Mick Birchall Reviews

2023 has been a crazy year for me. My life has not been the most exciting but this is a music blog and the music has been amazing this year! I’ve got myself to a bunch of gigs, even getting to do a whopping three gigs in other countries. I know that’s not a lot for some people, but for me it was huge! I’ll get to those later in the blog. It was a year of new discoveries, rediscovered favourites and all new experiences. Whether it be my brain melting when I found out about Villagers of Ioannina City , the maddening catchiness of Kontrust or infectious charisma that Project Renegade exude. It’s been a wild year. Also, it’s been a decent year for the blog. Though I haven’t cranked out as many posts as I would have liked, I think I’ve still put out some good content for you, my fantastic readers. Plenty of reviews and interviews for the year. It’s also been a year where I have made a bunch of new contacts that I hope will allow me to give you more interesting content. It’s been 12 years...

A few years back I was looking for a concert to go to while on my vacation in Canada. When I found a gig that looked promising. I took one listen to the single, from that band called “Distance” and I knew that I wanted to go. That band being Evergrey . I clicked purchase tickets so quickly that I thought my hands would fall off. I also bought their most recent albums of the time; Hymns For The Broken and The Storm Within , which I instantaneously fell in love with. Getting to see them live in Canada was such a treat as well. They put on an absolute clinic of a show. Ever since that holiday, I have been in love with the band and their music. I've seen them live on several occasions and purchased every new album since. Their music has been a special part of my life for quite a while now. As it turns out in 2023 they are marking 30 years in metal! To commemorate this huge milestone and to celebrate their momentous career up to now, they have released a new collection of recordings on...

The Manchester based prog-metal quartet, Prognosis has been on the come up for a while now. I’ll be honest, I haven’t had much of a chance to listen to them over the years. The last time I checked them out live, the project was still in it’s relative infancy. Since then they have expanded and I always hear news of their exploits. Now, their new EP, Esigen is out and the band is armed with a brand new line up. Prognosis are marching full steam ahead into 2024 with an all new attitude. For this new EP, the band worked with heroes of the metal world. Including sound engineers; George Lever ( Sleep Token , Monuments , Loathe ) and Grant Macfarland ( August Burns Red , Rivers of Nihil , Polaris ). This EP is a whole different beast from what I had heard from them in the past. I’ve really been enjoying this new music and if it’s a sign of things to come, then sign me up. I think my first thoughts on listening to this EP were something along the lines of “this is one beefy boy of a record!”...

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...