Finnish dark metal torchbearers COUNTING HOURS, featuring current and former members of SHAPE OF DESPAIR, RAPTURE, IMPALED NAZARENE, COLOSSEUM and THE CHANT, have just released the first single from their forthcoming sophomore album “The Wishing Tomb”, which is set to be released on February 23rd 2024 via Ardua Music.
Titled “Timeless Ones”, the track is now available at THIS LOCATION.
The band commented: ”Storywise there are glimpses of hope in this one. But only glimpses. It tells of a sort of transition from ‘normal’ existence to a place or phase with no time and a desire to be free in this kind of eternal limbo. Lyrically as an album opener ‘Timeless Ones’ sets a guideline for the whole album.”
Three years after their critically acclaimed debut “The Will” and almost a quarter of a century after their first endeavour together, RAPTURE‘S doom death seminal landmark “Futile”, guitarists Jarno Salomaa and Tomi Ullgrén (both of them also members of funeral doom legends SHAPE OF DESPAIR) are back with their haunting and otherworldly twin-guitar harmonies on the sophomore release of COUNTING HOURS“The Wishing Tomb”.
On yet another surprising expansion of their signature sound, the Finns continue building a set of colossal and unforgettable melodies using unnerving and gazing grooves as the backbone of their compositions, only to be intertwined with the emotional vocals of singer Ilpo Paasela (of THE CHANT fame), culminating in what will be one of the gloomiest yet, oddly enough, most memorable releases of the year. Nine songs of bleakness and hopeless melodies that will be stuck in your minds for the rest of your hopeless life…the true masters of nordic melancholy are back!
Tracklist:
1. Unsung, Forlorn 2. Timeless Ones 3. Away I Flow 4. All That Blooms (Needs To Die) 5. Starlit / Lifeless 6. The Wishing Tomb 7. No Closure 8. A Mercy Fall 9. This Well Of Failures
Line-up:
Ilpo Paasela – Vocals Jarno Salomaa Petrushevski – Electric & Acoustic guitars Tomi Ullgren – Electric Guitars Markus Forsström – Bass Sameli Köykkä – Drums
Keyboards by Jussi Hämäläinen Backing vocals by Pekka Loponen, Jussi Hämäläinen & Riikka Hatakka
Blues-rock icon Walter Trout is riding a creatively formidable wave and heading into 2024 with an album raucous, wild and poignant in Broken. The album features guest appearances from powerhouse singer Beth Hart, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and Harmonica virtuoso Will Wilde. It will be released on March 1 via Provogue / Mascot Label Group. You can get the first taste of the new single, Bleed, featuring Will Wilde below.
All of us are broken. But no one is beyond repair. It’s a philosophy that Walter Trout has lived by during seven volatile decades at the heart of America’s society and blues-rock scene. Even now, with the world more fractured than ever – by politics, economics, social media and culture wars – the fabled US bluesman’s latest album, Broken, chronicles the bitter schisms of modern life but refuses to succumb to them.
“I’ve always tried to write positive songs, and this album is not quite that,” considers the 72a-year-old of an all-original tracklisting that rages and soothes. “But I always hold on to hope. I think that’s why I wrote this album.”
For the last half-century, however rocky his path, hope and resilience has always lit the way. The beat of Trout’s unbelievable story are well-known: the traumatic childhood in Ocean City, New Jersey; the audacious move to the West Coast in ’74; the auspicious but chaotic sideman shifts with John Lee Hooker and Big Mama Thornton; the raging addictions that somehow never stopped the boogie when he was with Canned Heat in the early-’80s.
Even now, some will point to Trout’s mid-’80s guitar pyrotechnics in the lineup of John Mayall’s legendary Bluesbreakers as his career high point. But for a far greater majority of fans, the blood, heart and soul of his solo career since 1989 is the main event, the bluesman’s songcraft always reaching for some greater truth, forever surging forward, never shrinking back.
It’s a peerless creative streak underlined by the guitarist’s regular triumphs at ceremonies, including the Blues Music Awards, SENA European Guitar Awards, British Blues Awards and Blues Blast Music Awards. The iconic British DJ ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris spoke for millions when he declared Trout “the world’s greatest rock guitarist” in his 2001 autobiography, The Whispering Years.
If he were a less questing artist, Trout could mark time and dine out on those past glories, leaving the polemics and calls-to-arms to a younger generation. But that’s not enough, considers the still-hungry veteran. “I have to grow. I want to be a vital contributing artist. I feel young. I know I’m not. But in my head, I’m still 25, wanting to get better and do something I haven’t done before. I have more to say.”
The album was recorded at Kingsize Soundlabs in LA with producer Eric Corne. “This is our 15th album together,” calculates the bluesman. “Eric and I just have a way of working, man. A friend who came into the studio and watched us and said, ‘Man, you guys are like a machine’. It’s unspoken.”
A few collaborators joined Trout for the first time. “I thought my friend Beth Hart could relate to the title track, Broken,” he says of the warrior princess whose fiery vocals coil with his own. “Dee Snider from Twisted Sister put up a live cut of me on his Twitter and said: ‘Listen to this fucking guitar hero’. We started talking and became friends. He came into the studio, and I knew I had to write him a song. Bleed came about when we were pretty much done. My drummer Michael Leasure said to me, ‘Hey, Walter, you played with John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat, this is your 31st album and you’ve never played a boogie. What’s the deal?’ So I said, ‘OK, fuck it, let’s do a boogie’. I can kinda play harmonica, but I thought, ‘Let’s elevate this thing’. There’s a young harmonica player in England who’s the best I’ve ever heard, Will Wilde. He has the soul and the power of Paul Butterfield but couples that with blinding virtuoso technique.”
Elsewhere, the wistful Talkin’ To Myself, Trout took inspiration from the hits that crackled from AM radio in his youth, and no words were required for the tender instrumental Love Of My Life (“Of course, it’s about Marie”).
With gallows humour, Trout notes that his new album opens with a track called Broken and ends with one called Falls Apart. He can’t deny the link between the personal and the socio-political mood in the air, and as such, between those two bookends lie some of the most raw and bruised songs of his career. Still hope leads the way with the notion that music can help us overcome brokenness – one note at a time.
ROBBY KRIEGER & THE SOUL SAVAGES have presented a second reveal from the ensemble’s debut studio. You can watch the official video for “Samosas & Kingfishers” HERE.
They will release their self-titled debut studio album via The Players Club / Mascot Label Group on January 19, 2024. They have previously revealed the visualizer for “A Day in L.A.” which you can watch here.
Robby Krieger knows that when you assemble the right bunch of musicians, and trust in the creative process, magic happens. As a founding member of The Doors, the guitarist intuitively understands the beauty of free-flowing collaboration and telepathic group interplay. This is evident on Robby’s self-titled debut release from his new band, Robby Krieger And The Soul Savages, out January 19 on The Players Club.
Robby Krieger And The Soul Savages was recorded old school style with a bunch of friends jamming and recording in a relaxed studio setting. Tracked at Robby’s own Love Street Studios in Glendale, California, it finds Robby stretching out over cinematic groove music inspired by classic soul, 1960s jazz, blues, rock, psychedelic rock, and beyond.
“I’ve had this studio for the last six or seven years, and it’s really made me branch out as a musician,” Robby says. “We wrote together, and soul music became a big part of this album. These guys are world-class players—they’ve worked with Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Kahn, Lenny Kravitz—they have that great groove pedigree.”
Robby is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and he is listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. He wrote or co-wrote many of The Doors’ most enduring compositions, including “Light My Fire,” “Love Me Two Times,” “Touch Me,” and “Love Her Madly.” Since the 1970s, Robby has emerged a successful jazz-fusion guitarist with a well-received catalog of solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated record, Singularity. Robby has also stayed active jamming with artists such as Gov’t Mule and Alice In Chains. Recently, he released the revealing memoir, Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar With the Doors.
Fans of the guitarist’s singular style will rejoice that his latest album is filled with Robby-isms. Robby Krieger And The Soul Savages brims with his celebrated fingerstyle fretwork, including Robby’s adventurous jazzy and microtonal slide guitar playing; his slinky, funk-inspired rhythm work; and his silky Wes Montgomery-style octave playing. The 10-song album explores the soul-jazz, dirty blues, and noir-ish roots of The Doors while also furthering Robby’s career as a jazz-fusion guitarist.
“This band inspired a style of playing I hadn’t done in a while, and it also inspired me to do new things. For example, in the past, I reserved my slide playing for more of the bluesy stuff, but I stretched out on the album playing slide over jazz, funk, and soul grooves. I want to keep evolving, and these guys really inspire me.”
Joining Robby on this all-instrumental odyssey of psych-rock soul are top-shelf composers, instrumentalists, and bandmates. Bassist-songwriter Kevin “Brandino” Brandon co-wrote and recorded with Robby on the Singularity album, and he has won over half a dozen Grammy awards as well as three Emmy awards. His extensive resume includes credits with James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, and Beyonce. Keyboardist-songwriter Ed Roth is a Grammy-nominee known for his work in jazz, rock, and pop, and a robust resume that includes working with Ringo Starr, Brothers Johnson, Coolio, Shuggie Otis, and Annie Lennox. And drummer-songwriter Franklin Vanderbilt brings savage to the band’s soul with his fatback groove and jazzy nimbleness. Among others, his credits include drumming for legendary Chaka Khan, recording with fusion jazz pioneer Stanley Clarke, and touring worldwide with Lenny Kravitz.
Look for Robby Krieger And The Soul Savages on vinyl and onstage in the near future. “Once people hear this music, they get really into it,” Robby says. “When the record comes out the connection with the audience will be even stronger.”
Desertfest Berlin has announced new names for their eclectic 2024-edition, and confirms iconic PENTAGRAM (last Berlin show ever!), MASTERS OF REALITY, THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN, MONDO GENERATOR, BLACK PYRAMID, RUFF MAJIK, DAEVAR, APTERA, ZAHN, ZERRE and EINSEINSEINS! Get ready for THE riff party of the year – aside a wild and high-class blend of finest psychedelia, stoner rock, doom, desert punk blues, sludge and all that is metal, this is also going to be your last chance to see PENTAGRAM live in Berlin on their final Farewell Tour in 2024/2025!
[Artwork by Error! Design]
Desertfest Berlin will take place between May 24 – 26, 2024 at Columbiahalle and Columbia Theater. Tickets, thatwould also make some perfect Xmas gift, are on sale at:www.desertfest-tickets.de
CHRIS CATENA’S ROCK CITY TRIBE have unveiled their long-awaited new single “Tennessee Moonlight”. The song was mixed by Joe Marlett, who has already collaborated with Chris for the album “Alieni Alienati” by Dr. U, an Italian alternative rock band, released in 2010. The video clip was once again directed by Jack Lucas Laugeni, a longtime collaborator of Catena in his various projects. The video was shot at the “La Raja” Equestrian Club in Fara Sabina.
Joe Marlett has previously worked with Nirvana, Queen of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Seal, Blink 182 among others.
By the end of 2023, Catena will also release the single “I will be with you (Where the lost ones go)“, a song by Norwegian artist Sissel Kyrkjebø together with Espen Lind, later covered by Sarah Brightmanfeaturing Paul Stanley. For this fantastic duet, the Italian artist involved the singer Katiuscia, his wife.
In January 2024, Chris Catena’s Rock City Tribe will release the digital album “Crazy Horses” which will include the two aforementioned songs as well as the cover of “Crazy Horses” by The Osmonds, “Atlanta” by Stone Temple Pilots, the previous singles “Freight Train” and “Little Bitty Drunk” and a heavy rock version of the song “Old Town Road” originally written and released by rapper Lil Nas.
2024 marks 20 years since the release of Chris Catena’s first album, entitled “Freak Out” and he is currently rehearsing the material for some live shows as well as announcing a reissue of “Freak Out” and the release of a CD of unreleased material already recorded since the “Truth in Unity” sessions.
F.K.Ü. have released a new single called ‘The Spawning’ along side an animated music video, the track is taken from the new album “The Horror and The Metal”, which will be released on February 9th via Despotz Records.
“Never part of any trend, it’s horror and metal till the end”
The closing line to the title track of the new album pretty much sums up the essence of F.K.Ü. Heavily inspired by 80’s horror movies and crossover thrash metal (mostly S.O.D. to be honest) the seed for what was to become F.K.Ü. was planted as early as 1987, but it would take another 10 years before the guys got their act together and actually created some music for the world to hear. Back then in the late 90’s, playing this type of music was probably the most uncool thing you could do, but they’ve always stuck to their knives and done their own thing and never followed trends in the current music scene. Now, after 5 albums and countless live shows, F.K.Ü. returns with their most defining and hard-hitting album to date: The Horror And The Metal.
The album is a simple mission statement and serves to cement the two fundamental pillars of F.K.Ü. Horror is the overall theme of the band and its movies from the 80’s serve as their main lyrical and visual inspiration, and Metal is what runs through these guys’ veins. With one foot in Bay Area thrash metal and one in east coast crossover metal, they have created their own concoction of thrashing horror metal anthems sure to ignite any mosh pit.
Once again produced by the band’s singer (who we in this case will refer to by his birth name) Lawrence Mackrory (BLOODBATH, KATATONIA, VOMITORY), the band locked themselves into Rorysound Studios in early 2023 to begin recording the new album. When they after a couple of months finally emerged through the front door (not unlike how Jack Torrance broke through the bathroom door with an axe) they had created a horror metal masterpiece that will eliminate any uncertainty of what their intentions are. Although they never left, it’s time for everyone to know that F.K.Ü. is back!
Quote from the band about the album: “We’ve never before felt this confident about an album. We wanted to be direct and to the point and we really trimmed the fat off these songs and made them the best they can be. Every second on the album needed to be engaging and we really feel we have achieved that. When it all came together we felt that, instead of creating an intricate concept album, we should just be as to the point as possible. That’s why we simply decided to call the album “The Horror And The Metal”, to just make it as defining as possible, a mission statement of what this band is about.”
About the new single they had this to say:
“Don’t you just hate it when you thought you could finally relax on the beach with a drink in your hand and then a flying mutant piranha bites your head off. This catchy mosh tune will definitely have you commanding the pit. The lyrics of this song is inspired by the movie Piranha II – The Spawning, which director James Cameron calls the “best flying piranha movie ever made.” Fins, teeth, wings, death!!!”
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
