KHYMERA – Master Of Illusions

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‘Master of Illusions’ comes five years after Khymera’s previous studio album ‘The Grand Design’, making the wait for new material almost as long as the band’s seven year hiatus following 2008’s ‘The Greatest Wonder’. It’s not like band leader Dennis Ward has been resting, of course: he’s continued to be one of the busiest men in the melodic rock scene, working with his other band Pink Cream 69 and moonlighting with Place Vendome (both of whom released albums in 2017), making an album with Gus G in 2018 and even stepping in for bass duties on Magnum’s 2020 opus ‘The Serpent Rings’. You have to wonder if he ever sleeps.

The all round quality of Khymera’s ‘Master of Illusions’ doesn’t suggest that Ward has spread himself too thinly, either. The album has more than enough top drawer material to make it stand up with the band’s earlier works. In ‘Follow The Sun’ and ‘After All This Time’, there are a couple of career bests, which is reason enough to check out this long player.

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REAL GONE EXCLUSIVE: The Bloody Mallard unveil new video for ‘Ceremonious Synapses (ii)’

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In January, London based art rockers The Bloody Mallard kicked off the new year by sharing the heavy and complex ‘Subject To Entropy’.  A month on, the band have returned with another taster for their upcoming album ‘Realm’.

In the band’s own words, the new single ‘Ceremonious Synapses (ii)’ “signals the most climatic point of the album”.  From a listening perspective, it shows the band in a more melodic light than before, but without losing any of their riff-based strengths.

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Listen: Dead Man’s Chest stream new 7″

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At the time of this two track release, it’s almost been a decade since Dead Man’s Chest released their first full length album ‘Hateline’. In that time, the London-based purveyors of noise have played hard and toured even harder, sharing stages with the legendary Sick of It All, Madball and a whole host of great hardcore bands.

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EVOLETAH – Run With The Hunted

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Led by vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Matt Cahill, Evoletah began life as a guitar driven rock band. Their first two albums were enjoyable to a point, but didn’t really do anything that would make them stand out in a world of other similar bands. In 2013, their ‘We Ache For The Moon’ presented something of a rebirth, with the band exploring jazz, rock and pop in a fusion that sounded almost cinematic. It had almost nothing to connect it to anything that’d come before, but it was superb and found a place as one of the year’s best albums. It was, and remains, a record that showcased a lot of musical talent, a broad musical imagination and a willingness to cut the strings of expectation. By doing what came naturally rather than trying to craft a broadly appealing alt-rock hit, the Australian band created an underground masterpiece.

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STONE MACHINE ELECTRIC – Stone Machine Electric

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To move forward, sometimes it’s important to take stock of the current situation and go back to the past. On this two track 7”, Texan doom duo Stone Machine Electric revisit the first songs they ever wrote together and in doing so go back as far as possible. Both tracks have been previously available, but this release marks their vinyl debut.

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