Album review: Blind Channel – EXIT EMOTIONS

Here we are with another long awaited pre-order. Blind Channel are more or less my number 1 favourite band since I discovered them through Eurovision 2021 (funny – when I checked out Dark Side beforehand, I called them a cute lil copy of Linkin Park that wouldn’t make it into the final. I was so wrong…). So it’s not a big surprise that I had their new album EXIT EMOTIONS pre-ordered. This time, our vinyl arrived on time. Let’s have a look at the album.

The photo shows all contents of the "Light the Fire" bundle as described in the caption. They're placed on a record player.

Album review: TVINNA – Two – Wings of Ember

Another pre-ordered album that I’ve been waiting for. Another band that I discovered because of its connection to Eluveitie. And another beautiful masterpiece that I’m enjoying massively now that it’s finally published. And thankfully, by now I have also received my physical copy of the album. Here’s my opinion on TVINNA’s second album „Two – Wings of Ember“.

Concert review: Lyrre (& The Harp Twins feat Volfgang Twins), Club Helvete Oberhausen, 24 February 2024

I collect projects that are connected to (former) Eluveitie members like Pokémon. It becomes especially interesting when there’s a hurdy-gurdy involved, so I guess no one is truly surprised to hear that Michalina Malisz’s own band Lyrre is on my list of favourites. This one makes me particularly happy because it’s a band I’ve been following from the very start. Hence I was very excited when they finally announced a show in my area, even if they were only the support act. Here’s my little report about that night, but be warned: Once again I’m focusing on the support act because I went there mainly (or only) to see Lyrre.

Photo shows the inside of the vinyl of ILLUMISHADE's album Another Side Of You in the background. It's placed on a record player. In front of it, there's the CD with a folded t-shirt underneath and next to the t-shirt there's a signature card

Album review: ILLUMISHADE – Another Side Of You

I pre-ordered three albums so far for 2024- and all of them were (or still are) highly awaited. ILLUMISHADE’s second album „Another Side Of You“ was one of them. As an expression of how much awaited this album was, let me tell you that I ordered it twice. Yes. Exactly. We got two copies of this album – first we ordered the CD (in a bundle with a t-shirt) and then about a week before the album came out, ILLUMISHADE mentioned in a video that the vinyl has bonus tracks. I am a simple person, so me and my girlfriend decided that yes, bonus tracks (that we knew before because they had been published on Spotify in 2021 already) are enough of a reason to pre-order the vinyl as well. Our vinyl arrived last Thursday, the CD on Friday and here’s my opinion. Little spoiler: Any other releases in 2024

Continue readingAlbum review: ILLUMISHADE – Another Side Of You

Book review: Thomas Herzsprung – Der Behandler

Thomas Herzsprung is an author I came across on TikTok. I started following him without having read any of his books mostly because of his personality, but I kept looking for his books in the bookstores. I knew he wrote psycho thrillers and since I’m a huge fan of Sebastian Fitzek and the like, I wanted to give him a chance. Yet, I never found a single book of his in the bookstore and since I usually found something else to take home with me instead, I never thought of ordering a book. Now I recently discovered that as an Amazon Prime member I have access to a selection of free e-books and luckily, his book „Der Behandler“ was available for free, so I decided to give it a try.

Concert review: Bad Omens & Poppy, Palladium Cologne, 28/29 January 2024

First things first: For this post I decided to write a combined review of both Bad Omens shows in Cologne. Altogether I’ve been to four concerts of this tour and since there wasn’t that much of a difference between the Cologne shows (while there was still a significant difference) I decided to review those two together. I’ll also write a combined review for the other two shows because I’d probably repeat some points again and again, so instead of cluttering my blog with Bad Omens concert reviews I decided to group them. At some point I the past I was very worried about the four concerts we had tickets for. Somehow I had feared that I might regret it after the first show. I didn’t. In fact, I am more than happy to have bought tickets for four shows because not all of them were equally good, but read more.

Concert review: Architects, Spiritbox & Loathe, Halle Münsterland Münster, 27 January 2024

Sometimes you just buy concert tickets for the sake of going to a concert I guess. And this one wasn’t even a tactically clever choice. When we read that Architects would play their only show in Germany in Münster, which is not far from where we live, we decided to go there although none of us is that much of an Architects fan. I occasionally have them in my Spotify mixtapes and I honestly don’t know many of their songs, but we’d also seen Spiritbox at Full Force before and thought they were cool, so why not? So we bought the tickets and went for a surprise.

Photo shows Illumishade on stage

Concert review: Delain & ILLUMISHADE, De Pul Uden, 19 January 2024

Let the concert year 2024 begin – with a bang! This show was long anticipated, since ILLUMISHADE are currently in my top 10 favourite bands and this was the first time I would see them live. Yes, we’re back at the „let’s go abroad to see the support act“ game – and it was worth it. Here’s my little concert recap of my first concert in 2024. (Note: This review was written the day after the show, but published significantly later)