When I came back from university in 1984 I was intrigued to discover that my sister had been seeking out Christian rock music, which soon gained the genre name of White Metal. One band interested me in particular, Stryper, as I was also heavily into Kiss in this...

I am not sure how I first came across Type O Negative, but given I was involved with Roadrunner Records back in the Nineties I guess it was probably through them. Their infamous “live” album, ‘The Origin of the Feces’, struck a real chord with me and I can remember...

When people refer to Vio-lence these days, it is normally to say this was the band Rob Flynn was in before he formed Machine Head, and that it was where he and Phil Demmell started working together. What is generally missed is that this was an important band in its...

I was at Crushfest last week and bumped into some of the guys from Lost Vessels who proudly told me their second single was coming out yesterday, but I explained to them that could not possibly be the case as I hadn’t been sent it to the review. Strangely enough, the...

I always look forward to each issue of Acid Dragon, as not only do I enjoy the content contained within one of the world’s longest running physical progressive fanzines, but it is not unusual for Thierry to also include some CDs which he think I may enjoy (and...

Here we have another CD sent to me by Thierry Sportouche from France, and this time around it is a Lyon-based duo, Erzatz, and their 2017 album, ‘Meian’. I have tried to do some digging on the band, and I believe they were originally called r:zatz, formed by Céline...

This is the first fully solo album from David Brenner since the Covid-lockdown-released ‘Epicenter MMXX: Quarantine Instrumentals’, and it finds him back at his unadulterated best. This is music so uncompromising that very few will even describe it as such, yet the...

Another CD from Thierry, another older release (2017), and yet another band which appears to have released something and then disappeared without trace. I did manage to track down an old Soundcloud page for the guys, but none of their links work anymore, while the...

Living on the other side of the world, and therefore not being impacted by Brexit or any UK politics whatsoever means I am not the target audience for this album, which is a collection of left wing political numbers by Richard Gorman who accompanies himself on...

35 years down the road, countless thousands of reviews and literally millions of words on the subject, and I am quite used to being out of step with many others, but I must admit I was perturbed to see this was one of the finalists in the 2023 Grammy’s in the ‘Best...

In a somewhat strange coincidence I was reading about this rare album and deciding I really ought to track it down when I was sent a copy of it to review as it has just been officially reissued by Talking Elephant. Recorded for Deram in 1971 it was produced by none...

I must admit I was not that impressed when I first saw Lost Vessels play at Crushfest, something they later admitted to me was the worst gig of their career, but since then they have improved in leaps and bounds. This has been noticed by others on the Auckland circuit...

It has been quite a while since I last heard from Wellington-based singer songwriter Cathy Elizabeth, and back then Rain was seen solely as a studio project with Cathy being accompanied by Thomas Te Taite who provided all the instrumentation including digital drums....

2023 is building to be a huge year for WBW, as they released no new material whatsoever in 2022 yet here we already have their third single for 2023, following on the massive success of both “Give ‘em Hell” and “Misery” which have seen major airplay in the States....

In 2021, Hundred Headless Horsemen released their debut album, 'Apokalepsia', and then in 2022 released an additional version as an audio book. Apparently this is a prequel to the full album, and the spoken words were originally presented as text. The result is a...

Here we are with Lamb of God back with their 9th (or 11th, depending on if you count what they have released as Burn The Priest) studio album, with a line-up which has been together for more than 20 years apart from the departure of founding drummer Chris Adler after...

I must admit to being something of a latecomer to Sleeping With Sirens, as this is the seventh studio album from the Florida-based band. In fact, it was only when Written By Wolves released the amazing “Help Me Through The Night” with Kellin Quinn sharing vocal duties...

To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of one of the most important thrash bands to come out of Germany, Tom Angelripper decided to revisit all their previous albums and re-record a song from each with the current line-up. The CD and vinyl double LP with their martial...