CD

Deathkings  is  heavy, very heavy,   the  album gives  us only 4 tracks but with the total length  just passing the 40 minute marker,  it can be validated as being a full length.

Although this Stockholm based Swedish retro Heavy Metal band was formed only recently, as a result of a conversation between Peter Stjärnvind (veteran of the Swedish Metal scene, with a history in the bands Face Down, Entombed, Unanimated, Regurgitate, Nifelheim, Merciless, Damnation, Born Of Fire, and currently still also active with Pest, Murder Squad and Krux) and Joseph Tholl

Is David Coverdale in need of some money, or is Frontiers Records running out of new bands I don’t know, but this is the umpteenth live album from this band that is released the last years.

Of course it’s true that 2014 marks the 30^th Anniversary of the ‘Slide It In’ album, which is the first album they received multiple Platinum for.  But we’ve heard all these songs before, and most of them feature on one – or another – live album from this band.

Another “new” band on the block with a rich past arose on the British landscape in the year 2011, when the well-seasoned vocalist Leigh Oates (of Order Of Voices and Rise To Addiction repute), guitarist Steve Wray (also Rise To Addiction, and of Blaze), bassist Wayne Banks (also of Blaze, with Messiah's Kiss, Sabbat and Joe Lynn Turner as further items on his curriculum) and drummer Jeff Singer

Skullflower are one of the outfits created by Matthew Bower, whom you might know from the likes of Pure, Total, Sunroof!, Voltigeurs etc. With the latter, he joins co-operation with Samantha Davies, who’s part of Skullflower’s line-up nowadays.

Now this is heavy, extremely. Call it Doom, Sludge, Drone, or all of it together and SOTT is the result.

Hey hey...the return of an old acquaintance! Yep, although ScaRveD is but a recently formed act (came into existence in September 2012), its members are all seasoned ruts from the Belgian “Rock” scene, and the first time I came in contact with guitarist Luc Van Dessel goes back to my beginning years as a music journalist.

Having been disbanded in 1992, having lost their record deal and also the support from radio stations, MTV, and God knows who else, Sacntuary announced they would be reuniting in the original line up, save for guitarist Sean Blosi and would be playing on some metal festivals in Europe and the US.

What the f..ck is this I thought, when I put this CD on.  Was I given some as yet unknown, hidden Motörhead album ?  But halfway through the first song the reality dawned on me. This is a band who is doing his utmost best to sound like the aforementioned band, and almost succeeds.  Starting from the voice, down to the bass guitar, even the sound of the drums and the guitars have been copied from Motörhead, at least that’s my opinion.

First a remark, for this split has been announced as a Greek collaboration; even within the CD-book gets mentioned: ‘Hellenic Black Metal War …raise the banners…’. So, what’s my ‘problem’? Actually I do not care, but being a purist (I admit: I am a semi-autistic freak…) I have to make this remark. This split consists of three projects amongst which two that hail from Greece indeed, and one that actually is not located in Hellas at all.