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Book Review: F.T. Lukens – Love At Second Sight
I might’ve mentioned before that F.T. Lukens is one of my absolute favourite authors since they write queer fantasy in settings where queerness isn’t questioned, so the focus is on other aspects. After reading „Otherworldly“, though, I was a bit hesitant because it wasn’t exactly my favourite book of the year. So it really took me quite a while to pick up their next book, „Love At Second Sight“. Actually it was decided by chance, since I have a box full of snippets with the titles of unread books and this year I basically pull a snippet out of the box and (most of the time) read what’s on it.…
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Album review: LYRRE – Nothing Is Promised
Today’s finally the day: LYRRE released their second album „Nothing Is Promised“. LYRRE is perhaps not the most well-known metal band out there (unfortunately – they deserve more love!). The band was formed by former Eluveitie hurdy-gurdy player Michalina Malisz and her husband Piotr Martus in 2022. In 2023, they released their debut album „Not All Who Dream Are Asleep“. The sound of the band is described online as „neomedieval metal“. Listening to the new album, I can’t necessarily say I head much of the „medieval“, except for Michalina’s signature instrument, the hurdy-gurdy. Nevertheless, it’s an amazing album and I have some opinions to share.
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Book review: Rebecca Thorne – Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea
It’s been a while. Yes, I’m alive. Yes, life’s been busy. Anyway. I’ve been reading a lot recently, so I decided to come back with a book review of an absolutely lovely book I’ve read recently: Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne. I’ve made mistakes in connection to this book. Nope, reading it was definitely no mistake. But I’ll explain if you click the „Read More“ 🙂 Short info: WLW romance, nonbinary side character, potential queer side romance developing Hint: I’ve read the German translation published by Piper
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Release Friday: 21 November 2025
The past two weeks have been full of great releases and since they’re already piling up several metres high, I can’t keep myself from telling you about my current fave releases: Starting with last week Samurai Pizza Cats released a new song called City of Gold. It carries a strong 80s vibe (kinda reminded me of One Morning Left – whom I miss incredibly much) and I really love it. VÆNTIS (former Neverland in Ashes) released the second single under their new name: It’s called Eject and holy cow, it’s good. It’s really damn good. Catchy, nice, I’m honestly looking forward to seeing them live in January next year: Perhaps something most of you have taken notice…
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Concert review: Aviana, The Gloom in the Corner, Diamond Construct (& Atena), Dynamo Eindhoven, 6 November 2025
This was one of my most awaited shows of the second half of 2025. Within the last months, Aviana has climbed the ranks of my favourite bands and is currently sitting quite far at the top, which got even worse through the release of their new album VOID, and the fact that I got to interview Joel Holmqvist for a German music magazine and he came across super sympathetic. I’m seriously somewhere deep down the Aviana rabbit hole and this show was like the holy grail of my concert year. Here’s how it went.
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Concert review: Bloodred Hourglass & Luna Kills, FZW Dortmund, 22 October 2025
Back in the days before Spotify was turned into a shitty AI-run platform with pretty weak algorithms, I used to find some really good music through mixtapes. One of the bands I’ve discovered this way is Bloodred Hourglass. After seeing them live as opener for The Halo Effect in January I was more than excited when they announced a headline tour. I went to see them at FZW Dortmund (which is a pretty amazing venue!) and here’s how it was.
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Release Friday: 8 November 2025
Once again I missed a few Fridays. Life is busy right now. But there’s been pretty good stuff released lately, so here’s my personal selection of releases of the last few weeks: A song that slipped through the last time but is pretty iconic is The Laugh Track by Ice Nine Kills. For some weird reason, this band keeps sneaking out of my radar, although they’re amazing, The Laugh Track is no exception: On 24th October, Versengold released a new single called Dans op de Deel. The title is Low-German (and so are some parts of the songs) and refers to an event where a big group of people dances or celebrates together (that’s what Wikipedia told…
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Concert review: Annisokay, Heart of a Coward & The Narrator, Dynamo Eindhoven, 18 October 2025
I’m not gonna lie: When this show was announced and we immediately bought tickets, we already had tickets for 3 other shows of the Abyss tour (and we knew we were going to see Annisokay at Summer Breeze and Oelde Open Air). Just in case that anyone forgot how much I love Annisokay. But a) back then I hardly had any concerts scheduled for October and b) at least the line up for this show is a bit different than for the other shows I’m attending, because during this part of the tour, special guest were Heart of a Coward (instead of Our Promise for the later days). So I…
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Opinion: Why I hate VIP upgrades (+ UPDATE)
When I started this blog I thought I would include a lot more stuff than just reviews, like opinion pieces, but I’ve never really found the time / energy / inspiration to write some (plus I doubt that anybody cares). However, I’ve always been having strong opinions concerning one thing that’s becoming more and more „popular“ when it comes to concerts: VIP upgrades. I might’ve mentioned it a few times before, perhaps in entries where I talked about shows for which I had actually bought VIP upgrades (Illumishade in Essen in 2024 and Imminence in Cologne in 2024) . Now today’s the day that I’m feeling the urge again to…
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Album review: Erdling – Mana
While I knew that Erdling were about to publish a new album called Mana this year, I definitely did not have it on my personal watch list. I might’ve mentioned it before, perhaps in my concert review on the Erdling show in Oberhausen last year: They’re usually not exactly a band I listen to at home, but one of those artists I really enjoy seeing live since I first saw them in Merseburg. I can’t even pinpoint why exactly their music so far was catchy enough for live shows, but hardly ever made me listen to them at home. So while I was somehow following the single releases, I honestly didn’t have an eye…
