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Even bands as manifestly progressive as VEIL OF MAYA get their share of abuse for daring to keep evolving. Never easy to pigeonhole, they began in relatively pedestrian deathcore territory, before embracing a more forward-thinking agenda and winding up — on the celebrated likes of “Id” (2010) and “E…

Question: What would you change about your No. 1 guitar?Marc BroussardA: I would change nothing about my No. 1 guitar. It’s a wonderful instrument and has treated me better than I deserve since the day it first touched my hands. If I had to complain about anything, it’s that the Yamaha logo on the headstock fell off at some point so no one knows what my guitar is. Yamaha RevStar for the win! It was a gift from Yamaha back in 2017, along with an acoustic LJ26 and another electric, the AES1500. These three guitars are the best I’ve ever had the honor of playing. Current obsession: Figuring out how to use AI to write more music. I find I’ve done my best writing to instrumental tracks, but those tracks are often hard to come by and can be expensive. I’m anxious to see if there will be a music generator that produces high-quality tracks for me to write to. Slim pickings out there right now but there’s some obvious promise on the horizon. I wish I could write a song every day, and hopefully, soon, that’ll be a much more tangible goal. John Bohlinger Nashville CorrespondentA: My main guitar is a prototype of what became the Joe Glaser-designed Gibson Music City Les Paul. I’ve changed pickups three times, painted it twice, and, three or four times, I’ve taken a belt sander to the back, shoulder, and neck heel to make it more comfortable and lighter. I love it, but the malcontent in me is always thinking about different pickups and tweaking the body shape more. I need to just stop.Current obsession: Trying to let go of the effort and flow. Listen to Mateus Asato: There’s no effort, no struggle, he’s never in a rush, he sings through his instrument. Kate Koenig Associate EditorA: My main guitar is my beloved Taylor AD12e. It has a spruce top with a black satin finish, striped ebony back and sides, a natural exposed-wood chamfered edge around the top (in place of binding and purfling), and a blonde streak down the center of the back. Plus, it has a bright, shimmering, delicate tone that perfectly suits fingerpicking, which is what I do! But, if I were to change something about it, it would be the electronics. I just had an L.R. Baggs Anthem SL installed in my Washburn acoustic, and I think the Taylor would benefit from the same.Current obsession: I’m currently determined to expand my knowledge of alt hip-hop and am working on a playlist of tracks that stand out to me. Some of my favorite collections include Chance the Rapper’s 2013 mixtape, Acid Rap, Ye and Kid Cudi’s 2018 collab, Kids See Ghosts, and A Tribe Called Quest’s 2016 album, We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service. The third features a sample of Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory—a bit spooky, as it came out on the heels of the actor’s passing.Dudu Horta Reader of the MonthA: My dream guitar always was a Standard Les Paul, but they’re very expensive here in Brazil as we can’t import it. My No. 1 Guitar is a 2010 Gibson Les Paul Tribute, and I changed the pickups only. For the neck, I use a BurstBucker Pro that I like for cleans, and the bridge is a Brazilian clone of a ’57 Classic Plus from Malagoli, made from spec. It has crunch for hard rock and bite for soloing stuff. It suits my style really well and gets me next to a Standard tone.Current obsession: To develop guitar tones mixing analog, digital, modeling, and tubes all together, from using overdrive pedals prior to digital amps, to plugging digital preamps into a small tube combo, and recording line guitars with AmpliTube, looping through outside gear just to make everything that is possible over all guitar mediums. My goal is to teach guitar technology to help people get better-sounding guitars, and the best tones from small solid-state combos to worship shimmer to straight to the console line.

SLAYER guitarist Kerry King has dropped $500,000 from the initial asking price of his Las Vegas mansion.
Kerry put the home in a section of the Las Vegas Valley known as Enterprise on the market in January 2022 for $4.8 million, but that price came down in April 2022 to $4.478 million and in Septemb…

In a new interview with the 93X radio station, GHOST leader Tobias Forge was asked how he felt when he first saw the video of METALLICA vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield jamming the GHOST track “Cirice” during a 2018 rehearsal session at METALLICA’s headquarters. The footage showed Hetfield play…

If you like death metal that’s willing to explore its own boundaries while still remaining brutal and raw as hell, then Denver’s Astral Tomb is the band for you.
The post Track Premiere: Astral Tomb – “Coward” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

In a new interview with Sakis Fragos of Greece’s Rock Hard magazine, FATES WARNING singer Ray Alder spoke about his decision to continue making solo music, with his sophomore solo effort, “II”, set to arrive on June 9 via InsideOut Music.
“With FATES, after we did the last album and Jim [Matheos, gu…

Last month Nuclear Blast announced the signing of CAVALERA, the project featuring SEPULTURA’s founding members Max Cavalera (guitar, vocals) and Igor “Iggor” Cavalera (drums). The first release under the deal with be a re-recording of SEPULTURA’s first EP “Bestial Devastation” (originally released i…

EYE AM, the new band featuring former TYPE O NEGATIVE members Kenny Hickey (guitar/vocals) and Johnny Kelly (drums), along with Kirk Windstein (guitar, vocals; CROWBAR, DOWN, KINGDOM OF SORROW) and Todd Strange (CROWBAR, DOWN), will release its debut single, “Dreams Always Die With The Sun”, on June…

The first practice amp I played through was a beleaguered Peavey in the room where I took lessons with the talented multi-instrumentalist John Curtis. I’m sure I was his worst student, so maybe it was merciful that, with both of us plugged in, this battered amp with most of its dials missing could barely eke out sound.Soon after, I went through the usual suspects in the ’80s practice-amp lineup—a Gorilla GG-10, a Peavey Rage, a 15-watt Crate—until I leapt into the big leagues with a 1966 Fender Twin Reverb. But it had so much headroom it seemed impossible to practice in my apartment. I eventually learned what a guitar’s volume knob does, but before that I went a quieter route with a first-generation Scholz Rockman. I loved it, with all those big, pumping tones at my disposal, rushing through headphones. Sometimes I ran the Rockman through the Twin, so all the dogs in the neighborhood could howl along. But, after a while, as I drew a bead on what I was interested in playing, I decided that heavily processed sound wasn’t really for me.Over the years I’ve yearned for a great-sounding amp that’s small enough to sling into a bag or suitcase for travel, or to leave unobtrusively in the living room, so I could scratch the itch at will. I tried various tiny, low-wattage, low-cost combos, but most were plagued with tinny sound and limited controls, and nothing seemed evolved quite enough to get the kind of sustain, gain, and sonic variety I needed to be happy.Then, in the early 2000s, a friend gifted me a first-gen Roland Micro Cube. I loved its sound and versatility, and also used it for coffeehouse gigs, radio appearances, and recording demos. But one day during the pandemic … it died.“If Charles Darwin studied circuits instead of critters, he’d be staggered by how far Spark elevates the practice amp.”Back in 2019, I started to see ads and demos for something called Spark. But I was skeptical, and I didn’t know anyone who had one. Then I saw Nashville pedal-steel player Paul Niehaus use one on a local gig, sounding great. I was impressed.Early this year, I got my hands on one of these little 40-watters and plugged it in using Spark’s 19V DC adaptor, and was immediately smitten. I was quickly taken with the versatility and sound of the amp itself: two remarkably fully dimensional-sounding 4″ speakers running in stereo, plus metal, hi-gain, crunch, glassy, clean (the latter three are my favorites), bass, and acoustic amp modeling. There’s an impressive range of controls, including effects: gain, bass, mid, treble, master, modulation, delay, reverb, and an output dial so you can set your core tone and ride the volume up or down without losing sonic character. There’s also a headphone out, four presets, a tap-tempo control for delay and mod effects, and Bluetooth connectivity, which is where Spark catches fire.In essence, the free Spark download turns the amp into Lon Chaney. Among its thousand faces, or at least sounds, are an array of presets aimed at pop, rock, blues, and metal, which blend virtual pedals with classic amp-head tones. And all of these app presets are tweakable via your phone. You simply turn the dials onscreen, just as you would use the controls of real pedals and amps. You can also use the EQ, effects, and other dials on the actual Spark amp to further color those tones. And you can customize and save presets easily, using four buttons on Spark. It’s a mind-boggling bouquet of tonal options—50,000-plus in Spark’s online ToneCloud community alone, says maker Positive Grid—and the ones I’ve conjured all sound really, really good. The bass and low-mid response is uncanny, which explains why a pedal-steel player or bassist would enjoy using one. Also, you can use the A.I.-powered Smart Jam feature to create custom backing bass and drum tracks, or jam with pre-recorded tracks in a wide variety of genres. (Spark also streams from Spotify or Apple Music, while displaying the chords you’re hearing in real time.)Spark now sits on the tiles of the hearth in my living room, where a pair of guitars are in easy reach. But I’ve also used Spark (it’s loud) as a guitar stage monitor with my band, and it fits handily in my luggage—protected by clothing—or tucked into a small bag, under the seat or in an overhead bin of a plane. If Charles Darwin studied circuits instead of critters, he’d be staggered by how far Spark elevates the practice amp. And while there are cheaper options, the $269 street price for all this tone, output, and versatility is a bargain. There’s now also Spark MINI, which pumps 10 watts through two angled, 2″ speakers, and the Spark GO, which will fit in the palm of a hand, is on the way. Good stuff? You bet!