Everyone’s favourite German industrialists, Rammstein, are back with a brand new video clip. With elements of a glam rock visual, a trashy club, and a bunch of pensioners, ‘Zick Zack’ captures them in a genuinely off-beat mood.
THE GENTS – Chop The Rot EP
Taking the grubbiness of classic Mudhoney and injected it with the spirit of old school punk and a pinch of early Motorhead, German punk ‘n’ roll trio The Gents whip up a speed driven storm on their 2022 EP ‘Chop The Rot’. Although speed is often the key to bringing a genuine excitement to their material, also a great pleasure to be had when hearing the band approaching most of their work at full volume. This results in the kind of release that would appeal to a broad spectrum of punk fans.
FORTUNE – Level Ground
At the peak of AOR’s popularity in the 80s, there were a lot of great bands and artists whom, for whatever reason, never quite made the big time. They had the major label deal; they had the songs, and yet, struggled to make it into the first division with Journey and Survivor, and secure that place in record buyers’ long term memories. Perhaps it was just that in those days the melodic rock scene was over subscribed. The lack of sales for albums by Aviator, John Philip and Baxter Robertson – to give just three examples – certainly had nothing to do with a lack of talent.
HAGALAS – As A Unit EP
Finland’s Hagalas are often promoted as a death metal band, but as with so many Scandinavian acts, their music has far more depth, and more of an interest in actual melodies than your average death-based act. Yes, the four songs on their ‘As A Unit’ EP come weighted down by some very aggressive vocals, but most of the time, frontman Kailie Kohonen’s approach doesn’t even venture into the old school growls and grunts associated with the genre. In fact, it’s fair to say that plugging them as a death band is to sell them short. Very short.
WEIRD TALES – Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die EP
At the beginning of 2021, Polish doom metal band Weird Tales released an EP of material based around classic blues numbers. Their heaviness was without question; their lack of compromise even more so. Unfortunately, the end results were not only as scary as hell, but actually insulting to the legacies of the Delta blues pioneers. Good or bad – or in this case, possibly awful – they definitely made an impression.