In a new interview with Columbus Alive, IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson was asked if there was something that he learned, good or bad, from a global pandemic over the course of the last two years. He responded: “Well, in IRON MAIDEN, we kind of already predicted this would happen [on our latest album, ‘Senjutsu’, which was recorded in 2019, before the pandemic]. We didn’t exactly know what it was going to be. ‘The Writing On The Wall’ [and] ‘Hell On Earth’ were both tracks that were predictive of what’s happening now.”

He continued: “I curiously found that there were things about lockdown that I enjoyed. Everything was shut down, so everything was slow, and I spent time just sitting around with my partner. It was great. And even though I’ve now got 42 shows and I’m going to be running around all over the place, there’s a little part of my brain that has just been tweaked and says that it’s alright to slow down. Although, having said that, I now have a million things to do.”

In late January, Dickinson kicked off a two-month North American spoken-word tour.

“Senjutsu” was released in September via BMG. The band’s first LP in six years was recorded three years ago in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by bassist Steve Harris.

Dickinson, who had a golf gall-size tumor on his tongue and another in the lymph node on the right side of his neck, got the all-clear in May 2015 after radiation and nine weeks of chemotherapy.

Bruce’s second wife, Paddy was found dead in May 2020 at the home they once shared in Chiswick, West London, following a “tragic accident.” London Ambulance Service confirmed that the patient was pronounced dead on arrival.

Bruce and Paddy had married in 1990 after two years of dating and shared three children: Austin, Griffin and Kia. They tied the knot after dating for two years following Bruce’s split from first wife Jane.

Dickinson is believed to have split from Bowden privately in 2018, although their breakup wasn’t made public until November 2019.

Bruce, 63, now reportedly lives in Paris with fitness instructor Leana Dolci.

Former BLACK SABBATH singer Tony Martin, who sang on six of the band’s albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was asked in a new interview with Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece if he had an inkling he would be fired after the release of 1995’s “Forbidden” in order to allow guitarist Tony Iommi to reunite with SABBATH’s fellow original members. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I asked Tony directly. I said, ‘Are you guys planning to do something with Ozzy [Osbourne] again?’ I said, ‘Just tell me so then I can plan what I’m gonna do.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, no. It’s all just rumors.’ Yeah, right. Everybody’s talking in the business about it. My manager had told me. So I kind of knew it was coming; I just didn’t know when. I don’t think they really knew when. But they sort of denied it and denied it. But then it was gonna happen anyway.”

Martin continued: “To be honest, I think getting Ozzy back after that, that was the right thing to do. It couldn’t go anywhere else. They couldn’t get another singer and start again. I think it was the right thing to do. And I still think there’s an opportunity out there for them, because they’re all still alive. Bill [Ward, original SABBATH drummer] is still out there. And if you think about what DEF LEPPARD did with their drummer. They’ve got a one-armed drummer, DEF LEPPARD, and they waited until they got a drum kit and he could play with one hand. If they can do that for a one-armed drummer, it’s possible they could do something with Bill. It’s just time. That’s all, really. So I still think there’s an opportunity there.”

Bill was on board for the SABBATH reunion when it was first announced more than 10 years ago but backed out soon after. The drummer later claimed that he sat out the recording and touring sessions because of unfair contractual terms, although the members of SABBATH have hinted in other interviews that he wasn’t physically up to the task.

All four original members of SABBATH were present when the band announced its reunion in late 2011. But Ward split from the group in 2012, citing an “unsignable” contract, and Osbourne, Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler carried on with their Rick Rubin–produced “13” LP and extensive international touring without him.

Last March, Bill admitted to SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that he no longer had the “chops” and the “ability” to perform with BLACK SABBATH. “I have to be back to 60 years old to be able to do that,” he said.

Martin recently confirmed that a new record deal has been secured to reissue the albums he recorded with SABBATH: “The Eternal Idol” (1987), “Headless Cross” (1989), “Tyr” (1990), “Cross Purposes” (1994), “Cross Purposes Live” (1995) and “Forbidden” (1995).

Six years ago, Iommi told I Heart Guitar that “it’s a shame” that “it took a lot for people to accept” Martin as SABBATH’s vocalist. “It’s taken all these years later for people to say, ‘Oh blimey, that was a good band with good singing.’ So it took a long time to get people to really realize how good it was.”

In 2018, Iommi spent time in the studio remixing “Forbidden” for a future release. The LP, which features Martin, drummer Cozy Powell and bassist Neil Murray, is often regarded as SABBATH’s worst studio recording.

Martin’s new solo album, “Thorns”, arrived on January 14 via Battlegod Productions and Dark Star Records.

Hear D.C. deathgrind crushers Deliriant Nerve before the release of their nine-track grind tornado Uncontrollable Ascension.
The post Album Premiere: Deliriant Nerve – ‘Uncontrollable Ascension’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Decibel celebrates the 10th anniversary of Liberteer’s Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees with Matt Widener, the man behind this eclectic grind masterpiece.
The post Liberteer’s Unsung Grind Classic ‘Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees ‘ Turns 10 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Sweden’s MASS WORSHIP released one of the finest metal debuts of the last decade. The opening track on that self-titled record began with a riff so monumentally heavy that some of us are still picking bits of skull out of the furniture. The rest of the album was just as good. As a result, “Portal Tombs” has a lot to live up to.

There was something instantly magical about this band’s sound: a brutal, white-knuckle midpoint between the blistered left-field hardcore of BREACH, and the buzz-saw bellicosity of Stockholm’s seminal death metal scene — it nimbly defies categorization. Second time out, MASS WORSHIP have no real reason to veer off track, and “Portal Tombs” does exactly what it needs to: reinforce how exciting this band are, via an even more crushing and creative batch of songs than the ones on the debut.

In keeping with the previous album’s spectacular opening, “Specular Void” is another utterly fearsome statement of intent. Arriving on a slow-fade flurry of tribal drums, it slams and flails forward on a swaggering bulldozer groove, oozing vitriol and existential dread; all underpinned by riffs of audacious brilliance, and propelled along by frontman Claes Nordin’s venomous roar. The title track is even heavier, as the pace drops slightly for diversions into harrowing, discordant sludge that emerge from the overpowering squall of MASS WORSHIP’s collective forward thrust. Once again, they sound quite unlike anyone else and yet there is something elemental and ageless flickering at the heart of the storm. A gleeful distortion of death metal tropes, “Revel in Fear” stirs up a monochrome blur of percussive violence and myopic churn; the lurching, schizophrenic “Orcus Mouth” is mutant noise rock on steroids enshrouded in a black fog of cavernous reverb. Semi-instrumental “Unholy Mass” offers a slight change of pace, with its tense but inexorable slow-build and final, juddering payoff, while “Dunes of Bone” evokes rolling waves of mortal debris via a sinister, sustained rumble and jagged shards of syncopated riffing. The album’s most cheerfully violent moment, “Scorched Earth” is all post-punk pounding and machine-gun kicks founded on yet another irresistible groove; in contrast, “Empyrean Halls” wallows in the insidious creep of slower tempos, with an air of Lovecraft-ian horror seeping through its languid, toxic onslaught.

And if all of that doesn’t sate your appetite for being soundly bludgeoned, the closing “Deliverance” almost certainly will. A stately, imperious crawl through untold horrors, it takes seven blissfully excruciating minutes to make its (presumably) nihilistic point, with just a hint of sobering melody filtering through cracks in this band’s armored, sonic façade. Like everything else on “Portal Tombs”, it noisily proclaims MASS WORSHIP to be one of the most unique and enthralling metal bands on the planet right now. Again.

While the pandemic paralyzed the entire world and prevented bands from touring, Latin America’s biggest metal export SEPULTURA refused to sit back and feel like animals trapped in a cage. Therefore, in early 2020, the legendary Brazilians, along with their American vocalist, seized the moment to start their own weekly “SepulQuarta” video podcast in which they invited other famous musicians from all over the world to not only discuss important topics but also perform a track from SEPULTURA’s massive catalog together with the band. The resulting full-length compilation was released last August, with the album containing 15 classics featuring internationally renowned guests and friends.

Speaking to the “Behind The Vinyl” podcast, SEPULTURA guitarist Andreas Kisser stated about the band’s collaboration with TESTAMENT’s Alex Skolnick on the track “Vandals Nest”: “Alex is a master — one of the best guitar players out there. And especially because of his jazz influence, he has a metal vision that is very unique. TESTAMENT, it’s one of the influences for SEPULTURA as well, especially the early [stuff], ‘The Legacy’ [and] ‘The New Order’, that kind of stuff, that really inspired us to try different things in the ‘Schizophrenia’ and ‘Beneath The Remains’ era, and try harmonies in leads. Even though Max [Cavalera, former SEPULTURA frontman] didn’t play leads, in the studio I tried to work that kind of stuff. And TESTAMENT are the masters of doing that, really the harmonies, because they have a lot of knowledge, especially Alex. And he can play something from Allan Holdsworth and EXODUS and METALLICA like the same — with the same vibe, the same technical mastery that he has.”

Andreas continued: “The song we chose was very thrashy because he’s a thrash guitar player. And he messed around with different tunings to create different atmospheres — something I didn’t expect. Because he put his lower string one step down to the whole song and created even more chaos. It’s fantastic; it’s amazing. And it’s something that I never really tried before… [The song] is very thrashy, so it’s kind of creating like a dissonance, even more of a dissonant vibe. Because it’s very fast, it’s very thrashy, and that song had that feeling — of a chaotic situation, of extremes. And doing that, his trick, it created even more of that type of vibe. That’s why this version is so unique, because it’s his own reading of the song and his own input.

“We let [all the collaborators on ‘SepulQuarta’] be very free and creative about that, because that’s the whole point of bringing somebody new to the band. ‘Oh, no, You have to do the same tuning. You have to do what I did in the studio.’ I mean, why? Why you bother bringing sometimes something new with a new language or a new technique to develop the SEPULTURA sound even further. Which is great, I think. That’s why the ‘SepulQuarta’ album is so unique and so important and one of the very special albums we ever did in our career. On the same album, we put Phil Campbell from MOTÖRHEAD and Mark Holcomb [PERIPHERY], which is very different generations playing SEPULTURA music. Okay, although ‘Orgasmatron’ is not SEPULTURA, but [it’s] almost all our songs.”

Back in 2016, TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy confirmed that he auditioned for the lead-singer position in SEPULTURA when Max Cavalera quit the latter band in 1996. “Yeah, around that time was right before [TESTAMENT made] the ‘Demonic’ record, so we had finished our Atlantic [Records] contract, and we were shopping for a new deal,” Chuck explained to Eonmusic. “We didn’t really have a deal yet, and at the last minute, I just said, ‘You know what? Maybe I should try to find a band that’s solid, that’s going to keep touring and continue on,’ and at that point, SEPULTURA was taking auditions, and I think it was at the end [of the audition process] that I decided, ‘Screw it, I’m going to do it.’ I think I did three songs; I did ‘Refuse/Resist’, I did ‘Territory’, and I wrote my version of ‘Choke’, and gave it to them. But by the time I had delivered, they had already made their decision for [the appointment of new singer] Derrick [Green], which in the end, was probably the way it all should have worked out.”

Kisser spoke about Billy’s audition for SEPULTURA during a 2015 appearance on “The Jasta Show”. He said: “Chuck [laid down his vocals over] the [demo version of a then-new SEPULTURA song called] ‘Choke’ … Because we sent the instrumental [version] of a new song [to prospective singers to record their vocals over]. We didn’t want anyone to sing ‘Roots [Bloody Roots]’ or ‘Refuse/Resist’, because we didn’t want a clone. We wanted somebody to bring new ideas, to bring SEPULTURA to a different path, to a different level. And Chuck Billy, he did… He used more of the guttural [vocal style on his audition tape]. And it works. Because, recently, we did a ‘Metal Allegiance’ jam at NAMM in Los Angeles, and we played some SEPULTURA stuff with Chuck Billy singing, and it was great, man — it was great. So he did a great job. But, you know, he’s Chuck Billy; he’s TESTAMENT. We wanted somebody new.”

KISS bassist/vocalist, rock icon and serial entrepreneur Gene Simmons, an early adopter of cryptocurrency, announced today that he will accept cryptocurrency for his Las Vegas estate, which is currently on the market for $13,500,000.

“I have been an outspoken proponent of cryptocurrency from the beginning,” said Simmons. “It is the future of money, and it just makes sense to offer interested parties the option of using cryptocurrency to purchase the estate.”

Simmons will accept bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, uniswap, polkadot, litecoin, aave or try, or a combination of those, for the purchase of the home.

Simmons’s modern desert mansion, located at 7 Talus Court in the prestigious Ascaya community in Henderson just south of the Las Vegas Strip, boasts breathtaking panoramic views of the Las Vegas valley and the Strip unlike anywhere else in Southern Nevada. Expanding more than 11,000 square feet, the home is perched well above the valley and sits on a nearly one-acre two-parcel property with a private orchard adjacent to the house.

The estate features three levels, including a lower-level basement, six bedrooms, eight baths and 11 attached garage spaces. The home guides residents through a secluded front courtyard entrance, featuring a floating walkway over a koi pond, water features and glass sculptures. Once inside, the center great room greets guests with a soaring three-tiered glass wall that overlooks the pool and the city lights below.

Most of the rooms throughout the home showcase expansive floor-to-ceiling windows and disappearing glass walls for a seamless indoor-outdoor experience, including in the kitchen where sliding pocket doors open to a covered outdoor kitchen and a direct view of the Strip. The kitchen’s custom contemporary design features glossy red accents throughout, angular stainless steel appliances and cabinetry, dual center islands, double deep-bowl sinks, dual dishwashers and an elongated breakfast bar with room for seven seats.

The upstairs primary bedroom showcases an entire wall of glass and suspends over the backyard patio, providing a stunning illusion of floating over the entire valley. The room features a separate sitting area, a private balcony, and a primary bathroom, with a dual shower and natural river rock accents. A secondary primary bedroom with a private powder room is on the downstairs level with access to the courtyard.

The home also includes a dining room with disappearing corner walls, allowing for a front courtyard view, as well as a commercial elevator to all three levels and a built-in tropical fish tank. On the lower level, residents can enjoy a swanky 11-seat theater with state-of-the-art theater equipment, and a private bar and lounge area, featuring bar seating and partially enclosed outdoor living space with three side-by-side TVs. A separate staircase leads from the bar to a resort-style backyard with a sunken firepit and a sparkling centerpiece pool with a shallow lounge area and spa.

The property is located within Ascaya, a pristine luxury gated community tucked away in the southern mountain ranges of the Las Vegas valley. Residents enjoy a massive 23,000 square-foot clubhouse with soaring rooflines, stunning terraced gardens, and private social and event spaces. Ascaya’s exclusive amenities include a well-appointed fitness center, recreation room, pool and spa, pickleball courts and a two-tiered tennis pavilion.

The Ivan Sher Group of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada Properties has been selected to represent the home.

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS will celebrate the release of their new album, “4”, by performing it its entirety on Friday, February 11. The “Live At Studios 60” concert event will stream live and free on the Slash YouTube and Facebook at 11 a.m. Pacific / 2 p.m. Eastern / 7 p.m. GMT. The concert will be immediately followed by a live question-and-answer afterparty with Slash exclusively on YouTube Premium.

To join the afterparty and live Q&A, fans can sign up for a free, YouTube Premium one-month trial at this location.

A trailer for “Live At Studios 60” can be found below.

As previously reported, SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS will perform their new single, “The River Is Rising”, this Wednesday, February 2 on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Tune in at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT / 10:35 p.m. CT on ABC TV and Hulu to watch Slash sit down with host Jimmy Kimmel for an interview and catch the band hit the stage to perform “The River Is Rising” on live TV for the first time.

“4” will be released on February 11 via Gibson Records in partnership with BMG. “4” is Slash’s fifth solo album and fourth overall with his band featuring Myles Kennedy (vocals), Brent Fitz (drums), Todd Kerns (bass, vocals) and Frank Sidoris (guitar, vocals).

In October, SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS released the official music video for the LP’s first single, “The River Is Rising”, shot on location in downtown Los Angeles with Gibson TV director Todd Harapiak.

For “4”, Slash and the band traveled across the country together to Nashville, Tennessee and recorded the new album at the historic RCA Studio A with producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, John Prine, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile), revealing a stunning new sound and style all captured live in the studio. Cobb shared the band’s desire to lay down the tracks live, in the studio including guitar solos and vocals — a first for the group.

The band’s previous albums over the last decade — “Apocalyptic Love”, “World On Fire” and “Living The Dream” — have continued on an upward trajectory, all achieving Top 5 Billboard charting debuts in the U.S. and reaching the Top 10 on 12 major charts across the globe. To date, the three SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS albums have now garnered 10 consecutive Top 5 Radio singles, spawned sold-out world tours, and have earned Slash and the band the best critical acclaim of their career with their latest album “Living The Dream” (2018) singled out by the Los Angeles Times, Classic Rock, Guitar World, Loudwire, LA Weekly, and more, as their best songs to date.

The new album “4” has the added history-making distinction of being the first-ever album to be released on the new Gibson Records label, which is headquartered in the iconic American instrument brand Gibson’s hometown of Music City, Nashville. In light of the 30-year partnership between Gibson and the Grammy Award-winning Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Slash, it makes sense the new SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS’ album “4” will be released via Gibson Records.

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS will kick off a North American headlining tour on February 8, in Portland, Oregon and hit 28 major cities, including Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Nashville, Dallas, Austin, Houston, and more, before wrapping up March 26 in Orlando, Florida.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH has shared another snippet of music from the band’s upcoming ninth studio album.

Earlier today, the Las Vegas-based metallers posted the 15-second clip on social media without offering any more information about when fans can expect to hear the full track.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH singer Ivan Moody previously shared a snippet of music from the LP in November.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH’s follow-up to 2020’s “F8” is once again being recorded at the Hideout Recording Studio, the Las Vegas, Nevada facility owned and operated by Kevin Churko, the Canadian record producer/engineer and songwriter who has worked on all of FIVE FINGER’s albums beginning with the band’s sophomore release, 2009’s “War Is The Answer”.

In addition to recording an all-new album, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH recently commenced re-recording its debut LP, 2007’s “The Way Of The Fist”, for its 15th anniversary.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH’s upcoming album will be the group’s first with its latest addition, renowned British virtuoso Andy James, who replaced Jason Hook in 2020. James was previously featured on “Broken World”, a song that was included on the second installment of FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH’s greatest-hits collection, “A Decade Of Destruction – Volume 2”, which came out in the fall of 2020.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH has amassed over 7.6 billion streams and three billion video views to date and has sold over one million tickets between 2018 and 2020 alone. They are the second biggest artist in the hard rock space measured by total consumption (sales and streams), surpassed only by METALLICA. Recently signed to Better Noise Music, they’ve garnered 25 top 10 hit singles and 12 No. 1 singles.

Having become one of the most recognizable names in music, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH frequently plays all major festivals and sells out arenas around the world.

Since FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH’s debut album, “The Way Of The Fist”, came out in 2007, the band has released six consecutive albums that were certified gold or platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as well as two chart-topping greatest-hits albums. In addition, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH has earned numerous national and international awards and honors over the last decade, such as the prestigious Soldier Appreciation Award by the Association Of The United States Army, an honor bestowed upon only one other recording artist before them: Elvis Presley.

“F8” debuted at No. 1 on rock charts around the world with Top 10 Mainstream chart debuts in the USA, Austria, Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and more. “F8” features No. 1 hit singles “Inside Out”, “A Little Bit Off”, “Living The Dream” and “Darkness Settles In”.

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