Friday November 24th 2000

As you perhaps know the Mexican death metal band Lament has now two new guitarist. They are now writing the new music for the next album. Hopefully they will be recorded next year. Lament is also looking for opportunities to do some shows in the US next year and possibly Cornerstone. The band is also talking with Steve Rowe to be on Rowe Productions again but they are looking for another deal with a secular label too. The new music of Lament is very melodic. It's faster and has a lot of harmonies and many guitar sounds.

Hangnail will begin recording the follow-up to their self-titled debut album in December at the Blasting Room with Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton.

The Dutch symphonic rockband After All will begin recording their first CD in 2001. The probable release-date will be around May.

On July 25th the second edition of the Peacedog Festival will be held. There will be fifteen bands on two stages. This will take place in Ede, Holland.

On Wednesday, POD and crew charted the Warner jet to Los Angeles after their concert in Orlando, Florida. In discussions with The Tonight Show of Jay Leno, P.O.D. wanted to have pyro and some Warriors on stage with them, but the show seemed a bit hesitant about this. After discussions with P.O.D.'s    Management team, the Leno folks were kind enough to accommodate.  Never before in the history of the show had they done something like this! The end result was a history making show for P.O.D. and for The Tonight Show.  Massive pyro and their Warriors wrecking the place, screaming "Ready to rock!"READY TO ROCK! P.O.D. flew back to continue the Kings Of The Game tour. With the release of  P.O.D.'s new single, School Of Hard Knocks and the success of the KOTG Tour, P.O.D. have re-entered the Billboard Top 200. Two weeks ago, they landed
on the #200 spot and this week they rose to #176. The guys in POD are still looking for massive support to get their latest video School Of Hard Knocks to #1 on MTV's Total Request Live. If you want to help get their video on #1, go here, click Play My Song and vote for School Of Hard Knocks!

Gryp's new CD is done!  You can hear clips from the new CD on their site. This CD was done independently by Gryp. There is no release date yet because they are now in communications and negotiations for what they call "an extreme blessing".

There's some changes coming up at Little Rose Productions in the near future.
Starting from the beginning of December, the webstore and all other mail order activities will be handled by The Christian Underground, a Finnish association.  Little Rose has sold their mail order service to them. From the first of December you can order CD's through The Christian Underground or several mail-orders worldwide. After this change Little Rose will only concentrate on releasing music. Labelboss Manu Lehtinen have also got some help for running the label in the person of Jaakko Leinonen. The new
Immortal Souls EP The Cleansing can be ordered from The Christian
Underground and so will be all the upcoming Little Rose-releases in the future.

The new Hallowed EP End Of  The Age will be out in December, at least if the economical situation doesn't cause too big problems.

The band Feast Eternal is looking for new musicians. They are mainly looking for a second guitarist, but a new bassist is also a wish.

The new Dust Eater Dogs album won't be released before march-April 2001, due to different projects they're working. Then they'll have a tour with Jacks Of All Trades and Jumpin' China. The Dogs also opened their new website.

At the end of November all members of Glorybox will come together in Denmark. Then they will record some new songs.

The new CD of Antithesis should be done and ready for release in February  2001 if all goes well.

The Spirit That Guides Us is currently finishing their new songs. They will hit the studio in late February. Expect ten songs that will be brought out on their debut in the Summer of 2001. The band also has desktop which you can download from their site. The Spirit That Guides Us is also planning to do some short of (European) tour starting at the end of June 2001. Please contact them if you have the ultimate reason to see them live in your area. A free spirit ‘fan’ package will be for the most original reason.

Ruben has left The Lionheart Brothers. He felt that it was time to move on. There are new adventures waiting for him. Still The Lionheart Brothers will record a new song for the new sampler of Sally Forth Records. Emil Nikolaisen of Royal will help them out during the writing and recording of the song.

Friday November 17th 2000

There's no news on a release date for the new Paramaecium album. In fact, it's unlikely to be out this year. According to Andrew Tompkins it will be worth the wait. Currently he's very busy in his spare time as a fiction writer. You may have read his Within The Ancient Forest novel that he released early 1996 along with the album. Recently Andrew sold his first short story to Orb Magazine. He will also set up a website for his writing ventures in the near future.

Here's some old news from Saviour Machine that I came across this week: The Legend III CD of Saviour Machine was planned for a tentative release in December. However this will not be the case. The production schedule for this album has been delayed. It was the band's intention to have the project completed by the end of September in order to have it released in December but this showed to be impossible. The album will be completed and a definitive release date will be announced.

Overcome is coming to its end. In mid December the band will be doing their last dates. The guys are now active in the band Indwelling.

The band Dynasty are booking a studio for the recording of their new EP called Following The Sign which will be recorded in December. Tentative release is in January. They also have plans to tour through Brazil in 2001. The band has two new members: Gustavo Colen on guitars and Rafael Sales on drums. After recording the three song EP they plan to record their full-length debut.

Born Blind have just filled in the spots for a second guitarist and a new bassist and now they are looking for a drummer!

Zao recently finished up in the studio and are playing new songs live.  Zao's new record should be hitting stores in February or March 2001.

Shorthanded finally has a new bassist.  His name is Chris Camp.  Look for him as he plays live with the band on their upcoming shows in Washington, USA and Vancouver, Canada.

Some old news from the Betrayal and Martyr camp that I came across while surfing the internet: They have announced a compilation album of remastered demo songs featuring the history and music of Martyr & Betrayal combined.
This release will not only be the best of songs heard on previously released recordings. It will also feature a three song addition from a never before heard Martyr demo that was never released, but recorded just months before Betrayal was formed. These songs were different versions of songs that went on to be recorded by Betrayal on future albums, with the exception of the blistering When Darkness Reigns in a rare and intriguing format. This will be a limited edition release with a sub-limited edition special autograph version. All of which will be beautifully packaged and released on CD. A release date is not scheduled, but a title of  The Passing Of  Time has been chosen.

Other Betrayal news: Marcus Colon has announced to be thinking of the fourth Betrayal album entitled In Remembrance Of Me. There's no production schedule yet, nor a release date.

Michael Bloodgood will be re-releasing Bloodgood's original demo, Metal Missionaries sometime next year. The band made this tape in the Summer of 1985 and it was this tape Darrell Mansfield used to get them signed to Frontline Records. It contains the original versions of  Anguish And Pain, Accept The Lamb, Awake!, and Battle Of The Flesh. The re-release will also include some other goodies like interviews, and other unreleased material.

The Brainwave Festival announced the next band for the line-up of this festival: Dilemma. Among the other bands at the festival are The Blamed, Jacks Of All Trades and Fire Fly. Presale starts on December 4th at a price of fl 25,00. At the door tickets will be fl 30,00

The band Morphia finally has a new singer. His name is Jasper Pieterson. In January this symphonic doommetal band will start gigging again. They have also started working on the songs for a second album.

The guys from the Swedish Bob Fest announced the first bands to next year's line-up: Extol, Veni Domine, Vaakevandring and Pantokrator. In a few weeks they hope to release the complete bandlist which will include some more international bands.

King's X have have been voted number 86 on VH1’s Top 100 Hard Rock bands of all time. Congratulations!

Jacob's Dream will begin recording their second album this month. The title of the record is Third Way.

Friday November 10th 2000

The new Bride, Fist Full Of Bees is coming. The release date will be in January 2001. The line up for the band is Dale Thompson (vocals), Troy Thompson (guitar), Lawrence Bishop (bass) and Michael Loy (drums).

Krush is in pre-production on their new CD project. There may be a release in May 2001.

Here's some old news: What ever happened to that band Stir? Well, after a year long hiatus filled with legal battles and some soul searching, the band has re-emerged with a new name, a new line-up, new music, a new website, and a fresh perspective on their music. The new name is Blinkster.You can give them your feedback on their first new song Shrouded, posted on MP3.com. You can also visit the new website: Blinkster

News from Chili: Despite rumors, the band Leftaro still continues.

There's some info about the second Stryper Expo available. This event will be held at the Felix Event Center at the Azusa University in Azusa, California on May 18th and 19th 2001. Entrance if $35 per person. Early bird discount $ 30 per person. The Expo will feature a Stryper Jam session with all the original members of Stryper, autograph and Q & A sessions, plus gigs of SinDizzy, Irene Kelly and East West. There will also be booths where you can get merchandise and memorabilia.

Chevelle is currently in pre-production for the next album. More details will be forthcoming.

The guys in POD are looking for massive suppor to get their latest video School Of Hard Knoncks to #1 on MTV's Total Request Live. If you want to help get their video on #1, go here, click Play My Song and vote for School Of Hard Knocks!

Friday November 3rd 2000

The third Narnia album Desert Land is completed. There will be nine songs on it, including: Inner Sanctum, The With And The Lion, Angels Are Crying and Misty Morning (instrumental). Total running time will be around at 48 minutes. Release in Europe through Nuclear Blast on February 12th 2001. If you want to book Narnia for a concert during Desert Tour 2001 please contact: DOT Music.

This week I received a confirmation from Jimmy P. Brown II about the return of Deliverance. Assimilation is the title of Deliverance's latest release. One of the guests on it will be Allan Aguirre (Scaterd Few & Spy Glass Blüe). The production on the new release will start in February 2001. Brown will be working once again with bass player Manny Morales (Learn, River Disturbance and Camelot in Smithereens),  joined by Fearful Symmetry keyboardist, David Gilbreath and members of the cyber funk group Sanctified Sister. “We’ll see what the future holds” says long time front man and key song writer, Jimmy Brown. “After being away for so long you start to wonder if people even remember you, but it seems like the 2 Deliverance web sites that are still operating are getting hit more and more these days. People haven’t forgotten it seems, just more interested. It’s time for me to grab the old battle ax (guitar) and rock hard again.” Does this mean this new record is going to be heavy??? Jimmy says, "You’d better believe it.”What does this mean for Fearful Symmetry? “Nothing, Symmetry will go on, but I feel at this time this is what YHWH (God) wants me to do at this time. But the Symmetry will march on.”

Other Deliverance news: Late November the band will release Back In The Day - The First Four Years. This compilation will feature demo stuff, unreleased material, live songs, all collected and narrated by Jimmy P. Brown II himself. The album will be out through Magdalene.

Threshold are now back at Thin Ice Studio in Surrey, UK, to record to follow-up of their last studio album Clone. The album will be called Hypothetical. Some of the tracks will be Light And Space, Turn On Tune In, Sheltering Sky and Narcissus. Richard West (keyboardist) is co-producing the album along with Karl Groom (guitarist). The recording should be finished by December. The band's also finalizing their contract with Inside Out.

Whitecross is alive nowadays, as some of you may have found out. The new site will be opened soon, so it says.

Born Blind finally introduced two members to its line-up: Second guitarist Billy Buster and bassist Matt Thompson.

Training For Utopia have decided to call it a day. All is not lost, Don and
Ryan are currently working on new material that should be seeing the light of day early next year.

The Orange County Supertones have taken the best elements of Chase The Sun and combined them with the edge of ...Strike Back for their just released album Loud And Clear. Musically, the songs are some of the strongest and
catchiest the band has written, so says their label BEC Recordings. 

You might wonder how Plankeye is doing: The band is currently putting the
finishing touches on their next album, which is tentatively titled, Strange Exchanges.    Luis Garcia: "Our mission with this album is the same as it
was with our last album, Relocation. That is to write lyrics and music to the
best of our ability. In this, Eric Balmer and I strove to challenge ourselves in every way. We chose to embrace our circumstances and do everything differently. From working with a new engineer and trying new techniques, to letting our new drummer Louie Ruiz and guitarist Kevin Pousch have an active voice in the direction of the songs." Eric Blamer states, "What's important is that music has the ability to touch the soul in ways that no other art form can.  I want our music to 'penetrate bone and marrow' in the way that a lot of music does for me."  The songs also feature the additional tonal touches of Eric's wife, Beth,on keyboards and violin.  As for the music itself, the new songs contain an energetic edge that should excite Plankeye fans both old and new, without sacrificing the growth the band has experienced. The album will be self-produces with engineering help of Chris Colbert. Other news from the Plankeye camp: They will have the song Away In A Manger on a Christmas compilation along with tracks of Less Than Jake, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Goldfinger and Spinal Tap.

Solid State Records' Living Sacrifice will join the Kings Of The Game Tour in December featuring platinum selling Atlantic Records' artist POD, Project 86 and Dogwood. In addition to touring in December with P.O.D. the band
will be playing spot headline dates at the end of December and then going
out again for all of January and February with Century Media recording
artists Nevermore.

POD also started their Total Request Live to support their new video School Of Hard Knocks on MTV. If you want to help get their video on #1, go here, click Play My Song and vote for School Of Hard Knocks!

Three of The Deadlines have decided to call it quits. Sam, Brent (The Creature) and Tom have quit the band and moved on to start a new band. Their new project is called The Red Sect.  Contrary to what the rumors say, The Deadlines are not breaking up. Jerry and Shaun Coffin are taking some time off to write the next album and to look into getting some new members.The last show with the current line-up will be on November 11th in Portland, OR, US, at the Meow Meow. The band will be playing with Epitaph recording artists The (International) Noise Conspiracy from Sweden.

Bob Fest 2001 will take place in Linköping, Sweden, 23-25 March next year.
It's the third year this festival will be held. Bobfest concentrates on heavy music with a focus on metal, as may be guessed by the subtitle A Metal Odyssey.

Craig's Brother's new CD Lost At Sea will be coming out early next year.

The Huntingtons will be returning to the studio at the beginning of 2001 to record their sixth album for Tooth & Nail Records. In March Mikey (vocals, bass) and Jonny  (guitar) are going back to Europe with Marky Ramone (drums) for 4 weeks.  They'll be performing Huntingtons, Intruders and Ramones songs.

Friday October 27th 2000

POD's highly anticipated new video, School Of Hard Knocks will world premier on MTV this sunday October 29th. The band plans on pushing the video to the # 1 spot of Total Request Live and look forward to your support.

Soapbox is planning to return to Holland again. Details not yet known.

Soapbox' record company, Sally Forth Records, reports that they have MP3's of all their artists on their site now.

Excision's debut full-length album Visi is ready. It has ten tracks including an exclusive remix one track done by FXAJ. The musical direction is taking influences and inspirations from gothic, dark dancewave, industrial, and heavy metal. This album will be released on cassette format in early December 2000.

Now the latest news from Kekal. The CD version of the band's second full-length album Embrace The Dead is released. It's released by a US label called Fleshwalker Records. The band is also preparing the tracks which will be used for their next release, a collection of their non-album tracks from 1995 to 2000. This will include material from demos, unreleased tracks, remixes, brand new tracks, and a cover tune. Title for this album is Introduce Us To Immortality. Expect release in January 2001 through THT Underground. Kekal is also invited to participate in two compilation albums, one of them is a tribute album to Living Sacrifice. The band records exclusive recordings for both compilations.

Dark Doctor known for Bealiah and Armegeddon Holocaust (see interview section tomorrow) has officially joined his old mate Dark Thriller on Dark Thriller's newly founded band Disastrous Age. Dark Thriller is also known for the Armageddon Holocaust project.

Drottnar announced the signing of a new member. Bengt Olson from Nesodden, Norway, has joined the band as a second guitarist. Recently the band added a new bassist, Karl Fredrik, who replaced Bjarne Peder who went to London, UK.

Project 86's song PS (from Drawing Black Lines) is featured on the
soundtrack for the new Blair Witch 2 movie and in the movie itself. Project 86 is also opening for POD as part of the Kings of the GameTour right now.

Flight 180 is finally getting ready to release the follow-up to their smash debut Crackerjack (1998 BEC). The new album, entitled Girls & Boys, is scheduled for official release in February 2001 on BEC Recordings. Flight 180: "the band is totally excited about the new release… the album totally rocks, and it’s
definitely ourbestwork so far!  We just want to give our original fans a good
taste of the sound that they fell in love with on Crackerjack, but we also want
to try and broaden our audience a bit and gain some new fans as well." The new album is said to have influences from MxPx, No Doubt, Blink 182 and the Go Go's. Hot singles like PromQueen, Sorry, Media Craze and Superhero define the high-energy approach of the new release. In December Flight 180 will be totally revamping their official "flightsite" (www.flight180.net) in support of the new release. The new site will feature downloadable clips of the new album, music videos, interviews, contests, killer photos & tons of exciting band news.

Friday October 20th 2000

Stretch Arm Strong will be back into the studio in February. They will record the follow up of their debut record on Solid State Records.

Tooth & Nail Records announced the signing of Washington based punkrock band All Wound Up to its roster.  The band is flying to Arkansas in November to record their Tooth & Nail debut album with producer Barry Poynter who also worked with The Juliana Theory and Stretch Arm Strong.

For their fall tour Squad Five-O has added Kris Klein to their line-up. Klein is also guitarist for One 21

You might wonder how the Norwegian black metal band Antestor is doing. This is what drummer Armoth has to say: "the US-tour went really well, we met a lot of people and got almost only positive feedback. We were kind of not so sure about wearing corpse paint, but after talking to people before the (Cornerstone) show, they really wanted a full show, and corpse paint was of course fully expected. We're back in rehearsing, and making songs. We soon have enough to record a new album. Hopefully that will be done early next year."

Friday October 13th 2000

Falconry of Slechtvalk is out now. This Dutch black/dark metal project with a doomy touch is released by Fear Dark. According to the record label it's an album for fans of Dimmu Borgir, Within Temptation and Antestor. They also opened an official page at: Slechtvalk

Cleveland, Ohio's progressive power metal band Antithesis announced the official signing of their distribution deal with Nightmare Records of Saint Paul, MN

If you have been wondering what's going on in the Tourniquet camp, here's a quick note: The band is currently working on new material. There are many musical avenues they plan to explore in the future of Tourniquet, and they look forward to incorporating these into lots of heavy music. Steve Andino is working out on bass.

Here's also some news from punk/ska/rock band Wooden Cross from Germany: At the moment they are recording new songs, and according to the band they will be even better than what they've done before.

MxPx will be going into the studio to record an EP. They are new songs written in the "Old MxPx Style." The EP will be released by Rock City Recording Company and it will be made available to Fan Club members first, then available on line, then in stores. MxPx is currently on tour in Europe with Less Than Jake. The band also announced opening a tour for The Offspring from the 17th of November to the the 17th of December.

Over the years Michael Sweet has received numerous requests from fans around the world to record a Christmas classic. After much preparation and inspiration Michael has finally recorded his all time favorite Christmas Hymn: O Holy Night. There will be two different mixes of the song: a heavier mix and a lighter mix. Kenny Lewis (who worked with Michael on the demorelease of Truth) and Michael will be working together. Peter Vantine (known for his contribution on the song Stone from the Truth album) will be putting together the orchestration and they plan to bring in a choir for the background vocals. It will be a large production to say the least. It will take them about a week to record it and about two or three weeks to package it.

Friday October 6th 2000

There's finally some news from Little Rose Productions. The disability vacation of label head Manu Lehtinen is continuing at least until October 15, so not much is about to happen with the label before that.

The long awaited Immortal Souls EP will finally be released through Little Rose Productions on October 20th. The EP includes four songs of which only one will appear on the full-length album that will be released in early winter.

Hallowed’s EP End Of The Age will be released late fall/early winter. The
EP includes five songs: End Of The Age, The Challenge, The Chosen One, Jesus Christ and New Millenium. The cover art for the album, based on the Book of Revelations, was painted by their vocalist Michael Majalahti.

Also the new Finnish Metal Compilation The Metal Rose Collection is on its
way. Due to Manu's disability vacation also that one has been delayed but it’s
coming. The bands appearing on the sampler are: Immortal Souls, Hallowed, Worship Factory, IX Syndicate, Children Of Light, Tinnitus, Anchor, Oratorio, C-Force, Icon Clan and the Stoner Kings.

News from Tooth & Nail Records: After five years Blenderhead is back in studio recording an album. Currently they are working on Figureheads On The Forefront Of Pop Culture. The band has retained their original lineup including Bill Power on vocals/bass, Matt Johnson on drums and Ed Carrigan on guitar with the exception of Eben Haase who has been replaced by former Ten Times Fast guitarist Tyler Vander Ploeg. The album will be in bookstores and T&N mail-order starting December 5th and in record stores some time in February. Blenderhead returns to the stage in Seattle on December 16th for an all ages record release show at The Paradox with labelmates Puller and special guests.

POD announces the Kings Of The Game Tour. This tour will be featuring POD, Project 86, (Hed) pe and Linkin Park. Other news from the guys in Payable On Death is that the song School Of Hard Knocks kicks off Adam Sandler's movie, Little Nicky. School Of Hard Knocks will be the lead single and video off of Adam Sandler's, Little Nicky. The movie will also include clips of Southtown and Rock The Party and the movie ends with School Of
Hard Knocks bringing in the credits. POD and their management are
currently reviewing directors concepts for the video, which they plan to film in
Los Angeles in early October. Soundtrack releases on October 31st and the movie hits the US Theaters on November 10th.

Recently I, mpo,    received a message from Rey Parra of Sacred Warrior fame: "Yes the rumor is true. Sacred Warrior is coming out with a new disc. The
stuffffffffff  will be sort of vintage Warrior but with today's edge! ....We still aren't sure of the date of release yet but should be soon. I, Rey, am currently the minister of music at an A.G. church in beautiful Palm Coast Florida. I also do a radio show on the web called reignradio.com on which I do a two or three minute segment called Onward Warriors. Check it out and let me know what you think."

The Bride CD Bride Live Volume 2 (Acoustic) is now available for pre-order. The band will only be receiving a small quantity to sell so to reserve a copy you must order soon. These rare CD's are $15.00 each. This bootleg recording will have favorite Bride tunes (14 songs; 60 minutes) of raw rock in an acoustic packaging from two shows. An extra bonus track of the favorite  Knockin' On Heavens Door also appears on this release.

The American thrash band Mortal Immunity are sad to announce that singer Dan Davis and drummer Christian Breece are no longer part of the band. Both left for reasons other than music or personality problems. Currently the band is seeking replacement and there are auditions for drummers and singers. If you are interested contact Tim Herndon at:  tim@mortalimmunity.com    Phone : 419-264-8931

Restless records has announced the new release date for the official  Truth CD of Michael Sweet. As you may know, the original release date of Michael's new album has been postponed. However, Restless Records officially announced that the new release date for Truth will be January 9th 2001. Michael Sweet has decided to re-release the Blue Demo on CD. This is the same Blue Demo that was originally sold on cassette tape and contains demo versions of four songs from his first solo album.

Planet Rapture Productions has announced that Stryper will perform live in Costa Rica. The show is scheduled for December 16th 2000, at Coliseo de Cartago, Cartago in Costa Rica. All four original members of Stryper (Michael Sweet, Robert Sweet, Tim Gaines and Oz Fox) will be getting together for a special full 90-minute set of Stryper classics. Tickets will go on sale for this show in the second week of October. Please note that this event does not imply that an official reunion is or will be taking place. On another note, the second Annual Stryper Expo in Southern California is coming Spring/Summer 2001.

This week, the Brainwave Festival officially announced the first names for the festival . Bands who will appear are: The Blamed, Fire Fly, Jacks Of All Trades and two local bands, Walnut Groove and Sunday One. Other names will be announced later. The festival will be held at the Evertshuis in Bodegraven, Holland on Saturday January 27th 2001. The organization is also looking for volunteers who want to help at the festival.

The guys from Stichting Millennium Concerts are looking for a new webmaster to work on their site. This is a voluntary thing and if you are interested you can contact them via Henk Nennie: nennie@wishmail.net .

The release of Falconry by black metal artist Slechtvalk is postponed. Due to circumstances beyond the control of record label Fear Dark there's a delay. The exact release date is unsure though everything is ready to be manufactured now.

The demo-CD of the Dutch metalband Crestfall is nearing its completion. At the moment they are manufacturing the record. However, there will be only 300 copies. So, if you are interested, be quick.