by Justin Gaines Staff Writer Living With the Ancients is the second album from Canadian heavy/doom metal band Blood Ceremony. Led by female vocalist/organist/flautist Alia O’Brien, Blood Ceremony plays a wickedly retro-sounding brand of metal with emphasis on heavy, doomy riffs, occult themes [...]
by Justin Gaines Staff Writer Loneliness Still Is the Friend is the second full-length album from Urban Tales. Not to be confused with the similarly named Finnish melodic rock band Urban Tale, Urban Tales is a Portuguese gothic metal band. It’s taking the easiest route to compare Urban Tales to [...]
by John Kindred Staff Writer Adrian English is no stranger to the music scene, having pounded out an existence starting at age 15 in the Las Vegas club circuit. Mike Varney (Shrapnel Records) took notice of English and featured him in the June 1993 hometown hero’s column for the magazine Guitar [...]
by Trevor Portz Staff Writer It’s hard to believe that Gamma Ray—Kai Hansen’s second successful band—is over 20 years old. But, like his old bandmates in Helloween, he just keeps on trucking, unashamedly producing epic power metal, seemingly unaffected by age. As a treat for long-time fans, [...]
by Justin Gaines Staff Writer Back Through Time is the third full-length from “True Scottish Pirate Metal” band Alestorm. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, the pirate-obsessed band has decided to follow up their 2009 album Black Sails at Midnight with another serving of songs about booze, [...]
by Mark Allen Staff Writer San Diego-based indie metal band Silence Betrayed have big aspirations. “We want to be the next Guns ‘N Roses,” front-man Joe La once proclaimed. Nothing wrong with that. Rock super-stardom is as good a goal as any, and Silence Betrayed have several elements locked [...]
by Trevor Portz Staff Writer Like the pseudo Goths that sit around in coffee shops discussing how sad life is before hopping into their brand new hybrids and heading to their McMansions in the hills, wanting for absolutely nothing, horror-punk as a genre has become little more than a joke. Sure, [...]
by Erik Tweedy Staff Writer The history of Vicious Rumors dates back to 1980, when they began playing Metal Mondays at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. Since that time, they have released a staggering 12 bone-crushing studio and live albums and are regarded as one of the Bay area’s top thrash [...]
by Cyndi Jo Staff Writer Born of Osiris is that one type of band that lingers in a genre that the uncertainty of listening to it becomes unlikely apparent. It’s not because Born Of Osiris represents those bands that merely are acceptable; it’s for the reason that they’re in that pool of bands [...]
by Justin Gaines Staff Writer As soon as the opening track, “Alive,” of Oblivion, the second full-length album from Zero Illusions, kicks in, you get this sense of déjà vu, and not just because they sound like Saxon, though they most certainly do. A quick check of the Swedish melodic metal [...]
