Epiphone, the accessible brand for every stage, has released the new Joan Jett Olympic Special electric guitar.

A legendary musician and member of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Joan Jett’s artistic vision and pioneering spirit has inspired countless musicians of all ages worldwide. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of her landmark albums “Bad Reputation” and “I Love Rock ‘N Roll”, Jett and Epiphone have collaborated to bring to life her Olympic Special guitar in aged classic white. The Epiphone Joan Jett Olympic Special is now available worldwide.

Epiphone is proud to introduce the Joan Jett Olympic Special based on Jett’s longtime favorite stage guitar. A lightweight stage-ready powerhouse with all of the essentials you need to rock, it features a single PowerHammer PRO humbucker wired to a single CTS volume potentiometer, a single black Speed-style volume knob has a rubber grip band for precision control. The adjustable wraparound bridge/tailpiece delivers full intonation adjustability and anchors solidly to the mahogany body for excellent sustain. The guitar features a special request from Joan — a unique “Kill Switch” toggle on the guitar that mutes and un-mutes. A reproduction of Jett’s autograph is located on the rear of the classic Olympic Special headstock, along with custom Jett stickers, and a Custom Premium Gig Bag is included in the guitar package.

Jett is an originator, an innovator, and a visionary. As the leader of the hard-rocking BLACKHEARTS, with whom she has become a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, she’s had eight platinum and gold albums and nine Top 40 singles, including the classics “Bad Reputation”, “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll”, “I Hate Myself For Loving You” and “Crimson And Clover”. Her independent record label, Blackheart, was founded in 1980 after she was rejected by no less than 23 labels. Blackheart is one of the longest-running indie labels and continues to give voice to new bands. As a producer, she has overseen albums by BIKINI KILL, CIRCUS LUPUS, as well as THE GERMS’ L.A. punk masterpiece “GI”. Jett’s music has become a permanent force in mainstream culture.

Jett and THE BLACKHEARTS released their latest record, “Unvarnished”, in 2013 and continue touring the globe with headline shows alongside fellow rock icons like THE WHO, GREEN DAY and the FOO FIGHTERS. Additionally, Jett has acted and appeared in movies and television, including the film “Light Of Day”. Jett was also able to see her story told in “The Runaways”, the film based on (lead singer of THE RUNAWAYS) Cherie Currie’s book “Neon Angel”, starring Kristen Stewart as Jett, and Dakota Fanning as Currie. Jett was close to the project, serving as executive producer.

The documentary film based on Jett’s life, “Bad Reputation” — produced by Blackheart’s SVP Carianne Brinkman and directed by Kevin Kerslake — premiered to critical acclaim at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, with the New York Post hailing that “‘Bad Reputation’ does it right, tracing Jett’s trailblazing path as one of the first, and still the hardest-rocking, women.”

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Having walked a singular path since 2005, CELESTE are long overdue some attention. Purveyors of a scabrous, cross-pollinated sound that hinges on the darkest of sludgy hardcore and the blistered-retina aggression of black metal, they have released five previous albums and earned a solid reputation as one of the European underground’s most intense propositions. Pleasingly, the French band’s big label debut does nothing to dilute the grim extremity of their music, with only their strongest and heaviest production to date denoting any kind of step towards accessibility. In truth, this is an ugly and uncompromising record, aimed squarely at the snarling nihilist in all of us.

Blackened hardcore can be reduced to cliché as easily as any subgenre, but CELESTE are resolute in their dedication to warping templates. “Des torrents de coups” lives up to its title: a flurry of blank-eyed violence and deeply grubby riffs, it thrums with the same berserk energy that makes CONVERGE so compelling. “De tes yeux bleus perlés” is equally formidable: a slow-motion tornado of muscular brutality, its title may suggest a love song, but there is zero compassion on offer in the midst of a thrillingly hateful avalanche. On a similar tip, “Draguée tout au fond” (“dredged all the way down”) snaps seamlessly from ultra-aggro verses to what can only be described as a chorus, albeit fueled with choking quantities of vitriol and with a melody hewn from purest bile. Elsewhere, “Il a tant rêvé d’elles” wades into a bubbling lake of melancholy, via a crestfallen, post-metal wall of sound. A grand finale to savor, “Le coeur noir charbon” surfs in on a viscous wave of old-school death metal, before veering off on an eerie, frostbitten tangent, as atonal riffs cascade and peripheral ambience whispers wicked threats. The song’s final, monolithic crescendo is magnificently heavy.

There is a tendency among the post-everything set to rely on prettiness and a sense of the epic to lure the punters in: not so here, because CELESTE make even their gentler interludes spit and hiss like a cornered cobra. The finest thing here by an inch or two, instrumental “(A)” begins with rolling clouds of fractured ambience before mutating into a lumbering, double-kick powered, atmospheric colossus. It’s a weirdly affecting moment on an album that, for the most part, bulldozes over your hopes and dreams with evangelical zeal and brute force.

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Progressive music titans DREAM THEATER have released the official music video for the song “Transcending Time” from their latest album, “A View From The Top Of The World”. “Transcending Time” is the fourth video released from the band’s 15th studio LP and is another CGI creation by long-time collaborator Wayne Joyner. The song has been a fan favorite since the album was released and is the shortest track on the set, clocking in at 6:24.

Last November, DREAM THEATER was announced as one of the “Best Metal Performance” nominees at the 64th annual Grammy Awards, which will be held on April 3, 2022 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The progressive metal legends were nominated for their song “The Alien”, the first single from “A View From The Top Of The World”, which came out in October.

DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci discussed his band’s latest Grammy nomination during an appearance on MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn’s “No Fuckin’ Regrets With Robb Flynn” podcast. He said: “The first [Grammy] nomination we had, FOO FIGHTERS were on there. And they won it. I remember Dave Grohl had said something like, ‘Oh, they should have got this,’ which I thought was nice. But this time, I don’t know if I’m gonna remember all of [the other artists that were nominated], but I think it’s GOJIRA and MASTODON [that we are up against], and it’s a cool list. I remember there were a couple of years where I was surprised at the nominees — it seemed a little bit strange — but this seems appropriate. So we’ll see. It’s fun. It’s an honor to get nominated. It’s cool. Doing what we do and the way that we do it and getting recognized in that world is something that I never would have expected. And now for us, this is the third [nomination], so it’s cool. It’s a good feeling.”

When “The Alien” was first released in August, Petrucci stated about the track: “It’s the first one we wrote together. It gives people a window into what it was like when we initially met up after all of those months off. It has the adventure, the untraditional structure, the heaviness, and the hooks. It really set the tone for the album. James [LaBrie, vocals] wrote the lyrics about the idea of terraforming and looking beyond our Earth for alternative settlements. Since we’re going beyond our planet, ‘The Alien’ turns out to be us. I thought it was a cool and creative lyric by James.”

DREAM THEATER’s previous Grammy nominations were for the song “On The Backs Of Angels”, from 2011’s “A Dramatic Turn Of Events” album, and the single “The Enemy Inside” from 2013’s “Dream Theater”.

Two months ago, DREAM THEATER announced the rescheduled dates for its recently postponed North American leg of the “Top Of The World” tour. The shows will now kick off in Mesa, Arizona on February 2 and run seven weeks before ending in Austin, Texas on March 21. The tour will also make stops in Los Angeles, California; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; New York City and Dallas, Texas, among others, and will mark the first live performances of music from “A View From The Top Of The World”. ARCH ECHO will be the opener on all dates in the United States and FALSET will be the opener on all of the dates in Canada.

“A View From The Top Of The World” marked DREAM THEATER’s second studio album with InsideOut Music/Sony Music. The artwork was created by longtime cover collaborator Hugh Syme (RUSH, IRON MAIDEN, STONE SOUR). “A View From The Top Of The World” was produced by Petrucci, with engineering and additional production by James “Jimmy T” Meslin and mixing and mastering by Andy Sneap.

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Multi-platinum Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist Aldo Nova has set April 1 as the release date for the first chapter of his larger-than-life rock opera, a 10-song EP titled “The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage”. The iconic Montreal maverick will subsequently release the triple disc “Aldo Nova 2.0 Reloaded” on April 19. It will feature 2.0 versions of nine classic songs from Aldo’s catalog, plus another disc with no lead vocal track and a third disc with no lead guitar track so fans can either sing along or play along with him.

Up first this year for Aldo — who has spent more than four decades in music with dozens of classic songs and hundreds of shows — is the release of the first 10 tracks (nine songs, one bonus cut) from “The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage” rock opera. It tells the story of Eddie Gage, a prodigious ingénue who breaks into the music industry only to be preyed upon by a nefarious suit Andy Christos, manipulated by a corporate overlord M.F. Stophalis, and tempted by a succubus Rati Ayida. Drugs, alcohol, and excess plunge him into despair until he realizes redemption on his own terms. Look for the newly released “Free Your Mind” single available now everywhere. The song is a high-energy rocker packed with Aldo’s thunderous guitar work, soaring vocals and lyrics about fictional rocker Eddie Gage.

Aldo explains: “The date is July the 1st of 1982, when only three months after the release of his 1st album, simply titled ‘Eddie Gage’, Eddie has achieved superstar status. This is him playing in front of 10,000 fans and singing about the fact that it’s time for people to expand their minds towards a more spiritual side of reality because society has become corrupt, a direction that his record company, Daedalus Records did not want him to take. The lyrics say it all, and Eddie and his band show a level of musicianship far above the norm.”

The musical journey of “The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage” began in 2008, when Aldo started to assemble what would become 25 songs (which Aldo will eventually release). Throughout the work, Aldo distills his often-unbelievable musical journey into the allegory of the rock opera, which he wrote, produced, arranged, engineered, and mixed entirely. The recording includes a 40-piece orchestra, a full gospel choir, Lee Levin on drums and mastering from the legendary Bob Ludwig. In addition, a one song bonus disc will accompany the collection with the soaring instrumental song “Les Anges”.

“I feel really comfortable in my own skin, and my music is who I am,” Aldo says. “The record was done from pure inspiration he says, I felt like was connected somewhere. I was truly channeling some place away from myself. It was almost as if something above connected to me and gave me these songs.”

Following the release of “The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage”, Aldo will turn the page on the next chapter of this story with the three-disc “Aldo Nova 2.0 Reloaded”. The three-disc recording features nine classics from his catalog new recordings–not only as the 2.0 versions of the songs, but also as alternate versions with no lead vocal track and another with no lead guitar track so fans can finally either sing along or play with him.

“Nobody’s ever done this,” Aldo says. “You can basically sing with me as your backing band or play along as a backing track. No other artist has given his tracks to fans in this way. I want to encourage kids to improvise and learn. You can play the record if you want, or you can be a part of it. It’s a new concept.”

Ultimately, Aldo is no stranger to new concepts, and he continues to break ground.

“When you hear any of this, I want you to feel like I took it to another level,” he leaves off. “I didn’t just come back and do the same thing. I didn’t stay stagnant. I’m sixty-five-years-old, but I feel like I’m thirty-years-old. I’m bringing everything to a whole new universe. I’m comfortable. I’m happy in my independence. I am who I am. I’m Aldo Nova, because my real name is too hard to say,” he laughs.

Track listing for “The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage”:

01. Hey Ladi Dadi
02. Free Your Mind
03. Follow The Road
04. King Of Deceit
05. The Bitch In Black
06. On The Way To The Psycho Ward
07. When All Is Said And Done
08. Say A Little Prayer
09. Burn Like The Sun

Bonus track: “Les Anges”, composed, arranged and performed by Aldo Nova

Track listing for “Aldo Nova 2.0 Reloaded”:

Disc One

01. Blood On The Bricks 2.0 – Reloaded
02. Monkey On Your Back 2.0 – Reloaded
03. Under The Gun – War Suite 2.0 – Reloaded
04. Foolin’ Yourself 2.0 – Reloaded
05. Ball And Chain 2.0 Reloaded
06. Paradise 2.0 – Reloaded
07. Modern World 2.0 – Reloaded
08. Fantasy 2.0 – Reloaded
09. I’m A Survivor 2.0 – Reloaded

Disc Two

01. Blood On The Bricks 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Vocal
02. Monkey On Your Back 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Vocal
03. Under The Gun – War Suite 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Vocal
04. Foolin’ Yourself 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Vocal
05. Ball And Chain 2.0 Reloaded – No Ld Vocal
06. Modern World 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Vocal
07. Fantasy 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Vocal
08. I’m A Survivor 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Vocal

Disc Three

01. Blood On The Bricks 2.0 Reloaded – No Ld Guitar
02. Monkey On Your Back 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Guitar
03. Under The Gun – War Suite 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Guitar
04. Foolin’ Yourself 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Guitar
05. Ball And Chain 2.0 Reloaded – No Ld Guitar
06. Paradise 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Guitar
07. Modern World 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Guitar
08. Fantasy 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Guitar
09. I’m A Survivor 2.0 Reloaded No Ld Guitar

Born Aldo Caporuscio, Aldo opened this channel forty years ago with his 1982 double-platinum top ten self-titled debut, “Aldo Nova”, and its definitive Hot 100 smash single “Fantasy”. On the heels of the platinum-selling “Subject…Aldo Nova” and “Twitch”, he emerged as a trusted collaborator for some of the biggest stars in the world. He co-wrote the song “Mr. Big Time” for the soundtrack of the movie “Armageddon” and worked closely withJon Bon Jovi on his soundtrack album for the film “Young Guns 2”, writing the signature riff from Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze Of Glory”. Bon Jovi returned the favor by collaborating on Aldo’s 1991 “Blood On The Bricks”. Working closely with Céline Dion, he penned “A New Day Has Come”, “Your Light”, “I Can’t Fight The Feeling” and “You And I”, even garnered a Grammy Award in the category of “Album Of The Year” for co-writing and producing three songs from her diamond-selling album “Falling Into You”. Not to mention, his discography also includes writing songs for everyone from Faith Hill, Carole King and Clay Aiken to Garou and BLUE ÖYSTER CULT.

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ICED EARTH founder, songwriter, guitarist and producer Jon Schaffer has released “A Narrative Soundscape”, an audio CD of 15 tracks that was originally made available with the purchase of the deluxe edition of his first-ever book “Wicked Words And Epic Tales”. These recordings are a completely re-imagined delivery of the lyrics of ICED EARTH songs created exclusively for this release. Longtime collaborator Jim Morris worked with Schaffer on these versions.

“Wicked Words And Epic Tales” is a collection of lyrics, interviews and pages of artwork that Schaffer’s work has inspired throughout the years. The book is an anthology of lyrics from Schaffer that span his 35 years in making music in various projects, including ICED EARTH, DEMONS & WIZARDS, SONS OF LIBERTY and PURGATORY. The book comes in two unique covers: one created by Jonboy Meyers and another by Jim Balent and Roy Young, and is over 200 pages. The coffee-table art book also features original drawings from some of the most notable artists, including Todd McFarlane, Greg Capullo, Monte Moore and numerous others.

“I wanted to put something together that would be a truly unique experience not only for the fans of my bands, but for newcomers as well,” Schaffer previously said.

“Wicked Words And Epic Tales” was the debut release from Schaffer’s publishing company Wicked Words, LLC and was the first of many original concepts he planned for future release.

Released on January 21 via Ravencraft Productions, “A Narrative Soundscape” features the following tracks:

01. Dystopia (A Narrative Soundscape) (06:06)
02. Declaration Day (A Narrative Soundscape) (03:03)
03. Wolf (A Narrative Soundscape) (02:23)
04. Dante’s Inferno (A Narrative Soundscape) (09:55)
05. Melancholy (A Narrative Soundscape) (02:43)
06. Dracula (A Narrative Soundscape) (04:12)
07. Raven Wing (A Narrative Soundscape) (04:22)
08. Angels Holocaust (A Narrative Soundscape) (02:09)
09. The Clouding (A Narrative Soundscape) (06:13)
10. Something Wicked (A Narrative Soundscape) (11:46)
11. Watching Over Me (A Narrative Soundscape) (02:26)
12. Seven Headed Whore (A Narrative Soundscape) (01:49)
13. Damien (A Narrative Soundscape) (06:56)
14. Question of Heaven (A Narrative Soundscape) (06:00)
15. Come What May (A Narrative Soundscape) (03:44)

Last April, Schaffer pleaded guilty to his role in the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot. As part of the plea deal, Jon entered into a cooperation agreement with the government.

Following the initial reports that Schaffer was involved in the riot, his ICED EARTH bandmates distanced themselves from his actions. Singer Stu Block and bassist Luke Appleton later posted separate statements on social media announcing their resignations. BLIND GUARDIAN frontman Hansi Kürsch also quit DEMONS & WIZARDS, his long-running project with Schaffer. The allegations also apparently affected Schaffer’s relationship with his longtime record label Century Media, which had released albums from both ICED EARTH and DEMONS & WIZARDS. As of mid-January 2021, the Century Media artist roster page did not list either band.

Last month, a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. accusing 31 members of Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys — including Schaffer — of “conspiring to terrorize the District” on January 6, 2021, calling their actions “a coordinated act of domestic terrorism.” According to CNN, the lawsuit cites the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a federal law created after the Civil War to protect civil rights and, as District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine noted, “to protect against vigilantes and insurrectionists.”

“I think the damages are substantial,” Racine told The Washington Post. “If it so happens that it bankrupts or puts these individuals and entities in financial peril, so be it.”

Although Schaffer was initially charged with six crimes, including engaging in an act of physical violence and targeting police with bear spray, he pleaded guilty to only two charges: obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress; and trespassing on restricted grounds of the Capitol while armed with a deadly or dangerous weapon. The first charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, while the second carries up to a 10-year prison term.

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Kelly Osbourne, the 37-year-old daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, has revealed that she carries around a big pillow of her boyfriend, Sidney George Wilson, better known as the mask-wearing turntablist for heavy metal group SLIPKNOT.

Kelly shared a photo on Instagram Story of herself posing with a large, screen-printed pillow of Wilson’s face, and she captioned it: “Everywhere I go I take my baby with me.” She also shared a quote on her Story, tagging Wilson on the slide.

“&& so there’s this boy, And the way he laughs makes me smile, And the way he talks gives me butterflies, And everything about him, makes me happy,” the quote read.

Earlier this month, a source told People that Osbourne and Wilson, who is eight years her senior, recently took their relationship to the next level after more than two decades of knowing each other.

“Kelly and Sid met when his band was touring with Ozzfest in 1999,” said the source, referring to the music festival founded by her parents. “They have remained friends since. They are very happy together.”

In a 2018 interview with PureGrainAudio, Wilson spoke about his evolution into a turntablist. He said: “My grandma had a piano or keyboard in her house. She would play church songs and stuff like that. I would tinker around on that when I was younger, and she bought me a couple keyboards. One of them had lights on the keys that would light up when you were supposed to hit the keys. I had a bunch of cards that you would put in the keyboards that had all these classical songs, so I kind of learned to play those a little bit when I was a little kid. But there was just some other shit that I was fiddling with because I was interested in a lot of different noisemakers. My grandma used to have a lot of harmonicas around the house from her husband, my grandfather. I used to fuck around with those when I was a kid, too.

“I tried all different kinds of stuff,” he continued. “I messed around with drums. I tried the saxophone. Then I really liked bass guitar; I latched on to that big time. Then writing, doing poetry, and then around junior high, I started writing some raps. Then when I started DJing, I had a bass guitar that an ex-girlfriend had given me. When I was out of town DJing, she came and took the guitar back and told my mom she could have it back or something. [Laughs] So then I just had the turntables and focused all my energy into the turntables big time… I tried to be in the background more, making beats, producing, which is good for my skills… At some point, I started doing that again and I redeveloped back into hip-hop.”

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Canadian progressive sci-fi metal innovators VOIVOD have released the video for the title track of their upcoming studio album, “Synchro Anarchy”. The clip was created by Syl Disjonk of 5600 K Productions and can be seen below.

VOIVOD drummer Michel “Away” Langevin comments: “After coming back from the European tour with GWAR at the end of 2019, we took a break and got back together in early 2020 to record some new ideas and improvisations. After finishing one of these sessions, while untying my running shoes, I had a flash of a rhythm where I would skip one beat every bar. I told the band I had an idea and walked towards the drums but I stepped on one of my shoelaces, missed a step and almost fell on the drum kit.

“Everybody laughed, then I played the beat, which Chewy [guitarist Daniel Mongrain] recorded and named ‘Away’s Shoelace Incident’. This gave Snake [singer Denis Bélanger] the idea to write about these strange timings where somebody would stop to tie up his shoe only to be closely missed by a flying wheel of a car. At one point Snake had shorten the title to ‘Shoelace’ but I noticed in his lyrics the words ‘Synchro Anarchy’ and told him it would be a great name for the song.

“When we were done recording the songs, we all thought it would also be a good title for the album. It is really representative of the planet we live on and the way we had to build the LP out of snippets of ideas like a huge puzzle.

“For this single, we asked our good friend Syl Disjonk, who did the videos for ‘The End Of Dormancy’ and ‘Kluskap ‘O Kom’, to film the band and work his magic. So here it is, the title track of the new album. Enjoy!”

“Synchro Anarchy” will be released on February 11 via Century Media Records. The follow-up to 2018’s “The Wake” was produced by Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio and features cover artwork created by Langevin.

“Synchro Anarchy” track listing:

01. Paranormalium
02. Synchro Anarchy
03. Planet Eaters
04. Mind Clock
05. Sleeves Off
06. Holographic Thinking
07. The World Today
08. Quest For Nothing
09. Memory Failure

Langevin previously stated about “Synchro Anarchy”: “We are eager to present our latest work, a real collaborative effort. The new album represents countless hours of writing, demoing, recording, mixing and so on. The band and Francis Perron at RadicArt Studio gave their very best to make it happen under unusual circumstances, which led us to call it ‘Synchro Anarchy’. We feel that the sound and music are 100% VOIVOD, and we hope everyone will enjoy it as much as we had fun making it. We certainly can’t wait to play it live.”

When the official music video for “Planet Eaters” was first released, Langevin said: “On April 21st, 2021, an animated video for the song ‘Nothingface’ popped up online. The video was done by Pierre Menetrier on an Amiga computer in 1991, which I thought was beyond cool. The spectacular imagery and visual effects were just perfect for a VOIVOD song. After wrapping up the recording and mixing of the ‘Synchro Anarchy’ album, we all agreed on ‘Planet Eaters’ as the first single/video. We thought the song had a vintage ‘Nothingface’/’Hatröss’ vibe, so I immediately contacted Pierre and asked him if he could make a video for the song. Once again, the result is just mind-blowing. You just can’t get more Voivodian than that!”

VOIVOD released a new live album, “Lost Machine – Live”, in November 2020 via Century Media Records. The disc was recorded in Québec City during the worldwide touring cycle for “The Wake”.

In the summer of 2020, VOIVOD released a new three-track 12-inch vinyl and digital EP titled “The End Of Dormancy” via Century Media Records. The EP is centered around a special “Metal Section” version of the title track (off VOIVOD’s latest album, “The Wake”) with added trumpets, saxophone and trombones. The complementary songs on this release are exclusive live versions of “The End Of Dormancy (Metal Section)” and the group’s classic “The Unknown Knows”, recorded at Montreal Jazz Fest 2019.

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SHINEDOWN will release its seventh album, “Planet Zero”, on April 22 via Atlantic Records. The official lyric video for the LP’s title track can be seen below.

Vocalist Brent Smith stated about the new disc: “If we shut each other down and allow ourselves to be divided by the information we consume and the way we talk to each other, we lose our humanity. When you look outside of your phone, you’ll see there are so many people doing good things and trying to take care of each other. But we’re starting to see parts of society slip into an unknown. ‘Planet Zero’ was written for all of us. The fact is that we’re all here on this planet no matter what, so it’s time to actually move forward together with empathy, perseverance and strength. With that said… welcome to PLANET ZERO.”

Track listing:

01. 2184
02. No Sleep Tonight
03. Planet Zero
04. Welcome
05. Dysfunctional You
06. Dead Don’t Die
07. Standardized Experiences
08. America Burning
09. Do Not Panic
10. A Symptom Of Being Human
11. Hope
12. A More Utopian Future
13. Clueless And Dramatic
14. Sure Is Fun
15. Daylight
16. This Is A Warning
17. The Saints Of Violence And Innuendo
18. Army Of The Underappreciated
19. Delete
20. What You Wanted

Last month, Smith told 95.9 The Rat’s Carl Craft about the new LP’s more “stripped-down” approach: “We wanted to push everything to the front. And what I mean by that is we’ve proven that we can make these records that there’s a lot of musicianship involved in it, and we have layered our records over the years because we love music and we love sound and we try to make really cinematic records. So with that, you have a lot of instrumentation that is not just drums, bass, guitar and vocals — we use orchestras, we use a lot of synthesizers, we use a lot of techniques that… We don’t believe in… Don’t tie your hands up when you’re making a record. Make the record that you wanna make. And ultimately, though, what we wanted to do with this album was make it just as ferocious as the other records but not utilizing so much of some of the style that we’ve done in the past with layering and layering guitars, adding lots of synth beds, stacking the vocals.”

He continued: “I come from the Freddie Mercury school when it comes to vocals and layering and backgrounds and things of that nature because I try — I say ‘try’ — try to use my voice as an instrument. But this is about really less is more. So the majority of this record is authentically drums, bass, guitar. There are piano songs; there’s two really, really very intense-subject-matter piano songs that are gonna be in SHINEDOWN seven. But we wanted to make a real rock record, we wanted to make a real record where we focus on just making sure that the band is being heard the way the band needs to be heard. So, not a lot of layering. It doesn’t mean it’s any less powerful; it’s just we’re not dealing with a lot of stacks. We’re just putting things left to right stereo, pushing everything to the front. The vocals aren’t layered a ton — not a lot of effects on the vocals, so not a lot of delays and reverbs and things like that. A lot of the vocals on the record are dry and kind of right up in your face.”

Smith also talked about the lyrical themes covered on the new SHINEDOWN album, saying they were inspired at least in part by the ongoing pandemic and resulting impact on the community, residents and businesses.

“Going through everything that the world went through last year, and we wrote the majority of the record last year, and this year, we couldn’t turn a blind eye to everything that was going on,” he said. “And we talk on this record, and we express on this record — we’re not trying to dance around certain subject matter. We’re trying to be very honest and very real. In a lot of ways, this is a very humanitarian record.”

Asked if SHINEDOWN will “piss people off” with some of the lyrical positions that are taken on the upcoming LP, Smith said: “Possibly. But the thing about it is I don’t necessarily think it’s about pissing people off; it’s about understanding what we all went through but where we need to go now. I think that it gets lost. It’s never supposed to be about… And I say this because I’m being very, very bold and very honest about it. This country, it’s not called the Divided States Of America; it’s called the United States Of America, and we want people to understand that that comes down to the people; that comes down to us. And us being able to not only work with each other, to grow with one another. But when you have certain people in power that do not have your best interests in mind, you have to stand up and make your voice heard. When I see what’s going on in regards to people’s freedom of speech and it being censored and people being pushed into a corner because of their opinions and what have you. You need to be able to have constructive conversations with each other in order to get actual action to happen for positive change.”

Regarding the first single from SHINEDOWN’s seventh album, Brent said: “It honestly addresses everything that society has dealt with from a planetary platform, if you will — not just here in the U.S., but the whole world — what the last 18 months has been like, and, at least in our opinion, how we’ve gotta move forward.

“Listen, the record… We’re talking about things that we’ve never talked about before,” he revealed. “We’re opening up the conversation into different subject matters that SHINEDOWN has never addressed. We have the full support of our label, our management and hopefully our fanbase, whether they’ve been there from day one or they’re just kind of finding out who we are. But it’s a record that I think some people will consider controversial, I think some people will consider to be very provocative, especially for SHINEDOWN, but it’s also something that we feel that it is very important and that it is necessary… Don’t get me wrong either — there’s a lot of triumph on this record, but there’s also a lot of having to take a step back and go, ‘What’s really going on? And how do we stop it from happening if it’s going to be something negative on the human race as a whole?’ Our society, the way that we live with one another, we share this planet with a lot of different organisms and creatures. It’s not just about us. It’s important that everybody really takes a step back and doesn’t always make it about them. We have to work together — like, all of us; we’ve really gotta start working together with each other and really creating a positive change forward for not only society but also for this beautiful planet that we’ve been given.”

The follow-up to 2018’s “Attention Attention” was recorded in part at a new studio in Charleston, South Carolina spearheaded by the group’s bassist and producer Eric Bass.

In October, SHINEDOWN announced its 2022 North American tour, “Shinedown Live In Concert”, which is set to kick off in San Francisco on January 26.

SHINEDOWN’s film “Attention Attention”, a cinematic experience of the band’s 2018 studio album of the same name, premiered worldwide in September.

Photo credit: Jimmy Fontaine

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GHOST kicked off its co-headlining tour with VOLBEAT last night (Tuesday, January 25) at the Reno Events Center in Reno, Nevada. During its 16-song set, GHOST performed the recently released single “Hunter’s Moon”, a cover of METALLICA’s “Enter Sandman” and debuted another song from its upcoming “Impera” album, called “Kaisarion”.

The band’s setlist was as follows:

01. Kaisarion (world premiere)
02. Rats
03. From The Pinnacle To The Pit
04. Mary On A Cross
05. Devil Church
06. Cirice
07. Hunter’s Moon (live premiere)
08. Faith
09. Helvetesfönster (abridged)
10. Year Zero
11. Ritual
12. Mummy Dust
13. Kiss The Go-Goat

Encore:
14. Enter Sandman (METALLICA cover) (live premiere)
15. Dance Macabre
16. Square Hammer

GHOST’s 26-date co-headlining U.S. arena tour with VOLBEAT and special guests TWIN TEMPLE will conclude on March 3 in Anaheim, California.

GHOST will release its fifth album, “Impera”, on March 11 via Loma Vista/Concord. The official music video for the LP’s latest single, “Call Me Little Sunshine”, was lensed by iconic director Matt Mahurin and stars Ruby Modine.

According to a press release, “Impera” “finds GHOST transported literally hundreds of years forward from the 14th century Europe Black Plague era” of its previous album, 2018’s “Prequelle”. “The result is the most ambitious and lyrically incisive entry in the GHOST canon: Over the course of ‘Impera”s 12-song cycle, empires rise and fall, would-be messiahs ply their hype (financial and spiritual alike), prophecies are foretold as the skies fill with celestial bodies divine and man-made… All in all, the most current and topical GHOST subject matter to date is set against a hypnotic and darkly colorful melodic backdrop making ‘Impera’ a listen like no other — yet unmistakably, quintessentially GHOST.”

In March 2020, at final show of GHOST’s “Prequelle” tour in Mexico City, Mexico, the band officially introduced Papa Emeritus IV, the new character who will front the act for its next LP phase.

GHOST leader Tobias Forge performed as a “new” Papa Emeritus on each of the band’s first three LPs, with each version of Papa replacing the one that came before it. Papa Emeritus III was retired in favor of Cardinal Copia before the release of “Prequelle”.

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