Ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time again. It comes but once a year, but it’s oh-so-sweet when it does. You know what I’m talking about – the unveiling of a brand new Red Fang video.
For all of you that have heard 2011′s Murder The Mountains, you’ll already know that it’s near impossible to resist the urge of releasing your almighty air guitar skills upon it. I know I’ve spent a fair amount of time rocking the fuck out to ‘Wires‘ and ‘Number 13‘ but it’s THAT guitar solo in ‘Hank Is Dead‘ that gets the goosebumps going and, lo and behold, Red Fang bestow this bastion of rock ‘n’ roll upon us. Featuring a variety of air guitar performances, ranging from the brilliant to the slightly disturbing, and even the return of the ‘Natty-Light-Mo-Beel’, the ‘Hank Is Dead‘ video is the quintessential accompaniment to the audio. In other news, the Chris Collins video blog will now be changing it’s name from ‘Reel Metal’ to ‘The Red Fang Video Happy Hour’.
So, here’s something that you will probably hate on principle (I don’t blame you):
Hacktivist are what I’d call… rap-djent. Yes, this will probably turn off most listeners, but I can definitely see some potential in this kind of music. Right now they sound like Linkin Park meets Tesseract and Meshuggah, and surprisingly, I kinda dig it.
Well, I used to like old school Linkin Park back in the day, so perhaps that has something to do with it. But they’re walking a fine line here, because this can easily turn into something very sour. I’m both mildly intrigued and slightly turned off, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for them. As it stands, this song is an acceptable experiment in fusion, all the elements are well done as parts, and it comes together pretty decently. The problem is, there is probably not too much overlap in listeners of all these styles, so most people will not be happy with the final combination. But if you do enjoy both styles, well, good for you, and keep an eye out for Hacktivist!
So yes, the track will feature on Dead Set On Living, Cancer Bats‘ fourth album, which will be out on April 17th, which the band have described as more upbeat than their last effort Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones, and will actually be less of a ‘traditional’ hardcore record. Vocalist Liam Cornier said of it:
“In a lot of ways we get really inspired by non-metal bands. For me, I find I really like looking at other things because I just don’t want to make a traditional hardcore record lyrically. So for me, I listen to a lot of indie rock and I’ve been getting super psyched on a lot of that, like the new ‘Helplessness Blues’ by Fleet Foxes”
Furthermore, the record is rumoured to feature Dez Fafara of DevilDriver and Kate Cooper of An Horse on the song ‘Bastards‘. Should be interesting. Anyway, enough waffling; here’s the video!
Not really, because there’s not much ado about valleys in this one, but it’s a pretty cool video nonetheless, and doesn’t afraid of anything. Debuted today over at NME today, the new video from Mastodon for the track ‘Dry Bone Valley‘ is chock full of odd, morphing faces, pretty colours, and imagery synonymous with ancient central American cultures. Check it out:
One of the tracks from their most recent album The Hunter, it is something of a rare gem as it features the vocals of drummer Brann Dailor, rather than the usual Brent Hinds or Troy Sanders. It’s actually one of my favourites, partly because of this – the delivery and vocal pattern is pretty cool, and it’s got that expansive Crack The Skye feel; an album I love dearly.
Mastodon are currently on tour in Europe supporting the record with U.S. tour mates Red Fang, and will soon head to the UK for a stint before flying out to Australia to play Brisbane’s Soundwave Festival in late February.
As you may remember, Tesseract (with vocalist Dan Tompkins still intact) did a short acoustic session for Metal Injection last year (video from the session above). It looks like the idea of Acousseract went over well and has stuck with them, because they’re releasing a new acoustic EP this year called Perspective (a working title). The EP will feature acoustic interpretations of select tracks from One with newcomer Elliot Coleman on vocals.
Now, TESSERACT fans will be pleased to hear the band is currently working on an acoustic inspired EP with new vocalist Elliot Coleman, to be released in Spring. Below is a video of bassist Amos Williams performing a bass guitar play through to a track from the EP. The video can be seen here, and Williams offers this insight on the video forthcoming EP:
“I’ve been planning to film myself playing along to TesseracT’s debut ‘One’ for a while now. Over the Christmas holidays I asked our fans which song they would like me to film first, to which the answer was ‘April’. This got me thinking however, as ‘April’ has evolved quite a bit, in a similar fashion to the way ‘Concealing Fate’ had evolved over the years of performing it on tour. So, I figured it would make sense to perform the latest version of ‘April’ which we’re about to release with our new EP, which has the working title of ‘Perspective’. We’re still not sure if this will be the title, but at the moment it kind of makes the most sense.
The EP itself was inspired by an acoustic session we filmed last year in New York, whilst on tour with Protest The Hero. It made us realize that a few of the tracks sounded really great when re-arranged and approached at from a different perspective. It will feature 3 new versions of tracks from ‘One’ plus a very special cover.
Once we finish off this EP we will stay in the studio and begin work our new album. This is shaping up to continue the TesseracT sound we began to develop on ‘One’. A sound that is dynamic, tender, crushing, soaring, visceral, beautiful, emotive and heavy. A box of contradictions and infinite possibilities. With maybe the exception of Euro House…we’re not really that into Euro House…sorry.”
If Tesseract manages to release the acoustic EP and a full length album this year, then 2012 is going to be HUGE for Tesseract on top of their breakout in 2011, which saw their debut album One on many of our year-end lists, including getting top honors for both editors’ lists. What are the chances of them getting album of the year two years in a row? I hope we get to find out!
With all the hustle and bustle about Sweden’s returned punk heroes Refused it’s apt that, on their recent European tour supporting Enter Shikari with Your Demise, American post-hardcore band letlive. saw fit to cover Refused’s track ‘The Deadly Rhythm‘ from The Shape Of Punk To Come when they passed through the Swedish stops of Gothenburg, Stockholm and Malmö, and the ever-vigilant Rock Sound were there to film it! I like, even though it misses some of the nuances of the original — but that’s punk for you; you’re not supposed to do it ‘properly’!
More importantly, frontman Jason Butler cites Refused as one of the reasons they exist, which given the quality of their most recent release Fake History, is something for which to be thankful.
In related news, letlive. will be heading out on the Dead Throne Tour in support of The Devil Wears Prada with Every Time I Die and Oh, Sleeper at the beginning of March, and despite the meh headliner, this is definitely a tour worth turning up for. Details after the jump!
Yep, believe it or not kids, but that new Gojira record they announced back in November is still a thing! Although details have been sparse, we’re now being treated to the fourth installment in one of those obligatory studio webisode videos that are doing the rounds at the moment, this time focusing on Joe Duplantier’s vocals:
Sounds pretty interesting, and given that vocals are usually the last thing to be tracked, I think it’s fair to say that progress has been made. How far along we are to release I couldn’t say, but we’re hopeful it’ll be in the first half of the year. Maybe.
Don’t hold us to that. Actual details when we have them!
I can’t say I’m much of a fan of folk metal, but I did dig Eluveitie‘s last album Everything Remains (As It Never Was). I’m a sucker for lively melodeath riffs and the whole folky modern metal sound that the band had struck me as being pretty neat. It was certainly a catchy record, and at that point their most accessible.
So as it turns out, just like every other band that has a female involved, it would appear that they’ve gone even more mainstream friendly if ‘A Rose For Epona’ is a sign of things to come from Eluveitie. ‘A Rose For Epona‘ dials back the harsh vocals quite a bit and is centered around frontlady Anna Murphy. It’s also quite hilarious that Chrigel Glanzmann (vocals, various folk instruments) looks bored to death in the video above as he idly plucks his mandolin. Can we start giving the band a cute nickname like Folkanescence or Folkuna Coil now?
Jokes aside, obviously it’s just a single! Eluveitie’s forthcoming album Helvetios is due out February 28th (woah, what a day!) on Nuclear Blast.
It’s been a jam-packed day, but we could’t let the end pass without mention of our Washington-based friends Stealing Axion, who have just announced they have signed to InsideOut Music, along with the even more exciting news that their debut full-length Moments will be released later this year!
I’ve been hanging on the every word of guitarist and vocalist Josh DeShazo ever since he sent us their self-titled EP at the end of 2010, so this is tantalising news indeed, and hopefully a sign that, despite some line-up changes, the writing and recording is nearly done, and the record shall be with us sooner rather than later, as the somewhat ambiguous “later this year” is unclear.
Speaking of line-up changes, the guys recently firmed up said roster with the addition of guitarist Charlie Shaughnessy to existing members Josh, Dan Forbrich (guitar), Phil Willmarth (bass) and Blake Ferris (drums):
For those of you unfamiliar, here’s ‘47 Days Later‘ from their EP. Enjoy!
Alright, so the news of the new Veil of Maya album details have been known for the better part of a week now, but I was holding out on a new song release or a large enough album art to post about it. Gotta be efficient, right!?
Veil of Maya’s forthcoming album Eclipse, which is the band’s third Sumerian release and was produced by Periphery‘s Misha Mansoor, has recently been announced with a release date of February 28th. Above, you can check out the album’s teaser, which features the intro track. The band’s new single will be available on iTunes starting tomorrow, January 17th. Album pre-orders are available at this location.
Also, be sure to keep an eye out for our interview with Marc and Brandon of Veil of Maya later this week!
