Author: Sean Palmerston

  • Blue Coupe, Bouchard’s Outrageous Canadians @ This Ain’t Hollywood, Hamilton ON, August 22, 2009

    It was loud, it was sweaty and it was a hell of a rock and roll show from a band whose combined age is somewhere around 235. Three of the four may be of retirement age, but on this night the Blue Coupe rocked harder than most bands 1/3 of their age.

  • Nebula, The Entrance Band, Skull, Eaglefight @ The Casbah, Hamilton ON, August 19, 2009

    The band was set against a bright backing light placed on the stage and played amidst a good amount of swirling fog. While still fairly “psychedelic” in both appearance and sound, Nebula brought a rougher and more road rock edge to their live performance than their more ambient fellow Californians. The songs were shorter, and…

  • Ross The Boss: New Metal Leader

    I haven’t listened to Manowar since I was about fifteen but from the first listen, I remembered what a kick-ass guitarist Ross the Boss is. His razor-sharp NWOBHM-era riffs, especially on “Death and Glory” have that classic Judas Priest Defender of the Faith-sound, and the songs are generally punchy but tight.

  • Sinner: Judgement Day/The Nature of Evil/There Will Be Execution

    Over time, Sinner has evolved from a cheesy hard rock band into a more serious power metal band into a repository for ideas that would not fit on a Primal Fear album. Of the three albums considered here, Judgement Day marks the transition from the first to the second stage while the remaining two albums…

  • Bloody Panda: Summon

    Summon is the latest from New York sludge doom band Bloody Panda, and it is hardly easy-listening material even by metal standards. It’s an album that is largely about the atmosphere it creates, and it doesn’t waste any time in getting to it.

  • Black Lotus: Harvest of Seasons

    Now I know most of you will compare them to Dark Funeral, Vintersorg, Borknagar and the like, but Victoria BC’s Black Lotus is definitely one of Canada’s most surprising hidden gems

  • DevilDriver: Pray For Villains

    Whether you’re a supporter or detractor, you have to feel for Dez Fafara and the big ol’ target on his back. No matter what he does, how long he grows his centre-parted hair out, how many bootleg Black Flag shirts he’s photographed wearing, how much ill-placed tattoo ink he coats his neck and face with…

  • Classic Album Revisited: Sleep’s Holy Mountain

    Now, Sleep is perhaps best known for Dopesmoker, the posthumous reissue of their Jerusalem record, with a more stoner-friendly title. Whether you call it Jerusalem or Dopesmoker, the single-track, 52-minute platter is a noteworthy album. But Holy Mountain isn’t just an album, it’s a collection of SONGS, man!

  • ALICE COOPER & BLUE OYSTER CULT fans in Ontario unite! BLUE COUPE returns!

    Two of the most important American bands of the early seventies were ALICE COOPER and BLUE OYSTER CULT. Both bands had a string of successful studio albums, sell-out tours and even hit singles on the radio. Some of the key members of the original versions of both these bands have joined force in a new…

  • The Gathering: The Next Chapter

    When Anneke van Giersbergen announced her departure from The Gathering it was a shock – for many fans but for her bandmates as well. But shock doesn’t have to lead to death or paralysis, and in a sense The Gathering had been down this road before. Reinvention is a familiar enterprise for the Dutch alt…