CD

If you like your heavy metal with a serious dose of blues, then this band Iron Claw is just what you’re looking for.  They originally toured the UK between 1969 and 1974, but never officially released an album, and finally disbanded.  In 2009 at last there was the release of a self-titled CD by Rockadrome.

When Ripple Music were planning to start an own record label, they immediately thought of Iron Claw, and contacts were made.  As it happened to be, the band also had plans to reform, and so they did.

King Hiss is a musical collaboration between Jan Coudron (Carneia, Fenndango), Jason Bernard (Gootch), Visioene (Mans Ruin, Empathy) and Josh Fury (Mans Ruin, Congress, Liar) witch happened somewhere in june 2011. These rockers try to find the perfect balance between heavy riffing, sticky choruses and groovy rythms. but the ball started rolling when the band started taking shape after Jason and Josh's bands fell apart.

Two man band Kroh brings to the table a mixture of several different metal genres that some might say shouldn’t may be crossed. Their style is a cocktail of industrial, shoegaze, alt rock, sludge, doom and 70’s rock. Musically, the band is pretty tight and adventurous. The guitars maintain a fuzzy sound and hovers between the kinetic drums and 70s horror bands such as Jacula, Black Land, Antonius Rex–like synths, all done by multi instrumentalist Paul Kenney.

Nar Mattaru are a band from Chile, consisting of two members of the original line-up of Chilean cult-act Dominus, Francisco Bravo (b, g) and Andrés Gonzales (d) (later: Dominus Xul). A first official effort was done in 2009: the demo In The Black Spheres Of Time, featuring vocalist (read: throat) Carlos Artarys.

If you’d put this CD on, almost everybody that loves classical music, with hints of more modern music in it (because of the sporadic use of modern instruments) would tell you that this is fantastic music.  You wouldn’t even suspect this was written by a metal band.  As a matter of fact this music could even have been used as the soundtrack for some or another fantastic movie, like Lord Of The Rings for instance.

Ocean Mind is a stoner rock band that unleashes their 11 demons on the Leaders Records. They could have at least brushed of the cobwebs and the dust before recording it. 2 Ready 2 Live shows that these Greeks have the necessary musicianship and down to earth basics. The songs “Leather messiah”, “Scissor tongue” and “End of time” are injected with a lot of good solos, but listening through the whole album gets tedious very quickly as it sounds the same to me.

No my dear friends, this is not a new Survivor album you could be listening to, but it’s once again a gem, chock full of very nice tunes by Pride Of Lions.  As a matter of fact this is already their fourth studio album since their first release in 2003. You cannot ignore the tell-tale voice of Jim Peterik of course, but Toby Hitchcock also sings a mean tune if you ask me.

Active for nearly 15 years, Riverboat Gamblers play on their sixth studio album once again a healthy mix of punk, grunge and rock’n’roll... A fair share of true rockers, like the exquisite “Comedians” and “Bite my tongue” make it next to impossible to sit still. But there is also a melancholy side to the band, as can be heard on “Gallows bird”.. Some tracks like “Heart conditions” and “Loser neck” are quite catchy and would be ideal to be released as singles.

My first thoughts when hearing this album: Evanescence, but less metallic.

To start with Linddsay Schoolcraft’s voice sounds very similar to Evanescence’s Amy Lee.  But the comparison with Evanescence does not end there.  The music also is of a similar type, gothic, but in Evanescene’s case there’s a good dose of metal in the music.  Schoolcraft in contrast is mostly only using a piano and percussion, with occasionally some other instruments mixed in as well.

This South Wales based 5-piece Metalcore act was founded in late 2001, has since released a demo, 2 EPs, and a preceding debut full-length, and have toured ll over the UK and Europe with the likes of Parkway Drive, Suicide Silence, The Chariot, Everytime I Die, Becoming The Archetype, Bury Your Dead, Raging Speedhorn, Funeral For A Friend, Crowbar, and many, many more...