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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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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01. I Rule 3:49 02. Pyre of Gods 4:33 03. Rider of the Last Day 6:47 04. Follow the Blind 4:33 05. Undead Son 4:04 06. Of Time and Dust 5:55 07. From the Void 5:01 08. Convulsions 4:45 09. From the Shadows 4:19 10. Painless 4:11

Tarot will be familiar to most people as Marco Hietala’s “other” band. They have however been on the scene for quite some time, and had been together for almost 20 years by the time Marco joined Nightwish; indeed, Tarot’s debut album came out a full decade before Nightwish were even formed. However, much of this time has been spent on hiatus, and it was only the success of Hietala joining Nightwish in 2002 which led Spinefarm to commission a new Tarot album in 2003.

Anyone expecting that album, Suffer Our Pleasures, to echo the style of Century Child, Hietala’s first appearance on record with Nightwish, was in for a surprise. While the latter outfit are undoubtedly symphonic power metal, Tarot sit more comfortably in the straight-up heavy-metal vein of Grand Magus, or perhaps Corrosion of Conformity. What’s immediately evident is the rawness of the sound, with Zachary Hietala’s guitars dominating right from the start. From opening track “I Rule” he tears into a meaty selection of convincing riffs and wailing solos, and doesn’t let up until the final power-chord fades. His brother’s vocals manage to achieve a harsh edge, almost a snarl, despite remaining tuneful throughout and even reaching for the odd high-note, and this fits the overall tone of the album. You get the feeling on most of the songs that Tarot are quite angry about something, and that their bassy, growling music is some form of catharsis. It injects a vital hint of emotion into proceedings, without which the album could perhaps have started to appear formulaic.
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01. The Jackson Whites 3:29 02. Plastic Jebus 3:18 03. The Only One 3:52 04. John of Violence 3:53 05. You Are Proof That Not All Women Are Insane 2:49 06. Tim Smith 3:30 07. Low Energy Vortex 3:30 08. You Took the Sunshine From New York 3:41 09. Mazel Tov Cocktail 3:01 10. Chutzpah 5:47

Hang about. What’s a band like The Wildhearts doing on here? They’re surely too poppy for this site? Yes, it’s true that most melodies and choruses from Newcastle’s finest are so sugary they’ll rot your teeth faster than acid flavoured sherbet but anyone sufficiently clued-up knows that they’ve also offered some fantastic crushing riffage in their time. It’s this cracking combination – plus an abundance of brilliant songs – that’s made them the Brit rock legends that they are, not to mention this writer’s favourite band. Oops, let a bit of bias slip there, didn’t I? Yeah well, it’s partly my podcast too and I’m in a plugging mood.

Chutzpah is defined as gall, audacity or nerve and it’s a quality that Ginger and his frequently changing band of merry men posses in bucket loads. Frequently overlooked throughout their career in favour of the latest unit-shifting soulless dross passing for rock at the time, The Wildhearts were never afraid to stick it to “the man” and despite the seemingly countless times when they’ve allowed their own “fuck it all” attitude or infamous penchant for rock n’ roll excesses to derail them, they’ve always bounced back with more fantastic tunes.
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