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
It seems like it was yesterday.....
Yes, that's what I thought, when finding an annoucenemt about the latest Striborg album along with some mp3s. It´s been only half a year (once again!), since the last output of this overly productive one-man-band Striborg somehow found its way into my CD player (again!). Seems as if this "release-a-cd-twice-a-year" thingie is almost compulsive - I´d say after 6 years of a release-schecdule like this, you can really call it compulsive. Didn´t I finish my last review with something like "maybe some more time between the albums would be better"?! I definitely DID mean it like this and when listening to "Southwest Passage" it becomes even more clear why. Normally, most bands develop their skills sooner or later, more or less positive. At least there´s development like in "progress". Well, I have no idea how I could call it in here. All good intentions I had, to start listening as open-minded as possible, were literally blown away within seconds when hearing this "music" that came bubbling (can't even come up with a decent word to describe the sound appropriatly) out of the hifi - definitely no improvement, that at least is for sure. Whereas I was willing to call at least some parts on the former album "atmospheric", there's no way I can (or better would) do that here again. BM might be that kind of music, that can be presented in a very rough way, sound mangy and what not, no problem with that, but here... completely dissonant (not to be understood in an artistic way) tunes, sizzling drums, you get the picture. Hell, no! Thus I surely won't go any deeper into the material itself. I simply can´t believe, that there are tons of bands out there, waiting to be signed, while on the premises of Striborg, one eh... "opus" after another is being released semiannually. Oh, in case you're wondering, why I still grant this album 1 out of 10 points, it´s for damn stoic stamina! (and mind you, I normally don't tear records to shreds like this... couldn´t help it this time). Can't even say, that I'd recommend it to BM purists. However in the meanwhile, I´ll arm myself for the next attack, half a year can be damn short, you know. It´ll come, I´m sure and I´ll be prepared and so should you!
