Bloodstock Open Air Festival 2011

Catton Hall, Derbyshire

11th-14th August 2011

Review & Photos by Jo Blackened

Altercarnated Photography

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AT THE GATES "SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL/PURGATORY UNLEASHED" 2-CD SET

A new, limited edition 2-CD set from Swedish melodic death metal pioneers AT THE GATES is out now to commemorate the last ever live shows of the legendary band.

The set features AT THE GATES’ classic album, SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL, complete with all bonus tracks, along with the band’s definitive live album, PURGATORY UNLEASHED (LIVE AT WACKEN), which was recorded at Germany’s notorious Wacken festival during the band’s historic 2008 reunion tour.

The two albums offer a total of 35 incredible tracks and come in their full, original packaging, housed together in a slipcase sleeve.

Get the SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL/PURGATORY UNLEASHED (LIVE AT WACKEN) 2-CD set now in Europe at http://j.mp/m1RZaL or in North America at http://j.mp/kRy3HY

The set is also available now worldwide on iTunes at http://j.mp/jznUZK

The full track listing is as follows:

DISC 1: SLAUGHTER OF THE SOUL
01. Blinded By Fear
02. Slaughter Of The Soul
03. Cold
04. Under A Serpent Sun
05. Into The Dead Sky
06. Suicide Nation
07. World Of Lies
08. Unto Others
09. Nausea
10. Need
11. The Flames Of The End
12. Legion (Slaughterlord Cover)
13. The Dying (Unreleased Track)
14. Captor Of Sin (Slayer Cover)
15. Unto Others (1995 Demo)
16. Suicide Nation (1995 Demo)
17. Bister Verklighet (No Security Cover)

DISC 2: PURGATORY UNLEASHED (LIVE AT WACKEN)
01. Slaughter Of The Soul
02. Cold
03. Terminal Spirit Disease
04. Raped By The Light Of Christ
05. Under A Serpent Sun
06. Windows
07. World Of Lies
08. The Burning Darkness
09. The Swarm
10. Forever Blind
11. Nausea
12. The Beautiful Wound
13. Unto Others
14. All Life Ends
15. Need
16. Blinded By Fear
17. Suicide Nation
18. Kingdom Gone

Get more AT THE GATES news and info at:

Official site – http://www.atthegates.se
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/AtTheGatesOfficial
MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/atthegatesband

Bazillion Points Books is proud to reveal that legendary Swedish death metal vocalist Tomas “Goatspell” Lindberg (AT THE GATES, GROTESQUE, DISFEAR) has contributed a foreword to the upcoming 744-page hardcover book METALION: The Slayer Mag Diaries, by Jon Kristiansen. Lindberg’s connection to Norway’s Slayer Mag dates to the 1980s, when he and Kristiansen were part of a core group of Swedish and Norwegian headbangers during the wild early years of the Scandinavian extreme metal scene.

“Metalion and his Slayer Mag are responsible for me (and a lot of other Swedes) getting into the death metal underground,” begins Lindberg. “I clearly remember how proud I was when Grotesque got a mention in the classic mag-this meant more to me than anything else at the time!”

Part anthology, part memoir, and years in the making, METALION includes over 600 reproduction pages from every issue of Slayer mag, spanning from the early 1980s through 2010. In addition, author Jon Kristiansen recounts his life’s story, from alienated outsider to central figure in Norwegian black metal to world-weary metal survivor. The book also features over 100 rare photographs, including two color sections and a portrait gallery of photographs taken by Kristiansen himself.

“The greatest heavy metal story ever told” will be available June 6, 2011, wherever books are sold, and is available for preorder now with two bonus limited patches from Bazillion Points Books, “America’s smallest but heaviest book publisher.”

http://www.metalionbook.com

AT THE GATES

Swedish melodic death metal pioneers AT THE GATES, who reformed in 2008 for a string of festival appearances, have announced that they will be playing more shows in 2011.

AT THE GATES, whose reunion tour included a now-legendary performance at Germany’s Wacken festival in 2008, will be doing a limited run of shows next year, with appearances at Metaltown Festival in Sweden and Tuska Open Air in Finland already confirmed.

The band commented:

“At The Gates will do a limited run of select shows in 2011.  Simply put, we had the time of our lives during the 2008 reunion and have decided to do a couple more shows.  Although we won’t be touring extensively, and we stick to the initial promise of not making any more music.  Please check our homepage and MySpace for updates.”

Catch AT THE GATES live in 2011 at the following shows:

17 June 2011 – Gothenburg, Sweden – Metaltown
22 July 2011 – Helsinki, Finland – Tuska Open Air

More shows will be announced soon.

AT THE GATES’ triumphant return to the live scene was celebrated with the release of THE FLAMES OF THE END, a 3-DVD set marking AT THE GATES’ massively influential career, featuring the band’s full live show from Wacken festival in 2008, along with a brand new 2-hour documentary chronicling the band’s entire career, plus 26 rare and archive live AT THE GATES performances from around the world between 1991 and 2008.

Also available is PURGATORY UNLEASHED – LIVE AT WACKEN, a live CD featuring 18 live tracks from the band’s performance at Wacken festival.

Get hold of THE FLAMES OF THE END and PURGATORY UNLEASHED now in Europe at http://earache.com/webstore/index.php/cPath/667_668_8 or in North America at http://earache.com/uswebstore/index.php/cPath/667_668_8

For more AT THE GATES news and info, head to http://www.atthegates.se or follow the band on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/atthegatesband

Vocalist Dani Filth

***Interview By Lord of The Wasteland / Transcription by Sara "Jezebel Deva" Robbins

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All pics and words by HannTu

(except where noted)

For an introduction to what Bloodstock Open Air is all about, check out my preview of it here. Suffice it to say that BOA is the only proper UK outdoor metal festival that is devoted to true metal of all genres. This would be the first time I was making the trip up to the Midlands to cover this amazing festival.

Reaching there late Thursday night, we set up camp and went off to explore. BOA has one of the most random things I’d expect at a metal festival: a shisha tent! Armed with a 1.5 litre bottle of JD and two bongs of shisha, we spent the night there meeting weird and crazy people (Frida from Sweden, if you’re reading this, get in touch!). After a disgusting fry-up at the All-Day Breakfast bar, I went off to bed to catch some shut-eye before Friday’s bands. Good start to BOA!

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Wacken Open Air 2008

Once again tens of thousands of lunatic metal freaks travelled from all over the world to the small German village located in the middle of the beautiful northern German countryside. The small peaceful Wacken literally goes upside down when nearly 80.000 conquer the village during one weekend in a year. Wacken Open Air celebrated its 19th birthday from the 31st of July to the 2nd of August, whose biggest headliner ever in the history of Wacken was Iron Maiden. Despite Iron Maiden being the biggest name on the bill, however there were tons of other interesting and fascinating names.

Brat: The mass convergence of catholic youth in Sydney for World Youth Day the week Ray and I left brought a smile to my face and a feeling of warmth as I realised it wouldn’t be long until I was part of a similar pilgrimage but to Hamburg Germany and with two major differences—where Sydney was awash with colourful youth, Hamburg would be invaded by a swarm of black; and the trolley suitcases carrying clothing would instead be trolleys full of beer; songs of the gospel would be replaced by metal anthems. They came to worship at the cross—we to worship at the flaming longhorn but we all would display our nations’ flags proudly.

Tickets for W:O:A 2008 sold phenomenally fast. The special edition X-mas pack with extra goodie bag sold out before I could take a long breath after my 2007 trip. By February the official festival ticket seller was “SOLD OUT”. Suddenly the ebay market was flooded with tickets with one ticket reaching a record price of 800 British Pounds—obscene. Even in July with less than 1 month before the festival, there was an average of 5 new listings a day for tickets, which nullified all “SOLD OUT” credibility. (Brat)

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At The Gates

"Suicidal Final Tour Europe 2008"

Kulturbolaget

Malmoe

Sweden

3/9 – 2008 

Review and pictures by Anders Sandvall 

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AT THE GATES – Guitarist Anders Björler

Interview and live review by Luxi Lahtinen

Interview & live pictures by Luxi Lahtinen

Transcription by Tony Gabriel

Thanks to Mika "Mega" Kuusinen from Supersounds Music for booking us the interview 

The oldest Scandinavian open air festival, Ruisrock festival, was arranged for the 39th time, gathering circa 70 000 people together during three days. The festival covers many styles of music and that´s why it has always been a successful event financially for the organizers of the festival.

This year the festival had booked Nightwish, H.I.M., Hanoi Rocks, The 69 Eyes, Primal Scream, Amorphis, Life of Agony and The Ark as some of the festival´s main acts, but my personal interest was focused on the legendary Swedish thrashers At The Gates that finally put some fire under their set of reunion shows that were put on hold for some years due to Adrian´s (Erlandsson) commitments with his other band Cradle of Filth at that time.

I caught up with Anders at the venue, and managed to talk with him briefly about these reunion shows, what kind of timeframe At The Gates have to pull them through within a certain time before all of their other bands get activated again – and whether there´s even a tiny possibility for them to release one (or some) of these ongoing reunion shows as a DVD so that everyone could get a chance to witness them live, at least this one time.

Be sure to read a live review about them from the end of Anders´ interview as well… ;o)   

Interview with Peter Dolving

by Lord of The Wasteland

Pics courtesy of The-Haunted.com, Century Media, Earache Records and Union Musik and of course some taken by Metal-Rules.com staff.

Call them thrash, call them melodic death?whatever.  The Haunted is pure metal and their brilliant new CD, rEVOLVEr, was just released October 19^th to glowing reviews.  As emphasized by the unique spelling of the title, rEVOLVEr is a progression for the band in more ways than one.  Not only did they leave long-time label, Earache Records, last October but they also lost vocalist Marco Aro.  Aro?s replacement was none other than the band?s original vocalist, Peter Dolving, whose superior range gave the band?s 1998 self-titled debut album as unique a sound as it has with rEVOLVEr.  New label, Century Media, is pushing rEVOLVEr very hard and this should be the album that gets The Haunted into the big time on North American shores.

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EvilG spoke with the band the day after it was announced that Dolving had rejoined the fold (http://www.metal-rules.com/interviews/TheHaunted-Oct2003.htm) so I was eager to speak with the singer a year later now that the album was complete and he had time to settle into familiar shoes once again.  During our forty-five minute interview, I found Dolving to be full of laughs but also very well-spoken and forthright in his opinions.  Besides the new CD, new label and big < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />U.S. tour with Shadows Fall and Damageplan, Dolving openly discusses his horrific youth, his side projects, media labels and the differences between The Haunted?s two screamers.

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