“Straight to your face, tougher than a Spartan, heavier than a bulldozer, louder than a chainsaw” that’s the way Bring On The Bloodshed describes their sound. From around the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, this face melting heaviness comes to destroy your speakers. But does ‘Amonst The Ruins’ also contain some music? Or did they record mostly noise?
Once upon a time, there was a band that seemed to have something very special going on. With a woman behind the microphone, the heavy Arch Enemy attracted people because of their music, and because of this screaming and grunting female appearance. The music business has changed since then. The metal world has been thoroughly convinced that women can, actually, scream, grunt and gurgle as good, or even better, then men. This is why the Belgian Spoil Engine shows off their freshly appointed vocalist Iris Goessens on their new EP ‘Stormsleeper’.
One of the most amazing things of reviewing music is the discovery of new bands. The Red Bull Bedroom Jam is an initiative to ease our search by finding bands and making sure they’re heard by a greater public. We already had the pleasure to review Guilty As Charged, who didn’t make it into the RBBJ finals, but this band has. Temptations For The Weak went the entire way and actually dominated a stage at the 2015 Graspop Metal Meeting. Not long after ‘Black Vision’, the second album by the Antwerp formation, is released, they’re here to prove they’re ready for the real deal.
This band has changed their line-up so many times, I can’t recall seeing an extreme case like this. Nightrage exist since the beginning of the zeroes, with its debut album ‘Sweet Vengeance’ released in 2003. But ever since then the band has shifted almost constantly, with an amazing list of previous, session and touring musicians. And then I don’t even mention the Guest musicians! But Nightrage is back with another line-up and a new album: ‘The Puritan’.
Last year the Belgian Thrash Metallers of Guilty As Charged released their debut album called ‘Leap Of Faith’. Doing everything themselves, without any help of a label at all. It’s a big step and also a great adventure for a young band like this. Hoping for a place in the Red Bull Bedroom Jam, bassist Hannes de Caluwé has found time to talk about everything that’s going on. “It all took a lot of time and it has absorbed quite a lot of money, too, but we’re very proud of what it has become!”
When I was a kid the Canadian band Cancer Bats were a real hype. I never had anything with the band. At the time metalcore was one of the last subgenres I’d be attracted to, so no Cancer Bats for me. Now, quite some years later, I got slightly more adjusted to the punk and metalcore scene. So I decided to give the new Cancer Bats, ‘Searching For Zero’ a try.
