Photo by Tina Korhonen, astrophotography courtesy of Giancarlo Erra
The new single from UK metalheads ORANGE GOBLIN’s hugely anticipated new album Science, Not Fiction is out today. The track, titled ‘The Fire at the Centre of the Earth is Mine’, follows ‘(Not) Rocket Science’ and ‘Cemetary Rats’ as the third single to be taken from the album and is accompanied by a new lyric video by Matt Vickerstaff which you can watch below.
Speaking about the new track, singer and lyricist Ben Ward said, “We are very proud to present our new single ‘The Fire at the Centre of the Earth is Mine’. We consider this a very ‘typical’ Orange Goblin song…uptempo, melodic and instantly catchy, with all the ingredients of classic Heavy Metal! it’s the perfect way to kickstart the new Orange Goblin album! Lyrically, it’s about how we can’t change our past, but as the rest of the world is seemingly falling apart, we all have a chance to change our future. We are very excited about adding this banger to the live set at future shows!”
Science, Not Fiction will be released on 19th July on the following formats:
CD Deluxe with Bonus track presented in a digipack with a 20-page booklet
Limited Edition Gatefold 2LP Green and Black Marble vinyl edition available exclusively from the band & Peaceville stores
Orange Goblin – UK & Ireland tour 2024 Friday 4 October – Opium, Dublin Saturday 5 October – Limelight 2 – Belfast Sunday – 6 October – King Tut’s – Glasgow Tuesday 8 October – Gorilla – Manchester Wednesday 9 October – KK’s Steel Mill – Wolverhampton Thursday 10 October – The Fleece – Bristol Friday 11 October – The 1865 – Southampton Saturday 12 October – The Dome – London
Michael Schenker announces new album ‘My Years with UFO’ celebrating the 50th anniversary of Schenker’s years with UFO. The first Single ‘Mother Mary’ featuring Slash and Eric Grönwall is out now and released through earMUSIC.
Guitar phenomenon Michael Schenker is set to revisit his iconic past with a new album ‘My Years with UFO’ which will be released on September 20th. The album reimagines classic UFO hits, celebrating his 50th anniversary alongside today’s rock elite.
Produced by Michael Schenker and Michael Voss, the new album marks the 50th anniversary of Schenker’s groundbreaking era with UFO, spanning from 1972 to 1978—a period that brought the English hard rock band international acclaim and cemented their place in rock ‘n’ roll history.
In this celebratory album, Michael Schenker re-records 11 of UFO’s greatest hits from this magical era, infusing new life into the classics with an impressive lineup of guest stars. Joining Schenker on this journey are Derek Sherinian on keys, Brian Tichy on drums, and Barry Sparks on bass. The album boasts a stellar roster of guest artists, including Axl Rose, Slash, Kai Hansen, Roger Glover, Joey Tempest, Biff Byford, Jeff Scott Soto, John Norum, Dee Snider, Joel Hoekstra, Joe Lynn Turner, Carmine Appice, Adrian Vandenberg, Stephen Pearcy, and Erik Grönwall.
The first single ‘Mother Mary’ featuringSlash andGrönwall is out now.
This album is the introduction to an upcoming trilogy as Michael Schenker signed an exclusive three-album-deal with earMUSIC, with albums to be followed in 2025 and 2026.
Following this year’s Cruise To The Edge, Big Big Train travelled to Sweetwater Studios in Fort Wayne, Indiana to take part in a recording and mixing session run by Sweetwater chief engineer, Shawn Dealey. This session gave the band an opportunity to record an alternative version of Last Eleven, the closing song on this year’s acclaimed The Likes Of Us studio album. You can listen to the Sweetwater version of Last Eleven, which has been mixed by Shawn, here: https://bigbigtrain.lnk.to/LastEleven-SweetwaterLiveVersion
Shawn has previously worked with artists including Steve Hackett, Spock’s Beard, Animals As Leaders, Counting Crows, Jared James Nichols, Bootsy Collins, Beth Hart and many more. You can read more about Shawn here: https://sweetwaterstudios.com/about-us
Lead vocalist Alberto Bravin comments: “Having rehearsed at Sweetwater before our USA shows and Cruise To The Edge in March, it was wonderful to return there for a recording session. It was interesting to take an alternative approach to Last Eleven, which differs significantly from the version released on The Likes Of Us album. We really enjoyed working with Shawn in Sweetwater’s amazing studios and hope to return there again in the future.”
Drummer Nick D’Virgilio adds: “I really get into how songs make me feel and this version of Last Eleven, with its mellow beginning, has such a great vibe to it. Not that the original has anything wrong with it at all! I just like how the story in the song now comes across. It starts mellow, revs up and gets powerful, then ends mellow again. It also showcases some wonderful vocals.”
Guitarist/keyboardist Rikard Sjöblom says: “We had this idea to take it down in the first verse, which I think turned out really sweet! I ended up doing the intro on acoustic guitar, with Oskar [Holldorff, keyboards] on Fender Rhodes and Clare [Lindley] adding some nice violin lines, which turned Last Eleven into a different song for me. I also played some electric baritone guitar later in the song too, which added some further flavour to the overall sound. I think I like this new version even better than the original!”
Big Big Train headline the final Night Of The Prog festival in Germany on 21st July before making their debut at the renowned Cropredy Festival in the UK on 9th August. The band then undertake their own headline tour in September and October, playing 13 shows across the UK and Europe, before returning to co-headline Cruise To The Edge in April next year.
21st July – Night of the Prog, Loreley, Germany 9th August – Cropredy Festival, Oxfordshire, UK 17th September – Wyvern Theatre, Swindon, UK 18th September – The Riverfront, Newport, UK 19th September – Playhouse Theatre, Whitley Bay, UK 21st September – Queens Hall, Edinburgh, UK 22nd September – Palace Theatre, Newark, UK 24th September – Stables Theatre, Milton Keynes, UK – SOLD OUT 25th September – The Stoller Hall, Manchester, UK – SOLD OUT 27th September – Stadthalle, Weinheim, Germany 28th September – Boerderij, Zoetermeer, Netherlands 29th September – Boerderij, Zoetermeer, Netherlands 1st October – Cosmopolite, Oslo, Norway 2nd October – Viften, Copenhagen, Denmark 5th October – Cadogan Hall, London, UK
UK’s battle doom giants CONAN join the Heavy Psych Sounds roster for the release of their next two albums, with the first to be released in the spring of 2025.
About signing to Heavy Psych Sounds, the band says: “We are delighted to announce we will release our next album on Heavy Psych Sounds. We have watched the label grow in both size and stature, and watched awesome bands join, and we feel that now is the right time to join too. Gabe and the team have a hands-on approach with appeals to us, and we’re excited to explore this new relationship.“CONAN’s doom is singular. Carved of granite. Of course, there have been changes since guitarist/vocalist Jon Davis founded the group in 2006, but the intention at the time toward superlative heavy — tonal extremity wrought with impressionist lyrics stripping ideas to the core where sometimes the whole line is just one word; they’ve always called it “Caveman Battle Doom” – remains at the root of everything they’ve done since. And across five studio records between 2012 and 2022, CONAN have set the standard by which much of “heavy” anything is judged. In comparison, most are found wanting.
For every time you’ve heard about CONAN’s music being about galloping steeds or frost-covered sharp-peaked mountains, imagery of largesse and violence, the truth is Conan are an exercise in frequency. It’s the low resonance that shakes your chest, the depth of the bass – now handled by David Ryley (ex-Fudge Tunnel) – the push of air from Johnny King’s kick drum, or the way the dark-fuzz distortion of Jon Davis’ guitar is offset by shouting vocals cutting through that sometimes punishing onslaught, rarely to offer comfort so much as add viciousness to the crash, plod and pillage.
In 2024, CONAN sign to Heavy Psych Sounds as a recognized name and one of the foremost acts of their generation, wildly influential in their home country of the UK and well beyond; headliners in practice and theory alike. Their fifth LP, 2022’s ‘Evidence of Immortality,’ brought a dark ambience to coincide with its outright attack. With experiments in darkwave and synth adding breadth to the stated root purpose of aural force, it’s never been harder to guess where the next few years might take their sound, but whatever’s coming, CONAN will make it kill. The better part of two decades later, their reliability remains unshakable. Which you want when your band is so heavy that the floor and your ribcage both start to vibrate. — Words by JJ Koczan
On this occasion, Conan have unveiled new merch designed by Branca Studio and Mirkow Gastow, which can be purchased now via Heavy Psych Sounds EU store and US store.
CONAN is Jon Davis – Vocals/Guitars Johnny King – Drums David Ryley – Bass
2024 is set to be a historic year, especially for Italian cult progressive metallers ATHENA XIX: formerly known as ATHENA, they are re-united with front-man and founding member Fabio Lione, who is also the vocalist of their labelmates ANGRA among others. Lione‘s return marks a new era for the band as they’re preparing the release of their much-anticipated fourth studio album which is due out later this year through Reigning Phoenix Music (RPM). While fans have been waiting impatiently for further details to be shared, ATHENA XIX finally present a first musical sign of life, titled ‘The Conscience Of Everything,’ today.
The band state, “This song deals with humanity in all its iterations, leading listeners through a world filled with complex melodies and deep instropection. This opus is much more of an experience than a mere song and also only the beginning of our common journey. Abandon yourselves!”
Don’t forget to subscribe to Reigning Phoenix Music on YouTube to stay updated and listen to ‘The Conscience Of Everything’ along with other new tracks in the “RPM New Releases” playlist on Spotify. Subscribe here: https://rpm.link/spotifynewreleasesPR.
About ATHENA XIX
Originating in 1991, ATHENA released their most successful album to date, “A New Religion?,” in 1998 – still recognised and appropriately rewarded as the best prog metal album of an Italian band ever. The original band members finally re-united in 2019 — after several line-up changes and a hiatus — writing new songs which will be released later this year via Reigning Phoenix Music (RPM).
The rock ‘n’ roll landscape is still shaking from the news: after eight years of searching, Anciients have emerged from the Canadian wilderness. The heady and hearty Canucks recently announced Beyond the Reach of the Sun, their first album since winning the coveted JUNO Award for Metal/Hard Rock.
Today, Kenny Cook, Mike Hannay and their new cast of shredders are releasing a smooth but still positively crushing guitar playthrough for their new album’s second single. “Cloak of the Vast and Black” sheds light on the darkness that nearly overshadowed Beyond the Reach of the Sun by blazing a new trail with the same spirit that’s made them a guiding light for progressive metal.
The video for the guitar playthrough of “Cloak of the Vast and Black” was directed, filmed and edited by Claine Gorgoth Lamb (@claines_world).
Ask any hard rock enthusiast about Anciients and their shock and awe might lead you to believe they were describing Big Foot. The band left a sizable imprint on the scene after just two albums, but then seemingly disappeared without a trace. So what led them to go into hibernation?
“Basically, right after Voice of the Void was recorded my wife had our first kid”, says Kenny Cook, who on top of vocal and guitar duties also handles the bulk of the band’s songwriting. “She ended up having heart complications and almost died”. Everyone is happy and healthy now, but caring for his wife and new baby put a lot of stress on the typically laid-back frontman’s mountainous shoulders. “It was a bit of a road”.
“Cloak of the Vast and Black” also comes out of the shadows. The first single from Beyond the Reach of the Sun began by leading us through a field of bright keys and folksy acoustic plucks, but this time around, the guitars are so dimmed with reverb that even the leads twist and turn as if trying to navigate maze-like cave tunnels.
“This song is about mental illness and living under the cloak of depression”, Cook says. But despite the many bumps in the road over the last eight years, like the high beams of a monster truck, Anciients found a way to come barreling out of the darkness. Just as the playthrough video bursts into full-blown color, the band strike upon a riff that burns as fast as a stick of dynamite.
“Searching for a new way of life“, Cook growls with renewed force, as if awoken by the sudden explosion of psychedelic power chords.
The concept behind Beyond the Reach of the Sun does venture into heady territory. Society is enslaved by forces from another dimension who are so towering in their tyranny that they blot out the sun. Still, at its core, Anciient’s third album is about perseverance. Cook’s road is a little easier to envision. “Working on these songs helped clear the negativity that had clouded my thoughts”, he says. But the albums’ narrative arc winds up floating in the same enlightened headspace.
“Ancient knowledge buried deep in the sands of time“, Cook sings, practically beaming as Dead Quiet axeman Brock MacInnes shreds a dizzying alternate guitar lead right beside him. “Awake on the other side“.
Of course, headbanging helped, but Cook credits his bandmates for helping him see through Beyond the Reach of the Sun. Mike Hannay can still kick down the door to any metalhead’s mind with a well-timed blast beat, but by the time “Cloak of the Vast and Black” finally tapers off, he’s locked into such a massive flow state with new bassist Rory O’Brien, that Anciients sound like pre-historic giants who’ve returned to roam the earth.
“The hiatus is over” Cook says. “We missed out on a huge block after the last record. But with a new album to go along with our new band members, we’re ready to hit it hard“.
To celebrate the coming of Beyond the Reach of the Sun, this fall, Anciients will play three record release shows in their native British Columbia. This special run includes one night at The Rickshaw Theatre in the band’s hometown of Vancouver.
“We are beyond excited to play our new album in a live setting for the very first time,” Cook says about the band’s upcoming shows. “It’s going to be epic! More show announcements are coming soon”.
Anciients will be supported by five fellow Canadian bands: metal-punks Fearbirds, progressive metalheads Black Thunder, metal stoners Waingro, thrashy death metal trio Bloodrhine and post-metal doomsayers Empress.
Anciients Beyond the Reach of the Sun Record Release Shows
September 20 – Victoria, BC @ Lucky Bar with Fearbirds and Black Thunder [TICKETS] September 21 – Nanaimo, BC @ The Queens with Fearbirds and Black Thunder [TICKETS] September 27 – Vancouver, BC @ The Rickshaw Theatre with Waingro, Bloodrhine and Empress [TICKETS]
Tracklist 1. Forbidden Sanctuary (8:16) 2. Despoiled (5:19) 3. Is It Your God (7:07) 4. Melt the Crown (7:08) [WATCH] 5. Cloak of the Vast and Black (6:20) [WATCH] 6. Celestial Tyrant (5:52) 7.Beyond Our Minds (4:12) 8. The Torch (4:13) 9. Candescence (4:10) 10. In the Absence of Wisom (6:35)
It’s been a rough handful of years for British Columbia-based extremity-laced progressive rockers, Anciients. When the quartet unleashed their Voice of the Void album in 2016, the world appeared to be their oyster and things seemed ripe for the picking. They were coming off the success of their Heart of Oak debut from 2013, its ascendancy due in large part to a collective uptick in interest for involved, forward-thinking music. The public had moved beyond toe-dipping and tire-kicking, and were instead doing headfirst dives into exploring the likes of Opeth, Mastodon, Baroness, The Ocean, Intronaut and others who originally hailed from the extreme music underground, but had since grown, matured and scrubbed behind their ears to include heaping and healthy chunks from the outskirts of their record collections and influence pools.
The Band That Auto-Correct Loves to Fuck With™ shared stages with everyone from High on Fire and Goatwhore to Boris and Lamb of God, were in the midst of a European tour when they discovered they were JUNO Award (Canadian Grammy equivalent) winners in the heavy metal/hard rock category. The world was ready to accept Anciients into its welcoming arms. Anciients was gearing up to employ takeover methods, specifically their brand of thunderous rhythms and labyrinthine riffing bolstered by a road warrior mentality. And then, the momentum petered out and the band seemingly fell off the face of the earth.
Today, Anciients are ready and poised to resume their spirited quest for heavy metal paramountcy. There’s no doubt the band is back and with a stunning and beautiful collection of ten songs on offer in the form of new and third album, Beyond the Reach of the Sun, they are positioning to reestablish themselves as a dominant force for those who love windmilling their tresses around thoughtful tempo changes, complex harmonic layers and driving power chord shifting. But what the hell happened and where did they disappear to?
“Basically,” explains guitarist/vocalist Kenny Cook, “right before Voice of the Void was recorded, my wife had our first kid. She ended up having heart complications and almost passed away from it. We recorded the last record and once it came out, I was kind of just focusing on her, dealing with her health issues and keeping that in check. I wasn’t at the stage where I could be gone for half a year, especially with a new kid. Long story short, she’s happy and healthy now, but dealing with family issues was the main priority. It was a bit of a road.”
Adding to that bit of Anciients camp turmoil, guitarist/co-vocalist/co-founding member, Chris Dyck and the band parted ways in January of 2017. This left a gaping lineup hole at an inopportune juncture in the band’s timeline. Not only did Cook have to deal with the absence of his long-term song and lyric writing partner, but Dyck was also someone he had been splitting vocal duties with since the pair formed the band in 2009. And then, while helping his wife with her recovery, raising their new born and “because we wanted to raise our son in a small town environment,” the Cook family uprooted to Columbia-Shuswap four hours east of the Vancouver area, where drummer Mike Hannay, Brock MacInnes (Dyck’s replacement) and brand spanking new bassist Rory O’Brien still reside.
“We knew Brock from other bands he’d been in and we knew he’d be a great fit,” explains Cook. “He actually filled in for Chris on a tour we did back in 2015. As far as the vocals, I just found myself picking up the slack on both ends. It felt somewhat natural, it was definitely different. Doing the lyrics myself for the first time was somewhat daunting, but it was also something done out of necessity. But even when Chris was in the band I handled 80-90% of the vocals anyway, so it didn’t change all that much.”
Then, that whole COVID-19 thing you probably heard about once or twice hit in 2020 and put another restraining bolt on Anciients’ activity, especially touring as the Canadians found themselves dealing with stricter travel restrictions and mandates than many other countries; most notably, not being able to cross the border for almost two years. Once the dust settled, Cook had to adjust to being the lone vocalist and how that impacted the material he was writing while navigating being creative with distance between Anciients’ members for the first time. Not a biggie, as in-person writing sessions are more of a rarity these days, but because of the time elapsed since Voices of the Void, things/interests/influences changed and the band ended up scrapping half of an album’s worth of material and starting fresh. When they put their heads down at the end of 2021 with the focus being Beyond the Reach of the Sun, what was revealed a year later was more streamlined and slithery, more chest-thumpingly direct, more epic and triumphant sounding. Riffs come in explosive layered packets. Leads, harmonies and melodies are more on par with wind-tussled mountain tops instead of sweaty bar shows and the band moves with finely honed, martial accuracy as conducted by Hannay’s rocket-in-the-pocket staccato swing and accents.
Songs like “The Torch” blaze with the shirtless glisten of ‘70s stadium rock power. “Cloak of the Vast and Black” swirls and whirls with a combination of hardcore intensity, grunge groove and expansive six-string parries. “In the Absence of Wisdom” is a hurricane-sized maelstrom of classic and prog rock elevated to grandiosity by a return to their growling sludge/death early years as the song/album concludes. The album’s first single, “Melt the Crown” mixes cues from legendary fellow hosers Rush and Harlequin, turn-of-the-millennium post-metal and the most psychedelic corners of the Rise Above Records roster.
“The new record has a lot more of our rock side,” Cook offers, “and leans towards those elements of our sound and personalities, whereas Voice of the Void was pretty crushing all the way through. With the new material we’ve tried to add more dynamics to the music and give the songs more room to breathe.”
Album opener “Forbidden Sanctuary” is the soundtrack to exploration, of new worlds and sonic arrangement as sine-wave guitars pull from vintage Mercyful Fate covens and Krautrock communes with synths opening up novel textural avenues, as they do on the ethereal wispiness and space rock/sci-fi soundscapes of the instrumental “Candescence.” Beyond the Reach of the Sun sees synths and keyboards making their first appearance on an Anciients record and were played by producer/mixer Jesse Gander and Justin Hagberg at the former’s Rain City Recorders studio. In addition to augmenting the album with his skill on the black and whites, Hagberg — a member of the recently reunited 3 Inches of Blood — also helped Anciients navigate a significant last-minute hurdle, one that threatened to pull the reins back on their comeback roar.
“We lost our bass player literally a month before we were going in to record and were kind of up shit’s creek. Justin also plays in a band called Ritual Dictates with Rory and is the one who brought his name up.”
O’Brien, a former member of Vancouver’s Bushwhacker, was absolutely interested when approached by Anciients.
“We got lucky and he saved our asses at the last minute.”
Cook stepped up to the challenge of being the sole lyricist to drape Beyond the Reach of the Sun in deeply personal expressions of the inner turmoil, fear and isolation he’d experienced in himself and saw in others over the past few years. There were moments where he didn’t know whether loved ones were going to pull through and what life was going to look like were tragedy come to pass. Mental health and people living life without being able to see any light at the end of the tunnel became a very prevalent theme to tracks like “Despoiled” and “Beyond Our Minds.” And while the line that became the album’s title is taken from a David Attenborough-narrated Planet Earth documentary, it speaks more to the coming and going of despondency when one doesn’t know how dark the darkness is going to get, as in “Is It Your God,” which pulls from the manifestation of grief and how it can shatter belief systems.
“That one is a little more personal to me and my situation,” Cook says somberly. “I had a good friend of mine from when I was younger pass away from cancer. His mother was super-religious and there were ideas taken from her questioning how could something like that happen to her when she had such a strong faith.”
The title and themes of stripped away hope and piled on anguish and tumult were parlayed into the album’s spectacular cover art. Created by Adam Burke (Nightjar Illustrations), the drawing is part-pulp novel cover, part-Franzetta landscape, part-sci-fi movie poster and all a vast illustration one can easily lose themselves in while the record spins in the background.
“We gave him the concept and basic outline of how we wanted the cover to look and he took it to a whole new dimension. It turned out pretty wild!”
With all being said and done, Anciients have returned! They stand ready to ascend the prog metal ladder and get back to doing what they do best with a weighty and dense, but wholly accessible, album. It’s a collection of ten songs that possesses the ability to have those furiously banging heads also tapping into their power of self-reflection and contemplation to ponder the finality of existence, the value of life and their place in the universe.
“Totally! We’re going to take as many of the opportunities that come to us. The hiatus is over and I think with the new members and everyone being on the same page we’re ready to get out there as soon as possible. We missed out on a huge block after the last record, so we’ve got to make up for lost time. Now that everyone is happy and healthy, we plan to hit it hard.”
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
