Author: Steve Earles
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Speedtrap – Straight Shooter
Reviews I’m seen for this simply splendid album seem to focus on two bands as influences on Speedtrap, Motorhead and Chrome Division (I don’t see them as an influence but they share attitudes and influences). For sure I hear Motorhead, which is as it should be, if you don’t love Motorhead, you don’t love life.…
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Tau Cross – Tau Cross
Tau Cross features Rob Miller from Amebix and Away from Voivod and draws great strength from both bands. Amebix and Voivod are two of my favourite bans of all time. Moreover, they are two of most influential bands in the history of metal. And bear in mind that both bands expanded and moved beyond the…
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Lucifer – Lucifer I
Lucifer open this splendid album with ‘Abracadabra’, a magical phrase that implies the opening up of new vistas and worlds. Which, following the sad demise of The Oath, Lucifer most certainly are. The music contained within the grooves of this album is truly marvellous, utterly sincere, timeless… it belongs to no particular time. It is…
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Unleash the Archers – Time Stands Still
Napalm made a very good decision in signing Unleash The Archers: they have all of metal’s strengths and none of it’s weaknesses. Time Stands Still is a very positive, very up album. In some respects, it is very traditional – great playing, great songwriting – but in other’s – production and influences – it is very…
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Mick Wall’s Getcha Rocks Off (book review)
Writing about music now is very different from Mick Wall’s decades of involvement in the music industry, working both in PR and as a writer. Then it was very hands-on. Wall was part of the action. Now it’s digital and antiseptic, with less and less human interaction (much like all life is becoming now). It’s…
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The Meads of Asphodel / Tjolgtjar – Taste The Divine Wrath
It is releases like this that are the reason I’ve dedicated so much time to this genre. It comes as no surprise that the Meads of Asphodel would do yet another fine split release, as they were one of the first British black metal bands to do so, releasing for instance, the fine ‘English/Black Punk…
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Cathedral – In Memoriam
Cathedral are one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time. Their influence is far, far beyond any commercial success they have achieved. Over two decades, Cathedral consistently made superb records, often under severe financial constraints, for the right reasons – love of their art. That more of us might have the courage to…
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Pyramids On Mars – Echo Cosmic
When I went to see the film Jonah Hex in the cinema I was astonished by two things. One, how it was possible to take such a good character and make such an utter balls-up of a film. Seriously, all they had to do was adapt the graphic novel Riders of the Worm and Such…
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Shardborne – Living Bridges
Hailing from Limerick, Ireland (and thus, local lads!), Shardborne are on the right label with Out On A Limb, as they did a fine job with fellow Irish instrumental prog-metallers, Rest. On ‘Not That Axis’, Shardborne are very reminiscent of Voivod circa ‘The Unknown Knows’, whereas ‘Qualia’ displays virtuoso jazz influences. In a sense, Shardborne are a…
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Terminator Genisys (film review)
I really wanted to like this film. I had a lot of good will towards it. The previous Terminator films are all at least decent, and in two cases, stone-cold classics. Terminator: Salvation was very enjoyable and opened up the franchise in a new and feasible direction while still being faithful to its own mythology.…