Bi-Polar Sluts - "Out-4-Dinner" (New Model Label) 5/5

There has been a lot of good stuff coming out of Italy of late and now we have the latest offering in the form of Parma based hard rockers Bi-Polar Sluts, with this rather impressive debut offering.

Drawing its starting point from the likes of AC/DC, Guns And Roses, Moltey Crue this album of 14 tracks (well 12 plus a short intro and outro) has to be perhaps the best platter of hard and heavy balls out rock and roll Italy has produced since their label mates Speedjackers gave us the impressive 'Favourite Sons' opus a year or so back.  There are no pretentions here, just great rock and roll, cuts like Aperiti've, Keep Screaming and Never Trust A Woman just steam roller from the speakers and set your motor neurones slam dancing around your cranium.

Vocalist Mike Molinari has a remarkable voice, sounding like Bon Scott, Axle Rose and Brett Michaels rolled into one, he can carry a tune perfectly and yell and growl with the best of em. Then we have the twin guitar attack of Guix Morini and Federico Arcuri; here are two guys who are masters of their craft, swapping riffs like the good 'uns they are and covering all bases from the Sweet Child Of Mine style chiming riffs on Something To Kill The Pain and the pseudo classical acoustic approach to Sammy's Backyard, to the balls to the wall drive and crunch of Treat You Bad, all taken in their pretty musical stride. Add in the ducks buttocks tight rythym section of Joe Forlini and Paulo Casali (the latter formerly with Italian hardcore legends Raw Power) and you have a band who can be described as truly great performing an album to match.

Highlights? well this album is really one long highlight, but if I had to pick a fave moment or two it would be the impressive single Keep Screaming, the low down and sleazy Vodka and Lime and the high octaine rock out of Listen To Me.

In short this is one damn fine album and one that will go a long way to putting both Bi-Polar Sluts and Italian rock in general firmly on the world music map.

For fans of... Speedjackers, Guns and Roses, Poison, AC/DC, Black Veil Brides.....

Novel Of Sin - ' Sound Of Existence' (Kreative Klan) 4/5

I get a lot of acts through my inbox who try to claim to be 'extreme', sadly when it comes down to it very few make muster and most sound pretty ordinary. However there are exceptions, and Italian outfit Novel Of Sin are one of them.Hailing from Ravenna on the Adriatic Coast, they have been around for five years now and have just released this their debut album.

And what an album!! This has to be one of the heaviest, most intense and down right brutal releases that has ever assaulted my battered old lug-holes. As soon as the obligatory intro track fades away and the first song proper, Voices, Prayers and Remembrances, strikes up we are faced with a full on sonic rampage that lays total waste to all that is in its way. It's as heavy a classic Black Sabbath in lead boots, as angry as a nest of very pissed off wasps and as brutal as battlefield surgery in the 100 years war.

Tracks like Fragile, A Key To Nowhere and Extinguish storm from the speakers like a panzer division in full blitzkrieg mode, take hold of your head by the ears and bashes it repeatedly against the nearest wall until your a bloody mess. But there is more going on here than a mindless extreme deathcore onslaught. With in the hammerhead bash and bludgeon there is a lot of interesting stuff going on; sweet and almost melodic guitar lines swirl around the mix, the rage fueled grunt and scream vocals sometimes breakdown in moments of almost innocent cohesion for brief moments, all of which makes for a very rewarding listening experience.

Ok there is one track here, the dance remix Fragile 1.9 that lets the whole side down (for me at least) with its cruddy rave beats and happy-jungle-euro-trance-or-whatever-you-call-this-crap feel. But don't let that put you off, you can always do what I did and delete the offending so called 'music', forget it ever existed and just enjoy the extreme metallic brutality of the rest of the album.

In conclusion, this is one extreme album that really does live up to its claim and is a must hear for people who like their metal taken to the max.

For fans of... Glorior Belli, Kratornas, Stigma, Fallbrawl......

Screaming Eyes - 'Greed' (this is core records) 4.5/5

It's metalcore time again kiddies, but this time we have a twist, Screaming Eyes are not a bunch of hopefuls from some bland south east English dormitory town; they are infact from Piedmont in Italy.

Now I'll admit that the fact these guys are Italian came as a bit of a suprise to me. Not cos I doubt the Italians ability to play great music - everyone from PFM to Speedjackers and Deluded By Lesbians has proved Italy rocks with the best of them; its just that Screaming Eyes sound so English. Sounding like a mixture of Skin The Pig and Malefice they have produced a really rather remarkable little opus that stands proud alnong side, if not above the very best of the current UK metalcore scene.

There are 10 tracks on offer here. Ten slices of shear musical brutality that grab you by the sonic short and curlies and pull with all the power they can muster, and they can muster a lot of power. The opening track Sentenced smacks you round the head like a few tonnes of dolomite marble dropped from a great height and other tracks like My Reason, My Fire and Cash-O-Crazy just explode from the speakers and leave your ears feeling a bit like Pompeii after the big one.

However as I said before when there is a big genre scene around you need a trick or two under your toga to make you stand out from the plebeians, and fortunately Screaming Eyes have just that. The instrumental And Nothing Else Shall Remain is a wonderful moment of musical tranquility amid the pound and bludgeon that wouldn't sound out of place on a Goblin soundtrack to a Dario Argento movie, One Last Trip features a melodic middle section that springs out of nowhere and teasing lifts you out of the metallic hellfest, only to throw you back in head first and the closer Dream Pt.9 has a couple of very strange progressive type sections that make me think of Amon Duul II for some reason.

Basically this is a great record - Buy It NOW

For fans of... As I lay Dying, Skin The Pig, Malefice, Anterior, Trivium etc