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The Runway Of Dreams Foundation, a nonprofit organization working towards a future of inclusion, acceptance, and opportunity in the fashion industry for people with disabilities, is thrilled to kick off New York Fashion Week with a one-of-a-kind virtual fashion show on Monday, September 14 beginning at 8 p.m. ET via on24.

The Fashion Revolution event marks the first time Tommy Hilfiger Adaptive, Zappos Adaptive, Kohl’s, Target adaptive clothing assortment and Stride Rite’s Journey adaptable sneakers, will grace the same virtual runway, broadening the reach of adaptive clothing in the mainstream industry and celebrating people with disabilities.

Fashion icon and designer Tommy Hilfiger will kick off the festivities and introduce the virtual show with Runway Of Dreams founder and CEO Mindy Scheier. DEF LEPPARD drummer Rick Allen and his wife and musician Lauren Monroe will perform their new song “Big Love”, a powerful anthem for this moment in time. 100% of the proceeds from “Big Love” are donated back to the rapid response fund Project Resiliency. “Big Love” also features the musical talents of Steve Ferrone from TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS and legendary musician Kenny Aronoff.

Celebrating inclusion, applauding innovation, and highlighting change in the fashion industry, the Runway Of Dreams Foundation’s fashion show will feature over 25 models of all abilities including gold medal snowboarder Brenna Huckaby, activist Grace Strobel, empowerment speaker Brandon Farbstein and author Keah Brown.

Authors and YouTubers Shane Burcaw and Hannah Alyward will serve as the show’s emcees, providing commentary throughout. And Steve Way from Hulu’s “Ramy” will also provide a comedy set.

“Fashion week has been greatly impacted by the current pandemic,” said Scheier. “However, we believe the show must go on and are so excited to present our annual NYFW show virtually, reaching a global audience! In fact, for the first time ever, Runway Of Dreams has five leading brands participating together in support of the inclusion and acceptance in the fashion industry for people with disabilities!”

The event will also feature Runway By SAP, a machine learning-powered app used to identify an item of clothing. Users can “love” the item, add it to their wish list, buy it, and more.

The Runway Of Dreams virtual fashion show presenting sponsor Tommy Hilfiger exclusively dressed the show’s performers and presenters. Platinum sponsors include Zappos Adaptive, Target, Kohl’s and Stride Rite. Application software leader SAP is the show’s in-kind sponsor.

Photo credit: Carol Oliva

Watch a new trailer for Swans documentary Where Does a Body Go?
The post Watch a New Trailer for Swans Documentary, ‘Where Does a Body End?’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

EPICA guitarist/vocalist Mark Jansen has offered an update on the recording sessions for the band’s new album. The follow-up to 2016’s “The Holographic Principle” was once again produced by Joost Van Den Broek (POWERWOLF, AYREON) in part at Sandlane Recording Facilities in Rijen, Netherlands.

Speaking to SEPULTURA guitarist Andreas Kisser and frontman Derrick Green for the weekly “SepulQuarta” Internet series, Jansen said (see video below): “We are basically done working on it. All the album has been recorded, mixed, mastered. The artwork is finished. It’s just because of the COVID situation that we release it a bit later than the initial plan was, because the initial plan was, I guess, September, so this month. But due to the whole situation, we postponed it to early next year. And luckily, we could finish all the recording just because the quarantine, like the choir recordings, orchestra recordings, that was really literally finished just before the whole quarantine situation started. And after the shit was over — a bit back to normal — we could go to Poland to shoot some videos and do the photo shoot in Belgium. So everything is ready to be released. It’s just waiting for the date now.”

Jansen went on to say that he has “never had to wait so many months” before an album release. “We’ve been working so hard on it, and then you want the people to hear it,” he said. “And now that we have to wait months and months and months, it’s sometimes hard to keep the focus.”

Last October, Jansen told That Drummer Guy that there was a simple explanation for why EPICA had taken this long to begin work on new material. “[The wait for a new album is] longer than usual, but in the meantime, we also released an EP, and a second EP, and also the [‘Design Your Universe’] re-release, and also a book — we worked on a book,” he explained. “So there’s a lot of stuff still that happened in the meantime. But if you just take a look at the albums, then it’s longer than it usually has been. So I think the fans are really eager to hear new material. And as eager are we about writing the stuff.

“When I started writing myself, I felt really a big motivation again to write a new album,” he continued. “And that’s exactly what we needed. We didn’t want to start writing an album at the point that we felt like we just had to write an album. We only want to write an album when we really feel hungry to write an album. And that’s the case now… It has to be one hundred percent or nothing; there’s nothing in between. I wouldn’t be happy with an album that has just a few good songs and the rest are fillers. I would feel ashamed about it. There’s no one that’s gonna be happy about such an album. It has to be as good as we can get it.”

Last fall, EPICA celebrated the 10th anniversary of its milestone album “Design Your Universe”. To mark this special occasion, EPICA re-released this fan-favorite LP as a “gold edition” through Nuclear Blast. This edition contains the album remixed and remastered by Joost Van Den Broek with updated artwork and a second disc containing newly recorded acoustic versions of “Design Your Universe” songs.

November 2019 saw the release of “The Essence Of Epica”, a lavishly designed and fully illustrated, high-quality hardback which tells the story of EPICA in bandmembers’ own words. The book is available in two distinct editions: the Classic is a 208-page, hardback with foil detailing, filled with over 200 images; the Signature hardback is signed by the band and comes in a deluxe clamshell box with three exclusive, original art prints created by Stefan Heilemann.

Eastern European raw black metallers Void Prayer unveil a sneak peek into the abyss that is their forthcoming sophomore full-length, The Grandiose Return to the Void.
The post Track Premiere: Void Prayer – “L’Appel du Vide” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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Japanese pop-metal band BABYMETAL will release two live albums next week. Captured on its “Metal Galaxy” world tour, the “Extra Show Legend – Metal Galaxy” was a two-day event held at Makuhari Messe (Japan) on January 25 and January 26, 2020. “Legend – Metal Galaxy [Day 1]” and “Legend – Metal Galaxy [Day 2]” will both arrive on Wednesday, September 9 via Cooking Vinyl.

Playing to 50,000 people across the two shows, BABYMETAL delivered two completely different set lists each night, dedicating one show to their Light Force and one to their Dark Force, in front of a huge LED projection of the “Metal Galaxy” odyssey.

Track listings for the albums are as follows:

“Legend – Metal Galaxy [Day 1]”

01. Future Metal
02. Da Da Dance
03. Elevator Girl
04. Shanti Shanti Shanti
05. Oh! Majinai
06. Yava!
07. Brand New Day
08. Gimme Chocolate!!
09. Megitsune
10. Night Night Burn!
11. The One
12. Road Of Resistance

“Legend – Metal Galaxy [Day 2]”

01. In The Name Of
02. Distortion
03. Pa Pa Ya!!
04. Karate
05. Kagerou
06. Bxmxc
07. Syncopation
08. Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!
09. Starlight
10. Shine
11. Arkadia
12. Ijime, Dame, Zettai

BABYMETAL’s third studio LP, “Metal Galaxy” hit No. 19 in the U.K. official album chart, No. 1 No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart, becoming the first Asian act to land at No. 1, and No. 18 on the German chart.

In the U.S., “Metal Galaxy” earned 28,000 equivalent album units (of which 27,000 were in album sales) in its first week of release. The album also topped the Hard Rock Albums chart.

“Metal Galaxy” entered the all-format Billboard 200 chart at No. 13. The group’s previous disc, 2016’s “Metal Resistance”, peaked at No. 39.

“Metal Galaxy” was released in October via earMUSIC/Edel. The follow-up to 2016’s “Metal Resistance” is based on the concept of “The Odyssey Of Metal Galaxy”.

“Metal Galaxy” contains 14 songs, including four singles that were released prior to the LP’s arrival: “Pa Pa Ya!!”, “Starlight”, “Distortion” and “Elevator Girl”. The album expresses light and darkness, emotions like duality and ambivalence, and “new metal” created by various chemical reactions as other entities evolved and expanded in this album.

The album includes five songs that feature guest appearances from worldwide musicians who were perfect to the character of each song. Vocalist Joakim Brodén from SABATON is featured on “Oh! Majinai”. Guitarist Tim Henson and Scott LePage from POLYPHIA are featured on “Brand New Day”. Vocalist Alissa White-Gluz from ARCH ENEMY is featured on “Distortion”. Rapper F.Hero is featured in “Pa Pa Ya!!”

SLAYER frontman Tom Araya has shared a manipulated video of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden sleeping during a live television interview.

The the original video, which was of an interview with veteran singer and actor Harry Belafonte almost nine years ago, during which he appeared to doze off, was doctored to show Biden sitting in Belafonte’s place.

On Tuesday (September 1), Araya posted the clip to his verified Instagram account, captioning it: “president of the United States really!??” After a number of people pointed out to Araya that the video was fake, Tom edited his post to say: “Edit – Fake police are out!!! Can’t get anything past you guys”.

This is not the first time Araya has generated controversy for his political social media posts. Two years ago, he angered some of his fans by sharing an ages-old chain letter that compared liberals’ actions unfavorably to those of conservatives on a number of issues. Prior to that, the 59-year-old musician, who was born in Chile, made headlines in 2017 when he said that the United States Of America had become “a nation of crybabies” following the election of Donald Trump as president, with many of its citizens unable to “even laugh at themselves” because they were “mad” that “they didn’t get their way.”

A few months earlier, Araya drew criticism from some SLAYER fans in January 2017 when a photoshopped picture of Donald Trump and the members of SLAYER appeared on the band’s Instagram account. Araya posted the image and later criticized fans who objected to the photo, saying that he “thought it was funny” and that anyone who disagrees should keep quiet.

The same image first appeared on the official SLAYER Instagram account on inauguration day, but was mysteriously removed before being reposted a few days later.

A SLAYER band representative told Rolling Stone that Tom took it upon himself to post the photo and stressed that the image was “not something the band would have posted if asked,” insisting that such a picture “does not belong on a SLAYER social page.” The representative added: “We all have our personal opinions, some of which we have voiced in the past, but SLAYER has never endorsed any political party or any candidate, and the band intends to keep it that way.”

Araya later told Chilean radio station Futuro that he posted the picture after someone sent it to his wife. “She showed it to me,” he explained. “I laughed. I thought it was funny. And I thought it was funny because of all the rhetoric that Donald Trump is getting and how everybody hates him. And I decided to post the picture. I knew that some people wouldn’t like it. You have to do that, though, you know what I mean? I’m in SLAYER [laughs], and being in SLAYER, sometimes you do stuff like that just to piss people off. [Laughs]”

Even though Araya expected to get some flak for posting the Trump photo, the ferocity of the reaction from SLAYER fans surprised him. “I didn’t realize it was gonna be the way it was, which is blown out of proportion and people saying really mean things,” he said. “I’m amazed. I was just amazed at the response, as far as people thinking it’s funny and they thought it was great and they support Trump, and other people that didn’t like it, they thought it was ugly and they can’t believe that I support Trump. [Laughs] I don’t even support Trump. I didn’t vote for Trump and I didn’t vote for Hillary [Clinton]. Those are two people that are the furthest from… that I would ever vote for. I was taken aback by the response and how people reacted. But it was all in fun. It was all to make people laugh, ’cause I thought it was funny. And also to piss some people off. I just didn’t realize that I was gonna piss so many SLAYER fans off. [Laughs]”

Back in 2016, SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph called Donald Trump “the biggest joke I’ve ever seen in my life,” and referred to some of Trump’s rhetoric as “the scariest shit I’ve ever seen as an American — in my lifetime.” Similarly, SLAYER guitarist Kerry King said that Trump was “the biggest liar I’ve ever seen in politics,” clarifying, “I mean, most of them are liars, but he just outright in-your-face lies.” King’s words were echoed by fellow SLAYER guitarist Gary Holt who described Trump as a “serial liar” who refused to disavow former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke.

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president of the United States really!?? ?? Edit – Fake police are out!!! Can’t get anything past you guys?
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As THE DAMNED memorably put it back in 1979: “religion doesn’t mean a thing/it’s just another way to be right-wing”. Not that the STRYPER album is full of paeans to Mike Pence, of course. Always a much better band than their vexed reputation would suggest, the Orange County crew made a handful of great records in the ’80s and generally avoided being laughed out of town by being a reliably over-the-top live band, and, if we’re honest, a bit of a novelty. Unfortunately, even several decades later, nothing quite takes the edge off a heavy metal record like constant references to God’s love and the power of prayer. At least with STRYPER, you know it’s coming, but it’s still a bit like biting into a delicious cheeseburger and being poked in the eye at the same time.

In every other respect, “Even The Devil Believes” is an occasionally strong and memorable hard rock record, with multiple anthemic refrains and some gloriously indulgent solos from the evergreen Oz Fox and vocalist Michael Sweet, whose pipes remain in excellent condition. The best songs are up there with anything from STRYPER’s first three records: opener “Blood From Above” is a strident starting point, with strong shades of the band’s fiery ’80s sound; “How I Try” is a likeable ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA-tinged ballad that revels in its own mawkish extravagance; “Divider” brings muscular DOKKEN vibes and a particularly fine vocal from Sweet. If you’re already a STRYPER fan, there is a decent amount to be enjoyed here.

For everyone else, the problem remains as same as it ever was. To buy into STRYPER’s musical world, you also have to be able to ignore the fact that most religious thinking is instinctively reactionary, rooted in irrational fear and is therefore entirely contrary to both the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll and everything that heavy metal is supposed to be about. Frankly, it’s a major turn-off. Even if you’re a generous soul with a “live and let live” attitude when it comes to such matters, a song as lyrically insipid as “Make Love Great Again” is going to test your patience. Perhaps STRYPER deserve credit for not caring what anyone thinks and actively celebrating their beliefs through their art, but halfway through the schmaltzy and half-baked “This I Pray”, I was struck by an overwhelming urge to nail a chicken to someone’s front door. I suspect I will not be alone.

Ultimately, you can try to kid people that worshipping sky fairies is a shrewd pastime, but it just isn’t. And as much as STRYPER deserve applause for sticking to their guns, it’s almost impossible to listen to “Even The Devil Believes” without wishing that Satan would arrive and liven things up a bit. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I’m not insane.

In a new interview with NME, METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich was asked if he and his bandmates have found the coronavirus lockdown period creatively productive. He responded: “I’m not sure — it’s not easy, but we’ve been doing what we can. We’ve been exchanging ideas back and forth.

“The hardest thing about being in four different spaces is that there’s no software that can have us all play in real time to reach other. So I can play something and send it to the next guy and then he can play on it and he can send it to the next guy, or vice versa, but we can’t play at the same time so it takes the impulsivity and the momentary energy out of the occasion.

“I’ve talked to some people in technology about how close we are to being able to all play in real time with each other, but that hasn’t been cracked yet,” he continued. “If it is, we’ll maximize it, but for now, we’re in this bubble for a couple of weeks, and we’re looking forward to seeing if at some point this fall, we can get back into another bubble where we write and play and maybe even record — so we’re looking forward to the possibilities on that one.”

Asked when fans can expect new METALLICA music, Ulrich said: “Not soon enough! Right now, I’d say the hardest thing about all this is trying to plan, because five minutes later, those plans change — that’s just the nature of the state of the world at the moment and we’re going to have to accept and surrender to it. I think it’s a good reminder of the fragility of the world and how maybe we should occasionally pause and be a little bit more respectful and appreciative of what we have and understand how quickly it can derail in terms of how we arrogantly expect everything to be way we wanted as a human race.”

In early May, the four members of METALLICA overcame social distancing to record a new version of their song “Blackened”, with each member separated in his own home. The split-screen video was posted to the band’s social media channels.

On Saturday night (August 29), METALLICA broadcast a show to hundreds of drive-in and outdoor theaters across the U.S. and Canada, as part of the “Encore Drive-In Nights” series. The concert was filmed nearly three weeks earlier, on August 10, at the Gundlach Bundschu winery, about a 30-minute car ride from the band’s headquarters in San Rafael, California, and was subsequently edited and mixed by the band’s award-winning production team to the highest standards possible.

Last month, METALLICA took part in an interview and short performance on “The Howard Stern Show”.