Friday July 27th 2007

Demon Hunter is back in the studio to record a new album. This will be their fourth and the follow-up to The Triptych. The disc will be released by Solid State Records by the end of the year. Aaron Sprinkle is producing the album.

As you may know Legend III:II from Saviour Machine is delayed due to medical circumstances. However, it's possible to listen to samples of this final Legend release here.

Crushead will release their first acoustic album in september. The record is called White Suit - The Unplugged Show. The recording took place at an unplugged concert in the Luna-Filmtheater in Metzingen, Germany. White Suit - The Unplugged Show contains fourteen tracks.

The Awakening released a new song on their myspace.com page. The track is called Vampyre Girl, is a new recording and is available for downloading for a limited time only.

Friday July 20th 2007

Divinefire will cease to exist. Right now they're preparing to record their final studio album aptly called Farewell. This is their way to say thank you for the fantastic support they got through the years. Divinefire was a studio project, invented by Christian Rivel who was assisted by Jani Stefanovic and Andreas Olsson. Rivel and Olsson will be concentrating on Narnia, while Stefanovic is involved in three other bands: Essence Of Sorrow, Miseration and Mehida.

Christian Rivel spent a few months in New York watching concerts and musical to get ideas for future albums. The Farewell album will have two special guests: Carl Johan Grimmark and Hubertus Liljegren.

Narnia will release a 10th anniversary best of album. It will be a double disc called Decade Of Confession and the release date is set for August. Narnia recorded some new material. The album will contain 27 songs to summary their first 10 years as Narnia. Their first album Awakening was released on July 18th 1997. Narnia will also appear on the Flevo Festival. This will be in co-operation with magician and Narnia fan Jimmy Carlsson. Carlsson is well-known in Sweden and has worked in Las Vegas as well.

Jani Stefanovic is involved with a new band on the Rivel Records' roster called Rein Xeed. Their album The Light is mixed by Stefanovic.

Stefanovic is also involved in the Finnish metal band Mehida who are now signed to Napalm Records. A debut album should come out this year.

You can listen to a new song from the upcoming album from As I Lay Dying. The track is called Within Destruction and comes from An Ocean Between Us. You can listen to it on the As I Lay Dying myspace page. Their album will be out on August 27th.

Impending Doom is about to release their debut called Nailed. Dead. Risen. It comes out on September 4th. You can listen to the title track on their myspace page.

War Of Ages are streaming five songs from their upcoming Fire From The Tomb album on their myspace.com page. This record will be launched on July 24th. Fire From The Tomb is a re-recorded debut album.

There's another MP3 available, containing the full July 13th show. Do you like to listen to Art For The Ears, the radio show, download the file here. The play list contains music from Aletheian, Dagon, Organic Matter, Opposition Of One, Immortal Souls, Rob Rock, Crimson Moonlight, Lo-Ruhamah, Grace.Will.Fall, Silver and Virgin Black.

Friday July 13th 2007

Rob Rock completed his new solo album Garden Of Chaos. The record should come out in August or September. Garden Of Chaos was produced by CJ Grimmark and co-produced by Roy Z. and Rob Rock.

Next week As I Lay Dying will launch a song from their upcoming album An Ocean Between Us. They already revealed the track listing: 1. Seperation 2. Nothing Left 3. An Ocean Between Us 4. Within Destruction 5. Forsaken 6. Comfort Betrays 7. I Never Wanted 8. Bury Us All 9. The Sound Of Truth 10. Departed 11. Wrath Upon Ourselves 12. This Is Who We Are.

Facedown Records will release the new album Wintereich from Immortal Souls in the USA. The release date is August 21st.

Next week the new MxPx record Secret Weapon will come out. Now you can listen to the entire album on their myspace.com page.

If you like hard music, don't miss the Thursday on the Flevo Festival. On Thursday August 16th you can see Disciple on the main stage. And a metal night will take place in the Music & More tent, featuring Crimson Moonlight, Taketh and Narnia.

A new festival on Dutch soil is Dead And Alive. This festival will be held in the last weekend of October. Already booked are Seventh Avenue, Docile, Make Up Your Mind and Zenith Of Abolition. More bands are expected.

Would you like to listen to an mp3 containing a recording of a full Art For The Ears radio show? Go here and download the file. The recorded show took place on July 6th and features music from   Random Eyes, Miseration, Fountain Of Tears, Opposition Of One, Divinefire, Mortification, Narnia, My Silent Wake, A Love Ends Suicide, Immortal Souls and The Rick Ray Band.

You can find more links to recorded shows on the myspace page.

Friday July 6th 2007

Mortification issued their Live Humanitarian CD and their self titled album. The live CD was recorded at the Imax Theatre in Perth, Australia. Speaking of Mortification live, it seems their European tour is coming together. The band should be visiting Germany, Scandinavia, The Netherlands and Switzerland in November.

The Britisch hard rock band Stairway will play the Meltdown Stage at the annual Greenbelt Festival, held at Cheltenham Racecourse in England. Their 30-minute set will happen on Monday August 27th at around 4:00 PM. It will be the first time for many years for Stairway to climb a Greenbelt stage.

Soundscape, the new band of Jason De Ron (Altera Enigma, inExordium), Jayson Sherlock (inExordium) and Kenny Cheong (Altera Enigma) have recorded their debut EP. You can now download a full track from their website and listen to samples on their myspace page.

The new album from P.O.D. is expected this Fall.

Friday June 29th 2007

Underoath will release a DVD in July. This DVD called 777 will feature all their music videos from Define The Great Line, as well as a documentary and live performances. This DVD comes out on July 17th.

The release of Legend III:II will be delayed. The final piece of the Legend cycle from Saviour Machine should have been released on July 7th. However, the band is not going to make it to this date due to the health condition of singer Eric Clayton.

Blindside released their The Black Rose EP on the internet. The price is USD 4.99 for eight songs. You can get it here.

Facedown Records released their ten year anniversary CD/DVD Something Worth Fighting For. This CD release is packed with 32 tracks. The DVD is over two hours long with fifteen music videos and twenty live tracks.

Friday June 22nd 2007

Blindside will release a new EP on the internet. The band had planned on recording a full album last February, when they had to leave their partnership with their label. However, they didn't want to quite writing in the middle of the process. Blindside went into the studio to record a few songs. The result is an EP, called The Black Rose. It includes five new songs plus three recordings from the Hultsfred Festival last summer. The Black Rose EP will be available for download on the band's website for $4.99, starting from June 27th.

You can listen to all the tracks from The Black Rose EP on myspace.

Speaking of myspace, you can now listen to This Is It, This Is It, a new song from As Cities Burn. The track was taken from their upcoming album Come Now Sleep which will be out on August 14th.

And MxPx is about to release their new album Secret Weapon on Tooth & Nail Records. You can listen to new material on their myspace site. Another new track will be added on Sunday night at 11:59 PM EST. Secret Weapon comes out on July 17th.

Friday June 15th 2007

The new Seventh Star album is out! The record is called The Undisputed Truth and was released by Facedown Records. The first pressing contains a limited edition DVD.

Dale Thompson of Bride finished writing lyrics for the new CD. His brother Troy is working on the music. In July they hope to put everything together. The album could be finished by the end of the year.

Darkwater will finally release their debut album on June 18th. Darkwater is formed with members of Harmony and they play progressive metal. The disc is called Calling The Earth To Witness. It comes out through Ulterium Records.

According to Tim Lambesis the new As I Lay Dying album An Ocean Between Us will be largely influenced by what he calls the deterioration of the so-called metalcore genre. The album was produced by Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and it will come out on August 21st. You can hear members from Destroy The Runner on the backing vocals. Some of the tracks on the new album are: Seperation, Within Destruction and the likely first single, Nothing Left.

The new As Cities Burn album Come Now Sleep will come out on August 14th. You can listen to a new song on myspace.com.

Friday June 8th 2007

The new Still Remains album The Serpent will be released on August 7th. This is the follow-up to Of Love And Lunacy (2005). The Serpent was produced by Steve Evetts (The Cure, Hatebreed) and mixed by Logan Mader. You can listen to new material on myspace.com.

The first full-length release from Synnove will be called The Whore And The Bride. Expect a twin-guitar black metal sound.

On Youtube you can now see the music video for Kekal's Isolated I.

Roxx Records will re-release World Requiem from Eternal Ryte. It will be a double CD including the entire World Requiem album, plus some extras: The demo Anthem (containing six tracks), the untitled demo (containing seven never before released songs) and some live recordings. This package will be released in a limited quantity of only 1,000 copies. The first 100 copies to be sold will also come with an exclusive DVD of some of the bands live performances.

Friday June 1st 2007

On June 19th the new album from August Burns Red will come out. This disc is called Messengers. On the same day, the new Project 86 album Rival Factions will see the light of day. You can now listen to the new Project 86 song Put Your Lips To The TV on myspace. Also August Burns Red can be found on myspace. Theseh albums will be released by Tooth & Nail Records/Solid State Records.

If you live in the UK, you can now vote to help Stairway get on the GuilFest. All you need to do is this: Go here, click on the vote button and then enter your details (in case you're not registered).

Last week you could read about the new band Barricades. Unfortunately, they've decided to finish the band on August 1st.