Album recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Max Malmer (Malmer Productions) Guest Vocals on ”The Duke” by David Nilsson (Feral, Mace´n´Chain) Album cover by Christian Wallin (Illustrations By Christian Wallin)
Line-up: Gustav Lund: Lead/Rythm Guitar, Vocals Samuel Larsson: Lead/Rythm Guitar Anders Gustavsson: Bass Rickard Lundmark: Drums
In a career defined by evolution, Joe Bonamassa is ready to turn the page once again. The blues-rock virtuoso has just announced Breakthrough, his most adventurous and genre-blending studio album to date, out July 18th via his own J&R Adventures. At the heart of the announcement is the release of the album’s powerful title track—“Breakthrough”—a soulful, hard-hitting anthem about letting go, moving forward, and finding your fire again, available today on all streaming platforms.
Crafted across multiple continents and infused with a world’s worth of inspiration, Breakthrough marks a bold new chapter for Bonamassa—one that leans on fiery solos, emotionally rich storytelling, groove-driven arrangements, and stylistic exploration. Produced by long-time creative partner Kevin Shirley (Iron Maiden, The Black Crowes, Journey), the album was shaped by sessions in Greece, Egypt, Nashville, and Los Angeles, resulting in a vibrant sonic tapestry that shifts effortlessly from funky blues and Texas swing to acoustic ballads and swaggering hard rock.
“I think this album, Breakthrough, marks a shift in the styling of Joe Bonamassa’s recording output,” says Shirley. “While there are plenty of guitar solos on this record, his emphasis has been on songs primarily. Each time Joe undertakes a new recording project, he seems to access a different part of his vast library of music genre from the jukebox-in-his-head! This album is a round-the-world musical trip—from Little Feat funkiness to Texas swing, from hard rock power to acoustic singer/songwriter-style songs.”
The newly released single “Breakthrough,” co-written with long-time collaborator Tom Hambridge (Buddy Guy, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd), captures the emotional core of the record—an uplifting anthem about transformation, persistence, and letting go of the weight that holds us back. With gritty vocals, melodic guitar lines, and lush instrumentation, the track embodies Bonamassa’s signature blend of power and finesse while ushering in a bold new direction.
“Breakthrough” follows the success of Bonamassa’s recent singles “Still Walking With Me” and “Shake This Ground,” both of which hinted at the adventurous spirit behind the full album. “Shake This Ground” delivered a moody, introspective edge, while “Still Walking With Me” leaned into warmth, gratitude, and classic soul. Each track reflects a different facet of Bonamassa’s evolving songwriting approach, rooted in emotional honesty and anchored by his unmistakable guitar work.
The album announcement caps a stretch of extraordinary momentum for Bonamassa. Next up, Bonamassa recently began his extensive European Spring Tour, followed by a June run with his powerhouse supergroup Black Country Communion (featuring Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham, and Derek Sherinian). After another round of summer dates across Europe—including sold-out shows in Ireland—he’ll return stateside for his just-announced 2025 U.S. Summer Tour, a limited amphitheater run featuring stops at The Greek Theatre, Red Rocks, and more iconic venues.
With over 50 albums, 28 #1 Billboard Blues albums, and a lifelong commitment to evolving the genre, Bonamassa shows no signs of slowing down. Whether headlining iconic venues, mentoring rising artists through Journeyman Records, or supporting music education via his Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation, Bonamassa continues to shape the future of blues-rock with every note.
For more information on Breakthrough, tour dates, and VIP packages, visit jbonamassa.com.
EUROPE SPRING TOUR 2025, remaining shows April 27 – Brighton, UK – Brighton Centre April 29 – Oberhausen, DE – Rudolf Weber Arena April 30 – Munich, DE – Olympiahalle May 2 – Prague, CR – O2 Universam May 3 – Warsaw, PL – COS Torwar May 6 – Hannover, DE – ZAG Arena May 8 – Frankfort, DE – Jahrhunderthalle May 9 – Frankfort, DE – Jahrhunderthalle May 10 – Antwerp, BE – Lotto Arena
BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION – EUROPE SUMMER TOUR 2025 June 6 – Fredericksburg, DK – Falkonersalen June 7 – Solvesborg, SE – Sweden Rock Festival June 9 – Tilburg, NL – 013 Poppodium Tilburg June 10 – Hamburg, DE – Stadtpark June 12 – Berlin, DE – Zitadelle June 13 – Olomouc, CZ – Korunní Pevnůstka June 15 – Charlotta Valley, PL – Rock Legends Festival June 17 – Vienna, AT – Vienna Gasometer June 19 – Köln, DE – Tanzbrunnen
EUROPE SUMMER TOUR 2025 July 1 – Cork, IE – Live at The Marquee* July 2 – Cork, IE – Live at The Marquee* July 3 – Cork, IE – Live at The Marquee July 6 – Klam, AT – Clam Castle July 8 – Veszprém, HU – Veszprémfest July 10 – Stuttgart, DE – Jazzopen Stuttgart July 13 – Weert, NL – Bospop July 16 – Montreux, CH – Montreux Jazz Festival July 18 – Pordenone, IT – San Valentino Park July 19 – Rome, IT – Auditorium Parco della Musica – Cavea
*Sold Out
U.S. SUMMER TOUR 2025 July 31 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre August 1 – Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre August 3 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater August 5 – Airway Heights, WA – BECU Live at Northern Quest August 6 – Pocatello, ID – Portneuf Health Trust Amphitheatre August 8 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre August 9 – Albuquerque, NM – Sandia Resort & Casino Amphitheater
SEPTEMBER 2025 September 12 – Louisville, KY – Bourbon & Beyond Festival September 13 – Vienna, VA – Wolf Trap September 15-21, 2025 – Seattle, WA – Keeping The Blues Alive at Sea ALASKA
DECEMBER 2025 December 6 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live
About Joe Bonamassa: Blues-rock superstar Joe Bonamassa is one of the most celebrated performing musicians of today. As a four-time GRAMMY-nominated artist and 15x Blues Music Award Nominee (4-time winner), he achieved his 28th No.1 album on the Billboard Blues Chart with his most recent live album and concert film, Live at the Hollywood Bowl With Orchestra. Only in his mid-40s, Bonamassa has become a living legend with an astounding multi-genre catalog. He has released more than 50 albums, including studio and live recordings, as well as collaborative albums with his adventurous side projects: Black Country Communion and Rock Candy Funk Party.
A prolific writer who is always on the hunt to expand his eclectic musical horizons, Bonamassa has a limitless work ethic whether it’s in the studio, on the road, or working with other artists to spur new music. In recent years, he has produced an immense number of albums including Joanne Shaw Taylor, Marc Broussard, Larry McCray, Jimmy Hall, and others for his independent labels Journeyman Records and KTBA Records, and has also launched Journeyman LLC, a full-service artist management, record label, concert promotion, and marketing company that builds awareness for independent artists worldwide. Visit http://www.jbonamassa.com for more information.
Canadian country rocker CORY MARKS was so musically inspired by his recent European tour, that he decided to release a brand-new song and lyric video today (April 25), a musical rallying cry to his fans, “Are You With Me?” via Better Noise Music. MARKS also wanted to share the new lyric video for “Lit Up” from his SORRY FOR NOTHING album, which was released December 6, 2024 via Better Noise Music. The songs have just been released as a double-single on digital outlets HERE (“Are You With Me?”) and HERE (“Lit Up”).
Watch the lyric video for “Are You With Me?” HERE.Watch the lyric video for “Lit Up” HERE.
“’Are You With Me?’ is a song for my fans, for the people loving my music and loving this country rock sound,” exclaims CORY MARKS. “They’re the reason we do this and want to get out on the road and play live no matter how hard, long, tough and unfair smoke and mirrors this music industry can be. There’s nothing like playing live and watching the crowd sing a long and rock out with you. Are you with me?”
With over 350 million global streams to date, CORY has been captivating fans across the country and rock spectrum. Unafraid to stand out and stay true to himself, his third album SORRY FOR NOTHING is an unapologetic double-barreled blast of 13 songs produced by longtime collaborator Kevin Churko (Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch, Shania Twain, Papa Roach), plus Kile Odell (Nita Strauss, David Draiman), and Andrew Baylis (Jelly Roll, Brantley Gilbert). The album comes as a follow-up to CORY’s successful debut, WHO I AM, which included the hit single “Outlaws & Outsiders.” The song made history as the first-ever Top 10 rock radio-charting single from a Canadian country act and over 230 million global streams to date. The single received Platinum certification in Canada and Gold in the U.S.
SORRY FOR NOTHING’s tracks range from Haggard-like country and virtual bluegrass to straight-up arena anthems and almost Pantera-like hard metal as well as mashing both styles in a single song. Guest appearances include Sully Erna of Godsmack, Travis Tritt and Mick Mars on the Top 20 Active Rock radio-charting single “(Make My) Country Rock” and DL of Bad Wolves on “Guilty.” SORRY FOR NOTHING is available now on exclusive red vinyl, CD, and/or digital download HERE.
CrypticRock.com described the album as one that, “…showcases MARKS’ ability to navigate the deep waters of soulful country ballads and high-energy Rock anthems, creating a barrage of sound that verges on magic, once it permeates your anticipating ears…SORRY FOR NOTHING positions CORY MARKS as a trailblazer in modern Country Rock, a true force to be reckoned with on the international stage, and if he continues pushing boundaries while staying true to his roots, there is truly no stopping this young man. A must-listen..”
While Rocknloadmag.com declared, “MARKS returns with a banger of an album alongside some of the biggest names in the business for a whole host of killer collaborations. What you get is an album overflowing with stadium-sized anthems, banger after banger, that just grips you right from the off….From start to finish this is a great album, if you love your country-rock you’ll be in your element, Marks is a revelation and can only go on great things, 2025 could be his year!”
In touring news, MARKS is currently out in support of Dorothy as part of their “REDEMPTION” tour, which kicked off April 16 in Nashville, TN and lasts through May 2 in Albuquerque, NM. MARKS will then head back to his native Canada for more headlining shows on his “Sorry For Nothing Tour,” which has spanned North America, the U.K. and Europe!
The “Ember Remains” EP continues the natural progression and presents a darker and heavier landscape that Northvoid paints with their music. After the debut EP released in 2022 and the three independent single releases that followed, the band takes another step towards the musical style that it has strived for throughout its existence.
The core of the EP is formed around a foundation created by heavy guitars and bass and drums. The whole is united by a vocals that moves more and more towards a traditional death metal style. The album’s entirety is supported by a soundscape playing in the background, created with keyboards, depicting northern melancholy. Overall, the EP gives a picture of the band’s development and presents the band’s current style and gives guidelines for the future.
Track list:
Northern Breeze
Wilderness
Sun & Moon
Entrusted
The Ember
Mix & Master: Heikki Marttila/Guru Studio, Joensuu EP picture by Timo Korkalainen, cover artwork Markus Heikkinen
Forged in North Karelia in January 2020, Northvoid delivers a musical assault rooted in the melodic death metal of the 90’s. With a bond forged in childhood, our members now channel the raw, untamed energy of the past & present into every note.
Our music is a fusion of melodic heaviness and groove, inspired by the harsh environment and wilderness of the north. Experience the power and versatility of our music, which broadly covers different elements of metal music, guided by the attitude of the frost-bitten north. Northvoid isn’t just music – it’s a journey into the heart of coldness and wilderness.
Line-up: Markus Heikkinen: guitars Timo Korkalainen: drums Kimmo Timonen: vocals Risto Aittola: bass
The new album begins and ends in the same space: the rehearsal room.
In between these moments however, Blodsträngen knows no boundaries; it rampages through your inner sanctum, upending everything it can, razing everything you hold dear and drawing on the walls whilst panting, drooling and muttering to itself in strange tongues…
With all four members of Blessings already veterans of numerous bands and several distinct scenes throughout their native Sweden, the group came together with the idea of creating something wholly their own, rather than compromising to fit in elsewhere. The resultant sound is a cacophony of influences where nothing is sacred and no idea is thrown out; all that matters is all playing disgustingly loud music together in a room.
Blodsträngen, which can be translated as ‘The Bloodline’ or ‘The Blood String’ is another bracing evolution of Blessings’ truly inimitable sound, pushing the band’s percussive and found-sound textural elements even further to embrace a wild sonic palette that blends modular synths with crushing guitar feedback and even the occasional cowbell.
It should come as no surprise that Blessings’ debut album, 2012’s Bittervatten,is abrasive, crusty and intriguingly in-your-face as the band barely manage to contain the barrage of influences from across the heavy spectrum. Years of near-constant touring and creative experimentation followed, and later came Biskopskniven in 2021; still deafeningly loud and defiantly confrontational, the album brought with it a sense of uneasy patience and seething restraint as the band trimmed the fat and found a new menace in machine-like repetition courtesy of drummer Mattias Rasmusson and synth player/percussionist Erik Skytt.
Each Blessings album to date includes a song by the name of ‘Strings of Red’, an unspoken narrative that charts the band’s unique journey through genre. As such, Blodsträngen opener and lead single ‘Strings of Red’ sets pulses racing with a loping percussive loop before the song abruptly explodes into a double-time thrash-metal dirge with Fredrik Karlsson’s gravel-soaked voice leading the charge and Johan G. Winther swiftly joining him. Before we know it though, the song turns on its heels again as a nightmarish, prog-like synth motif possesses the song and sends all into a downward spiral of equal parts euphoria and delirium.
Elsewhere, the likes of ‘No Good Things’ pairs the filthiest bass sound you’ve ever heard with a shuffling, playful xylophone-like synth refrain and haunting baritone vocals before collapsing in on itself as underneath colossal guitar riffs and black metal blast beats.
‘Alt Vi Kan Ge Ar Upp’ (All We Can Give Is Up) is as cutting, angular and cathartic as the song’s title suggests. A relentless 3/4 groove all but trips over itself as the growl of guitars builds to breaking point and the track spills into a half-time doom waltz with soaring bittersweet pipe organ melodies and a harrowed vocal lament colliding to briefly create something staggeringly beautiful before crumbling into its separate parts and melting away to nothing…
Blodsträngen is Blessings fine-tuning their deliberately dissonant sound whilst simultaneously casting their net wide for ever more left-field, experimental influences; a disparate collection of idiosyncrasies that the band somehow manage to pull into something cohesive, captivating and empowering. The band leave the messages and meanings behind their music open to interpretation as a means of sharing this attitude of openness with their audience because remember, when all is said and done, all that matters is all playing disgustingly loud music together in a room.
Side A 1. Raised On Graves 2. Strings of Red 3. Clean Side B 4. No Good Things 5. Alt Vi Kan Ge Ar Upp 6. Copper + Dirt 7. Through Veils of Glass and Silica
Blessings are:
Fredrik Karlsson Mattias Rasmusson Johan G. Winther Erik Skytt
WARLORD have released a new video for “Stygian Passage”, taken from the band’s upcoming album “The Lost Archangel”, coming out on June 27th 2025 via High Roller Records!
When William J. Tsamis, founder of legendary epic metal masters Warlord, sadly passed away on the 13th of May 2021 at the age of only 60, it looked as if the premature death of one of the most creative forces in American metal had come. However, Warlord bounced back in 2024, with a new line-up and a brand new highly acclaimed studio album entitled “Free Spirit Soar” (on High Roller Records). This was quickly followed by “From The Ashes To The Archives – The Hot Pursuit Continues”, a limited edition release to mark the occasion of the band’s festival appearances in 2024 with returning Warlord vocalist Giles Lavery. (who also sings for Jack Starr and Alcatrazz).
With a new studio album in the bag, it was time for the “reborn” Warlord to hit the road. In the summer of 2024, they appeared at Trveheim (Germany), Golden R Festival (Greece), Pyrenean Warriors (France) and Metalitalia (Italy).
It was the band’s idea to give their loyal following a something extra in return for their loyalty, as Giles Lavery explains: “We wanted to do something special and also something I don’t think anyone else has ever done before – release and “give away” an exclusive ‘free download’ song to mark each festival stop on the tour … four of them in one month. The reactions at these shows was again something that exceeded our expectations, people singing every word with us, the energy and response from the festival crowds was amazing.”
The songs we are talking about are “Golgotha (Place Of The Skull)”, “The Rainbow”, “Lost Archangel” and “Stygian Passage”.
All four can be found now in physical form on Warlord’s new release “The Lost Archangel”. The singer goes into more detail: “They are brand new recordings: but ‘The Rainbow’ is an old Warlord demo from the very early 80s, which was recorded back then, so we re-recorded it in 2024. The other three songs were compositions Bill released on his Lordian Guard albums in the 90s, that we ‘Warlordized’ also in 2024… These were the last three Lordian Guard songs that we felt we could bring over to Warlord, so we thought why not release them this way as “free downloads”. Almost directly after we released them free we were asked if we were going to issue these in physical format.
Apart from these four new songs, “The Lost Archangel” also features a wealth of older and more recent live recordings as well several studio re-workings of historic Warlord material.
TRACKLISTING: 01 Golgotha (The Place of the Skull) 02 The Rainbow 03 Lost Archangel 04 Stygian Passage 05 Enemy Mind (2025) 06 70,000 Sorrows (2013/2025) 07 Night of the Fury (2013/2025) 08 Father (Live in Athens 2013) 09 Glory (Live in Athens 2013) 10 Soliloquy (Live in Athens 2013) 11 Lucifer’s Hammer (Live 2024) 12 Black Mass (Live 2024) 13 Child of the Damned (Live 2024)
Produced by Giles Lavery, Thomas Mergler & Eric Juris Note: The vinyl edition also includes the previously “CD only” bonus track “Twin” from the CD edition of “Free Spirit Soar”.
FEATURING: Giles Lavery – Vocals 1-13 Eric Juris – Guitars 1-5 / 11-13 Diego Pires – Guitars 1-5 / 11-13 Jimmy Waldo – Keys 1-5 / 11-13 Philip Bynoe – Bass 1-13 William J Tsamis – Guitars 6-10 Mark Zonder – Drums
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 ) 