Reviews

The Vital Might is a newcomer to the alternative rock scene hailing from Boston. Red Planet is their second full-length album displaying a wealth of ambiance, groovy beats, driving rhythms and soaring melodies. The songs are adventurous at times with nicely varying use of dynamics and should please most fans of indie rock.

Within Temptation's latest live release "Black Symphony" captures perhaps the band's finest staging to date - a unique concert shot at Rotterdam's Ahoy Arena on February 7, 2008. It was sold out months in advance, and features the band accompanied by a 60-piece Metropole Orchestra and a 20-voice classical Pa'dam Choir performing to 10,000 fans. I spend literally days watching this over and over again, and the show simply doesn't get old - there's so much for one to see...

Three years after their successful debut album 'Contraband', Velver Revolver are back with a follow-up titled as Libertad. This time around the band has different production team consisting of Brendan O'Brien (mixing) and Bob Ludwig (mastering). Hence this record sounds better than their debut, but unfortunately some of the characteristics of the debut are missing... sure the music still is founded on vigorous riffs, pounding drums, and expressive choruses but some of the inventiveness and unexpectedness of the debut is missing. On the other hand, the material on Libertad is more consistent, and the album sounds rather solid.

Threshold's latest album has spent quite a lot of time in my CD player lately. Once again the band has crafted an amazing progressive metal album, which doesn't relapse too much on gimmickry but instead is quite a focused record. It has intriguing song structures, varying compositions and enticing hooks. However, a lot has happened since the interview I did with Richard West. Andrew "Mac" McDermott parted ways with the band, which must have come as a surprise to everyone. On a sidenote, in a way I always was more of a fan of the first singer Damian Wilson, because Mac's voice is a bit colder than Damian's. Regardless, Mac handles his part on this album well, and especially he seems to shine on the slower sections and ballads.

Chris Cornell has made quite a noteworthy career in rock with groups such as Soundgarden, Audioslave and Temple of the Dog, yet he still manages to surprise the listeners on his latest solo effort "Carry On". While I was expecting to hear a lot of tracks in the vein of Audioslave, it turned out this album relies on mellow material for the most part. Carry On is rather mature release in terms of music, which ranges from soulful blues to pop, rock and even country.

The debut record of Finnish melodic rockers Morian is quite a positive surprise with its solid song material and the distinctive vocals of Janne Siekkinen that make it an enjoyable album to listen to. However, partially due to the production, none of the tracks really stand out in the longer run. Instead they sound rather similar. Regardless, for a debut "Sentinels of the Sun" is definitely a laudable effort.

A thought that strikes one's mind immediately while listening to the new pop/rock act Night Kills the Day for the first time, is the unique yet somewhat cold sounding voice of the vocalist Luke Brian. The music itself is somewhere between The Cure, Joy Division, Bauhaus and U2. Notably this New York based four-piece recorded this debut theirs under Joe Blaney's (Ramones, Keith Richards, Clash among others) guidance.

A reissue of Slipknot's third album "Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)" features a bonus disc with some rarities and previously unreleased material - mainly remixes and live tracks. Their second album IOWA never really caught my attention, but this third release is fortunately much more diverse than their previous attempts. The songs are still based on hard-hitting grooves coupled with attitudinal vocal lines... yet there are also couple of songs that are rather mellow in comparison, something in the vein of Stone Sour.

There's a saying that a good song also works well unplugged... I, for one, concur with this statement, and hence I'm always interested in hearing groups perform acoustic renditions of their songs... this brings us to Korn's latest release consisting clever and intriguing acoustic arrangements of their best-known songs. Titled simply as MTV Unplugged, this is continuation to the series showcasing popular musical artists performing with acoustic instruments.

The Finnish rock group Suburban Tribe has been around for over 10 years already, initially being fronted by Jouni Markkanen, and the music being more on the mellow side. However, the millennium brought some changes, when the group signed with EMI and Markkanen was replaced by Ville Tuomi. From there on, Suburban Tribe got a heavier sound of their own coupled with Tuomi's distinctive voice.

Its the season for sitting in fields listening to music! So for the next few days this is exactly what I will be doing!

Rock Werchter is my poison of choice for this year, so there I will be from Thursday through to Monday. I dont know if live reviews are what you people like to read about, but if it is then leave me comments below telling me so and I will post some thoughts from the weekend upon my return!

My introduction to Rock Music (please read GOOD music) came when I went to university. Before that time the best that I had managed was Limp Bizkit and Blink 182 (I'm sorry!). I arrived at Uni all fresh faced and innocent, made friends with the people sharing my flat, and started attending this thing called a "Rock Night" at the Uni bar... My revelation had begun!

During the course of around a month going out on a Saturday night and rocking it up I discovered many new and interesting sounds and whenever I heard something I liked I asked my friend (Uncle Fester - Hi Fester!) for the name of the band. Luckily for me he usually knew, and better than that almost always had some albums that I could borrow to enhance my education. From here I discovered ALOT of music, infact most of the stuff I listen to now I discovered through Fester. The first band to catch my ear was the strangely named System of a Down.

Clutch - to seize with or as with the hands or claws; snatch.

Clutch - a mechanism for readily engaging or disengaging a shaft with or from another shaft or rotating part as used in an automobile.

Clutch - a "Back to basics" American Rock Band that this reviewer would bet you havent heard of!

Clutch have been blasting out their own form of traditional yet heavy American Bluesy Stoner Metal Rock since 1991. Although I would love to, I cant claim to have discovered them until 2004 - when the release of Blast Tyrant finally caught my attention. The main reason for this is that they are by no means a mainstream band, they enjoy staying under the radar and dislike radio or MTV attention, they love to tour, and have supported numorous bands including CKY and Motorhead. But because of their publicity style, unless someone actually tells you about them, or you happen to see them supporting someone you already know you like, you will never hear of them. However, once you find Clutch - you become a fan, and once you become a fan of Clutch - you never let go!

Queens of the Stone Age
Songs For The Deaf
2002
CD
Interscope Records

-----

I discovered Queens just after the release of this album, and boy did it change my listening habits for a good few months. I have a terrible habit of listening to an album to DEATH when I find something new that I like, and this happened more with this album than it had ever happened before.