Total Maniac – Love Overdrive (2026) – Review

Total Maniac - Love Overdrive - Album Cover

We said it before, a long time ago. Never judge anything by its appearance. When the old geezers at the RMR Review Desk saw the album cover, this went as follows: ‘By the almighty Gawds ov Heavy Metal, do we really want to descend into glam’s very special hellscape?’ But little did they know that the series of somewhat somnambulant Heavy Metal pieces and other malfunctions were about to end.

2026 already features a pretty sturdy Heavy Metal diet to date. But a lot of the fare the pipe caught was kinda mediocre. Not embarrassingly bad, but more of … [...] Click to raid more!

Wings of Steel – Winds of Time (2025) – Review

Wings of Steel - Winds of Time - Album Cover

Clichés rule! And that is specifically true for well-established metal genres. Heavy Metal is one of them for sure. Long past its heyday, you’ll still find bands wanting to go down this well-trodden path. They’ll make you experience that delicious devil’s music the old masters started once upon a time. And it’s a surprising number of them newbies tilling the ancient fields that their oldish brethren already visited eons ago.

Meet Wings of Steel. A surprisingly young Californian Heavy Metal band that seems to step right out of the tired remains of the Sunset Boulevard movement and the early … [...] Click to raid more!

Helloween – Giants & Monsters (2025) – Review

Helloween - Giants & Monsters - Album Cover

It happened at last. Helloween‘s newest concoction, Giants & Monsters, successfully made it onto our review pipe after all those years. The grandads of the Metal o’ The Light finally obtained lamestream n00b status over at the RMR Review Desk. Meaning, despite their verified existence since 1983 and their undisputed influence on the shaping of Ze Art ov Power Metal in general, the band never officially landed a review over at the office tower. The culprit holding us back usually was those slippery, pinkish, sugar-laden surfaces slathered in molten cheese that got in the way. But things changed, and

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Tower – Let There Be Dark (2025) – Review

Tower - Let There Be Dark - Album Cover

You gotta celebrate them. ‘Young’ bands worshipping the well-trodden grounds of good ol’ speedy Heavy Metal. Sounds that harken back to times when the only genre pretty much was that very same one. These were the times when fledgling Hard Rock bands tried themselves at that new devil’s music many old farts of that era took exception with.

Of course, it would not take long until the new metal world branched out into a gazillion sub-genres and blossomed into that ill-fated Yggdrasil ov Metal we know today. But until that happened, things were easy and spawned some of the greatest … [...] Click to raid more!