Mick Birchall Reviews

The stand-out band of this year for me has been a small independent southern-rock band from North Carolina called Old Heavy Hands . I found their album Small Fires and instantly fell in love with their sound and it’s been in my rotation a lot this year. Their distinct style drawn from many influences made for a fantastic listening experience. I went back and listened to their first two records and I loved them even more. I wanted to get to know them and take a look under the hood of one of my favourite records of 2024. ( read my full review here ) In this blog, I got to sit down with one half of the dual vocalists, Nate Hall , and talk to him about the new album, his influences, the band's origins and learning to find balance in a busy life. MB: So, this year we had the release of your third album Small Fires , which I completely fell in love with. So, what was the thought process going into this one after Mercy ? NH: Well, we had the time to just write and focus on the songs. So,...

Recently, I discovered the wonderful music of Greek heavy metal titans InnerWish . I've really enjoyed discovering their music and loved their upcoming album, Ash Of Eternal Flame , so when the opportunity came to sit down with their drummer, Franki Samoilis , you better believe I jumped on it. In this interview, we talk about the new record, Franki's influences, and getting to work with Hansi Kürsch of the legendary Blind Guardian . Mick: So, this has been your first album since 2016, the self-titled one. How does it feel to have a new InnerWish album finally coming out? Franki: It's a relief. To finally have the new album out is a massive relief as we’ve been waiting for it for a while. It was supposed to be released in 2020. However, after COVID everything went downhill. In the end, we were very happy. It felt like a sign of good things to come. Maybe we wouldn't have been signed to Rising Phoenix Music if it had been released in 2020. So, with this timing and eve...

Recently, I had the privilege of sitting down with the incredibly talented vocalist Giada "Jade" Etro and the versatile guitarist/vocalist Federico Mondelli of the Italian power-metal band Frozen Crown . Our conversation revolved around their highly-anticipated fifth album, War Hearts , scheduled for release in October. During our interview, they provided fascinating insights into their creative process, the inspiration behind their lyrics, and shared compelling stories about their journey as heavy metal artists in Italy. As a result, I am now eagerly counting down the days until the album's release and eagerly anticipating the opportunity to witness their electrifying live performance in November! Mick: So we've got the new album War Hearts coming in October, it's your fifth album in seven years, how do you have so many ideas locked and ready to go? Jade: Yes, so we are a very creative band. We were born to be composers more than musicians, so we love music, wr...

Well, it’s been a big month with Canadian rockers, The Commoners . They dropped their second album Restless to mass-critical acclaim. All that work of building up to a new album and now the wait is over. I’ve had the chance to listen to it and you can read my thoughts here . I think it’s fair that I’ve become fairly enamoured with the band on this new album. So, this was a really exciting opportunity for me! This weekend I’ve had the opportunity to chat with the lead singer, Chris Medhurst about the new record, his journey from singer-songwriter to frontman of a rock band and the lessons he’s learned along the way.  With Restless being released yesterday, how have you found the reaction to the new album? The reaction has been awesome. I’ve been checking some of the streaming metrics this morning and the album’s doing really well. Considering it’s only been out for 24 hours. We’ve had a lot of really great reviews and people seem to be giving us a really great response to it, so ...

Before the release of their second album, Ascending To Synergy I got to sit down with ELVELLON 's guitarist, Gilbert Gelsdorf and vocalist Nele Messerschmidt to discuss working on this new album and some other interesting tidbits. What was the first instrument Gilbert learned to play? What inspires the music of Elvellon? Find out in this interview.  Mick: What lessons do you feel you have learned from the 2018 album Until Dawn and 2015 EP Spellbound and applied to this album? Nele: That sounds like a great question for you Gilbert… Gilbert: Of course, things have changed, but only in that we did a lot of this ourselves this time. I borrowed some equipment so I could learn to get a solid studio quality at home. That was really nice because we had no time limits. We could just record hours after hours. Which was really good as we were able to pick and choose the takes we liked. If there was something that needed changing, we could. This is something, I think, that suffers when you...

As Pirate Queen aims to set sail with their debut album Ghosts, I got to sit down with guitarist Patri Grief to discuss the new album, her influences and some of her stories from her early career thus far.  This was a fun conversation as we talked about the influences that led Patri here today and we nerd out about the music world. Patri is clearly passionate. I can’t wait for what is to come from Pirate Queen as they’re locked and loaded to be the new stars of the metal world!  Thanks for talking with me today. I’m interested to know how the band got together? Well, we’ve known each other for 500 years back in our land of the Island of Lyxion . In the real world, it was a little bit harder. However, thanks to the technology you have on earth, it made it easier to find people who would want to be a part of this project. It was a challenge at first to find people that were good enough to compose songs and perform the music, but also free enough to commit to a band of this styl...