Someone opined a few days ago that the musical buck stops once you cross the alps and go South. In this guy’s august take on the scene, only classical music remains. But rock, folk and – for sure – metal take a nosedive to nothingness once you start cruising along the Po. And truly so, things change indeed, but not quite this way. From German precision, French bonhomie or the British stiff upper lip and lukewarm beer, you change into a more laid-back realm. But this does not mean non-existence of modern music, bad quality or – Loki forbid – a lack of intensity. Quite the contrary.
So, I am not sure if I should laugh or cry, because this eclectic exclamation is the handiwork of a specialist. Well, perhaps he just had a bad hair day, who knows? Because for some reason, the mighty RockmusicRaider database is full of great bands from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and – indeed – the Levant. Fleshgod Apocalypse, Moonspell or again Scardust are just three of them bands that pop up in my mind right off the bat. [...]
The RockmusicRaider offices just love those jewels all of a sudden ejected from the nameless masses of music creations. Like some sort of magic volcano gone to the other side. And specifically tasty are those bands that consciously and purposefully defy styles and currents. By this definition they threaten to become their very own genre – a victim of their own success if you will. We had them before on RockmusicRaider with bands like 
2017 will be a good year for Progressive and Alternative Rock and Metal. And I have a feeling that some of them players will end up on the 2017 Top 10 Records list. Increased sophistication seems to be the game these days too. Away from heavy-handed djent-ism to more refined shores. So much so that some bands lose their metal chops and reinvent themselves in pop and some tastier versions of rock. The last example is the late