"Infamous metal pirates Alestorm return with another batch of mischief on their new EP, entitled Voyage of the Dead Marauder, out March 22, 2023 via Napalm Records. The EP arrives as the successor to their epic seventh studio album, Seventh Run of a Seventh Rum, which peaked at #7 on the German Album charts and #5 on both the US Current Hard Music and Top New Artist Albums charts. Once more, Alestorm collaborated with producer Lasse Lammert (LSD-Studios), who produced, recorded, mixed and mastered the new EP and is known for his work with fellow genre greats Gloryhammer and Wind Rose…

"King of the Kill" is the 4th full-length studio album by Canadian thrash/heavy metal act Annihilator. The material on the album is a combination of thrash metal riffs and rhythms and traditional heavy metal elements such as anthemic hooks and hard rock/blues influenced riffs and guitar solos. The album also features a couple of more melodic oriented tracks with non-distorted guitars. The song structures are generally a bit formulaic vers/chorus based and while that works pretty well on the most memorable tracks, it doesn´t work as well on the least remarkable tracks. If the hooks aren´t strong enough a formulaic song structure can often feel a bit tedious. The overall quality of the material is decent enough though, and "King of the Kill" is an album which is relatively enjoyable while it plays…

Humanoid is the seventeenth studio album by German heavy metal band Accept, released on 26 April 2024. It is the band's first studio album on Napalm Records, with whom Accept had signed with in February 2022, and also marks the first time since 2017's The Rise of Chaos that they had recorded as a five-piece band rather than a six-piece. Humanoid has received positive reviews from critics. Dom Lawson of Blabbermouth.net gave the album a rating of seven-and-a-half out of ten, writing, "For those who enjoyed the previous five, there is absolutely nothing here that fails to live up to expectations.

As far as tribute albums go, this homage to seminal Canadian rockers Rush is hard to beat. For one thing, Magna Carta has made an inspired decision to have each song recorded by an all-star lineup rather than letting one band handle all the chores (with one exception - Fates Warning get sole credit for "Closer to the Heart"). Often projects of this magnitude are doomed to failure from the start as a result of inadequate rehearsing, a shoestring budget, and sometimes a lack of talent capable of handling the songs with the respect they deserve. Working Man is a rare instance of everything going right. Terry Brown has done an incredible mixing job considering nearly all of the songs were recorded in different studios. The musicianship rivals the original versions - occasionally besting them, particularly where the vocals are concerned…

New Jersey is the fourth studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi, released on July 19, 1988 through Mercury Records. The album was the follow-up to the band's third album, Slippery When Wet, and reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in its second week of release after making its debut at No. 8. It remained at No. 1 for four consecutive weeks. It produced five Billboard Hot 100 top ten hits, the most top ten hits to date for any hard rock/glam metal album, including "Bad Medicine" and "I'll Be There for You", which both reached No. 1. The album was certified 7x Platinum in America. The album also debuted at No. 1 in the UK and was the band's first UK No. 1 album. New Jersey was released by the Soviet state-owned record company "Melodiya", being the first American album ever released in USSR officially.

Helloween are one of Germany’s most respected metal exports and considered the founders of German melodic speed metal. As godfathers of the genre, they have grown to become one of the most influential metal bands in the world. Formed in Hamburg in 1984 the band have released 14 studio albums and 3 live albums and are still active today with their last album debuting at number 4 on the German chart, their highest position ever. They have sold over 8 million records and their Noise albums Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1 and 11 are considered masterpieces of their genre. Ride The Sky, The Very Best Of The Noise Years 1985-1998 features the killer riffs and haunting melodies of the band’s greatest songs. Ride The Sky is one of 8 new 2CD and digital compilations released as part of the Noise Lebt reissue series. Features striking generic packaging in a stylish digipack with new sleevenotes featuring band interviews, photos and memorabilia.

After nearly a decade trying to make it to "The Show," Twisted Sister were finally up to bat. Their first album was a wild swing, their second had flown just barely foul, but with their third – the unstoppable Stay Hungry – the New York veterans finally hit one out of the park. And few bands were as deserving. Having paid their dues on the tough as nails N.Y.C. club scene (half of the band looked like the Ramones, the other half like the Dictators, and Dee Snider looked like, well, Dee Snider), Twisted Sister had finally worn down the opposition and truly arrived.

Devin Townsend's second album proves to be a very different beast from his first, taking away the atmospheric, subtle, clean tracks, for outright madness and fun. The production is very strange, both sounding very clear, yet also having a degree of muddiness to it, the compositions are incredibly varied, sounding more like individual tracks rather than a cohesive album, and their is a sense of outright fun to be found here, rather than the extremely solemn 'Ocean Machine: Biomech'. Due to this being a Devin Townsend release, one thing that can be counted on is the absolutely perfect vocals for any case, ranging from beautiful and operatic, to aggressive screaming.

Challenging all those who long ago dismissed them as second-rate and painfully cheesy Teutonic power-thrashers, Rage inaugurate their 18th studio album, Speak of the Dead, with an ambitious, 25-minute song suite subtitled "Lingua Mortis." OK. Get ready for this, though: it's actually very entertaining! Part symphonic orchestration, part Spanish guitar austerity, part organ-driven progressive rock in the style of '70s legends Kansas and, obviously, part heavy metal at its most over-the-top dramatic (and, sure, just a little cheesy, in true Rage tradition), the magnum opus' multiple compositional dimensions are, at the very least, unexpected, and at most, a whole new avenue of expression for the group - who knew…

In the 1980s and early '90s, there was often a very fine line between "hard rock" and "heavy metal." But with Annihilator, there was never a question - this was most definitely a metal band to the core. Comparable to Metallica and Judas Priest at their heaviest, Never Neverland is a blistering gem that takes no prisoners either musically or lyrically. In fact, Annihilator's lyrics could be quite substantial, and the headbangers offer hard-hitting commentary on subjects on subjects ranging from drunken driving ("Road to Ruin") to religious fanaticism ("I Am in Command") to environmental destruction ("Stonewall"). More accessible than death/grindcore bands like Deicide, Cannibal Corpse and Hellwitch but certainly much heavier than the many pop/metal units flooding the market in the late '80s and early '90s, Never Neverland was one of 1990's strongest metal releases.

Coming from the schizophrenic and experimental sounds of "Infinity", "Physicist" is a much more straight forward and consistent release. The basis of many of the tracks is relatively hard edged thrash metal influenced drumming and guitar riffs and Townsend's vocals are predominantly raw and screaming. When that is said "Physicist" also features the trademark layers of keyboards/synths and a few more melodic moments with clean vocals (tracks like "Material" and "Jupiter"). It's a highly energetic release and often relatively fast-paced.