Sad news: The music world mourns the loss of Ray Manzarek (74), founding Member and keyboarder of The Doors, White Zombie drummer Phil Buerstatte (44) and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder (63). R.I.P.!
German Hardrockers BERSERKER will donate 18.000€ to the Berlin cancer charity for children on May 25. November 2011 BERSERKER front man Schröder was diagnosed with cancer, now he is cancer-free. In 2012 the band collected money for this charity at their concerts and will also continue to do so in the future. Slayer´s Jeff Hanneman is dead: he passed away at about 11AM on May 2nd near his Southern California home because of liver failure due to an infection after a spider bite. R.I.P. Jeff!
The Siberian Jay music video "I´m Holding" featuring Mikko Sirén from Apocalyptica on drums - we reported about the videoshoot in our "1h with" Special - can be watched here: http://youtu.be/C-hSNurZVcs
Crimsonic is a Finnish rock/hard rock band from Helsinki. Formed in 2010, the band got a record deal with Amplisonic Records in 2011 and has, so far, released three demos online and two official singles (Journey and Avoided). Now, in May 2012, their debut album Silence Too Loud was ready to be released.
Silence Too Loud gets a flying start with Red Hot Devil, a song that has even been played during games of the Finnish national hockey league team HIFK. It´s a simple and straight forward rock piece, and I can well imagine it blaring out of the hockey arena´s loudspeakers, getting the crowd excited for the game. The guitars´ sound is big, and the bass line grumbles properly.
The opening track is followed by several songs, in which the woman is hot (but usually cruel) and love is tormenting – but also a few songs that portray a kinder variety of love. One of the tracks makes me giggle every time , I don´t know if that´s the reaction the band wants but… What is common to all of the tracks of the album is that they are tightly and skillfully played, as far as I can tell. The weak link in this set seems to be, unfortunately, the vocals. On some tracks the sound is a bit too nasal for my taste and I hate to say it, but the English pronunciation is awful at times. I don´t know if it bothers other people, but for me, it´s definitely a big downside to an otherwise rather entertaining album. On one track, Another Night, there´s a female vocalist, Heidi. Her voice has a beautiful tone and I would´ve gladly listened to her more, even though the track includes some of the most problematic English pronunciation issues of the album, from the point of view of the lead vocalist, Turre.
As a whole the record is entertaining but somewhat unsurprising. Audio clips from news casts or an oddly irrelevant jazzy addition to the end of a track don´t yet make a song hugely original. I would say that this album is a solid start for Crimsonic, but before they go back to the studio for a second one, I suggest some native English coaching for the vocalist, if English is to be the chosen language for the band also in the future. Musically, they will do well when they develop their own sound further and really find the thing that makes Crimsonic stand out among the Finnish rock/hardrock scene. Rock on!
Crimsonic is:
Anssi – bass
Jake – lead guitar
JNE Pasanen – drums
Turre – vocals, guitar
