Following the release of 2021’s exceptional Of The Lotus & The Thunderbolt, Bombay-based heavy metal trio MIDHAVEN make an electrifying return this month to unveil the first of three stunning videos to showcase their raw energy and dynamic live presence.
With a relentless passion and attention to their craft, the band is poised to reclaim their position as one of India’s most formidable metal acts over the coming weeks with a series of videos, each recorded live at Island City Studios in Mumbai.
Exhibiting first-hand their unique blend of progressive metal and Indian ‘Ragas’; combining intense riffs, atmospheric textures, and powerful vocals, it marks an exciting chapter, and hints at bigger things to come. The band’s lead guitarist and vocalist, Aditya Mohanan, expressed his excitement about their return, stating:
“Since our album dropped during the pandemic, we were left high and dry when it came to playing music. So, recording the album live at Island City Studios and bringing it to our listeners felt like the best thing to do to get people to see Midhaven in all its relentlessness and intensity.”
The first of three videos, which premières this week is a live take of ‘Zhitro’, the central epic focal point to Of The Lotus & The Thunderbolt.
Recently premiered on Metal Injection earlier this week, watch the new video for ‘Zhitro [Live from Island City Studios]’ HERE
When history meets fantasy, when Metal passion meets deepest love for great Classical music, the result is operatic SYMPHONIC POWER METAL at it’s best!
PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT are happy to launch a new serial of EP’s called “Phoebus The Knight CHRONICLES” that will cover side stories and lore of the universe of Phoebus The Knight !
The first of the serial is called “The Cursed Lord” and will be out physically & digitally on all streaming platforms on June21, 2023 !
Pre-orders for the physical release are available on the band’s website !
This EP will cover the fight between the knights of Heliopolis against Gilles de Rais that has fallen into the abysses of dark magic, demonology and madness. Will the knights be able to bring peace back to the land of Rais ? Stay tuned for more !
Today the band releases a new Single & Video ‘The Black Dungeon’, watch the lyric video below.
PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT about “The Black Dungeon“: “In this song, the knights of Heliopolis take Tiffauges, the castle of Gilles de Rais, by storm to try to stop his evil deeds. They face a horde of demons and warlocks and they fight with all they have for their values and for justice.
The song in itself is designed to be catchy and presents a modern Symphonic Metal aspect with a less neoclassical side. However, orchestrations are on the front line with beautiful melodic lines, key changes to enhance the epic mood and killer guitar solo !
The band chose this song as single for the EP as it presents a lot of what PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT can be.”
TRACKS: 01. The Cursed Lord (06:40) 📺 02. The Black Dungeon (05:08) 03. Surrounded By Darkness (06:37) 04. The Tears Of Rowena (06:04) 05. The Tears Of Rowena • Metal Opera Version • Bonus Track (06:04)
PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT was born in the mind of Axel de Montalembert. Passionate of music, heroic-fantasy, esoterism and history, he created the story of Phoebus and his companions, the Knights Of Heliopolis, melting together heroic-fantasy and history.
To translate his great tale into music, he needed a composer that could write for a Metal band and a full orchestra to give to the story the epic breath it needed. That’s how he met Adrien Djouadou, a classically trained opera singer active on established stages and together, they created the whole concept of PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT.
Axel would write the lyrics and naturally, sing them and Adrien would compose the whole music, play the guitar and do the backing vocals. But PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT needed musicians, so they found a great team to play with them on this journey: Noémie Allet on the bass and vocals, Adrien Guingal on the guitar and Guillaume Remih on the drums. Each member of the band would represent a character in the story of Phoebus and his companions.
Naturally, PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT became a Symphonic Metal band with a whole conceptual and visual universe. They value quality in music, production and work invested by involved parties.
PHOEBUS THE KNIGHT finds its roots in bands like Nightwish, Epica, Within Temptation, Powerwolf, Rhapsody Of Fire, Cradle Of Filth …
Toronto Is Broken teams up with DJ and producer Natty Lou for a dark hypnotic Drum & Bass Single “Altered States“, out now on FiXT.
With a backdrop over heavy slow burning industrial guitars and heavy rhythms “Altered States” features an in-your-face sampled vocal performance with thought-provoking lyrics as the main course. Toronto Is Broken and Natty Lou drive the track forward with an ominous soundscape perforated by hypnotic build-ups of the synthesizers throughout the track. The single gives way to distorted vocals as the song breaks down, a perfect sonic illustration of losing oneself, even as you contemplate what’s to come.
Christian Hoffmann, better known as Toronto Is Broken, is a British DJ and producer based in Leicestershire. Christian Hoffmann’s initial venture into the world of music started out with a guitar whilst at school, and after various attempts to attract bands with his passion, he went on a solo mission to produce electronic music inspired by Enter Shikari’s first album Take to the Skies. Several years of work and perseverance later, Christian went on to be picked up by the UK bass label Sub Slayers, run by former Kiss FM and RAM Records president Jay Cunning. His first release The Move It EP received high praise and featured “Spirit Song 2012”, played by everyone from Paul Oakenfold to Sub Focus. “Spirit Song 2012” was also used as the main piece in the Arcadia Spectacular show at festivals all over the world.
Natty Lou (Natalie Louise) is an international Drum and Bass DJ & Producer. Nominated as ‘Best Newcomer’ in the DnB Arena Awards 2021 and chosen as one of UKF’s ‘One To Watch’ in 2023, she has showcased her sound at various clubs and festivals all over Europe such as; Glastonbury, Boomtown, Snowboxx, Love Saves The Day, Warehouse Project Manchester, Motion Bristol, Fabric London, ADE, NOX Netherlands and many more.
Mexican Thrashers STRIKE MASTER unleash their fast and furious single “Crystallized” as the spearhead of the 2023 full length album – Tangram Apocalypse, which will be released through singles leading up to the release date. The album will be released September 1st physically and on all major platforms.
Crystallized recently premiered via Metal-rules and can be found here.
In addition, Strike Master has also released a Bass play-through of the track performed by Walter Kleinert which can be found on the bands YouTube channel here:
Recorded in Mexico City at Confederate Musick Studio MiX and Mastered by Erick Monzonis at Dark House Audio
“Tangram Apocalypse” will be released through singles starting on June 1st 2023, Final release date and CD sale: September 1st 2023.
Tracklist:
Crystallized Here Comes the Incubus We die Tonight Lost within Compass Heavy Metal Black to the Future Prototype God Save the Fire
Strike Master is: KMU – Guitars and Vocals Konspirator – Drums Walter Kleinert – Bass
Greek progressive alt-metal heavyweights SiXforNinE are back with a jaw-dropping, animated music video for their song “Out of the Blue”, directed by visual mastermind John Nikolopoulos. This is the fourth music video taken from their latest full-length album Parallel Universe which was released via Eclipse Records on August 2, 2019. The album was produced by Fotis Benardo (Septicflesh, Nightrage), mixed by Paul Pavao (Disturbed, Stone Temple Pilots, Breaking Benjamin), and mastered by Tom Baker (Rob Zombie, Nine Inch Nails, Motley Crue).
Watch the new “Out of the Blue” music video via YouTube, and stream the album on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, Deezer, and Amazon Music at this location.
“We were in absolute awe – jaw dropping, eyes wide open – when John Nikolopoulos (director/creator) presented to us the Out Of The Blue music video” says bassist Herc Booze. “This song has a very powerful story behind it, very personal for us. It has to do with the loss of a beloved person, the effort to get back in balance, at the same time not trying to forget, but to handle the pain. There was no one better than Zee to handle this journey… a robot with emotions, travelling through parallel universes, seeking his parents!” Director John Nikolopoulos adds, “I always had it in my mind to do a video for this song, envisioning a different format than the classic performance clips we did for Bullet off it’s Course and Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining. What I came up with involved creating a video with a vertical orientation, specifically for mobile viewing, using the stop-motion technique. During the Autumn of 2022, I started experimenting with creating AI-generated images through Midjourney. It didn’t take long for me to make the connection with the Out Of The Blue project. From January until early March 2023, I had gathered over 5,000 designs, writing prompts related to the lyrics of the song and its story, but also related to other songs from this and the previous album of the band. The style I chose for all the designs is a retro futurism style, inspired by old posters of vintage sci-fi movies and comics that I liked, because I believe it both suited the story of Zee (see below) and the technical aspect of vertical orientation for mobile viewing. Subsequently, these designs went through some initial processing using Photoshop and Lightroom to prepare them for the final video editing stage alongside the song. That’s how the story of Zee was born. Zee was a little robot created by a pair of scientists to help them discover a parallel universe. Zee had spent its entire life in the laboratory, with the scientists taking care of it and teaching it everything about life and human emotions, making it a member of their family. But one day, a terrible accident occurred during an experiment, and the scientists vanished, leaving the little robot all alone. Not knowing what else to do, Zee decided to venture out of the laboratory for the first time in its life and travel through multiverse to find the ones it missed. This video is a story of his journey longing to reunite with those dear to his robotic heart.”
(Cover art by Vagelis Petikas)
Parallel Universe by SiXforNinE contains nine high-energy active rock anthems and when released, received critical acclaim from the likes of People Greece, Rock Overdose, Metal Injection, Rock Hard, and dozens more. From the very first single “Bullet Off Its Course”, one can see how this seize-the-day anthem of positivity could easily push this band towards the top. Other highlights from the album include “Counting Stars” which is about galactic travel via astral projection, and “Sea of Lies” which tells the story of a refugee hoping for a better future. Parallel Universe was produced by Fotis Benardo at DevasoundZ Studios in Athens, Greece, mixed by Paul Pavao (Disturbed, Stone Temple Pilots, Breaking Benjamin), and mastered by Tom Baker (Rob Zombie, Nine Inch Nails, Motley Crue).
Download or listen to “Out of the Blue” and the entire Parallel Universe album by SiXforNinE at https://ffm.to/sixfornine
After recently performing as direct support to Metallica for two spectacular shows in Paris and Hamburg, Symphonic metallers EPICA return with a another new live single from their European headline tour. The bombastic ‘Unleashed’ was recorded at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live in January 2023. Ahead of the band’s performance at Download Festival this weekend, they have released the live video for ‘Unleashed (Live at the AFAS Live)’.
“Unleashed has been a band and fan favourite live song ever since its release on Design Your Universe”, comments Coen Janssen.“There was no question about playing it on our biggest indoor show to date, and with the amazing images on the big LED wall, the song got lifted to an even higher experience.”
Watch the video for ‘Unleashed (Live at the AFAS Live)’ and stream on all platforms now here.
EPICA have a busy festival summer ahead of themselves before going back into the studio early next year to record the follow-up to 2021’s Omega.
SUMMER FESTIVAL 2023 09.06.23 | Download Festival | Donnington, UK 15.06.23 | Graspop Metal Meeting | Dessel, BE 25.06.23 | Topfest | Abraham, SK 02.07.23 | Midalidare – Rock In The Valley | Mogilovo, BG 07.07.23 | Exit Festival | Novi Sad, RS 13.07.23 | Dong Open Air | Neukirchen-Vluyn, DE 15.07.23 | The Return of The Gods Festival | Milan, IT 28.07.23 | Kuopiorock | Kuopio, FI 29.07.23 | Q-Stock | Oulu, FI 06.08.23 | Rockstadt Extreme Fest | Rasnov, RO 16.08.23 | Summer Breeze | Dinkelsbühl, DE 18.08.23 | Motocultor Festival | Carhaix, FR 20.08.2023 | Rock The Lakes | Vallamand, CH
Fall dates 26.10.23 | Floyd | Athens, GR 28.10.23 | Kucukciftlik Park | Istanbul, TR 05.11.23 | Rock Circus Den Bosch, NL 18.11.23 | Metal Hammer Paradise | Weißenhäuser Strand, DE
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
