NE OBLIVISCARIS – Exul (Album Review)
Twenty years. It’s been twenty goddamn years since I’ve anticipated an album as much as I’ve anticipated “Exul.” And like “Exul,” that last one was…
Author Gonzalo Pozo
CONCERT REVIEW: POWERWOLF Unleashed In Times Square For First-Ever US Performance (February 23rd, 2023)
Long-running German metal band Powerwolf have long maintained that they had no plans to tour the United States. It’s a reasonable position to take for…
METAL CRUISE RECAP: Our Audio Diaries and Photos Documenting the 2023 Edition of 70,000 Tons Of Metal
The looming sunset of my annual gift to myself has been threatening to rob me of the one week of youth I get to relive…
DEVIN TOWNSEND – Lightwork (Album Review)
The curse of crafting monuments is having to outdo them. I suppose we can’t blame Devin Townsend for following the career-defining “Empath” (and let’s be…
Stratovarius – Survive (Album Review)
I had a torrid but brief love affair with power metal in the late 90s. Like most flings one has in their late teens and…
CONCERT REVIEW: SCORPIONS Prove to Houston They Still Have Tons of “Gas In The Tank” (September 17th, 2022)
Words by Samantha Buckman There are numerous indomitable musical giants staring down the beast of aging and giving a firm middle finger to any talk…
A-Z – A-Z (Album Review)
Full disclosure: I am not a fan of 80s AOR, 80s hard rock, or the 80s retro pastiche that briefly birthed the unwelcome return of…
MARK ZONDER and RAY ALDER Talk Chemistry During Creation of A-Z Debut Album: “This Album Was an Open Palette, Yet We Stuck with the Mentality of Focusing on the Hooks and the Songs”
“Beer commercials, car commercials, and Cobra Kai.” I straight up thought that legendary drummer Mark Zonder’s reference point for his new band would have been…
Oceans of Slumber – Starlight and Ash (Album Review)
Houston’s Oceans of Slumber have carefully broadened their sound with each record and have reliably crafted some of the most exciting and forward thinking extreme…
STRATOVARIUS Singer TIMO KOTIPELTO on Upcoming “Survive” Studio Album: “The Biggest Difference Is That We Composed This Album Together, In the Same Room”
“This whole trip was chaos,” confides a visibly exhausted Timo Kotipelto. The reserved but charismatic Stratovarius front-man and I are tucked away in a corner…
