Last week, AURI, the enchanted three announced their new album, set to be released on September 3rd via Nuclear Blast. Today, the band unleashes their first single and video for the track “Pearl Diving”, which takes us on a beautiful journey of sounds and voices and taps directly into emotions.
Troy Donockley comments on the song as follows: “No lifebelts needed. Where is the sea and where is the boat but more importantly, what is ‘The Pearl’? How deep do we dive to find it? How was it made and how old is it? Shapeshifters and the whispering seagulls of the 12 note scale will tell us. Aweigh anchor, Away!”
“II – Those We Don’t Speak Of” will be available in the following formats that you can now pre-order: CD digipak Earbook including CD and 36 booklet art pages LP redgold LP red marbled (NB mailorder exclusive, limited to 300) LP transparent + green marbled (Levykauppa exclusive, limited to 300) LP white + red marbled (UK exclusive, limited to 300) LP silver (bandshop exclusive, limited to 300) LP blue marbled (US exclusive, limited to 300)
With a total running time of 50 minutes, the album consists of 10 captivating tracks: 1) Those We Don’t Speak Of 2) The Valley 3) The Duty Of Dust 4) Pearl Diving 5) Kiss The Mountain 6) Light And Flood 7) It Takes Me Places 8) The Long Walk 9) Scattered To The Four Winds 10) Fireside Bard
In the fleeting moments between the state of being awake and reaching the doors of dreamworld lies aborderland whence comes the mood music of ancient stories told – the celestial unison of three creative souls known as AURI. Originally born in 2011 from the special connection of Johanna Kurkela, Tuomas Holopainen and Troy Donockley, AURI was first introduced to the world as late as 2018. Now complemented by the dynamic percussive talents of Kai Hahto, the threesome carves fantastical worlds entirely their own.
The cover artwork comes once again from Janne “ToxicAngel” Pitkänen and bestows in its simplicity and depth.
Yesterday, June 18th, extreme industrial metal pioneers, FEAR FACTORY released their tenth studio album Aggression Continuum via Nuclear Blast. In celebration of the new album, the band offers fans the music video for the track “Recode”. Watch the video, directed by Riivata Visuals, here:
Dino Cazares comments, “The day has finally come for all to finally enjoy the New FEAR FACTORY album, Aggression Continuum. It’s been a long journey to get to this date and I can’t say enough of how proud I am of the album. Thanks to everyone involved in making it possible for this record to come out. This is all for you, the amazing FF Family!! Machines of Hate!”
Aggression Continuum features guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder Dino Cazares; drummer Mike Heller; and former vocalist, lyricist, and co-founder Burton C. Bell. It was produced and engineered by Damien Rainaud (DRAGONFORCE, ONCE HUMAN), with keyboards by Igor Khoroshev (ex-YES), and programming on two songs from longtime collaborator Rhys Fulber (FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY). The album also featured additional keyboards handled by Max Karon and Giuseppe Bassi. Aggression Continuum was mixed by A-list rock and metal producer Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, TRIVIUM), who also mixed the album’s critically-acclaimed predecessor, Genexus. The artwork for the album was created by Francesco Artusato.
FEAR FACTORY records are cinematic in scope; sonic landscapes, echoing the dystopian post-apocalyptic futures found in classic sci-fi literature and films, from Ray Bradbury to Blade Runner. Aggression Continuum, the tenth studio album, is the culmination of three decades of unforgettable songs, performances, and forward-thinking storytelling concepts, while simultaneously rebooting FEAR FACTORY onto a brilliant and excitingly unpredictable new path. Like the liquid metal T-1000 in the Terminator franchise or the Academy-Award-winning reboot of Mad Max, Aggression Continuum is a turning point where what “was” transforms into what will be. It’s FEAR FACTORY’s own Fury Road.
London based metallers JASON PAYNE & THE BLACK LEATHER RIDERS will release their debut EP ‘The Abyss’ on July 16th. Today the band reveals the tracklisting and announce their second single ‘The Purge‘, coming out July 2nd.
‘The Abyss’ EP Tracklist:
The Dark (feat. Daisy Pepper)
Breathing Rage (feat. Andy Martongelli)
The Purge
Vicious
Lost
Thoughtless
Jason Payne on ‘The Purge’: “Very proud and excited to release our upcoming single “The Purge”. It’s a song that talks about feeling stuck in your own prison and then you fight your own demons and you set yourself free from the pain. It was inspired by a personal chapter in my life and with the ideology of cleansing yourself from the sins and mistakes you did in the past. It’s about forgiving yourself and move on. Song is out on July 2nd.”
Read what Jason has to say of their upcoming 6-tracks EP “The Abyss”: “The Dark is a song that sums up the theme of this EP, “The Abyss”. It’s about death, obscurity and the “nothing”. It talks of things like trying to reach to the void, feeling confused and betrayed, and about a person that’s losing his essence. Without a consciousness, and with no purpose in our lives, we’re just a bunch of roamers taking a road to the abyss, and that leads us to the dark and lashes us to insignificant beings floating in “the nothing”. When I was writing this EP, I got affected by the outside world. It’s a dark period that we’re living. I caught the essence and the feelings that this time put me through and made a whole EP about existentialism and nihilism. This period made me question who am I, what’s my purpose, what have I done with my life and what if this all ends now? Would it matter? Do we matter? Does life matters? Of course, it does! In my opinion, there’s no point of doing anything or living if this doesn’t matter. However, when I wrote this EP, I don’t give you the bright side of the story. That’s for the fans to find out. My whole point with this work is to make people question their lives and feel these emotions. This record means so much to me, since it’s about everything I felt and still feel. I’m a person who never stops asking questions. I always want to know more. Specially, when it comes to existentialism, I’m always in internal conflict, since I question everything. This is my message, this is my music and it’s about how I feel, and hopefully, people will relate to it.”
Stay tuned for more details.
Furthermore, JASON PAYNE & THE BLACK LEATHER RIDERS’ show at Camden Rocks which was scheduled for July 10th, has been postponed to a later date! More information TBA.
May 20th, the band performed live their new single ‘The Dark’ at Under The Bridge (Chelsea Football Stadium). The band has posted the official live video on their YouTube channel, in case you missed it, watch it here: https://youtu.be/MFeUOF3uCTE
With a history boasting over 300,000 streams, 50 live shows and a modest lifetime of musical creation with past acts, London based metal artist Jason Payne has taken 2020 to embark on a new journey; JASON PAYNE & THE BLACK LEATHER RIDERS. A culmination and reincarnation of his strongest rock compositions, with numerous releases ready and waiting taking influence from the likes of Slash, Avenged Sevenfold, Linkin Park, Korn, and many other legendary over the years. Think big riffs, impactful grit-laden vocals, and an energy just screaming to be invited to the live stage.
CROBOT and Mascot Records / Mascot Label Group have announced the global release of an EP titled Rat Child today, June 18. The complete track listing features “Mountain” (featuring Frank Bello), “Kiss It Goodbye” (featuring Howard Jones), “Everyone Dies,” (featuring Stix Zadinia), and “Rat Child.”
Today, the band and Mascot Records present the music video for “Everyone Dies” featuring Steel Panther’s Stix Zadinia, who also co-wrote and mixed the track. He appears in the official video alongside the members of Crobot. Zadinia shares, “I think this song will floor people. You haven’t heard Crobot quite like this before. Writing this song with them has been a fantastic experience, and I can’t wait for people to hear it!” Crobot singer Brandon Yeagley offers, “Whether you’re jammin’ in your Delorean or Mini-Cooper, we’ve always got something to take you back to the future. Riffs? Check. Spandex? Check. Sequins? You bet yer sweet Granny’s ass…So when you’re ready to rock, just call on your neighborhood friendly Crobot. We’ve got a real mutha for ya!” The music video was directed and edited by Wombat, and is dedicated to Brandon’s father Rick Yeagley who passed away in October, 2019.
Previously, the band and label presented “Kiss It Goodbye” featuring Light The Torch’s Howard Jones, which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/TnUYrd75vIE. On the announcement of the Rat Child EP, the first reveal was “Mountain,” featuring Anthrax’s Frank Bello which can be screened here: https://youtu.be/_8uLFqkpSyo.
The band’s most recent studio album Motherbrain was a global hit. Cumulative streams surpassed 20 million plays, 14 million of which were of the single “Low Life.” The accompanying music video for the track has been viewed over 1.5 million times, while the song was a Top 10 hit at Rock radio in America with a lengthy 29 week run on the Billboard charts. The follow-up “Gasoline” had a strong run on the U.S. charts as well.
[Photo Credit: Triumph 3 Obliterator-XXT, Tina Korhonen, Randy Edwards,
Ann-Marie Bell, Bryce Chapman]
Within the first ten seconds of their new single “Hypercube Necrodimensions”, wizard metal-supergroup WIZARDTHRONE (featuring members from ALESTORM, GLORYHAMMER, AETHER REALM, FORLORN CITADEL, NEKROGOBLIKON and more) goes full throttle with their multi-layered synth and guitar riffs, combined with gut-busting vocal deliveries! The title track from WIZARDTHRONE’s debut full-length, Hypercube Necrodimensions (out July 16 via Napalm Records), is a speedy burst through time and space that will catapult the listener through alternate realities.
With their new track, the five-piece once again demonstrate what they are made of musically, combining their various genre influences with sonically refined finesse to create a fast-paced cyclone of extremes!
M. Archistrategos Barber (guitars) elaborates: “With the title track, “Hypercube Necrodimensions”, we stripped down the core elements of WIZARDTHRONE to their bare essentials, culminating in a compact and furious number. Unconventional harmonies, dense orchestration and blazing thrash metal provided a fitting bed for lyrics that had lain dormant for at least a thousand aeons – exploring cryptic themes that the shrewd and astute will of course recognise as containing the blueprints to reality itself. Extraordinary!”
Watch the music video for “Hypercube Necrodimensions”HERE:
Featuring guest appearances from Aleksi Munter (SWALLOW THE SUN/INSOMNIUM), Florian Magnus Maier (DARK FORTRESS/ALKALOID) and Evan Berry (WILDERUN), Hypercube Necrodimensions is a spectacular display of WIZARDTHRONE’s musical finesse, constantly pushing the boundaries of heavy metal and thus offering a one-of-a-kind extreme wizard metal listening experience!
Tracklisting: 1. Black Hole Quantum Thermodynamics 2. Frozen Winds of Thyraxia 3. Incantation of the Red Order 4. Forbidden Equations Deep Within the Epimethean Wasteland 5. The Coalescence of Nine Stars in the System Once Known as Markarian-231 6. Of Tesseractual Gateways and the Grand Duplicity of Xhul 7. Hypercube Necrodimensions 8. Beyond the Wizardthrone (Cryptopharmalogical Revelations of the Riemann Zeta Function)
Today is the day the whole metal community and fans worldwide have been waiting for: HELLOWEEN are releasing their new album “Helloween”.
“With superb songs, a stellar production and supercharged individual performances, Helloween punch the reset button and hit back with an absolute monster of an album”, says Dave Cockett of UK’s FIREWORKS magazine. “All expectations have been fulfilled. There’s nothing nostalgic or dated in this album. ‘Helloween’ defines power metal for the years to come”, adds Hakos Pervanidis of Greek METAL HAMMER. Axel Meuriche of French MY ROCK calls the album “epic, powerful, outstanding. Obviously, THE record that no one would have dare to dream about before.”
The reactions worldwide are overwhelming. With the highest amount of magazine coverstories and interviews ever at Nuclear Blast, HELLOWEEN also wrote history for their record label. “This album is more than a masterpiece – this album is heavy metal history”,says Markus Staiger, CEO of Nuclear Blast Tonträger Produktions- und Vertriebs GmbH. “It is my lifetime record, the most important one I have ever been involved in. We have fantastic physical products, we did everything we could – without thinking about budgets or limitations. Everyone involved gave 110% and I am so damn’ proud of this album! In my opinion it is the best one HELLOWEEN ever did!”
Today, HELLOWEEN also release their third single, called “Best Time”. Lyrically the song by Sascha Gerstner reminds of the good old days, musically it´s convincing with confident HELLOWEEN style guitar harmonies and a chorus that stays in your long-term memory after hearing it for the first time.
TRACKLISTING „HELLOWEEN“ 01 – Out For The Glory 02 – Fear Of The Fallen 03 – Best Time 04 – Mass Pollution 05 – Angels 06 – Rise Without Chains 07 – Indestructible 08 – Robot King 09 – Cyanide 10 – Down In The Dumps 11 – Orbit 12 – Skyfall
Bonustracks Mediabook & Vinyl: 01 – Golden Times 02 – Save My Hide
Bonustracks Earbook 01 – Golden Times 02 – Save My Hide 03 – Pumpkins United
But there is even more to come: Join HELLOWEEN on their lottery CRACK THE RIDDLE. Fans can win two tickets and a meet & greet for every country of the upcoming world tour!
In the artwork of the mediabook, earbook & boxset edition of their upcoming self titled album, HELLOWEEN have included a game called CRACK THE RIDDLE. Fans have to find the solution code throughout the entire booklet to participate. Lottery win is two tickets for a concert of their choice* including a MEET AND GREET WITH THE BAND! The band will draw a lucky winner for every country of their upcoming world tour!
All fans have to do is enter the solution code on helloween.org and keep the fingers crossed!
The lottery begins today with the release of the album HELLOWEEN and ends July, 31st. The lucky winners will be notified via e-mail on Halloween (October 31st, 2021).
On top, every participant of the lottery will receive 10% off the next order in the officialHELLOWEEN online store www.pumpkins-store.com by using the discount code displayed at the checkout.**
*Does not include any compensation for travel and accommodation **Offer is valid until July 31st, 2021. Cannot be combined with other offers or previous orders
What is worth waiting for: UNITED FORCES TOUR 2022
We all have to stick together to stand and endure this agonizing live music gap and because extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures, HELLOWEEN invited their friends from HAMMERFALL to join them on their European tour in order to create a tremendous metal-package together. The UNITED FORCES TOUR 2022 called alliance is not only the full HELLOWEEN experience, on top the fans will enjoy fine Swedish steel out of the HAMMERFALL forge. Both bands will have brand-new albums in their luggage and the European fans will be able to listen to the new songs live for the very first time on theUNITED FORCES TOUR 2022. The long–awaited end of the dry spell is in sight – coming with a double dose in March, April and May 2022 as we have to catch up two years ofMETALPARTY to get cured from a lot of withdrawal symptoms!
Andi Deris:“We are ‘hammered’ to have our friends from HAMMERFALL with us on tour! Back in 2002 the band produced their album “Crimson Thunder” in my studio in Tenerife and we had a lot of fun back then.” This mega-package is delivering the appropriate metal-spectacle to enter the stage with full power! Oscar Dronjak can hardly wait: “We are so ridiculously excited about this! Not only do we get to go out on tour again after two looooooooong years of stage draught, but we get to do it with a band that we love and was a great inspiration to us in forming HAMMERFALL in the first place. The UNITED FORCES TOUR will be something truly special, you can count on that! “
For the dry run up front, HELLOWEEN is releasing their fantastic new album and with the unification of their three vocalists Kiske,Deris & Hansen the album reminiscences to all eras of the band’s history. This already is a sensation in itself, but also HAMMERFALL is ready to release a brand-new record before the tour starts. A great forerunner to get warmed up for the double load of live power with the ultimate UNITED FORCES TOUR 2022. And whoever misses the just announced dates was probably never infected by the metal virus …
HELLOWEEN & HAMMERFALL UNITED FORCES TOUR 2022 presented by Metal Hammer, Rockantenne, Piranha, Start, Rocks & Rock It
25-Mar-2022 NOR Oslo – Sentrum Scene 26-Mar-2022 SWE Gothenburg – Partille Arena 28-Mar-2022 FIN Helsinki – Black Box 29-Mar-2022 EST Tallinn – Noblessneri Valukoda 01-Apr-2022 GER Bamberg – Brose Arena 02-Apr-2022 GER Hamburg – Sporthalle 03-Apr-2022 GER Berlin – Verti Music Hall 04-Apr-2022 GER Regensburg – Donau Arena 08-Apr-2022 ES Madrid – Wizink Center 09-Apr-2022 ES Barcelona – St. Jordi Club 11-Apr-2022 IT Milan – Lorenzini District 12-Apr-2022 GER Kempten – bigBOX 13-Apr-2022 CH Zürich – Samsung Hall 15-Apr-2022 LUX Luxemburg – Rockhal 16-Apr-2022 NL Tilbourg – 013 18-Apr-2022 PL Katovice – MCK 20-Apr-2022 BG Sofia – Arena Armeec 22-Apr-2022 AT Vienna – Gasometer 23-Apr-2022 CZ Prag -O2 24-Apr-2022 SK Zvolen – Ice Stadium 26-Apr-2022 HU Budapest – Papp Laszlo Sportarena 29-Apr-2022 GER Bochum – Ruhrcongress 30-Apr-2022 GER Stuttgart – Schleyerhalle 01-May-2022 GER Frankfurt – Jahrhunderthalle 04-May-2022 UK Manchester – Manchester Academy 05-May-2022 UK London – Brixton Academy
19-May-2022 RU St. Petersburg – A2* 21-May-2022 RU Moscow – Adrenaline-Stadium* 23-May-2022 FR Lyon – Transbordeur* 25-May-2022 FR Paris – Olympia* * without HAMMERFALL
Tickets: https://bit.ly/2E1KcHE Helloween tickets that have already been purchased remain valid
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Kimmo Kuusniemi’s ASA unveil the long-overdue release of "Collective Failure" + first music video for title-track! Check it out and stay tuned for more news! Click image to watch the video
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
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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
Click image to watch the video
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 