Swedish hard rockers HORISONT are pleased to announce their first ever United States tour! Special guests on this run will be Ohio heavy rock act ELECTRIC CITIZEN. All dates below.
“America! Hide your beer and lock up your parents because for the first time in human history, Horisont is crossing the Atlantic! We will leave you heartbroken and crying for more but rest assured, it will be worth it. With the help of the mighty Electric Citizen, we will make sure that a couple of very lucky cities will never again, be the same. See you fuckers in November! BAM!” comments the band on the upcoming tour.
Founded in 2006, HORISONT spent nearly a decade riffing their way to the front lines of the Scandinavian retro-rock revival movement. Infusing nostaligcally delicious retro with prog complexities and a touch of NWOBHM swagger; HORISONT stood out alongside peers such as Witchcraft and Graveyard. This quickly caught the attention of Century Media Records, who inked their brand new deal just as the band released their fourth full length album, Odyssey and corresponding 6 week tour across Europe with Kadavar and now label-mates, The Shrine. In addition to gearing up for their United States tour, HORISONT are already working on unleashing a brand new album! Stay tuned for more tour dates and recording details.
HORISONT live 2016 w/ Electric Citizen
10.31.16 Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
11.01.16 New York, NY – Studio at Webster Hall
11.02.16 Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
11.02.16 Chicago, IL – Reggie’s Rock Club
11.06.16 Rock Island, IL – Rock Island Brewing Company
11.07.16 Denver, CO – Marquis Theater
11.10.16 Oakland, CA – Starline Social Club
11.13.16 San Diego, CA – Soda Bar
11.14.16 Mesa, AZ – Club Red
11.16.16 Dallas, TX – The Curtain Club Dallas
11.17.16 Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
11.20.16 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade
11.22.16 Philadelphia, PA – Voltage Lounge
My Kingdom Music has revealed details of “Welcome the Dead”, the seventh full-length album from Norwegian Black Metallers CREST OF DARKNESS, which is set to hit the streets on the 2nd December in both CD and Digital formats, as well as a double LP format which will feature a special bonus track.
Recorded at the at MLP Studio by Nils H. Mæhlum, and mastered at the Kvålsonic Lab by Tom Kvålsvoll, the nine-track album promises to be the heaviest, darkest and most introspective album in the band’s twenty plus year history.
The artwork for “Welcome the Dead” features the extraordinary Zombie Foetus sculptures created by the Italian artist Andrea Falaschi. Tracklisting as follows:
1. Welcome The Dead
2. Chosen By The Devil
3. Scourged And Crucified
4. My Black Bride
5. Borrowed Life
6. The Almighty
7. Memento Mori
8. The Noble Art
9. Katharsis
CREST OF DARKNESS’ lineup, includes founder and frontman Ingar Amlien (ROQUEFIRE, CONCEPTION, AMLIEN’s INFERNO) on bass and vocals, Rebo on guitars, Bernhard (ex- PALE FOREST) on drums, and Kristian Wentzel on keyboards. Earlier this year Amlien admitted that he sees “Welcome the Dead” as having a special significance for him personally: ” I’ve put a hell of a lot of myself and my emotions into this album, even more so than usual. I’ve always felt that when we are on stage, we create a sort of magic, and this time we have been able to transfer that magic to the recordings. You could say this is my personal Black Mass”.
Under The Black Sun Festival, set to take place on June 29th – July 1st, is still busy to enlarge the billing for it’s anniversary edition in 2017. Recently CRYFEMAL, STREAMS OF BLOOD and HETROERTZEN were confirmed, now another underground hilight is ready: MONARQUE from Canada will enter the stage at the woods outside from Berlin next year.
The current billing for Under The Black Sun 2017 looks like this:
CRYFEMAL
DARKENED NOCTURN SLAUGHTERCULT
HETROERTZEN
INFERNO
KULT
NOCTURNAL DEPRESSION
STREAMS OF BLOOD
THE RUINS OF BEVERAST
A KILLERS CONFESSION, the new project of former Mushroomhead vocalist Waylon Reavis, has released a 1:30 studio teaser of their debut single “A Killer’s Confession” on REVERBNATION. The single, which will be released on Halloween, comes from the debut full-length, “Unbroken”, being released in early 2017 on (Megadeth bassist David Ellefson’s) EMP Label Group.
Due to overwhelming fan interest, AKC has also announced an “Early Bird” CD and LP Pre-order, available now from empmerch.com.
From Waylon Reavis Facebook: “We got SO many of you blowing us up in comments and messages this week asking if you can pre-order #UNBROKEN, or how to support it being made, that we talked to EMP (Label Group), and decided to launch a special early bird pre-order that is available NOW! So RIGHT NOW you can pre-order CD or LP versions of #UNBROKEN, and get the “A Killer’s Confession” single on 10/29, 2 days before it hits online retailers. Thank you so much for your support, it means the World to us. #AKC #UNBROKEN.”
REAVIS livestreamed on FACEBOOK live from Third Sky Studios in Richmond, KY this weekend, and gave fans a preview of the track and announced the single and pre-order. It was also announced that album art for UNBROKEN is being done by legendary horror artist “Mister Sam” Shearon, responsible for artwork for Rob Zombie, Fear Factory, Rammstein, Iron Maiden, Arise In Chaos, Clive Barker (Books of Blood, Hellraiser), IDW Publishing (KISS, MARS ATTACKS, THE X-FILES, JUDGE DREDD) and more.
UNBROKEN is being Co-Produced by Reavis and EMP’s Thom Hazaert, with Engineer/Mixer Richard Easterling (American Head Charge, Doll Skin, Emperors and Elephants) at Richmond, KY’s THIRD SKY STUDIO, responsible for recent releases from American Head Charge (Tango Umbrella), Doll Skin (Furious Fixation), Tantric, and more.
REAVIS was co-vocalist for MUSHROOMHEAD from 2004 to 2015, and appears on the albums Savior Sorrow (2006), Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children (2010), and The Righteous & The Butterfly (2014), as well as other projects including TENAFLY VIPER, which also featured former Chimaira bassist Jim LaMarca.
TRIUMPH guitarist RIK EMMET & RESolution9 have teamed up with Metal Shock Finland to premiere for Finland the band’s official lyric video “Human Race”, taken from their electrifying new album “RES 9”, coming out worldwide on November 11th, via Mascot Label Group. The album features contributions from RUSH guitarist Alex Lifeson, DREAM THEATER vocalist James LaBrie, and Rik Emmett’s onetime TRIUMPH bandmates, bassist Mike Levine and drummer Gil Moore.
Comments Tarja Virmakari, Metal Shock Finland‘s CEO/Founder/President:
“Metal Shock Finland has a huge pleasure to premiere for Finland this awesome pearl of classic rock, “Human Race”! Each note and riff tell about the high class style and skill to dominate the genre. If this is what the “RES 9″ album is about, I’m surely looking forward to enjoy it fully!”
Watch the video here:
“This album represents a journey through my life,” Emmett observes, “and the idea behind a lot of these songs is me trying to figure out who I am, and why I’m doing what I’m doing. There’s a common thread of positivity here that ties into the records I was making 30 years ago. What did I learn from making them? You’ll hear all of that echoed in the grooves of this album.”
Indeed, the scope of the 11 deeply heartfelt songs on RES 9 covers a lot of exciting aural ground, from the out-of-the-gate gallop of “Human Race” (which also features a driving 12-string contribution from Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson) to the testifying tones of “My Cathedral” to the whispering blues of “The Ghost of Shadow Town,” not to mention the cutting-heads guitar duels on “End of the Line” and the touching album-closing bonus track “Grand Parade,” which reunites Emmett with his onetime Triumph bandmates, bassist Mike Levine and drummer Gil Moore. The RESolution9 band itself is comprised of Rik’s touring quartet, with Dave Dunlop on guitar, Steve Skingley on bass and keyboards, and Paul DeLong on drums. Dunlop and Skingley also co-produced RES 9 with Emmett.
Emmett is a strong believer in teamwork, and to him, the overall vibe of RES 9 is clearly reflected in the brotherhood and camaraderie shared amongst all the artists who made this special music together. “You can’t accomplish this kind of project 100 percent by yourself,” Emmett believes. “It takes a lot of things working together to make something like this happen. I come back to the old saying that goes, ‘Success has many fathers, and failure is an orphan.’ I knew that I had to spread it all around. It’s important I keep the guys in my band pretty happy.”
Lead track “Human Race” masterfully sets the positivity table for what’s to come. “I’ve been around the block a few times, and one of the things I like about the lyrics in ‘Human Race’ is when we get to the last verse where it says, ‘I am still this guy. I still live this.’ That’s very true,” Emmett acknowledges. “There’s also a line in there about raising a joyful noise — and I still want to do that too.”
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson added some period-perfect 12-string guitar alongside Emmett and Dunlop to buttress the impact of “Human Race,” and he says he found it quite an honor to play with and for his lifelong friend. “When Rik asked me to play on his new album, I didn’t hesitate for a second,” Lifeson reports. “He’s the consummate musician, a wonderful guitarist, and a terrific person, and it’s always my pleasure to work with him any chance I can get. There is a rock purity in his songwriting and performance, and it’s just so much fun to get together and throw ideas around. He’s always so up and open for anything — even a notoriously uncooperative Rickenbacker 12-string!” Dunlop points out the way RESolution9 meshed with Lifeson “stands as a great example of the collective efforts of the brotherhood.”
Another one of RES 9’s honored guests, Dream Theater vocalist James LaBrie, lent his own considerable talents to a pair of tracks, “I Sing” and “End of the Line” (the latter of which also features Lifeson taking the third guitar solo), and he jumped at the chance to record with his fellow Canadian. “I’ve been extremely blessed and fortunate to meet so many great musicians and beautiful people throughout my career, and to have the opportunity to collaborate and record with some of them is really icing on the cake,” LaBrie notes. “What a thrill it was to record with Rik, who is such an incredible musician and overall down-to-earth cool guy.” About the slow-build manifesto of “I Sing,” Skingley enthuses, “James sang his ass off on that song!” Adds Dunlop, “I enjoyed tracking the guitars on ‘I Sing’ the most because I got to go crazy with several layers of guitars — and I also got to channel [Pink Floyd’s] David Gilmour on the outro.”
A fair amount of the album was recorded and mixed at Mississauga, Ontario’s MetalWorks Studios, a location where Emmett, Levine, and Moore (who owns the studio) recorded many of Triumph’s greatest works — and it’s also where the trio convened to tackle “Grand Parade.” Clarifies Emmett, “The Triumph song is a bonus track. That’s the best way to position it. It’s like ‘Suitcase Blues’ [the last track on Triumph’s 1979 million-seller, Just a Game] — or ‘Her Majesty’ at the end of Abbey Road!”
Having Triumph involved on RES 9 to some degree was always on the table. “I play ‘Suitcase Blues’ as the last song of the night in the encore for my acoustic shows. I dedicate it to Mike and Gil and the fact that they gave me the latitude to do the crazy things that I do,” Emmett laughs. “As I was developing the lyrics for ‘Grand Parade,’ I started thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I could get Mike and Gil to play on it? Wouldn’t that just bring everything full circle?’ One thing led to another, and there we were, recording in MetalWorks. Things just lined up perfectly.”
Levine had a great time in the studio with his former bandmates. “We rocked it up a bit, and Gil made the drums heavier than they were on the demo,” the bassist notes. “Once I paid deeper attention to the lyrics, I really got into the ‘let’s wrap up this late night’ kind of feel to it. I think it turned out really fantastic. I told Rik I felt it was a really cool tune, one that was very personal for all of us. I’m really, really proud of it, and it was great to work with both Rik and Gil on it. It was really neat.”
Moore wholly enjoyed the “Grand Parade” experience. “It was really a pleasure to have Rik and his band at MetalWorks, and getting to see him there every day was just like the old days,” the drummer recounts. “I always liked how Rik was able to bring another dimension and another color palette to what we were doing, and I like the spacious bass and drum tracks we did together. That’s what’s always been in my wheelhouse, as far as my playing is concerned. I’m really happy with how this song turned out. I hope we get to do it again.”
Emmett’s ultimate goal for RES 9 is to connect with as many people as possible. “The context of this entire album for me was, ‘Wow, somebody tossed me a lifeline,’” he concludes. “I still want to make positive music and offer people something that’s motivating and inspiring — and I want to do it for myself too. I need music, and music can provide that lifeline for me.” Mission accomplished: “I’ve got a thirst for life,” as Emmett sings on “Human Race.”
And you’ll find that thirst being quenched quite handily in the very heartbeats that percolate within all 11 tracks of RES 9. Drink up.
Rik Emmett with Alex Lifeson, James LaBrie, Gil Moore, Dave Dunlop and Steve Skingley – Photo by Mark Weiss
“RES 9” Tracklist:
Stand Still
Human Race (feat. Alex Lifeson)
I Sing (feat. James LaBrie)
My Cathedral
The Ghost of Shadow Town
When You Were My Baby
Sweet Tooth
Heads Up
Rest of My Life
End of the Line
(feat. Alex Lifeson & James LaBrie)
Grand Parade
(feat. Gil Moore & Mike Levine) [bonus track]
Rik Emmett & RESolution9 is:
Rik Emmett – Guitar & Vocals
Dave Dunlop – Guitar
Steve Skingley – Bass & Keyboards
Paul DeLong – Drums
Masterminds and epic creators of the symphonic metal scene, EPICA, have worked hard to pump the blood in the heart of metal music once more and are set to see the release of their newest album on September 30th. “The Holographic Principle” is another epical masterpiece from the band, which is a crossover between symphonic, progressive, power and thrash metal, as well as modern production meets old school elements.
The band will also hit the road and skies to support this album with a huge tour around the world. I recently had a chance to have an interview with guitar player and growl screamer, Mark Jansen, where we could talk about EPICA, “The Holographic Principle”, science fiction movies and much more. You can check out what he had to say on the audio player below, along with a few excerpts:
“The Holographic Principle” will be the band’s seventh studio album, which will be released via Nuclear Blast. But how is Mark feeling about the forthcoming album release?:
“I’m really excited and I cannot wait any more, because it was already finished by the end of May and then you have to do all the promo activities and also the video clip shoots and the label needs time for the preparation of the album.
And now finally we’re almost there, it’s just a matter of two weeks now, so getting really excited.”
EPICA‘s new album won’t only be a sacred number in their brilliant discography, but a record “bigger” and more complex than previous ones. I asked Mark about the difficulties during writing and producing this album, he answered:
“I must say everything went extremely smooth, so we had no real big things. The only thing that happened was basically in the end of the recordings when we were going to mix the album, we sent all the material to our mixer Jacob Hansen and we already prepared him that it would be quite some work, because we recorded so many instruments. Some songs were about a thousand tracks for just one song. So, we wrote him be prepared and start in time as it’s going to be a lot of work and he got the material and he was instantly sick one week! (laughs)
So, we were all the time on schedule, then maybe he got a very big shock when he received all that material and then he thought ‘shit I cannot handle this, I’m sick!’ But after one week he was recovered and he started to work and basically we managed to finish the album in time. We had some listening sessions that were not with the full album, but I think everything happens for a reason and the album turned out with different songs than we initially thought. So we are happy now with the songs we have on the album, this is the way it’s meant to be I think.”
Just like any other great album, this one is also accompanied with wonderful artwork, full of eye catching details and regarding that, Mark stated:
“It’s Stefan Heilemann, it’s a guy that we work already with for four albums now and he’s always amazing us with his work. He gets the lyrics upfront with a brief description of what the lyrics are about and then he starts working. With The Quantum Enigma already he came up with great artwork, this time with The Holographic Principle it took him a bit longer because he was looking how to start. But once he was on the right track, he started working for one week nonstop and presented us with this great piece of art.
You can find many nice little details and that’s the good thing about covers, when there are some details that you only notice when you look long enough at it and there’s a few of them on this cover as well.”
EPICA‘s tour for supporting “The Holographic Principle” will start soon and it is going to be a big tour around the world. From Brazil to the UK and from New York to their homeland, the Netherlands they are going to travel far and beyond to celebrate another year of being together. The journey will be long and probably with some difficulties which obviously won’t be unfamiliar to the band, but I asked Mark about it and he answered: “It’s sometimes hard, but it’s the way you look at it – there’s hard things with every job in life and easy things. The hardest thing for being on the road is the flights, because that’s very tiring and you have to go through security every time and it’s a hassle, it’s a pain in the ass, it’s stressy. It’s also boring because you have to wait often very long. But the good side of touring is that you get to see so many places in the world, you meet many different people, you play live shows, that’s last but not least.
That’s what makes it worth it, when you play the music in front of your fans and you see the happiness on their faces – that makes up for all the troubles facing travelling.”
