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Video Of The Week
21 March
We’ve got two very different offerings this week. First up is the new single ‘Irons In The Fire’ by German four-piece WUCAN, out now on Long Branch Records. Great performances all round, a cracking bass line and nice to hear a bit of theremin in there, too. There’s no information as to whether an album is in the pipeline, but it’s been three years since their last full-length release ‘Heretic Tongue’ so a new album is surely due soon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGj6XAhalOo
Meanwhile, from a completely different angle – although still from Germany – come ORACLE HANDS with ‘Black Fields’, a track taken off their debut album ‘Dirge For the Doomed’, set for release by Moment of Collapse records on 25 April. This, too, is quite stunning, but in a very different way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Kf3WlZ5l8
14 March
First up comes US progressive metal act Nospun with ‘The Effervescent Power’ from their ‘Ozai’ five-track EP, which features re-recordings of older songs and is due for release on 28 March: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEqbpK8yOCA
‘Kalervo’ by Finnish band I.F.A. depicts the life of Kalervo Palsa who wanted to be ‘the darkest painter in Europe’. As such, the song and accompanying clip is a rather bleak but atmospheric slice of metal taken from the band’s second studio album ‘Tiimalasi’ which comes out on 8 August: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyXkYnMAxr8
13 February 2025
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and how better to celebrate than with a couple of cracking new cuts. First off, LAURENNE/LOUHIMO – the collaboration between powerhouse Finnish vocalists Noora Louhimo (Battle Beast) and Netta Laurenne (Smackbound) – release their second album ‘Falling Through Stars’ on 18 April On Frontiers. ‘Damned’ is the first single to be taken from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv10TyQ9GeA
Eszter Anna Baumann and her band Ann My Guard are back with their fifth album, ‘She Of The Sea And Stars’, set for release at the end of March. From the album here’s the beautifully haunting ‘Starseed’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfEON3hrE0E
5 February 2025
An operation has put me out of commission for a while, but we’re back in business now with a double dose of clips of completely different styles. Sofia Beco, Luís Dias and Fernando Maia, collectively known as PHASE TRANSITION, release their debut album ‘In Search Of Being’ on 6 June, and here’s their opening single ‘Becoming, (R)evolution’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsSkp_9lhjc
And from the upcoming album ‘Purgatory Carnival’ this is ‘Fissure’ by aggressive UK riffmeisters SPREADING THE DISEASE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bz8qelBIX8
22 November
Too much choice this week, so let’s get straight to it. THUNDERMOTHER’s ‘Dead Or Alive’ is a track lifted from their ‘Dirty Or Divine’ album, set for release in February on AFM Records: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAtbOal4wNs
From Finnish prog metal act THE HYPOTHESIS comes ‘Where The Dreams Come To Die’, a cut from their ‘Evolve’ album, issued by Noble Demon in October: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9KA0Rf3fnw
ENEMY INSIDE have a new album ‘Venom’ due in February on Reigning Phoenix Music, and this cut ‘Fck That Party’ features Clawfinger’s Zak Tell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYLjMw2KCMM
Finally, Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen are back in business once more. The second SMITH / KOTZEN studio album ‘Black Night / White Noise’ is set for release via BMG in March, and as the first taster from the album here’s ‘White Noise’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pABdwOwpjGI
8 November
As I was MIA last week, here’s a bumper crop to make up for my absence. Let’s start with the latest from the talented band ERAMNESIA that features Aimee Zambrana and Patrick Reilly. We’ve covered them before here on JTo and the more they slowly drip-feed really classy songs into the metal ether they more the demand for a full album grows. Great band, great song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKHTC2lebTg
‘Apathy’ is the debut single from Finnish dark rock duo GRAVEYARD ANGEL, made up of instrumentalist Mika ‘Alde’ Ahlqvist and LAB frontwoman Ana. The band have signed to Inverse Records, and an album will be following shortly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0VUjqB4LI8
HANGMAN’S CHAIR were extremely impressive on their recent tour with Dool, and with the French quartet’s next album due in February, here’s a taster in the shape of ‘Kowloon Nights’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b46lN5zqSjQ
And from their upcoming album ‘Between You, God, The Devil And The Dead, due in January on AFM Records, here’s AVATARIUM with ‘I See You Better In The Dark’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFKfPIV_aZc
25 October
Perhaps a little different from Epica, ‘The Ghost In Me (Danse Macabre)’ comes from their upcoming new album, and the clip was created in collaboration with De Efteling theme park, often called “better than Disneyland” by locals and apparently a favourite day out for all the band members. And why not... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWoTDpU5G9k
And here’s Metalite with ‘Blazing Skies’ (a track off their ‘Expedition One’ album which came out back in January) shot live at Sweden’s Skrgsrojët festival to liven up what here is a dull and dreary October day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIJE0lSLTQg
18 October
Tides Of Nebula are one of those bands I’ve got a great deal of time for. Their album ‘From Voodoo To Zen’ was my favourite album of 2019, and now from their long-awaited follow-up ‘Instant Rewards’ comes ‘Rhino’, a classic slow-burner from the Polish instrumentalists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OilyNx_mkDM
And on tour with Kamelot in the UK soon are Frozen Crown. ‘I Am The Wind’ is the latest clip from their new album ‘War Hearts’, due out today on Napalm Records: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1mnCqgjKGo
On a sadder note, I would like to send my condolences to the family and friends of Michelle Kerr, a fabulous PR person whom I enjoyed working with. Her passing at such a young age is a great tragedy.
Out now: ‘All Systems Go – The Neat Singles Vol One’ (Cherry Red / Hear No Evil)
A real labour of love, this one. I wrote the sleeve notes to the original Neat CD compilations 20+ years ago, but I was never happy with the way the singles were split, with the A-sides on one CD and the B-sides on another, rather than keeping both sides of each single together. So, armed with a stopwatch, a pad, and a lot of patience ‘All Systems Go’ was pulled together. The four CDs in this set start with that original Tygers Of Pan Tang 7” ‘Don’t Touch Me There’, which set the ball rolling, and ends with NEAT 38, Venom’s ‘Warhead’. There’s a second volume to follow to complete the legendary label’s single releases but in the meatime, by my reckoning, what you get here is 27 different bands, 36 singles, 81 tracks and nearly 5 hours of music. Oh, and 4,000 words of text.
“Focussing on the As and Bs of Neat’s up-and-coming metallers, ‘All Systems Go’ features four CDs of balls-to-the-wall metal... A killer tribute to what was ‘Allegedly Britain’s No.1 Independent Heavy Metal Label’” – Fistful Of Metal
"The seven-inchers released via Neat Records were a near-failsafe guarantee of excellence... The focal tracks come from Neat’s ‘big names’... But the real gold is in the lesser-lauded tracks, notably Fist’s erudite ‘Name, Rank And Serial Number, Jaguar’s certifiably insane ‘Axe Crazy’ and White Spirit’s Purple-tinged ‘Back To The Grind’.” – Classic Rock (8/10)
