Rage are back from the Corona crisis with a double bang: as had already been rumoured behind the scenes, guitarist Marcos Rodriguez has left the band. To replace him, vocalist/bassist Peavy Wagner has welcomed two new stringsmen to the Rage fold. New addition Stefan Weber (ex-Axxis) was introduced to the public at the METAL HAMMER online show in early May, now the band has presented its second new member, Jean Bormann (formerly Angelic, Rage & Ruins).
Thrash metal is the common ancestor of all extreme metal in that we wouldn’t have death metal, grindcore, or black metal without it. Back when Venom came on the scene and influenced the likes of Metallica in the early 80’s, everything changed from what the 70’s had worked up, and henceforth did metal become less of a fad and more of a movement that we all identify with today. Bands like Metallica and Slayer are the crème de la crème of the genre, but what about the smaller bands from the second wave that emerged? I took it upon myself to explore the debut albums from bands I’ve enjoyed but never listened to. It’s here I confess that I never gave these albums the time of day because...
“Dragons and fairy tales are only cool if Ronnie James Dio is signing it,” is something you’d probably hear some boomer metalhead say in a bar while bashing everything post-1989. Granted, let’s be honest: rock and nerd-fantasy culture have been crossing over for a while, so that statement would be ignorant. You’re just too closed-minded to accept it. Power metal still gets a bad rap, and its safe-natured approach and anthemic, four-course meal of cheese and tropes can be silly at times no matter how fun it is. But you know what makes the genre cooler and much more fascinating? Throwing some prog into the mix.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ice Cream Man creators W. Maxwell Prince and Martín Morazzo launched an online-only series of mini-comics set in the ICM universe. The collection of these stories, Ice Cream Man Presents: Quarantine Comix #1, will be available in print for the first time from Image Comics this September.
This July, readers will get a chance to dive into some of Marvel’s most exciting new titles with brand-new stories for free at participating comic shops! Originally part of May’s Free Comic Book Day, Marvel will be now be releasing two never-before-seen titles for fans to get a first look at some of Marvel’s biggest upcoming events. Each issue will contain two separate extraordinary tales involving the X-Men, Spider-Man, and more by Marvel’s most acclaimed creators!
Oblivion Song #25 by Robert Kirkman (Fire Power, The Walking Dead), Lorenzo De Felici, and colorist Annalisa Leoni will kick off an exciting new story arc of the critically acclaimed series this July from Image/Skybound Entertainment. It boasts both an eye-popping cover by J. Scott Campbell and a special origin story included in the issue drawn by Leoni.
