The official LED ZEPPELIN documentary “Becoming Led Zeppelin” debuted last Saturday (September 4) at the Venice International Film Festival in Italy. Directed by Bernard MacMahon, the film documents the legendary rockers’ “meteoric rise to stardom.”
LED ZEPPELIN guitarist Jimmy Page, who premiered the documentary at the event, took to his social media earlier today (Thursday, September 9) to write: “I recently returned from the Venice Film Festival where the world premiere of ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ was unveiled. With Bernard MacMahon (the director), Allison McGourty (producer of the film) and accompanied by @scarlettzsabet, we were about to feel the feedback of the documentary.

“The first run was 2pm on Saturday 4th September. The full capacity audience were already in the venue (COVID restrictions observed) before we were due to enter and welcome the audience and to say hello. There was a 10 minute standing ovation before a word was said. The audience bestowed such affection before the viewing it was quite overwhelming. As the film progressed the enthusiasm intensified and certain sequences were followed by applause. The audience were really connected and it was interesting to witness the communication and enthusiasm the event and the film were generating. After the closing credits, the audience rose to their feet and gave us another standing ovation, a thank you that I can’t convey in words, but boy did I feel it.

“That evening there was to be a midnight showing and I wanted to attend that as well. Bernard and I introduced the film to another enthusiastic audience and another standing ovation. It was so energising to feel the love, joy and anticipation from the public. The world press from the next couple of days was equally encouraging. They had had a private viewing so the questions were totally relative to the film documentary. The film had clearly touched the hearts of both audience and critics alike.

“Thank you to the Venice Film Festival. Thank you to the fans. Thanks to you for your loyal support through the years.

“Just now awaiting the announcement for the official release of the film and the day we can all see ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’.”

“Becoming Led Zeppelin” features new interviews with Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, as well as rare archival interviews with the late drummer John Bonham. It marks the first time members of LED ZEPPELIN have participated in a documentary about the group.

MacMahon said in a press release: “With ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’ my goal was to make a documentary that looks and feels like a musical. I wanted to weave together the four diverse stories of the band members before and after they formed their group with large sections of their story advanced using only music and imagery and to contextualize the music with the locations where it was created and the world events that inspired it. I used only original prints and negatives, with over 70,000 frames of footage manually restored, and devised fantasia sequences, inspired by ‘Singin’ In The Rain’, layering unseen performance footage with montages of posters, tickets and travel to create a visual sense of the freneticism of their early career.”

MacMahon previously directed the Emmy-nominated music documentary series “American Epic” about the early American roots music recordings of the 1920s. Page praised the film back in 2019, saying: “When I saw everything Bernard had done both visually and sonically on the remarkable achievement that is ‘American Epic’, I knew he would be qualified to tell our story.”

Plant added: “Seeing Will Shade and so many other important early American musicians brought to life on the big screen in ‘American Epic’ inspired me to contribute to a very interesting and exciting story.”

Jones stated: “The time was right for us to tell our own story for the first time in our own words, and I think that this film will really bring this story to life.”

An official LED ZEPPELIN book, “Led Zeppelin By Led Zeppelin”, came out in October 2018.

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Slamming brutal death metal is an inherently cartoony genre, focusing on the most knuckle-dragging elements of a knuckle-dragging sound. The ultra gory lyrics make it even more so. Blood-soaked diatribes and bludgeoning noises are so intertwined that headbangers often let the ridiculousness go in one ear and out the other. Inebrious Incarnate refuse to let…
The post Track Premiere: Inebrious Incarnate – “Altar of Intoxication” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Todd La Torre has released the official music video for his solo song “Vexed”. The age-restricted clip, which was directed and filmed by Thomas Crane of killDevil Films, shows Todd on a desolate street before changing to footage of global unrest throughout time. The video features Todd and songwriting partner Craig Blackwell handing all of the instruments as Todd sings “Can’t take no more. A nation in distress.”

Todd comments: “‘Vexed’ highlights the unfortunate reality that many nations and its people are facing. Past and present parallels of civil rights movements, social injustices, and the uprisings surrounding geopolitical landscapes are woven throughout the exposé, displaying overt footage from various countries with no exclusivity. Despite its thought-provoking and unfiltered content, Thomas Crane of killDevil Films really drove home the vision that Craig and I wanted to convey. This video is really an artistic collage of performance, the ominous side of humanity, and unwavering altruistic heroism. The overall point and message is that we must learn and understand the profound significance of the past and present if we are to have salutary progress for the future.”

“Vexed” is taken from La Torre’s full-length debut, “Rejoice In The Suffering”, which arrived on February 5 via Rat Pak Records.

The idea for a solo album was always in the cards for Todd. With QUEENSRŸCHE tour dates postponed indefinitely, the world events offered Todd the opportunity to explore his ideas for the effort. Todd teamed up with Blackwell, alongside producer Chris “Zeuss” Harris, to create a diverse heavy metal album that draws influence from different styles. These styles will surprise fans who only know La Torre from his previous work with QUEENSRŸCHE or CRIMSON GLORY.

From the album’s opening riffs of “Dogmata” to the vocal acrobatics that drive the album closer “Apology”, it is apparent that La Torre has a true love of heavy metal. With Todd playing drums and recording the vocals for the album, songs like “Darkened Majesty” and “Critical Cynic” offer an inside look into his musical mind. Blackwell’s guitar playing provides the perfect musical accents to La Torre’s vocals. Todd even finds vocal wails not heard from him before as showcased on the title track and the punishing “Vanguards Of The Dawn Wall”. The deluxe version of the album features three bonus tracks: “Fractured”, “Set It Off” and “One By One”.

In a recent interview with Anne Erickson of Audio Ink Radio, Todd stated about the differences in his songwriting approach for QUEENSRŸCHE and that for his solo project: “They’re apples and oranges. They’re totally separate things. I don’t write guitars, really, in like a QUEENSRŸCHE way. That’s not where I shine in QUEENSRŸCHE. I think my lyric writing and my vocal phrasing and delivery and that sort of thing, that’s kind of my asset to the writing process for QUEENSRŸCHE music. I would never try to push this kind of style or sound into QUEENSRŸCHE music. I don’t really write music — I mean, I co-write stuff with them, and I might have a guitar riff idea or something, but they’re totally separate things, and I would never, never want to pollute the waters of QUEENSRŸCHE with what I’m doing.”

He continued: “I think because I’ve been able to get this first [solo album] out, I think that my eagerness to do things with QUEENSRŸCHE definitely takes a backseat, because I have this other outlet to do those things. So, I feel less inclined to be, like, ‘Oh, I need to scream here and show people what I can do on this.’ I really want to just respect what QUEENSRŸCHE’s sound is and not change. I don’t want to change the style and sound of what QUEENSRŸCHE is and should be. I very much draw a line in the sand where, you know, I can experiment and try some things that might be fitting for a QUEENSRŸCHE song, but as far as pushing that on to them, I feel, because I got that done, I’m more relaxed doing the QUEENSRŸCHE stuff where I don’t feel like I have to try to sneak in something heavier, because nobody’s got to hear that from me. Now they get to hear a plethora of styles from me on this record.”

“Rejoice In The Suffering” track listing:

01. Dogmata
02. Pretenders
03. Hellbound And Down
04. Darkened Majesty
05. Crossroads To Insanity
06. Critical Cynic
07. Rejoice In The Suffering
08. Vexed
09. Vanguards Of The Dawn Wall
10. Apology

Bonus tracks (deluxe version only)

11. Fractured
12. Set It Off
13. One By One

La Torre joined his first band BLACKWELL as the drummer, performing in high school talent shows and entering into the club rock music scene in Tampa Bay, Florida. In 2009, Todd was suggested to CRIMSON GLORY guitarist Jon Drenning by a mutual friend to help with some vocal rehearsals in preparation for a CRIMSON GLORY memorial concert. This would pave the way for more collaborations with the band, eventually joining as the band’s new permanent vocalist. La Torre was the lead singer for CRIMSON GLORY from late 2010 until resigned from the band in early 2013. In 2012, Todd became a household name in the metal world when he officially became the new lead vocalist of QUEENSRŸCHE. The band immediately began touring globally and started writing new material for the self-titled 2013 album “Queensrÿche”. To date, QUEENSRŸCHE has released three studio albums with La Torre: “Queensrÿche”, “Condition Hüman” (2015) and “The Verdict” (2019). Currently the band is writing new material for a fourth release for Century Media Records.

During a recent interview with SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation Virtual Invasion”, Bruce Dickinson discussed IRON MAIDEN’s penchant for writing long, progressive intricate songs, including on the band’s latest effort, “Senjutsu”, which features three tracks whose running time exceeds 10 minutes each.

“Steve [Harris, MAIDEN bassist] and I are partially responsible [for that],” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “I did the whole thing about the airship disaster, the R101, which was 18 minutes or something crazy,” he said, referring to the song “Empire Of The Clouds” which appeared on MAIDEN’s “The Book Of Souls” album. “And that was basically arranged for an orchestra, which at the time we didn’t have.

“For this album, yeah, Steve is a big fan of prog, as am I,” he explained. “I was talking to somebody else about this, about the different bands that we both liked. Steve, for example, is a big fan of JETHRO TULL. I’m also a big fan of JETHRO TULL. He loves ‘A Passion Play’ and ‘Think As A Brick’; I’m more ‘Aqualung’ and the early stuff. But nevertheless, we both meet in the middle there. He’s a big GENESIS fan — the Peter Gabriel GENESIS, ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’; he loves all that. Me, I’m not crazy about GENESIS, but I loved Peter Gabriel’s, I think it was his third solo album, [with songs like] ‘Intruder’ [and] ‘No Self Control’ — scary, dark, really moody stuff. And there was a band called VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR, who were contemporaries of GENESIS, and in a way, they were even a bit more out there than GENESIS. Well, I loved them. And I borrowed bits of Peter Hammill, their vocalist’s vocal style. So we both have this prog thing spinning around our heads, along with THIN LIZZY, DEEP PURPLE, [BLACK] SABBATH. He’s a great fan of NEKTAR and the SCORPIONS.

“I was not that crazy about JUDAS PRIEST until I toured with them, till I toured with them in MAIDEN. And indeed the SCORPIONS the same. I never really got into PRIEST that much apart from ‘Sad Wings Of Destiny’ until I toured with them, and then I went, ‘Wow. They do some really cool stuff.’

“So, those are all the kind of influences that are pinging around that end up with us doing all these great long songs,” he continued. “And I don’t mind them because it’s kind of… I mean, some of the stuff, like ‘The Parchment’, it’s almost like self-hypnosis listening to that — it really is. [If we perform that song live], I’ll be round the back having a glass of non-alcoholic water. I get a five-and-a-half-minute tea break in the middle of ‘The Parchment’.”

“Senjutsu” was released on September 3 via BMG. IRON MAIDEN’s first LP in six years was recorded in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Harris.

For “Senjutsu” — loosely translated as “tactics and strategy” — the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Harris. With a running time of a little under 82 minutes, “Senjutsu”, like their previous record “The Book Of Souls”, is a double CD/triple vinyl album.

“The Book Of Souls” is the longest MAIDEN album, clocking in at 92 minutes, with lyrics heavily based in the themes of death, reincarnation, the soul and mortality.

“Senjutsu” marks MAIDEN’s sixth album to be produced by Shirley, who has worked with MAIDEN for the past two decades.

Listen to an exclusive stream of Ng’ambu and pick up a copy of it now ahead of its release this Friday through Gilead Media.
The post Full Album Stream: MEHENET Ng’ambu appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Anette Olzon says that she looks back on her time with NIGHTWISH with “mixed motions.”

The Swedish-born singer originally joined NIGHTWISH in 2007 and recorded two studio LPs with the band before being dismissed in 2012 in the middle of the group’s North American tour. She was replaced by former AFTER FOREVER frontwoman Floor Jansen.

Olzon reflected on her time with NIGHTWISH in a brand new interview with Finland’s Chaoszine. Asked how she looks back on the entire five-year experience, she said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Well, it’s mixed emotions. It was a hell of a ride. You know how it was with the media in Finland. And for me, I didn’t understand what was happening because I didn’t know how big the band was, since I don’t live in Finland. So it was really fun the first years with everything and also crazy. I wasn’t home a lot. They did their heaviest touring when I joined. All of a sudden, they wanted to do so many long weeks [on the road]. I remember just that I had a five-year-old son [and] I came home after five weeks. I was home one week. I didn’t almost have time to unpack my bags before I went off again for four weeks. So I don’t remember everything, to be honest. There are so many things that I don’t remember. And also, of course, the last years where it wasn’t such a nice atmosphere between us. And I had my third child, and things happened.

“So I remember it both with really happy, happy feelings, but also with very, very negative and sad feelings,” she explained. “But, of course, it was an amazing experience, and it was my dream that came true to be a full-time singer in an amazing big band. And they are a super-good band. So I bless the albums that we did and will always cherish that time, of course.”

Not long after Olzon was fired from NIGHTWISH eight years ago, she claimed that an argument arose between her and NIGHTWISH when she asked for an Australian tour to be postponed during her pregnancy. Keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen suggested that Jansen should front the band on a temporary basis, but Olzon said no.

Anette explained in a 2014 interview: “I would have been too pregnant to go to Australia, so I wanted to push the dates back, but Tuomas didn’t want that. Discussions about a substitute came up, and at first, I was, like, ‘Yeah, well, okay.’ But when they mentioned Floor, it was an automatic ‘no’ from me. I didn’t think it was a good idea, because I knew what would happen — I knew the fans would love Floor, because she’s a metal singer and I’m a pop singer, and I wanted to keep my job.”

A year after NIGHTWISH fired Olzon, the band released a statement denying that she was dismissed because of pregnancy or illness. “We discovered her personality didn’t fit this work community, and was even detrimental to it,” the group said. NIGHTWISH went on to say that Anette was initially receptive to the idea of hiring a temporary replacement if she couldn’t “manage everything,” but that she later “took back her decision, and the difficulties really started. Fear of losing money and position seemed obvious.” The band also insisted that “Anette and her company” were “paid a fifth of everything that was done during her time” with NIGHTWISH.

Anette’s second solo album, “Strong”, will be released on September 10 via Frontiers Music Srl. The follow-up to 2014’s “Shine” is a harder and faster musical offering than the debut.

The music for “Strong” was written and composed together with acclaimed Swedish guitarist and producer Magnus Karlsson.

Since the end of her stint with NIGHTWISH, Olzon also formed THE DARK ELEMENT with former SONATA ARCTICA guitarist Jani Liimatainen. The group’s self-titled debut album was released in 2017; a follow-up, “Songs The Night Sings”, came out in November 2019.

Olzon and noted progressive metal vocalist Russell Allen (SYMPHONY X, ADRENALINE MOB) released a collaborative album titled “Worlds Apart” in March 2020 via Frontiers Music Srl. The project was issued under the moniker ALLEN/OLZON.

Audacious. That’s the only word for it. As virtually every band on the planet threw themselves into a lockdown-facilitated and wholly newfound world of unfettered creativity last year, we can be secure in the knowledge that there will be a lot of big records over the coming months. But very few of them will be as audacious, or indeed as good, as “Gods Of Debauchery”.

SEVEN SPIRES have form, of course. Barely 18 months ago, the Boston-based quartet released their second album, “Emerald Seas”. It was an absolute tour-de-force of wildly imaginative symphonic, power and extreme metal, and would almost certainly have grabbed a lot more attention had the world not immediately disappeared up an unavoidable pandemic shit-chute. Somehow, “Gods Of Debauchery” not only repeats the brilliance of its predecessor, but expands upon it and paints the results in increasingly vivid and vital colors. To think that SEVEN SPIRES diligently knocked this 77-minute behemoth together, rather than bemoaning their lot as non-touring potential world beaters, says it all about the levels of conviction and creativity at play here.

Once again, this band skillfully side-step all the usual genre pigeonholing, instead preferring to do as much of everything as possible, albeit all within certain aesthetic guidelines. If that makes “Gods Of Debauchery” sound calculated, do not panic: this is simply a detailed, meticulous piece of work that dares to demand more from so-called modern melodic metal than the competent appeasement of an unimaginative fan base. SEVEN SPIRES are really pushing things here, ignoring any supposed barriers between, say, the kaleidoscopic grandeur of bands like KAMELOT and AVANTASIA, and CRADLE OF FILTH’s macabre, quasi-cinematic sound-world. As ever, vocalist Adrienne Cowan is so absurdly versatile that it makes zero difference whether her band are bringing the blackened death hammer down (as they do on scintillating single “The Cursed Muse”) or languishing in crestfallen ignominy on grandiose ballads like “The Unforgotten Name”, everything here makes perfect sense and adds substance to the overwhelming might of the whole, multifarious caboodle.

The scope of this thing is ludicrous, and yet “Gods Of Debauchery” never hurdles the shark. Underpinned by some labyrinthine narrative that may well reveal itself over repeated listenings, it casually mirrors the artistic hugeness of DREAM THEATER’s greatest concept works, while still exhibiting a clear affinity with modern metal’s hooks, heaviness and flamboyant excesses. But while it is clearly intended to be consumed in one reality-blitzing hit, “Gods Of Debauchery” works as a dazzling showcase for SEVEN SPIRES’ eerily refined songwriting abilities.

The best moments (on an album that never dips for a dead second) are simply great heavy metal songs: sometimes wildly elaborate and theatrical heavy metal songs, but always armed with melody as their most effective weapon. From the infectious, pop-metal sizzle of “Lightbringer” to the monolithic, dark metal symphony of “This God Is Dead”, these annoyingly gifted young musicians have done it again. “Gods Of Debauchery” is audacious, ante-raising and bereft of comparable competition in 2021.

Mitch Malloy, who auditioned to replace Sammy Hagar in VAN HALEN in the summer of 1996, will celebrate Eddie Van Halen’s musical legacy with MITCH MALLOY’S VH EXPERIENCE on Saturday, October 9 at Mattie Kelly Arts Village in Destin, Florida. A portion of the proceeds will go to the new Destin High School Music Program.

Malloy told the story of his day at Eddie Van Halen’s 5150 studios to Melodic Rock: “A guy who worked for their management at the time used to be my road manager and he kept calling me and telling me they were going to fire Sammy and that I was going to be the next singer in VAN HALEN. And he was calling and calling and finally I got annoyed by this and told him to stop and that I didn’t think I was a good fit in VAN HALEN and that if he was serious, he should have Ed call me. A week later, Desmond Child calls me and says he has just left Ed’s house and was writing with them and that they were talking about me and that they were watching my ‘Anything At All’ video, and that he told them that I was perfect for them, and that they would be lucky to get me. And before I knew it, I was on a plane to L.A. Ed did call, a bunch of times. He was great.”

According to Malloy, Eddie told him he was in the band on his third day in the studio. But when Eddie, Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen stepped onstage with their estranged singer David Lee Roth for the first time in 12 years at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards, Mitch knew that his dream gig had fallen apart.

“I’m sitting, watching TV there by myself,” Mitch told Rolling Stone. “It wasn’t good. I think literally, my jaw dropped. So in that moment, I was shocked. And you know how sometimes as humans we just know some things? You just know it. You don’t have to say it. Nobody has to say anything. People just know things. And that moment that Roth walked out behind them, I knew it was over. I am not going to be in VAN HALEN. I just knew somehow. And so that was it for me. I was just like, ‘That’s it. This can’t happen now.’ I just knew it. It was just … a wall came down. But it just felt like it was over, somehow. It was like, ‘This can’t work now.’ Not because people won’t accept me. But there’s just something else going on that I didn’t even fully understand at the time. You know what I mean? It was like a knife sliced through and just, it was over. I think it’s the only time it’s ever happened to me in my life, where it was that definitive. And I had a lot going on at the time, aside from VAN HALEN. Real promise with my career moving forward. So it wasn’t, for me, my only thing. I wasn’t like, ‘Oh, my God! This has got to happen,’ kind of thing. Of course, I really did want it to happen. But who wouldn’t?”

VAN HALEN’s next singer ended up being Gary Cherone, former frontman for the band EXTREME. His only album with the group was “Van Halen III”, which was a critical and commercial disappointment. Hagar and Roth both rejoined VAN HALEN at various points since 2003, with the latter appearing on VAN HALEN’s final album, 2012’s “A Different Kind Of Truth”.

Malloy’s involvement with VAN HALEN is the focus of a short documentary, “Mitch Malloy: Van Halen’s Lost Boy”, which was uploaded to YouTube in 2013.

In 2018, Malloy joined GREAT WHITE as the replacement for Terry Ilous.

Mitch relocated to Destin, Florida from Nashville, Tennessee in 2019.

pic.twitter.com/J1xXWm3faT
— Mitch Malloy (@mitchmalloy) September 9, 2021