(*/10) It’s not really a new business model, but it’s probably a good idea Frontiers had a while ago. Once a year the label organizes a two days festival with a line-up built on Frontiers Music's roster. Recording these shows is a next good idea since it allows the capturing of quite some live shows... Continue Reading →
CD review FOREVER STILL ‘Breathe in Colours’
(8/10) Danish metal powerhouse Forever Still is still a rather new band in the fields of metal, although their foundation date was back in 2010. After some first EP’s the band premiered in 2016 with ‘Tied Down’. Already the debut made it clear, that these guys didn‘t came to be ‚forever still‘. Their mission is... Continue Reading →
CD review ROULETTE ‘Now!’
(8/10) Roulette is a band that might be known by some of the older readers of Markus’ Heavy Music Blog while the younger generation might not have heard of the band earlier. Roulette is a Swedish AOR band that is rooted in the ‘90s. The phenomena with Roulette is the fact that they release some... Continue Reading →
CD review L.A. GUNS ‘The Devil You Know’
(8/10) L.A. Guns are a forerunner of sleaze rock. The band was formed in 1983 and it was the moniker of this band and its guitarist that added the ‘Guns’ to Guns’n’Roses. Axl Rose and Tracii Guns worked together in various constellations and bands with the guitarist being a driving factor. While Guns’n’Roses took off... Continue Reading →
CD review HIGH REEPER ‘Higher Reeper’
(7/10) High Reeper is based in Philadelphia and plays doom and stoner rock. The band was formed in 2016 and the newest longplayer ‘Higher Reeper’ is their sophomore album after having premiered in 2016 with ‘High Reeper’. Although the title of the sophomore release is more kind of playing with words the new longplayer is... Continue Reading →
CD review DEVIN TOWNSEND ‘Empath’
(10/10) Canadian guitar wizard Devin Townsend is an extremely creative mind. Musical ideas and thoughts manifests themselves in a lot of songs, spread out over many longplayers and it's impossible to put a certain label on Townsend's music. The music is certainly rooted in heavy metal and progressive metal, but Townsend takes things much wider... Continue Reading →
CD review MÖTLEY CRÜE ‘The Dirt Soundtrack’
(*/10) Mötley Crüe belongs to the forerunners of sleaze rock. The quartet from LA, California released genre defining albums like 'Shout at the Devil', 'Dr. Feelgood' and 'Girls, Girls, Girls', longplayers that include timeless Hard Rock anthems that are still relevant in the here and now. It was especially during the '80s when the four-piece... Continue Reading →
CD review GOLD ‘Why Aren’t You Laughing?’
(8/10) The first time I got in touch with Gold and their music was when the band opened for Dool in Utrecht a while ago. I must say that the guys left me with some mixed feelings and listening to them wasn’t a bad experience at all. It was me that I couldn‘t position the... Continue Reading →
CD review WITHERFALL ‘Vintage’ – EP
(8/10) Right before embarking on an acoustic tour with Finnish metallers Sonata Arctica, Witherfall unleashes a new EP entitled ‘Vintage’. Witherfall is the brainchild of the creative duo featuring Joseph Michael and Jake Dreyer. The first one’s known from Sanctuary while the latter is a part of Iced Earth. The two guys added Anthony Crawford,... Continue Reading →
CD review BATTLE BEAST ‘No More Hollywood Endings’
(6/10) ‘100% Heavy Metal – 0% Bullshit’, that’s what the label info sheet starts with. As usually the truth sits somewhere in the middle. Battle Beast’s newest album ‘No More Hollywood Endings’ is certainly not 100% Heavy Metal, which doesn’t per se means that the album is a bummer. The sugar-sweet melodies have a certain... Continue Reading →
CD review WHITECHAPEL ‘The Valley’
(9/10) US-based powerhouse Whitechapel premiered in 2007 with ‘The Somatic Defilement’. 12 years later the band is ready to release their newest album ‘The Valley’. As with the previous records also album number seven isn’t a happy one and doesn't include sing-a-long songs. It’s a dark and melancholic longplayer that contains a lyrical approach that’s... Continue Reading →
CD review VLTIMAS ‘Something Wicked Marches In’
(8/10) The name says it all - 'Something Wicked Marches In'. What else should be the outcome of a cooperation of Rune Eriksen (Aura Noir, Earth Electirc) and David Vincent, knows from Morbid Angel. These veterans, together with drummer Flo Mounier, are Vltimas and they recorded a metallic blast. The musical heritage of the three... Continue Reading →
CD review YNGWIE MALMSTEEN ‘Blue Lightning’
(8/10) To introduce guitar wizard Yngwie Malmsteen feels like carrying sand to the beach. In case you never heard of the iconic guitarist, you probably ended up on a wrong blog. Malmsteen is one of the most influential axeman and started his career in 1983 with a band named Steeler (not the German one with... Continue Reading →
CD review FALLUJAH ‘Undying Light’
(8/10) For some it‘s noise, for others it‘s chaos and for metalheads it‘s a treat for their ears - Fallujah‘s new album. Now, as you might know this kind of metal is not exactly where my roots are. However, it‘s this kind of records that are challenging and like a musical curveball. And as not being... Continue Reading →
CD review CELLAR DARLING ‘The Spell’
(8/10) Cellar Darling, that’s Anna Murphy, Ivo Henzi and Merlin Sutter. Right after the three guys parted ways with Eluveitie they initiated there new band Cellar Darling, named after the 2013 debut of Anna Murphy. Three years after having premiered with ‘This is the Sound’ it is the sophomore album ‘The Spell’ that picks it... Continue Reading →









