A LIFE DIVIDED starting the new year by releasing the track “Best Time” – the second single release of the new studio album, which will be released in August.
“The song is about power-loving egoists who, which will stick to their power, no matter what” explains singer Jürgen Plangger. “People who always blame others or blame the entire world.”
This topic is even more explosive, considering the current global political situation. „We live in a kind of permanent state of emergency,” Jürgen continued. “This used to be our best time – this used to be our paradise”. The world around us feels more minor than major these days. Especially from my perspective as a father, I very much hope that this will not become a permanent condition.
The single is a result of the past – dark, angry and direct.
The Munich band A LIFE DIVIDED are an integral part of the scene. In 2003, the group was founded by singer Jürgen Plangger (also guitarist of Eisbrecher). Ever since they have been busy being by play sold-out headliner gigs on tour with Oomph!, Apocalyptica or Mono Inc. Plangger, guitarist Tony Berger, bassist Tobias Egger and drummer Manuel Di Camilloconquered not only the hearts of the fans, but also the German album charts.
With fans so ravenous in their worship, SLEEP TOKEN have gifted them with two new songs to appease their hunger.
As time turned to midnight on January 5, 2023, the emotionally driven “Chokehold” arrived first. As 24 hours passed, “The Summoning” audaciously followed. Both tracks boldly explore and develop elements that keep Sleep Token’s music vastly removed from any kind of pack, howling at a moon distinctly their own.
Watch the visual for “Chokehold” here and “The Summoning” here.
The band has a 5-date, headline UK run ahead of them this month, with several shows at storied venues like the O2 Academy already sold out.
What comes next, only time will tell, but what’s certain is that it won’t be bound by convention.
Anonymous, silent, masked, armed with a staggering vocal range, a deft touch on the keyboards, plus a live approach that is never less than fully engaged; Sleep Token is the unique, broad-based vision of one individual.
After the release of the first two singles “Dig My Grave” and “Caught In A Hurricane”, the Swedish metallers of Beneath My Feet follow up today with their brand new single “One More Time”! The track is released together with a music video, which you can watch below.
Beneath My Feet comments:
“‘One More Time’ is the third single from the upcoming album ‘In Parts, Together’. It’s a certified banger guaranteed to make the whole club get up and move their asses. On this track they channel the sort of energy you feel when you see someone cross the picket line or when the multinational book retailer you work at threatens to lay you off for unionizing. A fuck around and find out type beat.“
Hailing from northern Sweden, on their new studio album Beneath My Feet addresses profound topics such as abuse, trauma, anxiety and grief. Musically, the band combines influences from the American metal sound and the British hardcore scene to produce what is best described as a loving rhytmic punch to the face. Their music brings together heavy rhythm, pop influenced melodic choruses and catchy riffs, an intense blend that not only earned the band a steadily growing name within the scene, but also several tours across Europe and performances with bands like Dead By April, Amaranthe, The Unguided, Machinae Supremacy, Corroded and many others.
Initially scheduled for a release on January 13th, the album unfortunately had to be pushed back to March 3rd due to the worldwide situation and delays in physical production. “In Parts, Together” will be coming out on Noble Demon and is available for pre-order at THIS LOCATION
Today, Germany’s most morbid hit factory, the masters of the macabre, EISREGEN, celebrate the release of their brand new, 16th studio album Grenzgänger, out now Massacre Records!
Following the 2020 Top 10 chart success “Leblos” and a double split album with Goatfuneral, “bitterböse” (#12 on the German album charts) in 2021, with 17 new songs on Grenzgänger, the Thuringian band presents themselves in absolute top form and and raises the extreme-metal-bar even higher. To pick out single songs turned out to be difficult, because the two band leaders Roth and Yantit managed to string together hit after hit. Musically as well as lyrically, you can take the album title literally, because they have rarely been more varied. As Roth recently said: “Grenzgänger” is about the German serial killer Rudolf Pleil, who was active after the end of World War 2 and had an easy time finding new mostly female victims in the turmoil of the time. As a superordinate album title, the term itself can of course also be applied to the band: because EISREGEN never cared about musical or taste boundaries and has always consistently done its own thing.”
In celebration of today’s record release, the band has just unleashed a new music video for the song “Herbstleiche”! Says Roth: “Herbstleiche is one of my favorite pieces in our entire musical career: It is a very morbid love song, written from the perspective of a murderer who preserves the loved one for eternity. The song builds up a very special mood that continuously increases. It was very important to me to include this song in our future live set and also to commission a video for it to visualize its content.”
Grenzgänger was recorded in the band’s own HcN Studio by Yantit, and was mixed and mastered by their long-time sound engineer Markus Stock at Klangschmiede Studio E in Mellrichstadt, Germany, who equipped the new tracks with a brutal and yet differentiated sound.
Out now as a 2-CD media book, limited edition Gatefold vinyl LP, limited edition box set as well as in digital formats through Massacre Records, you can purchase your album copy of Grenzgänger at THIS LOCATION!
Italian post-hardcore group STORMO are today premiering Endocannibalismo, the title track and third single to be taken from their upcoming fourth album, via Decibel Magazine. The single sees STORMO incorporate a further experimentation within their hardcore punk sound, with sludge and industrial influences playing a prominent role on Endocannibalismo.
Endocannibalismo is now available on all streaming platforms.
Speaking on the single premiere, STORMO vocalist Luca Rocco comments: “When writing Endocannibalismo we tried to create an industrial and sludge based sound, primarily by experimenting with microtonal scales. We tried to keep it simple and harsh; repeated patterns and a circular ending recall the whole album concept which is cut to the bone in the lyrics.”
Formed in 2007 in the Dolomite Alps region of Italy with a deep admiration for their native country’s hardcore punk luminaries in La Quiete and Raein, as well as eighties and nineties cult heroes in Negazione, Wretched and Indigesti. STORMO’s steady rise from unassuming beginnings has been one of consistently stirring songwriting. Having amassed over 400 shows across Europe and the UK – including support slots to Converge, Full of Hell and La Dispute, as well as appearances at Fluff Fest – STORMO’s next chapter sees the band fully come of age.
Sequestered into isolated reflection throughout 2020 and 2021, it was not long before the band found themselves ruminating on concerns far bigger than themselves; namely death and ecological endings. The end not only of themselves, nor the human race as a whole, but of the world as we know it. Upon discovering Brazilian photographer Claudia Andujar’s work on the Yanomami tribe, STORMO soon found themselves intrigued by the concept of endocannibalism – the practice of which includes consuming parts of dead relatives in a display of mourning and to free the deceased’s soul – leading the band to take on death and egotism as central influences for Endocannibalismo.
Lyrically, Endocannibalismo was written entirely in the band’s native tongue; partly as a byproduct of the albums nocturnal and instinctive writing process and partly in honour of their history as a band. Recorded and mixed by Giulio Favero (OvO, Buñuel, Zu) before being placed in the hands of Giovanni Versari (Muse, Raein, Verdena) at La Maesta for mastering, Endocannibalismo’s 11 tracks possess a crystalline clarity to service STORMO’s surging blastbeats, spiralling rhythms and noise punk cacophony, whilst staying true to the each songs deep seated primal nature.
Seeking to tie together the whole process visually, STORMO took to artificial intelligence when creating Endocannibalismo’s art. Utilising specific prompts, the AI render was put through stages of mutation before culminating in its final form. A haunting graphic representation of living beings in a state of constant death and rebirth.
Endocannibalismo tracklist: 1. Valichi, Oltre 2. PV77 3. Sorte 4. Spire 5. Anabasi 6. Frame 7. Endocannibalismo 8. Disequilibrio 9. Deserti 10. Vipere, Ombre 11. Sopravvivenza e Forme
Hailing from Australia, old school Black Metal veterans VAHRZAW have unleashed their brand new track “Phosphorescent Sunrise”, the third and final single from the band’s upcoming fifth studio album “In The Shallows Of A Starlit Lake”, which will be coming out on January 27 via Bitter Loss Records.
A constant in the Australian underground, having formed 30 years ago, Vahrzaw‘s new album will be the follow up to last years critically acclaimed “The Trembling Voices Of Conquered Men”, and shows a return to the bands early Black Metal roots. “In The Shallows Of A Starlit Lake” is a total of 7 tracks of raw, cold Black Metal, incorporating atmospheric soundscapes and comes in at over 40 minutes!
Vahrzaw comments: “Superficially, Phosphorescent Sunrise is a story about a girl who stalks and butchers a dog. The audience is witnessing the birth of a serial killer. But, at it’s core, it’s an exploration of Freud’s concept of displacement. The girl is angry with someone more powerful, but she cannot express this anger. So, she lashes out at something safe; the dog.“
“In The Shallows Of A Starlit Lake” is available for pre-order HERE
Tracklist:
The Amber Glow Of The Gaslight
In The Shallows Of A Starlit Lake
Phosphorescent Sunrise
Pale Lechery
At The Mercy Of The Shrike
Six Verses
To Breathe In Leviathan
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 )