Mama Rosin: The Boat Sessions #1

A great piece of video of our favourite Swiss Cajun act Mama Rosin.

They were playing as a session for World Music magazine Songlines.

I featured them a while back when they played in Glasgow as part of the Celtic Connections festival, it's great to hear them doing so well.

They've just toured the UK and Ireland, and are currently playing in Poland and Germany.

their most recent album Bye Bye Bayou was released in October last year, bringing another chapter in their punk-informed take on French Southern American music via the shores of Lake Geneva.

the album was produced by John Spencer, from the band Blues Explosion, who first came across Mama Rosin when they supported him during some of his gigs in Europe.

Nice to see them getting some of the attention they deserve.

There are some more dates in the Netherlands and Paris next month, and shows in Texas and Louisiana following that.

New: Hotroad - Insanity

If you like your thrash old school, Swiss band Hotroad are playing something that you'll enjoy.

Thrash was a huge movement that re-invigorated the rock scene, and American acts like Metallica and Megadeth (as well as Slayer and Anthrax to list the full Big Four) are credited as the main innovators, but there were many European bands who were also at the front line of the revolution in the 80s, with Kreator and Sodom from Germany being among them.

So the fact that Hotroad are from Switzerland (Lausanne in Vaud, the French speaking part of the country of course!) shouldn't exclude them from the critical attention that new generation thrash acts are getting, with the likes of Municipal Waste and Gama Bomb getting the credit for re-inventing the scene.

Like metal in general, thrash has established a huge international following, with acts developing the genre in pretty much every country, and Hotroad's debut album Insanity holds up well against the international competition.

They claim influences from Pantera, Motorhead and Metallica, and these elements can certainly be heard throughout the album, which was released in late 2010.

The band is a four piece, Loïc Tapia on lead guitar, Florian Grobéty on bass, Coowar Thierry on rhythm guitar an vocals and Théophile Burnat on drums.

Sure, they can rock with the brutality that their genre demands, but they are capable of some serious stunt playing. Check out The Fear of the Unknown for a lesson in how to create a bit of atmosphere while keeping the foot down.

Highlight for me was probably the track The Last Redemption, a slow-building heavy instrumental that gives the band a full seven minutes plus to showcase their skills.

More on Hotroad here >