Author: Sean Palmerston

  • Label profile: Shadow Kingdom Records

    Taking the name of his label from the first of writer Robert E. Howard’s fantastical Kull story series, it’ll probably come as no surprise that Shadow Kingdom Records’ and Distro deals extensively in material where swords, shields, impossibly tall marble castles and scenic green hills are stained claret-red with the remnants of some mythical battle…

  • Voivod: Infini

    What a gift Denis D’Amour has left us. When the guitarist affectionately known as “Piggy” was diagnosed with cancer, he could have easily rested on his laurels, with every reason to be immensely proud of the 20-odd years of music he created as a member of Voivod. Instead, he dove straight into his art during…

  • Tim “Ripper” Owens: Play My Game

    Play My Game comes across as a series of tracks inspired by Judas Priest’s Demolition and Beyond Fear’s eponymous debut, with the occasional nod to Dio. This should come as no surprise, given that two of the songs were Ripper-penned tunes which were originally rejected by Priest.

  • Graf Orlock: Destination Time Today LP

    There are three indisputable facts of life: death, taxes and that Graf Orlock is the greatest cinema-grind band of all. Granted, they may be the only cinema-grind band, but if there is such a micro-genre, they top it based on merit, not by default.

  • IRON MAIDEN: Archive of Previously Published Reviews

    No, this isn’t a review of the cool Eddie’s Archives that came out a few years ago, I was never lucky enough to be able to find one of those to buy for myself, instead this is a collection of stuff that I have written on Iron Maiden over the years for various publications…

  • Remember… HEAVY MTL 2008

    Our fearless editor reminisces on last summer’s fantastic inaugural HEAVY MTL festival, which happened exactly one year ago from this weekend at Parc Jean Drapeau. Sean wrote reviews for two different publications, which have been collected here for your viewing pleasure.

  • Iron Maiden: Flight 666

    We asked our faithful HELLBOUND contributors who have already had a chance to view Flight 666 to write us a review of their viewing experience. Here is a compendium of all the submitted reviews, listed alphabetically by the last name of the writer. We hope you enjoy these individual viewpoints on this fantastic, award winning…

  • Ex Deo: Romulus

    Brutal, crushing, epic metal to the march of Roman legions! With their debut Romulus, Ex Deo establishes a unique middle ground between the fierce brutality of Kataklysm and the storming pagan metal of Blackguard, Moonsorrow and Tyr.

  • UFO: The Visitor

    UFO have now been in business in one form or another for forty years and The Visitor is UFO’s 20th studio album. Unfortunately however, this album is nothing like the classic UFO albums Lights Out, Obsession or No Heavy Petting.

  • Black Label Society: Skullage

    Zakk Wylde. The man, the guitar hero, the biker, the virtuoso… what the hell happened?