Mick Birchall Reviews

In December of 2023 we will be getting the long awaited fourth full length album from Skeptical Minds , Kharon . This will also be part two of their Omega Thanatos Trilogy concept album. This project has see the band work inside of an original concept that is accompanied by a comic book series. The album series acts as a soundtrack to the comic book series, providing a tone, a expansion on the lore and a soul to the story. In this new interview, I speak with vocalist, Karolina and guitarist Michel Stiakakis about their time making this new album, their core ideas for the series and working in both the musical and comic book worlds.  The new album, Kharon will be released in December. Could you elaborate on the mindset going into this record as this is the second album in the Omega Thanatos Trilogy? Michel: So yeah, the first part of the trilogy, Omega Thanatos was released in 2015. The purpose of the trilogy was to have an album that was also released with a comic book. So, we hav...

  There’s only so many iconic voices I would recognise instantaneously from my teen years. Then, there would only be so many in that group of people that I would still be following to this day. Well, Lacey Sturm is one of those singers. From emo-royalty to hard-rock powerhouse, she has run the gambit of the rock world for over twenty years now. Sturm released her debut solo album,  Life Screams in 2016 and has mostly been occupying her time with other projects and endeavors in the meantime. Now, a whole seven years later we get her follow up, Kenotic Metanoia . This is an album she’s been building up to for a while now. The first single “The Decree '' came out in 2020. Over the course of the last few years she’s been bleeding out singles here and there, eventually announcing a new full-length album earlier this year. Now that the album has dropped and I’ve had the chance to listen to it. I thought I would share some thoughts. Firstly, I just want to bring up the title. The t...

You guys know I’ve been waiting for this one for a while. It’s been nine years since the last album from Austrian metal legends, Kontrust . For me, this was my most hyped album of 2023. I have adored this band for a long time. Their last album “Explosive” in 2014, had interesting elements and a couple of my favourite tracks. Including “Why”, “Play!” and “Just Propaganda”. The band mostly spent a lot of their time touring and then the world decided to suspend itself for a while through the COVID pandemic and now we’re on the other side, I think we all needed a record like this one. Or at least, I did. In June 2022 the band announced a change in their line-up, as the new singer Julia Ivanova and drummer Joey Sebald joined the band. With that, the band geared up for a new record, Madworld . I discussed this with them in my interview on the blog . I loved all of the singles leading up to the album and I think they were the right way to introduce people to this album as a concept. The lead ...

  So, this has been a year where one band has dominated my playlists, my shuffle remixes and my general listening experiences. That would be, Villagers of Ioannina City . Ever since I discovered them via their new live record, Through Space And Time , I have been mesmerised by their sound. I even wrote an entire blog about it back in April about how much their music just blew my mind. It was like a musical awakening and let me tell you, there haven’t been many bands that have gotten me this excited in a long time. For a little while, I thought that unless I packed my bags for a gig abroad, I would never get to see them live. So, imagine my surprise when a little over a month later they announced that they would be doing some UK dates, and Manchester was on the tour schedule. Oh, how my little heart sang in delight. I bought tickets as quickly as my internet would allow. All that there was left to do was wait. November soon came around and it was time to head out to Manchester and...