NEW MUSIC FRIDAY: September 13th New Music Releases


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Guest Post- Bidi Van Drongelen Top 20 Heavy Albums of 2015


bidi bookings

As we dash towards the holidays and the end of the year Ghost Cult is feeling good about this season of giving. So we are giving our fans a chance to get to know our partners, peers, and friends from bands in the world of music. They will chime in with some guest blogs, end of year lists, and whatever else is on their minds as we pull the plug on 2015. Today we have Bidi van Drongelen, Dutch booker and manager who has worked with the likes of The Devil’s Blood, Saint Vitus, Ghost, In Solitude and many more. Every year a multitude of his bands get booked at the excellent Roadburn festival, and we have asked him what he feels were the best releases of 2015.

 

1. KloneHere Comes The Sun

klone album cover

Great songwriting, amazing vocals, and a crystal clear though heavy production blending prog and post metal.

 

2. Ghost – Meliora

Ghost has it all to become one of the leading melodic heavy rock bands in the world

 

3. BliksemGruesome Masterpiece

Bliksem-Gruesome-Masterpiece

If you like Metallica’s Master of Puppets of Death Angel’s ACT III….with the a raw female voice like Doro.

 

4. Royal ThunderCrooked Doors

royalthunder

Great atmospheric rock album with the amazing voice of Mlny Parsonsz

 

5. TribulationChildren of the Night

tribulation

Melodies of occult rock like The Devil’s Blood drenched with a satanic black voice which reminds of Satyricon.

 

6. Chelsea WolfeAbyss

Chelsea wolfe abyss album cover

Refreshing approach of doom & drone. ART with capital A!

7. Paradise LostThe Plague Within

8. Steak Number EightKosmokoma

9. MelecheshEnki

10. EnslavedIn Times

11. ClutchPsychic Warfare

12. Thy CatafalqueSgurr

13. AmorphisUnder The Red Cloud

14. RAMSvbversvm

15. BRING ME THE HORIZONThat’s The Spirit

16. MgłaExcercises In Futility

17. BaronessPurple

18. LeprousThe Congregation

19. Graveyard Innocence & Decadence

20. Hangman’s ChairThis Is Not Supposed To Be Positive

 

Bidi Bookings online

 


RAM / Portrait – Under Command


RAM-Portrait-UnderCommand

 

Friends, allies and countrymen lending each other not just their ears, but their riffs too, and sharing black wax time and what we have here is a pretty cool, if gratuitous, way for two bands to promote themselves and each other. The premise for Under Command, a split EP (Metal Blade), is that each band contributes a new original, a re-imagining of the other band and a cover.

First up is RAM’s original, a spiky Judas Priest inspired 80’s rocket called ‘Savage Machine’. It goes without saying originality is at a premium, but it’s delivered in the right spirit. However, the best of RAM’s trio of unholiness is their take on Portrait’s ‘Welcome To My Funeral’, outdoing the original with graveyard tones and atmospheres working well. All the good work done in the first two, RAM chuck it away with a piss-weak and stock cover of KISS’ ‘Creatures Of The Night’ that seems to go on for double its four minute length.

Portrait have been (unfairly? the jury is still out…) tagged as wannabe Mercyful Fate merchants, with people comparing Per Lengstedt to the King, in an evaluation that the Portrait man can only come out second best in. ‘Martial Lead’ does little to dispel the Fate association, with Lengstedt’s voice and falsetto too rough and no Diamond. Their version of Exciter’s ‘Aggressor’ is decent, raw and aggressive enough, and they run through RAM’s ‘Blessed To Be Cursed’, a more underground and Satanic British Steel era Priest tune, with enough intent to do it justice.

All six tracks suffer from a retro production, and it’s interesting that by the end the differences between the two bands are negligible and this could be one release by the same act. It’s also of note that the more high profile of the two, Portrait, come out second best, but, then, RAM have more to benefit from this, and it shows in the power they put into their track.

All said and done, this is a decent enough curio, but no more than that.

6.0/10

RAM on Facebook

Portrait on Facebook

STEVE TOVEY