Cape Town-based band Nastiriff is set to shake the foundations of rock with their debut release, “Suck It.” Infusing Riot Riff Rock with a blend of humor and rage, Nastiriff delivers an unapologetic anthem that embodies defiance and empowerment.
“Suck It” is not just a song; it’s an attitude. With its obnoxious, provocative, and aggressive lyrics, the track encourages listeners to confront negativity head-on and embrace a carefree outlook on life. Inspired by the rebellious spirit of John Lynch’s “This Is My United States of Whatever,” lead singer Gavin Willmers sought to capture a similar feeling in his own unique way.
Gavin, reflecting on the songwriting process, shares, “I think I just needed to say, ‘fuck you, I’m done with your kak and I really, really don’t care about you’ But in a funny way.”
The band, originally comprised of Todd Bauermeister on drums, Lloyd McKeen on bass, Liam Brodie on keys, and Gavin Willmers on guitar and vocals for recording, has recently undergone a transition. With the departure of Liam Brodie and Todd Bauermeister, it has now evolved into a trio. The newest addition to the lineup is drummer Slade Stephenson, who makes his appearance in the latest video.
Recorded at Sonic Nursery in Gardens, Cape Town, with producer Ruan Vos, the track underwent a meticulous creative process to ensure its raw energy and authenticity. With “Suck It,” Nastiriff invites audiences to embrace their inner rebel and confront life’s challenges with a defiant attitude. The single and video are now available on all major streaming platforms.
French heavy metal frontrunners, NIGHTMARE, have shared a brand new single, the opening track“Nexus Inferis” of their forthcoming, twelfth studio album Encrypted! Slated for a release on June 7 2024 via AFM Records, the album pre-sale is available at https://shop.afm-records.de/nightmare/
“Today we are very excited to share with you our second single, “Nexus Inferis”… taken from our forthcoming album, Encrypted!”The band comments.“This track is our album opener and has a hell of a riff matched with catchy melodies on the whole song. Lyrically, it is highly connected with the “Encrypted concept” : What if the end was just the beginning or a passage to hell (inferis)?”
Founded in 1979, NIGHTMARE have been an integral part of the European metal scene for the past three decades, and have been prolific with their album releases, all the while updating and evolving their sound.
The band released eleven much acclaimed studio albums and toured worldwide, playing some of the biggest metal festivals like Wacken, Hellfest, 70,000 Tons Of Metal, Motocultor Open Air or Gods Of Metal, and supporting the likes of Def Leppard, Sabaton, Saxon, Grave Digger and Blind Guardian to name just a few. 2020 seen NIGHTMARE release their latest album, Aeternam, via AFM Records. At the end of 2022, the band parted ways with singer Madie and welcomed their new, exceptional vocalist: Barbara Mogore, who transcends NIGHTMARE onto a total new level!
As the band recently confirmed: “Encrypted marks our most ambitious album to date in terms of production, musical direction and achievement… You can find here some traditional power metal riffing in the trademark of NIGHTMARE but also extreme metal parts and some highlights even reaching melodic death metal… making Encrypted our most varied opus so far, beyond all boundaries and expectations…”
Encrypted was produced by Simone Mularoni at Domination Studio, the artwork was created by Franck Jeannin. Pre-order your copy of this must-have album – one that belongs into every well-sorted heavy metal record collection – now at THIS LOCATION!
Tracklist: 01 – Nexus Inferis 02 – The Blossom of my Hate 03 – Voices from the Other Side 04 – Saviours of the Damned 05 – Wake the Night 06 – Encrypted 07 – Incandescent 08 – White Lines 09 – Borderlines 10 – Eternal Winter (2023 Version)
NIGHTMARE is: Barbara Mogore Franck Milleliri Matt Asselberghs Yves Campion Niels Quiais
Johannesburg-based industrialised thrash metal machine Chaos Doctrine’s third album called ‘Bellum’ is out today and promises to leave scorched earth in its wake, with 9 tracks delivering everything we have come to expect from Chaos Doctrine – and a whole lot more.
‘Bellum’, meaning ‘war’, delivers a sonic journey where Chaos Doctrine has unapologetically experimented to expand their repertoire exponentially, without compromising their distinct sound or forgetting to deliver on what they do best.
Chaos Doctrine has always been vocal about their philosophy that every album they produce must be better than the previous one. This applies not only to the songs but also to the technical production. ‘Bellum’ was recorded, mixed, and mastered by guitarist Alec Surridge in the band’s own Gemini AD Studios, and sees vast progression in production quality from its predecessor.
Guitarist and producer Alec Surridge shares, “This album has been a learning curve for us from both a creative and technical production perspective. With all of us being utmost perfectionists, I wanted to make sure that we deliver a high-quality album, one that is polished enough to bring life to each of the individual songs, without losing the rawness that is fundamental to our music. ‘Bellum’ represents virtually countless hours of recording, listening, tweaking, re-recording, and re-tweaking every second of every track to do just that. There is no template when it comes to Chaos Doctrine – every song is unique, and so the production of every song must be unique too. This always pushes back our release dates, but we refuse to compromise on our sound!”
Track Listing
Lifting the Veil
Trial
Building the Ultimate Tank
One of My Bad Days
The Destroyer
Martyr
Heretic
86
CiviLIESation
‘Bellum’ brings us a visual assault that matches the barrage inflicted on our ears. The album cover comes from the mind and pen of bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and band visual artist Phil Carstens, who explains, “Cantered is a biomechanical Lord Shiva, amid his ‘Rudra Tandava’ cosmic dance of creation and destruction. The background tells a story of violent degradation and decay. Framing it all is a timeline, reflecting forgotten and exploited history that has made its way into the band’s lyrical content since our beginning. The lyrics to ‘The Destroyer’ tell the whole story!”
‘Bellum’ Track By Track: Unravelling Chaos Doctrine’s Sonic Odyssey
1. Vocalist Dr D shares, “We first shared a taste of ‘Bellum’ with the world in 2022 when we released ‘Lifting the Veil‘. This was characterized by heavy thrash metal underpinned by gritty face-melting industrial. ‘Lifting the Veil’ now kicks off the album, representing a radical departure from our preceding two albums’ extended industrial intros. ‘Bellum’ brings a mix of the best that our fans expect of us, and the best of us challenging the creative confines of our style and collective musicianship. ‘Lifting the Veil’ sets the tone for this by pushing the album directly into a shredder featuring some of Alec Surridge’s best guitar solo work to date. You know immediately that we mean to crush skulls with this album. There is no room for warming up, and no reprieve!”
2. With ‘Bellum’, the band promised to challenge their boundaries, and ‘Trial‘ is Exhibit A in a rapidly growing pack of evidence. Every piece of this monster introduces elements that the band has never done before, each stamped hard with the Chaos Doctrine seal. A brief guttural solo vocal drops you into a spiral of seemingly off-tempo skin-ripping riffs before descending into a Dante-esque and discomforting journey of symphonies and choirs, constantly offset by bone-crushing death metal.
3. ‘Building the Ultimate Tank‘ gives the first trademark Chaos Doctrine creepy intro on the album… a short-lived descent before all hell breaks loose with staccato thrash metal galore. Before you know it, a grim dystopic picture is being painted by a hypnotic bass riff, relentless industrial clangs, and podium-like vocals that dig dirty fingers deep into your brain.
4. ‘One of My Bad Days‘ features relentless energy with thunderous rhythms from drummer Jason Eedes, as Chaos Doctrine unleashes tales of intense emotion. This track, unveiled as the third single from the album in July 2023, has garnered acclaim from Metal Hammer as one of the standout Metal Songs of the Week and among the top 100 New Metal Songs of the Year. ‘One of My Bad Days’ epitomises Chaos Doctrine’s signature style, blending thrash/death metal with industrial elements, highlighted by powerful vocals and a skillfully crafted guitar solo.
5. ‘The Destroyer’ tells the story of nuclear destruction interpreted as Lord Shiva’s wrath. The track is another that takes the band to new frontiers, delivering a mid-tempo melodious offensive that encapsulates an unnerving bow-played sitar and consummate Chaos Doctrine grooves.
6. The orchestral introduction of late 2022’s single ‘Martyr’ brings a brief respite to the listener. Two versions of this song hit the airwaves before, known as the ‘Clement V’ mix, and the ‘Jeanne D’Arc Mix’ (which featured the vocal prowess of Capgras Delusion’s Laura Cayzer). Both versions enjoyed much critical acclaim, including another Metal Hammer honor of standout Metal Songs of the Week and among the top 100 New Metal Songs of the Year. ‘Bellum’ brings us a remastered version of the ‘Clement V’ mix, which introduced for the first time Chaos Doctrine’s ability to deliver a doomy number complete with clean singing and intricate symphonic arrangements. The Jeanne D’Arc Mix, in turn, will make its appearance on the band’s next EP, tentatively set for release early in 2025.
7. As the acoustic outro of ‘Martyr’ gently fades, the ultra-aggressive, ultra-fast ‘Heretic’ feels like being hit by a bullet, or a bullet train. Shredding guitars, blast beats, and old-school death metal vocals are immediate. The shelling is briefly interjected by a superb interlude of perfectly mashed groove and melody before the lecture in Egyptology is completed through another barrage of heavy artillery. Drummer Jason describes the track ‘Heretic’ as “a brutal lesson in the next level of heaviness that Chaos Doctrine is capable of. It is undoubtedly the heaviest and fastest track we have done to date and pushed us all to our physical limits in its delivery. This is why we decided that it would be the fourth single from ‘Bellum’: it is a crazed testament to what we do, who we are, and what we can do!”
8. Eighty miles out, six feet deep. This is ‘86‘. Another track led by the band’s gritty industrial groove experiments, it puts the pulsating boom of a dark techno track in the front, driven by uncompromising riffs and grinding death metal vocals. Short, thrashy, and catchy, ’86’ hits like a baseball bat to the back of the head.
9. The album comes to an end that feels premature, yet deserving, in ‘CiviLIESation‘. Like ‘Trial’, this track is an epic journey through diverse soundscapes. After an industrious orchestral introduction offset by grinding riffs, the vocals return to the podium, picking up where ‘Building the Ultimate Tank’ left off to paint grim views of contemporary society. A barrage of symphonics is interrupted by scathing barking death metal interludes before the track’s climactic end serves as a fitting conclusion to the album.
Overall ‘Bellum’ gives us Chaos Doctrine at their finest: boundary-pushing industrial-infused extreme metal. It represents a new level of maturity for the band from every conceivable angle: songwriting, musicianship, creativity, freshness, delivery, production. As with its predecessor, it also delivers a track for everyone: regardless of your preferred genre of metal, there is something here for you. Make sure it reaches your ears… and the ears of everyone you know.
There are your standard Heavy Metal festivals – and then there’s 70000TONS OF METAL.
Envision this: Lounging on a Caribbean island, soaking up the sun on a pristine white beach. Later on, you feel the warm wind blowing in your face, now sitting in a hot tub on a giant luxurious cruise ship, in front of The Pool Deck Stage, The World’s Biggest Open Air Structure to Ever Sail the Open Seas. Surrounded by Metal fans from all across the globe (known as the United Nations of Heavy Metal at Sea), you headbang to your favorite band. Sounds perfect? Well, it is. Get ready for 70000TONS OF METAL 2025!
The 13th edition of 70000TONS OF METAL will take place from January 30th to February 3rd, departing from Miami, Florida – Cruise Capital of the World – to Ocho Rios, Jamaica and back aboard the Independence of the Seas.
This unique festival will once more see 60 Heavy Metal bands from various subgenres taking the four stages on board, with 3000 metalheads from around the world in attendance. Every band will play twice during the trip, ramping the total amount of shows played up to 120! 70000TONS OF METAL has revealed 13 of the 60 bands for the 2025 lineup:
*BENIGHTED *(2 special sets playing the “Carnivore Sublime” album and a “Best Of” set) *CANDLEMASS *(celebrating “40 Years Of Doom”) *DELAIN *EMPEROR *(2 special sets: “In the Nightside Eclipse” and “Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk”) *FLOTSAM & JETSAM *(2 special sets: “Doomsday for the Deceiver” and “No Place for Disgrace”) *IN EXTREMO *(2 special “Best Of” Sets as part of their 30th Anniversary Celebration) *KALMAH *(2 special sets playing the “They Will Return” and “Swampsong” albums) *MAJESTICA *SAMAEL *(2 special sets playing the “Ceremony of Opposites” and “Passage” albums) *SEPTICFLESH *STRATOVARIUS *(2 special sets playing the “Visions” album and a “Best Of” set) *TANKARD *THE KOVENANT *(2 special sets playing the “Nexus Polaris” album and a “Best Of” set)
Ocho Rios, the festival’s destination, is located on the north coast of Jamaica, known for its picturesque white-sand beaches and stunning landscapes – including the famous and spectacular Dunn’s River Falls, just west of downtown. After two days of the full Heavy Metal experience on board, it’s time to enjoy the shore day with bamboo rafts, Land Rover® and 90-foot yacht tours, experience the adventure of river-tubing down the White River while basking in the warm sunshine, or embark on an adrenaline-pumping downhill bike ride through picturesque limestone valleys. And there’s more: As a 70000TONS OF METAL sailor, you’ll also have the option to visit Bob Marley’s tomb and enjoy a guided tour of his childhood home led by one of his family members – it’s all up to you! And to top it all off, there will also be Artist Escorted Shore Excursions, where you can share unique experiences with your favorite musicians before returning on board to enjoy complimentary fine dining, bars that never close, 24-hour room service, as well as the ship’s many amenities.
In their ongoing efforts to enhance the Heavy Metal Festival Experience for guests and the environment, the festival organizers are once again offering attendees the option to purchase a Carbon Offset when booking their Private Cabin or Single Ticket for 70000TONS OF METAL 2025. The funds contributed through the Carbon Offset Program go to the Greentrippers Improved Cookstoves in Ghana project: https://www.greentripper.org/en/aboutus/ourclimateprojects
Stay tuned for updates and announcements including sales dates by checking out https://70000tons.com for and the @70000tons social media channels.
About 70000TONS OF METAL
70000TONS OF METAL is The Original, The World’s Biggest Heavy Metal Cruise.
With ten consecutive sellouts since the inaugural voyage in 2011, this extraordinary and unique floating festival now sails on board some of the largest luxury passenger vessels in the world. Featuring 60 world-class Heavy Metal bands from around the globe performing across four stages, 70000TONS OF METAL is home to The World’s Biggest Open Air Stage Structure to sail the Open Seas.
Guests can enjoy the Heavy Metal festival experience of a lifetime with all the benefits that a cruise has to offer: complimentary fine dining, bars that never close, 24-hour room service, as well as the ship’s many amenities.
All 60 bands on board play twice – and there’s four concert locations on board: A concert hall, the Royal Theater, stands tall with five levels. The Star Lounge offers a more personal and local club-like ambiance. Discover the arena-like vibes at Studio B, the third indoor stage available. Lastly, yet undoubtedly the most remarkable, is the Pool Deck Stage: The World’s Biggest Open Air Stage Structure to Sail the Open Seas. This immense stage is accompanied by bars, pools, and even hot tubs that are integrated into the stage itself, allowing guests to indulge in the unique experience of watching their favorite metal bands while soaking in a hot tub.
This four-day Heavy Metal Music Festival and Caribbean vacation offers 3000 metalheads the amazing opportunity to mingle side-by-side with all of the bands on board. With no VIP areas it truly is like everyone has a backstage pass. Not only do guests have unrestricted festival access to 120+ live performances (all bands play twice), every ticket also includes meet & greets with every band, intimate masterclasses with select musicians and exclusive live & listening premieres. Guests also have full access to the “Jamming in International Waters All Star Jam” – a one-of-a-kind jam session featuring a host of musical virtuosos performing classic metal songs together on stage.
Sailors also have the special opportunity to explore a Caribbean dream destination with their favorite band members on an “Artist Escorted Shore Excursion”, another 70000TONS OF METAL exclusive.
For more details about 70000TONS OF METAL 2025, including FAQs, vessel amenities and contact information, please visit https://70000tons.com
Mighty Music are proud to announce the release of a live album by the TYGERS OF PAN TANG, titled “Live Blood”, out today. Stalwarts of the NWOBHM, the Tygers are currently celebrating eight years with Mighty Music during which time they have released three well received new albums, the most recent of which “Bloodlines”, was met with universal critical acclaim in 2023. The band, with guitarist Robb Weir at the helm, along with long-serving members Jack Meille (vocals) and Craig Ellis (drums), includes their two new recruits for “Bloodlines”: guitarist Francesco Marras and bass player Huw Holding. “Live Blood” includes material from across the band’s career, including songs from their first four albums with MCA Records plus their last four albums of new material.
Jack Meille comments: “Recording a live album after all this time with the Tygers? I never thought I would experience it but with the Tygers Of Pan Tang I have learnt that the “impossible” is possible. “Live Blood” captures all the energy we deliver while playing our favourite songs live and raw!”.
The recording was made at The Patriot venue in Wales UK during the summer of 2023 and arrives as a single CD and a double vinyl featuring additional tracks. The album was preceded by the release of two singles: the live favourite “Gangland” from their legendary “Spellbound” album and the hidden gem “Keeping Me Alive” from “Ambush”.
We will leave the final word with Robb Weir: “Every time we play a show we are asked when we are going to record a new live album. Our live show adds a new dimension to the old songs and allows us to stretch out a bit on the newer numbers”.
“Live Blood” is out now on double LP (black vinyl, including three exclusive bonus tracks), CD and digital formats via Mighty Music. It can be ordered and streamed at this link.
CULMEN is a solo black metal project, founded at the beginning of 2022, by Dany “+” Cuentas (Katari, Haylli, Kamaq). The precise style of the band combines traditional and genuine black metal of the early 90’s where “+” adds gloomy ingredients in the guitars and the atmosphere in general, thus giving a sinister aura of mysticism and darkness. Culmen‘s sound easily evokes cosmic and surreal scenarios, a precise combination for the band’s theme that surrounds philosophical and dreamlike themes, being abstraction as the main theme.
So far, the band has a 2-track single and a recent 6-track EP titled “De Un Soplo La Creación“, a work commissioned from the From Deepest Records label and which will be released as CD on May 12, 2024.
Tracklist:
1. Relativamente Estático (Intro) 2. Viene De Eones 3. Cayendo 4. Infinitas Esferas 5. Ver 6. ¡Oh, Gran Maestro Nuclear! (Outro)
Music for EP was recorded between 2022 and 2023. All was mixed and mastered at Unholy Light Studio. Cover art is titled “Sobre Un Fondo Relativamente Estático” and was done by Dany Cuentas.
Dany Cuentas comment: “The purpose of “De Un Soplo La Creación” is to show part of my cosmovision from the perspective of an alter ego “+”, a wise old man who, exhausted from questions, only raves answers and conclusions.“
As part of the promotion of the release, two songs were made available online.
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
