Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews, Various

(review) Ratos De Porao – Necropolitica (FOAD Records)

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Brazilian hardcore punk legends are back with new album out recently. This time, they deliver 10 songs of furious and fast hardcore punk with some thrash elements, crossover that they retained throughout all their decades although experimenting at times with groove and crust punk d-beat. Vocalist Gordo sounds like in the old times, I did not like his growling on some previous albums, but he is back with his hardcore thrash shouting. Music is angry energetic bomb of hardcore fury, thrash metal vigour and political stance with songs like Alerta Antifascista , Pasa Pano pra Elite or Necropolitica sure to become live action favorites also listening favorites. There are couple of really awesome melodic hooks here and there coupled with catchy solo here and there then returning back to more hardcore anger and lyrics shouted in Portugese. This is definitely one of top five RDP albums in my opinion.

8/10

Reviews, Various

(review) A Dance in Yellow – Madness and Blood

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A Dance in Yellow is a one man band or project if you want, hailing from Germany. This opus is the second full length and it contains intro and outro plus nine more stories told as songs. The music of A Dance in Yellow is basically melodic death black metal with lost of prog metal influences here and there and impressive musicianship, especially guitar work and vocals which range from death metal growling to black metal extreme singing and screeching, also some almost gothic singing I can hear in some song parts. Lyrical side of things is somehwere in Robert W.Chambers and H.P.Lovecraft influenced atmosphere of horror and listening to this one almost made me physically feel the cosmic horror and ancient ones lurking upon mankind. Atmosphere is vital with endeavors like this opus and here A Dance in Yellow manage to create a horror like prey upon unsuspecting individual listening to this opus. So, close your eyes, open your darkened hearts and souls, look to the sky, see the stars aligned and enter the world of bleak darkness and pain, but also enlightenment. Personal favorites: Fire and Steel, Born of the Ancients, Torn Apart.

8/10

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movie, Reviews, Various

(movie) Soaring Highs and Brutal Lows – The Voices of Women in Metal (2015)

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I recently found this documentary and since I am a sucker for music documentaries, I said, let´s watch this one and see what this is about. Like in hardcore punk scene, metal scene is, I dare say even more sexist and misoginistic towards women and girls really had a hard time through couple of decades to succeed and be respected and recognized as artists equal and even better than their male counterparts.

This documentary talks about women, to be more precise women metal singers who talk bout their experiences and their accomplishments in the scene with their stories which are in many ways similar, yet different and inspiring, also beautiful. This one features Floor Jansen(After Forever,Nightwish,ReVamp), Alissa White-Gluz(Arch Enemy, Kamelot), Simone Simons(Epica), Doro Pesch(Doro, Warlock), Kobra Paige(Kobra and the Lotus)…What I love about this movie that it is told thematically telling basically same story from different angles or points of view at the same time creating similar story but told through the eyes of women who became such undivided part of the scene. I especially love the emotional part of Floor Jansen having suffered from burnout because I experienced something similar a while ago. Also, Alissa White-Gluz is one of my favorite singers, so hearing her story made me happy. What I always hated in the scene were flyers and adds or gigs which advertized ‘female fronted metal band’ or ‘female fronted hardcore band’-I mean, what the fuck is that? I always, always hated that syntagm which I find diminishing and sexist and I hope no one will ever use that again. Anyway, this movie was inspiring and fun to watch. So, if you have a chance, see it!