DSease-Rotten Dreams

Sneakout Records
2017

DSease is a young and promising heavy metal/rock band from Rimini, Italy that features skilled-guitarist Fabio Balducci (Synful Ira, ex-Ancient Bards) within it's ranks. Released back in mid-November of 2017, "Rotten Dreams" is the first studio album from this (multi) genre-splicing outfit that is lead by vocalist/bassist Alberto Niccoli. Now in it's third year together, DSease actually began life as a Rammstein tribute band, but has developed into something truly special. Dark, ambient, and cleverly-experimental, the eight-song "Rotten Dreams" is a great start for this up-and-coming metal band that is sure to catch on with both fans and critics! Blessed with an unreal amount of talent and creativity, "Rotten Dreams" is the end result of an inspiring band that combines elements of alternative rock, grunge, electronic rock, hard rock, post-rock, and modern metal. Although they have since departed the band, musicians Massimiliano Pretolesi (synths) and Gabriele Lasi (drums) helped create this enjoyable album that comes highly-recommended. You can find "Rotten Dreams" on sites like iTunes, Amazon, and cdbaby.

Healthy Junkies-Box of Chaos

STP Records
2016

Formed way back in 2010 by French vocalist/lyricist extraordinaire Nina Courson and the exceptional UK-born guitarist/singer that is Phil Honey-Jones, Healthy Junkies is a London-based punk rock/grunge band that is making all kinds of noise thanks to top-tier albums like "Box of Chaos". Self-described as  "Female fronted New wave punk grunge band" that is "DIY and hungry.." this (potentially) radio-friendly four-piece* offers emotionally-charged materiel that hits all of the correct notes as it simultaneously gives the listening audience intellectually-stimulating songs that will stick around in your subconscious long after the actual music is done. All at once deliciously dark and creatively positive, Healthy Junkies makes highly-personally music that takes it's cues from the classic (underground and independent) sounds of yesterday. For this up-and-coming (rock n' roll-infused) four-piece influences seemingly range from Blondie, The Pixies, Iggy and the Stooges, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Joy Division, T-Rex and David Bowie to bands such as The Avengers, Killing Joke, The Damned, Sonic Youth, Flower Leperds, Nirvana, The Swans, Lords of the New Church, Sex Pistols and even the Courtney Love-lead Hole! The highly-recommend "Box of Chaos" is the band's 3rd full-length album overall and it joins a impressive back catalog that includes the EP "Hair Of The Dog" and the previously-released albums "Sick Note" & 'The Lost Refuge". Currently available for download off of iTunes, "Box of Chaos" will be released on CD next month** and it is custom-made for fans of old-school punk and eighties "alternative" rock. With Quite Great Communications now handling the PR work for this female-fronted punk band, "Box of Chaos" has a good chance of becoming a surprise sleeper hit in 2016! Be sure to keep an eye of this London four-piece as bigger things are all but guaranteed!


*The band is currently rounded out by bass guitarist Ivan Baragone on  and drummer Tony Alda. 

** Pre-orders available now from www.stprecords.co.uk

Bloody Hammers-Under Satan's Sun

Napalm Records
2014

Released back in late May of this year, "Under Satan's Sun" is the third album from Charlotte, North Carolina band Bloody Hammers. Having simply loved the band's self-titled debut album (a release which was as hit or miss with fans as it was critics) I must admit that I was slightly disappointed by it's 2013 follow-up, "Spiritual Relics", as it just felt....uninspired. So much so in fact that I couldn't bring myself to cover it. Now we have "Under Satan's Sun" and while I am in no way saying that I'm ready to write this band off completely I do have to wonder out loud how it is possible for a band with so much promise and potential to go from one great album to one (at best) decent album and then (some two years or so after first forming mind you!) follow things up with a release that I can't help but feel indifferent about? Psychedelic doom opener "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" (previously released as 7" single with "Glimpse") is alright and (fuzzed-out) heavy doom rocker "Spearfinger" offers tiny glimpses of hope that Bloody Hammers will right the ship and return to harbor, but then things start to unravel on "Death Does Us". As others have pointed out before me, "Death Does Us" is Bloody Hammers trying to be Type O Negative and while that is a crime in and of itself it gets worse. "Death Does Us" also sounds remarkably similar to "Load"/"ReLoad"-era Metallica and that is a unforgivable offense! For a band that had it all down pat on "Bloody Hammers" (a fun album that brought to mind not only classic Black Sabbath, but everyone from Alice Cooper to The Sword!) cuing up images of late-nineties Metallica simply does not cut it! Sure, "The Moon-Eyed People" is (hand's down!) an improvement when it kicks in and there is really nothing offensive about "Second Coming" (a Alice Cooper cover). Even "Dead Man's Shadow on the Wall" and "The Necromancer" are solid. So why does the group feel the need to infuse some Soundgarden into the title track? Or for that matter put to tape a number like "The Last Alarm"? At best "The Last Alarm" is more grunge for a generation which missed out on it the first time around. At it's worst though "The Last Alarm" is more grunge for those of us who lived through the scene already and heard it done a thousands times better. Once band leader/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Anders Manga abandons everything that works in Bloody Hammer's favor (doom metal, psychedelic rook, occult rock of old, seventies rock/hard rock influences, inspiration from seventies horror movies and even stoner rock) things go down hill quickly! While I'm all for a band's right to grow and further experiment with their sound there are cases where this backfires. "Under Satan's Sun" is a case study on how to over-think matters when less would have been more. Maybe album number four will be the ticket for Bloody Hammers, but for now I think I'll go back to "Bloody Hammers" when I'm in the mood for something really cool and inspirational.
 
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