Hacride fans have been waiting nearly four years for this French quartet to release details of the follow-up to their brilliant Lazerus album. And fortune favours the patient by the looks of it, as Back To Where You’ve Never Been looks set to be absolutely killer if ‘Overcome‘, which you can listen to here courtesy of MetalSucks, is anything to go by.
Dutch progressive metal outfit Textures had a critical hit with their 2011 album Dualism, and as it would appear that the group have finally settled in on a sweet spot with a consistent lineup after breaking in the United States and gaining a larger fanbase worldwide, the band has parted was with guitarist Jochem Jacobs.
Here’s the full statement made from the band via their official website:
Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a bit quiet around the TEXTURES camp lately. It is for a valid reason: After 12 years being a big part of the band, Jochem Jacobs has decided to leave TEXTURES. It is sad to see him leave, but we respect his decision fully. Since the very start of TEXTURES, Jochem has helped the band get to where it is right now and his input will always be part of our music.
Jochem Jacobs:
“I’ve been with TEXTURES from the very beginning and have had a lot of great adventures in the past 12 years, musically and socially! It was a dream coming true, I was traveling across the world with my best friends and making music!!! What more could you want?!! Strange as it may sound, my priorities changed gradually during the years… Now the time has come for me to start doing more other stuff. There are so many things in life that gives me goosebumps!
I’m really busy producing great bands and other music at my studio and I want to focus more on that, I will keep on rocking!!!! Also, I will keep being involved with Textures and will continue producing future TEXTURES albums \m/”
It’s a big setback for the band, but we are fully determined to keep on making music. Therefore the search for a replacement guitarist has begun!
More news about this coming soon!
Bare with us guys! Remember that you, our fans, are the ones that make us want to move on at full-speed and create some more crazy music!
\m/
This news is a huge bummer because Jacobs was such a driving force in the band on multiple fronts, but while the band still holds fellow founding members Stef Brooks and Bart Hennephof in tow, they will hopefully continue their forward trajectory. Textures are promising rising stars in metal on a widely respected label (Nuclear Blast), so finding a suitable replacement shouldn’t be that difficult to accomplish. Even still, we wish them and Jacobs the best!
- JR
We shared this news with you folks before our break through various small means, but this news is too exciting we couldn’t avoid giving it its own news post. Our friends The Omega Experiment have inked a record deal with Listenable Records, home to fellow like-minded progressive bands such as Gorod, Sybreed, and Betraying the Martyrs. Perhaps the most telling of this news is that Listenable Records are a fairly major starting point for many bands that grew into being powerhouses in the genre, namely Soilwork, Gojira and Textures. Obviously, The Omega Experiment are in great company!
With this new deal comes the promise of a physical re-release of The Omega Experiment’s self-titled debut album on February 25th and increased touring as the band continues work on their sophomore album, tentatively due out early 2014. Be sure to hit the band up on Facebook in the mean time! Congratulations guys, you deserve it!
- JR
One of the best albums from last year, Dualism is what modern progressive metal should be — versatile, melodic, and heavy. Well, everyone, especially the vinyl junkies out there, today is the day. Now Textures are released their amazing album on vinyl, and in a red and blue vinyl edition to boot. Plus, each one is numbered. 250 red, 252 blue vinyl editions. AND THAT’S NOT ALL!
If you get it while it’s fresh you get a SIGNED POSTER. They actually have pictures on their facebook page of them signing the posters so you know it’s legit. The only problem is that it will run us North Americans over $50 USD after shipping. Bummer, but if you’re a mega fan then it’s worth it, right? So get them while they last, because if you enjoy collecting modern vinyl records, this would be a killer inclusion. You can purchase it at this location.
-SS
Stam1na are probably Finland’s most underrated band. Their sound is hard to describe, but if I had to take a guess, I’d call them “Prog Thrash”, which doesn’t really make sense but I’ll go with it. Their songs are entirely in Finnish, which is probably the main reason for their obscurity. The vocals are Soilwork-like, but much more frantic in their delivery, and the seven-string guitars follow suit with the vocals. In a way, they remind me of old Meshuggah, but with more traditional rhythms (not too traditional though) and more melodic vocals. It’s all the more impressive since the singer Antti ”Hyrde” Hyyrynen also plays guitar. While all their albums are good in their own way, I chose Raja because it’s more focused and refined than their other albums.
Wow, this year was an amazing year for metal. There were many great technical and progressive albums, which is what I consider to be my ‘main’ genre. A lot of my favorite bands came out with excellent albums, and there were a few surprising newcomers. Some of these I’ve reviewed myself and given a great score, so it won’t be a surprise. Some of these I didn’t have the time to review, which was a shame. Anyway, without further ado, here is my list of top 20 of 2011:
Tre Watson – Gravestones
The reason I’m not giving this an actual rating is because Tre is a close friend of mine, so I can’t be unbiased about this. It’s a really great EP, and especially the last track is a masterpiece. Definitely listen to this.
Substructure – Monolith
These guys just came out of nowhere. They do a great blend of Born of Osiris and The Contortionist, a.k.a progressive spacecore. The reason it’s not in my actual list is because it’s quite short and a bit derivative. It’s still a good listen though.
Empirine – The Great Excursion
These guys perform a technical/progressive death blend of Opeth, Obscura and Cynic. They’re pretty incredible, and we’ve covered them a few times, so you should definitely check them out.
Dutch progressive metal outfit Textures have announced their touring plans for next year, which include dates in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Poland, France, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Czech Republic! That’s a whole lot of Europe.
What’s more, they’re taking along the very excellent Sylosis for the first run in early March. Dates as follows:
02/29 Koln, GER – Luxor
03/01 Aarau, SWI – Kiff
03/02 Romagnano Sesia, ITA – R’n’R Arena
03/03 Yverdon, SWI – ISC Amalgame
03/04 Wiesbaden, GER – Schlachthof
03/05 Vienna, AUT – Chelsea
03/07 Krakow, POL – Kwadrat
03/08 Warsaw, POL – Progresja
03/09 Berlin, GER – Magnet
03/10 Bochum, GER – Matrix
03/11 Tilburg, NET – 013
With support TBA:
03/28 Strasbourg, FRA – La Laiterie
03/29 Montpellier, FRA – Secret Place
03/30 Barcelona, SPA – Mephisto
03/31 Madrid, SPA – La Sale
04/01 Toulouse, FRA – Aero
Festival shows:
04/08 Schijndel, NET – Paaspop
06/30 Helsinki, FIN – Tuska
08/04 Vagos, POR – Vegos Open Air
08/11 Jaromer, CZE – Brutal Assault
Textures are currently touring the UK with The Ocean and Aliases. I saw the show when it stopped off in London on Friday, and it was all kinds of awesome – review of that soon!
If you missed it, we badgered Textures with your questions back in September when they joined Periphery‘s Frak The Gods tour. Man these guys are busy!
- CG
Some of you may have come across the Got-Djent survey a few months ago and taken part. With the scene growing exponentially over the past year, they rightly figured it was about time there was some serious academic discussion on the matter.
Fear not; they hadn’t used the result to feed their hungry binary overlords: they’ve been crunching some serious numbers from 605 of you, analysing the data, and baking colourful pie charts in their mighty ovens of djoont – and you can see the results here.
As well as providing some interesting statistics about followers of the movement (it’s a massive American-European sausagefest – big surprise). Also unsurprisingly, opinion was divided over such questions as what djent is,what bands are considered to play it, and its merit as a…well, whatever you might classify it as.
You can also find a detailed analysis here, which includes comments from Basick Records firebrand Lisa Coverdale, Euroblast co-founder John Giulio Sprich, Steve Joh (Century Media A&R) and Got-Djent’s own Sander Dieleman. There are also the survey answers from several musicians who may be considered integral to djent, including Monuments‘ John Browne, Uneven Structure‘s Igor Omodei, Daniel Bergström of Vildhjarta and Bart Hennephof of Textures.
It’s an interesting read, and although it doesn’t really clear anything up, I enjoyed the process and seeing peoples’ opinions. Huge respect to the guys at GD for undertaking this task.
In the end, for me djent is just a word. Argue about what it should mean, or what it originally meant all you like, but words are only as good as what they mean to people, and if they serve their purpose of describing something and allowing for common meaning then I have no problem with whatever that may be – at the moment it just seems like it could do with clearing up. Not sure I see that happening soon, but we’ll just see won’t we?
- CG
THE OCEAN – Firmament Above China Tour 2011 from Frameshock Productions on Vimeo.
Every time I see live footage of The Ocean I just want to see them again. Their support slot for The Dillinger Escape Plan in London almost one year ago helped make it one of the best shows I’ve ever been too, and I’m super stoked to see them when they come back next month with Textures.
They recently got back from playing a number of shows - including a couple of festival slots – in China, and they look awesome. I have no idea how burgeoning the Chinese metal scene is, but I’d wager they saw something special either way.
Which brings me to the above video, which serves as a trailer for the oft-spoken about documentary/live DVD that the band are working on as and when they can. Its current working title has been revealed to be Collective Oblivion, which sounds pretty rad to me if they keep it. It won’t be out until next year, but that’s fine with me so long as it lives up to everything I’ve seen so far. Seriously; those guys put some effort into filming good quality stuff with the very excellent Frameshock Productions.
- CG
WEEK ONE!
WEEK TWO!
WEEK THREE!
Our tour-long interview with the great prog progenitors Textures has come to an end. Periphery‘s Frak The Gods tour featuring The Human Abstract, Textures, and The Contortionist ends this weekend, October 8th, in Richmond, VA. Check out our fourth and final interview with Textures below:
Tour’s just about over! How did this tour treat you compared to your expectations?
Zzzz, we’re still sleeping…zzz..eeh expectations. Wake up guys! It’s HeavyBlog.
Hey, here we are! Well, what we didn’t expect was that we would lose weight and would get so little sleep. Personally I’ve never experienced so many days with 4 hours of sleep, no breakfast and a crappy dinner. Actually we thought we would gain weight because of all the fastfood stores over here. Instead of USA our girlfriends probably think we did a hiking trail for weeks haha.
View Full Article »
