Rock

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    U.S. Christmas – Run Thick In The Night (2010)

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    All the way from the Appalachian Mountains today we get the deeply enigmatic U.S. Christmas and their super trippy Psychedelic Rock/Blues/something else. Our first encounter with this awesome band was on the Hawkwind tribute split album, where the band completely owned Hawkwind’s songs and provided an amazing rendition of them.

    Signed to Neurot Recordings, the band delivers their fifth full-length release “Run Thick In the Night” (RTITN for short) which clocks at almost 80 minutes. With such a long album you would expect to have a bunch of wasted time, but with RTITN this is not the case. Every single sample, riff, etc, is creatively masterminded to be part of the whole experience created for this album, and before you know it the CD ends and you will want to keep listening to it for hours.

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    Shadowgarden – Ashen (2010)

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    Featuring Draconian members Johan Ericson and Andy Hindenäs (Ex-Draconian), Shadowgarden is another Gothic Rock/Metal band to appear on the scene courtesy of Napalm Records. While having heavy competition on their label with Lacrimas Profundere, Shadowgarden’s Gothic Rock/Metal is good enough to make them a name for themselves and become one of the top bands in the scene.

    As we could expect, Shadowgarden’s biggest appeal is the solid guitar work. The ten songs in this album feature a plethora of powerful guitar riffs and melodies, something that Johan is an expert in creating, both with Draconian and Doom:VS. “Ashen” quickly made us remember the sound of bands like To/Die/For, Charon, Entwine, etc, where the melancholy behind the music is ever present thanks to the excellent guitar work.

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    Corruption – Bourbon River Bank (2010)

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    How would you explain listening to Southern/Stoner Rock from Poland?, we are at loss for words with this very solid release from Poland’s Corruption. The band has been around for quite a while (1991) and we have never heard of them until now, and let us tell you that similarly to Black River, they come rocking, kicking-ass and taking names.

    Five years have passed since the band’s latest effort “Virgin's Milk” and they are now back with “Bourbon River Bank”, an album that we would have expected from an American band, but never (ever) from a Polish band. For over 50 minutes, Corruption takes us on a hard rocking journey through 13 powerful and catchy songs.

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    City of Fire – City of Fire (2010)

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    Featuring Fear Factory’s Burton and Stroud, City of Fire has been around since 2008 and their self-titled release has been available to buy from the band’s site for quite a while now, but it’s finally getting a proper release date of August 24th, by Candlelight Records. This re-release includes three newly recorded bonus tracks: "Children of the Revolution”, "Last Wish", and "Dark Tides Revisited”, all of which we did not receive in our promo copy so will not be talking about them.

    As you can imagine, Burton vocals are what makes this release very engaging for any fans of Metal and Hard Rock music. His characteristic pipes provide all the emotion needed for such a genre-combining release. The band’s music is not your typical “Metal” album and will surely puzzle some of Fear Factory’s biggest fans. But after a few spins, “City of Fire” comes out as a very enjoyable hard-rocking commercially-friendly release that features a group of great musicians doing exactly what they do best: great and catchy music.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Liv Kristine – Skintight (2010)

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    First of all we have to disclose that we are HUGE fans of Liv Kristine and we have loved almost every thing she has ever released in her career, until now. “Skintight” shows the desperation of an artist trying to break into ‘mainstream’ music. With Leaves’ Eyes and Atrocity being highly popular and very different musical outlets you would image that such a quality singer like Liv would have enough.

    Since 1998, Liv has been releasing stuff promoting her solo career. We loved “Deus Ex Machina” since it was a nice break from her main gig back in those days (Theater of Tragedy) and it featured some nice folk-ish songs with some other pop-ish material mixed in between. Not much came of this (except in Norway) and she went back to releasing ToT albums until she got the boot in 2003. And we feel that her best chance at ‘mainstream’ commercial success was with “Musique” and “Assembly”, some electronic/techno oriented albums that shined with her vocals.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Pussy Sisster – Pussy Sisster (2010)

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    With one of the most annoying and shitty looking MySpace pages in the world, today we have Pussy Sisster and their self-titled release. Usually whenever we have a band that has the words pussy, snatch, virginal, and Satan on their name we immediately deduct 10 points of their review. For Pussy Sisster, we did not do this since their name actually embodies everything this band stands for and their rock-star looks.

    Playing hard-hitting Rock and Roll, the band does a great job in capturing the sound of bands like Kiss, Poison, Cinderella, Mötley Crue, etc. Pussy Sisster has the right sound and look to make people re-live their glory days listening to the previously mentioned bands while doing their hair (and other activities).

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Fright Night – The Play of Pain (2010)

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    In our big digital pile of electronic promos today we discovered this amazing release that makes us wonder why the hell didn’t we listened to this album before. This Fright Night, there are several bands with this name, is a band that hails from Russia, and has a very unique and deeply depressive sound.

    With a lineup featuring two super hot girls, one on guitars/vocals and the other one handling the keyboard duties, this is probably one of the few bands that is truly pleasing both visually and aurally The band plays a very interesting Gothic Rock with some Darkwave elements that will haunt your dreams for weeks to come.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Saint To Sinner – The Unveiling (2010)

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    We receive a high volume of releases from bands every month, always claiming that they sound like nobody else, and end up sounding like everybody else. This is not the case when it comes to Saint To Sinner, hailing from Rhode Island, USA the band does a great job at having a very unique sound to them. And here is where their little problem occurs.

    The band’s combination of Rock and different genres of Metal sounds a bit chaotic at times, and sometimes the female vocals are going in one direction, and the music is going somewhere else. Desiree Villegas as a very hypnotic and versatile singing style, but in some sections her vocals sound very odd, like the spoken backing section, and the awful ‘rapping’ on the song “Anti-corporate”. Some comparisons to Amy Lee of Evanescence are in order, but her voice sound less over produced and feels more natural.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Black River – Black’n’Roll (2010)

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    Featuring members from the almighty Behemoth, Vesania and Dimmu Borgir we have today Black River and their second full-length release “Black’n’Roll”. Playing Hard Rock/Stoner Rock, this band is something we would never have expected from members of primarily Black Metal bands. However, with “Black’n’Roll’ the band will surely turn more than one heads with their super catchy Rock music.

    Black River starts rocking since the funny titled song “Barf Bag” and continues to blast one catchy song after another one. There is not a single track on this release that is not full of traditional Hard Rock that will make you want to headbang since the opening riff until the last.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Big Ball – Hotter Than Hell (2010)

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    Who ordered and nicely cooked AC/DC clone?, apparently AFM records did with Big Ball. While the band never denies, and even encourages, the label of AC/DC clones, we find them to be good at capturing AC/DC’s sound and essence and providing a tiny-little-bit of their own into “Hotter Than Hell”, the band’s first full-length release.

    As the band states, if you hate AC/DC you will hate us, so if you do then stop reading and move on to the next review. Big Ball is a pretty decent clone/tribute band to AC/DC and even the vocals sound strikingly similar to earlier the earlier style of Brian Johnson, but sometimes get a bit raspier and sound more like Udo Dirkschneider, still not bad.

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