WARRIOR SOUL, the band fronted by legendary singer Kory Clarke, has released the title track of its upcoming album, “Out On Bail”. The LP will arrive on March 4 via Livewire/Cargo Records UK. The album’s first single, “We’re Alive”, came out in December.

“Out On Bail” 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.” Poetic and timely, “Out On Bail” speaks to us as survivors and fighters, celebrating in success and yet wary of things to come. It is a perfect gateway into the mind and soul of this unique songwriter and groundbreaking band.

“Out On Bail” track listing:

01. We’re Alive (Arling / Clarke) (5:10)
02. One More For The Road (Post / Polachek / Clarke) (4:07)
03. Hip Hip Hurray (Clarke / Post) (3:33)
04. Out On Bail (Hodgson / Clarke) (4:20)
05. Cancelled Culture (Polachek / Clarke) (3:41)
06. End Of The World (Kimmett / Post / Clarke) (4:50)
07. YoYo (Clarke / Peter Jay) (4:40)
08. The New Paradigm (Mark Gemini Thwaite / Paul Raven / Clarke) (4:35)

“Out On Bail” was produced by Clarke, with additional production by Dennis Post. It was mixed and mastered by Rune Buck.

Recording lineup:

* Kory Clarke – Vocals, Drums on “One More For The Road”
* Dennis “El Guapo” Post – Guitars
* Christian Kimmett – Bass
* Ivan Tambac – Drums on “Paradigm”, “End Of The World”
* John Besser – Drums on “We’re Alive”, “Hip Hip Hurray”, “Out On Bail”, “Cancelled Culture”, “YoYo”
* John “Baby H” Hodgson – Guitars on “Out On Bail”
* Adam Arling – Guitars on “We’re Alive”, “Paradigm”
* John “Full Throttle” Polachek – Guitars on “One More For The Road”, “Cancelled Culture”
* Maria Hatzina – Special Guest Vocals on “Hip Hip Hurray”

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”.

A couple of years ago, Clarke told TotalRock that WARRIOR SOUL translates better in front of U.K. audiences. “For some reason, people in England like me a lot, more than Americans like me,” he said. “I always thought it was because of my criticism of the social situation in America and the guts to actually say what I feel about it.”

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BLACK SWAN, the band featuring vocalist Robin McAuley (MCAULEY SCHENKER GROUP), guitarist Reb Beach (WINGER, WHITESNAKE), bassist Jeff Pilson (FOREIGNER, THE END MACHINE, ex-DOKKEN), and drummer Matt Starr (ACE FREHLEY, MR. BIG), will return with a second album, “Generation Mind” on April 8. The first single from the album, the title track, is out today. A music video for “Generation Mind” was filmed in Los Angeles recently and fans can expect that to premiere in the coming weeks.

Picking up where their stunning, and well-received, debut album “Shake The World” left off, the foursome once again delivers a powerful hard rock statement. With the entirety of the album written and composed by McAuley, Pilson and Beach, “Generation Mind” sees BLACK SWAN an even more cohesive and focused unit from their debut.

Once again produced and recorded by Pilson at Pilsound Studios in Los Angeles, with Starr’s drums being recorded at On Deck Sound Studios, “Generation Mind” is another outstanding showcase for the musical talents of the instrumental players in the band as well as McAuley’s powerful voice, which seems to defy age. BLACK SWAN has again produced something fresh, heavy, intensely melodic and an album that is certainly not a mish-mash of the members other bands, but its own unique sonic entity.

“Generation Mind” is a killer slice of melodic hard rock/metal from seasoned players who defied all expectations on their debut by having gelled musically so cohesively. And now, having established their sonic signature and being more in tune with one another’s songwriting, they have taken the blueprint of “Shake The World” and taken it to the next level on “Generation Mind”.

“Generation Mind” track listing:

01. Before The Light
02. She Hides Behind
03. Generation Mind
04. Eagles Fly
05. See You Cry
06. Killer On The Loose
07. Miracle
08. How Do You Feel
09. Long Way Down
10. Crown
11. Wicked The Day
12. I Will Follow

BLACK SWAN lineup:

Robin McAuley – Lead Vocals, Background Vocals
Reb Beach – Guitars, Background Vocals
Jeff Pilson – Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Keys, Background Vocals
Matt Starr – Drums, Percussion
Casey McAuley – Additional Background Vocals

The genesis of BLACK SWAN was sparked by a conversation between Pilson and Frontiers president and head of A&R, Serafino Perugino, who wanted a project that would not only showcase McAuley’s vocal prowess, but have a mighty musical backbone to stand skyscraper tall behind him. Thus, the initial seeds were planted and Pilson ran with it from there. The four members got BLACK SWAN off the ground by exchanging ideas back and forth and then bringing all the songs together. The final result is something fresh, very heavy, but still intensely melodic and it’s certainly not DOKKEN, nor WINGER, nor MSG, or some combination thereof, but its own unique animal.

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NHC, the new band featuring JANE’S ADDICTION members Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney alongside FOO FIGHTERS drummer Taylor Hawkins, has announced the release of its debut EP, “Intakes & Outtakes”. In addition to two new tracks, the Los Angeles-based group is sharing two covers, LEVEL 42’s “Something About You” and PINK FLOYD’s “Fearless”. The EP continues the sonic trajectory that the band laid down over four original songs released last year, showcasing each of these players at their absolute best, and featuring Hawkins on lead vocals/drums, Navarro on guitar and Chaney on bass.

About the EP, Navarro said: “I’m really proud of this collection of songs as they really showcase the range that we like to explore collectively.” Chaney added: “This is a great batch of songs that covers an amalgamation of our combined styles and influences.”

“If you can’t see the connection between what we do, what PINK FLOYD does and what LEVEL 42 did, well, then you’re just not getting it. We had tons of fun as usual creating these little gems.”

NHC — an acronym for Navarro, Hawkins and Chaney — is the result of pure, unharnessed creativity and the world’s biggest Mutual Appreciation Society; the guys — who all knew each other socially as staples of the Los Angeles rock world — came together over the last year and just played, giving themselves no rules or limits. For Hawkins, who had played alongside Chaney in the mid-’90s in Alanis Morissette’s band, it was a chance to play with the one and only Dave Navarro, whom Hawkins calls “the best lead guitarist in alternative rock.” For Navarro, it was an awakening of everything he loved about playing – feeling his own playing had plateaued, NHC’s song creation brought him back to his instrument in new and inspiring ways.

Indeed, “new and inspiring” are the best adjectives to describe these three legends when they are together in the same room. Often finishing each other’s sentences, the trio have found unfettered joy working on music together, and could not be more excited to get this project out into the world.

Last year, the supergroup debuted with tracks “Feed The Cruel” and “Better Move On”, soon to be followed by “Devil That You Know” and “Lazy Eyes”. These songs lead to the band’s first headlining show at the Troubadour last November, selling out instantly.

“Intakes & Outtakes” track listing:

01. One And The Same
02. I Could Be Someone Else
03. Something About You
04. Fearless

Hawkins and Chaney previously played together in Alanis Morisette’s band in the mid-1990s and are bandmates in Hawkins’s solo project, TAYLOR HAWKINS AND THE COATTAIL RIDERS.

Last October, NHC played a seven-song set at Eddie Vedder’s Ohana Festival. The trio delivered five songs off its yet-to-released debut album and covers of QUEEN’s “Keep Yourself Alive” and RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS’ “My Friends”.

Photo credit: Ross Halfin

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Grammy-winning hard rock band HALESTORM has announced “Back From The Dead”, its fifth studio album, 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.”

Today HALESTORM revealed “The Steeple”, the second single from “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” 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)”.

Photo credit: Jimmy Fontaine

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Notorious Swedish black metal collective WATAIN has unleashed “The Howling”, the first single from its upcoming new studio album, “The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain”, which will be released on April 29 via Nuclear Blast.

“The Howling” sets the tone for what will be offered on the band’s seventh full-length, an unsettling blackened voyage in 10 chapters that is as inexorably vicious as it is enticing.

Vocalist Erik Danielsson states: “‘The Howling’ refers to the wordless voice of the wild, wailing eerily through the ages, urging us to leave our safe spaces and explore the dark recesses of the great Abyss both within and without. To see it, to learn from it, to know it. ”

The single is available in both digital and physical form — a strictly limited seven-inch with “The Howling” on its A-side and the PROFANATICA cover “I Arose” on its B-side can be bought as of today. The black vinyl is exclusively available through Nuclear Blast mailorder, whereas the oxblood colored version is being sold in the band’s own shop.

“The Agony & Ecstasy Of Watain” track listing

01. Ecstasies In Night Infinite
02. The Howling
03. Serimosa
04. Black Cunt
05. Leper’s Grace
06. Not Sun Nor Man Nor God
07. Before The Cataclysm
08. We Remain
09. Funeral Winter
10. Septentrion

WATAIN will join forces with infamous Norwegian black metal legends MAYHEM for a tour through North America, aptly labeled “The Sanguine Sodomy Of North America”, starting on March 7. They will be supported by U.S. blackened speed metal punks MIDNIGHT.

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On July 29, Swedish/Canadian/American melodic death metallers ARCH ENEMY will release their 11th studio album, “Deceivers”, via Century Media Records. A collection of 11 tracks that are ruthlessly catchy and mercilessly violent, “Deceivers” stands toe to toe with the highlights of the band’s storied catalog. The LP’s new single, “Handshake With Hell”, can be streamed below. The song’s official music video, directed by Patric Ullaeus, will premiere later today.

ARCH ENEMY guitarist Michael Amott comments: “Our new single/video ‘Handshake With Hell’ started off with some riffs and melodies that I thought might be suitable for each other, and when I showed the parts I had to Daniel [Erlandsson, drums], he also felt it had potential. We worked on a demo of it, developing it much further together, and once we had reached a point where we felt it was ready, we sent the instrumental version to Alissa [White-Gluz, vocals] over in Canada. She came back with this really cool approach to the vocals and lyrics that elevated the song even further. To me, it’s a stand-out track on the new ‘Deceivers’ album, really showcasing what we are capable of as songwriters and performers in 2022 — it’s definitely one of the new songs I’m dying to play live on tour!”

White-Gluz adds: “When Michael and Daniel showed me the instrumental they had cooked up, I got a ton of vocal ideas to complete the song. ‘Handshake With Hell’ has a classic heavy metal feel, and it felt like the right time to unleash some classic heavy metal vocals to match. I think the result is really interesting and catchy.”

Before “Handshake With Hell” arrived, fans were also able to check out the previously released album tracks, “Deceiver, Deceiver” and “House Of Mirrors”.

Amott had stated about the new LP: “Having just celebrated our 25th anniversary as a group and now releasing our 11th studio album, one could easily assume that we would be cruising along and going through the motions at this point. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to ARCH ENEMY and our new album, ‘Deceivers’.

“It is, without a doubt, always a challenge to raise the bar each time in both the songwriting and production side of things, and it can feel a bit daunting before we get into it. But once we do get started and fully immerse ourselves in the creative process, it’s really like there is nothing else in the world and we are very focused. And believe it or not, for the most part, we have a ton of fun making this music! Creating ‘Deceivers’ was no different. Once again we shut out the outside world and went deep into the artistic zone. I believe we pulled out some really interesting musical and lyrical themes this time, a few things might even raise an eyebrow or two — while retaining all the signature elements of the band. In the end, it’s ARCH ENEMY at full speed and power.”

“Deceivers” track listing:

01. Handshake With Hell
02. Deceiver, Deceiver
03. In The Eye Of The Storm
04. The Watcher
05. Poisoned Arrow
06. Sunset Over The Empire
07. House Of Mirrors
08. Spreading Black Wings
09. Mourning Star
10. One Last Time
11. Exiled From Earth

This spring, ARCH ENEMY and BEHEMOTH will return to the states to co-headline “The North American Siege 2022” tour with NAPALM DEATH and UNTO OTHERS as special guests, before ARCH ENEMY appears at select summer festivals; the rescheduled “European Siege 2022” tour (with ARCH ENEMY, BEHEMOTH, CARCASS, UNTO OTHERS) will kick off in the fall.

“Despite the obvious uncertainties everyone is currently facing in the world, we have got quite a few concerts booked for this year!” says Amott. “We’re delighted to be returning to the live stage in North America this spring and hitting select European festivals in the summer, as well as a huge European tour at the end of 2022. It’s time; let’s do this!”

In December, ARCH ENEMY released another new song, “House Of Mirrors”. Mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen, an accompanying music video for the track was directed by Grupa13.

“House Of Mirrors” marked the second new ARCH ENEMY track to be made available in four years, following the October 2021 arrival of “Deceiver, Deceiver”.

In the fall of 2018, Amott revealed that he had commenced the songwriting process for the follow-up to the “Will To Power” album. Released in 2017, that disc marked the second ARCH ENEMY LP since the departure of longtime singer Angela Gossow and addition of ex-THE AGONIST frontwoman Alissa White-Gluz. It was also the first ARCH ENEMY disc to feature former NEVERMORE guitarist Jeff Loomis, who joined the band in late 2014.

Jeff, who was the main songwriter in his previous group, NEVERMORE, was not involved in the writing for “Will To Power”.

Album artwork by: Alex Reisfar / Single cover artwork by: Hellish Maggot

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German thrash metal veterans KREATOR will release their fifteenth studio album, “Hate Über Alles”, on June 3 via Nuclear Blast. The follow-up to 2017’s “Gods Of Violence” was recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin, Germany. Helming the sessions was Arthur Rizk, who has previously worked with CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, CODE ORANGE, POWER TRIP and SOULFLY, among others.

Today marks the release of the first new KREATOR single, the vicious title track “Hate Über Alles”, along with a brand new music video.

KREATOR frontman Mille Petrozza comments: “‘Hate Über Alles’ reflects the time we’re living in. Everything is really loud and aggressive. The way we communicate has changed, thanks to social media. It causes a lot of imbalance. The world is in a state of disrepair. Life is not harmonic right now, it’s disharmonic… that’s where I was going with the title.”

The “Hate Über Alles” cover artwork was created by Eliran Kantor, who has previously worked with HATEBREED, SOULFLY, TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH and SODOM, among others.

“Hate Über Alles” track listing:

01. Sergio Corbucci Is Dead
02. Hate Über Alles
03. Killer Of Jesus
04. Crush The Tyrants
05. Strongest Of The Strong
06. Become Immortal
07. Conquer And Destroy
08. Midnight Sun
09. Demonic Future
10. Pride Comes Before The Fall
11. Dying Planet

Last year, Petrozza told the official podcast of Italy’s Metalitalia.com about the musical direction of the band’s new LP: “It’s definitely different. It’s hard for me to describe, but I think it’s definitely more thrash again. It has a lot of melody, and it has a lot of traditional parts, and it has a lot of ingredients of the last four or five albums. But it also has some very old-school moments. I think it’s definitely the next step.”

“Hate Über Alles” will mark KREATOR’s first album with bassist Frédéric Leclercq, who joined the group in 2019.

In September 2020, KREATOR guitarist Sami Yli-Sirniö described the sessions for the band’s new album to Italy’s Poisoned Rock as “a lot of fun,” adding that the “mood” in the band “is great. And the general vibe and the atmosphere is very good,” he said. “[These are] creative times for KREATOR at the moment.”

In March 2020, KREATOR surprise-released a new single, “666 – World Divided”. The song was produced by Andy Sneap and Markus Ganter and was recorded at Hansa Tonstudios.

The music video for “666 – World Divided” was created under the direction of Jörn Heitmann, who was responsible for the music videos for “Radio” and “Ausländer” by RAMMSTEIN.

KREATOR played its first show with Leclercq in October 2019 in Santiago, Chile.

Before joining KREATOR, Leclercq rose to fame with U.K.-based extreme power metallers DRAGONFORCE for whom he handled bass duties from 2005 until August 2019.

KREATOR’s previously announced “State Of Unrest” European tour with LAMB OF GOD has been rescheduled for November/December 2022 in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

KREATOR released a new live set, “London Apocalypticon – Live At The Roundhouse”, in February 2020 via Nuclear Blast. The effort was professionally filmed and recorded on December 16, 2018 at the Roundhouse in London, England.

Photo credit: Christoph Voy

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Super7 will release a ReAction figure of late METALLICA bassist Cliff Burton on Thursday, February 10.

Cliff was asked to join METALLICA in 1982 after the band saw him perform with his group at the time, TRAUMA.

The bassist was not willing to move to Los Angeles, where METALLICA was based, so they decided to move to the San Francisco area so that he would join.

Burton played on METALLICA’s first three studio albums — “Kill ‘Em All”, “Ride The Lightning” and “Master Of Puppets” — and co-wrote classic songs like “Ride The Lightning”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “Fade To Black”, “Creeping Death” and “Master Of Puppets”.

His life was tragically cut short at the age of 24 in a tour bus crash on September 27, 1986 in Sweden.

Burton’s initial replacement in the group was Jason Newsted, who stayed in the lineup until 2001. Robert Trujillo joined in 2003 and remains in the band to this day.

February 10, 2018 was proclaimed “Cliff Burton Day” by Alameda County supervisors. The late METALLICA bassist would have turned 56 years old on that date had he lived.

Back in 2016, METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich spoke to Seattle’s KISW 99.9 radio station about Burton’s tragic loss when METALLICA’s tour bus skidded on ice while the group was on tour in Scandinavia and Cliff was thrown out the window and crushed. Lars said: “We were so shocked and stunned that we didn’t know what hit us. And, like most, I guess, kids in their early 20s who get ambushed with that type of thing, we jumped into a bottle of, in this case, vodka, for me, and stayed in there for quite some time. We weren’t mature enough or seasoned in life enough to know how to deal with this other than just to sort of, basically, almost hide behind the alcohol and compartmentalized it. So the next few months were very difficult, and it was crazy, but we just put the blinders on and started auditioning bass players. And we knew in our hearts that Cliff would be the first one to kick us in the ass and tell us to keep going, if he could see us mope. And so there was no moping; we just kept going the best we knew how to.”

METALLICA frontman James Hetfield was asked in an interview with TeamRock what he thinks Burton might have thought about the drastic changes in its look and sound that METALLICA made through the 1990s and early 2000s with albums like “Load”, “Reload” and “St. Anger”. Hetfield replied: “Well, I certainly would have thought there would have been some resistance, for sure. I think the ‘Black Album’ was a great album and I appreciate the fact that we did have the balls to do that… I would certainly think that the ‘Load’ and ‘Reload’ [era], I would have had an ally that was very against it all — the reinvention or the U2 version of METALLICA.”

Asked if Hetfield was personally comfortable with the more “alternative” image and music METALLICA made on those albums, the singer/guitarist replied: “No, no, not at all. There’s some great, great songs on there but my opinion is that all of the imagery and stuff like that was not necessary. And the amount of songs that were written was… it diluted the potency of the poison of METALLICA. And I think Cliff would have agreed with that.”

Burton’s huge talent and achievements were chronicled in book form with the 2009 global publication of “To Live Is To Die: The Life And Death Of Metallica’s Cliff Burton”, written by U.K.-based author Joel McIver and published by Jawbone Press. The foreword was provided by Hammett.

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RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS have released the official Deborah Chow-directed music video for their new single “Black Summer”. The song is taken from the band’s upcoming album, “Unlimited Love”, which will arrive on April 1 via Warner.

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS’s first new LP with guitarist John Frusciante since 2006’s “Stadium Arcadium” was once again produced by Rick Rubin who previously worked on “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” (1991), “Californication” (1999), “By The Way” (2002) and the aforementioned “Stadium Arcadium”.

The band stated about the new record: “Our only goal is to get lost in the music. We (John, Anthony, Chad and Flea) spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could. Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better. Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.

“We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together. Each of the songs on our new album ‘Unlimited Love’ is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe. This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it.”

Frusciante said: “When we started writing material, we began by playing old songs by people like Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, THE KINKS, THE NEW YORK DOLLS, Richard Barrett and others. Ever so gradually, we started bringing in new ideas, and turning jams into songs, and after a couple of months the new stuff was all we were playing. The feeling of effortless fun we had when we were playing songs by other people, stayed with us the whole time we were writing. For me, this record represents our love for, and faith in each other.”

“Unlimited Love” track listing:

01. Black Summer
02. Here Ever After
03. Aquatic Mouth Dance
04. Not The One
05. Poster Child
06. The Great Apes
07. It’s Only Natural
08. She’s A Lover
09. These Are The Ways
10. Whatchu Thinkin’
11. Bastards Of Light
12. White Braids & Pillow Chair
13. One Way Traffic
14. Veronica
15. Let ‘Em Cry
16. The Heavy Wing
17. Tangelo

Last fall, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS drummer Chad Smith told Rolling Stone that the four members of the band were “getting along great”, and were “really listening to each other in a new way”.

“All of our records are just real good snapshots of where we’re at that time,” he said. “You can’t really go, ‘Oh, gee, I hope it’s as good as…’ Then you’re starting to have preconceived notions about what you want to write.

“Look, John hasn’t been in our group in 10 years. That’s a long time. So of course it’s going to sound different, but it’s going to sound like the four of us because we do have this special chemistry together. It sounds like RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, but it’s different and new, and to me that’s great.

“We really like it and we’re proud of it and it has to start there. If other people like it, great. If people compare it to this or [say] it doesn’t sound like that, we have no control over that. But yeah, we’re all really happy with the record.”

Regarding the return of Frusciante, Smith said: “He is so dedicated. He’s so into it. He’s working so hard. We’re all working hard, but he’s in there with all the overdubs and the magic that he brings.”

According to Chad, most of the new album was written after the start of the pandemic, with the actual studio sessions taking place earlier last year.

“We could just plow through and write, and that’s what we did,” he adds. “It was kind of a blessing, because we want to come out with new music and play some new songs. It’s going to be great when we finally go out next year and have a record to play, and a bunch of other stuff, obviously.”

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS will embark on a world tour this summer. The North American leg will kick off in Denver, Colorado on July 23 at Empower Field at Mile High. It will conclude in Arlington, Texas on September 18 at Globe Life Field.

Frusciante originally joined RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS following the death of founding guitarist Hillel Slovak in 1988. This lineup recorded two highly successful albums that brought the group mainstream popularity: “Mother’s Milk” and “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”. Sadly, Frusciante fell into a deep heroin addiction that caused him to leave the band while touring to support “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”. Frusciante rejoined CHILI PEPPERS six years later, playing on 1999 album “Californication”, 2002’s “By The Way” and 2006’s “Stadium Arcadium” before quitting the band again in September 2009.

In October 2020, Frusciante told the Australian digital radio station Double J that playing with his RHCP bandmates Anthony Kiedis, Flea and Smith once again was like “returning to family. I’m extremely comfortable with those people. It was as if no time had gone by at all when we started playing, pretty much, with a couple of minor exceptions, like how Chad and I gradually got our communication together in a new way. Basically, we’re all just as comfortable with each other as we ever were, and it just felt like that right off the bat.”

Photo credit: Sandy Kim

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