heavy metal

Label: Nuclear Blast RecordsRelease date: January 29, 2021Production: Andy SneapAlbum length: 52.16 minGenre: Heavy MetalRating: 8.0/10 The year is 2021, Accept, and? A new album. Accept, founded in 1968 by Udo Dirkschneider and…

Label: Silver Lining MusicRelease date: 11/20/2020Production: Brian Tatler & Rasmus Bom AndersenAlbum length: 60.53 minGenre: Heavy Metal / N.W.O.B.H.M.Rating: 9.0/10 “Lightning To the Nations” is considered a cult heavy metal…

Label: Massacre RecordsRelease date: 27. 11. 2020Production: Jaded HeartAlbum length; 52.14 minGenre: Hard Rock/Heavy MetalRating: 8.0/10 These days Jaded Heart are a kind of cult, overlooked hard rock royalty, doomed to rule the…

Label: Frontiers Music Srl. Release date: December 4, 2020Album length: 62:04 minGenre: Heavy Metal / Heavy RockRating: 9.0/10 And here's yet another live album from our well-known, wicked heavy rock'n'roll uncles Blue Öyster Cult!…

Label: Frontiers Music Srl. Release date: December 4, 2020 (reissue)Producers: Steve Schenck & Richie CastellanoRunning time: 78.08 min (LP/CD) / approx. 120 min (DVD/Blu-ray)Genre: Heavy Metal/Heavy RockRating: 9.0/10 …

Label: AFM RecordsRelease date: December 4, 2020Production: Piet SielckAlbum length: 56:28 minGenre: Power Metal/Heavy MetalRating: 10/10 There's hardly anything new left to say about Iron Savior – the power metal legends from…

For Saxon, 1980 was the most important year of the band's career. That February, they dropped the album »Wheels of Steel« and took the torch from a freshly born phalanx of bands serving up, for the time, a combination of insanely fast and…

Label: Parlophone RecordsRelease date: November 21, 2020Production: Tony NewtonAlbum length: 100.46 minGenre: heavy metalRating: 8.5/10 Well, here it is. The new live Iron Maiden album. Apparently, and if the author of these lines'…

Label: Metal Blade RecordsRelease date: 10/23/2020Production: Joey VeraAlbum length: 53:35 minGenre: Heavy MetalRating: 9.0/10 Armored Saint are legendary American heavy metallers. Nobody kicks you between the eyes harder than this,…

Iron Maiden released the live album »Live After Death« 35 years ago. It was mid-October of that long-gone year. The story behind it is a feat on the level of the biblical exploits of gray-bearded Moses. A story about Eddie the mummy…

After »Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son«, the hugely successful tour that followed its release – with the band pushing their stagecraft even further, expanding and enriching all the sets and scenery to serve up even more spectacular shows –…

This September marked 40 years since the release of Ozzy's debut, "Blizzard of Ozz." It's the album that saved the singer's music career. To get a rough picture of how we ended up with the album that marked Ozzy's final step into a solo…

Label: SPV/SteamhammerRelease date: September 18, 2020Production: RavenAlbum length: 38.55 minGenre: Heavy MetalRating: 8.5/10 For fans of the days when metal was the young, innocent child of the ever-harder rock of the seventies,…

Label: Frontiers Music Srl.Release date: September 4, 2020Production: Michael SweetAlbum length: 46.33 minGenre: (Christian) Heavy Metal Rating: 9.0/10 Who was the one whose wounds healed the (sinful) Christian world? The biblical…

This is the story of the album with which Judas Priest redefined their heavy metal and caught the trends of the moment. In 1990, Judas Priest were seen as veterans, heavy metal elder statesmen of sorts. Painkiller put these enthroned…

“By the time of »Headless Cross«, Iommi had finally found a lineup formula that let him sleep a little easier. In that relaxed atmosphere, the same crew of musicians recorded an even stronger album, “Tyr”, which still failed to win over the…

"“The band is totally 'stripped down', honest and straight-up. Frontal. The hooks are simple, the rhythms catchy and charging. A mostly 'adrenaline' album that invites you to a hellish party, soaked in burning high-octane fuel and loaded…

"Beyond a dreadful cover that's unworthy of the high musical quality embodied by the otherwise excellent 'The Reality of Miralces,' Lionheart have hit their mark on every count."

"Evolution stopped a long time ago, but the formula is one of a kind, and these seasoned old foxes know exactly how to crank out a fresh batch of true-metal marches that will keep power metal fans under the spell of that primal German…

"Generally speaking, this project isn't just bold, it's above all a success. It fuses two musical worlds into an excellent, unusual body of work, a metal opera that keeps you entertained even in the theater. U.D.O. stepped away from their…

In early 1980, AC/DC found themselves in a seriously unenviable position. The Grim Reaper tapped their enigmatic vocalist Bon Scott on the shoulder and invited him along. For good. On 19 February 1980, he was found dead in the early…

"Fans of the N.W.O.B.H.M. days will be thrilled (again) after 'Unbroken', because with 'Dark Revolution' Tokyo Blade have paid off yet another one of the many debts they owed their fans, who over the years had every right to lose hope that…

"Dominator returns! On wings of apocalyptic doom and merciless fury, he'll crush the last spark of your barren faith and delusional hopes, because the era of steel has dawned."

" When it was born 50 years ago, “Very ‘eavy … Very ‘umble” served up remarkable innovation, and with that very first record Uriah Heep proved they were a band with a finely honed musical pedigree, one they could boldly build on and push…

"This live document is another must-have for the collection of every die-hard fan of the band, and there are certainly plenty of them. It's not exactly a surprise, and some of the band's other live achievements and official releases are far…

“Curse of the Hidden Mirror” did have a few ups and downs in quality, but all in all it was still a thrilling record that delivered a heaping helping of listening pleasure for most longtime Blue Öyster Cult fans. After the solid “Heaven…

"“Heaven Forbid” remains the overlooked album in the band's huge discography, which makes a lot of sense when you set it next to Blue Öyster Cult's seventies legacy. Still, it's a superb effort, one where the band worked some of the essence…

With “Fields of Blood,” Grave Digger has at least partly made up for some of the below-par albums it put out over the past ten years.

"Listening to this document, it's a genuine revelation, especially if you haven't spun the "Future World" album in a long while (ten or fifteen years or more), how this album is still such a compositionally strong and polished manifesto of…

Label: Metal Mind ProductionsRelease date: 21.02.2020Production: Ian ParryAlbum length: 44.45 minGenre: Progressive Rock / Art RockRating: 9.0/10 Ian Parry is no stranger to the rock’n’roll scene. He kicked off his music career in…

For an English version, please scroll down the bar! John Arch (on the right in the photo above) is something of a cult figure from the classic days of heavy metal! Between 1982 and 1987 he sang in the first incarnation of the…

"This live document loudly announces that 2020 will once again be one of the more exciting years for Blue Öyster Cult and all their devoted fans, in an already colorful and long-lived career for these iconic rock heavyweights."

"The third reissue of a string of cult classics, first released as "Cult Classic" in 1994, has gotten a sound remaster, and it signals that after 19 dry years Blue Öyster Cult are getting ready to release a new studio album."

"No-one gets to Heaven Till they've lived a while in Hell And even then it's rare That you'll be going there" Ronnie James Dio ("Magica", 2000)

"When Ozzy left, plenty of people figured Black Sabbath were done. They couldn't have been more wrong. The band reinvented its sound and style and made one of the best albums of its career. This is the story of "Heaven And Hell"!"

"British Steel was the album where Judas Priest managed to elegantly fuse the bristling punch of heavy metal with a radio-friendly accessibility, given an extra boost by the rise of the N.W.O.B.H.M., and with it Judas Priest scored their…

Four decades ago, on April 14, 1980, heavy metal giants Iron Maiden unleashed their self-titled studio debut on the world. The road to it was thorny, but when the album landed, it actually charted one spot higher than the red-hot Saxon,…

"Still, artistically Blaze has been a little robbed of freshness lately. So this album too will stay in the shadow of the excellent »The Night That Will Not Die« (2009), just like the other two live albums from 2014 and 2019 (!!!), which…

" Back then, you'd have been hard-pressed to find an album that captured the wild, untamed spirit of a brand-new genre's big adventure better than "Wheels Of Steel". It's regarded as the central musical achievement that founded the…

" Elixir have risen once again and, once more, stood their ground. They've kept all their trademarks and carried them over to their sixth studio album, which sounds just as you'd expect, as if it were lost in time and space."

"Another studio effort that's pretty damn good overall. Not perfect, nowhere near outstanding, but very nicely packaged and worth your attention. For the more demanding music fans who've followed Ozzy since forever, the new album might…

"The old fart isn't giving up, and in what he takes on with the incredibly inspired “Born Of Fire”, he's hellishly good again and practically untouchable (especially when it comes to his generational uniqueness)."

Babymetal proved at their sold-out Gasometer show that they're no one-hit wonder. Their popularity is growing fast. And with multiple generations in the crowd, the next visit could be even bigger.

" Fans of Biff Byford's iron voice and Saxon's music in general will be thrilled once again. That's the fundamental takeaway, along with the fact that this is, all in all, a very good new album, backed by a revered vocalist who long ago…

" Compared to his two previous solo studio albums, the new one, "Ten," is closer in musical identity and production to what Sweet does with Stryper, though it's a fully self-contained story and a fresh step forward on the colorful musical…

"A conformist, safe stance, but one Peavy still handles with skill and knows inside out, and once again it wins him a poker hand full of aces."

"When it came out, the Black Sabbath debut was met with mostly disapproval and incomprehension from the critics of the day, and it took years for it to earn the respect and standing it deserves as one of the most important achievements in…

Performers: Septic Order, Constrictor, Challenger Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / SloveniaDate: Thursday, 16 January 2020 2019 is already history and 2020 is already in full swing. Sadly, the first week of the new year wrapped up…

" “Angel Of Light” isn't as varied as its predecessor “As Above, So Below”, but it keeps all the core elements that define the character of this cult band."

"Of all the artistic moves Tatler has boldly made with his band over the years, often gambling dangerously with the credibility of an old-school metal pose, "The Coffin Train" is the one where Diamond Head come closest, and most…

"It's fair to say the current incarnation of the band hit its creative peak with »Ritual«, and that Tygers Of Pan Tang are living through a kind of new renaissance, a rebirth, and, as our own Avtomobili would put it, a late spring. "

"This EP is clearly a tactical move, a way for the band to bridge the gap between the still-current »Judge Not« and its follow-up, which will be the band's tenth studio album overall."

"U.D.O. remain, with their performance power, legacy, and energy, the defining front-line entity of the classic heavy metal era — the era shaped long ago by the one and only, the mighty voice of metal himself, Mr. Udo Dirkschneider."

Venue: Ljubljana / Orto bar / SloveniaDate: Saturday, 16 November 2019 A rainy Saturday is the perfect excuse to lounge around and binge something good — and there's no shortage of options these days — but not last Saturday! Last…

"All in all. A nice album from a legendary musician. Worth a spin. But all three cult classics of the eighties remain untouchable."

"Old-school true believers will probably stick with this band's older records, because this time around Steel Prophet are dancing through notes that are just too soft."

"Frankly, and no beating around the bush: there's not a single artistic stumble on this album. An excellent new studio effort from an incredibly seasoned and experienced band."

"If you know Karlsson, Romero and Terrana, you already know what to expect from the album “A New Evil”."

"Another smooth, loud landing for the legends of metal!"

"On »Wings«, Picture sound like a dinosaur waking up from a hundred-million-year sleep. Ten tracks follow everything we know and understand under the name Picture. It sounds ancient, ossified, primal, jagged, and in every way it can, it…

"The quintet crowned its excellence, and we can safely call it performance-wise perfection, with this show too, and 'Live In Japan 2018' captures it down to the last detail."

Label: earMUSICRelease date: 17.05.2019Length: 99.18 min (2CD)Genre: Heavy Metal / Hard RockRating: 8.5 / 10 A few more words on the new live document from the mighty Loudness, one of the most recognized hard rock and heavy metal…

And on the very last day, instead of a souvenir shirt, the organizers could've just printed "I Survived the Hell of Metaldays 2019" tees, because weather-wise this year's festival was without a doubt one of the hottest ever. But we scraped…

"If you're a true fan of 80s glam metal, the kind that grew up around the Sunset Strip, then you know nothing but pure bliss at a Steel Panther show"

Thursday in Tolmin promised hellish heat again, and the organizers warned festival-goers about it too. In weather like this, the nearby river and the free drinking water all over the festival grounds come in really handy. Thursday was also…

The golden mean turned out to be a hellish one this time, because Tolmin got probably one of the worst heat waves of the summer. But the most beautiful festival site in the world has the Soča to cool down overheated heads, loads of side…

"Day one's headliner at Bang Your Head, Michael Schenker, and his musical rondo that took us from the very beginning right through to the end of his career. Hands down the highlight of the day!"

Your mandatory Sunday metal communion with Queensryche, Firewind and Mirror Plain at CUK Kino Šiška

Tribute bands of all stripes have become a proper hit on our concert stages in recent years. You could probably write a sociological study on why, but the fact is that gigs by this kind of band are always very well attended here. So we get…

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…

"Pero Defformero have played Slovenian stages a lot over the past eight years, and even though the setlists are similar, Biške's jokes make every single show a one-of-a-kind experience." Location: Kranj / Trainstation SubArt /…

"On the day RockLine publishes its review of the final U.D.O. concert on the Steelfactory tour, the great Udo Dirkschneider celebrates his 67th birthday. The editorial team of our online music magazine wishes the legend a jubilee full of…

" "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…

"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…

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…

"U.D.O., led by that one-of-a-kind vocal force, the thunderous Udo Dirkschneider, stormed the Czech city of Zlin with sheer vehemence and burning fervor, razing it to the ground in front of a sold-out Masters Of Rock Cafe."

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

"Powered by the phenomenal Brainstorm and the excellent Mob Rules, a power metal storm in Ljubljana's Orto bar stirred up retro-nostalgic feelings of power metal's golden days!"

"We've stepped into the new year and into a fresh run of Thursday mass-gatherings in the thoroughly smoke-filled rooms of Orto bar, which our rock-solid "little polecats" look after, boldly and conscientiously, as always.

»Club Ninja«, packed with plenty of seriously interesting metal/hard rock gems, ranks among the most overlooked Blue Oyster Cult albums.

date: Friday, 9. 11. 2018 location: Orto Bar, Ljubljana Heavy metal lives! The proof isn't just the packed halls and sold-out stadiums of giants like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, but also the many young bands carrying on the legacy of the…

"Headless Cross," one of the most overlooked achievements in the saga of the masters of metal darkness, ranks among the very best Black Sabbath records without Ozzy or Dio on vocals.

Even as we grow richer inside over the years, slowly discovering and exploring all sorts of genre spheres of music (where all that matters is whether the music is good or not), something remains undeniable. Emotions, passions that breed…

»The Chemical Wedding«, which Dickinson's devotees jokingly nicknamed 'the best Iron Maiden album since »Seventh Son of a Seventh Son« (1988)', was a true metal masterpiece the moment it dropped, and its cult status has only grown over the…

"The band is surely not going to call it quits anytime soon. That much is certain. But if Judas Priest ever do decide to, it'll make perfect sense and be totally in order. They've done their thing. They have nothing left to prove. The only…

"A concert of superlatives that once again proved Iron Maiden are simply the biggest of the big."

"Outrage of Modesty" brings a whole fistful of dynamite sticks, perfect for giving your scalp a proper combing and cleaning out your ear canals. "

"After nearly 50 years in the game, you'd expect a good album from musical elders, a decent album, maybe a solid one. Modest and respectful, in other words: no miracles required. But for an album to be as damn good as "Firepower" is a hefty…

With »Rise to Glory«, Loudness keep the quality high and the creative fire burning, while holding on to the unmistakable character that put them on the metal pedestal back in the eighties.

location: Munich / Tonhalle / Germany date: 14.01.2018 Making the pilgrimage to see the legendary Accept has become a kind of mantra since their reunion in 2008 (and without Udo Dirkschneider in the lineup this time, for good). The band…

"Everything on "Reforged - Riding On Fire" is exactly where it should be, and at times even better than on the originals. Piet Sielck knows, can, understands and, of course, delivers."

"Every single show was sold out in advance. The European leg came closest to Slovenia on 12.11.2017, when Helloween played Munich, and then two weeks later at the Aegon Arena, a tennis hall in the Slovak capital Bratislava, where RockLine…

"From what we heard and saw, the Accept classics sound even more convincing in the hands of Dirkschneider than in the live set of today's Accept. Simple as that. The vocals decide. And Udo is still the number one Accept voice, even though…

"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."

Location: Balingen / Messegelände / GermanyDate: Thursday, 13.07.2017 The nineteenth Bang Your Head festival is here, and with it a new RockLine expedition to Balingen, Germany. One of Europe's most important summer festivals, known…

Label: High Roller RecordsRelease date: 28.04.2017Production: Cloven HoofAlbum length: 44.43 minGenre: Heavy Metal (N.W.O.B.H.M.)Rating: 9.0 / 10 These days Cloven Hoof are considered heavy metal legends. They emerged during the…

Location: Velden am Wörthersee (Vrba na Koroškem), Carinthia / Bluesiana Rock Cafe / Austria Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 On April 25, 2017, Mr. Blaze Bayley played the famous Carinthian temple of music known as Bluesiana Rock…

"After 18 years and more than 1,000 shows in over 50 countries around the world, Sabaton proved once again on Monday night that they're a force to be reckoned with and that their moment is far from over."

"That night, Helstar were greeted at Orto bar once again by all the people whose hearts beat for metal. Decked out in proper metal outfits, with proper metal attitude. That feeling when you walk into a gig and know you're in the right place…

Label: Sony MusicRelease date: February 3, 2017Produced by: Tom AllomAlbum length: 40.58 minBonus live (2CD) album length: 101.45 minGenre: Heavy MetalRating: 9.5/10 At the end of last year, thirty years after its original release,…