80s Thrashers Aggravator stream full album "Populace Destructor"

Do you often browse through your record collection and find yourselves picking the old school thrash albums from back in the 80s? The production on these albums was often done in a much more dirty and rough way. The songs were harder and directer, this feeling of shred coming directly from the speakers was far more present then it is these days.

If you stick to albums like Overkills "Taking Over" then this album "Populace Destructor" from american old school thrashers Aggravator is for you. Listening to it this album took me way back to the time when I discovered this genre and started to liked it more and more. Besides the mentioned reference to Overkill the sound is also influenced by early Sepultura, Kreator and Slayer. Aggravator proudly shared the stage with such gods like King Diamond, Toxic Holocaust, Exodus, Incantation, Suffocation, Autopsy... among others!

(c) by Aggravator, used with kind permission

The cool thing is that we can let you all out there have a listen to the full album right here, so enjoy some classic thrash now.


The album was originally released already in 2014 but has been re-released on 10th October 2015 by Dead Center Productions to extend the distribution on the European side, and to reach all the fans who could miss this piece of thrash. You can buy the full album from the webshop of the band or have a look on the label's Facebook presence.

Legendary thrash metal band Kontra from Italy reunites

I love Thrash! Yeah, legendary thrahsers Testament printed this saying once on one of their band T-Shirts. I'm very happy to be able to say there is a active underground scene alive these days that constantly provides us with fresh stuff from the heavier and straighter side of Heavy Metal.

Recently I've received a message that one of the legendary thrash underground acts from Naples, Italy did reunite.

They are called Kontra and did exist from 1999 to 2007. The band influenced both by Bay Area Thrash and by German Thrash Metal now has a new line-up of 3 members which the only original one is the singer/rhythm guitarist and founder of the band Marco Barraco.

(c) by Kontra, used with kind permission

Kontra played live on many stages in Naples and suburbs producing also 2 demos: “Strike Zero” in 2003 limited to only 100 copies,and ‘’Demo 2005’’ never published because the band splitted up. The band has been influeneced by acts like Metallica,Slayer,Kreator,Sodom,Destruction, Venom,Sepultura (the old ones), and Motörhead.

I'm looking forward to see what the band will do next and keep you guys out there updated on the further progress. In the meantime you can also hold an eye on Kontra's Facebook page by hitting the famous like button on their site.

Pro-shot footage from Hellfest 2014 online

The festival season is running on full power. Last weekend the Hellfest 2014 was taking place in France. The TV station ARTE took the chance to capture some of the bands playing at the festival with professional equipment. They've set up a archive where you can watch the bands if you've missed them or want to re-live some of the memories of the festival.

Just head over to the overview page of the archive. There you'll find stuff from SEPULTURA, SABATON, THERAPY?, EMPEREOR, SHINING, DAGOBA, SOULFLY, M.O.D and ELUVEITIE. Just click on the play button in one of the preview pictures to enjoy the show.

Rewind to Wacken 2013 and 2012 with german TV station zdf kultur

It has just been announced that Wacken Open Air 2014 will be broadcasted by the german TV station 3Sat live. Great news!

For all those of you who would like to re-live some of the (hopefully) sweet memories of the both past events I've got great news as well:

German TV station zdf.kultur will broadcast stuff from Wacken Open Air 2013 and 2012 on the upcoming Saturday night 19th to 20th of April 2014.

For exact timetable and bands see the notices below, all times are german time. Maybe these stuff can also be seen through the webstream of the TV station at the online-webstream of the station but I don't have proper information if there is a region-lock active so go and just try your luck.

Update 2014/04/20: Missed it out? The TV station still streams all the shows on demand for free. Same here with region-lock so just click on the artist name to see if it works outside germany,too. Bandnames without a link seem to have given no permission for streaming.

Besides that there are many more goodies to find there,too. Just click on this search-string to show off what there is, for example interviews but also the big cut-together shows seem to be still up for viewing. Keep in mind that this might only last for a limited time, so better hurry.

20:15 Wacken 2013: Alice Cooper und Motörhead
21:15 Wacken 2013: Deep Purple
22:15 Wacken 2013: ASP
23:15 Wacken 2013: Lingua Mortis Orchestra Featuring Rage
00:10 Wacken 2012: Dimmu Borgir & Orchestra und Cradle of Filth
01:10 Wacken 2012: Sepultura & Les Tambours du Bronx
02:05 Wacken 2012: In Flames
03:05 Wacken 2012: Testament
04:05 Wacken 2013: Anthrax

Free Live Stream from Rock Hard Festival next weekend

GREAT! The TV station WDR will stream on the upcoming saturday and sunday (18th & 19th May 2013) a lot of shows from the Rock Hard festival directly on their website rockpalast.de! Check out this link to get detailed info on this (sorry only german available-but music doesn't need any language imho ;-)

At the moment I'm typing these lines (Thursday 16th May 2013) the following bands have been confirmed to be streamed along with the german times they will be on stage. Please check the link I mentioned above to make sure your band will be stremed (sometimes bands are added or even taken off so there might be changes possible):

Samstag, 18. Mai 2013
21.30 - 23.00   Queensryche
19.45 - 21.00   D-A-D
18.15 - 19.15   Ensiferum
17.00 - 17.45   Naglfar
15.50 - 16.35   Desaster
14.45 - 15.30   Mustasch

Sonntag, 19. Mai 2013
21.30 - 23.00   King Diamond
19.15 - 20.30   Sepultura
17.45 - 18.45   Threshold
16.15 - 17.15   Tank
15.10 - 15.55   Orchid
14.05 - 14.50   Orden Ogan

Update 2013/5/21: The website that streamed the event has set up some nice stuff already at this adress including videos of backstage unplugged song performances, Interviews, live recordings of single songs, statements of well known people that organised the event or were there to enjoy the shows and a lot of pictures. Use the navigation tab on the right to find the stuff you're looking for.