Amorphis – Queen of Time (2018) – Review

Posted on 29 May 2018 by RockmusicRaider — Leave a reply

RockmusicRaider Review - Amorphis - Queen of Time - Album Cover Aye! Guilty! The first listen of Queen of Time – Amorphis‘ 2018 concoction – originated from a relatively lo-fi streaming platform. And – unsurprisingly – this first glimpse left yours truly wondering where Amorphis was headed these days. Terrible visions of Amaranthe-esque disasters, misguided Power Metal et al. But the Finns usually have been a stable brand. At least until now. So, confusion reigned for a while at the RockmusicRaider offices.

Just think back to the outstanding ’96 album Elegy or the 2015 piece Under The Red Cloud, perhaps with the … [...] Click to raid more!

2017 Top 10 Records

Posted on 16 January 2018 by RockmusicRaider — Leave a reply

I have the feeling that the 2016 Top 10 just about came out. But time does move fast when you are having fun. And we now need to attack the 2017 Top 10 quickly, lest another few months go by.

Methinks that the records retained in 2017 were not as blackened as in former years. Instead, we found a fair share of interesting progressive and avantgarde records that bubbled to the surface. Many bands also engaged in all flavors of ‘post rock or metal’, and those – I admit – delivered the best quality stuff, in general. In … [...] Click to raid more!

Intermittent Digest – Tome VI

Posted on 15 November 2017 by RockmusicRaider — Leave a reply

RockmusicRaider - Intermittent Digest - Tome VI Well, before the back office overflows with material, we better launch a new edition of the RockmusicRaider world-famous (ahem…) Intermittent Digest series. This will let off some steam and things will improve – hopefully.

The Tome V Edition was already substantial, but 2017 has been on the fast-track ever since with an enormous amount of material released to date. This includes many big bands that churned out their newest records right around fall of this year with a lot more still to come. On top of that the end of the year looms already with the inevitable top ten coming … [...] Click to raid more!

Scardust – Sands of Time (2017) – Review

Posted on 20 October 2017 by RockmusicRaider — Leave a reply

RockmusicRaider Review - Scardust - Sands of Time - Album Cover Progressive Metal is an European affair. Right? This is what the Europeans think at least. And this annoys many American bands to hell and back. But the EU prog nerds have a point. There’s just no real cool prog that emanates from across the pond anymore. The only thing we seem to get these days is preposterous news about how their government behaves itself. Okay, you will find exceptions like the excellent Moon Haven that RMR just recently reviewed. But then, these guys are arguably more on alt-metal territory than anywhere else.