Kevin Churko

By Carl Begai

As a 43-years-and-counting old-schooler, In This Moment rank as one the few acts amongst a crop of modern day metal bands to come across my desk that offer up quality material rather than disposable and often laughable kiddie aggression. Blood is album #4 – their third with producer Kevin Churko (Ozzy Osbourne) in the booth – and like their previous record A Star-Crossed Wasteland it’s an exercise in re-invention, with just enough repetition thrown in to keep the hard-nosed “Change bad!” fans happy.

Blood strikes a balance between Maria Brink’s banshee screech and rich clean voice – the focus of every In This Moment record – with the heavy bumped up a notch from A Star-Crossed Wasteland (read: meaty guitars every which way you turn). The band explores a new arsenal of dynamics once again, making good on their reputation for shaking things from album to album so that no two are completely alike. Lead-off track ‘Blood’ shares airspace with Marilyn Manson’s ‘This Is The New Shit’, while ‘Adrenalize’, ‘Scarlet’ and ‘From The Ashes’ are as close to “expected” as the band is gonna give you. Where In This Moment truly shine are the melody-laced in-your face anthems ‘Whore’ – channelling Eminem’s monster hit ‘Lose Yourself’ – and the crowd-rallying ‘Beast Within’. Continue reading IN THIS MOMENT – Blood

By Carl Begai

I recently caught up with keyboardist Adam Wakeman, the son of Yes keysman Rick Wakeman, to discuss his new prog metal band Headspace. Formed in 2006, the band – also featuring vocalist Damian Wilson, guitarist Pete Rinaldi, bassist Lee Pomeroy and drummer Richard Brook – issued their debut EP in 2007 and are now gearing up for the release of their first full length, I Am Anonymous. Wakeman also offered a look into his current status as a member of Ozzy Osbourne’s band and how that will affect his activities in promoting Headspace when the album in released.

“I would love nothing more, as I know the other guys would, than to dedicate 100% of our time to be out touring with Headspace and making more records. Part of the problem with not being 20 years old anymore is that we’ve got families, and mortgages to pay. We have to balance the time we allocate to each thing. Ozzy is going to be relatively busy this year, but it’s not going to take over the entire year which is good. We will have some time to promote Headspace.”

The easiest solution to the promo problem would be, of course, to nab a support slot on the next Ozzy tour, whenever that comes around.

“I think we could probably do a few shows,” Wakeman agrees, “but the reception we got when we did some support slots (in 2007) was quite funny. I asked Sharon (Osbourne / wife and manager) is we could do it and she asked me ‘Why would you want to be fourth on the bill? There’ll be nobody here.’ This was at Wembley Arena. I said ‘Yeah, but if there are 5,000 people in it’s the equivalent to us playing 20 club shows. We might as well get it out of the way all in one go…’ (laughs). It was good, but people weren’t really expecting us because we got on the bill quite late. So, when we walked on stage people thought we were Black Label Society. You could see the looks of confusion on the faces in the crowd (laughs).” Continue reading ADAM WAKEMAN – Life’s A Scream With OZZY OSBOURNE