American blackened death metal icons PESSIMIST (ft. Kelly McLauchlin of POSSESSED, I AM MORBID, etc.) have now entered the Black Attack Studios in Los Angeles, CA (USA) to begin recording their long awaited fourth full-length album, ‘Keys to the Underworld,’ with engineer Ira Black! This will be the band’s first full-length record since 2002’s ‘Slaughtering the Faithful.’ In addition, the band is also now welcoming drummer Tim Yeung (I AM MORBID, DIVINE HERESY, HATE ETERNAL, etc.) to the recording lineup! ‘Keys to the Underworld’ will be released by Season of Mist at a later date. Stay tuned!
Founding member/guitarist Kelly McLauchlin comments: “We are extremely excited to be working with a top-notch drummer as Tim Yeung – you will know him from bands such as Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal, and we also play together in I Am Morbid. We are confident Tim will bring his superior drumming skills to the new Pessimist record, and we are taking our songs to the next level. This album will be worth waiting for!”
PESSIMIST have previously announced that they will be issuing their first three albums on vinyl for the first time ever! ‘Cult of the Initiated,’ (1997) ‘Blood for the Gods,’ (1999) and ‘Slaughtering the Faithful’ (2002) will all contain never-before-heard bonus tracks and other extras as well, such as new layouts and rare, archival band photos. The release dates are as follows: ‘Cult of Initiated’ – Due on May 14, 2021 ‘Blood for the Gods’ – Due on June 11, 2021 ‘Slaughtering the Faithful’ – Due on July 16, 2021
Eclipse Records is excited to announce the signing of THE STONE EYE to an exclusive worldwide deal! The band is a progressive stoner-sludge rock band from Philadelphia (USA) that combines uniquely glorious weirdness with clever musicianship. The Stone Eye was formed in 2014 and they are currently getting ready to release their sixth full-length album South Of The Sun via Eclipse Records on October 15, 2021.
For a glimpse of the band’s unique style, check out their independently released music video for the song “Ventura” here:
“It’s an amazing feeling to know that this group that I have been deeply involved with for the past 8 years is now going to be working with one of the most prominent and respected independent record labels in the country”, says drummer Jeremiah Bertin. Guitarist/vocalist Stephen Burdick adds, “As a band we feel as though we have assembled our best and most diverse collection of tunes to date and having the opportunity to collaborate with Eclipse Records and reach a larger audience is both intriguing and exciting.“
The Stone Eye was founded in 2014 by drummer Jeremiah Bertin and Guitarist/Vocalist Stephen Burdick. Following a few years and a couple of lineup changes, with former-Bassist Wolfgang Noll contributing to this upcoming release before his departure, we have now arrived at The Stone Eye’s current incarnation featuring the original two members along with Guitarist/Vocalist Christian Mechem and now Bassist, Mike Pacca.
Detroit’s traveling freak rock experience, THE LUCID FURS, have announced their signing with Argonauta Records, who will proudly release the band’s forthcoming, third album in the Fall of 2021!
“The Lucid Furs are pleased to continue the propagation of Detroit Freak Rock with our new partners Argonauta Records.” The band comments. “After many months sequestered in the studio we are eager to unleash our third album.”
Since their official launch in 2017, THE LUCID FURS have performed over 100 out of state shows, invading music venues to wash minds with their heavy blues rock concoctions. The band‘s live performances build up with big, head bang energy, winds down to sultry blues, then blasts back into hard rock with a dash of funk you can’t help but dance to.
THE LUCID FURS are a collaborative songwriting team. Their songs embody a culmination of each member’s early influences; ranging from rock classics like Alice Cooper and Heart, to Chicago blues like Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy, to the era of alternative rock groups like Soundgarden and Queens of the Stone Age. Their friendship extends beyond the band, creating a vibe of camaraderie that you can immediatly feel. With their authentic vibe and high voltage power blues, THE LUCID FURS released 2 highly acclaimed albums to date, and despite the tour hiatus brought on by Covid, they have stayed focused. Taking that time to record new music, which will be out in the Fall of 2021 through Argonauta Records.
Earlier this month, CANNIBAL CORPSE released their critically acclaimed album, Violence Unimagined, via Metal Blade Records. For their efforts, the band landed on the worldwide charts, achieving some of the highest positions of their career:
Stream Violence Unimagined in its entirety at: metalblade.com/cannibalcorpse. Physical copies can be purchased in stores and at select online retailers in various formats.
Sounding progressive as well as oppressive, INFERNO’s eighth album “PARADEIGMA (Phosphenes Of Aphotic Eternity)” marks another evolution in the long history of the Czech Black Metal band. Today, Debemur Morti Productions team up with Black Metal Promotion to unveil the full album stream of the coming longplayer which is set for release on May 7th.
INFERNO explain the character of their new work of art:
“PARADEIGMA“ is in a sense a living organism and it works best as the single unit, where the mournful, the oppressive and the strangely uplifting feelings coagulate into an immersive whole. Everything that is included in the album serves a purpose and the individual aspects develop each other. At the same time, every song and lyric offer a unique expression of the general theme.“
“PARADEIGMA (Phosphenes Of Aphotic Eternity)” can now be streamed below or on the YouTube channel of Black Metal Promotion.
During the process of creating “PARADEIGMA (Phosphenes Of Aphotic Eternity)“, INFERNO had a clear vision concerning sound and form. However, they also allowed their subconsciousness to speak, as they recently narrated in a long interview with webzine Swallowed In Black:
“The process of creating “PARADEIGMA (Phosphenes of Aphotic Eternity)” was demanding and fascinating. We certainly did not want to emulate the previous two albums but to take the sound further onto a more personal, idiosyncratic level, which we achieved. We each experienced all sorts of gloom and elevated states when working on it. The concept of the new album loosely follows the previous recordings “Gnosis Kardias” and “Zos Vel Thagirion“, but it eventually took on a form of its own. A lot of mental work was required, thousands of pages were read, but we, for example, allowed synchronicities to shape the concept, whose original form was written in a flow-state resulting in a stream-of-consciousness-like text that included logical flaws and various paradoxes. From this fundamental text the lyrics were then constructed and arranged according to the music.“
INFERNO dare to enrich their traditional Black Metal pillar with obscure and surreal soundscapes which showcase the same innovative and obscure energy one can find in groundbreaking records of BLUT AUS NORD or, also, THE CURE. Conceptually, “PARADEIGMA (Phosphenes Of Aphotic Eternity)” goes deep into psychology, cosmology and horror – primarily influenced by “The Cosmos As Self-Creation” from Czech writer Michal Ajvaz, “Time Reborn” by the physicist Lee Smolin and above all “The Red Book” of Carl Jung. All these influences are fused into six dense and interconnected compositions:
01. Decaying Virtualities Yearn For Asymptopia 02. The Wailing Horizon 03. Descent Into Hell Of The Future 04. Phosphenes 05. Ekstasis Of The Continuum 06. Stars Within And Stars Without Projected Into The Matrix Of Time
“PARADEIGMA (Phosphenes Of Aphotic Eternity)” was recorded in the KSV Studios in Prague and mixed and mastered by Iceland’s producer Stephen Lockhart (SINMARA, SVARTIDAUĐI) at Studio Emissary.
“PARADEIGMA (Phosphenes Of Aphotic Eternity)” will be released on CD, vinyl, and digitally on May 7th. Pre-orders are possible now via the label’s EU, US, and Bandcamp shops!
On June 25th, FRACTAL UNIVERSE will release their new album, The Impassable Horizon, via Metal Blade Records. For a first preview of the record, a video for the new single, “A Clockwork Expectation” (directed by Vincent Tournaud), can be viewed at: metalblade.com/fractaluniverse – where The Impassable Horizon can be pre-ordered on CD, vinyl, as well as digitally. Fans can also visit Fractal Universe‘s official store for additional vinyl and more: shop.fractaluniverseband.com
Shot at Gouffre de Poudrey – France’s largest equipped cave – Fractal Universe had this to say about the video for “A Clockwork Expectation”: “We wanted this music video to be shot in a grandiose natural environment. It was a unique and unreal experience to spend two days all alone in the extreme conditions – seventy meters underground, 7°C – of this otherworldly beautiful location. In the middle section, we used UV light and customized the instruments accordingly, to give that part a particular dark vibe! The body-painting parts contributing to that atmosphere were designed by Kazim 2C.”
With 2019’s Rhizomes Of Insanity, France’s Fractal Universe created one of the most musically, lyrically, and emotionally complex and compelling progressive metal works of the twenty-first century. The band toured the record hard, joining heavyweights Obscura in February/March of 2020, making for one of the last tours in the world pre-pandemic, and in doing so, sated their faithful while winning legions of new followers. With its successor, The Impassable Horizon, they have gone even deeper, effortlessly following the trajectory they set themselves on to create an album that is riveting from start to finish. “We wanted to keep developing our musical personality and the natural sound we managed to get on ‘Rhizomes‘,” says drummer Clément Denys. “It’s a very versatile and complex album. Musically speaking, you will find catchy songs which are really direct, progressive and mysterious ballads with epic saxophone solos, and technical songs with intricate riffing.” Elaborates vocalist/guitarist/saxophonist Vince Wilquin, “despite the record being even more diverse, dynamic and including more clean vocals than its predecessor, the overall atmosphere is also slightly darker and more melancholic.” And with the introduction of Wilquin’s newly honed saxophone skills to their live set, alongside working with Gojira‘s Christian Andreu on their stage scenery and production, once the band return to the road they are sure to be an unmissable act.
With the first riffs and ideas for The Impassable Horizon emerging in November 2018, before Rhizomes was even released, composition for the whole record took about a year, with the last six months before entering the studio in May of 2020 dedicated to vocal preproduction/arrangements and finalizing the guitar and saxophone solos. Drums were recorded at the band’s own professional recording studio – Boundless Production Studio – in Florange, France, while the other instruments were tracked in their personal home studios. It was overseen by producer Flavien Morel, who has been working with Fractal Universe since the beginning and really understands the band’s vision. “The sessions were good,” says Denys. “We were not in a rush. This was the first record we entirely tracked in our own studios, so we were for example able to spend two complete days on sound-checking the drums, which was really comfortable.” The most demanding aspect of tracking was the vocals, which took as long to record as all of the other instrumentation combined. “Flavien really encouraged me to bring the vocal production to the next level: there are chorus sections where there are about thirty tracks of backing vocals, with every line quad-tracked, to make it sound really massive and ‘chorus-y’.” With mixing being Wilquin’s favorite part of the realization process, the point at which the record really starts to come alive, he was happy to work closely with Morel, and the finished product is everything they wanted it to be. “It feels like the natural evolution of our band sound, keeping our distinctive trademarks and incorporating new sounds and ideas,” says Wilquin, and adds Denys, “we hope the new album will reach new fans and please our current ones, which have been amazingly supportive even during the pandemic, and that it will bring the band to the next level.”
The Impassable Horizon track-listing 1. Autopoiesis 2. A Clockwork Expectation 3. Interfering Spherical Scenes 4. Symmetrical Masquerade 5. Falls of the Earth 6. Withering Snowdrops 7. Black Sails of Melancholia 8. A Cosmological Arch 9. Epitaph 10. Godless Machinists 11. Flashes of Potentialities (Unplugged)
Album artwork by: Shad
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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
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