So, much to my happiness, excitement and general satisfaction, Rhapsody [of Fire] has finally released more information about their new album! The record had previously been announced to be coming out on the 5th of March, but this obviously didn’t happen. Now let me say, first: the artwork is great! Sure, it’s not as colorful as the previous stuff, but I really like it. Secondly, I can’t wait to hear what these guys sound like now that they’re not shackled by the Manowar dudes. I don’t know what went down there, but I would love to get an interview about that stuff, because honestly, that shit is fascinating. They were forced to stop touring? They got like no support. Manowar basically stole their sound on the following album. That shit is crazy.
Anyway, you can now download the new song for free from their website! I’ve downloaded it and listened to it a bunch of times. It’s great. Nice to hear a good guitar solo in there, too. I cannot wait. So the new album, entitled The Frozen Tears of Angels will be released on the 30th of April in Europe! Who’s excited!? Angry Metal Guy is excited. Now if only I could actually get promo of these things….
Italian death metallers Fleshgod Apocalypse are planning to release a new EP called Mafia later this year (assumedly via Willowtip Records, though that’s not confirmed). After last year’s fantastic release Oracles (which was my #3 album on the year), I’ve gotta say that I’m really looking forward to this. Hopefully I can figure out who the hell distros that stuff in Europe so I can finally get a copy to review this time!
Hi guys!
We finally finished the recording session of the new EP! Right now, after the first listenings of this new one we decided that the best thing to do is not saying anything as anticipation. Yes, it will be” epic than ever, faster and violent”…bla bla… but we do believe that everything can sound reductive for these new songs. This material is ours but yours as well, that’s why we don’t want/need to influence your opinions in some way. We’ll upload a new song in few days so keep your eyes open! By now, we can show you the new masterpiece of Marco Hasmann!
The tracklist will be:
1 Thru Our Scars – 5.30
2 Abyssal – 6.45
3 Conspiracy Of Silence – 5.30
4 Blinded By Fear (At The Gates – F.A. arrangement) – 3.10
5 Mafia – 3.00
Recorded, mixed and mastered at 16th Cellar Studio in Rome by Stefano ”Saul” Morabito.
Updates regarding release date, preorders and new merch soon!
Cheers!
F.A.
The final win on this whole thing is the cover: most. metal. octopus. EVER.
I am not a big festival fan. But I gotta say, the lineup for Metaltown 2010 looks pretty sweet, thus far. I think Angry Metal Guy might just try to get credentialed for this thing to do a shit ton of interviews, maybe a video or something…
Förra året slog Metaltown alla möjliga rekord när 22 000 besökare från hela Skandinavien invaderade Göteborg och vad som nu är en av Sveriges största festivaler. Efter utökat publikområde sålde biljetterna slut för andra året i rad och två fantastiska dagar på Frihamnspiren följde, med hela 32 band på tre scener.
Klara artister:
Rammstein (GER)
In Flames (S)
Bullet For My Valentine (UK) Dark Tranquillity (S)
Kreator (GER)
Nile (US)
Sonic Syndicate (S)
Sabaton (S) Finntroll (FIN)
Bleeding Through (US) Cynic (US)
Dream Evil (S)
Raubtier (S)
That’s whose gonna be there so far… That might just be the highest percentage of bands I want to see on a festival ever except for Wacken, which is definitely not on the list this year, unfortunately.. Anyway, for those of you who get a chance to head to Sweden for festival season, that might be one worth checking out!
Orphaned Land have produced the video for the first track on their new album The Never Ending Way of ORWarriOR and it’s up on the interwebs! It’s actually pretty good, and I don’t really like videos that much.
OK. So, my friend just updated his status on Facebook saying that, indeed, Pain of Salvation is going to be participating in Melodifestivalen, which Daniel Gildenlöw describes in detail in his blog post from the band’s website:
After the flights back to Sweden we had less than 24 hours at home before taking off for Australia. During those few hours I had to pack, take a bath and prepare the audio CDs and mixes for Melodifestivalen. For those who don’t know what Melodifestivalen is, it is the biggest thing in the Swedish music industry. A huge machinery built to single out the Swedish contender for the Eurovision Song Contest. Out of thousands and thousands of sent in songs, 30 are selected by a jury to participate in this national contest, viewed by half the population when it’s on TV. It’s a big thing, to say the least! Do you recall a week with two Thursdays, some two months back? It was that day when hell froze over, remember? That was the day they told us Pain of Salvation would be participating in Melodifestivalen. It just doesn’t happen.
For those of you who are not familiar with Eurovision or, the preliminaries that are Melodifestivalen, these things are about as metal as, say.. American Idol. That is to say, they are not fucking metal at all. They’re not metal even a little bit. There is not a shred of metal in this stuff. “Sure,” you say, “but Lordi got famous because of Eurovision!” To which I respond “Exactly!” Lordi, while funny, is certainly not a band that anyone over the age of 8 takes seriously at all. And that should give you the idea of what it means that Pain of Salvation, the progressive rock idols that are incredibly well loved in the prog scene (the word “overrated” almost comes to mind, though they are exceptionally talented), are going to be in Melodifestivalen.
The best part about this whole thing is the interview on the SVT site.
Even if you can’t understand Swedish you should check out the end where they slaughter this song (which I was informed of by Angry Metal Girlfriend, who totally knows this stuff.. haha)
Though, he points out thoughtfully that Lena Philipsson should have won with that song, and after listening to it I think he’s absolutely right. One wonders if Daniel Gildenlöw can dance like she can… If so, maybe they can pull off the big upset.
Angry Metal Girlfriend found this blog with a really very amusing flowchart of Heavy Metal band names. It was obvious to me from the getgo that this person was not, in fact, a real fan of metal because they missed the ever important Names Taken from Lord of the Rings section (see: Gorgoroth, Burzum, Amon Amarth, Amon Din, Crebain, Isengard and so on and so forth), but it is, in and of itself, a very excellent flowchart which demonstrates just how awesome metal naming conventions really are. Also, complete with inverted pentagram. (Cick the picture below to get it to open in a new tab/window.)
To unfortunate disagreement with some of my friends, I was a huge fan of Enslaved’s Vertebrae, a record I think may actually be their best ever. In any case, that means that I am waiting in avid anticipation for a newEnslaved record, which was announced to little fanfare on the band’s MySpace page yesterday by Ivar Bjørnson.
Hello there. This is a short blog from the studio; where we – Enslaved – have started to record our new album yesterday. We are doing the drums in Duper Studios here in Bergen – this time around we are recording everything in our hometown, something we last did with Isa. Iver Sandøy (Trinacria, Manngard, Emmerhoff & T.M.B.) is engineering the drum recording; and we feel we are in very good hands. The remaining instruments will be recorded in Herbrand and Ice Dale’s Earshot Studio, with a few small exceptions done in Peersonal Sound (my own studio). We’re starting off as we always do; with me and Cato going in first. The session started out beautifully with the perfect starting point for the drum sound and the first song being laid down by Cato. This song is a musical and lyrical contemplation on a rune – one associated with travel… We’ll get back to more on the songs later!
After Vertebrae it has been a hectic period, with shows, tours and everything that is going on around the band. Yet it has been a remarkably self-energizing process making this new album. For starters, the dynamics have never been better, both literally in the music – and metaphorically, meaning the working climate within the band. Writing music is rewarding when you know the other members will take your ideas seriously and give everything they’ve got to make the best out of every single idea. The amazing feedback we’ve gotten after Vertebrae hasn’t exactly made us more modest; we picked up some very valuable confidence from that. A third pillar of inspiration is the continuing ideological struggle against the dogmas: political, monotheistic, moral dogmas that keep getting a stronger and stronger chokehold on man. Some dangers are growing while others are on the rebound (for now). Enslaved is an ongoing project to channel alternative currents; resistance to those trying to force-fit the mind into the tiny squares of one-doms and tyrannies.
After all that hot air, I’ve asked Cato to provide some thoughts on the new material and the recording process:
“Hi there! We started yesterday to set the sound, and from there on the drums for two songs were nailed. Today, on the second day, we started at noon and worked our way through three more songs. Iver is very easy (to work with) and we are really getting payback for the work put in advance of the recording. I am in other words getting close to finishing my part of the album, and that’s fine by me-I would climb the walls if the whole session would take anything more than a week. The songs are, like always, pretty varied both in mood, speed and style. The cool thing is that none of us actually don’t know how it’s gonna turn out in the very end. What ideas Ice Dale has for guitar solos only he knows.
-Cato”
There’s a long journey ahead before the release, we’ll try and keep you posted on how it is coming along; including information about album title, track names, artwork, dates etc.
Apparently Christophe Szpajdel has released a book that spans his career and the amazing logos that he’s produced. For those of you who don’t know, he’s the gentleman who has produced some of the most recognizable logos in metal and, specifically black metal, ever. He did Emperor, Old Man’s Child, Wolves in the Throne Room as well as probably thousands of bands you’ve never heard of. His work is fantastic, serious art. His style is really distinctive and really amazing. In fact, you can pretty much tell his work just by looking at it (like, I’m pretty sure he did this Dark Fortress logo that I’m looking at). The man is a genius and his new book looks gorgeous, though I haven’t gotten a copy of it yet, unfortunately. It’s definitely going on my wishlist.
Here’s a preview of it. It’s fairly expensive (€ 35.00 / $ 55.00 / £ 32.50), but it looks like it’s really amazing quality, too. Support this man in his endeavor to make metal more visually excellent.
Holy shit, Finntroll has posted a new video for the track “Solsagan” from their forthcoming record Nifelvind (which I will be reviewing soon!!) and it’s actually really good. There is so much potential for cheesiness with these guys but somehow they manage to avoid it these days. Win for Finntroll!
