphones and crank this double disc as loud as it'll go. Running Wild haven't shaken me like this since "Rivalry" (1998), the band's last classic manifesto in the four-piece line-up

Yes broke up at the end of 1980 under heavy public pressure and a disastrous European tour. White and Squire limped along together under a joint project called Cinema. And then Trevor Rabin showed up!

If "Aura" (2001) was conceived poetically, like drifting through heavens of light and positive vibes, "Silent Nation" is its opposite, a firm landing on sacred, real-world ground. On "Silent Nation" the eco

Here we have the definitive retrospective of a man who sold his soul to the blues. Another chosen one who can, no beating around the bush, stand shoulder to shoulder with the biggest names in the game like Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton,…

That's it. Everything that could possibly come together on one record does. A perfect ten on the exam. If "Somewhere Out In Space" was a fantastic predecessor that radiated chemistry between the band members, "Po

Personally, this is my favorite Judas Priest album. It's a brilliant successor to "Screaming For Vengeance". As a whole, "Defenders Of The Faith" isn't packed with the same explosiveness as its predecessor "Screaming For Vengeance", but…

Twenty-three years after the tragic death of the irreplaceable drummer John Bohnam, Pagey decided to posthumously gather (not counting the studio-recording album "Coda") a handful of live snippets drawn from a selection of songs from two…

How do you mix business with pleasure? The Byford/Quinn/Carter/Scarat/Randow lineup decided to release the old steel repertoire from the period between 1980 (the "Wheels Of Steel" record) and 1984 (the reco&#

That's it. What we'd been missing for a full 8 years since Painkiller came out, we got, and in a triple serving. Judas Priest are back as the most bloodthirsty beast on stage, and the result is a double live album that I no longer dare to…

What happens when a band takes a long break, say, around 8 years? Well, it can happen that the new songs are bursting at the seams with new ideas and innovative creativity. "The Art Of Navigating By The Stars" is exactly that. Truly

Well, this one's a real bummer, and not something you'd expect from Dio any time soon. Watered-down and below average. Listening to the great voice of Ronnie James Dio, all you can do is roll your eyes and wonder where all that eruptive…

No, no, no, absolutely no surprise! For all of us whose lives are more closely intertwined with the music of Blind Guardian, this wasn't just an expected album, it was a demanded album! The demands were met and exceeded (again!) the entire…

Imagine a miracle. After a short tour featuring songs they've never played live before, or only rarely on stage, Iron Maiden decide to put out a new live album. The setlist would include goodies like Alexander The Great, Sea Of Madness,…

I was genuinely shocked and utterly desperate the first time I heard this record in 1997. Well, over the years I've apparently managed to learn to listen with love to even more extreme stuff in metal, and so this review is finally making…

This next band is definitely no slouch. It's a quartet of four musketeers who offer a whole lot by modest Slovenian standards. Moonlight Sky could be called classicists and, put superficially and quickly, revivalists of seventies prog rock.…

Let's get to the heart of it right away. The Neal Morse case! The man who left the band at a moment when nobody saw it coming. Was that a good thing? Yes and no. Not for those of you who won't be able to live without his way of sin

»Majestic« is a real Gamma Ray album, and every fan of the band is going to be very happy with it. It's got proper steel-plated metal balls and it's blasting away in every direction. In places it's way more aggressive than its predecessor…

Eastern Europe has finally cracked it! Poland's Riverside have been running like a truly well-oiled machine for the past three years, and that makes them one of the main prog rock attractions on the planet right now. I won't be modest with…

'Tales From Topographic Oceans' is one of the most important and boldest albums in the history of symphonic progressive rock. It features four interwoven, conceptual stories (four acts).

With "Killing The Dragon", the “man from the silver mountain” has finally conjured up the magic of his eternal classics again (from "Holy Diver" to "Lock Up The Wolves"). He just gave its predecessor "Magica" a bit

"Killing Machine" is the record where Judas Priest dropped complexity altogether and gave in to raw, balls-out bangers. You can forget about songs like Victim Of Changes, Sinner or Beyond The Realms Of Death right away. In one le

Who would ever have dreamed up an ending like this to the Neal Morse story? Where do all these ideas come from, flowing through one person onto the tape? Music is the language of the soul, and "Testimony" bears witness to Neal's personal…

"Octane" confirms the trend the guys hinted at with "Feel Euphoria" (2003), after the charismatic mastermind Neal Morse left the band following "Snow" (2002). There are fewer and fewer solo-fests, keyboard-vs-guitar duels, psychedelic…

The news has been making the rounds for a long time. Almost too long. Well, 14 years after the release of "III. - Inner Vision" (1992), we've finally got the fourth chapter of Tom Galley's fantasy project about the eternal phenomenon of the…

A journey through time, a trip to the land of the pharaohs, where the gates to the beyond are waiting, whatever they may be, and where the questions to all our eternal answers are hiding. This is a concept album. The first song is long

“A Place In The Queue” is no longer a side studio project of Roinne Stolt's (Flower Kings)! You'll miss Roinne's trademark guitar on the record, but that's its only minus. And even that fades, because the new The Tangent b

The final cross-section of everything Yes have ever been up to today is easily the best selection of songs yet, especially next to past best-of compilations of this kind. It's a five-CD box set packed with seriously interesting material.

What could be better than a joint tour after releasing a fantastic album, with a little Deep Purple, Rainbow and solo-career classics thrown into the set list on top of its songs? These two legends picked the only right place to give birth…

With »Diamond Dogs« Bowie took the new-wave streak of the »glam rock« movement to its absolute peak and crowned himself the definitive king of the pop scene in 1974, with the record and its singles landing at the top of every chart…

The guitar giant put together a proper band to record his new album. They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so Steve called in both his sons, keyboardist Virgil and drummer Dylan, and added bassist Derrick Tayl

The set list is similar to the previous '98 Live Meltdown album, but the feeling that hits you when you listen to the new live album from the steel, indestructible monster called Judas Priest is completely different, or better yet, brand…

The record really is different, just like the band said it would be. If "Nuclear Fire" clicked "right away," the same can't be said for its follow-up.

The band's first concept album has the classic prog-band "quirk", a reminder that nobody has yet been hero enough to invent a format roomy enough to hold everything groups like this want to pour into our ears.

Yes's first two records are soaked in psychedelic rock, inspired by The Beatles' late work. The band didn't even realize Atlantic Records was ready to "drop" them. Then "The Yes Album" came out.

With David you never know what's hiding under his brilliant "attic". The man of a thousand faces, this time dressed in a threadbare tuxedo, badly dented and worn out from too much wandering around, has undoubtedly t

What happens when two indestructible lead vocalists join forces in one project, surrounded by first-rate instrumentalists? Two people, two approaches. When the energy of both combines and doubles. The opening "Devil's Road" leads

Well, if we've been playing around with studio releases, let me spice it all up with this compilation, which more or less wraps up the classic Halford era of Judas Priest. It's a fantastic cross-section of everything Judas

Plainly and without mincing words, the fifth album from German heavy metal champions Primal Fear is their best studio achievement to date. Primal Fear have delivered their most polished record, with the classic ingredients

After a three-year break, the boys are back. And thank goodness, considering how well things are going for Mat with Primal Fear. The record the fans, those who still remember Sinner, have been waiting for impatiently is finally here. It…

U.D.O. are terrorizing us again with a new studio album, their first for AFM Records, so it's been so very looong since they've shown their faces anywhere near Slovenia. Once again the band holds its level, meaning the level of its…

The voice of rock strikes again! Definitely one of the greatest rock singers out there (not by number of records sold, mind you). After the classic hard rock-driven "Songs In The Key Of Rock" (2003), the legendary music

The HTP debut served up that proper classic hard rock Glenn Hughes and Joe Lynn Turner brought with them from the seventies. The follow-up, though, has seen the light of day in a slightly different outfit! Once again, their share is spiced…

After thoroughly forging their steel through "Killing Machine" (1978) and "British Steel" (1980), Judas Priest took a bigger stylistic detour with "Point Of Entry" (1981). I stress "bigger" because back then

The story of the second concept album since "Ghosts" (1999) is in many ways strikingly similar to the sci-fi novels of H.P. Lovecraft. An almighty man, self-proclaimed rightful heir to the legacy of the great sages

Amid the flood of a million best-ofs, here's one more that all the die-hard fans would sell their left nut for, if it came to that. We'll take a slightly more autobiographical angle, so it's not just a dry analysis of the contents of this…

»Octavaruim« is a "progressive Dream Theater-defined" rock album from head to toe, but looking for "Images And Words" (1992) in it is plain silly! We can count ourselves lucky that the wreck unworthy of the band's name, &ra

The year was 1994 when the quintet from Kaiserslautern struck and heralded the rise of progressive metal on the old continent too. Five years after the debut of Dream Theater, who opened up entirely new paths of creation in the world of…

This collection of tracks was officially released only in Japan. But in the second half of the nineties it miraculously found its way onto the shelves of Slovenian shops too. Sadly, you can only order and buy this CD online these days. A…

RPWL? I haven't heard such a daft name in a long time. It's made up of the initials of the surnames of the (founding!) members of the band (Risettion Postl Wallner Lung). As if the lineup from the debut would last forever! Like hell it…

The guitar grandmaster has finally woken up with a proper new studio album, his first in six years. Let's take a closer look at why the record is really a résumé of everything Vai has already offered the public with his earlier releases.…

"King Of Fools" is an EP. Keeping the title track company are four songs the band decided to leave off the upcoming studio album. King Of Fools is a mid-tempo song that's nothing special in and of itself. It's a short melodic gem, polished…

A "Marvel"-tinged comic-book cover with a court jester lost in the vast expanse of outer space, riding a shark-toothed rocket, accompanied by an alien companion of the gentler sex, expresses

Jadis deliver an album with "Photoplay" that's even more compact than its predecessor "Fanatic" (2003). Of course, the album is pure neo progressive rock all the way through, but it's also a really nice example of minimalism in the genre. A…

What happens when two good friends decide to make a new album after twenty years? The answer is dead simple...they create a MASTERPIECE! Two prog rock veterans who played in bands like King Crimson, Uriah Heep, Roxy Music

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