The deal is done. The ink is dry. VICE BUSINESS ONLY (VBO) has officially signed with RPM, and the game just changed.
FRANCESCO CAVALIERI, the lion’s roar of WIND ROSE, joins forces with electronic architect SIMONE GIUSTI to form an outfit that’s all power moves and late-night glamour. Together, they’ve cooked up a sound that blends the neon glow of synthwave with the grit of heavy rock and the precision of underground club beats.
Born on the wrong side of the tracks and built on sweat, synths, and swagger, VICE BUSINESS ONLY is a full-blown operation. A retro-futuristic heist crew disguised as musicians, rolling through the city with basslines like muscle cars and vocals sharp enough to cut glass.
Picture this: Scarface cruising through a rain-slicked downtown at 3 AM. The lights are flashing, the champagne’s on ice, and the soundtrack is pure VICE BUSINESS ONLY. Influenced by legends like DEPECHE MODE, TEARS FOR FEARS, DAFT PUNK, and JUSTICE, this is music for rooftop deals, fast cars, and high-stakes living.
“We’re thrilled to announce that Vice Business Only has officially signed with Reigning Phoenix Music, that’s the start of a powerful collaboration,” said the band. “We come from the streets we grew up on, aiming straight for that champagne bottle on the rooftop of the music industry.”
“Strength. Luxury. Passion. Excess. This is VBO, baby.”
RPM knows fire when they see it. VICE BUSINESS ONLY is locked, loaded, and ready to unleash a sound that hits like a suitcase full of cash and leaves like a ghost in the night.
VICE BUSINESS ONLY doesn’t ask for your attention. They take it.
In June 1971, MELANIE was among the most eagerly awaited headliners at the Glastonbury Fayre – the free festival predecessor of the modern Glasto beanfeast, and an event oft-described today as the climax of the British underground, both musically and culturally.
Melanie was sharing the stage with some of the movement’s most significant acts, including Hawkwind, the Edgar Broughton Band, Traffic, Arthur Brown, Gong and David Bowie, and since her death in January 2024, several of her fellow counter-culture travelers have paid their own musical tributes to her, among them Terry Reid (the man who turned down Led Zeppelin!) and the Pink Fairies.
Now, Ozric Tentacles, long-running heirs to that same cultural throne (and veterans themselves of later Glastonbury events), step forward with their own appreciation of Melanie, layering their unmistakable textures and tones around what the New York Post once described as her “hauntingly beautiful” rendition of “California Dreaming,” released today on all digital platforms.
The Post continued, “Melanie’s strange phrasing allows her to get nuances out of songs”; while the Boston Globe credited her with “an impassioned vocal that gives the song [a] poignancy that the Mamas and the Papas’ smooth harmonies could not pin down.”
Those were the qualities that drew Ozric Tentacles multi-instrumentalist leader Ed Wynne to the performance.
Melanie’s original recording of “California Dreaming” came about completely by accident. “We didn’t even know we were going to do it, or that [it was being] record[ed],” she recalled in 2023. Pianist Richard Tee “was just doodling on the piano one day, and he started playing that song, so I joined in, and that was all there was to it. Then [we] played it back and – that has to go on the album.”
With Tees’ piano the only thing standing between Melanie and an a capella vocal, “California Dreaming” emerged one of the most powerful, and moving, vocal performances of her entire career – as the Los Angeles Times noted when it described her as “a distinctive vocalist whose wistful, raggedy style has taken on a note of fully developed authority.”
Ozric Tentacles’ contributions only amplify those qualities, even as they reach back in time to recapture the radical outlaw status that the young Melanie brought to the festival circuit.
On record, it is true, she was rarely permitted to disrupt the “whimsical hippy chick” imagery that the media had draped across her. On stage, however, she purposefully overlooked her best known songs; defiantly flaunted live venues’ insistence that audiences sit quietly throughout her performances; and effortlessly captivated everyone from stoners to Hell’s Angels with voice and acoustic guitar alone.
In fact, just moments before she was called onstage at Glastonbury, Melanie was sitting in front of the stage, drinking homemade beer with a bunch of bikers. “You see it in the movie, I hoisted myself up onstage from the front, and that’s when I was drinking the beer that these guys made….”
It was an attitude with which Ozric Tentacles themselves have forever identified. Formed at the 1983 Stonehenge free festival by a handful of teenaged friends, the Ozrics – like Melanie – were most at home amongst what they called “their own people”; that is, those who regarded making and listening to music as a fundamental human right, not a business proposition.
They still are, they still do. And the biggest surprise about “California Dreaming” is not that the band have so happily turned their attention to Melanie, but that it took them so long to do so!
Brazilian melodic rockers Landfall are pleased to share their new official video “SOS”, taken from their latest studio album, “Wide Open Sky”, out now via Frontiers Music Srl. Buy/Stream “Wide Open Sky” HERE
Vocalist Gui Oliver commented: “‘SOS’ is a cry for help. I believe the words ‘pain’, ‘desperation’ and ‘hope’ can define this song. The tension and groove are inspired by the late Extreme songs”.
“A song that explores a different side of the band. It’s one of our heaviest songs with a progressive touch. Very intricate parts on this one! Also, we just played it live, and it has an energy that works perfectly on a live environment! We are making justice to it releasing this beautiful video, I’m glad we did it!”, added guitarist Marcelo Gelbcke.
Landfall, the Hard rockers from Curitiba, Brazil, features singer Gui Oliver (ex-Auras), guitarist Marcelo Gelbcke, bassist Luis Rocha, and drummer Felipe Souzza, are back with an almighty bang!
The band’s delightful Melodic Rock/AOR sound can best be described as falling somewhere between classic melodic rock, a là Journey, and slightly heavier influences, such as classic era Dokken, White Lion, and Extreme. With phenomenal musical and songwriting abilities and the golden voice of Oliver, Landfall is truly a welcome addition to the melodic rock genre.
The new album delivers a solid band and the new songs are stronger, able to capture the best of each band member, melodic rock has never sounded better!
Landfall was originally formed by drummer Felipe Souzza and guitarist Marcelo Gelbcke, childhood friends who have been playing together since they were about 15 years old. Some years later, bassist Thiago Forbeci joined up with them and added new musical input and influences, at which point the band decided to go in a new direction.
During this period, they released three independent albums under the name Wild Child, performing several concerts around Brazil, including opening for acts such as Glenn Hughes and Mike Vescera; until 2017 when the former Auras singer Gui Oliver, joined the band and Landfall began writing songs that would eventually become their first album released by Frontiers Records, “The Turning Point”.
As a songwriter, Oliver had previously written songs for several artists from the label, including Jimi Jamison, Bobby Kimball, Fergie Frederiksen, and Issa.
“Wide Open Sky” Tracklist:
1. Tree Of Life 2. SOS 3. When The Curtain Falls 4. Running In Circles 5. No Tomorrow 6. A Letter To You 7. Coming Home 8. Intoxicated 9. Hourglass 10. Higher Than The Moon 11. Wide Open Sky
Line Up: Gui Oliver – Vocals Marcelo Gelbcke – Guitars, Acoustic Guitars, Backing Vocals Luis Rocha – Bass, Backing Vocals Felipe Souzza – Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals
Stevie Salas has recorded on over 70 different major label albums around the world. Stevie has worked as a writer, guitar player, Producer and music director for artists as diverse as George Clinton, Rod Stewart, Justin Timberlake, Bill Laswell, The MC5, Was (Not was), Michael Hutchence, Bootsy Collins, Terence Trent D’Arby, Buddy Miles, T.I., Public Enemy, Mick Jagger, and many more. Having sold over two million solo albums around the world, Stevie has been cited as one of the top 50 guitarists of all time in Guitar Player Magazine. Stevie left the small town of Oceanside, California in 1985 and eight months later he was homeless when he discovered by funk music legend George Clinton as the lead guitarist for Clinton’s albums. Stevie received his first major label producer credit with “Was (Not Was)” when he co-produced the UK hit “Out Come the Freaks” from the Album What Up Dog? which Rolling Stone Magazine listed as one of the top 100 records of the decade.
Back From The Living was originally released in 1995 and had different covers and different songs depending on which country it was released. To celebrate the 30th Anniversary Deko Entertainment worked with Salas and his team to put together one comprehensive collection with all the material from the various international versions of the album. The result is the remastered and repackaged Back From The Living (Deluxe Edition), Double Album, on Ruby Red Vinyl, and 6-Panel Digipak, with extensive liner notes written by Salas covering everything there is to know about this release.
Back From The Living featured some of Salas’ most popular tracks such as “Crack Killed Applejack” which Salas talks about the origins, “That song originally was written in 1985 when Bootsy Collins came to the guest house where I lived in Beverly Hills. I wrote the original music and melody but would later take the chorus lyric from the song with the same title by General Kane. For the verse I would write the story of a street kid drug dealer who was addicted to crack cocaine. So, that was the first song I knew I wanted on the record.” But the real breakthrough for him came in 1991 when he wrote “Tell Your Story Walkin.” As he explains. “This was as original as they come. I had a Bootsy/James Brown-style bass line sort of like Sex Machine or Soul Power with drums that had that same style groove but with a lot more sports arena rock power. Then for the rhythm guitar I used my Stevie Salas Wha Rocker that Bill Laswell gave me and that gave the song its signature sound.”
The album drops on September 19th but you can pre-order now and get a Limited-Edition Bundle (100 copies) which includes the LP/CD, A Back From The Living XXX Guitar Pick, and personally autographed flat of the rare German cover of Back From The Living.
Tracklist: Tell Your Story Walkin’ Crack Killed Apple Jack I Once Was There Wonderin’ Start Again Born To Mack The Lying Truth Without Love Amelia God I’m Going Downr Much Ado About Buttin’ [Suckermangrubby Mouth Mix] I Need Your I Think You Need To Think Shake This Town Show Me Some Emotion A Journey Into The Middle Ages Tell Your Story Walkin’ [Mug Masher Remix] Crack Killed Apple Jack [Gravy Booty Remix] Start Again [Live] LP ONLY The Walls Came Down [Live] LP ONLY
Ozzy Osbourne, the legendary “Prince of Darkness” and one of Rock’s most iconic frontmen, has passed away at 76.
The Osbourne family shared in a statement obtained by The Guardian:
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.”
While they’ve shared bills with fellow Southern trailblazers, after 12 years, Bask still sound like they belong to their very own time and place. On their upcoming fourth album, the Asheville natives take their signature style of Heavy Americana to a whole new dimension. But as laid bare by its latest single, to reach The Turning, the band had to go through one hell of a trip.
“This is the heaviest and most emotionally challenging song on the record”, Bask says about “Long Lost Light”. “There were times when we had to walk away from it. You can feel the emotion in every single note”.
The video for “Long Lost Light”was created by Garrett Williams and Mason Bayne.
The Turning comes out August 22, 2025 on Season of Mist.
To kick off this heavy and heady new frontier, Bask are touring the East Coast later this summer. Hear them perform songs from The Turning during the album’s first trip out on the road.
The Turning 2025 East Coast Tour August 20 – Atlanta, GA @ 529 [TICKETS] August 21 – Savannah, GA @ El Rocko [TICKETS] August 22 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel [TICKETS] August 23 – Raleigh, NC @ Chapel of Bones [TICKETS] August 24 – Richmond, VA @ Fuzzy Cactus [TICKETS] August 26 – Philadelphia, PA @ MilkBoy [TICKETS] August 28 – Searsport, ME @ Starboard Lounge [TICKETS] August 29 – Providence, RI @ Parlour [TICKETS] August 30 – Wallingford, CT @ Cherry Street Station [TICKETS] August 31 – Boston, MA @ O’Briens [TICKETS]
Can’t wait to sink into The Turning? Hear all of the new album before it comes out by RSVPing to Bask’s upcoming Bandcamp Listening Party.
The Turning Bandcamp Listening Party – RSVP Wednesday, August 6 @ 7 pm Eastern Time
The Turning is still grounded in the natural-born sounds of Bask’s home in Appalachia. “Long Lost Light” drifts amidst keys that flicker like fireflies along a riverbank. But while they’ve always been a tight-knit group, newest member Jed Willis adds more swirling colors to their homebrewed heaviness. His shimmering pedal steel bends and breaks with the quiet force of a current, as if guiding them by starlight.
“When we started writing The Turning, the songs were twangy but also spacier and more psychedelic than anything we’ve done before”, says the band’s vocalist and guitarist Zeb Wright. “And so I asked myself, ‘What does this feel like? What do all these things come together and make?'”
The overarching concept behind The Turning truly straddles the fence between cosmic and country. Whereas Bask’s previous treks were inspired by tall tales one might expect to hear around the campfire, this album spins a yarn from the fantastical reaches of their own imagination. “Long Lost Light” acts as the emotional centerpiece in a story that spans not only galaxies but generations in man’s never-ending quest for immortality. After trying to dodge fate, our star-crossed outlaws finally face the existential void. However, despite being admittedly “out there”, its dwellings on family, aging, death and rebirth hit close to home.
“Can you feel the moments move so quickly?”, Wright wonders, only to have his call answered by the quiver of a high, lonesome fiddle.
“We’ve been through so much together”, reflects bassist Jesse Van Note. “We were robbed while on tour in Sweden. A tire literally fell off our van. Then we were knocked down by COVID, then Hurricane Helene.
“We’re also older now and there are challenges and responsibilities that come with that”, he continues. “I have two kids. Some of us have bought houses. We’ve all been through marriages and different relationships. For things to snowball on top of the band one after another, it kind of had us feeling like maybe this was the end of our era”.
The weight of the past few years comes to bear on The Turning. Despite moseying along with a wearisome snare shuffle, crashing cymbals send “Long Lost Light” tumbling down a black hole filled with piercing feedback. “The line was my fault“, Wright cries beneath wave after wave of doomy bass. While the writing and arrangement came together quickly, the album’s latest single was so personally draining that Bask weren’t sure if they could see it through the finish line.
“I remember us wondering if this song would be too hard for us to listen back to”, says guitarist Ray Worth. “We only worked on it when buried within the darkest of moments. There were times both in rehearsal and the studio where we had to set it aside. It’s a hard one, but that’s why it turned out so damn good”.
“It’s like we had taken all of the bad and put it into something we felt was positive and beautiful”, adds Van Note.
In order to bring “Long Lost Light” out into the open, Bask needed a helping hand. Fellow Asheville native Franklin Keel turns the tide with deep melancholic churns of cello. “The way Franklin bends the note, right as things get heavy”, Van Note points out, “it acted like a release for us”. As the song’s rushes to a head, a guitar solo crests above the cosmic fray, beaming like a satellite beacon.
“COVID, Hurricane Helene and just life in general threw much instability at us, but I think the resilience of the band and our music shines through”, drummer Scott Middleton says. “It’s been a challenging five years, but I think we did a good job weathering the storm and expanding our sound on The Turning“.
Tracklist 1. Chasm (1:30) 2. In the Heat of the Dying Sun (4:57) 3. The Traveler (4:06) 4. The Cloth (4:12) 5. Dig My Heels (5:33) [WATCH] 6. Unwound (7:02) 7. Long Lost Light (6:52) [WATCH] 8. The Turning (6:33)
Psychedelic rockers have wrangled with the laws of spacetime since time immemorial, but for Bask, the past half decade has felt like falling through a prolonged series of black holes.
Before the pandemic knocked 2020 for a loop, the band were all set to traverse North America’s dusty ol’ trail with kindred spirits Elder. Flash forward roughly four years and they were fixing to tour Europe when another disaster struck their idyllic mountain town. The climb to reach album number four wound up taking one hell of a trip. But on The Turning, Bask bring Heavy Americana to a whole new dimension.
“The past five years have been challenging for all of us”, the band says. “So seeing this album finally come to light is therapeutic. The Turning is Bask at our finest. It’s our most cohesive and heartfelt effort, an ode to our mountain home in the sky”.
For as long as they’ve been together, Bask have called Asheville, North Carolina home. Drummer Scott Middleton and axeman Ray Worth were already jamming up a storm, when in 2013, they tag teamed with bassist Jesse Van Note and vocalist/guitarist Zeb Wright after the two arrived in The Land of the Sky. “We’ve been a band longer than we’ve been with our spouses”, Van Note acknowledges with a gold-toothed smile of appreciation. And yet, after 12 years in the same city, Bask still sound of their own time and place. Sharing bills with High on Fire, Black Tusk and Weedeater has led some metal archivists to peg them as stoners, though it was clear right away that these trailblazers were carved from a different neck of the woods.
“I’m quite sure I haven’t heard anything like it”, Metal Storm admired after filling up on Bask’s first full-length American Hollow. Second helping Ramble Beyond expanded the band’s homebrewed heaviness into crushing peaks and leaf-strewn valleys. “It’s tuneful, heavy, full of heart and soul and wanderlust” noted Invisible Oranges before adding, “and above all, a killer fucking rock album”.
“It’s really exactly what you want from a musical artist: a group of people creating their own sound that isn’t aping anyone”, Heavy Blog is Heavy sang in praise of the aptly titled III, which took a more snow-sheened path at the direction of Matt Bayles, who’s served as studio sherpa for Pearl Jam, Mastodon and Minus the Bear. “This is the kind of band you want to see grow”.
Bask continue to grow by literal leaps and conceptual bounds on The Turning. “I think that’s where the magic is for us”, Van Note muses. “We’re not put in a box”. Following a retreat to Echo Mountain Recording with producer Kenny Harrington, the band have returned with a concept album that truly straddles the fence between cosmic and country. “Zeb did a lot of work behind the scenes to help Kenny bridge the gap between the polish of our last record and the warmth of Ramble Beyond“. In the spirit of a Hollywood Western, the opening track sets a sizzling scene. Distant cries of trumpet stir beneath ominous drone, as if blown with the wind through a mountain chasm. Only then, like a lone ranger, does “In The Heat of the Dying Sun” appear over the blood moon horizon. “I was born to ride”, announces Wright with booming cleans as bass circles the wagons with the earthshaking force of an asteroid.
The Turning remains grounded in the natural-born sounds of Appalachia, which pokes its prickly head through the sludgier chords of “The Cloth” like a black bear swimming upstream. “We all like heavy music and half of us grew up around folk and bluegrass”, explains Wright, “but this album leans into that mix even further”. Despite starting with boots firmly planted in Tampa Bay death metal, lead single “Dig My Heels” strides through kudzu-covered fields of prog before bounding for the great beyond. “Scott called me out”, Worth laughs when asked about the song’s origins. “Instead of writing to my riffs like we’re known to do, his drumbeat took the reins on this one”.
“There’s nothing wrong with playing in 4/4”, Middleton admits, “but if you’re not exploring, then you’re missing out on a world of opportunity”.
While they’ve always been a tight-knit group, Bask’s immediate universe has also expanded. Granted, Jed Willis was already part of the band’s orbit, having helped put a bow on their last album. He’s also chipped in on tour with merch and driving duties, but The Turning welcomes him as an official member. “It’s hard trying to add someone when you’ve had the same four guys in a van for 12 years”, notes Van Note. Indeed, it’s a testament to their dyed-in-the-wool chemistry that the album’s initial thread was teased out in one go. Chugging riffs lock horns with a sideways galloping before folding seamlessly into pastoral space rock, though “Unwound” didn’t fully come together until laced with Willis’ aching bends of pedal steel. “He’s done a really good job of shining when we want that sound”.
“These guys have become friends and brothers to me over the past decade or so”, Willis says. “We’ve shared rehearsal spaces, explored new sounds and collaborated on various side projects. Our music journeys have become intertwined, creating a solid and welcoming foundation that made my transition into the band feel like a natural next step for all of us”.
“When we started writing The Turning, the songs were twangy but also spacier and more psychedelic than anything we’ve done before”, adds Wright, who also performs as the band’s lyrical scribe. “And so I asked myself, ‘What does this feel like? What do all these things come together and make?”
The answer? How about a 40 odd minute, sci-fi opus that stretches not just across dimensions but generations in man’s never-ending quest for immortality. “Sorry, this is gonna get a bit heavy”, Wright warns before walking us through the ins-and-outs of Bask’s latest yarn. Whereas the band’s previous treks were inspired by tall tales, The Turning spools forth from their own fantastical imagination. The album’s spurred heroine, known simply as The Rider, has her extraterrestrial world turned upside down by “The Traveler”, a mysteriously ageless gunslinger who needs her help getting out of Dodge. “Don’t be frightened of me”, he pleads, though the breakdown’s doomy, organ-provoked premonition suggests his intentions aren’t so honorable. Maze-like twists are revealed at every self-referential turns as the star-crossed outlaws try and outrun the changing of the seasons. However, despite being admittedly “out there”, the album’s dwellings on family, aging, death and rebirth hit close to home.
“We’ve been through so much together. We were robbed in Sweden. A tire literally fell off our van while we were driving”, Van Note reflects. “Because of COVID, we didn’t get together as much, either. We’re also older now and there are challenges and responsibilities that come with that. I have two kids. Some of us have bought houses. We’ve all been through marriages and different relationships. For things to snowball on top of the band one after another, it kind of had us feeling like maybe this was the end of our era”.
In fact, The Turning was almost lost to the sands of time. Bask finished tracking just a few weeks before Hurricane Helene reached Asheville. “It was terrifying”, Worth remembers. “We had a hard time getting in touch with each other. I climbed a hill to get cell phone reception. One of the guys was still unaccounted for the day before we were supposed to leave for Europe”. While they feel fortunate to have sustained just a flooded practice space, the storm’s aftermath did seep into the album’s mixing and mastering sessions with Alan Douches. “It would be naive to think that a life-changing event didn’t color the overall tone”. With a wearisome gait, “Long Lost Light” drifts through a ghost town haunted by salooning piano and high, lonesome fiddle until it’s swept like sawdust into the void.
“It’s the heaviest and most challenging song”, Wright says about the album’s emotional centerpiece. Though not the last song written for The Turning, it became the missing piece almost by design. “We worried it was going to be too hard for us to listen back to”, Van Note shares, a sentiment that Worth echoes. “You can feel the pain in every note”. But fellow Asheville native Franklin Keel helped them turn the tide with his deeply melancholic churns of cello. “The way Franklin bends the note, right as things get heavy”, Van Note points out, ” it acted like a release for us”.
When pressed, Wright stops short of concluding that The Turning has a happy ending. “Honestly, it’s almost in spite of that”, he responds in reference to the surprise family reunion that sets its final showdown in motion. If we’re left with a cliffhanger, then the myriad ways in which the albums keeps us guessing are perhaps fitting. After all, much like their hometown, the band are just starting to feel as if things are turning around. “Cleaning up our practice space was such an emotional experience. It was heart-wrenching but also heartwarming at the same time. It led us to re-appreciate each other and our community”. Just as our heroine discovers her hidden powers, the title track ends with the newly mounted five-piece stampeding toward the next frontier. “I danced through age and fire”, Wright belts, backed by everything Bask have always stood for: mountainous bass, tumbling drums, blazing leads, and a sunburst of pedal steel.
“Music is an emotional outlet, but at the end of the day, it’s also a way for us to hang out with our best buds”, the band says. “The Turning was a challenge, but we weathered the storm and came out the other side with a beautiful album that sounds like Bask”.
Line-up:Jesse Van Note – Bass Scott Middleton – Drums Ray Worth – Guitar Zeb Wright – Guitar/Vocals Jed Willis – Pedal Steel
Guest musicians Clay White – Trumpet Franklin Keel – Cello Alex Taub – Piano, Hammond B3 Organ
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
Ads
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 ) 