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KROKUS frontman Marc Storace will release his first-ever solo album, “Live And Let Live”, next month. To coincide with the LP’s arrival, Marc and his solo band, dubbed simply STORACE, will embark on a three-date tour of his home country of Switzerland, where he will perform songs from the album as well as classic tracks spanning his entire career.

In a new interview with Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon from Canada’s The Metal Voice, Storace said about how his solo album came about (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Twenty years ago, I wrote the title song of the album, ‘Live And Let Live’. ‘Live And Let Live’ was written with this guitar player who was a neighbor of mine. I used to go over to his place, a little studio, on cold or rainy days and icy days. We spent hours writing songs, and we came out with about 20 of ’em. And this is one of ’em which fits for the album. And it’s the opener; it’s gonna be the live opener. It’s a great song.

“Anyway, so many years later, we did the [KROKUS] reunion, and I’ve been busy with KROKUS,” he continued. “And as soon as lockdown started, I first did some stuff which I put on YouTube and Facebook, some karaoke stuff which I found. I did duets with my daughter, Giuliana. After that phase with Giuliana, I kind of fell in a hole of the lockdown boredom, and I thought, ‘No way. I’m gonna get creative.’ I opened my drawer [and out came] a pile of lyrics — bits and pieces, leftovers, new stuff. And I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got enough material. And I need a guitar player.’

“This guy I got in touch with, he’s in Newcastle, in England,” Marc added. “We started communicating about ideas — he’d send me ideas, and I’d send him feedback, and I’d fit lyrics and build songs and stuff. So we built quite a few. And then I already went in contact with a couple of musicians whom I got to know when I was doing this big event, film series for television in 2019. And this thing came out during lockdown. But while we were filming this, I also started thinking, ‘Well, we’re on a farewell tour, and I don’t really wanna stop.’ And this thing came out during lockdown, which helped reduce the boredom, and in between I was writing songs. And then I got to know these two other guys — a drummer and rhythm guitarist — and they also produced the whole music side of [the TV series]. And they asked me during the filming stuff, in between, ‘You should do a solo album now. It’s gonna be over with KROKUS. What are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know yet. It’s not over until it’s over. And I’m still enjoying it. So I’m not thinking that far. I’m taking it — carpe diem. Day by day.’ Cause you never know what tomorrow brings. And too much planning sometimes you’re doing for nothing. Overthinking is unhealthy anyway.

“So, anyway, I came to that point. And then I called them. I said, ‘Guys, you wanna do it? ‘Cause I really enjoyed working with you.’ … So we started. And at the end of last year, they already sent me two ideas, and at the beginning of this year, they sent me some more. And I got busy working, working, and we did demos and stuff. And here we are — it’s ready. It’s all recorded, and it’s in the mix.”

Asked about the musical direction of his solo album, Marc said: “It’s energetic, heavy, melodic hard rock. And there’s also a couple of ballads. I’m a singer — we love ballads. And then there’s something out of the ordinary — it’s a blues song, which is not the typical blues song. It’s something I saw as a challenge. When they sent me that music, I thought, ‘What? It doesn’t really fit.’ But then I thought blues is always inside the rock family — a body of rock always has blues in there, as opposed to jazz maybe, although that’s also integrated sometimes. And then there’s this one song — I think it’s gonna be the last one on the album — which is quite acoustical and more light-hearted.

“I’m saying it’s great, because I’ve worked for it and I’m emotionally involved with it,” he continued. “But people around us and around me have been telling me I’m on the right track, and the results are good. So, now I’m nervous and excited for the release date.”

KROKUS released a new CD/DVD, “Adios Amigos Live @ Wacken”, this past February.

Back in April 2020, KROKUS was forced to postpone its last-ever concerts in USA and Canada due to the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the globe. The 13-date trek was originally scheduled to kick off at Canton Hall in Dallas, Texas on September 18, 2020 and conclude at Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California on October 10, 2020.

Back in September 2018, KROKUS announced that it was going to embark on a farewell tour dubbed “Adios Amigos” before calling it a day. At the time, they said their final show would take place on December 7, 2019 at the Hallenstadion in Zurich, Switzerland. However, in June 2019, Storace posted a message on Facebook indicating that the band would play additional concerts beyond the Zurich date.

When KROKUS first announced its decision to embark on a farewell tour, the band explained in a statement: “KROKUS shows have always been special and should stay that way. That’s why we decided to stop when it’s still really good. That’s how the fans should remember us.”

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS will release their new album titled “4” on February 11, 2022, via Gibson Records in partnership with BMG. “4” is Slash’s fifth solo album and fourth overall with his band featuring Myles Kennedy (vocals), Brent Fitz (drums), Todd Kerns (bass, vocals) and Frank Sidoris (guitar, vocals).

A week ago, SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS released the LP’s opening track and first single, “The River Is Rising”, along with an accompanying video, shot on location in downtown Los Angeles with Gibson TV director Todd Harapiak.

In a new “Behind The Track” clip uploaded to Slash’s official YouTube channel, he states about “The River Is Rising”: “‘The River Is Rising’ is the newest song that I wrote on the record. Right before we went into pre-production, I just made up this riff and it turned into ‘The River Is Rising’. So it’s the most recent-written song on the record.

“It’s very spontaneous. I can’t even remember how it all came together; it came together really quickly. But it rocks. And I thought it would be a good track for the opening of the record.”

Slash previously said about the creation of “The River Is Rising”: “There’s two or three songs on the record that were written during the pandemic; everything else was written before. ‘The River is Rising’ was one of the last songs I wrote before we started pre-production, and because it was so fresh and has a certain groove and energy to it, it was the first thing we really attacked. It’s the newest song on the record, and as for the double-time part, that was something that I came up with and tagged onto the end of the arrangement. Then when we were over at RCA, Dave Cobb suggested we do it right after the breakdown. So, we went straight into the fast part, and I just started doing the guitar solo over it. It was one of those things where we were jamming around, trying to fish out the arrangement, and it just happened.” While Myles Kennedy adds, “The lyric ultimately explores how humans can be brainwashed or indoctrinated by some sort of dangerous idea. Once we shot the demo back and forth a few times, I personally felt confident that we had the album opener. To me, it’s an important track.”

For “4”, Slash and the band traveled across the country together to Nashville, Tennessee and recorded the new album at the historic RCA Studio A with producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, John Prine, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile), revealing a stunning new sound and style all captured live in the studio. Cobb shared the band’s desire to lay down the tracks live, in the studio including guitar solos and vocals — a first for the group.

The band’s previous albums over the last decade — “Apocalyptic Love”, “World On Fire” and “Living The Dream” — have continued on an upward trajectory, all achieving Top 5 Billboard charting debuts in the U.S. and reaching the Top 10 on 12 major charts across the globe. To date, the three SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS albums have now garnered 10 consecutive Top 5 Radio singles, spawned sold-out world tours, and have earned Slash and the band the best critical acclaim of their career with their latest album “Living The Dream” (2018) singled out by the Los Angeles Times, Classic Rock, Guitar World, Loudwire, LA Weekly, and more, as their best songs to date.

The new album “4” has the added history-making distinction of being the first-ever album to be released on the new Gibson Records label, which is headquartered in the iconic American instrument brand Gibson’s hometown of Music City, Nashville. In light of the 30-year partnership between Gibson and the Grammy Award-winning Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Slash, it makes sense the new SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS’ album “4” will be released via Gibson Records.

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS will kick off a North American headlining tour on February 8, in Portland, Oregon and hit 28 major cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Nashville, Dallas, Austin, Houston, and more, before wrapping up March 26 in Orlando, Florida. Tickets will be on sale to the public at 10:00 a.m. local time on Friday, October 29.

It’s the ultimate sludge showdown as we pair off Crowbar’s self-titled album and Eyehategod’s Take as Needed for Pain in today’s Fight Fire With Fire.
The post Fight Fire With Fire: ‘Crowbar’ vs. ‘Take as Needed for Pain’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

San Diego’s progressive extreme metal destroyers, Cave Bastard, take a club to vaccine skeptics in their new “Anti-Vaxxtermination” video.
The post Video Premiere: Cave Bastard – “Anti-Vaxxtermination” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

SLIPKNOT will play the biggest headlining concert of its career to date on Friday, November 5 at the Knotfest Los Angeles at the Banc of California Stadium.

The Southern California edition of the traveling festival will feature additional performances by BRING ME THE HORIZON, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, FEVER 333, CODE ORANGE, VENDED and CHERRY BOMBS.

Earlier today (Thursday, October 28), SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor and BRING ME THE HORIZON frontman Oli Sykes discussed the upcoming event during a live chat with Knotfest.com’s Ryan J. Downey. Asked what SLIPKNOT fans can expect from the show, Taylor said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “The cool thing is that we really worked on a pretty fucking killer set to put together, which we kind of pieced together over some rehearsals — just kind of trial and error, putting the show together and really got it locked tight. But, having said that, we’ve got some cool surprises ready for Knotfest L.A. Just for the fact that our career’s kind of been leading towards this now. And the fact that we have such a stacked lineup — not just BRING ME, but, obviously, KILLSWITCH, FEVER 333, CODE ORANGE, my son’s band VENDED, my wife’s dance [group] is gonna be doing an incredible show right before BRING ME plays.

“We’re all really, really stoked that we’re gonna be able to do something really special for L.A., and, honestly, our first real stadium show,” he continued. “So that’s what I’m most stoked about — not just our show, but just the fact that we’re putting something on as a testimony to the music we love, the fans that we love to play for, and just hopefully the start of something massive in the future.”

For all the fans around the globe unable to be present at Knotfest Los Angeles, the show will be streamed live. SLIPKNOT’s first-ever livestream, the event will allow fans to share all the excitement of a SLIPKNOT gig, both live as it happens, and for a full 72 hours after. Tickets are on sale now at knotfest.veeps.com, priced at a discounted pre-sale cost of $15, with on-the-day tickets being $20. Knotfest members are eligible to purchase at a discounted price of $12. Tickets bundled with event merch are also available.

Ticket holders can still watch the stream up to 72 hours post event, so don’t worry if you can’t watch “live” on the night.

In late August, the Grammy Award-winning Iowan icons took Knotfest back to their home state for Knotfest Iowa, selling out an expanded capacity show at the National Balloon Classic Field in Indianola. The band is currently on the “Knotfest Roadshow” tour, which is snaking its way across the USA, culminating at the Banc Of California Stadium show for this very special event.

SLIPKNOT has spent the last few months working on a new studio album, tentatively due in 2022. The band’s latest LP, “We Are Not Your Kind”, came out in August 2019. The disc sold 118,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release to land at position No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Furthermore, the album made an impact worldwide with No. 1 debuts in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Finland, as well as Top 5 debuts in Germany, France, Norway, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and New Zealand.

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SEPULTURA has just released “Sepulnation: The Studio Albums 1998-2009”, which celebrates the Derrick Green era of the band. A five-album box set (across eight slabs of vinyl or five CDs), it contains the albums “Against”, “Nation”, “Roorback”, “Dante XXI” and “A-Lex”, all of which are half speed cut, remastered and back on 180-gram vinyl for the first time in a decade and also as a collector’s CD box. In addition, the “Roorback” album features the rare “Revolusongs” EP, which is available for the first time digitally and saw the band celebrate their influences with covers of bands as musically broad as DEVO, EXODUS, U2 and MASSIVE ATTACK.

Speaking to V13.net about his first impressions of Brazil shortly before he officially joined SEPULTURA in 1998, Derrick said: “It was incredible. I’d never been to Brazil. I knew nothing about the culture [or] the language. I didn’t have any Brazilian friends. I didn’t know anything about it. I was completely ignorant [of] Brazil. I probably even thought that they spoke Spanish there, [like] a lot of people assumed. But I went to the library, got out a few books, because there was no real Internet at the time. I had my library card. I was, like, ‘Okay, let me see what this place is about.’ And it didn’t do it justice. It didn’t really exist in my mind until I was actually able to set foot in the country and meet people and start to talk to them. And then the realization of what this place is about started to brew in my head. And then, after living there for 20 years, it radically changed my view of Brazil.”

He continued: “From the first time being there, where I didn’t really live there, and I was just getting interactions with people who were super fans of SEPULTURA, which was the whole country, it semed. And walking around with [the guys in SEPULTURA] and everyone recognizing them and honking their horns and asking for autographs all the time, that was a trip. I was, like, ‘Oh my God. These guys are getting…’ I didn’t know that, because, again, there was no Internet or anything; it was just, like, I had to be there. Then, [after] moving there, that started happening to me. ‘Cause it had been a few years; people started to know, like, ‘Okay, this is the new face of SEPULTURA.’ So I had to adjust my life [to] getting recognized and kind of analyzed every time I went out of the house. And that takes some getting used to. I never imagined that; I never thought that would be my life. So it was rough. I have to say I was a little depressed because I’m not that type of person. I kind of like to be the fly on the wall and kind of check everything out. So, I was, like, ‘Oh, man. I don’t wanna draw any attention,’ but it was impossible not to. [I’m this huge guy], like, 6’3 with dreads and tattoos. And they were just, like, ‘You’re huge. It’s impossible not to see that’s you from over there.’ So that drew attention as well — just the way that I looked, and not only being in the band. But it was every day. [And] the majority of the time, [the reaction from the people was] positive, positive, positive — I mean, 99 percent of the time. Brazil was a place that always kept its faith in SEPULTURA with all the changes that happened. They always wanted to see the best for the band because [SEPULTURA is] such a strong representation of Brazil outside of Brazil.”

Despite being Brazil’s biggest-ever heavy music export, when SEPULTURA lost its original frontman and founder Max Cavalera in 1996, and Max’s brother and drummer Igor Cavalera in 2006, many thought the band would not recover from their departures. However, in Cleveland, Ohio punk and hardcore scene veteran Green, SEPULTURA found a formidable, towering force that would lead the band with power and conviction through this new era of their career.

Any fans who feared that this new lineup of SEPULTURA would see the band taming its intense and heavy approach were not left disappointed when “Against” came out of the traps in 1998. With the powerhouse that is Igor Cavalera still on drums (he remained for four of the five albums), Andreas Kisser’s grinding guitars and bassist Paulo Jr.’s heavy bottom end powered behind Derrick Green’s guttural roar and SEPULTURA sounded heavier and more forceful than ever. This period would see the band continue to push their sound forward and challenge new sounds and styles, but they never lost sight of what was the core of the band. The righteous, rebellious nature remained with the 1998 album “Nation” calling for “one nation, Sepulnation,” — a rallying cry that stayed with the band throughout their long and challenging career.

“Sepulnation: The Studio Albums 1998-2009” brings the focus back on a period of the band that may have been missed by early supporters and shows that the fire continued to burn bright throughout.

Order “Sepulnation: The Studio Albums 1998-2009” here.

MEGADETH’s Dave Mustaine has once again praised the band’s current guitarist Kiko Loureiro, saying it him a “long” time to find someone who plays like Marty Friedman.

Mustaine touched upon Friedman and Loureiro’s playing skills while filming a new video message on Cameo, which lets users hire celebrities to record brief, personalized video messages about virtually any topic.

Addressing a fan named John who had a question about Friedman’s guitar solo in the MEGADETH song “Tornado Of Souls” from the band’s classic 1990 album “Rust In Peace”, Mustaine said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Hey, John, it’s Dave Mustaine from MEGADETH. Hey, I got your question about Marty’s solo in ‘Tornado Of Souls’. And… What did I think about it when I first heard it? I loved it. But — you’ve gotta remember these songs were played before, and [former MEGADETH guitarist] Chris Poland had played on those. I’d have to listen back to Chris’s solo to see how much of his performance had influenced Marty’s solo.

“I guess I should say a little bit about Marty, too, and his performance, when you said that you thought it was like Picasso,” he continued. “There’s a lot of players out in the world that play like Marty. They’re hard to find. If you’re in a band and you’re looking for someone like Marty Friedman, you’ll see how hard it is by how long it took me to find Kiko. The other players I’ve had were great in between Marty, and I say that with all respect, but there’s very few guys out there like Marty and Kiko.”

Shortly after Loureiro’s addition to MEGADETH in 2015, Mustaine called him “definitely the best guitarist we’ve ever had.” His comments echoed those he made about the band’s previous guitarist, Chris Broderick, during the latter’s tenure in the band. Back in 2013, during the making of MEGADETH’s “Super Collider” album, Mustaine wrote in a tweet that Chris was “without a doubt the best guitarist I’ve ever played with.”

Mustaine told Revolver magazine that finding Loureiro “was really a mind-blower. It was the first time since Marty Friedman joined the band that I was really intimidated as a player,” he said. “He’s such an amazing talent, and he’s been coming in with all of these fresh ideas.” Mustaine added that Kiko was a good fit personality wise. “Chris [Broderick] and I had a good chemistry, but we weren’t really as close as I would have wanted us to be,” Mustaine explained. “Kiko, I feel like I’ve known him for years.”

In 2009, Mustaine praised Broderick, saying in an online post: “I am going on record and I am saying unequivocally that Chris is THE BEST GUITARIST MEGADETH has ever had. And the real talented musicians in MEGADETH’s alumni will agree, he is an absolute monster. I mean, he plays the catalog better than anyone did. Jeff Young never wanted to do Chris Poland’s stuff, and so on, and so on, until the last guitarist we had before we disbanded over my arm injury.”

Mustaine added: “It’s funny, because just when I think [Broderick] can get no more outrageous, or any more thrilling with the guitar solos, he comes up with something really beautiful like Marty Friedman would do (he has Marty pretty well down pat), and then goes into the GIT styles that Jeff Young did, yet, there is still such a freshness to his playing and he is so raw, it’s like having a new prize bull. And even though he ain’t a such a young bull, he’s definitely an old bull like me.”

In the March 2008 issue of Revolver magazine, Mustaine stated about the musical chemistry of the band’s “Rust In Peace” lineup: “I sang almost every single note of Marty Friedman’s guitar solos, and I wrote the majority of Nick’s [Menza] drum parts, and I wrote almost every bass note that [David] Ellefson played.” He doubled down on those claims in a 2009 interview with Guitar World, where he said: “You know, people have heard me say that I ‘sang’ solos to Marty in the studio, and I did. I did it to [former guitarists] Jeff [Young], Chris [Poland] and Al [Pitrelli], too. But [then-MEGADETH guitarist] Chris Broderick? I only did it two times [on MEGADETH’s 2009 album ‘Endgame’], and there are literally hundreds of thousands of notes on ‘Endgame’. Now that is a testimony to a guy who has studied his partner.”

Splatterthrashers Ghoul share a live video for “Off With Their Heads.”
The post Track Premiere: Ghoul – ‘Off With Their Heads’ (Live) appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Unimaginable devastation awaits on Las Vegas-based death-doom clobberers Holy Death’s debut LP, Separate Mind from Flesh, streaming now, exclusively, right here.
The post Album Premiere: Holy Death – Separate Mind from Flesh appeared first on Decibel Magazine.