Pain: Dancing with the dead tour
With support act Crucified Barbara

Kulturbolaget, Malmö, Sweden
Jan. 27. 2005

Review & Live Pics by Anders Sandvall

Interview By Lord of The Wasteland

**Live Pics By Lord of The Wasteland; all others courtesy Soilwork.org

Helsingborg, Sweden’s Soilwork are among the most prolific and popular bands of the last few years.  In their relatively short seven year existence, the band has released six albums under critical praise and made a name for themselves on North American shores with 2002’s NATURAL BORN CHAOS.  Extensive touring and label support has exposed the band to many different audiences and the push is on for the latest Soilwork platter, STABBING THE DRAMA, to infiltrate the metal masses when it is released on March 8th.

A recent U.S. transplant, Soilwork guitarist/founder, Peter Wichers, called me to discuss the new CD, the band’s drummer problems and his thoughts on headlining their first American tour.

Pegazus, Dark Order, Vengeance
Annandale Hotel, January 22, 2005

Live review and all photos by Brat

Has it really been two years since PEGAZUS played in Sydney? Did I miss a gig during one of my European adventures? Doesn’t time fly. After getting through what felt like a cerebral haemorrhage only two hours earlier, I picked up my little digital camera (I avoided my SLR as I still have 30 rolls of film to develop) and managed to drag myself to the gig. Ah, the wonders of modern drugs.

“Symphonies of Slickness”
An Interview with Angtoria by MetalGeorge 
 
Pictures Courtesy of Angtoria.com

Whilst it does seem that symphonic, female-fronted metal IS all the rage these days, what with the surprising explosion of Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, and Evanescence here in the States and all.  However, in Europe the genre is exploding with more and more new bands popping up everywhere.  Standing head and shoulders above them all (including most of their upper eschalon contemporaries), however, are Swedish-British powerhouse Angtoria. Featuring Abyssos’ Chris Renn and Cradle of Filth’s own Sarah Jezebel Deva, Angtoria provide all of the bombastic metal goodness with a emotional depth and melancholy missing from many happy-go-lucky Euro-metal bands currently peddling their wares.  It’s only a matter of time before Angtoria sweep fans of this style of their feet, so I figured it was time to dig up some information on this stellar rising talent! Watch this space!  Angtoria are gonna be huge!!

Mortal Sin is one of the first thrash metal bands emerging from Down Under in the mid 80’s and unleashed a furious debut album MAYHEMIC DESTRUCTION. The album has reached a real cult status amongst the die old school thrash metal freaks. In 1989 the second output FACE OF DESPAIR saw the light of day and the Australian thrashers embarked on an European tour by opening for Testament, Faith No More and toured in The States. The internal feuds within the band caused the departure of the vocalist and finally a real split up. Bassist Andy Eftichiou carried on by hiring a new line-up and put out REBELLIUS YOUTH, but Mortal Sin vanished to the Australian large desert. Despite the band unleashed REVOLUTION OF THE MIND, but it led nowhere. Until 2002/2003 Mat Maurer, Andy Efthichou and Wayne Campbell resurrected the old band by recruiting new guitarists to the rank. It was about time to approach the vocalist of Mortal Sin Mat Maurer and bassist Andy Efthichou to ask more about the history as well as other interesting subjects……