Norwegian blackened punk metallers KVELERTAK have brewed their own beer called Kvelerbier. The beer will be on sale exclusively at the band’s Vienna, Austria concert at Szene on December 3. It’s limited to 30 bottles only. There will also be a limited amount of fantastic tour posters and a special Vienna tour poster available, too.
According to a press release, Kvelerbier is “made out of honey and hate on Halloween 2011. Alc. vol. 6,66%. Brewed by brewmeister Thomas Shellraiser.”
KVELERTAK‘s self-titled debut album, was released June 21, 2010 via Indie Recordings. Produced by Kurt Ballou and mixed by Alan Douches with artwork by John Baizley and guest appearances by Hoest (TAAKE), Andreas Tylden (JR Ewing and ALTAAR), Ivar Nikolaisen (SILVER), and Ryan McKenney (TRAP THEM), “Kvelertak” has been dubbed “the best Norwegian debut album of all time,” and the band “the new MASTODON.”
“Kvelertak” received a North American release on March 15 via The End Records. The North American edition includes six bonus tracks: live recordings of the songs “Fossegrim”, “Sjøhyenar (Havets Herrer)”, “Blodtørst” and “Mjød” from the BBC Sessions last year, as well as demo versions of “Ordsmedar av Rang” and “Utrydd Dei Svake”.
GOD SEED‘s “Live At Wacken” DVD and CD will be released on January 27 in Europe and January 31 in North America via Indie Recordings.
The number of tracks on the “Live At Wacken” DVD was recently reduced to nine from the previously announced 13.
GOD SEED was the Norwegian band featuring former GORGOROTH members King (bass; real name: Tom Cato Visnes) and Gaahl (vocals; real name: Kristian Espedal).
“Live At Wacken” will include footage of the group’s infamous live show from the 2008 edition of the Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany where they performed on the main stage in front of 75,000 screaming fans.
The Wacken performance was a reconstruction of GORGOROTH‘s controversial “Black Mass” show from Krakow in 2004 filmed in a TV studio in Kraków, Poland. The concert featured sheep heads on stakes, “crucified” nude models, satanic symbols, and eighty liters of sheep’s blood. The band came under fire for violating Polish anti-blasphemy laws as well as Polish animal-rights laws, resulting in a police investigation with allegations of religious offence and cruelty to animals. The band went free of all charges and at Wacken 2008 they recreated this now-legendary show in all its glory.
This spectacular show is made available as a live CD, including the film of the entire show on DVD. The album is only available in a deluxe digipack edition and holds liner notes from the band about the process of recreating this special show.
“Live At Wacken” features session players Nick Barker (drums) and Ice Dale (guitar) alongside King and Gaahl.
“Live At Wacken” revised track listing:
01. Procreating Satan
02. Forces Of Satan Storms
03. Teethgrinding
04. Carving A Giant
05. A Sign Of An Open Eye
06. Wound Upon Wound
07. Godseed
08. Of Ice And Movement
09. Prosperity And Beauty
GOD SEED came to life after Gaahl and King lost a court battle in early 2009 against guitarist Infernus (real name: Roger Tiegs) over the rights to the GORGOROTH band name.
Commented King: “GOD SEED represents a more spiritual side to us than what GORGOROTH did. GOD SEED represents the will to grow; the will to be the super man, so to speak. I think it’s a suitable name for what we will represent in the future. I am also aware of the fact that we use the word ‘God’ in the name. It will challenge the weak minded in the respect that we in the past used the word Satan a lot, but it’s all about the same thing. The God within man, and the God within nature. I never believed in a Christian force named Satan. I believe in the God within man.”
Gaahl left GOD SEED in 2009 because he chose to retire from metal music. Source: Blabbermouth.net
UNISONIC, the new band featuring former HELLOWEEN vocalist Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen (GAMMA RAY, ex-HELLOWEEN) alongside Dennis Ward (bass) and Kosta Zafiriou (drums) of Germany’s PINK CREAM 69 and Swiss guitarist Mandy Meyer (who has previously played with ASIA, GOTTHARD and KROKUS), will release its debut EP, “Unisonic: Ignition” in late January via earMUSIC/Edel. The effort will include the title track plus one demo song and a cover version of the HELLOWEEN classic “I Want Out”, recorded live on October 15 at this year’s edition of the Loud Park festival at Saitama Super Arena, a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Saitama City, Japan.
A full-length UNISONIC album will be made available in March.
Zafiriou previously stated about the band’s decision to sign with earMUSIC/Edel: “We had several promising labels being interested in UNISONIC, but the enthusiasm of Max Vaccaro and his team convinced us that earMUSIC is the right company for us.”
After the addition of Hansen to the group’s lineup in early 2011, UNISONIC continued the songwriting process for its debut release, incorporating Kai‘s talent for writing great anthemic rock songs into its existing material. The recordings for the album started at end of September at ICP studios in Brussels, Belgium.
UNISONIC‘s music is very versatile and shows a broad approach to heavy rock without sacrificing the power and strong, catchy melodies that characterized the bandmembers’ previous projects.
Commented Kiske: “It feels great to finally bring the band to the studio and record the songs we’ve been working on. We took our time to grow as a band, but it was definitely worth it and we are very proud of the result.”
Added bassist/producer Ward: “We have a bunch of very strong songs and can’t wait until people can hear them. Everyone in the band is now looking even more positive into the future.”
Regarding Hansen‘s addition to UNISONIC, Kiske previously said, “After so many years of abstinence, I had a lot of fun doing my first live shows with UNISONIC in summer 2010, so I agreed to do the short world tour with AVANTASIA. It was a great experience to be on stage with all those great artists, but with Kai it was something different: We instantly felt the magic again and had a lot of fun together on and off stage. We both realized that we want to be together in band again. He was interested in the open musical concept of UNISONIC and finally asked me if he can join the band. I talked to my bandmates and they all felt great about it. His talent as a guitarist and songwriter is an enrichment for the band and we are looking forward to his contribution for the music of UNISONIC.”
Kai Hansen‘s position in GAMMA RAY will be unaffected by his involvement with UNISONIC.
UNISONIC is:
Michael Kiske (vocals) Mandy Meyer (guitar) Kai Hansen (guitar) Dennis Ward (bass) Kosta Zafiriou (drums)
Having split with HELLOWEEN in late 1993, Kiske participated in various projects and released several solo albums but had not been part of a real group effort until now.
While collaborating with Ward and Zafiriou on the PLACE VENDOME project five years ago, Kiske found two musical soulmates. They ended up recording two PLACE VENDOME albums before deciding to join forces in a new brand new band. Ward, who had previously produced a record for KROKUS, suggested Meyer as the perfect addition to the group in the vacant guitarist slot.
Kiske, one of the finest and most unique voices in contemporary rock music, explains his motivation of becoming a part of a band again: “Since the PLACE VENDOME productions I was impressed by Dennis Ward‘s skills as a songwriter and producer. We were occasionally fooling around since then via email that we should do more together in the future, so the idea came up to do a new band. I was generally getting a bit tired of doing everything on my own for so many years, so it just felt like the right thing to do now. We can all only benefit from working together. No matter how good you are solo, four people will always be better than one, I think, if they manage to function together. And a real band is also a very good reason to finally go on tour again.”
Finnish/Swedish symphonic metallers NIGHTWISH have begun rehearsing for their “Imaginaerum” world tour, which will kick off on Saturday, January 21 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, California. This will be the biggest NIGHTWISH show production ever on North American soil and strictly a one-off — there will be no U.S. tour until later in 2012.
In a posting on NIGHTWISH‘s Facebook page, the band’s lead singer, Anette Olzon, writes, “Last Thursday we went to our rehearsal place already in the morning and it was really nice to get in front of the microphone again and hearing what the guys had done the days before. We have some nice things planned and it’s always interesting to hear if it works out, and yeah, it did.
“Singing the songs from [the new NIGHTWISH album] ‘Imaginaerum’ live for the first time was interesting, and it’s always this weird thing that songs I thought would be easy to sing live can be a bit tricky, while the ones I thought would be hard went really easy. This is something that happens every time, and some songs seem to come alive even more in the rehearsing space.
“This first day we practiced for many hours and it takes some time to get into the songs so the day after we all sounded even better. I felt how we all started to get more and more into every song and leaving that day behind me felt very rewarding and anticipating of the rehearsals yesterday when our dear Troy [Donockley, who handles assorted Celtic instrumentation] joined us and made our group complete. For me, personally, Troy gives me calmness and positiveness and everything feels so fun, the music flows and we just had so fun together all day.
“Yesterday [November 29] was the last rehearsing day for this time and even if I long to go home to my dear boys at home, I already long for our rehearsals in January ’cause I leave Helsinki with a sense of joy and knowledge that next year will be wonderful and fun together with these guys and with the music I love to sing.”
Check out photos from the rehearsal sessions below.
“Imaginaerum” is due in North America on January 10, 2012 via Roadrunner Records. The CD is the band’s first since 2007’s “Dark Passion Play”, which was then-new singer Anette Olzon‘s debut.
The band examined its catalog when sitting down to write what would become “Imaginaerum”. The songs for the album were written between 2008 and 2010, after the “Dark Passion Play” tour cycle ended.
“Imaginaerum” release dates:
Finland: November 30
Europe: December 2
Australia: January 6
North America: January 10
Japan: January 11
New Zealand: January 16
NIGHTWISH‘s new single, “Storytime”, recently topped the official chart in Finland.
“Storytime” was released as a single on Friday, November 11 via Nuclear Blast Records. Source: Blabbermouth.net
PATRICIA THOMAS Management has issued the following:
FROSTMOON ECLIPSE founder and guitarist Claudio Alcara features on two tracks on “Patience”, the forthcoming four-track EP release from GODHEADSCOPE. “Patience“ is the third release from the Californian one-man project formed in 2006 by M. Rosin, and, according to Rosin himself represents GODHEADSCOPE’s “most complete bridging of modern composition and ambient with art-rock and folk”. The EP will initially be released as a digital download on the 29th November at godheadscope.bandcamp.com before being available through all the usual digital retailers on Meristem Music. More information about GODHEADSCOPE can be found at www.godheadscope.com
Track listing on “Patience” as follows:
1. Patience
2. Solidarity
3. Medusa In the Cistern
4. The Screaming Mound
Alcara, who contributes guitar melodies for the tracks “Solidarity” and “The Screaming Mound”, is himself due to release an album for his STROSZEK project in December of this year on Hypnotic Dirge Records. “Sound Graveyard Bound” will be the third full-length release from STROSZEK, the band that allows Alcara not only to perform vocals, but also to display his consummate guitar skills in a more melodic, introspective fashion, as opposed to the Black Metal for which he is best known with FROSTMOON ECLIPSE, who themselves released their fifth full-length album “The End Stands Silent” on Osmose Productions in early 2011. More information about STROSZEK at http://www.myspace.com/songsofremorse
Fifteenth annual Tuska Open Air Metal Festival in Suvilahti, Helsinki, Finland has announced more Artists. New additions to the 2012 line up are American LAMB OF GOD and TRIVIUM, local boys APOCALYPTICA and Polish black/death group BEHEMOTH. Other additions include MOKOMA, SUICIDE SILENCE, HATEBREED, LOCK UP and METSATÖLL. Tuska 2012, 29.6.-1.7. Suvilahti, Helsinki, Finland
New acts confirmed for the fourth, marginal stage are old school death metallers CORPSESSED, porno-grinders INFERIA, metal/screamo/eurodancers ONE MORNING LEFT and rich crust punks BOB MALMSTRÖM.
Current Tuska 2012 line up:
Ministry
Lamb Of God
Apocalyptica
Trivium
Behemoth
Overkill
Hatebreed
Suicide Silence
Mokoma
Insomnium
Saint Vitus
Swallow The Sun
Animals As Leaders
Lock Up
Textures
Skeletonwitch
Suidakra
Profane Omen
Mestatöll
Horna
Victims
Unkind
Afgrund
Corpsessed
Inferia
One Morning Left
Bob Malmström
More than 50 bands will be performing on 4 stages at Tuska 2012. More bands to be announced soon.
TICKETS
Limited special batch of 3-day Tuska tickets are now on sale on at http://www.tiketti.fi and http://www.lippupalvelu.fi. The batch will be sold at a special price, the same price as the 3-day ticket in 2011: 110 euros + possible ticket agency fees.
Start date of regular 2012 ticket sales and ticket price will be announced later.
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 