death rock / punk / hard rock

Bordeaux, France, to most people probably known as one of the world's greatest wine regions. But if you thought the Bordeaux was a place of vineyards, cheese and tranquility, you're wrong. Bordeaux is also the birthplace of Volker, a dark rock entity that makes a lot of noise and defies genre classification.

Fronted by an energetic Jen Nyx, Volker effortlessly blends todays heavy scene with those of the eighties and nineties. Yet, before you expect something grungy or glamrocky, Volker seems to prefer the darker things in life and thus also in music.

The result is a massively varied dark rock album where death rock, gothic doom, hardcore punk and hard rock meet. I can hear flashes from The Misfits, Ramones, Moonspell, Christian Death, Guns 'n Roses and even some bands in today's metalcore scene. Metalcore fans will adore 'Yell', a vein cutting ballad, while deathrock aficionados will undoubtedly fill the dancefloors whenever 'Freaky' starts to play. There is truly something for everyone in the dark music scene.

The majority of the music on this album aims for either the mosh pits of the dark dance floor and in that aspect the horror punk smasher 'Voodoo Baby' is my favorite track. Jen Nyx goes pretty damn wild here, as she often does, which places this excellent old school punk rocker into a modern day metalcore thing that even I can appreciate. Needless to say perhaps, but this album rocks and obviously that's a good thing. So yes, dark rock fans of around the world, check it out, this would make an excellent addition to your collection.


​Serge

black metal

krautrock / post punk

hard rock / grunge

dark ambient

classical

grindcore

stoner rock / psychedelic rock

drone / ambient

thrash metal

doom metal

black metal / folk metal

post rock / ambient

electronic / downtempo / psychill

electronic / downtempo / dub

Mindspring Music

grindcore

drone / black metal

doom / avant garde

hard rock / metal

Time for a firm dose of good old fashioned rock 'n roll, courtesy of Parisian quintet On Last Shot. This debut is loaded with denim and leather, beer and whiskey, drums & guitars. In fact, the only thing I'm missing here are the girls dancing on top of the bar. I hope that they fix that in the upcoming album, or at least on the cover.

But for now, put on your boots, grab your helmet and ride you chopper to the raunchy pub where these guys are playing. It's going to be a party, I promise you. By the end of it you'll be completely drunk and broke but you'll know it was worth it.

The album opens with 'I'm a gambler', an excellent hard rock tune that somewhat reminds me of Guns 'n Roses.With that, One Last Shot sets the tone for the entire album. We're here to rock, that's for damn sure. In that aspect, 'One Night Stand' is an early highlight, one of my absolute favorites on this album. It's a groovy but heavy hard rock song, perhaps a bit punk induced. 'Embrace The Fire' takes on a more Southern rock approach, not bad, not at all.

I'm having a lot of fun with this album and I'm beginning to think that the French are exceptionally good at producing this otherwise typically American sound. One Last Shot can easily stand between their fellow countrymen like Flayed and Zoe. They're excellent musicians and they know a great deal about having fun. 'Thou Should Be Drunk', for example, is a well written song with great guitar solos and a tempo that will get many heads banging.

I'm not going into a song by song description for this album because I know you'll get the general idea by now. Rock 'n roll, influenced by thrash metal, punk and alcohol, that is exactly what you get on this album. If you love anything between the earlier mentioned Guns 'n Roses, Motorhead, Black Label Society and Volbeat, you don't want to miss out on this one. So check it out, bang your head, start that mosh pit and hope me in joining that these dudes cross the French borders soon.


​Serge

hard rock

You know what the hardest part of being a music reviewer is? It's having to sit down and write about the album while that exact album makes you want to party your ass off. Currently, I'm in my couch, trying to find a decent balance between typing and headbanging. It's not easy, certainly not with this music.

It sounds like it comes directly form a searing hot desert in Texas, caused by a meeting between hard rockers, punks and thrash metal fans. It sounds like they're partying hard on beer, whiskey and gut piercing riffs.

But in fact, it comes from Saint Petersburg, Russia. Tornado Kid was formed in 2013. After releasing three EP's and several music videos, they have now released their debut full-length. That full-length is simply stunning. It's packed with pounding drums, flashing guitars and heaps of alcohol. The band members claim it's "Booze&Blues" but if that's true, it's damn heavy blues. Besides, it's way more than that.

The entire album is dedicated to the rock 'n roll life. Girls & guitars, beer & bass, that kind of stuff. So it's no wonder that the music is an awesome combination of Southern rock, hardcore punk and thrash metal. And even then, here and there a heavy version of Papa Roach comes up. On other occasions you're bathed in irresistible groove metal. Zakk Wylde comes to mind, along with Agnostic Front, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Foo Fighters, Black Stone Cherry, Andrew WK and Slayer.

Yeah, I know, that's a shitload of names and quite some different ones too. But this album simply is varied, heavy, groovy and immersive as hell. Every rock 'n roll bar in the world should have this thing in its collection. Every rock 'n roll DJ should play at least one of these songs at parties. There are plenty of songs that will get people off their feet, banging their heads of starting a mosh pit. It's just that bloody good. 


​Serge

psychedelic rock / doom

By now, there's no denying that psychedelic rock and doom metal have been making a huge comeback in the past few years. Once frowned upon by the metal scene for being soft, slow and boring, doom metal now is a widespread subgenre that includes sludge, post-metal, psychedelic rock, space rock and stoner rock.So it's no surprise that there are plenty of bands converting to the power of the riff and the glory of the fuzz. With it, the influences from the world of the occult also seem to return and blend in with the music. Personally, I think that is a good thing. There are still plenty of amazing songs being written and coated in that awesome, vintage seventies sound.

This album by Spanish trio Kabbalah contains eight of those songs, plus a perfect, creepy intro. Not only to these women come up with excellent occult psychedelic rock music, they also enhance it with great vocals. Somehow they make me imagine The Breeders taking on the music of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. Other bands that come to mind include Coven, Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, L7 and so on.

While opener 'Resurrected' follower 'Phantasmal Planetoid' are my absolute favorites, all of these songs would fit perfectly in your psychedelic playlists. Furthermore, on 'The Darkness of Time' they prove to know a thing or two about old school blues rock. 'Dark Revelation', another firm highlight is a groovy rocker that will get young and old hard rockers off their feet, no doubt about that. 

In all, I think this is an excellent piece of occult rock, psychedelic rock or old school doom metal, whatever you would like to call it. I admit, perhaps not every song is as strong as the next one but they all have that gloomy, mysterious atmosphere which gives the whole thing a nice conceptual feel. So yeah, I can only recommend this album and I hope that I'll get the chance to see these women perform these songs live one day.


​Serge

hard rock / stoner rock / grunge

Tunes From The Void is an album by hard rock/grunge German group Grained, released on June 2. Forty three minutes and twenty five seconds long, the record has nine tracks: Gasoline, 35°28'N 138°39'E, Floods, Circus, Shadow Of The Sun, Deadlock, Closure, Interlord and L.O.R.D. A very interesting and rejuvenating album, with a sensible anatomy, designed over fluctuating rhythms increasing in an ever expansive and sophisticated sonorous dynamics, Tunes From The Void departs from a somewhat amazingly fresh, free-flowing, intense and delicate combination of hard rock and grunge, with a contemporary flavor that ads to their music a flexible perception of higher artistry, that easily matches a modern mosaic of graceful melodies with the more hazardous hardline of an explosive, but simple, convergence of savage freedom.

With engraving melodies, beautifully adorned and astoundingly elaborated, at the same time – being exceptionally radio-friendly –, the group has great possibilities of achieving a wider audience through airplay (if radios in their home country give them this chance), since Grained is certainly one of the best hard rock bands to come recently from Germany, in particular, and to appear on the global underground scene, on a wider scale. With a very original sound that doesn’t renounce nor try to renegade its roots, Tunes From The Void, track after track, reveals itself to be a captivating and lancinating piece of awesome and incredible originality. With filthy, abrasive, aggressive and thoroughly genuine guitar lines, Grained remembers a little the best bands of the genre, being a lot more superior than mainstream groups like Seether and Creed. 

Sincerely, I only have the best to say about this album. Track after track, you get surprised, with explosive melodies, beautiful and even poetic harmonies – driven by softly inspirational and deeply reflexive emotional intonations of serene imponderability –, as well as an everlasting feeling that comes from a universe where the music is perpetually seen as a detachment from our own soul. Summarizing, I have to say that, besides surprising, Tunes From The Void has it all: hostile and delusional guitars, pungent and perfectly aligned vocals, sensational and profound melodies, sidelined by a formidable eschatology of disturbed furious sincerity and disgrace, and amazingly graceful horizons of rhythmic dissonances dancing over gray oceans of joyful rapture. Really, there is no other album like this one. A masterpiece that has soul and intensity, in each and every note of its perfectly envisioned music.         

Well, what more can I say about Tunes From The Void, besides the fact that this an almost perfect album, an amazingly vibrant masterpiece, a colossal and astoundingly balanced mixture of hard rock and grunge, elaborated with the authentic gracefulness of creative values, like you have never heard before in your life? Well, that I’m dying to hear it again, of course!        
       

Wagner

hard rock / heavy metal

Snakes & Liars is an album by Swedish heavy metal group Nekromant, released in June 16. Only thirty six minutes long, the record has nine tracks: Stoned to Death, Doomed to Die, Funeral Worship, Black Velvet, Ashes & Rain, Inside Yourself, Mardröm, Never Saved, Snakes & Liars and Spelmannen. Obviously influenced by Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne – given the striking similarities in musical style and vocals –, despite the fact that traditional heavy metal is not one of my favorite genres, Snakes & Liars caught me by storm, revealing itself to be all the way through a surprisingly awesome, astoundingly decent and powerfully great album. With amazingly written guitar lines, a majorly conducted, but mostly ordained ferocity, an elevating respect for tradition – but never repetition – and the development of a mature, secure, genuine and singular style, Nekromant gives to its audience, with Snakes & Liars, a thoroughly overwhelming work of art. This album deserves all the compliments a contemporary heavy metal record could ever aspire to. Given the fact that the genre has mainly exhausted its possibilities, the gracious level of authenticity and creativity that Nekromant displays on this album is no minor achievement.

With soft guitars that can be constructively aggressive and inherently inhospitable at the same time, their style is not only profoundly cohesive and coherently consistent, but – easy to recognize – solidifies a reliant sonorous identity that ostensibly could characterizes them as, possibly, the major representatives of the genre in the underground scene for the years to come. With one song better than another, Snakes & Liars reveals itself to be a gracious collision of ideals, that masterly punctuates the genre as the sacred epitome of an infinite creativity that would never expire.           

If one negative aspect can be pointed out, is the notion that their style sounds too similar to Black Sabbath for the greater part of the album, mainly the Ozzy Osbourne era, given the fact that the voice of the singer is practically identical to that of the heavy metal icon. Nevertheless, despite this feature, Nekromant is not merely a generic band. They have developed a great sound in formidable and vivaciously dynamic attributions, like no other band in the contemporary history of the genre. Although they do have their musical references, that are easily recognizable, their vivid musical creativity outstands every other qualities (or deficiencies) that a listener may find. With cohesive harmonies, honest and masterly designed melodies, delusional guitar solos and sensational abilities that enables them to be one of the best bands of the genre not only in their native Sweden, but certainly in the whole underground scene in general, Nekromant is a fabulous and decisive heavy metal group, that has everything to be a household name in the global scene. 


Talent, they have too much. And as it would be expected with a band on this category, Snakes & Liars has revealed itself to be a very state of the art work. One that you shouldn’t dare not listening to. It would be the biggest heresy you could ever commit.  


Wagner