Comments MEMORY GARDEN on the video clip: “We spent one day in February recording the video for ‘The Evangelist’. It was all shot in a chapel which fit both the song and Memory Garden like a glove. The video contains 2 parallel stories, one with the band playing in the chapel and one where you can follow ‘The Evangelist’ and his flock of sheeps.”
Starting tomorrow, April 26th, Brooklyn Metal Merchants MARTYRD will hit the road in support of guitar god YNGWIE MALMSTEEN for select North American tour dates. The band will also perform with SINGLE BULLET THEORY on May 11th in Queens, NY and June 29th at Voltage Lounge in Philadelphia, PA.
MARTYRD released the critically acclaimed The Mortal Coil in 2012. Guitar World’s Josh Hart praised the album, comparing the band’s sound to acts as varied as KREATOR, and SYMPHONY X, while also affirming comparisons to the likes of MEGADETH, PAIN OF SALVATION, and SYSTEM OF A DOWN.
After a successful string of US dates, death metal legends INCANTATION are set to take their newest masterpiece, Vanquish in Vengeance, to Europe for appearances in Paris, Switzerland and at the Neurotic Death Fest in Holland. Before heading across the pond, INCANTATION will make a stop in Miami, FL for a night of decimation with Hibernus Mortis, Ulcer and Masticator. The band issued the following statement regarding their recent live activities,
“While the ‘old world’ awaits us in the near future, here stateside was a furious and ruthless number of shows. Ohio, Texas and New York mark the first live performances for our new Vanquish in Vengeance album.
The dominant seventh studio full-length from by Oulu, Finland’s symphonic death metal masters ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW, Saivon Lapsi, is out now worldwide on Massacre Records.
The band was officially founded in 1994 after many of the members had already been performing under the monikers Andromeda and Moshington D.C. through the early half of the ‘90s. Re-founding the outfit under the ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW banner focused the band’s talents in a more serious fashion and began the main chapter of their musical journey. After touring with major acts across Europe including Nightwish and Sinergy, and releasing four albums — some of which broke through the Finnish Top 40 music charts — the band parted ways in early 2003. This separation did not last long, as the band made a comeback only two years later, their new material again would bust Finnish Top 40 charts and develop more of a fanbase across Russia, Japan and other Asian territories.
New York death metal legends IMMOLATION have made a lyric video for the track “Indoctrinate” available here http://youtu.be/2j8nwPTaDrg. The track comes from the group’s upcoming ninth full-length album, Kingdom of Conspiracy. The follow up to their 2010 release, Majesty and Decay, will be released on May 14th in North America both digitally and physically via Nuclear Blast. Kingdom of Conspiracy was recorded at Sound Studios in Millbrook, NY with longtime producer Paul Orofino, and mixed and mastered once again by Zack Ohren (ALL SHALL PERISH, DECREPIT BIRTH, SUFFOCATION.
Fans of IMMOLATION can hear Kingdom of Conspiracy before it’s released at the Nuclear Blast Metal Night on May 9th in Los Angeles, CA. The event will take place at The Joint, which is located at 8771 W. Pico Blvd. The night is free to people 21 years old and up, and all those that show up are entered into a raffle for a chance to win a pair of tickets to their Santa Ana show with CANNIBAL CORPSE and NAPALM DEATH on the Decibel Magazine Tour. For more information and to share this event with your friends, visit the following link: https://www.facebook.com/events/506385559420334/
You can now pre-order the Kingdom of Conspiracy on CD or limited-edition vinyl, with or without an exclusive t-shirt, while supplies last from the following location http://goo.gl/yY3wx. Read the rest of this entry »
CORROSION OF CONFORMITY will perform at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, Arizona tomorrow night as part of their trek with Danzig which began on April 17. The short tour allows the trio a momentary break from work on the follow-up to 2012’s self-titled album. The dates with Danzig follow the band’s recent festival appearance in Santiago, Chile; the band playing The Metal Fest alongside Down, Twisted Sister, Devin Townsend Project and others.
Vocalist/bassist Mike Dean comments, “We took time out from writing and recording to play Chile for the first time. We had a blast hanging out with Down. Of course Pepper [Keenan] played a couple of songs with us and I got to listen to Jimmy Bower and Pat Bruders sing Eagles songs for the entire flight back to the states. We picked up some rented gear in Los Angeles and drove through the desert to start the Danzig tour in Las Vegas. Things have been rolling since then and it has been really good travels. Denver and Albuquerque were particularly awesome. Austin was great too.”
ARSIS – Interview with guitarist/vocalist James Malone
By Peter Atkinson
Photos from facebook.com/arsis
Arsis mainman and lone original member James Malone has had to deal with quite a bit over the Virginia Beach, Va.-based melodic/technical death metal band’s decade-plus career. Frequent lineup changes and Malone’s own well-chronicled health problems — notably a 2008 recurrence of the anorexia he’d dealt with as a teenager that was brought on, ironically, when he quit drinking alcohol after becoming what he described as a “fat, bloated drunk” — have presented significant obstacles for the band, who have had to refute rumors of a break-up on more than one occasion.
Arsis dropped off of tours with Faceless and Carcass, missed dates on others, played shows without a bassist and did a tour with Firewind in 2011 that Malone himself was forced to sit out. Over the last year or so the band lost drummer and Malone’s long-time cohort Mike Van Dyke for a second time and guitarist Nick Cordle left to join Arch Enemy – following in the footsteps of ex-guitarist Ryan Knight, who’d left to join The Black Dahlia Murder and live drummer David Kinkade who moved onto Soulfly.
Yet here they remain, a testament to — unfortunately quite literally — what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Arsis issued the six-track EP, Lepers Caress, through Scion A/V, late last year and have followed up with their fifth full-length Unwelcome, due April 30 on Nuclear Blast, both packed with the band’s unique mish-mash of death metal brutality, classic metal catchiness and classical dexterity and elegance. And they are jumping right out on the road that originally had them opening for Swedish heavyweights Hypocrisy, however Hypocrisy announced April 26 – after this interview was conducted – that they would not be able to take part in the tour because of visa issues, leaving Arsis to headline the shows with Krisiun as well as some scheduled dates on their own. After that, Arsis were looking forward to a busy, productive year ahead.
As the band readied to hit the road, Malone took a few moments to answer a batch of questions via e-mail and sounded pretty upbeat about where things with Arsis stand right now and what lies ahead.
Boston power/thrash veterans MELIAH RAGE have recently announced Marc Lopes joining their ranks as the new vocalist. This marks the end of the nearly 2 years of downtime for the band: they are currently working on a new album, “Warrior”, to be released this July through Metal on Metal Records, and getting ready to play some shows, including Warriors of Metal VI festival in June in Ohio (with ATTACKER, FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, STEEL ASSASSIN, TWISTED TOWER DIRE and many others). The previous vocalist, Paul Souza, sang on “Dead to the World” (released in July 2011), but he was not a real band member, therefore the group hasn’t played a single show in support of their last album.
Commented the band’s founder and guitarist Anthony Nichols: “We knew a lot of the same people and decided to have Marc come in and work with producer Rich Spillberg. We are all very excited to work with Marc. He is a talented vocalist and highly motivated to write, tour and record with MELIAH RAGE.”
Old school metal label Metal on Metal Records release their annual compilation CD “Compendium of Metal” as always for the Keep It True festival in April. The label prepared a trailer with about 1-minute excerpt from every song – it can be watched and listened to on YouTube.
“Compendium of Metal Vol. 6″ contains 14 songs of 13 bands, clocks at 70 minutes, and comes with 8 pages informative booklet. Most of the tracks have not been released before. MELIAH RAGE and METAL LAW present exclusive new songs, SKELATOR, BATTLERAGE, NOMAD SON and ARKHAM WITCH are featured with previously unreleased versions of their older songs, MORTALICUM and STONEGRIFF tracks had been previously only self-released by the bands on limited EPs, while ATTACKER and SACRED GATE songs come off their just released albums. Only 3 tracks are taken from Metal on Metal Records‘ 2011 and 2012 releases (of OUTRAGE, HERETIC and AFTER OBLIVION).
The complete track list and more details, as well as 7 songs can be checked on the page of this release.
The label offers “Compendium of Metal Vol. 6″ not only for half of the regular CD price, but also with a bigger discount when purchased in addition to other CDs available from their online store. Digital version of the album in lossless formats is available for downloading from Bandcamp. Read the rest of this entry »
Due to continuous demand, Metal on Metal Records re-released the sold-out second CD of traditional heavy metal band from Berlin, METAL LAW. Originally recorded and released in 2008, the album is now entitled “Lawbreaker” Second Edition, and, apart from remastered sound, offers three bonus tracks dug up from the band’s vaults – demo songs recorded still under the group’s original name REUDIG:
• “Mirrors” (2001) – previously unreleased track.
• “Metal or Die” (2002) – taken from “Hunter & Prey” demo (2004).
• “Raise Your Fist” (2003) – previously unreleased version of the song later re-recorded for METAL LAW’s debut album “Night of the Wolf”.
“Tides of War”, the second full-length of the German traditional heavy metal act SACRED GATE, was released on April 19th through Metal on Metal Records. The band created a captivating and epic concept album about the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans and their allies fought for freedom against invading Persians. Not a surprising choice of subject, considering that 2 founding members (vocalist Jim Over and guitarist Nicko Nikolaidis) have Greek origins. According to the label, “The new album is undoubtedly a more mature, more epic and more confident effort that shows the band moving a few steps away from their main influence (IRON MAIDEN), and crystallizing their own style, with strong, melodic but rough vocals, outstanding guitar work and rock solid rhythm section.”
Three songs off the album, “Defenders (Valour Is in Our Blood)”, “Gates of Fire” and “Spartan Killing Machine” are available for streaming from Metal on Metal Records website. And a short promo clip can be watched on YouTube.
STONEGRIFF, traditional doom metal band from Scania, southern Sweden, has joined Metal on Metal Records roster. Their debut album (following 3 self-released demos/EPs), entitled “Prologus Magicus”, is scheduled for a July release.
Jowita Kaminska-Peruzzi, Metal on Metal Records CEO, stated: “We love doom metal, but unfortunately more often than not we come across bands that label their music as doom (or are labeled as such by record companies and media), but are either completely unlistenable or “only” boring for us (like all drone, sludge and most stoner bands). We dig death/doom in many cases, but most of all, when we say “doom”, we mean traditional and epic doom METAL. And in our opinion, there are rather few bands that play this purest style of the heaviest music and do it with real class and with balls, so when we come across one, there’s a big smile plastered on our faces as we hit the “play” button over and over again. Such was the case with STONEGRIFF. When they contacted us and we checked the songs from their MySpace page, it didn’t end on just one or two listens. We were coming back to the songs from their 2012 EP “III” and playing them repeatedly many more times. What grabbed our attention and eventually won us over were not only the crushing riffs and organic sound, but mostly the vocals with so much charisma that is really rare to find nowadays. We’ve just received all songs for their debut album and we know it was the right decision. They could probably be best compared to KRUX, while it’s rather obvious that their main influence are the forefathers of the genre, BLACK SABBATH. And we can bet the fans of TROUBLE, PENTAGRAM, CANDLEMASS, NOMAD SON, SPIRITUS MORTIS and LAS CRUCES will dig them just like we do.”
STONEGRIFF‘s biography, info and links can be found on the band’s page on Metal on Metal Records website.
Rock influenced black/doom metal masters FORGOTTEN TOMB are due to kick off a headlining European tour on the 24th of April (Wednesday) at United Club in Torino (Italy). The tour will play in cities across Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, UK, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Austria. The final list of dates has now been confirmed.
During the event FORGOTTEN TOMB will celebrate a significant occasion as well as promote the latest album “And Don’t Deliver Us From Evil“ (the album that finally “hit their groove” – Pitchfork). The celebration in turn is connected with the 10 years anniversary of “Springtime Depression” - selected shows will feature a special set, on which this particular record will be performed in its entirety. “Springtime Depression” has been lately reissued and remastered on Digipack and Vinyl on Agonia Records.
The Heavy Metal Music Association of Canada (H.M.M.A.C) and Dungeonworks Productions are hails horns high to share with the Montreal metal community and its musicians another great informative and networking event as part of the H.M.M.A.C. music education series ‘Climbing The Metal Ladder’.
Chilean band SILVERJACK have released its third album “Apostando A Ganador” via Digmetalworld Records in the US. With this 3rd full length album the band is working its way out of getting to a different venue and get to know more fans all over the world. The band have announced a music video in the next few weeks.
“Compendium of Metal Vol. 6″ contains 14 songs of 13 bands, clocks at 70 minutes, and comes with 8 pages informative booklet. Most of the tracks have not been released before. MELIAH RAGE and METAL LAW present exclusive new songs, SKELATOR, BATTLERAGE, NOMAD SON and ARKHAM WITCH are featured with previously unreleased versions of their older songs, MORTALICUM and STONEGRIFF tracks had been previously only self-released by the bands on limited EPs, while ATTACKER and SACRED GATE songs come off their just released albums. Only 3 tracks are taken from Metal on Metal Records‘ 2011 and 2012 releases (of OUTRAGE, HERETIC and AFTER OBLIVION).
“Tides of War”, the second full-length of the German traditional heavy metal act SACRED GATE, was released on April 19th through Metal on Metal Records. The band created a captivating and epic concept album about the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans and their allies fought for freedom against invading Persians. Not a surprising choice of subject, considering that 2 founding members (vocalist Jim Over and guitarist Nicko Nikolaidis) have Greek origins. According to the label, “The new album is undoubtedly a more mature, more epic and more confident effort that shows the band moving a few steps away from their main influence (IRON MAIDEN), and crystallizing their own style, with strong, melodic but rough vocals, outstanding guitar work and rock solid rhythm section.”
