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
"Despite their Swabian origin, Drift & Die play with an attitude which couldn`t be more American": This quote from the biography of the rock quartet from Schwäbisch Hall (Germany) gets straight to the point. Personally, I`m not so into "American Rock" à la Nickelback, Creed, 3 Doors Down, Puddle Of Mudd and Lostprophets - but let`s just listen to their debut album "Back To Paradise", at least once...
It starts with the 38-second, purely instrumental intro which is also titled as such. The transition to the actual opener "Nowhere" is very nice and - as the target group of young listeners would say - "phat", mostly thanks to the production: Phat guitars, phat bass and phat drums are booming out of the speakers. Only the vocals are... Well, as I mentioned before: This kind of rock music has never been my cup of tea. But it`s Drift & Die`s cup of tea - and they brew this tea with the highest quality. Thus, they don`t need to hide from their American colleagues and role models; rather the opposite is the case as the Americans should beware of the German guys.
Track three, "Part Of You", belongs to the strongest compositions on "Back To Paradise": Vocals and drive are very reminiscent of Incubus. It pleases me much more. The same is true with song number eight, "Gone This Day", which belongs to the same category, while the sound of song number 11, "Rising Disease", is more rough. After that, the ballad "Solitary Place" finalises the album.
As mentioned, the production (for which no-one other than Stone The Crow bass player Tom Schenk was in charge for) is consistently first-class. Only the vocals are sometimes unconvincing, especially during the title track, and a song like "White Flag" might find its way to the radio stations without any problems nevertheless, as it sounds so "ordinary". But, no, this shouldn`t be taken as derision. Not at all! The few points of criticism are more based on a matter of taste `cause technically and regarding of what Drift & Die want to represent, the result of their first record "Back To Paradise" is absolutely flawless. And I wouldn`t be surprised to hear more from the guys in the future `cause as they say in their home town: "You can build on these stones..."
