Friday September 27th 2002

Jimmy P. Brown II, founding member of Deliverance, and Manny Morales have decided to end Deliverance for the second time. After a brief comeback they've made this decision for various reasons. The announced album This Sad Veil Of Tears will be released, yet it's not sure if Jimmy Brown will use the name Deliverance.

Random Eyes is currently working on their next album. Their line-up also changed with Mikko Tuliniemi switching from bass to guitar and bassist Timo Maki-Marttunen joining them.

Crimson Moonlight also had line-up changes. David and Samuel left the band and have been replaced by guitarist Per and bassist Hubertus.

Drummer Jeffrey McCormack is no longer involved with Bloodgood.

Love, the new album from The Juliana Theory, will be released on November 12th 2002. First single is Do You Believe Me?

Anberlin, the new band on Tooth & Nail Records, is currently in studio with producer Aaron Sprinkle. They are recording eleven songs yet only ten of them will be released. The album should be out on March 4th 2003.

Bushbaby managed to stay on #1 on the Grunge chart of MP3.com with their single Skinny for 25 consecutive days.

The Attack is the new band of two members of No Innocent Victim. The band will be releasing an independently released CD EP before this year's over. The line-up is: Tim Mason on guitar, Rick Remender on guitar, Chris Vischer on bass, Jason Dunn on drums and Tommy CEB on vocals.

Screen are hard at work writing new songs. And they've started thinking about a possible next release.

State Of Decay, the 2001 demo from Transfigural Form, can be downloaded from MP3.com now.

Friday September 20th 2002

The line-up for the Christmas Rock Night in Haus Ennepetal in Germany is clear. On Friday December 6th 2002 the following bands will be on the main stage: Mortification, The Insyderz, Relient K, Daily Planet, The Electrics, NimmZwei, Brain:FAQ. On the side stage will appear: Joy Williams, Arson, Morphia, Appartment 7. The following day, Saturday December 7th you can see these bands: Kevin Max, Stavesacre, Pillar, Jerusalem, Luna Halo, Paul Colman Trio, W4C, The Seekers. The side stage will then present these bands: Crushead, Seventh Avenue, Geistreich, Opposition Of One, Fort Knox. Haus Ennepetal (Stadthalle) is in the Gasstrasse 10 in Ennepetal.

Virgin Black are back in the studio. They are recording the following up to Sombre Romantic. The release date is expected to be this fall.

In October the new Slechtvalk album will be out. Title is The War That Plagues The Land. It will contain eleven songs and artwork made by Kris Verwimp. The first European tour will follow a few months later. You might see the band in Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Czech and Poland. Ador Dorath from Czech will be the support act.

CL Music & Publishing has a new name. As label director Christian Liljegren recently got married and took the last name of his wife (which is Rivel), he will be called Christian Rivel from now on. And he's leading Rivel Records. Bands on this label are Sanctifica, Wisdom Call, Pantokrator, Oblivion, Sons Of Thunder, Brighteye Brison, Windy City, Christian Rivel, Vindication and Crimson Moonlight.

The demo CD from Jacobs Dream is repackaged and released. Besides all original demo versions of Sarah Williams, Wisdom, Love & Sorrow and Violent Truth it will contain other tracks that are currently unavailable elsewhere.

Friday September 13th 2002

After lying in waste for a half year now, there's something happening on our Interview Forum. A new message-board interview is starting today. We're welcoming the Swedish band Sanctifica. Feel free to join them with your load of questions here. This board interview continues until September 18th 2002.

Tooth & Nail Records signed the band Lucerin Blue. This Canadian band plays rock with elements from metal, hardcore and power pop. Drummer Ryan Turner: "We started out just playing music similar to what we were listening to at the time. It sounded like the Deftones, mixed with something a little more sonic. But over the last two years, a lot of our songs have gotten faster, more melodic, and just better in general."

If you want to help a few Tooth & Nail Records bands to get their videos aired on Much Music USA, go here and click "Oven Fresh" to help voting for the videos from Halo Friendlies, MxPx, Bleach and Kutless. Thanks!

Norma Jean filmed a video last week. This video is for the song The Entire World Is Counting On Me And They Don't Even Know It.

Underoath also made a video. This is for the song When The Sun Sleeps off their album The Changing Of Times. This video will be on the Solid State Records website next month.

Today Soul Embraced enters the Poynter Studios to begin recording a new album. Title will be Immune. Some of the song titles are: Abandoned, Immune To Emotion, Existence In Despair.

Blindside will be on tour throughout the USA with Hoobastank the next two months. Expect a European tour in November.

Punk band Sacred Life will record their next album from October 14th through October 18th in the Mailmen Studio in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The album will be called The Evil And Insane Asbest Man. It will contain seven songs and production will be done by Martijn Groeneveld who previously worked with The Spirit That Guides Us and This Beautiful Mess.

Beam is working on songs for their next album.

The song Skinny from the British band Bushbaby is doing well on the MP3.com Grunge chart. The song stayed on #1 for almost two weeks in a row. You can download the song by going to this MP3.com page.

Inversion is about to release a new EP. It will be called Echoes In Eternity. A rough version of the song Bitter Whisper can be downloaded from MP3.com.

You can download a song from the upcoming album Truthless Heroes from Project 86. The song is called Hollow Again.

Friday September 6th 2002

Narnia is still working on their fourth album. The title will be The Great Fall and it will be a concept album. Some of the song titles are: Back From Hell, Innocent Blood, Ground Zero and The Great Fall Of Man. Interestingly, there will be a few guest appearances. Anders Johansson, drummer of Hammerfall will assist the band as well as Eric Clayton from Saviour Machine. They'll perform on one track each. Expect The Great Fall to be out in spring 2003.

Beloved, one of the new bands on Solid State Records, is writing material for the their next CD. The band will be entering the studio next month.

Also Soul Embraced is working on a new album. They are entering the studio to record the follow up to This Is My Blood. Look for an early 2003 release date.

Sad news comes from Point Of Recognition. The band have decided to call it quits. Their last show will be on October 19th.

Punk band Side Walk Slam have added a new guitarist to the line-up. His name is Neil Endicott.

Disciple now has an MP3.com page where you can download the song God Of Elijah. More songs will be added soon.

The Swedish melodic hard rock band Laudamus is in studio to record their next effort. You can find a studio update on their website.

Tooth & Nail Records have signed a new band: Slow Coming Day. This band will be in studio soon to record their debut for Tooth & Nail Records, which is the follow-up to their independent EP. The new disc will be in stores in 2003.

Calibretto 13 are getting ready to record their next album entitled Making The World A Place. They hit the studio right after Christmas with Aaron Sprinkle as producer.

Norma Jean recently had to cancel the remainder of the dates on the Eighteen Visions tour due to not having a singer. Their original vocalist left after their show at the Furnace Fest this year and his replacement got injured a few weeks ago. The band hopes to regroup soon while they plan a tour for this fall.

It's now official: Tor Magne Glidje is no longer in Extol. He left the band to put all his energy in his band Ganglion.

Friday August 30th 2002

Here's an update from Tim Gaines. First of all we can congratulate him as he married his fiancée Irene Kelly on August 24th. Congrats Tim & Irene!

On the Extreme Mardi Gras festival Tim got together with Oz Fox and Robert Sweet, for the first time since the Cornerstone appearance of their band Stryper in July 2001. It was planned to play a few songs together. Unfortunately, as the show ran over time and Oz had to leave, this didn't happen. Tim: "I hope we have some more chances to get together. It would have been great if Michael (Sweet, former singer of Stryper) had been there. I miss being together with the guys. I think what I miss the most about being
a part of Stryper was how Gods presence was always there. I miss seeing Him move through the ministry of Stryper. It is only obvious by the fact that God always does something spectacular when the four members of Stryper are together as we were originally called by Him. Anything we have done individually since then has been a failure in comparison. I think of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14. At one time I could compare the ministry of Stryper to the servant who was given the ten talents. Stryper had
invested its ten talents into the Kingdom of God and it was growing and doubling. New believers came to be, and many have since gone on to start new ministries. Gods blessing was upon us. Now I can compare Stryper to the servant who was given the one talent and buried it."

Tim also updated his website with some more MP3's of bands he has been a part of including a couple of Stormer songs and No Stranger songs. Furthermore you can find MP3's of the original Stryper intro song that Tim wrote for the Live In Japan video, songs by King James, Tourniquet and Irene Kelly. On Tim's website you can also join his mailing list that will keep you up to date about it all.

Speaking of MP3's... Facedown Records added some new MP3's on their MP3.com page. You can find songs from Sinai Beach, Seventh Star and Comeback Kid.

Detonation from Switzerland plans to record a new full length album next year. Title will be Forgiveness and it might be produced by Andreas Müller who produced the Cry It Out EP. Forgiveness will be made available through Rowe Productions.

Facedown Records signed a new band: Comeback Kid from Canada. Expect the debut full length out in February 2003.

Tomorrow MTV2 will debut the video for My Mistake. This new MxPx video will be aired on the M2 Rock show between six and seven PM EST.

Norma Jean is known of its intensive live shows. So they proved last week at a concert in Charlotte, USA. By the end of the show the singer had to be rushed to the hospital to get more than 20 stitches and 4 staples in his head after getting pounded with the bass.

Only a couple of weeks to go to the next Living Sacrifice album. To celebrate the release of Conceived In Fire, Solid State Records is organizing a contest in which you may win a Living Sacrifice prize package. This package will include a copy of each Living Sacrifice CD, a limited edition Solid State t-shirt, a Solid State zip-up hoodie. One lucky winner will be drawn on September 20th. To win you'll need to send an e-mail to info@solidstaterecords.com featuring the answers to these questions: Who was the original vocalist for Living Sacrifice? Which album did Bruce Fitzhugh begin singing on? What are the name of all 6 Living Sacrifice albums? What's your favorite album by Living Sacrifice?

Dead Poetic will be shooting their first video on September 13th and 14th with Darren Doane. It will be a video for the song August Winterman.

Blindside's new album Silence is doing well in the USA. This week the album debuted at #83 on the Billboard Top 200.

Test Of Faith will be entering the Girder Mode Studios this Saturday, August 31st, to start the recording on a new three song demo. Rex Carroll will be producing it. Test Of Faith plans to shop the demo to interested record labels.

The Rick Ray Band will share the stage once again with Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush on September 28th 2002.

Friday August 23rd 2002

The last few weeks the German band Brain:FAQ spent time in the studio recording their new album. You can still read a Studio Tagebuch on their website. The album is expected to be out in late October. Brain:FAQ will then go on tour with Sacrificium.

On September 10th Blindside will make their US television debut. They will perform their single Pitiful in Late Night With Conan. Blindside's new album Silence was released three days ago. They are currently on tour with Project 86.

The South African hardcore band Neshamah will enter the studio to record a four track record for 7 Inch Records. It's going to be a release in limited print and musically it will have a more metalcore sound.

The two songs from Relentless, Mortification's new album, has been downloaded a lot from MP3.com.au. The band is topping several charts this week including the #1 song of the week, the #1 album of the week and #1 artist of the week. From Mortification's MP3 page you can download two songs from each album.

Oil's singer Ron Rinehart will join the reunion of the legendary band Dark Angel.

Drummer Nick from Element 101 was recently hospitalized after a Seattle show. This concert was part of their West Coast tour with The Juliana Theory. Nick came off stage with viral meningitis. Element 101 made it to Portland but were unable to do the next show. Nick was taken under care of doctors at a hospital there.

On August 28th Spiritfall will play an open to industry showcase at SIR Studio in Los Angeles. Before that you can see the band on a live webcast on Saturday August 24th at 10:30 Pacific Daylight Time. You can see them by logging on to Imusicast.com

You can still help POD win the Viewers Choice Awards. Help them as they are currently on #3 with 16% of the votes. You can vote here.

On August 27th POD will release a limited edition of Satellite with three bonus tracks and a DVD.

Furthermore, POD will join Santana on his new album. POD wrote a song tentatively called America, for the album. Santana laid down his guitar tracks last week in New York City.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers have invited POD to perform with them in Mexico City on September 29th. At this show 45,000 are expected to attend.

Friday August 16th 2002

Tim Gaines, Robert Sweet and Oz Fox will be jamming together tomorrow at the Extreme Mardi Gras in Anaheim, California, USA. The three members from Stryper will be performing a few songs together after the Blissed show. Blissed is the new band featuring Robert Sweet on drums.

Mortification has released it's new album called Relentless. The disc has twelve songs. On the MP3 section of Rowe Productions you can hear Web Of Fire and Priests Of The Underground. Relentless features guitarist Jeff Lewis from Canada. Mortification also added guitarist Mick Jelinic to the band. Due to various reasons, Jeff Lewis won't return to Australia to be with the rest of the band. Thus Mortification will continue as a three piece as usual.

The Spirit That Guides Us are planning a new tour through Holland and Belgium this November. The band is also finishing up an EP for a possible release this fall.

Selfmindead are going to record new songs later this year. They hope to release a new album in early 2003.

Punk band Side Walk Slam hopes to go into the studio as well to record a split EP with The Buffys. Side Walk Slam will be recording two news songs plus a cover song. Expect a release date in November.

Acoustic Torment from Germany has released their new album: Schwarzwald.

The British rock band Bushbaby will release a single called Skinny on August 27th. You can download this song on MP3.com for seven days from that date on.

If you like, you can hear a new song from the upcomnig Threshold album. The song is called Falling Away.

Friday August 9th 2002

Drottnar has finished the recordings for promotional use. On their website you can find sound samples from the four song promo. The band also completed the line-up with the addition of bassist Håvar Wormdahl.

Grrr Records will be rereleasing the first album from Headnoise. This album is remixed and remastered.

Biogenesis has cancelled their spot on the Extreme Mardi Gras this year. They will be replaced by Fasedown and Deliverance. The festival takes place on August 17th.

The new album Critical Mass from Threshold will be in stores in Europe on September 2nd. USA fans have to wait one more day. Singer Mac: "Critical Mass is in my opinion the best album I have made with any band. I know that's what everyone says but in this case it's true. I was very shocked, in the positive sense of the word." The album has already been hailed as Threshold's "finest work to date" by Feedback (UK) and has earned the band the accolade of Album Of The Month in Germany's Rock Hard magazine for the second successive time.

Bride wants to release a new CD in early 2003. When the band returns from another Brazillian tour at the end of September, they will start writing their supposedly heaviest album to date.

Pitiful, the new single from Blindside, has gone into rotation with MTV2 in the USA. The full rotation starts on Monday August 12th. Help the band by requesting their video here.

Kekal are currently starting to write new material for their next full length album. Expect this effort to be out in early 2003.

The band Doctor D from Indonesia has finished their D-Liverance album. They are currently looking for labels to license and release it. Musically it's a thrash/black/groove/speed metal...

Shiloh has decided to release all songs from their Generated EP on MP3.com. Here's your change to download them all!

Crimson Thorn has finally released their new album. Title: Purification.

Spiritfall will webcast their show on Saturday August, 24th. The webcast will be live to the internet. Imusicast.com from Oakland, California, will produce the show. The Spiritfall show will be online at 10:30 PM PST.

Excision is putting the finishing touches to their new album Default. This album is full of mood oriented progressive, dark post rock.

12 Stones is doing well in the USA. Their record jumped to #3 on the Heatseekers charts this week, coming from #147, with sales over 8,100 pieces. The band recently shot a video for The Way I Feel with director Gregory Dark. 12 Stones is currently on tour with Creed.

The Alchemist CD with Glenn Hughes will be out in a week.

Friday August 2nd 2002

The new album from Project 86 will be out on September 24th. The title is Truthless Heroes. A tour with Blindside all over the USA is starting in a week.

Last week you could read in this column about guitarist Aaron Guerra leaving Tourniquet. However, there's a chance to see him live again soon as he will be performing with Junker Jorg at Extreme Mardi Gras on August 17th.

Tim Gaines has started his own newsletter that you can sign up for on his website. As you missed the first one, here are the vital parts of it: "Hello, Tim Gaines here from Stryper... Ok, that said let's move on to the news. 1. The last few recording projects I have been involved with are Sindizzy - He's Not Dead;  Irene Kelly - If You Were Here; Firelogg - two CD's - Tree and Petrified   2. I am currently working with Irene Kelly on her follow up CD. We hope to have it recorded and released on the Internet by early next year. 3. http://www.4electricbass.com     is my website and I am updating the site with some new photos and a sounds page which will feature MP3's of projects I have worked on as well as special interest Stryper related files. The first and most important MP3 to be added is the backward masking of Sing Along Song by Stryper. Check it out. 4. I will marry Irene Kelly, my fiance of 3 years on August 24th, 2002. We plan on moving to Nashville, TN within a year to pursue our career in music. Former Stryper keyboardist - Kenny Metcalf will be the Pastor presiding over the ceremony. Well, that's about it for now. It wasn't all that painful was it? God Bless, Tim Gaines".

If you wondered what happened to Off The Record, well, they are signed up with New School Records now. A new album was also recorded with Scott Silletta at the Orange Crush Studios. Expect eleven songs.

The new Mortification CD titled Relentless will be available from the Rowe Productions store within four weeks.

Early September Further Seems Forever will return to Florida to put the finishing touches to their new album. Tentative title of the new effort is How To Start A Fire. The release date will be in February 2003.

You can view the new MxPx video for their new track My Mistake (of the best of collection Ten Years And Running). The video was done by Mark Osborne who has worked with Dogwood and Project 86 before. You can check it out by going here.

On August 13th the new Norma Jean album comes out. Title: Bless The Martyr And Kiss The Child. The album was produced by Adam Dutkiewicz.