WHERE THE GODS PLAY SILENTLY SACREDEATH

WHERE THE GODS PLAY SILENTLY: Conheça o tributo brasileiro ao Saturnus organizado pelo THE CROSS


Um dos tributos mais aguardados pelos fãs do Doom Metal mundial está muito perto de ser lançado! Trata-se do “WHERE THE GODS PLAY SILENTLY – A Brazilian Tribute To Saturnus”, que vem sendo organizado pelos baianos do THE CROSS, com autorização dos dinamarqueses homenageados neste trabalho.

Já são 14 bandas confirmadas até o momento, além da anfitriã que participará com a faixa “I Love Thee” (com participação especial do vocalista Thomas A.G. Jensen), nomes como Ode Insone, Martyrdom, Under the Gray Sky, Spectrummm, Sacredeath e outros estarão neste novo material, previsto para agosto de 2024 em CD duplo. Confira abaixo a capa — feita pelo artista Paulo Monteiro da LFX Music Works — e tracklist completo:



– The Cross/Thomas Jensen – I Love Thee
– Lamentos – Embranced by Darkness
– Spectrummm – A Father’s Providence
– Ode Insone – Empty Handed
– Endless Solitude – Pretend
– Scarlet Peace – Chrisy Goodbye
– Martyrdom – Limbs of Crystal Clear
– Thy Dying Star – I Long
– Aqueronte – Rain Wash Me
– Under the Gray Sky – To The Dreams
– Fohatt – A Poem (Written in Moonlight)
– Inventor – For Your Demons
– Sorrow Blue – Noir
– Sacredeath – Truth


“Where The Gods Play Silently – A Brazilian Tribute to Saturnus” comemora os 31 anos de carreira do Saturnus e ainda conta com uma vaga disponível para artistas interessados em participar. Para mais informações, entre em contato agora pelo e-mail saturnustributobraziliantribut@gmail.com e solicite-as.

Receba essa e outras notícias em primeira mão participando do canal oficial da SFP – Press & PR no WhatsApp AQUI: https://bit.ly/SFPWhatsAppChannel

Imprensa interessada em receber o material completo da banda para resenhas e/ou entrevistas escreva para contato@sanguefrioproducoes.com ou diretamente pelo WhatsApp/Telegram pelo número (46) 98838-7204 e solicite o press kit.

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NILE - THE UNDERWORLD AWAITS US ALL

NILE - THE UNDERWORLD AWAITS US ALL



Rating: 9.0

review black death nile



Well, look at that, it's Nile as a five-piece here on their 10th full-length, The Underworld Awaits Us All. And all I can think is it just adds to the chaos, opener “Stelae Of Vultures” sounding like a total wall of noise, the band actually sounding more alive than they have in a while here, the song just a steamroller of technicality and forward momentum.

Follow-up (deep breath) “Chapter For Not Being Hung Upside Down On A Stake In The Underworld And Made To Eat Feces By The Four Apes” continues the vibe but streamlines it down to 3:50 compared to the opener's 6:20 (which, I must say, races past); we're going back to Nephren-Ka here in that these songs aren't oppressive and overwhelming, they're full of energy.

And so is George Kollias' drumming, the man on an absolute tear here, mastermind Karl Sanders looking on with a sagely nod before laying down absurd riff after absurd riff, “Naqada II Enter The Golden Age” being almost catchy, “Under The Curse Of The One God” featuring riffs flying faster than they should at this point in Nile's career, “True Gods Of The Desert” absolutely destroying with a pair of Crowbar-worthy sludge/death opening riffs.

(REDEFINING DARKNESS)

(REDEFINING DARKNESS)

Nick Balazs

Rating: 8.0

review black death oxygen destroyer



Gamera – the fearsome turtle monster and protector of the world. The Atlantean created beast is also the subject of Oxygen Destroyer’s third full-length Guardian Of The Universe. It’s 30 minutes of krazed, kaiju-themed death/thrash done with manic ferocity and respect to the creature that first appeared in the 1965 film Gamera The Giant Monster.

The U.S. west coast thrashers specifically focus on the Heisei-era trilogy of films in the ‘90s that are often regarded as top quality kaiju films. Oxygen Destroyer terrorizes their way through nine tracks with razor sharp guitars, primal vocals, vicious bass and drums, and an atmosphere of whirling chaos.

It’s not a secret who they are musically motivated by – Demolition Hammer, Hell Awaits-era Slayer, Morbid Saint, and Scream Bloody Gore-era Death. There’s a cinematic quality due to the interspersing of dialogue and kaiju shrieks from the movies to accentuate the terror and intensity of the music. The soloing is a hybrid mix of Kerry King like chaos and ferocious melodic squeals.

THE CROWN - GUITARIST MARCUS SUNESSON RETURNS, NEW SINGLE DUE NEXT WEEK

"We are thrilled to announce that Marcus (Sunesson, guitarst) has returned," begins a statement from Swedish death metal icons, The Crown. It continues:

"Marcus left the band in 2012, and his unique, passionate guitar work on albums like Deathrace King and Crowned In Terror has been deeply missed.

He has contributed significantly to the new album, writing the guitar parts and solos on the upcoming release, Crown Of Thorns, which will be out on October 11th.

Seth: Vive la Révolution

BAND FEATURESBLACK METALFEATURES
Seth: Vive la Révolution
August 24, 2024Jack Press


“Whenever I start writing a new album, I keep thinking that hopefully this one should be a little easier in the way that I don’t want it to be painful, but it turns out that every album that I write is actually painful,” states Heimoth, founding member and guitarist of black metal institution SETH, only weeks removed from the release of their seventh album, La France des Maudits. “The more I think about it, the more it turns out to be something you can’t escape. It’s not sheer happiness, but there is happiness from time to time, and those times, though very short, are intense and big enough to carry on.”





If producing albums is painful for Heimoth, the evidence is clearly left on the cutting room floor. Considering it took SETH 17 years to release two albums, they’ve dropped arguably the finest albums of their career to date with just three years between them. La France des Maudits and 2021’s La Morsure du Christ build a burning monument to 90s black metal, using the 2019 Notre-Dame fire and the 235th anniversary of the start of the French Revolution as their inspiration.

“The title is the union of two concepts,” explains vocalist Saint Vincent, a key figure in SETH’s own musical revolution since joining in 2016, choosing to write all their lyrics in French alexandrine, a syllabic poetic metre. “The French concept was us wanting to put in front that we are French black metal, the point was not being patriotic or anything, just that in the black metal scene, we are different from the Scandinavian scene.”

“Secondly, des Maudits, or the cursed, represents in a way the republic of black metal, but has a more universal meaning, like all the people that have been rejected, or cursed, by the main power or the main order from God, or all the people who have been rejected by the morals or religion in place: they are all cursed.”

Having chosen to forego New Music Friday traditions to release La France des Maudits on Bastille Day, and with political unrest deep-seated in the hearts and minds of French nationals right now, you’d be forgiven for assuming the album was a politically-charged patriotic stand. Only, it’s not. Unless of course, you view it as a symbol of their patriotism for black metal.

“I think the black metal scene, even if you can find some really great and really successful people, there is always cursed people,” reflects Saint Vincent, “they’re away from the mainstream, so they’re rejecting the main essence of the people, the ministers of society, and so in a way it’s a celebration of all the people that have been rejected by God and are gathering in the darkness.”



The French Revolution, then, is merely a setting for a celebration of Scandinavian, second wave black metal. Influences and Easter eggs are wide-ranging, from referencing French poet Charles Baudelaire’s The Flowers Of Evil to occultist Aleister Crowley’s. However, it all comes back to the seeds of their scene.

“There is such a black metal thing in the French Revolution. You have the former king that is not the son, but the Heir of God, and all the people are finally getting angry, and aggressive, and violent and get him and cut his head off and it’s so brutal,” laughs Saint Vincent, revelling in his country’s history. “There is something really brutal that is connected with metal imagery, just think about the guys in Scandinavia that burnt churches, it’s connected to that kind of destruction, that fiery will against a former oppressor.”


When it comes to themes, SETH toy with listeners like cats with yarn. Even their song titles are misnomers. Take the atmospherically spacious, grandiose interlude Marianne for example. To many, Marianne is the symbol of the French Revolution, personifying liberty, equality, fraternity, and reason. For SETH, it’s a tribute to a fallen soldier of black metal, LSK. Known as a member of blackened doom outfit SECRETS OF THE MOON among others, Marianne ‘LSK’ Séjourné took her own life 11 years ago.



“When Heimoth was writing this song, we talked about our will to dedicate the album to our former friend that disappeared, and I said why don’t you call that song Marianne because it’s a connection with the concept of the French Revolution,” explains Saint Vincent, as a clearly moved Heimoth adds, “it just hadn’t crossed my mind, I was really shocked that he suggested this, and I was like okay, that’s the perfect title for this acoustic track, which is in a way kind of bold, because this is in the middle of the album, and it is reminiscent of what used to be done in the past in the 90s in black metal albums, just like DISSECTION.”

As SETH look more and more to the past to mark out their future, 2025 marks 30 trips around the sun for the purveyors of French black metal. The reason they’re not only still standing, but releasing the best music they’ve made, is that in their minds, they drive down different lanes to everybody else. “I think we’ve always been rather different from the other French metal bands, both in terms of sound and in terms of the writing,” declares Heimoth matter-of-factly. “In a way, I’ve felt very close to French black metal, but equally very far, as I think we stand out from that scene somehow.”

Standing on the shoulders of giants comes to mind for a band who’s lofty legacy is still being written. La France des Maudits doesn’t rest on its laurels. It’s progressive, it’s gothic, and it’s grandiose. It’s everything Heimoth believes SETH are in comparison to other French black metal bands, and it’s been that way since 1995.

“It’s not like we started playing BURZUM or doing the DARKTHRONE thing, like many French black metal bands actually believed that playing guitar was just enough to play black metal, which I don’t think so. I think we did consider music, possibly as one of the first French bands to play black metal, so a lot of people said we sounded a bit like DISSECTION and all those bands, and obviously we used to listen to the Scandinavian scene at the time.”



“I don’t think that these remarks could go to any other French bands and that’s fine by me. At least the French metal scene has managed to create something very specific, but I’m not sure that we do belong to that scene.”

La France des Maudits is out now via Season Of Mist.

Like SETH on Facebook.

HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Redeemer Of Souls – Judas Priest

JUDAS PRIEST are a band that should need no introduction. One of the bands that helped craft the sound of heavy metal, they have flown the metal flag for over fifty years, leaving a trail of classic material in their wake. The band today are still going strong, releasing two late-career classics in the form of 2018’s Firepower and 2024’s Invincible Shield, the band are showing no signs of slowing down. But what about the album that preceded their glorious return to form?





Like many of their peers, JUDAS PRIEST had struggled in the nineties against the onslaught of grunge and nu-metal, but with Rob Halford’s return in 2003 after his departure the previous decade, the band were riding the wave of a return in popularity of classic metal. Their ferocious comeback album of 2006 Angel Of Retribution capitalised on this and was well-received by fans and critics alike. What quite convinced them to then release an overblown symphonic metal mess based on the 16th century astrologer in the form of Nostrodamus as a follow up, is not something that Nostrodamus himself could have predicted. Clocking in at monstrous 102 minutes, the album was seen as a poor man’s Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son.

After the less than glamorous reception for Nostrodamus, the band received another blow: the sudden exit of founding guitarist KK Downing in 2011. This was due to in KK’s words “an on-going breakdown in working relationships between myself, elements of the band and management for some time”. This happened right on the eve of their Epitaph World Tour, which at the time was rumoured to be their last. The band then picked the relatively unknown Richie Falkner to replace the legendary former guitarist, and embarked on their “last world tour” (it wasn’t).


All of this context is to say that the run up to Redeemer Of Souls was somewhat tumultuous. Many were concerned at what a JUDAS PRIEST album would sound like without the iconic twin leads of Glen Tipton and KK Downing, and whether it could even be possible. The band ploughed on regardless, and preparation began for the album.



In a rather telling statement, guitarist Glen Tipton stated that “Sometimes in the past we may have come under fire for being too adventurous musically – so we have listened. From start to finish, Redeemer Of Souls is 13 songs of pure classic PRIEST metal.” A not so subtle reference to the mixed reaction to Nostrodamus.


Classic PREIST was certainly what the fans received when Redeemer Of Souls was released in July 2014. The album received a decent reception from the critics at the time, with AllMusic declaring it is the “anthesis to Nostrodamus” and Rolling Stone stating that “Redeemer Of Souls is proof that PRIEST can still call themselves metal’s defenders of the faith”. It is certainly a solid effort for a band on their seventeenth album, with standout tracks such as Dragonaut, Halls Of Valhalla and Metalizer serving as a reminder that no one does classic metal like JUDAS PRIEST.

The problem that Redeemer of Souls has is the two albums that come after it. Fire Power and Invincible Shied are rightfully seen as modern classics, and some of the best work the band has ever done. Redeemer Of Souls sounds dated in comparison, and severely lacks the sonic punch that producer Andy Sneap brought with on the last two albums.

The legacy of Redeemer of Souls is a mixed bag. Louder ranked it 14th in their listicle of the band’s discography, assessing that it was “not quite the sizzling return to form that many proclaimed it to be”, with Blabbermouth serving an even harsher appraisal at 17th stating that “it lacks cohesion and some of the anthemic bombast we’re accustomed to, and the flat production ultimately drags this one down.”

Tracks from the album do still make an appearance however, with Sword Of Damacles popping up in 2024’s Invincible Shield tour, so the band themselves aren’t resigning Redeemer Of Souls to the musical graveyard just yet. But in it’s ten years since release, it’s hard to imagine many fans are clamouring for an anniversary show.





Redeemer Of Souls was originally released on July 14th, 2014 via Columbia Records.

BLIND GUARDIAN - SOMEWHERE FAR BEYOND - REVISITED

BLIND GUARDIAN - SOMEWHERE FAR BEYOND - REVISITED

August 9, 2024, a week ago
(NUCLEAR BLAST)

Nick Balazs

Rating: 6.0

review heavy metal blind guardian



How many times can one go Beyond? Several apparently as the Blind Guardian have traveled back in time – back beyond with Somewhere Far Beyond – Revisited. A rerecording of their ’92 bonafide power metal classic; it is done with respect and class. The album opened up doors for them internationally and is an important milestone in the Germans’ history.

This new presentation holds the same instrumental sound, prowess, and tempos – although it’s cleaner and crisper production wise (especially on the iconic “The Bard’s Song – In The Forest”) and while Hansi Kürsch can still belt it out with the best of them, nothing matches that effortless vitality reaching for those highs in 1992 – this is especially visible in “Black Chamber”.

The Bards can be proud of their efforts to basically sound the same as 30 years ago, however the issue is nothing was wrong with the original release so this amounts to nothing more than a fun exercise that shows the Blind Boys can still get it done (which wasn’t doubted to begin with).

ECLIPSE SHARES NEW SINGLE “STILL MY HERO”

ECLIPSE SHARES NEW SINGLE “STILL MY HERO”

August 21, 2024, 46 minutes ago

news hard rock eclipse



Swedish rockers Eclipse have shared a new single “Still My Hero”, taken from their new studio album Megalomanium II, set for release on September 20, 2024, via Frontiers Music Srl. The track is accompanied by a new music video, available below.

About the new single, lead singer Erik Mårtensson shared this:

"When I wrote this song I had the phrase 'still my hero' on my original scrap demo. The only hero I've ever had was my dad, so I made the whole song about him. He sadly passed away much too young in 2014. This is a tribute to a great man.”



















Eclipse, the heavy rock powerhouse out of Stockholm, is renowned for its signature sound of massive hooks and stellar musicianship, quickly becoming one of Sweden's largest heavy rock bands with well over 100 million streams on streaming services.

Following on from the release of Megalomanium last September and, most recently, of the exclusive 7’’ vinyl “Apocalypse Blues” and the single “Falling To My Knees”, the band's trajectory to craft memorable anthems is bound to stay intact.

Erik commented on the upcoming release:

“If you thought the title of our previous record was proof of us suffering from delusions of grandeur, then you’re absolutely right. The only way we could top it was to make another one. Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you, Megalomanium II.”

Guitarist Magnus Henriksson continued:

“This band is on a continuous journey trying to find new avenues to explore. Having said that, 'Megalomanium II' is probably closer to what people mostly associate Eclipse with. It’s filled to the brim with large choruses, beautiful melodies, and some amazing guitar playing. I’m totally unbiased, by the way.”

After a sold-out headline tour across Europe at the end of 2023, the band continues to fill its busy live schedule in 2024. Following a successful run in Japan and South America, Eclipse is currently touring across Europe and will be headed to central Europe and the US after the summer. Additional dates will be added as the year moves on. For a full list of tour dates, head here.

Pre-order Megalomanium II here.



Megalomanium II tracklisting:

"Apocalypse Blues"
"The Spark"
"Falling To My Knees"
"All I Want"
"Still My Hero"
"Dive Into You"
"Until The War Is Over"
"Divide & Conquer"
"Pieces"
"To Say Goodbye"
"One In A Million"

"Still My Hero":



"The Spark" video:



"Falling To My Knees" video:



Eclipse are:

Erik Martensson - vocals, guitar
Magnus Henriksson - guitar
Philip Crusner - drums
Victor Crusner - bass

(Photo - Martin Darksoul)

FORMER SABATON GUITARIST TOMMY JOHANSSON SHARES POWER METAL COVER OF IRENE CARA HIT "WHAT A FEELING" (VIDEO)

FORMER SABATON GUITARIST TOMMY JOHANSSON SHARES POWER METAL COVER OF IRENE CARA HIT "WHAT A FEELING" (VIDEO)




Former Sabaton guitarist / Majestica frontman Tommy Johansson has shared his weekly cover, this time performing a powermetal version of Irene Cara's 1983 hit, "What A Feeling".



Majestica are back with their first new music of 2024. The Swedish power metal quartet proudly presents their latest single, "A New Beginning", which is the band's first release since 2021. Therefore, the song name not only fits in relation to this, but also speaks about a new beginning and letting things come to an end. Paired with musical elements reminiscent of the 80s, Majestica unleashes a new catchy tune upon their fans that puts the band back on the radar.

ANTHRAX GUITARIST SCOTT IAN MOURNS THE PASSING OF HIS FATHER - "I'D NEVER HAVE MADE IT 43 YEARS IN A BAND WITHOUT HIS INFLUENCE" August 14, 2024, 3 hours ago

ANTHRAX GUITARIST SCOTT IAN MOURNS THE PASSING OF HIS FATHER - "I'D NEVER HAVE MADE IT 43 YEARS IN A BAND WITHOUT HIS INFLUENCE"





Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian took to social media to pay tribute to his father, Herbert Rosenfeld, who passed away at 83 years old. He has shared some photos and the following message in tribute:

"I'm the son of a fine man.

Growing up my dad was my constant. He was an island of security in an ocean of dysfunction. Most of my core memories of my childhood and early teen years are of times spent with my dad. Whether it was ski trips to Vermont, or going over to cousin Ed’s house to watch Ed and his buddies jam, or game 6 of the 1977 World Series, or fishing on the boat in Merrick, or giving me a job so I could make money to buy guitars and amps - he always had my back.

HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Pray For Villains – DevilDriver

Seventeen years down the line, and YouTube user brucewayne420’s upload of DEVILDRIVER at Download Festival 2007 remains on the video sharing website. On what would be the last year that the second stage at Donington Park was in a tent, the groove metal bludgeoners from Santa Barbara, CA would go down in history with their attempt to create the world’s biggest circle pit – Guinness World Records may not have verified it, but it became one of the festival’s highlights for that year and put the band on the lips of the UK, thus setting themselves up for a bumper fourth album that celebrated its fifteenth birthday last month; the still excellent Pray For Villains.





To be fair, the hype surrounding DEVILDRIVER was already on a speedy upward trajectory. They had formed in 2002 under the leadership of Dez Fafara, then still the frontman of nu-metal icons COAL CHAMBER, when he moved from Orange County in California to Santa Barbara and began jamming with musicians he met at several barbecues he hosted. Completing the original lineup were guitarists Evan Pitts and Jeff Kendrick, bassist Jon Miller and drummer John Boecklin; shortly after the release of their self-titled debut in the autumn of 2003, Pitts would be replaced by Mike Spreitzer and form the ‘classic’ lineup that would go on to release four records together.

At the time of Pray For Villains, the band’s follow-ups to their debut – 2005’s The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand and 2007’s The Last Kind Words – had meant the wheels were fully in motion, with such anthems as Clouds Over California, End Of The Line and Meet The Wretched delighting fans of other groove laden groups like MACHINE HEAD and LAMB OF GOD (the latter song would be the soundtrack of choice to their attempts at getting large groups of people to run fast and bear left). They had also gained exposure through their cover of IRON MAIDEN’s Wasted Years for a Kerrang! compilation and – more famously – with their songs Devil’s Son and Driving Down The Darkness featuring in US medical sitcom Scrubs, playing through the speakers of delivery driver Lloyd’s van.

Produced by Logan Mader of – appropriately – MACHINE HEAD fame, along with additional guitar duties by the legendary Andy Sneap, Pray For Villains was announced in April of 2009, with the title track released on May 21st. The opening song to the album, it remains a hugely impressive track, Mader’s production job still as crisp a decade-and-a-half after its initial release. The other dozen tracks still hold up too, to the point that there are certain sectors of the metal community who consider this DEVILDRIVER’s peak and that they’ve never quite reached the same heights in subsequent years. For an album so visceral, its choruses are incredibly catchy; Dez’s vocals might be growled, but they’re clean enough to allow the likes of Pure Sincerity and I’ve Been Sober to be returned by a fervent crowd with interest.


There was also a wide range of subject matters, from the personal to the fictional and the joyous, for listeners to digest. Forgiveness Is A Six Gun is believed to be about The Dark Tower series of novels by Stephen King while Waiting for November takes a more heartfelt route as it talks about the funeral of Fafara’s mother-in-law. However, purely because of the city it references, it will come as no surprise that the full-throttle Another Night In London would make the most waves on these shores, bolstered by its music video shot over two nights at the capital’s legendary Garage when the band supported the album on a UK tour that had no fewer than four supports in BEHEMOTH, SUICIDE SILENCE, TRIGGER THE BLOODSHED and MALEFICE.




Released on July 14th, Pray For Villains would sell 14,600 copies in the US on its release week and sit pretty at No. 35 on the Billboard 200; it would, however, enter at No. 4 on the US Top Hard Rock Albums, a position it would replicate in the UK version of the same charts. The album would garner strong reviews, with both Blabbermouth and Metal Hammer giving the record scores of 9/10. “Pray For Villains is DEVILERIVER’s jackpot moment…this album is going to blow your fucking head off” gushed esteemed journalist Dom Lawson in the latter; that same issue saw the review of their performance at that year’s edition of Download cite them as ‘metal’s most fearsome live band’ and that ‘if they continue to deliver sets as tight and brutal as today’s they’re sure to take over the plant. A month later, the band were gracing the front cover of that same magazine.

Yet, for all the hype at the time and the acclaim it garnered, Pray For Villains has become something of a lost gem in the DEVILDRIVER back catalogue. Even though it represents a real high point in the band’s career, no songs have received a live outing since the back end of 2012, which may have something to do with the revolving door of musicians that have been in the band alongside Dez and Mike since the release of fifth record Beast.

In 2024, DEVILDRIVER are a solid representation of the phrase ‘What could have been’, their star seemingly having been on a constant wane since the turn of the 2010’s, but for those who remember their explosion, Pray For Villains will forever be a monolithic piece of work.



Pray For Villains was originally released on July 14th, 2009 via Roadrunner Records.

HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Horrified – Repulsion

The history of legendary and pioneering US grindcore band REPULSION is a storied one to say the least, and their story has a lot of twists and turns, but it is one that includes the creation of one of the most influential album in extreme music history. What makes the story of REPULSION all the more interesting is that 1989’s Horrified is the only album the band ever released, but when that album is a bonafide classic, you can see it’s impeccable legacy. To truly reflect on its impact, we need to go back to the very beginning, to where that saga started.





Starting as thrash metallers TEMPTER in Flint, Michigan in 1984 and featuring guitarist Matt Olivio and vocalist Scott Carlson, that band soon morphed into the death/thrash metal focused GENOCIDE. The band would release a series of well-received demos in Toxic Metal (1984), Violent Death (1985) and The Stench Of Burning Death (1986).

In the middle of GENOCIDE‘s reign in 1985, Carlson and Olivio relocated to Florida to complement the lineup of quintessential death metal band DEATH but while that tantalising prospect with Chuck Schuldiner‘s band didn’t amount to much, Carlson and Olivio returned to Flint and back to GENOCIDE with a renewed focus. With the addition of drummer Dave ‘Grave’ Hollingshead, who brought a powerhouse hardcore approach to the band as well as guitar player Anton Freeman and Carlson playing bass as well as vocals. The band would first release Violent Death and then The Stench Of Burning Death demo to acclaim in the metal underground but ultimately, the life of GENOICE was at its end at this point and what came next was something even more deadly and deathly.

That next twist came later in 1986. GENOCIDE became REPULSION and their blend of death metal and hardcore punk gave birth to a faster, heavier and above all more brutal form of music that has become known as grindcore. With their Slaughter Of The Innocent demo gaining acclaim in the metal underground with tapes traders all over the world, the band then recorded what be their first and only album in Horrified.





Recorded at Silver Tortoise Soundlab in Ann Arbor, Michigan in June 1986, Horrified‘s mix of brutal vocals, rumbling bass, hardcore punk inspired riffage and intensely fast drumming was the perfect mixture of metal and hardcore. With the album’s death and horror obsessed lyrics and gruesome song titles, Horrified is indeed an apt title. With the album recorded and the album circulated across the tape trade world to create a massive buzz, REPULSION seemed poised to take over the extreme underground but a period of inactivity ultimately blunted the band’s signalled the end… for now.




Fast forward to 1989 and that inactivity was soon to be dispersed with an explosion of activity. First of all, Horrified was remastered and finally brought out on Necrosis Records, a sub-label of Earache Records. Horrified and REPULSION gained a new lease of life (or death!) as they reformed for live dates, bolstered by a new host of rabid fans following the official release of their debut album.


In this remastered form, Horrified is a lesson in sonic horror and violence through its raw and retained lo-fi sound and amped up brutality. From opening track The Stench Of Burning Death, all the way to the title track, or classics like Acid Bath, Radiation Sickness, Black Breath and Maggots In Your Coffin, cemented the detonation of grinding deathly madness. Both in its original form and its official release, the influence of Horrified is beyond doubt and helped REPULSION become the forefathers of grindcore.

The bands that REPULSION influenced with Horrified is undeniably impressive with CARCASS, NAPALM DEATH, CANNIBAL CORPSE and ENTOMBED all citing the record as an influence. What is more impressive is that Horrified became and continues to be the blueprint for grindcore today, thirty five years after its proper release. A truly impressive feat, and the fact that the record still sounds heavily powerful and fresh to this day is testament to its brilliance.



The album has been re-released a number of times over the years from the likes of Relapse and Southern Lord, alongside numerous demo material from the GENOCIDE and early REPULSION days, has only fuelled the myth of REPULSION and the enormous impact their music had on the extreme metal world.



Although the band would split again following its release, adding to those twists and turns, they have made sporadic returns from the wilderness to play live in the mid 1990s and the late 2000s. Although there has been no new music from REPULSION, and we can pray for a day when that may come, for now, we have the very special Horrified.

INTRODUCING: LØLØ

“When I was younger, my dream was to be on Broadway,” LØLØ – real name Lauren Mandel – explains. “I never even thought about writing songs, but I always kept a diary. So, when I started to learn guitar in ninth grade, my guitar teacher suggested that I should write songs, which at first, I refused to do because that would be like people knowing my diary entries and I was too embarrassed.”





Her guitar teacher told her that he wouldn’t come back unless she wrote a song, and as she was worried she’d lose him, she tried writing a song that night, and ended up writing ten songs as it came really naturally to her. This marked the start of LØLØ‘s journey to becoming a musician. “After that, I was like, ‘screw Broadway!’” she laughs.

After releasing three EPs – 2019’s Sweater Collection, 2021’s Overkill, and 2022’s Debbie Downer – LØLØ knew that she always wanted to make an album because she loves listening to albums as a music fan. “I always want to add more to the story. Even with the EPs, I put the songs in a specific order, so it told a story. With an album, you have more tracks, so there is more inside scoop of the overall story with more material. But then I wrote the song U & the tin man, that I realised that there was more to this, including crazy visuals and a story. From there, I wrote more songs, but it wasn’t until I wrote the song wish i was a robot that I realised there was two sides of the same coin: falling for people that have no emotions who treat me like shit, and then wishing that I had no emotions, so that I didn’t have to be affected by all of these things and life in general.”

That is why LØLØ‘s debut album is called falling for robots and wishing i was one, a brilliant pop-rock album. Most debut albums skim the surface of who an artist truly is for the sake of testing the waters, but that isn’t the case with LØLØ. Her debut album is raw and honest about heartbreak, feeling emotions too deeply, and it also perfectly captures the zeitgeist of being a woman in the modern era. The track list for the album tells a story of a woman falling in love with a guy and the crazy feelings that come with romantic love, and then realising that he’s still texting his ex girlfriend. “As the album goes on, it tells more of the story,” she explains.


The cover of the album shows LØLØ as a punk Dorothy holding the heart of a robot as they are on a yellow brick road with a emerald castle in the background. “It was inspired by u & the tin man because I thought it’d be cool if I was a punked-out Dorothy because The Wizard of Oz is one of my favourite movies and my dream was always to be on Broadway. I wanted to be Elphaba in Wicked because that’s my favourite musical. I felt like my album was the same vibe as The Wizard Of Oz is quite whimsical and Dorothy learns that she needs to grow up. The film is also about her learning about love and courage, so I felt like I was Dorothy trying to navigate through this crazy world that we’re in. It’s my first album, so go big or go home.”



The majority of the album was recorded in Nashville. “The recording process was very easy for this. In the past, I’ve sung the demo, and then gone back and re sung it until it was perfect, but this time around, whenever I wrote something, I’d sing it and then left it at that. It was cool because it meant that I got to do the majority of the album with the same producer, who’s called Mike Robinson and it was really fun. I’d go out to Nashville for a week or two every other month, we’d get a bunch of songs, and it was like a fun little getaway where I’d write a bunch of songs, and then we just slowly put it together.”


Even through the album has fifteen songs, there were some songs that didn’t make it onto the final product. “Once I knew what the album was about, I knew I needed a song about this, that, and the other to fill in the rest of the ideas to go with those themes, so there was a bunch that I tried writing that I didn’t think were good enough. Then there was one song that I thought was good enough for the album, but it didn’t really fit the theme of falling for robots and wishing i was one, so I didn’t put it on because I’m a stickler for a theme,” LØLØ explains.

The album never falls into the trappings of chasing the next big thing, but instead involves LØLØ “writing about what was super specific for me, but I’ve always been asked: ‘Did you date my ex?’ because of my lyrics, and I always hope I haven’t dated their exes,” she laughs. “But I think it’s really cool that even though the lyrics are very specific to what have happened to me, we’ve all had shared experiences.”

The shared experiences is why people love LØLØ and why she is quickly growing into one of the most exciting new artists of the 2020s. She isn’t afraid to be raw about life, and falling for robots and wishing i was one exemplifies this, and is one of the many reasons why LØLØ is a name to watch.



falling for robots and wishing i was one is out now via Hopeless Records.

Like LØLØ on Facebook.

HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Miss Machine – The Dillinger Escape Plan

There isn’t really a ‘best’ DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN album. Obviously you can have a favourite – perhaps the batshit frenzy of their 1999 debut Calculating Infinity, or the glorious swansong of 2016’s Dissociation, or indeed any of the outstanding efforts that came between them – but the point is it really would be hard to argue against literally any pick from such a relentlessly consistent discography. If however, there can be a ‘most definitive’ DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN album, then surely such an honour belongs to Miss Machine.





Look, the aforementioned Calculating Infinity was seminal – there is no doubt about that. The world had never and has never heard a record quite like it and it’ll be getting its own Heavy Music History treatment in just a couple of months’ time for its 25th anniversary, but the reason its 2004 successor is up for the prize of ‘most definitive’ should be obvious enough: there are elements – and even people – on Miss Machine that would further define all THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN would become known and revered for that simply weren’t present in the maniacal violence of their first LP.

While it would be untrue to suggest that there was no method to the madness of its predecessor, there was definitely a lot more of it to Miss Machine. Suddenly a band whose biggest hook up to that point had been the panic chord/chug-chug trade-offs of the iconic 43% Burnt were doing full-blown choruses and playing riffs you could actually bang your head to without the help of a calculator – not at the expense of the extremity that made them so compelling in the first place, but somehow in addition to it. If Calculating Infinity had taken more of the hack and slash approach of a deranged killer claiming their first victims, Miss Machine was that same killer five years on: still wildly unpredictable, but also more methodical, and definitely with a few more weapons in the van.


Of course, there is a fire-breathing, head-walking, stage-defiling elephant in the room here. Having parted amicably with original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis in 2001, DILLINGER’s nationwide search for a replacement led them in the October of that year to the inimitable Greg Puciato for easily the most pivotal line-up change of the many in the band’s storied history. With all due respect to Minakakis, Puciato proved significantly more versatile, capable not only of the shouts and shrieks tracks like Panasonic Youth and We Are The Storm required of him, but also of a proper croon that made the likes of Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants and Unretrofied border on once unthinkable levels of accessibility. That Puciato would remain with TDEP until their dissolution in 2017 – arguably becoming as much of the face of the band as their sole permanent member and mastermind Ben Weinman – says it all really: definitive.


Puciato’s recruitment wasn’t the only event set in motion by Minakakis’ departure that would shape Miss Machine either. While only between full-time vocalists for a few months, the band were still quick to turn to a notable early fan of theirs for help in the interim, collaborating with an obvious kindred spirit in Mike Patton for what was to become 2002’s Irony Is A Dead Scene EP. Brief though it was – Puciato had actually been in post for the best part of a year by the time Irony was released – Patton’s involvement had a lasting impact on the band, the EP itself being perhaps unsurprisingly the weirdest release in their entire discography, and crucially allowing them to develop the experimental tendencies they would dispatch a little more measuredly but no less confidently in Miss Machine’s flirtations with jazz-fusion and industrial influences and even straight-up melodic rock just two years later.



And thus Miss Machine presented a fuller picture of all that DILLINGER were and would be capable of in the years to come, their truly hair-raising violence left firmly intact even amid the finer songcraft and bolder experimentation and moments of genuine catchiness. As Aubin Paul of PunkNews wrote in one of the many glowing reviews the album received at the time: “Despite the bands [sic] reputation as progenitors of “math-core” – a reputation they could easily have rested on for the next decade – Miss Machine is possessed of an unmistakable progression and once again demonstrates why the band is one of the most innovative forces in modern music.”

Those words get to the crux of what makes Miss Machine so particularly special in DILLINGER’s back catalogue, and they bring us back to the whole ‘most definitive’ argument we’re trying to make here. This was the album that announced that the band were even more than masters of extremity and violence they had already proven themselves to be, that they would always seek to evolve and innovate – as indeed they did on four more albums to follow, though perhaps never with quite as much of a leap as the one they landed here – and ultimately that they transcended even the barely visible boundaries of a genre they helped pioneer in the first place. If a friend ever asks you where to start with THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN there really is no wrong answer, but as a jumping off point for pretty much any other release in their discography surely this is the obvious choice.



Miss Machine was originally released on July 20th, 2004 via Relapse Records.



Like THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN on Facebook.

INTRODUCING: LØLØ

“When I was younger, my dream was to be on Broadway,” LØLØ – real name Lauren Mandel – explains. “I never even thought about writing songs, but I always kept a diary. So, when I started to learn guitar in ninth grade, my guitar teacher suggested that I should write songs, which at first, I refused to do because that would be like people knowing my diary entries and I was too embarrassed.”



Her guitar teacher told her that he wouldn’t come back unless she wrote a song, and as she was worried she’d lose him, she tried writing a song that night, and ended up writing ten songs as it came really naturally to her. This marked the start of LØLØ‘s journey to becoming a musician. “After that, I was like, ‘screw Broadway!’” she laughs.

After releasing three EPs – 2019’s Sweater Collection, 2021’s Overkill, and 2022’s Debbie Downer – LØLØ knew that she always wanted to make an album because she loves listening to albums as a music fan. “I always want to add more to the story. Even with the EPs, I put the songs in a specific order, so it told a story. With an album, you have more tracks, so there is more inside scoop of the overall story with more material. But then I wrote the song U & the tin man, that I realised that there was more to this, including crazy visuals and a story. From there, I wrote more songs, but it wasn’t until I wrote the song wish i was a robot that I realised there was two sides of the same coin: falling for people that have no emotions who treat me like shit, and then wishing that I had no emotions, so that I didn’t have to be affected by all of these things and life in general.”

That is why LØLØ‘s debut album is called falling for robots and wishing i was one, a brilliant pop-rock album. Most debut albums skim the surface of who an artist truly is for the sake of testing the waters, but that isn’t the case with LØLØ. Her debut album is raw and honest about heartbreak, feeling emotions too deeply, and it also perfectly captures the zeitgeist of being a woman in the modern era. The track list for the album tells a story of a woman falling in love with a guy and the crazy feelings that come with romantic love, and then realising that he’s still texting his ex girlfriend. “As the album goes on, it tells more of the story,” she explains.


The cover of the album shows LØLØ as a punk Dorothy holding the heart of a robot as they are on a yellow brick road with a emerald castle in the background. “It was inspired by u & the tin man because I thought it’d be cool if I was a punked-out Dorothy because The Wizard of Oz is one of my favourite movies and my dream was always to be on Broadway. I wanted to be Elphaba in Wicked because that’s my favourite musical. I felt like my album was the same vibe as The Wizard Of Oz is quite whimsical and Dorothy learns that she needs to grow up. The film is also about her learning about love and courage, so I felt like I was Dorothy trying to navigate through this crazy world that we’re in. It’s my first album, so go big or go home.”

The majority of the album was recorded in Nashville. “The recording process was very easy for this. In the past, I’ve sung the demo, and then gone back and re sung it until it was perfect, but this time around, whenever I wrote something, I’d sing it and then left it at that. It was cool because it meant that I got to do the majority of the album with the same producer, who’s called Mike Robinson and it was really fun. I’d go out to Nashville for a week or two every other month, we’d get a bunch of songs, and it was like a fun little getaway where I’d write a bunch of songs, and then we just slowly put it together.”

Even through the album has fifteen songs, there were some songs that didn’t make it onto the final product. “Once I knew what the album was about, I knew I needed a song about this, that, and the other to fill in the rest of the ideas to go with those themes, so there was a bunch that I tried writing that I didn’t think were good enough. Then there was one song that I thought was good enough for the album, but it didn’t really fit the theme of falling for robots and wishing i was one, so I didn’t put it on because I’m a stickler for a theme,” LØLØ explains.

The album never falls into the trappings of chasing the next big thing, but instead involves LØLØ “writing about what was super specific for me, but I’ve always been asked: ‘Did you date my ex?’ because of my lyrics, and I always hope I haven’t dated their exes,” she laughs. “But I think it’s really cool that even though the lyrics are very specific to what have happened to me, we’ve all had shared experiences.”

The shared experiences is why people love LØLØ and why she is quickly growing into one of the most exciting new artists of the 2020s. She isn’t afraid to be raw about life, and falling for robots and wishing i was one exemplifies this, and is one of the many reasons why LØLØ is a name to watch.

falling for robots and wishing i was one is out now via Hopeless Records.

Like LØLØ on Facebook.

ALBUM REVIEW: Digital Apocalypse – A Night In Texas

Australian deathcore merchants A NIGHT IN TEXAS return with a new vocalist for their fourth full-length album. After the departure of Ethan Lucas, the band were somewhat quiet, but behind the scenes they were in the studio cooking up Digital Apocalypse.





Bouncing back after some time of not releasing music and losing a band member is always a difficult thing to do. Some bands come back stronger while others can be a shell of their former selves. A NIGHT IN TEXAS have mostly come back stronger, although there are some moments of change that don’t quite fit.

In the sea of a new rising deathcore bands from Australia, A NIGHT IN TEXAS stand tall as one of the pillars of consistent technical deathcore export, and with newly appointed vocalist Sam Cameron taking the reins on this album, many people were wondering how he’d be able to surpass the band’s previous offerings in terms of vocal delivery. On album opener Programmed To Suffer you’ve got layers of winding synths and technically precise guitar riffs from dual string men Cory Judd and Angus Gasson as Cameron’s vocals shift from thunderous growls to feral shrieks with ease.


Drummer Anthony Barone unleashes his full potential on The Destruction Of Everything with his lengthy double kicks behind the crunchy guitars and demonic vocals. Following the trend of various deathcore bands there are a few background symphonic vocals that just intensify the songs to another level. Throughout the rest of the album the band cross the lines between deathcore and djent with their technical sides sometimes overpowering the songs they’re playing before returning to the one-note-power chords that break your neck in seconds.




While the album itself from front to back is great and has some brilliant moments, there are a few things that don’t fit. The change in production is the main thing you’ll notice. Previous albums sound clear, while Digital Apocalypse sounds muddy and does often drown out some of the best background guitars on the album. And while it does add a layer of DIY production to the vocals that makes it feel rougher, some of Cameron’s highs get drowned out in the mix which is a shame because his highs are glass shattering.

Still, even with a few down moments, it doesn’t change the fact that Digital Apocalypse is a great debut for Cameron, and a huge follow-up for the band.

Rating: 7/10



Digital Apocalypse is set for release on August 2nd via Unique Leader

INTRODUCING: Reliqa

The phrase “there’s something in the water” gets thrown around a lot, particularly when Australia’s burgeoning metalcore scene is involved. Over the years it’s given us everything from arena heavyweights to – more recently – forward-thinking music unafraid to blur the lines across sounds from nu metal to pop and prog. New South Wales quartet RELIQA are the latest in that proud tradition, with their debut album Secrets Of The Future dropping on Nuclear Blast this month. We caught up with vocalist Monique Pym – at opposite ends of the day with time differences – to get the lowdown on all things RELIQA.





“All four of us have been friends since the start of high school,” she explains of their beginnings – in fact, for all of them, this is their first band. “We’re friends first, band second. This more or less didn’t start out as anything, we were just friends making music together.” RELIQA’s formation very much lined up with Monique discovering heavy music. “Being friends with them, that’s when I was introduced to heavy music, I wasn’t raised on it. I felt this infectious, dude where’s this been all my life?! Listening then eventually turned into creating, and I started coming into my own as a singer.”

That firm basis in making music as friends came with the underlying feeling that they could, perhaps, eventually turn it into something more. They started going to local shows, and eventually got booked to play some. One thing led to another, and after releasing a few EPs, Nuclear Blast found them and saw – rightly – that RELIQA had something special on their hands. “All four of us have very different listening styles, personal genre preferences,” she begins. “That creates disparity in what you’re coming together to create, but that diversity is something we’ve intentionally tried to explore.”

From Mon’s love of melodic metalcore through to pop, to Miles’ (“the token classically trained member” she laughs) interest in not only prog like POLYPHIA or PLINI but also jazz, and even Brandon [Hutcheson, guitars] being a fan of hardcore alongside K- and J-pop, there’s a huge variety and they’re very conscious not only of a disparity but a real sonic tension across the influences they each bring in. “A lot of bands say they’re genreless; I’m not trying to say anything like that, I just think it’s quite a tough one to pin down,” she grins of their own expansive music.


All of this comes to a head with their upcoming debut album, Secrets Of The Future, one that Mon describes as more than just a debut album, but like a debut for the band all over again now that, through Nuclear Blast, they’re being exposed to a much wider audience. Shifting from what she describes as an almost “production line style” of songwriting whereby one member would deliver demos and the others would help refine, to a far more collaborative process where they tried to “explore the tension between ideas more.”



That’s as apparent on tracks like The Flower as it is Sariah or Keep Yourself Awake; the former sees Mon flowing between twisting melodies and a rap flow, while Sariah is the closest they come to a full ballad with its towering chorus. Keep Yourself Awake meanwhile, finds itself a toe-tapping groove and settles into it, something Mon says they were very conscious and comfortable with doing this time around to help showcase the various styles and tensions between them, giving each time to shine. “It’s part of why we called it Secrets Of The Future too,” she explains. “It feels modern to us, it feels far reaching into the future.”


With such a broad-ranging sound, is there any worry people won’t get it? “It’s a tricky one to introduce people to,” Mon accepts. “There is insecurity in me that the atmosphere we’re creating for ourselves is alienating to anyone. It’s a risky move to make an album that doesn’t confine itself to one aesthetic.” She needn’t worry; Secrets Of The Future oozes authenticity and an unbridled love of exploration. “We like to take risks,” she grins. “People that have latched on, have latched on hard. It feels authentic.”

It’s almost an oxymoron, to be so assured of their identity, and that being ambiguous. “That question of who really is RELIQA, it still exists and it will continue to exist,” Mon enthuses, “the beauty is in leaning into that, this uncertainty of our identity becomes our signature.” The singles so far, Killstar (The Cold World) and Terminal are again, very different-sounding songs, something that she hopes will appeal to people who perhaps don’t typically enjoy either progressive music or metalcore. “There’s something for everyone on that journey, which I really love.”

RELIQA have had a steady rise; for years they’ve put in the work, and to sign to Nuclear Blast is the start of seeing that pay off; to them, it’s an opportunity to seize with both hands. “We’re not afraid to be a little fish in a big pond,” Mon stresses. “Our pond started very small and we outgrew it, but we took everything we learned to the next one. Too many bands think they have to give off big fish energy!” She’s very conscious, as are her bandmates, of where they came from, and that humility shines through; “our roots are the Central Coast, we’re just a bunch of nerds making music together,” she grins.



Secrets Of The Future is out now via Nuclear Blast Records/Greyscale Records.

Like RELIQA on Facebook.