FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
Incredibly upbeat and dominant despite the overuse of operatics and keyboards—they still sound stuck somewhere between Diary Of A Madman and The Neverending Story soundtrack—Utopia is an indelibly catchy affair even if it refuses to advance the state of metal.
Unfortunately, while the best moments of Dominator would make a pretty solid EP, this mostly mid-paced album has a hard time holding my attention for 50 minutes.
Germany’s Secrets of the Moon win this year’s award for most black on an album cover. Luckily for listeners, there’s as much inky depth to Privilegivm as the packaging’s colour pallette suggests.
It’s an eerily attractive package for those who appreciate agonized expressions, androgynous bodies, and the aesthetics of the damned. What it all sounds like is a graveyard chamber orchestra, complete with strings and horns performed by a long list of guest musicians and produced by John A. Rivers (Love and Rockets, Dead Can Dance, Buzzcocks).
Are You Ready? is an interesting visual document of Thin Lizzy during what is one of the lowest periods of their original run. While the band was still a good live act and a decent draw, by the time they released their Chinatown album in 1981 there were many cracks in the machine that spurred the band on. Filmed live in Loreley, Germany by WDR for their Rockpalast program, one of the coolest live music programs on the planet, this nineteen song set is good but not great.
Setlist for the recent Doro show in Toronto on Hellbound.ca
In my opinion Doro is the best female heavy metal vocalist of all time; it was a real gift just to catch her for the first time back in June 2007 – that show was amazing but seeing her for the second time was like winning the metal lottery.
Albert Mansour reviews the recent Toronto performance by German metal goddess Doro.
Over time, Sinner has evolved from a cheesy hard rock band into a more serious power metal band into a repository for ideas that would not fit on a Primal Fear album. Of the three albums considered here, Judgement Day marks the transition from the first to the second stage while the remaining two albums are embedded in the “serious power metal” stage.
Doom purists may be put off by some of the softer more melodic fare on here but I find Ahab’s diversity refreshing and adventurous in what can sometimes be a rather monochromatic genre. Like waves that swell and then recede, Ahab seems to have adopted a similar approach to their song craft and for the most part it works admirably.
German power metal band Edguy returns with their second live album. Recorded live in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2006 in front of 5,000 Edguy maniacs on the Rocket Ride tour, this fourteen track two cd set displays the full impact of this band.