Friday July 25th 2008

The new Underoath album Lost In The Sound Of Separation will be out on September 2nd. There will be three different version of the CD. The Regular Edition includes the CD only. The Special Edition has the CD plus a forty minutes DVD featuring a making-of documentary. And the Deluxe Edition contains the CD plus the documentary DVD plus a hardcover book with 56 pages plus two vinyl records.

You can now listen to the new track Desperate Times, Desperate Measures on myspace.com.

Royal Anguish is still working on their new CD The Grand Deception. One of the guest musicians on the album is Meri Tadic, violin player for Eluveitie. She can be heard in the track Thy Pale Existence.

The Finnish rock band Deep Insight is working on their new album. So far three songs are recorded.

The Showdown put the new song Hephaestus - The Hammer Of The Gods on myspace. The new album Back Breaker comes out on August 19th.

The Resurrection Band released a box set with remastered songs. The box contains three CD's plus a DVD. These are the songs lists: CD1: Waves; Awaiting Your Reply; Broken Promises; Irish Garden; The Return; Afrikaans; Paint A Picture; Rainbows End; Concert For A Queen; Everytime It Rains; Colours; Amazing; American Dream; The Struggle; Alienated: The Chair; First Degree Apathy; The Crossing. CD 2: Military Man; Babylon; Area 312; No Alibi; White Noise; Attention; Crimes; Tears In The Rain; Love Comes Down; Zuid Afrikan; Shadows; Nervous World; Silence screams; Light/Light; Rain Dance; Rooster Crow; Altar Of Pain; Right On Time. CD 3: The House Is On Fire; Where Roses Grow; Lovespeak; Players; Lincolns Train; Land Of Stolen Breath; Somebody To Love; Reach Of Love; Summerthrow; Song And Dance; Surprised; Across These Fields; Souls For Hire; Gameroom; Can't Stop Lovin You; Quite Enough. DVD: Military Man, Afrikaans; Attention; Colours; Players; The Struggle; White Noise; Alienated; Paint A Picture; Love Comes Down; Lovespeak; In Your Arms; Shadows; Where Roses Grow; Light/Light; I Will Do My Last Singin'; plus commentary and concept videos, Glenn and Wendi talks from Live Concert.

Here's a preview of the DVD:

My Silent Wake put another song from the A Garland of Tears album on myspace.

Friday July 18th 2008

On September 26th the first Driver album Sons Of Thunder will come out.  Driver was started in the late eighties by singer Rob Rock and guitarist Roy Z. Earlier this year Driver reunited and Sons Of Thunder is the result. The track list of the album is: Titans Of Speed; I'm A Warrior; Fly Away; Heart's On Fire; Sons Of Thunder; Never Give Up; Change Of Heart; Dark World; Winds Of March; Only Love Can Save Me Now; Tears That I Cry; I Believe In Love.

The new My Silent Wake album will be called A Garland Of Tears. The new song Cruel Grey Skies can now be listened to on myspace. The song was recorded at the Kewsound studio in March. A Garland Of Tears will possibly be out around September.

Sever Your Ties' debut album Safety In The Sea is out now.

Next week the new War Of Ages album Arise And Conquer will come out. You can listen to two new songs on myspace.

You can also hear Tonight Is War on myspace. This is a track from Lost Art Of Heaping Coal, the new album from Wrench In The Works. This album comes out on August 19th.

The inExordium debut album will appear on September 1st. Expect eleven songs of crushing death metal. If you pre-order the album, you'll get a link to download the album as soon as the music is mastered, plus receive the real album on the day of its release. Look for these advantages and more on the inExordium website.

MyChildren MyBride put the video of Faithless on purevolume. You can also view it below, in lower quality:

You can listen to another two songs from Austrian Death Machine on myspace.

The Dutch ska/rock band Make Up Your Mind started preparing for their next album. This one should be out in April 2009.

You can download The Past Behind for free. This is the first cassette edition hardcore band The Lead did when they played the Cornerstone Festival in 1987. Download it now.

Living Sacrifice released two new songs: Death Machine and The Battle. The band is working on a new record that will hopefully come out in early 2009. You can listen to Death Machine on myspace.

Friday July 11th 2008

Mortification finally finished the editing of their Live Humanitarian DVD. The official release date is September 26th. It will be released by Nuclear Blast Records. The DVD will be in Region 0, so it can be played on all DVD-players. Mortification is also getting ready for recording their fourteenth album. This will happen in March 2009.

The German death metal band Sacrificium has finished writing the music of ten songs. They'll start recording four songs for a demo to go shopping for a label.

The Showdown put the song Achilles The Backbreaker on myspace. This is one of the tracks of their new album Back Breaker that will appear on August 19th through Solid State Records.

Bride's new CD has been put on hold. Dale Thompsons wife Sharon will undergo twelve weeks of chemotherapy, starting July 18th. Her father went into hospital with heart failure. And his own father suffered a heart attack a week ago. He underwent triple bypass surgery to save his life. Bride will start working on the CD again until everyone is healthy.

InExordium will start selling pre-orders of their debut album. InExordium is the band that rose from the ashes of Paramaecium. The debut will contain heavy and agressive death metal.

The German group World To Ashes is preparing the recordings of their debut album.

And death metal band Sympathy from Canada finally finished their Anagogic Tyranny album. The artwork is done by Jeff Arwadi (Kekal). On myspace you can listen to a new version of Enslaved By Depravity.

The line-up for the first Brainstorm Festival is finished. Newly added is Miseration, among others. Two bands will record a DVD at the fest: Thy Majestie and Morphia.

Friday July 4th 2008

Becoming The Archetype will soon enter the studio to record their third album. They will do this with a new line-up. Alex stepped down from the band to focus on his other band Aletheian. He is replaced by Jon Star, the original guitarist and primary songwriter on the band's debut album Terminate Damnation. The new songs Becoming The Archetype writes with Jon Star are the heaviest they've written to date.

Stryper released a new single on i-tunes. It's the Boston cover Peace Of Mind. Interestingly, the single also features Boston guitarist Tom Scholz. Stryper singer Michael Sweet is currently on tour with Boston. You can also listen to the track on myspace.

Kekal is giving away their album 1000 Thoughts Of Violence (2003). It will be available for download till August 31st 2008. Go to the site of their record company Open Grave Records.

Family Force 5's full-length album Dance Or Die will be out on August 19th. You can watch a trailer on YouTube now and check out music on myspace.

Herbie Langhans, singer for Seventh Avenue, was taken into hospital a week ago. He had the symptoms of a heart attack. The ECG didn't look good either. But now it seems it wasn't a heart attack but an inflamation of the heart muscle.

The German hardcore band Preacher has four tracks from their next album on myspace. Those four come from the Mundtot album that will be at the end of the month. It will contain fifteen tracks.

Miseration has inked a deal with Lifeforce Records. This label will re-release the debut album Your Demons, Their Angels this fall. The release date for Europe is September 15th, in the US you can look forward to the release on October 28th.

Friday June 27th 2008

The British hard rock/metal band Stairway has begun recording new songs. These will be for a new album. Interestingly, the new front cover was done by none other than Rodney Matthews. He provided the artwork for the debut CD No Rest: No Mercy back in 1993. Rodney Matthews also worked for lots of other metal bands, including Veni Domine, Seventh Angel and Detritus.

Krig has a new album called Stop The Manipulation. The Brazilian death metal band also made a nice video for the song Bastard Boss.

Lost In The Sound of Separation, Underoath's follow-up to 2006's Define The Great Line, will be available in stores and online September 2nd!

Norma Jean's new album, The Anti Mother will be out on August 5th. You can check out three new songs on myspace. Norma Jean have posted a video of them working with Deftone's Chino Moreno in the studio. Check out the video over at their YouTube page.

Solid State Records signed The Showdown. Their new album Back Breaker will come out on August 19th.

Kutless released their new album To Know That You're Alive.

The obscure Dutch black metal group Duister Maanlicht recorded a new track and put it on myspace. The song is called Als Vlammen Haar Verzwelgen and it's one of the tracks on the next album Hoerenzonen En Heksendochters.

There He Is... Skyrider, is another Dutch band. They play emocore. This band has called it quits.

And Dedicated, a Dutch emocore band, recorded another song that you can hear on myspace.

Hardcore band War Of Ages will have a new album out on July 22nd. It's called Arise And Conquer. You can hear the song Through The Flames on myspace.

Last week you could read in this column that Harmony will release the End Of My Road EP through Ulterium Records. This will happen on August 11th. The EP will contain three songs from their upcoming album Chapter II: Aftermath, plus two exclusive tracks. You can listen to the title track End Of My Road on myspace.

Alice Cooper is about to release his new record Along Came A Spider. You can listen to the track Vengeance Is Mine on myspace.

The Brainstorm Festival announced three more bands that will play the first edition: Mena Brinno, World To Ashes and Picture Of The Moon.

Friday June 20th 2008

Ulterium Records have signed the melodic metal band Harmony. This Swedish band debuted in 2003 with Dreaming Awake on Massacre Records. Now the band is working on two new releases. The first is an EP called End Of My Road. This disc will be followed by a full album called Chapter II: Aftermath. Expect the album in the fall. The album is mixed by Pelle Saether.

The Resurrection Band is releasing a Music To Raise The Dead Box Set. This box set comes out this summer and is the first career-spanning Rez collection album. It includes three CD's with 52 digitally re-mastered songs, an 80-page full-color booklet detailing the history of the band with scores of photos. And it will also contain a DVD with over an hour of unreleased live concert footage.

Bombworks Records will release The Patriot, the new Holy Blood album, on July 1st. According to the label, The Patriot is easily the best album from the band. Expect folk metal from Ukranian origine.

The Weakening has now three songs on their myspace profile. They were taken from the latest demo.

The Norwegian punk 'n roll band Warlight is contributing to a One Bad Pig Tribute CD. The song Warlight is recording is I Scream Sunday. Warlight is one of the new bands on the Whirlwind Records roster. Check out this video of the song Death To Babylon:

Wonder how InExordium is doing, recording their debut album? View this video and more on vimeo.com:

Friday June 13th 2008

The new Deuteronomium album From The Midst Of The Battle will be released August 13th on Bullroser Records. The band now put the song 3:16 on their myspace profile.

Austrian Death Machine just released the first single off their debut Total Brutal. The track If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It features the voice of Ahhnold as Dutch from the movie Predator screaming back and forth with the Predator himself! Click here to check it out.

Inhale/Exhale released a new album called I Swear.

Also The Famine released a new album called The Raven And The Reaping. You can listen to the track Killing For Sport on myspace.

August Burns Red just shot a new music video for their song Back Burner.

Facedown Records signed Call To Preserve. This hardcore band released their debut album Unsinkable on the imprint Strike First Records and will now move on to Facedown Records. For this label Call To Preserve will be recording the new album From Isolation in July. Expect the album out in Fall 2008. You can listen to pre-production tracks on myspace.

The Light, the debut album from power metal band ReinXeed will be out on June 20th. The band is also working on a second album coming later this year. This second effort will be called Higher.

Friday June 6th 2008

Once Dead, the band formed by former members of Vengeance Rising, has finished their album Visions Of Hell. The album is now on its way to their label Open Grave Records. A release date is not set, yet.

The German/Finnish initiative Thy Bleeding Skies is working on new material for their next album. They hope to release it next year. So far six new song ideas are being arranged.

Mortification is recording a new Mortification album in April 2009, followed by a 20th Anniversary album. The idea is to release the new Mort album mid 2009 and the 20th Anniversary album in 2010. The 20th Anniversary album will be quite special; Mortification plans to re-record eight classic Mortification songs with bigger, brighter production and tons of new guitar solos. The songs will be vocally true to the original recordings. The album will also include six never before released live tracks, three from 2007 and three from 1990. Mortification is also working on their Live Humanitarian DVD. Due to illness of the main editor, the project is delayed.

Speaking of illness, Mortification singer/bassist Steve Rowe was healed from cancer ten years ago. But he's still struggling with his health. As the costs are rising for him and his family, he's looking for financial support.

Also the wife of Bride singer Dale Thompson, Sharon, struggles with her health. She was diagnosed cancer.  Right now she has been pronounced cancer free, but she will stil have to meet with doctors to discuss chemotherapy and reconstruction surgery. And for the next five years she will have to take a drug called Tamoxifen. Although the times are difficult for the Thompson family, Bride is still working on their new album. They hope to enter the studio this summer.

The US metal band Theocracy signed with Ulterium Records from Sweden. This label will release their second album, Mirror Of Souls, in early fall 2008.

This summer a new Alice Cooper album will see the light of day. It's called Along Came A Spider.