Minnesota metallers THEE MASSACRE formed towards the end of 2013, releasing their debut EP “Horror” on Halloween 2014. The horror metal band built up their fan base rapidly and have performed on the Metal Alliance and Summer Slaughter tours. They are now working on their first full length album.
I caught up with vocalist Eric McMahon and guitarist D.J. Gunnarson to discuss what’s happening with the band and what to expect from the new album. You can read an excerpt from the chat and listen in full via the audio player below.
Talking about the forthcoming album Eric and D.J. revealed:
“It’s almost written, it’s coming along nicely. We’re going to stay in a secluded cabin out in the woods by Ed Gein’s land – to give it that spooky vibe, scariness. We lock ourselves away, no cellphones, nothing crazy for ten days and just really focus on putting the finishing touches on the record.
We can really focus on being in that kind of environment that makes us uncomfortable, it’ll maybe add a little ‘uncomfortableness’ to the music.”
For more information on THEE MASSACRE visit their official Facebook page at this location.
Guitarist Henrik Flyman created Danish metal band EVIL MASQUERADE ten years ago. The band have since released six albums, the first one being “Welcome To The Show” in 2004. They have been through some testing line-up changes, but kept going, producing top quality metal throughout their career. Reaching a pinnacle of ten years in a band’s career is no mean feat these days, so to celebrate this milestone, the band have released a special compilation album entitled “10 Years In The Dark”.
I caught up with Henrik recently to find out more about the new album. You can read an excerpt from our conversation and listen to the full chat on the audio player below:
Discussing the process which lead to releasing “10 Years In The Dark”, Henrik expressed:
“We’ve been around for ten years and we’re not quitting at all, so instead of leaving that for the future when this band will end (hopefully never), instead of waiting for that, tell the people thank you for being around. It’s actually ten years, so it’s worth celebrating!
The compilation idea came very naturally because we haven’t done one before. But now with six albums out and from “Pentagram” a lot of people started to join us and a lot of them aren’t that familiar with the early stuff. So, for newcomers to get a glimpse of the band and also for long time fans, we did a re-master of the old material.”
Henrik revealed his plans for the future:
“History tells me I should not be too certain about how the future should be, but the only thing I can guarantee is that there will come a new album from Evil Masquerade, it will probably come next year and it will sound really, really good!”
Check out the official EVIL MASQUERADE Facebook page here and the official website here.
Only one place in the UK was lucky enough to have a night of metal with the German giants ACCEPT in 2014 and that place was The Forum in London on Thursday 27th November. Even luckier me to be watching the show from the mixing desk, which was an interesting hive of activity throughout.
The venue filled up quite early and a large proportion of the crowd I noticed were middle aged males, long time fans of ACCEPT without a doubt. The floor was pretty full when support act VOODOO SIX hit the stage. I only caught half of their set but thoroughly enjoyed what I saw –stand in vocalist Nik Taylor-Stoakes did a great job and the whole band was full of energy with great music, which went down well with the crowd.
At 9pm the lights went down and ACCEPT exploded onto the stage and didn’t let up for the next action packed two hours! One of the many things that is a constant when the band play live is their pure energy, they have more than most bands half their age! With the combined too many to mention years in the music business, ACCEPT are a very tightly run ship, professional to the nth degree, which works like magic up onstage. Mix that with their classic brand of metal and you’re onto a winner every time.
ACCEPT, The Forum 2014
‘Stampede’, the first single from latest album “Blind Rage” was the opener and I have to say I was really excited to hear the new tracks played live and was not disappointed! The crowd went crazy, demonstrating the fact that many eager fans had been waiting to see their metal heroes in the UK. Mark Tornillo belted out the vocals in fine form, never staying still, flanked by Peter Baltes and Wolf Hoffmann who moved straight to the front of the stage, interacting with fans and looking so happy as always to be playing for them, completed by Wolf’s trademark grin!
No stopping, the onslaught continued straight into ‘Stalingrad’ and throughout the show. Many classic were played such as ‘London Leatherboys’, ‘Losers And Winners’ and ‘Starlight’, but now with the three most recent albums since the band’s triumphant comeback in 2010, many of the songs from these albums were played and have become firm favourites with the fans. So much so, ‘Teutonic Terror’ from “Blood Of The Nations” was part of the encore.
One of my absolute favourites of the whole night was ‘Final Journey’. I’d been dying to see this played live since I first heard “Blind Rage” on its release. Though the whole album is top class, this track really stood out immediately for me, especially with Wolf’s classical solo fusing Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt – Morning Mood’ with metal – for me, utter perfection and what a treat to see it performed on stage.
You don’t get chit chat from band members at an ACCEPT show, no time for that when there are so many songs to fit into a blistering set! And to be honest it’s not needed, the band interact fully with the crowd through their facial expressions and gestures and just the occasional moment of speech from Mark, for example when introducing ‘Shadow Soldiers’ as a dedication “to our armed forces” which raised a cheer from the crowd.
ACCEPT, The Forum 2014
The quality of the partnership between Peter Baltes and Wolf Hoffmann over almost a 40 year period, is never in doubt, the harmony they present together onstage is always a joy to see. Peter was full of energy throughout the show, headbanging as he delivered those killer bass riffs and as always Wolf’s handling of and execution of songs on his favourite Framus guitars was second to none. Herman Frank and Stefan Schwarzmann provided a solid background to the show, Herman occasionally coming forward for a couple of solos.
At the end of the set, ACCEPT left the stage to rapturous applause and cheers from their UK fans and were soon back to play three encores, finishing with the epitome of a metal classic, ‘Balls To The Wall’, guaranteed to send the crowd wild! ACCEPT never disappoint their fans, always giving 110% to their performance which creates lasting memories for their fans. I left the Forum complete with buzzing ears and along with the other UK fans, anticipating the next (hopefully not too far away!) visit to these shores.
Show Rating: 10/10
Setlist:
Stampede
Stalingrad
Hellfire
200 Years
Losers And Winners
London Leatherboys
Starlight
Dying Breed
Final Journey
Shadow Soldiers
From The Ashes We Rise
Restless And Wild
Ahead Of The Pack
No Shelter
Princess Of The Dawn
Dark Side Of My Heart
Pandemic
Fast As A Shark
Encores:
Metal Heart
Teutonic Terror
Balls To The Wall
What can be said about a band that has such metal prestige as ACCEPT?! They smashed their way back to the forefront of the metal music scene in 2010 with their storming comeback album “Blood Of The Nations”, along with new vocalist Mark Tornillo. They haven’t looked back since and are one of the hardest working bands in the business, releasing “Stalingrad” in 2012 and new album “Blind Rage” in August this year, to rave reviews around the world.
ACCEPT have been showcasing “Blind Rage” on stage around the world for the last few months, including their very first time playing in Australia much to the delight of the diehard fans there. The band were in London for their show at The Forum on Thursday 27th November, one of the last of this 2014 tour.
I have been lucky to interview original guitarist and mainman Wolf Hoffmann several times before and this time we caught up back stage in the afternoon before the show. Wolf was relaxed and we enjoyed a fun chat, not totally focusing on “Blind Rage” as it has been done many times by now.
Read a few snippets from the conversation below and listen in full on the audio player.
Wolf Hoffmann, ACCEPT, With Blackdiamond The London Forum, November 2014
Discussing the state of the world today and its many problems, linked with the song ‘Wanna Be Free’, Wolf expressed his thoughts:
“There’s so much potential catastrophe’s going on right now, it makes you wonder you know, is the world going down the drain or are we just thinking about it more because we hear it so much more. We got the 24 hour news, you always wonder is it really for the better, it never seems to go away.
That song deals with the fact that deep down inside, everybody wants to be free, not just politically. We wanted to look at different aspects of freedom.”
The exciting subject of Wolf working on his next classical album arose, check out what he had to say:
“I’m actually gonna see some people in a couple of days, I wanna do some orchestral overdubs with some string players and hopefully I can do this when I have a little bit of time off in January and February. I can hopefully get some overdubs done then and that the album will be ready next year to be released. It’s 80% recorded – I’ve got most of the guitars, all of the drums, so it’s coming along, just slowly because it’s always taking a backseat to all the other activities you know. When Mama Accept calls, I have to drop everything and that’s number one.”
Talking of the comments that the ‘best is to come’ for ACCEPT, Wolf revealed:
“I’ve always had the philosophy that you should never really think you’ve done your thing and you can sit back and relax. I think you always have to challenge yourself as an artist and try and get better on stage. You should try to write the next best song, a better album next time around and that’s what motivates me. I honestly believe we haven’t written the best song yet and we haven’t played the best show yet.
I think it’s a game where you’re supposed to get better, you know it’s not like you’re a swimmer or something where you peak in your twenties. I think as a musician, the longer you do it, the better you get – hopefully.”
English progressive thrash metallers SYLOSIS are busy preparing for the release of their fourth album “Dormant Heart”, which is the much anticipated follow up to 2o12’s “Monolith”. The new album is set to be unleashed worldwide on January 12th 2015 via Nuclear Blast Records. The band have been through a recent change with the exit of their longstanding drummer Rob Callard and the addition of new member Ali Richardson.
So, there was plenty to discuss during my recent chat with front man and guitarist Josh Middleton, regarding the new album and much more. You can read some excerpts and listen to the full chat on the audio player below.
Discussing “Dormant Heart”, Josh explained how the band are feeling:
“Yeah very excited! It’s been a long time coming in terms of when we started recording, which was back in March. Obviously all the music was written before March, so we’ve been sat on it for quite some time, so we’re excited to finally be able to let people hear it. It’s a bit darker and a bit heavier. I was always a big fan of Pantera growing up and they, to me just kept getting heavier and heavier. It was so exciting to get their album home and be reassured that they’re not gonna sell out writing cheesy pop metal ballads and stuff. In the same way we’re staying true to what we do and just put out the heaviest album that we can.
But at the same time it’s a lot darker, there’s a bit more atmosphere in there and at the same time it is a bit more varied. It’s not all really fast, there’s a bit more groove. There’s a bit more melody in there and the closing track is probably one of the most melodic things we’ve done – sort of like a ’70’s prog rock song.”
On the subject of touring, Josh disclosed:
“We’re trying to do as much touring as possible, nothing’s quite set in stone yet. So we’ll try and do something in the UK and Europe first and then probably go back to America. I think we’re gonna go to Japan, I’d love to go back to Australia but we’re not sure yet. We won’t be touring till February or March. ”
As it’s that ghoulish time of year again that people the world over love to celebrate Halloween for whatever their own reasons, what better time to have a chat with original guitarist from pumpkinhead power metallers HELLOWEEN, Michael Weikath.
As recently published Blackdiamond caught up with Michael whilst he is in HELLOWEEN‘s MiSueno studio on Tenerife with the other band members, creating the follow up to 2013’s “Straight Out Of Hell”. The special Halloween Party Show featuring the chat with Michael was aired earlier this week on Blackdiamond’s Metal Mayhem show on http://www.totalrock.com. Now you can listen exclusively with Metal Shock Finland.
The new album was discussed in as much detail as secrecy allows, but as always Michael loves to chat and gives extensive answers edged with his sense of humour, which is always present. You can read a few snippets of the chat below and listen to the full interview on the audio player.
Michael revealed at what stage the band are at with recording the new album:
“They’ve gone into the drum recordings and I’ve been there yesterday to witness the recording of one of the tracks I’ve written and so that was really cool. The way we do it is that we are using Dani’s natural feel for playing the drums – he has a general tempo in his head and he records the drums for as many songs as he can manage. He actually drums from memory which is quite good. I don’t know he does that, but yeah that’s what’s been taking place. Then after the drums, they get adjusted to the grid of the demo material we have, so there’s like a session in the digital editor in the pro tools. So, his drums are being matched to the grid of the demo, everything is just on the point where it belongs, it’s drummed without a click actually.
When that is done, we’re going to add guitars and vocals and special effects and keyboards and the bass will be recorded. So everyone’s dropping by for his respective work to be done. We have a schedule and it’s looking good.
In times like this when melodic heavy metal isn’t exactly at a pinnacle in the general media, you have to keep the costs low,you have to be specific to what you wanna do regarding the bullshitting or doing work. Obviously we want to get done in time, in the given schedule, what has been said is February. If we’re ahead of the schedule, we’ve got a lot more time for mixing and mastering or whatever is going to happen. Regardless, there is no pressure, except there will be festival appearances – we have fixed already for June, that is one fact that I can reveal. There’s not so much else I could possibly tell about the process taking place, like album title or song titles.”
Discussing the Halloween topic of pumpkins, Michael stated:
“Being in this band we try to stay away from actual real pumpkins. If somebody served us pumpkin soup or pumpkin pie in the catering – it was good and pleasurable and it was a joy to eat. But it doesn’t always take that form of being enjoyable, you grow a bit wary of that business you know, when you’re in that band. Imagine you were in a band called The Sugar Cups and everybody’s always bringing you sugary sweet stuff (makes noise). There’s only so much you can do and stand as a human being obviously.”
Michael revealed what he likes about Halloween:
“What I really like is diversity, when people get creative – if Batman wants to be Superman and vice versa, that’s fun. When people dress up as tree trunks and what really cracks me up is when people dress up their little doggies or other animals, that’s just amazing.”
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Minnesota metallers THEE MASSACRE formed towards the end of 2013, releasing their debut EP “Horror” on Halloween 2014. The horror metal band built up their fan base rapidly and have performed on the Metal Alliance and Summer Slaughter tours. They are now working on their first full length album.
As it’s that ghoulish time of year again that people the world over love to celebrate Halloween for whatever their own reasons, what better time to have a chat with original guitarist from pumpkinhead power metallers HELLOWEEN, Michael Weikath.
Click image to watch the video
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