April 09, 2001

BORKNAGAR will enter the studio on May 25th to begin recording their upcoming new album with Borge Finnstad (MAYHEM, ARCTURUS). Tracks set to appear include: ‘The Genuine Pulse’, ‘The Stellar Dome’, ‘Gods Of My World’, ‘Liberated’ and ‘Soul Sphere’. This will also mark the debut of new members Tyr and Vintersorg who is the bands new vocalist. Here is what Vintersorg himself had to say about the new album, at the time before they were entering the studio. "Things are going great. I recorded some vocal tracks, really simple, just some pre-production stuff. I’m really satisfied with it and so are the other guys. I think the new album, in many ways and in my point of view, will be the best Borknagar album. It’s cool because this album is going to be a collection album of the whole Borknagar sphere, you will find elements from all the albums, from the first album to Quintessence. There’s going to be more of an acoustic thing, which wasn’t on the Quintessence album. I came into the process when everything is written, I didn’t write any lyrics, I just came in and arranged the vocal lines and I tried to do the vocals a little bit different from Vintersorg and I really want to try to make my vocals a bit different and keep the Borknagar spirit."

Steve Tucker will not be appearing with MORBID ANGEL on their upcoming tours due to family and personal problems. The bass and vocal duties will be handled by Jared Anderson (HATE ETERNAL). Morbid Angel will be heading to Europe the week of April 9th for a five week European tour with ZYKLON and CADAVER INC. in support. Morbid Angel are also proud to announce that they are on the bill for the Extreme Steel Tour starting this June with PANTERA, SLAYER, STATIC-X and SKRAPE.

The following are quotes from SATYRICON regarding their new home video, Roadkill Extravaganza. Frost: "Roadkill Extravaganza is an entertaining and unique piece of documentary, we show our fans how Satyricon on tour is. It includes clips of live-performance and backstage footage and then a lot of on-the-road scenes. In addition to this, we have used this video as a media to answer once and for all many of those questions concerning Satyricon being raised repeatedly. Above all, I consider the video to be a service to the Satyricon-crowd. It has a rather high entertainment factor and a similarly low art-factor. I guess a couple of our views come through in the live-interview sections, but apart from that visions and ideas have little to do with the content. Take it as a Satyricon-on-tour documentary." Satyr: "This video is more like a tour diary and it resembles nothing I’ve seen before. In between, we have answered all the popular questions that came in via e-mail and therefore we will never answer them again. This is closing the Rebel Extravaganza chapter! This is just us and our crew with our camera showing you our life on the road. It’s a true road movie. It contains backstage footage with fucking Darkthrone, Cronos, Faust, Pantera, Emperor, everybody! The DVD is zone free though, meaning that if your DVD is zone free you can buy the DVD. The next thing from Satyricon after Roadkill is going to be a new album which we will start recording in June. Enjoy the video when you get it. Don’ t take it so fucking seriously. There’s some killer live-clips there and we’ve answered the questions you always ask us on the road. There’s some funny shit in there too which is not planned, it’s a result of boredom. Take it for what it is. A ticket to the hard-core Satyricon fan into life on the road with the Roadkill Extravaganza’s." Meanwhile, the band were recently in the studio recording two cover songs for upcoming tribute albums, SLAYER’s ‘Raining Blood’ and TURBONEGRO’s ‘I Got Erection’.

EIBON will release a rough mix of a new song in MP3 format. It will be free and should be available at www.moonfog.no in early April.

MONUMENTUM‘s forthcoming album will be called Ad Nauseam.

DARKTHRONE will enter the studio to record their next album late June. The working title is Corporal Punishment.

AD INFERNA have inked a deal with Last Episode. The band will record their debut album in Excess Studios in the Netherlands. The first part of the triology will be called Blind Depths Of The Muse.

ANOREXIA NERVOSA have nearly completed the pre-production of their new album, New Obscurantis Order. Tracks set to appear include: ‘Mother Anorexia’, ‘Le Portail de la Vierge’ and ‘Stabat Mater Dolorossa’. The band will enter the Drudenhaus studio in the beginning of June for three months of recording with the album scheduled for release in the Fall. The band will perform this Summer at No Mercy Festival in the Netherlands, Carpe Noctem Festival in Geneva and France Le Freewheels Festival in August. The band also have a new website with all the lastest news and regular updates at: www.mother-anorexia.com.

MISTELTEIN are currently in the Berno Studio recording their second, and long awaited full length album, Completion.

KHOLD have got a new page on the Moonfog site, with a tracklisting of their upcoming album, Masterpiss Of Pain, and two MP3 files. Early listens reveal an old-school Black Metal sound, down beat and live-off-the-floor sounding.

AKERCOCKE have inked a deal with Peaceville. The bands first album for the label, The Goat Of Mendes, is set to be released in May. The tracklisting: ‘Of Menstrual Blood And Semen’, ‘A Skin For Dancing In’, ‘Betwixt The Iniquitatis And The Prostigiators’, ‘The Horns Of Baphometh’, ‘Masks Of God’, ‘The Serpent’, ‘Fortune My Foe’, ‘Infernal Rites’, ‘He Is Risen’, ‘Breaking Silence’, ‘Initiation’ and ‘The Ceremony Of Nine Angles’. The band lineup includes: Jason Mendonca (vocals/guitars), Paul Scanlan (guitars), Peter Theobalds (bass), David Gray (drums) and Martin Bonsoir (electronics).

EVIL INCARNATE‘s debut album, Blackest Hymns Of Gods Disgrace, has been licensed to Germany’s Morbid Records for Europe. The band have rescheduled their European tour to coincide with the release in September.

On Friday April 13th, GEHENNA and KHOLD will play the Inferno Festival at Rockfeller Music Hall in Oslo, Norway. Both bands will play the main stage. Khold will open the show and Gehenna will play fourth.

VENOM‘s Archive CD is out through Rialto Records. The set includes 18 tracks covering the bands hits over their career. It’s a mix of live and studio tracks.

BLOODBATH are preparing to do a full length album. This is what Anders had to say about it, "Yeah, we’re still going to make an album. I’m real excited because once I get into it, I’m so fueled up for it because it’s just a total kick down memory lane! Death metal heaven! The old good days we all belong in, in a way. I mean we have written some really vicious Left Hand Path riffs and we’re just waiting to record it. Of course we’re going to do it at Sunlight, it’s the best place to do it. It can’t take too long. If it takes over a week to record this then we’re doing something wrong (laughs). Mike will do some very gruesome vocals in it, Jonas will play bass and write a few tracks, I mean just give Jonas a beer or two, an old death metal shirt and he’ll be into it, and Jocke Petterson will probably play drums on it. It will be on Century Media, we have no title, but we do have a cover. We were contacting Dan Seagrave but he was asking too much, but the cover we have is like a copy of his work, it was in the Dan Seagrave style. I don t know when it will be released but we want to record it when Mike is home from the States and as soon as he gets bored again, we’ll do it!"

As reported by www.digitalmetal.com, NAPALM DEATH have cancelled their performance at Metal Meltdown III. "Shortly before boarding the plane at the conclusion of our Asian tour, our drummer Danny Herrera became ill," said a Napalm Death issued press release. "As of this morning, Danny is still quite sick and it is apparent that he will not be able to travel for at least several days. Unfortunately, this means that we will not be performing at this weekends Metalfest in New Jersey. We were very excited to finally return to the States to play and see all of our old friends. We would like to send apologies to the fans and to the staff of the Metalfest and thank them for their support of the band. We are looking forward to coming back in May. See you then!" Napalm Death will return to the States for a string of dates with SOILENT GREEN and ISIS to make up for the cancellation.

According to their label Earache, THE HAUNTED were forced to cancel a string of Scandinavian dates after vocalist Marco Aro was having throat problems. Diagnosed with bleeding vocal chords, doctors forced Aro to stay home and rest for approximately six weeks while his vocal chords heal. The strain on Aro’s voice, however, didn’t stop the fearless frontman from completing the remaining four dates on their most recent Swedish tour with NASUM and NILE. The band will rest for three weeks so that Aro can recover for the North American tour with DIMMU BORGIR, CANNIBAL CORPSE and LAMB OF GOD.

DESTRUCTION are scheduled to enter Abyss Studios in Sweden soon to begin work on the follow up to All Hell Breaks Loose.

SIX FEET UNDER have entered Criteria Studios in Miami to record the long-awaited follow-up to Maximum Violence. Metal Blade founder Brian Slagel will once again assume production duties with mixing chores handled by Dave Schiffman, who’s recent credits include work with SYSTEM OF A DOWN, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE and POWERMAN 5000. The album will include a guest appearance from BODYCOUNT mainman Ice-T. The new album will be released on August 7th.

According to UNLEASHED‘s website, the band are back together and working on a new studio album, due to be released at the end of the year.

AMORTIS will be in the studio in May recording their next album. They plan on recording between six and eight songs with the usual length far beyond six minutes. A few song titles include: ‘The Human Puzzle’, ‘Messiah’, ’19th Century Love Poetry’ and ‘The Obscure Dance Of Distress’. They aim to release the album in September.

SACRIVERSUM are planning on re-releasing their 8 track demo, The Shadow Of The Golden Fire, from 1994. The material has been completely remastered and the re-release will also contain four songs from the very first Dreams Of Destiny tapes.

GARDENS OF GEHENNA officially opened their own Anthrazit-Studio with the pre-production of their new album, The Mechanism Masochism. Mastermind Bruno Kramm will complete the material in Danse Macabre Studio this Summer.

AEBA will start working on a new album, Rebellion-Edens Asche, in March. Tracks on the album will include: ‘Sacred Angel Demon’, ‘Flammenherz’, ‘Rebellion – Des Zornes Banner’, ‘Spiritual Evolution’ and ‘Dominion Of Terror’. The release date is set for June 18th.

THE HAUNTED will perform their first and only headline show in the U.S. on Friday April 12th at CBGB’s in NYC. The following night the band will embark on the CANNIBAL CORPSE / DIMMU BORGIR / LAMB OF GOD tour.

Grindcore giants DISCORDANCE AXIS are breaking up. Due to severe ear damage, guitarist Rob Marton is no longer able to play with the band. Rather than continue without him, they have opted to call it quits. Their tour of Japan and final show will be done with Steve Procopio (ex-HUMAN REMAINS) on guitar. The final show will be held at CBGB’s on Sunday May 13th. The show starts at 5pm and tickets are $5. Acts scheduled to perform include: Discordance Axis, DISSASSOCIATE, DIMITRI GUREVICH QUINTET, ANODYNE and DATACLAST.

VENOM‘s Cronos laid out a roadmap of the bands that influenced his life, in chronological order up to the present day. Here’s the history of important rock through the years, as picked by Cronos: ELVIS PRESLEY, DAVID BOWIE, FREE, LED ZEPPELIN, GENESIS, QUEEN, STATUS QUO, DEEP PURPLE, BLACK SABBATH, SEX PISTOLS, THE CLASH, THE DAMNED, VAN HALEN, RUSH, JUDAS PRIEST, VENOM, SLAYER, EXODUS, CARCASS, MAYHEM, UNLEASHED, THE PRODIGY, NINE INCH NAILS, PANTERA, DARK TRANQUILLITY and ABORYM.

HIRAX‘ studio lineup has been solidified: Katon W. DePena (vocals), Justin Laurent (CLUSTERFUX) (guitar), Joseph James Hubler (guitar), Shaun Ross (EXCEL) (bass) and Per Moller Jensen (THE HAUNTED) (drums). Ross and Jensen will be performing in the studio only.

HADES ALMIGHTY have inked a deal with Psycho Bitch Records. Their new album, The Pulse Of Decay, will be released in late April.

PHOBIA will release their next album through Necropolis / Deathvomit.