Avatar from Stockholm are not that well known outside their native country where they have already built themselves quite a reputation. After releasing three albums, Swedish metal band Avatar is back with their fourth full-length album Black Waltz. Avatar surprise with overwhelming song writing and a lot of variation.. Although it has a strong industrial Manson versus Ramstein touch, it’s comes across very refreshingly. It’s just fun listening to the entire album.
Formed in Cyprus in 2003, the band Blynd saw first light. they saw it as a personal mission to bring the starving underground metal scene on surface and to spread the tentacles of their music . Their first demo “Embraced and Abandoned” (2004) received excellent reviews from magazines and webzines around the world, such as Terrorizer Magazine scoring the demo with 8.5 and caught the attention of underground magazines witch was the start of a growing fan base.
Following experiences in other bands (I only have actual info on one of 'em, really – see further), singer Chris “Box” Pugsley and guitarists Marc Matthews & Toby Stewart (both play lead as well as rhythm guitar parts; the latter was in Awake By Design, but I doubt he contributed to the 2 full-length self-released albums of that band) came together in 2008 through their mutual love for and understanding of Melodic Death Metal.
German label Pelagic signed the rather young act Family, a band with four experienced musicians in its ranks. Family recorded this debut, which lasts for forty seven minutes, at Translator Audio (Melvins, Unsane) and it features a guest appearance by John Lamacchia, guitar player in e.g. Candiria, Crooked Man, Julie Christmas and Spylacopa.
Holy Dragons band was created on the 11th of September in 1992 and till 1997 existed under the name Axcess in Almaty, Kazakhstan. In those beginning days of Holy Dragons, they were situated at Metal of the 80-ties and this influence still remains the main principal of the band.
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.
