Month: March 2021

Norwegian metal avant-gardists ENSLAVED have paid tribute to Lars-Göran “LG” Petrov. The pioneering ENTOMBED and ENTOMBED A.D. singer died on Sunday, March 7 after a battle with bile duct cancer. He was 49 years old.

Earlier today, the members of ENSLAVED shared a couple of photos of them hanging out with Petrov, and they included the following message: “Dear LG, dear friend, when we heard about your unfortunate passing, we felt we lost a part of ourselves. Your impact on us, for more than 30 years, has largely contributed to shape our musical DNA. When we picked up ‘Left Hand Path’ in the summer of 1990, we just thought ‘This is our musical path, this is where we are heading’. The energy and madness you unveiled with your bone chilling vocals on this album has never left us. This is still THE to-visit-album when we feel nostalgic and beer-thirsty.

“‘Left Hand Path’ was the first mutual ground for us. When we met at the first PHOBIA rehearsal in 1990, Ivar wanted to sound like Uffe and Alex, and Grutle wanted to sound like LG. Robert Plant and Freddie Mercury wasn’t the biggest vocalists in 1990, it was Chris Reifert and LG Petrov, period.

“Some years later we would meet each other at festivals around the globe, and we became friends. We even had some collaborations! At an ENSLAVED/ENTOMBED gig in Gothenburg in 2006, Grutle joined LG on vocals on ‘Left Hand Path’, and when ENSLAVED assembled a special show, including cover songs, at Hole In The Sky 2009, LG was the first one we contacted. He ended up doing vocals on, of course, ‘Left Hand Path’. That was a huge moment for us, and stands out like a monolithic milestone in our career.

“On a personal-off stage manner, meeting LG was like an injection of vitamins and positivity! Whenever we met him (like on this pic of a hungover-like-a-freakin’-baboon-moment from an early morning on an airport somewhere) we always ended up having a laugh and we all cheered up, always.

“LG, you had an absolutely unique down-to-earth precence as well as being an out of this world talented musican and frontman. We were all lesser men beside you.

“Shine on LG, you crazy diamond”.

Last year, Petrov revealed his cancer diagnosis, writing in a note on a GoFundMe page that doctors were unable to remove the cancer, but were trying to “control it with chemotherapy.”

Petrov originally fronted the cult Swedish death metal band NIHILIST in the late 1980s, before the group split and reformed as ENTOMBED.

ENTOMBED’s acclaimed debut, 1990’s “Left Hand Path”, landed at No. 82 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time”.

ENTOMBED A.D. was formed in 2014 when Petrov and other members of ENTOMBED decided to change the band’s name in order to avoid a legal battle with ENTOMBED guitarist Alex Hellid who didn’t want his former bandmates to use the ENTOMBED moniker.

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Beginning March 19 and continuing weekly through to March 2022, QUEEN YouTube will take QUEEN fans on a unique and remarkable journey — a chance to revisit some of the band’s most iconic moments and discover some aspects of the story we didn’t know.

Celebrating key moments in QUEEN’s history the weekly clips series will remind us why QUEEN and their music continue to be loved across the world.

The series is introduced with a two-minute teaser before beginning its full run of new weekly episodes March 19.

Presented in chronological order, the series will take us from QUEEN’s earliest shows at London’s Rainbow and Odeon through vast arenas across the entire world on a journey culminating with the band’s latest record setting achievements with Adam Lambert.

Along with spectacular concert footage, sound checks, backstage and rare after-show access we get to explore the stories behind the songs, hits and album tracks, drawn from the extensive footage that exists in the official archive while also uncovering and sharing rare and previously unseen gems.

Some of these moments will be familiar, others rare or forgotten, some record-breaking milestones, others quirky and unusual but all of which remind us of the impact QUEEN has maintained for five decades and continues through to today.

First months of the regular weekly output will see it celebrate classic hits such as “Killer Queen”, “Somebody To Love” and, of course, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, along with iconic performances at London’s The Rainbow, Hammersmith Odeon and the band’s massive outdoor Hyde Park concert. In addition, revealing some gems from the band’s first tours abroad to Europe, Scandinavia, and North America.

Series producer and creator Simon Lupton says: “The QUEEN story is unlike any other, and I hope fans from all around the world will enjoy celebrating the many extraordinary achievements, timeless songs, and iconic performances that Freddie, Brian, Roger and John have given us. While we will be revisiting some of their most famous and legendary milestones, I’m hoping there will also be some surprises along the way to excite people whether they be die-hard fans, or curious newcomers. This story has so many chapters to explore, and who knows…there could well be some new ones over the course of the next 50 weeks!”

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Rob Zombie’s official music video for the song “Crow Killer Blues” can be seen below. The track is taken from his seventh studio album, “The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy”, which is being released today (Friday, March 12) via Nuclear Blast.

“The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy” marks Rob’s first new album in nearly five years. The follow-up to 2016’s “The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser” is a classic Zombie album to its core, with high-energy rages like “The Eternal Struggles Of The Howling Man” and “Get Loose” to heavy-groove thumpers like “Shadow Of The Cemetery Man” and “Shake Your Ass-Smoke Your Grass”. The new album is produced by Chris “Zeuss” Harris.

Regarding the “The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy” album title, Rob said: “I like to try to think of an album title that you’ve never heard before — even though it’s probably one that you cannot remember. ‘Cause nothing bothers me more than when I see the same title on multiple records. I’m, like, ‘C’mon, man. There’s a lot of words out there.’ And I don’t just string crazy stuff together, even though it sounds like it… I spend a long time on the title, and it changes constantly. When I first start the record, I don’t know what anything is gonna be called, I don’t know what it’s gonna sound like. And then as the record starts forming, I start coming up with multiple titles, or ideas for titles. And then, by the time the record’s done, I usually have what I think might be the title. And everyone’s, like, ‘What’s the title? What’s the title?’ And I’m, like, ‘Ehhh… I don’t know yet,’ even though I do know. And then I start messing around with the artwork, and then I’ll change the title again, because I’m, like, ‘Oh, now that doesn’t look like that. It doesn’t fit.’ So, as random as it may all seem, I spent a lot of time trying to [find the right title for the record]. And hopefully, when you’re done listening to the record, what may sound like nonsense before you hear the music, after you’ve heard all the music, you can think to yourself, ‘Well, of course, the only thing this album could have been called is ‘The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy’.”

“The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy” track listing:

01. Expanding The Head Of Zed
02. The Triumph Of King Freak (A Crypt Of Preservation And Superstition)
03. The Ballad Of Sleazy Rider
04. Hovering Over The Dull Earth
05. Shadow Of The Cemetery Man
06. A Brief Static Hum And Then The Radio Blared
07. 18th Century Cannibals, Excitable Morlocks And A One-Way Ticket On The Ghost Train
08. The Eternal Struggles Of The Howling Man
09. The Much Talked Of Metamorphosis
10. The Satanic Rites Of Blacula
11. Shower Of Stones
12. Shake Your Ass-Smoke Your Grass
13. Boom-Boom-Boom
14. What You Gonna Do With That Gun Mama
15. Get Loose
16. The Serenity Of Witches
17. Crow Killer Blues

On the topic of why it took such a long time to release “The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy”, Rob told Consequence Of Sound: “The record has been completely finished for a long time, because what happened was the whole record was completely finished before I made [my latest movie] ‘3 From Hell’. I thought, ‘Okay, we’re going to finish this record, and then we’ll go on tour’ — because movies take so long to get funded and up and running, but then suddenly I had the funding for ‘3 From Hell’. So I’m like, ‘Okay, I’ll just shelve the album right now.’ But we did do some more touring ’cause I did another ‘Twins Of Evil’ tour, but I was like, ‘The tour is just one summer. I don’t want to put out the record. We’re not really there yet. We’ll just, we’ll just hold it.’ And then we were all ready to do a tour and release the record and the whole big thing, and then pandemic hit. So I was, like, ‘Oh crap. Well now we can’t do it.’ So we shelved it again, but we had never made an official release date, so no one knew we were shelving it. And then after just being stuck for so long with this pandemic that seems like it’s never going to end, I was like, ‘Let’s put this out.’ People are stuck at home, they’re listening to music. It’s frustrating. I don’t want to sit on this thing for freaking five years. So that’s why we decided to put it out.”

As for his earlier statements that both he and guitarist John 5 made declaring “The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy” the best Rob Zombie album yet, Rob said: “It can be a very hollow statement because everybody says that [when they release a new album] — what are they supposed to say? But I feel the last three records have really been on an upward trajectory. When you have a career that’s long — it started in 1985 — you kind of have peaks and valleys, not just sales-wise or whatever, but just even creativity-wise. You kind of tap into a vein of something, and then that kind of expires and you’re like, ‘Oh, where are we going now? I don’t want to just like keep repeating ourselves.’ And sometimes you get stuck. Even if you’re still making good records, you don’t feel inspired.

“The ‘Venomous Rat’ record was the record that felt re-inspired,” he continued. “It was the record when Ginger Fish joined the band, and it seemed like for the first time we had a solid band. Up until then, there was always somebody coming or going, and it really fucks with the chemistry of the band. Even if the new person is a great person and they’re an amazing musician, sometimes the chemistry is not there. So, that’s why I think the last three records have really locked into a vein of, ‘Okay, this is who we are and what we do, and it’s really been working.’ So, I think that’s why we felt that way about the new record.”

“The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy” is the third consecutive effort to feature Zombie and John 5 alongside bassist Piggy D. and drummer Ginger Fish.

Photo credit: Travis Shinn

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Continuing a legacy of groundbreaking achievements and radical innovation, Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum band KORN has announced details of its global streaming event, “Korn: Monumental”.

Scheduled for Saturday, April 24 at 1:00 p.m. PDT / 4:00 p.m. EDT / 9:00 p.m. BST / 10:00 p.m. CEST, the ticketed immersive concert experience will broadcast worldwide from the set of the breath-taking “Stranger Things: The Drive-Into Experience”. Produced by Danny Wimmer Presents, the performance promises to be an unforgettable set from the iconic band, highlighted by rare and sought-after deep cuts and classics from their legendary catalog. Since KORN’s latest critically acclaimed album, “The Nothing”, never received a proper tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic, “Korn: Monumental” will mark the live debut of select tracks from the new record for fans around the globe.

Tickets for this landmark global streaming event are on sale at www.KornLive.com at an early bird discount through Saturday, March 27. Fans can also purchase bundles and V.I.P. experiences, including exclusive merchandise, limited-edition autographed posters, and a virtual meet-and-greet with the entire band, which will be available as a digital download. “Korn: Monumental” will be available to stream for 72 hours through April 27 at 11:59 p.m. EDT. Please note, this is a fully virtual event, there will be no in-person attendance permitted.

KORN vocalist Jonathan Davis remarked: “We hope you take part in this experience with us. And though it is not the same as performing live with you here, we still want to bring you some great music and a fun show.”

Watch the official trailer for “Korn: Monumental” below.

Danny Wimmer, founder of Danny Wimmer Presents, commented on KORN’s global streaming event: “It’s always exciting to break new ground with a band like KORN that has been with us for so many of our biggest festival moments over the years. The scale of the vision for this global stream event is even more than we’ve come to expect out of a KORN show and will be one of the biggest livestream events from a rock band we’ve seen yet. If you’ve ever wanted to know what a massive rock concert coming to life in your living room might look like, this is it. So turn out the lights, turn up the volume and get ready to rock.”

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Suzi Quatro, the 70-year-old pioneering female rocker who burst on to the scene in the 1970s, will release a new studio album, “The Devil In Me”, on March 26 through SPV/Steamhammer. The official music video for the disc’s second single, “I Sold My Soul Today”, can be seen below.

The reasons for Suzi’s remarkable creative explosion: on the one hand, the lockdown, which kept her from her usual touring life in spring 2020, and on the other another collaboration with her son Richard Tuckey, which had already worked out extremely well on her predecessor album “No Control”.

Says Suzi: “Starting spring 2020, almost one hundred of my shows were canceled, and Richard would also have been on tour with his band had not all concerts been canceled or postponed. So I said to him, ‘We should make the most of our free time, write new material and allow ourselves to be inspired by the things that are currently going on in the world.’

“I already knew that Richard and I make a brilliant team; after all, ‘No Control’ had been a major success and a very special recording for us. Although I would never have thought that we’d be able to surpass it. But everybody who’s heard ‘The Devil In Me’ and all the people who had worked on the previous album have told us, ‘This album is even stronger.'”

“The Devil In Me” presents Suzi’s full range of musical diversity plus a number of surprises. From rock tracks such as “The Devil In Me”, “Get Outta Jail”, “Motorcity Riders” and “Hey Queenie” to fairly unusual numbers such as the pub atmosphere-inspired “Loves Gone Bad”, with its intimate mood, or “In The Dark”, which is accompanied by elegant piano and provocative saxophone sounds, Suzi presents herself from a whole range of different aspects.

Suzi says: “Richard wanted this album to have a through line, so that you could put any track on, and it just fit… He also said he wanted this album to be as important and groundbreaking as my first one. So that is how we approached this project, and that is what we accomplished.”

Track listing:

CD Version

01. The Devil In Me
02. Hey Queenie
03. Betty Who?
04. You Can‘t Dream It
05. My Heart And Soul (long version)
06. Get Outta Jail
07. Do Ya Dance
08. Isolation Blues
09. I Sold My Soul Today
10. Love‘s Gone Bad
11. In The Dark
12. Motor City Riders

2 LP Version:

Side A:

01. The Devil In Me
02. Hey Queenie
03. Betty Who?
04. You Can‘t Dream It

Side B:

01. My Heart And Soul (long version)
02. Get Outta Jail
03. Do Ya Dance
04. Isolation Blues

Side C:

01. I Sold My Soul Today
02. Love‘s Gone Bad
03. In The Dark
04. Motor City Riders

Side D:

01. Can I Be Your Girl (bonus track)
02. Desperado (bonus track)

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HELLYEAH and MUDVAYNE frontman Chad Gray has released a solo single, a cover of “Always On My Mind” — a song made famous by Willie Nelson. The track was originally recorded for his fall 2020 wedding to SiriusXM on-air personality Shannon Gunz.

Explaining his decision to record his version of the song, Gray said: “Planning a wedding is grueling — from flowers to location to picking the music. We initially chose ‘Dream On’ for our first dance song. Now I’m not sure how or why I landed on ‘Always On My Mind’. I’m assuming I heard it in passing and it stuck. I just remember late one night thinking about it and going online to search the lyrics and listen to the track. As it was playing, the lyrics were so emotional and compelling that it actually moved me.”

He continued: “So I reached out to my producer and very good friend Kevin Churko and asked if he would do a cover with me. He responded, ‘What song?’ I told him and he was like, ‘WHOA! Okay.’ So he reached out to the keyboard player for Ozzy [Osbourne], who is obviously not doing anything in this shit time we’re living in, and sent us three different takes and flavors of the song. We landed on one and started tracking it vocally. It was super cool when I started it, because I realized that this was such a different way of singing. No one has ever heard me doing anything like this.”

Gray added: “This was done for my wedding, but I thought, ‘Should I release this song to the public?’ I always talk about how I look at my fans as more than fans. They’re family, and I wanted to share this moment with them.”

The track was produced with Kevin Churko at The Hideout Recording Studio in Las Vegas, exclusively marketed and distributed by ONErpm.

Chad and Shannon were originally scheduled to marry in April 2020, but, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they changed it to October 2020.

Last December, Gray said during a Headbangers Con live virtual panel that HELLYEAH was “in a holding pattern right now [due to the coronavirus pandemic]. I don’t have any new music,” he admitted. “I’ve been telling Tom [Maxwell, HELLYEAH guitarist] to get me some riffs so I can write, because right now is a great time to fucking write. So we’ll just have to see, man. Obviously, we need to get together and write some music. But, yeah, I mean, hopefully. It’s all fucked up right now, nobody knows what’s going on with anything.”

In September, Maxwell told the “The Ex-Man” podcast that he wasn’t sure there would be a follow-up album to HELLYEAH’s latest effort, “Welcome Home”, which was completed after the passing of drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott.

“Welcome Home” was released in September 2019 via Eleven Seven Music. The disc marked HELLYEAH’s final effort with Abbott (formerly of PANTERA), who passed away nearly three years ago.

STONE SOUR drummer Roy Mayorga stepped in as Vinnie Paul’s replacement for the touring activity in support of “Welcome Home”.

Mayorga’s addition to HELLYEAH was made official in May 2019. At the time, the band said Roy was the perfect guy to take Vinnie Paul’s place. “These men had so much love and mutual respect for each other, this makes our transition so much easier,” HELLYEAH said in a statement.

Like the previous two records, 2016’s “Unden!able” and 2014’s “Blood For Blood”, “Welcome Home” was recorded at The Hideout Recording Studio with Churko.

Vinnie Paul died in June 2018 at the age of 54 in his sleep at his home in Las Vegas. The official cause of death was dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart, as well as severe coronary artery disease.

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RATT singer and founder Stephen Pearcy and his solo band will take part in a livestream concert on Friday, April 2 at 7 p.m. PDT from the world-famous Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip. He will be joined by members of ACE FREHLEY, LITA FORD, DANZIG, HELLYEAH, ARCADE and “a very special guest.”

Tickets, merchandise and VIP packages are available at stephenpearcy.veeps.com.

The concert will be available on demand through April 5.

Last month, it was reported by Metal Sludge that Pearcy would be joined by former RATT drummer Bobby Blotzer for the filming of the virtual concert with his solo band over February 26 and February 27.

The rumors of Blotzer playing with Pearcy again came a month after Stephen confirmed to SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that he was back on speaking terms with the drummer, who led his own version of RATT for a couple of years beginning in late 2015 before becoming embroiled in a legal battle with the singer, guitarist Warren DeMartini and bassist Juan Croucier over the rights to the band’s name.

“I do talk to Bobby,” Pearcy told “Trunk Nation”. “Bobby and I are — it’s love-hate, brother kind of a gig. We keep in touch and talk about positive things. He still has interest, so there are some things to talk about. And Warren is the same.”

“Look, life goes on,” he explained. “Life’s short. Hate’s not a good thing. There’s communication. But I can’t say anything.”

During the same chat, Pearcy said that he was open to the idea of making a new RATT album with all the surviving members of the band’s classic lineup.

“I wouldn’t wanna put a RATT record out there without the original guys,” he said. “I mean, it just wouldn’t make sense. We’ve tried it.

“Look, I accepted it a long time ago when Robbin [Crosby, late RATT guitarist] left the band, we lost a big element of direction. He was my right-hand man creating this monster. And I knew it — I knew once he was out, we would be going through motions. It’s all cool, and it’s great, but how many replacements can you have in a band and still consider it legit? So if we’re gonna have something on plastic, so to speak, forever, I’d rather have the original band do a record and just not do a RATT record until that day comes — if it ever happens.”

Stephen also stressed the importance of not letting personal differences get in the way of making music and touring while he and his bandmates are still physically able to perfom the classic RATT songs live.

“Look, we’re not the most dysfunctional band on the planet,” he said. “I’ve said it before, there are bands much more dysfunctional — MÖTLEY [CRÜE], GN’R [GUNS N’ ROSES], you name ’em — but the smart ones make an effort to take care of business. MÖTLEY — I don’t know if they even talk to each other, but they’re getting the business done. And that’s where I’m at. What are you — punishing somebody? You’re getting back at somebody? You’re holding a grudge, vendetta… It’s all bullshit. We’re all gonna die anyway. Go figure it out.”

Pearcy and Croucier are the sole remaining original members in RATT’s current lineup, which made its live debut in July 2018 in Mulvane, Kansas. Joining them in the band are drummer Pete Holmes (BLACK ‘N BLUE, RATT’S JUAN CROUCIER) and guitarist Jordan Ziff (RAZER).

RATT hasn’t released any new music since 2010’s “Infestation” album.

RATT — featuring Pearcy, Croucier and DeMartini — played a number of shows in 2017 after reforming a year earlier in the midst of a highly publicized legal battle with Blotzer over the rights to the RATT name. They were joined at the gigs by ex-QUIET RIOT guitarist Carlos Cavazo, who played on “Infestation”, and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso, who previously played with Y&T, WHITE LION and MEGADETH, among others.

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You can’t hear the “Gnashing of Teeth” over this new song from The Drowned God.
The post Track Premiere: The Drowned God – ‘Gnashing of Teeth’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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