MACHINE HEAD has recently revealed new details of their upcoming and their Nuclear Blast Entertainment debut album, “Bloodstone & Diamonds”. This will be the band’s 8th full studio album, it was produced by Robb Flynn himself and Juan Urteaga (TESTAMENT, VILE), and like the last 7 out of 8 albums, was masterfully mixed by Colin Richardson (CARCASS, FEAR FACTORY, SLIPKNOT, BEHEMOTH, DEVILDRIVER). Additional tracking, editing, and mixing was done with heavy metal legend Andy Sneap (EXODUS,TESTAMENT, ARCH ENEMY, ACCEPT, MEGADETH) and Steve Lagudi.
“I cannot even begin to tell you how proud we are of this album,” comments frontman Robb Flynn. “It’s been a heck of a ride. It looked like it might not ever happen again at one point, but man, this album is a milestone for us. You’re going to love it Head Cases.”
“Without getting too philosophical on ya, bloodstone and diamonds represent two of the hardest materials on earth, it is also a lyric from the opening track of the album ‘Now We Die’. In many cultures the bloodstone has been used as an amulet to protect against evil, and is the symbol of justice. Diamonds and are hardest natural material on earth (which is how we feel about our music), and it also represents the diamond logo I drew 22 years ago (in my wife’s apartment on Dover St. in Oakland) that has become the symbol for the band.”
Adds Flynn:
“10 songs, an interlude, and an instrumental with an audio collage of spoken word snippets (think ‘Real Eyes, Realize, Real Lies’) by Dr. Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman, taken from their (incredibly inspiring) audiobook Spontaneous Evolution.
“Guest musicians include 2 different string quartets featuring the original Quartet Rouge that appeared on our last album »Unto The Locust«. And a new all-male quartet which we featured on the song ‘In Comes The Flood’.
String arrangements for 2 of the songs ‘Now We Die’ and ‘Sail Into The Black’ came courtesy of myself and Rhys Fulber who has worked with everyone from Sarah McLachlan, to FEAR FACTORY, and the string arrangement for ‘In Comes The Flood’ came courtesy of myself and ex-WORSHIP and current-BRING ME THE HORIZON keyboardist Jordan Fish, who is a producer in his own right.
We worked with several artists to complete the 28 page (!) ‘standard’ CD booklet, as well as the 48 page (!) hardcover leather-bound Media-book that will serve as the special edition, including Rafal Wechterowicz, Marcelo Vasco, and long-time MACHINE HEAD art-collaborator Strephon Taylor. The theme was to have both CD and hardcover Mediabook look like an old Alchemy book from the 1800’s, with weathered edges, sepia toned pages, and magic / masonic / alchemy themed woodcarvings throughout.”
“Bloodstone & Diamonds” track listing:
1. Now We Die
2. Killers & Kings
3. Ghosts Will Haunt My Bones
4. Night Of Long Knives
5. Sail Into The Black
6. Eyes Of The Dead
7. Beneath The Silt
8. In Comes The Flood
9. Damage Inside
10. Game Over
11. Imaginal Cells (instrumental)
12. Take Me Through The Fire
American rockers OTHERWISE, are set to release their new studio album on Sept 15th in Europe (digital only) and September 16th in North America. “Peace At All Costs” is the follow up to the bands 2012’s break thru album “True Love Never Dies” which sold over 55,000 albums and 275,000 singles in the US including the hit songs “Soldiers,” “I Don’t Apologize (1000 Pictures) and “Die For You.”
The band has recently revealed the artwork and track-listing of “Peace At All Costs”, which can be seen below:
“Peace At All Costs” track listing:
1. IV
2. Love & War
3. Darker Side Of The Moon
4. Demon Fighter
5. Coming For The Throne
6. Never Say
7. The Other Side Of The Truth
8. All The Pretty Things
9. Walk Away
10. For The Fallen Ones
11. Fate Is Your Enemy
12. V
13. Meet Me In The Dark
14. Man On Fire
Teutonic heavy metal pioneers ACCEPT have just released a new lyric video for ‘Final Journey’ song, taken from the band’s forthcoming masterpiece “Blind Rage”. The video can be seen below:
“Blind Rage” is set to be released very soon, on August 15th via Nuclear Blast. The album was produced by Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, EXODUS, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH). The cover artwork was done by Daniel Goldsworthy (HELL).
We got a copy of this album and Mohsen will do his best to review it for you soon. But for now, you can pre-order “Blind Rage” at this location.
There was a time when rock radio was dominated by great riffs. From DEEP PURPLE’s ‘Smoke On the Water’ and DEREK AND THE DOMINOES’ ‘Layla’ to SOUNDGARDEN’s ‘Black Hole Sun’ and RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’s ‘Killing In The Name Of’, it was all about that unmistakable guitar sound that instantly identified a band or song. Blending funk, blues, metal and rock and roll, CROBOThave crafted an album of endless good time rock hooks for their forthcoming new album, titled “Something Supernatural” due out October 24 on Nuclear Blast.
Today, the group – whose stage show was praised by Pittsburgh Music Magazine as, “wild, brutal and sexy all at once.” – premiere a new live performance video for the song ‘Legend of the Spaceborne Killer’ exclusivelywith YAHOO!
Band:WOLF Album:Devil Seed Release Date: August 25th 2014 Label:Century Media Records
Tracklist:
Overture in C Shark
Shark Attack
Skeleton Woman
Surgeons Of Lobotomy
My Demon
I Am Pain
Back From The Grave
The Dark Passenger
River Everlost
Frozen
Killing Floor
WARNING; The wolves are back with true sharp steel and pure heavy metal again and you cannot ignore their metal greatness.
In Persia, we say “Keeping up success is harder than reaching it“. Swedish heavy metal heroes WOLF have released two stunning and successful albums up to now, at least in my opinion; “Ravenous” and “Legions Of Bastards”, which brought the attention of many fans and critics to them. Now they are going to see the release of their seventh studio album, “Devil Seed” via Century Media Records and hoping they can hit those successes again or even go higher.
Again like previous WOLF records, “Devil Seed” is a nuclear bomb of energy and very heavy metal. Stronger than any kind of drink, this album starts with a head banger track, entitled ‘Overture In C Shark’. I think the name comes from their senses of humour, playful minds and their love of Yngwie Malmsteen. I can see the footsteps of Yngwie and also Ritchie Blackmore in the guitar riffs, which are written and performed with absolute perfection, portraying a confused and fearful picture, preparing you for the next track, which is the furious ‘Shark Attack’. I already described this track briefly for you at this location.
‘Skeleton Woman’ is the third track of this collection of masterpieces and a kind of emotional song. The band seemed to be influenced again by Yngwie Malmsteen during the writing and recording of ‘Skeleton Woman’. Solos with both acoustic and electric guitars are full of emotion and prepare the stage for Nik to light up the candles with his soft and magical voice and then the guitars bring on the flames. If you have been a WOLF fan for a long time, you will be surprised to hear Viper’s distraught style of singing mixed with sorrow and grief in part of this track, but no worries, it won’t make you cry but hearing the lyrics may do! By all means, it was a good try in producing a power ballad, but still this song is too heavy to be called one.
It’s a crazy world, but it wasn’t meant to be, now guess who should be blamed for it?! But Nature knows its job very well; believe it or not evolution is the key. WOLF are masters in talking about psychological subjects in their songs, as they did on previous work, such as ‘Mr Twisted’ from “Ravenous”. ‘Surgeons of Lobotomy’ is just another thoughtful song from the band in this way. Delicious psychological guitar riffs open the show, where only open minds are invited.
Next track is again a dark one, sounds like a WOLFie version of NWOBHM. ‘My Demon’ comes in the night, howling with some scary riffs and it will release your demonic energy and turn your neck to a piece of coil. (You may not know but I have a demon inside me too, a Wolverine!)
Pain was always an interesting subject in rock and metal music, DIO made the wise song ‘Pain’, JUDAS PRIEST has the amazing ‘Painkiller’ and now it’s WOLF ‘s time to talk about it in a seriously dark manner. The Wolverine has a serious character as well as its sense of humour. “I Am Pain” is a serious killer song, written only for adults. It sounds like an IRON MAIDEN song at the beginning, but it’s also a march of Scandinavian Folk music into the heavy metal realm.
This album is recorded and produced in high quality. I tried different ways of listening and in my opinion the best way is using good headphones so you can be sure that you won’t miss any tiny sound, as every one on this album counts. ‘Back From The Grave’ is a resurrection of old school metal into the modern world, now behold WOLF when they do their best with what they learned from legends such as Ritchie Blackmore. It’s alive, fire and storm, this track is a stunning piece of heavy rock.
‘The Dark Passenger’, A.K.A the 8th track from “Devil Seed”, is a mysterious one. The band used some pure traditional heavy metal elements, it sounds like a mixture of ACCEPT and Ritchie Blackmore’s RAINBOW. Especially the solo part, where I think Simon Johansson used a Guitar Slide, smooth and perfect.
Metal Gods, JUDAS PRIEST, will love ‘River Everlost’, which sounds like one of their songs. Wolverine did not like “Redeemer Of Souls” but he just told me: “I loves “Devil Seed”.” Forget about it, ”River Everlost’ is a masterpiece with a mixture of PRIEST and MANOWAR – incredible riffs, heavy and tough.
“Have you heard? The winter is coming!” Wolverine commented. I just ignored him and carried on to enjoy listening to ‘Frozen’. Opposing the name, it’s very hot, fast and powerful, plus a few enjoyable riffs and solos. The drum parts match the rest of music on the whole album, splendid. “Oyy, shall I go for more Fur or Fat? As the winter will be sol cold?” Wolverine is shouting at me now!
An arpeggio from hell, sounding very Malmsteen-ish, starts the ‘Killing Floor’ song, which is the last song of this album. It’s absolutely stunning dark heavy metal. Powerful, energetic and bone crusher riffs will blow your head and mind, so hellcome to the real dark world. “Anybody talks about vengeance?” It seems Wolverine cannot be silent. “Let’s start again, I want more of this sharp steel”
“Devil Seed” is absolutely a milestone in WOLF’s career, a point made of knowledge, genius and bravery. Philosophers, psychologists and archaeologists will love this album but metalheads will adore it. Also me and Wolverine would like to see them live on stage one day to rock, and maybe comparing the sharpness of their teeth with Mr Wolverine’s claws. “Devil Seed” is a masterpiece and WOLF is a legendary band, the whole world will see this one day, it’s just a matter of time. As the final word, I would like to give 10 to this album but I haven’t, because I am still waiting to hear a power ballad track from them, so I removed 1 point. But as ‘Skeleton Woman’ was a great try in this way, I give half a point back. “So what’s the rating of this album finally, you ***?” Wolverine complained. Me: “It can be seen below, your grace! :s”.
As announced at this year’s edition of the UNDER THE BLACK SUN Festival already, CRAFT is confirmed as the first band for 2015. It’s their first appearance on a stage in Germany ever. Last weekend, organizers have announced another band. For the first time Finish Depressive Black Metallers TOTALSELFHATRED will be on stage in the woods close to Berlin. The UNDER THE BLACK SUN will take place on the first weekend in July in Börnicke, near Berlin.
More information about the UNDER THE BLACK SUN can be found here:
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Visionary artist KIMMO KUUSNIEMI's ANCIENT STREAMING ASSEMBLY (ASA) have released “Aurora Nuclearis”, a powerful 12-minute audiovisual experience, dedicated to the Late Keyboardist Esa Kotilainen. - Click image to watch the video
Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 