01. Peace on Earth 06:38 02. Living on the Outside 05:03 03. Los Angeloser 04:09 04. If I Can’t Have you 05:00 05. Love is Not Real 07:33 06. Like a Rose 03:16 07. Song of Madness 05:31 08. Did You Ever Love Somebody 04:01 09. California Isn’t Big Enough 04:43 10. Running Away from Me 03:54 11. Let’s Be in Love 05:11 12. If it Rains 03:56 13. Elvis in Vegas 06:01

Meat loaf has been giving us amazing albums since 1977. Some of these include: Bat out of hell, Dead ringer, Bad attitude, Welcome to the Neighborhood and Midnight at the Lost and Found. But now, straight from under the wings of the bat out of hell himself comes ‘Hang cool Teddy Bear’, Meat Loaf’s best sounding, most rocking album to date. With the catchy chorus’s from ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ combined with the musicianship elements from ‘Dead Ringer’. Hang Cool Teddy Bear is a must have for Meat Loaf fans who are triumphing the bands return.
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01. Satan Is Dead 04:15 02. Hell Knows 06:05 03. Rise! 04:31 04. The Pilot Of All Dreams 03:43 05. Magic and Technology 05:50 06. Calling Down The Rain 4:12 07. Caught In The Deadlights 04:43 08. I Walk Forever 04:50 09. Sleep In The Dark 04:46 10. Gone 07:08

I love Tarot. Ask anyone that knows me and they’ll tell you how much I love Marco Hietala. I even had the pleasure of interviewing him on our podcast.

Gravity of Light is Tarot’s eighth studio album and is to be released worldwide on the 8th of June. It’s first week of sales in Finland it charted at number two something that their previous album ‘Crows Fly Black’ never managed to do.

I really wanted to like this album but after listening to it almost solidly for a week now but I’m still not sure about it. There isn’t really anything wrong with the songs - they sound typically ‘Tarot’. If anything they remind me an awful lot of their earlier albums including Stigmata except gruffer and more developed than early Tarot.
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01. Sleep This Away 03:21 02. Trust No One 02:43 03. Dead Wrong 02:40 04. Doomed to Fail 03:15 05. Black Metal Bicycle 03:32 06. We Are the Undead 02:54 07. Scared to Death 03:22 08. Darkness 03:42 09. Snake Mountain 02:48 10. Make Amends 03:04 11. Fake Gold 02:52 12. Drive This Stake 02:41 13. Raised Right 04:46 14. Sabotage (Beastie Boys cover) 03:01

If I was going to sum up Cancer bats in one sentence it would say this: ‘Its the Past, Present and Future of Hardcore punk’. This can be seen on Cancer bats 3rd album Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones. Its all pure heaviness from its mind numbing distorted riffing from the guitar to quite a bit of screaming and whaling from Liam Cornier on Vocals. For those who are die hard Cancer bats fan’s it is definitely a necessity in your collection. But on the other hand for people who are just trying to get into the bats maybe Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones isn’t the best starting marker for you.
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01. Sex, Drugs & Heavy Metal 3:55 02. Heart Thief 3:42 03. Trust Your Instincts 3:07 04. Young, Dumb & Full of Fun 3:46 05. Dead Girl Walking 3:57 06. Down On You 3:33 07. Pussywhipped 4:35 08. Hunt You Down 3:43 09. Act Of God 4:17 10. Coming After You 3:12 11. Top Of The World 3:00 12. Sleaze Sells…But Who’s Buying? 2:08 13. Trick Or Mistreat 3:46 14. Sweet Transvestite 3:53

Ahh, that traditional call-to-arms that starts many a heavy metal song; shouting a one-liner about getting ready to go, turning up the sound, or how asses are about to be kicked. A select few are:

Venom - Bloodlust - ‘Come on, turn it up!’
Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right - ‘Kick it!’
Sweet - Ballroom Blitz - ‘Alright fellas, let’s go!’
Buckcherry - So Far - ‘Come on! Hurrrgh!’
Jackviper - Go Fuck Yourself - ‘Listen up, motherfucker!’
Steel Panther - The Shocker - ‘Are you ready, baby?’
Airbourne - Stand Up For Rock ‘N’ Roll - ‘Alright people, welcome to the show!’
Motorhead - Dead Men Tell No Tales - ‘This is it!’
John Loeffler - Pokerap - ‘Okay guys, we gotta rap some Pokemon… let’s get it on!’

And now we can add the opener from Spit Like This’ first full-length, ‘Sex, Drugs & Heavy Metal’ to the list, with it’s ‘Yeah, turn up the level!’ introduction. The band, named after an utterance from a spitting contest between vocalist Lord Zion and bassist Vikki Spit, get things off to a suitably rollicking, in-yer-face start on an album of which there is something very Rocky Horror about (it’s fitting that it closes with a rendition of ‘Sweet Transvestite’ from the film). There are loads of clichés and silly lines, but the charm and cheekiness of it still leaves a smile on the face.
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01. The Ballad of Solomon Eagle 05:17 02. Vagrant Stomp 04:49 03. The Ale House Braves 03:49 04. Cities of Frost 05:34 05. Hot Knives and Open Sores 04:21 06. Hounds Ditch 05:30 07. Mortlake (Dead Water) 02:11 08. They Come Back (Harvest of Skulls) 04:43 09. Beginners Guide to Suicide 08:05

The racket Orange Goblin specialise in tends to be referred to as ‘stoner metal’. Indeed, they’re reputed to be the UK’s premier exponents of that particular sub-genre. They epitomised that style on their standout third album, 2000’s ‘The Big Black’, but since then have been moving in a more traditional heavy-metal direction. By the time their sixth album, 2007’s ‘Healing Through Fire’ rolled around, staple traditional stoner tracks like ‘Scorpionica’ were a thing of the past. Sure, there are hints of it at various points on ‘Healing Through Fire’, it’s definitely still an influence, but to be honest you’d be hard pressed to actually define this as a stoner metal record. I don’t know what you’d call it, really…it’s just really fucking metal.

‘Healing Through Fire’ is all brash, swaggering aggression, a rousing drunken salute to heavy music. That lively, stomping tone is set right from the outset with ”The Ballad of Solomon Eagle“, which is by no means a ballad in the traditional sense. Although from Orange Goblin, I doubt you were expecting “Total Eclipse of the Heart” anyway…which isn’t to say I wouldn’t give a kidney to hear them cover that. It’s hard to explain, really, but listening to this album makes me feel like my hair isn’t nearly long enough, and gives me a sudden impulse to grow a large mountain-man style beard, behind which I can stomp around glaring at people. Tracks like “Ale House Braves” and “Hounds Ditch” typify this kind of feeling; it’s the kind of song you expect to find playing in one of those dingy bars populated entirely by bikers and stereotypical ‘road people’ out of Kerouac novels who hop freight trains. Even the barman has a denim jacket, and tattoos on his face, and there’s probably an underground fight club in the basement. It’s pure attitude music.
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01. Badge And A Gun 3:40 02. In The City 3:10 03. You Belong To Me 4:06 04. Mrs. Operator 3:12 05. Higher & Higher 4:53 06. Too Much 3:34 07. Fortune And Fame 3:00 08. Superman 4:32 09. You 3:20 10. Champagne, Chicks & Rock n’ Roll 2:28

‘Fuck me, not another band covered in tattoos.’
- Christopher Persuad-Jagdhar, The Wildhearts

Originality seems to be something of a problem in music these days; regardless of which genre a band are considered to be a part of, more often than not there will be older acts with whom they share similarities. This is largely true of the recent wave of Swedish rock och roll seen on Ragnarok of late, but is it true of Mama Kin?

Named after a track on Aerosmith’s first album, they play soulful melodic rock. The album starts with a police siren (like Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Appetite For Destruction’) and goes on to paint a sleazy picture of the rock ‘n’ roll city of… erm, Karlstad (like Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Appetite For Destruction’). The band’s personnel have a cool glam image (like Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Appetite For Destruction’). However, it sounds very little like Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Appetite For Destruction’, and to be fair, it would be extremely difficult for a band to live up to such a seminal work - but hey, no one said they were trying to, and who says that unoriginality strictly has to be a bad thing?
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05. I’m On My Way 4:49 06. I Don’t Give A Good God Damn 3:03 07. Bad Father, Bad Son 3:06 08. Ain’t It December 3:26 09. Black Eyes On A Saturday 5:42 10. MTV Killed Rock N’ Roll 4:28 11. Medicine 3:14 12. Die Beautiful 3:56 13. Move To Detroit 2:56 14. Jona Song 3:24 15. Demolition Man 6:02

Sweden has given us some great things over the years… meatballs… Vikings… that’s all I can think of at the moment. It has also produced the likes of Arch Enemy, Opeth and Bathory when it comes to extreme metal, and then there’s the more straightforward rockin’ bands like The Hellacopters, Backyard Babies, and Europe (hey, they were pretty good when you listened past ‘The Final Countdown’). Von Benzo fit into the latter of these two camps, but don’t quite inspire in the same way.

Opener ‘And The Dead Said No’ has a very cool intro, and a lovely feeling that something spectacular is about to be unleashed; like slowly taking the lid off of a box marked ‘FREE SWEETS’. Sadly, the song is a less-than-memorable rock standard, what would be a very nice pre-chorus turning out to be the chorus itself; like looking inside the box to discover the sweets are all mint humbugs or coffee Revels. This sets a precedent for a what is largely a whole album of cannon fodder.
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01. Dirt Bound 03:43 02. Hard Livin’ Man 03:18 03. No Doubt About It 03:59 04. Straight Shooters 03:33 05. Elvis Chapel Blues 04:35 06. Fill Your Head With Rock 05:12 07. Dog 03:15 08. A Shot Of You 03:22 09. Butter You Up 03:34 10. Swan Song 04:10 11. Sicker Than I Think 03:44

I have a hard time believing that Bonafide are actually Swedish. There’s something deeply 80s Americana about them. This is a band who fantasise about fast cars, sleep in leather jackets, and use a gang chant of “hell yeah” as about 40% of their backing vocals. Everything about their image and their music suggests they’re probably from California…but they’re not. They’re just trying really, really hard to be.

Seriously, has anyone informed Bonafide what decade it is? This album really sounds like it should be playing over the end-credits of a rubbish 80s road-trip movie. I can’t listen to opening track ’Dirt Bound’ without seeing a slow-motion high-five, and maybe a red sports car tearing off into a California sunset. And it goes on in the same fashion, attempted hard-rock anthem after attempted hard-rock anthem. You barely even notice the gaps between songs, it’s just a montage of spandex-clad riffs, facepalm-inducing backing vocal harmonies and predictable guitar solos. Now, I’ve never said a bad word in my life about guitar solos, and yet here Bonafide are trying to make me be that guy. You just see theirs coming a mile off. A lot like everything else in their music, really.
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01. Intro 1:24 02. Empty Promises 5:05 03. Break The Trend 4:04 04. Thanks For Letting Me Know 4:31 05. Empty Promises (Video Edit) 4:08

Forever Never describe themselves as having ‘a sound that bridges the gap between “underground” and “mainstream” scenes; a sound that is both beautiful, and brutal.’ The cover of last year’s self-titled second album showed a peaceful waterfall in the midst of a green valley, with an grim industrial cityscape lurking in the water’s reflection. Trying to show your musical philosophy through an arty, symbolic CD cover, lads? I like it.

This juxtaposition that the Essex metallers pride themselves upon is true of ‘Empty Promises’, the first single from that pretentious (just kidding) album. A mysterious ambience and some splodgy sounds herald the arrival of the title track, opening with a sublime vocal harmony courtesy of superbly-toned vocalist Renny Carroll. Then kicks in a deliciously time change-laden riff which continues behind sorrowful yet soulful lyrics; ‘I’ve had enough of your empty promises / Don’t blame yourself, it was my mistake for listening.’ He’s been hurt. The mournful chuggery continues after the second chorus, sometimes sounding too bland and tuneless without vocals, but thankfully there are chiming notes and a palpable guitar solo to distract from where things are lacking.
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01. Whom the Gods Love Die Young 04:47 02. Battle Within 03:34 03. Eyes of a Stranger 04:01 04. The Seventh Sign 05:02 05. Raise Your Hands 04:37 06. Rock City 03:58 07. Sin City Lights 04:51 08: Carved in Stone 04:43 09. Metal Slave 04:20 10. Sinners and Saints 03:42

Welcome to the world of Mean Streak, the latest crusaders in the battle to defend the faith of heavy metal. The kind of largely imaginary battle which involves leather armour and large axes, obviously. They were formed in Sweden (where else?) in 2006 entirely as a studio project by Peter Andersson, apparently in order “to make music straight from the heart”…and “the early/mid ’80s”. Andersson started out alone, recording all of the guitar and bass parts and even programming the drum lines before he had recruited another band member. He added singer Andy LaGuerin and drummer Jonas Kallsback to fill out parts in the studio before the idea of getting a record deal or even playing live even occurred; guitarists David Andersson and Patrik Gardberg were only recruited when a local club heard their demos and requested a live performance. This led to interest from a local record label, and all of a sudden Mean Streak had walked into a recording contract.

The first fruit of this deal is the album “Metal Slave”; the name tells you quite a lot of what you need to know about Mean Streak. They are Slaves to Metal. Indeed, they are so dedicated to their particular craft (their Myspace defines it as “Metal/Metal/Metal”) that every song is a microcosm of the greater whole; essentially, you always know what you’re going to get. Right from opening track ‘Whom the Gods Love Die Young’, there are no surprises here; every song comprises a selection of thundering riffs, double-bass drumming, wailing solos, and soaring vocal melodies. We’re firmly in the Manowar/Grand Magus/hooray-for-epic-metal vein here.
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