Carl Begai

By Carl Begai

Earlier this year Stratovarius issued what has been viewed as a cash grab. Dubbed a Special Live Edition of the band’s 2009 comeback album, Polaris, it features new packaging and a 14 song live “bootleg” bonus disc featuring recordings from their recent world tour, but it isn’t the half-hearted hackjob so many of these productions tend to be. Along with some of Stratovarius’ most popular songs – ‘Hunting High And Low’, ‘Kiss Of Judas’ ‘Father Time’ and ‘Speed Of Light’ – the package includes four tracks from Polaris and some unexpected gems from their catalogue, clocking in at a high quality press-repeat 75 minutes. Take it as you will, but for the fanatic diehards a live Stratovarius album was long overdue, with the one and only official on-stage showcase, Visions Live, having been released in 1997. Polaris Live is a surprisingly solid outing that doesn’t disappoint in spite of the fact original guitarist and visionary Timo Tolkki isn’t involved in any way.

“It’s been a while,” laughs frontman Timo Kotipelto. “As you know, though, this isn’t a ‘proper’ live album. We had to leave out a lot of songs, but this was always meant as something special for the fans rather than an official release. I think maybe in a few years we’ll do an actual proper live album.”

That said, the bonus album was never meant as a way to line the band’s pockets. Chance are good it’s drumming up some business after all… (continue reading…)

Following is an excerpt from my recent interview with guitarist Michael Amott about his new Spiritual Beggars album, Return To Zero. An exclusive interview with Amott about his recent island-hopping escapades with Arch Enemy will be available exclusively on this site soon:

Return To Zero is trademark ‘70s-flavoured Spiritual Beggars, but the announcement prior to the recording sessions that vocalist Janne “JB” Christofferson had been replaced by Firewind frontman Apollo Papathanasio suggested this wouldn’t be the case. Up to this point Papathanasio has been known as a power metal singer, all bombast and polish, making his performance on Return To Zero a pleasant surprise. Amott says bringing him on board was indeed a case of getting past preconceived notions and hearing Papathanasio in a completely different environment.

“Apollo is a local guy, which is weird because everyone thinks he’s from Greece. His parents are Greek, but he was raised in Sweden. I’ve been aware of him forever, long before Firewind. When it became clear that JB couldn’t sing on the new record I was really disappointed and I seriously began thinking maybe that was it. Ludwig called me and suggested Apollo because the two of them play in a bar band doing cover songs. Apollo had in fact offered his help to get the ball rolling, get the songs done, rather than stepping in as a full time vocalist. I thought no, he’s too metal, but I thought ‘What the hell…’ and asked him to learn a few songs, then come down and jam.” (continue reading…)

Blind Guardian have always been hit and miss with me. I’ve often found them to be too ambitious for their own good, creating epic orchestral-metal productions that beat the listener into submission with their supposed greatness. Nothing wrong with that so long as a band is still capable of writing a “typical” full-on metal song minus the smoke and mirrors, which in Blind Guardian’s case I’ve doubted for years. It seems the band has returned to their early day balls-and-brawn sound on new record, At The Edge Of Time, which is welcome change from their outings over the last decade. Following is a portion of my interview with frontman Hansi Kürsch conducted for Metallus Maximus:

“We had the impression that there would be a wide variation of songs on the album, so we just had to fill in the gaps,” says Kürsch. “But again, there was no pattern, so we could have gone onto the wrong track at some points. Luckily, we had very open discussions about how the songs were progressing and where they should go, and we followed that line all the way through the production. I’d say that in 90% of all cases we were very successful. Once we came to a decision we went for it. That wasn’t necessarily the case with albums like Night At The Opera or A Twist In The Myth.” (continue reading…)

I’m an experienced traveller. I actually hate flying, but I’ve made the trek between Toronto and Germany (via Holland or Paris) dozens of times, jetted to various parts of Scandinavia, continental Europe and the UK, even risked my sanity journeying to the US, all without any major drama. Sure, there have been the occasional delays, lousy food, drink-spilling turbulence, screaming kids accompanied by their idiot “parentin’ izn’t fer us rednecks” parents, but nothing that put me into a state of wanting to cause bodily harm to the nearest airline employee.

Not until this year’s highly anticipated return home to Toronto.

Folks that know me are painfully aware of how much I love coming home. It’s my annual respite from all the things that piss me off about Germany – and there is definitely a book in there – a return to the people and places that make me feel like me. With that in mind, I’m inclined to brush off the general chaos and stupidity that’s bound to crop up on an overseas-with-a-connecting-flight trip and focus on the awesomosity that awaits me in Toronto. I realized this year, however, that when the airline loses your luggage and takes its sweet time in recovering it and getting it to you, no matter how much fun you’re having the questions of “Where?” and “When?” and “What if?” have a tendency to dampen one’s mood. Not a good thing. (continue reading…)