On tour with Krisiun, Behemoth, Ragnarok and Incantation
By Stacy Young Germany, Sweden & Norway 2 November 2004 – 8 November 2004
What better way to celebrate being American than to leave the US on the eve of election day for fear that Bush might actually get re-elected. I did vote early, but in a country where popular votes are merely guidelines for how the electoral college “should” vote, it was very unlikely that the incumbent would be ousted. Unfortunately, Bush did manage to get re-elected and we still have our farce of a fair election. Wouldn’t it be nice to actually be able to vote for the President and have our votes count? So with all this in mind, I packed my bags and went for a week of headbanging with the European metalheads. Lucky enough to have friends in high places (or is it low?), I caught up with the amazing tour package of Krisiun, Behemoth, Ragnarok and Incantation for several shows.
Steel Attack Guitarist John Allan By: Anders Sandvall
Here is an interview with John Allan guitar player from the Swedish band Steel Attack. In October they released their album ENSLAVED and I took the opportunity to ask John about the album, the band, plus other questions in general. Due to some difficulties with finding a member that was available to answer my questions (because of touring and the Christmas holidays) the interview couldn’t be done by until now.
Flotsam And Jetsam have been in the metal scene as long as other so called big and legendary names for example Exodus, Testament, Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica to name a few. The Arizona thrashers have struggled through the years by facing both ups and downs. However, after the vocalist Eric A.K.’s departure and return, and after the megalomaniac Japan tour together with OverKill and Death Angel, the band has finally started working on the follow up to the 2001 release MY GOD. Flots’ drummer Craig Neilsen politely unveiled about the upcoming ninth studio album… Enjoy!
Ross Dolan of Immolation
Intro and questions by Luxi Lahtinen
The true Death Metal pioneers from New York, Immolation, have been busy for the past 5-6 months, preparing songs for their 6th full-length opus, recording them at Millbrook Sound Studio under sensitive yet sharp ears of Paul Orofino (who also took care of the production on the last 3 Immolation albums) and getting ready to hit the road again to promote so far their most matured, advanced and strongest album to date musically titled HARNESSING RUIN.
Ross Dolan, the insanely long-haired frontman of Immolation spoke to Metal-Rules.com recently, so let´s hear what he had to say about the new album, their long-time friend and the producer of the last four Immolation albums Paul Orofino, the new guy in the Immolation –ranks Steve Shalaty, the Internet – amongst other interesting topics as well.
Now let´s get immolated gently for a moment, letting Ross to be our guide through HARNESSING RUIN piece by piece...
Pre-listening session and interview with Vesa Ranta of Sentenced at Finnvox Studio for the forthcoming (yet still unrevealed) Sentenced album.
December 21st, 2004 Article and all studio pics Luxi Lahtinen
I received a text message from the drummer of Sentenced, Vesa Ranta, 20th of December 2004 in which he asked whether I could be interested in hearing the band´s latest yet untitled 13-song studio opus in advance. Of course I couldn´t turn such an extraordinary opportunity down and accepted the invitation without hesitations, and went to Finnvox Studio next day straight from my work.
I think I need to point out that I heard the songs for the upcoming Sentenced album only once through and my analysis for the songs is based roughly on my notes that I wrote down while listening to the songs off that record at that time. So it might be better if you, dear reader, didn´t read them too accurately because as I told you already, I had a chance to hear the songs for the new Sentenced album not two or three times or more, BUT just once, and I can hardly remember any longer how these new 13 Sentenced songs sounded like any of that detailed way. So I had to trust to my notes that I managed to write down at Finnvox Studio and if you want to read them through right away, then scroll down to the end of the interview.
For more accurate and detailed info about the new Sentenced album, Vesa Ranta tells in this very interview basically everything from the song writing process of the new songs up to the recording sessions of the new album to the past times of the band, to how and why they even became accused being Nazis (!) by a group of religious people in their hometown Oulu some months ago.
