****

Small Town Records

Meet Shadows Chasing Ghost, a metalcore/screamo band from the UK. After their successful EP "Never get a wolfs
attention by pulling its tail" they started touring intensively and kept on growing with "The Golden Ratio" as a
result.

****1/2

Roadrunner Records

With Collisions and Castaways, one of Alaska's finest exports is returning to the vibrant modern metal scene it helped forge. 36 Crazyfists has been around for a while, not quite as long as Slayer or Ozzy but still, sixteen years is worth something. Collisions and Castaways is the sixth full length album for these Alaskans, who are often known for their frontman Brock Lindow's distinct polarizing voice. Resigning with Roadrunner for the UK, the band answers the criticisms of the last album with one of their strongest, most personal and most melodic offerings for years. The album was produced by the band's guitarist Steve Holt and mixed once again by the legendary Andy Sneap (Killswitch Engage).

GBH is not your everyday punk band - they are oldschool with many experimental moments in their past resulting in disasters and a lot of negative reactions from their loyal fanbase. Later in the 90's they found their way back to the more "Punkish" sound.

Epitaph/Running Man Records

Score: 4,5 / 5

Veara is a 4 headed pop/punk band from Augusta, GA (USA). The current signing on Epitaph and Running Man Records has opened doors to a bigger public and more fans. At stagedive we had the opportunity to listen to their brand new album that will be released on 25/05/2010.

Score: 4/5

I was immediately impressed by the superb artwork by Andrea Berton (Carnifex, Winds of Plague, Hatesphere, ... ). Extreme metal/core bands nowadays tend to have the same boring album-covers and artwork with unreadable logos and lots, lots of br00tality. The artwork on Concerto for the Undead is inspired by awesome cult-comic series Tales from the Crypt,

When Hope Escapes has a belgian homebase and as a good belgian band they know how to make their music and how to promote it. For band promotion and the upcoming full EP (Fall 2010) they released a 2 track CD.

Roadrunner Records

Score: ***1/2

Cancer Bats is a Candian foursome that drew attraction to the larer public with their ‘Hail Destroyer’ release several years ago. The band was able to combine the sound of old school hardcore with metal and southern rock making it one of the most unique that has come out in the last few years. This has some drawbacks making it for the band to keep evolving their sound leading to a record that sounds a lot like the previous one.

Murder Intentions – A Prelude To Total Decay

A look in their bio learns us this Belgian band started out in the late 2004 and after two demo's, a lot of shows and different line-up changes they now release their debut album 'A Prelude To Total Decay' through the Russian SFC Records. Musical wise the band presents themselves as brutal death metal with a blend of hardcore and grind.
They could't tell it any better!

Battalion, not really an original name for a metal band these days... Only a small search on Metal Archives learns us there are almost ten bands with this name. A Brazilian heavy metal bands, a Danish and US Thrash metal band, an American progressive metal band, black metal from Australia...
The latest addition are the guys I'm now writing about: a young thrashing quartet from Switzerland. These guys, between 19 and 22 years old just released their first effort Underdogs through the German label Silverwolf Productions. The artwork promises a lot, now let's find out if they can deliver...

Mingle Riverside, Karma Depth, The Urbane and erh.. Spandau Ballet together, add an undefined extra ingredient and you might end up with Intentions and their debut album Place In Time.

The story of Intentions starts in 2003 when André de Vries (keys), Erik Kuipers (bass) and Sanne te Meerman (guitars) get together. The trio, then called Valence, was then looking for a vocalist and drummer, whilst already some songwriting was done by the trio. After a long period of several auditions and sessions the band found it's current line up in 2006. Ex-Mesmerised vocalist Roelof Beeftink and drummer Petrick Glasbergen joined. The band renamed themselves to Intentions. With already quite some songs written, the recording sessions for Place In Time started early 2006 and were finalized mid 2008 to get a proper release in 2009. Finally the band could ‘come out' with their music.