Who is ready for the most awesome and badass band hailing from German grounds? Powerwolf is back to release another beauty and this time it is called ‘The Sacrament Of Sin’ and I can assure you that it is as cool as it sounds. It contains all the best aspects Powerwolf has to offer and more. It is truly amazing and I can’t wait to share it with you guys. Get in!
DragonForce, yes the one and only fast riffing powermetal band from London, England released their new forceful album called ‘Reaching Into Infinity’, released by Metal Blade Records, and it’s all their older album combined with better production! They again made an album that is as fast as the speed of sound with vocals that are out of this world. For those of you that don’t know the band, which I really doubt, they formed in 1999 and were known as ‘DragonHeart’ till the year 2002. From 2003 till the present they are known as ‘DragonForce’. Their best album might be their debut ‘Valley Of The Damned’, it reached insane amount of views and has been very populair since. Album ‘Sonic Rampage” proved to be even more succesful, it featured their new bassist Adrian lambert and drummer Dave Mackintosh in the widely known song ”Fury Of The Storm”. This album was really the biggest game changer for the band because this brought double bass rhythms and blast beats to the band. With song ‘Through The Fire And Flames” from the album ‘Inhuman Rampage’ the band went oficially mainstream. This song has reached far over 85.000.000 viewsand over 360.000 likes! Not on a pop song but a freaking metal one! DragonForce has toured with Slipknot and Disturbed right before they were releasing their album ‘Ultra Beatdown’, if you get to tour with the big guys you know you made it! Next to these insane releases they made 3 albums. ‘Twilight Dementia’, ‘The Power Within’ and my favorite ‘Maximum Overload’. You would think that the band didn’t make any more music for a while after so much intense and speedy albums but no, they created a best of album named ‘Killer Elite’ which ofcourse featured the song ”Through The Fire And Flames”. Fans have been asking about full live performances on DVDs for a while now but finally DragonForce heard our calls and made ‘In The Line Of Fire…Larger Than Live’ that was recorded on the 2014’s Load Park Festival. For sure one album you need for your collection!
Ironflame is a powermetal band from Washington, Pennsylvania. It’s a solo project made by the one and only Andrew D’Cagna who is also a member of Brimstone Coven. His new debut album ‘Lightning Strikes The Crown’ got released via bandcamp and it features a whole bunch of amazing guests. Jim Dofka (Rev Jones Band, Leather Leone) for example created the guitar solo on the song ”Firestorm” & ”Fallen Glory”, He isn’t the only guest that took part in the powerful solo’s, Aaron Carey (Coldfells), Justin Wood (Ex-Brimstone Cove, Necromancing the Stone) and last but not least Johnathan Crow (Curse The Wicked). Aaron took care of the guitar solo in ”Marching” and ”Shadow Queen” where Justin got a hold on the solo’s in ”The Gorgon” and my personal favorite song ”Eternal Night”. The best 2 songs on the album, ”Heavy Metal Warriors” and ”What We’ve Sown”, features guitarist Johnathan on the guitar playing mad solo’s. Never have I heard of an album with so many different guitarists but it works out really well! The lyrics and everything else has been the work of Andrew himself. He really is capable of a lot! ‘Lightning Strikes The Crown’ has been released via bandcamp on the 22th of May and for a first album this is incredibly good. The power of the album is without a doubt in the wide diversity of musicians.
Powerwolf is one of the bands that is headlining besides Saxon this year at the most metal festival in Holland. The Festival we are talking about is called ‘Into The Grave’ and it has been growing and growing since it started back in 2010. The festival is just like I mentioned in my preview (read here) about the festival itself really diverse. It features bands like Amon Amarth, Life Of Agony, Whitechapel and pirate metal pioneers Alestorm. Every genre is welcome at Into The Grave and that’s exactly what people with diverse taste in metal just like me are looking for.
Labyrinth is one of those bands that doesn’t need an introduction. They quickly became one of the kings in Powermetal in the late 90’s – early 2000’s. They were founded all the way back in 1991 in Tuscany, Italy. They have been through some lineup changes but this lineup is stronger than ever! On the lead vocals we have Roberto Tiranti, Olaf Thorsen & Andrea Cantarelli are both lead guitarists, Nik Mazzuccuni is the bass player, on the keyboard we have Oleg Smirnoff and on the drums we have John Macaluso. If this isn’t the perfect lineup then I don’t know what is, they complete each other like no one else can. They started out with their EP ‘Midnight Resistance’, after this they released 2 more EP’s we know as ‘Piece Of Time’ & ‘Timeless Crime’. In 1998 the band released their signature album called ‘Return To Heaven Denied’. This album moved the whole Italian metal scene and also created a big push for the band’s career. Up to this date it’s still classified as a classic piece of work in the genre. They released more albums after that such as ‘No Limits’, ‘Sons Of Thunder’, ‘Labyrinth’, ‘Freeman’, ‘6 Days To Nowhere’ and ‘Return to Heaven Denied Pt. II: A Midnight Autumn’s Dream’. ‘Sons Of Thunder’ for example is a concept album written about King Louis XIV’s obsession with a woman named Kathryn. Last year the band members received a call from Frontiers asking the founding members Cantarelli and Thorsen to discuss with Roberto the possibilities of a return to form comeback from the band. After a lot of talking the band finally agreed to make an album and also make a special appearance at the first annual Frontiers Metal Festival, where they performed the album ‘Return To Heaven Denied’ for a future home video release. This year they finally released a new album, ‘Architecture Of A God’. The supreme quality of the album doesn’t come as a surprise to me. It’s beautifully written and it only makes you want more. And to make it even better it’s mixed by DGM’s Simone Mularoni and labeled by Frontiers Records s.r.l. Continue reading
