Former Pitchshifter bassist, Mark Clayden, delivers some serious groove to his new project, Hellblind’s, hardcore-inspired EP.
The post Exclusive Track Premiere: Hellblind – “Hitched” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

In a new interview with “The Mistress Carrie Podcast”, HEART frontwoman Ann Wilson was asked if it’s harder to keep a marriage or a band together. The 71-year-old singer, who has been married to Dean Wetter since April 2015, laughed and responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I think it’s harder to keep a band together — in my experience. And I’ve only been married once and I’m still loving it and feel great about it. It’s harder to keep a band together because you have other people coming, like wives and significant others, talking in your bandmates’ ears and maybe saying things that pit them against you or against the group unity. It’s really hard. It’s kind of a revolving door with a band.”

Ann’s comments come less than a month after her sister, HEART guitarist Nancy Wilson, said that HEART “had a big offer on the table last year for a bigger tour, but Ann wasn’t interested in going out with my lineup of guys that we were out with before. She has a new lineup of guys that she wanted me to join up with,” Nancy said. “And I sort of [thought] I don’t really know them and don’t have loyalty yet for anybody like that. So I just kind of shined it on and decided when I do go out with my new singer Kimberly [Nichole under the band name NANCY WILSON’S HEART].”

HEART toured North America in the summer of 2019 after a nasty split that kept the Wilson sisters estranged for three years.

Ann and Nancy had a falling out during HEART’s 2016 tour, when Wetter was arrested for assaulting Nancy’s then-16-year-old twin sons in a backstage altercation at a gig near their hometown of Seattle. He pleaded guilty to two lesser assault charges to avoid jail time.

Ann will release a new album, “Fierce Bliss”, on April 29 via Silver Lining Music.

Earlier today, the official YouTube channel of Doro Pesch has uploaded a video of the German metal queen discussing — in German — the fact that she was one of several people who received a bullet from late MOTÖRHEAD frontman Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister as a personal gift.

In a message accompanying the YouTube release of the video, Doro wrote: “Receiving a bullet with Lemmy’s ashes inside was one of the most intense moments of my life, indescribable heartbreaking and touching. I loved him so much. We toured together and recorded together (you can hear a bit of our song ‘It Still Hurts’ in this video), and most of all: We were best of friends. I will miss him forever…”

Last May, Doro spoke about the Lemmy bullet in an interview with Brazil’s “Inside With Paulo Baron”. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Two weeks ago, I got a little box from America. It came to my mom’s house. At the moment, I’m in Germany. I go back to the States in two weeks. But I was in Germany. And then my mom said, ‘Hey, do you expect something?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And then she said, ‘Shall I open it up?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, open it up.’ And she said, ‘There’s a letter in it. And there’s a little box in it. It’s jewelry or something.’ And I said, ‘Okay. I’ll wait. I’ll get it.’ And it was the bullet of Lemmy with Lemmy’s ashes in there. And I tell you, I almost dropped dead. It was, like, ‘Wow.’ And then I heard that somebody said Lemmy wrote a list and he wanted his closest friends or family to have his ashes. And I’ve got this bullet right here. I had no words for it. It’s pretty moving and touching. But in the letter, it said, ‘He liked you a lot’ or ‘he loved you a lot,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, man. That feels so good.’ That makes you feel like… Now I’m motivated for the next hundred years to do good and to rock the fans. That gave me so much love and so much energy.”

Doro’s bullet is not the only one whose existence has been publicly revealed. A year ago, former “Headbangers Ball” host Riki Rachtman said that he was also mailed a bullet, calling it “the greatest gift I’ve ever received in my life.” He added that he was “getting it made into a necklace so I can keep it on me everywhere I go.” In 2020, tennis player Pat Cash shared a photo of another Lemmy bullet, saying it had been gifted to UGLY KID JOE singer Whitfield Crane.

“#Lemmy (RIP) from #Motörhead asked that his ashes be put in some bullet and given out to his closest friends, last night one was presented to my mate #whitefieldCrane whilst we were having dinner at ‘Lemmys bar’ in ‘The Rainbow’,” Cash wrote on Instagram in February 2020.

Last November, JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford confirmed that he also received a Lemmy bullet. He told to the “SpeedFreaks” radio show: “When Lemmy passed away, I had this beautiful opportunity to speak at his memorial. We had a great get-together; all of us musicians from all over the world, we met in Hollywood and we talked about Lemmy and his great life and the things that he’s left us. And then, not too far back, I get something in the mail from the Lemmy people; Lemmy’s office, his manager and everybody still work tirelessly to keep his name with us, as he always will be. They sent me — it’s a bullet [laughs], it’s a bullet with some of Lemmy’s ashes inside of it.”

He continued: “This is nuts. This is the kind of thing that Lemmy would have loved to have done. However you choose to interpret what I’ve just said, that’s entirely up to you. But to be thought of, to be brought into this small circle of friends where you actually own a little bit of Lemmy’s ashes and you wear it around your neck on a pendant and he’s close to your heart in the truest sense in terms of his mortal remains, that’s just mind-blowingly powerful. To use an object like that to carry his remains is just so Lemmy — it’s provocative, it makes you think, it makes you talk. But as far as having a beautiful part of Lemmy physically with me right now in my house, that’s just magical.”

Lemmy died in December 2015 at the age of 70 shortly after learning he had been diagnosed with cancer.

A custom-made urn containing Lemmy’s ashes is on permanent display in a columbarium at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

The “Metal & Beer” ticket for Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest: Philly on June 10-11 isn’t gonna be available much longer. Don’t screw this up.
The post LOW TICKET ALERT: Under 200 “Metal & Beer” Two-Day Tickets Remain for Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest: Philly appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

If doom metal and its variants are big blips on your radar, you’ve probably noticed there’s a dearth of all-in-one stompboxes capable of unleashing genre-worthy filth and mayhem. A Big Muff (or any number of other fuzzes) and a distortion or two will take you a long way, but for dedicated doomers the aural onslaught usually isn’t just about cascading gain—it’s watts and decibels wreaking havoc on speaker cones. Which is why powerful heads (often 120- or 200-watt bass or PA models) from the likes of Sunn, Ampeg, Peavey, Orange, Hiwatt, Sound City, and Marshall largely rule the realm.Another highly acclaimed amp for the task is Laney’s Advanced Overdrive Response series from the early ’80s, particularly the 50- and 100-watt Pro-Tube Lead heads, which had a handwired architecture much like a Marshall JMP circuit, only with an extra gain stage and a slightly darker sound. Influential doom/stoner/sludge bands who embraced AORs include Sleep, High on Fire, the Sword, and Electric Wizard. Of course, Laney’s doom cred goes much further back than that: Their most famous endorsee, Tony Iommi, is the veritable well from whence doom’s many tributaries spring—particularly his early Sabbath work, which was powered by Laney LA100 BL heads.Frost Giant Architect Of Reality Review by premierguitarRecorded with a Schecter Ultra III into the Architect, an Ibanez ES-2 Echo Shifter, and a Jaguar HC50 miked with a Royer R-121 (two feet back) and feeding an Audient iD44 interface going into GarageBand with no EQ-ing, compression, or effects.0:00-0:16: Neck pickup with Architect bypassed. 0:16-0:39: Architect activated (red side only) with presence and bass at 3 o’clock, mids at 9 o’clock, treble at noon, bass and treble boosts engaged, master volume at 9:30, and preamp gain at 7:300:39-1:16: AOR (green side) engaged with AOR volume at just over 9 o’clock and AOR gain at max.1:16-1:38: Bridge pickup into red side with presence at minimum, bass at max (and boosted), mids at noon (unboosted), treble at minimum (unboosted), master volume at 9:30, and preamp gain at noon.1:38-2:08: AOR engaged with AOR volume at 10 o’clock and AOR gain at max.But for Eric Calvert, head of Texas-based Frost Giant Electronics, AORs are where it’s at. In fact, his goal since founding Frost Giant has been to recreate the preamp in his own beloved AOR head from 1985. Now, with the help of Nick Williams (of Dunwich Amplification fame), Calvert’s dream has finally been realized with the Architect of Reality—a powerful homage to both Laney and, presumably, Sabbath’s 1971 sonic milestone, Master of Reality.The Persistence of RealitiesThe Architect puts essentially every control from the front panel of an 8-knob AOR atop a medium-sized stompbox that’s billed as a “2-channel” design. But it’s more accurate to describe it as a massively powerful, wide-ranging distortion (right-side footswitch) with a cascading-gain feature (“AOR channel” footswitch) that can be layered over the base tone.To help achieve its bludgeoning ends, the JFET-driven Architect converts 9V of AC power to a whopping 36V (battery power is not an option). The EQ—bass, mids, and treble knobs, corresponding boost toggles, and a presence (“pre”) knob—runs along the top row, but I found it peculiar that the master volume and preamp gain for the base tone (the “red channel”) are sandwiched between AOR (“green channel”) volume and gain knobs. The layout would feel more logical and intuitive—and therefore faster and easier to use—if AOR volume and gain were side-by-side above the AOR footswitch.It’s capable of myriad metal flavors, but its real calling card is sheer might.Speaker Bloody SpeakerTo put the Architect’s intriguing ambitions to the test, I used a Les Paul, an Eastwood Sidejack baritone, and a Schecter Ultra III through a few different setups: a Revv G20 powering a Bogner closed-back 2×12, a Jaguar HC50 1×12, a silver-panel Fender Vibrolux Reverb paired with a Fender Rumble 200 1×15 bass amp, and a Sound City SC30 also paired with the Rumble. From the outset, the Architect’s massive volume and gain capabilities were apparent. The red side’s hot-rodded-Marshall-like preamp yields everything from toothsome gain excellent for old-school metal to blistering thrash at max. Meanwhile, the red side’s master volume is astonishingly loud—when I wasn’t using a bass amp (which allowed me to turn the guitar amp’s bass down), I began fearing for my speakers’ wellbeing when volume merely approached the noon mark.But wide-ranging gain wouldn’t mean much if the EQ weren’t wisely focused. No matter where I dialed the treble, mids, and presence, tones never crossed over into abominable thinness. The bass control feels tight and muscular throughout its range, though it doesn’t seem particularly corpulent when maxed in red mode alone. But kick on the green side and it sounds absolutely explosive at all but the most conservative AOR settings. As with red mode, the AOR volume will likely sound like it’s clobbering your amp halfway through its range, even if the base channel’s volume is set pretty low. One couldn’t be blamed for using the green side to simulate pushing or literally push speaker cabs to their limits without looking back, but AOR mode is also capable of practical precision and subtle restraint—say, thickening things a smidge or adding razor sharpness to the core sound. The VerdictIf you’re after droning, foundation-rattling gain and are sick of using multiple stompboxes and/or backbreaking stacks, you’ll find a lot to love in Frost Giant’s Architect of Reality. It’s capable of myriad metal flavors, but its real calling card is sheer might that occupies the mythical space between distortion and fuzz, where feral howls smudge together and destruction and chaos feel like real propositions. For extreme sounds—especially if you’re not miking your amp—it’s probably advisable to pair the Architect with a robust, high-wattage/high-headroom amp, if not also one of the many light, dependable bass amps on the market. But that’s a much more doable proposition than scouring the internet for rare, heavy-ass old stacks that keep going up in price.