Critically acclaimed Mongolian rock outfit THE HU have spent the past five years dominating audiences across the globe with their self-branded genre of “hunnu rock”—a unique blend of Western modern rock/metal and Mongolian throat singing using traditional Mongolian instruments sung entirely in their native language. Having accumulated over 329 million combined streams and 290 million video views, two Top 5 Mainstream Rock charting singles, multiple sold-out headlining global tours, festival appearances including Coachella, Lollapalooza and Download Festival and rave reviews from Billboard, NPR, GQ, The Guardian, Revolver and even Sir Elton John himself—THE HU have released a three-part mini-docuseries encapsulating their career to date.
The first episode of the docuseries, “Citizens of The World,” is out now via Better Noise Music’s YouTube channel. In the episode, viewers get an introduction to the band’s four founding members–Gala, Jaya, Temka, and Enkush—and to their traditional instrumentats, including the Morin Khuur, Tovshuur and Tumur Khuur, while presenting THE HU’s main message of inspiring listeners to awaken the warrior spirit inside of themselves and to use that courage to spread goodness throughout the world. The episode ends with the announcement of the band being named UNESCO’s “Artist For Peace” recipients for 2022. The final two episodes, airing March 1 and 15 respectively, will cover their journey to UNESCO’s Paris Headquarters where they received the designation in a ceremony held last December and their following concert at the renowned Casino de Paris. The docuseries was directed and co-produced by Michael Lombardi, who also co-directed the music video for their new single, “This Is Mongol (Warrior Souls) Feat. William DuVall of Alice In Chains,” and was the lead actor/co-producer of the 2022 horror-thriller The Retaliators in which members of THE HU appeared and whose soundtrack included music from the band’s discography.
Watch “Citizens of The World” Episode One streaming below or on YouTube, below.
THE HU will be performing their first-ever virtual concert in the metaverse on March 30 in partnership with ARD Financial Group (ARD) featuring music from their 2022 album RUMBLE OF THUNDER and debut 2019 album THE GEREG. Tickets are on sale now at www.hu.rocks. Throughout the show, fans will experience a virtual world created by METAFORSE that highlights the THE HU’s home country of Mongolia and its culture. The band will also be appearing across Europe this summer for festival season, see a full list of appearances below. Stay tuned for updates on their next release, a deluxe version of RUMBLE OF THUNDER which will include guest appearances from some of rock’s top-charting musicians.
THE HU TOUR DATES 6/7 Nickelsdorf, AT – Nova Rock 6/11 Leicestershire, UK – Download Festival 6/15 Clisson, FR – Hellfest 2023 6/16 Landgraaf, NL – Pinkpop 2023 6/29 Werchter, BE – Rock Werchter 2023 7/5 Aix-les-bains, FR – Musilack 2023 7/6 Madrid, ES – Mad Cool Festival 2023 7/19 Bontida, RO – EC9
Guitarist Jesse J. Heikkinen (The Abbey, Iterum Nata) and vocalist King Aleijster de Satan (King Satan, Saturnian Mist) have teamed up for a mind-bending progressive black metal project, HENGET. The emerging band will be debuting its first full-length, ‘Beyond North Star,’ on May 18, 2023 via Season of Mist!
Drawing inspiration from the world of occult and the ways of ancient Shamanism, ‘Beyond North Star’ depicts a violent hallucinatory journey to the depths of the mind and beyond with a psychedelic outlook. The band is now sharing a trippy and disturbing new music video for the first single, “I Am Them.” The video was created by King Aleijster de Satan and can be found at THIS LOCATION.
HENGET comment: “‘I am Them’ offers a microcosm of the Henget debut album. Violent black/death metal with psychedelic and progressive elements spiced with haunting melodies and avant-garde spirit!“
Pre-orders are now available HERE. The album can be pre-saved on various digital platforms HERE.
Track-list: 1. Dive (4:35) 2. I Am Them (4:01) [WATCH] 3. Henkivallat (4:31) 4. The Great Spiral (5:52) 5. Beyond North Star (5:19) 6. Lovi (5:09) 7. Nouse (3:52) 8. The Chalice of Life and Death(4:23) Total: 37:42
Cover artwork: M.T. Salminen
Recording studio: Space Junk Studio, Tampere, Finland (Drums) Beyond North Star, Salo, Finland Studio Sampolaaris, Tampere, Finland (Vocals)
Producer / sound engineer: Produced by Jesse J. Heikkinen & King Aleijster de Satan Sound engineering: Kimmo Nyyssönen (Drums), Jesse J. Heikkinen, King Aleijster de Satan
Mixing studio and engineer: Beyond North Star Studio & Jesse J. Heikkinen Mastering studio and engineer: Wavecrawler Audio & Teemu Iso-Kulmala
The creation process has always been a very fascinating riddle isn’t it? After all, there’s no strict formula. Some spent weeks, months or even years meticulously working on every tiny detail over and over again until it feels perfect while others just have to let it all out, no matter how it all comes out, it just has to. And no, no matter how hard you try, you can’t force it. You just can’t. You need to have that vision, that unstoppable yearning to turn your dreams into reality.
King Aleijster de Satan has long stopped asking himself all those questions. Although he’s only thirty-four years old, the Tampere based Finn is a bullet-proof veteran of the black metal scene: he used to run and sign bands for Saturnal Records. He also ran the Blackvox studio from 2013 to 2020 where he recorded multiple bands. Purely on the musical front, besides being the long-time standing frontman of Saturnian Mist he also because various experiences, in Arvet among others. But with the industrial rumblings of King Satan, he’s learnt to expand his mind and look over all those useless fences to see what lied beyond. In the end, it’s all about being free both as an individual and as an artist, to go where your instincts and muse take you, no matter what.
And nothing encapsulates more this quest for freedom than HENGET. As a matter of fact, it lies at the very center of it as most of the music AND lyrics were on purpose improvised on the spot. Ever tried to capture lightning in a bottle? King Aleijster de Satan and his comrade Jesse Heikkinen just did with HENGET first album, Beyond North Star, Heikkinen having proved to be quite a versatile artist since dabbling with ‘progressive esoteric folk’ with Iterum Nata, the equally ‘out there’ Hexvessel or The Abbey.
“When I got in the studio to do the vocals, I only had various notes, sometimes hastily written on a small piece of paper and more or less some kind of loose structures to go with it. Most of them I gathered in between 2016 and 2019 after, let’s say experimenting quite a bit. I admit natural psychedelics and other shamanic methods influenced me a lot to reach another level of consciousness, besides my long interest towards the occult and mysticism. Those weren’t meant to get lost into but instead to be used as mere tools to help me opening new doors in my brain, a bit like a shaman would do when engaged in a ritual to reach a trance like of state. That’s also why I booked a two weeks session just for the vocals: I needed that amount of space to really dive in my subconscious. Overall, that was one of most intense recording experience I ever had but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone because the toll you have to pay once it’s done is pretty heavy.”
Originally, the pair planned to unite in Saturnian Mist but then, Jesse “had to move to another city and it made things too complicated. But we still wanted to work together as he is probably the best songwriter I know. And since I had this idea for this other thing where I knew I wanted to push the limits and go over the edge in terms of songwriting, I needed somebody of his calibre.” “Indeed, Aleijster approached during summer 2021” confirms the multi-instrumentist. “He had a quite clear vision of what kind of concept he wanted to do lyrically speaking for a long time. It did coincide with my own desire to express something personal yet aggressively, an urge I hadn’t felt in a long time. Based on his background, we agreed this should happen within some kind of black metal frame but without still paying attention to much conventions or rules. I was given free rein to do whatever I felt like and I quickly realized I wanted it to be quite intuitive while making sure the music would be as crazy as possible, like some typhoon swallowing everything in its path… So using mostly vintage instrumentation, I recorded most of the music by myself in my own studio, pushing the button ‘rec’ and then totally letting myself go, following Aleijster ‘automatic writing’ method and ending up with some pretty interesting result.”
There’s something strangely seductive about the eight tracks included on Beyond North Star, as if the listeners were invited to enter some alternative and colourful place, dangerous and scary yet always otherworldly. Some may argue that all along you will most likely cross there the ghosts of Dødheimsgård, Arcturus or King Crimson. But Aleijster remains pretty reluctant to label it but “if we really need to, I guess it’s avant-garde black metal.” After hesitating with Henkivallat (‘spiritual realms’), which they ended up using as a songtitle instead, the name HENGET was chosen because of its double meaning as it can be translated both as ‘life’ but also ‘spirits’, “a perfect name for an occult band”. Beyond North Star is a “loose” concept album, like one long journey, even if the songs are not exactly tied up together. Something the 70’s prog rock loving Jesse is quite happy with while its title is a reference to that actual spiritual journey the listeners are about to undertake. One they will never forget.
Three ambitious music videos in total have been shot already to promote the album and HENGET has gathered a full line-up in order to start playing live. Saturnian Mist drummer Ville Rissanen was the first one to be asked, soon followed by Lasse Launimaa, a teenage years friend of Jesse who also plays in cult symphonic black metal band Thyrane on keyboards, and Palmi Johansson on bass.
Line-up: King Aleijster de Satan – Vocals Jesse J. Heikkinen – Guitars, additional keys Lasse J. Launimaa – Keyboards Pálmi R. Jóhannsson – Bass Ville J. Rissanen – Drums
2023 will be known for a lot of things. And among all of them, the slight “detail” that will be CHRONICLE‘s third full-length album, “Where Chaos Thrives”, will likely put melodic/technical death metal fans in a frenzy. The record elevates the young Danes’ sound to a new level of brutality and technicality, enhanced by the superior production, mixing and mastering done by Tue Madsen (Meshuggah, The Haunted, The Black Dahlia Murder). With artwork done by Samuel Nelson (Allegaeon, First Fragment, Vale Of Pnath), “Where Chaos Thrives” has all the right ingredients in the right quantities to be a pure death metal onslaught.
The sound of Chronicle is a ferocious combination of melodic death metal and technical thrash elements. Lightning-fast drums, soaring solos and catchy guitar harmonies are the key ingredients in this cocktail of heaviness. The band consists of competent players, who each have many years of experience performing in front of crowds of all sizes. The band’s energetic live shows reveal a true passion for performing and each member of the band is determined to make every performance unique and energetic. Chronicle has played all over Denmark including some of the best metal events and festivals the country has to offer and also ventured into German territory.
Prepare yourself for the death metal sweeping winds of “Where Chaos Thrives”, a true extreme metal masterpiece to be remembered for years to come.
“Where Chaos Thrives” will be released on LP (black vinyl, limited to 300 copies), CD and digital formats via Mighty Music on May 19th, 2023. Pre-orders are available here.
The single “Where Chaos Thrives”, from the album, will be released on Friday next week and can be pre-saved here. A first single, titled “Terrorform” is out now. Check it out here.
Tracklist:
1. Usher In The End 2. Evolution In Reverse 3. Terrorform 4. The Black Tide 5. Vestigial 6. New Dark Age 7. Life Erasure 8. Horror Unearthed 9. Where Chaos Thrives
Lineup: Lars Bo Nepper – guitar/vocals Sebastian Skousgaard – guitar Jacob Wammen – bass/vocals Jari S. Holopainen – drums
Finnish dark metallers MUSTAN KUUN LAPSET celebrate their 30th anniversary with a new EP “Suruaika” to be released in March 24th 2023. Now they have released one song “Muistoa kunnioittaen” from the upcoming EP.
Muistoa kunnioittaen is MKL’s 30th birthday song. It gather in all the waves of the band’s music over the decades, from ’90s death metal to newer rock and folk influences. Muistoa kunnioittaen is the first metal song since Valo album (2019), and it’s also the first recorded song with Pasi Löfgren on bass and second vocals.
Suruaika 1993 – 2023 Anniversary EP contains four songs, including a Spanish version of one of MKL’s most famous works Morfiinisiivet, originally released in 2007. EP will be released on March 24th by Inverse Records.
The band plays Deep Waters & Dark Skies Tour 2023 in Finland with Swedish Wormwood and Finnish dark metal band Kuoleman Galleria.
Finnish artist PIPER, also known as Päivi Sihvonen, has released her second single release from her soon-to-be released debut album “What is the heart for?”. Immediately after its release, her first single Self-consciousness gained international interest on music websites, and it was selected for European radio channels and British radio playlists. As a continuation of this metal-style single, the second single, Dream is about the most beautiful dream in the world, that you want to revisit, but cannot. Dream is the album’s sixth song, and this rock ballad transports the listener to wistful landscapes of wishes.
“The birth of Dream’s words was special. It was kind of the impetus for writing the lyrics for all my songs. The beginnings of the piano compositions had already begun to emerge, the parts of the songs Eternity and Distance had already formed in my mind. Dream was born at night when I was trying to fall asleep under the glow of the full moon. The words came to me, and I started writing”, Päivi recalls and continues:
“In January 2020, there was a mesmerising full moon that lasted for many nights. While I was watching the glow of the moon, a chorus started playing in my head and I wrote it down.
Listening to inspiration and acting on it was a powerful experience. I explained to someone dear to me that Dream was born when the moon talked and I wrote. The verse that captures the theme of the song goes: “Insomnia, I want to sink into sleep, anew this dream.”
A woman and a piano create a strong tone in her debut album
“What is the heart for?” the lyrics and the moods of the songs that ended up on the record got their driving force from the challenges of being human, and got their strong framework inspired by nature.
“I want the public, who discovers my music, to be inspired to make their own interpretations – to give in to being carried away by their emotions,” describes Päivi.
Originating from classical, tinged with blues and finding fulfillment in the rock sound, the style wants to be its own, fantasy world-creating experience, without compartmentalization. The main role is played by a woman and a piano. In addition, other instruments played by Saku Anttila complete the experience.
Creativity through music and writing helps to open up
Päivi feels that one should not suppress or try to control one’s own unconsciousness:
“Music, writing and the arts are part of something bigger, for which, being open and receptive, you can act as its channel. You should throw yourself at the mercy of creativity and receive and create with the opening energy”, she describes.
“In the aftermath of a breakup from a long relationship years ago, I got through the pain through creativity. Then I made two songs on the piano and wrote them down. I still have not found those notes, one of which I can’t remember at all, but one of them was similar to the piano parts of Dream. As soon as Dream’s lyrics started playing in my head, I connected them to that earlier piano composition of mine. Could they work for that? I wondered. I wanted to try.”
Orange County’s BLEED THE SKY welcome new vocalist, Monte Barnard and release new single “The Parasite” featuring guest vocalist Mark Hunter from Chimaira.
The band teamed up with director Eric DiCarlo (@ericdicarlo41) at Square Up Studios to direct the video. He is known for his work with Chelsea Grin, Attila, and Lorna Shore. Additional cinematography was done by Karl Whinnery of Hot Karl Productions and Ben Schigel of Spider Studios.
“I’m beyond excited to join forces with the legendary institution that is Bleed the Sky. Their music impacted me as part of a movement that was integral to my musical coming of age and frankly, I’m still pinching myself. The opportunity to create and add to their legacy is one I don’t take lightly,” says Monte Barnard.
Mark Hunter adds, “I am thrilled to lend my voice to the powerful sound of Bleed The Sky’s ‘The Parasite’. It’s an honor to collaborate with such talented musicians and be a part of creating something truly unforgettable.”
“‘The Parasite’ is about humanity’s growing addiction to distraction from the ever encroaching horrors that occupy just outside the periphery of our day to day existence. We constantly seek to ween and cope ourselves from the harsh truths we should be addressing head on. By remaining ignorant and distracted, we only tighten the seal on our inevitable doom,” says the band.
WATCH Bleed The Sky – “The Parasite” (feat. Mark Hunter of Chimaira) Official Music Video:
Formed in 2003, Orange County based metal band Bleed The Sky are back with a new single as well as a new frontman. Following two well received albums released on Nuclear BlastRecords, Paradigm in Entropy (2005) and Murder the Dance (2008), the band once again redefined who they are with the Art Is War Records release This Way Lies Madness (2020) and the single The Devil Will See You Now (2020). Bleed The Sky returns with the same intensity that is familiar to fans of their previous albums, as well as a new brutality that they are excited to share with the metal community.
Getting his start in Northern California’s Death Metal scene, Monte Barnard joined Alterbeast in 2014 and continued his work touring and filling in on vocals with such bands as Thy Art Is Murder,The Kennedy Veil and Fallujah. He also fronts Emberthrone on Seek & Strike Records, as well as Lesser Animal.
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Visionary artist KIMMO KUUSNIEMI's ANCIENT STREAMING ASSEMBLY (ASA) have released “Aurora Nuclearis”, a powerful 12-minute audiovisual experience, dedicated to the Late Keyboardist Esa Kotilainen. - Click image to watch the video
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Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 