Dear Maelstrom readers,

What’s been happening in your world? Over here, it’s been travel. I took a little jaunt over to Europe, and got a really good slice of the metal scene in France, thanks to Maelstrom staffer Alisa Z. Turns out that although the metal scene IS more alive in the Old Country, especially as far as the amount of tours and festivals is concerned, shows generate about the same turnout, although the average age of the audience is much younger and more vibrant than what we’re used to seeing in California, anyway.

All this moving about meant that we had to skip the April issue. But here we are, as good/bad as ever, in May. One hundred and nineteen album reviews await you, plus one reminiscence on a classic Opeth album.

We’ve got four interviews this month: Lithuanian group Obtest, French black metallers Otargos, Polish genre-crossers Thy Disease, and one-man American black metal project Wrath of the Weak. That and some proof that there are some pretty great tours going on in France, as two show reports from Paris can attest. Then, we’ve also got a report from the Type O Negative / Celtic Frost tour in the United States.

This month, we’re giving away a few copies of the new Marduk, Rom 5:12. It’s supposed to be a gorgeous package, with a very extensive booklet (the music, I can already speak for: it’s heavy and killer, and a pretty important stylistic shift for Marduk as they are playing many more slow songs.) So we’re going to make it a little harder for you to win this one. Here goes:

Who is the member of Marduk that has had two tours with the band? What have his roles been? The people who can give the most detail (you don’t need to go overboard) with listing unique duties get the CD. You'll find the box to write your answer in our dedicated contest section.

Good luck, and see you next month!

– Roberto Martinelli

Sometimes, fans get fan mail from the objects of their fandom, as our own Mladen Škot did from “The One Reaper” of Furze (whose work we’ve written about and love) about Mladen’s review of UTD:

This review is fucking great !

Others write too much about what they can compare it to so that the reader is doomed to understand that the product actually sounds like this or that band but this is avoided here and that is the way to go when one writes an honest review I think !

Thanxx..

- Reaper