HALESTORM has released the official music video for “The Steeple”, the second single from its upcoming fifth studio album album, “Back From The Dead”. “The Steeple” follows the album’s title track, “Back From The Dead”, released last summer. That track marked HALESTORM’s sixth No. 1 at rock radio, and met rave reviews: Rolling Stone called it “a biting, cathartic howler about overcoming obstacles — even death,” and Consequence praised Hale’s “powerhouse pipes” and lead guitarist Joe Hottinger’s “blistering solo.” Revolver declared it a “raucous, hard-rock rager about staying strong in the face of crushing adversity.”

“Back From The Dead” is due out May 6 via Atlantic. The follow-up to 2018’s “Vicious” was produced by Nick Raskulinecz (FOO FIGHTERS, MASTODON, ALICE IN CHAINS) with co-production by Scott Stevens (SHINEDOWN, DAUGHTRY, NEW YEARS DAY).

According to a press release, “Back From The Dead” quickly evolved from songwriting exercises into a matter of survival for HALESTORM. Lead singer Lzzy Hale says: “We started writing this album about three months B.C. (Before COVID). Once we went into lockdown and were unable to perform and tour, I fell into a dark place and something of an identity crisis. This album is the story of me carving myself out of that abyss. It is a journey of navigating mental health, debauchery, survival, redemption, rediscovery, and still maintaining faith in humanity.”

“Back From The Dead” track listing:

01. Back From The Dead
02. Wicked Ways
03. Strange Girl
04. Brightside
05. The Steeple
06. Terrible Things
07. My Redemption
08. Bombshell
09. I Come First
10. Psycho Crazy
11. Raise Your Horns

Last November, Lzzy told the 105.7 The Point radio station about the musical direction of the new HALESTORM material: “This album is absolutely a banger. It’s on eleven. We have really just kind of exceeded all of the energy that has come before on these albums, both technically, music-wise, vocally, drum, lyric-wise. I think because of the roller-coaster ride when we were making this record, and just through the pandemic and all the different phases of that, we just kind of looked at each other, like, if the future is unknown and we don’t know whether we’re actually going to be out and playing these things, everything has to be, like I said, at eleven. It’s HALESTORM elevated.

“It was kind of funny. My bass player, Josh [Smith], he was showing some new songs to his parents. And his dad is, like, ‘Wow. You really just grabbed on to your sound.’ And I’m, like, ‘We have a sound?’ [Laughs] I didn’t really think about it that way before. But, yeah, it’s very us.”

According to Lzzy, she and her bandmates recorded the new HALESTORM album in a different way. “This is the first time that we’ve ever had dual producers,” she explained. “We went back with Nick Raskulinecz [who helmed ‘Vicious’]. And then I ended up doing my vocals with Scott Stevens from THE EXIES. He’s like a brother from another mother with me. We’ve written together before, and we’ve known each other for probably just shy of a decade now. He and I, we produced and did all the vocals for [HALESTORM’s recently released single] ‘Back From The Dead’ with each other, because I went out to L.A. And then we ended up sending it to Nick, and Nick’s, like, ‘This is just absolutely amazing. We have to do every song this way.’ So we kind of did it differently. We ended up with the bare bones of a demo. I ended up finishing all of my vocals — like dunzo — before we ended up building the track musically. So it’s kind of like building a pyramid upside down. But it ended up really just having this different energy, because what we were able to do with the lyrics and melody and all the vocals being done would really accentuate all of that — matching the theme to whatever I was singing about, but also just kind of really supporting the vocals musically when we went in to do the guitars and drums and bass. It’s so crazy — it definitely has this very forward, very aggressive nature to it because of the way that we did that.”

The “Back From The Dead” title track was released in August. The official music video for the song, directed by Dustin Haney (Noah Cyrus, Luke Combs) and produced by Revolution Pictures, features Lzzy and the rest of the band in a morgue and cemetery somewhere between life and death.

Lzzy and her brother Arejay formed the band in 1998 while in middle school. Hottinger joined the group in 2003, followed by Smith in 2004.

In December 2018, HALESTORM was nominated for a “Best Rock Performance” Grammy Award for its song “Uncomfortable”. Six years earlier, the band won its first Grammy in the category of “Best Hard Rock/ Metal Performance” for “Love Bites (So Do I)”.

Tickets are on sale Friday, February 25 at 10am ET Decibel’s Metal & Beer Fest official PRE-FEST featuring Primitive Man, Horrendous, Mortiferum, Jarhead Fertilizer and Berator.
The post Primitive Man, Horrendous, Mortiferum, Jarhead Fertilizer and Berator Announced for Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer PRE-FEST appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Two decades into their venerable careers, Baltimore death metal savants MISERY INDEX are back with a new album, “Complete Control”, which will be released worldwide on May 13 via Century Media Records. The LP was mixed by Will Putney and mastered by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street studios. The cover artwork was created by Matt Lombard.

“Complete Control” is described in a press release as “a riff-driven assault that captures the tension of the modern condition and channels it into nine songs of ripping end-times death metal. Spewing with Orwellian invective and razor-sharp songwriting, ‘Complete Control’ is a much-needed hammer to the face; a wake-up call for the disaffected and dispossessed.”

“Complete Control” track listing:

01. Administer The Dagger
02. The Eaters And The Eaten
03. Complete Control
04. Necessary Suffering
05. Rites Of Cruelty
06. Conspiracy Of None
07. Infiltrators
08. Reciprocal Repulsion
09. Now Defied!

The LP’s first single and video will launch on Friday, March 11 to support the start of the album’s pre-order campaign.

In other news, MISERY INDEX’s new song “Strategies Of Manipulation” is debuting as part of the Decibel Flexi Series, which will be featured with the next issue of Decibel magazine.

MISERY INDEX bassist/vocalist Jason Netherton states about “Complete Control”: “We are super stoked to present our new album ‘Complete Control’ — a pandemic-spawned nine-track opus of vitriolic death metal which draws heavily on our enduring brutal hardcore and grindcore influences.

“We tracked the album in September and October of 2021, and it was subsequently mixed by Will Putney prior to being mastered by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street studios. The cover features the visceral, uncanny work of visual artist Matt Lombard, which, to us, hammers home the contradictory forces of control and chaos which define our modern age.

“The album’s central lyrical themes focus on these competing forces of control and chaos; they interrogate ‘power’ as something that is not always wielded with brute force in the modern age (through violence), but moreso as a control society where it manifests on a self-governing, individual level.

“Also, we are looking very much forward to hitting the road again this year! Starting with a run of dates with our old friends ORIGIN and WOLF KING in North America, leading into festival appearances, a West Coast U.S. tour and an EU headliner coming later this year. Until then, see you all soon and keep hammering the nails!”.

MISERY INDEX is (from left to right in photo by Ryan Philipps): Darin Morris (lead guitar), Adam Jarvis (drums), Mark Kloeppel (guitar and vocals) and Jason Netherton (bass and vocals).

ABSENT IN BODY, the new band featuring AMENRA guitarist Mathieu J. Vandekerckhove, AMENRA frontman Colin H. Van Eeckhout, NEUROSIS vocalist/guitarist Scott Kelly and former SEPULTURA drummer Igor Cavalera, will release its debut album, “Plague God”, on March 25 via Relapse Records. The LP’s second single, “Sarin”, can be streamed below.

Van Eeckhout comments: “Humanity its demise as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The onslaught of information is not manageable for any empathic organism in this universe. Driven into a corner, overtaken by our own self-destructive ways, nature sends its beasts to settle things for good. Restore balance by fire, water, earth and wind. Until eventually mankind will eat itself. Facts are no longer facts, and science appears to have been driven from its throne by new gods of unintelligible information. The story told by a new breed, all awhile Sarin will sleep in your lungs tonight.

“The scream is mine. So loud. But no one came. A funeral pyre. Flames so high they burn the sky. The awful pain. Everywhere. On Gods domain. The coming rain. It will swallow everything.

“‘Sarin’ is also a direct hommage to Dwid Hellion, whom has written a song with INTEGRITY of the same title, without him we would never have been introduced to one another, and AIB would never have seen the light of day.”

“Plague God” is bound by the same ideals of unity and fearlessly uncompromising honesty of expression that have driven the members’ respective bands to imperious heights of reverence and groundbreaking sonic deliverance. “Plague God” is by turns devastating and sublime, drawn from musicians for whom life and art are inextricably bound.

Vandekerckhove commented: “We had not imposed any limitations or boundaries on ourselves to create this music. Everything happened without any compromise, we gathered and let inspiration run freely. It is the beauty and the strength of this album.”

Cavalera stated: “It feels great to collaborate with such forward-thinking minds like Colin, Mathieu and Scott on ABSENT IN BODY. The music is dense and slowly brutal, very similar to the times we are living.”

“The Acres/The Ache” music video was filmed and edited by Vandekerckhove.

“Plague God” track listing:

01. Rise From Ruins
02 In Spirit In Spite
03. Sarin
04. The Acres/The Ache
05. The Half Rising Man

In an era overrun by information, misinformation, unseen algorithms and viral contagion, to seek out what’s truly human in the face of overwhelming and unfathomable forces has perhaps become our most sacred of tasks. It’s an impulse that lies at the very heart of “Plague God”.

Initially the brainchild of Vandekerckhove and Kelly, ABSENT IN BODY formed in 2017. Immediately recognizing their kinship, and with Van Eeckhout brought in on vocals and bass, what emerged is a reflection of the intervening years of turbulence, extending its scope as it navigates across five stretches of unstable terrain. From the opening “Rise From Ruins” with Cavalera’s tribal beat emerging from foreboding, near-subsonic oscillations to explode in a tide of corrosive riffs and feral howls, through “Sarin”‘s steadfast, procession-through-purgatory groove, to “The Half Rising Man”‘s matrix of organic/mechanic evolution, it’s an album in constant dialogue between the animalistic, the human and the industrial, and a hunger to distill a truth, something unpolluted from the fray.

Protest music is often perceived as a petition, or a counter-argument against a controlling force. There is another sense of protest, though, that of a machine under stress: articulating the pressures weighing down on it by means of an involuntary, primal response. It’s these states of critical mass at which we must truly find ourselves, under duress maybe, but unblinded and alive. “Plague God” doesn’t just give voice to these moments of truth, but in the band’s deep kinship integral to every claustrophobic judder, every stretch of atmospheric dread and helpless alias assumed, lies a freedom we both forget and attain at our peril.

SCORPIONS have shared the official lyric video for their new song “Seventh Sun”. The track is taken from the band’s 19th studio album, “Rock Believer”, which will be released on February 25.

From the very first note of “Seventh Sun”, guitarist Rudolf Schenker and his Flying V manage to spectacularly draw us into this powerful song in an almost mystical way, much in the tradition of SCORPIONS classics such as “Animal Magnetism” and “China White”.

Three months ago, SCORPIONS released the official music video for “Rock Believer”‘s first single, “Peacemaker”. The track features music courtesy of guitarist Rudolf Schenker and bassist Pawel Maciwoda and lyrics by singer Klaus Meine.

Asked in a recent interview with Chile’s Radio Futuro what fans can expect to hear on “Rock Believer”, Meine said: “Well, you can expect an album that is dedicated to all the rock believers in the world. And we’re very excited after all these years. We thought, when you think about all the touring we did the last 10 years, after the release of ‘Return To Forever’ in 2015, the time was right to go back into the studio, to write new material, to write new songs and check out if the creativity is still working. The big aim was, the goal was to make a rock album — to make an album with lots of attitude, power and focus on the good old times and really enjoy the music and have some fun with the music. And that feels really good.”

Speaking about the “Rock Believer” album title, SCORPIONS guitarist Rudolf Schenker said: “Look, we are around the world since 50 years or more. And when somebody can say he’s a rock believer, then this is us. And of course, we meet our rock believers in front of us, our audience.

“So many people said rock is dead. It’s not dead,” he continued. “It’s always coming back — sometimes, okay, more stronger [or] less strong — but in the end, it’s great to play around the world in over 80 countries we’ve played so far, and all rock believers. It was always great to share the music with them together and be in connection with them. I mean, that’s so amazing and so fantastic, that we are very happy to come out with a new album. And yeah, let’s see what’s happening.”

Added Meine: “Over the years, we’ve heard people say lots of times that rock is dead. But there are still millions of rock believers out there all over the world that prove them wrong. Our fans are the best in the world. We’ll see you someday somewhere out there, because we’re rock believers, just like you.”

Asked if “Peacemaker” is representative of “Rock Believer” as a whole, Klaus said: “It is an uptempo rock song, and this album really rocks. There are some heavy songs on the album, like when you think about ‘China White’ and ‘Animal Magnetism’, there’s a track on the record that is really in the best way of those songs. There are many uptempo songs and, believe it or not, there are even faster songs than ‘Peacemaker’. [Laughs] There’s also a very beautiful ballad on the album, and I’m sure there are fans out there especially love the SCORPIONS ballads, and they will enjoy this record as well very much. ‘Peacemaker’ is the appetizer for what the album is all about. It rocks.”

“Rock Believer” was recorded primarily at Peppermint Park Studios in Hannover, Germany and was mixed at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin, Germany with engineer Michael Ilbert, who has earned multiple Grammy nominations for his mix work with producer Max Martin on albums by Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.

“The album was written and recorded in the SCORPIONS DNA with core Schenker/Meine compositions,” said Klaus. “We recorded the album as a band live in one room, like we did in the ’80s.”

SCORPIONS’ new album will mark their first release since 2017’s “Born To Touch Your Feelings – Best Of Rock Ballads”, which was an anthology of new and classic material.

SCORPIONS originally intended to record the new album in Los Angeles with producer Greg Fidelman, whose previous credits include SLIPKNOT and METALLICA. However, because of the pandemic, some of the initial work was done with Greg remotely, after which SCORPIONS opted to helm the recordings themselves with the help of their engineer Hans-Martin Buff.

Meine previously told Talking Metal that the goal with using Fidelman to produce “Rock Believer” was to bring “the old vibe from albums like ‘Blackout’, ‘Love At First Sting’ or even ‘Lovedrive’. We try to focus on those albums and this attitude,” he said. “If we get there, who knows — it’s so many years later. But it’s the spirit and it’s the whole vibe around this album. This time, the focus is on the harder songs.”

“Rock Believer” track listing:

01. Gas In The Tank
02. Roots In My Boots
03. Knock ‘Em Dead
04. Rock Believer
05. Shining Of Your Soul
06. Seventh Sun
07. Hot And Cold
08. When I Lay My Bones To Rest
09. Peacemaker
10. Call Of The Wild
11. When You Know (Where You Come From)
12. Shoot For Your Heart
13. When Tomorrow Comes
14. Unleash The Beast
15. Crossing Borders

SCORPIONS will kick off their “Rock Believer” world tour in March in Las Vegas where the band will play nine shows as part of their residency at Planet Hollywood Hotel. Afterwards they will cross the Atlantic to Europe where they will play six concerts in France and six shows In Germany supported by Wolfgang Van Halen’s new band MAMMOTH WVH.

SCORPIONS’ last full-length collection of new recordings was the aforementioned “Return To Forever”, partially comprising songs the band had in the vault from the ’80s. It was the final recorded appearance of SCORPIONS’ longtime drummer James Kottak, who was dismissed from the band in September 2016. He has since been replaced by Mikkey Dee, formerly of MOTÖRHEAD.

Canadian metal legends ANVIL have set “Impact Is Imminent” as the title of their 19th album, tentatively due in May. The cover artwork for the effort, which was recorded at a studio in Germany, can be found below.

Earlier in the month, ANVIL guitarist/vocalist Steve “Lips” Kudlow told Canada’s The Metal Voice about the band’s upcoming follow-up to 2020’s “Legal At Last” LP: “The new album is completed and mixed and done. What can I say? I can’t wait till it comes out.

“The whole thing is a bit weird and odd because we put out an album and then never got to tour for it,” he continued, referencing the aforementioned “Legal At Last”. “So it’s, like, where is the tour for the last album already? So, what is the last album, just spinning our wheels? What was that? What happened? Now I’m in a position where I’m putting out another album, and I’m gonna have to actually try to push both albums. It’s, like, I don’t know. I’ve never been in a position like that.”

Lips added: “And then at the same time, while all this is going on, I got back from [recording in] Germany, of course, in October and have been writing songs since I got back. Because, of course, the last song I wrote was before I left — months before — so I had months of time off, not doing anything. So we started back in on it. We’re at [song] number 10 already — for the next album.”

“Legal At Last” came out in February 2020 via AFM Records.

ANVIL, a Toronto-based group, was formed in 1978 by childhood friends, Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner. Both came from Jewish families and had been playing music together since their teens. ANVIL is considered to have been an influence on many metal bands, including METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLAYER and ANTHRAX.

Though initially a four-piece band, ANVIL’s current lineup includes Kudlow, Reiner and bassist Chris Robertson.

ANVIL gained popularity and new fans since the 2008 theatrical documentary, “Anvil: The Story Of Anvil”, which is currently available on Netflix. Made by former ANVIL roadie, filmmaker Sacha Gervasi, it became a cult hit, described by the Chicago Tribune as “a sort of real-life version of ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ with more appealing characters and real emotions.”

In a 2015 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lips stated about ANVIL’s longevity: “We learned a very early and very brutal lesson in our younger years — you don’t let up, ever. You keep the tank full and you keep driving it. You don’t stop. ‘Cause stopping means that you’re gonna slip. So we’ve been on this survival-terror mode to keep it going.”