Samson Branch photo by Jaakko Karppinen — Rotterdamn! photo by Juha-Matti Myllymäki/Karma Photoworks
Rotterdamn! & Samson Branch featuring drag king artist Tom of Puukko released an interesting collaboration single Show Me Your Clothespins! via Inverse Records.
RotterDamn! and Samson Branch have known each other for years, but it was only in 2025 that they decided to join forces and strengths. The first result of this collaboration is this song Show Me Your Clothespins!.
The song Show Me Your Clothespins! suggests that the badges of honor of warlords be exchanged for clothespins and asks not to trust dictators and selfish people, but to encourage people to be themselves.
The track features clean vocals and instrumentation by pop and rock musician RotterDamn!. Metal musician Samson Branch provides growls and second guitar. The song also features a brief guest appearance by drag king Tom of Puukko.
–Composed, lyrics & arranged by Jussi Heiniluoma –Cover art compiled by RotterDamn! –Mixed by RotterDamn! –Mastered by Svante Forsbäck –ISRC: FISAP2400001
BIOGRAPHIES:
RotterDamn! toured for years as a guitarist for rock bands until he had a motorcycle accident. As a result, his hand was operated three times, followed by challenges to playing the guitar. The break was continued by covid-19. This life change caused RotterDamn!´s interest in synthesizers.
According to listeners, his music is influenced by Prodigy, Daft Punk, and Depeche Mode.
Samson Branch is a thrash and death metal artist hailing from Vaasa, Finland, active in the metal scene since 2004. His music combines relentless intensity, technical precision, and a dark atmosphere that explores the shadowed depths of the human mind and extreme emotional states.
Tom of Puukko is a drag king character who created a spirit and sang a short segment on the song Show Me Your Clothespins!
Swedish old-school death metallers DEMONICAL post live video of the song “By Hatred Bound”, recorded at Chronical Moshers Festival2025 in Germany. The song is lifted from the band’s 2022 album “Mass Destroyer”, available on Agonia Records.
Watch the clip, here:
DEMONICAL was spawned in 2006 by then-former Centinex members, Martin Schulman (bass), Ronnie Bergerståhl (drums) and Johan Jansson (ex-guitars & ex-vocals), with a mission to return to the roots of death metal. The now-fivepiece has made good on that promise with a vengeance, traversing a HM2-beaten path of melodic, Swedish death metal, replete with darkness and brutality. Their 2024’s live effort “Victorious Death – Live In Latin America” crowns a discography of seven studio albums and three EPs, interlaced with regular tours. One of their most recent treks, “Titans Of Darkness Tour”, has seen the band journey across Europe with Inquisition, with most of their shows sold-out.
The present-day line-up, apart from long-running members Schulman and Bergerståhl, comprises vocalist Charlie Fryksell, alongside guitarists Johan Haglund & Eki Kumpulainen.
In 2025 the band released a split EP with Inquisition titled “Deadly Alliance”.
Tour dates:
May 9, 2026 – Klubb Oväsen, Bollnäs, Sweden May 16, 2026 – Steelfest Open Air, Hyvinkää, Finland May 23, 2026 – Palacio Metal Fest, Sevilla, Spain Jun 13, 2026 – Vingåkers Vrålet, Vingåker, Sweden Jul 3, 2026 – Obscene Extreme Festival, Trutnov, Czech Republic Jul 11, 2026 – Dunndret Festival, Karlskoga, Sweden
In one of the most exciting twists in what is already shaping up to be a true Year Of Metal, Serpent from Eden, the much-acclaimed California metal band featuring guitarist John “Gumby” Goodwin (Ozzy Osbourne, Ringo Starr, George Clinton) step aside from their “regular” career, to present a very special new album – a tribute to fallen bandmate Nick Menza, with the drummer himself a key presence on every single track.
For over 30 years, Gumby, Menza and bassist Darwin Ballard played together, building up an exemplary body of work whose entire story has already been told across no less than twenty “volumes” of documentary, available on YouTube, and detailing the trio’s brutal assault upon the nation’s ears via live footage, videos, photos and interviews.
Now, to mark the 10th anniversary of the drummer’s passing, Serpent From Eden are set to release a full album’s worth of unreleased music – a tribute to their friend and a vivid snapshot of “what might have been.”
Friends since childhood, Gumby and Ballard met Menza while in their teens, when their band Emeralde were soundchecking at the Santa Monica College Amphitheater at the time.
“We set up,” says Gumby, “and I blasted out a few riffs on my guitar to sound check my rig, and after I put my guitar down and started walking backstage, I heard a thunderous explosive sound and the most articulated heavy rock drumming ever from someone not named John Bonham!”
It transpired that Emeralde’s regular drummer had enlisted a couple of his students to act as roadies for the gig, and as one of them came walking around the corner , Gumby excitedly asked him “Who’s that drumming?” “That’s Nick, Steve’s drum roadie” came the reply, to which the guitarist immediately responded, “No he’s not, he’s our new drummer!”
Gumby and Menza would play together for the remainder of the drummer’s life, in both their own groups (Rhoads, The Green, Von Skeletor, Soma and Freaktricity) and, briefly, as part of the crazy train that is Megadeth. According to Gumby, “our soundman Neil Schaefer was now working for them, and and he originally brought Nick and I as stage tech/understudies, as Jeff Young and Chuck Behler were already showing signs of their soon to come dismissals. In fact, the whole band crashed hard after the end of the So Far, So Good, So What Tour and was disbanded while Dave Mustaine went to rehab.”
Eventually Mustaine emerged and was ready to play again and, after a series of successful rehearsal sessions with the band, Menza officially embarked upon what Gumby describes as “a ten year run of success seldom seen in the rock world.”
Unfortunately, he continues, “that same success lead to jealousy and unfair treatment from bandleader and strong-boss Dave Mustaine…” tensions which led not only to Menza’s “dismissal and banishment from the Megadeth universe,” but are also captured in the lyrics of Serpent From Eden’s new single,“Promises, Conspiracies, and Lies.”
And look out for the video, coming soon to YouTube
Released today, “Promises, Conspiracies, and Lies” is the ideal introduction to what is to follow – and the culmination, explains Gumby, of a remarkable chain of events.
It was while Serpent From Eden, Gumby’s current band, were working on their own new album that the guitarist began sifting through old tapes, in search of material they might want to work on.
Instead, to his amazement, he discovered he had enough tracks, from so many recording sessions, to create an entire new album with Menza playing drums on every song!
Serpent From Eden bandmates Pauli Infantino (vocals), James Yokoi (bass), and Chris Tracy (drums), and Darwin Ballard too will also be heard on the album, while special guests Chris Poland and fellow Medadeth-er David Ellefson also contribute stellar performances. Producer Max Norman then distilled everything into this collection of songs, to help the world remember a true rock legend and hear him play killer new music for the first time in many years!
The result is a stand out collection of powerful, dynamic, and melodic hard rock music that will be impossible to pigeon hole as one style but it is still highly cohesive as a whole, all bound together by just one intention – to honor Nick Menza in the way he would want to be honored, with an uncompromising, heavy musical statement, encompassing his wide range of musical tastes but always with his ever insatiable need for musical power!
Since taking root in 1990, Green Carnation have reaped the success of their lofty ambitions. On just their second album, the prog bards authored one of the longest continuous epics in metal’s hallowed archives. Just last year, the band set sail on an epic album trilogy with The Shores of Melancholia, which washed onto best-of 2025 lists at PROG, Loudwire, Angry Metal Guy and other major publications. Now, as they descend into deeper, darker and doomier depths on the upcoming Part II of A Dark Poem, the Norwegian natives are adding another memorable scene to their storied career.
Today, Green Carnation are thrilled to announce a show in their hometown of Kristiansand with Deep Purple. The band will join the forefathers of heavy metal at one-day festival Dirty Old Town Live on June 14 alongside Turbonegro and Slomosa. During their set, Green Carnation will perform hits from across their discography, including the booming and bloodied new single “Sanguis (Blood Ties)”.
“Playing a show in our hometown alongside Deep Purple is something we never thought would happen”, Green Carnation says. “With several other amazing bands on the lineup, this show is certainly looking like one that will go into the history books and stay with us forever”.
Dirty Old Town Live 2026 with Deep Purple, Turbonegro, Slomosa, Green Carnation, Young Fogertys + DJ Maciek Ofstad (Kveleertak) June 14 – Kristiansand, Norway @ Odderøya [Tickets]
In September, Green Carnation are returning to the stage in Kristiansand for another unforgettable evening. During their headlining show at the Kilden Performing Arts Centre, the band will perform A Dark Poem in its entirety for the first and final time – including the as-of-yet unannounced Part III. Already, fans from 18 different countries have purchased tickets for this once-in-a-lifetime event.
An Evening with Green Carnation performing Part I, II and III of A Dark Poem
September 12 – Kristiansand, Norway @ Kilden Performing Arts Centre [TICKETS]
Catch Green Carnation at European summer festivals June 6 – Tampere, Finland @ Ankea Festival [TICKETS] August 1 – Ungarn, Hungary @ Feke Zaj Festival [TICKETS]
Watch the video for “Sanguis (Blood Ties)”:
A Dark Poem, Part II: Sanguis comes out April 3 on Season of Mist.
Tracklist 1. Sanguis (9:05) [WATCH] 2. Loneliness Untold, Loneliness Unfold (4:04) 3. Sweet to the Point of Bitter (5:58) 4. I Am Time (5:39) 5. Fire in Ice (7:03) 6. Lunar Tale (5:25) Full runtime: 37:16
No matter how long or where the journey has taken them, Green Carnation have never been afraid of a challenge. After reaching crushing new highs during the grand and gloomy opening chapter to their long-awaited album trilogy, the Norwegian prog bards are descending into deeper, darker and more personal depths with Part II of A Dark Poem.
“We wanted A Dark Poem to start off with guns blazing. Judging by the reaction, The Shores of Melancholia was successful in doing that”, the band’s vocalist Kjetil Nordhus says. “But for Part II, we have some very personal stories that we want people to hear. Sanguis invites listeners into our darkest inner rooms with some of the most raw and vulnerable songs that we’ve ever written”.
“The second part of A Dark Poem holds some of the most personal lyrics that I’ve ever written”, says Stein Roger Sordal, the band’s bassist and primary lyricist. “The lyrics are so personal that I had to go many rounds with myself over whether or not to tone them down. In the end, I chose to keep them as honest as possible. I mean, am getting older and I do have some life experience to back them up”.
Founded in the early ‘90s by Emperor’s original bassist Tchort, Green Carnation amassed a cult following behind critical acclaim for Light of Day, Day of Darkness, an album containing a single hour-long song that still resonates as one of the most ambitious epics in metal’s archives. Current members Bjørn Harstad (guitar), Stein Roger Sordal (bass) and Endre Kirkesola (keyboard, producer) along with Nordhus, were already in place by 2001. But whether it was the gothic crush of A Blessing in Disguise or pitch-black hard rock of The Quest Offspring, Green Carnation continued branching out through the mid-2000s. Even before going on hiatus in 2007, they still flashed a flare for the dramatic by performing their acoustic verses underneath a mountain dam.
“Green Carnation use Leaves of Yesteryear to prove once again they are titans of the craft”, Metal Injectionwrote about the band’s 2020 comeback album, which welcomed drummer Jonathan Pérez.
However, there was one tale – or three, to be exact – that eluded them for more than three decades. The idea for an album trilogy penned after Shakespeare’s tragic Ophelia stems all the way back to their earliest reflections of life and death, but when the first part of A Dark Poem was unfurled in 2025, right away, it was clear that Green Carnation had completed their masterpiece. The Shores of Melancholia washed onto year-end lists atLoudwire , Angry Metal Guyand other major publications.
“Epic in both scope and sound, the latter being the band’s rich, melodic take on the genre best described as Rainbow’s Rising if it were a prog album”, PROG wrote. “Part I works as an entity in its own right while also leaving the listener desperate to hear the next installments”.
If Green Carnation set sail from a familiar place of melancholy on The Shores of Melancholia, then Sanguis finds the band far out at sea, fighting to stay afloat against the storm that’s raging in their minds. Whereas Part I only scratched at the surface, the epic title track that opens Part II vows to forgive and forget old bloodied wounds. Over the course of nine minutes, cresting cleans and swells of organ from long-time producer and newest member Endre Kirkesola try and wash away the familial wreckage — only for a traumatic childhood memory to come flooding back during the song’s doomy coda.
“Father was boiling, mother was crying / The children left scared in their beds”. A fiery shiver of a riff slowly spirals downward, as if trapped inside a mental hell.
“It paints a pretty grim picture of my childhood”, Sordal says about “Sanguis”. “I do have great memories from that time, too, but parts were very dark. I had some tough issues with my father, but I now know that he had it worse. I didn’t think about that when I was younger, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that there is usually more to the story”.
“It took Stein Roger almost 50 years to understand why his father treated him the way he did”, Nordhus says about his dear bandmate. “He didn’t understand until he had kids of his own and was watching them grow up”.
The heaviness that launched Green Carnation during Part I of A Dark Poem has aged like a fine wine on Sanguis. “Sweet to the Point of Bitter” balances meaty riffs with a pleasing melody and underlying notes of resentment. “You will acknowledge I was broken / Before you came around”. With a guitar solo that winds like the winds of change, “I Am Time” demands immediate recognition. “In your mind, I’m tomorrow / For your sake, I should be today”.
But while “Fire In Ice” stokes the political flames viewed from The Shores of Melancholia with pounding windchills of double bass, Part II reveals Green Carnation at their most raw and vulnerable. As was the case for most of Part I, Sordal penned all the lyrics to Sanguis. However, in a rare appearance not seen since the burden was his alone, he steps to the mic on “Loneliness Untold, Loneliness Unfold”. With an arrangement that’s plucked like the petals of a wilted flower, the song now stands as one of the more barren and stirring in their discography. “Do you want to die?” Sordal poses to a distant familiar of the band. His delicate delivery confirms his fear of already knowing the answer.
“These songs come as they are, with no filter”, Sordal says. “I needed to set these stories free and let them out”.
“Part II deal with personal loss and sadness”, shares Nordhus, though as he’s quick to explain, Sanguis isn’t all gloom and doom. “Those feelings can be almost comforting, like stories you hear about the calm that people experience before they die”. Indeed, if A Dark Poem contains a silver lining, it’s in the creative partnership that’s helped Green Carnation endure for more than three decades. “It would be different if I had only known Stein Roger for two months”, Nordhus continues in explaining how he gives voice to the words of his dear friend. “It’s easy for me to understand and relate to all of his struggles, all of his pleasures and joys, because I’ve been a part of them as well”.
Part II introduces more peaks and valleys into the overarching narrative of A Dark Poem, but nowhere does the album’s bleeding-heart core shine through more achingly than its closing ballad. Graced by Ingrid Ose’s soothing flute, “Lunar Tale” positively sparkles, even as it casts a rather grim beacon into the future. “The end justifies the means, you’ll see”, Nordhus sings with eerily quiet confidence. As the piano seeps beneath the moonlight, Sanguis leaves fans hanging in suspense over where this trilogy will end.
Recording lineup Kjetil Nordhus – Vocals Stein Roger Sordal – Bass, Rhythm Guitars, Lead Guitars, Keyboards, Lead Vocals on “Loneliness Untold, Loneliness Unfold” Bjørn Harstad – Lead Guitars, Effects Endre Kirkesola – Keyboards, Synthesizers, Organs, Effects, Backing Vocals on “Lunar Tale” Jonathan Alejandro Perez – Drums
Guest musicians Ingrid Ose – Flute on “Lunar Tale”
Live lineup Kjetil Nordhus – Vocals Stein Roger Sordal – Bass Tchort – Guitars Bjørn Harstad – Guitars Trond Breen – Guitars Endre Kirkesola – Keyboards
Recording, Mixing & Mastering Studio DUB Studio
Production Credits Producers – Endre Kirkesola, Stein Roger Sordal, Kjetil Nordhus Sound Engineers – Endre Kirkesola, Bjørn Harstad Mixing Engineers – Endre Kirkesola, Bjørn Harstad Mastering Engineer – Lawrence Mackrory
CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX return with “Colder and Colder”, the second advanced single off their upcoming album Sceaduhelm. The new single stands as one of the album’s starkest meditations on emotional finality, articulating the quiet shock of love slipping irretrievably away. The band are premiering the song today via Decibel Magazine.
Composed by Justin Greaves, with lyrics & vocals by Justin Storms of Wailin Storms, “Colder and Colder” unfolds with restrained intensity.
“I received this song from Greaves along with the title and immediately was drawn to the melancholic sound”, Justin Storms reflects. “I remember when I first put on my headphones and listened to ‘Colder and Colder’. I started to hum a few melodies while listening to the song.”
Those early fragments quickly solidified into the song’s core lyrical motif. “It didn’t take long to write down some of the phrases that became the song’s verses,” Storms continues, “‘colder and colder, see your hand on my shoulder, colder and colder, see your eyes looking over’. I wanted to create a rhythmic sort of pattern with the song title and the vocal elements.”
Justin Greaves positions “Colder and Colder” as a bridge within Sceaduhelm. “Musically, ‘Colder And Colder’ is one of my favorites on Sceaduhelm. It’s the link between classic CBP style and the more austere dark pop aspect of how I write.”
The song’s title, which was selected from an existing list of ideas, crystallizes the mood. “Working with Storms on this song was a total victory”, Greaves says. “He’s an awesome vocalist and his lyrics really give it a chilling tragic story.”
Recorded between 2023 and 2025 across Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, Kapsylen Studio in Stockholm, and House Of Foto in Louisville, Sceaduhelm was produced by Justin Greaves, mixed by Iver Sandøy at Solslottet Studio in Bergen, and mastered by Magnus Lindberg in Stockholm.
CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX are approaching a new threshold with Sceaduhelm, an album that withdraws from outward spectacle and turns instead toward interior collapse, exhaustion, and moral attrition. Severe, restrained, and emotionally exposed, the record presents itself not as a dramatic statement but as a slow accumulation of unease. Where earlier works often grappled with collective trauma or historical violence, Sceaduhelm listens to what lingers afterward: fatigue, memory, complicity, and the quiet weight of survival. The result is a unified emotional landscape rather than a narrative concept, marked by repetition, patience, and unresolved tension.
Crippled Black Phoenix was formed in 2004 by multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Justin Greaves, initially conceived as a fluid musical project rather than a fixed band. Emerging from Greaves’ post-Iron Monkey creative reset, the project was built around collaboration, instability, and a refusal of rigid identity. From the outset, Crippled Black Phoenix positioned itself as a voice for the marginalised and dispossessed, whether human or animal, individual or collective. This ethical undercurrent has remained constant throughout the project’s evolution, shaped in close creative partnership with vocalist and lyricist Belinda Kordic, whose role has extended far beyond performance into the wider artistic and conceptual framework of the band.
The band’s early releases established a reputation for long-form compositions, cinematic pacing, and emotional gravity. Albums such as A Love of Shared Disasters and The Resurrectionists introduced a sound rooted in repetition and slow transformation, drawing as much from post-rock and folk traditions as from metal’s sense of weight and endurance. With I, Vigilante in 2012, Crippled Black Phoenix reached a wider audience, refining their songwriting into more direct structures without abandoning their commitment to atmosphere and tension. The album remains a reference point within their catalogue, both for its accessibility and its bleak emotional clarity.
Subsequent releases resisted consolidation. White Light Generator and Bronze expanded the band’s textural range, incorporating harsher dynamics, sharper political commentary, and a more confrontational production approach. Great Escape functioned as both retrospective and re-contextualization, drawing together material from various sessions into a fractured but revealing whole. Throughout this period, the band’s identity remained deliberately unstable, with shifting lineups and an ongoing refusal to settle into a predictable formula.
In 2020, Ellengæst marked another pivot. Built around the use of multiple guest vocalists alongside Kordic, the album explored themes of death, memory, and historical residue, earning recognition for its cohesion and emotional impact. Rather than treating guest contributions as novelty, Crippled Black Phoenix used contrasting voices to deepen the album’s sense of dislocation and grief. The pandemic-era context further sharpened the record’s introspective tone, even as live activity was forced into suspension.
That inward momentum continued with Banefyre, a record concerned explicitly with persecution, inequality, and the violence inflicted on those deemed different by society. Drawing on historical and symbolic imagery, the album balanced outrage with ritual, placing acts of oppression within a broader continuum of human cruelty. Its production embraced rawness and abrasion, reinforcing the band’s long-standing commitment to evolution over repetition. Banefyre reaffirmed Crippled Black Phoenix as a project unwilling to offer comfort or resolution, even as it expanded their sonic and thematic reach.
Sceaduhelm emerges from this lineage as a narrowing of focus rather than a departure. Written primarily between 2023 and 2025, the album developed through uncertainty, self-questioning, and prolonged doubt. The process was deliberately fluid, allowing compositions to remain open and emotionally vulnerable until late in production. Justin Greaves remains the sole composer of the music, with lyrics written after the fact and assigned to voices according to emotional fit rather than hierarchy. Belinda Kordic, Ryan Patterson, and Justin Storms share vocal duties, each occupying a distinct but aligned psychological register.
As with previous releases, Justin Greaves remains the sole composer of the music, each composition emerging from his own emotional and creative impulse. The lyrical dimension is separate and equally personal. The words and themes are written by the vocalists themselves, each lyricist expressing their own feelings, experiences, and perspectives rather than interpreting someone else’s narrative. Belinda Kordic, Ryan Patterson, and Justin Storms each author their own texts, bringing distinct emotional viewpoints into the material.
Lyrically and thematically, Sceaduhelm is preoccupied with exhaustion as a condition rather than a moment, with time framed not as a healer but as an eroding force. Songs address burnout, grief, surveillance, institutional violence, and damaged intimacy, often blurring the line between the personal and the political. Musically, the album favours restraint over release, employing repetition, minimalism, and slow escalation to sustain tension without catharsis. Recorded across multiple locations and mixed with deliberate austerity, the record resists warmth, clarity serving discomfort rather than solace.
Within Crippled Black Phoenix’s wider catalogue, Sceaduhelm does not seek to resolve previous narratives or replicate past high points. Instead, it documents a moment of exposure and endurance, listening closely to what remains when spectacle fades and outrage exhausts itself. It stands as a severe, human record, concerned less with declaration than with persistence, and affirms once more the band’s refusal to stand still, soften its gaze, or offer easy answers.
Keyboardist Derek Sherinian and legendary guitarist Michael Schenker were recently honored in Japan’s Burrn! Magazine 2025 Readers’ Poll, with Sherinian winning the Best Keyboardist award for the fourth consecutive year (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025), in addition to his previous win in 2020.
Sherinian’s four consecutive wins tie him with the legendary Jon Lord of Deep Purple, who also achieved a four-year winning streak in the Burrn! readers’ poll from 1984 through 1987.
Schenker also recently returned to Tokyo’s legendary Nippon Budokan for a sold-out performance — his first headlining show at the venue in 30 years — with Sherinian performing in the band, further connecting the two artists following their recognition in the Burrn! readers’ poll.
Sherinian has also received major international recognition for his playing, having been voted “Greatest Keyboardist of the 21st Century” and ranked #8 “Greatest Keyboardist of All Time” by MusicRadar, while Prog Magazine ranked him #9 Greatest Keyboardist of All Time.
Sherinian has distinguished himself through his versatility and aggressive, “guitaristic” keyboard approach. MusicRadar noted, “His virtuoso playing has seen him dubbed the keyboard-playing version of Eddie Van Halen.” David Coverdale has said that “Derek plays the Hammond organ like the son of Jon Lord,” while Glenn Hughes called him “the best living rock keyboardist.”
Beginning his professional career with Alice Cooper on the Trashes The World tour in 1989, Sherinian went on to tour and record with KISS, Dream Theater, Yngwie Malmsteen, Billy Idol, and Whitesnake. He has released nine solo albums and co-founded the progressive bands Planet X and Sons of Apollo, and is currently a member of the supergroup Black Country Communion, alongside Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes, and Jason Bonham.
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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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