ELYSIUM is the anticipated debut album of Grace and Fire. This beautifully illustrated 6-panel digipak with 12 page booklet tells the journey into a world that resembles Dante's Inferno. Each band member adds their unique style, but blends into a coherant set of tracks, each one different from the last and yet one feels the album would be incomplete without them all. Production and mixing by Threshold's Karl Groom at Thin Ice Studios is indicative of the quality that can be expected. Listen out for the guest musicians with a cameo from Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater/Sons of Apollo) and Yngwie Malmsteen vocalists Göran Edman and Mark Boals joining up with André on a couple of tracks.
The "An einsamer Quelle" project is the sequel to the "Sublime Idylle" CD which was released in 2018 by Klarthe. The project was dedicated to the works of Clara and Robert Schumann and already underlined the lyricism of the piano, notably with the op.39 lieder by Robert, adapted for the piano by Clara. For this new disc, the voice is once again in the spotlight, with transcriptions of the Lieder Morgen (1894) and Allerseelen (1885) arranged by Max Reger. And what could be more interesting than weaving a bond between Schumann, Strauss… and us! The Strauss who wrote his op.3 and op.9 in the 1880s is the same composer who, in 1948, would gratify us with his masterpiece "Vier Letzte Lieder" (Four last songs).
Kerber, the new album from Yann Tiersen, is a beautifully textured, highly immersive and thoughtfully constructed electronic world to step inside of. Piercing piano keys merge with swirling soundscapes, as Tiersen explores the possibilities of infinite smallness. The album was created and recorded at The Eskal, the studio he built on Ushant (the island where he lives, located 30 kilometres off the west coast of Brittany in the Celtic Sea), and Kerber is named after a chapel in a small village on the island while each track sonically maps the landscape that surrounds Tiersen’s home.
Legends in Thrash - crushing, rolling and knocking you down with their new album "Blood In The Water".
On the one hand, you know exactly what you’re going to get with Flotsam and Jetsam. After all, they’ve been grinding this axe for a long time (their debut was in 1986). However, so driven and so ‘on fire’ are the band at the moment, there are still surprises up their sleeves. What isn’t a surprise is that Blood in the Water is a kick-ass slab of thrash and speed metal. Everything great about this long-surviving band and then some.
It starts so strongly with the absolute inferno of head-banging heaviness that is the title track, the blistering speed of Burn the Sky and the meaty scowl and growl of Brace for Impact. Rip-roaring riffs, frantic soloing, punchy hooks and thumping drumming, all backed up by the impressive vocals of AK…