Stoner/Doom Rock group BlackStorm have premiered a new lyric video for their latest track ‘Heavy Energy’ ahead of a special guest slot to Pitchshifter’s sold out Bristol show this July. Watch the video below.
Hailing from Brighton UK, Blackstorm’s line-up features members of Earthtone9, The Blueprint, Twin Zero, Fall of Efrafa, GNOD and King Beef. Latest single ‘Heavy Energy’ serves as an ethereal appetiser ahead of Blackstorm’s special guest slot to Pitchshifter’s sold out Bristol show, at The Exchange, on the 7th of July.
Vocalist Karl Middleton (Earthtone9) says, “It’s an honour to share the stage with the Clayden brothers once again. Our friendship runs deep, over 25 years. This show is going to be wild. The Exchange is a killer 300 capacity venue, and it’s gonna be a hot, sweaty, high energy show.”
The epic follow up to 2022’s comeback single ‘Iron Harvest’, ‘Heavy Energy’ sees Blackstorm on fiery form. This six minute lumbering behemoth blends elemental stadium doom riffery and grooves with mournful grunge-tinged vocal melodies.
“The lyrics to ‘Heavy Energy’ are built around the idea of a Sisyphean Trial – a task that is impossible to complete”, explains Middleton. “It refers to the punishment that Sisyphus receives in the underworld, where he is forced to roll a boulder up a hill repeatedly for eternity.
Sometimes life can feel like endless, purposeless drudgery. The verse lyrics riff around this.
The chorus lyrics are a counter-point to this, drawing upon the idea that all is impermanent and relational, and that we have the resources within us to overcome any challenge we might experience in life.”
Originally formed in 2006, Blackstorm released a 7” record on London’s Sound Devastation Records and a digital ep release via Canada’s Distort Records. The band has shared the stage with the likes of Cancer Bats, Kruger, Miramar Disaster, Saviours, Burning Love and Orange Goblin, made killer appearances at Hammerfest and Desertfest and received radio play on the Bruce Dickinson’s radio show. The band was dormant for eight years, resurfacing in 2022 with comeback single ‘Iron Harvest’ and new release ‘Heavy Energy.’
Blackstorm are relentless in their drive to create the perfect mix of epic doom, grunge, stoner and classic rock.
BLACKSTORM ARE:
Karl Middleton – Vocals Neil Kingsbury – Guitars & Backing vocals Steve McCusker – Bass Jon Perry – Drums
The CRUZADOS European tour kicks off this Spring, April 27th through May 27th of 2023 with stops in Spain, France, Belgium, and Germany. Also coming this Spring 2023, you can expect an all new 6-song EP entitled “Land of the Endless Sun” produced by Bruce Witkin, as well as a collection of live music recorded in Europe from the band’s 2022 tour. “Live from Marseille” is a full-length live album that contains performances of Cruzados band classics and some new tunes from 2022-2023.
Listen to the CRUZADOS EP “Land of the Endless Sun” – https://open.spotify.com/album/4xMLQiu8j4E2UG76bjvmCs
“Recording our new 6 song EP “Land of the Endless Sun” brought me back to our early days in the Cruzados. The guitar sounds we got thanks to Loren Molinare and Mark Tremalgia are tough as nails and set the mode for the entire EP. Ron Young belts out even stronger on this collection and the songs cover a wide range of Classic Cruzados styles from the desert sound to 60s garage, all rounded out with a backbeat by drummer Rob Klonel that propels each track”. – Tony Marsico co-founder/ bassist -The Cruzados
“This was a fun group of songs to record. It highlights so many of the band’s influences that we love to weave into our set. It keeps the Cruzados legacy going. Getting to work with our favorite Producer, Bruce Witkin again was also a blast as he makes us so comfortable all through the tracking that it makes the music flow out of us and he gets great performances from each of us.”……Ron Young- Lead Singer/Cruzados
Track listing 1- Dead Inside 2- Land Of The Endless Sun 3- Golden Child 4- A Little More Time 5- Queen Of The Quake 6- Johnny Pay To Play
Recorded at Unison Studios Feb 18-22, 2023 Produced, Engineered and Mixed by Bruce Witkin All songs written by Marsico, Klonel, Molinare, Tremalgia, Young Additional Keyboards- Bruce Witkin Mastered by Dave Schultz at D2 Mastering
The 2022 Cruzados record “She’s Automatic” features 11 songs written or co-written by Tony Marsico, the bassist and co-writer for the Cruzados and a member of the band’s punk-era precursor the Plugz. This album was issued on Deko Entertainment January 2022.
If you haven’t collected “She’s Automatic” yet, hurry while the vinyl supply lasts! This is a live, hot, no-nonsense collection of hard-hitting rockers on which Marsico is joined by the members of his ‘80s L.A. contemporaries Little Caesar. The set’s glittering group of guest musicians includes a host of noted L.A. punk vets, including John Doe (X), Dave Alvin (the Blasters), David Hidalgo and Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), and Melanie Vannem (the Muffs, the Pandoras).
CRUZADOS 2023 European Tour 27/04/2023 Verviers-Belgium @ Spirit Of 66 28/04/2023 Besançon- France @ Bar De L’U 29/04/2023 Dortmund-Germany @ Blue Notez 01/05/2023 Girona-Spain @ Sala la Torrentera 03/05/2023 Madrid-Spain @ Rockville 04/05/2023 Zaragoza-Spain @ Rock & Blues 05/05/2023 Aviles-Spain @ Sala Malecón 06/05/2023 Cangas-Spain @ Salason 07/05/2023 A Coruña-Spain @ Mardi Gras 08/05/2023 Leon-Spain @ Babylon 11/05/2023 Orihuela-Spain @ La Gramola 12/05/2023 Castellon de la Plana-Spain @ Sala Because 13/05/2023 Barcelona-Spain @ La Textil 14/05/2023 Vitoria-Spain @ Urban Rock Concept 16/05/2023 Marseille-France @ Cherrydon 17/05/2023 Chambéry-France @ Brin De Zinc 19/05/2023 Kufstein-Austria @ Fufa 20/05/2023 Lauchhammer-Germany @ Real Music Club 22/05/2023 Norderstedt-Germany @ MusicStar 23/05/2023 Bremen-Germany @ Meisenfrei 26/05/2023 Krefeld-Germany @ Kulturrampe 27/05/2023 Fürth-Germany @ New Orleans Fest (Open Air)
CRUZADOS Ron Young: Lead Vocals Tony Marsico: Bass, Vocals Rob Klonel: Drums Mark Tremalgia: Guitar, Vocals Loren Molinare: Guitar, Vocals
About CRUZADOS
The Cruzados attracted national attention in the ‘80s with their stormy, Latin-inflected brand of post-punk hard rock. Signed to Clive Davis’ Arista Records, the quartet issued two albums, Cruzados (1985) and After Dark(1987). They also made a high-profile screen appearance in the 1989 cult classic Road House. However, familiar rock ‘n’ roll pressures capsized the band in 1991; guitarist Marshall Rohner died in 2005, and drummer Chalo “Charlie” Quintana died in 2018.
In the intervening years, Marsico worked on the debut album by Plugz and Cruzados singer-guitarist Tito Larriva’s band Tarantula, today based in Austin. He also carved out a notable career as a top session musician and touring sideman with such artists as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Roger Daltrey, Marianne Faithfull, and Willie Nelson. The bassist’s studio and road stories are collected in two books, Late Nights with Bob Dylan (2009) and I’m Just Here for the Gig! (2020).
With the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and the enforced solitude that followed, Marsico began to contemplate a new project under the Cruzados handle.
“Being penned up with the pandemic at home for a year, I started questioning my mortality,” he says. “I felt like I got shortchanged with the Cruzados. We never got to put out a third album, due to a lot of crazy circumstances that cropped up. I wanted to do the band justice and go out on a high note. That was my goal, and to pay tribute to Chalo and Marshall.”
Material for a new Cruzados release came quickly. It didn’t take long for Marsico to decide on the right musicians to carry on the Cruzados’ legacy in the studio: He turned to singer Ron Young and guitarists Loren Molinare and Mark Tremalgia of Little Caesar, who were also active on the L.A. scene in the late ‘80s as a Geffen Records act. The core lineup was completed by drummer Ron Klonel, who has collaborated with Little Caesar in recent years.
“The Little Caesar guys were Chalo’s best friends – they were pals from back in the day,” Marsico says. “I had to find the best guy to be the lead singer. My tastes have changed a little – the influences are blues and rock ‘n’ roll. I knew that Ron Young from Little Caesar loved blues, and we got to talking and we hit it off with the same style of music. I knew that he could pull this off and get behind it.
“Loren Molinare was in the great ‘70s L.A. band the Dogs, of course, and I loved the Dogs, and Mark Tremalgia is a new guy I’ve been working with for a couple of years now. Rob Klonel is a great, solid rock ‘n’ roll drummer. It was really important for me to get someone who hit ‘em hard like Chalo. They were a perfect combination of guys, and they had a lot of enthusiasm.”
With Bruce Witkin engineering and producing, the new Cruzados set up shop at Unison Studios in L.A. Marsico recalls, “We did it all “old style “– we just set up in a room all together, like we used to do records before they started putting everybody in isolation booths and all that crap. We got the band together and rehearsed, and we went into the studio a week later. Before we knew it, we had the album. All live, no click tracks. We all played in our own little area, with our masks on. Set up, play, cut the songs, boom. It felt great to rock with a bunch of like-minded guys. With our special guests, half of them came to the studio, and half recorded their parts at home.”
In 1991 the funk-metal explosion was in full swing with albums from Extreme, Dan Reed Network, Living Colour, Kingofthehill and others seeing solid coverage in the press and airplay everywhere you could possibly look. The Prince-meets-Glam Metal combination would prove to a short lived phenomenon that appealed to not only the headbanging nightclub goer but also to those that liked to get their groove on a bit whilst ‘banging their heads’. These bands had one thing in common: incredible musical chops.
Enter the Los Angeles’ funky, trippy, musically bone crushing quartet SLAM!
Led by the already highly respected Jeff Scott Soto (who, at this point, had recorded with Yngwie Malmsteen and Eyes and had just begun his journey with the Swedish group Talisman) and lead guitar extraordinaire George Bernhardt, known for his work with Canadians Hanover Fist, Lee Aaron and most recent to that timeline, Beau Nasty. After a few hit and miss personnel, they found their way over to SLAM in short order with bassist Ricky Wolking and drummer Mark Bistany. Explains Soto, “George and I had the vision, the songs and the intention…finding the right cast of musicians and personalities took a minute but we finally landed on it all sadly just before the demise of the band”.
Hitting the Los Angeles clubs with the subtlety of a hammer to the skull, the band showcased for semi-interested labels, none of which could make a full commitment to the band. “We knew we had the goods but the music scene was shifting so quickly back then we just seemed to be a little late to the table at the time” details Bernhardt.
With the Holy Grail out of reach, the members of SLAM would go on to projects with varying degrees of success and a unique band with boundless possibilities would go by the wayside. However, the few cassettes being shopped seemed to fall into non-industry hands and the SLAM demos were shared worldwide becoming an underground phenomenon for the then defunct group.
Thirty years after the recordings, specialty label 20th Century Music, (with cooperation of Soto & Bernhardt who dug up all the digital finals and had them mastered) has unleashed this masterpiece to the world at large. Sixteen tracks in total, the songs represent SLAM’s demo/studio work from 1991 – 1993 and consists of the following:
01 – Love Parade 02 – Body Language 03 – Lonely Shade Of Blue 04 – What U Want It 05 – Wastin’ Our Time 06 – Dear God 07 – Candy 08 – Dance The Body Elektrik 09 – Funk Me 10 – 4 U 11 – B-Jam 12 – Wildflower 13 – People 14 – Y U Doggin’ 15 – Monogamy & Lust 16 – EverybodyWantWhatTheyCantHave
Included amongst the fifteen original numbers is a remarkable cover of the Billboard Top 5 single, “Wildflower” from the Canadian act Skylark. “George called me one morning saying he heard a song on the radio he loved as a kid and hadn’t heard in ages thinking it would be a great vehicle for my voice if we covered it, I couldn’t agree more!” recounts Soto.
When you’re in the mood to dance HARD, throw on a copy of the SLAM album and move your ass across the floor like the world is watching. The album can be purchased here in North America and here worldwide.
For those that prefer streaming and digital download options, the album will be available May 12, 2023 on all streaming platforms and for vinyl lovers, the album will be available as a double vinyl release late summer ’23.
SLAM was: Jeff Scott Soto – Lead vocals George Bernhardt – Guitars Ricky Wolking – Bass Mark Bistany – Drums, percussion
Former personnel: Craig Polivka – Guitars Chris McCarvill – Bass Gary Schutt – Guitars
UK trio BLACK ORCHID EMPIRE are now releasing a new lyric video for the track ‘Scarlet Haze’ which is taken from their freshly released album “Tempus Veritas”. The video van be viewed via the official Season of Mist YouTube channel HERE.
‘Tempus Veritas’ was released on April 14, 2023 via Season of Mist and physical formats are still available HERE. The album can be pre-saved on various digital platforms HERE.
Speaking about Scarlet Haze Paul Visser says: “We’ve always loved filthy riffs and heavy songs, but huge, melodic tracks have a vital place in our sonic landscape – Scarlet Haze is one of those. We can’t wait to hear you screaming the chorus back to us at a live show. We’re so excited for people to hear Tempus Veritas and explore the new musical worlds which we’ve had such a great time crafting.
Lyrically this song is written from the point of view of the first human in space – Yuri Gagarin. In his final moments aboard the test flight on which he would ultimately lose his life, he contemplates the stars above him – realising he will never reach them again.”
BLACK ORCHID EMPIRE comment on the album: “Interwoven with the fabric of our history as a species are countless opportunities for stories. Little pieces of imagined narrative, set within events we all collectively know as historical, that seek to explore what it means to be human – this is the idea behind Tempus Veritas. Whereas Semaphore looked to the future, this record reinvents the past, wondering what it was like to be inside the mind of a person living through times of consequence. Musically, we continue to seek the boundary between the savagely technical and the undeniably beautiful and attempt to push it as far as possible. We poured our entire creative beings into making this album – we sincerely hope you enjoy it.“
Track-list: 1. Tempus Veritas (1:24) 2. Hydrogen (3:57) 3. The Raven (3:41) [WATCH] 4. Last Ronin (4:27) 5. Scarlet Haze (3:42) 6. Deny The Sun (3:15) [WATCH] 7. Glory To The King (3:37) [WATCH] 8. Summit (3:07) 9. Weakness (2:49) 10. Vesuvius (3:44) 11. Latimer (3:43) Total: 37:26
Cover artwork: Black Orchid Empire & Ines Hernandez
Metal Mind Productions is proud to announce the release of the new album by Death/Prog metal band SUBTERFUGE – “Philosopher”. It is the final chapter of an unique musical trilogy started with their previous albums: “Projections from the Past” (2018) and “Prometheus” (2019).
On the album the band combines death metal elements with heavy and progressive metal and additionally spiced it up with parts of saxophone. The material was recorded in an expanded line-up: Kinga Lis (vocals and violin), Mateusz Drzewicz (vocals), Tyberiusz łodwicz (guitar) and Witold Nowak (guitar) were joined by Karolina Kozar (keyboards, flute), Krzysztof Marchwacki (bass) and Łukasz Dziubiński (drums).
Their unique musicality, talent and ideas combined with the rest of the band created an absolutely magical mix that fulfill the “Philosopher” album. It’s an album different from what you’ve heard before – it’s eclectic and progressive, gentle and powerful, full of contrasts. The band announces: “We are taking you to the world of Story Metal where no one has been before, a world of light and darkness, joy and sadness, a world filled with questions that are better left unanswered…”
The release date is scheduled for May 12th 2023. First single to be revealed soon.
When it’s finally time for the European tour that’s been postponed twice due to the pandemic, costs have risen but not the fees for the band, so the tour looked to become a very expensive adventure. Thanks to one sponsor the band can travel in style in a nightliner with six fans joining them for two weeks across Europe.
CONCEPTION have based their coming back on crowdfunding, and their fanbase has proven to be dedicated and loyal. They have arranged camps with fans, and they have always sold out, as have numerous lunches and meet and greets. With the harsh reality of the economics after the pandemic, it looked like the band was facing a difficult financial balance for the tour, when a fan, who prefers to stay anonymous, offered to sponsor the bus.
-”We couldn’t believe our luck” singer Roy Khan says, and guitarist Tore Østby continues: -”Thanks to this we can both tour and invite fans to join us and share the touring experience!”
After two successful shows in their home town Gjøvik and Vorselaar, Belgium, the band really look forward to two weeks on the road.
Tour dates: Amsterdam, Melkweg OZ – Thursday 20 April Luxembourg, The Club, Rockhal – Friday 21 April Paris, La Maroquinierie – Saturday 22 April L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Salamandra – Thursday 27 April Madrid, Shôko Madrid – Friday 28 April Lisbon, Lisboa Ao Vivo – Saturday 29 April
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
