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There was a time, not so long ago, when deathcore was routinely decried as a one-dimensional clown show for emotionally stunted, suburbanite timewasters. Harsh dissenting voices may have had a point in terms of the genre’s low-hanging fruit, but WHITECHAPEL have done more than arguably any other band to prove the doubters wrong, particularly so in recent times. Always one of deathcore’s most creative bands, Phil Bozeman’s crew have evolved steadily but with dogged commitment to the cause, and nearly two decades of hard work came to startling fruition on 2019’s “The Valley”. Widely and rightly acclaimed, WHITECHAPEL’s seventh album retained the band’s trademark avalanche of seven / eight-string riffs and venomous guttural vocals, but added a slew of new elements, sustained bursts of melody, far greater atmospheric depth than on any previous album and several of the finest songs the band have ever written. Not surprisingly, then, “Kin” arrives with great expectations looming overhead, and for the most part it lives up to its predecessor’s high standards and subtly oddball take on metal modernity.

Brooding but breezy acoustic guitars usher in opener “I Will Find You”: a strong statement in itself, albeit one swiftly usurped by a brutish groove and the arrival of Bozeman’s leathery larynx. Thereafter, “Kin” is a blur of shocks, surprises and, just to calm the nerves of those fearing that WHITECHAPEL have jumped the shark, deathcore boxes ticked. “Lost Boy” and “A Bloodsoaked Symphony” are both prime examples of how this band continue to mutate and mature. The riffing and spine-loosening double-kicks that this music demands are present and correct throughout, and WHITECHAPEL have seldom had so much sonic clarity to back up their triple-guitar attack, but these are songs that spurn traditional structure in favor of an elegantly expressed shape-shifting approach. Instead of hammering away with the usual dynamic tricks, songs like “The Ones That Made Us” and “To the Wolves” simply offer broader textural range and, primarily via Bozeman’s lyrics and always killer vocals, an intelligence and imaginative flair that may yet enable WHITECHAPEL to hasten their upward ascent. Aside from any other concerns, this band still slam admirably hard.

Elsewhere, “Kin” is an album that tries a little too hard to highlight its own open-mindedness, particularly in terms of embracing melody. “The Valley” had a few highly effective moments with clean vocals as a focal point; most of the comparable moments on “Kin” repeat the trick with great success, and with endearing echoes of KATATONIA adding to the hazily progressive atmosphere. In particular, “History Is Silent” is a superb piece of songwriting and a neat encapsulation of WHITECHAPEL’s ongoing evolution. Unfortunately, after the marauding clatter of “To the Wolves”, things take a turn toward the prosaic, and “Kin” settles into a mid-paced, alternative rock groove, with both “Orphan” and the closing title track edging into overwrought, post-grunge balladry territory. The intermittent, bowel-rattling violence of “Without Us” saves the album’s final stretch, but the expected triumphant climax to this otherwise excellent record never quite materializes.



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Legendary rocker Sammy Hagar will take part in a Las Vegas residency at The STRAT beginning this weekend. “Sammy Hagar And Friends” will see Sammy performing with a rotating circle of other musicians.

The STRAT Theater has a capacity of about 800 people. The theater will be designed to capture the beach vibe Hagar’s synonymous with, including elements of his famed Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, home to his epic annual birthday bash.

Shows are scheduled on October 29 and October 30, November 5, November 6, November 12 and November 13, all at 9 p.m.

“Sammy & Friends” will celebrate Hagar’s career, spanning four decades, from his solo career, MONTROSE, VAN HALEN, CHICKENFOOT, THE CIRCLE, and surprise additions to the setlist depending on which of his musician friends take the stage with him. Produced by industry leader SPI Entertainment and Hagar’s manager, Tom Consolo, of TC Management, the show will transport the audience to Baja, where you never know who will join Hagar on stage.

Speaking to the Las Vegas Sun about what fans can expect from the residency concerts, Hagar said: “Nobody is going to hear the same thing twice. One night we’re going to come out and play VAN HALEN for an hour, then start cherry picking. Another night, we might just play MONTROSE, which will be fun because that’s only about 35 minutes of music. I want to do it with a different theme every night and really mix it up.

“The team at The STRAT has been awesome and they’ve really allowed us to come in and do what we want to do,” he added. “That room is great and I looked at every room that was available in Las Vegas. My fans, the Redheads, they come from all over the world, and you want them to be in a place like Vegas where they can have a good time before and after the show. The experience in Vegas is like no other town. If you can’t find something to do here, you’re either broke or in a really bad mood.”

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Hagar has invited such guest stars as Toby Keith, Rick Springfield, Kenny Chesney, Vince Neil (MÖTLEY CRÜE) and Jerry Cantrell (ALICE IN CHAINS) to the party.

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TRIVIUM frontman Matt Heafy spoke to Lou Brutus of HardDrive Radio about the strict COVID-19 protocols he and his bandmates adhered to on their recently completed U.S. tour with MEGADETH, LAMB OF GOD and HATEBREED. “The Metal Tour Of The Year” marked the four groups’ first run of concerts since the start of the pandemic.

“My entire band and entire crew were vaccinated,” Matt said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “I had breakthrough COVID as well, so I was about as immune as you can possibly get and I was still adhering to every single rule. And I know that maybe some people, unfortunately, are rolling their eyes when they hear about this stuff, but the way I think about it, I don’t think anything other than this is a virus; it’s a sickness. I’ve had tons of freakin’ shots. Every time you go to South America, you have to get boosters and immunity, if you’re gonna be near the jungle. My kids are almost three. When they were little, they got polio and smallpox and measles vaccinations, hepatitis vaccinations. That’s the only way I thought of this: ‘You know what? I wanna play shows, and I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure not one person misses our set for one freakin’ show.’ So, we had the vaccine, still wore masks everywhere except for dressing room, stage and bus. You know how much I love food. We made sure every single meal we had on every single day off was outdoors — outdoors, no friends. ‘Cause we wanted the shows to happen.

“With how strict we ran it, if anyone is ever curious, like, ‘Man, that’s a little bit too much,’ the proof is in the pudding,” Matt continued. “We came out of this thing without one show missed. Canada, obviously, is getting postponed, it’s getting moved — it’s not canceled. That’s a different border, country-to-country thing, so that has nothing to do with us. And we’re freakin’ stoked. It was amazing. Five to ten thousand people a night. For metal, that’s insane — that’s an insane amount of people to show up for HATEBREED, TRIVIUM, LAMB OF GOD and MEGADETH. So it was amazing. We had some of the best shows we’ve ever had in our career on this run.”

Earlier in the month, TRIVIUM bassist Paolo Gregoletto told Mankato, Minnesota’s “Midwest Beatdown” radio show that the band’s tour manager was diagnosed with COVID-19 after the third show of “The Metal Tour Of The Year”. “We had a bunch of [COVID-19] tests with us,” he said. “We got a couple of extras. Everyone tested. No one else was positive. We caught up our manager. We caught up the tour. We pretty much said, ‘Look, we’re not gonna cancel a show. Everyone’s good. We’re all isolated from our tour manager. We’ll test tomorrow and as many days in a row as you want.’ And no one ever got sick on our bus except for our tour manager. And we kept going. That was basically it.

“There was really no rule kind of set up how that was gonna work,” Paolo continued. “But what we’ve been seeing people do is, okay, someone on a [tour] package will get sick, and they’ll be, like, ‘well, everyone’s gonna take 10 days’ or something to quarantine — whatever people are doing. And we were, like, it’s not possible. There’s too much at stake for a tour this size, or any tour, really. ‘Cause if you start canceling shows, the margin is very, very thin with that kind of stuff; it’s not sustainable. So we were just, like, ‘Look, if no one is sick, the show must go on.’ So that’s what we did. HATEBREED’s sound guy helped us out big time by filling in on monitors. Our assistant tour manager picked up the slack for the shows, and then our tour manager was just e-mailing — Zooming in; [sending] e-mails, doing all the stuff he had to do. And he came back when he was fine, and that was it. And we kept rolling.”

Gregoletto added: “It was scary, obviously, but I was also kind of relieved to have that happen right away, ’cause it’s, like, once you kind of know what it could be once it happens… It’s kind of like Matt when he got sick [with COVID-19] way before the tour, it’s scary ’cause you’ve been trying to avoid it the whole time, but then, when you get through it, you’re, like, ‘All right. I felt bad for a few days and now I’m good.’ It felt good to just have that happen, and we dealt with it, and the show went on. And we didn’t publicize it ’cause we didn’t wanna [create] any sort of doubt that the tour was gonna get canceled, that shows would get canceled. ‘Cause it’s crazy times right now. I’m sure a lot of people have seen bands are dropping from tours and stuff, and we just didn’t wanna do that. So we chose this way instead.”

The last three shows of “The Metal Tour Of The Year” — in Toronto, Laval and Quebec City — were postponed to spring 2022 due to restrictions in the Quebec province and international logistical issues.

TRIVIUM’s tenth album, “In The Court Of The Dragon”, was released on October 8 via longtime label Roadrunner Records. The record was produced and mixed by Josh Wilbur and recorded in the fall of 2020 at Full Sail University in Orlando. The album cover is an original oil painting by French artist Mathieu Nozieres.

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Ted Nugent has weighed in on the fatal on-set shooting last week involving actor Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin shot a prop firearm while rehearsing a scene on the set of the movie “Rust”, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. Hutchins died on Thursday after being airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital. Director Joel Souza was also injured in the incident but was released from the hospital the following day.

Nugent discussed the incident during his Facebook Live stream on Monday (October 25). He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I’m not gonna comment right now on… What’s the dirtbag that shot the guy with a prop gun? Alec Baldwin. We don’t know the details. But until we know the details, all I wanna say is I know Alec Baldwin is just a nasty, nasty man. He would attack the good families of the NRA that did nothing wrong and blame us when there was a school shooting. So we know he’s a liar and his brain is fried and he’s just a prick. But you know what we’re gonna do for the brainfried, nasty, rotten prick? We’re gonna pray for him until we find out the details of that terrible accident — if it was an accident. Because you know if you point the gun at something and you blow that thing up, it’s not an accident; that’s negligence. So as big of a prick as Alec Baldwin is, we’re actually praying for the prick, because I know he’s hurtin’. Nobody wants to kill anybody in an unnecessary moment like that.”

The outpoken conservative rocker and avid hunter, who is the national spokesman for pro-hunting lobbying group Hunter Nation, continued: “When I did the ‘Miami Vice’ episode, I had a prop gun that happened to be the exact replica of the Taurus brushed nickel nine-millimeter that I carried at the time. So when I went to perform on ‘Miami Vice’ back in ’84, ’85, ‘Little Miss Dangerous’ time, I made sure I disassembled my Taurus and separated the spring and the slide and the frame and the barrel, and I separated everything so there was no possibility whatsoever that someone would mistake my real brushed nickel nine-millimeter with the prop brushed nickel nine-millimeter. And even when I shot Don Johnson in the shootout, I made sure I wasn’t pointing it at him. I cannot point a gun at anything I’m not willing to destroy. So I can’t wait to find out what happened. But because he’s a liberal prick, and the media is controlled by liberal pricks, and all the so-called justice in America is controlled by liberal pricks — for the most part. Only the guilty need to feel guilty, ’cause there’s some really good judges and good lawyers and good attorney generals out there — I think nine total. But since the so-called court systems of America are basically run by a gang of pricks, they’ll probably cover for the Alec prick. And we’ll probably never find out what happened.”

Baldwin famously impersonated former president Donald Trump during his time in office on “Saturday Night Live”. Those impersonations were a sore point for the former president, who would often take the time to rail against the actor’s performances on Twitter.

Nugent, who recently resigned from the board of the National Rifle Association (NRA) after 26 years, has called Trump “the greatest president in our lifetime.” He also said the billionaire real estate mogul represents “the heart and soul of the best American families out there.”

Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, Nugent teamed up with Donald Trump Jr. on the campaign trail.

Nugent, known as the “Motor City Madman,” moved to Texas from Michigan more than 18 years ago.

Posted by Ted Nugent on Monday, October 25, 2021

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D.C. death dealers, Genocide Pact, churn out hateful psychedelia-infused sludge in “Purged Flesh” from their upcoming self-titled release.
The post Track Premiere: Genocide Pact – “Purged Flesh” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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Dave Grohl says that he hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about the recent lawsuit filed over the cover of the iconic NIRVANA album “Nevermind”.

This past August, Spencer Elden, the man who claims he was the baby featured in the image, sued the surviving members of NIRVANA as well as the estate of Kurt Cobain. Elden alleges the photo of the baby reaching for a dollar in a swimming pool violated federal child pornography statutes and argues child sexual exploitation.

Asked in a new interview with Vulture what his stance is on Elden’s claims, Grohl said: “I don’t know that I can speak on it because I haven’t spent too much time thinking about it. I feel the same way most people do in that I have to disagree. That’s all I’ll say.”

When Vulture writer Craig Jenkins pointed out that Elden has recreated the photo several times as an adult, Grohl added: “Listen, he’s got a ‘Nevermind’ tattoo. I don’t.”

Earlier this month, Grohl said that he was open to the idea of changing the cover of “Nevermind” for any subsequent reissues of the LP. “I have many ideas of how we should alter that cover, but we’ll see what happens,” he told The Sunday Times. “We’ll let you know. I’m sure we’ll come up with something good.”

As for how the lawsuit might pan out, Grohl said that he wasn’t overly concerned. “I think that there’s much more to look forward to and much more to life than getting bogged down in those kinds of things,” he explained. “And, fortunately, I don’t have to do the paperwork.”

A month after filing his lawsuit, Elden, who is now 30, requested his genitalia be removed from “all future album covers” on the 30th anniversary of the project.

“Today, like each year on this date, our client Spencer Elden has had to brace himself for renewed unwanted attention from the media and fans alike throughout the world,” his attorneys told USA Today. “This is a choice that he has never had.”

The attorneys said that they plan on continuing the legal proceedings in order to “bring long-awaited privacy and dignity back to our client.”

“We implore the NIRVANA defendants to right the wrongs of their past, by acknowledging the harm they have perpetrated and redacting the image of Mr. Elden’s genitalia from further reproductions of ‘Nevermind’ because behind every cover is a person pleading for their privacy back,” they added.

A deluxe 30th-anniversary reissue of “Nevermind” is due on November 12. Pre-orders for the set still show the album with its original cover artwork.

In Elden’s complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, which also named photographer Kirk Weddle and the various record companies behind the album’s release, Elden claimed that his “identity and legal name are forever tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a minor which has been distributed and sold worldwide from the time he was a baby to the present day.”

According to the suit, the defendants “knowingly produced, possessed, and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer, and they knowingly received value in exchange for doing so. … Despite this knowledge, defendants failed to take reasonable steps to protect Spencer and prevent his widespread sexual exploitation and image trafficking.”

Elden claimed that his parents never signed a release authorizing the use of the photos, which were taken in a Pasadena aquatic center in 1990. He alleges that the band promised to cover his genitals with a sticker, which was never incorporated into the album art.

“To ensure the album cover would trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer, Weddle activated Spencer’s ‘gag reflex’ before throwing him underwater in poses highlighting and emphasizing Spencer’s exposed genitals,” the complaint stated.

The suit further alleged the defendants “used child pornography depicting Spencer as an essential element of a record promotion scheme commonly utilized in the music industry to get attention, wherein album covers posed children in a sexually provocative manner to gain notoriety, drive sales, and garner media attention, and critical reviews.”

Elden is seeking damages of either $150,000 from each of the 17 defendants or unspecified damages to be determined at trial, attorney fees, an injunction to prohibit all parties “from continuing to engage in the unlawful acts and practices described herein,” and a trial by jury.

“The permanent harm he has proximately suffered includes but is not limited to extreme and permanent emotional distress with physical manifestations, interference with his normal development and educational progress, lifelong loss of income earning capacity, loss of past and future wages, past and future expenses for medical and psychological treatment, loss of enjoyment of life, and other losses to be described and proven at trial of this matter,” the lawsuit stated.

Elden’s parents were reportedly paid only $200 for the photos, and the shoot lasted around 15 seconds.

In a 2016 interview with Time magazine, Elden said: “It’s a trip. Everyone involved in the album has tons and tons of money. I feel like I’m the last little bit of grunge rock. I’m living in my mom’s house and driving a Honda Civic.

“It’s hard not to get upset when you hear how much money was involved,” Elden added. “I go to a baseball game and think about it: ‘Man, everybody at this baseball game has probably seen my little baby penis,’ I feel like I got part of my human rights revoked.”

“Nevermind” has sold over 30 million copies worldwide and was certified diamond by the RIAA for sales in excess of 10 million copies in the U.S. alone.

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In a new interview with MetalAsylum.net, Jay Jay French spoke about how TWISTED SISTER built its reputation as one of the best live acts on the planet. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “When a fan comes to see the band, they expect certain songs — always. And when a band says, ‘Here’s some new stuff from our new album,’ that just means they’re not playing stuff that the public wants to hear. And we decided a long time ago, ‘We wanna play exactly what they wanna hear.’ That’s one of the reasons why we were so successful — we played exactly what they wanted to hear. ‘Here’s 17 songs. We’re gonna play these 17; they should make you very happy.’ If you want us to replace a couple of ’em with some new stuff, let’s vote.’ You know what the vote would be? 99 to one not to do it. So when most classic bands come out with a new record, the mistake they make is [they say], ‘Oh, we’re gonna promote our new record.’ No one gives a fuck about your new record. They really don’t. So what happens is [the bands] fool themselves into thinking they do, and the first week they’re playing five songs, and then the next week they’re playing four songs, and the next [week] they’re playing two, and then one month into the tour, they’re playing one song from the new record. Why? Because nobody really cares. It doesn’t mean the song isn’t good; it doesn’t mean the band isn’t good — it doesn’t mean any of that. The point is you’re entertainers. So what’s the point? Are you there to entertain or not? Now, there are some people who don’t give a shit. Bob Dylan could care less whether you like the way he performs or not. He obviously turns his back against you; he mumbles; you don’t even know what the fuck he’s singing. And that’s what he wants to do — that’s his way of doing it. We don’t work that way.”

He continued: “Look, let me put it to you this clearly: whether you like TWISTED SISTER or you don’t like TWISTED SISTER, here’s an undeniable fact — we’re one of the only handful of bands that a promoter will trust with a hundred thousand people. Simple as that. We’ve played a ton of those shows. A hundred thousand people close out these festivals. I’m not talking about the afternoon where you’re playing in front of ten thousand or twenty thousand; I’m talking about a hundred thousand. When you are headlining a festival that holds anywhere from eighty to a hundred and ten thousand people and you’re the headliner, you have to not suck; you have to be great; and you have to make sure you’re great; and you have to make sure that everybody walks out and says, ‘That was great, and that was a great festival.’ That’s the responsibility that KISS has, that JUDAS PRIEST has, that AC/DC has, that DEF LEPPARD has… These are the top-echelon bands that are going out there and are told… IRON MAIDEN; there’s only maybe twenty of us that can go out there and can accept the responsibility of delivering happiness to a hundred thousand people. Well, you have to be really good to do that. And then, when you’ve reached and attained that ability to do it, you have to be grateful that you’ve reached that ability to do it, and you have to deliver it every time. And that’s what I’m probably most proud of.”

TWISTED SISTER called it quits in 2016 after completing a farewell 40th-anniversary tour. The band’s last-ever concert took place in November of that year — 20 months after the passing of TWISTED’s longtime drummer A.J. Pero.

French’s new “bizoir” — part memoir and part business primer — “Twisted Business: Lessons From My Life In Rock ‘N’ Roll”, was released last month via RosettaBooks.

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BEHEMOTH frontman Adam “Nergal” Darski was recently interviewed by the band’s former guitarist Mateusz Śmierzchalski for the latter’s “h23” podcast. During the lengthy conversation, which can be seen in two parts below, Nergal touched upon his policy for how he deals with fans when they approach him during dinner at restaurants to ask for a photo. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “My good friend, he was telling me some stories with some iconic people in L.A. And one of my absolutely favorite stories from his is… He was just a kiddo waiting outside some shows, and he would just come across Ozzy Osbourne. And he’s telling me, ‘Man, Ozzy Osbourne was cool. He [let me] take a photo. And they were super friendly and cool. And then I ended up at this party and I see there’s fucking Anthony Kiedis [RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS] standing in front of me, so I just approached him in the most polite way, and I just asked him’ — that is amazing; I love it — I just patted him on the back and he just turned towards me, and I just asked him in a super-polite way, ‘Anthony, would you mind if I take a photo with you?’ And he goes, like, [in an assertive way] ‘Absolutely not.'”

Nergal went on to say that he appreciated Anthony’s direct approach in turning down his friend’s photo request. “I can’t love it more than I do,” he said. “I think it’s amazing. You know why? Because you actually… I mean, it’s cool if people do that [take pictures with fans]. I usually do that, but on many occasions, fans, they’re just all over you. They don’t know where the boundaries are; they don’t feel that. You’re in a restaurant having a date with a lady, and [they approach you excitedly], ‘Can we take a photo?’ ‘No.’ And somehow [the Kiedis story] inspired me to say ‘no’ in a very assertive but polite way. So I have no problems with saying, ‘I’m sorry. This is a private meeting. I’m having a date. Hopefully next time.’ And I’m happy to see their reactions, which, nine out of 10 [times], are, like, ‘I respect that. Sorry for disturbing. See you next time. Can I just shake your hand?’ ‘Of course you can.’ And that is cool. And I developed that skill to say ‘no’ in a polite way because sometimes you must say no.”

Darski’s dark folk/blues/Americana-influenced solo project ME AND THAT MAN will release its third full-length studio album, “New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 2”, on November 19 via Napalm Records.

BEHEMOTH will celebrate its 30-year career with a massive livestream event called “XXX Years Ov Blasphemy” this Halloween, October 31. The event will feature three separate sets in three spectacular locations, commemorating the band’s three decades making music and art.

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