Epitome Of Torturewas released in Germany on April 26, in Europe on April 29 and in the US/Canada on May 7 as limited digi-pak (incl. 2 bonus tracks +poster), double gatefold LP, standard version and download.
SODOM – First Week Chart Entries for Epitome Of Torture Revealed
Germany: 32(highest chart entry in the band`s career)
Finland: 86
Switzerland: 87
German Media Markt / Saturn Charts: 19
US Billboard Top New Artist: 25
US Billboard Heatseekers: 25
SODOM released their first video Stigmatized from their new studio albumEpitome Of Torture.
Horror Pain Gore Death Productions will release a split CD between Russia’s premiere Death Metal band SEPTORY and Finland’s own SADISTIK FOREST (featuring Markus Makkonen of HOODED MENACE). This CD is part of the HPGD ”Price Slasher” series and will be released on June 25.
Below is the official description:
Horror Pain Gore Death Productions brings together two of the sickest Death Metal bands in the world for a killer split! Septory are the fastest rising Death Metal band in Russia at the moment. Featuring members of cult Death Metal act Bestial Deform and Black Metal horde Khashm, their brand of traditional yet innovative Death Metal is highly recommended for fans of Deicide, Vader and early Cannibal Corpse. After releasing the Rotting Humanity EP in 2006, Septory put out their crushing debut World War Chaos in 2008, followed by the destructive Seductive Art Profane in 2011. Their strong HPGD debut features a deadly collection of new anthems of evil, old school Death Metal and includes a cover of Bestial Deform’s Three Days Since Dead. An absolutely crushing offering!
Finland’s Sadistik Forest is Death Metal four piece from Oulu and includes Markus Makkonen of Hooded Menace on vocals/bass. The band has often been compared to such names as Bolt Thrower, Morbid Angel, Terrorizer, Vader, Napalm Death, Sodom and early Sepultura. Relentless, punishing and unforgiving, their aural assault is a concoction of early 90′s Death Metal, Grindcore and 80′s Thrash. After releasing their self-titled debut in 2010, SF released the brutal Death, Doom,Radiation in 2012. This recording features three brand new originals and a cover version of the Seth Putnam‘s/Thor’s collabaration Throwing Cars at People (On Coke With Thor). This is the 4th entry in the Price Slasher series that delivers high quality sickness at the lowest price possible. Prepare to headbang!
“The perfect spin for a doomed trip to the desert” – Decibel
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, one of the most talked about rock bands currently in existence, and an enigma in the international underground scene, released their third full length album. Mind Controlon May 14 via Metal Blade Records in North America. Within its blood soaked grooves you will hear shocking tales of bizarre desert ceremonies, religious brainwashing and drug inspired mass slaughter! Fans can order the album and listen to Poison Apple now at metalblade.com/uncleacid. Mind Control is a concept album with a theme that makes the acts and intentions of the likes of Charles Manson and Jim Jones seem like petty crimes. What makes Mind Controlscarier than most albums is that it doesn’t seem as sinister on the surface as it really is deep down, within the core of its black acid-drenched world of pain and torture.
Imagine the original Alice Cooper band jamming in a cell with early Black Sabbath and the Stooges, whilst sitting on murder charges and you may get a glimpse into their fuzzed up world of exploding tube amps and cymbal smashing mayhem. However, this enticing act of musical manipulation is merely the icing upon a very sick cake.
Recorded at the legendary Chapel Studios over an autumnal full moon using the finest western electrical technology, engineer Jim Spencer (Bert Jansch, Robert Wyatt) has captured perfectly the bands live sound of saturated fuzz, mind-bending riffs and 60′s vocal harmonies.
The album, recorded at Mortsella Studio, Sweden, drops on May 28 in Europe and June 11 in North America on Agonia Records. Tracks from Black Testamentcurrently featured on The Welding Room radio program.
Band founder and mastermind, Ornias, describes Black Testament as a “sinister mix between Destruction Of Man (2003) and Timeless Reign (2007) releases.”
He adds,
“it’s a journey through my spiritual darkness and death.”
A short series of video clips* documenting the recording process (vocals, guitars and drums) can be viewed at the links below:
Pelagial, the new maritime-themed studio offering from progressive metal revolutionists THE OCEAN entered the Billboard Heatseekers Chart at #10 upon its first week of release! In addition, Pelagiallanded at #55 on the Billboard Top Independent Album Chart, #26 on the Billboard Current Hard Music Chart and #39 on the Billboard Top Hard Rock Chart. In Canada, the record ranked in at #23 on the Hard Music Chart and #194 on the Top 200 Current Albums Chart. Elsewhere, Pelagial hit #72 on the German Media Market Chart and #68 on the German Media Control Control Top 100 Chart.
Their deepest and most accomplished work to date, Pelagialis a 53-minute exploratory composition written, recorded, mixed and intended to-be-performed-live as one single piece of music. Centered around all five pelagic depth zones — epipelagic, mesopelagic, bathyalpelagic, abyssopelagic, and hadopelagic – Pelagialquite literally submerges its listeners into an aquatic journey that is at once tranquil and terrifying. Pelagialbegins rather light and progressively gets heavier and slows as the band reaches the unfathomable depths of the hadopelagic zone, characterized by complete darkness and a thousandfold increased pressure as compared to surface level.
Said Decibel Magazine in a recent review of the massive undertaking: “Where the band was once steeped in sludgy noise/metalcore with orchestral interludes, they’ve become more luxurious, experimental and textural. Pelagial… further continues that shift, working on multi-tiered levels and drawing from DEP-inspired chaos, Opeth-like moods and Between The Buried And Me genre fiddling. It’s an album that strives to be all things at once without crossing into a ‘look-at-me’ mess.”
Mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia, Witchcraft) at Fascination Street Studios in Örebrö, Sweden, Pelagialis available now as a double CD, which includes a vocal and an instrumental version of the album.
Check out the special clip video of the record currently posted at Invisible Oranges at THIS LOCATION as well as a full stream of the instrumental version, courtesy of Spin Magazine, HERE. Order your copy of Pelagialat: http://www.theoceancollective.com/pelagial.
THE OCEAN will return to North America as part of the seventh annual Summer Slaughter Tour, presented by Indie Merch Store, ESP and Guitar World. The band will appear alongside The Dillinger Escape Plan, Animals As Leaders, Periphery, Norma Jean, Cattle Decapitation, Revocation, Aeon and more. See dates below.
THE OCEAN
w/ Mastodon
5/31/2013 Essigfabrik – Cologne, DE
6/02/2013 Atelier – Luxembourg, LU
6/01/2013 Garage / Kleiner Club – Saarbrücken, DE *no Mastodon
6/05/2013 Lido – Berlin, DE
6/06/2013 Beatpol – Dresden, DE
THE OCEAN The Summer Slaughter Tour
7/19/2013 Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA
7/20/2013 House of Blues – Los Angeles, CA
7/21/2013 The Observatory / Constellation Room – Santa Ana, CA
7/24/2013 Diamond Ballroom – Oklahoma City, OK
7/26/2013 House of Blues – Dallas, TX
7/27/2013 House of Blues – Houston, TX
7/29/2013 House of Blues – Lake Buena Vista, FL
7/30/2013 The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
7/31/2013 Old City Courtyard – Knoxville, TN
8/01/2013 House of Blues – Myrtle Beach, SC
8/02/2013 The Filmore Silver Springs – Silver Springs, MD
8/03/2013 The Palladium – Worcester, MA
8/04/2013 The Trocadero – Philadelphia, PA
8/07/2013 Best Buy Theater – New York, NY
8/08/2013 Sound Academy – Toronto, ON
8/09/2013 Metropolis – Montreal, QC
8/10/2013 Upstate Concert Hall – Clifton Park, NY
8/11/2013 The Majestic Theatre – Detroit, MI
8/12/2013 House of Blues – Chicago, IL
8/13/2013 The Rave – Milwaukee, WI
8/14/2013 Station 4 – St. Paul, MN
8/16/2013 Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
“The sixth album from German post-metal doombringers THE OCEAN is huge… In the course of the record, tender piano interludes get stomped on by Mastodon-shaped footprints, lush strings work next to bulldozing double-kick work, and, at the end, the submarine crashes at Melvins tempos.” – Spin
“…as fantastic as it is dense. The concepts are dense. The music is dense. The two hundred and something individual tracks, all mastered together as one single piece of music, scream density like being sat on by a bull elephant.” – The Monolith
“Pelagial is brilliantly written, expertly executed and filled with the kind of songwriting most bands can only dream of.” – Craveonline
“Pelagial resonates so deeply because its sonic continuity is matched with shifting, unified composition. The album viscerally depicts the spectrum of submersion while highlighting the musicians’ versatility and cohesion. The band has never written more intriguing music, and THE OCEAN COLLECTIVE has never been a more apt name.” – MetalSucks
“…a journey within itself…” — Metal Insider
“…destined to be one of the year’s best releases” – Echoes And Dust
“Creating music with a real meaning cannot be taken as a hobby. Either you put everything into it and make your message known or you don’t. Their correlation between diving deeper into the ocean and diving into the inner workings of the human mind is astounding…you would be a complete fool to not pick up this true work of art.” – New Noise Magazine
“Pelagial is quite possibly THE OCEAN’s most ambitious record to date — not only conceptually, but musically as well… THE OCEAN have been on the cutting edge of progressive songwriting since their inception, but Pelagial may be the record that finally puts them ahead of their peers.” – Heavy Blog Is Heavy
“Beyond impressive. It’s godly almost; perfectionism to the point that every minute flaw forces you to question whether it’s you or the album that’s to blame. It’s an album with a layered depth rarely found in modern music that never demands your exploration of those depths in order to appreciate the music.” – Axis of Metal
Innovative “blackjazz” metallists SHINING teamed with Decibel Magazine to showcase My Dying Drive, a track from the Norwegian group’s new release, One One One. Stream the song HERE. Plus, additional tracks can be hear on The Welding Room.
One One One – the follow-up to 2010′s acclaimed Blackjazz, which earned a Norwegian Grammy nomination and cracked that country’s Top 10 — is out now digitally. The album will be out on CD on May 28; an LP release on 180-gram black and limited-edition orange vinyl will follow shortly thereafter. Pre-orders are currently available in the Prosthetic webshop.
One One Onehas been described by SHINING front man Jørgen Munkeby as “a series of jazz-metal hits with no fillers” and “definitely the catchiest and most immediate music we’ve ever recorded.” The album was mixed and co-produced with Sean Beaven (NIN, Marilyn Manson, Slayer) while being mastered by Tom Baker at Precision Mastering (A7X, Deftones, Ministry). The final chapter in the band’s “Blackjazz Trilogy,” the album incorporates progressive rock, jazz fusion, experimental metal and black metal influences to create a unique sound, as showcased in the music video for first single I Won’t Forget.
The Swedish quintet DARKANE combined melodic death metal with technical thrash to stirring effect for 15 years. They just joined forces with PROSTHETIC RECORDS to release their upcoming album The Sinister Supremacy, which marks the band’s first new music in five years, is scheduled for release on July 2 in North America and will feature the return of vocalist Lawrence Mackrory, back in the Darkane fold for the first time since the group’s 1999 debut Rusted Angel.
DARKANE was originally formed in 1998 by guitarist Christofer Malmström, drummer Peter Wildoer and bassist Jörgen Löfberf who, along with guitarist Klas Ideberg, recorded a few tracks for a demo featuring Björn “Speed” Strid on vocals, who left DARKANE shortly after due to his commitments in Soilwork. The band then recorded their first full-length, “RustedAngel, with Daniel Bergstrand (In Flames, Meshuggah, Dimmu Borgir, Vildhjarta) who introduced them to vocalist Lawrence Mackrory. They made their first international appearances alongside Soilwork and Naglfar, but due to scheduling conflicts, Mackrory was unable to complete the tour and left the band soon after. Over the next few years, the band signed with Nuclear Blast Records, released a number of acclaimed records and toured around the world with acts including Testament, Meshuggah, Fear Factory, Soilwork and Devin Townsend’s Strapping Young Lad.
Stay tuned for more information on The Sinister Supremacy in the near future. www.darkane.com
Former Pantera/Down bandmates, Phillip Anselmo & Rex Brown joined Anthrax on stage during the Golden God Awards last week to tribute fallen comrade, Slayer guitarist, Jeff Hanneman.
Grinding Dissent is a track from RAMMING SPEED’s Kurt Ballou-tracked Prosthetic debut, Doomed To Destroy, Destined To Die, due out June 25 on CD, LP, cassette and digital download.
The band commented on the track as follows:
“Grinding Dissent is largely about America’s facade of righteousness and freedom. A government that is ‘for the people’ may or may not have originally been the goal, but in this day and age, it’s obvious that protest and free speech aren’t welcome. Our police departments have military-grade weapons turned on civilians to keep us quiet while politicians smile and shake hands behind closed doors. Musically. the song starts off with punishing D-beat and ends with Ferrari-sized, Piña Colada-chugging twin guitar riffage! Put this shit on 11, crack a beer and scream at the sun.”
Head to PROSTHETIC’s web store now to check out pre-order packages for Doomed To Destroy, Destined To Die, which include a mail-order exclusive clear haze/neon green vinyl variant along with an exclusive t-shirt or long-sleeved shirt featuring the album’s artwork, featured above. The band is living up to their reputation as “one of the hardest-working bands in heavy metal” (Noisecreep) on a tour with Goatwhore, 3 Inches of Blood and Revocation; they will continue to tour the US with Valient Thorr and Gypsyhawk throughout the rest of the summer.
A lyric video for Grinding Dissent, a new song by Boston thrashers RAMMING SPEED, can be seen below or directly on YouTube HERE.
Catch RAMMING SPEED live below:
5/01 Middletown, NY – Sound Asylum ^
5/02 Rochester, NY – Bug Jar ^
5/03 Toronto, ON – Opera House ^
5/04 Cleveland, OH – Now That’s Class *
5/05 Buffalo, NY – TBA
5/06 Syracuse, NY – Badlands II
6/12 Charlotte, NC – Tremont Music Hall %
6/13 Richmond, VA – Kingdom %
6/14 Baltimore, MD – Wind-up %
6/15 West Chester, PA – The Note %
6/16 Boston, MA – Great Scott %
6/17 New York, NY – The Studio at Webster Hall %
6/18 Brooklyn, NY – Saint Vitus %
6/19 Rochester, NY – Bug Jar %
6/20 Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups %
6/21 Detroit, MI – The Shelter %
6/22 Chicago, IL – Reggies %
6/24 Minneapolis, MN – 7th St Entry %
6/25 Kansas City, MO – Riot Room %
6/26 Tulsa, OK – Downtown Lounge %
6/27 Dallas, TX – Three Links %
6/28 Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s %
6/29 Austin, TX – Red 7 %
6/30 New Orleans, LA – Siberia %
7/1 Pensacola, FL – Vinyl Music Hall %
7/2 Gainesville, FL – High Dive %
7/3 Tampa, FL – The Orpheum %
7/4 Orlando, FL – Will’s Pub %
7/5 Atlanta, GA – The Earl %
7/6 Raleigh, NC – King’s Barcade %
^ with Goatwhore & 3 Inches of Blood & Revocation
* with 3 Inches Of Blood
% with Valient Thorr & Gypsyhawk
Epitome Of Torture was released in Germany on April 26, in Europe on April 29 and in the US/Canada on May 7 as limited digi-pak (incl. 2 bonus tracks +poster), double gatefold LP, standard version and download.
