Reanimated Finnish death metallers August Moon shared the new track ‘Exitus’, the second revealed from the band’s long-awaited debut album ‘Something Eldritch and Macabre’, set for release in December via Personal Records!
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News Posts
Finnish melodic death metal heavyweights Voidfallen have announced their highly anticipated sophomore album ‘The Rituals of Resilience’ to be out early 2025 via Noble Demon, and shared the single ‘Pyre of Vengeance’ with a video!
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Finnish melodic death metal rising stars Horizon Ignited presented another spectacular song from their upcoming album with ‘Welcome To This House Of Hate’, out via Reaper Entertainment with a scorching video!
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Dawn Of Solace announces new album ‘Affliction Vortex’ to be released in February 2025 via Noble Demon and shared the first single and video with ‘Murder’!
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In anticipation of their upcoming extensive Europe tour, Finnish winter metallers Wolfheart unveiled the official video for ‘The Gale’, the captivating closing track of their latest album ‘Draconian Darkness’ released via Reigning Phoenix Music. Make sure you catch them when they come close to you, like at Hell’s Balls festival in Belgium!
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Swedish metal legends Arch Enemy unveiled their latest single ‘Liars & Thieves’, another track from their upcoming album ‘Blood Dynasty’, set for release in 2025 via Century Media Records. Catch them on their current “Rising from the North” Europe tour with In Flames and Soilwork!
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Finnish metal outfit Dead End Finland released their new single ‘Adrenaline’, another single from their upcoming sixth studio album, set to be released with Inverse Records!
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Finnish melodeath revelation Horizon Ignited are taking things to the next level and released their new single and music video ‘Beneath The Dark Waters’, out via Reaper Entertainment!
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Finnish melodic death metal project Crowen shared ‘Dark Forever’, the first single and music video of their upcoming EP ‘Where The Darkness Falls’, set for release later this year via Inverse Records!
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Danish melodic death metal leaders LIVLØS unleashed their latest single ‘Orbit Weaver’, a third track revealed from their upcoming album ‘The Crescent King’, set for release via Noctum Productions next month!
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Photo Reports
We checked out the first day of the second edition of Hell’s Balls Belgium festival… With banging names like Triptykon, Primordial, Vltimas, the unofficial inclusion of the “Night Eternal tour” with Dark Tranquillity, Wolfheart and Moonspell, Carpathian Forest, Hellripper, Dead Head and The Monolith Deathcult, it was a true fest for any extreme metal fan!
Pictures of the third day of Alcatraz 2024, with on the Swamp Stage a serving of extreme metal with Mordkaul, Aborted, Dark Tranquillity and Opeth!
Pictures of the first day of Alcatraz 2024, with on the Prison Stage explosive shows from Dyscordia, Orden Ogan, Beast In Black, Feuerschwanz, Channel Zero, Saxon and Amon Amarth!
Pictures of the first day of Alcatraz 2024, with on the Helldorado Stage a serving of punk and hardcore with Funeral Dress, The Casualties, Cro-Mags, Madball and Life of Agony, modern metal from Sylosis and post-metal with The Ocean!
While on the road supporting In This Moment and Ice Nine Kills on tour in the USA, the Swedish metallers of Avatar came to bring their “Great Metal Circus” to the Clyde Theatre in Ft Wayne, Indiana. One of the few headlining stops they’re doing, providing people the chance to get the full experience and freakshow treatment that usually comes with the band, providing a night to remember for many there! Support came from locals Mantra of Morta!
In the beginning of March, we caught the Finnish melodeath band As The Sun Falls playing a show at On The Rocks in Helsinki with the support of Innersphere! We’ll get to welcome As The Sun Falls at our very own Asgaard venue in a couple of weeks, so go have a look what you can expect!
Orbit Culture came, saw and blew us away at Vanha Ylioppilastalo in Helsinki, Finland! And with the support of their country mates of Bite Down, we got a showcase of the promising new music coming from Sweden!
We caught Amaranthe and Dragonforce on their co-headline European tour at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, Belgium, with special guest Infected Rain for a night of high energy metal music!
“Descending into madness EU/UK Tour 2024” is Orbit Culture’s first European headliner tour ever and we caught them at their impressive stop in Antwerp, Belgium, with support from Defects!
Skálmold turned DVG Club in Kortrijk, Belgium into a punk rock party with viking metal, supported by Seven Spires & Atavistia!
Lists
In 10 days, Kortrijk in Belgium, will turn the heavy up again with Hell’s Balls Belgium, just like they do every summer with Alcatraz festival. In case you weren’t sure yet why you should go, here are what we think are valid reasons for you to be there…
What are you the most excited about of this year’s editions of the festival? Let us know in the comments!
The summer festival season is over, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of exciting fests happening over the next couple of months this autumn/winter in Finland, starting with Cult of Darkness today, Helsinki Techfest, and HKI SKEPU FEST VI this month still, Pakanafesterit in October, Hellsinki Industrial Festival and Melancholy Mass Festivals in November, and John Smith Rock Frozen in December! And for the beer and music lovers, several Masis Beer & Metal events spread over the next couple of months all over Finland! Go get your tickets now!
The first day of the second edition of Hellsinki Metal Festival is filled with an impressive line-up of extreme metal bands, topped off with the musical exelence that is the headliner of tonight. Our editorial team picked out 8 bands that they think you definitely shouldn’t miss out on with Wolfheart, Gutalax, Massacre, Deicide, Terrorizer, Triumph of Death plays Hellhammer, Heaven Shall Burn and Avantasia! What bands are you really looking forward to today? Let us know in the comments!
With about a week to go, we put together 10 reasons why we think you should consider to still get yourself a ticket for Alcatraz 2024 and join in with the fun! With a stellar line-up, including some of the best the Belgian scene has to offer and a great organization trying to improve your festival experience year after year, it’s promising to be one hell of a weekend again!
Tomorrow it’s again that time of the year: Tuska weekend is upon us! If somehow you weren’t convinced yet that you need to go, here are 10 reasons we believe should be enough motivation to still get a ticket if any are available still! Going from a great line-up, to Tuska KVLT, Tuska Expo expanding further and simply an amazing atmosphere! See you there!
After the team sent in their top lists at the end of last year, and calculating the results, we got to an interesting “albums of the year 2023” list featuring releases from Marduk, Kludde, Blink-182, Blackbraid, Orbit Culture, Gloryhammer, Ne Obliviscaris, Hypno5e, Periphery, Dying Fetus, Obituary, Avatar, Svalbard, VV and Sleep Token! Do you agree with any of these? What did you have in your top list?
Xavier apparently spent more time catching up with what he missed in 2022, than discovering new releases in a year that he seemed somewhat disappointed about what was coming out. He still picked out a handful of releases that stuck out for him with Nytt Land, Avatar, Gloryhammer, Kludde and Dymna Lotva!
While we are still regularly looking back at what 2023 brought us, we of course also need to look forward. So here is the first edition of our 2024 series of articles where we bring the editorial team’s most anticipated releases with Escuela Grind, Green Day, The Empire Strikes, Saxon, Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, Static-X, The Gems, Lucifer, Manticora and Hiraes in January!
With Glenn’s selection of his albums of the year, there is a bunch of metalcore, deathcore, djent and some surprising entries with Thy Art Is Murder, Avenged Sevenfold, Within Temptation, Tesseract, Avatar, In Flames, Sleep Token, Periphery, Invent Animate, and Chelsea Grin!
Annet’s favorite albums of the year 2023 involve a mix of punk rock and modern metal, bringing in loads of emotions going from deep and intense, to fun and light with albums from Green Day, Enter Shikari, Hexa Mera, Chris Maragoth, Powerwolf, Nanowar of Steel, Angus McSix, Blink-182, Gloryhammer and Bury Tomorrow!
Album Reviews
4 years in the making and it was worth the wait. Ensiferum does a throw to album of the year where epic, gloomy, atmospheric, and melodic are some of the words to describe this journey that is ‘Winter Storm’, out via Metal Blade Records on October 18!
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Pioneers of melodic death metal Dark Tranquillity returned with the long-awaited album ‘Endtime Signals’ offer excellent musical performance and creativity. Out via Century Media Records since last week Friday August 16th!
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Chris Maragoth just released his first album, ‘Gatherer of Souls’. Some of the songs have already been released before, and have been remastered for this album. Some songs are brand new. This album contains mostly instrumental melodic death metal/modern metal tracks, worked on by Chris alone or together with other artists, bringing a lovely collection of melodeath-inspired modern metal tracks!
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Swedish melodic blackened death metal super group Night Crowned offers a compelling mixture of aggression and modern mixture of Nordic melodies on the third album ‘Tales’ out via Noble Demon Records today!
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Melodic death metal supergroup Berzerker Legion returns with the stunning sophomore “Chaos Will Reign”, delivering a superb mixture of galloping and melodic death metal, out now via Listenable Records.
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Majesties’ debut album “Vast Reaches Unclaimed” conveys the perfect sound of the Gothenburg melodic death metal, a stepping stone for the U.S. trio that has found its niche and inspiration from bands like In Flames, Gates of Ishtar and The Moaning. This is a highly recommended album for fans of melodic death metal, released via 20 Buck Spin.
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On Hexa Mera’s new album ‘Methuselarity Part 1’, the music is solid and strong, carried on a bed of melodies, and is honestly beautiful to listen to. The album comes out this Saturday March 18 and the band will be doing a release show in Nijdorp, Opwijk on the same day! Be sure to check them out and hear this solid piece of music being played live for the first time.
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With ‘Anno 1696’, Insomnium created a new refreshing album that shows a different kind of style than what they have released of late. It became a raw, blackened and fierce release that really embodies the dark part of history that it’s based on. Out this Friday via Century Media Records!
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Wairua is the spirit of a person. Like when you die, it’s the spirit, or wairua, that leaves the body. To me, it feels like we are a spirit, and we get to go on a journey through this EP
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With “Worship” Hypocrisy managed to craft one of it’s best albums that combines the classic trademarks of these Swedish pioneers.
Interviews
We had a chat with Jussi and Pasi from Where’s My Bible about their latest album ‘Kave’ (out now via Inverse Records) and the new direction they took their music and lyrics with this one, adding new instruments, vibes, vocal delivery and themes into a new chapter for the band!
Catch them live tonight at On The Rocks in Helsinki as support for the anniversary show of …and Oceans!
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Last summer, we sat down with Johannes from Avatar for a short chat about how 2023 had been so far after their explosive opening show at Tuska 2023, how he experienced that show, and how he feels like the band is in its best form right now, ready to take over the world!
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We talked with June and Eemeli from Mors Subita about their new album ‘Origin of Fire’ (released recently via Out of Line Music) and how taking more time to record and working with Tue Madsen for the mixing and mastering resulted in a more organic, full sound that was aggressive with a touch of old school heavy riffing.
And we laugh about their drummer possibly regretting asking for a song with blastbeats and a fan knowing the lyrics of a new song better than Eemeli at one of their recent shows…
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Last Spring, we sat down with Julius and Matti from I Am Your God to talk about their new album ‘SINister’ (released in May via Out of Line Music), how it shows their growth as a band, what they did differently this time and why the album title is written the way it is.
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A chat with Bloodred Hourglass about their pretty amazing year thus far, and the new album ‘How’s the Heart?’, how they’re not afraid of trying out any ideas or leaving things out when a song calls for it, and how they’ve stepped up their game yet again with this record.
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A chat with Jukka from Omnium Gatherum about their recent US tour, how they got their new EP ‘Slasher’ together with the first track featuring their new guitarist and a cover of the famous 80s song ‘Maniac’, a hint at new music that is in the works and upcoming festival shows and European tour with Paradise Lost, Primordial and Harakiri For The Sky.
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A chat with Jaakko and Niko from Marianas Rest about their new album ‘Auer’, set for release via Napalm Records on March 24, and how they’ve tried some new things with their music without losing the band’s soul, by having the courage to follow where the songs were taking them, bringing in clean vocals and a guest vocalist for the first time.
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A talk with Niilo and Ville of Insomnium about their new album ‘Anno 1696’, how the short story it’s based on was specially written by Niilo for the album, how much they love putting together special editions and a kind of whole experience for their fans and how they got Johanna Kurkela and Sakis Tolis to join them on some tracks!
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A chat with Johannes from Avatar on the new album ‘Dance Devil Dance’ on why this is the best album of them as of yet, how they did things somewhat different and tried to approach everything in such a way that they thought people could dance to even blast beats and why now was the time for them to self-release the album.
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A chat with Björn Gelotte about In Flames’ amazing year in 2022, their new album ‘Foregone’ and how everyone seem to link it to a different stage of their sound with the way they put the mixing and production together this time around. We also touch on his personal writing process and how incredible it is to him to be able to have their music transcend into other forms of art like the upcoming graphic novel!
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