News: Download a FREE 19-track sampler from Napalm Records

We all like freebies, right? Well, a little birdie tells me that all through August 2013, Amazon.co.uk will be shining the spotlight on Napalm Records - a label that recently found homes for a whole host of undoubtedly major, and well established, metal acts. 

Certain titles will be being campaigned at reduced value but, and here's your opportunity to grab a listen to some properly top music, you can download a 19-track Napalm All Stars sampler featuring new tracks from The Answer, DevilDriver, Vista Chino, Huntress and many more. 


 Download it here for free: http://amzn.to/14MIMF2

Full track list is:

1. THE ANSWER - New Horizon
2. DEVILDRIVER - Ruthless
3. ALESTORM - Shipwrecked          
4. VISTA CHINO – Dargona, Dragona
5. HUNTRESS - Zenith
6. SUMMONING - Old Mornings Dawn
7. LEGION OF THE DAMNED - Summon All Hate       
8. POWERWOLF - Amen & Attack
9. DEADLOCK - I'm Gone
10. MOONSPELL – Lickanthrope
11. GLORYHAMMER - Angus McFife
12. DELAIN - Are You Done With Me (New Single Mix)
13. CANDLEMASS - Dancing In The Temple (Of The Mad Queen Bee)       
14. MANEGARM - Sons Of War
15. END OF GREEN - Holidays in Hell
16. VENOMOUS MAXIMUS - Path of Doom
17. TRISTANIA – Number
18. AUDREY HORNE - Redemption Blues
19. LONEWOLF - Hellride

The following titles will be available from £4.50 at Amazon throughout August:

Alestorm - Back Through Time
Alestorm - Black Sails At Midnight
Alestorm - Captain Morgan's Revenge
Arkona - Decade Of Glory (Ltd.First Edt.)
Candlemass - Psalms For The Dead (CD + DVD)
Ex Deo - Caligvla (Ltd. Digipack)
Fejd - Nagelfar (Ltd. First Edt.)
Grave Digger            - Clash Of The Gods (Ltd. Digipack)
Huntress - Spell Eater (Ltd. Digipak)
Lacrimas Profundere - Songs For The Last View (Cd + Dvd)
Lonewolf - The Fourth And Final Horseman (Ltd. First Edt.)
Mammoth Mammoth - Volume Iii Hell's Likely (Ltd. First Edt.)
Monster Magnet - Mastermind
Moonspell - Alpha Noir
Nemesea - The Quiet Resistance
Summoning - Oath Bound
The Sword - Apocryphon (Ltd. First Edt.)
Tiamat - The Scarred People (Ltd.  First Edt.)
Tristania - Midwintertears (CD + DVD)
Van Canto - Break The Silence
Xandria - Neverworld's End

Album Review: The Treatment – This Might Hurt (U.S. Release)

With Bermuda, The Contortionist and Periphery all releasing new albums in July, over the past few weeks I’ve been immersed in a world of mathematical metal, desperately trying to either decipher oblique lyrical threads, to latch onto layers submerged under evasive polyrhythmic changes, or to ride on the malleable back of some seriously intricate riffwork. Sometimes you just need to get away from all that calculus and sink your teeth into something that feels less computer and a lot more human. Like Florence Nightingale bursting in to save the day, loaded down with metaphorical bandages and imbued with one hell of a bedside manner, I give you the reassuringly familiar four-four beat-bothering, verse-chorus-verse antics of rock n’ roll classicists, The Treatment.

These UK boys, who happen to hail from in and around my neck of the woods in Cambridgeshire, were virtual unknowns a year ago. That all changed when they released their debut album on Powerage Records. One blink later and they’ve secured a frankly overwhelmingly important tour spot on the KISS / Motley Crüe U.S. merry-go round and have secured a deal with Spinefarm to release their debut, Stateside, for the first time to coincide. Having never heard the album before, and you’re going to have to take my word as an honest Limey for this, now seemed the perfect time to give it a spin.

From what I can pick out, having heard this through a few times, This Might Hurt, is roughly divided into two styles. On one hand there’s your blues-loaded swaggering grooves – “I Fear Nothing”, “Winter Sun” and “Stone Cold Love”. Here, the music echoes the sentiments and stylistic lilt of bands like The Answer, Thin Lizzy and Stone Gods – bands with a strong heart and plenty of ideas. In the other hand you’ve got your sing-a-longs, like “The Doctor”, “D***k F**k F***t”, “Shake The Mountain” and a cover of More’s “Road Rocket”, which should go down a treat with your average KISS and Motley Crüe fan. Being so chorus-geared, with plenty of emphasis on the builds, you get smacks of gang chanting and endless recycling of lyrics. These tracks pretty much speak for themselves – they’re catchy as fuck with plenty of gusto (braggadocio as the Italians say) and nary an innovative twist in sight.

My personal favorites come when they manage to meld both styles and come up with some Aerosmith meets Def Leppard smooth cruisers like “Lady Of The Light”, “I Will Be There”, and “Just Tell Me Why”. The slight vibrato and strong, coarse vocal that Matt Jones piles out on these beauties is immense. Combine that with music that is soaked in blues, dripping with feisty emotion and drenched in soul, and you have a team that I simply cannot wait to get in my car stereo. With these bad boys pumping out into the cool air, that night-time drive home will get a hell of a whole lot easier. Live the cliché, man!

Of course I must mention the little niggles. Sadly, the acoustic version here of “Just Tell Me Why” is rendered completely useless by its mismatched production values – in simple terms, the playing speed and vocal tone leave it feeling far too much like a tack-on. There’s no getting away, either, from the fact that a good chunk of the songs, and in particular “Nothing To Lose But Our Minds” (is it just me who hears “God Gave Rock n Roll To You”?), wear their influences a little too obviously, but neither can you deny that the foot you are surreptitiously tapping and the head you are subconsciously bobbing to those same songs aren’t factors here.

There are times when your little world just can’t handle any more extra complexity; at these points in time, simplicity is everything. In these moments you might just crave music like this. The Treatment’s songs do just what they say on the wrapper. They’re more sugary than a honey-dipped, Cornflake-encrusted Mars bar but they still r-o-c-k.

Alson online (with samples) @ The NewReview =  http://thenewreview.net/reviews/the-treatment-this-might-hurt-u-s-release

Gig review: The Answer + Black Spiders + Dark Horse – The Junction, Cambridge, 08/12/09

Going head-to-head in a self-defeating battle of rock promoters, the bands on tonight’s Cambridge Junction bill are going up against the powerhouses of Dragonforce and Glamour Of The Kill who are playing across town at the Corn Exchange. The quick fill suggests that, not only have they stolen some of the aforementioned bands’ crowd but that, people have ventured from far and wide to catch a glimpse of this venue’s headliners, The Answer – a band experiencing probably the most oustanding year of anyone on the rock circuit.

Kicking us off tonight, Dark Horse, are clearly revelling in the pregnant atmosphere. “I’m feeling it, let’s ride this bitch!” cries the lead vocalist/bassist Will Walter (one of three brothers on stage) before the band stutter into their highlight, Unspoken. The two guitarists flanking him rip out familiar riffs and leads, all the time dancing upon the grave of the now-defunct band, The Darkness. There’s no doubting the influence – you just have to look at Will’s trousers to show they are proud to be able to follow in such grandiloquent footsteps; one pant leg is denim, the other is white leather. Quite why they’d want to mimic their idols so closely is beyond me, but they have a damned good go at it, overegging the pudding at every opportunity. Falling short is inevitable, but it’s nice to see a little bit of AC/DC influence also creep in along the way. Highlights are the one-man rampage through the crowd that guitarist Ollie Walter attempts during ‘Pictures’ (he’s hilariously followed by a roadie with a torch to light his way) and the back-flip finale that Tom Johnson pulls off… just.

Black Spiders are burly, butch, brash and lots of other things starting with ‘b’. It’s the big beards that make them stand out physically and the bruising beats that isolate them sonically. A string of four axemen spread across the front of the stage, pinpoints the direction of their sound – guitar-driven desert rock with little touches of classic, old school riffing thrown in to fill out the mix. By tossing out the infectious chorus of Stay Down for the crowd to singalong to, they mark their territory early, with frontman Pete Spiby asking those gathered to raise their middle fingers and point them in his general direction whilst screaming “Fuck you Black Spiders!” It’s a move that certainly raises the temperature a couple of notches and endears the band to the crowd with immediate effect. It’s like listening to Maylene & The Sons Of Disaster on some kind of power trip. By St. Peter, drummer ‘Tiger Si’ Atkinson is leaning over his kit to longingly eyeball the crowd whilst the guitarists are taking it in turn to laugh dementedly into their mics. A bed of smoke begins to rise from the floor and a blue hue is thrown onto the stage to blur the lines even further. “How are you doing, Cambridge?” yells Spiby and repeats it over and over until he’s got the crowd busting a gut to appease him. Behind his rotund physique, Atkinson hammers at his kit with huge towering strokes until the sizzle cymbal finally explodes in a shower of rivets. By the time they reach closer, Full Seven Inches, the audience are utterly transfixed. It’s a performance that won’t be forgotten in a hurry.

“Hello Cambridge town. We’re The Answer from County Down, Northern Ireland, and we have some business with you tonight… and that business is rock and roll”. It’s a beautifully worded introduction and the riotous response indicates that plenty have heard it before. The Answer have spent the year touring as main support for AC/DC on their incredible ‘Black Ice’ U.S./Europe tour and have loved every minute of it. It’s been the proving ground on which they’ve tightened up their act, so that now they could pretty much do this gig with their eyes shut. The experience is showing as little marks all over the stage – taped crosses to indicate where they need to stand at any one time to maximise a riff or a movement. Out front, it’s the extra margin that proves there class. Lead vocalist Cormac Neeson is resplendent in his familiar flowery shirt and long hippie hair (a mop to begin with, it takes shape as he sweats it out) and he moves like a man possessed by the bluesy rhythms. They seem to flow through him as he stoops and shrugs, taking great heaving breaths to suck up the heart of firstly their single, ‘Tonight’, then the pulsing rocker, ‘Demon Eyes’. His croaked, yet voluminous delivery is a talent that his own peers, nay, idols crave (Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott has professed to being a fan) and, on the band’s slower material, it steps into the spotlight, stunning the crowd into a jaw-dropping silence. ‘Cry Out’ and, especially, ‘Why’d You Change Your Mind?’ are stunners, transcending the borrowed chords to stand alone as things of beauty.

All the way through, Neeson is checking back in with the crowd to make sure they’re all enjoying themselves, be it to regale us with faux stories of how the drummer turned down a place on the Cambridge University Rowing Team to play drums tonight, to ask us to help them out by clapping to keep the band in time, requesting a singalong for the now famous Belfast Blues Off, or letting us know that the band haven’t forgotten the last time they played Cambridge (three years ago). At his side, guitarist Paul Mahon constantly switches between guitars all night, utilising finger-slides, capos, whammy bars and wah pedals to hammer home an array of different sounds. It’s his solos that startle the most – he leans into them, stepping right out to the edge of the stage, before raising his axe triumphantly after each one’s climax. During ‘Evil Man’, Neeson steps off-stage to sing with the front row so that, come the end, he and his cracking band are being roared from the stage as heroes.

Photo by Rich E

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2009/12/the-answer-black-spiders-dark-horse-%E2%80%93-the-junction-cambridge-081209/