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,

A good guy from sweden (davexphoto) filmed the last song of H2O - What Happend. &  Defeater - A Wound And Scar

A sunny day, girls in short skirts and hardcore on a holy Sunday! This is how the atmosphere on Sunday, April 18 in Eindhoven can be described. While PSV Eindhoven played their soccer match a few hundred meters further and a memorial service was going on in the church across the Dynamo, a few hundred hardcore fans came down to the famous concert hall to see Agnostic Front at work.

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...

May 2006. A new band released their first single. Nothing special off course, but this band has something special about them. Not that they have a well known member in their ranks, but the fact that they delivered something not heard for a long time: catchy AOR that pays tribute to bands like Boston, 80's Van Halen and Journey, with an amazing modern touch.

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.

Space rockers/ progressive rockers Eloy are back. After a 11 year hiatus the band releases Visionary which shows a great return to form. 1998's Ocean 2: The Answer was a follow-up to 1977's Ocean. In 1998 it was regarded as the bands testament. However throughout the years the interrest in the band stayed and due to it's abscence they gained a true cult status. And eleven years later, at the band's 40th birthday, Eloy's brain child and founding member Frank Bornemann was pursuaded by the rather high pressure by the still increasing fan community not only to remaster the entire back catalogue but also to release a brand new album. Bornemann contacted musicians who were in previous Eloy line-ups and after eleven years the wait for a new Eloy album is over. A dream come true for many fans...