HEXVESSEL : IRON MARSH

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So Svart’s label heaves themselves upon the occult folk/psych bandwagon and it is a winner. When listening Iron Marsh one it perceives like they expand the barriers of their material , a cunning mixture of psych, folk, medieval, progressive rock and spiritual music whose final result is an unique sound with its unmistakable stamp, and that despite the acoustic guitar presence, the music is not sterile in this area, giving also prominent roles to good ol’ hammond, violin, flute, horns as well as a good range of percussion.

 

Anyone even slightly into the folk- prog scene should check this one out.

 

 

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BLACK STAR RIDERS : ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE

In October 2012 Thin Lizzy announced that they would not be recording new material under the Thin Lizzy monicker. The last incarnation of the band - Scott Gorham, Brian Downey (replaced by Jimmy DeGrasso), Darren Wharton, Ricky Warwick, Damon Johnson and Marco Mendoza – would be looking to form a new project. Step forward Black Star Riders…All Hell Breaks Loose is Black Star Riders’ first album to date, and the first release under the wings of Nuclear Blast. The collaboration is most likely a good move on both sides. In a nutshell, the band have a well-established name backing them up, and basically Nuclear Blast gets the privilege of being able to say We have Thin Lizzy in our corner!

Honestly, as much as I am pleased to see the band back in action again, I have to say that most of the tracks on this album did not really make as much of an impact on me as I had hoped. Let’s face it : Phil Lynott was/is God. It is not a BAD album by any means, but I guess I just expected more, especially after waiting 30 years for it. However, it is a good hard rock release, but just not what I would class as being anything comparable to Thin Lizzy’s previous works. Still, if you like a good melodic hard rock-sounding album, you should be pretty happy

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THE LONE CROWS : THE LONE CROWS

 

The Lone Crows is a US psych blues rock quartet composed of Tim Barbeau - Lead Vox, Guitar; Julian Manzara – Guitar, Andy Battcher - Bass  and Joe Goff – Drums. Musically, this is the basic blues rock formula perfected by Wolfmother, Triggerfinger and Black Keys, a liberal dose of Jimi Hendrix, a pinch of Muddy Waters and flavoured with a whole wild bunch of fantastic guitar solos. The debut album by The Lone Crows features 9 songs at less than 50 minutes and it doesn't seem like struggle to get through it all. All the songs have distinctive hooks despite not being terribly ground breaking. But that's OK, not everything has to push the musical envelope.

 

Three words describe this album perfectly: Fresh, catchy and unpretentious.

 

 

 

COFFINS : THE FLESHLAND

 

The band's fourth full length  release, The Fleshland, is a pretty brutal slab of

sludge/death metal that could find quite a bit of appeal worldwide with a little exposure. The incredible raw production manages to capture the spirit of the eighties whilst the music heads for Autopsy/Venom/Hellhammer/Asphyx revisited vibe by way of primitive death metal tendencies. The music features crashing drums, nothing too complex, but effective nevertheless, and crushing, groove-laden guitars. The sporadic changes in tempo, from monolithic, bludgeoning Winter-sections to faster, equally relentless Autopsy- ish passages make for an aggressive and chaotically kamikaze sound.

 

The Fleshland, though no classic, is one of those albums that needs to be in your collection.

 

 

 

HIDDEN MASTERS : OFF THIS AND OTHER WORLDS

 

Of This and Other Worlds is a 10 track CD full of beautiful and powerful masterpieces that are performed with so much feeling and passion, the intensity of each track is so deep you wonder what was going around the time of writing and recording. It finds Glasgow, Scottish band Hidden Masters exploring acidic rhythms and organic melodies, floating on the poetics of wah-wah guitar and spacey analogue synth effects creating a pretty psychedelic atmosphere.This band certainly has listened a lot to Chocolate Watchband, Syd Barrett, Buddy Holly, Blues Magoos, July and the entire Nuggets compilation.

 

The boys from Glasgow should definitely be proud of themselves with this one. Brilliant!

 

 

DEEP PURPLE : NOW WHAT?!

 

 

Truly one of hard rock great survivors UK’s Deep Purple return with their 19th album and Now What?! is already being heralded as one of the best records the group has released in not years, but decades.

Tracks that are not too long, created with eye for detail, and totally understanding the art of restraining oneself, just to be able to burst into more power without ever losing control.  It might have been a eight year wait, but if that’s what it takes to come up with something this good, so be it. OK, there might still be a few Ritchie Blackmore addicts-fans who long for a return to the band’s hard rockin’ roots, and they will be disappointed, but for most other fans this will be manna from heaven. Almost fifty years in to what has already been an impressive career, the band seem to have hit on a new golden age, and it will be very interesting to see what they come up with next.

 

 

CHURCH OF MISERY : THY KINGSOM SCUM

 

It took Church of Misery four years to release their fourth CD titled Thy Kingdom Scum. CoM are a quartet from Japan that combines elements of doom, stoner and NOLA sludge in a fascinating way. They ass to this an incredibly authentic seventies low fuzz feeling that won me over instantly. Foremost I am impressed by the dynamic production that helps this album to develop its sound structures even more. Most of the music is kept in mid-tempo, but the production is so fuzz and raw, the grooving melodies all so evolved and involving that I hardly can stop listening to this album at the moment. The whole album is much the same all the way through, but there is hardly a dull moment. Picking up the heaviness of Sabbath, introducing the likes of Down, Sleep and Grand Funk into the mix this lot are sonic roller coasters of ghoulish abysmal sounds.  Compositions, arrangements and production sound just right on this album, probably the best ever done by this amazing live band.

 

 

APE SKULL : APE SKULL

 

The style is very much based on late 1960s-early 1970s music, primarily bluesy and psych rock. However Ape Skull inject that particular sound with a healthy dose of adrenaline as they deliver all the soul and fire that was good about this type of music and they thrust it out there with pure grit and surging grooves This is down and dirty bluesy rock music with an edge and plenty of heart and it sounds like the band is having a good time.  This Italian power trio puts 110% into every song and that effort comes through your speakers as pure energy.  My personal favorites are “Make me free”,  the aforementioned “So deep”  and  the Captain Beyond like “Take me back” but this is one of those albums where you can pretty much take your pick and be satisfied. They have even paid homage to obscure seventies period with covering Orange Peel.

Yep, these guys are yet another welcome vintage rockin’ addition to my collection.

 

 

DEATH TRIP : PAIN IS PAIN

 

 

If you can imagine a space punk band, all of whose members were suffering from schizophrenia, then that is something like what Death Trip sound like on the demented Pain Is Pain, which collects 3 singles from the period 1988-1994 and some demo material. Pain Is Pain  is a curious item, not really something that one would call a great classic, but nevertheless a reissue that is worth listening even years after its releases, slightly noisy at first, but within a couple of tracks everything starts to fall in place. The general tone is amateurish yet fairly compelling and authentic, and based on these The Stooges meets Birthday Party meets Rocket From The Tombs meets Spacemen 3 tunes it is obvious that the amount of thought put into this fucked up material was well below average, but that’s the charm of it. If you like your rock with a spastic edge, check these cats out.