01. Let it Die 06:05 02. Let Me Hear You Scream 03:25 03. Soul Sucker 04:34 04. Life Won’t Wait 05:06 05. Diggin’ Me Down 06:03 06. Crucify 03:29 07. Fearless 03:41 08. Time 05:31 09. I Want More 05:36 10. Latimer’s Mercy 04:27 11. I Love You All 01:04

The Prince of Darkness is back once more with an album which blows the previous one out of the water. Yet another hard rocking, ball breaking, classic Ozzy album to add to the top of the heavy metal pile. With every album Ozzy brings out comes something new and unique, what better way to carry on the tradition by introducing a new guitarist to the band. Lady’s and gentlemen please may I introduce you to Gus G. The man, who made ‘Scream’ so heavy and shredding, it puts this album into a league of its own. Prepare for a blast from the past as Ozzy is back with a fast paced, crushing album that takes us back to early Randy Rhoads era material. Hell yeah!

Firstly a bit about Mr G, well he is part of our editor’s favourite band ‘Firewind’. We haven’t seen a lot from that band for the past 2 years as he has been touring with Ozzy and writing material with him. He took over from Zakk Wylde, who wasn’t a very happy bunny when he knew Gus G was replacing him. He also has his own signature ESP model of guitar and directs music videos. Well what do you know; he does a hell of a lot of stuff. Now, on with the album.
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01. Feel My Heat 04:46 02. One More Time 03:36 03. Badass 04:04 04. Love Machine 03:44 05. Beautiful Bomb 03:12 06. Romance 03:16 07. Sex 04:02 08. Back To Paradise 03:56 09. So Yeah!! 03:26 10. Wild Touch 04:08 11. Born To Rock 03:29

Ready, steady, go. Thats what ran through my mind as I pressed the play button on my iPod. I’d been told from ‘that other magazine’ that Reckless Love were a bit of a joke. A bit like them really dirty jokes which your Granddad tries to tell about tits and sex but they never seem to be funny. But being the opened minded guy I am, I decided to check them out, and I have to say I am pleased with the final product. Finland’s motley crue wannabe quartet have delivered an album that, to quote one of the songs, is ‘A Badass Baby and is Hotter than fire’. Hell yeah!

We fly off to an Epic start with one of the best opening tracks I’ve ever heard. ‘Feel My Heat’ is a party anthem if anything. From its sing along stadium choruses to its fast energetic guitar solo you are guaranteed a fun time when this tune hits the stereo. We then move swiftly on through the album hitting amazing tunes like: ‘One more time’ ‘Badass’ ‘Beautiful bomb’ and ‘Romance’ which up the party vibe just like seeing a smashed toddler chugging down a can of relentless. It takes you back to the good old days when house parties ruled and nobody gave a dam about STD’s. How I wish I lived back then.
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Its been a while since our last show but we’re back with Episode 51.

This episode features Glasgow noise artist Black Sun who Gordy caught up with after their gig at New Elgin Hall. Black Sun released their last album in 2003 entitled Fleshmarket, a complex fusion of Noise, Doom and Progressive metal. The band itself consists of Russell McEwan, Kevin Hare, and Graeme Leggate.

Gordy also hosts this show which also features some of the freshest choice cuts of metal for your listening pleasure.
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 Episode 51 - Black Sun [75:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

01. Stressed Elephant 08:18 02. Fear Cave 06:46 03. Melody, This Is For You 08:37 04. Two-Day Booze 05:07 05. Die of Devotion 05:07 06. Take The Next Exit 05:18 07. Wendigo Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn) 7:34

Bison B.C. are a metal band hailing from British Columbia, Canada. In fact, the B.C. in their name actually stands for British Columbia, added by Metal Blade records in case they get confused with other bands called Bison. It’s a fitting sort of suffix, however; Bison make a noise that’s kind of primeval, cave-man music. In a good way; music to club your enemies to. Well, sort of, anyway…as listening to ‘Dark Ages’, the band’s third album, confirms, putting a neat tag on Bison B.C. is a difficult although fascinating task.

Honestly, it’s bloody hard to pin Bison down; they’re a band that defy pigeonholing. It’s almost tempting to refer to them as being a progressive band; frankly, that’s a tag that’s going to be hard to avoid when you consider that the album features just seven songs, many of which span seven or eight minutes, and which feature a range of instruments including keyboards, piano, and even what sounds like a French horn in the intro to opener “Stressed Elephant”. However, at the same time, there’s something fundamentally unpretentious about Bison’s music - despite the length of the songs and the range of instrumentation, their approach is relatively honest and simple, just balls-to-the-wall, uncompromisingly heavy music.
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01. Late for the Kill, Early for the Slaughter 04:09 02. Two Lives Worth of Reckoning 04:56 03. The Thrill 04:33 04. Deliverance is Mine 03:50 05. Night Comes Clean 05:11 06. King of the Threshold 04:57 07. Let This River Flow 05:20 08. Epitome 04:45 09. The Akuma Afterglow 04:29 10. Enter Dog of Pavlov 05:36

Swedish melodic death metal stalwarts Soilwork recorded their last album, 2007’s ‘Sworn to a Great Divide’, without founding lead guitarist Peter Wichers, but overcame his departure to turn out a surprisingly decent effort; the band didn’t try to copycat his distinctive technical guitar style (well, apart from maybe on “The Pittsburgh Syndrome“), but instead focused on their other strengths, like Bjorn Strid’s impressive vocal range. As a result, there were a lot more big, catchy choruses, and Sven Karlsson’s keyboards played a slightly more central role - fair enough, it may have been a slightly more “commercial” approach, but it was still recognisably Soilwork, and it was still pretty damn good. However, Wichers returned almost as quickly as he’d left, and is very much a driving factor on the band’s latest (eighth) album, ‘The Panic Broadcast’.

One might be tempted to expect the return of Wichers to simply see the band revert to the style they were pursuing before he left, to just carry on like ‘Sworn to a Great Divide’ hadn’t happened. To their credit, though, they’ve continued that sound to a great extent, but at the same time re-integrated the technical guitar wizardry of their founding lead guitarist. It’s a real progression, a step forward for the band, and a pleasing sign of a band willing to push forward and pursue evolution in their music. Which is all well and good, as long as the music is also up to scratch - and happily for all involved, ‘The Panic Broadcast’ is also a good collection of songs.
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01. Voices 04:33 02. Falling Free 04:43 03. Start Again 05:31 04. Pieces Of Puzzles 03:57 05. Bittersweet 05:24 06. She Sleeps In Madness 04:59 07. In This Moment 03:22 08. Give In To This Love 04:09 09. Before This 03:54 10. Hole In My Head 05:37 11. Leaving The End Open 05:46

In 1992, a band named Hardline released their debut album ‘Double Eclipse’. It was a stunning piece of work consisting of twelve well-crafted, polished hard rock songs reminiscent of the big boys of the time such as Skid Row and Van Halen. Not only that, but their personnel consisted of what would be described as a supergroup; the rhythm section was comprised of Journey’s Neal Schon, as well as bassist Todd Jensen and drummer Deen Castronovo, whose impressive CVs list performing and recording with Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Vai, Marty Friedman and Alice Cooper among others. The core of the band, however, was in the Gioeli brothers; frontman Johnny and guitarist Joey. The duo’s previous bands had achieved underground success on America’s West Coast before – with the help of Poison’s Bret Michaels – breaking attendance records on the Sunset Strip. From the ashes of these acts came Hardline, and their first offering. With such achievements already under their belts, what stopped this troupe of long-haired musos from taking over the world? The answer is simple and one-worded: Nevermind.

After Sir Cobain had slain the dragons of hair metal, the group inevitably dissolved (despite never exactly being part of such a movement). Its members went on to find pastures new, Johnny becoming vocalist for German metal maestro Axel Rudi Pell as well as SEGA-endorsed band Crush 40, creating soundtracks for Sonic the Hedgehog games on the Dreamcast. In 2002, the brothers – the only original members – created a new Hardline album, ‘II’. Mixed in with not-as-memorable-as-their-first-record hooks were what the singer called ‘natural progressions’ – progressions into sub-Disturbed nu-metal thumpers. It wasn’t really what Hardline were all about, but it showed they could still capture some of the magic that blessed their killer debut and weren’t afraid to take risks either.
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Folkestone seems an unlikely place for the first official date of Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell tour. The seaside town seemed unaware of the huge event about to take place. Even inside the venue there are no Ozzy posters amongst those advertising provincial versions of the Queen musical and after checking the tickets against the sign outside I still feel compelled to ask one of the ladies at the box office if we are definitely in the right place. The venue looks like a beach pavilion from the outside – the hall itself is appropriately subterranean, set in the side of a cliff. Excitement builds as the day goes on – ageing rockers in grisly metal t-shirts drink lager in front of blinding white seafront hotels and some bemused locals had noticed the arrival of a huge truck the night before – a truck emblazoned with a bat and the words ‘Fly By Nite’.

Inside, Alexander Milas of Metal Hammer kicks off the evening with a DJ set. The music he plays is primarily what you would expect to hear in any popular metal club on a Saturday night – Metallica, Machine Head, Megadeath, Sepultura – but no one came for anyone but Ozzy so it isn’t important if the support is somewhat uninspiring.
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01. There she goes again 03:28 02. Devil of a man 03:15 03. Love to love 03:59 04. Mona Lisa smiled 04:29 05. Halfpenny dancer 04:07 06. I can’t stop loving you 04:23 07. Roses & Rings 04:56 08. Baby its you 03:15 09. Hello 04:38 10. Pretty girls 03:56 11. He’ll have to go 02:57 12. Long time comin’ 03:01 13. Have a drink with me 03:35 14. Hates to please 05:15 15. King of New York 06:08

Where to start with The Quireboys, well firstly ‘Halfpenny Dancer’ is definitely a well-deserved album title. From a band who has brought us great albums in the past like ‘A Bit of What You Fancy’ and ‘Bitter Sweet and Twisted’, it’s very hard for me to say this, but I’m really disappointed. There’s just no balls and style to the music anymore. They’ve taken songs that could be good if plugged into an amp and played loud, and turned it into simple acoustic songs, which is a departure from their usual style and may put off some fans.

It doesn’t take a clever person to see that The Quireboys have gone safe with this album. The songs are simple, the lyrical themes have no depth or inner meaning to them and worst of all The Quireboy’s songs have lost their fun edge. I’m not joking when I say this. Who plays a bloody fiddle and violin in a good old fashion Rock ‘n Roll band? Well looks like The Quireboys have tried this method, and it’s added to the failure of this album. Is the band getting to old for this job or is Halfpenny just a blemish in The Quireboy timeline?
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01. Where Angels Die 03:44 02. Am I Blind 03:01 03. I’m The Crucifix 03:50 04. A Remission of Sins 03:43 05. Save Me 03:32 06. Lost Forever 03:30 07. For My Family And Satan 03:33 08. In Anger 04:06 09. End Of The Road 03:25 10. Stone By Stone 03:27 11. Moving On (Instrumental) 03:52

‘My life’s a fractured mirror and nothing is what it seems’ sing Sweden’s ‘Hellfuelled’ on their fourth full-length ‘Emission of Sins’. This is true; although they sound unbelievably like another artist, they’re not. Could have fucking hell-fooled me though (sorry).

As soon as ‘Where Angels Die’ springs into life, a stink of Down’s swampy blues-metal seeps from the riffs and fills the room. Promising. Then, however, Ozzy Osbourne’s voice comes wailing from out of nowhere, and perceptions change as the image of the Prince of Darkness singing these songs cements itself as a precedent in your head. By third track ‘I’m The Crucifix’, it gets ridiculously difficult to dismiss this comparison, at times being overwhelmed by the impression that this is an Ozzy B-sides compilation. Thankfully, these B-sides are pretty damn good.
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01. Dark Frozen World 02:12 02. Sea of Fate 04:49 03. Crystal Moonlight 04:25 04. Reign of Terror 06:52 05. Danza Di Fuoco E Ghiaccio 06:26 06. Raging Starfire 04:56 07. Lost in Cold Dreams 05:14 08. On The Way to Ainor 06:59 09. The Frozen Tears of Angels 11:17

It’s been far, far too long since there was a new Rhapsody of Fire album. Something like four years, even, since the Italian masters of epic power metal brought out new material. So it’s with no little expectation that the musical world greets ‘The Frozen Tears of Angels’, the band’s eighth album - but boy, is it worth the wait.

Just to clear up any lingering confusion, Rhapsody of Fire are in fact the same band as Rhapsody, who brought us madcap epic/speed metal classics such as “Knightrider of Doom”, “Dawn of Victory” and “Dargor, Shadowlord of the Black Mountain”. Starting with 2006‘s ‘Triumph or Agony’ album, they’ve had that “of Fire” appended to their name due to “trademark issues”, which hasn‘t confused anyone whatsoever… Since then, however, the band have had an enforced absence from music following yet another copyright battle, this time with Man’O’War bassist Joey DeMaio and his Magic Circle Music label…so it’s really only now that Rhapsody of Fire, freshly signed to Nuclear Blast, have been unleashed upon the musical world.
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