Wearing clean socks to a punk concert? If such a question doesn’t grab one’s attention, well, there must be something wrong with you. Nevertheless during the previous Strudelfest, people who indented to visit the showcase of Lola Montez were actually asked wear a fresh pair. So be warned, expect the unexpected. The band, named after a famous Irish dancer from the seventieth century, consists of four members: Dutchmen Floris van Bergeijk (guitar), Daan Vroon (drums), Joram Tornij (bass) and the German vocalist Ariadna Rubio Lleó. Naturally new bands play on small scale events to make a name for themselves. Lola Montez did so since 2010 and simultaneously worked on their first full length album which they released last February. To mark this special moment, the band decided to break away from common standards and released Kolaveri Di in a former horse breeding farm in the shadow of Utrecht (The Netherlands). Next to this the albums artwork is also worth mentioning. The front and back cover is remarkably artistic and cardboard case is sewed together by hand, making each disk an unique product. Once more Lola Montez grabs one’s attention. And now that they have, it’s time to hear if they can live up to this. Continue reading
Tag Archives: review
The Joy Formidable – Wolf’s Law (2013)
From the first moment I saw them on Conan O’Brien’s talkshow Conan, giving away an electrifying rendition of Whirring, I knew The Joy Formidable were something special. The indie rock band debuted in 2011 with The Big Roar, a record stuffed to the brim with a blistering mix of noise, dreamy pop melodies and shoegazing, and although the album suffered slightly from some pacing issues (especially the latter half of the record has the tendency to trudge a bit), it was a very promising start for the Welsh threesome. Continue reading
Sacred Steel – The Bloodshed Summoning (2013)
There used to be a time when German true metal formation Sacred Steel were much maligned for what they were doing by the international press. The lucicrously traditional brand of heavy metal was too old-fashioned for a lot of people, the vocals of metal siren Gerrit P. Mutz were (and are) definitely not for anyone, and each and every record the band put out was immediately relegated to whatever type of album-of-the-month-lists magazines were sporting at the time. However, that was a long time, and a lot has happened since. Continue reading
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away (2013)
It goes without doubt that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are not to be shunned by anyone who values dark and romantic music. Formed from the ashes of The Birthday Party (1983-1985) the band released multiple albums and is renowned for their noir perception on love and the world. Continue reading
Helloween – Straight Out of Hell (2013)
I can still remember the first time I heard of Helloween, and the particularly German brand of power metal. It was somewhere in 1996 and the band had just released The Time of the Oath, the second album with vocalist Andi Deris after the departure of frontman Michael Kiske. A metal and rock programme on Dutch music channel TMF was showing the video for first single outing Power and I was absolutely taken by the catchy chorus, the speedy metal and the twin guitar solos. I had started getting into old school heavy metal a few years before, and this was right up my alley. However, I do remember thinking, ‘this will never last. I’ll love this now, but I know I will have grown tired by it by the next studio album.’ Because that’s almost always the way things go with things which catch on immediately, isn’t it? Continue reading
Bad Religion – True North (2013)
With sixteen albums under their belt and a career spanning over three decades, the American punk rock band Bad Religion is nothing short of an institute. From an impressive run back in the old days with classics like Against the Grain, Generator and Suffer, to the mainstream success of the nineties (and the release of some truly mediocre work in a Brett Gurewitz-less line-up) and the subsequent return to Epitaph Records, the band has seen some incredible highs as well as a few lows, and are still around to underline the fact that no, punk is not dead at all. Continue reading
Rush – Clockwork Angels (2012)
This review has been a long time coming. Released almost a year ago, it had been the strongest contender for being my album of the year, just before Spanish folk rockers Mägo de Oz decided to release a new album just before 2012 came to a close (a write-up about that album and why exactly it became my favourite album of the year can be found here). In the end though, there isn’t much qualitative leeway between both Mägo’s new effort and the brand new studio album from Canadian prog legend Rush, as both albums deliver top notch music with the respective bands performing at the top of their game. Continue reading
