Michael Sweet of Christian hard rockers of STRYPER has finished laying down the lead vocals on the band’s new studio album, “No More Hell To Pay”. The mixing sessions for the CD are set to begin this coming Monday, May 20 for a fall release via Frontiers Records.
Regarding the musical direction of STRYPER‘s new material, Michael Sweet told Screamer Magazine: “The song ‘God’, which is on ‘The Covering’; if you took that song along with ‘Bleeding From Inside Out’ and ‘Blackened’ [from 'Second Coming'], and you put it on the same album, that’s a pretty good indication of where we are going and where we are at right now. But at the same time this album is all its own.”
He added: “Every song has a hooky guitar riff. Everything is in minor keys, so it’s a little darker sounding and a little tougher. It’s definitely our heaviest record and I think people will be pleasantly surprised.
“The people who do like the poppier side of STRYPER, like ‘Calling On You’ and ‘Holding On’, this record isn’t going to really give them that. There are a lot of vocal hooks and melodies going on, but it’s a little darker, and a little edgier. To reference, there is less songs like ‘Calling On You’ and more songs like ‘To Hell With The Devil’. It’s more in that vein than the poppier vein.”
Frontiers Records in January announced the signing of STRYPER to a multi-album deal. The first CD to be made available the agreement was a collection of re-recorded versions of the band’s classic songs, released in North America on March 26. Entitled “Second Coming” and produced by Michael Sweet, the album contains a total of 16 cuts — two from “The Yellow And Black Attack”, six from “Soldiers Under Command”, six from “To Hell With The Devil”, as well as two new tracks, “Bleeding From Inside Out” and “Blackened”.
Legendary UK extremists CARCASS – featuring the line-up of Bill Steer (guitar), Jeff Walker (bass, vocals), Dan Wilding (drums – ABORTED, HEAVEN SHALL BURN) and Ben Ash (guitar – PIG IRON, DESOLATION, LIQUEFIED SKELETON) – are confirmed for the 2014 edition of The World’s Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise – 70000 Tons Of Metal, will sail January 27th to 31st.
70000 Tons Of Metal confirmations now include: CARCASS, DARK TRANQUILLITY, DEATH ANGEL, D.R.I., FEAR FACTORY, FINNTROLL, KAMELOT, LEAVES’ EYES, OVERKILL, SEPTIC FLESH, SOILWORK, SWALLOW THE SUN, SYMPHONY X and XANDRIA.
Are you ready for round four of The Original Heavy Metal Cruise? Imagine starting the year in style: In January 2014, 40 heavy metal bands and 2,000 fans from all over the world will travel once again to the Caribbean for a five day and four night trip of a lifetime… however, this will be the last time we are taking over the luxury cruise ship Majesty Of The Seas.
Make no mistake, this is not one of the cruises where you share the ship with regular cruise guests… and don’t get intimidated by copy-cats! Unlike others we remove the seats in the theater, or do you like seated heavy metal shows? This is 70000 Tons Of Metal, The World’s Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise, featuring the biggest Open Air Stage to sail the open seas!
Enjoy unrestricted festival access to all live shows on board, metal karaoke until sunrise, the All-Star Jam, clinics, work-shops, our infamous Belly Flop Contest, bars that never close, two full days at sea and the opportunity to mingle side-by-side with the artists in this incredibly fan-friendly scenario that has no comparison. It’s like everyone has a backstage pass!
And now get this… if you become a ticketed passenger before July 27th, 2013 you will be able to vote for the Caribbean dream destination we will be sailing The Majesty Of The Seas to one last time! More information on the voting procedure and the destinations to choose from will be announced… soon!”
JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford is featured in a new interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com’s Steve Rosen. An excerpt from the discussion about the band’s new Epitaph DVD is available below:
UG: You left in 1992 after the tour for Painkiller. Did you know you were going to leave?
Halford: “No, I don’t think any musician feels that way whether it was when Bruce stepped away from MAIDEN or whether it was when Vince stepped away from CRÜE. It’s just a very peculiar thing and even now I can’t really fully understand the true circumstances of it. I sometimes reflect on what could have happened in those 10 years I was away. What records could we have possibly made together? It’s easy to look back and use those moments in a better way. A lot of people look on that time as a little bit of a wilderness type of moment. For me personally, I think I was maybe exorcising some of my demons. You know what it’s like to be in a band, Steve?”
UG: I do.
Halford: “It’s a very, very fragile chain and you’ve got all these combustible components in the players. Not in a violent way but just in a very frictional way. That’s just the way it is in a rock and roll band. I think if any band tells you, ‘Oh yeah, we get along great and everything is wonderful,’ I think they’re lying. Rock and roll should be about chaos and rock and roll is about making a fuss and kicking down doors and yelling and screaming. It needs to maintain that type of emotion and delivery.”
UG: It sounds like you might have done things differently now that you’re looking back at those moments.
Halford: “Yeah, you know whatever they say about hindsight but you can’t change the past. You can only enjoy what you’ve got now and look forward to the future, which is definitely how Priest are rockin’ these days.”
U.D.O. / ex-ACCEPT frontman Udo Dirkschneider recently spoke with Mark Dean at Myglobalmind.com. An excerpt from the interview is available below:
Q: There are many bands of the eighties which was when your former band Accept achieved their success that have reformed and reunited in recent years. Is that something that you have ever been approached about doing, is it something that would interest you?
Udo: “That’s a very long story. Of course I have certainly been asked. Unfortunately, Wolf is telling everybody that he has never been in touch with me, though I can show you tons of emails. I have been asked about rejoining for a reunion and didn’t directly say no. I did it already once and there was a lot of shit happened. I then said ‘OK guys if I do this then I want to have this and this…’ Wolf then said that he didn’t want to do it, so I said ‘Goodbye, thank you very much and good luck (laughs).’
Q: Do you then prefer to focus on U.D.O., and the future for that band rather than looking back to your legacy with Accept?
Udo: “Yes. The problem is if I did Accept again and it doesn’t work, then there was an issue regarding the name with Wolf. He was stealing the name in the eighties. He was also doing interviews to promote Blood Of The Nationsand talking so many bad things about me with so many lies. I don’t know why he did that. However that is history now. I will be 61 in a couple of days on 6th of April when I am in New York.”
Q: How do you maintain your energy particularly on stage?
Udo: “Many people ask me that, I try to live healthily as possible. I do nothing special exercise-wise or whatever. I walk a lot, and in the summer time I do a lot of swimming and running. The shows are fun for me to do and I like to be on tour and that also keeps you fresh.”
Q: You have been in the music business a long time, do you still have dreams and goals?
Udo: “Of course you always have to have those, one day maybe I would like to do an album with an orchestra perhaps…”
U.D.O.’s new album Steelhammer – produced by Udo Dirkschneider and Fitty Wienhold – will be released on May 21st in North America and May 24th in Europe via AFM Records.
The band are now streaming the album track, ‘Basta Ya’, which is not only U.D.O.’s first song in Spanish ever, but also one with a very important message: the youth is the future, they need perspectives! Victor Garcia from WARCRY guests on this track.
U.D.O. previously released a video for the Steelhammer album track, ‘Metal Machine’:
“Our new album is a real battering ram,” Udo says. “That’s why we have chosen this cover. It really shows best that U.D.O. is pure heavy metal! U.D.O. is back!”
The editions and tracklistings of the album are as follows:
Standard CD:
‘Steelhammer’
‘A Cry Of A Nation’
‘Metal Machine’
‘Basta Ya’
‘Heavy Rain’
‘Devil’s Bite’
‘Death Ride’
‘King Of Mean’
‘Time Keeper’
‘Never Cross My Way’
‘Take My Medicine’
‘Stay True’
‘When Love Becomes A Lie’
‘Book Of Faith’
Digi-Pack:
‘Steelhammer’
‘A Cry Of A Nation’
‘Metal Machine’
‘Basta Ya’
‘Heavy Rain’
‘Devil’s Bite’
‘Death Ride’
‘King Of Mean’
‘Time Keeper’
‘Never Cross My Way’
‘Take My Medicine’
‘Shadows Come Alive’ (bonus track)
‘Stay True Stay You’
‘When Love Becomes A Lie’
‘Book Of Faith’
Japanese Version:
‘Steelhammer’
‘A Cry Of A Nation’
‘Metal Machine’
‘Basta Ya’
‘Heavy Rain’
‘Devil’s Bite’
‘Death Ride’
‘King Of Mean’
‘Time Keeper’
‘Never Cross My Way’
‘Take My Medicine’
‘Stay True Stay You’
‘When Love Becomes A Lie’
‘Book Of Faith’
‘Dust And Rust’ (bonus track)
Behind-the-scenes footage from the making of “For Your Vulgar Delectation”, the new video from British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH, can be seen below. The full clip will make its online debut next week.
“For Your Vulgar Delectation” comes off CRADLE OF FILTH‘s tenth studio album, “The Manticore And Other Horrors”, which sold 4,500 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 96 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band’s previous full-length effort, “Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa”, opened with 5,800 units in November 2010 to land at No. 99.
CRADLE OF FILTH‘s 2008 CD, “Godspeed On The Devil’s Thunder”, premiered with a little over 11,000 copies to enter the chart at No. 48. This was slightly less than the first-week tally registered by 2006′s “Thornography”, which shifted nearly 13,000 copies the first week out to enter The Billboard chart at No. 66, and “Nymphetamine”, which premiered with almost 14,000 copies back in October 2004.
“The Manticore And Other Horrors” was released in North America on October 30, 2012 via Nuclear Blast Records.
Recorded in eight weeks at both Springvale and Grindstone studios (where it was also mixed by Scott Atkins), Suffolk, “The Manticore And Other Horrors” is a testament to the longevity of the ‘FILTH, as not only does it reek of CRADLE‘s (feared or revered) brand of delicious metal vamperotica, but this thoroughly modern album places the band firmly in fresh killing fields anew.
“The Manticore And Other Horrors” itself possesses an altogether new atmosphere for the band, incorporating a heavier, faster NWOBBM punk vibe that is both current and cruel, blended with ornate orchestration and the quirky immediateness of 2000′s “Midian” opus.
The album’s title can be likened to a bestiary, a collection of stories on monsters – personal demons, Chimeras, literary fiends and world-enslaving entities to blame but a few. “Manticore”, the ravening title track, is a song about a beautiful mythological horror that comes to be feared as the disfigurehead of foreign occupation in the Indian provinces.
The songs “Illicitus” and “Pallid Reflection” bear the sweet ingredients of vampirism and lycanthropy; the wicked “For Your Vulgar Delectation” and “Frost On Her Pillow” are woven perversely into grim fairy tales, whilst classic, monumental tracks like “The Abhorrent And Siding With The Titans” both extol tentacular Lovecraftian values.
Peter Lindblad of Powerline recently conducted an interview with German metal queen Doro Pesch. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Powerline: Do you think the material off “Raise Your Fist” was well received?
Doro: Yes, yeah. It was great. And you know, it was great, and I think it fit right in with all the classic songs. What is this, record No. 17? Yeah, it mixed in really good and “Raise Your Fist” … actually, it reminds me of “All We Are” and it made people so happy, and I always asked them to show me your fists before we played the song, and oh, it was so great. So “Raise Your Fist In The Air” was definitely one of the highlights. And “Revenge” was especially for people who like old-school metal, and there was a lot of metal in that and everybody was headbanging. And one of my favorite songs, “Hero”, I sang it every night, and I dedicated it to Ronnie James Dio, who I loved so much. And that was definitely one of the highlights. And then every night we played different songs off the new album. Sometimes we’d put in “Cold Hearted Lover” and other stuff. It’s hard to choose a setlist because there are so many records we try to highlight, and then every night we try to change it for those who come to see it a couple of times, so everyone gets new songs. Yeah, yeah … the new record was received very well. We were happy.
Powerline: Your records have a lot of positive messages, and your lyrics hit on themes of perseverance in the face of different things and determination. Do you get that from when you had tuberculosis as a child and you had to fight to really even stay alive?
Doro: Yeah, maybe. Maybe that had something to do with it. If you’re really close to dying, something is changed. You are not anymore so … I don’t know. It’s definitely … Yeah, I think it had something to do with it. And I always wanted to make people happy and give them something they can believe in, something that can lift them up. If somebody has a shitty day, just you know, I’d always say, “Put on a record or ‘All We Are’ and you feel better, you feel empowered.” And with the live shows, that’s what I always feel I can do best. I really feel I can give people good energy, and it goes by fast, so I hope those good feelings last. When I can touch their hearts and soul … God, that’s great. And in the same way, I always get energized by the fans, and that’s why I could do another 30 years, because the music business is rough. It’s always going up and down, and it’s really hardcore. So I always owe it to the fans that I can still do it and I cater to the fans and the music and that will never, ever change. I’m a hundred percent sure of that.
Powerline: What’s next for you? What’s on the horizon? And what are your long-term plans?
Doro: The Full Metal Cruise, that’s another cruise liner metal thing going in Europe. And then we want to do all the summer festivals and do some more gigs in the States. And keep touring for the rest of the year, and then I celebrate my 30th anniversary in music. And I want to do it a couple of times. I want to do it the first time at Wacken, at the open-air festival in Germany in August. And then I want to do it once in New York and in Paris, and then probably do a great DVD out of it, because, of course, I want to do it great, with great guests and spectacular shows and the best pyrotechnics and whatever … it’s great, great, great. Yeah, and then doing a DVD — all of it. And then I just did the second part of [the film] “Anuk – The Way of the Warrior”. We did the first part and now we’re doing the second part. I’m writing some more songs for the soundtrack, and I hope it will come out in 2013 or 2014. It always takes a little longer to break into the cinema, so probably the beginning of 2014, I guess. And then more touring and hopefully, another long American tour.
Death Black Metallers BELPHEGOR have issued the following via their Official Facebook Page:
Thanks to the Demons at “SWR Barosselas” Festival in Portugal and “Throne” Fest in Belgium, for celebrating extreme Metal with us. What a great start to this year’s festival season of 2013.
Helmuth comments: “Directly after our live ritual in Portugal, Bobby Liebling/ PENTAGRAM, came into our backstage room and joined us for a while. What a cool, down to earth guy he is. A perfect example of how Metal is timeless, ageless and always will exist. Hail Metal! Hail Death!”
BELPHEGOR 20TH ANNIVERSARY SHOWS IN 2013
24.05.2013 – FIN – Hyvinkää, Steelfest Open Air
22.06.2013 – FR – Clisson, Hellfest Altar Stage 21:00
08.08.2013 – CZ – Jaromer, Brutal Assault Festival
09.08.2013 – CH – Hüttikon, Meh Suff Open Air
10.08.2013 – SP – Villena Leyendas Del Rock
11.08.2013 – UK – Derbyshire, Bloodstock Open Air
31.08.2013 – DE – Crispendorf, Wolfszeit Festival
21.09.2013 – AT – Braunau, Metal Orgy Fest
18.10.2013 – DE – Straubing, Metal Invasion Festival
15.-16.11.2013 – DE – Luebeck, Metal Hammer Paradise
13.12.2013 – NL – Eindhoven, Eindhoven Metal Meeting
28.12.2013 – DE – Speyer, Satans Convention Festival
More activities will follow soon.
Belphegor – WORLDWIDE BOOKING:
For booking 20 year anniversary show performances [2013] and beyond contact: belphegor@aon.at
METALLICA has posted a photo of the band’s drummer, Lars Ulrich, talking about their upcoming IMAX 3D movie, “Metallica Through The Never”, at the Cannes Film Festival, which kicked off this week in France. The movie will be screened and shopped for prospective buyers at the event by international sales company Exclusive Media.
Ulrich said, “After wading through multiple international distribution options for our film, we are excited to be partnering up with the folks at Exclusive Media, who we feel understand METALLICA and understand our film better than anyone else . . . it feels like we’re off to a pretty rockin’ start.”
Ulrich, who has appeared in a handful of films, told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that he gets a creative charge out of dabbling in the movie business. “I love being around creative processes and being around creative people, and any time you get a chance to be around creative people that are slightly outside of your own niche or whatever, it’s always cool to just see how other people work and try to be inspired by that and bring something back to your day job,” he said.
Exclusive is selling the international rights to the movie, which will be released in the U.S. by Picturehouse on September 27 in IMAX venues exclusively, followed by more theaters on October 4.
The film stars Dane DeHaan as a METALLICA crew member assigned with carrying out a mysterious task for the band as they perform at a local arena.
Producer Charlotte Huggins described the film as “a dramatic movie in which a concert takes place.” The two shows filmed for the movie — which featured an elaborate stage production — were done by METALLICA solely for the film.
METALLICA will next headline the second edition of its Orion Music + More festival, scheduled for June 8-9 in Detroit.
Polish extreme metallers HATE have announced their summer crusade through festivals in support of their new mighty opus “Solarflesh” (Napalm, 2013). More shows will be added to the list soon!
May 23 – Extremefest – Hunxe – Germany
Jul 26 – Rock im Betonwerk – Chemnitz – Germany
Aug 9 – Brutal Assault Open Air – Twierdza Josefov – Czech Rep
Aug 16 – Gothoom O.A. Fest – Bana – Slovakia
Aug 17 – Summer Breeze Open Air – Germany
Aug 24 – Cieszanów Rock Fest – Cieszanów – Poland
Aug 31 – Rock am Wehr – Jena – Germany
HATE‘s “Solarflesh” CD was released in North America on February 5 via Napalm Records. The follow-up to 2010′s “Erebos” was recorded at Sound Division Studio in Warsaw with Filip “Heinrich” Halucha (VESANIA, DECAPITATED) and Arek “Malta” Malczewski (BEHEMOTH‘s sound guy). The effort was mixed at Hertz Studio in Bialystok, Poland with producers Slawek and Wojtek Wieslawski (DECAPITATED, VADER).
HATE recently released their new video, for the Solarflesh album track, ‘Alchemy Of Blood’. Watch the new clip below:
Veteran hard rock vocalist Paul Shortino (ROUGH CUTT, QUIET RIOT, KING KOBRA) paid tribute to Ronnie James Dio last night (Thursday, May 16) on the third anniversary of the former BLACK SABBATH and RAINBOW frontman’s death by singing an a cappella version of the classic SABBATH song “Heaven And Hell” at Sala Manolita in Lleida, Spain. Fan-filmed video footage of the performance can be seen below.
Ronnie died of stomach cancer on May 16, 2010 at the age of 67.
Dio was renowned throughout the world as one of the greatest and most influential vocalists in heavy metal history. The singer, who was recording and touring with SABBATH offshoot HEAVEN & HELL prior to his illness, was diagnosed with stomach cancer in late 2009. He underwent chemotherapy and made what is now his final public appearance in April 2010 at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in Los Angeles.
