Polish tech death metal virtuosos DECAPITATED will release their eighth studio album, “Cancer Culture”, on May 27 via Nuclear Blast Records. The LP’s first single, the title track, can be streamed below.

DECAPITATED guitarist Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka commented: “It wasn’t easy to pick the first single from ‘Cancer Culture’. Each song has this different vibe that we would like to show as soon as possible and be proud of. Since the ‘Cancer Culture’ is the first song from the album, we decided that this would be the perfect way to introduce you to new music. It is the album’s opening chapter, and you know, what you can expect.”

He continued: “Finally, after so many months of waiting, we got it. The announcement of our brand new album ‘Cancer Culture’ and a new single is on!

“The expectations were high, and we also gave ourselves a massive challenge with this album. But I think hard work pays off.

“We had an opportunity to gather amazing people who took care of the production and helped us deliver the best we could with this album.
Again, Jarek Szubrycht (‘Carnival Is Forever’) has written amazing lyrics for us about the disproportion between the dreams, ambitions, and aspirations of humanity.

“The leading engineer of the album was Tomasz Zed Zalewski (‘Anticult’), David Castillo, responsible for mixing the album, and Ted Jensen for the final touch for mastering. For the cover, for the first time, we have worked with Fabio Timpanaro, an Italian artist whose art perfectly describes what we wanted to tell through visual art.

“Don’t misinterpret the title meaning of the album. It has a much broader context. You will be surprised at what we have delivered this time.”

DECAPITATED’s latest album, “Anticult”, was released in July 2017 via Nuclear Blast Records.

Formed in 1996, DECAPITATED built a reputation over the years as one of the international leaders of the “tech death” genre. Over its 26-year career, DECAPITATED has released seven studio albums, which are considered to be some of the most influential death metal releases of the 21st century.

Since 2019, Kiełtyka has been taking care of second-guitar duties in MACHINE HEAD following the departure of Phil Demmel.

DECAPITATED is:

Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka – guitars
Rafał “Rasta” Piotrowski – vocals
James Stewart – drums
Paweł Pasek – bass (live)

If you haven’t already, book your plane ticket, line up a hotel room (or the least dirty floor) and make sure the babysitter knows where your kids are, because Metal & Beer Fest is approaching.
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DEF LEPPARD will release its new album, “Diamond Star Halos”, on May 27 via UMe. The 15-song follow-up to 2015’s self-titled LP was produced by the band and longtime engineer Ronan McHugh.

Over the past two years, DEF LEPPARD recorded “Diamond Star Halos” simultaneously in three different countries with singer Joe Elliott in Ireland, bassist Rick Savage in England, and guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell and drummer Rick Allen in the United States. The band also enlisted Alison Krauss and David Bowie pianist Mike Garson to guest on the LP.

“It was joyful to do,” Elliott told Billboard about the process. “As Sav says, at any one time there were possibly four songs getting worked on at once. And everybody was at home, so you didn’t have to work on it constantly or be sitting around waiting to do your bit if we were all in the studio together or something. You could get on with doing other stuff. So it was a leisurely way of recording, but we could concentrate wholly on the record when we were actually recording. What we learned was it’s not where your body is, it’s where your mind’s at. We were in three different countries, but we were all on the same page.”

Collen added: “I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. There was so much more energy by not having to go to a studio or a situation where you were waiting on anything. I’d finish something, send it to Joe in Ireland and he’d send it to Sav and…we’d just be back and forth, and when I’d wake up in the morning there’d be something new in my mailbox. It was constantly exciting. I don’t think we don’t want to go back to whatever that standard way was that we did before.”

The artwork for “Diamond Star Halos” features images by world-renowned photographer and director Anton Corbijn, styling concepts by Maryam Malakpour and graphics by the U.K.-based Munden Brothers.

DEF LEPPARD will return to the road this summer as part of “The Stadium Tour” with MÖTLEY CRÜE, POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS. The trek was originally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2020 but ended up being pushed back to 2021, and then to 2022, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Photo credit: Anton Corbijn

TALAS has released a new song, “Inner Mounting Flame”, featuring vocals by the late frontman Phil Naro, who passed away in May 2021. The track is a tour de force of hard rock teetering on metal. “Inner Mounting Flame” marks TALAS’s first taste of new music since 1984’s “Live Speed On Ice”.

Helmed by world renowned bassist Billy Sheehan, TALAS is a unique blend of 1980s hard rock infused with the headbanging of modern metal. Cutting through this cacophony of sound is the unmistakable voice of Naro who delivered a performance for the ages.

Sheehan states: “‘Inner Mounting Flame’ is a bombastic, high-speed chaos of adrenaline that we would often use as our opening song at the live TALAS shows in 1985. We stayed close to the original arrangement.

“This was such a blast to record, and Phil sang his ass off on it. The song title came from a very famous fusion band’s album title (THE MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA – ‘Inner Mounting Flame’) and was our take on what that flame might be about.”

Produced by Sheehan, Russ Mackay, Scott Bush and TALAS, “Inner Mounting Flame” is a rocker reminiscent of the Buffalo band’s long storied history which began in the 1970s.

Kings of the Buffalo bar circuit, TALAS slogged it out through the 1970s and 1980s, hoping for the breakthrough that never quite came. When David Lee Roth left VAN HALEN, Sheehan immediately joined Roth’s band, putting an effective end to TALAS.

In 2017, Sheehan rerformed TALAS with a lineup featuring Phil Naro and Mark Miller, along with new member Kire Najdovski, to play at the “Bands At Barnard” charity event in Greece. The group has played sporadic shows since then.

After fronting TALAS in the 1980s, Naro paired his powerful voice on a number of recording projects with KISS founding member Peter Criss and later with Canadian rockers CONEY HATCH. Phil also co-wrote and recorded several tracks with guitarist and founding member of THE RASCALS, Gene Cornish, and co-wrote three songs for Canadian artist Lee Aaron for her 1989 album “Bodyrock”.

Sheehan’s penchant for innovation has revolutionized the way the bass guitar is played. He formed MR. BIG in 1989, achieving a Billboard No. 1 single in the USA and 14 other countries with “To Be With You” from the band’s second Atlantic Records album release, “Lean Into It”. While developing his trademark style of playing, he performed over 4,000 live gigs on every continent except Africa and Antarctica.

World-renowned guitarist Joe Satriani will release his 19th studio album, “The Elephants Of Mars”, on April 8. Today he unleashes his newest single, “Pumpin'”, via his new label, earMUSIC, the international rock label of entertainment group Edel.

Pre-orders for the new album are available for fans and include a special limited digipack CD release featuring seven double-sided cards of original artwork by Satriani representing each song from the album. In addition, several colored vinyl options will be available as well to pre-order including orange, pink and a special purple version.

“Pumpin'” showcases the funky fusion party side of Joe’s band as Satriani describes “Pumpin'” as “a high-energy, funky celebration about the visceral side of being alive. Heart pumpin’, living large, moving fast, and feelin’ good!”

“The Elephants Of Mars” has received critical acclaim, with Guitarist magazine calling the album “a multi-layered delight from start to finish.” The video for first single, “Sahara”, has been viewed over one million times since its release just a few weeks ago.

Written in 2020 with all time constraints removed, “The Elephants Of Mars” truly represents the album that Satriani himself hoped he could deliver with his band. “We did everything,” he said. “We tried the craziest ideas. And we entertained every notion we had about turning something backwards, upside down, seeing what could happen.” Similarly, the creative gates were wide open for all of the musicians to take liberties on the songs for “The Elephants Of Mars” and share a side of themselves they hadn’t previously been able to.

Satriani had an admirably productive workingman’s holiday, with pandemic forced time away from the road, that ultimately gave him and his touring band, all recording remotely in separate areas of the world during lockdown, the ability to deliver an album length journey that never dulls. “The Elephants Of Mars” crackles with an exciting new energy, briskly traveling through stylistic roads that feel freshly updated, viewed through new eyes.

The guitarist challenged himself to create a “new standard” for instrumental guitar albums to be measured against, one which would work from “a new platform of his own design,” as he terms it. “I want to show people that an instrumental guitar album can contain far more creative and entertaining elements than I think people are using right now.”

“The Elephants Of Mars” track listing:

01. Sahara
02. The Elephants Of Mars
03. Faceless
04. Blue Foot Groovy
05. Tension And Release
06. Sailing The Seas Of Ganymede
07. Doors Of Perception
08. E 104th St NYC
09. Pumpin’
10. Dance Of The Spores
11. Night Scene
12. Through A Mother’s Day Darkly
13. 22 Memory Lane
14. Desolation