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
The four guys from Düsseldorf including fronter and songwriter Nico Vetter are playing together for only three years. Now they release their debut album “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder”. The band can be filed under Alternative, Independent, Indie Rock. The melodies on their record are all very well played and the vocals fit very well, too. Plus, they try to make it interesting with varying guitar riffs and emotional vocals, and they cut a pretty good figure in doing so. But, then again, most of the 11 songs are pretty similar except “This is Me Again”, with which rockier guitars provide some variety. It should also be positively highlighted, that the guys tried to deviate from this standard rhythm pattern that characterises almost every other song of this music style. With the instrumental “Atlantis Astronaut”, they also could live their love for experimentation. The song fades without a break, only signalled by a beep, to the track “Homunculus”. This song then needs another 1 min 20 until the vocals eventually set in. Actually, Nico Vetter is a good singer; he puts much effort into bringing emotions and feelings into the songs. He does this by using varying sound volumes, on the other hand, some variation between high and low tone facets are still missing. For the harder parts in the vocals, his bandmates scream their vocals into his verses. All things considered, a great record that many Alternative fans will like.
