VYÖNI (NORWAY) The Tripoint Some interesting little tidbits to get the appetite going, VYÖNI being a small town in Northern Sweden, near the Finland border. The […]

BAKULLAMA (USA) Sleepers One cannot survive just on polished, finely chiseled progressive rock albums all the time, and I know for a fact, that many aficionados actually […]

PARALLELS (SWEDEN) Exodus Not to be confused with a similarly named US Band and their Yes tribute Awaken, this veteran Swedish trio opt for a more accessible sound, most […]

NINE STONES CLOSE (UK) Diurnal After a long and self-imposed silence, guitarist and composer Adrian Jones found a great amount of inspiration, some good and some bad, upon […]

NORTHODOXIAN (ESTONIA) same Finally, I get to focus on this interesting project from Estonia, a country for which I have had a lengthy fascination that I cannot really explain, […]

Living State: Stalker (2024) single Auckland-based Living State continue to release catchy singles and having seen them play a few times I know they power through the live environment as […]

Hideous Divinity: Unextinct (2024) Between 2012 and 2019 Italian technical death metal act Hideous Divinity released four full-length albums, but it has taken five years for them to return […]

Foncedalle: Foncedalle (2024) This is the debut album by French act Foncedalle, who comprise Marius Mermet (guitar, vocals), JD Mimouni (drum machine, synth) and Clément Maltassat […]

Crucial Velocity: Crucial Velocity (2023) I must admit the reason I grabbed this album was due to some of the people involved as it sounded interesting. This band originally commenced as a […]

The Contractions: 1980 (2024) The Contractions (I don’t know why there is no “The” on the cover, but everything I can find on them has “The”) were an all-female punk trio from San […]

The Brat: Straight Outta East L​.​A. (2017) I get offered a lot of albums to review on a daily basis, with most of the emails being filed in case I need to reference them later, but without […]

Sam Ross: Live at the Mira Room, Vol. II (2023) In many ways this feels like the beginning of a whole new world, and I am sure this is not the last time we will come across an album like this. On one […]

Red Hot Shame: You Can't Make Me (2023) Red Hot Shame is an indie rock group from a Northern California where the mainstay is singer-songwriter Xeff Scolari who works with a fluctuating line-up […]

Kariti: Dheghom (2024) Back in 2020 I reviewed the debut album by Kariti, ‘Covered Mirrors’, and she is finally back with the follow-up. Kariti (карити), which means ‘to mourn […]

Just One Fix: Submit or Death (2024) One of my favourite NZ metal bands in Just One Fix, and it is way too long since they released an EP. We have been getting tasters with singles, but at […]

John Michaelz and the Black Brothers Band: Soul Exodus (2023) Towards the end of 2022 I was asked to review the ‘Limited Edition’ EP by this band, and to be honest I was not too sure about undertaking it as this is […]