BALA has come to shake you out of you complacency! The Galicia, Spain duo is Anxela Baltar (vocals, guitars) and Violeta Mosquera (vocals, drums), wielding heavy grooves and catchy but determined and anarchic vocals to excellent effect. I detect some L7 crunch and wolfish glee mixed with Breeders level melodic command, if more spiteful. In short, this fucking rips!
Bloodbath have awesome news today for death metal fans in North America! The icons will at last return to North America in 2022, playing several shows leading up to an appearance at Maryland Deathfest XVIII. The current dates are listed below. To say this is exciting news is an understatement!
Bloodbath comment: “We have been crushingly disappointed from tours falling through in the past, and it would be naive to say there isn’t an element of uncertainly about tours in the future. However, we are determined to commit to playing the US in 2022 and we are pleased to announce the following new dates.”
05/22 Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
05/23 Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
05/24 Montreal, QC @ L’Astral
05/25 Toronto, ON @ Opera House
05/27 Baltimore, MD @ Maryland Deathfest
Photo credit: Ida Kucera
THE CROWN are going to absolutely clobber this year with their Royal Destroyer release. Today you can hear the majesty of “We Drift On” (directed by Christoffer Tönnäng and Oskar Norberger), a minacious yet resolute tune that has an accompanying video full of unpleasant inward thoughts.
Guitarist Marko Tervonen comments: “I think that after 30 years, people are aware that we can play pretty brutal music. But we also sometimes like to take it down a notch and explore other areas. I guess in 2021, it’s pretty difficult to ‘surprise’ people with a brutal song, so we hope to surprise you with this more mellow tune. Dare I even use the word ‘ballad’ *insert-fear-here*
Ok. Lean back, drift on and enjoy.”
Uh, don’t worry dude. It still sounds pretty damn heavy and very metal.
“It is our album number ten, so now we are in the big boys club,” says bassist Magnus Olsfelt. “I think it in some ways is our crowning achievement, and it encompasses our sound across all albums on one defining record. It’s got it all – the early 90s death metal stuff, the haunting melodies, the thrash, the punk, the grind, the heavy metal and the more epic and doomy stuff.”
Together with legendary producer Fredrik Nordström, the band tracked the resulting 10 songs at Gothenburg’s Studio Fredman. “We push ourselves to the limit, really trying to make everything as good as it can get, trying to make every song as impactful as possible,” Olsfelt states. While he believes that people need to hear the album themselves to be able to accurately describe it, Olsfelt also asserts that The Crown have achieved something that makes for a “continuous whole” – while being diverse. There are also some surprises in store for fans. “We have some of the most intense stuff ever, like one song is about one minute long, and we also have a ballad!”
Royal Destroyer track-listing
1. Baptized in Violence
2. Let the Hammering Begin!
3. Motordeath
4. Ultra Faust
5. Glorious Hades
6. Full Metal Justice
7. Scandinavian Satan
8. Devoid of Light
9. We Drift On
10. Beyond the Frail
One of my personal favorite metalcore bands ever, Germany’s CALIBAN have released many rock solid examples of the genre and worked hard to keep the sound both meaningful and alive in the scene through hard work and valuable, emotionally resonant material. They balance heavy and catchy better than most bands doing that contrast, as well.
Now the band are doing something cool I think they ought to be applauded for, re-recording a bunch of tunes in their native German. I think it is problematic when band’s feel like they can only sing in English because of capitalism and the market share. Hey, wasn’t “Despacito” like the biggest YouTube played video ever? Maybe we should be encouraging more education and culture exchange rather than normalizing English constantly being centered?
From the press release:
It took German metalcore vets, CALIBAN, recording a cover of Rammstein’s “Sonne” to realize that their native tongue was a seamless fit with their time-tempered collision of punishing riffs and Andreas Dörner’s urgent vocals. With fans hungry for the Essen-borne quintet to record an album exclusively in German, the band simply said, “Why not?”, and Zeitgeister, which will be released on May 14th, was born.
11 genre-defining LPs deep into their career, the band’s vision for the album came naturally – a career retrospective and deep-dive into CALIBAN favorites that haven’t had been seen live in some time.
“It wasn’t an easy decision, but once we allowed us to make them as different from the originals as we felt it was needed it came fairly naturally”, explains guitarist and main songwriter Marc Görtz. Of course, some updating was necessary when it came to translating the songs to German. “It turned out to be surprisingly tricky,” states Dörner. “While I feel more at home with my native German it made it a lot more complicated, as I had more options to phrase something.”
Formed in 1997, CALIBAN’s legacy has been a tireless one, touring the globe and sharing stages with the likes of Kreator, Killswitch Engage and Dark Tranquillity just to mention a few. Zeitgeister was a welcome homecoming. With the help of long-running producer Benjamin Richter (Moonspell, Emil Bulls) CALIBAN hand-picked seven tracks to bring new life to:
“Trauma” (feat. Matthi from Nasty, originally “Arena Of Concealment”)
“Herz” (originally “I Will Never Let You Down”)
“Ausbruch nach Innen” (originally “Tyranny Of Small Misery”)
“Feuer, zieh’ mit mir” (originally “Between The Worlds”)
“Nichts ist für immer” (originally “All I Gave”)
“Intoleranz” (originally “Intolerance”)
“Mein Inferno” (originally “My Little Secret”)
“Zeitgeister” also boasts a new track, “nICHts”.
Stay tuned for Pre Orders and more info!
Talking Star Wars today because I am a giant Star Wars nerd and because this topic overlaps with a few things I also need to educate some of you moronic Iced Earth apologists for Jon’s coup attempt antics on.
If there was a complete “war on Republicans” being hired I am pretty sure Disney+ would have never hired Gina Carano in the first place for two seasons on one of the biggest buzzed about tv shows of all time. The former (haha) Mandalorian star was dropped for her comments online comparing Republicans being rightfully critiqued for enabling the white supremacist coup attempt of Donald Trump and cronies to the plight of Jews in the fucking Holocaust. Her post (which I am not including) argued that the government made them hate their neighbors, similar to now. It also included it was not Nazis that hurt Jews in the streets but their neighbors, a point skipped right over by morons like Paul Joseph Watson and Jack Posobiec. Go kiss up to Billy Corgan some more, Jack. Or maybe not because I love The Smashing Pumpkins and it was miserably depressing when Billy went on Alex Jones. We don’t need that shit again, especially with the art of the new SP record looking like Italian Futurism.
It is not “the government” making people dislike the GOP now and nothing they are enduring is comparable to the lead up to the Holocaust. People dislike the GOP because of their own choices and bedfellows. It’s not a smear campaign or remotely like Hitler spreading xenophobia to criticize the party Gina ignores the glaring wrongheadedness and bigotry of.
Gina was fired for being a moron, not “just” being a Republican. Personally, I think all Republicans are ahistorical morons who ignore the Southern Strategy while saying their party aren’t racist and that Trump was better for blacks than anyone and who still think Trickle Down is great even as fifty year studies (and the memories of anyone who suffered under it) prove it only helps create Robber Baron types. But these are not bright people. Trump is raising the rates at his hotel the day the Q morons think he is “coming back” in March and they STILL can’t see the fucking grift?!! LMAO.
I am sure Tucker Carlson is aching to book Gina on his show where he will most likely weaponize the identity politics he says he hates and paint her as a huge victim and a wronged woman dealt with harshly by “cancel culture”. Just stop. Gina, Ariel Pink and Tucker can re-evaluate their wack af public statements and allegiances as well as personal choices and then maybe come back to reality where private companies do not have to operate by giving you a free pass for whatever you do off camera or the recording booth.
Seriously, clowns need to chill. She actually got free passes already for transphobia, Covid denial and coup attempt disinformation, by my count. That seems like a lot of strikes for me for a sub par actress who could be replaced by a zillion other characters in the galaxy (the superior talents and actually decent and worthy humans Lucy Lawless and my favorite choice Lana Parrilla have both been mentioned by stans as possible actresses to recast Cara Dune with, if at all).
James Gunn got hired back because he was ACTUALLY apologetic for harm he had caused in the past and didn’t triple down on himself as a victim. Star Wars also is rightfully trying to do better by having more non-binary characters in canon or visibly gay characters like Sinjir Rath Velus and hopefully the tv shows moving forward with a diverse cast will make up for the poor handling of the Rose and Finn-era and their essential sidelining in The Rise Of Skywalker. Disney+ needs to give Boyega his own Finn series and fix the development arc of this awesome character who should be a full black Jedi pansexual poly king we need.
Tangent: I don’t mind that Poe and Finn or Rose and Finn or Rey and Finn didn’t end up together as much as I am annoyed they didn’t develop Finn’s force sensitivity plot fully. Jannah and Finn meeting and having some chemistry right away made me think about how as a former trooper super stoked to be free and allowed to not be a space fascist, Finn seemed like a super impressionable person who just “crushed” hard on everyone at first. Maybe he was polyamorous? I actually dug that he wasn’t firmly attached with someone – despite how cool the Poe/Finn ship is (my fave for him) – because it is also ok to not always be paired up in life and/or to be finding yourself. Or to just be friends and have found family. There are plenty of my friends who I have hooked up with before who I know would not be compatible in the long run, y’know?
Anyway, from mocking pronouns as unimportant to her unabashed pathetic inability to look inward at the real problem, Gina had to go. Star Wars is still trying to make up for some of the bad Asian and Jewish stereotypes in some of the prequel characters (Watto, for example). They aren’t probably keen on letting a moron like Gina run around and ruin some of the best goodwill Star Wars has had in ages.
Will Healy for The Motley Fool (not a Crüe fan blog, fyi) wrote recently: “Disney also faced a backlash as it filmed Mulan in the Chinese territory of Xinjiang, a site of alleged human rights abuses. ESPN management has come under fire in the past for discouraging staff from publicly discussing the NBA’s strained relationship with China stemming from comments about Hong Kong.”
The only FAIR Republican talking point I have seen come out of this whole shitshow is that Disney needs to stop pandering so much to Xi and China’s market if they care about human rights abuses, since they literally have huge re-education camps there for Uighur Muslims. That should not be allowed to become just a right wing talking point. Leftists often like to pivot to ICE detention in the USA if you bring it up. Guess what?! Both are fucking bad! That is reality. I felt the same way about Taylor Swift headlining Alibaba Singles Day during the Hong Kong democracy protests or her headlining Amazon Prime Day with Dua Lipa during a worker’s strike.
I don’t think Western culture by any means should have zero involvement with China like we are only “good guys”, but there has to be some ethical stance-taking when there are concentration camps involved. Just like Amazon needed to be called out by the No Music For ICE movement.
The Chinese government has imprisoned more than one million people since 2017 and subjected those not detained to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, and forced sterilizations. Tankies like to downplay that shit and also pretend Mao was great (he sucked ass and was a monster and so was Stalin, sorry losers). I am a very progressive demiflux metalhead who supports Antifa and I can still point out reality and not cape for every communist dictator or authoritarian just because of some alleged overlap. I want social democracy, not gaslighting.
So yeah, I think Disney is not going away but must be engaged with. Return Of The Jedi is intrinsically tied to my memories of my dad and me and so I will fight hard to try and get the company to do better. Which in a tiny way it just did.
So yeah…bye, Gina. Bye Ariel. Hopefully Trump, Tucker, Hannity and all the other self-aggrandizing pieces of shit will be out of our faces soon as well. While there must be balance to the Force, there is no balance in allowing disinformation to run out of control and unchallenged. This is the way.
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Hello all you mad, grandiose bloodfiends and welcome to the first fucking day the United States has ever had a woman VP! I don’t want to hear purity politics right now. It is a historic milestone and there are a hell of a lot worse people than Kamala who could have gotten in there. We have to work together to keep the Dems moving in a progressive direction but it is possible. Do NOT tell me that the 15 executive orders Biden signed into law today RIGHT AWAY (with the New Radicals and Gaga still ringing in our ears) are just “eXaCtLY ThE SaME aS ThE GoP”. That is privileged nonsense beyond belief, especially when the faketriots just tried to stage a literal unjustified coup over their fake election fraud nonsense and we are now BACK in the Paris Agreement. Millions will soon have a viable path to citizenship. Sit down and eat your food.
On that note, I keep seeing idiots who still back the twice impeached loser (who simpered away sullenly to the tune of YMCA) saying online in Trump’s defense that he “never started a war”. I think almost starting a fucking civil war HERE counts! And as if he didn’t ruin the nuclear deal with Iran and assassinated a top leader and pushed them into China’s arms and bombed Yemen just a little bit as well (killing an infant girl from the jump). Oh, and abandoned allies in Syria. Pardoning Kodak Black doesn’t make up for you pardoning Steve Bannon who wants to incite a xenophobic race war either, asshole.
On that note a little bit more, bye bye Iced Earth. Like complete moron Ariel Pink (who says “life isn’t fair” about homeless people but whines about being dropped by his label for supporting a fascist), Iced Earth have been dropped from Century Media’s artist page.
Jon is a talented as hell musician and a completely gullible idiot who doubled down on bad takes time and time again until it led him into the six criminal charges he now faces. What a massive fucking letdown. Stu Block and the band’s lukewarm responses have been weak sauce as well. You all should have quit the band and issued a “fuck him” statement. It is also weak, much as I love a ton of Century Media bands and their PR people are awesome folks, that the label declined to comment to Metal Injection. They should have said they are 100% not here for his bullshit either.
Maybe I sound harsh to some of you? Well, it is pretty awful seeing loved ones or people in your community or families fall down the Q rabbit hole of utter dogshite. Seeing it rot their logic and fact checking abilities and destroy families. Seeing it ruin musicians you once admired past the point of no return. We have tried to help many of you and it is ok to have boundaries. There must be a firm stance about this shit. Marina Abramović is cooler than all of you and a Storm is most definitely NOT coming. Except legally for orange fucko.
Winter’s Verge have released a new video for “Blood On The Foam” from The Ballad Of James Tig release. Fans of Alestorm, Wuthering Heights or even Delain and Manowar will thrill to this Cyprus band’s powerful heavy metal soundtrack to questing! Let the melodic and lively tune wash over you like the ocean’s spray (not a juice commercial, duh).
Since its formation in 2005, the band has so far released 4 full studio albums and 3 Eps and built a strong reputation as one of the most exciting live acts in Cyprus, with a powerful blend of epic, melodic and symphonic metal. The band is made up of 6 of the most experienced and respected musicians in the Cypriot rock and metal scene – George Charalambous on vocals, Deniel Pavlovsky and Savvas Parperi on guitars, Stavry Michael on keys, Miguel Trapezaris on bass and Danny Georgiou on drums.
Lastly today, the first full length release from San Diego death metal outfit Putrescine. The Fading Flame will be available March 26 on vinyl, CD, and cassette from Tridroid Records! Putrescine’s dissonant, churning death metal makes no secret of their influences; fans of Carcass, Morbid Angel, and At the Gates will find much to enjoy, and the band continues to use imagery from video games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne to frame issues of antifascism, personal trauma, and queer radicalism.
That’s it for today, lovers. Remember: Frenemies
Who when you’re down, ain’t your friend…
Every night we smash a Mercedes-Benz
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John Schaffer from Iced Earth can get in the garbage, but it seems he is already there. The reptilian fearing, delusional Confederate Flag apologist is cool with marching with Nazis and trying to overturn a valid election – the safest in history – to disenfranchise the black vote. Now the police are looking for him. Why hasn’t anyone done a wellness check on this dude on a regular basis for years now?
I regret every time I have ever supported this band in the past , including a cover story for New Noise. You’ll never be Maiden. Go crawl up Set’s mystical snake asshole. Sons Of Liberty is dumb as fuck. Sure you have a super nuanced view of social issues when your band’s best singer literally quit to be a cop. LMAO.
An almost even bigger fuck you to edge lord indie m*th connoisseur / revenge por* burn out Ariel Pink, who not only supports Trump now but also emotionally blackmailed my partner Globelamp once by telling her if she ever mentioned him in public for verbal abuse that he would go and publicly support accounts run by supporters of her abuser, despite knowing the sites are full of slander against her. Even stupider, he once gave her career advice and told her that you can’t go around saying whatever you want in life all the time and expect to be taken seriously (she has the screenshots)…then goes from mansplaining to supporting known civil conversationalist Donald Trump.
If you march with Nazis, you are condoning them. Period. Ariel is also Jewish, so it is extra fucking stupid.
If you are into telling people that the Dems were really behind slavery, I hope hundreds of years later you also are cool with showing people 13th and how in bed with prison for profit the GOP have been and remind everyone of the Southern Strategy, among so many other things. Also, calling out Biden for his racist policy history is fine, as it is with the Clintons. That doesn’t mean Biden hasn’t improved a lot on the issues compared to Donald FUCKING Trump (who literally tried to take credit for a black man’s economic gains and started the racist birther movement). The ‘tear gas the peaceful protestors for racial justice for my photo op’ guy.
There is no place in America where white, cis male entitlement is “the real victim”. BLM would never have gotten so far into the capital yesterday and with a MUCH more valid reason to be mad at institutions that have failed them.
Pink is claiming how he was there to ‘peacefully support the President’, as if supporting grifter mafia slimebag Trump in any way is acceptable at all?!!
Hope you both enjoy the Maga sewer, you fucking traitor loving flops. Shut the fuck up, pay some taxes for a social safety net and realize you are privileged lala land loving clowns.
Hey metal heads
Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth was involved in the storming at Capitol Hill
Just in case you wanted to know, and like, not give a shit about the band anymore pic.twitter.com/21Vr2yC3nX
— Chainbrain (@xChainbrain) January 7, 2021
Add to My RadarFuck Ariel Pink. Seriously his best ideas were always ripping off someone else… creepy little fascist Shitbag from Beverly Hills. raised in a god damn cage… mother fuck him
— anton newcombe (@antonnewcombe) January 7, 2021
Sludge legends and poetic vagrants of the psychic wounds of humanity, EYEHATEGOD are fucking underground blues metal punk pirates of the truest order. The band have set a March 12 release date for the band’s first new full-length album in seven years, A History of Nomadic Behavior.
Singer Mike IX Williams said of the songs on the album, “We’re not a political band, but it was hard not to be affected by the news from the past year. During this recording, I thought a lot about how stupid humanity has become and how America is now completely divided with these people who don’t believe in science and blindly follow liars and nonsensical ideologies. Some of those feelings may have found their way into these songs, but it is mostly subliminal.”
A History of Nomadic Behavior follows a period that saw the New Orleans based band on the road for three years, preceded by Williams suffering liver failure and a transplant. “We toured our asses off for three years and that’s where A History of Nomadic Behavior basically comes from,” adds Williams before touching on his health challenge: “Death is a part of life, it’s a roll of the dice. Sometimes you take life as it comes, other times you fight to stay alive.” The album was produced by Eyehategod, Sanford Parker (Yob, Voivod) and James Whitten (Thou, High on Fire), with mixing by Whitten. The band recorded at HighTower Recording and Hypercube studios.
Album pre-orders are available now (https://Eyehategod.lnk.to/AHistoryofNomadicBehaviorPR). Get on that shit now.
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Photo credit: Harvey Wallbanger
London based trap metal artist Mimi Barks has released a new video for attitude-filled fresh track “11.PLAGUE/666”. Fans of Concrete Dream, Otep, Killvein, Hollywood Undead and Iggy Azalea might feel this new rager. Some of you might remember her Enter The Void EP from last year turning heads.
Many cheers to U.K. grindcore pioneers Napalm Death, who released their new studio album Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism on Friday via Century Media Records. The legends have seen the album place highly on several international sales charts:
Germany: # 18
Austria: # 37
Switzerland: # 26
Finland: # 35
Belgium: # 88
Spain: # 78
France: # 120
UK (Rock Chart): # 3
U.S. charts:
# 5 Top New Artist Albums
# 6 Current Hard Music Albums
# 14 Current Rock Albums
# 41 Top Current Albums
# 48 Current Digital Albums
# 57 Digital Albums
# 58 Billboard Top Albums
And check out a “Metal Talks” episode with Napalm Death vocalist Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway via Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX4Woqxy7tpda
Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism is the highly anticipated follow-up to 2015’s acclaimed Apex Predator – Easy Meat album and the sjxteenth studio album effort by Napalm Death. It was again recorded with longtime producer Russ Russell and features artwork by Frode Sylthe.
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Skeletal Remains have built up a reputation for being a reliable source for some of the best death metal around where old school feel and fury and the ‘raw’ stuff manages to coincide with technical aspects without the scales being tipped. Plenty of stuff your Death or Massacre addict could vibe with and champion while still retaining the attention of people looking for something new, The Entombment Of Chaos is a must hear record for anyone who wants to properly get a grasp on a comprehensive list of the best stuff that came out this year. Despite some upheavals, the current incarnation of the band have released their most essential, confident and potentially career defining release yet! Even if you are not some scholarly metal cleric in a dusty tower, you can casually pick this up and find a killer outlet to both channel rage and have fun.
I spoke to Mike about the new album, coping with Covid, being part of the storied history of death metal, love for the fans and more RIGHT HERE!
MOVE are a high energy Boston hardcore act who are defying racism while crafting timely and Earth shaking punk anthems for change! Hit up Triple-B Records for the Freedom Dreams 7" HERE or head to Bandcamp and support this electrifying band on our favorite digital platform.
"...We march on to achieve salvation/Say their names we won’t be intimidated/ I fight and I fight and I fight I refuse to rest until I see progress/All to one day see these fucking freedom dreams/ We'll never stop until we find liberation, Black Excellence unstained by degradation/ Where freedom reigns over incarceration/ Where Black joy is only met with celebration."
RIYL Cold World, American Nightmare, Jesus Piece.
