Australia has been a breeding ground for amazing, hard-hitting music in recent years. Thy Art is Murder have taken to the forefront of the deathcore scene, while prog metalcore acts like Northlane have been just as successful in taking over the United States and the metal scene over here. It shouldn’t be of any surprise that Ne Obliviscaris are next to stake their success overseas.
They came from Venus to destroy the cities. VALIENT THORR is a wild ass Rock N Roll band said to hail from inside of the planet Venus. Since crash landing on Earth in the year 2000, they’ve played well over 1500 shows all over the world. They’ve toured with visionaries from Motörhead and Joan Jett to contemporary heroes like Mastodon, Gogol Bordello, and Clutch. Since 2005 they have put out six full-length records and two seven inches! And just so you don’t think we’re blowing smoke, look them up! This is only the cusp of the feats of greatness this hard working, sweat drenched band has accomplished!
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.
