God Dethroned have had 29 years already to refine their sound and I can tell you they’ve been doing that well. Eleventh album Illuminati, which is coming out in just a week, proves the band is still staying true to its roots but at the same time once again expands and builds upon the foundation..
Testament are unleashing the Titans Of Creation in April. Listen to a new song!
Three and a half years after their last studio album, thrash institution Testament is back. Their new full-length is entitled Titans Of Creation and will be released on April 3 through Nuclear Blast. You can see the Eliran Kantor cover artwork below, as well as the full tracklist. 1. Children Of The Next Level 2...
Resonate 2 Festival announced for June 2020
Resonate 2 is the anticipated sequel to 2018's successful Resonate Festival. Resonate was a classic and progressive rock event which took place at the O2 Islington Academy, was a fundraiser for MacMillan Cancer Support and raised healthy funds for the cause. Resonate embraced a broad musical palette, but was mainly about ‘music without boundaries’. Conceived..
Quel Che Disse Il Tuono – Il Velo Dei Riflessi (AMS Records)
...a positively delicious album brimming with the treasured hallmarks of the genre... There's just something about Italy. The depth and importance of Italian contributions to progressive music over the last fifty years is impossible to overestimate. The romance and tradition of the old world imbues the Italians' music with unparalleled richness and flavour that has..
Emerald Shine – Misty Tales
Here at Velvet Thunder, we’re always on the look-out for “The Next Big Thing” – so here’s introducing Emerald Shine, a band from Northern Moravia in the Czech Republic who fuse the power of metal music with the distinctive sound of a harp, violin, recorders and tin whistles! Whether you call it Metal Folk or..
STOMB – From Nihil
It's a new decade, and French Modern Progressive Metal band STÖMB are keen to enter it with a fresh sense of purpose...and a new studio album to be released on 31 January. The quartet have also been tagged as being an instrumental post-djent quartet. For the uninitiated, post-djent is a heavy metal subgenre that recently..
Mindless Sinner – Poltergeist (Pure Steel Records)
Mindless Sinner is a Swedish heavy rock band with a history that goes back to the '80s and they released three albums before disbanding in 1990. They briefly reformed between the years of 2001 to 2004 and then they got back together again in 2014, playing the 2015 Keep It True XVIII festival which was..
THE DAME – UK Tour and Radio Interview
Dutch proggers THE DAME are bringing their unique 1920s-themed live show to the UK with a string of dates in February. The short tour will be unusual in that they will be appearing alongside a selection of other excellent bands over the course of the shows, with different line-ups on different nights giving a welcome..
Hot Breath – Hot Breath
What do you call a new release that's halfway between a CD and an EP? This is the debut production from Hot Breath, another hard-hitting foursome from Gothenburg, Sweden. Six tracks long, giving you a shade under 24 minutes, so it'll be interesting to see how its priced. But that apart, it's great rock and..
Grand Royale – Take It Easy (The Sign Records)
Now then, a new Scando Rock album with a difference! You could be forgiven from several recent reviews and interviews that virtually the entire rock scene in Scandanavia, and certainly in the hotspots of Stockholm, Goteborg and Jonkoping in Sweden, was sort of "newer wave Power Pop". These guys in Grande Royale stand out from..