Philadelphia based extreme metallers IATT are gearing up for the release of the band’s highly anticipated new album “Magnum Opus“, which will be coming out on May 27 via Black Lion Records. After the previously- released singles “Seven Wandering Stars” and “Elixir of Immortality“, today IATT have unleashed a brand new music video for the track “Prima Materia”, which features Zach Strouse (Burial In The Sky / Rivers Of Nihil) on saxophone.
IATT comments:
“Following a different route, Prima Materia carries the listener on an epic voyage and showcases IATT’s more progressive side. While classically aggressive and grandiose, this track’s twists and turns pull at one’s emotions and pump adrenaline through the veins.“
Meticulously crafted to pick up thematically where its predecessor left off, on “Magnum Opus” the listener is catapulted from the 1700s (Arsenic Ways) further back in time to a much darker, older world and the esoteric sciences of Alchemy. It was in this time man aimed to harness the world around him, bending the natural elements in a quest to obtain power, knowledge, control, and even immortality itself. Alchemy was the key to unlocking the secrets of existence and elevating one’s self to the pinnacle of enlightenment through transmutation and manipulation of the earthly elements. It was only through the process of Magnum Opus (the great work) that alchemists could harness the elementals in their purest form to create the Philosopher’s Stone – the key to power, enlightenment, and immortality.
Just as in alchemy itself, creating this album has been a journey of transformation; a period of great growth as individuals and as a unit. It’s through adversity, struggles, and the forging of the elements – of literal blood, sweat, and tears – IATT strive to transcend and elevate to their highest self, “the great work”, “Magnum Opus“.
“Magnum Opus” was produced by Joe Cantamessa and got mixed and mastered by Marcos Cerutti. Stunning cover artwork by Nightjar art of Adam Burke. Furthermore, the album features guest performances by musicians from UADA, RIVERS OF NIHIL, EMPEROR, WINDFAERER + more.
The album is available for pre-order at THIS LOCATION
CHLOE TRUJILLO & RAV MEDIC have released the official music video for their latest single, ‘The Heaviest Sound is Silence‘, out now through Golden Robot Records.
Written by Trujillo, ‘The Heaviest Sound is Silence‘ explores ways to escape the daily madness and find inner calm. In a world of chaos and distraction, sometimes the hardest thing to find is peace and silence. A mellow sync pattern starts the track, before a low and heavy riff gets the song moving, with Chloe’s vocals driving the melody.
The music video was edited by Oleg Rooz, with the band thanking Mona Greer, Edgar Barradas, Cat Govelli, Adam Zaffarese, Tosha Jones, Kasia Trujillo, Yves Aerts, Hayden Crimmins, Hugo Rock, and Frederic Biever for providing footage.
Born in Paris France, ChloeTrujillo has immersed herself in the art/music world from a young age. Her music is infused with anything from rap, metal, gypsy & blues. She first got her Visa through performing in NYC cabarets & musical theatre. From there, she was invited to LA by Gail Zappa to record the Frank Zappa cover ‘The Torture Never Stops’. Chloe is also wife of Robert Trujillo from Metallica/Suicidal Tendencies.
Mark, who is originally from New Zealand, made the move to Australia and started rock outfit Bellusira, who went on to release two notable albums and move to America briefly under management from Will Hunt (Evanescence). The band toured the USA a few times and had Koichi Fukuda from Static-X take over guitar duties. Once that project came to an end, Mark decided to stay in America and continue his musical pursuit.
Both parties met in early 2021 when asked to be a part of the Global Green Charity Event held at the Troubadour in LA.
After connecting online and having a mutual respect for each other’s music, Trujillo and Mark suggested the idea of doing a collaboration. The track ‘Lightning Strikes Twice’ was the outstanding result. The feedback from the single was strong and they both enjoyed working together so much, that they decided to continue to work together under the banner Chloe Trujillo & Rav Medic.
Finnish Heinola-based metal band WHERE’S MY BIBLE released their third single and yet another impressive music video Chapter III: Nest. The track is taken from their upcoming EP Circle which is set to be released on May 13th 2022 via Inverse Records. There will be four tracks on EP and music video is done for each song.
Singer Jussi Matilainen comments: “Winter, death, deep end. Story gets to the breakdown. Exhaustion and hopelessness dance around hand in hand and it’s so dark that it’s hard to remember existence of light. Hope a distant memory and journey so heavy, like something is dragging you. Towards the end…
As a song this is hands down the heaviest and darkest we have gone, which is close to my heart, and I feel like I’m on my area of strength with this one. I have waited releasing this part extremely much and I’m excited to see the reaction.”
Drummer Teppo Ristola continues: “Before I told the band that I was interested in a regular place as a drummer, I knew the upcoming songs would be strong and the band would take a step forward. This particular song most influenced my decision to inquire if the permanent drummer’s seat would still be open. I think the song combines exactly the new and darker side that the band represents today. The journey is just beginning!”
Houston-bred rock/hip-hop fusion artist HYRO THE HERO released a new version of the title track off his KIDSAGAINST THE MONSTERS project with a feature from Slipknot’s Corey Taylor. The release is the culmination of a series of singles featuring high-profile fellow artists that Hyro The Hero has dropped over the past year. The project originated as a mixtape, inspired from his Houston underground hip-hop roots, and is now available in full as an EP to stream and download across digital platforms HERE. See below for a full tracklisting. The new track was recorded remotely during lockdown in 2020, after Ben Bruce of Asking Alexandria, a mentor to Hyro, reached out to Taylor. The answer was an immediate yes. Late last year, fans got an early listen to the track when it appeared in episode eight of Apple TV+’s basketball drama series Swagger, executive produced by Kevin Durant and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Reggie Rock Bythewood. “Kids Against The Monsters (feat. Corey Taylor of Slipknot)” is available now to stream and download across digital platforms HERE. An official video for the track was also released today. WATCH HERE.
Thrilled to be sharing the latest version of “Kids Against The Monsters” with Slipknot collaborator Corey Taylor, Hyro said, “Working with Corey Taylor was absolutely incredible. When I first heard him sing the words of the chorus we created, I got chills. Kids Against The Monsters is about the problems we deal with from generation to generation. This generation is trying to find peace and fix past mistakes. When you press play and listen to my music, I want you to feel the positivity and love.”
Corey Taylor also gave his thoughts on teaming up with Hyro on the track, “It’s always nice to collaborate with up-and-coming talent, especially when you’re a genuine fan. I was stoked to hop on this song with Hyro The Hero. He embodies what a true artist is meant to do: make you feel something. This song is a great reminder that we’re stronger together when facing our demons.”
In addition to capturing the attention of his musical peers, Hyro’s music has peaked the interest of influential media such as TheHouston Chronicle, his hometown paper, who profiled the artist at the top of this year writing, “Over the years, Hyro — born Hyron Louis Fenton Jr. — has built on that mashup [rock and hip-hop] and become a full-fledged rock star.” True to that sentiment, Hyro brings together a unique blend of influences across rap, rock, punk, and hip hop on this EP, gathering a group of iconic artists to join him on a collection of songs that speak to the racism, class discrimination, and political division in our society, and hopes to inspire a way forward, encouraging ALL the Kids to unite.
The Kids Against The Monsters mixtape includes previously released tracks such as the incendiary “FU2 (Feat. AJ Channer of Fire From The Gods),”“We Believe (feat. David Draiman of Distubed,)” and “Fight (feat. Chad Gray of Hellyeah)”. Hyro announced the project in a reflective piece published by Knotfest last year, explaining how his Houston roots introduced him to the idea of the mixtape and expressing how sacred that concept is in the hip-hop community to reaching new fans. The mixtape is an embodiment of Hyro’s growth as a musician, as he stayed true to the hip-hop ideology embedded in his DNA, while also fulfilling the emotional pull he felt towards rock music in his teens. Read the full statement HERE. Additionally, Knotfest aired a series of interviews with Hyro and his collaborators to dive deeper into the project and the inspiration behind each track.
KIDS AGAINST THE MONSTERS EP TRACKLISTING
“Kids Against The Monsters (feat. Corey Taylor of Slipknot)”
“FU 2 (feat. AJ Channer of Fire From The Gods)”
“We Believe (feat. David Draiman of Distrubed)”
“Fight (feat. Chad Gray of Hellyeah)”
In addition to acclaim from Kerrang!, The BBC, Revolver and Afropunk, Alternative Press retrospectively praised Hyro among, “19 Underrated Bands From The 2010s Who Deserve Another Listen” and claimed, “You know that band who other groups flock to so they can watch from the side of the stage? That’s Hyro.”
After non stop touring in support of his last album, Hyro dove right into the studio with producer Matt Good [Asking Alexandria, Hollywood Undead, From First To Last]. Under a flurry of inspiration, they recorded an entire album over the course of just two weeks. In the process, he expanded his sound dramatically.
“You can see and hear the growth in this album,” he says. “I had to go through everything that brought me to this point and I’ve really learned how to focus on storylines and approach records structurally and lyrically. All of my experience built up respect to work with some of my heroes on the new material.” He grins and says, “I want to have my name in this game for a lifetime.”
With this new music, he’s well on his way to such a status.
SAXON have launched their new video for ‘Super Nova’, Taken from the Metal Masterpiece Carpe Diem, get your copy at this location.
Biff Byford comments: “It’s about a black hole, which are things I’ve been interested in and read about, and it’s such a fantastic riff that the whole “Supernova” idea fitted well. It’s really great to sing, and in rehearsal it just plays itself. The guitar has got that riff that’s like muscle memory”
Listen To/Watch the recently released “The Pilgrimage”, “Remember the Fallen”, “Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)” and “SAXON – Carpe Diem: Behind The Album” at this location
Produced by Andy Sneap (Judas Priest, Exodus, Accept and Priest guitarist) at Backstage Recording Studios in Derbyshire with Byford and Sneap mixing and mastering, Carpe Diem strikes the ear as one of the most essential British metal statements of the last few years and not lacking in pace or bite, an album which will ignite the joy in stalwart supporters and attract a whole new legion to the Saxon fold.
Carpe Diem is available in a variety of formats and orders can be placed at this location
Tracklisting
1. Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)
2. Age of Steam
3. The Pilgrimage
4. Dambusters
5. Remember the Fallen
6. Super Nova
7. Lady In Gray
8. All for One
9. Black is the Night
10. Living On the Limit
Not resting on their laurels, SAXON have recently announced a string of dates to their SEIZE THE DAY WORLD TOUR:
WALTER TROUT will release his new studio album “Ride” on August 19th via Provogue / Mascot Label Group. Listen to the new single ‘Ghosts’, here.
However fast or far a man travels, he can never truly outrun his past. On his new album he found himself eyeing the horizon and the green shoots of his triumphant late career. There was a new record deal with Mascot/Provogue. A move from California to Denmark with his beloved family. Even now, aged 70, Trout was still writing fresh chapters of his life story.
The last time we saw Trout stepping out, he was on the road in support of 2020’s Ordinary Madness. The campaign ended in frustration, when Covid rendered live work too dangerous, both for this liver-transplant survivor and his fans, condemning Trout to an enforced downtime in Denmark that he hadn’t known in a half-century. “I’ve been at this since ’69, when I started out in the New Jersey bars,” he reflects. “Suddenly, I’m sat on my ass for sixteen months, although I did still practise guitar every day. My wife and manager Marie knew I needed to make music. So her present to me for my 70th birthday was a brand-new record deal she had negotiated. My producer, Eric Corne, scoped out a new studio in LA, and my plan was to fly home to make a new album.”
Arriving on the US West Coast two weeks before sessions began, Trout settled to write the Ride material in his now-deserted house in Huntington Beach, California. But even in this beachside paradise, amongst the swaying palms and ocean breeze, the past came calling. As long-standing Trout fans know, the Golden State has been the bluesman’s home for 47 years.
In time, Trout joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers lineup in ’85, before embarking on an acclaimed solo career from ’89 onwards. But before that came his chaotic, self-destructive years as a jobbing lead guitarist, whether for revered-but-tricky blues pioneers like John Lee Hooker and Big Mama Thornton, or an unhinged tenure in an ’80s Canned Heat lineup controlled by the Hell’s Angels.
Trout’s well-documented excess in this era was darker than a young rock star cutting loose. It could all be traced back to his troubled childhood in New Jersey, he explains, where an unstable stepfather – himself the victim of shocking cruelty as a prisoner of war – was a terrifying presence. As Ride took form, such memories couldn’t help but flavour the music. “This album is obviously what I was going through mentally and emotionally,” he considers. “All I did was express it. I spent a lot of time crying, because I would dig down into my emotional core. I want my songs to have some sort of truth to them.”
From the grinding riff and freight-train harp that light the fuse of opener Ghosts, it’s clear Ride is like nothing else in Trout’s catalogue. “That song was actually written as a poem,” he explains. “It starts off with the lyric, ‘Sometimes I hear a familiar song and it brings back memories’. That’s the truth. I’ll be riding in my car, a song comes on the radio and I have to pull over and sob for a while. Ghosts sums this album up, y’know?”
Some memories are long-distant but eternally poignant. Try the title track, recounting the locomotive that rattled past his childhood home each night and enticed him to freight-hop to freedom. The stormy Hey Mama takes inspiration from the same period, with Trout debating whether his trauma could have been averted. “I’m not pissed off with my mom and I love her memory,” he says, “but my wife says, ‘Your mom probably could have done more to protect you from your stepdad’. Yeah, maybe she could have. But it’s easy to say that looking back.”
Other songs are more recent and raw, like the slow-burn wee-small-hours lament Follow You Back Home, which channels Trout’s anguish during a period of marital difficulty. Yet Trout’s ruminations are not always negative. Reverb-cloaked, faintly Hendrixian and vocally influenced by Chet Baker, the stunning album closer Destiny gives an unvarnished account of the guitarist’s first meeting with Marie at a Danish blues festival in 1990.
By now, Trout knows that nobody ever really leaves their old selves behind. But with Ride providing an emotional release-valve – both for its creator and his loyal listeners – perhaps this veteran artist can reconcile with his past, accept his future and live in the present as it unfolds. “I think you can interpret this album title a few different ways,” he concludes. “I mean, this album is definitely a musical ride and I certainly tried to cover a lot of ground. But, really, life is kind of a ride too, isn’t it? And I want to live mine to the fullest.”
Track list Ghosts Ride Follow You Back Home So Many Sad Goodbyes High Is Low Waiting For The Dawn Better Days Ahead Fertile Soil I Worry Too Much Leave It All Behind Hey Mama Destiny
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 ) 