Low Frequency Records
Review by 5 January 2003

Again another Finnish powermetalband; where do all these bands come from? And again I must say that this band also has a very good musical level. Okay, some might argue that Requiem are not really original but which band is nowadays. Also I would like to say that these guys are very young, looking at the pictures, and they can still develop their own style. And they are not afraid to experiment because the opening song is based on Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and that is not very easy to play.

Sound Riot Records/Rock Inc. 2003
Review by Martien Koolen,
17 January 2004

Requiem was founded in Finland in 1999 and they first started as a melodic death power metal band. In 2001 they signed a record deal with Sound Riot and their style gradually changed to neo-classical power metal. A year later they released their debut album called ‘The Arrival” and actually they got some really good reviews.

Their second album “Mask Of Damnation” shows the progress that this young band has made and now I would describe their music as fast power metal. Their influences are obvious; Stratovarius, Helloween, Edguy and Blind Guardian definitely belong to their musical “examples”. However these guys lack the variation that the bands I mentioned do have. All the eight songs on this album are fast, faster, fastest. Maybe with the exception of the title track, where you can finally hear some keyboard parts and some diversity as rhythm is concerned.

Indie 2003
Review by 28 December 2003

The breakthrough of HIM a few years ago created a new, blossoming scene here in Finland, that being the Gothic Rock scene. Maybe it's the endless dark winters, maybe it's the not so "happy-go-lucky" mentality of ours, but the dark, melancholic sounds really appealed to many people. Several excisting bands felt comfortable changing their direction to a darker one (take former sleaze rockers 69 Eyes for instance), and a lot of young musicians were inspired by Ville Valo and Co. Even the gothic fashion has become almost mainstream.

Restless are one of the new bands following in the footsteps of HIM and other gothic rockers. To my knowledge, "Evil In Us" is their first studio demo, and it will also be their last as Restless, as they have already changed their name to SaraLee. It was recorded in August 2003 over a three day period in Studio Watercastle, with one Arttu Sarvanne behind the controls.

The three songs on the CD sound pretty good when it comes to the production, and the band doesn't sound half bad either. The influences are quite obvious though, from the "breathy" vocals to the recgonizable melodies and ghostly keyboards. To their benefit, I must say that the band does sound a bit more energetic than some of the other new gothic acts.

"Everytime" is probably my favourite of these songs, with its' raw energy and decent chorus, even if it sounds like vintage HIM. Vocalist Joonas is at his best on this track too. "Hearts & Roses" is a bit slower track that reminds me a lot of The Sentenced, although not quite as heavy. "Evil In Us" is the slowest of them all, a dramatic track with stylish, athmospheric keyboards. Just like all the songs, it could've used a bit more upfront background vocals.

Low Frequency Records 2003
Review by 20 February 2003

The godfathers of doom were of course Black Sabbath and so you could say that the genre doom metal was first introduced in 1970. Lots of bands tried to reach the same musical level as The Sabs,but unfortunately not many succeeded. A few bands who were successful,like Trouble, The Obsessed and Saint Vitus did not last very long. Another famous doommetal band,Candlemass, is now in the spotlight again, as for doom epics Solitude Aeturnus the comeback, with their album “Adagio”(1998), sadly failed.

Reverend Bizarre is a doom metal band from Finland and they started their career in 1994. This debutalbum is a pure doom-album, full of slow tempo songs with very heavy guitarriffs and lyrics that will give some listeners nightmares…..Magister Albert(vocals,bass), Peter Vicar (guitar) and Earl Of Void (drums) create a sound that lovers of old Black Sabbath's material will truly appreciate. Songs like “Burn In Hell” or “In The Hour Of Death” very much remind me of e.g. songs like “Black Sabbath”, “War Pigs” or “Into The Void”. However the three disciples of Reverend Bizarre lack in quality as compared to their “idols”.

Indie 2001
Review by 29 July 2002

While Jason Richardson is trying to make himself a career in country music, he is also giving rock music a go with this 4-track demo. These four songs are no-frills rock from somewhere between Springsteen and Seattle, with Jason singing in a delibrately un-country way. He has a good voice for this kind of material, but the material itself is quite ordinary. In fact, his country songs (he sent me a full country CD too) have stronger hooks, although their arrangements are a bit too traditional country for me.

Indie 2003
Review by Endre "Bandi" H|bner 5 September 2003

Just about a week ago I was ranting about the endless flow of tribute albums. This week here's Michael Riesenbeck, the man behind one of the few good tribute albums of the recent years [check our archives for a review of Fanfields, a Tribute to Toto]. His work on the tribute album was more than promising and now he proves with his own material that he's as good with his own stuff as he was with refreshing Toto songs. As you'd expect this album is pretty much in the vein of Toto, and the musicianship also ranks up to them.

Just like on the tribute album Michael invited a bunch of people to play and sing on the album. As a result of this, the album is very diverse and entertaining but not all the vocalists deliver an equally good performance. I would like to point Tony O'Hora of Praying Mantis and Phil Vincent out here as they sound probably the best of them all. [I guess it's not by accident that  unlike all the others  they both sing 2 songs here, not just one]. The opening "Hold on Me" (Vincent) and "Dreams for Tomorrow" (O'Hora) may be the best songs here. Urban Tale's Kimmo Blom joined by Bryan Woolley also do a great job on "Call to Glory" (great refrain!) and Lars Sdfsund is as good on "Meant to Be" as he was on the Toto tribute, however I have to admit that prefer the three instrumentals to any of the remaining songs. This may be the criticism of the other vocalists or the praise of Michael's very entertaining guitar playing or the praise of his fine songwriting skills, you decide.

Frontiers 2003
Review by Petri Kautto 29 March 2003

Ring of Fire led by the ex-Yngvie frontman Marc Boals gives us "Dreamtower", an album full of technical skills and and nice melodies. "My Deja-vu" gets things going and it’s a good pick for the opening slot. Vocally Boals does what is expected of him and the band does great job which leaves you expecting a lot from the rest of the album. But unfortunately no high praises when you look at the entity.

Starting point for this album is good. The line-up consists of professionals and you can’t complain about the production either. Still after a promising start the rest of the album fails to deliver. Not a complete disappointment but the songwriting could have been better. The songs are ok but it’s hard to find highpoints that would make you wanna listen to them over and over again. There’s a lot of technical display but that does not mend the fact that many of the songs lack in content.

Frontiers Records 2003
Review by Martien "Walrus" Koolen 31 august 2003

Ring Of Fire started in 2000 with Mark Boals as the man with the initiative to start a melodic power metal band. He was joined by Tony MacAlpine, Virgil Donati and Vitalij Kuprij. Two fantastic albums were made, "The Oracle" and "Dreamtower" and now they release their first live double album and dvd recorded in Japan.

The line-up is completed by bassplayer Philip Bynoe (Steve Vai) and the two cds contain 21 tracks. I will start with the highlights of the album, which are without any doubt, “City Of The Dead”, “Atlantis”, “Samurai”, “The Oracle” and “Leviathan”. These are fantastic neoclassical metal tracks a la Malmsteen with superb guitar solos of Tony MacAlpine and excellent “shouting” by Mark Boals. I always admired Tony as a wonderful and underestimated guitar player and his solos on this album are awesome; check out his solo at the end of the first cd. An amazing guitar orgasm (pardon my French); Yngwie eat your heart out…..

Talking Music 2004
Review by Urban "Wally" Wallstrom,
26 April 2004

The Rise is the new Sweden project with out-of-ordinary vocalist Sonny Larsson (XT, Motherlode, Leviticus), bassist Peter Carlsohn (Jerusalem), drummer Micke Ulvsgärd (Jerusalem, XT), and guitarist Ulf Jenevall (Bahnhof Zoo, Time Machine, Refug). Not to mention that ex-Jerusalem keyboardist Reidar I Paulsen, helps out with additional keys. Their "Bluezone" CD is a fresh mixture of Rock/Pop and borderline hardrock... with the help of some imagination and super glue perhaps. One thing's for sure though, this is mostly quality music with a great production and the whole she-bang.

The main person and songwriter of the band, Peter Carlsohn, is a major U2 addict by the way. This was already noticed by fans on the Jerusalem album "Prophet" in 1994. You can also tell the guitar work on this CD, to be very similar to U2 every now and then. Ulf Jenevall has obviously been told to "shred like The Edge" on certain tracks and places. Just check out the marvelous "Lucky To Live", with its instant hit potential and upbeat tempo. One of the best songs of the year so far. The overall material is Rock/Pop, which include both real and programmed drums and even dance-able beats sometimes. Opener "New Beginning" is the first single and it's a catchy tune for sure. A bit too "dance-able" perhaps (you're only allowed to dance when your team wins the title), but it will surely work out nicely on the radio. "Will You Be Mine" reminded me of Jet Circus with Terry H/Ez Gomer (Leviticus), only slightly poppier. Fact is that Ulvsgård next project will be another Jet Circus album, with the above mentioned musicians. "City Of Hope" is a great ballad with a hand-in-hand, sing-a-long, refrain, and possitive message. "Sweeter Than Wine" could as easily have been a Jerusalem ballad in the past. The verses on "Rise" has a similar sound to Roxette's "The Look", while "Hold On", certainly must be inspired by David Bowie's "Heroes". Not everything that glitters is gold though and you can find a couple of fillers too.

Indie 2004
Review by Urban "Wally" Wallstrom,
23 May 2004

Here's yet another (very) interesting artist, from Sweden of course, that works in the same pop/rock formula as Jamie Meyer (last years all-around favorite here at RockUnited), Mikael Erlandsson, and Martin Stenmarck. This would obviously mean that "About Goddamn Time", is filled with sweet, poppy, melodies and catchy hooks?? I wouldn't go as far as saying, he's just as good as the three above, but he's not 'that' far behind either. To keep it simple, if you enjoy these Swedes, there's no real reason to why you shouldn't enjoy this too.

Geffen 1991
Review by

Remember that Hulk looking muscle mountain with temporary green spotlight on him on those Alice Cooper horror shows? Now that was Kane Roberts. And the very same person (with considerably less muscles) appears out of nowhere with one of the best melodic rock albums of the 90s. Alice always had good ears/eyes/managers to find great musicians for his band (remember Kip Winger e.g.).

Before getting into the album let's look at the artwork. Let's suppose you are in a CD shop and you have never heard of Kane Roberts before. You see this album with a rocker looking guy on the front cover, you take the album off the shelf. Then you open the booklet and read the following names. Songwriters (just to mention some): Desmond Child, Diane Warren, Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Jack Ponti, etc. Background vocals: Stan Bush, Gary Falcone, Desmond Child. Would you leave the album there?! I doubt any of you would answer "yes". So let's go on and suppose you took the album home with you, put it in the player and after a short foreplay with sounds of a storm you hear a great synth intro. You get curious, turn the volume up and . get it directly in the face! "Wild Night" runs you over like a truck. Desmond Child did wonders with these songs. They are so damn powerful, the refrains are thick as hell. Kane's voice sounds strong, a wonderful hard rock throat and he doesn't forget about the guitars either. Awesome guitar work is characteristic for the whole album, the arrangements are very balanced, there's an almost unrecognizable synth pad for all the songs that make the whole sound of the album very thick.

"Twisted" is from the same vein, a Des Child/Diane Warren rocker, something that made Bon Jovi big with their "Slippery When Wet" album. Third track: has to be a ballad. It is. And what a ballad?! "Does Anybody Really Fall In Love Anymore" was penned by Jovi, Sambora, Child, Warren. Now if this can be bad I can be the president in Ghana. As far as I remember this song made it to the Top 20 on MTV back then (or at least was frequently played). Not undeserved at all. A wonderful song with perfect arrangement, awesome vocals from Kane and a huuuuuuge refrain choir. (Just a personal story to this song: some thousand years ago I was practicing it with a band in some dirty basement. We were playing the refrain over and over again to work the chorus out. I remember those overjoyed eyes of the other band mates when singing it and we were already playing the refrain only for 20 minutes. Scary how strong music can affect you! Unfortunately the band split up before we could play it live on stage. . Life sucks!)

"Dance Little Sister" is a Ponti/Pepe/Child work. The same vein as the best Baton Rouge rockers. Great tune again and an awesome refrain! "Rebel Heart" sounds a bit cliché but the song has better lyrics than its title (not that the lyrics would explode of originality.) This one is a power ballad, not as strong as "Does Anybody..." but there's a song like that one only in every decade or so.

Any of the following songs could have been a big hit. Both "You Always Want It" and "Fighter" have the potential but I personally feel sorry for "I'm Not Looking For An Angel". Now this tune should have made it big! Great guitar works, awesome synth playing, perfect arrangement and a refrain to tear your speakers apart! It's as "Dezzied" as it can get. This man is a genius, anything he has touched turned to gold. "Too Far Gone" is also good but the closing "It's Only Over For You" is another ballad you can only talk about in superlatives. If you take Desmond Child's Discipline album, create a fillet out of it as you'd fillet a fish, cook it with the best "melodic" spices you get this song. This is a song that (along with "Does Anybody...") shouldn't be left out of any ballad compilations. If you like Desmond Child, since this is one of his most representative works, you gotta get this album!

Target Records 2002
Review by 17 April 2002

Brunorock (yes, his name is spelled like that!) is a multi-intrumentalist who has done just about everything on "X-Over" by himself, from songwriting to production. And granted, he has created a solid modern AOR album, although at times the album does sound a bit cold and sterile, thanks to all the effects and machinery...

There's twelwe tracks here, ten sung in English and two in Italian. Well, the chorus of "Century" is in english, but who's counting...I see that many of the songs were on the demo reviewed by Urban last year, and I have to agree with on many counts. He pointed out that the sound of Brunorock is similar to the Tao-era Rick Springfield, which is still the case. Brunorock does have a slightly more aggressive edge though.

Z Records 2003
Review by 15 April 2003

Z Records is off to a pretty dodgy start this year, with average releases like Marc Ferrari & Enzign. Especially since last years rooster incuded a bunch of really great releases, like Westworld, Humanimal, Adriangale, Shy, Shiva, Phil Naro, etc. Things are looking brighter (?) according to the latest news though. Both Jani Lane of Warrant and the mighty Black'N'Blue will return with new stuff on Z Records later on.

Romislokus records 2003
Review by 17 March 2003

Romislokus is a Russian band which was formed in 1998, since then the band has released two albums; “Between Two Mirrors” and “Vinyl Spring, Digital Autumn”. Both albums had Russian lyrics and this new album finally has English lyrics. But if this is a real advantage, I beg to differ. Singer Yuri Smolnikov is really difficult to understand; his pronunciation needs a lot of improvement.

The music of Romislokus is a strange combination of art rock and electronics; the type of music that reminds me of “weird” bands like Puppet Show, Cyan, Aragon, Red Jasper or Blyndsyde… Just listen to songs like “Dreg”, “Freedom” or “Tree By The Wall” and you know what I mean. For me this cd really is difficult to listen to for a very long time. The music gets boring after a certain period of time and I tend to fall asleep.

Nothing To Say 2004
Review by Martien Koolen,
15 May 2004

Besides being a fan of prog metal music I also have always been a real guitar picking lover. Therefore my CD collection is filled with albums of Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Vinnie Moore, Yngwie Malmsteen and last but not least Jimi Hendrix. French guitar player Patrick Rondat has already released four instrumental albums, of which “Amphibia”(1996) was the best, so far.

Patrick Rondat is also famous for his cooperation with Jean Michel Jarre, his participation on two albums of The Consortium Project and being a member of the Dutch progressive metal band Elegy. Furthermore Patrick played 14 French dates of the G3 tour with Joe Satriani.

Since 1999 we have not heard much from Rondat’s solo career, but now he releases a brand new instrumental guitar album again. The recording of this album took place at the Bazment Studios in Germany from October till December 2003, with Patrice Guers (bass guitar), Dirk Bruinenberg (drums) and Markus Teske as sound engineer and co-producer. The 11 songs on this album are a must for guitar freaks, just check out “Donkey’s Island”, a very aggressive and melodic track with lots of Oriental and Arabic influences. The title track is one of the highlights of this CD, and it begins with an acoustic guitar part accompanied by piano, which is later followed by melodic guitar riffs, hooks and solos like I have not heard in a long time. Diversity is the keyword here and the last 2,5 minutes of this track are just divine. But this CD even becomes better with a song called “Tethys”, which is really a guitar orgasm of 12 minutes; the solos in this track really take my breath away. It cannot get any better than this, but Patrick can play faster, and he proves this in the Malmsteen-like song “Avalonia”, this is neo-classical prog metal like it should be. Rondat’s motto in this song is: fast, faster, fastest, just listen to that ferocious solo. This fantastic album ends with a rather classical song, an adaptation of a piece by Johan Sebastian Bach, although I wonder if Bach would have approved of this rather heavy and super fast version of “Partitan In B For Solo Violin”. Get this magical guitar album now!!!

MTM
Review by 20 October 2002

"Our Cross, Our Sins" and our own darn fault for believing in the Rondinelli brothers to deliver some excellent rock music here. I really expected this to be one helluva' album with some wicked guitar riffs, good songs and power vocals. Especially since they hooked up with experienced musicians (such as bass player Neil Murray), who've played with each and every good hardrock band out there (Black Sabbath, Whitesnake etc.).

Not to mention that Tony Martin (ex. Black Sabbath) handles the vocals here and you're bound to believe this to be good right? Wrong!! Sadly it's most of the time an awful mess of old Black Sabbath & Dio albums, mixed into one 'been there, done that, heard it all before' story. Don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy the above mentioned bands a lot and I'm a big fan of Martin's voice too. However, this is not the classic music of "Holy Diver" or Heaven And Hell" it's rather "Lock Up The Wolves" or "Dehumanizer" than anything else. The latter album must be the worst Black Sabbath release ever and I really wanted to 'Lock Up' Dio during his 'Wolves' days.

SPV Steamhammer 2003
Review by Endre 'Bandi' Hübner,
22 March 2004

Is there a self-respecting rock-guitarist who has never tried his wings upon Vivaldi pieces? I doubt… And how many of those guitarists have dreamt about standing in front of a 100-member orchestra while playing their own transcriptions of Vivaldi violin concertos and such? [And all that in a dirty rehearsal room that used to be a garage one day and that stinks like a petrol station…] Well, Uli Jon Roth went ahead and did what many of us only dreamt about: he released an album playing Vivaldi pieces as well as his own songs inspired by the Maestro.

Uli took the "safe-way" though and went for the best-known and most popular Vivaldi piece, The Four Seasons, transcribing the principal violin part for the electric guitar and titled it "Metamorphosis of Vivaldi's Four Seasons". The arrangement wasn't altered that much, the majority of the changes were to give the guitar a little more room and making the most important guitar melodies more audible and more obvious. Though the guitar was mixed pretty much upfront compared to the orchestra the result is rather enjoyable, even if I'm quite sure some will cry blasphemy. As for me the only annoying parts were the rather plastic sounding [programmed?] power drums during the Summer part (what for?? – even if I understand that the least interesting part of the piece is the Summer and Uli obviously wanted to spice it up somehow…) and *some* narration and noises (like horse-shoes, wind, and such) between the tracks. I used the word "some" on purpose because the narration got lost in the mix and it is almost impossible to hear anything out of it, not to mention that these interludes break the natural flow of the piece. If I were to fool around with words I would say that the Four Seasons wound up a little "amorphous" after this "Metamorphosis"…

Lion Music 2003
Review by Endre "Bandi" Hübner 22 August 2003

When I heard about this tribute album I got scared cuz I associated it with Uli's years in Scorpions right away and [to put it nicely] the Scorps are far from my fave bands. I was relieved to see that the album focuses more on Uli's Electric Sun years [Nuclear Blast Records had a Scorpions tribute not that long ago anyway].

Lars Eric Mattson is "hosting" this tribute album and basically all the artists signed Lion Music contributed to it. As for the musicians they have all done a great job, I would like to draw your attention to Tony Hernando's work on "Firewind", to Torben Enevoldsen's on "Burning Wheel Turning" and to Lars' on "I'll Be Loving You Always" as they are the highlights of the album. However – though the recording of the music, the sound of the instruments and the balance of the mix are okay – there was something wrong with the recording of the vocals. I simply can't believe all the artists performing on this CD are this bad (especially that I heard most of them singing on their own albums and they are much better than that). To make use of my usual sarcasm: I never thought I could hear anyone singing a Scorpions song worse than Meine did… Condition Red's Elle Grussner gets off-key towards the end of "I'll Be Loving You Always", right after that every "S" Torgny Stjärnfelt sings on "Firewind" makes me wanna cry out for a speech therapist. I bet it's just some weird overdriven hiss due to bad EQ settings cuz I can't believe he needs a speech therapist if he could learn his own name [you need to be a language-master for that I guess].