By Maxazine South Africa 
Dozens of new albums arrive at Maxazine’s editorial staff every week. There are too many to listen to, let alone review them. It ensures that too many albums are left behind. And that’s a shame. That is why we post an overview of albums that arrive at the editors in short reviews today.
Photo (c) Jorge Fakhouri Filho
maTrigal – Between Homes
Cellist Gottfried Tadashi Forc, guitarist Raphael Gamper and drummer Maximilian Wolfgang Schwarz met during their studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Rostock. As maTrigal, they are now releasing their debut under the title “Between Homes”. A cello, an acoustic guitar and drums: that is the complete instrumentation, although the gentlemen also make frequent use of electronics, such as the samples and drones in the opening “TGD4”. Almost entirely acoustic pieces are “Balafon” and the title track. Musically, maTrigal moves between jazz and world music, with themes that sometimes sound meditative. Much of the material began as improvisation during rehearsals and was subsequently developed collectively, and unfortunately you can hear that. The basic compositions lend themselves excellently to improvisations, but that spontaneity is missing from the recordings. Although the interplay between the cello and the guitar is intriguing, most tracks nevertheless seem to get ‘stuck’, so to speak. You expect more to come, until the song ends and you are left with the feeling that you have missed something. Positive exceptions: “Nami” and “Days of Rain” are two delightful pieces with a groove. We would have liked more of that. (Jeroen Mulder) (6/10) (Svitzer Music)
Fejd – Nifelheim
Fejd – Nifelheim “Nifelheim” is the fifth album by the Swedish folk metal band Fejd. What makes Fejd so special is the fact that the musicians complement the metal guitars with traditional folk instruments such as the moraharpa, bouzouki, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy and jaw harp. There are not even any electric guitars to be heard on the first three albums. These were only added from the fourth album “Trolldom” (2016) onwards. The vocals are entirely in Swedish and the melodic lines breathe the typical melancholic atmosphere of traditional Scandinavian folk music. “Nifelheim” could be the soundtrack to a film about Vikings. The “folkiest” band of all folk metal bands delivers a solid album with “Nifelheim” that may perhaps be a little too soft for the average metalhead. Bands that can help as a frame of reference are Heidevolk, Eluveitie’s acoustic albums and Pathos, the band in which three of the five band members played before they founded Fejd with the Rimmerfors brothers. (Ad Keepers) (7/10) (Black Lodge Records)
Elizabeth Cook – Great Television
The songs on “Great Television” are about, among other things, both the enrichment and the manipulation of TV/media. Rock ’n’ roll is mixed with country. “Sunset Promenade” starts with spoken sampling, Then vocals and guitar playing begin. The sound is beautifully clear. “Thiokol Tripwire” is about an explosion in 1971 at a chemical plant in Georgia, in which many people died. This song has a pleasant flow. If you do not know the story behind it, you cannot tell from the vocals and music that there is a tragedy behind it. Elizabeth misses the Deep South with its own accent, the food (of fried alligator tail), the dirt roads, about which she sings in “Okeechobee Mud”. The start is calm, but the song becomes more intense. The duet “The Easy Kind” tells of a difficult period of loss and addiction in Elizabeth’s life. The gentle organ playing also comes across beautifully here. The old-school “Caldonia and the Love Convoy” is somewhat faster. “In Your Veins” is traditional and not really surprising. The same applies to a number of twists in, among others, “Feverfew”. But several songs have surprising elements. (Esther Kessel-Tamerus) (7/10) (Mattan Records)
Alabama Shakes – I Must Be Dreaming
With “I Must Be Dreaming”, Alabama Shakes finally returns after a long silence. The iconic mixture of raw soul, searing blues and compelling rhythm and blues grabs you by the throat immediately. Brittany Howard’s voice cuts mercilessly through marrow and bone on the title track “I Must Be Dreaming”, while the organic, slightly vintage-sounding instrumentation feels like a warm embrace. The album leans heavily on emotional dynamics and effortlessly alternates intimate, almost vulnerable passages with explosive outbursts of pure passion. Single “Don’t Look Back” once again underlines why this band is so unique in the current landscape: the harmonies are right down to the smallest detail and the groove is rock solid. Where earlier records sometimes felt as though they were searching for something, this album radiates a rare, mature elegance without sacrificing even a gram of musical muscle. It has become an impressive, mature piece of work that will undoubtedly provide absolute goosebump moments live. A peerless return from one of the most gifted bands of the past two decades. (Elodie Renard) (8/10) (ATO Records)
Beartooth – Pure Ecstasy
If there is one band that knows how to make a mosh pit explode, it is Beartooth. With “Pure Ecstasy”, the Americans come crashing in razor-sharp from the very first second. Caleb Shomo screams his lungs out and the guitars pound through your speakers as if a steamroller is bearing down on you. Highlight “Adrenaline” grabs you immediately by the throat with a thick, heavy riff and a chorus made to be sung along to by thousands of furious fans. The production is fat, aggressive and wonderfully loud. Yet there is also room for some melody, as on the single “Fight or Flight”, but make no mistake: the pounding is relentless. No bullshit, just brutally hard hardcore punk mixed with heavy alternative metal. Calling the stuff energetic is putting it mildly, it has become an absolute wrecking ball of a record that barely gives your eardrums a moment’s rest. A straight-ahead, no-nonsense bruiser of a disc. (Daniel Harris) (8/10) (Fearless)
