New York death metal giants, IMMOLATION, have released a music video for “Rise The Heretics” which is the final chapter of the Atonement saga before the band starts releasing new material.
Once again Robert Vigna created and directed the music video while Angelo Damanti handled the camera work as well as served as the technical advisor and equipment specialist. The band’s performance was filmed at Dark City Studios in Yonkers, NY.
IMMOLATION comments, “We want to thank all our fans for their tremendous support and patience during the last few years. We have one last offering from the ‘Atonement’ album that we would like to share with everyone before we begin the next chapter for IMMOLATION. We have more news on the way and look forward to seeing everyone again real soon!”
Watch the music video for “Rise The Heretics” here:
Stay tuned for more information about the upcoming IMMOLATION album.
Recently, the band announced they will be performing a special “One Night Only” event on March 19th consisting of the NY Metal Scene, at one of NYC’s most historic music halls, Irving Plaza. Joining the band for the night are DEMOLITION HAMMER, MORTICIAN, BLACK ANVIL, and FUNERAL LEECH.
Bay Area thrash legends DEATH ANGEL have released their heavily anticipated new live record titled “The Bastard Tracks” today with Nuclear Blast. Recorded live at The Great American Music Hall in their hometown of San Francisco on May 22nd, 2021, and streamed live soon after, “The Bastard Tracks” is a deep cuts collection of rarely and never performed songs from the band’s celebrated catalog that’s available now digitally and on CD and Blu-Ray and will be released on vinyl on April 29th.
In conjunction with the release the band has rolled out the live video for ‘The Absence of Light’, which can be viewed now below.
Commenting on the song, vocalist Mark Osegueda states: “’Absence of Light’ is a song that I have been championing for since the album that it is on called ‘Relentless Retribution’ was released in 2010. It’s an extremely dark song lyrically that sits on top of this thunderous and driving riff and beat. It is not a fast song by any means. But! It’s HEAVY!! DARK and HEAVY!!! We finally took the time to re-familiarize ourselves with it and we were all surprised how HEAVY it sounded when we all played it together in the room! I’m pretty confident it will rear it’s DARK and HEAVY head in some future live sets. In front of an actual audience!”
Commenting on the record, vocalist Mark Osegueda states: “When we performed and filmed the songs for ‘The Bastard Tracks’ it was such a crazy time and having missed being able to perform live for so long was taking it’s toll on me to a certain degree as I have been a live performer for the majority of my life.. I must say…It was a pretty dark time. I know it was for so many of us…But! Music once again helped to pull us through it…It was a bit odd performing to no crowd…But! It felt great re-learning some deep tracks and getting on stage with the guys and unleashing this pent up aggression! And the response from everyone who tuned into it suggesting that we release it as an album was overwhelming! Well…Thanks to them here it is! I hope you enjoy it!”
Adding to that, guitarist Rob Cavestany says: “Choosing and sequencing the songs for ‘The Bastard Tracks’ set list was quite a different trip. All of them had rarely (and in some instances never) been played live. We hadn’t performed in front of a live audience for over a year, the longest ever for this band. It was to be filmed live at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco and then broadcast worldwide on the good ol’ inter-web! I could get into that… From basically re-learning most of these songs to getting them as tight as they should be, we put our energy together and made it happen! I’m thankful for having had this goal to focus on during those (still) crazy earth crisis days. It gave us an important reason to get together at DA Studio and JAM! Literally the only time I’ve felt “normal” since 2020 was while we were jamming! Fortunately we’ve been able to do it a lot. Now, we proudly present the audio and visual recordings of those sessions. Turn it up! P.S. – We cannot wait to exchange live energy with you as soon as possible!!”
Last year, MAJESTICA released their new album “A Christmas Carol” as a wonderful Christmas gift for the whole metal scene. It’s pure symphonic power metal in the true MAJESTICA spirit along with elements inspired by the likes of TWILIGHT FORCE, RHAPSODY, ALAN SILVESTRI, DANNY ELFMAN and JOHN WILLIAMS.
Today, the band release “A Christmas Carol – Extended Version”, that is not only available on vinyl, but also finally completes the story surrounding the grumpy old Ebenezer Scrooge with two new songs. The band also unveil a studio video for the second single ‘This Christmas’, that you can watch here:
The band comment: “It’s time to complete the ”A Christmas Carol” story with our new single ‘This Christmas’ and the release of ”A Christmas Carol – Extended Version”! ‘This Christmas’ is an uptempo song that has a bit of all the elements you can find on the album. Strong chorus, duo vocals, big orchestraion, twin guitars and all the Christmas feeling that you need. Finally there will be a vinyl version of the album, many asked for this last year and we really felt that it has to be released on vinyl this year!”
Due to delays at the pressing plant, the release of the vinyl version will follow at a later date as soon as possible.
Sadly, due to the ongoing pandemic, MAJESTICA are forced to postpone their European tour that was planned for December this year. New dates will be announced soon.
Jimmy Kay along with Queensryche singer Todd LaTorre interviewed former Ozzy guitarist Gus G about his new Instrumental solo album ‘Quantum Leap’ which was released October 8, 2021 via AFM.
Plus Gus G also shared his thoughts on Ozzy’s first four albums.
When asked which of the first Two Ozzy albums (Randy Rhoads era) he prefers “I cannot really pick which one I like more. The biggest hit of course is on the first album (Blizzard of Ozz) ‘Crazy Train’ but the second album (Diary of a Madman) is the one that I was exposed to first. From an emotional side, that was the first album I heard from Ozzy. They both have my top spot. What made the Randy Rhoads’ albums so special was a combination of things, it was the way he blended a European flavour of playing with a classic American rock style. Randy Rhoads was able to play metal riffs and leads and kind of put them in a sort of pop rock song format for the radio. What Zakk Wylde had said was that Rhoads was like the prototype of the modern metal guitar player and I really agree with that statement. There are just so many things that made Randy Rhoads special.”
When asked about his opinion on Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon Album “The title track, it has to be one of my favorite Ozzy songs and when we played live with Ozzy we opened the shows with that and it was fantastic,”
What about The Ultimate Sin? “I love the song ‘Shot in the dark’ and there are also a lot of hidden gems on that album too like, ‘Lightning Strikes Again’, ‘Killer of Giants’. I Remember telling Ozzy how I liked the album and he told me how much he hated the album because it was a bad period in his life and he didn’t like the mix.”
About Quantum Leap Quantum Leap was assembled in pieces, featuring new compositions and material taken from Gus’ “riff vault”, where he stores unfinished ideas and revisits them when he’s able. The album started as a full-on solo outing, with Gus programming drums and playing guitar, bass and keyboards, but a chance encounter with drummer Vincent Velasco – who volunteered his services and subsequently blew Gus away – opened up the production. Producer / engineer Dennis Ward, who was responsible for mixing and mastering Quantum Leap ended up laying down bass tracks on eight of the 10 tracks.
Unlike many instrumental albums, Quantum Leap doesn’t feel like a musical root canal or long and drawn- out brain surgery. Each of the 10 tracks are solid and compact musical ideas, with Gus’ guitar acting as the voice. In this respect, writing Quantum Leap was a challenge because he is so used to writing in a specific formula utilizing vocals. He found himself falling into the loop of overplaying a few times during the production because of the lack of vocals, but was able to overcome the problem once he acknowledged it.
“When I first wrote ‘Exosphere’, for example, there were so many things going on in the track but it wasn’t saying anything,” says Gus. “I really needed to have the guitar taking a vocal approach. I knew that if I just kept the playing technical it wasn’t going to be enjoyable. So the playing isn’t always about technique, and once I found the formula it was easier to create melodies for the record.”
“I’m a guitar player and I cannot stand most instrumental guitar albums,” he adds. “The classic are the classics, but very rarely do I get into them because after the third track it just seems like an endless guitar solo where everything that sounds the same. That’s something I wanted to avoid on Quantum Leap and I think I succeeded in doing that.”
GusG. (Guitars), Dennis Ward (Bass, Vocals), Will Hunt (Drums)
EXISTENTIA is a new progressive metal band from Russia, the sound combines heavy metal guitar riffs, evolving melodies and themes, coupled with sensual female vocals.
After the release of the debut album “Planet in the Universe” in May 2021, the band released a new single “REVOLUTION AGAINST EVOLUTION” on November 26, 2021.
This single will be part of the new album that will be out in 2022. This new composition combines the reflection of feelings and emotions of several world events at once! The beginning of the protests and, in fact, the civil revolution in the USA, after the murder of African American police on the streets of Minneapolis, which led to a series of episodes full of brutality and irreversible despair of thousands of people. Along with a global scientific event – the first voyage of a civilian crew in space, which gave rise to the newest stage in the development of mankind.
Spanish Thrashers MORDHIDA have released their second single The Idiotic Principle taken from their new LP “Holycaust”.
In addition, the band has accompanied it with a videoclip showing footage taken during the recording sessions of their new album, in The Mixtery studios by Raúl Abellán.
The band, which presented their new work with A Dark Reborn in Madrid, has added:
We really wanted to release this song, it is one of the oldest and we had it in the shadows, almost like a secret project. Now we can’t wait to hear all of you chanting it live!
About the video clip, we were with this camera around while we recorded the album with Raúl and then we said to ourselves “people have to see how really silly and stupid we can become”, so we only needed to fit pieces, see where to place them, and show it to the world.
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 ) 