Photos of Metsatöll and Ensiferum at the Glasgow Cathouse, pictures taken by Victoria Baker. First three are of Ensiferum the rest Metsatöll.

Also watch out for our interview with Sami from Ensiferum!

Steel Panther have at last been unleashed upon a largely unsuspecting world. For years now, they’ve been a house band, putting on weekly shows in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, showcasing their parody of the 80s glam movement through ridiculously suggestive lyrics and over-the-top rock music. For the first time, they’ve broken free of the LA/Vegas circuit and gone out on tour; and yet this, the second date of their first appearance on British soil, sold out weeks before the show. That tells you a lot about Steel Panther straight off the bat.

That said, the evening didn’t get off on the greatest foot, at least in my book; this was not the fault of Steel Panther, however, but of the way the gig itself was organised. The doors opened at seven (people were queuing at six!) and Panther took to the stage at around nine. You’d think that would be a good slot to fill with support bands, indeed that’s the conventional way to do things. For some reason, at this gig we were instead treated to a guy standing on the stage frowning at a laptop, playing predictable songs (Sweet Child O’ Mine, Highway to Hell, Crazy Train, ad nauseum) on what sounded like Windows Media Player. I hope to pretty much each and every god that he wasn’t getting paid for that. The end result was in essence like being in a very busy pub, with no seats, populated by cross-dressers, for two hours.
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Lori Linstruth and Arjen Lucassen join us to talk about their latest project Guilt Machine. The album ‘On This Perfect Day’ was released in Europe on August 31st, an album of self reflective twists and turns through progressive metal sounds.

As well as Guilt Machine Arjen also talks about life after the Ayreon project and his future musical direction.

Accompanying this is Phil’s look at the progressive metal scene focusing on amongst others Mesuggah and Mastodon. A great starting guide for the uninitiated to prog metal!
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 Episode 43 - Lori and Arjen from Guilt Machine [101:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

01. MindPlague 3:39 02. Rain 4:58 03. Beast In The Cage 3:33 04. Mechantical 2:30 05. Crehate 4:21 06. Rise Above 3:37 07. No Fucking Way 2:05

Ahh, Sweden. Have they ever let us down in terms of death metal? From the moment that the intro to ‘MindPlague’ sweeps in and impacts your lugholes, you know this EP is going to be a good listen. Hailing from Gothenburg (come on, where else?), Despite are a beardy five-piece melodic death metal band. You’ve heard it all before, you say? Hold on there, because there’s more than that going on here.

On first listen, they sound like In Flames - which there’s nothing wrong with. But it’s only when you listen to the intricacies woven throughout the sonic bombast that you can fully appreciate this record. The aforementioned opening track features a mellowed middle eight in which Alex Losb‰ck’s vocals come remarkably close to those of Ozzy Osbourne, while the guitar parts of ‘Rain’ could have been lifted out of the System Of A Down textbook. Not that there’s no originality here - it’s just impressive how such different sounds are all encapsulated within the traditional death metal refrains.

The energy displayed by the band is inspiring, to say the least. ‘Rise Above’ has one of those riffs any budding axeman will instantly want to learn how to play (and will probably end up on Guitar Hero one day if fortune smiles upon these Swedes), while closer ‘No Fucking Way’ has one of those violent-yet-uniting metal choruses: ‘I’ll make you fucking pay / I’ll spit on your grave’. Lovely jubbly.
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01. Deathlike Overture (intro) 01:26 02. Esoteric 04:44 03. Rise and Decay 06:10 04. Let the Old World Burn 04:10 05. Darkness Descending 07:09 06. Seclusion 03:46 07. Misery’s Supremacy 07:10 08. Under a Pitch Black Sky 04:52 09. Linger in Doubt 05:18 10. The Legacy of the Defeated 07:21 11. Within Reach (bonus) 03:36

Melodic death metal; Sweden’s gift to world of music. No, ABBA don’t count. So entwined in the gestation and evolution of said genre is the Scandinavian country that some call it the “Gothenburg style”. In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates, Carcass, Arch Enemy; all have marched under the banner of melodic death metal, and it is with this plentiful heritage in mind that I approach ’Esoteric’, the fourth album by Skyfire. They hail from a sparsely-populated municipality right at Sweden‘s southernmost tip called Höör, which I hope to never have to attempt to pronounce aloud. Although ‘Esoteric’ is their fourth album, the band’s approach has changed somewhat after a short hiatus, a five-year break between albums, and several lineup changes.

Despite the fact that they are generally pigeonholed as “melodic death metal”, and also that I have just spent a paragraph talking about just that, I feel the tag fails to credit the plethora of other influences present in Skyfire’s music. It’s immediately apparent that there are strong progressive and symphonic shades to this album; it features both an orchestra and a choir, which make everything seem very epic, and there is heavy use of acoustic piano. This makes a refreshing change from the majority of metal bands’ approach to keyboards, which is centred almost entirely around synth strings, the “orchestral-hit” setting, and the occasional wanky pitch-bend laden solo. Those staples are still in evidence on ‘Esoteric’, but the use of the piano really strengthens the melody, and allows it to go to places which might otherwise have been inaccessible.
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01. Like the Ore Strikes the Water 3:13 02. Fear is the Key 3:31 03. Hovding 0:39 04. Iron Will 5:01 05. Silver Into Steel 4:15 06. The Shadow Knows 5:35 07. Self Deceiver 4:49 08. Beyond Good & Evil 5:15 09. I Am the North 9:01

Grand Magus are a bit of an enigma. They’re not particularly Big, in any sense of the word; the Swedish three-piece are probably best known for the fact that frontman Janne “JB” Christoffersson sings in Spiritual Beggars with Michael Amott of Carcass and Arch Enemy. This lack of recognition clashes with the fact that they’re fucking brilliant; more on that later. Anyway, since being established in 2001 on a split 7” with, you guessed it, Spiritual Beggars, Grand Magus have released four slabs of uncompromising, balls-out heavy metal, the latest being 2008’s “Iron Will”. The title alludes to steely determination, dedication and spirit, in case you’re wondering. Not a massive boner. Metal Hammer famously raised this point with JB in an interview, to which he replied that “you should always have an erection while playing metal”. Which says a lot about Grand Magus’ music, really.

Now, generally at this point in a review, I’d be picking out tracks from the album, maybe analysing bits of them, discussing their relative merits. However, with Iron Will, there’s not actually that much point. All of the songs are pretty much the same, both in spirit and execution - and they’re all bloody fantastic.
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01. The Second Coming 1:02 02. Booze, Broads And Beelzebub 4:20 03. Wine Of Sin 4:10 04. Raven Black Cadillac 4:22 05. Life Of A Fighter 4:38 06. The Devil Walks Proudly 3:50 07. Hate This Town 3:55 08. The Boys From The East 4:47 09. Doomsday Rider 3:46 10. Let’s Hear It 4:55 11. Sharp Dressed Man 3:10 12. Bad Broad (Good Girl Gone Bad) 4:12 13. Raise Your Flag 3:00

When it comes to metal music, there’s a fine line between paying tribute and taking the piss (see: Steel Panther). ‘Booze, Broads and Beelzebub’ is the second full-length offering from Chrome Division, the side-project of Shagrath (of Dimmu Borgir), and they seem to be walking a similar tightrope. Far from the symphonic black metal stylings of the vocalist-cum-guitarist’s other band, this album mainly takes influence from the greasy biker bands of yore (Motorhead anyone?), and as such, the songs all revolve around loose women, alcohol and general sleazy livin’. The question that arises is whether or not the album does justice to such acts, or is an embarrassing cliche.

The lyrics to the title track do not work entirely in the band’s favour: ‘Come on over / We’ve got something that won’t make you sober’ is particularly suspect. To be fair, vocalist Eddie Guz barks the childish lyrics with a nice degree of conviction. The problem is that it often sounds like they’re trying to be an ironic lampoon rather than a credible rock ‘n’ roll group. ‘Raven Black Cadillac’ sounds like it was written by a satanic ZZ Top, while incidentally the legendary bearded trio’s ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ gets an up-tempo reworking itself. ‘The Boys From The East’ is undoubtedly a nod towards the Top’s ‘La Grange’ too. ‘Bad Broad (Good Girl Gone Bad)’ features a spoken-word section that isn’t quite on par with those of Axl Rose, and one may even let out a giggle when, following a rant about being messed around by a girl, the word “bitch” is added on as an afterthought.
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