SYMPHONY OF SWEDEN recently released their brand new single, “Bad Thoughts” along with its official video. The new track is doing pretty well: at the moment it’s the 4th most streamed Symphony Of Sweden song! The band recently surpassed 200k listeners on Spotify – to celebrate these achievements Lee is now about to share some secrets of the official video for “Bad Thoughts”. This video was shot nowhere else than Lee‘s own home!
Lee’s statement about the official video of “Bad Thoughts“: “We wanted to be somewhere else and try some close and personal shooting of us. Evan also really likes my apartment and it has a cool style to it so we went for that. I’m into art and baroque style: old oil paintings of forests, deer, and old ships are my favorites. But the picture has to speak to me or else I can’t have it. When I look at my paintings I do see a theme, but those are the paintings that have spoken to me. I started collecting them a couple of years ago. When I saw this old replica of a battle from the 1700s, I thought: what amazing artists have lived, and the artwork they made! I’m literally in trans when I see it. This painting is a replica, the original is worth millions of euros and maybe one day I can see it for real.”
At the end of the video, a beautiful chess set also appears which has its special story: “That piece I bought in Greece. I have always wanted a beautiful chess set, but they are hard to find. Like 7 years ago I was in Greece with my family and the very first day I saw this piece, so I blow almost all my money on the first day of the vacation because I knew I have to have it – and now it’s in our video. So shout-out to Greece for having the piece I couldn’t find anywhere else!”
And what’s the story behind the video? “This whole song came to me after I saw a video of a woman dressed in the classy style from the ’40-’50s in today’s society. She walked into a crowded city and everyone stopped to look at her. (Damn, I wish more style would come back!) You admire her dress but you also get intrigued by her confidence, class, and her way of doing her own thing and dressing like a million dollars.”
Welcome to the musical world of Symphony Of Sweden!
Coming from the North of Sweden with winter and ice bears all over the place, the music is the other way around. Grand and epic with huge arrangements, the missing link between pop and metal – this is Symphony of Sweden! Add the powerful voice of Linus “Lee” Wester and the creative talent of Pontus “Evan” Hagberg you will have a concept that brings you on a journey from here to eternity.
Symphony Of Sweden is: Pontus „Evan” Hagberg Linus „Lee” Wester
Evan and Lee lived in the same small town up north in Sweden. Lee had his own little service point, betting shop, tobacco store nearby which also happened to be Evan’s local service point where he went to get his parcels. After saying hello to each other for a couple of years, there was one day Evan had a parcel to get – which obviously was music-related. They fell into conversation with each other, a few days later Evan invited Lee to his studio. Evan: „he had found one of my instrumental tracks on Youtube and sang it with a new melody on top and lyrics for me in the studio, right there when he just arrived! I was blown away, and a week later we had our first ever track produced and completed. As soon he sang his first two words in the studio I wanted to work with him!”
The band released their first album, Inner Demons in January 2021, and their second album, Saints Of Yesterday came out on the 3rd of February, 2022.
“Buried In the Hail,” Dom Martin’s third studio album, was recorded at Golden Egg Studios in Ireland and produced in Dublin by Grammy-Nominated producers Chris O’Brien and Graham Murphy and co-produced by Dom Martin. Very much steeped in the Roots, Americana, and the Blues genres, many of the tracks on the new album possess an almost cinematic theme.
Dom admits the new album is the first complete work that he’s recorded which he is 100% happy with and proud to release. Says Dom, “Buried In the Hail is the kind of album where the more you listen to it, the more you will get out of it.”
Dom explains about “Unhinged,” the first single to be released from the album, “I chose this song as the first single from the album because it was the most difficult and yet most fun one to record mainly because the 5 watt Champ I used was on fire and ready to explode. It sounded great though. A Gibson 339 with these mystery pickups is plugged into that amp, this is the only set up will give you that sound. It is a song about the fakes out there, smiling to your face and crossing your name off papers! You know, them! We are living and working in an unhinged world.”
Why the cover of Willie Nelson’s “Crazy”? “When I was a kid, I always loved the song, my Aunt Breda was a Patsy fan, I think I liked it most probably for the key change, I was shocked when I later found out it was written by Willie Nelson, what a guy! This version is how I felt at the time, I had the music and these lyrics just fit in more ways than one
Dom will tour the new album throughout the UK and Ireland in October and November 2023 and Europe in June 2024. See tour dates listed below.
ALBUM TRACK LISTING
1 – Hello In There 2 – Daylight I Will Find 3 – Government 4 – Belfast Blues 5 – Crazy 6 – Unhinged 7 – The Fall 8 – Howlin‘ 9 – Buried In The Hail 10 – Lefty 2 Guns 11 – Laid To Rest
All Songs composed by Dom Martin except Crazy (Willie Nelson) Dom Martin – Vocals, Guitar Ben Graham – Bass Guitar & Double Bass Jonny McIlroy – Drums
Recorded in Golden Egg Studios, Ireland Mixed and produced by Chris O’Brien and Graham Murphy at The Production Suite, Dublin, Ireland Co-Produced by Dom Martin Mastered by Richard Dowling at WAV Mastering, Limerick, Ireland Artwork Concept – Dom Martin Album Artwork – Magic Cabin Studios
ALBUM TRACK BY TRACK
1 – Hello In There So many songs could have been made with this one. In many ways this album is about the mind and losing it. It ’s also about accepting its function. That you ’re a little crazy and that ’s okay! I used this for the intro as it ’s such a nice calm before the storm compared to the 10-ton catastrophe on a 50-pound chain feeling from a few of the others on here. The children laughing in the background really made it. Children ’s laughter is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world and I’ m glad I could include it in here.
2 – Daylight I Will Find It’s all about the music. Sweet and simple really. It ’s no soft option for a good life. Life is full of challenges, and it ’ll drive you insane if you let it. It doesn ’t matter what it is, you must find your own way through it and in one piece! Find your own daylight. We all have it! It ’s you! Love yourself.
3 – Government I’m not too sure what to say about this one lyrically. I ’m not political. I ’m not on any side. I believe in right, and something is not right with the current world order running of things but as for the song, it has a very Celtic feel to it. My Irish ghosts, influences and banshees are howling the wind at my back as if to tell me to stay away from explaining this song faithfully.
4 – Belfast Blues I’m a Belfast native. I love the place and the people. Just about every family has lost blood on the streets here yet it ’s still a great place to witness. As we’d say there’s some characters about so there is! The song is about the days I spent playing the pubs and clubs in Northern Ireland. Getting in fights, fires, getting robbed, getting drunk and beaten and just generally misbehaving. Being an animal. I was a different person back then. I’ve become a lot younger now than I was back then and am finally living a life.
5 – Crazy I usually have at least one cover on my albums, and I wanted something I could relate to. I wanted something I could identify with, and the lyrics are just it! I played this completely broken down, out of my mind and titanically heartbroken. It was written by Willie Nelson and made big by the beautiful Patsy Cline. As a cover song I think I’ve done a pretty good alternative version that does hold a feeling of that crazy, deeper burning love and the loss of it that makes us all a little… unhinged.
6 – Unhinged This is a song about feeling unhinged by society, finding falseness in people who greet you with smiles and leave you with nothing.
7 – The Fall It’s hard to write any one thing about this song. The fall of society comes to mind. It’s about people and what we do to each other. The timelines of history. It ’s not too late for us though to keep it positive and I still have tons of hope for the future. I’m not just talking about my own future. We all need to be a little nicer to each other, that ’s all. It ’s that easy. Or we are going to fall…
8 – Howlin’ I love the music of Howlin ’ Wolf and I wanted to pay my respects to the man. This one ’s for you Wolf!
9 – Buried In The Hail Going deep into your own mind can be dangerous. It can be difficult even to get to the dangerous part, you can get stuck in there. Your own locked room. I was stuck there for a while but I got out, though I do go back from time to time. It’s about revisiting the horrors that I have encountered and the experiences I have lived through so far. I always leave these situations feeling a bit raw, a little edgy. You need to be broken into pieces with unknown substances and possess a bag of pure emotion to write a song like this. It ’s an acceptance that a part of life has had to be cut off to make it out alive. For example, your leg is stuck and the water is rising… cut it off!
10 – Lefty 2 Guns A short story of a hitman. He ends this show by killing the parts I can ’t have anymore and he buries it all in the album cover and there’s nothing that can be done about it.
11 – Laid To Rest The last gasp of music, the outro. Again, like the intro, I could have gone any direction with this one. It has a certain end game feel to it, a finality. Everything may seem personal on this album and a lot of it is, but it wasn ’t by design, as these songs are how I felt, and they are all played from the heart to heal and move on. A “refresh” of some sorts, to let go of the past as there is no future in history. Laid to rest says that symbolically with its silence.
DOM MARTIN “BURIED IN THE HAIL” AUTUMN 2023 ALBUM TOUR
German guitarist RISTRIDI is best known on YouTube for his guitar covers. With over 20,000 subscribers, he regularly amazes his audience with his clear and precise playing. Until 2023, he was also the lead guitarist of the German dark metal institution Agathodaimon under the name Nakhateth and played a major role on their comeback album “The Seven” (Napalm Records).
After his two Black Metal solo albums under the banner OMEGA POINT, which focused on fighting his mental problems, RISTRIDI has now surrounded himself with a full band and some more guest musicians to change his message: there is light at the end of the tunnel! You just have to look for it and believe in yourself to make it through the night.
“DARK SOLSTICE” is a release that sheds a brighter light on the future. With the Power Metal and Prog Metal influences, the intention of this release is clear: prepare for better times, the long night will soon be over and there will be so much more to experience!
Watch below the official performance video ‘Genesis’. Directed by Ristridi.
RISTRIDI states about “Genesis”: “‘Genesis’ is a song about my personal dealings with difficult times, with which I want to express the inner conflict about the new start after personal problems. Knowing that all the ‘promises’ and expectations of life you had as a young adult were always empty, there is still a little bit of hope that things will get better again. That this will be an uphill battle and that one will once again ‘conspire’ against oneself is clear from the beginning. But through creativity and with perseverance you may manage to take one step after the other and find new strength – even if the new songs and texts that emerge may never reach the public.”
Promo picture by Viljami Kamppinen, edited by Kasperi Kinnunen
Finnish metal band Miss Vain is set to release a new EP ‘Crocus Biflorus’ on August 11th 2023 via Inverse Records. A new single Song of Solitude is released today and it’s available on all essential streaming services: https://push.fm/fl/miss-vain-sos
The band comments: “This song holds elements from progressive-metal to pop-rock and much in between within. Lyrically it’s basically about loss, grieving the past and hope for a new.
How all you crave for seems to be unreachable, even if it is just an inch away to be touched or to be seen! It’s the cry for love and acceptance universally and/or personally…
Well I think that’s pretty much what whole life is all about! Isn’t it?”
Miss Vain is a five piece rock – group from Tampere Finland, drifting in the maelstrom of metal. It´s music is a horns raising energy and catchy melodies with a featherlike delicacy.
Miss Vain was formed in 2019 as a two guy studio project. After two lighter pop – / rock – songs, we lowered our tune and in summer of 2021 Miss Vain grew into a real band… Finally.
Our mission is to deliver joyful moments with new awesome songs and live shows to all who are willing to be entertained by Miss Vains rumbling tunes.
Knoxville rockers 10 YEARS reveal their brand-new song “I Remember” released via Mascot Records (Black Stone Cherry, Fozzy, Kris Barras Band). You can watch the official lyric video HERE.
Guitarist Brian Vodinh shares, “’I Remember’ is about looking back at our youth and remembering how it felt like we had our entire lives in front of us. How we were full of hope and ambition and kind of clueless to how harsh the real world is. It’s about remembering how we used to always look at the bright side and weren’t so beaten up by life.”
The release follows the isolated reveal of “The Optimist” that since being released has been streamed over NINE MILLION times. “The Optimist” dropped as the band’s European and UK tour with Three Days Grace in September last year kicked off and was an immediate crowd-favourite, as fans were singing back all of the words, mere days after it had been released. “I Remember,” promises to connect in the same vein.
“I Remember,” is only the second new song from the band since their 2020 album Violent Allies. Since the release of that album they have toured with the likes of Three Days Grace, Seether, Theory of a Deadman and Crobot as well as multiple headline runs and festivals, including Inkcarceration Festival, Shiprocked Blue Ridge Rock Festival.
Since forming in 1999, 10 Years have quietly pushed themselves and modern rock towards evolution. Building a formidable catalog, the group’s gold-selling 2005 breakthrough The Autumn Effect yielded the hit “Wasteland,” which went gold, infiltrated the Billboard Hot 100, and clinched #1 at Active Rock Radio and #1 on the Billboard Alternative Songs Chart. They landed three Top 30 entries on the Billboard Top 200 with Division [2008], Feeding the Wolves [2010], and Minus the Machine [2012]. In 2017’s (how to live) AS GHOSTS (How to Live) As Ghosts marked a reunion between Jesse, Brian, and Matt and achieved marked success. Not only did the album bow in the Top 5 of the US Top Hard Rock Albums Chart, but it also yielded the hit “Novacaine.” The single ascended to the Top 5 of the Billboard US Mainstream Rock Songs Chart and has now tallied over 40 million streams, across all DSPs. The cumulative total for all track streams from repertoire on (how to live) AS GHOSTS exceeds 70 million plays. Along the way, they sold out countless headline shows and toured with everyone from Korn, Deftones, and Stone Sour to Chris Cornell and Linkin Park. The band’s most recent studio album is titled Violent Allies, and was recorded with GRAMMY® Award-winning producer Howard Benson [My Chemical Romance, Halestorm, Papa Roach]. The record has amassed over 45 million streams.
10 Years are: Jesse Hasek (Lead Vocals), Brian Vodinh (Guitar, Backing Vocals), Matt Wantland (Guitar), Chad Grennor (Bass) and Luke Narey (Drums).
Often called America’s answer to Black Sabbath, one of the most unsung bands in the history of US hard rock music, BANG, is back with a new album “Another Me”! Featuring all 3 members of the classic line-up: bassist/vocalist Frank Ferrara, guitarist Frankie Gilcken and original drummer/lyricist Tony Diorio along with new drummer Danny Piselli.
“We’re stoked about our new album ‘Another Me’ … It was a labor of love that’s been a long time coming … We went back to our roots to give our fans … in your face rock … all killer … no filler” – BANG
Check out the first single from the album, the killer title track “Another Me” – Stream/download the single:https://orcd.co/bang_anothermesingle
With the heaviness of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, coupled with the groove of Grand Funk Railroad, BANG released three critically acclaimed albums on Capitol Records in the early 1970s before disappearing for a number of years. 2023 marks the 52nd anniversary of BANG’s critically acclaimed debut album which was just reissued last week on a unique, limited edition colored vinyl.
In the summer of 1971, BANG, a trio from the Philadelphia area, decided to take a road trip to Florida to try their fortune. While buying some rolling papers in the Sunshine State, they learned about a Faces and Deep Purple concert nearby in Orlando. They showed up at the venue and brazenly declared they were ready to go on stage. The concert organizer asked them to set up and play for him. After a couple songs, he told them they were opening for Rod Stewart and Faces. Before they knew it, BANG was playing with Bachman Turner Overdrive, Deep Purple, Three Dog Night, Fleetwood Mac, Ike and Tina Turner, The Doobie Brothers, and even Black Sabbath. Capitol Records signed them, and three LPs were released.
The 1971 self-titled debut album “BANG” is considered an important forerunner to the early Doom Metal genre. Undoubtedly one of America’s heaviest ‘proto-metal’ bands from the period, BANG also had a strong sense of melodic power. The band’s versatility and songwriting skills are second to none. Highly regarded as a cult act by many for years, it’s now time for this truly amazing rock band to be enjoyed by a new audience worldwide!
It’s been nearly 20 years since the band’s previous studio album, two decades in which they’ve overcome incredible challenges, all to bring this epic slab of heavy, melodic psychedelic metal to their still loyal fanbase!
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
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 