Progressive death metal faction, ARKAIK, will embark upon a fifteen-date US headlining tour this Summer. The Make America Shred Again Tour 2016 will run from July 2nd through July 24th. Support will be provided by Vale Of Pnath and Singularity with additional dates to be announced in the coming weeks.
Colorado’s supreme doom metal quartet, KHEMMIS, has confirmed a series of tour dates preceding and including the band’s impending performance at the mighty maiden installation of Migration Fest this August. Additionally, the band enters the studio today in order to bring their second album to fruition.
One of the aspects of metal that we generally forget about is the atmosphere and dynamics. So much of it is loud and angry that we often need reminding that emotions of a wider variety can be covered in the genre. Post-metal bands generally play with dynamics, as well and not shying away from beautiful, clean guitars to contrast the sludgy riffs that make up a large percentage of the sound. Essentially, quiet music landscapes are not alien to the genre, with many a metalhead enjoying the more atmospheric offerings of music as a whole.
Amon Amarth don’t have much left to prove to the world at this point in their career. Within the nearly three years since Deceiver of the Gods was released, the band have grown exponentially beyond an overseas sensation, into a juggernaut worldwide. Taking that opening slot on the Mayhem Festival main stage proved to go a long way, as the band embarked on two headlining North American tours the following year, each time growing larger than before.
I’ll be the first to admit that I never expected much out of Fear Factory when I first listened to them. To my surprise, they became a group of musicians who I respected for their in-your-face albums with the chops to back them up. Nobody could argue that while you knew what you were getting into with Fear Factory, you wouldn’t end up disappointed. With that said, I’ve always been wary of anything associated with industrial metal, in the sense that it can be so computerized and clean, at times, that the thrill of actually seeing an industrial band live would not be able to replicate that.
You’d swear the world split apart, but the seemingly impossible happened this week: Axl Rose will be singing for AC/DC and Brian Johnson was out of the band. You’d have sworn a meteor was heading straight for Earth, because everyone reacted that way: someone else fronting AC/DC, even as a touring member, let alone someone as notorious as Axl? Right after the announcement that Guns N Roses was touring with Slash and Duff, it just seemed so overkill for Axl to be doing that. Granted, since Axl isn’t young anymore, he runs the chance of exhaustion since he’ll be going from GNR to AC/DC and probably to GNR right after.
Usually by now we have a general idea as to what bands will be on The Summer Slaughter tour through hints they drop during the year. Being that it’s April, it’s odd to not have any indication as to who we’ll be seeing on the massive extreme metal festival. Finally, the Facebook page for the tour has dropped its first hint at bands we’ll see this year, and it seems to be a bit for everyone.
Chances are, if you’re into metal, your first love for a band wasn’t Gorgoroth or Suffocation. I’ve met a person or two who went from prog rock into tech death, but in actuality the majority of people in the metal community started with the basics: Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and even hard rock bands that influenced the genre, like Van Halen. It’s almost like Metal 101, and everyone has to go through it at some point or another. And whether you enjoy the music or not, you can’t deny the influence on the genre, let alone how it has impacted the world.