Dear Maelstrom readers,

Damn these 28-day months. Even though we tried to warn ourselves and any others who would listen, the end of February still snuck up on us, and here we are past deadline, typing up this editor’s greeting.

But we still got a pretty good issue off. Fifty-two album reviews, two interviews (Behemoth and Elis), and a From the Vault pick. As will probably be the case more often than not from now on, no live reviews. Maybe I’m getting old, but we feel that we wouldn’t even go to my own bands’ shows if I weren’t in them.

In fact, I’m beginning to enjoy this (at least perceived) role of doing less in Maelstrom. After years and thousands of records, and having an active personal life, I’m more interested in letting the fine staff that graces our virtual pages every month do the bulk of the work. New to the fold is Ray Van Horn, Jr., who, if it were us, would have burned out a day after doing what this man does. Ray writes for something like 15 magazines (I dunno, check his bio) and contributes unique material to all of them. We think he has some freak talent of being able to listen to and digest albums played on multiple stereos at once. We need Ray, as our long time contributor, Jez Andrews, has stepped down. We’ll sorely miss his punchy reviews and tales of breaking legs at the Wacken Open Air festival.

We’ve got two albums we’re giving away this month. Every New Day’s The Shadows Cast and Waeloga Records’ A Tribute to Uglakh. See our contest section for details.

Take care,

- Roberto