Germany’s progressive death metal masters OBSCURA announce headline Winter 2020 Europe tour dates. The tour begins February 15 in Switzerland and ends March 7 in Germany.
“As part of the “DILUVIUM WORLD TOUR”, OBSCURA return to Europe once again supporting “Diluvium” within 23 shows in mainly Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. With Dutch melodic death metal pioneers GOD DETHRONED, German black death metal heavyweights THULCANDRA and French progressive death metal newcomers FRACTAL UNIVERSE we hit the road in February and March 2020. We revised our setlist and perform songs we haven’t played in years as well as a few quite special compositions we never brought on stage before. Don’t miss this killer lineup, show up early to the shows and support all bands!” – Steffen Kummerer
Watch OBSCURA’s thrilling new music video for “Emergent Evolution” from the band’s 2018 released fifth album Diluvium/Directed by Mirko Witzi and get tour dates below.
Born of Osiris are hitting the road for the third leg of The Simulation Tour. Fellow techy weirdos Car Bomb and the monstrously heavy deathcore band Oceano will ensure plenty of pitting and pants shitting on this trek, and BOO are at the top of their game and better than ever at present. You should really catch a date of this run if you can, kids.
Later this month, Allegaeon will head back out on tour, headlining the “Apoptosis Tour Pt II” across the USA with Inferi and Paladin. In anticipation of this trek, Allegaeon has now launched a new video for “Metaphobia” – taken from their latest album, Apoptosis. Directed and filmed by Matthew Zinke, “Metaphobia” can be viewed below.
It’s no secret we have been stoked for Garden Of Storms from epic metallic songcraft masters In Mourning around these parts. If you still have the will to go on living after the Trump/Nickelback circle of Hell, we strongly suggest that you check out the in depth documentary on the new record and the FULL album stream from Agonia below. Few records this year will come even close to the majesty and metallic poignancy of this beast. They have yet again created a world worth diving into, shadow and light at war for control.
Worcester, Massachusetts-based crossover band High Commandshall take a smoldering cauldron of heavy metal and fantasy worship and dump it on top of all your soon to be steaming heads this week when their Southern Lord backed Beyond The Wall of Desolationdrops on Sept. 27th. “Impaled Upon The Gates” MIGHT be the most metal song I have heard all year (though the new Dark Throne has a lot of other candidates going for it in that department, I gotta say). The band have been supporting Spirit Adrift and are ready to embrace the coming victories that will surely follow this album’s potential glory. You can safely bet that this record turns skulls to powder for undead armored alligators to snort.
The mighty GATECREEPERrage back with a new video “From The Ashes” below.
GATECREEPER vocalist Chase Mason comments: “From The Ashes is the most anthemic song we have ever written. Although we have flirted with the idea in the past, there are more melodic guitar leads in this song than ever before. I’d say this one is primed and ready for the European Metal Festival circuit.”
The intense old school vibes and dark wonder of this song is smooshing me into pulpy radness. God damn, the riff potency.
Additionally, GATECREEPER recently announced a Fall co-headlining tour with labelmates EXHUMED. The tour begins on October 31 in Austin, TX and ends December 4 in Las Vegas, NV. Additional support by Necrot & Judiciary. Tickets are on sale now.
Deserted is due out October 4th on CD/LP/CS/Digital. Physical packages are available for pre-order via Relapse.com HERE. Digital Downloads / Streaming Services are available HERE.
Garden of Stormsis sure to be one of the finest offerings of 2019. Let’s just say I have been anticipating it a lot more than releases by way bigger bands. IN MOURNING are one of my favorite metal bands operating currently, so talented and able to squeeze real emotion and innovation out of some familiar forms. They just write tremendously cohesive albums and songs and have never disappointed. Loving the new tune ‘Yields of Sand’ which charms and challenges with emotional battle filled allegory and paints vivid pictures of reflections over music that showcases proggy, death and super intricate melodic elements; many of the aspects of the group that fans enjoy.
Press release for the new album follows:
Sweden’s melodic, progressive death/doom metal masters IN MOURNING, will release a new studio album titled “Garden Of Storms” on October 4th worldwide via Agonia Records. Shortly following the album’s release, the band will embark on a European tour with Omnium Gatherum.
Hailed by many as the heir to Opeth’s melodeath throne, IN MOURNING was formed in the Swedish woods in the year 2000. Since then, the band has evolved, striving to refine its sound to what it is today. Musically, the group blends a broad spectrum of influences into a foundation of melodic death metal. Thrusting from doomy metal-riffs, blasting drumbeats and deep growling vocals, to calm breezes of clean flowing melodies and harmonies.
“Garden Of Storms” features seven new tracks replete with artwork from Kristian Wåhlin (Bathory, At The Gates, King Diamond).
Welcome to a fresh week of metal news. I am gonna endeavor to give you some cool options other than the very underwhelming new Tool record (seriously, THAT took over a decade? Literally mind boggled at how by the motions it seemed compared to anything pre-10,000 days) which is also overshadowed by the fact that MJK has been defensively sus for awhile and even if they are ‘legal’ you don’t need to allegedly use crew to separate young women from boyfriends, abuse power dynamics and then give a terrible response about it that helps victim blame culture grow. Also, Joe Rogan soft hands the fash. Periodt. Y’all don’t have to agree with me but all this shit ended my support of a band I have enjoyed since the early 90’s and have seen live a half dozen times. Like sick shows and tours you chuds would be jealous of. The fanbase also praise chakra research and Alex Grey and enlightenment and shit on paper but meanwhile now all sound like god damn Alex Jones contrarian fucking morons bullying people. No. Done. Fake jock wading pool goth rock fan base can bug off and go circle j++k a calculator. If you can’t answer for an allegation like a grown man and instead sound pressed and like can barely be bothered or how dare anyone question you, that hurts people and also will make plenty of survivors who maybe formerly supported you wary.
I’m really enjoying the fucknuts mad hatter industrial black metal marriage of sounds on the excellent Wicked Gods by dark sound practitioners Luna13 from Los Angeles. It’s a new offering backed by Cleopatra. The sinister crawl of “Serpent” is severe and hypnotic, perfect harsh dirge to make you wretch and clutch at the sky with hate while “Death Box” has dark poetry and stomping manic moments OTEP fans could love. The torn throat vocals and black metal parts remind me of glorious cross-over moments of yesteryear when bands like BILE and Skrew or Wax Trax acts got into really pushing the range of genre malleability, while “Toxic Black” has a very cool creepy almost hip hop intro that then becomes an anthemic Nu-industrial/blackened hybrid leering over a radioactive wasteland of souls. I guess this band is known for an over the top theatrical live show and they seem pretty damn cool, so I have decided to (sa)stan. I am glad to know there are still industrial influenced West Coast acts like this band, Patriarchy or 3Teeth who are willing to give fans more than just a downcast shrug and a wrinkled t shirt for their live show. Anyway, I am really digging this album and so should you.
In impossibly bad ass death metal news, HATE ETERNAL’s Erik Rutan has shared a guitar play-through video for the track “All Hope Destroyed.” The song is taken from the band’s 2018 release, Upon Desolate Sands. The video can be found at THIS LOCATION and if you can play along to anything by these titans you are a better musician than I am, hahaha.
Speaking about the clip, Rutan comments; “This has been a long time coming, and something many people have asked me about me for years. I’ve always wanted to do a guitar play through. The time has arrived and I’m super excited about it! I could not think of a better song off our new album to release a play through for than ‘All Hope Destroyed.’ It showcases some of my different styles, techniques and approaches that I use as a rhythm and lead guitarist. I hope everyone enjoys it. Cheers!”
Lauded Italian death metallers HOUR OF PENANCE, reveal the first single “Flames Of Merciless Gods”, from their upcoming studio album “Misotheism”, due out on October 25th via Agonia Records. The song is available in the form of a lyric video created by Stefano Mastronicola, below. How about that merciless intro?
The band commented on the new single: “Flames of Merciless Gods” is a song about a new empire built on the illuministic values of reason and equality, who wages war against the wealthy ones hidden in their ivory towers, worshipping their only god: Money. They are the ‘bastard race’, because they have no fatherland and no motherland: their loyalty stands to no one but themselves. Their way of life is a blasphemy to everyone who is exploited by the inequalities created by their greed and is starving because of that. They are so afraid to atone for their crimes that they choose to commit mass suicide rather than face justice”.
PSYCROPTIC will hit the road in North America alongside Revocation, Voivod, Skeletal Remains and Conjurer starting next weekend (full dates below). The eclectic bill kicks off on September 12 and runs for a full month.
PSYCROPTIC tour dates.
Ahead of the journey, the ferociously skilled band have revealed a new video for the neck injury conducive new whiplashtastic banger “We Were The Keepers” from As The Kingdom Drowns. Check it at Metal Injection HERE.
Of the video, drummer Dave Haley comments: “We took a few days out on our recent Australian tour to shoot a couple of film clips – the first one being ‘We were the Keepers’. Our longtime friend and collaborator Wilson Bambrick handled everything behind the camera, and things turned out great. We wanted the clip to be an extension of our live show, and he did very well at capturing that.”
Big news today on the murky death metal front as VASTUM‘s new set of deranged arrangements is announced! The first single ‘Reveries in Autophagia’ marches in boldly with not a moment’s hesitation from the get go, lots of Morbid Angel-drenched riffery on this one. Even by the two minute mark on first listen this shit makes a lot of other metal songs this year sound quaint and frankly mouse-like in contrast.
VASTUM ‘Orificial Purge’, the fourth full length album, will be releasing October 25th via 20 Buck Spin. ?⚫️?
On October 11th, death metal vagabonds Entrails will release their new album, Rise of the Reaper, via Metal Blade Records. For a first preview of the record, the new single, “Crawl In Your Guts”, can be heard below or at: metalblade.com/entrails – where Rise of the Reaper can also be pre-ordered. Yes, the cover art is kind of ridiculous in a Bodom way but a lot about metal is ridiculous yet awesome as fuck at the same time. Deal with it, poseur!
Such a sweet sentiment. Don’t you love it when things want to crawl in your guts? I am not sure if this is like some kind of alien or giant bugs in the guts type thing bursting out or more of like a post slasher movie guts slip and slide/twister/crawl in the red spaghetti type thing, but this is 2:54 minutes of chunky Malmö -esque evil death.
Entrails tour dates:
Aug. 31 – Malmö Massacre, Plan B – Malmö, Sweden
Oct. 11-13 – Scandinavia Deathfest, Kraken/ Slaktkyrkan – Stockholm, Sweden
Jan. 17 – 2 Years Under the Sign of the Black Serpent, @ Matrix – Bochum, Germany
Jan. 18 – Drachten Deathfest. Drachten Poppodium – Iduna, Netherlands
Jan. 19 – Bambi Galore/Königsaal – Hamburg, Germany
Posted by longhairedpoet on Sunday, August 18, 2019 at 10:46 AM (PST)
California death metallers Arkaik have signed with The Artisan Era to release their newest album, due out next year.
Ahead of next year’s release, Arkaik have released a lyric video for their song “Supernal Flame.”
After the release of Nemethia in 2017, the band has added new guitarists Cris Portugal (Enslave the Creation) and Alex Haddad (live for Vale of Pnath, Dessiderium) plus new drummer Nathan Bigelow (Singularity) who had previously played live for Alterbeast and Virvum. While a new bass player had been added, the band is currently working on a permanent replacement to be announced when the time comes.
Arkaik will be touring this fall with Beyond Creation, Fallujah, and Equipoise on the Algorythm North America tour from September 20th to October 22nd.
Arkaik vocalist Jared comments on signing with The Artisan Era:
“It’s definitely a massive honor to be a part of The Artisan Era family. They have consistently been putting out forward-thinking, top-tier progressive metal and we feel like its the perfect fit for Arkaik. The enthusiasm from supporters of the label is also extremely humbling to be a part of. It’s really exciting for us because its also a new era in the band, so couldn’t be more stoked to be working with them now. We’re still pretty deep into writing the next album, but we wanted to put out a new song with this announcement. We picked a song that we felt would be a good fit for a single and went to our trusted audio engineering wizard Zack Ohren in Oakland. He engineered and mixed the song and we got our friend Mendel bij de Leij (ex-Aborted) to master the track. They were a perfect combo to be working on this song and they nailed it.
Lyrically the song ties all our previous concept albums together into one song. It acts as an overview of the entire journey of Cyrix, through the last three albums, up until now, and points to where we are going next. We’ve never done a stand-alone single like this, so I felt like it would be a cool opportunity to tell the story as best I can in one song. If you want to learn more about our history and concept albums, check out the podcast I did with Steel Legion Podcast here. You can follow the Arkaik Street Team Group on Facebook here.
Thanks to everyone who has been supporting us through the years, Arkaik wouldn’t exist today if it wasn’t for you. Cheers!”
Check out the lyric video for “Supernal Flame” and Arkaik tour dates here.
ALLEGAEON will kick off their Apoptosis Tour Pt. II US headlining tour this fall. Set to run from October 15th through November 5th, the trek features support from Inferi and Paladin.
Comments the band, “We’re very excited to announce the second leg of headlining shows in support of our new album, Apoptosis. This will be the first extensive tour we have done since release and we couldn’t be happier to be joined by our friends in Inferi and Paladin for the ride. Check out the dates below – we hope to see you all very soon!”
Posted by longhairedpoet on Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 10:10 AM (PST)
Photo by Jake Owens
UK death metallers Venom Prison have shared a new video interview with Eliran Kantor, the creator of their captivating album artwork on both Animus and Samsara.
The video was shot in Germany on Venom Prison’s recent European tour with Fit For An Autopsy; vocalist Larissa Stupar sat down with Eliran to discuss his work.
The band comment:
“We’ve met Eliran on tour and at festival art exhibitions over the past few years and have established a very productive working relationship. This time we decided to invite him to our Berlin show whilst on tour with Fit For An Autopsy to discuss the process of creating the album art for Samsara but also to speak about the importance of visual art within music, the difference to Eliran’s work for Animus and getting to see the original artwork for the first time.”
Check out the interview and Venom Prison tour dates here.
CANNABIS CORPSE continue to seed many realms with their poisonous power point program on potent pot death metal. Left Hand Pass remains the best gag title for a metal weed album basically ever and, yeah, all is good across the land. Well, that’s not true. The world is a mess. Thankfully we have some monstrous riffs and smoldering infernos to inhale. The band have some big news on the horizon but first catch them on this short little run starting tonight in
CANNABIS CORPSE Headlining Shows:
07/31: Providence, RI @ The Junkyard
08/01: Toronto, ON @ The Velvet Underground [TICKETS ]
08/02: Ottawa, ON @ Mavericks [TICKETS ]
08/03: Manchester, NH @ Jewel Nightclub [TICKETS ]
Death Before Dishonor are premiering their new album, the first in a long ass time, over at Decibel. If you missed this skull clobbering Boston hardcore outfit, you will NOT be let down by Unfinished Business. The intro to “True Defeat” dropped in and I was instantly head nodding like ,”hellz yeah!”
Stream this ferocious fucker RIGHT HERE via Decibel. I thought the production and performances were great.
Sickbay
Upstate, NY’s Sickbay are a band to watch! This super heavy group are on the rise and will impress hardcore and metal fans of many stripes with their savage sound. The band is self releasing an album called Dissonance August 9th and have a new song called ‘Bloodsoaked’ out to wet your knives and feral appetites on. They have a sort of 90’s proto metalcore with death metal influences sound I really dig and super gruff bad ass vocals that are fun to snarl along with. Heavy mosh factor as well and killer riffs and get the job done with brutal hacksaw efficiency drums.
Recording was done by Mike Usifer of Beacon Soundworks, the guitarist for Prime Evil. The cover was drawn by Keavan Rivers of Doc Rivers Tattoo, who incidentally used to be the drummer for Dissolve. Check them out below! RIYL Skinless, Stigmata, Obituary.
Bummed to hear that WRVTH are calling it a day. Solid and visionary band. Destined to be a cult favorite in the underground, I’d wager. The atmospheric, progressive post metal act have released a lyric video for their new song “Eventide.” The track is off of the band’s forthcoming final album No Rising Sun which will see a digital release on August 23rd through Unique Leader Records. One of those bands like My Epic or Cult of Luna who have some instrumental passages that are just so fucking brilliant but some people STILL have managed to sleep on.
WRVTH offered the following, “This album is about hardships and the contingencies that being in a band brings, just as much as it’s about the pure happiness harbored from fighting in order to follow our passion. In the music you’ll hear our excitement and joy, through the sound of blood, tears, and heartache. In the lyrics, you’ll read the fight against our adversities and the anguish from resisting an impending finality in and of itself. One day everything can be fine and the next it’s over. Not everyone and everything gets to see the light of a new day. This album is a representation of what this band meant to us, as well as the battles we underwent to keep this band alive. Even in the sound, you can hear a coming of age. All the way from our humble beginnings as Wrath of Vesuvius to this living breathing family we called a band. We have seen the world together, through hell and bliss, and made such strong friendships along the way. No matter how big or small the stage was, we always played like it was our last. We remain eternally grateful for any allies, opportunities, and accomplishments this band has brought us, and even more grateful that we were able to share it with anyone that wanted to listen.”
Technical death metal pioneers DEEDS OF FLESH return after a seven year hiatus with their 9th studio album Nucleus, set for release via Unique Leader Records on 11th December 2020 (Vinyl release 15th January 2021).
The band's first release since the tragic passing of guitarist / vocalist and Unique Leader founder Erik Lindmark, who lost a battle with sclerosis in 2018, Nucleus features guest performances some of the biggest names in extreme metal to celebrate his life and contribution to metal. Vocalist Jacoby Kingston is joined by members of Pathology, Gorguts, Dying Fetus, Submerged, Decrepit Birth and more.
With a mix of the old and new style of DEEDS OF FLESH writing, this album is the completion of a story that began with Of What's to Come (2008) and ran through Portals to Canaan (2013). The music was written by Erik Lindmark (RIP), Craig Peters, Ivan Munguia and Darren Cesca, and had been recorded and partially mixed for almost four years. When Erik Lindmark passed in 2018, vocalist Jacoby Kingston came out of retirement to help finish the album. Alongside long-time drummer Mike Hamilton, they finished the story arc, wrote the lyrics and made the vocal arrangements for Nucleus.
