Category Archives: KROKUS
KROKUS Stampede/To Rock Or Not To Be
The legendary Swiss Hardrockband KROKUS made a return to the scene in 1990 with the album ‘Stampede’, an album that saw the replacement of original singer MARC STORACE. New singer was found in the shape of Peter Tanner, who was a good replacement. The album’s opener and titletrack “Stampede” saw the band moving into faster paced pure melodic metal, like JUDAS PRIEST, yet a bit more melodic. The rest of the album was just pure KROKUS, so rough and ready Hardrock with singable choruses, with as highlights “Electric man”, “Nova-zand” (pure LED ZEPPELIN midtempo “Kashmir” style), “Good times” and “In the heat of the night” (a 7-minute classy melodic rocker).
4 years later the band released ‘To rock or not to be’, which saw the return of MARC STORACE, although musically a bit simpler Hardrock and not as good as classic KROKUS, but still with songs like “Flying through the night”, “In the dead of the night”, “Talking like a shotgun” and “Stormy nights” an interesting record for the fans of the band. Both albums have been released onto a double-CD in the UK by ANGEL AIR RECORDS, with the addition of a few bonustracks, such as the BTO cover “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet” and the unreleased KROKUS originals “Wasteland” and “Stormy night”. In other words, highly recommended to the KROKUS fan! (8/10)
Strutter magazine (October 2003)
KROKUS Round 13
I have always been a big fan of KROKUS, but when original lead singer MARC STORACE left the band and in came new singer Carl Sentance I had my doubts if this would bring back the classic KROKUS sound. The band released with Carl a few albums, of which ‘Round 13’ was released by ANGEL AIR RECORDS. The album had a high class production by TONY PLATT and musically it was typical KROKUS/AC/DC riff orientated Hardrock, but definitely not as good as classy KROKUS. Especially the opener “Heya” was a bit too simple to make it an interesting tune, but happily the rest of the CD is sometimes good old KROKUS Hardrock with mostly sing-a-long songs such as “Money back”, “Break free”, “Witchhunt” and “Wild times”. On the other hand, there are also plenty of weaker tunes on the album, such as “Guitar rules”, “Suck my guitar”, “Blood comes easy” and the afforementioned “Heya”.
Anyway, the band brought back MARC STORACE on their new CD which was released earlier this year, but the CD still hasn’t had an official release over here, although it went to number 1 in Switzerland! Check out this KROKUS CD from 1999 if you want to hear someone else singing, but I rather prefer the MARC STORACE era KROKUS. (Points: 7.5 out of 10)
Strutter Magazine (September 2003)