Andy's Music Corner

Album review: Giotopia – A Fantasy Tale On Music

Giotopia, created by Belgian musician: Gio Smet, is an epic fantasy tale that has heavy rock and metal music included. Every musician playing in the songs are also playing a character each and every song stands for a chapter.

The debut album: ‘A fantasy Tale part 1’ was released in may 5th, 2018 and featured international musicians, including: Fabio Lione (Lione Rhapsody), Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear) Sara Vanderheyden (Cathubodua) and many more.

The story continued on may 20th, 2019 when the second chapter: A fantasy Tale part 2 was released. Again the album featured an international cast of musicians and became a huge succes.

A fantasy tale part 2 starts off, giving you the feeling of being thrown into a fantasy world where you need to go on a quest.

During this quest you shall most likely getting involved into many battles and the music playing, will be your guide through these battles.

A great mix of songs, with a huge variety of different styles, helps you keeping the focus during these battles. At the same time it will also give you the feeling of facing big threats and perhaps bigger ones still coming.

Good fighting against evil, something we see on everyday bases but when a magical kingdom is involved it suddenly becomes more interesting. The warriors that fight along the sides of mythical creatures is something that lots of people love to see and that is what this album surely has included greatly.

During the battle both sides will have their losses and some of the songs are there for you to deal with these losses.

As the battle continues, it then also keeps getting stronger and stronger. But as all huge wars, eventually there will be an end to it. That is the moment you shall need for a bit of victory, but also have the time to give the ones you lost a proper goodbye.

Tracklist:

The Story Goes On
Elven Warlord
Kingdom Rise
Vaïriga’s Escape
Forest Of The Prayers
Capture
Magus
March Of Lusar
Choice Of Heart
Aurora’s Race
Through The Siberian Land
Resolution Of Humanity
The End?

Giotopia is:

Gio Smet: Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards and E-drums on all tracks.

Guest appearances:

Apollo Papathanasio.

Herbie Langhans.

Sara Vanderheyden.

Kelly Thans.

Jennifer Thomé.

Carmen Grandi.

Ellen Peeters.

YGC.

Franck “Wolfey” Moondog.

Ginny Claes.

Srdjan Brankovic.

To find out more about Giotopia, visit following links:

New Single: “Juggernaut by Fatality, Out Now.

Fatality, a four-piece metal band from Essex in the UK, has a new single out, called: ‘Juggernaut’. The song is a great mix of metal and rock and has a various number of influences included in the song.

The video is filmed and edited by Talon Payne of Gallow Wood Media and is recorded and produced at Card Trick Music, located at the bands hometown.

Juggernaut is about always standing tall, getting up when you’ve been knocked down and giving it your all no matter what you’re aiming for in life. We can all be that juggernaut if you put your mind to climbing that mountain that’s in front of you.

The video can be found here:

Fatality – Juggernaut Official Video.

To find out more about the band, visit following links:

Facebook

Instagram

Official Website

Album review: Hell Will Come For Us All by Aversions Crown.

“The band does everything in their power to overcome evil!”

“Hell will come for us all”, especially if you like to listen to metal and don’t care about what is happening here on earth.

The band: Aversions Crown, clearly shares this opinion with you and you can hear that in their eponymous album.

Hell comes for all of us starts right away with a deep intro in which a nice use is made of the muffled guitar and drum sounds, which makes you immediately feel that something big is about to happen.

Wait a few seconds and then the muted sound will disappear, so that you will immediately be carried away in the music.

At the end of the first song there is a silence, which can have a serious impact on you. During this silence you will gently hear the music build up leading to the very first breakdown and you will immediately think: I want to hear more of this!

When the second song starts, it is immediately with a fast and technical piece that ensures that you will certainly not sit still. Throughout the album, great use is made of a great switch between different forms of screams and that, combined with highly technical and fascinating pieces of music, makes this album certainly unique and every time a breakdown arrives it is certainly well received by the listeners who will certainly not be able to sit still on this.

Throughout the album you often notice these same techniques, but that is more than made up for by a great vocal line, a legendary piece of guitar playing or revolting drum pieces and that makes this album definitely a pearl.

The combination of these techniques ensures that you will be carried away in this album. Kind of when you sink into your seat, close your eyes and fall down straight into an epic quest.

On this quest you take on demons and the strength of the numbers tells you this gives you a boost and it also tells you that as long as you have family and friends around you and don’t forget them, you will be strong enough to complete this quest and survive.

As a climax, this will undoubtedly be the toughest battle in human history and while you have been able to strengthen your troops during this epic battle, the demonic side has of course been able to do the same.

There will of course be losses on both sides, that is inevitable and shall be made clear in the last issue. But with courage and commitment and the fact that you keep drawing energy from the smallest things, good will overcome evil. As long as you continue to believe in yourself, anything is possible.

Tracklist:

The Soil
Born In The Gutter
Paradigm
Caught In The System
Hell Will Come For Us All
Scourge Of Violence
Hymne Of Annihilation
Sorrow Never Sleeps
The Final Judgement.

To find out more about the band, click following links:

The rich history of a dutch band called: Martyr.

Martyr is a Dutch band from Utrecht. They are alive and kicking since 1982 and so the years of their activity is a vast amount. Because of the fact that they have been busy for so many years, they then also shared the stage with many other bands. Some of these gigs they played as headliner, but they also did support acts for bands like: Trivium, Iced Earth, Saxon and for Paul Di’Anno and Blaze Bayley, the ex singers from Iron Maiden.

Martyr is currently working on songs for their new album. For this one they have already two singles released, called: No Time for Goodbyes and Fire of Rebellions.

In 2014 the band was also honored by the Dutch Steel (80’s metal from the Netherlands) collector for their contribution to the dutch heavy metal history. Also in 2018 they gained a personal letter from the mayor of Utrecht as a thank you for their ambassadorship for the city.

Live in Japan

One of their biggest achievements is without a doubt the live album that they have recorded during their set in Japan.

The album starts off with a great intro. There is a bit of darkness worked into it, that immediately says that it’s going to be a heavy album. Use of guitars, bells and a perfect voice are the ingredients for this one.

When the full band falls in it is whit warp speed forward. It then also gives the crowd a boost and that you can certainly experience yourself too.

Crowd participation is also a very common thing at every show in the genre and when bands are working with it, it gives both them as also the crowd a great feeling. There will be in no way a time to stand still during the set.

The complete setup is also a solid mashup with practically every usable metal technique used throughout the entire setlist.

Halfway through the set there is a moment to take a breath, when you hear the sound of a traditional music-box. However, it is the intro of the second part of the set that opens up again with a huge song.

During the times in between the songs the singer also uses amazing binding texts, keeping the audience into the game.

As the set continues, it keeps getting better and better. As a finisher for their concert, they then also use one of their greatest hits and as a band you certainly need to do that in order to give the crowd what they have come for. Every concert should then also end with an amazing climax and that, Martyr has understood perfectly.

No Time For Goodbyes

during the last couple the band has been busy writing new material for their upcoming album. In June of this year, Martyr has released their first single from this album.

The single is called No time for goodbyes. It starts off smoothly leaving it’s listener thinking of being on a quest, like those in medieval times.

It again gives away a great message. A reminder that you cannot do everything on your own and cannot leave everyone behind to go on that quest, cause saying goodbye is one the most hurtful things to do.

Fire of rebellions

The second single for the upcoming album is called: Fire of rebellions. It’s an iconic metal song, with which the band says that they are still alive and kicking. The music is mixed perfectly and the singer again shows the band at it’s best, also thanks to great lyrics combined with awesome music.

Martyr is an iconic band that has been touring and making music for a very long time by now. They have a lot of achievements on their behalf and therefor they are one of Netherlands biggest stars and for old times sake, let us hope they can gives us lots more in the future too.

Martyr is:

Rop Van Haren: Lead vocals

Rick Bouwman: Guitars

Geoffrey Maas: Guitars

Vinnie Wassink: Bass/ Backing Vocals

Rick Valcon: Drums

Find out more of Martyr through next links:

Interview with The Maension.

A bit more than a year ago I had the opportunity to see a great band in small village nearby. This band has been going on ever since and now we have also had the opportunity to talk about the changes that has been going on for all of us.

Me Mark had a great chat and this is what his opinions were on some various things going on in the world and with the band.

Hey Mark howʼs it going? Last time we met was on your last tour through Belgium more than a year ago. What has THE MAENSION been up to since then?
Hey Andy itʼs been a crazy year! Youʼd think that when Satan unleashed the Plague, metal musicians would be spared, but apparently not! We had to cancel two tours and we still canʼt see the light at the end of the tunnel.

How did you keep yourself inspired during this Covid lockdown?
Itʼs been quite an interesting timeline of events. I came to Italy from Los Angeles back in February to record the drums for the new album, I was supposed to be there for a month or two at the most, but then the plague hit us and they closed the borders so I ended up staying in Italy the whole time since. I also kinda felt safer in Europe to be frank, LA is the last place Iʼd wanna be during Armageddon! So I ended up recording the entire new album in Italy which was a great way to keep myself sane (well, as sane as I could be) and Iʼm now close to the mixing stage.

Thatʼs great news! What can you tell us about the new album?
Itʼll be called ITALIA, and itʼs a 23 songs concept album, split in two acts.
I created several characters and unfolded their story throughout the record. It was a very inspiring approach and something I had never done before. Itʼs also the heaviest album Iʼve written to date, with some really brutal songs that Iʼm even surprised I wrote!

What made you go so heavy for this album?
I wrote the album last year when I had some personal turmoil that made me really angry. To add to that many of the people I considered friends ended up back stubbing me rather then supporting me, which further fueled the rage I unleashed in the album.
Another big factor was the personality of the characters themselves. As I said this was a
new writing approach for me and I choose to give the lead characters their own voice and
their own look rather then mine. I designed realistic masks and costumes for each character and since each has a specific storyline I found myself imagining “how would a guy with that look and storyline sound like?” and that opened up a new world of sounds that I never considered before. It was a very interesting way forward and one that I found
very gratifying artistically.

So would you say this is a departure from your previous sound?
Yes and no. This is our 4th album in 10 years of career and we switched things around on every album we put out. We tour a lot and so by the time I get back into the studio at the
end of an album/tour cycle, we played those songs a million times, and for me as an artist I
need to keep reinventing myself to stay inspired and honest to my craft. So in this sense our fans came to expect a new era for each new album. Nonetheless both our sound and image have evolved quite a bit on this last album and it will be interesting to see how the fans will react to it.

What genre would you say this album is?
I donʼt think itʼs my job to define my music in terms of genre. I like for my band to live in that realm of heavy metal where we float between sub-genres within an album and from one album to another. I get really tired of listening to bands who have one sound and one kind of songs only.

When I look at bands like Gojira or Mastodon on the other hand, I canʼt quite say what genre they are exactly and thatʼs why I appreciate their music so much, they do their own thing and thatʼs my approach too.

Very cool, that gets me quite curious to hear it and see what you came up with! Do you have a release date in mind?
Thatʼs a tough one, things are very uncertain in the music industry right now. Our managers are gonna look for a new label to put out this record and that process might take a while in this climate, so itʼs quite hard to say. My wish is to be able to release it next year so weʼll see what happens. Hopefully the plague will be gone by then and we can all return to head-bang in crowded venues again!

I surely hope so Mark! It was great chatting with you, Iʼm looking forward to hear the new album and see you perform again!

Thanks man, ‘til next time.

Album review: Green Light Fever by Ø M S. Out on the 1st of October.

Friends helping friends is one beautiful thing and a reminder that you cannot live without them.

When I was younger we used to go to the local youth center where, in our town, we all knew each other very good. It then also came as no surprise that we’ve seen many of our friends on the stage, doing their thing and giving us and themselves a great time.

One of these guys, is the up and coming musical genius: Nand Ooms. He recently started his own project, called Ø M S and that has resulted in the album: Green light fever, that will be available at the 1st of October.

Green Light Fever starts off with breathtaking sounds, typical to its maker and also tells a truly great story covered in a beautiful coat of music. The use of instrumental tones combined with a powerful voice brings hope and joy to all of its listeners.

When the music starts, it is not hard to wander away in your thoughts. After a heavy day at work and you need to set your thoughts on something else for a time, then this album comes as a perfect fit.

Losing track of time, you will soon find out that you are thinking of all the good things that happened to you, or are about to happen. Green Light Fever just brings this feeling up in an instance.

Throughout the entire setlist you shall also notice that there is no use of constantly the same notes and that is truly what a great album needs.

The singer himself: Nand, then also is not a fresh artist who started out yesterday. He has also played in other bands before and did many things, besides playing songs and singing. He plays many instruments himself, that you will also notice in this album and an artist who is capable of playing many instruments while keep learning and make good use of his learned skills in his own work, that is a true artist.

He then also does again best, what he can do best at the end of the album: ending in style.

Tracklist:

War Paint And Battle Cries
Keeping Busy
Mirror
Plead Sanity
Let The Sun Come Up
Time
Reason
Kids
Iterating Seasons
Acquired Tastes
Someday Soon

Wanna find out more about Ø M S, see following links:

Facebook

Instagram

Album review: Sanctorium – Ornaments.

Sanctorium is a Russian symphonic metal band from saint- Petersburg, originated in 2005. They are on the road for more than a decade and have done many concerts during their fifteen years of making music and bringing it to the people.

The band has also released three albums during their existence and the last one is a double-disc album called: Ornaments.

Ornaments counts sixteen songs in total, seven songs on disc one and nine on disc two.

The entire album opens up with a nice surprising tune that, after a couple of seconds, transforms into a compelling heavier beat. It instantly brings up questions in your head, cause the music you hear shall not be the music you were expecting to hear, which makes it unique.

After the intro however, you shall hear more familiar music, combined with a superb female voice that makes the album a total pearl.

The music itself is then also done professionally, so you shall definitely feel like wanting to see this band one day at the main stage of one of the great festivals. The use of instruments is also done great. By using many different styles of music, the album is all but boring.

Going through the album you shall also notice that there will be moments that you are head-banging, may it be softly but still, without even knowing yourself when you started doing it. That is again a sign that this a very unique album.

The use of clean vocals, done by a brilliant female signer, combined with amazing screams and grunts by a male voice, keeps the album flourishing and alive. This combination shall keep you as listener attached to it.

Disc one ends with a great guitar solo followed by a stunning, straight forward piece of music combine with this fantastic voices. It’s the perfect combination for this cliffhanger, so that you certainly go over to the next disc as soon as possible.

The second disc again starts surprising. The opening track may give you the feeling of getting dropped in a fairytale world, where you need to fulfill a quest in order to get back into the real world.

Throughout this disc you will probably hear lots of things you thought never to be hearing in this genre of music, but this band has done it and in a quite impressive way too.

A great last song, straight forward drums, perfectly matched male and female voice, combined with beautiful tunes make this album complete at the end. Add another bonus track or two to it and this album is as it is: A masterpiece.

Tracklist:

Disc 1:

Protoxidation (Ouverture)
The Space Between Us
No More Pain
The Arcane Way
Autumn Elegy
Libria
As The Snowflakes We Melt

Disc 2:

The Knight And Lady’s Honor
Mokosh
Night Of Ivan Kupala
Tonn Chliodhna
Siberia’s Calling
Shadow Of Blades
The Song Of Bograd
Hey, Uchnem
Asagao (Japanese bonustrack)

Find out more about the band:

Official website

Facebook

Instagram

Album review: Alien Hazard by Sunwalter

Upcoming Saturday I have the great opportunity To have a chat with the Russian symphonic power metal band: Sunwalter and I am looking forward to have a nice talk about their work as a band.

In honor of this upcoming interview, I therefor reviewed their latest album called: ‘Alien Hazard’.

Alien Hazard starts with a mysteriously sounding intro and gets backup from drums and fine melodic tunes. When this happens, it immediately gives you the feeling that aliens are invading the world.

A great mix of screams and clean vocals also give the feeling that aliens are amongst us and instantly leaves you thinking that we are not alone in the universe.

Musically, the album is a great mix of different metal and hardrock genres. Thanks to electronic tunes into the music it also gives great, yet intriguing vibes. The entire album then also takes you with them and let you fade away in thoughts, wandering through the universe and stumbling across many other species in space.

Throughout the entire album, other genres are also introduced, giving the album a great mix up and so it isn’t boring, but rather a great and perfect experience. Thanks to the constant switches of musical vibes it keeps being entertaining and leaves the listener with thoughts of what is going to be coming up next, which is done masterfully.

As a bonus, there is a techno version of one of the other songs of the band. This song is a perfect ender of the album. It gives the feeling that, after the hard work they put into the album, it is now time to release all frustrations and stress in going completely loose and letting everything go.

For the last time, fans can now join the band in going completely lost into this song, which is the perfect ending of a great adventure through the universe.

A true and inspirational sound that comes to life throughout the entire album.

Tracklist

Intro
Green’n’gray
Birth Machine
Drilling The Ice Of Europa
Forbidden Sun
Message From Nowhere
Planetary Protector
Red Shift
Fermi Paradox
Nibiru (Techno version)

Sunwalter is:

Alexio: Extreme Vocals and Synths

Olga Sol: Clean vocals

Myutel: Guitars

St. Odium: Bass

Miran: Drums

Links to Sunwalter’s social media:

Funny how time slips away.

When you say the name Elvis Presley, there will not be a person alive saying: ‘Who is that?’

Elvis was, and still is, an icon in the music industry.

Today it is 43 years ago that the king of rock and roll passed away due to illness. His death however still keeps bringing up questions today. The official cause of death is stated to be a heart attack, but many people keep thinking that there could have been other causes to his death.

Elvis Presley passed away in Memphis Tennessee, at the still young age of only 42 years old. His funeral took place two days later, on August 18, 1977.

His funeral was a modest affair, though there were a few number of stars present in Graceland’s living room as also at the ceremony, which was led by Wooddale Church of Christ pastor: C.W. Bradley and followed by a testimonial from comedian: Jackie Kahane, who opened many of >Elvis’s shows.

Though, the king of Rock and Roll has left the world, his family, friends and fans still carry his legacy with them. He still made songs, embodied through many artists that got inspired by Elvis. He also gained postume awards.

In his absence, Elvis Presley is an icon that will never really leave the world due to the heritage that he has given us as a reminder to never forget the king of rock and roll.

Singer/ songwriter Trini Lopez passed away due to corona.

It is with deep sadness and grieve that the music industry is left behind after they learned that singer/ songwriter Trini Lopez has passed away due to the effects of the corona virus.

One of his biggest successes is without a doubt the hitsingle: ‘If I Had A Hammer.’ Produced in 1963 as part of debut album: ‘Trini Lopez Live at PJ’s’, which was recorded at Reprise Records. The label of Frank Sinatra.

Trini Also collaborated on La Bamba, which was also part of this LP.

In 2005 he participated at the benefit concert, in honor of the victims of the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean area.

Also in 2013 he played a series of gigs with Andre Rieu in the Netherlands.

Trini Lopez had reached the beautiful age of 83. His passing away leaves grieve and sadness all around the globe, as his songs were had huge value and are therefor loved and listened by many people.

As a reminder to a great artist and as an act of sharing my condoleances with Trini’s family and Heritage, I am very pleased to give him an honorable salute by writing this post and sharing one of his biggest songs in it.

He will certainly be missed.

Trini Lopez with one of his biggest songs.

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Live in Japan

No Time For Goodbyes

Fire of rebellions

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