Amerikan Kaos - Ghost on Mars - The Monolith Deathcult

It turns out to be one of those years, where keeping up with new releases just does not work for me. Herewith three more albums released a while ago, you might want to check out.

Amerikan Kaos - Armageddon Boogie

It was quiet in the Annihilator camp for a while. Now we know what Jeff Waters has been doing over the past years. He wrote three albums a bit different from his usual Annihilator stuff. Armageddon Boogie is the first one released and his ode to melodic hard rock from the eighties. So suddenly we received the perfect summer album in a year with no summer. The Pasadena Four is his ode to Van Halen and possibly the best song on the album. Than agin I like all songs and especially those who can apreciate The Nightflight Orchestra should check this out. Very nice flowing album with great vocals by Chandler Mogel. Next album has Stu Block on vocals. All That Jive follows March 2025, so I will get that one too. Apparently there is a game attached to the albums, but I am not the most fanatic gamer, so did not look that up really. Great fun sunny album.

Ghost on Mars - Out of Time and Space

Italy in metal mostly goes into the direction of  powermetal at first thought. Those in the know also appreciate prog bands like Kingcrow, DGM, Pentesilea Road and Eldritch. Now there is a band from Rome formed in 2019 amd releasing their first full lenght this year. From the first clips I heard I thought these guys can go far. That is far in our tiny progressive metal niche. The songs all speak and the performances are great. This is progmetal with some djenty touches, but all very good. At times a grunt heavies up the songs, but that is hardly needed. This band offers a great debut album and I guess it won't be long before we see them on a certain stage in Baarlo. One of the better progmetal discoveries of the year so far.

The Monolith Deathcult - The Demon Who Makes Tropihies of Men

This Dutch band is around since the start of this century and yet I missed them so far. It was their fantastic set  at the first edition of The Hague Death Fest that made me pick up this album. I heard of them and read about controversial quotes, but missed their music. Well glad that this a thing of teh past, since what I saw on stage was one rollercoatser of symphonic Death Metal with electronics blended through. On album at home you can never repeat the impact of a live show, but they come close. Apparently two songs were released before, but the flow of the album is great. The Monolith Deatcult bring the term bombastic to new heights here. What a pounding machine they are and what an overwhelming sound. This is not for every moment every day to me, but when in the mood an absolute winner of original Death Metal. For a full on great review check out Andrew's words on Ave Noctem. Live show in the area by them I won't skip any longer.