Austrian symphonic metal force, Edenbridge, released their eleventh studio album, Shangri-La, back in August via AFM Records. A boxset edition will be released this month. Pre-order the boxset here, and watch an unboxing video below:





With its nine epic, new tracks, Shangri-La takes the dedicated Edenbridge listener on a musical ride into the realms of finest symphonic metal. Their forthcoming album not only unleashes a sophisticated range of compositions along with an intoxicating and bombastic sound atmosphere Edenbridge are known and loved for, but the band created their most diverse record to date. Despite constantly high quality standards and as the new offering proves, Edenbridge continually expands their musical expression from album to album without abandoning their trademarks. This time, the band has created a fine balance between emotionally magical moments, an ever-present mystical atmosphere and heavy, fast-paced riffage.




Order other editions of the Shangri-La album here.





Tracklisting:


"At First Light"
"The Call Of Eden"
"Hall Of Shame"
"Savage Land"
"Somewhere Else But Here"
"Freedom Is A Roof Made Of Stars"
"Arcadia (The Great Escape)"
"The Road To Shangri-La"
"The Bonding (Part 2)"
"The Bonding Overture"
"Alpha And Omega"
"The Eleventh Hour"
"Round And Round"
"The Timeless Now – Finale"


"The Call Of Eden" video:





"The Road To Shangri-La" video:





"Somewhere Else But Here" lyric video:

Helsinki, Finland-based melodic death metal force, Brymir, have released a drum playthrough video for "Borderland", featured on their Napalm Records debut, Voices In The Sky, released back in August. Watch below:





Walking the line between melodic death metal and traditional genres like folk and classical music Brymir continuously pioneer the limits of the genre, dashing ahead with their notorious sound. Mixing endless riffs, with catchy choruses, blistering solos and a flawless production, the unit creates skillful soundscapes of pure epicness.







Voices In The Sky tracklisting:


"Voices In The Sky"
"Forged In War"
"Fly With Me"
"Herald Of Aegir"
"Rift Between Us"
"Landfall"
"Borderland"
"Far From Home"
"Seeds Of Downfall"
"All As One"
"Diabolis Interium" (Bonus)


“Forged In War” lyric video:





“Fly With Me” video:





“Herald Of Aegir” lyric video:





"Voices In The Sky" video:





Lineup:


Viktor Gullichsen - vocals
Joona Björkroth - guitars, backing vocals
Sean Haslam - guitars
Jarkko Niemi – bass, backing vocals
Patrik Fält - drums


(Photo - Janica Lönn)

Legendary rockers FOREIGNER have announced their farewell tour. The trek is set to launch on July 6, 2023, at Atlanta's Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, the area's largest outdoor venue. For the first leg of the U.S. Live Nation-produced tour, FOREIGNER will be joined by LOVERBOY, one of the 1980s biggest hit makers. The spectacular show will thrill audiences with stellar performances of more than 20 combined chart-topping songs. Tickets go on sale on November 18, 2022 at LiveNation.com. The full routing can be found below.

FOREIGNER will continue its long-term initiative with the Grammy Museum Foundation to invite choirs to open the show with a live a cappella "Pitch Perfect" performance of classic rock songs. FOREIGNER will join radio partners across the country to create a contest for local choirs to win donations to their music programs. One winning choir will be selected at each show, and that choir will receive a grand prize of new musical equipment. For more details, please go to foreignerchoirs.com.

FOREIGNER leader and founder Mick Jones said: "Many years ago, I wrote a song called 'Feels Like The First Time', and today we are launching one last worldwide tour. We will be presenting a show that I know will have the same enthusiasm as our very first appearances. The tour will start this summer in America and we hope to get to every place that we have played over the last several years. While I'm sure our fans will have mixed feelings about the end of the road for the band, I know our shows are going to delight audiences everywhere."

Added FOREIGNER lead singer Kelly Hansen: "The time has come. We have more or less lived our lives on the road for almost eighteen years. We have always strived to give you our best and we intend to finish this the same way. FOREIGNER has a brilliant and increasingly demanding catalogue of songs to sing and I refuse to give them less than they deserve. So, we're going to finish strong. I want to make it very clear how grateful and appreciative we are to our audiences all over the world who have supported this band. I'm sure there may be occasions when we'll do some special appearances, but I think the time is coming for us to live off the road. Thank you all so much!"

Jones continues to elevate FOREIGNER's influence and guide the band to new horizons with his stylistic songwriting, indelible guitar hooks and multi-layered talents while Hansen, one of rock's greatest showmen, has led FOREIGNER into the digital age inspiring a whole new generation of fans. Bassist Jeff Pilson, Michael Bluestein on keyboards, guitarist Bruce Watson, Chris Frazier on drums and guitarist Luis Maldonado provide an unprecedented level of energy that has resulted in the re-emergence of the astounding music that speaks to FOREIGNER's enduring popularity. FOREIGNER has an extraordinary streaming and radio audience.

With more Top 10 hits than JOURNEY and ten multi-platinum albums, FOREIGNER is universally hailed as one of the most popular rock acts in the world with a formidable musical arsenal that continues to propel sold-out tours and album sales, now exceeding 80 million. Responsible for some of rock and roll's most enduring anthems, including "Juke Box Hero", "Cold As Ice", "Hot Blooded", "Waiting For A Girl Like You", "Feels Like The First Time", "Urgent", "Head Games", "Say You Will", "Dirty White Boy", "Long, Long Way From Home" and the worldwide No. 1 hit "I Want To Know What Love Is", FOREIGNER still rocks the charts more than 40 years into the game with massive airplay and continued Billboard Top 200 album success. Streams of FOREIGNER's hits are approaching 15 million per week.

A year and a half ago, Pilson said that he didn't know if FOREIGNER could continue once Jones has retired from performing with the band.

The only remaining original member of FOREIGNER, Jones suffered from some health issues beginning in 2011, eventually resulting in heart surgery in 2012. Ever since, it is never announced whether he will be appearing with the band for specific shows — it just depends how he is feeling.

Asked in an April 2021 interview with SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" if he had ever spoken to Jones about whether he wants FOREIGNER to exist as a touring entity even after he decides to stop playing with the band, Pilson — who has played bass for FOREIGNER since 2004 — said: "We've never talked specifics, and honestly, I don't actually think [Mick] even thinks in terms of specifics, because I know his desire is to remain involved with the band until the end. The only thing, like I say, I'm aware of for sure is that he'd like to stay involved as long as possible, and he would like it if that was the end of the band when he leaves. Nobody's been specific."

Three years ago, Mick said that he didn't know what FOREIGNER would do if he ever retired from the group. "We haven't really made any definite plans, or a master plan, or whatever you call it," he said. "As long as I feel good and I can play like I need to… We have a great band with the new guys, and I certainly think they would be capable of carrying it on. Who knows? At this point, I'm living in the present and not thinking about that too much. But in time, obviously, it'll be something we have to talk about."

After singer Lou Gramm left FOREIGNER in 2003, Jones took some time off before regrouping a couple years later with an entirely new lineup, featuring Hansen and Pilson, among others.

In 2018, Gramm revealed that he was retiring from touring as a solo artist. The vocalist made the announcement just months after he participated in FOREIGNER's "Double Vision: Then And Now" concerts, which featured current and original members of the band, including Jones, drummer Dennis Elliott, keyboardist Al Greenwood, bassist Rick Wills and guitarist/saxophonist Ian McDonald.

Gramm was the voice on FOREIGNER's biggest hits, including "Feels Like The First Time" and "Cold As Ice" from the band's eponymous debut in 1977, and later songs like "Hot Blooded" and "I Want To Know What Love Is".

FOREIGNER 2023 farewell tour dates:

July 06 - Alpharetta, GA - Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
July 08 - West Palm Beach, FL - iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
July 09 - Tampa, FL - MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
July 11 - Nashville, TN - Ascend Amphitheatre
July 14 - Rogers, AR - Walmart AMP
July 18 - Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theatre
July 19 - St. Louis, MO - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
July 21 - Indianapolis, IN - Ruoff Music Center
July 22 - Tinley Park, IL - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
July 24 - Cleveland, OH - Blossom Music Center
July 25 - Toronto, ON - Budweiser Stage
July 28 - Darien Center, NY - Darien Lake Amphitheater
July 29 - Burgettstown, PA - The Pavilion at Star Lake
August 01 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Performing Arts Center
August 02 - Wantagh, NY - Northwell Health at Jones Beach
August 04 - Gilford, NH - Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion
August 05 - Mansfield, MA - Xfinity Center
August 08 - Raleigh, NC - Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
August 09 - Charlotte, NC - PNC Music Pavilion
August 11 - Dallas, TX - Dos Equis Pavilion
August 12 - Houston, TX - Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
August 14 - Austin, TX - Moody Center
August 16 - Denver, CO - Ball Arena
August 18 - Salt Lake City, UT - USANA Amphitheatre
August 20 - Phoenix, AZ - Ak-Chin Pavilion
August 21 - Irvine, CA - FivePoint Amphitheatre
August 23 - Wheatland, CA - Toyota Amphitheatre
August 24 - Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
August 30 - Detroit, MI - Pine Knob Music Theater
September 01 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena
September 02 - Syracuse, NY - St. Joseph's Health Amphitheater at Lakeview
September 03 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons says that he knows exactly when the final concert of the band's "End Of The Road" tour will take place.

KISS launched its farewell trek in January 2019 but was forced to put it on hold in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"End Of The Road" was originally scheduled to conclude on July 17, 2021 in New York City but has since been extended to at least early 2023. The trek was announced in September 2018 following a KISS performance of the band's classic song "Detroit Rock City" on "America's Got Talent".

In a new interview with Page Six, Gene confirmed that KISS has pinpointed the exact date when he and his bandmates will play their last-ever concert.

"I know where and when, but I'm not [revealing yet]," he said. "I do know the last day and date. But you don't want to find out what you're getting for Christmas as a present in July, right?"

Formed in 1973 by Simmons, vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley, drummer Peter Criss and lead guitarist Ace Frehley, KISS staged its first "farewell" tour in 2000, the last to feature the group's original lineup.

"We were honest about it. It wasn't a trickery or anything," Simmons told Page Six about the decision to continue performing after that tour wrapped. "We had the original guys, Ace and Peter, who were not performing up to snuff. It had to do with drugs and alcohol. I don't want to sugarcoat it. We decided, at that point, we should probably end it. I don't want to be up on stage and do a lackluster show. And then as we were about to stop, the fans were saying, 'Why don't you just replace them, like a football team?' We thought about it for a while and we said, 'Yeah!' We originally thought we can't exist without those guys, but you can. You know, a divorce is heartbreaking, but you'll get over it."

In October 2021, Stanley told Ultimate Classic Rock that he strongly believed KISS would be done touring "by the beginning of 2023," adding that "it seems only natural [for the final show] to be in New York. That is where the band started, and that was really the background for the band getting together and writing these songs and played loft parties and played clubs starting with an audience of probably 10 people," he said. "It seems we should go full circle."

KISS's current lineup consists of original members Stanley and Simmons, alongside later band additions, guitarist Tommy Thayer (since 2002) and drummer Eric Singer (on and off since 1991).

Three years ago, KISS's longtime manager Doc McGhee said during a question-and-answer session on the ninth annual "Kiss Kruise" that KISS was open to reuniting with all former members at the final gig. "We want to include everybody that played with KISS to celebrate the 45 years of KISS," he said. "And everybody — Vinnie Vincent and everybody else — that [has] played with KISS is part of this whole celebration of [50] years. So, we're still looking at what we're gonna do on the final show of KISS."

According to McGhee, Frehley and Criss have both "been talked to" about participating in some form. But, he acknowledged, "It's pretty difficult. When people say, 'Oh, you should bring Ace and Peter up.' How do you do that when you have two Catmen and two Spacemen? So you say, 'Okay. You don't wear makeup and you wear makeup.' And then they [Ace and Peter] go, 'Well, that was my makeup.' I don't know. So it's real hard to do, but we'll figure it out because they're very much a part of the heritage of KISS. And they're acknowledged by Gene and Paul and everybody in this room as the founding members… So. it's important to you guys [and] it's important to us. It's just a matter of the balance and we can bring it where it works for everybody and everybody is having a great time."

In early 2019, Stanley told Australia's "Sunday Night" that "Rock And Roll All Nite" "has to be" the song that KISS performs as the last encore at the final concert of the "End Of The Road" tour. "That is the rock anthem that connects the world," he explained. "It was the start of other people coming up with anthems. They really didn't exist, per se. So, 'Rock And Roll All Nite And Party Every Day', that's a song that just connects with people on all different levels."

Simmons concurred, telling BUILD Series: "How do you not end with 'Rock And Roll All Nite'? We will have played that song, probably without exception, more than any other song we've ever been involved with. You might say, 'Aren't you sick and tired of hearing that?' But I will tell you the roar of the crowd, the smell of the grease paint, there ain't nothing like it. When you hear everybody getting jazzed about that and you get off the stage... [it's] like the fire in the belly. You're dog-tired; you've just done a big show; and you get up on that stage, when you see the joy in everybody's face... We've seen it all. We've been around for generations, but when you see a little 5-year-old kid in KISS makeup on his dad's shoulders who's wearing KISS makeup, next to his father... we're badass kind of guys — nothing affects us much — but that stuff will put a lump in your throat. You have to turn around for a second. It gets me. Yes, it's music, but it's generational, and it brings families together instead of separates [sic] them."

In a new interview with HMP, legendary rocker Ted Nugent was asked what he thought of MOTÖRHEAD's cover version of his classic song "Cat Scratch Fever". He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'm an honest guy. Number one, [I] love Lemmy, love MOTÖRHEAD. And I'm humbled and honored that they would pick one of my songs — that's a great connection that we have. But that's not how I hear it. [Laughs] The 'Cat Scratch Fever' lick — no one's ever played it correctly… They played it real Caucasian, and if that's what they like, God bless 'em. And the people that liked it, I love all of you. But when I hear 'Cat Scratch Fever', I hear more of a Motown grunt. And like when the RAMONES played 'Journey To The Center Of The Mind', my AMBOY DUKES hit song, it's just too Caucasian… And I think PANTERA did 'Cat Scratch Fever' too. And again, I love them. Thank you for playing it. Thank you for honoring me by choosing one of my songs. But it doesn't have the groove that I like, it doesn't have the pulse and the Motown soulfulness that I created in the song. But again, I love them for doing it, and if they enjoyed it, I love them for enjoying it. But it's not my cup of tea."

Nugent's latest comments echo those he made in April when he was asked in an interview with Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station to name the best cover version he has ever heard of one of his songs. He responded: "Unfortunately, I never have. I've heard the versions of 'Cat Scratch Fever', and I love PANTERA and I love Lemmy and I love the RAMONES, but God, are they terminally Caucasian or what?

"There's a real Motown soulfulness to what me and my boys deliver; there's a grunt and a grind," he continued. "And I love musicians who put their heart and soul into stuff — I love METALLICA and I love SLAYER and I love MEGADETH and I love 'em all. But when I listen to music, I wanna hear a groove; I wanna hear some grunt. I wanna hear the bass and drums of Motown like [my bassist] Greg [Smith] and [drummer] Jason [Hartless] create, what Johnny Badanjek and Earl Elliott created, like what Cliff Davies and Rob Grange created, what Jack Blades and Michael Cartellone created, what Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert… You know what I mean? I like a sexy, grunting rhythm. And I hear it from METALLICA sometimes, and I love their heavy metal stuff — it's killer. They're unbelievable musicians and [they have] an incredible work ethic; they're all in the asset column of life and music. But when I heard Lemmy's version of 'Cat Scratch Fever', I thanked him, and I do appreciate it. And when I heard PANTERA's version of 'Cat Scratch Fever', I thanked them, but I think they're angry at me because I called them Caucasian, which I think is a racial slur somewhere. The RAMONES did 'Journey To The Center Of The Mind', and again, God bless 'em, I love 'em and I'm honored that they would choose my songs, but what Greg Arama [bass] and Dave Palmer [drums] did on 'Journey To The Center Of The Mind' as kids, teenagers — 15 years old they were; I think 16 years old — there's a Motown funk brother pulse to my songs and my rhythms. And those guys kind of flail away at it. And again, if you're a big fan of flailing away, God bless you — flail away."

Ted went on to clarify: "I'm not condemning it, but I'm critiquing it. And it's not quite the thump that my original songs [had]. And [my new album] 'Detroit Muscle' is wall-to-wall thump because Greg and Jason still channel The Funk Brothers [a group of Detroit-based session musicians who performed the backing to most Motown recordings from 1959 until the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972] and they still channel that black soulfulness. We were raised on James Brown tightness, and that's what Mitch Ryder delivered, that's what Bob Seger delivers, that's what Kid Rock delivers, that's what GRAND FUNK delivers, that's what the MC5 delivered. Those are my favorite musical things because they have a sexy grind to the rhythm. And I just don't think anybody could claim that the RAMONES were ever sexy. And God bless 'em; they just weren't sexy. [Laughs]"

Back in 2006, Nugent slammed PANTERA's cover of his signature tune "Cat Scratch Fever" as having "no soul, no balls" and "no feel," adding that the members of PANTERA appeared as "Ozzy-like zombies on TV" whose conduct on stage went against his lifelong anti-drugs and -drink stance.

Responding to a fan posting on Nugent's official message board (dubbed "The Nuge Board") about late PANTERA guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott and the VH1 "Behind the Music" special on PANTERA that premiered several days earlier, Ted (who posted on the message board under the name "Nuge") wrote that he "never thought too highly of anyone foolish enough to take on the nickname of a life-destroying dope product and promote such family-destroying conduct on stage." (Apparently referring to the fact that Darrell's "Dimebag" nickname is a slang term for a $10 bag of marijuana.)

When another fan pointed out that Dimebag "loved" Nugent's music and that he had stated in a magazine interview that he often played some of Ted's riffs before a show to loosen up the fingers — going so far as to cover "Cat Scratch Fever" for the 1999 "Detroit Rock City" soundtrack — Nugent responded, "though I'm no expert on all things PANTERA, I did hear their version of 'Cat Scratch Fever' and it was exceedingly white. No soul, no balls, no feel. Caucasian all the way. Elements of dope, booze and heroin disconnect quite apparent as usual. There is no excuse for such horrifically negative, irresponsible, criminal, America-wrecking behavior as such chimp-like substance abuse. Period. They appeared as Ozzy-like zombies on TV. Ya think. American drunks and dopers are allahpuke terrorists' favorite allies. Damn them. Damn them all."

After the fan who started the original thread (who called himself "the A_team") defended Dimebag by saying that "you have to at least respect Dime as a guitarist," adding that "even though he did drugs, I heard he didn't do very many," Nugent replied, "I indeed do respect all people for the positives in their life. Sadly, there comes a time of diminishing returns in the balance. At the end of the day, my respect is reserved for those solidly in the asset column of mankind."

"Detroit Muscle" was released in April via Pavement Music. The follow-up to 2018's "The Music Made Me Do It" was produced by Michael Lutz and Nugent.

DROWNING POOL guitarist C.J. Pierce spoke to Robert Cavuoto of Sonic Perspectives about "Strike A Nerve", the band's first new album since 2016, which arrived on September 30 via T-Boy/UMe. "We worked really hard on that record," Pierce said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "We spent a lot of time in the writing process and recording process. We recorded it a good three years ago — in 2019. So it's awesome that we finally have it out. We've been sitting on it for a good three years."

Regarding the decision to delay the "Strike A Nerve" release, C.J. said: "Everything stopped, as you know, with COVID — touring and everything like that. And we just waited it out until everything started to kind of clear up again, which it has this year. It's been great. We've been out the last few weeks, and the shows just get better and better. The response has been awesome on the record. Yeah, we had to hold out, man. We couldn't do much touring to support it."

Asked if his perception of the music has changed after sitting on the album for so long, C.J. said: "Not one bit. It's another thing where all four of us in the band, we really went over every song and every lyric, and all four of us agreed on every part that we were doing on the record. I know a lot of musicians are guilty of it, and I might be guilty of it with [some of] our records in the past, once you put it out and it's out and you listen to it, you go, 'Maybe I could have done this on this part or that on that part,' not so much to make it better or worse, just 'I could have added this or that.' But with this record, again, we recorded it three years ago, and I've been sitting at my house listening to it over and over again for three years. We started rehearsing for this tour coming up and we familiarized ourselves with the record, if you will. And I love it, man… I think it's a sick record."

In a separate interview with Glide Magazine, Pierce said that being without a label when "Strike A Nerve" was made resulted in a smoother writing and recording experience.

"In 2017, 2018, and 2019, when we recorded the record, we didn't have a record deal, and we were just recording it for ourselves," he said. "We were just looking to be independent. We paid for the record ourselves. We weren't under any guidelines. We've actually never been in a situation where we were told what to sound like, but this was us writing without any gameplan. We didn't know who we'd shop it to. We have a few friends who started their own independent labels under other labels, and it just happened with us that our manager happened to know people over at Universal, and they liked it. So we went with a Universal record deal. One thing about us, as well as being independent, is that we all write. We all bring songs to the table."

When "Strike A Nerve" was first announced in February, vocalist Jasen Moreno stated about the effort: "This record is so badass, it's perfect. It's the four of us doing what we do to the best of our abilities. The band is tight in every way. We're firing off on all cylinders. We're at the top of our game. There are all different ways of saying it, but it all amounts to the same thing — the results are just magic. From the way the record sounds, to the writing of it, to the production, to the look of it — it's just a perfect DROWNING POOL record. None of us could ask for anything more."

Pierce added: "'Strike A Nerve' is the most exciting and intense music from DROWNING POOL to date. We've stayed true to the core sound people know from us, but we've taken everything we do to another level. We've been writing music together for over twenty years — half of that with Jasen — and this album is more refined and more true to who we are than anything we've done before. Sometimes it's heavier than we've ever been, sometimes it's lighter, and sometimes we go in a direction that surprises even us — but it's always just brutally honest, and that comes through in every track."

Formed by Pierce, Stevie Benton (bass) and Mike Luce (drums) in Dallas, Texas in 1996, DROWNING POOL began as an instrumental trio, named after the 1975 film "The Drowning Pool". The group enlisted singer Dave Williams to join their fold three years later and the band signed with Wind-Up Records which released "Sinner" in 2001. Williams died tragically on tour August 14, 2002, stricken by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an undiagnosed heart condition. "Sinner" stands as his only studio album with DROWNING POOL.

"Strike A Nerve" was produced by Shawn McGhee and DROWNING POOL.

Julien's Auctions, the acclaimed auction house to the stars, held on Friday, November 11 through Sunday, November 13 their headline-making "Icons And Idols: Rock 'N' Roll" auction featuring an incredible line-up of over 1,500 lots featuring memorabilia, wardrobe, musical equipment, jewelry and more from legendary musicians and pop culture icons Kurt Cobain, NIRVANA, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Prince, Neil Young, THE BEATLES, CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL, Steve Jobs, Steve Vai, Don McLean, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Eddie Van Halen, EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER, Tupac Shakur, LL Cool J, GUNS N' ROSES, Lady Gaga, and more, sold in front of a live audience at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City and online with thousands of bidders, fans and collectors from around the world participating at juliensauctions.com.

One of the highly anticipated moments of the weekend was the sale of the 1973 Fender Mustang owned, stage-played, smashed and signed by NIRVANA frontman Kurt Cobain which was sold for an astounding $486,400 (original estimate: $200,000). The axe was used on NIRVANA's first U.S. tour at two performances in 1989–the first at Club Dreamerz in Chicago, Illinois on July 8, and the second at the Sonic Temple in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania on July 9 — where Cobain smashed the guitar to pieces across the stage during the finale performance of "Blew". Following that performance, the band stayed at Sluggo Cawley of the band HULLABALOO's apartment, where Cobain noticed a smashed Gibson SG hanging on Cawley's wall. Cobain offered to trade it for the Fender Mustang he had smashed on July 9 because he thought he could repair the Gibson SG well enough to smash it again later on. Sluggo agreed to the trade and had Cobain inscribe the Mustang, signing as NIRVANA and additionally drawing two flowers along the upper right portion of the pickguard before the band moved on to their next show. Along the lower portion of the body, the inscription reads, "Yo Sluggo / Thank for the trade/ If its illegal to Rock and Roll, then throw my ass in jail/ Nirvana."

"Property From The Archives Of Steve Vai" excited metal and hard rock fans from around the world with the Grammy Award-winning icon's epic guitars, wardrobe and showstopping ephemera from his legendary career roaring across the stage with incredible results. From Vai's jawdropping collection of electric guitars came a 2012 Ibanez electric guitar ("Evo IV," SV28) that sold for $44,800; a 2011 Ibanez electric guitar with custom coral and blue finish ("Sofia," SV 83) which brought $44,800; a circa 2018 prototype Ibanez Woody electric guitar ("Nauga," SV 277) which sold for $12,800; a 1998 Ibanez Hoshino 90th Anniversary Model electric guitar ("Crystal Snow," SV 152) that brought in $12,800 and more.

In partnership with Gibson Guitars, Julien's Auctions proudly presented a number of blue and yellow Gibson Les Paul guitars as part of Gibson Gives's fundraising efforts to provide relief to Ukraine. Highlights included a Gibson Les Paul played by Slash (GUNS N' ROSES, SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS) at a concert in Prague on June 18, 2022 signed and drawn with a skull in a top hat on the guitar by the rock legend which sold for $31,250, a Gibson Les Paul signed and played onstage by Slash which sold for $28,800 and a Gibson Les Paul played by Paul McCartney in support of Gibson Gives during his 2022 summer tour that brought in $76,800.

The Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert Collection charity auction offered guitars, cymbals, drumheads, and a one-of-one custom 2022 Ram Rebel Crew Cab pickup truck (sold for $64,000) with unique badging, all signed by music legends who participated in the all-star concerts honoring the life and memory of FOO FIGHTERS legend Taylor Hawkins. The sale of these items will go towards MusiCares and Music Support. Highlights included (with winning bids): a Remo Ambassador drumhead signed by musicians Joe Walsh, Joan Jett, Stewart Copeland and others who performed at the September 27, 2022 Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles ($5,625); a Remo brand drumhead signed by musicians such as Elliot Easton, Stewart Copeland, Kesha, who performed at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert in Los Angeles ($7,500); an EVH red, white, and black colored Van Halen guitar signed by numerous musicians such as Wolfgang Van Halen, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert in Los Angeles ($11,520); a black John Paul Jones Signature Manson Electric Bass Guitar played by John Paul Jones during the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium in London, England, signed by John Paul Jones, Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, Elliot Easton and many other artists who performed both at the Los Angeles concert and at the London concert with NFT ($21,875, eight times its estimate of $3,000); a cherry red Brian May guitar signed by Brian May, Dave Grohl, Brian Johnson, Chrissie Hynde, and many others at the September 3, 2022 Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert in London ($21,8750); a metallic blue Gibson Trini Lopez electric guitar that is signed by musicians such as Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, Chrissie Hynde, and many others that performed during the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert at the Kia Stadium in Los Angeles ($22,400) and more.

"All of the greats were well represented in Julien's annual fall classic Icons & Idols Rock N' Roll event and this year's lineup produced one of our biggest auctions yet with over 1,500 exceptional artifacts sold," said Martin Nolan, executive director/CFO of Julien's Auctions. "Additionally, we were proud to help raise funds for charity with the proceeds of many of these incredible items going towards supporting Gibson Gives, MusiCares, Music Support, and others."

Julien's Auctions is the world-record breaking auction house. Collaborating with the famous and the exclusive, Julien's Auctions produces high profile auctions in the film, music, sports and art markets. Julien's Auctions has received international recognition for its unique and innovative auction events, which attract thousands of collectors, investors, fans and enthusiasts from around the world.

The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) and CBC announced today that globally renowned rock band NICKELBACK will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame as part of the 2023 Juno Awards. The news was shared during a press conference at Rogers Place in Edmonton, where next year's award show will be held.

Taking place in NICKELBACK's home province of Alberta on Monday, March 13, 2023, the ceremony will appear on the Juno Awards broadcast, produced by Insight Productions. It will also stream live across Canada at 6 p.m. MT/8 p.m. ET on CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, CBC Listen, and globally at CBCMusic.ca/junos and CBC Music's Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages.

Comprised of Chad Kroeger, Mike Kroeger, Ryan Peake and Daniel Adair, NICKELBACK is no stranger to the Junos stage. Since winning their first-ever Juno award in 2001 for "Best New Group", NICKELBACK has won a total of 12 awards spanning seven categories, including "Album Of The Year", "Rock Album Of The Year", "Juno Fan Choice", "Single Of The Year", "Songwriter Of The Year", "Producer Of The Year" and "Group Of The Year". The band's upcoming performance on the broadcast will be their sixth performance on the show, having previously performed in Newfoundland (2002),Edmonton (2004),Halifax (2006),Vancouver (2009) and Ottawa (2012).

With a list of accolades that includes 23 chart-topping singles and more than 10 billion collective streams globally to date, NICKELBACK's induction ceremony will look back at the band's 20-plus-year career and influence on rock music in Canada and around the world. The festivities will also include a live performance from the band.

The Canadian Music Hall Of Fame was established by CARAS in 1978 to acknowledge artists who have made an outstanding contribution to Canadian music, both nationally and globally. NICKELBACK will join the ranks of Canadian music icons spanning many genres including Deborah Cox, Alanis Morissette, Buffy Sainte-Marie, BARENAKED LADIES, Jann Arden, Joni Mitchell, K.D. Lang, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Oscar Peterson, RUSH, THE GUESS WHO, THE TRAGICALLY HIP, Sarah McLachlan and Shania Twain. The Canadian Music Hall Of Fame has a permanent home within the National Music Centre situated inside Calgary's Studio Bell. A new exhibition exploring NICKELBACK's legacy will open on March 9, 2023. More details will be announced closer to its opening.

NICKELBACK's continuously growing list of achievements includes many award-winning hit releases, such as "How You Remind Me", "Photograph", "Someday" and "Rockstar", which have all received considerable global attention and allowed the band to remain at the forefront of the music scene in Canada and around the world. The diamond-certified quartet is one of the top-selling acts of all time, having sold out 12 consecutive tours and played for well over 10 million adoring fans worldwide.

"Returning home to Alberta, where everything started for us, is truly a full circle, milestone moment for the band," said Chad Kroeger, NICKELBACK frontman. "We take so much pride in our Canadian roots and are extremely humbled by this honor."

"A true Canadian success story, with 12 Juno awards on their mantles already, NICKELBACK's upcoming induction is a testament to the role they've played in shaping the country's rock music history," said Allan Reid, president and CEO, CARAS/Juno Awards. "For more than two decades, we've watched them grow from a local indie band to globally renowned rockstars. On March 13, we'll acknowledge how exceptional this career trajectory really is."

NICKELBACK's history dates back to 1995 in Hanna, Alberta, where they got their start playing covers in a band called VILLAGE IDIOT, a nod to the small-town nature where they played and grew up. In 1996, Chad, alongside Ryan Peake, made the 10-hour trek west to follow Kroeger's brother and bandmate, Mike, to Vancouver, British Columbia, where the band still resides and continues to make music today.

The band's numerous smash hits, coupled with worldwide sales of over 50 million albums sold, seals their status as one of the top-selling acts of all time and the second best-selling foreign act of the 2000s in the U.S., behind only THE BEATLES. The wildly popular smash hit "How You Remind Me" was named Billboard's "Top Rock Song Of The Decade", which was a contributing factor in the publication's decision to crown NICKELBACK "Top Rock Group Of The Decade" shortly after.

Beyond their Juno Awards, the group has received nine Grammy Award nominations, three American Music Awards, a World Music Award, a People's Choice Award and seven MuchMusic Video Awards. They were inducted into Canada's Walk Of Fame in 2007.

NICKELBACK will debut their long-awaited tenth studio album, titled "Get Rollin'" on November 18. This milestone album release was announced with the drop of the band's chart-topping single "San Quentin", as well as their latest single, "Those Days", which have both garnered nearly five million streams on Spotify since their release.

TD Bank Group (TD) presale for the 2023 Juno Awards broadcast runs today and until November 16 at 11:59 p.m. MT. Tickets to the 2023 Juno Awards go on sale to the general public on November 18. They start at $49.00 (including tax plus fees) and are available at ticketmaster.ca/junos.

TD is proud to be the premier sponsor of the Juno Awards and is honored to present the historic 2023 Canadian Music Hall Of Fame inductee award presentation and performance during the Juno Awards broadcast. TD believes in the power of music to help unite, create a sense of community and amplify diverse voices, and supports Canadian music through ongoing events and initiatives across the country.

Vocalist Josh Todd of California rockers BUCKCHERRY has confirmed to Australia's Metal Mal that he and his bandmates have completed recording their new album. The follow-up to last year's "Hellbound" was once again helmed by producer and songwriter-for-hire Marti Frederiksen, who has previously collaborated with AEROSMITH, DEF LEPPARD, Jonny Lang and Sheryl Crow, among many others.

Todd said: "The tenth record, it's very special for us. To be able to have ten records is crazy, looking back on everything. So I was really excited to get to this effort. And it's a great record. And I know I'm saying that because we just recorded it, but it's really good; I think people are gonna really love it. Yeah, that will be coming next year, sometime probably beginning of summer."

In August, BUCKCHERRY announced that Todd and guitarist Stevie Dacanay (a.k.a. Stevie D.) would head to Nashville in late September to finish the writing process for the band's tenth studio album. The band was scheduled to begin recording the effort on November 4.

Frederiksen previously produced "Hellbound" as well as BUCKCHERRY's fourth album, "Black Butterfly", and co-wrote "Sorry", among other songs, with the band.

"Hellbound" came out in June 2021 via Round Hill Records. The follow-up to 2019's "Warpaint" was recorded in the fall of 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee.

In the summer of 2020, BUCKCHERRY recruited JETBOY's Billy Rowe as its new guitarist. He joined the group as the replacement for Kevin Roentgen, who left BUCKCHERRY in July of that year.

In 2019, BUCKCHERRY enlisted Francis Ruiz as its new drummer. He joined the group as the replacement for Sean Winchester, who exited BUCKCHERRY after laying down the drum tracks on "Warpaint".

Earlier this year, Todd told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he and his bandmates have never had the luxury to slack off on their work habits, even during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"When you're in a band, it's like it's your business. So if you just sit around and wait for people to tell you what to do, then you're not running a good business," Todd said. "We've always created opportunities within ourselves. We have to make schedules, we have to stick to them. We have to show up and work hard. We're so used to doing that because people have written this band off many times and we have many peaks and valleys in the BUCKCHERRY career. We have come back from a lot of adversity and had a lot of success. And we only did that by believing in ourselves and working hard because no one else is going to do that except us."

BUCKCHERRY burst on to the scene in 1999 with its now-classic self-titled debut album. Hit singles "Lit Up", "For The Movies", "Dead Again" and "Check Your Head" brought the celebration back to the party scene, recalling the gritty glam impact of MÖTLEY CRÜE but with a Gen X-demanded, modern self-awareness . Later albums continued to develop their reputation for volatile, mercurial themes and infectious hooks; such singles as "Crazy Bitch", "Everything", "Too Drunk" and "All Night Long" became screaming choruses for fans across the world. With their irreverent and bawdy lyrics, delivered with Todd's whisky weathered vocals, paired with filthy guitar riffs and high-energy, throbbing bass lines, BUCKCHERRY has sustained a hard-earned reputation as a not-to-be-missed live presence with regular touring schedules alongside such legends as MÖTLEY CRÜE and PAPA ROACH.

In a new interview with Canada's The Metal Voice, Brian Slagel, the founder and CEO of Metal Blade Records, was asked about MERCYFUL FATE's plans for releasing new music. He responded: "So here are the plans. So there's two [new] songs, one of which you know they're playing a new song in the set ['The Jackal Of Salzburg'] now [on tour], which was supposed to be out prior to all of this, but everything's delayed. So the first thing is, as soon as this [current fall 2022 U.S.] tour is done, they're gonna finish up that song. It's mostly recorded, and they're gonna finish that up and we're gonna put that out to the digital people on the Internet. So you'll be able to stream that — I don't know — some time in the next few months. So there's that. They have another song they've written that's also gonna be out there as well, so there'll be two MERCYFUL FATE songs out there. We'll probably do some sort of vinyl thing with the two tracks as well. Then we'll have a KING DIAMOND album following that. And then we'll go back to kind of the way we did it in the '90s where the next record will be full MERCYFUL FATE album."

MERCYFUL FATE kicked off its first North American headlining tour in over two decades last month. Stepping in on bass for MERCYFUL FATE at these shows is Becky Baldwin, a British musician who has previously played with FURY, TRIAXIS and CONTROL THE STORM. She is filling in for MERCYFUL FATE's regular bassist Joey Vera, who is unable to make the trek due to a scheduling conflict with his longtime band ARMORED SAINT.

In 2019, it was announced Vera would be replacing original MERCYFUL FATE bassist Timi Hansen for the band's summer 2020 European festival appearances due to Hansen's cancer diagnosis. Hansen passed away in November 2019 and MERCYFUL FATE's 2020 summer festival appearances were rescheduled for 2021, and then to 2022.

MERCYFUL FATE's North American tour, which features support from by KREATOR and MIDNIGHT, will wrap up on November 16 in Atlanta, Georgia. The tour follows MERCYFUL FATE's stunning headlining performance at this year's edition of Psycho Las Vegas.

MERCYFUL FATE debuted "The Jackal Of Salzburg" in Germany this past June as well as at Psycho Las Vegas.

The band's current lineup is King Diamond on vocals, Hank Shermann and Mike Wead on guitars, Bjarne T. Holm on drums and Vera on bass.

King discussed MERCYFUL FATE's return in August immediately following the band's performance at the Psycho Las Vegas festival. Speaking to Knotfest's Daniel Dekay, the 66-year-old singer said: "It's absolutely not a reunion. We picked up where we stopped in '99. It's the same lineup except we wanted [original MERCYFUL FATE bassist] Timi Hansen back on the bass, who got sick [with cancer]. And we tried, and he got better, and then he got worse [before eventually dying in 2019]. We actually started looking for a stand-in for Timi in case he couldn't do full shows. And that was Joey Vera. Timi wanted that, and I was totally into that. I saw Joey with FATES WARNING, and there was no doubt in our minds. And Timi really, really felt that was the right thing. At some point, Timi got worse really fast."

King continued: "When we played at Copenhell [festival] in Copenhagen [earlier this summer], Joey got a chance to meet Timi's daughter, which was really, really nice, and could get her blessing, too, for doing what we're doing. Otherwise it's the '9' [album] lineup. So that's the only thing that changed — is the bass."

King also talked about MERCYFUL FATE's plans for new music, including "The Jackl Of Salzburg", which he and his bandmates have been performing at all of their recent shows. The track is expected to appear on MERCYFUL FATE's upcoming studio album, tentatively due in 2023 via Metal Blade. Lyrically, the song is inspired by one of the last major witch hunts, the Zaubererjackl trials in Salzburg, Austria (1675-90). 139 people were executed — including 39 children (between 10 and 14 years old),53 teenagers and young adults (between 15 and 21) — as the followers of Wizard Jackl or Magician Jackl or Jäckel, who was himself never found.

"We're writing for a full album," King said. "We're also writing for a full KING DIAMOND album at the same time. But, of course, MERCYFUL FATE, we can't just start with a normal song. I don't know why. It's crazy. But me and Hank are writing the same way as we did back then. I will be writing some of my own songs. But we started out with Hank writing music. And in the old days, I would get it. I have a big scalpel. And I do this [makes cutting motion] and suddenly things move around and stuff, and Hank says, 'Oh, now it sounds like MERCYFUL FATE.' And that's been the case [with 'The Jackl Of Salzburg'] too. And that song was originally seven minutes or something; now it's 8:54. So it's kind of nine minutes. You don't really do that for trying to come back with a single. [But] it's what we do."

King went on to say that he got the opportunity to see the Moosham Castle in Austria which served as the administrative center during the Zaubererjackl witch trials. "We were down there," he said. "We went into the torture chamber. They have all the original stuff there still that they used. It's absolutely a creepy place. But we got the opportunity to go in and see it. And there was a couple of things I saw there that I now have to put into the lyrics [of 'The Jackl Of Salzburg'] to make it even more realistic. There is a small piece in [the song] that is not finished yet."

In July, Denner, who was part of MERCYFUL FATE's classic lineup, said that it was "heartbreaking" for him to be excluded from the group's current comeback. Denner addressed his absence from the band's reunion in an interview with Finland's Chaoszine. He said: "I [feel like] this is not my band anymore. I'm not part of it, because they didn't tell me; they didn't invite me. We didn't even have a discussion about it. So, of course, it took some time for me to digest it. It was quite painful, because I miss my friends from the '80s — I miss them. But not the people who [are] in the band today. I wish them the best. I mean, the better they play, the more records we can sell and the more money I will get in the end. Of course it's heartbreaking. And also to see and hear — they play my signature stuff. Most of the songs they play now is things I've done — I mean, my signature solos, my themes, my arrangements, my stuff. And it's another guy who plays. But then again, Mike Wead is a great guitarist, and he's still a good friend of mine. So if anyone should do the job, I'm glad it's him who did it, really. He can do the shit. That's some sort of comfort in all this agony and disappointment — that it's Mike Wead who plays. And that makes me feel good."

Regarding his relationship with King, Michael said: "The thing is me and King, we had a discussion some years ago. It was about a cover of a DENNER/SHERMANN album. Because the artist who did the artwork for the cover is [Swedish artist] Thomas Holm who did [MERCYFUL FATE's] 'Melissa' and 'Don't Break The Oath'. And, of course, his way of painting and stuff, it was a bit more than a bit similar to 'Melissa' and 'Don't Break The Oath', and King got upset and tried to stop the album. He did manage to stop — as I recall it — the merchandise side; t-shirt design and so on. I'm not a hundred percent sure [about] that, but that could be the story.

"Me and King are quite alike," he explained. "We don't turn the other cheek. I mean, two old assholes who don't wanna stretch the hand out and say, 'Okay, let bygones be bygones. Let's try to do this.' So we keep the disagreements and the enemy side of it. That's just sad. But with Hank, it was a different story because it came out of nowhere. We had a good teamwork going with DENNER/SHERMANN. And one of the last things Hank told me was, 'If we do a MERCYFUL FATE reunion, it should be with you and me. No question about it.' But of course, King, he has some strong will and some power behind it — Metal Blade Records and money; big salaries. So Hank chose to go that way and just leave me out in the cold. And [Hank and I] haven't spoken since, more or less. And that's a few years now. But then again, we've been a guitar team since the late '70s — that's a long, long time — and the friendship. And it's like telepathy. You know exactly which guy should play what parts and we know each other like it's in the pocket. But he chose to go that way, and I couldn't live with that. So we don't talk anymore. But I wish him the best — I wish him just the best of luck in the future. But his future will be without me."

Asked if he thinks there is still a chance that he will one day reconnect with Hank, Michael said: "Not in a million years. That will never happen — never. It's just the end of it, because I could never trust this guy again. He broke my heart and he stabbed me in the back. But still, I miss my old friend; I miss my guitar partner. But I will never take a chance again, trusting this guy, when he could do the thing he did. I will never be safe. So I feel sorry for me and I feel sorry for him. It's a loss. That's the way life goes. You have to carry on."

Earlier in August, King commented on Denner's exclusion from MERCYFUL FATE's current tour, telling Creem magazine: "There are reasons Michael Denner and [drummer] Kim Ruzz are simply not here. I know that Michael Denner did an interview recently, and I'm not going to get into it, but he said a lot of things that are absolutely not true. I could go into a lot of details about the reasons that this is not a lineup with him in it, or Kim Ruzz in it. I don't want to say anything bad about anybody, but you can't say, 'Hey, I should have played there.' Why? Should I throw out a band member that is absolutely perfect for the band, that goes all out for the band all the time, no matter what? And his skill is beyond anything I played with on that spot in the band? There's no way that he's going to get fired because someone else is suddenly interested in the band. That's completely wrong. There's no way I would ever treat anyone like that."

King went on to say that it has been "very cool and a lot of fun" to play with MERCYFUL FATE again, but he clarified: "People have misunderstood what we are doing now. This is not a reunion. We are just picking it up again because the stars are aligned correctly now. And that's been the thing all the time. Before when people asked, 'Do you think you're going to play with MERCY again?' I would never say never. But it's got to be completely right. I don't want to go out there and try to milk a cow and do a show with the backdrop and then collect and say, 'That was that.' That's not right. And Hank has the same philosophy. Either we do it 200 percent, or we don't do it."

MERCYFUL FATE was formed in early 1981 in Copenhagen, Denmark by King and Shermann. They were later joined by guitarist Michael Denner and Hansen, and soon thereafter drummer Kim Ruzz would join to complete the band lineup. The band recorded two demos in 1981 and later signed with Rave On Records in Holland for the recording of their successful self-titled EP, released in November of 1982. The "Mercyful Fate" EP was soon in heavy rotation around core metal radio stations, launching a new breed of heavy metal with their unique sound.

The band joined Roadrunner Records in 1983 and their debut full-length, "Melissa", was recorded and released that same year. The following year, MERCYFUL FATE returned to the studio to record their now legendary "Don't Break The Oath" full-length, released in September of 1984.

MERCYFUL FATE embarked upon a two-month U.S. tour in support of the record, which took them across the States several times sharing the stage with the likes of MOTÖRHEAD and EXCITER. The shows had created a brush fire within the metal community. The band reaped recognition globally, closing the year with a five-date tour in Germany with MOTÖRHEAD, GIRLSCHOOL, HELIX and TALON.

MERCYFUL FATE's first concert of 1985 was in their hometown of Copenhagen at an old movie theater with a large capacity. The show sold out and their stage show exhibited a new level of distinction. The night was a huge victory and a new highlight for the band. By April of 1985, however, MERCYFUL FATE decided to part ways for each to pursue new challenges. The KING DIAMOND band was born and reaped critical acclaim the following years with five studio albums on Roadrunner Records. KING DIAMOND has since signed with Metal Blade Records and is going stronger than ever before.

In the summer of 1992, MERCYFUL FATE decided to reunite and penned a new deal with Slagel and Metal Blade Records. "In The Shadows" was released in 1993 and was an instant triumph furthered by a sold-out U.S. tour.

MERCYFUL FATE has gone on to release another five studio albums and have toured Europe, the U.S. and South America multiple times. The highlight of 1999 was their critically acclaimed album "9" which was followed by a European tour with METALLICA, where King Diamond and Hank Shermann joined the band onstage several times for the medley "Mercyful Fate" which METALLICA had recorded on their "Garage Inc." double tribute album the year prior. Tours in the U.S. and in South America followed, marking the band's last live performances for over a decade. MERCYFUL FATE then went on hiatus, but made a brief appearance when members joined METALLICA onstage in 2011 for their 30th-anniversary show in San Francisco, California.

RUSH bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee's memoir, which was originally scheduled for release in the fall of 2022, will now be made available next spring. According to the web site of the publisher, HarperCollins, the book will tentatively arrive on May 16, 2023. The as-yet-untitled memoir, which will be edited Noah Eaker, will be around 400 pages and be available as a hardcover or as an e-book.

Lee shared the news of his memoir in an Instagram post in September 2021. At the time, he wrote: "So, how did I kill time during the pandemic? Little did I know that as of March 2020 I'd be locked down for over a year and a half—the longest time I'd spent in Toronto since I was nineteen and hit the Northern Ontario bar circuit with RUSH.

"Although [my wife] Nancy and I had to cancel a bunch of adventures we'd been planning, there were some shiny silver linings to be found at home: teaching my grandson the finer points of baseball and birdwatching, tending to my pups (one of whom was quite ill) and spending the evenings with my lovely better half, glass of Armagnac in hand, as we watched every European mystery show ever produced. Oh, and another thing: I began to write. Words, that is.

"My friend and collaborator on the 'Big Beautiful Book Of Bass', Daniel Richler, saw how I was struggling in the aftermath of [RUSH drummer] Neil's [Peart] passing, and tried coaxing me out of my blues with some funny tales from his youth, daring me to share my own in return. So I did—reluctantly at first, but then remembering, oh yeah, I like wrestling with words. It's a less physical version of arguing with musical notes, without a Ricky doubleneck breaking my back! And soon my baby-step stories were becoming grownup chapters. Being the nuclear obsessive that I am, I'd write and re-write them, reassessing perspectives in the narrative not just by scouring my memory banks but my diaries and piles of photo albums too. I was piecing together a mystery of a different kind.

"I'd then send these improved and even illustrated stories to Daniel, who'd clean up some of the grammar and remove a lot of the swearing (I love to fucking swear),and presto! In a voice that sounded, well, just like me, a presentable, epic-length account of my life on and off the stage was taking shape: my childhood, my family, the story of my parents' survival, my travels and all sorts of nonsense I've spent too much time obsessing over. And Daniel said, 'I think you're writing a book. An actual memoir, in fact.' To which I replied, 'Hmm… I guess I am.'

"I'm rounding third on this as-of-yet untitled memoir, which will be published by HarperCollins, edited by Noah Eaker."

This past September, Lee and fellow RUSH co-founder Alex Lifeson joined Dave Grohl, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS' Chad Smith and TOOL's Danny Carey onstage at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles to pay tribute to late FOO FIGHTERS drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Post-hardcore supergroup FAKE NAMES will release its second studio album, "Expendables", on March 3, 2023 via Epitaph Records. The band is comprised of Brian Baker (MINOR THREAT, BAD RELIGION, DAG NASTY),Michael Hampton (S.O.A., EMBRACE),Dennis Lyxzén (REFUSED, INVSN, THE [INTERNATIONAL] NOISE CONSPIRACY),Johnny Temple (GIRLS AGAINST BOYS, SOULSIDE) and newest addition Brendan Canty (FUGAZI, RITES OF SPRING). It's the latest exchange in a musical conversation that spans four decades, but instead of rehashing the past, "Expendables" is a reinvention that sees the band dialing back the distortion and leaning into the melodies.

The first single from "Expendables", a song called "Delete Myself", can be streamed below. The track is described in a press release as "a high-energy craft cocktail comprised of punk and garage, finished with unforgettable riffs."

Forming in 2016, Baker describes FAKE NAMES as a "mutual admiration society," saying that once the five members got in the same room together, it felt as if they had already been in the band together for years. "There's this intangible energy, a clairvoyance that comes from our shared experience," he explains. On 'Expendables', the result pairs their unparalleled pedigree with a pop sensibility that's slightly unexpected and wholly satisfying.

Melding 1970s U.K. punk with power-pop and classic rock, the FAKE NAMES' self-titled debut album (2020) was actually a demo that Epitaph founder and Baker's BAD RELIGION bandmate Brett Gurewitz wanted to release as is. After releasing a three-track EP in 2021, the band enlisted producer Adam "Atom" Greenspan (IDLES, YEAH YEAH YEAHS) who helmed a surprisingly cleaner sound for "Expendables". Baker says, "The pop influences are a little more out front on this one and the production really helps it shine. It sounds more direct, more urgent."

There's also an economy to these songs that's rooted in the fact that they were recorded in the span of a week, eliminating the option to add excess instrumentation or arrangements. What ensues is an album that retains the members' purity of vision in a strikingly refreshing way.

Speaking to lyrical themes, Baker discloses, "In general, Dennis writes about revolution, and Michael and I write pop songs. I'm amazed at how it works, but somehow it strikes the right balance of salty and sweet." This imagery is paralleled in the album artwork which Baker describes as "'70s dystopian" and features an eerie army of mannequins set against a cold urban backdrop. That dichotomy of lively music and bleak imagery is an important thematic element of "Expendables" because the album is more than just a collection of catchy songs: it's an artistic statement about our own impermanence.

FAKE NAMES will be on tour next spring 2023, starting off on April 13 in Asbury Park, and ending April 23 in Los Angeles. Tickets go on sale this Friday, November 18 at 10 a.m. local time.

FAKE NAMES tour dates:

April 13 - Asbury Park, NJ - House of Independents
April 14 - Brooklyn, NY - TV Eye
April 15 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
April 16 - Washington, DC - The Black Cat
April 20 - San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Stop
April 22 - Long Beach, CA - Alex's Bar
April 23 - Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon

"Expendables" track listing:

01. Targets
02. Expendables
03. Delete Myself
04. Go
05. Don't Blame Yourself
06. Can't Take It
07. Damage Done
08. Madtown
09. Caught In Between
10. Too Little Too Late

FAKE NAMES is Brian Baker (guitar/vocals),Michael Hampton (guitar/vocals),Dennis Lyxzén (vocals) and Johnny Temple (bass) and Brendan Canty (drums).

Ohio's notorious, boundary-pushing, and bloodsucking death metal outfit Sanguisugabogg - Cody Davidson, drums; Drew Arnold, guitars/bass; Devin Swank, vocals; and Ced Davis, guitars/bass - have announced their new album, Homicidal Ecstasy. The album arrives on February 3 via Century Media. Pre-order it here.


Today, the band has shared the video for "Pissed". Watch below.


"This song is a showcase of the struggle of finding euphoria and bliss out of something savagely disastrous and ultimately just wreaking havoc on anything in your path so it ceases to exist or ever haunt your mind again," the band says. "It's not self reflection, it's not fantasy, and it's not a game; it's something savagely brutal presented in our own way so you can shove the hell out of the person next to you and have a good time while getting 'Pissed' with us!"




Homicidal Ecstasy follows 2021's Tortured Whole. The band continues to slice up uncompromising, in-your-face, and not-for-the-weak death metal that siphons inspiration from early to mid- '90s and early '00s death metal and brutal death metal/grindcore presented in their own style with a unique twist that pleases every style of metal maniac.





Tracklisting:


"Black Market Vasectomy"
"Face Ripped Off"
"Pissed"
"Testicular Rot"
"Hungry For Your Insides"
"Skin Cushion"
"A Lesson In Savagery"
"Narcissistic Incisions"
"Mortal Admonishment"
"Proclamation Of The Frail"
"Necrosexual Deviant"
"Feening For Bloodshed"


"Pissed" video:





"Everything became more legit," states vocalist Devin Swank about the new album. They're no longer that band of meme-inspiring miscreants. "The musicianship, the production, the lyrics – which delve much more into horror and body horror – are more thought-out," Swank continues. "It's not just a bunch of dick and fart jokes."


But the 'Bogg haven't gone soft.


"After lockdown, once the restrictions from COVID lifted, we were hungry not just tour but start writing again," Swank shares. "Ced [Davis] had moved from bass to guitar and Drew [Arnold] also started playing guitar." It was drummer Cody Davidson who once again helmed production duties for Homicidal Ecstasy. They handed off mixing duties to Converge guitarist and vaunted studio vet Kurt Ballou (High on Fire, Nails) at God City Studios in Salem, Massachusettss, who "made it sound like us on steroids," per Swank.


 After releasing Pornographic Seizures in 2019 on the cult Maggot Stomp label, the foursome quickly won fans for their blasts of sludgy, determined riffing, tongue-severed-from-cheek, gross-out humor and nods to hardcore and '90s East Coast death metal. The band received a pile of plaudits including Brooklyn Vegan putting them on a Most Anticipated Albums list next to genre titans like Carcass.


In the face of COVID-19 and a worldwide shutdown, the 'Bogg got down to business. Signing to Century Media, they recorded Tortured Whole and hit the road as the locked-down world started to get on its feet. Later that year, they teamed with the infamous Troma Films collective on for two video clips that featured battling penis monsters, boner implants and Troma's own Sgt. Kabukiman!


Tours with Frozen Soul, Nile, Terror, The Acacia Strain, and a run of dates as main support to Cannibal Corpse leading into Decibel's Metal & Beer Fest in Philadelphia solidified Sanguisugabogg as a force in their own right.


But Homicidal Ecstasy isn't merely a musical maturation for the gore-obsessed boys of the 'Bogg. While Swank's lyric writing sessions are still "fueled on coffee with a horror movie playing in the background," this isn't exclusively the gross-out show of Sanguisugabogg past. "It goes deeper this time, into the psycho-sexual, body-horror, why what some people see as perverse or fetishistic, can also be perfectly normal," says Swank.


"It's kind of an homage to real life," says the frontman. "When shit hits the fan, no one's really safe."


Reconstituted, regurgitated, and reenergized, the 'Bogg walk among us.


Let the Homicidal Ecstasy begin!


(Photo - Adam Elkins)

Swedish metal supergroup, Soen, have released a video for the single, “Fortune”. The track is taken from the forthcoming release Atlantis, out via Silver Lining Music on November 18.


Musically, “Fortune” is epically heavy with its crushing riffs and percussion, yet delicate with haunting vocal phases and an outstanding guitar solo, all whilst carrying a poignant story and message.


Founding members Martin Lopez and Joel Ekelöf comment "'Fortune' is a song about getting beaten up by life, falling down again and again, but getting back up regardless. In this specific case, it is about seeing a loved one face the obstacles that you have faced, letting them know that things will eventually get better and that you have got their back no matter what.”







Atlantis is a special concert film featuring thirteen of the group’s most popular compositions reinterpreted with live orchestral accompaniment. Atlantis was created within the mystic and magical confines of Atlantis Grammofon Studio in Stockholm, Sweden, which has seen a wide range of international artists record, from Quincy Jones to Lenny Kravitz to Green Day. Formerly a movie house in 1941, it went on to become Metronome Studio (during which time ABBA was born) before becoming Atlantis Grammofon in 1983.


Filmed and recorded on December 10, 2021, Martin Lopez (drums & percussion), Joel Ekelöf (lead vocals), Lars Enok Åhlund (guitars & piano), Cody Lee Ford (lead guitar) and Oleksii “Zlatoyar” Kobel (bass) worked together with an 8-piece orchestra to reinterpret and rediscover fresh energy and elements in classic Soen songs, such as “Antagonist”, “Monarch”, “Jinn” and “Lucidity”, as well as introducing a stunning interpretation of Slipknot’s deeply dark meditation on darkness rejecting love, “Snuff”.


The end result of this eighty minute performance is some remarkable new aural refractions of Soen’s greatest material for fans to absorb and enjoy. As has always been the way with Soen: the deepest dives yield the greatest treasures.


Atlantis was recorded by David Castillo and Iñaki Marconi, mixed by Castillo, and mastered by Tony Lindgren. The performance was filmed and directed by George Laycock from the bespoke British production house Blacktide Phonic/Visual.


Atlantis will be available as a DVD-CD with bonus footage, a Double 12” Limited Edition Vinyl, Long Form Video, Digital Download and Streaming. Pre-orders available here.





Atlantis tracklisting:


"Antagonist"
"Lunacy"
"Monarch"
"Trials"
"River"
"Jinn"
"Illusion"
"Modesty"
"Lucidity"
"Savia"
"Fortune"
"Snuff"
"Lascivious"
"Lotus"


"Snuff" performance video:





"Trials" performance video:





The additional orchestral musicians and contributors on Atlantis are:


Stefan Stenberg, Double Bass
Joakim Simonsson, Piano and Organ
Karin Liljenberg, Violin 1
Andreas Forsman, Violin 2
Erik Holm, Viola
Cecilia Linné, Cello
Johanna Börjesson, Vocals
Therése Börjesson, Vocals


Technical support: Dan Wahlbeck


Drum tech: Rickard Gustafsson


Sound support: Niclas Lindström


Soen wish to thank them deeply for their immense contribution to this performance.


With no sign of slowing down, the relentless metal quintet recently announced a twenty date North American Tour, kicking-off at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall; the tour will also see Soen perform as special guests of Katatonia in Dallas and Austin on December 6 and 7.


The North American dates follow shortly after the 2021 rescheduled Imperial European Tour that Soen postponed due to the restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic at the time. The European dates include the opportunity for an unforgettable and intimate evening with Soen at their sole premiere live acoustic show taking place at Zoetermeer’s De Boerderij on September 30. The band are excited to be on the road again and have added fourteen new dates in Europe and the United Kingdom.


“It's a dream come true to finally be able to do an extensive North American tour,” enthuses Lopez. “It's a milestone for any band to tour a continent with such a rich musical history and we are very excited about finally getting to meet our North American audience. See you all there!”


All purchased tickets remain valid for the rescheduled dates and tickets remain on-sale. Full list of confirmed dates, tickets, and additional information available here.


Soen are:


Martin Lopez - Drums and percussion
Joel Ekelöf - Lead vocals
Lars Enok Åhlund - Guitars and Piano
Cody Lee Ford -  Lead Guitar
Oleksii "Zlatoyar" Kobel - Bass

Ozzy Osbourne, Megadeth, Ghost, and Red Hot Chili Peppers are among the nominees for the 2023 Grammy Awards. The statues will be handed out on Sunday, February 5.


Below are the categories that may be of interest to BraveWords readers:


Best Rock Performance:




* For new vocal or instrumental solo, duo/group or collaborative rock recordings.


"So Happy It Hurts" - Bryan Adams
"Old Man" - Beck
"Wild Child" - The Black Keys
"Broken Horses" - Brandi Carlile
"Crawl!" - Idles
"Patient Number 9" - Ozzy Osbourne Featuring Jeff Beck
"Holiday" - Turnstile


Best Metal Performance:


* For new vocal or instrumental solo, duo/group or collaborative metal recordings.


"Call Me Little Sunshine" - Ghost
"We'll Be Back" - Megadeth
"Kill Or Be Killed" - Muse
"Degradation Rules" - Ozzy Osbourne Featuring Tony Iommi
"Blackout" - Turnstile


Best Rock Song:


* A Songwriter(s) Award. Includes Rock, Hard Rock and Metal songs. A song is eligible if it was first released or if it first achieved prominence during the Eligibility Year. (Artist names appear in parentheses.) Singles or Tracks only.


"Black Summer" - Flea, John Frusciante, Anthony Kiedis & Chad Smith, songwriters (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
"Blackout" - Brady Ebert, Daniel Fang, Franz Lyons, Pat McCrory & Brendan Yates, songwriters (Turnstile)
"Broken Horses" - Brandi Carlile, Phil Hanseroth & Tim Hanseroth, songwriters (Brandi Carlile)
"Harmonia's Dream" - Robbie Bennett & Adam Granduciel, songwriters (The War On Drugs)
"Patient Number 9" - John Osbourne, Chad Smith, Ali Tamposi, Robert Trujillo & Andrew Wotman, songwriters (Ozzy Osbourne Featuring Jeff Beck)


Best Rock Album:


* For albums containing greater than 50% playing time of new rock, hard rock or metal recordings.


Dropout Boogie - The Black Keys
The Boy Named If - Elvis Costello & The Imposters
Crawler - Idles
Mainstream Sellout - Machine Gun Kelly
Patient Number 9 - Ozzy Osbourne
Lucifer On The Sofa - Spoon





The 2023 Grammy's, officially known as the 65th Grammy Awards, will air live on Sunday, February 5, from Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena, and it will broadcast live on the CBS Television Network and stream live and on-demand on Paramount+ at 8 - 11:30 PM, ET / 5 - 8:30 PM, PT+. The special ceremony's broadcast time, hosts, presenters, and performers will be announced soon.


Find the complete list of nominees here.

This Friday, November 18, Queen will release The Miracle Collector's Edition. Watch a new lyric video for the song, "I Want It All", below:





33 years later Queen deliver the long lost original LP cut of the classic 1989 album. The 8-Disc Box Set: Vinyl LP/5CD/DVD/Blu-ray is available for pre-order here.




Widely recognized as Queen’s strongest album of the 80’s and one of their most inspired, the 1989 released The Miracle was a global success reaching No. 1 in the UK and several major European markets, even re-establishing the band in the US where it delivered a gold album. Brian May has often cited the title track as his favourite Queen song of all time.


The hugely prolific sessions for The Miracle began in December 1987 and stretched out to March 1989. It was to be one of the most consequential periods in Queen’s history. Fifteen months previously, on August 9, 1986, Queen’s mighty Europe Magic Tour had ended on a high, before an estimated audience of more than 160,000 at Knebworth Park in Britain. As the band left the stage that night – toasting the flagship show of their biggest tour to date – they could hardly have foreseen that Knebworth marked a line in the sand. This would be Queen’s final live show with Freddie and the first in a chain of pivotal moments that would lead towards a lengthy separation for the band.   


It would take 15 months and a radical restructuring of internal band dynamics before Queen regrouped in London’s Townhouse Studios on December 3rd, 1987, to start work on their thirteenth studio album. For the first time, Queen would share songwriting credits equally, regardless of who conceived each song, a consensus of opinion that was to have fertile results. “Splitting the credits was a very important decision for us. We left our egos outside the studio door,” says Brian, “and worked together as a real band – something that wasn’t always the case. I wish we’d done it 15 years before.”


Said Roger: “Decisions are made on artistic merit, so ‘Everybody wrote everything’ is the line, rather than ego or anything else getting in the way. We seem to work together better now than we did before. We’re fairly up-and-down characters. We have different tastes in many ways. We used to have lots of arguments in the studio, but this time we decided to share all the songwriting, which I think was very democratic and a good idea.”


This show of unity was elegantly conveyed by band art director Richard Gray’s cover for The Miracle, which depicts Queen’s four faces merged into one. “The cover art represents the unity of the group at the time: a seamless merging of four people becoming one,” May has said. “We were also dealing with Freddie’s deteriorating health and pulling together to support him.”


While Freddie could no longer tour, Queen remained a band of staggering creative resourcefulness. As John Deacon implied, they instead channelled their live chemistry into the studio: “In the first few weeks of recording we did a lot of live material, a lot of songs, some jamming, and ideas came up.”


‘Party’ and raw rock ‘Khashoggi’s Ship’ “evolved naturally, straight away,” said Freddie. Inspired by something Anita Dobson would say, and later adopted for anti-apartheid protests, the massive ‘I Want It All’ was – though written before the band went into the studio – a forceful expression of Queen’s concert-honed heavy-rock powers. “We were never able to perform this song live with Freddie,” said May. “It would have become something of a staple core of the Queen show, I’m sure, because it was very participative – designed for the audience to sing along to – very anthemic.”


Says Roger: “Lots of the [Miracle] tracks have first-take stuff in them; we tried to preserve that freshness. We tried to capture all the enthusiasm that we had from playing together as a band.”


Queen’s writing also reflected their personal circumstances. The torn-from-the-headlines drama of ‘Scandal’ was May’s personal swipe at the press intrusion into the bandmembers’ respective personal affairs. Singled out by Deacon for praise, Freddie’s soaring album closer, ‘Was It All Worth It’, has in retrospect been interpreted as a reflection on the singer’s health.


One further ingredient in the mix was David Richards, who had worked with Queen since his billing as assistant engineer on Live Killers. After further credits on A Kind of Magic and Live Magic, Richards stepped up to co-produce The Miracle, praised by May for his “whizz kid” technical prowess.


The months in the studio birthed 30-plus songs, more than Queen could possibly need for one album. Ten tracks were selected to form the release, with others later appearing as B-sides or solo tracks, or carried over to the Innuendo and Made in Heaven albums. Five hit singles supported the album.


Says Brian: “We had all these bits and pieces of tracks, and some of them were half-finished, some of them were just an idea, and some of them were nearly finished, and it sort of happened on its own really. There are some tracks which you always want to get out and work on, and so they get finished, and there are some tracks which you think, ‘Oh that’s great, but I don’t really know what to do with it at this moment’, so they naturally get left by the wayside.”


Most of these left-over session tracks remained undisturbed in the Queen archives for the past 33 years.





For the Queen hardcore, meanwhile, one of the most highly anticipated elements of the new box set is The Miracle Sessions CD featuring original takes, demos, and rough takes of the full album plus six additional previously never before heard tracks including two featuring Brian on vocals.


Tantalizing enough that this hour-plus disc offers the first official airing of such near-mythical songs as "Dog With A Bone", "I Guess We’re Falling Out", "You Know You Belong To Me", and the poignant "Face It Alone". Add to that, the trove of sunken treasure spanning from original takes and demos to rough cuts that signpost the album The Miracle would become.


But perhaps the real gemstones of The Miracle Sessions CD are the spoken segments that bookend the musical takes. As the studio tape keeps rolling in London and Montreux, the four members are caught at their most candid, giving listeners the uncanny fly-on-the wall experience of standing amongst Freddie, Brian, John and Roger as they banter, debate, swap jokes and show both joy and occasional frustration.


With the band arriving at the studio with scarce mapped-out material these sessions found Queen at their most inspired and impulsive, and that atmosphere is mirrored in not just the music but the familial exchanges that punctuate it. As Freddie said: “I think it’s the closest we’ve ever been in terms of actually writing together.”


Find complete details here.

















Queen recently released the rediscovered track, "Face It Alone", featuring the band's late and legendary frontman, Freddie Mercury. The digital/streaming single is available now, with a 7” single set for release on November 18.


Listen / pre-order here, and watch an official music video below:





Watch a lyric video for "Face It Alone":

Behold and join Serenity on their path of forgotten memories and experience the sands of time with their new live album Memoria, out December 9 via Napalm Records.


The assembly unites beyond death and legacy, sharing long forgotten stories of ancient kings, queens, and mythical legends. Looking back at their own band history and legacy of 20 years, Serenity invites the listener on a metal journey through history. So, immerse yourself in a land before our time with the new live recording of Memoria on DVD and BluRay.


With their new single “Legacy Of The Tudors”, Serenity rewrites history by mixing epic chants with heavy riffs. Serenity unites the best of both worlds into a unique sonic experience beyond compare. With the humble support of none other than honorable Vision Of Atlantis vocalist Clémentine Delauney, “Legacy Of The Tudors” becomes an unforgettable part of symphonic metal history. To put it in their words: “When music plays its Melody” it’s time for Serenity.




Serenity on “Legacy Of The Tudors”: “We’re so excited to finally unveil the first single from our upcoming live album Memoria. This track is a very special one to us as it’s taken from the album War of Ages which will have it’s tenth anniversary next year. During that time Clémentine Delauney was a permanent member of Serenity and we feel very honoured that she returned to travel back in time to celebrate this special occasion and perform this track with us.”


Watch the video for “Legacy Of The Tudors” below.


Symphonic metal unit Serenity offers a new approach to beguiling the senses with their live performance, Memoria, now on DVD and BluRay. Interpreting their illustrious songs anew in a conceptual show, they are sure to enchant listeners and viewers alike. Showcasing incredible hit density, the band embraces their symphonic power and provides a magical feeling throughout the entire performance. From classic folklore pieces like “Coldness Kills” that intrigues with its fairytale-like sound and classic instrumentals, to “Set The World On Fire” with catchy hooks and dashing soundscapes, Serenity give it all in every single piece. In “Set the World on Fire” and “Broken Dreams”, the unit is joined on their journey by the smooth and magical voice of Marco Pastorino awakening old myths and legends anew. These dreamlike soundscapes are being supported with enchanting guitar riffs in “Velatum” and “Souls and Sins” by no other than Sacha Paeth, the producer of Avantasia. This way, the band not only showcases their incredible musical talent supported by talented vocalist Georg Neuhauser, but also their love and dedication for the art of music. Touching ballads like “Journey Ends” and “Fairytales” supported by the incredible vocal range of legendary Visions of Atlantis vocalist Clémentine Delauney forge reminiscence of earlier times, while moving duets like “Changing Fate” refer to multifaceted Scottish mythology. In “Spirit of the Flesh”, Nicklas Müller offers rhythmic support by adding steady drums. As a special bonus on Memoria, the band taps Sascha Paeth and Michele Guaitoli from symphonic metal greats Visions of Atlantis for their stage performance of “Souls and Sins” and “Legacy Of The Tudors”.


Serenity on Memoria: “After a long time of waiting, we’re excited to finally release our first live album. We still think back to the evening when we performed this very special show at KulturQuartier in Kufstein and  we’re so proud we could bottle the unique atmosphere of this night and release it now under the title Memoria. Being able to perfom this concert in this terrific atmosphere of a theater with so many guests, was a was really a ‘once in a life time experience’ and we’re extremely happy to share it now with all of our fans."





Memoria will be available in the following formats:


- BD/DVD Digipak (Upright Format) incl. 1xDVD, 1x BluRay, 2x CD                             
- Digital Version


Pre-order here.





Tracklisting:


"In Memoriam"
"United"
"Changing Times"
"Set The World On Fire"
"Broken Dreams"
"Changing Fate"
"Journey's End"
"Velatum"
"Souls And Sins"
"Coldness Kills"
"Fairytales"
"Legacy Of Tudors"
"Spirit In The Flesh"
"Engraved Within"
"In The Name Of Scotland"
"Lionheart"


"Legacy Of Tudors" video:





Serenity are:


Georg Neuhauser - Vocals
Christian Hermsdörfer - Guitars/Mandolin/Vocals
Fabio D’Amore - Bass/Vocals
Andreas Schipflinger - Drums/Vocals

During their November 11 concert at Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas, Cattle Decapitation performed their new song, "We Eat Our Young", live for the first time. Video, courtesy of Nickelsack Jack, can be viewed below.


Introducing the song, frontman Travis Ryan reveals that the track will be featured on the band's new album, to be released in May 2023.







Cattle Decapitation are closing out 2022 supporting label mates Amon Amarth on their North American headlining tour, wrapping up on December 17 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. Additional support provided by Carcass and Obituary making this the must-see tour for fans of death metal.


Get your tickets for The Great Heathen Tour here.





Dates:


November
15 - Houston, TX - Bayou Music Center
16 - Dallas, TX - Southside Ballroom
18 - Atlanta, GA - The Tabernacle
19 - Orlando, FL - Hard Rock Live
20 - Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore
22 - Philadelphia, PA - The Fillmore
23 - Boston, MA - MGM Music Hall at Fenway
25 - Detroit, MI - The Fillmore
26 - Chicago, IL - The Aragon Ballroom
27 - Cincinnati, OH - The Andrew J Brady Music Center
30 - Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE


December
1 - New York, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
2 - Toronto, ON - History
3 - Laval, QC - Place Bell
5 - Madison, WI - The Sylvee
6 - Minneapolis, MN - The Fillmore
7 - Kansas City, MO - Uptown
9 - Denver, CO - The Fillmore
10 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Complex
12 - Seattle, WA - Showbox SODO
13 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater
15 - Wheatland, CA - Hard Rock Live
16 - San Diego, CA - SOMA
17 - Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum





(Photo - Alex Scolca)

Solo avatars of Ozzy Osbourne and MOTÖRHEAD's Lemmy were among the "headlining" acts at the 2023 edition of the iconic global touring metal festival Ozzfest. The event, which launched the careers of countless bands, including SLIPKNOT, DISTURBED, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, INCUBUS, LAMB OF GOD and many others, came to Decentraland late last week and also included "performances" by MEGADETH and SKID ROW, among others, via their respective official music videos.

The 2023 Ozzfest was part of the sophomore edition of Metaverse Music Festival (MVMF) from Decentraland, the world's largest user-owned and operated virtual social world. This year's MVMF featured 100 confirmed artists across uniquely curated community genre stages, and with newly-created, Web3-enabled, immersive music experiences. Presented by digital asset platform Kraken, MVMF was free for all to attend, with no VR, ticket or headset required.

"I'm thrilled to be bringing Ozzfest to the metaverse," Osbourne said in a press release prior to the event. "This allows me and the other bands on the bill to reach our fans in a new innovative way."

In October 2021, Decentraland hosted the inaugural Metaverse Music Festival which hosted 80+ artists including Web3 innovators Deadmau5, 3LAU, Paris Hilton, RAC and Alison Wonderland, and saw 50,000 unique attendees during the four-day event. Since then, major artists including Jason Derulo and Grimes, labels and producers, have embraced virtual performances leading to MTV announcing a new metaverse category at their 2022 VMAs.

Metaverse Music Festival featured curators who are redefining IP ownership and seeking to transform the music industry through Web3 technology and AI software.

This year, Decentralanddoubled down on music in the metaverse. MVMF showcased the latest metaverse technology that presents listeners with truly unique experiences only available through a virtual world. Decentraland's unique Emotes feature enabled any creator worldwide to create custom moves and gestures that brought your avatar to life, and were a central part of how concertgoers had fun through dancing and self-expression during the festival. New motion capture technology was also demonstrated on this global stage from Move.ai which enables motion capture with no suits and Kinetix.tech that aims to empower creators to make emote NFTs using only a phone camera. Presenting partner Kraken also dropped a series of NFT wearables exclusive for festival-goers, unveiled a pop-up NFT gallery as well as hosted a special festival afterparty.

Launched in 2020, Decentraland is a virtual social world powered by the Ethereum blockchain and the first decentralized metaverse. Within the Decentraland platform, users can create, experience, and monetize content and applications as well as socialize and attend a wide range of daily community-driven events. Decentraland is unique in that it is owned, created, and governed by the people who use it every day. Through the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) users can submit proposals and even apply for grants for the community to vote on.

Swedish extreme tech-metal pioneers MESHUGGAH have released the music video for the song "They Move Below". The clip was produced with the assistance of an AI program to manipulate images based on the artist's interpretation of themes in the music and title.

"They Move Below" is taken from MESHUGGAH's ninth studio album, "Immutable", which was released in May via Atomic Fire. The follow-up to 2016's "The Violent Sleep Of Reason" was recorded at Sweetspot Studios in Halmstad, Sweden; mixed by Rickard Bengtsson and Staffan Karlsson; and mastered by multiple Grammy Award winner Vlado Meller (METALLICA, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, SYSTEM OF A DOWN). Visionary artist Luminokaya once again created the stunning cover artwork.

MESHUGGAH guitarist Mårten Hagström discussed "Immutable" during an appearance on MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn's "No Fuckin' Regrets With Robb Flynn" podcast. He said: "It's a double album, if this was a vinyl. It's 13 tracks; 66 or 67 minutes of music. It's the longest album we've put out so far, to this date. And it's a bit funny, 'cause when we started writing, I was really adamant that, 'Let's try to make a 'Reign In Blood' album' — like the MESHUGGAH 'Reign In Blood' album; just short but sweet. Not maybe 27 minutes, but keep it just over half an hour. 'Cause albums aren't what they used to be anyways; it's singles. So, obviously, we went the opposite direction and made a double album and just built it as an album and thought of it as, like back in the day, very important with the track listing and all that shit.

"For us, it was, like we always do, trying to find the… What's the MESHUGGAH sound? How do we keep it but make it interesting to us?" he continued. "'Cause that's been our modus operandi all along: if we please ourselves, we please our fans. That's how it's been. So that's what we need to take care of.

"We started writing it when we came off that COVID truncated touring cycle, and then, after that, it was just all systems go. We've been working our asses off for almost three years now. And we're really happy with the result. We may have tried out a few things that we haven't done before — not anything mindblowing. But from the reactions we've been getting so far, I think it's pretty much what we hoped for. 'Cause people are saying that it's an unexpected album. And that might sometimes be a bad thing, but in our minds, it can never be. And nobody said that it was surprising in a bad way; only positive so far. So we'll see.

"You know what it's like. When you work on an album, you really don't know. When you're done with it, everything's so jumbled up in your head, you don't know how to feel about it. It's just, like, 'Okay. Good enough. Let it go.'

"But we're really fired up about it," Mårten added. "It's a lot of music. It's by far the most dynamic we've been on an album. And that's something we've been going for. And I look forward to see how it comes across."

Hagström previously stated about the "Immutable" title: "The title fits perfectly for where we are as a band. We're older now. Most of us are in our fifties now, and we've settled into who we are. Even though we've been experimenting all along, I also think we've been the same since day one. The way we approach things and why we still make new albums, and why we still sound the way we do, it's immutable. Humanity is immutable, too. We commit the same mistakes over and over. And we are immutable. We do what we do, and we don't change."

MESHUGGAH recently completed its first pandemic-era U.S. tour. The dates, originally planned for early 2022, kicked off on September 16 in Worcester, Massachusetts and concluded on October 16 in Atlanta.

Florida death metal veterans DEICIDE have commenced the recording process for their long-awaited new studio album.

On Monday (November 14),DEICIDE shared a photo of drummer Steve Asheim in the studio, and it included the following message: "Drum tracking has begun! #jesusisabouttoshithimself".

In a recent interview with "The Garza Podcast", hosted by SUICIDE SILENCE guitarist Chris Garza, DEICIDE bassist/vocalist Glen Benton spoke about the band's plans to record the follow-up to 2018's "Overtures Of Blasphemy" album. He said: "The new stuff that we're writing now is really anthem-style stuff. It's really good, man. There's a lot of prog stuff in there, mixed in there. Steve's our prog guy, man; he's the progressive rock guy. He likes to write those really black metal riffs and the progressive stuff. He's an amazing talent, man. He plays piano. He can play sweeps on guitar. He's a drummer. Yeah, he can do it all."

Benton went on to say that the next DEICIDE album was "written last year" before he and his bandmates agreed to embark on a tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of DEICIDE's sophomore album, "Legion". But, he explained, "We're getting ready to hammer this deal out right now and get this thing out."

DEICIDE played its first show with the band's newest addition, guitarist Taylor Nordberg (THE ABSENCE, INHUMAN CONDITION),on May 21 at the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Nine months ago, Nordberg spoke about how he landed the DEICIDE gig in an interview with "The Zach Moonshine Show". He said: "In 2019, my band THE ABSENCE toured with DEICIDE in the U.S. And we got to know the guys and got along really well. And I actually found out that Glen [Benton, DEICIDE frontman] lives, like, two streets over from Jeramie [Kling, THE ABSENCE drummer] and I, where we live. So Jeramie and Glen became good buddies and they ride bikes all the times. It's a funny little thing, thinking about that. But long story short, [previous DEICIDE guitarist] Chris [Cannella], I believe he's the head of A&R at Dean Guitars so he's focusing on that for right now. I heard that they needed a guitar player, so I learned a couple of songs, made a couple of videos, and Glen saw 'em and liked what he saw. So we had a couple of practices, and bing bang boom, here we are."

Cannella amicably left DEICIDE in January after a three-year run.

Chris joined DEICIDE in 2019 following the departure of guitarist Mark English.

English became a member of DEICIDE in 2016 after the exit of longtime guitarist Jack Owen.

In February, Nordberg was asked in an interview with the "Brews N Tunes" podcast if he and his new bandmates have commenced work on the follow-up to "Overtures Of Blasphemy" album. He responded: "They had started most of the new album before I joined, but since announcing [that we are going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of] 'Legion' [by performing the LP in its entirety], we've kind of shifted gears and we're trying to lock that in and get a set prepped just in the event that a show pops up. But they have most of the new album prepped, and then we're hammering out, ironing out some details with the last couple songs. So hopefully that will be out this year. I don't know any concrete plans on when we're gonna start pre-production or recording or any of that. But hopefully this year. That would be awesome. But the material is sounding killer. It sounds like DEICIDE."

"Overtures Of Blasphemy" was released in September 2018 via Century Media.

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On November 11, former JUDAS PRIEST guitarist K.K. Downing spoke to Danny Stoakes about the status of the sophomore album from his KK'S PRIEST band. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's imminent, for sure. Everything's gonna be sticky-taped and glued together, and we'll fire it out very soon. It's more than well on the way; we're in the mixing process."

He continued: "It's great. I can't wait. It's so frustrating. You just want it out now. But it will happen. So I'm looking forward to that."

Downing is joined in KK'S PRIEST by former JUDAS PRIEST singer Tim "Ripper" Owens (vocals),along with guitarist A.J. Mills (HOSTILE),bassist Tony Newton (VOODOO SIX) and drummer Sean Elg (DEATHRIDERS, CAGE).

KK'S PRIEST's debut album, "Sermons Of The Sinner", was released in October 2021 via Explorer1 Music Group/EX1 Records.

Downing spent four months writing and recording "Sermons Of The Sinner" and, along with new ideas, he even resurrected a few archived riffs from the '80s.

K.K. formed KK'S PRIEST after JUDAS PRIEST turned down his offer to rejoin the band for their 50th-anniversary tour. It followed a couple of celebrated stage appearances, first with former MANOWAR guitarist Ross The Boss in the summer of 2019, then with a one-off lineup that included former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson and former PRIEST drummer Les Binks later that year.

Downing was reunited with JUDAS PRIEST for a performance at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony on November 5 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

PRIEST received the Musical Excellence Award at the event, which honored Eminem, Dolly Parton, DURAN DURAN, Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar, EURYTHMICS and Carly Simon in the Performers category.

Downing left PRIEST in 2011 amid claims of band conflict, shoddy management and declining quality of performance. He was replaced by Richie Faulkner, nearly three decades his junior.

In 2019, Downing said that he reached out to JUDAS PRIEST about taking part in the band's 50th-anniversary tour but that their response was that they were not interested in including him in the celebrations.

In 2018, Downing revealed that he sent two resignation letters to his bandmates when he decided to quit JUDAS PRIEST. The first was described as "a graceful exit note, implying a smooth retirement from music," while the second was "angrier, laying out all of his frustrations with specific parties."

Downing later said that he believed the second letter was "a key reason" he wasn't invited to rejoin PRIEST after Glenn Tipton's decision to retire from touring.

Owens joined PRIEST in 1996 and recorded two studio albums with the band — 1997's "Jugulator" and 2001's "Demolition" — before PRIEST reunited with Rob Halford in 2003.

A little over a year ago, Downing said that he had no problems with fans making comparisons between PRIEST and KK'S PRIEST. "It's absolutely fine, because it's who I am and what I am and what I do and how I do it," he told Brazilian journalist Igor Miranda. "It's too late to change; I can't change. I can't go out and buy different guitars and different amplifiers and start to write differently and think differently. I have to do things the way that I like them to be done. And that's what I did in JUDAS PRIEST for all those years to the best of my ability. But even now that I don't have to consult with anyone else, really, then I feel a lot more freedom to be able to do this.

"I think I can do what I do better now than I did before, if that makes any sense," he continued. "Because I'm working and writing and putting things together for me — and, obviously, of course, the rest of the members in [KK'S PRIEST] as well. But I was on my own, for the most part, in the lockdown doing this. But there was a lot of things I wanted to say and get off my chest.

"The [KK'S PRIEST] album's full of emotions, sentiments and messages and also rejoicement. It's a lot of things, all in one package. And it was very important for me to be able to express myself through this album.

"I know that people will make comparisons, but that's fine. I either succeed or fail, like everyone else in life. But I'm a fan of this wonderful style of music, and if I like it, I'm hopefully sure that the fans will like it too. And I really hope they do. And I'm very much looking forward to the feedback from everybody all over the world.

"Towards the end for me in JUDAS PRIEST, it wasn't as energized as it was in former years, and I missed that. I remember the days when Rob [Halford, PRIEST singer] used to come offstage and he used to empty his boots out, and the water — which was sweat — used to just pour out of the boots. And it was the same for all of us. It was like we ran a marathon or something. So, hopefully we deliver that up. So I'm looking forward to doing that. I'm definitely gonna do my best, put it that way."

Photo by George Chin

Severed Angel, the new Northeastern US melodic metal band, have released their new single, "Mt. Cyanide” to all streaming platforms. A lyric video for the track can be found below.





Severed Angel tackle on their darkest subject matter yet with their first foray into doom metal-laden territory. The song’s lyrics may strike at the heart for many, but like all artists, Severed Angel use creative license to offer perspective in support of those that have experienced the battles mentioned in the song. “Mt. Cyanide” is respectfully dedicated to the memory of all those lost, and to their loved ones that live with the sadness.




Severed Angel is loyal to the solid truth that humanity requires compassion, empathy, communication, understanding, dignity, and respect. Without this, there is no hope for the present state or future.





Severed Angel band lineup:


Alex Repetti - Vocals, Guitar (Infinite Spectrum / Tension Rising)
Lou Mavs - Guitar, Vocals
George Dimitri - Bass (Timeless Haunt)
Marc Muchnik - Keyboards (The Nightmare Stage)
Wayne Noon - Drums (Project Resurrection / Ex-Phoenix Reign)

Defacing God recently released their new album, The Resurrection Of Lilith, via Napalm Records. Today, the band release a one take singthrough video for the song, "The Resurrection". Watch below:





Rooted in occultism and witchcraft, Defacing God strives on ancient stories and grandiose soundscapes conjuring their worthy representation of opulent Scandinavian metal traditions. Echoing styles of artists such as Dimmu Borgir and Cradle Of Filth. The band continues the legacy of unconventional extreme metal, taking their rightful place in the garden of Eden and ready to deface God.







The Resurrection Of Lilith is available in the following formats:


- Digisleeve
- 1LP Gatefold Red Vinyl
- Digital Album


Order here.





Tracklisting:


"Black Moon"
"The Invocation Part I "Lilith"
"The Resurrection"
"The Invocation Part II "Jezebel"
"The Invocation Part III "Abyzou"
"Rise Of The Trinity"
"The End Of Times"
"Echoes From Fulda"
"Death Followed Like A Plague"
"Enslaved"
"In The Land Of Rain And Sorrow"
"Into The Mist Of Memories"


“The Resurrection” lyric video:





"The End Of Times” video:





"Rise Of The Trinity" video:





Lineup:


Sandie Gjørtz - Vocals
Signar Petersen - Lead Guitar
Christian Snapholt Nielsen - Rhythm Guitar
Michael Olsson - Drums
Rasmus "Kalke" Nielsen - Bass

This Friday, November 18, Queen will release The Miracle Collector's Edition. Watch a new video trailer below:





To celebrate the upcoming release of Queen's hit 1989 album,  the YouTube series Queen The Greatest returns to pull back the curtain on how the album originated. With archive interview material from all four members of the band and behind the scenes footage, we discover what made this such a unique Queen record.







33 years later Queen deliver the long lost original LP cut of the classic 1989 album. The 8-Disc Box Set: Vinyl LP/5CD/DVD/Blu-ray is available for pre-order here.


Widely recognized as Queen’s strongest album of the 80’s and one of their most inspired, the 1989 released The Miracle was a global success reaching No. 1 in the UK and several major European markets, even re-establishing the band in the US where it delivered a gold album. Brian May has often cited the title track as his favourite Queen song of all time.


The hugely prolific sessions for The Miracle began in December 1987 and stretched out to March 1989. It was to be one of the most consequential periods in Queen’s history. Fifteen months previously, on August 9, 1986, Queen’s mighty Europe Magic Tour had ended on a high, before an estimated audience of more than 160,000 at Knebworth Park in Britain. As the band left the stage that night – toasting the flagship show of their biggest tour to date – they could hardly have foreseen that Knebworth marked a line in the sand. This would be Queen’s final live show with Freddie and the first in a chain of pivotal moments that would lead towards a lengthy separation for the band.   


It would take 15 months and a radical restructuring of internal band dynamics before Queen regrouped in London’s Townhouse Studios on December 3rd, 1987, to start work on their thirteenth studio album. For the first time, Queen would share songwriting credits equally, regardless of who conceived each song, a consensus of opinion that was to have fertile results. “Splitting the credits was a very important decision for us. We left our egos outside the studio door,” says Brian, “and worked together as a real band – something that wasn’t always the case. I wish we’d done it 15 years before.”


Said Roger: “Decisions are made on artistic merit, so ‘Everybody wrote everything’ is the line, rather than ego or anything else getting in the way. We seem to work together better now than we did before. We’re fairly up-and-down characters. We have different tastes in many ways. We used to have lots of arguments in the studio, but this time we decided to share all the songwriting, which I think was very democratic and a good idea.”


This show of unity was elegantly conveyed by band art director Richard Gray’s cover for The Miracle, which depicts Queen’s four faces merged into one. “The cover art represents the unity of the group at the time: a seamless merging of four people becoming one,” May has said. “We were also dealing with Freddie’s deteriorating health and pulling together to support him.”


While Freddie could no longer tour, Queen remained a band of staggering creative resourcefulness. As John Deacon implied, they instead channelled their live chemistry into the studio: “In the first few weeks of recording we did a lot of live material, a lot of songs, some jamming, and ideas came up.”


‘Party’ and raw rock ‘Khashoggi’s Ship’ “evolved naturally, straight away,” said Freddie. Inspired by something Anita Dobson would say, and later adopted for anti-apartheid protests, the massive ‘I Want It All’ was – though written before the band went into the studio – a forceful expression of Queen’s concert-honed heavy-rock powers. “We were never able to perform this song live with Freddie,” said May. “It would have become something of a staple core of the Queen show, I’m sure, because it was very participative – designed for the audience to sing along to – very anthemic.”


Says Roger: “Lots of the [Miracle] tracks have first-take stuff in them; we tried to preserve that freshness. We tried to capture all the enthusiasm that we had from playing together as a band.”


Queen’s writing also reflected their personal circumstances. The torn-from-the-headlines drama of ‘Scandal’ was May’s personal swipe at the press intrusion into the bandmembers’ respective personal affairs. Singled out by Deacon for praise, Freddie’s soaring album closer, ‘Was It All Worth It’, has in retrospect been interpreted as a reflection on the singer’s health.


One further ingredient in the mix was David Richards, who had worked with Queen since his billing as assistant engineer on Live Killers. After further credits on A Kind of Magic and Live Magic, Richards stepped up to co-produce The Miracle, praised by May for his “whizz kid” technical prowess.


The months in the studio birthed 30-plus songs, more than Queen could possibly need for one album. Ten tracks were selected to form the release, with others later appearing as B-sides or solo tracks, or carried over to the Innuendo and Made in Heaven albums. Five hit singles supported the album.


Says Brian: “We had all these bits and pieces of tracks, and some of them were half-finished, some of them were just an idea, and some of them were nearly finished, and it sort of happened on its own really. There are some tracks which you always want to get out and work on, and so they get finished, and there are some tracks which you think, ‘Oh that’s great, but I don’t really know what to do with it at this moment’, so they naturally get left by the wayside.”


Most of these left-over session tracks remained undisturbed in the Queen archives for the past 33 years.





For the Queen hardcore, meanwhile, one of the most highly anticipated elements of the new box set is The Miracle Sessions CD featuring original takes, demos, and rough takes of the full album plus six additional previously never before heard tracks including two featuring Brian on vocals.


Tantalizing enough that this hour-plus disc offers the first official airing of such near-mythical songs as "Dog With A Bone", "I Guess We’re Falling Out", "You Know You Belong To Me", and the poignant "Face It Alone". Add to that, the trove of sunken treasure spanning from original takes and demos to rough cuts that signpost the album The Miracle would become.


But perhaps the real gemstones of The Miracle Sessions CD are the spoken segments that bookend the musical takes. As the studio tape keeps rolling in London and Montreux, the four members are caught at their most candid, giving listeners the uncanny fly-on-the wall experience of standing amongst Freddie, Brian, John and Roger as they banter, debate, swap jokes and show both joy and occasional frustration.


With the band arriving at the studio with scarce mapped-out material these sessions found Queen at their most inspired and impulsive, and that atmosphere is mirrored in not just the music but the familial exchanges that punctuate it. As Freddie said: “I think it’s the closest we’ve ever been in terms of actually writing together.”


Find complete details here.











Queen recently released the rediscovered track, "Face It Alone", featuring the band's late and legendary frontman, Freddie Mercury. The digital/streaming single is available now, with a 7” single set for release on November 18.


Listen / pre-order here, and watch an official music video below:





Watch a lyric video for "Face It Alone":

ABKCO Records is set to release The Rolling Stones In Mono (Limited Colour Edition) vinyl box set in early 2023. Originally issued on black vinyl, CD and digital in 2016, the updated version contains the entirety of the Rolling Stones’ 1960s recorded output (186 tracks spread across 16 180-gram LPs), now presented in a plethora of vinyl colours - 14 total - chosen to match the original cover art of classic albums such as Aftermath and Beggars Banquet.


Spanning the era between 1963 and 1969, The Rolling Stones In Mono (Limited Colour Edition) covers the formative years of the legendary London-based quintet, who were dubbed and acknowledged as “the world’s greatest rock and roll band,” as they were churning out era-defining hits such as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Paint It, Black,” “Ruby Tuesday” and “Honky Tonk Women.” Packaged as 15 separate albums, The Rolling Stones In Mono contains key releases from the band’s US and UK discographies, organized to include every track from the era while minimizing catalog redundancies. Stray Cats, a 2-LP compilation exclusive within the vinyl box set, ties up all loose ends, incorporating every 1960s Rolling Stones track that isn’t found on the other 14 albums, for a total of 24 tracks. It includes two versions of the aforementioned “Poison Ivy,” Barrett Strong’s 1959 hit “Money,” as well as “Fortune Teller.” Other rarities include “Con Le Mie Lacrime,” a version of “As Tears Go By” sung in Italian, “Stoned” (the instrumental b-side of “I Wanna Be Your Man”), and the 1965 outtake of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” now freed of the fake applause to disguise its studio origin when the track appeared on the 1966 LP Got Live If You Want It.   


During this period, most rock and pop recordings were mixed in mono, with the stereo version often an afterthought, and only dealt with following the completion of the original (mono) version of a given track. In short, mono reigned and this was, indeed, the case for the Rolling Stones at that time. While typical playback systems of the ‘60s were less than sophisticated, the original mono recordings, especially as heard through quality components, were of the highest audio quality and had a powerful and very direct impact. "You felt you were in the room... listening to exactly what went down in the studio, no frills, no nothing," Keith Richards wrote in his autobiography, Life. "Rock was a completely new musical form," Mick Jagger explained in a 1995 Rolling Stone interview. "It hadn't been around for ten years when we started doing it... You felt like one of the chosen few, one of the only ones in the world who would get to play with this new toy. We had evangelical fervor." Late recording engineer Dave Hassinger explained how he mixed his ’64-’66 works for the Stones in mono. "They always played together at the same time. They would run the parts down, work out the changes here and there, nail it down, then start recording."




Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke, in his 5,000-word essay that accompanies the set, writes, “The Rolling Stones In Mono is the full studio account of that first decade of history and mayhem, newly remastered with unprecedented fidelity and revelatory detail.” His commentaries are included with the box set as part of a 4-colour deluxe 48-page lie-flat book that features numerous rare photos by renowned photographer Terry O’Neill. The 16 LPs are housed in the original full colour album jackets that fit along with the book into a one piece specially crafted box.


The Rolling Stones In Mono (Limited Colour Edition) was mastered by Grammy® award-winning engineer Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. For the project he utilized Direct Stream Digital (DSD) transfers from the original master recordings, with a sampling rate of 2,822,400. Lacquer cutting for vinyl was performed at Abbey Road Studios by Sean Magee. The Rolling Stones In Mono (Limited Colour Edition) project has been overseen by Teri Landi, ABKCO’s Grammy award-winning Chief Audio Engineer.


Pre-order the limited edition box set here.





The Rolling Stones In Mono (Limited Colour Edition) 16LP vinyl box set:


- The Rolling Stones (UK, 1964) - Cobalt Blue vinyl
- 12 X 5 (1964) - Yellow vinyl
- The Rolling Stones No. 2 (UK, 1965) - Steel Blue vinyl
- The Rolling Stones Now! (1965) - Gold vinyl
- Out of Our Heads (US, 1965) - Sky Blue vinyl
- Out of Our Heads (UK, 1965) - Green vinyl
- December’s Children (And Everybody’s) (1965) - Silver vinyl
- Aftermath (UK, 1966) - Purple vinyl
- Aftermath (US, 1966) - Grey vinyl
- Between the Buttons (UK, 1967) - Azure Blue vinyl
- Flowers (1967) - Pink vinyl
- Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967) - White vinyl
- Beggars Banquet (1968) - Maroon vinyl
- Let It Bleed (1969) - Red vinyl
- Stray Cats (2-LP collection of single A & B sides plus E.P. tracks) - White vinyl

Fan-filmed video of LIVING WRECKAGE — the modern metal band comprised of vocalist Jeff Gard (DEATH RAY VISION), guitarists Jon Donais (ANTHRAX, SHADOWS FALL) and Matt LeBreton (DOWNPOUR), bassist Matt Bachand (SHADOWS FALL, ACT OF DEFIANCE) and drummer Jon Morency (LET US PREY) — performing covers of ALICE IN CHAINS' "Man In The Box" and AUDIOSLAVE's "Show Me How To Live" on October 22 at Geraldines Live Music Bar & Grill in Chicopee, Massachusetts can be seen below.

LIVING WRECKAGE's self-titled debut album was released in September via M-Theory Audio on CD, limited-edition colored vinyl and digital. Produced and engineered by Shane Frisby (UNEARTH, BURY YOUR DEAD),and mixed by Pete Rutcho (REVOCATION, FALLING IN REVERSE),the LP was anticipated by fans curious to hear more music, as evidenced by how quickly LIVING WRECKAGE's three-song EP, which was available solely at the group's shows and via mail-order, sold out.

In a 2021 interview with the "2020'd" podcast, Donais was asked how we landed the gig with ANTHRAX after previously spending almost two decades with SHADOWS FALL. He said: "SHADOWS FALL, a couple of the guys were having kids or about to have kids and got married, and they just didn't wanna be on the road anymore. And we weren't making enough where you could have that kind of stuff; you had to be on the road all the time. You can't be selfish anymore once you have a wife and kids. You can't [go], 'Well, I might make this much money, or I might not. But I'm gonna go have fun.' It came to the point where they had to choose that path. And then ANTHRAX lost their guitarist, and they asked me to fill in — just to fill in. And I was, like, 'Absolutely,' 'cause I kind of saw the writing on the wall with SHADOWS FALL."

According to Donais, his predecessor in ANTHRAX, Rob Caggiano, hooked him up with his current gig. "'Cause he knew he was gonna leave, and he wanted to make sure that they were all set," Jon said. "He wanted to make sure that they were covered and didn't wanna leave 'em hanging. And he knew we knew each other, and he asked me if I'd be interested, and I was, like, 'Yeah. A hundred percent.' And then I didn't hear anything for a little bit, and I didn't know what was going on.' Then, maybe two or three weeks later, [ANTHRAX guitarist] Scott Ian called, and he goes, 'I heard you know what's going on.' I go, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'Can you do it?' I go, 'Fucking absolutely.'"

Donais made his live debut with ANTHRAX in Australia without a single rehearsal with the band. "I jammed with Scott a little bit, but it was, 'Here. Learn these songs and be ready,'" he recalled. "Oh. God. That first show — I was shaking."

Donais contributed lead guitar to ANTHRAX's latest album, "For All Kings", which came out in 2016 via Nuclear Blast in Europe and Megaforce in the U.S. At the time of the record's release, his ANTHRAX bandmates praised his playing, with bassist Frank Bello saying: "I think Jon has brought a great energy to the band. He stepped up and then some on this record." Ian added: "Jon's approach towards lead guitar playing, he's more of a guy who's looking to construct something that makes sense and helps a song rather than the 45 seconds for him to be showing off how many notes he can play in X amount of measures."

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons underwent a procedure earlier today to have excess kidney stones removed.

Some of Gene's fans expressed their concert after the 73-year-old rocker's wife, Shannon Simmons, uploaded a photo of her husband's socks at the hospital, along with the caption "Gotta love #hospitalsocks @genesimmons getting #kidneystones blasted again! #poorbaby". A couple of hours later, Gene himself shared a video of him lying on the hospital bed while wearing a medical gown and a head covering, and he included the following message: "Hey, thnx you guys for the calls, but honestly I'm fine. Shannon took the video..Just cleaning the tubes for excess kidney stones. Looks awful, but really no big deal. Took an hour, then drove to have a hot dog. I appreciate your good wishes".

Back in October 2019, Simmons underwent a successful kidney stones surgery. The non-invasive operation at Cedars-Sinai Hospital only took about an hour to complete and involved inserting a stent in his urethra to help him pass his stones. The stent was reportedly removed within a week.

A few days earlier, KISS postponed its concert in Salt Lake City. At the time, Simmons tweeted that he had to fly to Los Angeles "to do a medical procedure." He added: "Nothing serious. But it must be taken care of now."

Earlier this year, Simmons said in an interview with The Sun that he is against drugs and booze which he says lead to you "fucking around with cancer."

Simmons, whose KISS bandmate, drummer Eric Carr, died of cancer over 20 years ago, said: "You can fill your body with garbage. Put it into your car and see how far your car goes. I don't care if it's a Rolls-Royce, it's going to splutter and die. The more shit you put into your body, the more you're going to be a walking pot of shit."

Simmons went on to say that he avoids toxifying substances, particularly crack cocaine and alcohol, at all costs.

"I don't mean to say I don't love cake or pasta, or things like that, but crack is out of the question," he said. "Drugs don't work, booze don't work, cigarettes — all the people who think you look cool. You're fucking around with cancer. It just doesn't work."

KISS's "End Of The Road" farewell tour launched in 2019 and is scheduled to end sometime in 2023, 50 years after the band's formation.

KISS was forced to put its farewell trek on hold in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"End Of The Road" was originally scheduled to conclude on July 17, 2021 in New York City but has since been extended. The trek was announced in September 2018 following a KISS performance of the band's classic song "Detroit Rock City" on "America's Got Talent".

KISS's current lineup consists of original members Simmons and vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley, alongside later band additions, guitarist Tommy Thayer (since 2002) and drummer Eric Singer (on and off since 1991).

Formed in 1973 by Stanley, Simmons, drummer Peter Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley, KISS's first "farewell" tour in 2000 was the last to feature the group's original lineup.
Hey, thnx you guys for the calls, but honestly I’m fine. Shannon took the video..Just cleaning the tubes for excess kidney stones. Looks awful, but really no big deal. Took an hour, then drove to have a hot dog. I appreciate your good wishes 🤟😎. pic.twitter.com/3EThQziSc1

— Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) November 14, 2022


Gotta love #hospitalsocks@genesimmons getting #kidneystones blasted again! #poorbabyhttps://t.co/lyTXI4DDw7

— Shannon Tweed-Simmons (@shannonleetweed) November 14, 2022