GC Project Album shows drummers part in music

How much a drummer contributes to the music of a band? A lot I think. But I would agree to say it with Mike Portnoy's words that the stuff the drummer adds to a bands sound has to come at the decent time. He or she should know when to play more in the front row or better to stay in the back.

Here's one recording I came along that reminded me of what Portnoy said. It features Giacomo Calabria who's vita is quite impressive. But before going into the details just let the music speak and listen to one of the tracks of his recent progressive and diverse output "Face the odds" that covers many genres of music.It's this mixture of so many playing techniques in Calabria's drumming that make this music so exciting. It feels as if it is changing all the way through the song.

Giacomo Calabria has been on the scene since 1992. Once graduated at University of Music in Rome, he played live and recorded demos with several bands from the Naples rock/metal scene. He played on the album "A New Day" from Silent Field, for Nocturnal Music label, followed by a live tour. After moving to Ferrara, he recorded "Rock, Groove, Sexy & Funky" (2004) with Alias, "Misteriosevoci" (2005) and "Rebus" (2008) with Barock Project, for the french Musea Records label. He recorded two songs with GOS (Ivano Zanotti, Vince Pastano, Giorgio Santis) in 2006. Official drummer for Rain from 2011 to 2014, he played in "XXX" tour, "Mexican Way" album and the following 9-months tour. Member of Ypnos (actually in studio recording their first album) and Coda (Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin tribute).

Giacomo Calabria, (c) by Giacomo Calabria, used with kind permission

On September 2014 he started writing songs for his solo project, the GC Project, the Giacomo Calabria's solo project. After three years on tour in Italy and Europe, studio recording and many sessions, his desire is to play music that includes many genres, progressive, hard rock, heavy metal, blues, latin, and play with several artists who are friends too, to create an album with different kind of sounds, attitudes and interplay, All songs and lyrics are written by Giacomo Calabria.

The album is titled Face the Odds, released on december 7th 2015 by Sliptrick Records, and contains 11 original tracks and one ghost track, The Black Page #1, tribute to Frank Zappa, and it's available in stores, on Itunes, Deezer, Amazon music, Google play, Musimania, KKBox and others platforms.

Make sure to stay in connection with him via Facebook or follow him on YouTube.

CD Review: June 1974 - Atlantide (2014)

I've seldomely ever heard that someone managed to change between various styles in such a cool way. But this instrumental one man project of Federico Romano really gives me hope that breaking barriers between various genres isn't that hard to get by. Read now what I've found out while listening to the "Atlantide" EP.

Short Introduction

June 1974 is the musical project created in late 2009 by Federico Romano,an underground writer of poems and short stories.His kind of music is indefinable because every song embraces different styles from dance to rock to classic/ hip hop  music. So June 1974 is 360 music degree only for open mind listeners.Till now June 1974, has published more than 250 songs(singles+ep+albums) available on all digital stores worldwide thanks to Visionaire Records (his record label) .

Atlantide is the title of this EP published in November 2014 that cointains two songs in rock electro classic post shoegaze style mastered in Iceland by Birgir Jon Birgisson at his Sundlaugin studios ( Sigur Ros / Alcest / Mum ) available on all digital stores worldwide by Visionaire Records. Meanwhile June 1974 has published other singles in 2015 and now is working hard on the new album that will be avalaible in middle of 2016.

Cover artwork by Soey Milk (c) by June 1974, used with kind permission

Summary

The EP is a cool surprise item if you're looking for a gift to someone you know that is completly open to all sorts of music or just yourselves if you like to listen to all possible styles of music. This said it's sure that this release contains a good potion or Rock music with slightly heavier parts in it as well as soft parts of the more ambient direction.

But it's far more than that. You'll listen to pop elements as well as have your ear on some nice electronic elffects in it. Some sounds give a ghostly feeling while others sound very experimental and it's hard to say how that effect might have come together. Sounds like the composer tries out effect stuff and various set-up's while creating his music. Some melodies will stay in your mind for some time due to it's strangeness or typical melody.

EP Overview

The record starts with the slower and soundwise softer "Follia". It starts out slow but just wait a little and the track moves on and starts to evolve through it's duration. You may not think that it will be very different throughout the whole track but just relax and enjoy. Have you ever listened to something similar like this? I love people who create such soundscapes for all of us.

The second number "Atlantide" is of the more abrassive way of music. It comes with more distortion. You'll easily point it out as a rocking track. It has less of it's haunting moments but takes it's energy more of the heavier riffs that are built in. The rhythm patterns are also chosen in a much heavier way. Nevertheless it has also a outworked song structure which let's us discover various moods throughout the musical journey so it's not just a Rock song all the while.

Player & Purchase-Link

The EP consists of two tracks. That seems not to be much but please keep in mind that those tracks come along with a duration of 24 minutes alltogether. The download costs 2 Euro for the whole EP on Bandcamp but looking at the whole diversity and big musical bandwith it covers should be a good pick for fans of various genres. Enjoy the stream to find out if the EP meets your taste of music.

 

Contact Data

If you enjoyed the music make sure to see the other releases of June 1974 on Bandcamp and make sure to keep a eye on the Facebook page of Visionaire Records for all the upcoming info on this project.

Avantasia to play at preliminary round for Eurovision Song Contest

Yeah, sometimes news come rushing in you can't believe. This is one of those.

The well known metal opera project Avantasia of Edguy frontsiren Tobias Sammet has announced to play at this years 2016 edition of the German preliminary round for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Wow, what a honour. This is a contest with a long tradition. Mostly it is well known for bands and single artists in the pop world but surely it is a great opportunity to promote some metal music on TV. The show is going to take place on 25th of February 2016 and will be broadcasted through TV. I'll add more details here in the article when I run across them, like the exact time for the show as well as (hopefully) links to where you can all watch the event.

Update 2016/02/19: On the website eurovision.de you'll find the livestream of the event.
German TV stations ARD and EinsFestival will broadcast this starting on 20:15h via their frequencies on german television.
You can read more detailed info about all the bands that will participate as well as about how to vote for your favorite band on the website of the Eurovision song contest Stockholm 2016 (sorry, only in german available). 

In the meantime you can already check out the song the band is going to perform at the preliminary round of the ESC. The track is called ‘Mystery Of A Blood Red Rose’.

Until the big event takes place you can listen to the official album trailer for the upcoming Avantasia album "Ghostlights" which will hit the shelves of the CD shops on 29th of January 2016. As always it will feature a massive guestlist. Just hit the play button to be introduced to the line-up as well as the chance to check out the cover art and to check out some info on the various release formats.


Finally here is a list of the upcoming tourdates for the worldtour which will start in March 2016. Some venues are already sold out, so better hurry if you want to get a ticket for one of their shows. Ticket can be purchased over at Avantasia.net

04.03. D - Berlin - Huxley's*
05.03. D - Hamburg - Große Freiheit* - SOLD OUT!!
06.03. D - Bremen - Aladin*
08.03. UK - London - The Forum*
09.03. F - Paris - Le Trianon*
11.03. E - Barcelona - Razzmatazz 1*
12.03. E - Madrid - La Riviera* - SOLD OUT!!
13.03. E - Madrid - La Riviera*
15.03. D - Frankfurt-Langen - Stadthalle*
16.03. CZ - Prague - Forum Karlin*
18.03. D - Kaufbeuren - All-Karthalle*
19.03. D - Bamberg - Brose-Arena*
20.03. D - Oberhausen - Turbinenhalle*
22.03. I - Milan - Alcatraz*
24.03. CH - Pratteln - Z7*
25.03. CH - Pratteln - Z7*
27.03. SK - Banska Bystrica - Ice Stadium*
28.03. SK - Bratislava - Sportshall*
29.03. A - Tröpolach - Full Metal Mountain Festival
31.03. D - Saarbrücken - Saarlandhalle*
01.04. D - Ludwigsburg - Arena*
02.04. D - Fulda - Esperantohalle*
04.04. H - Budapest - Baba Negra*
06.04. RUS - Moscow - Ray Just Arena*
09.04. JP - Tokyo - Shinagawa Prince Stellar Ball*
24.04. BRA - Sao Paulo - Espaco das Americas*
08.-11.06. S - Sölvesborg - Sweden Rock Festival
01-03.07. FIN - Helsinki, Tuska Open Air
06.07. D - Flugplatz Ballenstedt - RockHarz Open Air

Update 2016/01/13: Brand new US/Canada tourdates have just been announced.

APRIL 13 - CANADA - Toronto, Queen Elizabeth Theater
APRIL 15 - USA - New York, Playstation Theater

More dates will be announced. Check in at the band's Facebook site or take a look on their homepage to stay up to date.

Elferya streams first track of new album "Eden's Fall"

Female voices can be such a strong element in the sound of a band! This sentence came to my mind when I listened to a track of the brand new Elferya record, that has hit the shelves exactly one month ago.

(c) by Elferya, used with kind permission

This one touches my mind so deeply because it has such a intensive atmosphere to offer. That starts out with the many variations in the vocals in the first part of "Cruel Night". If fits so perfectly to the stomping power and the heavyness of the track.

The second part is set up with the music taking a bigger role and getting louder all the while. Yet the vocals keep up it's massive impression on the listener. It all comes over to me as a sort of musical expression full of passion. It feels as if you're giving your all and everything of  your spirit and the feelings of this very moment into this one piece of music. Just check out this epic piece of music.


Elferya are a melodic symphonic power metal band based in Switzerland. Also the band is unsigned yet they managed to gather quite a impressive Fanbase on Facebook already.

(c) by Elferya, used with kind permission

Elferya is going to celebrate the album release with a mini-tour in their homeland starting already today. Here are the dates.

10.10.2015 Switzerland, Avenches, Aventicum Culture Club

23.10.2015 Switzerland, Versoix, Caves de Bonséjour

30.10.2015 Switzerland, Echallens, ZR Live Music

29.11.2015 Switzerland, Pratteln, Z7

You can purchase the full length album directly through the band's webshop. If you're yet not sure if the record meets you expectations check out the album trailer below. It is short, but gives a good overview on the album and also some insight into the recordings of the record. Also make sure to see the official website for more album trailers and videos.

WDR to broadcast round-up of With Full Force 2015

The legendary TV show "Rockpalast" has visited the "With Full Force" Festival in 2015 for the first time to show people out there what was going on there.

The german TV station WDR has announced to broadcast the result, a big three hour broadcast of this years edition of The Full Force Festival. The show is running in the night from Sunday, 9th August to Monday, 10th August starting at 0:15h (CEST).

You'll be able to see stuff of the following bands:

Kreator, Heaven Shall Burn, Parkway Drive, Lamb Of God, Die Kassierer, Agnostic Front, Sick Of It All, Pro Pain, Fear Factory, Terror, Heaven Shall Burn, Knorkator, Diablo Blvd., Obituary and Arch Enemy.

Update 08/12/2015: The full package has been added to the on demand archive! Having seen it I can only give many thumbs up for this. They people behind the best of managed to put together a good round-up, it never get's boring and it keeps you on the screen through a good mixture of live and interview footage all along with impressions of visitors of the festival and their opion of what's going on. Enjoy. :-)

The TV station happily has a livestream up and running so I hope many people will be able to check this out.

Another Television station called MDR will show the package for a second time on 19th August 2015, starting at 23.35h (CEST).

Some preview stuff including some live-performances as well as a lot of interview footage is already online over at the website of Rockpalast as well as the newly opened up Youtube channel. 

Here's one example, the interview with Mille from Kreator filmed at the With Full Force Festival 2015.

New compilation gives overview on folk metal scene in Mongolia

Heavy Metal is a world-wide movement that's what I've learned in all the times writing on this blog. But some regions of our blue planet are still a bit unexplored when it comes to our beloved music. Recently we took a look over to India to see what's going on there but what about the scene in Mongolia?

This lack of information seems to be what some people out there might have caused to start the Mongol Metal website. In their own description they say about themselves:

"(...) Mongol Metal is a heavy metal music organization from Inner Mongolia, China. We promote Ego Fall, Nine Treasures and Tengger Cavalry, three folk metal bands that combine Mongolian folk music with heavy metal, refering to as Mongol Metal, Mongolian Folk Metal, or Mongolian Nomadic Metal.

In their music, Morin Khuur, Throat Singing, Yatga and other Mongolian music elements are widely used.(...)"

To give people out there a quick idea of how this sounds like Mongol Metal has uploaded a full sampler featuring the bands Ego Fall, Nine Treasures and Tengger Cavalry.

So I used the opportunity to check them out and had a great time doing so. What a blast of sheer power combined with some unusual instrumentation and some traditional elements of early Heavy Metal (Throat Singing has become sort of rare these days but it was very common in the beginnings of metal music - thank you for bringing this back with your music!).

Having heard the stuff I'm totally wanting to hear and see more. It's also great to see the musicians dress in the traditional clothes of their region when posing for band pictures. You can see them in the diashow passing through when you call up the startpage of the Mogul Metal Website. 
But first of all have a listen for yourselfs in the player below to discover how the music of the bands sounds like:

You can also buy the songs as digital download through stores such as Amazon, Spotify or itunes. 
Make sure to keep up to date about the further musical development of the Mongol Metal scene via Facebook or check in at their excellent website.

Wacken 2014 and beyond - streams online and boxset coming

Life can only be understood in reverse. But must be lived forwards… This quote from the Megadeth song "Losing my senses" is a good statement in my eyes. We should focus on the here and now rather than on the past.

Anyway, sometimes you may also like to look back as some memories can also be pretty sweet. This often comes into play when thinking about visiting a festival like the Wacken Open Air.

The german TV station zdf kultur has re-uploaded some of the broadcasts of the past Wacken Open Air from 2014. So here's one more chance to see this stuff if you haven't already.

Kreator

Schandmaul

Amon Amarth

Hammerfall

In addition to that a mediabook package with 3 DVDs / Blu-rays is coming our way which will reflect upon the Wacken Open Airs of all the past years called „25 Years of Wacken – Snapshots, Scraps, Thoughts And Sounds“ .

The german Rock Hard megazine has been given the honour to exclusively present a first insight into the book on their website showing stuff from the years 1990 - 1994. Unfortunately it's in german but the pictures inside should be of interest to many people.

For more infos from the boxset and some snippets from the DVDs watch the trailer below.

Full shows from Rock Hard Festival 2014 up for watching online

After putting out the live-stream as well as the big two round-up packages the german TV station WDR surprises us with a bunch of full shows added to the streaming archive of the legendary Rockpalast website.

You're now able to see legendary performances from Sacred Reich, Carcass or Obituary by just clicking on the corresponding link. A new window will open up and you can watch the show or select single songs from the set. The video from Blue Pills has been announced to be added later, I'll put the link here when it's online. Enjoy. :-)

Carcass

Sacred Reich

Obituary

Solstafir

Insomnium

Screamer

Triptykon 

Die Apokalptischen Reiter

Monster Magnet

Annihilator

Orphaned Land

Blue Pills

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.

New Wave of Thrash coming up?

Looking around on some of the (upcoming) releases of these days it seems to me that more and more Thrash metal band's are coming up. So I'd like to point out on three of them here.

First off are Dust Bolt, a band from Germany who are around since 2006. The sound of their upcoming record "Awake the riot" reminds me a lot of the very oldschool days when I began to listen and like Thrash. The cover has something from Nuclear Assault's "Game over" EP in my eyes. You can check out their upcoming record in the long preview trailer below.



So far I've heard few about bands from Spain. Until the german Rock Hard magazine recently posted a article about Crisix including the offer to listen the full album for free as a Soundcloud stream. These guys seem to influenced a lot by the Thrashers Tankard, mixing up powerfull direct hitting Thrash with a lot of attitude. Check out the title track of the album.



Last in line as for today are Lost Society from Finnland. These guys are around since 2010 and they grabbed my attention through the videoclips for the tracks "Thrash all over you" and "Kill". If you want to go with a very straight band who doesn't fiddle around with their instruments too much I suggest you go with this band.



So after all what do you people think? Would you agree with me to say Thrash has a new wave coming up? Or which other styles of Heavy Metal or even Rock music do you see more coming up? Please let me know in the comments below. There is also a option to post anonymus if you don't want to see your name or nick linked in.

Full Metal Cruise 2013 documentation still online

Besides the traditional metal festivals with stages and often a proper camping ground these days a new form of festival seems be more and more popular. I'm speaking about all of the cruises that put a bunch of bands, lots of lights and stages plus all the fans on one big ship and let them do a trip of their very own.

Besides other big festivals like the Sweden Rock the biggest one called Wacken Open Air has also done a cruise of their own entitled "Full Metal Cruise". It took place from  5th to 12th  Ma 2013 and did feature 20 Bands on three stage on stage and also at the boarding location. Among others the following bands were performing: KREATOR, SABATON, AVANTASIA, DORO, HEAVEN SHALL BURN und FIREWIND.

If you'd like to see how this turned out, hurry and head over here. The german TV station ZDF did broadcast a 77 min. long documentation about the event that still can be seen for some days in their media streaming service. Check it out!

Full album streams from Evile, Megadeth and Tesseract available

Wow, these days many bands offer there albums on the internet for free streaming mostly even prior to the official release date. Today I'll give you a package of three bands, that have all set up their entire brand new albums for listening via the World Wide Web.

So let's start out with Tesseract and their album Altered State. The band has put quite a interessting concept behind their album, something that often run's across my mind - the changes in life we all go through and how we deal with them.

The band describes the concept in their own words: "The concept behind the presentation of 'Altered State' is very simple. It is about change, and how life is change. We have been through a very difficult period of time over the last few years. It is a miracle that the band has survived. I feel it is the ability to step back and see everything for what it is (hence the 'Perspective' EP) that has allowed us to get on with life and try to enjoy it. Reality is change."

Here is how the music turned out after this process:

It's been a sad day recently when I read about the sudden death of Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman. Rest in peace! You'll be always remembered for this unique playing style and some of the most intensive thrash songs ever.

If we focus on things there's often a feeling like it's black clouds and silver linings. Meaning most stuff doesn't look too good for some or other reason but there's sometimes a glimpse of hope hanging in the air.
As for this moment for me it's the young fresh bands that give these glimpse I'm talking about.

One of them is currently Evile, a young band digging also in this thrash direction. They got my attention some time ago when I first saw the video to the song "Cult" and now they are back with a fresh record entitled "Skull". Their record company has set up the whole album as a stream on youtube so without any further words enjoy it. :-)

Let's close these round-up with the full proven thrash music from US veteran's Megadeth that have just put out the new album called "Super Collider". Actually my very first impressions on this album are quite mixed but I'm looking forward to check out the full album later. First of all here is the link to the german Rock Hard magazine for you, so you can quickly check the record out for yourselfs. While you do so, why not leave a little comment here? I'd like to know what you think about these three albums.  

Sweden Rock Cruise 2012 documentation now online

The documentation about Sweden Rock Cruise 2012 in german language from the TV station NDR is now up online for streaming. It mostly shows the atmosphere of the event seen from the perspective of the fans but also features some short cuts from the performances of Morgana Lefay and Rage plus some Interview footage with Rage. Duration app. 30 minutes. Have a look on it here. If you want to know more about what Sweden Rock Cruise is all about, just check out their official site with more info on it.

The very same night the documentation about the Wacken Open Air 2012 was also broadcasted again. As I did already say in my older post, they've also uploaded that documentation to their website, but did cut away the bands performances. Just to put up some complete info for you guys who missed the whole Metal Night Event on the german TV station NDR. Hope they will continue to put out such nice things to us.

Festival footage online and on TV

The festival season is once more upon us. :-) Also the weather here in germany is a quite mixed thing right now it's time to celebrate the music we all love and adore together with other people while having a little party with it. If you know of more stuff that is up on TV or online please let me know though a comment or email. I'd like to put up as much stuff here as possible.

Vainstream Festival 2012

Some festivals are already over and TV stations have been there to capture some footage of what happened. One of them is iMusic 1 with their show iMusic rocks show. They recently took a look at the Vainstream festival and came back with some interviews and interview stuff (e.g. with Slayer). You can watch it online at their website. It's only 30 minutes long but worth watching it.

Rock Hard Festival 2012

Another TV station here in germany is the WDR. They did visit the Rock Hard festival 2012 here in Germany and will show tonight a cut-together of interview and concert stuff. After that they will also show 2 best of's of the shows from Graveyard and Unisonic. The exact time-table goes as follows:

Sunday to Monday, 15. upon 16. Juli 2012

00.15h Rock Hard Festival 2012
02.15h GRAVEYARD
02.45h UNISONIC

All times are german times. More info on this broadcast (in german) can be found here. In case they should add the stuff afterwards to their archive I'll put the exact links here up,too.

Update 2012/07/16: Happily they did upload the videos! Just click on the links to open a new window with the video in it.

Rock Hard Festival 2012 

Graveyard

Unisonic

Additionally you can watch stuff from the past 2011 Rock Hard festival and also from the 2010 RH festival stuff is still watchable online.

Update 2012/07/16: Just got the info that Heavy Metal Home TV has also taken some footage at the festival and did upload it to youtube for watching. The video is about half a hour long and features the following bands (each one contributes one full song to the vid):

TURBONEGRO, KVELERTAK, KRISIUN, RAM, DEATHFIST



Wacken Open Air 2012

Will there be a stream this year? I have no concrete info about this yet. At least the german TV station zdf kultur has announced to broadcast a four hour special on 4th August 2012, starting at 20h (german time). Maybe the NDR may do a stream. Their Wacken sub-page is still up and running so chances might be they'll do a stream. Let's keep the fingers crossed.

Update 2012/07/27:
There will be a internet livestream from the Wacken 2012 Festival! The following bands already confirmed that their shows will be shown online: Overkill, Dimmu Borgir, U.D.O. und Hammerfall.

On Thursday, Friday and Saturday the stream will be online, starting at 18h (german time) and end at 1h in the night. On Sunday their will be a stream up from some shows of the previous days that hasn't been shown in the time before. More details like the full time-table will follow in the next days. I'll update the related post on the frontpage of my blog when new info arrives, so stay tuned for more!

The internetstream can be seen at this site of the german TV station NDR, thanks to them that they will give us the possibility to take part of this great event also in 2012!

Update 2012/08/03:
ZDF kultur will broadcast some of the shows live through their TV station on 4th August 2012. The following bands will be shown at the mentioned german time:

20.00 Uhr, Amon Amarth (LIVE!)

21.25 Uhr, Volbeat

22.50 Uhr, Scorpions (LIVE!)

23.15 Uhr, Machine Head (LIVE!)

Update 2012/08/05: ZDF kultur has put the video for this online, full four hours of live-stuff!!!
But hurry, it's only up for a week. 

The highlight shows in the week after the Wacken Open Air will contain the following bands at the mentioned days with german timeframe:

Update 2012/08/07: Seems like every show will be added to the on-demand-archive of the TV station for free watching after the broadcast so I'll add the links here as fast as I can. Just click on the desired show and a new window with the chosen on-demand stream will appear. :-) But hurry, every video is only up for a week. Enjoy!


6. August, 17.55 Uhr: Sepultura & Les Tambours du Bronx

7. August, 17.55 Uhr: Hammerfall

8. August, 17.55 Uhr: D.A.D und The Boss Hoss

9. August, 17.55 Uhr: Saxon

10. August, 18 Uhr: Dimmu Borgir & Orchestra

13. August, 17.55 Uhr: Edguy

14. August, 17.55 Uhr: Testament

15. August, 17.55 Uhr: Ministry

16. August 17.55 Uhr: In Extremo

17. August, 18 Uhr: In Flames

More info on the timetable regarding the broadcast on german TV station zdf kultur and the highlight shows can be found on this site  

The TV NDR station has put up the full Show from Cirle II Cirle for seven days on the Wacken subpage. The band performed Savatage's "The wake of Magellan" album in it's entirely so it's something very special.  

Update 2012/08/12: The german Metal Hammer magazine has put together some nice links as a media review shwoing what german magazine's and TV stations did report about the WOA: See the clipping with all the links attached right here. 

Update 2012/10/19: Meanwhile the german documentary "Heavy Metal trifft Karniggels" has been uploaded to this location. Having taken a look at the stuff it seems to me that the documentary stuff has been left in but the videos from the band performances have been cut out. Guess that's because of legal rights missing to stream this stuff. Anyway, nice they did put this one up at least as (optional HD) flash videos and additionally also as Windows Media Stream in three qualities.If you want to know more about the director Detlev Buck, there is another german sub-website from NDR station describing his life and work quite in detail.

In addition to this they also did set up a subpage with all the performances of the bands that played at the "Wacken metal battle" Contest. So if you saw a band there that you liked a lot or just wanna checkt out some fresh new bands, this is the place for you to go. I counted 17 videos on that page. Great so see they support young bands that much.

AREA 4 festival

There was a stream online and now some of the shows are online. Check my corresponding post for details on where to see the stuff. 


Hellfest 2012

German TV station Arte did broadcast a documentation about this Open Air located in France with it's very mixed line-up. It's nicely done, with much livemusic, interviews and some personal insights into the time the both reporters spend at the festival. Check out the movie here. It will be online for about a week. (added the link on August 5th 2012).

Omas Teich Festival 2012

A smaller festival in the eastfrisian region (northern) of germany with mostly Independent band and the like, mostly not with metal bands. ZDF kultur will broadcast a cut-together on 28th Juli 2012, starting at 20h (german time) and some specials in the week after the festival. Read the (german) announcement here. You can get more info about the festival on the official homepage.

Melt, Isle of Wight,Hurricane and Berlin Festival

Besides all of this the ZDF has some concert footage of Melt, Isle of Wight,Hurricane and Berlin Festival in their mediathek service currently online, but only for a week. Go here and click on the image to choose your desired festival stuff.

Graspop Metal Meeting 2012

Adrenaline Mob have uploaded two pro-shot videos of their performance at the Graspop Metal Meeting. Nice stuff, check it out below for yourselfes.

Song from the upcoming Testament album now online!

So I guess a lot of you out there will know the legendary thrash veterans from Testament. Thrash at it's best IMHO. The highly anticipated follow up to their 2008 release The Formation of Damnation will be released on July 27, 2012 (Europe) and July 31, 2012 (North America). So a lot of people are surely looking forward to hear something from the new record that features Gene Hoglan for the second time after the 1997's album Demonic on drums.

The bands record company finally has heard the call and uploaded the first track "True american hate" on soundcloud. I love it! It'y typical thrash at it's best with traditional brutal riffing, slightly melodic with a great refrain and a rhythm that let's you bang your head straight forward.

So if you have a facebook account please do me a favour and head over to the promotional site of the album that the record company has set up and give it a like. The more people like it, the more samples of the album will be revealed. So please help making this happen. :-)

Finally take a look at the band's website for all the latest info on the band, especially for toudates that hopefully soon will be confirmed.

Heathen

Today is a special day - the 29th of February only comes every four years. To celebrate this special properly I've decided to pick a band that surely deserves much more attention. I'd like to introduce you today to "Heathen", a trash metal band from the beginnings of the 80th's. Looking at their member list it seems that they had a lot of good people in their line-up but they never seem to have recognized besides the Big Four (Metallica,Slayer,Megadeth,Anthrax).

They band did split up back in 1992 but came together in 2001. By now they've released a new album in 2010 called "The evolution of chaos" and it's a superior album. I heard it first yesterday evening and are still doing so while typing this lines. The fascination hopefully can be read in these lines.

The full album "Evolution of chaos" can be heard for free on the bands myspace site.

As a little tip on which song to hear first here's "No stone unturned" which is one of my favorites of the album.

No Stone Unturned

They even have made a video for one of the songs of the album but I can't watch it here in germany. Anyway, here's the video in case you've more luck than me.

Listen to the new Daughtry album before the release

Chris Daughtry - a well known name in the world of Rock and Metal. He took part in the 'American Idol' contest some years ago. He didn't won it,but was given a contract for a album release together with some other musicians.

By now they released two albums and both,the seld titled debüt and the follow up 'Leave this town' totally rocked IMHO.

They do combine powerfull,straight Rocksongs with the variable voice of Chris Daughtry. They sound a bit like Nickelback did back in the first days.

Album no. 3 is coming up on 11/21/11. Have a listen already today of the full album legally here:

http://www.daughtryofficial.com/us/news/listen-break-spell-its-entirety

Listen to Korn's new song 'Sanctuary'

The time of the release of the new Korn album is getting closer. So I guess there are many of you out there that are looking forward to the 6th of December and would like to listen to more stuff in advance.

Here you go. Hot Topic has been chosen by the band to reveal the track 'Sanctuary'. Here's the link to the article with the song. Enjoy. :-)

http://community.hottopic.com/ht_music/news/hot-topic-world-premiere-song-korns-sanctuary?cm_re=Music-_-Link+1-_-KORN+SANCTUARY+VIDEO

Discover new prog bands at Progstreaming

Reading other blogs and websites is a thing I love to do. They often do have interesting info and links to sites that are not popular yet.

This site is a fine example for that. It's a blog in german talking about a new streaming website offering free full album streams of young and fresh progmetal bands that aren't known by many people.

Klangkino: Info: "Progstreaming" bietet Alben zum kostenfreie...: Wie die Überschrift schon titelt, bin ich auf eine sehr interessante Sache gestoßen, denn die Streaming-Seite Progstreaming beinhaltet dutz...

I remember having picked up the "Honour Thy Drummer - A tribute to Mike Portnoy" album and found some mindblowing bands on them. Maybe this will happen again? No one knows,but check the site out for yourselfs:

www.progstreaming.com