Monthly Archives: September 2011

First published by Soundsphere Magazine http://www.spheremag.co.uk/reviews/54-cd/2519-cd-review-staind-staind September 2011 So; they’re back, then. Popular young persons’ beat combo, Staind, have arrived with album number seven. Intending, according to Mike Mushok on the band’s website, “…to explore some of the things we did on the last record and take them somewhere new for us”. It’s safe to say [...]

First published by Midlands Rocks www.themr.co.uk September 2011 On October 17th Toxic Federation will release their third album. Ah, yes. The Difficult Third Album… The one a band is supposed to make to show the world that they are the finished item. The one that proudly unveils their sound, sans influences, and the clumsy fumbling homage [...]

First published by Soundsphere Magazine http://www.spheremag.co.uk/reviews/54-cd/2405-cd-review-officers-on-the-twelve-thrones September 2011 One of the year’s more eagerly anticipated debut releases, ‘On The Twelve Thrones’ arrives promising much. The release of Officers’ most recent EP ‘Co-Education’, gave notice that electronica had some new pretenders to its digital throne. The four cuts on that platter were a satisfying kaleidoscope of [...]

First published by Midlands Rocks, www.themr.co.uk September 2011 Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mayall, Gary Moore, Walter Trout, Joe Bonamassa and a great many more have all, in their own ways, helped answer one of the burning musical questions of our times: can a white man play the blues? The answer, of course, is [...]

First published by Midlands Rocks www.themr.co.uk September 2011 Greasy, biker-metal that owes as much to The Almighty as it does to one of the band’s stated influences, Black Label society. Sure, there’re plenty of Zak-style pinch harmonics but the stripped-down, bare-knuckle approach of Ricky Warwick’s freewheeling punk metal rebels is deployed liberally throughout  the cuts which [...]

So wrote Nietzsche but it started with Eddie Truman having a Bruce Springsteen Day. You know how that goes: you just have a yen, an itch that needs to be scratched and only total immersion in your music of choice can relieve that nagging thing you ache to express. It’s never something you can actually [...]

SheWhoIsNeverWrong has been battling a series of brain-head-face-related mystery aliments over the last few months. Part-migraine-part-head-thing-part-who-knows-fecking-what-thing, she’s undergone all manner of tests, scans, hospital visits and whatnot, only to now be told that a further monthly series of trial-and-error meds is the only remaining option. The local quack, displaying the sort of compassion and humanity [...]

A free four-track download E.P. from the region’s most idiosyncratic foursome? Oh, go on then. If we must. Slightly harder-edged, and a touch more contemplative than the soar-away, feel-good vibes of this year’s Radiostasis release, this is the multi-talented, multi-faceted Captain Horizon revealing yet another side to their beguiling musical persona. Recorded during those Radiostasis [...]

First published by Midlands Rocks www.themr.co.uk, September 2011 Listen to this album once. Then have a rummage through your loose change and select a coin. Now toss it in the air. Heads, you’ll hate it. Tails, you might like it. A bit. Maybe. You think… That seems to be the first impression consensus that has [...]

First published by Nottingham Live http://www.nottinghamlive.co.uk/live/2011/09/live-review-damaged-stock-11-rock-city-3911/ September 2011 Photos reproduced by kind permission of Sue Paterson Photogaphy, www.suepaterson.co.uk Returning for another round of all-out assault, charity metal all-dayer, Damaged Stock, saw nine bands take to the stage at Rock City to do their bit for Epilepsy Action, this year’s chosen charity. The annual metal-fest, organised [...]