Friday March 26th 2010

Escape Music announced they will release the new Mass album Sea Of Black in Europe on April 23rd. Sea Of Black is the follow-up to Crack Of Dawn. The album was produced by Martin Kronlund. The tracks on the album are: Falling From Grace, All The Years Gone, The Right Side, Coming Home, Thru The Rain, All That I Needed, More Than A Friend, Justify, Ashes To Ashes, Till We Meet Again, Captain Jack (Instrumental), Sea Of Black.

Flyleaf premiered their new video. It's for the song Missing:

The Polish band Illuminandi uploaded two pre-mix samples of songs from their next album. The songs are W Drodze (On The Way) and Poczekalnia (The Waiting Room). The album will be mixed on Monday.

The Letter Black put a new track on myspace. It's called Fire With Fire and it comes from the full length album Hanging On By A Thread, out on May 4th.

Sent By Ravens put a new song on myspace. New Fire is a track from the upcoming album Our Graceful Words. The record appears on April 20th.

War Of Ages put another new song on myspace. The track is called Collapse and comes from their upcoming album Eternal (out on April 13th).

Last December the rock 'n roll band John Coffey from Utrecht, The Netherlands, performed at a gas station in the middle of the night as part of 3FM's Serious Request 2009. Footage from this performance was used to create a video for the song Vehicle. The song is from the debut album Vanity that was released by Sally Forth Records in October.

Through Solace are working on a split CD with Carry The Torch, a melodic hardcore band from California with former It Prevails member Therron Francis. After the split Through Solace will start working on another release.

Slechtvalk has a new logo. The old logo was designed ten years ago by Nik Önder. Now the band felt it was time to get a logo that would fit their current musical style better and would be more readable. The new logo was designed by Raymond Swanland.

Strike First Records signed As Hell Retreats. This band was started in 2005 and released a couple of demos over the years. In 2010 they will release their first full length album. According to the label As Hell Retreats showcases their death metal roots with thrash and hardcore. The album Revival will be available on May 25th.

Eowyn is writing new songs and she even has the title for a next album.

Altera Enigma is also active. Though founding member Jeff Arwadi left the group, Altera Enigma will continue. There are new songs in various states of completion, from just started to almost finished. The band wants to record the new material in order to release it sometime this year.

The third edition of the Brainstorm Festival takes place on November 5th & 6th in Club Gigant, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. Among the booked bands are In Grief and The Spirit That Guides Us.

Friday March 19th 2010

The new As I Lay Dying album The Powerless Rise will have cover artwork made by the same artist who did the previous three albums, Jacob Bannon.

The complete track listing for the record is: Beyond Our Suffering, Anodyne Sea, Without Conclusion, Parallels, The Plague, Anger and Apathy, Condemned, Upside Down Kingdom, Vacancy, The Only Constant Is Change, The Blinding Of False Light. The Powerless Rise was produced by Adam D. and mixed by Colin Richardson. It comes out in early May.

The German power metal band Sinbreed have released their video for the track Dust To Dust. The track comes from their debut album When Worlds Collide which will be released in Japan on March 24th, in Europe on March 26th and in North America on April 6th. Check out the video:

Slechtvalk will release their new record A Forlorn Throne on May 31st. The official release show will be on May 28th in De Kelder, Amersfoort, Holland. Support acts are Elexorien and Myrkvar. Slechtvalk recorded their album in Sweden with Johan Örnborg at Studio Mega. Later the album was mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street. The cover artwork was designed by Raymond Swanland, who also designed a new band logo. Erik Grawsiö from Manegarm did guest vocals on three songs.

Hmmagazine.com reports that Blindside recorded their new album at Bay 7 in Los Angeles with Howard Benson and Mike Plotnikoff.

A Plea For Purging is in the Foundation Studios to record their third full length album entitled The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell. This CD should come out on July 6th.

Rock band Sent By Ravens will release their Tooth & Nail Records' debut Our Graceful Words on April 20th. On March 27th they will be shooting a video in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Friday March 12th 2010

War Of Ages will release a new CD on April 13th. The record is called Eternal. There will be a vinyl pressing as well, limited to 500 copies. All who pre-order the album through Facedown Records will be entered to win a test pressing of the vinyl (only five are made) and a $ 200 Facedown Records shopping spree! You can hear the brand new song Desire on the myspace.com page. Tim Lambesis from As I Lay Dying can be heard singing in the song.

Another Facedown Records band, For Today, premiered the new video for Saul Of Tarsus (The Messenger) on myspace.com. The video was filmed at the Stronghold in Chino, CA, USA, about a month ago:

Facedown Records also launched their Spring 2010 Digital sampler CD. It features 13 tracks from 13 of their bands and includes new and unreleased songs from War Of Ages, A Hope For Home, Wrench In The Works and Letter To The Exiles.  Download it for free here and enter the code "FACEDOWN". Your e-mail address will be used for the Facedown Records mailing list only.

Further releases coming up from Facedown Records are: Decrease/Increase from Wrench In The Works (March 16th), Realis from A Hope From Home (March 30th), The Shadow Line from Letter To The Exiles (April 13th; a Strike First Records release actually). Coming later this year are albums from A Plea For Purging, My Epic, Call To Preserve, Impending Doom, In The Midst Of Lions, For Today and more!

Underoath is taking part in the Abbey Road Live series. A live recording was made  of their show at the Koko in London last night. It is available for purchasing at http://underoath.sandbag.uk.com and at all dates on their upcoming UK/European tour.

Burial Earth placed a video on the internet of the recording of the guitar parts for their three song promo:

Anthem Alone has another instrumental song on their myspace.com profile. The track is called These Dark Stables.

Demon Hunter released their new album The World Is A Thorn. Check out this video with Ryan Clark talking about the recording of the vocals:

Friday next week, March 19th, the Dutch edition of the annual Fear Dark Festival takes place in De Kelder, Eemlaan 1, Amersfoort, Holland. The bands booked are: Seventh Angel, Random Eyes, Blooddrift and Burial Earth (formerly known as Docile). Tickets are 14 euro and the doors open at 19:00.

A similar festival, though without Burial Earth, will take place in De Rots, Antwerpen, Belgium on March 22nd. Furthermore, there's a Fear Dark Festival in Germany on March 20th and in Switzerland on March 21st with Seventh Angel and Random Eyes headlining.

Friday March 5th 2010

For those who waited, here's the new video from Fireflight. It's for the song Desperate from the new album For Those Who Wait:

The Norwegian black metal band Antestor is awakening from a three year hibernation. Singer Ronny and guitarist Lars have decided to continue the band. They have new band members, including bassist Thor Georg Buer who also plays in Grave Declaration.

Demon Hunter put the new song Just Breathe on myspace. They also premiered the video for Collapsing:

Through Solace is thinking of the follow-up to their debut album The World On Standby. The possibilities are a split-album with an American band or an EP.

Soundmass signed Coram Deo from the Ukraine for the release of the Death Is Dead EP. This group was formed in 2003. The new EP follows their debut album Evangelion (2007). Expect melodic thrash/death metal influenced by Arch Enemy, Carcass, Holy Moses and Dark Tranquility. Death Is Dead comes out in mid 2010.

Soundmass will also release the fourth album from Grave Forsaken called Fight To The Death.

Mortification opened their own Youtube.com page. At the moment you can view three high quality live videos, including I'm Not Your Commodity:

The Dutch metal label Dark Balance signed Exhale. Dark balance will release the band's second album called Blind on CD as well as on vinyl. The record comes out in April and will have fifteen grindcore/death metal songs.

Tear The World Down, the debut album from We Are The Fallen, will appear on May 11th.

Black metal act Wintersoul signed with Nokternal Hemizphear Records.

After years of silence the Peacedog Festival will be happening again. The date for the festival is July 3rd. Location: De Kei, Peppelensteeg, Ede, Holland. Among the booked bands are MeWithoutYou, The Spirit That Guides Us, John Coffey and more.

Friday February 26th 2010

There's a lot of big news from the Tourniquet camp. First of all, drummer Ted Kirkpatrick is working on his first solo album called Ode To A Roadkill. The title track refers to the millions of animals who die each year on roadways. The album will have seven songs that fill over forty minutes. Expect slow stoner music with the Ted Kirkpatrick touch. All 'vocals' on the album are unaltered animal calls. The album will be available as a digipak CD and as an online download. Release date: March 10th.

Ted Kirkpatrick is also recording another solo album. This release is called in The Shadow Of The Masters. This album will have very technical drumming played over classical music. Ted Kirkpatrick did a few of these songs on past Tourniquet albums, now he will fill a whole album with them. The CD will feature music by Mozart, Chopin, Rissini, Beethoven and more. This album comes out on March 30th.

And the band Tourniquet will be recording a brand new album as well. The recording will take place in July or Augustus. The band will be working with producer Neil Kernon, who previously worked with Queensryche, Judas Priest, Cannibal Corpse, Nevermore and Kansas. This new Tourniquet album should come out fall 2010.

The Swedish melodic metal band Audiovision will release their second album Focus in Europe and North America on April 23rd through Ulterium Records. The album was produced and mixed by Erik Mårtensson and mastered by Micke Lind. Focus contains melodic metal in the vein of Whitesnake, Dio, Rainbow, Europe, Gotthard and Stryper. This is the track listing: Invitation, Keep The Fire Burning, We Are Not Alone, The Son Will Come, You Are The Reason, Fruit Of Love, We Will Go, I Will Belong To You, The Way, The Gate, Focus.

The release party for Focus will be held in The Cave Rock Club, Sundbyberg, Sweden on April 24th, together with the bands House Of Shakira and Mercury Fang.

Demon Hunter has a new song on their myspace.com page. It's called Driving Nails and it comes from their upcoming album The World Is A Thorn. They also put their album trailer on youtube, featuring music from the title track:

Haste The Day will re-release the Dreamer album with two extra bonus acoustic songs. The re-release is a digital release and it comes out on March 2nd. Haste The Day is currently recording their new album.

Norma Jean is in the Dark Studios with producer Jeremy Griffith to record their fifth studio album.

When Worlds Collide, the debut album from the German power metal band Sinbreed will come out in Japan on March 24th. The album will be released by King Records, including the bonus track Ride On.

Friday February 19th 2010

Mortification warns their fans for illegal copies of their latest studio album The Evil Addiction Destroying Machine. It appears someone made an illegal version in the jewel case format, which is now sold via Ebay and other channels. The official release is in the digipak format.

Sea Of Black is the title for the next Mass album that Escape Music will release this Spring/Summer.

Demon Hunter has a video contest . To enter, you'll have to record a video of yourself singing karaoke to the song This Is The Line. Use this video to get the music and the lyrics:

The winner will receive the entire Demon Hunter catalogue and other goodies. The contest ends March 5th. This Is The Line is a song on the upcoming album The World Is A Thorn, out on March 9th.

Stryper will start the pre-production of their next album at the end of February. The actual recordings start in the second week of March, while the album should be completed by early May. The album will not be a usual Stryper album as they will record cover songs from bands that influenced them as they grew up. Singer Michael Sweet: 'For those of you who may think that we're walking away from our faith - you're wrong. We've never been more serious about our faith at any point in our lives. It is however important to enjoy what you do and lighten up from time to time. That's what we plan to do. This will be a fun record to make and we hope that this comes through, as well as it is a chance to showcase the abilities that we've been blessed with.'

Paramore's new music video for the ballad The Only Exception is now available on YouTube :

Krig also released the official video for the song Dilacerated from the album Narcissistic Mechanism:

Spoken is working on a new album. There's no album title announced yet.