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MORRIGAN finally have a website up at www.morrigan.org. They are also searching for places to play all over Europe for a tour in Spring 2004 with MYSTIFIER / ABIGAIL / MORRIGAN / EMINENZ. Whoever is interested and capable of organising a show should contact balor@freenet.de immediately.
Witches Brew signed a new band with TOXIC HOLOCAUST from Delaware. More info on this can be found at www.Witches-Brew.org/toxicholocaust.html and mp3s are up already at www.Witches-Brew.org/mp3.html
The release date for AETERNUS "A Darker Monument" and VOID "Posthuman" has been changed to 05.05.03.
Noble Wolves, a sub-label of Red Stream Records, will be releasing the third album by Germany’s WINTERBLUT ("Grund: Gelenkkunst") and a MCD by DEBAUCHERY ("Dead Scream Symphony") this month. Not scheduled with exact dates yet, but later to be released through Red Stream / Baphomet Records are: NECROPHAGIA / SIGH- split 7" EP (featuring the tracks ‘Kindred Of The Dying Kind’ by Necrophagia and ‘Young Burial’ by Sigh) and S.B.S. / Browneye – split 7" EP. Brown Eye includes Mayhem and Necrophagia members. One of their punk-influenced songs is about the famous Black Metal murder of the nineties. Satan’s Bake Sale’s material sounds like old moshcore mixed with whirlwind grind and a heavy emphasis on humor.
Razorback Records will soon be releasing a split CD of Grind legends GENERAL SURGERY and true-life pathologists THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINERS, featuring all new material from both bands. GENERAL SURGERY have reassembled with a collection of all new songs, including ‘Pre-Bisectal Corrosive Immersion’, ‘Mortuary Wars’ and ‘Cauterization Frenzy’. THE COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINERS, come up with six new tracks, including: ‘Bloatation (Repugnant Refloatation)’, ‘Forensic Photography’ and ‘Cruentous Mess’. For further info check out the following official websites: www.generalsurgery.nu or www.thecountymedicalexaminers.com or www.razorbackrecords.com
ARCH ENEMY may be naming their forthcoming album, "DehumaniZation" or "Anthems Of Aggression". The band are hoping to release the Andy Sneap-produced record in the summer.
The Bonded By Metal Over Europe Tour 2003 will begin in October and feature the following lineup: EXODUS, NUCLEAR ASSAULT, AGENT STEEL, BEHEMOTH, MORTICIAN, CARNAL FORGE, OCCULT and CALLENISH CIRCLE. A full itinerary of dates will be announced soon.
CANNIBAL CORPSE hit the road in Europe on April 16th in Bussum, NL. Dates run until May 5 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Hammerheart Records is caught up in litigation with the estate of the late DEATH / CONTROL DENIED frontman Chuck Schuldiner over the release of CONTROL DENIED‘s forthcoming sophomore release, "When Machine And Man Collide".
SINISTER have confirmed a string of upcoming shows in Mexico and Columbia. They are: March 20 – Plaza D’Tros – Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico, 21 – Venue TBA – Queretaro, Mexico, 23 – Circo Volador – Mexico City, Mexico and 24 – Palacio de los Deportes – Bogota, Columbia.
DIABOLICAL have replaced drummer Henric Ohlsson with C. Stjarnlof. The band are currently rehearsing.
Some of you may have wondered about the silence in the GOREAPHOBIA camp, ever since our interview back in November of last year. Well, as the band itself wasn’t too happy about the overall new musical direction either, they decided not to continue on that way and split-up again. But they are back now and are currently working on a new four song release due out in about two months. Fans of the band’s old stuff will be pleased to hear that this time it won’t have the Black Metal type vocals anymore.
We recently received three new releases from Mausoleum Records, that not necessarily fit our narrowminded musical concept, but nice as we are, we figured to give them at least a little mention in this news section here. First of all there’s TECHNOCRACY‘s self-titled debut (49:10min), which is the new musical home of former VIO-LENCE, MACHINE HEAD, TORQUE guitarist Phil Demmel. Could be of interest to fans of the aforementioned acts as it’s also rather groovy NU Metal here, but combined with melodic vocals as well as electronic music (www.technocracynow.com). Next up is "After War" (68:30min), the third full-length by Austria’s EKPYROSIS. A rather weird musical mixture, kinda like unconventional, yet technical Power / Thrash with interesting guitarwork, almost proggy sounding keyboards and vocals full of anger (www.ekpyrosis.com). Last, but not least, my personal fave out of the three, AFTER ALL‘s fourth album "Mercury Rising" (44:28min). These guys from Belgium almost come across like a thrashy NWOBHM act, have got a nice Kris Verwimp coverart, a production courtesy of Harris Johns, two bonus videos, as well as ‘Black God White Devil’, a cover song by LA MUERTE (www.listen.to/afterall). All further info you also may get directly from Mausoleum Records.
Dutch melodic Death / Thrashers DETONATION have signed a 3-album deal with Osmose. The debut full-length "An Epic Defiance" was recorded in Excess Studios, Rotterdam (NL) at the end of 2002 and contains 12 songs of blasting melodic Death / Thrash in the Swedish vein. Expect a summer 2003 release.
On March 10, 2003 Nocturnal Art Productions will be releasing a limited edition (1000 copies only!) ZYKLON / RED HARVEST split 7" EP. The bands material got remixed by UK artist OCD (VOID) for that. To quote the label here: "Extreme Metal transferred into a mix of dark distorted noise and hard-hitting underground club music." ZYKLON hits the studio this month. Their new album will be out on Candlelight Records in September.
"Posthuman", the debut album by UK’s VOID will see the light of day on April 07.
Norway’s LIMBONIC ART have split up. For more details, check out: www.limbonic.com
The new AETERNUS album "A Darker Monument" will be released by Nocturnal Art Productions on April 07.
GOD DETHRONED just released the following press statement regarding the cancellation of their shows in Slovenia: "GOD DETHRONED would like to apologize to all the Italian and Slovenian fans who came to see the shows we were supposed to do with The Crown. We would like to state that we really wanted to play those shows, but due to a lack of professionalism of the tour promoter we were unable to show up. The simple reason for this is the flight tickets never got sent to the band. After several excuses of the promoter the final (and most ridiculous) excuse was that the UPS truck was involved in an accident and burned out totally with (of course) our flight tickets inside. Now the guy promises us to send us the money for the shows, which of course will also never happen. God Dethroned are very dissappointed about not being able to perform for our Italian and Slovenian fans, but this was totally beyond our control! We hope to see you next time on tour!On behalf of God Dethroned, Henri Sattler."
Here’s a little update on THE CROWN‘s latest tour activities, courtesy of Marko himself: "Let me first start by telling you that the 2 Italian shows we did was fucking excellent. Very cool. A big Grazie to the bands and fans we met. But the Slovenian experience was a big fucking mess. Here’s the story: We came to the border and were denied getting into the country. The reason was that we didn’t have documents from the Swedish and Italian government saying that we were the owners of our equipment. Let me tell you one thing, we have played in 17 countries (EU and non EU countries) and NEVER had a problem like this before. So we decided to go to a second border. And we were denied again to enter the country. And this time NOT cause of the equipment but simply cause they didn’t want us to get in. SO… we decided to try a THIRD border. And surprise surprise, they let us in with no problems, they didn’t even want any documents. But then they decided to not let in the opening acts, and all the backline (drums, amplifiers etc.) were in their bus. So we waited 4-5 hours on the border hoping that they would let them in. We asked our tourmanager to contact the Slovenian promotor and beg him to provide some drums and amps for us. At this point we were prepared to do a show with one cymbal only if necessary. But the reply was that the promotor couldn’t get us any kind of instruments. We were REALLY looking forward to do these two sold-out shows. We even planned to record them on video. The bottomline is, we had to go back to Italy and cancel these two shows. Very fucking frustrating, but what could we do? The border acted like they could do whatever they wanted to. And the fucked up thing is that we heard that people had traveled from Croatia and Austria to see us perform. Trust me, we are as sorry as you that we couldn’t play. This cancellation was TOTALLY beyond our control!!!"
DISMEMBER is currently working very hard at Sami Studio in Stockholm, Sweden to record their upcoming full-length album "Where Ironcrosses Grow". The cover artwork will be created by Dan Seagrave (a.o. Entombed, Morbid Angel, Suffocation and the first Dismember album). The release of the album is scheduled for September through Hammerheart Records. According to drummer and co-producer Fred Estby the new album will rip people’s heads off. Two new songtitles are ‘Chasing The Serpent’ and ‘Me-God’. Furthermore the band is already confirmed for this year’s Wacken Open Air and Fuck The Commerce festivals.
The BANG YOUR HEAD OPEN AIR billing for 2003 looks like this: TWISTED SISTER, DIO, THIN LIZZY, HAMMERFALL, U.D.O., SODOM, OVERKILL, HYPOCRISY, Y&T, DOKKEN, TNT, ANNIHILATOR, MASTERPLAN, BRAINSTORM, PINK CREAM 69, AMON AMARTH, ROB ROCK, AXXIS, BITCH, ANGEL WITCH, DESTRUCTOR and HIRAX. As usual, it will take place in Balingen, Germany at the 27th & 28th of June. The warm-up gig at the 26th of June will feature STORMWITCH, DESTRUCTOR and HIRAX. There will be a club show on Friday as well, the details haven’t been figured out yet. www.bang-your-head.de
RESURRECTED are about to release a DVD this summer including live material and "on the road" footage. The title is not quite sure yet, the cover will be done by David Kempf from Germany .
DEEDS OF FLESH will start recording their new album, to be entitled "Reduced To Ashes" in about a week time from now. The album will be in the vein as their latest album "Mark Of The Legion" but in general more brutal. Expect this new album to be out this summer. The band will hit the road again in Europe along with the likes of Severe Torture (NL), Dying Fetus (US) and Hate Eternal (US) in September.
It has been almost three months since NECRONOMICON completed their debut Canadian tour. After three weeks on the road with local mates Kataklysm and Blood Of Christ, the "Canadian Extreme Tour" was considered a great success for everyone, with lots of good times, great people and much Metal. Further touring plans are scheduled for the upcoming months, in both American and European Territories. Necronomicon is currently focusing on the follow-up to "Pharaoh Of Gods" and entered the recording studio on February 1st. Entitled "The Sacred Medicines", the album will be recorded in the band’s hometown region of the Saguenay, in North Eastern Quebec and will be produced by Rob "the Witch" himself.
NAPALM DEATH bassist Shane Embury posted the following update at www.enemyofthemusicbusiness.com recently: "As you know we have been blasting around the States with NILE and co. At the moment I’m staying with an old friend of mine who you may know – Kevin Sharp of BRUTAL TRUTH fame. He came out to drive us around for the last week of the tour as a favour and (now we are) discussing the idea of a new project. It’s looking very promising".
CANNIBAL CORPSE have added two Greek dates to the itinerary for their upcoming European tour, kicking off on April 17th at Live Arena in Munster, Germany. The new dates are May 3rd at Gagarin in Athens and 4th at Hydrogios in Thessaloniki.
The DEICIDE, AMON AMARTH, BEHEMOTH, REVENGE and VEHEMENCE tour is set to begin on March 9th in Irvington, NJ.
OPETH won the Swedish Grammy in the Best Hard Rock category for their "Deliverance" album at the 2003 Grammisgala, which was held on February 18 in Stockholm, Sweden.
CATTLE DECAPITATION will begin filming their music video for the title track ‘To Serve Man’ in March. They will be filming the live segments at the following shows: Saturday, February 22nd at Tilly’s in Tijuana, Mexico and Friday, March 7th at Soma in San Diego, CA.
The METAL FOR CANCER benefit for Tony "Bones" Hernandez will be held at The Garage (4519 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood) on Saturday, March 1st. AGENT STEEL will be headlining, joined by INFAMY, NOKTURNE and SCARRED. The evening will host the world-debut of Jim Durkin’s (DREAMS OF DAMNATION / ex – DARK ANGEL) second Thrash band, PAGAN WAR MACHINE, featuring Steve Gaines (bass / vocals), Marcelo Lima and Jim Durkin on guitars, and "Mayhem" Mendez on drums.
CARNAL FORGE will be making their first US appearance at this year’s March Metal Meltdown in Irvington, NJ. Their new album, "The More You Suffer", is out through Century Media on April 22nd.
DEFLESHED‘s "Royal Straight Flesh" is available in Europe on LP and picture disc LP.
CRADLE OF FILTH‘s website, www.theorderofthedragon.com, report that the bands new album, "Damnation And A Day", will be released in the US on March 25th. A US tour is being planned to support the release. The bands upcoming European tour kicks off on March 23rd at the Transborder in Lyons, France and wraps up on April 23rd at Waterfront in Norwich, England.
ZYKLON have begun recording their second album in Norway. The album will be mixed at Fredman Studios in May and released on September 9th in the US.
AETURNUS‘ new album, "A Darker Monument", will be available through Nocturnal Art Productions (Candlelight in the US). It was recorded at Grieghallen Studios in Bergen, Norway and was produced by Pytten (EMPEROR, MAYHEM, ENSLAVED). The tracklisting: ‘Sword Of The Earth’, ‘Slavestate’, ‘Litany Of Ra’, ‘Soulslayer’, ‘Darkstorm’, ‘Genocide Delight’, ‘Seen Through Abhorrence Eyes’, ‘The Trident’ and ‘Sons Of War’.
MARDUK‘s "World Funeral" album is out now in Europe on LP and picture disc LP. The band have also released a 7" single for "Hearse". It’s available on regular and picture disc vinyl.
Earache is offering CARCASS‘ first two albums – "Reek Of Putrefaction" and "Symphonies Of Sickness" – on CD with the original, banned cover art for $11 (each, postage paid) through www.earache.com/store/page79.html. These extreme collages of gore have been unavailable since 1992 — replaced in the meantime by the green and purple censored covers that have saturated the market. Any fan of the music knows the original "gore covers" were the only real covers these albums ever had. Take a sneak peek at wwwearacherecords.org/news_stories/earache.html#carcass
Poland’s PYORRHOEA have added new guitarist A.D. (ex – Amok) to their line-up. The band is currently working on material for a full album. The recording session is scheduled for May 2003, and will take place in Studio Hertz. The new stuff is supposed to be "much more brutal and uncompromising…" The following tracks are already finished: ‘Anal Arousal’, ‘Desire For Torment’, ‘Half Dead Lover’ and ‘Excrements On Your Face.’ For all further info, check out the band’s website: www.pyorrhoea.org
The most recent addition to the Xtreem Music roster is the German Death Metal act MISANTHROPIC, a rather new band in the scene with only one demo released in the year 2002. The band, which features Agathodaimon’s drummer, is currently finishing the songs for their debut album "Soulreaver" due to be recorded during March, with a release date scheduled for June this year. You can already download a song from their "Demo 2002" from www.xtreemmusic.com or their own official website www.misanthropic.de
The MARYLAND DEATH FEST 2003 is confirmed for May 23 – 25 at The Thunderdome in Baltimore, Maryland. So far the lineup includes the following: ABORTED, CINERARY, CIRCLE OF DEAD CHILDREN, DEVOURMENT, INTERNAL BLEEDING, LEUKORRHEA, PYREXIA, SKINLESS and SUFFOCATION among others.
THE HAUNTED have been confirmed for the Hultsfred Festival, which takes place on June 12 – 14 in Hultsfred, Sweden.
CANNIBAL CORPSE‘s upcoming European tour kicks off on April 17th at the Live Arena in Munster (Breitenfeld), Germany. The dates wrap up on April 30th at Turku in Saatamo, Finland
Confirmed dates for VADER‘s upcoming co-headlining tour (second headliner tbc) run from April 25th at the Live Arena in Munster (Breitenfeld), Germany through May 19th. More dates and details will be announced soon.
HOUWITSER will enter Excess Studio in Rotterdam, Holland on March 28th to record their new album, "Damage Assessment". The band’s website has a new address: www.houwitser.com
AETERNUS‘ new album, "A Darker Monument", is out through Nocturnal Art Productions on April 7th in Europe. The album was recorded with producer Pytten at Grieghallen Studios.
NO RETURN have split with keysman Malko Pouchin. Meanwhile, the band have begun writing for their next album, due out in late 2003 via Kodiak.
CULT OF LUNA‘s new album, "The Beyond", is out now in Europe through Earache.
DYING FETUS are currently finishing the recording of their forthcoming Relapse full-length, "Stop At Nothing", due out in late Spring. Tracks on the release will include: ‘Schematics’, ‘One Shot, One Kill’, ‘Stop At Nothing’ and ‘Forced Elimination’.
ORIGIN drummer John Longstreth will fill the once-vacant SKINLESS drum position, playing on the bands upcoming record, "From Sacrifice To Survival", and will do subsequent tours with them. He will remain very much a part of Origin.
VITAL REMAINS new opus, "Dechristianize", will be out on April 22nd. Original member Tony Lazaro(guitar) describes the new album as, "more speed with a lot more harmonies. It’s got the brutality, but also it’s very dynamic and textured."
NIGHT IN GALES have found a new drummer in Adriano Ricci (ex – BLOOD RED ANGEL, TORTURE CHAMBER). The band is now rehearsing on a regular basis and will soon record a new demo.
QUO VADIS are presently adding finishing touches to their next effort. Engineered by producer Pierre Remillard (CRYPTOPSY, OBLIVEON), the follow-up to "Passage In Time" will appear later this year. In other news, the band will be direct support for ANONYMUS at Montreal’s Metropolis (March 21st 2003) and at the Kashmir in Quebec City (March 22nd 2003).
The final routing for the forthcoming CRADLE OF FILTH North American has been decided. Dates begin on Tuesday May 13 in Washington DC and run through to June 11 (at either Norfolk, VA or Winston Salem, NC).
Vermin of Axis of Advance will be joing REVENGE on their upcoming US tour as a session guitarist.
Evil Inc. Productions are seeking more acts to add to this year’s METAL MASSACRE FEST on April 19 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Already confirmed are: INCANTATION, EVIL INCARNATE, WACO JESUS, ENVY THE DEAD and EMESIS. If you’re interested contact the following email address: ENDofDAYS@himnosrituales.com
On February 24 Listenable Records will re-issue the rare VILE debut "Stench Of The Deceased", as a limited edition slipcase with 4 bonus tracks. The band is touring Europe in February / March.
In mid April LISTENABLE RECORDS will furthermore release the following albums: ABORTED – "Goremageddon – The Saw And The Carnage Done" (strictly limited edition slipcase of 3500 copies, with a Carcass cover as bonus track); MORS PRINCIPIUM EST – "Inhumanity" (debut album in the vein of CHILDREN OF BODOM / SOILWORK) and at the end of May, early June: LUCIFERION ("The Apostate") and EXHUMED / ABORTED (limited edition split live 10"). For further info check out: www.listenable.net