Admittedly, female-fronted gothic metal has rarely
been a genre that draws me in. Lyriel, however, proves to be the exception.
What sets this German outfit apart from the crowded field is not simply the
ethereal, ranging vocals of Jessica Thierjung — which recall a blend of Loreena
McKennitt and Candice Night — but the way the band weaves genuine folk and
Celtic instrumentation, courtesy of cello and violin, into their metal
foundation, accented by symphonic flourishes. The result is dreamlike, almost
narcotic, conjuring the sense of stepping into a fairy-tale world untouched by
cynicism. Despite its title, "Paranoid Circus" plays out as something
closer to thought-provoking and tranquil than unsettling.
For readers seeking a quicker reference point: picture
a meeting point between Loreena McKennitt, Blackmore's Night, Nightwish and
Falconer, and you'll have a fair idea of what awaits on this record.
Formed in 2003 in Gummersbach, Germany, Lyriel built
their early reputation on the road, supporting acts such as Elis, Visions of
Atlantis and Xandria — a connection reinforced by Thierjung's own guest
appearance on Xandria's "India." "Paranoid Circus" is the
band's third full-length, originally released in January 2010 through the
UK-based Femme Metal Records before AFM Records picked it up for a 2011
reissue, complete with new artwork and two bonus tracks. The album carries a
notable curiosity: German voice actor Simon Jäger — known for dubbing Heath
Ledger and Matt Damon in German releases — appears as a guest, narrating an
introduction and reading an excerpt from Hermann Hesse's short story "The
Wolf." Critics at the time noted that while the record maintained the
band's high musical standard, it favored atmosphere over the faster tempos of
their earlier work — an observation that lines up with the dreamy, immersive
quality that defines this listen.
Whatever prompted AFM Records to bring "Paranoid
Circus" back into circulation, the reissue is a welcome one. This is a
beautifully crafted record, and — traditional metal loyalist though I remain —
I'd happily add it to my collection if the price is right. For devotees of this
sound and of female-fronted metal in general, it is not one to overlook.
ΤοέκτοάλμπουμτωνΝορβηγών Black Metalers, πουαπότο 1998 εξελίσσονταισε Symphonic Black Metal συγκρότημα, ήρθεγιανασυμπληρώσειμιαακόμημουσικήτριλογίαμετα Spiritual Black Dimensions (1999) και Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia (2001), θεωρητικάταπιο «εμπορικά» άλμπουμτους.
Εδώ
το νορβηγικό Black Metal συναντά και πάλι τη συμφωνική μουσική σε ποσοστό
70/30. Με την πάντα αποκρυφιστική πλευρά κυρίαρχη, τα «δρακουλιάρικα» πλήκτρα
του Mustis, η χαρακτηριστική φωνή του Shagrath και οι κιθάρες των Silenoz και
Galder μάς μεταφέρουν και πάλι στη σύγχρονη εποχή.
Ο
μόνος μη Νορβηγός, ο ντράμερ Nicholas Barker (Cradle Of Filth), χαρίζει ρυθμούς
που ακούγονται οικείοι, μαζί με τον μπασίστα ICS Vortex.
Στα
δώδεκα κομμάτια του digipak, με το διαφορετικό εξώφυλλο — απ’ όσο ξέρω,
υπάρχουν διαφορετικά εξώφυλλα για το συγκεκριμένο άλμπουμ — περιλαμβάνεται η
διασκευή στο «Satan My Master» των Bathory. Ξεχωρίζουντα «Allegiance», «Progenies of the Great Apocalypse»,
«Lepers Among Us», «For the World to Dictate Our Death», «Blood Hunger
Doctrine», «Cataclysm Children», «Unorthodox Manifesto» και «Heavenly Perverse».
English:
Symphonic Frozen Hell
The sixth album by these Norwegian Black Metalers, who
had been gradually evolving into a Symphonic Black Metal band since 1998, forms
another musical trilogy alongside Spiritual Black Dimensions (1999) and
Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia (2001), theoretically their most “commercial”
releases.
Once again, Norwegian Black Metal meets symphonic
music here, roughly in a 70/30 balance. The occult side remains firmly in
control, while Mustis’ “draconic” keyboards, Shagrath’s unmistakable vocals,
and the guitars of Silenoz and Galder give the whole thing a distinctly modern
edge.
The band’s only non-Norwegian member, drummer Nicholas
Barker (Cradle Of Filth), provides a familiar-sounding rhythmic backbone
alongside bassist ICS Vortex.
The twelve-track digipak edition, with its different
cover — as far as I know, this album was released with several different covers
— also includes a cover of Bathory’s “Satan My Master.” Among the highlights
are “Allegiance,” “Progenies of the Great Apocalypse,” “Lepers Among Us,” “For
the World to Dictate Our Death,” “Blood Hunger Doctrine,” “Cataclysm Children,”
“Unorthodox Manifesto,” and “Heavenly Perverse.”
Είναι,
ρε παιδιά, κάτι μπάντες που πίστευαν από την αρχή σε αυτό που έκαναν. Ο Chris
Barnes σαν άτομο και το project-συγκρότημα που ξεκίνησε τότε παράλληλα με τους
Cannibal Corpse κι εξελίχθηκε στο σημαντικό αυτό Death Metal σχήμα με το
πέρασμα του χρόνου, είναι ένα παράδειγμα τέτοιας περίπτωσης. Το έβδομο άλμπουμ
τους σε πόσα, δεκαπέντε χρόνια; Αυτή η έντονη δραστηριότητα και παραγωγή
σίγουρα δεν είναι τυχαίο γεγονός!
Ένα
ακόμα τυπικά αιματοβαμμένο άλμπουμ, γεμάτο πτώματα, θάνατο, διαμελισμένα σώματα
και λοιπές θεματικές από ταινίες τρόμου, είναι στο στερεοφωνικό. Τι άλλο θα
ήταν δηλαδή; Χαρούμενα ζωάκια να βόσκουν χορτάρι σε ένα ηλιόλουστο δάσος; Ε,
όχι βέβαια! Αισθητική μεταξύ Slayer κι Obituary, φωνή πιο βραχνή και μαζί πιο
μπάσα κι από νεκραναστημένο ζόμπι που τραγουδάει άρια όπερας, κιθαριστικά ριφ
σαν ξυράφια — όλα όσα περιμένει ο φίλος του παραδοσιακού, ανόθευτου Death Metal
σχολής Florida δηλαδή.
Τίτλοισαντα Doomsday, Thou Shall Kill, Zombie Executioner, The
Edge of the Hatchet, Bleed to Death, Resurrection of the Rotten, As the Blade
Turns, In a Vacant Grave, Ghosts of the Undead, ανδεσαςπείθουνγιαόλαταπαραπάνω, τιναπω; Ξαναπατήστε το play στο στερεοφωνικό,
μπας και πάρετε μπροστά...
English:
Order of Violent Interment
There are, folks, some bands that believed in what
they were doing right from the start. Chris Barnes as an artist, and the
project-band that began back then alongside Cannibal Corpse and, over the
years, evolved into this significant Death Metal act, is a prime example of
exactly that. Their seventh album in what, fifteen years? That kind of
sustained activity and output is certainly no accident!
Here's another typically blood-soaked release, packed
with corpses, death, dismembered bodies, and the usual horror-movie fare,
spinning on the stereo. What else would it be, really? Happy little animals
grazing on grass in a sun-dappled forest? Not a chance! An aesthetic somewhere
between Slayer and Obituary, vocals both hoarser and deeper than a resurrected
zombie belting out an opera aria, guitar riffs sharp as razors — everything a
fan of traditional, undiluted Florida-school Death Metal could ask for.
Titles like Doomsday, Thou Shall Kill, Zombie
Executioner, The Edge of the Hatchet, Bleed to Death, Resurrection of the
Rotten, As the Blade Turns, In a Vacant Grave, Ghosts of the Undead — if none
of that convinces you of the above, what more can I say? Hit play on the stereo
again, maybe it'll finally sink in...
Fifteen years after their last full-length effort,
TOKYO BLADE return with a new studio album that reaffirms their standing as one
of the founding acts of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The band first
made its mark with two genuinely essential records, "Tokyo Blade" and
"Night of the Blade", along with the EP "Midnight
Rendez-vous" — releases that remain touchstones of the genre's early
years. In the decades that followed, the band's sound drifted toward a more
melodic, radio-friendly direction. "Thousand Men Strong" marks a
deliberate return to those classic roots, delivering traditional heavy metal
filtered through a thoroughly modern production.
That production carries real pedigree: it comes
courtesy of the late Chris Tsangarides, the celebrated producer behind JUDAS
PRIEST's landmark "Painkiller". Over a long career, Tsangarides also
worked with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, THIN LIZZY, Y&T, FREE, BLACK
SABBATH, Ian Gillan and ANVIL, among many others — a résumé that speaks for
itself and lends this record an extra layer of credibility.
Musically, "Thousand Men Strong" delivers on
that promise. Standout tracks include "Lunch-Case", "Forged in
Hell's Fire" and "Condemned by Fire" [flagged: I read this as a
likely typo for your original "Codemned to Fire" — let me know if you
meant something else], each showcasing the band at their sharpest. The album
also revisits the band's signature anthem "Night of the Blade" in a
re-recorded form; while competently done, it's unlikely to displace the
original in longtime fans' affections. New vocalist Nicolaj Ruhnow acquits
himself well throughout, bringing solid presence to the material without
overreaching.
In the end, "Thousand Men Strong" stands as
a worthy comeback from a genuine NWOBHM pioneer. Fans of traditional heavy
metal would do well to give it their attention.
German atmospheric black metal and shoegaze project
Sternweh has released its debut album, «Sehnflucht». The recording was tracked,
mixed, and mastered in-house by the project's founder, Christian Witt.
Formed in Germany in 2025, Sternweh is an independent
one-man project helmed by multi-instrumentalist Christian Witt, who is also
known as a horror and fantasy author. The project receives occasional vocal
contributions from Witt's wife, Yvonne.
Musically, «Sehnflucht» explores themes of cosmic
longing, escapism, and emotional isolation, juxtaposing dense walls of guitar
and anguished screamed vocals with fragile acoustic passages and clean singing.
The album marks Sternweh's first full-length release since the project's
formation.
A Masterpiece That Points
Toward the Meaning of Life
In 1988, Queensrÿche released Operation: Mindcrime,
a metal masterpiece with a progressive edge that remains one of the most
cohesive concept albums in rock history. On the surface it is a noir thriller
about Nikki, a disillusioned young man radicalized by the charismatic
revolutionary Dr. X, trained as an assassin, and ultimately broken by betrayal,
addiction, and the loss of the woman he loves. Listen closer, however, and the
album reveals itself as a profound meditation on what it means to live a human
life: the hunger for purpose, the seduction of ideology, the necessity of
genuine connection, and the catastrophe that follows when we mistake possession
or belonging for love.
At the heart of the story lies a devastating
distinction that the psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm articulated with
crystalline clarity in The Art of Loving. For Fromm, love is not merely
one value among others—it is the meaning of life. True love, he insists, is an
active practice of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge directed toward
the flourishing of another free being. It is the only adequate answer to the
fundamental human problem of separateness. In contrast stands the far more
common counterfeit: the passive, addictive fusion with an object, person, or
idea that promises to fill the void of an empty self. True love expands the
self; idolatrous “love” contracts it until nothing remains but the object of
fixation.
Nikki’s trajectory is a textbook illustration of the
second kind. First he is consumed by heroin, then by the revolutionary ideology
of Dr. X and the shadowy organization—a literal Operation: Mindcrime.
The language of the songs makes the substitution explicit: the needle becomes a
lover, the cause a religion, and Sister Mary both savior and possession. In
“Suite Sister Mary” we hear a man who no longer relates to the world; he is
annexed by it. Ideology functions exactly as Fromm warned: it offers the
illusion of meaning and belonging while demanding the surrender of critical
thought and personal responsibility. The parallels to the totalitarian ideologies
of the 20th century—particularly Nazism and Stalinism—are unmistakable. The
result is total devastation: moral, psychological, and literal. When the
ideology collapses and Mary is killed, Nikki is left with nothing but the echo
of his own emptiness in a padded cell. “The revolution devours its own
children,” as the saying goes. In “I Don’t Believe in Love,” his bitter
rejection refers not to Fromm’s active, life-affirming love, but precisely to
the possessive, idolatrous kind that has already destroyed him.
Yet the album does not leave us in despair. The
tragedy is so complete precisely because it shows what is missing. True
love—the kind Fromm describes as the very meaning of existence—appears only in
glimpses and in its absence. Mary’s compassion for Nikki, her attempt to pull
him back from the brink, carries the quiet weight of genuine care. Nikki’s
final, shattered recognition of what he has destroyed hints at the possibility
of awakening. Operation: Mindcrimetherefore teaches that the meaning of
life is not found in the grand narrative we attach ourselves to, nor in the
intensity of our identification with it, but in the challenging, ongoing
practice of relating to other human beings as ends in themselves. Ideology
promises transcendence and delivers annihilation; love promises nothing
absolute and yet, as Fromm maintains, is what makes life worth living.
None of this philosophical depth would land with such
force without the extraordinary compositional beauty and execution of the music
itself. Geoff Tate’s voice is a dramatic instrument of rare range and
control—capable of venomous sneer, fragile vulnerability, and operatic grandeur
within a single phrase. The dual-guitar work of Chris DeGarmo and Michael
Wilton is architectural rather than merely virtuosic: themes are introduced,
inverted, layered, and resolved across the album with a stunning formal
elegance. “Suite Sister Mary” stands as a miniopera of shifting moods and time
signatures; “Eyes of a Stranger” closes the circle with a melodic and harmonic
sophistication that still feels modern nearly four decades later. The rhythm
section of Scott Rockenfield (drums) and Eddie Jackson (bass) provides both
precision and human pulse, never allowing the complexity to become cold.
What elevates the record is the perfect marriage of
form and content. The music does not merely soundtrack the story; it embodies
the psychological states. The rigid, militaristic riffs of the indoctrination
sequences give way to fluid, aching passages when real emotion breaks through.
The production is spacious yet dense—almost cold in its clinical precision,
creating a powerful contrast with the melodic and harmonic richness that allows
every detail to serve the narrative. In an era of increasingly fragmented
listening, Operation: Mindcrime remains a reminder that a work of art
can still demand—and reward—complete attention.
Queensrÿche’s masterpiece endures because it refuses
easy answers. It shows us how readily the human need for meaning can be
hijacked by ideology, and how catastrophic that substitution becomes. At the
same time, through the sheer beauty and integrity of its composition and
performance, it affirms that the opposite path is possible: a life grounded not
in fusion with an idea, but in the patient, courageous practice of true
love—the very activity that, according to Erich Fromm, constitutes the meaning
of life. In that tension—between the warning and the possibility—lies
everything the album can teach us about what makes life worth living.
There is an old saying, favoured by the English and
Americans alike, that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Few artists prove
that maxim quite as reliably — or as proudly — as Udo Dirkschneider. The
diminutive German with the unmistakable rasp built his legend as the voice of
Accept during what is widely regarded as that band's classic era, before
striking out on his own in 1987 with U.D.O., the outfit that still bears his
initials today. Nearly a quarter-century and more than a dozen albums later, he
shows no interest whatsoever in retiring the formula that made him a metal
institution — and the "Leatherhead" EP is proof.
Released through AFM Records as a four-track appetiser
ahead of U.D.O.'s thirteenth studio album, "Rev-Raptor" (issued on 20
May 2011), the EP does exactly what a good teaser should: it tells longtime
fans precisely what is coming, without giving away the whole meal. If
mid-tempo, Accept-flavoured heavy metal with choruses built for shouting along
is your idea of a good time, this EP delivers it in full.
The title track, "Leatherhead," is one of
two songs here that also appear on "Rev-Raptor" itself, and its
lineage is easy to hear — there are echoes of "Balls to the Wall" in
its stomping, mid-paced gait. It is a perfectly solid opener, though not one
that reinvents anything. Its official video, incidentally, was filmed in
Nürnberg and later included as a bonus feature on the "Rev-Raptor"
digipak edition.
Far more exciting is "Rock 'n' Roll
Soldiers," the EP's second "Rev-Raptor" preview track, which
carries a "Metal Heart"-style swagger and a chorus practically
engineered for festival singalongs. This is, without question, the standout cut
of the release — a song built for the stage, and my personal favourite of the
four.
The remaining two tracks are archival treats rather
than new material. "Free or Rebellion" and "Run" were both
originally released on U.D.O.'s 2004 "Thundervision" DVD, and it's a
welcome move to see them find a proper audio release here. "Free or
Rebellion" is another rousing, sing-along anthem — the kind of song built
to be played loud enough to test the patience of every neighbour on the street.
"Run," meanwhile, is a power ballad of the sort U.D.O. has delivered
throughout his career: pleasant enough, if not among the strongest examples of
the style he's produced.
Rounding out the package are two video clips — one for
"Leatherhead," the other for "Jingle Balls," a curious
one-off U.D.O. recorded with Evil Disposition, a band assembled from staff at
the EMP mail-order merchandise company.
Taken as a whole, "Leatherhead" is unlikely
to go down as U.D.O.'s finest hour, but it was never meant to. As a stopgap
between full-length albums, it is honest, unpretentious, and squarely aimed at
the faithful — and on that measure, it succeeds. Fans of Dirkschneider's brand
of unreconstructed heavy metal, this reviewer included, will find plenty here
to enjoy while the countdown to "Rev-Raptor" continues.
