Three years after the release of their sophomore album “Nordlys”, Midnattsol returns with their masterful Gothic Metal release “The Metamorphosis Melody”. Providing over 55 minutes of music, the band shows more signs of maturity and the abilitie to create very effective songs.

Driven by the enchanting vocals of Carmen Elise Espenæs, the album opens with the album title track and you can quickly hear the massive guitar sound (for a Gothic Metal band) being surrounded by magical keyboards. Since the first song we can hear the excellent production behind this release and the raw power that the band tries to transmit with their sound.

Keeping the flam alive of 60’s and 70’s Psychedelic Rock, today we have the Swedes of Year of the Goat and their debut MCD “Lucem Ferre”. In this action packed 4 song release, the band shows their chops at creating dark anthems of pure evil just the right old-school vibe.

With the opening track “Of Darkness”, the band immediately turns back the pages of time and involves you in a magical atmosphere that only very few band’s can achieve these days. The guitars are spot on and the overall pacing of the song is just perfect. The vocals are greatly executed and the layering added provides the typical vibe for the genre.

Continuing their aural assaults from “Vast Oceans Lacrymose”, While Heaven Wepts is back with another multi-faceted release that takes a little time to sink. However, once you get into the groove of this new release, it will surely win a place in your heart. Now on a bigger label, the band is ready to take their act on the road and take a shot at world domination.

“Fear of Infinity” has a familiar sound to “Vast Oceans Larymose” since the songs in this album were intended to be on said release. The first song “Hour of Reprisal” continues with the lush keyboard/vocal combination, but once you start getting comfortable this track explodes into an almost Black Metal-esque ending that will rattle your seat. While this sounds a bit out of place at first… you will grow to enjoy it.

Multi-instrumentalist Tuomas Saukkonen returns with another excellent Before the Dawn release. Fusing Melodic Death Metal and Gothic Metal, Before the Dawn has been gaining popularity over the years and with “Deathstar Rising”, they set the bar even higher.

Besides Tuomas brilliant songwriting skills, the bass guitar and clean vocal talents of Lars Eikind greatly complement the band’s sound. Not being to ‘weak’ for regular Metal people, and without being extremely harsh, “Deathstar Rising” is a release that fits right in the middle between aggressive and melodic Metal released.

As probably one of the most different bands in the Nuclear Blast roster, today we have Graveyard and their instant Rock classic “Hisingen Blues”. Hailing from Sweden, the band has already made a few successful runs in the USA with the likes of Clutch, Witch and CKY, and they are gathering great momentum behind their intoxicatingly addictive music.

Featuring 9 tracks of pure Hard/Psychedelic Rock tracks, “Hissingen Blues” does a great job in transporting the vibe and musicianship of 70’s rock into a more modern context. In each of the songs, the band infuses their personalities and creates magical tracks that are ready to be enjoyed by all fans of good Rock music.

As a little taste before the release of their highly anticipated full length “Misanthropy”, Pandemonium has unleashed their 2010 promo with two ‘un-official’ versions of the songs from said album and a few video clips. Packaged in a nice digipack version, this promo will surely generate more expectation after listening how crushing the two ‘advance’ tracks sound.

“Black Forest” gives us a very dense and atmospheric track that showcases brutal drumming sections tightly coupled with dark and desolate Black/Death riffing. The vocals are truly haunting, maintaining a very deep and decadent sound to this song. The overall atmosphere of the track is very effective and features a very good improvement over anything presented in the band’s last album “Hellspawn”.

All the way from the artic circle in Finland, today we have the Thrash-tastic 3rd demo of Intervention called “Growing Line of Caskets”. In this very effective demo, the band presents us with 3 tracks and around 16 minutes of excellently crafted Thrash-infused Death Metal tracks that will surely take you by surprise.

Starting with “The Mortal Shell of Man”, the band quickly makes a strong impression with excellent Thrash riffing, elaborate drumming and a three-prong attack on vocals. This song is very well crafted and shows a level of maturity far superior to other bands that are signed to bigger labels. The band’s sound is dynamic enough to be both modern and ‘classical’ sounding at the same time.