The Podcast That Rocked episode for June 9th, 2020 featuring Geaux Gretchen. Discussion on conflicting opinions within bands like System Of A Down, Bad Wolves, and Five Finger Death Punch, Talking about Black Lives Matter in the rock and metal community and supporting bands with black members, Ice Nine Kills VS Disney, and more. Click below for discussion topics and links.
We Will Never Get New System Of A Down
The Podcast That Rocked on Spotify
Discussion Topics: -Serj and John from System Of A Down have wildly different political opinions. -Tommy Vext from Bad Wolves is all in with conspiracy theories. -Discussing bands with black members. -Ice Nine Kills gets revenge on Mickey Mouse -Mainstream Top 3 (STILL GODSMACK!)
Ice Nine Kills – The Disney Revenge Show [Documentary]
Ice Nine Kills was scheduled to play at a Disney owned venue in Orlando, FL on April 26th 2019. A few weeks prior to the performance, the band was notified that they were no longer welcome to play because of their evil and disturbing imagery. This mini-documentary provides a glimpse of what went down on July 25th when they returned to the city for revenge. Commenting on the rescheduled show, Ice Nine Kills frontman, Spencer Charnas says,
“Looking back at the Disney incident fills me with nothing but laughter. When I first heard about the ban I was perturbed strictly because we love playing in that city. But rather than mope and cry about it, I had the idea to poke fun at the situation by creating a merch line of beloved Disney characters and inserting them in slasher movie scenarios.
This mini documentary chronicles our triumphant sold out return to Orlando and the chaos that ensued..“
To compliment the release of ‘The Disney Revenge Show’, Ice Nine Kills have dropped their latest Nightmare On The Ninth merch capsule – ‘Too Evil For Children II’ – with a number of bone-chilling designs featuring horror themed reimaginings of Classic Disney characters. As with every Nightmare On The Ninth drop, this capsule is only available for a limited amount of time from www.nightmareontheninth.com and will sell out, so grab yours while you can.
Ice Nine Kills also revealed that they will have a vey special Record Store Day exclusive this year. The Silver Scream: Killer Cuts 10″ Vinyl will feature 6 tracks on a blood-splattered, buzz saw shaped vinyl and will be available on Saturday, October 24th. Head to recordstoreday.com for info.
The Silver Scream: Killer Cuts Records Store Day Exclusive 10″ Vinyl
SIDE A Savages Your Number’s Up Thriller
SIDE B Stabbing In The Dark (Acoustic) feat. Matt Heafy Savages (Acoustic) Thank God It’s Friday (Acoustic) feat. Ari Lehman
In a landscape littered with celebrity fakes and would-be influencers, Ice Nine Kills stand apart. Visionary trailblazers and multimedia raconteurs, INK has steadily built a thrilling new underworld for a growing legion of devoted true believers, with theatrical shows, high-concept videos, and inventive band-to-fan communion.
Ice Nine Kills summon the most captivating elements of metal, punk and hard rock and combine it with melody, cinematic obsession, and a literary fascination.
Loudwire hails them as “one of the most unique acts in metal right now,” a declaration supported by the band’s Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart topping slab, The Silver Scream.
The Silver Scream and the subsequent extended edition, The Silver Scream: Final Cutgenerated anthems for the disenfranchised and subculture obsessives, like The American Nightmare, A Grave Mistakeand Savages and broke them into Active Rock radio, with hit track A Grave Mistake peaking at #9.
After a decade of studio wizardry and live theatricality, Ice Nine Kills draws favorable comparisons to rock icons like Slipknot, Rob Zombie, and Marilyn Manson, via a likeminded synergy of music, lifestyle, and cult following reverence. With 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify, a combined social media reach of over 762k and over 70 million views on Youtube, the band are firmly cemented as one of modern metal’s most ferocious forces.
Finding the perfect album you can listen to from beginning to end is difficult. That’s why it hurts when you find an album that has one song that just doesn’t work. This video looks at 10 bad songs on great albums.
Click below to watch the video and scroll below for links to each song discussed.
Less than a year after the release of their covers EP Explorers, Canadian melodic power metal quartet UNLEASH THE ARCHERS are back with a brand new 10-track masterpiece in the form of their fifth full-length album, Abyss. Lifted by the urgent, breathtaking vocals of frontwoman Brittney Slayes, on Abyss, the band re-cements themselves as an unequalled, undeniable metallic force with their strongest album to date.
Colossal, heart-stopping and heavy-as-hell while often exploring a noteworthy aura of addictive pop sensibility, Abyss further proves the indelible songwriting and technical talents of UNLEASH THE ARCHERS – not only reinforcing how high a modern band can soar within the atmosphere of power metal, but introducing an unbridled array of diverse sonic elements into the fold. Poised to make its mark amid a new generation of epic metal concept albums, listeners will be itching to hit replay within seconds of its satisfying end.
Check out a new teaser of the album’s title track “Abyss” HERE, and stay tuned for more new music and videos coming very soon!
Abyss is set for release via Napalm Records on August 21, 2020, and beginning today, is available for pre-order in CD format, as well as 2LP gatefold vinyl format in original black, limited editionred/yellow swirl (mailorder only, limited to 300 copies), and limited edition purple (North American mailorder only, limited to 100 copies). A limited edition Deluxe Earbook format is also available – the only edition including instrumental versions of each track and bonus alternate single versions (also featured in a standalone 7” only available with the Earbook format) – as well as several additional bundles including t-shirts and more! The album will be available to pre-order digitally in mid-June.
Starting today, pre-order Abyss in available formats HERE!
Beginning with a dreamlike acoustic introduction accented by the smoky beckonings of singer Brittney Slayes, opener “Waking Dream” quickly punches into a colossal wall of sound, setting the stage for the auditory escape that is Abyss. Powerful anthems such as the immense power metal-encapsulated title track “Abyss” and metallic pop-tinged earworm “Through Stars” conjure classic elements while maintaining an entirely fresh, forward-thinking approach. Guitarists Andrew Kingsley and Grant Truesdell turn heads with wicked work on stellar tracks such as “Legacy” (fans of artists like Devin Townsend and Astronoid, take note), while Slayes showcases her incredible vocal diversity and range on mighty epics like “Return To Me” and “The Wind That Shapes The Land”. Drummer Scott Buchanan makes technical strides on burners “Soulbound” and “Faster Than Light” – setting breakneck twists and turns ablaze with his bandmates. UNLEASH THE ARCHERS rounds the edge of Abyss with throwback-hued “Carry The Flame”, and wraps up with the soaring, rewarding concept closer “Afterlife”.
Thematically, Abyss is the direct sequel to the band’s 2017 album Apex. Frontwoman Brittney Slayes explains about the concept:
“Our protagonist, The Immortal, is once again awakened at the beginning of our story, but this time he is in an unknown place: a ship out in deep space. He wanders alone for a time, reflecting on his misdeeds, searching for his new master. Finally, he finds him, and learns that it is the Grandson of The Matriarch, our antagonist. The Immortal had taken The Grandson’s father away some sixty years before, to be sacrificed by The Matriarch in a ritual to achieve immortality (the events from Apex) and now the Grandson seeks revenge against The Matriarch with the aid of her own weapon, The Immortal.
This album is a classic take on good versus evil, light versus dark, The Grandson versus The Matriarch, but it also uses the ‘person versus self’ literary device in that The Immortal is battling with the good and evil within himself, and must decide in the end if he is simply a tool for others to use, or a man with free will and the ability to choose his own path; a struggle I think every human can relate to.”
Abyss was once again engineered, mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen of Hansen Studios in Denmark (Volbeat, Delain, Amaranthe), with production by guitarist Andrew Kingsley. Additionally, transcendent closer track “Afterlife” features orchestration contributions from Francesco Ferrini of Italian symphonic death metal machine Fleshgod Apocalypse. Fans will notice that, unlike on Apex, Abyss incorporates a weighty dose of synth in the mix, and for the first time ever, all tracks were written on seven strings – adding to the massive expanse of the album’s sound as it explores the celestial realm.
As mentioned, the Deluxe Earbook edition of Abyss features two bonus tracks – synthwave and gothic folk-pop versions of “Abyss” and “Soulbound”, respectively. This is something UNLEASH THE ARCHERS has never done before, turning their singles into something completely different!
Brittney Slayes adds: “I hope you enjoy our alternate interpretations of “Abyss” and “Soulbound”, because they honestly show a side of us as musicians that we probably wouldn’t be able to showcase otherwise. We all listen to a lot of different genres of music, but these two bonus tracks give huge insight into the music we were listening to as we recorded Abyss… not just metal, but synthwave, pop, and even a bit of country!”
Interview with Chris Bowes of Alestorm talking about the new album Curse Of The Crystal Coconut, getting the term Fannybaws on Urban Dictionary, social distancing in the middle of nowhere, the one song that went too far and can’t be released, and more.
Alestorm Interview
Alestorm is a multi-national heavy metal band originally from Perth, Scotland. Their music is characterised by a pirate theme, and as a result they have been dubbed a “pirate metal” band by many critics and their fanbase.
A video album review on The Bastards, the third studio album from Palaye Royale. How does fashion rock fair in 2020?
Click below to watch the review and scroll below to hear music from the new album.
Palaye Royale – The Bastards | Album Review
Palaye Royale is a Canadian-American rock band from Las Vegas, formed in 2008 by brothers Remington Leith, Sebastian Danzig, and Emerson Barrett. They formed under the name Kropp Circle, later changing their name to Palaye Royale in the summer of 2011.
On March 20 2020, they announced their third album The Bastards would be released on May 29 2020 through Sumerian Records. They embarked on “The Bastards” world tour to mark the beginning of the new era. They traveled across the U.K. and Europe. On the tour, their Glasgow performance was canceled with hours notice, leading to them performing a free acoustic performance. Later, their Birmingham show was also canceled but rescheduled to a sold-out show at KK’s Steel Mill, Wolverhampton They then were forced to cancel the rest of the tour due to the coronavirus outbreak and rushed home from Paris before flights shut down. As of May 29th, the bastards has been released.
LAMB OF GOD has released “Routes,” the fourth single from their June 19 self-titled Epic Records release, featuring a guest appearance from Testament vocalist Chuck Billy.
A visualizer for the track is available now at http://lamb-of-god.com. Fans can pre-orderLamb of God, including a new alternate CD cover version signed by all five band members, now at the band’s official webstore: http://shop.lamb-of-god.com.
“Routes” was lyrically inspired by vocalist D. Randall Blythe’s time alongside native peoples at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota during the No DAPL movement. This protest, which began with just a few Native women and children camping at the site in protest of the pipeline being built so near to their water supply on unceded treaty land, quickly grew to an encampment of thousands and received global attention.
Says Blythe, “I went to Standing Rock because I had heard reports of violence committed on the peaceful protestors there by both state law enforcement and private security contractors, and this violence was not reported in mainstream media for the most part. I went to bring supplies and support these people, who were trying to protect their water, and thereby protect everyone, as everything in the natural world is protected. I was there a week, made some great friends, and learned a lot. It was a very profound experience in my life, and I knew one day I would write a song about it.”
Although Blythe conveys his story through the song’s vivid lyrics, he called in his friend Chuck Billy, who is of Pomo Native American heritage, to lend a deeper authenticity to his narrative. “My experience, although my own, was tempered and shaped by the hundreds of years of brutal oppression of Native peoples in our country,” says Blythe. “So, it was imperative for me to have a Native voice represented on the song, and Chuck Billy was happy to be that voice. At the end, there is a call and response section – Chuck calls and I respond. This is intentional. Musically, it is symbolic of my experience there. A native voice leads, bringing forth positive energy and calling to the people to unite, and I reply, providing support. That was my physical experience, and it is reflected in the song.”
Chuck Billy adds, “It was a great honor as a proud Pomo Native American to be asked by LAMB OF GOD to do some guest vocals on this song. The No DAPL movement by the indigenous people of this country was a historic event. Being able to lend my voice to represent the Native American people, complementing Randy’s storytelling and lyrics, is something really special to me. I’m glad this movement was put in a musical message, and I am extremely happy to have been a part of it.”
Audiences got a taste of the first new LAMB OF GOD music in nearly five years with “Checkmate” back in February, followed by “Memento Mori” and the most recent single, “New Colossal Hate.” All four songs will appear on Lamb Of God, the follow-up to VII: Sturm und Drang (2015). The album was once again produced by collaborator Josh Wilbur (Gojira, Korn, Megadeth, Trivium), fueled by a mountain of riffs and looming rhythmic shadows. It is also the band’s first record with Cruz, who sat behind the kit with LAMB OF GOD in 2018 and became an official member the following year. In addition to Chuck Billy, the new album features a guest appearance from Jamey Jasta (Hatebreed). Blythe sounds more driven and insightful than ever on Lamb Of God, offering up the angriest and most comprehensive diatribes, addressing modern life in the current landscape, of his storied career thus far.
LAMB OF GOD propelled heavy metal into the new millennium two decades ago with the prophetically titled New American Gospel. They followed with 2003’s As the Palaces Burn, which made the Rolling Stone list of the Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time. Ashes of the Wake (2004) was the first LAMB OF GOD album to be certified gold by the RIAA, followed by Sacrament (2006), which debuted in Billboard’s Top 10. Wrath (2009) earned the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Hard Rock, Rock, and Tastemaker charts and was No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Those No. 1 positions were repeated with Resolution (2012). VII: Sturm und Drang (2015) debuted at No. 3 in North America and in the Top 5 in several countries. The single “512” from VII: Sturm und Drang received a Grammy nod for the “Best Metal Performance,” making it LAMB OF GOD’s fifth Grammy nomination.
Slaves — featuring drummer Zack Baker, guitarists Wes Richmond and Felipe Sanchez, bassist Colin Vieira, and new vocalist Matt McAndrew — have announced their new album To Better Days.
The album arrives on August 7 via SBG Records. Pre-orders are live here.
To celebrate the album announcement, the band has dropped the new song “Wasting My Youth,” which premiered yesterday at SiriusXM Octane on Test Drive.
Watch the video for “Wasting My Youth” here:
“There is a lyric, ‘The feeling I’ve repressed is going out of style,'” McAndrew explains. “It’s about finding the truth and holding it back [feeling] like coming to the brink of sneezing and then missing it. You have this build up, this realization, and these feelings that are coming to a head and need to be released. Maybe that release is pleasure or maybe it’s pain or maybe just catharsis. But it’s a relief to have it out. If you miss that opportunity for release, you don’t get it again. ‘Wasting My Youth’ is about that bottled up frustration that comes from staying in a situation past its expiration date and what that does to a person.”
Regarding the album, the singer states, “We’re excited to finally share our new album, To Better Days with you. I’m so proud of how this record turned out and how well we all worked together to create these songs. We feel it’s the band’s best work to date and we hope you enjoy the music as much as we enjoyed making it.”
TO BETTER DAYS TRACK LISTING: “To Better Days” “Prayers” “Witch Hunt” “Talk To A Friend” “Eye Opener” “Bury A Lie” “Heavier” “Footprints” “Cursed” “Wasting My Youth” “Clean Again” “Secrets” “Like I Do”
The Podcast That Rocked for May 26th, 2020 ft. Geaux Gretchen. Talking about trouble with Beartooth, Ronnie Radke disagreeing with Lzzy Hale, Mainstream Top 3, bands working on new material in quarantine, and more.
Thanks to everyone who tuned in live for the live stream and was in the chat. Scroll below for discussion topics and links.
One Less Tooth In Beartooth
The Podcast That Rocked on Spotify
Discussion Topics: -Beartooth part ways with guitarist Kamron Bradbury. Bummer. -Corey Taylor has new solo album coming. Awesome! -Ronnie Radke and Lzzy Hale have differing opinions on bands surviving COVID-19 quarantine. -Shinedown cancel their postponed 2020. Bummer. -Many bands are working on new music for 2020 while in quarantine. Awesome! -Top 3 Mainstream Rock Songs and more.
I absolutely disagree with this mindset. if you’re in a band and slept in a van in a Walmart parking lot peeing in bottles to get ti the next venue in time riding on a nothing but a dream and hope YOU WILL GET THROUGH THIS we will ALL make it through. https://t.co/xpPeqdsRfi
It crushes us to have to announce that the #SDDeepDiveTour is canceled. The health & safety of our fans, crew, & venue staff is of the utmost importance to us…💛 See below ⬇️ for our full statement + more info: pic.twitter.com/gKDHCy8IPM
Australian metalcore outfit IN HEARTS WAKE have teamed up with Polaris vocalist Jamie Hails on their new single and music video “Hellbringer.” The single–out today, May 26–is the third release from the band’s upcoming 100% carbon offset album KALIYUGA due August 7 via UNFD. Watch “Hellbringer” below or stream/download it via your preferred digital platform.
“Hellbringer” features gleefully wicked guitar licks, mosh-friendly breakdowns and the anthemic choruses IN HEARTS WAKE are known for. The single and its accompanying video jubilantly celebrates the freedom and joy of unbridled heavy music, in defiance of those people who call it ‘the devil’s music’. The band reminds people that they don’t need to take themselves too seriously, as they create a video that parodies the awkwardness of live music streams in the new normal created by COVID-19.
Vocalist Jake Taylor shared how the video’s concept was developed:
“At some of our American shows, extremist groups have picketed outside, telling our fans that they’re ‘going to hell’. If only they knew just how positive the energy inside the venue was! Never judge a book by its cover. So rather than fight hate with hate, we decided to have some fun and lean into the metal stereotype. In 2020 with live streams becoming the new norm, we decided to stage our own hell-bent circus. We thought it would be funny to ask Jamie to dress up as a werewolf, turn me into a vampire and rain blood on the entire band. Guess Halloween came early this year. Thank you Blade.”
“Hellbringer” follows two previously released singles, “Son Of A Witch” and “Worldwide Suicide,” from KALIYUGA which was entirely carbon offset. The band measured every power socket, light bulb, pound of freight, travel and food consumed during the recording process of the record. They found the total carbon footprint came to 26.37 tonnes of CO2e. This has been entirely offset through the purchase of carbon credits in the Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor of Western Australia. The album will also be packaged and manufactured plastic free, using recycled materials.
Pre-orders of KALIYUGA are available now at unfdstore.com.
For more information on the album as well as exclusive insights, news and content, visit thehouseofkali.com.
