METALLICA played its first concert of 2022 on February 25 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show, which was reportedly attended by 60,000 fans, featured support from GRETA VAN FLEET and ICE NINE KILLS.

Professionally filmed video of METALLICA’s performance of the song “Wherever I May Roam” from the Vegas gig can be seen below.

METALLICA’s setlist was as follows:

01. Whiplash
02. Ride The Lightning
03. The Memory Remains
04. Seek & Destroy
05. Fuel
06. One
07. Sad But True
08. Moth Into Flame
09. Wherever I May Roam
10. For Whom The Bell Tolls
11. Creeping Death
12. Fade To Black
13. Master Of Puppets

Encore:

14. Battery
15. Nothing Else Matters
16. Enter Sandman

The Las Vegas show took place more than two months after METALLICA’s two 40th-anniversary concerts at Chase Center in San Francisco, California which featured different setlists. They were part of METALLICA’s “San Francisco Takeover”, a four-day citywide celebration of the band’s 40th anniversary that also included a film festival, photo exhibit and curated lineup of smaller venue shows featuring other acts.

Last month, METALLICA announced it will perform only two summer stadium shows in 2022: Highmark Stadium in Buffalo, New York on August 11, and PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 14. Both shows will feature special guests GRETA VAN FLEET and ICE NINE KILLS.

METALLICA previously played at Highmark Stadium on July 25, 1992, and Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium on July 26, 1992.

This spring, METALLICA will perform at the BottleRock festival in Napa on May 27 and Boston Calling on May 29. The band also has a number of South America and European dates scheduled for spring and early summer.

Formed in 1981 by drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield, METALLICA has become one of the most influential and successful rock bands in history, having sold nearly 120 million albums worldwide and generating more than 15 billion streams while playing to millions of fans on all seven continents. The band’s several multi-platinum albums include “Kill ‘Em All”, “Ride The Lightning”, “Master Of Puppets”, “… And Justice For All”, “Metallica” (commonly referred to as The Black Album), “Load”, “Reload”, “St. Anger”, “Death Magnetic” and “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct”, released in November 2016 and charting at No. 1 in 32 countries.

METALLICA’s awards and accolades include nine Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, multiple MTV Video Music Awards, and its 2009 induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. In June of 2018, the band was awarded one of the most prestigious musical honors in the world: Sweden’s Polar Music Prize.

During a recent appearance on “Drinks With Johnny”, the Internet TV show hosted by AVENGED SEVENFOLD bassist Johnny Christ, former BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE bassist Jason “Jay” James opened up about his departure from the Welsh metal band more than seven years ago. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It is tough to talk about, to be honest, after all the little bits that happened. All I can say is everybody was partying, everybody was having a drink, and everybody liked to have a drink.

“My real problem started with alcohol,” he continued. “I was a pretty big drinker. And I’ll hold my hand up to some of the troubles that I caused the band or caused myself, absolutely. But a lot of what I was doing, other people were doing [as well].

“I think my real troubles came, with alcohol and everything, was afterwards, when the realization set in of everything. I couldn’t quite cope with [what had happened].

“All I can speak from is my side of everything,” James added. “But, yeah, I’ll hold my hand up to… There was times where I was a handful, and there was times when other people were a handful. [It’s] a rock and roll band — stuff happens. But, yeah, like I said earlier on, I wasn’t doing what other people [weren’t] doing. I think my problem, bigger problems with alcohol and other things, came, I think, after my departure, and I think that was from kind of a loss that I felt, ’cause they were family, and that hurt me. So I kind of wanted to hide from reality. And I was a pretty big drinker anyway during the band days, but that increased double [after I was kicked out]… It was a real pull on the old heartstrings.

“I’ve known Moose [former BULLET drummer Michael Thomas] the longest in my life out of anybody; I’ve known Moose since I was three years old… So I’ve been friends with him since then. And the other guys I met in my teens, so I’ve known ’em all my life.

“When all that happened, on a Thursday it kind of happened, I found out, and it was a shock. And I didn’t want Monday to come, because it was too much to deal with, so I thought, ‘I’ll just get fucked up for now and I’ll deal with all of that on Monday.’ But Monday didn’t come for four months. And I just kept on hiding behind the alcohol in my house, which is what happened to me, ’cause I didn’t know what to do. All I’d done for the last 10, 12 years was play guitar on stage, tour, management, all that kind of stuff. And then suddenly I felt like there was nothing; I didn’t know what to do. So the answer to me was in my friend alcohol. So that’s what I did. And that got out of control, which led me to get some help and go into rehab and become sober, to where I am now.”

Reflecting on the conversation that he had with the other members of BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE where he was told that he was no longer a member of the band, Jason said: “There was a meeting that I had to attend, and they talked about it. And a lot of that stuff [was] mentioned — the drinking and everything. But I think the decision was already made. I was kind of told that this is happening… There was debauchery happening and the parties that were going on within us all, really, and I think I was singled out for a few things that I had done here and there. I think there were statements released then by them, I guess, but I’d never really released anything to say what happened. This is the first time I’ve ever talked about it.

“It’s quite hard to talk freely and open about it, for legal reasons,” he explained. “It’s not an ongoing thing anymore. It was for a long time — for years and years and years. And it wasn’t until this year that it stopped.”

Asked if he would be open to talking to BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE frontman Matt Tuck and guitarist Michael “Padge” Paget again if he had a chance to, Jason said: “Communication with Matt and Padge, no. There hasn’t been, really. There just hasn’t been any communication since the departure and not really any attempts to, really.”

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE announced Jay’s departure in February 2015 during the recording sessions for the group’s fifth album, “Venom”, and recruited Jamie Mathias as his replacement in May of that year.

In July 2015, Tuck told Revolver about the split with James: “We parted ways with [Jay] a long time before we announced it. We wanted to make sure we were comfortable making that decision, and comfortable with making that statement publicly. We wanted to get the album ready to be recorded before we said anything…”

At the time, Tuck described the split with James as “the most difficult thing we’ve ever had to do, and not just in the band or in our careers, but in our lives, personally. It was awful. Losing a long-term member — and our best friend, which was much more important to us — was a very powerful moment that we’d never been through before, and it was a decision that we deliberated over for, like, three months; we kept fighting and fighting to find valid reasons for him to stay, but eventually it was just impossible.

“I’m not going to go into detail,” Tuck continued, “but it was in Jay’s best interest personally, more than ours, that he was not in the band. People can read into that what they want, which they will anyway; but it was just stuff going on that was jeopardizing the band’s career, and it had to stop. And, unfortunately, it came to the point where enough was enough, and we just had to make that call.”

He added: “Behind the scenes, we were going through a bit of emotional distress. But apart from that, as far as the band was concerned, everything was great. We were writing good songs, and it probably helped having that emotional distress to bring out that feistiness that the last album lacked, you know? It’s good to have that emotional drama in a band, sometimes; it can really help with the creative process.”

James and Thomas have since reunited in a new band called KILL THE LIGHTS, which released a song called “Dead From The Start” last month.

Watch Italian one-woman act Marthe is unveil her gloomy, atmospheric, hypnotic music video for the song “Sisters of Darkness,” the title track of her debut demo out through Caligari Records.
The post Video Premiere: Marthe – ‘Sisters of Darkness’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

As any dedicated fan of ultra-miserable, deathly doom metal will tell you, the Finns have absolutely got their shit together. Although less well-known, KUOLEMANLAAKSO deserve to be regarded along those other benchmarks of funeral and melancholic doom metal: SHAPE OF DESPAIR, SKEPTICISM and SWALLOW THE SUN. Across a series of fascinating and emotionally supercharged albums, this shadowy unit have become increasingly potent. Led by the enigmatic presence of SWALLOW THE SUN frontman Mikko Kotamäki, KUOLEMANLAAKSO have long threatened to produce something special, and “Kuusumu” is precisely that. More overtly gothic and theatrical than any of the aforementioned, the Finns’ sound has truly blossomed here over seven wistful but punishing nose-dives into the dark.

A feast of macabre keyboards and leaden grooves, “Pimeys laski” is the perfect, bleak entry point into KUOLEMANLAAKSO’s fourth full-length. Echoes of MY DYING BRIDE are unmistakable, but this band’s love of haunting, horror atmospherics and multi-layered vocals sets things immediately apart from anything so familiar. Kotamäki’s vocals are as versatile and commanding as ever, as he slips seamlessly between scabrous bark and sonorous croon, gaining intensity as the song gathers speed. “Katkeruuden malja” takes the mid-paced fervor a step further, evoking a cracked-mirror mirage of SISTERS OF MERCY and SENTENCED and hurling giant chorus hooks into the opaque ether. In wild and vivid contrast, “Surusta meri suolainen” brings things back down to the slow-motion syrup of funeral doom, before embarking on a thrilling, chameleonic journey through prog-psych peaks and cudgeling, death metal troughs. As the whistling spiral of an analogue synth collides with triumphant, ornate riffing, KUOLEMANLAAKSO exhibit depths and dynamism that marks them out as masters of this stuff.

Unencumbered by anything as old fashioned as a formula, “Kuusumu” has space for both great heavy metal songwriting and prolonged moments of off-the-wall inspiration. A thunderous death / doom anthem with atmosphere, character and grit, “Kuohista tulisten koskien” swings in an old-school way, armed with another titanic chorus. On the flipside, “Surun sinfonia” is a staggering, eight-minute blaze of refined majesty, KUOLEMANLAAKSO’s progressive tendencies are on full display and a wickedly guttural and charismatic vocal from Kotamäki wrings yet more hooks from the glacial slurry. After that, “Pedon vaisto” turns the lights out and veers off on a pummeling, blackened tangent, with more infernal menace than seems strictly reasonable; while the closing “Tulessakävelijä” is pompous, melodramatic and unashamedly overblown (but in the best way possible) and insidiously accessible with it.

This is a mature and sophisticated record, albeit one rooted in classically morbid musical archetypes. Despite often being cited as one of the best places to live on this accursed planet, Finnish bands seem linked up to the misery mainframe in a more profound and enduring way than everyone else. Whatever the reason, KUOLEMANLAAKSO are honoring and nurturing a noble tradition with records as gripping and colorful as this one.

In a new interview with Jeff Gaudiosi of MisplacedStraws.com, WARRIOR SOUL frontman Kory Clarke was asked if living outside of the U.S. gives him a different perspective on this country and the stuff he sings about by looking at it from the outside rather than being in it. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Yeah, I guess you could say it does. It makes me happy that I’m not there. [Laughs] But I still feel completely connected in the sense that it’s such a global planet and the U.S. has got so much reach and so much influence over everything, I’ve gotta fight for what I believe is democracy.

“[Some] people, honestly, want to have Hitler being their guy for a president,” he continued. “I guess people can vote Hitler in, if they want.

“I fight for what’s right, I think. And the things we’re seeing the Republican National Cult getting into now — trying to take everyone’s voting rights away and trying to put Republican legislators in charge of counting votes. Dude, that stuff we have to stop; that just ends democracy, doesn’t it?”

WARRIOR SOUL’s new album, “Out On Bail”, will arrive on March 4 via Livewire/Cargo Records UK. The LP is described in a press release as “a statement of considerable intent” from Clarke, who is “one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most prolific, prophetic and controversial songwriters.” The effort was produced by Clarke, with additional production by Dennis Post. It was mixed and mastered by Rune Buck.

WARRIOR SOUL released a trio of albums on the Geffen major label during the ’90s, beginning with its classic 1990 debut, “Last Decade Dead Century”.

Having initially split in 1995 following the release of “The Space Age Playboys”, WARRIOR SOUL was resurrected in 2007 by Clarke, who has issued several albums since: “Destroy The War Machine” (2008), “Stiff Middle Finger” (2012), “Back On The Lash” (2017), “Rock ‘N’ Roll Disease” (2019), “Cocaine And Other Good Stuff” (2020) and “Out On Bail”.

British extreme metallers CRADLE OF FILTH have canceled their previously announced shows in Russia following that country’s invasion of Ukraine last week.

Earlier today, CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani “Filth” Davey released the following statement via social media: “As of today and due to the current situation unfurling in Ukraine, CRADLE OF FILTH have decided to cancel our forthcoming tour of Russia in June.” Dani also added a quote from philosopher Albert Camus: “Peace is the only battle worth waging”.

On February 24, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Putin made the announcement during a televised early morning speech, peddling accusations of Nazi elements within Ukraine to justify the attack on his western neighbor, a move that experts slammed as slanderous and false. (Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost three family members in the Holocaust.)

The Russian leader called for Ukraine’s “demilitarization and denazification” and warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the Russian action would lead to “consequences they have never seen.”

Putin’s military aggression — which has been described by U.S. president Joe Biden as an “unprovoked and unjustified attack” on Ukraine — has resulted at least 136 civilian deaths so far, including 13 children, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s health ministry previously said 352 civilians had been killed during the Russian attack as of Monday. The figure included 14 children, it said.

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