Daily Peaks · 08.08.2025
Howling Giant from Nashville, Tennessee, presents a somewhat different kind of music here. There are catchy vocal lines over pure heavy metal guitars, without fuzz and without them being tuned three to five semitones lower; there are dynamic tempo changes and various moods within one song. Wow, and then this complex song is also catchy. US metal bands managed something like this in the 80s, be it Savatage, Culprit, or Heir Apparent, and since then, things have been pretty quiet in this...
Concerts & Tours · 28.07.2025
The Free and Easy-Festival started. That means: almost 3 weeks of free concerts, 20 minutes away from home. Yes.
Heavystoned Albums · 21.07.2025
After a creative break of just six months, the Washington band is releasing their second album, and I can already tell you that it will take you across the Sahara, from one oasis to another, and thus from one style to another. The more rock-oriented debut is now followed by a more relaxed version of the desert trip, with significantly more oriental influences. The opener, "Earth Wisdom," is a pretty hard-rocking song, but the following song, "The Search Continues," reminds me strongly of Peter...
Daily Peaks · 14.03.2025
Oops, they did it again. King Garcia have now released their second fantastic song, which sounds unmistakably like King Garcia, but is far more dynamic in terms of rhythm, volume, and mood. The song winds its way through a rather reserved mood at the beginning and builds to a real banger towards the end, still seasoned with the slight melancholy that the clarinet exudes as the lead instrument. And it does this more than any human mood, as it has a range of around four octaves, whereas the human...
Daily Peaks · 27.02.2025
When a band manages to express great emotions with few chords, and when a band manages to switch from progressive and jazzy start to an epic song, and only two minutes have passed, then we know that a top-class album is coming our way in April. The seven-minute appetizer "The Third Sleep" is a compact mixtape whose vocals swing back and forth between Marko Saaresto from "Poets of the Fall" and Feargal Sharkey and which ends with a nearly three-minute instrumental part that would be just as...
Daily Peaks · 04.02.2025
If you look at a map, you can see that Greece is closer to the Orient in terms of music and culture than to Europe. The Greek band "Naxatras" manages, like no other band, to effortlessly bridge the gap between western, progressive music of the 70s and oriental music, in this case Turkish music. "Numenia" is based on a fantastic bass line, the 4/4 time of the Tsifteteli - the traditional Greek women's dance - which gives the rather stomping, western 4/4 time a less static note. Somehow I wonder...
Heavystoned Albums · 03.02.2025
I really like the instrumental parts of each every "Elder" song although they take about ten minutes. Surya from Cadiz, Spain, are the compact version of Elder playing organic and harmonic riffs with a warm tone between 3 and 8 minutes and they have a powerful voice which fits perfect to their music. The album starts with the instrumental ‘Evergreen River’ which eposes already all the facets of the upcoming album within two minutes. Without pause, the heavy riffs of ‘A Blazing Crusade’...
Heavystoned Albums · 29.01.2025
Hailing from Pirmasens, the German capital of shoe manufacturing, ZOAHR offering us a time and style capsule of early 70´s Prog Rock, jittery Detroit Blues drenched in a bit of Garage Rock, crowned by a clear and weightless voice. The opener "Endurance Race" is carried by a distorted leading bass. Not in the style of Lemmy's bass, but more like Chris Squire or Geddy Lee. The song lets you feel the tension of a long-distance race, the song never calms down and constantly pushes forward. A great...
Heavystoned Albums · 30.11.2024
My friend Tomas, tour manager and Swiss Army knife of "Villagers of Ioannina City" sent me a Spotify link of his brother's band. He told me to take a listen. Then I go to Spotify and listen to this three-person symphony orchestra and am speechless at the countless layers of synthesizers and harmonies. The band name is the effect of how this effect is used to get a broad and dense sound with just a few instruments. The whole album seems like a concept album to me from the titles, as if you were...