01. We Are the Undertakers 3:20 02. Halloween 3:43 03. Bless the Beast 3:46 04. Girls Made of Heavy Metal 3:07 05. Louder 2:48 06. Metalwar 3:45 07. Wreck of Society 4:38 08. The Bitch Is Back 3:04 09. Got the Devil in Me 4:23 10. Heavy Metal Man 3:37 11. Pain in the Ass 3:48

There are two distinct flavours of female fronted bands. Firstly are the operatic, symphonic and gothy bands where the purpose of the singer, as well as high pitched warbling, is to float around the front of the stage – making any red blooded men in the crowd dribble.

The second kind are the ones who take the fight right to their male counterparts – with just as much (if not more) confidence, power and attitude. The self styled queen of metal, Doro has been doing this for years, mixing it with the big boys – and more often than not – putting them to shame. But now, it seems she may have to fight to defend her crown at the top of the metal heap.

Hysterica are an all female metal powerhouse. Fronted by lead singer Anni De Vil [oooh you see what she did there?] they play their own brand of sleazy metal with some style. They claim to be inspired by the gods of heavy metal – namely Judas Priest.
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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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Check out some of our photos of Blitzkrieg headlining at the Kennyfest charity event, photos by Victoria Baker.

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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01. My Queen Of Winter 04:14 02. More Than Friends 04:19 03. Oceans Of Regret 06:20 04. Gather The Faithful 03:50 05. Into The Blue 04:25 06. Dawn Of Solace 04:18 07. Thorn In My Side 04:07 08. Morpheus In A Masquerade 06:50 09. Stolen Waters 04:34 10. Elegantly Broken 02:46

Supergroups. They’re a bit of a mixed bag; for every Cavalera Conspiracy or Hellyeah, there’s an Audioslave or a Zwan. Cain’s Offering are the Finnish power-metal supergroup; former Sonata Arctica guitarist Jani Liitmatainen joins forces with Stratovarius vocalist Timo Kotipelto and Wintersun bassist Jukka Koskinen. The lineup is filled out by drummer Jani Hurula and keyboardist Mikko Härkin, who was also briefly in Sonata. Given Timo’s prior commitments with Stratovarius (who released their twelfth album in the summer) they haven’t actually performed live together yet, existing in essence as a studio project. It’s a testament to the ability and professional nature of the band’s members that they don’t allow this to adversely affect them to any great extent, still managing to come out sounding tight and unified on record.

Musically Cain’s Offering generally manage to find just a bit more of an edge than recent offerings from Sonata or Stratovarius, although the symphonic bent of the latter’s music still manages to creep in. I say “creep”, it basically batters the bloody door down. I’m going to attempt to stop the comparisons to the band’s ‘parent’ groups there, however, and judge them on their own merits, although it may prove difficult to review a Finnish power metal album without making reference to some of its most eminent exponents.
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01. Battles And Brotherhood 04:47 02. Rock In Hell 04:56 03. Silent Killer 04:13 04. Fierce Defender 05:16 05. Preacher’s Daughter 06:48 06. Call Of The Hammer 02:59 07. Snake Fighter 03:19 08. At The Foot Of The Great Glacier 03:17 09. All Of Them Witches 06:43 10. 12:34 01:45 11. Execution Tank 07:33

Things have changed considerably in the world of 3IOB since their last release, 2007’s Fire Up The Blades. That year saw vocalist Jamie Hooper, the only remaining founding band member, take a “hiatus” on doctor’s orders; he was told that if he continued his screaming vocal style, he could lose his voice - permanently. Another blow came when the band were forced to fire drummer Alexei Rodruigez after he got in a fight with Saxon drummer Nigel Glockler at the UK’s Hard Rock Hell festival. Rodruigez would have been unable to drum on the rest of the tour regardless, as his elbow was broken while he received a heavy beating from security guards. However, the Canadians refused to be fazed or slowed down by these setbacks, and after drafting in Sound of the Swarm drummer Ash Pearson and allocating screaming duties to guitarist Justin Hagberg, they got back into the studio to record new album Here Waits Thy Doom.

To a certain extent, you always know roughly what you’re getting with a 3 Inches Of Blood album. They first forced themselves into the metal world’s consciousness with “Deadly Sinners” on the Advance and Vanquish album in 2004, a song so dedicated to the defence of heavy metal (“enemies of metal, your death is our reward! Triumphant victory, when we bring the steel to liiiiiife!”) that many actually thought it was a parody, some kind of joke. However, it soon became clear that 3IOB were deadly serious, as they churned out material trying to emulate the style and success of Deadly Sinners. They were in danger of becoming a one-trick pony, admittedly with quite a good trick, but one you could easily tire of even by the end of a support set. I know when I saw them live, pretty much all of us were just waiting for that one song - it was like going to see Europe, or MC Hammer. And on this new effort, at first you’d be tempted to think that it’s just more of the same from 3IOB - but after a few listens you start to notice some effort to change things up.
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01. By the Dividing Stream 03:50 02. From Afar 04:51 03. Twilight Tavern 05:38 04. Heathen Throne 11:09 05. Elusive Reaches 03:26 06. Stone Cold Metal 07:25 07. Smoking Ruins 06:40 08. Tumman Virran Taa 00:52 09. The Longest Journey (Heathen Throne Part II) 12:49

When Ensiferum were voted band of the year in the 2008 Terrorizer Readers’ Poll, many – this writer included – were shocked to say the least. For a group with no new releases and less then a handful of UK shows to their name that year, this was a tremendous achievement and a sign that the Finnish sword-bearers clearly were not just a much loved band but one on the cusp of greater success. Naturally, nothing less than a great new album will do if the Finns are to capitalise on the not-inconsiderable buzz now surrounding them.

For better or worse, many artists mark such milestones with some change of musical direction, a more streamlined sound or simply buckling to commercial pressure – not Ensiferum though. Any long time fans will know exactly what they’re getting here: tales of heroism, fantasy and war marked by rousing guitar harmonies, high-speed riffage and catchy- as-hell folk passages that only the most hard-hearted of metalheads will resist making a fool of oneself to on rock club dancefloors (assuming there’s any UK rock club DJs wise enough to play them yet – just sayin’).
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We’ve got a new video of Onslaught at the Glasgow Garage from July 2009.

01. Everything Fades to Gray (Instrumental) 03:07 02. Deathaura 07:59 03. The Last Amazing Grays 05:40 04. Flag In The Ground 04:09 05. Breathing 03:55 06. Zeroes 04:24 07. The Dead Skin 06:15 08. Juliet 05:59 09. No Dream Can Heal a Broken Heart 04:33 10. As If the World Wasn’t Ending 03:49 11. The Truth Is out There 05:04 12. Everything Fades to Gray (Full Version) 04:30

I feel I should warn you right from the start, it’s completely impossible for me to write an objective review of a Sonata Arctica album. I’m really, really biased. I absolutely adore this band; they were my first metal band, I was instantly converted courtesy of “The Cage”. I spent about a year trying to learn the keyboard solo from that song, and I formed my first band almost entirely in tribute to the song ‘Fullmoon’. Going to see them live was like a religious experience, and their DVD ‘For the Sake of Revenge’ is like some kind of musical pornography to me. I only tell you all of this so that you won’t take it lightly when I say that their new album, ‘The Days of Grays’, is absolutely fucking dreadful.

To be fair, things have changed a bit in the world of Sonata. Founding guitarist Jani Liitmatainen was sacked on the tour for previous album ‘Unia’ when it emerged that he was in trouble with the Finnish authorities for not turning up for national service, and replaced by Elias Viljanen. Singer Tony Kakko has stated in interviews (including one with Ragnarok Radio…) that if the band didn’t change something in their music, in the way they did things, they would have broken up. This was ominous enough, but then keyboard player Henrik Klingenberg came out saying that the new album would “definitely not [be] a back-to-the-roots album with fast power metal”. Which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, being as I feel Sonata are at their best when playing fast power metal; to my mind, the two are one and the same, basically synonymous. You do have to salute them, to an extent, for having the bravery to make a change; many bands are happy to just keep on churning out the same songs album after album, without ever trying to evolve or do something different. So yeah, it’s good in a way that Sonata have tried to mix things up a bit, but at the same time I really wish they’d changed into something that’s actually good.
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Photos taken at Glasgow Garage July, 2009 by Gordy Jeans.