New Rule is the debut EPby Melbourne dirty / sleaze rock band THE MERCY KILLS. Written and produced in 2010, this five-track release has strong elements of the four members influences, with elements of post-punk, grunge and rock ‘n’ roll. TMK are proud that it stands strong, alongside the music they have produced over the ten years since.
Initially New Rule was only available as a short run of CD’s and was never officially released. The band have always felt this as a thorn in their side and are now happy to see it getting out there through Golden Robot Records and will be released on 12th February.
Fall is the post-punk inspired song is about trying to keep in control of your life, while things feel like they are falling apart around you. This high energy track has always been a favourite between the band members and is still relevant to them today.
EKTOMORF have revealed the third single off their upcoming album, Reborn, out January 22 via Napalm Records! On “Smashing The Past”, the Hungarian thrash metal power machine is at their best: speedy, crushing guitar riffs and smashing drums upon angry, hateful vocals by singer and guitarist Zoltan “Zoli” Farkas, topped off with a dizzying guitar solo. This is thrash metal in its truest form!
Singer/Guitarist Zoli Farkas says about “Smashing The Past”: “This was the very first song I wrote for Reborn – not a single note, nor a beat changed since the day of writing this song until the day we recorded this in the studio. You can still prominently feel the influences from our predecessor album Fury on this track: fast, aggressive, with a groovy breakdown and spiced with a killer solo to top it off! In my opinion, this it’s the perfect last single off the new album – pure thrash!”
Watch the Music Video for “Smashing The Past”HERE:
Since their debut, Hangok (1994), the four-piece around singer/guitarist Zoltán “Zoli” Farkas has regularly delivered new power to their devotees. Only three years after the release of their chart-breaking full-length, Fury (2018), Reborn ignites a blazing fire with its heavy sound and harsh lyrics that will burn any genre limitations to the ground. Their 15th studio album breathes the spirit of the “Big Four” – Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth – while at the same time, beginning a completely independent new chapter of EKTOMORF.
Be prepared for this thunderous onslaught! With Reborn, EKTOMORF confidently kicks off a new chapter, taking along anyone who crosses the path of this thrash metal bullet with them!
Reborn Track Listing: 1 – Ebullition 2 – Reborn 3 – And the Dead Will Walk 4 – Fear Me 5 – Where the Hate Conceives 6 – The Worst is Yet to Come 7 – Forsaken 8 – Smashing the Past
Finnish melodic death metal mainstays WOLFHEART have announced their upcoming EP, Skull Soldiers, scheduled for release on March 5, 2021 via Napalm Records!
WOLFHEART continue the heroic battle forged on their highly-acclaimed 2020 full-length, Wolves of Karelia, with two new, frostbitten Winter War-inspired singles and two special rarities. The new studio tracks featured on the EP, “Skull Soldiers” and “Hereditary”, both explore new territory while maintaining the WOLFHEART trademark sound – searing through the mountainous ice with colossal, guttural vocals, driving blastbeats and rhythms.
Today, the band has shared a brand new lyric video for the title track, “Skull Soldiers”, featuring guest vocals from Petro Solovey of Ukranian band Wolfanger. Blazing guitar leads and scorching guttural vocals burn as Solovey and frontman Tuomas Saukkonen tell the tale of a small unit of powerful Finnish soldiers who painted skulls and skeletons onto their helmets during the Winter War.
WOLFHEART frontman Tuomas Saukkonen says about “Skull Soldiers”: “I wanted the first single to be as heavy and crushing as possible in our standards so it would reflect the theme in the best possible way. The lyrics also are heavily connected to the Skull Soldiers themselves, and Petro from Ukrainian band Wolfanger provided awesome guest vocals in his native language, adding another level to the brutality.”
The Skull Soldiers EP’s unrelentingly heavy offerings bring to life a sonic aura of freezing winter temperatures and the crushing weight of the Finnish army that was never willing to surrender. In addition to its aforementioned new studio tracks, the EP is also accented by two rarities: the first – an eerie new acoustic version of the Shadow World (2015) track, “Aeon of Cold”, featuring the airy, chilling clean vocals of bassist Lauri Silvonen, and the second – a flawless live version of the Wolves of Karelia single “Reaper”, recorded during the band’s virtual concert stream performance that aired in 2020. Skull Soldiers is a must-have for diehard and new WOLFHEART fans alike, staving off cravings until the band’s next offering!
Saukkonen says about the EP’s concept: “I did a lot of research about the Winter War for the Wolves of Karelia album, but after the album was out, a few reporters gave me some additional details during the interview cycle and it turns out I managed to miss some really cool hidden gems. One of them was a small “elite group”, or “Winter War special unit”, who called themselves Skull Soldiers – ninja level soldiers who painted skulls and skeletons on their helmets. I really felt that I had to write some kind of a sequel for Wolves of Karelia, and since lockdown brought a lot of free time, we decided to make an EP while waiting for the world to open up again for touring.”
He adds about the EP’s rarity tracks: “The acoustic version of ‘Aeon Of Cold’ is something we have been thinking for a while now. Our bass player, Lauri, has awesome clean voice and we would like to play a full unplugged gig at some point, and based on that idea we have already been arranging some of the songs with acoustic guitars. Since there are no gigs at the moment, we wanted to try out the idea in studio. Same goes with live version of ‘Reaper’. We did a multitrack recording when we did our first streaming gig last April and since we are unable to play live to our fans, this is the second-best thing we could offer.”
With their forthcoming 13th studio album, Portuguese dark metal giants MOONSPELL are approaching their 30th anniversary as a band more ambitiously and stronger than ever. Hermitage will see the light of day on February 26, 2021 via Napalm Records, and invites us on an entertaining and revolutionary, yet epic journey through the darkest days of human existence.
“Hermitage is an open-hearted invitation to simplicity. To be humble. To be thankful. To serve you solace. Provide you comfort, entertainment,” vocalist Fernando Ribeiro recently said. “We sincerely hope this call reaches you. That you kindly accept what we offer. That you take our music with you to the place you must feel as yours. To your secret place, to your hermitage.”
Both beautifully crafted songs, previously released singles such as “The Greater Good” show us the modernity of the wolves in 2021, while “Common Prayers“ embraces the MOONSPELL tradition of writing a dark, gothic metal track like no other band can. Now, the band is presenting us a third single ahead of the album release. “All Or Nothing“ brings back the ethereal and melodic sounds of MOONSPELL served by a beautiful musical landscape, and makes it most likely one of the deepest and most sincerely heart-breaking tunes the Portuguese dark metal titans have ever written.
“The video for ‘All Or Nothing’ was recorded in an empty theatre in Portugal and it’s symbolic of our days,” Ribeiro tells us. “Solitude dominates our lives and we divide our attentions and heartbeats at the groove of darkness and hope. At the mercy of all that can be and the nothing that we have to deal with right now. It’s a song that relies on a more intimate melodic frame, emotional, autobiographic almost, about the joy and the sorrow that is being in a band.”
He continues: “Life is a game you cannot win. You just have to play. Our job is done, we brought you joy. Every now and then.”
Watch the incredible, epic new clip for “All Or Nothing“, directed by Guilherme Henriques and shot at the historical 1908- theatre, Chaby Pinheiro in Nazaré, here:
MOONSPELL’s upcoming album Hermitage was recorded, mixed and mastered by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Primordial, Ghost, Sólstafir & many more) at the Orgone Studios in the UK. Building upon the album’s dark, revolutionary and sensitive facets, it’s a wonderfully intuitive and epic ride by one of the most distinctive dark metal bands of all time, and a testament to what they’ve always loved the most: Honest, emotional metal that binds us even in the darkest times.
Album Tracklist:
The Greater Good
Common Prayers
All or Nothing
Hermitage
Entitlement
Solitarian
The Hermit Saints
Apophthegmata
Without Rule
City Quitter (Outro)
Bonus Tracks:
Darkness in Paradise (Candlemass Cover – LP, Box, MC + Mediabook)
The Great Leap Forward (7″ Vinyl – Deluxe Box)
Hermitage will be out on February 26, 2021 through Napalm Records in several highly limited and collectible Deluxe and Die-Hard Editions, Mediabook and Cassette – all including the Candlemass Cover “Darkness in Paradise”, but also in Jewelcase and Digital formats. The Deluxe Box will also include an etched 7’’ Vinyl with another special bonus track, “The Great Leap Forward”, as well as much more exciting additional collectable items! The album pre-sale is available at THIS LOCATION!
With the pandemic putting a halt to concerts and festivals, an alliance of Stockholm’s finest metal has united to begin 2021 with a message of faith and solidarity!
On January 30th at 10:15AM PST//1:15PM EST//7:15PM CET, epic doom lords Sorcerer will join heavy metal legends Wolf, progressive death metallers Descend, and the tough, gritty 70’s-style hardrockers Lugnet for an almost 5-hour livestream: “Stream Bloody Stream”. From a professional stage setting in Stockholm’s famous Popskolan, each band will perform a 45 minute live set, and fans will be treated to a full-on invasion of their living room. During the change-overs, host Henrik “Henke” Brannerydh – known from the Swedish podcast “Rockpodden” – will take the audience for a backstage experience and interviews with the bands.
Tickets for “Stream Bloody Stream” are available via: streambloodystream.solidtango.com. Ticketholders will be able to replay the full stream for 48 hours from the start of the show.
BLOODSPOT from Limburg an der Lahn celebrate the raw and dark side of Thrash Metal. Despite genre conventions, the band always expands the emotional boundaries of their sound and more and more incorporates genre-unrelated styles.
Tomorrow, the band will release the second digital single “Potzblitz”. The song will be available on every major streaming platform. The band presents also a new music video of the single. The premiere will take place on Friday, January 22th (10:00am CET) on their YouTube-Channel.
The band states: “Potzblitz” is the first song created for “The Cannibal Instinct”. Black, brutal punk metal. Three chords, fast and straight in the face, with pissed off socially critical lyrics. “Potzblitz” was finished pretty quickly compared to the rest of the album’s material. The goal was to combine classic hardcore punk with thrash riffing, gritty echoes and a death ‘n’ roll feel. After we played “Potblitz” in the rehearsals often on even higher speed, we decided for the album recordings not to overdo it, so that the song does not lose its charackter and lose its groove. The album title embodies, next to all seriousness, the wink, which always resonates with Bloodspot.”
The official video for the the first single “Our Workers Back” can be seen here:
Chief Shock Video
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 ) 