
Band: Cage
Album: Hell Destroyer
Released: May 22
Song Played: Hell Destroyer
Info: San Diego, California heavy metal band CAGE release their fourth CD, Hell Destroyer.

Band: Naglfar
Album: Harvest
Released: Mar 6
Song Played: Prayer Of Cain
Info: Naglfar have crossed the abyss with "Harvest" and the sound is tighter than ever before. The sound of "Harvest" comes across as a hybrid of their last two albums, "Sheol" with its sinister and unrelenting audio assault and "Pariah" with its improved songwriting and brutal catchiness. "Harvest" is fantastic!

Band: Icy Steel
Album: Icy Steel
Released: May 15
Song Played: Me River
Info: Italian new comers Icy Steel step forward with an old school doomy feel, power metal. The self titled album is a great first effort, and I expect great things from this band in the future.

Band: Root
Album: Daemon Viam Invenient
Released: April 23
Song Played: Human
Info: This Czech band has been around since 1987, and has just released their 14th album. In all seriousness their new CD, "Daemon Viam Invenient" is my first introduction to the band. From what I hear off this CD, it makes me want to actually purchase some of their older stuff to see what I've been missing.

Band: U.D.O.
Album: Mastercutor
Released: May 21
Song Played: Mastercutor
Info: With absolutely no sign of wear at all, U.D.O. strike back with an example of just how Heavy Metal should sound in 2007. "Mastercutor". Yes, of course, it's traditional, you'd expect little else, but it's also a very fresh and powerful record, which follows the tradition of U.D.O. / Accept sound, but with a few surprises!

Band: Crystalic
Album: Watch Us Deteriorate
Released: April 15
Song Played: Blackened Image
Info: New Finish band Crystalic release their debute CD called, "Watch Us Deteriorate". Toni Tieaho (guitars) says the following: We are very satisfied! I think this album is going to be good start for us and now we should look forward and work hard like promoting and do lots of gigs, so little by little people may know who we are.

Band: Gary Moore
Album: Close As You Get
Released: May 21
Song Played: If The Devil Made Whisky
Info: With his latest studio album "Close As You Get", Gary Moore continues in a direction not too dissimilar from his 2006 studio release Old, New, Ballads, Blues. Mixing original tunes with some interesting Blues covers that Gary has rediscovered.

Band: Ensiferum
Album: Victory Songs
Released: April 23
Song Played: Blood Is The Price Of Glory
Info: The band shine so brightly on this CD called "Victory Songs", possibly like they have never done before providing their unique style of folkish metal that uses elements of power metal and entwines them perfectly with traces of black metal going from Markus and Sami's clean, almost sing along vocals to blastbeating and Petri's extreme vocals.

Band: Planet X
Album: Quantum
Released: May 22
Song Played: Matrix Gate
Info: Self-founded band of Derek Sherinian (Billy Idol, former Dream Theater) from 1999, describe themselves as "the sickest instrumental band in the world, ...a band that played so fiercely, it would strike fear in the hearts of other musicians when they heard us". Their latest piece of work is such. It uniquely demonstrates what happens when a number of exceptional musicians team up. An incredibly fast-pacing roller coaster ride. The perfect fusion of rock and metal.

Band: After Forever
Album: After Forever
Released: May 3
Song Played: Discord
Info: After Forever was originally assembled in 1995 under the name Apocalypse. Old fans of the band may not like the new direction the band started to head in with their latest CD release called simply "After Forever". I believe the new CD shows the bands natural steps in progressing to the next level of song writing.