Album Reviews

If a picture truly does paint a thousand words, then some of the promo pictures produced by Scottish rockers Mason Hill to plug debut album ‘Against The Wall’ go one step further. The five band members lined up alongside each other, with fingers crossed over their mouths preventing themselves from …

The name on the cover might say Skinny Knowledge, but in essence, ‘Don’t Turn Out The Lights’ is a solo-effort from multi-instrumentalist Andy L Smooth. With the South of England vocalist/guitarist playing all instruments on the album, as well as tackling his first shot at songwriting, this is very much …

It’s been a tough year already for fans of symphonic metal. As if Marko leaving Nightwish wasn’t bad enough, they also had to contend with the splintering of Delain, which really pulled the rug out from everyone’s feet. Thankfully Epica are on hand with their majestical eighth studio album ‘Omega’; …

Reviewing live albums is a weird thing. Essentially you are reviewing a gig without actually going to the show, but thanks to covid-19 this is about as close as we’re likely to get. God-like genius is a description that is often overused but Devin Townsend is truly worthy of that …

Artists are putting their time during lockdown to good use, and the number of top-quality singles and videos released on a weekly basis is staggering. Here’s a run-through of some singles hot off the press, from indie blues-rock from a name you might be unfamiliar with, to some sizzling slide …

In 2018 Dutch singer-songwriter and guitarist Anneke van Giersbergen turned her attention to beginning work on the follow-up to the debut album from her metal band VUUR. Faced with the pressures and financial implications of a full-band project, and coupled with struggles and heartache at the time within her marriage, …

Leicester-based trio SKAM have been proving for a while now that three is indeed the magic number. For the sake of comparison, SKAM are more of a power-trio in a Budgie sense, rather than, say for instance Cream. The partnership of Steve Hill (guitar/vocals), his brother Neal Hill (drums/backing vocals), …

Damon Johnson’s 2019 solo album ‘Memoirs of an Uprising’ was a stunning, diverse affair that comes highly recommended. For the follow-up, Johnson has gone in more of a classic hard rock direction and recruited Jarred Pope on drums, and bassist Robbie Harrington to form a killer power-trio. The end result …

Eschewing the bluesier, classic rock ‘n’ roll sound which arrived with 2018’s ‘WP2’ album, Seattle outfit Walking Papers have instead turned left on new album ‘The Light Below’ and embarked down a darker, more intense path. Always more than simply a meat and two veg band, Walking Papers constantly surprise, …

A quick scan of the “most anticipated Rock albums of 2021” throws out the usual suspects: Foo Fighters (already out), Alice Cooper (26th February), and then it gets a bit wooly. New Sting album – (yeah, nah), Royal Blood, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc, etc, the year is going to …