Wilko Johnson w/ Roger Daltrey – Going Back Home

The story of Wilko Johnson’s last year is an incredible one. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January 2013, he was told he would have around nine or tenths month left to live. Rather than fight it with chemotherapy Johnson elected to go on a farewell tour of the UK and record one last album with The Who’s Roger Daltrey. Over a year later Johnson is still with us and recently underwent surgery to have the pancreatic tumour removed and in fact there is still a chance he may survive. In that time he did record with Daltrey and Going Back Home is the product of that labour and hit number 3 in the UK album chart.

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26/05/2014 0

Combichrist – We Love You

“Please don’t forget we love you, but now you have to die.” We Love You is an album that doesn’t take long to establish it’s themes. Whether you want to call it aggrotech or electronic death metal, Combichrist are a band that are at home in an angry world full of jagged electronic sounds that are designed to have fans flipping tables.

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24/05/2014 0

Animals as Leaders – The Joy Of Motion

Some albums defy reviewing, you can say what you want about them but at the end of the day what you get and what you find within it is a completely personal experience. This is more true amongst instrumental music than anything else and Animals as Leaders are the perfect example of it. Now on their third album, this American instrumental prog-metal band create music that is as difficult to place as it is to review, in saying all that we are about to give it a go.

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15/05/2014 0

Chuck Ragan – Till Midnight

Some time in the last few years it became cool for old punk rockers to ditch the band, pick up an acoustic guitar and go all folk troubadour on our asses. It’s probably not that much of a leap to believe that this trend was inspired by Chuck Ragan and the Revival Tour, his touring acoustic shows that feature everyone from punk singers to bluegrass to country. By creating a sense of community around these shows Ragan has turned a great idea into a yearly event that many look forward to. This event has also seen him releasing several acoustic records and the latest, Till Midnight, hit our shelves earlier this year.

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25/04/2014 0

Comeback Kid – Die Knowing

Comeback Kid may have a name that makes them sound like a boy band (or is that just me?) but it hasn’t prevented the group that was originally started as a side project from releasing five albums of hardcore goodness. Album number five, Die Knowing, has recently hit the shelves and see’s this Canadian band doing what they do best.

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22/04/2014 0

I Killed the Prom Queen – Beloved

There is a moment half way through Beloved where I thought I’d made a mistake and accidentally put on shuffle. As “Kjaerlighet” slowly creeps in those not paying attention might believe that “Last Serenade” was preparing to blast through their speakers. It’s become a cliché to say that all metalcore takes it core roots from Killswitch Engage and most bands are just repeating what’s been done before, but sometimes it’s so incredibly obvious you just can’t ignore it.

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19/04/2014 0

Les Claypool’s Duo De Twang – Four Foot Shack

Cover albums are notoriously difficult to pull off. Releasing a collection of tracks by bands better than your own (*cough* Puddle of Mudd) that sound exactly like the originals is one of the laziest ways to finish up a record label contract and insure that the rest of the world thinks your a bit of a plank. On the other hand take an original song and make it your own (Marilyn Manson being an expert at this) and it can kick start a career. However you get the impression that Les Claypool’s Duo De Twang don’t really care about career progression or probably even what other people think about them, this is an album that feels like it was made purely for fun.

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18/04/2014 0

Within Temptation – Hydra

It’s easy to forget just how big a deal Within Temptation are. Their latest UK tour has seen them playing Wembley Arena and their 2011 studio album The Unforgiving sold over 300,000 copies on ITunes alone. Therefore, the release of Hydra earlier this year has to be seen as a big deal and with it hitting number 6 in the UK charts it may be a case that this is a band that are able to make the leap into the mainstream on their sixth studio album.

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17/04/2014 0

The Treatment – Running With the Dogs

There are very few good young band who you could call a pure rock band. Oh I’m not talking about industrial post-hardcore slightly blackened metal bands. There are loads of all that shite, but pure rock and roll? Outside of Airbourne or The Black Spiders there are very few that aim to uphold the values of The Crue and G ‘N’ R. Well The Treatment are out to change that. These likely lads from Cambridge have released their second album Running With The Dogs and are desperate to prove that rock is far from dead.

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16/04/2014 0

Behemoth – The Satanist

Behemoth have not had it easy in recent years. From lead singer Nergal’s fights with leukaemia, a battle he thankfully continues to win, to his fights with the law in Poland over his ripping up of a bible on stage. In all this turmoil it’s been easy to forget that behind all of this is one of the best extreme metal bands in the world, therefore the release of The Satanist, their first album since Evangelion in 2009, is a big deal.

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09/04/2014 3