German thrash metal veterans KREATOR will release their new concert DVD/Blu-ray, “Dying Alive”, on August 30 via Nuclear Blast. The set features the band’s sold-out homecoming show in Oberhausen, Germany on December 22, 2012 after an extensive 45-day European tour in support of KREATOR‘s “Phantom Antichrist” album. The packed and sweat-driven show was filmed by 24 cameras, as well as guitar and even mosh-pit cams.
The DVD/Blu-ray contains footage of the Oberhausen concert, a behind-the-scenes documentary as well as video clips. Approximate total running time: 115 minutes.
“Dying Alive” will be issued in the following formats:
KREATOR will tour North America this fall with fellow thrashers OVERKILL.
On November 9, 2012, KREATOR released a new seven-inch single, “Civilization Collapse” (retail version: black; Nuclear Blast mailorder-only version: red, yellow, white) and as a digital download. The single contains the title cut backed by the non-album track “Wolfchild”, which was featured on the “Dark Symphonies – A Tribute To John Sinclair” album, released in September 2012 in Germany via Lübbe-Audio. The band also made a video for the song “Civilization Collapse”, which is said to be “mainly about the riots that took place in Greece most recently.”
“Civilization Collapse” comes off KREATOR‘s new album, “Phantom Antichrist”, which sold 3,900 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at No. 1 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.
Nuclear Blast has issued that the disinterred British extreme metal legends CARCASS have signed to Nuclear Blast Records for the world excluding Japan! Surgical Steel, the band’s first studio release since their 1996 LP Swansong, was produced by Colin Richardson (NAPALM DEATH, BOLT THROWER, GOREFEST, CANNIBAL CORPSE, SINISTER, RODRIGO Y GABRIELA) and mixed/mastered by Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, ACCEPT, EXODUS, TESTAMENT). Joining guitarist Bill Steer and bassist/vocalist Jeff Walker in the band’s current incarnation are new drummer Dan Wilding (ABORTED, TRIGGER THE BLOODSHED) and guitarist Ben Ash (PIG IRON, DESOLATION, LIQUEFIED SKELETON). Expect some guest vocals from original sticksman Ken Owen as well, when Surgical Steel is released this Fall world-wide.
CARCASS has released the following statement regarding their new found partners in medical deviancy: “We are pleased to announce that we have found the perfect home for Surgical Steel, the first CARCASS album for, what, eighteen years?! We’ve inked a deal with Nuclear Blast for our new baby.
We have to thank Markus Staiger for his enthusiasm and belief in what he heard, but mostly his ability to take advantage of Jeff with a bad hangover when he visited the office in Stuttgart to let him be the first to hear the rough mixes. Nuclear Blast has managed to secure this release despite interest from all the main players in what remains of the metal ‘music industry’.
We’re also looking forward to working with our pals in the US Office, who have done favors for us behind the scenes over the last few years. On a personal note, Jeff looks forward to his and label manager Gerardo Martinez’ friendship to come crashing down in flames and tears in a few months.
As long as we don’t mention ‘The War’ we think we’re going to do just fine with our new Teutonic home!”
Commented Nuclear Blast owner and founder Markus Staiger: “One of my all-time favorite UK Metal Bands signed recently to Nuclear Blast – it feels like a dream come true. When Jeff Walker let me listen to the new record I knew immediately that CARCASS made one of their best albums ever! It is a perfect mixture of Heartwork and Necroticism with a massive production to boot. The album is without a doubt just as perfect and lethal as surgical steel itself, and exactly what both old and new fans have waited for eagerly all of these years!
I am very proud to say, CARCASS – welcome to the Nuclear family. It is an honor to work with this legendary metal band.”
Adds North American label manager Gerardo Martinez: “First of all, apologies to the many that were wondering where that signing statement was the other day. Well, we didn’t anticipate the prenuptial agreement to take this long but here we are, and about to release to the world what many people said would never happen: a new CARCASS record!
All joking aside, this is a dream come true. All I can say is that even the biggest critic, Señor Walker himself included, will find this to be one of the best CARCASS albums. It already sounds like a classic and I can’t wait for people to hear it. ‘Time to die, die in pain’!!!”
CARCASS has released several classic albums over the years, including Decibel Magazine “Hall of Fame” inductees Heartwork and Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious, and their influence has changed the face of extreme metal with every consecutive release. Whether it was inventing gore-grind (i.e. Reek of Putrefaction, Symphonies of Sickness) or creating the template for melodic death metal (i.e. Heartwork), CARCASS has always made records by which bars were set and rules were broken. Upon the band’s dismantling in 1996, fans mourned the loss of the seminal act and longed that the group would return again one day. In 2007, the metal world got its wish as CARCASS reformed to play several sold-out reunion shows around the globe. Once again re-motivated to administer a shot of cynicism and infectious riffs into the arm of a sickly metal scene, founding members Bill Steer and Jeff Walker began writing what would become the latest output of their highly influential career, Surgical Steel. Only the choicest of cuts were made, and blood sweat and tears were shed to bring us a record worthy of the CARCASS legacy. In short, Surgical Steel is just what the doctor ordered.
CARCASS festival appearances for 2013:
Maryland Deathfest (USA)
Metaltown (Sweden)
Brutal Assault (Czech)
Party San (Germany)
Damnation (UK)
ASHES OF ARES, the new band featuring Matt Barlow (ex-ICED EARTH), Van Williams (ex-NEVERMORE) and Freddie Vidales (ex-ICED EARTH), made its live debut this past Friday, May 17 at the Rock Hard Festival at Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Fan-filmed video footage of the performance can be seen below.
ASHES OF ARES is:
Matthew Barlow – Vocals Freddie Vidales – Guitar/Bass Van Williams – Drums Gio Geraca – Guitar (session/touring member only) Dean Sternberg – Bass (session/touring member only)
ASHES OF ARES earlier in the year inked a deal with Nuclear Blast Records. The band’s debut album is being recorded at Morrisound Recording in Tampa, Florida with legendary producer Jim Morris (ICED EARTH, OBITUARY, JON OLIVA’S PAIN, JAG PANZER) for a late summer/early fall release.
ASHES OF ARES is a band which represents the culmination of experiences, trials and tribulations of its founding members. Within months of their departures from the iconic metal bands ICED EARTH and NEVERMORE, the trio came together with a renewed drive to create a sound which is a true collaboration of their personal influences, ideas and visions. Armed with the knowledge acquired through years of the writing, touring and recording cycle, and with the support of an army of loyal fans across the globe, ASHES OF ARES is poised to carve out a new legacy and stand alongside those who have helped pave the way.
In an October 2012 interview with Rocket Queen Promotion, Barlow stated about ASHES OF ARES‘ musical direction: “Well, most folks know what to expect from me, from my work with ICED EARTH and PYRAMAZE. So you take some of that and mix it with Van‘s brand of cadence and Freddie‘s riffage… blam-o….it’s ASHES OF ARES!!! It’s just straight-up heavy metal!”
Regarding the band’s future plans, Barlow said: “The reason we are all doing this is for the love of music. We are metal guys and this is what we do. ASHES OF ARES live shows will be limited, but there will be live shows for fans, friends, and family to come to and enjoy with us. We really just want to create music that we enjoy and have that translate to our listeners.”
Nuclear Blast is very stoked to announce the signing of ASHES OF ARES – the new formation of Matt Barlow (ex-ICED EARTH), Van Williams (ex-NEVERMORE), Freddie Vidales (ex-ICED EARTH).
ASHES OF ARES is a band which represents the culmination of experiences, trials and tribulations of founding members Matt Barlow, Van Williams and Freddie Vidales. Within months of their departures from the iconic metal bands ICED EARTH and NEVERMORE, the trio came together with a renewed drive to create a sound which is a true collaboration of their personal influences, ideas and visions. Armed with the knowledge acquired through years of the writing, touring and recording cycle, and with the support of an army of loyal fans across the globe, ASHES OF ARES is poised to carve out a new legacy and stand alongside those who have helped pave the way.
The band comments the unholy alliance like this: “We are proud to announce that we have signed with Nuclear Blast records! We’re really looking forward to working with them in bringing our music to the world. It’s great to be added to the ranks of the already impressive roster of bands that Nuclear Blast represents. We will be entering the studio at the beginning of April under the masterful watch of producer Jim Morris of “Morrisound Recording”. We and Nuclear Blast are aiming for a release date late in the summer of 2013. This will be followed by a European tour with POWERWOLF. It’s a new beginning for ASHES OF ARES, and we couldn’t ask for a better label than Nuclear Blast to go into battle with. Attack!”
Nuclear Blast A&R Jaap Wagemaker adds: “After we received their first demo we were totally blown away by the power of their music! We are all huge fans of classic NEVERMORE and classic ICED EARTH and we knew that just like us their fans are waiting eagerly to hear this! Their new band is named after the Greek god of war and together we will go forward into to battle conquering the hearts of metal fans worldwide! At the moment the band is hard at work forging their debut album which will see the light in the late summer this year. If you can’t wait that long, make sure not to miss them at the legendary “Rock Hard Festival” this year. ASHES OF ARES: welcome to the Nuclear family!”
ASHES OF ARES is:
Matthew Barlow – Vocals
Freddie Vidales – Guitar/Bass
Van Williams – Drums
ASHES OF ARES Live:
May 17, 2013 Gelsenkirchen (Germany) @ Rock Hard Festival
Polish extreme metallers BEHEMOTH entered Hertz studio in Bialystok, Poland at the end of February to begin recording their next album for a late 2013 release via Nuclear Blast in Europe and Metal Blade in North America.
A new video message from the studio can be seen below.
Speaking to Metal Storm last December, BEHEMOTH bassist Orion (real name: Tomasz Wróblewski) stated about the band’s plans for the new CD: “We have scheduled the studio for the end of February. If everything goes as planned, the album will be done in the summer and we plan on releasing it in the fall of 2013.”
He added: “The last recording session — I don’t even remember how many studios were involved… Like, six or seven, and lots of sound engineers as well; that’s just the way we work. This time we will probably do most of the work in Hertz Studio, but we might do some stuff in other places as well. Plus we are still talking about mixing of the album and that’s going to be probably somewhere else other than Poland.”
In an interview with Rock N Roll Industries conducted aboard Barge To Hell — the world’s most extreme metal cruise — which sailed on December 3, 2012 from Miami, Florida to Nassau, Bahamas and returned to the real world on December 7, 2012, BEHEMOTH guitarist/vocalist Adam “Nergal” Darski stated about the progress of the songwriting sessions for BEHEMOTH‘s next album: “I’m really thinking about my record. I’m dreaming my record, I’m eating my record, I’m shitting my record… I mean, everything just comes to the same thing: this artistic release that’s gonna take place in the fall next year. That’s the plan. We already made a rough plan. We should be entering the studio in late February. We’re demoing stuff now. It’s actually a rehearsal studio. So this is a thing we’ve never done before: we get into the studio, we set up the equipment, and we just play. And we record stuff. So it’s very creative. It’s new and it’s different energy, too. I mean, we still use our rehearsal room, but it’s good to change the environment. And then in January and February, we decided to move to Warsaw to work on the record. It should be very stimulating; this change of rooms and change of cities, it can be very stimulating. But we’ve got plenty of stuff written already; I’m guessing 30 or 40 minutes of music is done. But I keep on writing. I’m so hyped and I’m so into delivering new stuff. I have this thought: every time I come up with a new theme or a new song idea, I think it’s actually better than the one before. So I hope that this process stops at a certain point and I’m, like, ‘OK, over. This is it. We’re working on this bunch of songs and that’s it.’ Because this way I can go on forever.”
In an April 2012 interview with Metal Blast, Nergal offered more information about BEHEMOTH‘s mindset going into the next album. “We want to take our time and not rush ourselves in any way,” he said. “It looks like it might be the most important album in our career. I want to make the most honest record and I won’t be bending to anyone’s rules or expectations, including [BEHEMOTH‘s record labels] Metal Blade or Nuclear Blast. Every next BEHEMOTH album is a surprise and is never the same. . . We don’t want to stress ourselves because the music business and the direction it takes is not as I would like it to be. That means we will be going against the current again and just do as we will and please. Whatever we do is going to be BEHEMOTH, 100%. It is the state of our will and nobody can deny it. I can tell you that we aren’t going to come out with a reggae or country album; it’s going to be BEHEMOTH, it’s going to be extreme. But don’t be surprised if people listened to it and said, ‘Fuck, they did it. It’s so amazing.’ [laughs] That’s what I like to say when I listen to my own music. I love to surprise myself. I hate things that are predictable. I want to surprise myself and surprise other people, as well. . . Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge AC/DC fan and I expect AC/DC to be AC/DC, but don’t expect BEHEMOTH to put out another ‘The Apostasy’, ‘Demigod’ or ‘Evangelion’ album, because that will not happen.”
BEHEMOTH‘s ninth full-length studio album, “Evangelion”, sold 8,500 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 56 on The Billboard 200 chart. Released in the U.S. in August 2009 through Metal Blade, the CD was mixed at Miloco Studios in London, England by Colin Richardson, who has previously worked with MACHINE HEAD, SLIPKNOT, NAPALM DEATH and BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, among many others.
BLACK STAR RIDERS — the new band formed by THIN LIZZY alumni Ricky Warwick (vocals), Scott Gorham (guitar), Damon Johnson (guitar), Marco Mendoza (bass) with new addition Jimmy DeGrasso (ALICE COOPER, MEGADETH, DAVID LEE ROTH, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES) on drums — will release its debut album, “All Hell Breaks Loose”, via Nuclear Blast Entertainment on the following dates:
* May 21 – Japan
* May 22 – Sweden
* May 24 – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Norway
* May 27 – U.K., France, BeNeLux, Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Greece
* May 28 – U.S., Canada, Italy, South America
About the origin of the album title, Warwick states: “I was watching a documentary about World War II bombers and saw the name painted on the side of one of the aircraft. The name just resonated with me and it seem to encapsulate the turmoil that we, as a society, are currently experiencing. The past few years have been such a wild ride and now with the release of the album, it sounded like a bad-ass album title that summed up what BLACK STAR RIDERS is all about.”
“All Hell Breaks Loose” was recorded and mixed by producer Kevin Shirley (LED ZEPPELIN, IRON MAIDEN, AEROSMITH, RUSH) at his The Cave studios in Malibu, California. Mastering duties were handled by Bob Ludwig (JIMI HENDRIX, RUSH, KISS, LED ZEPPELIN) at Gateway Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine.
“All Hell Breaks Loose” track listing:
01. All Hell Breaks Loose
02. Bound For Glory
03. Kingdom Of The Lost
04. Bloodshot
05. Kissin’ The Ground
06. Hey Judas
07. Hoodoo Voodoo
08. Valley Of The Stones
09. Someday Salvation
10. Before The War
11. Blues Ain’t So Bad
The album will be released as a standard CD and also as a special-edition digipak featuring a bonus track, “Right To Be Wrong”, and a “making-of” DVD.
A 24-minute collection of video reports featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of “All Hell Breaks Loose” can be seen below.
At the end of March, there will be the first single release that will have an exclusive airing via certain media outlets prior to public release. Around the same time, more tour dates for the fall will be announced.
In October 2012, THIN LIZZY announced that they would not be recording new material under the THIN LIZZY monicker. The last incarnation of the band — Gorham, Brian Downey, Wharton, Warwick, Johnson and Mendoza — would be looking to form a new project.
According to a press release, Brian Downey decided to not become involved with BLACK STAR RIDERS because he didn’t want to commit to the touring cycle a new album would entail and Darren Wharton wanted to concentrate on DARE and other music and film projects.
“Brian and Darren just don’t want to be on the road 150 days a year. anti that’s completely understandable,” Warwick tells Classic Rock magazine. “But we do. We work very well together, and there’s no better man than Jimmy to gel it together. This is a kick-ass band.”
The BLACK STAR RIDERS album will feature material the band wrote while touring as THIN LIZZY and the sound retains that classic feel but is very much its own as well. The BLACK STAR RIDERS record is the next step in the evolution of the THIN LIZZY story.
“There’s no way it could sound like THIN LIZZY with [late THIN LIZZY frontman] Phil [Lynott],” Gorham tells Classic Rock. But Johnson disagreees. “I think Scott is too dose to it,” he says. “Ricky or I would bring in a song idea, and as soon as Scott starts playing on it, it sounds like THIN LIZZY, whether Scott realizes it or not. Everybody who’s heard the new music says it has that dassic THIN LIZZY vibe. No, it can’t sound like the original band. But that classic LIZZY vibe is absolutely there.”
“I’m not gonna pull any punches here,” says Warwick. “It sounds like classic THIN LIZZY brought up to date. l’ve been singing Phil‘s songs every night for two years, and although it sounds a bit crass because the man’s not here, I feel like I’ve had these lessons from getting so deep into his work. Phil‘s songwriting, his lyrics, his phrasing, his pitching, his delivery — it’s genius. And that’s really helped me as a writer.”
It was Warwick who named the new band BLACK STAR RIDERS, after an outlaw gang in the 1993 western movie “Tombstone”. As Johnson tells Classic Rock: “Scott said from the very beginning that we did not want a name that was specifically related to THIN LIZZY, because this band has to stand on its own.”
Photo credit: Robert John
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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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