Swing of the Blade: More Stories from Metal Blade Records follows Brian Slagel‘s critically acclaimed 2017 book, For the Sake of Heaviness, which delivered a compelling inside look at how a metal-obsessed California teen built Metal Blade Records into the preeminent international home of heavy music. Rabid readers demanded more anecdotes, more bands, and more of Slagel’s musical wisdom. With Swing of the Blade, he delivers. Featuring a foreword by Slayer‘s Kerry King, the new book is part memoir, part music-business primer, and all metal – delving deep into scenes and bands that fans worldwide obsess about. Slagel serves up more of his favorite memories about iconic musicians and events, and delves into even greater detail about his long and ongoing relationships with Metallica, Armored Saint, King Diamond and other heavyweights. Swing of the Blade is told in Slagel’s humble but authoritative voice. His view for the last 40 years-from the studio, side-stage and boardroom-offers an unprecedented look into the music, business, and passion that has made both Slagel and Metal Blade champions of discovering and nurturing the best heavy music on the planet.
Amazon’s pre-orders for Swing of the Blade: More Stories from Metal Blade Records are now live HERE!
In the coming weeks, Metal Blade Records will be launching their own exclusive pre-order bundle that will include a bookmark, patch, 40th anniversary medal, and signed bookplate, while supplies last!
About Metal Blade Records: Founded upon owner Brian Slagel‘s enduring drive to find great bands and get their music out to as many people as possible, since 1982 Metal Blade has brought wave after wave of powerful, innovative, and often genre-defining music to the ever-hungry metal masses. It is this ethos that has seen Metal Blade build up a stunning and diverse catalog, weather the various storms facing any independent label, and in an age of declining record sales boast the most successful years of its existence as it celebrates its fourth decade.
Metal Blade Records launched Metallica, Slayer, Armored Saint, Fates Warning, GWAR, Cannibal Corpse, Amon Amarth, Whitechapel, The Black Dahlia Murder, Cattle Decapitation, and dozens more genre giants, shaping four decades and counting of hard rock, metal, and extreme music culture. Brian Slagel worked as a record store clerk when he founded Metal Blade in 1982, reserving a spot for a young Lars Ulrich on his Metal Massacre compilation series. Metal Blade grew from humble beginnings in Los Angeles to become an international powerhouse, selling millions of albums while remaining fiercely independent. In 2017, Slayer‘s Kerry King inducted the label into the Hall of Heavy Metal History. Slagel‘s For the Sake of Heaviness: The History of Metal Blade Records arrived the same year.
For the Sake of Heaviness (book only) here For the Sake of Heaviness (35th Anniversary box set) here
April 28, 2023 will see the masters of heavy metal, pagan, folk and melodic death metal, ELVENKING, return to fantasy with their epic, new album “Reader Of The Runes – Rapture”, through AFM Records! The band’s eleventh studio album marks the sequel to their 2019 magnum opus “Reader of the Runes – Divination”.
Following previously-released album singles, “Rapture” and the epic anthem “The Hanging Tree”, today, Elvenking have premiered a music video for “Bride Of Night”, featuring former DRACONIAN vocalist Heike Langhans! Says the band:
“We are proud to present our new song and video “Bride of Night”. It surely represents the more melodic side of our sound, yet dark and melancholic. We know that a lot of our fans love this side of Elvenking, so this is also a gift to you. “Reader of the Runes – Rapture” will collect all of the shades of our sound from the more aggressive ever, to songs like Bride of Night so, by listening to the entire album you will travel through a multitude of nuances and atmospheres – we cannot wait for you to hear it in all its epicness!
Heike Langhans offered her beautiful voice in the chorus backing Damna vocals. The amazing video is once again directed by Matteo Ermeti who did with us “Silverseal” and he couldn’t better envision the story – a glimpse of painful romance that captures one of the chapters of the story.”
On their forthcoming album, Elvenking set sail to horizons more distant than ever before, boldly taking the world by storm with their quintessentially unique approach to heavy, powerful music. As guitarist Aydan and vocalist Damna recently commented, “Part 2 is darker, it needed to be tragic and violent and this gave us the chance to fully breathe the soundscape we already had in mind as we started to write songs in early 2020. We feel that with this album, we have cast a milestone and set a further limit in what we can do by mixing wisely what we deeply love in metal. We are very satisfied with all the shades that compose these eleven songs; altogether they make a canvas we are very proud of.”
Ever since their inception in 1997, Elvenking mastered their way to their own identity with courage and bravado, leaving behind the shackles of genres step by step before they truly broke out with their 2014 monument “The Pagan Manifesto”. Elvenking have been defying all genres, now feeling quite at home in their very own enchanted realm. With “Rapture”, the Italian collective delivers part two of their monumental “Reader of the Runes” trilogy, and an epic metal quest of woe and despair, wrought with mysterious figures, dark magic and an altogether mesmerizing autumnal flair reminiscent of a forest glade during an Indian Summer. It’s more than just a metal album. It’s a moving story set to fabulous songs, bridging the gap between fantasy and reality. Many times before, Elvenking have weaved powerful magic into the world. This time, they truly came into their own, wresting their best effort yet from a global pandemic.
“Reader Of The Runes – Rapture” was written between 2020 and 2022, and was recorded between May and October 2022 by the band and renowned producer Scott Atkins (Cradle of Filth, Behemoth) who also took over mixing and mastering duties.
Set to be released on April 28, 2023 through AFM Records, the album pre-sale is available at THIS LOCATION!
Today, ENSLAVED are proud to release their latest avant-garde creation, Heimdal. Their breathtaking 16th studio album is both a departure and a communion with roots forged over three decades ago in the turbulent birth throes of Norway’s black metal scene. It’s a record that points towards new beginnings, and a dawn that’s on the other side of the apex of the land. Prepare for a psychedelic journey through arcane Norse folklore, to connect with one’s ancient ancestors and our future selves.
Enslaved’sGrutle Kjellson commented,
“After more than three decades, I still get excited when I hear Ivar’s demos; we may be older now, and as life has evolved are unable to spend as much time on music as we would like, but the song writing process for Enslaved hasn’t changed much. Ivar works on the seeds and shapes of songs, sends them to the rest of us, and we’ll form our own narratives – these phantom sketches eventually come to life and they speak to us, and hopefully they speak to our fans as well.
In my opinion, our band is even more creative, more experimental, more diverse and somehow more musical than when we started. I suppose one of the main reasons we continue as a band is that we have never reached a place where we bore ourselves. Our passion for telling stories, writing riffs, put words to them and exploring the human condition through music and myth, has only increased over the years and Heimdal is a reflection of who we are as artists, musicians and human beings in the year 2023.”
Enslaved have also revealed a masterly lyric video, created by Ingo Spörl, for album focus track ‘The Eternal Sea‘.
Caravans to the Outer Worlds (Live from The Otherworldly Big Band Experience) Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/sh7l0I3l2Fg
Heimdal was produced by Enslaved‘s own Ivar Bjørnson, Iver Sandøy and Grutle Kjellson.Mixing was handled by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios, and the final treatment was mastered by Tony Lindgren. The concept and lyrics for Heimdalwas, as always, developed by Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson in tandem.
The album was recorded primarily at Solslottet Studios in Bergen, which is owned by Iver Sandøy. Solslottet is asatellite of the well-known Duper Studios, where the drums were recorded and engineered by Iver himself, with assistance from Vegard Lemme. The mainguitars, bass, pianos, organs, and vocals were also recorded at Solslottet. Arve ‘Ice Dale’ Isdal recorded his guitar leads at his own Earshot & Conclave Studios. The final touches and a few experimental ideas were added at the Overlook Hotel using Solslottet’s mobile studio rig. All music for Heimdal was written and demoed at Ivar Bjørnson’s own Crow’s Nest studio.
The record features psychedelic track ‘Caravans To The Outer Worlds‘ from last year’s EP of the same name. Albumbonus versions contain an extra track, ‘Gangandi‘, alongside a Blu-Ray copy of 2021’sstunning Otherworldly Big Band Experience streamed event – the band’sboldest project to date, featuring fellow Norwegian prog band Shaman Elephant. The kaleidoscopic stage show features a stellar setlist, covering Enslaved‘s career, both past and present.
Never faltering, Norway’s iconic Enslaved continue to exist as one of the most original and dependable components in our scene’s indestructible backbone. Possessing the reputation as one of the most riveting live acts around, they never fail to offer us talent of the highest calibre, always doing justice to their signature black/progressive sound. Enslaved was formed in 1991 by Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson, releasing their first demo Yggdrasillin the summer of 1992, their legendary mini-albumHordanes Land coming out in 1993, and with their debut full-lengthVikingligr Veldiarriving in the spring of 1994.
Enslaved in 2022 area band in stellar form – a band at its most existentialist and self-conscious, proud Bergeners bearing the torch of their hometown’s extraordinary musical history. Their most recent material shows Enslaved at their most unleashed and thought-through – a lethal combination unfurling a potential that’s easily rekindling the furor of their early works while dancing gracefully through their most ambitious, most haunting and most musical tunes yet. A contradiction? Life itself is a contradiction. And yet we all live to prove it wrong.
The long wait is over! Almost exactly 10 years after their “Röck’n Roll Hellpatröl” titled debut, “Sadistic Nightmares”, the second album of the North German RocknRoll/Speed/Thrashers from INTÖXICATED, will be released on May 5th. Recorded and produced by Jörg Uken at Soundlodge Recording, you can expect 8 songs that building a bridge between snotty rock’n roll and classic speed/thrash metal in their very own way.
Above is a first look at the iconic album artwork, which was created by Dark Dungeons Atelier. The first tunes will soon be heard, be prepared for a Rock’n Roll Speed Attack!
Today, international extreme metal collective NIGHTMARER has released their latest single “Taufbefehl”, accompanied by a brand new and captivating music video. The track is taken from the band’s upcoming album, entitled “Deformity Adrift”, which will be released on May 05 via Vendetta Records and Total Dissonance Worship.
Guitarist Simon Hawemann on “Taufbefehl”: “Our second single is a collaborative song between NIGHTMARER and VALBORG, who are undoubtedly Germany’s best Metal band. ‘Taufbefehl’ roughly translates to ‘baptizing orders’ and features German guest vocals, performed by Christian Kolf and Jan Buckard. It’s a stoic, primitive, harsh and blasphemous machine that will eat your soul. Make of the accompanying music video what you will…OPEN THE WOUND // KREATUR DES TERRORS // TAUFBEFEHL“.
Clandestinely conceived by (former) members of Gigan, WFAHM and The Ocean in 2014, NIGHTMARER set out to derive only the most extreme elements of their previous musical endeavors and take them to a much more miserable and punishing level. “Deformity Adrift” is NIGHTMARER‘s most diverse work to date, venturing far beyond the conventions of the already unconventional genre of Dissonant Death Metal, without sacrificing even an ounce of viciousness. Strong undercurrents of Industrial and Doom Metal can be found throughout this 32 min behemoth of a record, which ends with an oppressive wall of sound that will leave you bruised and battered.
“Deformity Adrift” was mixed and mastered by Raphaël Bovey at MyRoom Studio. Cover art by Jeanne Comateuse. The album will be released on vinyl, CD, cassette tape, digital and streaming formats by Total Dissonance Worship (US) and Vendetta Records (EU).
“Deformity Adrift” is available for pre-order at THIS LOCATION
Ukrainian psychedelic rock trio STONED JESUS has teamed up with The Obelisk to stream the new album, ‘Father Light’, released today, in its entirety! The album can be heard at THIS LOCATION.
Lead vocalist and guitarist Igor Sydorenko comments: “Written in 2019, recorded in 2021, released in 2023 – behold ‘Father Light!’ Serving as the first half of our ambitious five-years-in-the-making song cycle project, ‘Father Light is heavy, intense and progressive – while its sister album, ‘Mother Dark,’ is expected to be more laid-back, hypnotic and introverted. You know when every artist ever says their new work is their best? Well, we actually believe this to be true with this one!”
For those who might be unfamiliar with STONED JESUS, the band is well-known for their explosive single, “I Am The Mountain,” which reached a whopping 15 million views on YouTube! The iconic clip can be found HERE.
Pre-orders for ‘Father Light’ are now live and can be found HERE.
Pre-save ‘Father Light’ on your favorite streaming service HERE.
The artwork for “Father Light” was created by Anton Pcholkin.
Tracklist “Father Light” 1. Father Light 03:35 2. Season of the Witch 11:34 3. Thought and Prayers 06:22 [WATCH HERE] 4. Porcelain 08:09 [WATCH HERE] 5. CON 04:10 [WATCH HERE] 6. Get What You Deserve 09:08 [LISTEN HERE] Total: 43:00
STONED JESUS recently announced their appearance on the mighty Hellfest of 2023! More information on tours/festival for 2023 will be announced on a later stage.
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Kimmo Kuusniemi’s ASA unveil the long-overdue release of "Collective Failure" + first music video for title-track! Check it out and stay tuned for more news! Click image to watch the video
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
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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
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Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 