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Interview Abel Cañizales (Mercenaries of Silence, Laberinto, Stratuz): Learning to Understand Music
Abel Cañizales is associated with several high-profile Venezuelan rock and metal bands. He played with influential doom/death metal band Stratuz during their formative years, briefly played with traditional heavy metal powerhouse Cronos, had a stint with pop-rockers Radio Clip and was the final guitarist for seminal Latin-metallers Laberinto. These days,…
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Interview Isaias Guilarte (Noctis Imperium): “We Just Have to Be Patient”
For nearly twenty-five years, guitarist and vocalist Isaias Guilarte has been soldiering on with his black metal band Noctis Imperium. First on his own, later as the band’s frontman. He has also been active as a recording and mixing engineer for several metal bands, mostly from the Puerto La Cruz…
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Interview Jesús García (Maskhera): Always Willing to Improve
Maskhera is one of the more influential Venezuelan metal bands on the more contemporary groove/thrash metal side of the spectrum. What’s interesting is that the band keeps reinventing itself. It is exactly this drive to get better and more interesting that drummer Jesús García – who is Venezuelan, but didn’t…
Latest Interviews
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Interview Courtney Cox (Burning Witches): “I Was Waiting for This”
After extensively touring the world with the popular tribute act The Iron Maidens for fourteen years, the new Burning Witches album ‘Inquisition’ finally gave Courtney Cox the opportunity to record and release original material. It was a chance the American guitarist had been waiting for. “I did not start playing…
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Interview Kai Hansen (Helloween): “We Inspire Each Other a Lot”
The return of founding guitarist – and occasional singer – Kai Hansen was one of the reasons for 2021’s self-titled album to be what was likely the most anticipated album Helloween ever released. However, it only contained one song that Hansen had written. Hansen admits to being much more inspired…
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Interview Sascha Gerstner (Helloween): “We Sound Much More Like a Band Now”
Sascha Gerstner is more than just a guitarist in Helloween. He has arguably been the band’s most consistently great songwriter since joining the band over two decades ago, he has a significant impact on how the guitars sounds on the albums and live, and multiple band members point to him…
Latest Reviews
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Album of the Week 24-2025: Animalize – Verminateur
Younger old school heavy metal bands with gimmicky live shows and a somewhat tongue-in-cheeky image often have their shows mask the fact that their music really isn’t all that special. To be fair, so do many of the older bands they model themselves after. Lyon-based Animalize actually has the songs…
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Album of the Week 23-2025: Professor Emeritus – A Land Long Gone
If there is one worldwide metal scene that has consistently been delivering the most interesting and well-rounded new releases lately, it would be the epic heavy and doom metal scene. Maybe it’s because this type of music just requires a certain deal of attention given to the compositions and arrangements,…
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Album of the Week 22-2025: Joanne Shaw Taylor – Black & Gold
Almost exactly a year ago, I described ‘Heavy Soul‘ as the album I had been wishing Joanne Shaw Taylor to make for about a decade. After hearing ‘Black & Gold’, I fear I may have spoken too soon. The album does everything ‘Heavy Soul’ did right and simply improves on…
Kevy Metal 