Heavy Metal Haven
Monthly Newsletter
June 2013

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First off, apologies for bringing this newsletter to you a day late. The 1st was unexpectedly a busy day. It's been a good month for Haven with two new interviews and several highly rated album reviews, many of whom deserve the Album of the Month recognition including Trophallaxy, Lascaille's Shroud and Progenie Terrestre Pura. The one we have to give it to this time is, perhaps surprisingly, a 2012 release which to our detriment, slipped most of us by, so if you haven't done so already make every effort to check out…

Heavy Metal Haven
Monthly Newsletter
May 2013

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April was a pretty good month for us. I'd like to say a word of thanks to Hugo Flores and Jessica Lehto of Factory of Dreams, for giving Heavy Metal Haven our biggest and most in depth interview we've done to date. Click their portrait below to read the interview if you have not done so already!

We've also brought you fourteen new reviewers this month, and I'm pleased to report that the album of the month for May is The Valley of Dying Stars by progressive thrash/death metal act Sedulity. This…

(This is a back entry, recent May edition coming on May 1st!)

Heavy Metal Haven
Monthly Newsletter
April 2013

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Hello and welcome to our second monthly newsletter. This is our final entry as we are closing down soon…

…April fool.

OK, maybe that wasn't funny. But I would like to take a moment to reiterate my gratitude to you, our members, whose continued use of the forum allows us to keep going well beyond my original expectations. Through March we've brought a dozen new album reviews and have also featured an interview with last month's Album of the Month…

(This is a back entry, recent May edition coming on May 1st!)

Heavy Metal Haven
Monthly Newsletter
March 2013

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After a pretty lengthy trial run of doing a weekly newsletter for Heavy Metal Haven (28 weeks), we decided that the feature would produce a more worthwhile result is it was changed to a monthly feature. So allow me to welcome you to the new monthly Haven newsletter, which will contain a lot more content than the old version. The new version will be released on, or close to, the first of every month. This first edition of the new…

A list of my top 5 albums from every year. I started with 2011 and will be gradually working backwards. My full lists, counting down from worst to best, can be found on my Rate Your Music Page.

2004

1. Wuthering Heights - Far From the Madding Crowd
2. Augury - Concealed
3. Within Temptation - The Silent Force
4. Iced Earth - The Glorious Burden
5. Mastodon - Leviathan

Full List on Rate Your Music

2005

1. Beyond Twilight - Section X
2. Opeth - Ghost Reveries
3. Аркона - Во славу великим!
4. Demons & Wizards - Touched…

2011 was an excellent year. Logic says that 2012 won't be able to match it but you never know. Welcome to my continually growing list of 2012 albums (mostly metal albums), complete with links to my reviews. This list will only feature albums that I have written a review for. Recommendations encouraged.

All reviews originally written for Heavy Metal Haven.

9.5 - 10.0 - Masterpiece

Seven Kingdoms - The Fire is Mine - (Review) - 10.0
Xandria - Neverworld's End - (Review) - 10.0
Ne Obliviscaris - Portal of I - (Review) - 10.0
Arjen Anthony Lucassen - Lost in…

Fri 5 Aug – Iron Maiden, DragonForce

Iron Maiden Live at the O2 Arena – 05/08/2011
With Support From DragonForce

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The O2 Arena in London is an impressive place to be sure, but not the most comfortable of venues. Stairs in the seating area are about as steep as they are probably allowed to come by health and safety rules, and leg room is naturally at a bare minimum. No one really cares though because the heavy metal legend that is Iron Maiden is why everyone is here to night, and the atmosphere of the fans is, in a…

My website, Heavy Metal Haven, runs on on-going top 100 albums of all time feature for our members to vote in. Here I share the top 10 of the 2nd Edition of the list, published on 15th July 2011.

1. Megadeth - Rust in Peace (156 Points)

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Tags: thrash metal

2. Iron Maiden - Powerslave (140 Points)

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Tags: heavy metal, nwobhm, traditional heavy metal

3. Metallica - Master of Puppets (114 Points)

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Tags: thrash metal

4. Pharaoh - The Longest Night (103 Points)

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Tags: power metal, uspm

5. Metallica - Ride The Lightning…

Ghost is one of a pair of albums released by Canadian musician Devin Townsend under his Devin Townsend Project moniker in 2011. It is paired with the album Deconstruction. Ghost focuses on Devin’s atmospheric side, while the other album focuses on his metal side. On Ghost Devin performs what is essentially a brand of atmospheric progressive rock, with plenty of ambiences to boot and some hints of folk as well.

In comparison to its metal partner, Ghost is very much a relaxing and laid-back affair, in pretty much a reactionary sense to Deconstruction, both musically and lyrically. Ghost…

The Aura is the debut studio album from Canadian Progressive/Technical Death Metal band Beyond Creation. The album was released in 2011. When listening to The Aura I can’t help but draw big comparisons to German band Obscura, as Beyond Creation utilize an almost identical sound, right down to the tone of the growls of frontman Simon Girard and the use of fretless bass curtsey of former Augury bassist Dominic "Forest" Lapointe. The most notable difference between the two bands is Beyond Creation forgo use of clean vocals, sticking to a varied growling style that ranges from deep…