The old school punk veterans MILLECOLIN are back with a new album named "True Brew" (released April 17 2015). The first single and todays tune "Sense & Sensibility" is a charismatic melodic punk tune that clocks under the magic 3 mins line.
The heavy stuff that dominated the last album Machine 15 (2008) is, however, eliminated. The new one is more straight melodic punk with catchy tunes.
MILLECOLIN is a punk rock band that was formed in October 1992 by Nikola Sarcevic, Mathias Färm, and Erik Ohlsson in Örebro, Sweden. In early 1993, drummer Fredrik Larzon joined the band. The name Millencolin is derived from the skateboard trick "melancholy"
The line up today:
Nikola Sarcevic - lead vocals, bass guitar, percussion, keyboards
Erik Ohlsson - guitar, keyboards, album artwork
Mathias Färm - guitar, percussion, keyboards, assistant engineer, editing
Fredrik Larzon - drums, percussion
Todays tune "Sense & Sensibility" is taken from the eighth studio album "True Brew". Shot and directed by Erik Ohlsson at Eckhouse Design
Only GoPro cameras was used shooting this video.
REFUSED are back again. Their latest album, The Shape of Punk to Come, released in 1998. After a reunion tour in 2012 saw it a long time as it once was over for the influential hardcore band.
Now REFUSED announce their first album in 17 years. Freedom released on June 30, was produced by Nick Launay (ARCADE FIRE, KATE BUSH, NICK CAVE), and two of the songs; Elektra and 366, was written together with the Swedish producer duo Shellback previously written hits for (uh ...) BRITNEY SPEARS and TAYLOR SWIFT.
"It's no longer a question about a reunion," says the band's lead singer Dennis Lyxzén. "This is perhaps the most radical we've ever done, both musically and lyrically."
REFUSED is a Swedish hardcore punk band originating from Umeå, formed in 1991. In total the band released five EPs and three full-length albums before originally splitting up in 1998. Refused is composed of vocalist Dennis Lyxzén, guitarist Kristofer Steen, drummer David Sandström and bassist Magnus Flagge. Guitarist Jon Brännström was a member from 1994, through reunions, until being fired late 2014. Their lyrics are often of a non-conformist and politically far-left nature
Todays tune "Elektra" by Refused from the upcoming album "Freedom", available June 30th.
Apr 29 Pumpehuset Copenhagen, Denmark
May 02 Groezrock Meerhout, Belgium
May 22 Ruhrpott Rodeo Open Air Festival Hünxe, Germany
May 24 Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival May 23-25 Las Vegas, NV
May 25 The Observatory Santa Ana, CA
May 26 Roxy Theatre West Hollywood, CA
May 28 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA
May 29 Doug Fir Loung Portland, OR
May 30 The Crocodile Seattle, WA
May 31 Double Door Chicago, IL
Jun 01 The Sinclair Boston, MA
Jun 03 Bowery Ballroom New York, NY
Jun 04 Music Hall Of Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY
Jun 05 Rock and Roll Hotel Washington, DC
Jun 20 Amnesia Rock Fest Montebello, Canada
Jun 26 Bravalla Festival Norrkoping, Sweden
Jun 27 Provinssirock Seinäjoki, Finland
Jul 02 Open'er Festival Gdynia, Poland
Jul 11 Rock im Ring Festival Renon Bz, Italy
Jul 16 Resurrection Fest Viveiro, Spain
Jul 17 Slottsfjell Tonsberg, Norway
Jul 18 Bukta Tromso Open Air Festival Tromso, Norway
Jul 30 Masquerade Music Park Atlanta, GA
Jul 31 Red Hat Amphitheater Raleigh, NC
Aug 01 Mann Center Philadelphia, PA
Aug 02 Merriweather Post Pavilion Columbia, MD
Aug 04 Blue Hills Bank Pavilion Boston, MA
Aug 05 Madison Square Garden New York, NY
Aug 07 Ricoh Coliseum Toronto, Canada
Aug 28 Leeds Festival Bramham, United Kingdom
Aug 29 Pure & Crafted Festival Gräfenhainichen, Germany
Aug 30 Reading Festival Reading, United Kingdom
AMONG EMPIRES started as a project by Magnus Hedberg, a project among friends, something that could be creative for the time and write stuff for fun, to let loose of the ideas that they had in their minds, together they jammed and made a few tunes and with pressure from some outer source they finally decided, what the heck, lets release this and see how it goes.
The song is ambitious, focused and exciting, The melodyiscatchyand neat with a great vocal part by Peter Jonsson, he have a good feelingand much presence in the song. It's a tune that easy could climb on any chart.
Magnus Hedberg: Guitars
Peter Jonsson: Vocals
Guest musicians:
Martin Källström: Drums
Micke Eriksson: Guitars
Arne Johansson: Bass
Chris Rehn: Keyboards,
arrangements and programming
As far as I know there should be one more track ready to be released
soon and what I heard it should be even stronger than this one,
could it be so that this project might hit the road, well time will
tell.
Todays tune "Morning Sun" is the first track from AMONG EMPIRES, directed and produced by Chris Rehn / Boxroom. Song produced, engineered, recorded, mixed and mastered by Chris Rehn at Boxroom Studios. Song written by Magnus Hedberg and Peter Jonsson.
Monday and a new week, which means it's time to introduce this week's "Record Of The Week".
This week we have a Swedish death metal band from Arvika, that formed in 2005. "Record Of The Week" is the glorious third album "The Children of the Night" by TRIBULATION.
That TRIBULATION have been exceeded themselves with a magnificent release as this amaze me, holy moses what a album. With the new record the band continue to embrace their signature sound and shows a really wide spectrum of guitar tones and harmonies. The MORBID ANGEL influence that haunted previous albums have slightly changed to more traditional NWOBHM style and classic heavy metal, but also goth and some progressive rock form the 70's. The aggression and occult overtones are still intact and with Johannes gruff monotone vocals the dramatic parts gets life to the songs. In these days it’s hard to stand out, but Tribulation has achieved just that.
A quick summary: You need this!
"The Children of the Night" was released on April 20 in Europe, recorded, mixed and produced by Ola Ersfjord in several different Swedish studio locations (Studio Gröndahl, Honk Palace, Studio Cobra, Necromantic Studios and The Resting Stone) as well as mastered by Chris Common at Twin Hills Mastering in El Paso, Texas. The cover art was painted by guitarist Jonathan Hultén, who also created the band’s previous album covers.
Line-Up:
Johannes Andersson - Bass, Vocals
Adam Zaars - Guitars
Jonathan Hultén – Guitars
Jakob Ljungberg – Drums
Discography:
The Horror (2009)
The Formulas of Death (2013)
The Children of the Night (2015)
Many diffrent version is out on this masterpiece, like an exclusive limited box+shirt bundle available at Nuclear Blast's online store and an exclusive 2LP version (transparent clear vinyl, ltd. to 200) offered at High Roller Records' online store
Todays tune "Strange Gateways Beckon" is taken from the album "The Children Of The Night". Century Media Records 2015.
Sunday, time for a classic!
To follow up on yesterday's post with U.D.O., it would be perfect to look back and pick up something historical that he also performs live.
Metal Heart is the sixth studio album by German heavy metal band ACCEPT, released in 1985. Although the group had recorded before at Dierks-Studios, this was the first album produced by Dieter Dierks himself. This album was a cautious attempt to crack the lucrative American market with more accessible songcraft and emphasis on hooks and melodies. Although critically panned at the time, today Metal Heart is often considered by fans as one of the band's best records. It contains several of their classic songs such as "Metal Heart" and "Living for Tonite". The band also makes a detour into jazz territory with the unusual song "Teach Us to Survive".
Wolf Hoffmann explained the concept behind the album: "We had read an article that someone was working on an artificial heart and that one day everybody is going to have a computerized heart. It talked, in general terms, about how more and more of humanity gets sucked out of the daily life and more and more replaced by machine. It's not a new thing now, but then it was new. Humans versus machine, was the general vibe of the record." The original cover concept was for a hologram of a metal heart, until budget considerations resulted in a traditional cover. But fittingly for the futuristic theme of the album, Metal Heart was the first ACCEPT album to be digitally recorded.
Hoffmann recalls Dieter Dierks as a very demanding producer: "We would do some pieces several dozen times trying to capture what he had in his mind for a specific section," adding: "Each song we tried different combinations of guitars, mic'ing and even strings!"
The song "Metal Heart" is well known for containing the cover of two famous classical themes: Tchaikovsky's "Slavonic March" (in the intro) and Beethoven's "Für Elise" in the main riff and solo. This song was covered in 1998 by Norwegian black metal band DIMMU BORGIR for their album Godless Savage Garden. "I had no idea it would become as popular as it did," Hoffmann remembers of his contribution to the song.
"Midnight Mover", about a drug dealer, is one of the more commercial songs on the album and was selected for a memorable music video that anticipates the bullet time filming technique by a full decade. "Just ahead of our time again!" jests Hoffmann.
Despite the more commercially appealing sound of the album, it fell short of the sales figures of its predecessor Balls to the Wall in America. Udo remembers the Breaker through Metal Heart era as the time when the band got along best together. Thus this would turn out to be the last album of ACCEPTs golden era, as cracks were soon to appear in the band's solidarity.
The digitally remastered CD edition includes two live bonus tracks, "Love Child" and "Living for Tonite", both taken from the live EP Kaizoku-Ban.
Band members on Metal Heart:
Udo Dirkschneider – lead vocals, harmony vocals, backing vocals, finger snapping
Wolf Hoffmann – lead & rhythm guitars, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals, sitar
Jörg Fischer – rhythm guitar, lead & rhythm guitars, 8-string bass, backing vocals, finger snapping
Peter Baltes – bass, Moog Taurus, 8-string bass, backing vocals, harmony vocals, acoustic bass guitar
Stefan Kaufmann – drums, backing vocals, timpani, cymbals and gongs, drum effects and gang vocals
Production
Dieter Dierks – producer, arrangements
Gerd Rautenbach – engineer
Mike Kashnitz, Peter Brandt – assistant engineers
Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk, New York
Gaby "Deaffy" Hauke – management, cover concept
Dirksen & Sohn Modellwerkstâtten, Stahl, Werbefotografie – cover art
Todays tune "Metal Heart" is the title track from the sixth studio album by German heavy metal band ACCEPT.
The legendary German hard rock singer Udo Dirkschneider is here in Sweden at the moment during his Decadent tour to support his latest release (The dates is below in this post). Support on the tour is SISTER SIN and GARAGEDAYS.
U.D.O. still going strong even he has hitted the age of 63, now with the new recruit/son Sven Dirkschneider behind the drums.
It was in 1987 that Udo Dirkschneider left ACCEPT to form his own solo project UDO. Since then he have released albums as "Animal House" and
"Dominator" who have made UDO one of the hard rock world's most stable
and reliable act. He have made numerous world tours and visited
Sweden on several occasions. U.D.O. released his latest album on January 23 this year.
Setlist from Klubben April 23:rd.
Intro: (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) (Beastie Boys song) Speeder Blitz of Lightning King of Mean Decadent Independence Day Black Widow Never Cross My Way The Bullet and the Bomb Under Your Skin
Acoustic set: Tears of a Clown Secrets in Paradise Faceless World Pain Untouchable Let Me Out Metal Machine Metal Eater Encore: Break the Rules Metal Heart
(Accept cover) I'm a Rebel
(Accept cover) Fast as a Shark
(Accept cover) Balls to the Wall (Accept cover)
Here is some pictures
Garagedays and Sister Sin live
Todays tune "Decadent is the title track and first single taken from U.D.O.'s 15th studio album. It was released on January 23, 2015
Upcoming Tourdates:
Apr 25, 2015 S Gothenborg Trädgårn *
Apr 26, 2015 S Malmö KB *
Apr 30, 2015 N Oslo Vulkan Arena *
May 01, 2015 N Haugesund Karmoygeddon Festival
May 02, 2015 N Trondheim Byscenen #
May 05, 2015 LT Vilnius Forum Palace *
May 07, 2015 FIN Vaasa Leipätehdas *
May 08, 2015 FIN Jyväskylä Lutakko *
May 09, 2015 FIN Lahti Finlandia Klubi *
May 10, 2015 FIN Helsinki Nosturi *
May 30, 2015 S Brunflo "Beast Of Rock 2015" (Klanghallen)
Jun 27, 2015 FO Tórshavn Voxbotn 2015
Jul 09, 2015 CZ Vizovice Masters Of Rock
Jul 30, 2015 D Wacken Wacken Open Air
Jul 31, 2015 S Rejmyre Skogsröjet
Aug 08, 2015 D St. Goarshausen RockFels Open Air (Loreley)
Oct 03, 2015 D Geiselwind F.E.K. 9 (Eventhalle)
Nov 28, 2015 D Leipzig Brann Winterfest (Neue Messe)
* with SISTER SIN & GARAGEDAYS as support
# GARAGEDAYS as support
Martin Rubashov is a Swedish musician who released his debut album “The Watcher of the Skies” in 2013. Starting his musical journey in the late 90’s, Martin has also been playing with bands such as; MUSTASCH, MARBLE ARCH, LIBRAH. He is also well known for his radio career as the morning host for the radio station Bandit Rock in Stockholm, Sweden.
Martin Rubashovs solo music is well made, he sings excellent and play really well, he has a really dynamic sound and play with a melancholic acoustic vibe that is influenced by the rock genre, Martin is certainly a trustful companion that can take his thing pretty far.
Todays tune "Hideout" is a brand new single from "Bollnäs Martin" The Video is Shot, directed and edited by Magnus Ewald. Drone footage by Janne Jansson.
Warm Shadow is a tune by FINK, aka Fin Greenall, is an English singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer and DJ, born in Cornwall and currently based in Berlin and London. From 1997–2003 he recorded electronic music and DJ'd internationally, releasing in 2000 his debut album Fresh Produce on Ninja Tune. Since the 2006 release of his album Biscuits for Breakfast, the name FINK has also referred to the recording and touring trio fronted by Greenall himself, completed by Guy Whittaker (bass) and Tim Thornton (drums).
Well known for the 2007 song "This is the Thing" and the 2011 album Perfect Darkness. Greenall's skills as a songwriter have created a demand for his talents among fellow artists. Most recently he has written in collaboration with JOHN LEGEND, BANKS, XIMENA SARINANA and PROFESSOR GREEN. With AMY WINEHOUSE he co-wrote the song "Half Time", which appears on WINEHOUSEs posthumous collection Lioness: Hidden Treasures. In 2012 FINK collaborated and performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, resulting in the live album Fink Meets The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. FINK is currently signed to his own label, R'COUP'D Records, a subsidiary of Ninja Tune. In 2014, he released the album Hard Believer, his most successful album to date, charting in a great number of European Albums Charts.
About the concept of the album "Perfect Darkness":
"With Fink we do sing about relationships and love and emotions – but we also sing about other stuff: embracing fear, Berlin dawns, looking forward. Perfect Darkness was written about a friend of mine who’s just signed a massive record deal and it’s all about to kick off. And I’m saying, ‘just roll with it man. It’s gonna get dark but you’ll survive and you’ll come out the other side.’" - Fin Greenall.
Todays tune is taken from the fifth album "Perfect Darkness". It was released in 2011. The album was produced by Billy Bush (who has worked with artists such as BECK and GARBAGE) and recorded in Brighton and Los Angeles. The tune "Warm Shadow" was used as a soundtrack in the season 3 episode 13 of "The Walking Dead" TV sires.
TURNAROUND is a power trio from Kyiv, Ukraine. The band plays "Rock Blues" inspired by such giants of rock music as LED ZEPPELIN, JIMI HENDRIX, CREAM, TEN YEARS AFTER, PINK FLOYD and modern bands such as RACONTEURS, THE BLACK KEYS. They are often called Ukrainian ZEPPELIN for their resemblance with LED ZEPPELIN.
They are combining blues rock, psychedelic, classic rock, progressive rock, stoner and garage rock, bits and pieces from all to create their own unique style, which they manage pretty good. They have a great atmosphere of the classic touch.
The band had released their first album in 2012 and only after 2 years they finished the second one "Black Soul Woman". It consists of 8 songs (LP) and 1 bonus track (acoustic song available on CD only).
The Vinyl is released as strictly ltd. colour vinyl, only 300 copies
made. The recording took 15 months and they say it was worth doing that
for so long.
The band consists of:
Max Tovstyi – Guitars, vocals, harmonica, keyboards, sometimes bass (on recordings), percussion etc.
He is a songwriter and composer of the band who writes all the lyrics and music. Before TURNAROUND, he played in various bands and music projects (The Red Sterns, The Blues Bricks, Rumbles etc.), played solo and even with The Chamber Orchestra where he wrote and arranged all the scores for all the musical instruments. Max started playing since 6 years old and he gave his first concert at the age of 7.
Pasha Mykhalenko – Drums, percussion.
Being one of the best drummers in Kyiv he was often called the second John Bonham because of his strong drum playing and creativity. He played his first solo on stage when he was 12 and now there is no TURNAROUND concert without a drum solo.
Valeriy Vitomskiy - bass, backing vocals.
He joined TURNAROUND in spring 2013, finding abherents in Max and Pasha of the same musical tastend.Valeriy is a talented musician, also a guitarist and singer. He gathered his first band and played concert at the age of 16.
Todays tune "Black Soul Woman" is the title track from TURNAROUNDs second album, enjoy!
Here is a little medly, recorded live at 18.12.2013. It includes tracks like Black Soul Woman\Did You Get It\Hand Of Doom\Paranoid.
In Long Island, New York’s we find the excellent three-piece band EXEMPTION. With their breathtaking energy and musicality complex music that kicks some ass.
The third self-released album "Public Cemetery Party" is a really fun record, it takes some time to take in, as its full of complex stuff, cross overs etc. Their music is like it has evolved into something beyond genres and sub-genres, hard to tag it. The influences spreads from MASTODON to FRANK ZAPPA.
"Public Cemetery Party" was recorded at Killingsworth Recording Company Jan - Sep 2010. Farmingdale, NY. Produced by Ray Marte. All songs written & performed by Exemption (Nick Lee, Ray Marte, Tom Moran). Released 10.27.10. Exemption is based in Long Island & Brooklyn, NY.
The band consists of:
Tom Moran - Vocals/Bass
Nick Lee - Guitar/Vocals
Ray Marte - Drums/Vocals
The band was active 2003 - 2012. The members are now focusing on new projects.
The album is free for download here! Do yourself a favour and check these guys up!
Todays tune "Birds" is Live @ Centerville, Recorded December 23rd, 2011
Listen to ”Millencolin - Sense & Sensibility" on Spotify here!
