Wow, Tony Clarkin, Bob Catley, Mark Stanway and their crew are definitely back with a vengeance. I was a big fan of the band’s early albums like Kingdom Of Madness, II and Marauder. Great stuff indeed, still is. I don’t think the band ever raised the bar over these albums, even though Vigilante and On A Storyteller’s Night are good efforts. Later day’s Magnum has also kept a pretty decent level of quality even though I’ve rarely revisited the newer albums that often. Well, I’m happy to say On The 13th Day proves this band can still surprise me. The album kicks off with heavy hitter All The Dreamers showing a glance of older days, but with a more updated and quite heavy sound. Blood Red Laughter continues in the same vein and Bob Catley actually sings better than ever. No sign of weakness or weariness. The man can still SING! The mix is full, fat and solid, reminding me a bit of the latest Uriah Heep album. The best part of it all, the songs are really great memorable pieces with nice hooks and ballsy riffs. Blood Red Laughter is a song that will pop up in my iPod quite often I feel. The same goes for the title track. Well, the same actually goes for the major part of the album. Dance Of The Black Tattoo has some of the chunkiest and heaviest guitars I’ve heard from the band in a long time, plus a chorus that sticks. Another killer track. There are however a few songs that may not be in the top league, such as So Let It Rain (a bit too pop for comfort) and… hmm… well, I guess that’s the only one, and it’s not even bad, just a cut below the rest. So, conclusion, this is without doubt the best album Magnum has produced since their heydays! Congrats, boys!
Janne Stark
Country: UK
Label: Steamhammer/SPV
Year: 2012
Skull Parade is a new and pretty exciting four-piece from the Gothenburg area. Bassist Magnus Lind has previously played in bands like Treasure Land and Calilio. Skull Parade plays heavy, grinding groove metal drawing some influences from various places and managing to blend it all together into a really fresh sounding musical cocktail (closer to strong merciless moonshine than any fine bar umbrella crap). I think I’d label the band modern retro, as they succeed in incorporating good old heavy riff rock into their quite modern sounding crunchy metal. Anell has a cool raspy voice, not sounding like anyone else, but still with hints of Ralf Gyllenhammar, Zakk Wylde and even some Ronnie Dio. I don’t remember him sounding this great in Art Rebellion (a much more melodic band). The band’s first EP features four songs, plus a radio edit of I Rise For No One, a song that reminds me a bit of Corroded, which ain’t a bad thing. All four songs are really great and my only complaint would be that there should be more of them. Looking forwards to that, I am!
Janne Stark
Label: private
Year: 2012
Country: Sweden
Evil Masquerade have delivered quite a bunch of high class albums leaning on the legacy of late seventies/early eighties bands like Rainbow and Deep Purple. Think Rainbow Rising mixed with Perfect Strangers with a heavier edge at times. Singer Apollo Papathanasio is also found in bands like Firewind and Spiritual Beggars, and he does an equally great job here with a voice that fits the style like a glove. Guitarist Henrik Flyman has also played in bands like Moahni Moahna and ZooL, bands that also had hints of the same style, especially the latter. Great, tasteful guitar playing is his forte. Not forgetting the excellent rhythm section featuring bassist Thor Jeppesen and drummer Dennis Buhl, who both provides a really solid and quite groovy foundation. Don’t expect no bells or whistles, this is classic hard rock the way it’s supposed to be played. This is the type of album I always tend to fall back to after having been enchanted by some technical wizardry for ten minutes. You know what you get, but what you get is a good and solid album that you can listen to beginning to end and each track just makes you feel good. Like I said, classic hard rock played and sung great with a fat and solid production.
Janne Stark
Label: Dark Minstrel
Year: 2012
Country: Sweden
Link: www.evilmasquerade.com
Bloodlit is another new Swedish act releasing a ton of bricks in the shape of a six-track MCD. The band kicks off with Take What’s Mine, which sets the pace with its steamroller riffing in the vein of colleagues Mustasch. Serf In USA continues in the same brutal vein, but adding a touch of good old Pantera brutality. The singer is quite similar to Ralf Gyllenhammar of Mustasch which fits the music just fine. Still I Feel takes it all down quite a few notches, to a ballad level. A really good track with a bit cleaner vocals showing a nice melodic feel. A great track, indeed! Atrocity kicks the nuts back in place again with its full throttle four to the floor up-tempo battering ram style rockin’. The last two tracks just adds to the brew and makes this a really good debut from this Swedish five-piece.
Janne Stark
Country: Sweden
Year: 2011
Label: private
The title alone made me interested in this album. Cocky! The debut album by Swedish death merchants Sterbhaus, Hits For Dead Kids, was pretty cool, but for some reason failed to catch my attention. I did however love the video for House Of The Dead Dwarf. After having listened to Angels For Breakfast… God For Lunch three times non-stop, I definitely feel this is quite captivating. Sterbhaus successfully balances on the fence between thrash, death and progressive metal. Catchy, fast and brutal yet full of technical brilliance, great musicianship and lots of cool twists and turns. These guys are not afraid of thinking outside the box and stretching the boundaries, which they show in one of my favourites, the high-speed thrasher Frogboiler, which reminds me a bit of F.K.Ü. Here they suddenly throw in a short piece of country out of the blue. Some tracks, like Deathwizz, are just crammed with cool riffs, carefully knit together into a fully comprehensive musical weave, a big thrashy plaid. Here they also throw in a surprisingly clean funk interplay. Insane, but fucking brilliant! Marcus’ vocals are also more in the thrashy vein and not of the growly death sort, which fits my taste better. The killer production by Jonas Kjellgren is just the icing on the cake. A bloody brilliant album that definitely should attract fans of classic US thrash as well as melodic and technical death metal.
Janne Stark
Country: Sweden
Year: 2012
Label: Killhead
Link: www.sterbhaus.com
