Some sad news for fans of Finntroll and Impaled Nazarene.
Guitarist Teemu ‘Somnium’ Raimoranta died earlier this
month from injuries he sustained in an accidental fall he took
while intoxicated. He fell from a bridge in Helsinki and onto
the ice below where he sustained fatal injuries. He was 25 years
old.
Enemy Of? and Ungkas will be playing at
Colley Reserve (Glenelg) on Sat 5 April. The show is completely
free, so there are no excuses not to go down and support your
local scene.
The Easter long weekend will see a huge few days
of gigs. Tidal will be kicking things off with a special
performance at the Enigma Bar on Thurs 17 April as part of the
Down to Size (Vic) CD launch of their new release ‘Lowest
of the Lows’. The show will also include Later That Night.
Following that will be the huge Easter Metal Festival at Le
Rox on Sun 20 April, with ten hours of metal madness from 17
bands on two stages featuring Diatribe, Shot Point
Blank, Japunga (Qld), Anotherfall, Officer
Down, Reaver, Stigmartyr, Nun Nicer,
*10#, Dissidence, Scapegoat, Eserteric,
Lapdancer, Chakkra, 12 Guage, Joint
Fusion and Distorted Minds. This all ages show will
start at 2pm, with entry $12.
Sydney power metallers Dungeon will be heading
to Japan in May to play the ‘Melodic Metal Festival’ with Dragonland,
Skylark, Mastermind and Vigilante. In celebration
of this tour, Dungeon will release a limited Japanese
tour CD entitled ‘Rising Power’, which will feature exclusively
recorded tracks, re-recorded and re-mixed versions of songs
from each of their previous releases plus covers of WASP,
Toto and Iron Maiden. For full details, check
out the band’s website www.dungeon.cd
Other Australians doing well on the international
front include Destroyer 666 who are set to play the ‘Re-Crucifixion
of Christ Festival’ in Milton Keynes, England later this year.
Other bands on the bill include Dark Funeral, Thus
Defiled and Adorior, plus (if negotiations are successful)
Satyricon, Marduk and Mayhem.
Also, Tasmanian death metal band Psycroptic
have recently announced their signing with US label Unique Leader
Records, which is also home to Deeds of Flesh, Disgorge
and Vile. The band’s second album, ‘The Scepter Of The
Ancients’, will be released in Australia in May, and the rest
of the world in July/August. Psycroptic have also scored
the national support for the Incantation tour in June.
Speaking of the Incantation tour, shows
have been confirmed for most major cities, including Adelaide.
Full details will be published as they arrive.
Acclaimed New York death metal band Suffocation
have officially reunited after a four-year break and are currently
in the process of writing and recording their long-awaited sixth
album. The group’s current line-up consists of founding members
Frank Mullen (vocals), Terrance Hobbs (guitar),
Mike Smith (drums) and Josh Barohn (bass), plus
former Pyrexia and Internal Bleeding guitarist
Guy Marchais.
A reminder for people who wish to buy Opeth
tickets, the Melbourne show has already sold out and the Sydney
show isn’t far behind, so get in quick if you’re planning on
seeing them in Adelaide.
In other tour news, there are rumours of an Australian
tour by Chilean doom metallers Poema Arcanus, but nothing
official has yet been confirmed.
Destruction have made available online several
demo tracks recorded during their recent demo/pre-production
session at Switzerland’s Little Creek Studio. The tracks, available
in streaming audio in Windows Media format from www.destruction.de,
were produced by V.O. Pulver and Franky Winkelmann.
According the band’s official website, “these songs are demo
tracks, and therefore don't necessary resemble songs for the
upcoming new LP, neither show the final production state. Nevertheless,
bang your head!!!!” Destruction’s new album, their first
since 2001’s ‘The Antichrist’, is expected to be out by the
end of the year.
Following excellent reviews of their debut album
‘Threnody’, Melbourne progressive/melodic death metal band Praetorian
will soon be heading into the studio to record some new material.
They’ve described it as “some of the best shit we’ve come up
with yet”. More information can be found at www.praetorianmetal.com
Germany’s Blind Guardian will release a
live album in May this year. The as-yet-untitled release will
contain 20 songs recorded during last year’s world tour, including
Into the Storm, Majesty and Journey Through
the Dark. A single containing a studio version of The
Bard’s Song plus several live versions of the same track
will be released the month before.
Edguy, another German melodic metal band
with a live album in the works, are planning to release ‘Burning
Down the Opera’ in June this year. The band are also currently
in pre-production for their next studio album, tentatively due
out in early 2004.
New studio albums are also expected soon from Napalm
Death, who recently began work on ‘Leaders Not Followers
2’, Moonspell, who have replaced bass player SŽrgio
Crestana with Amorphis’s Niclas EtelŠvuori
for the recording of the follow-up to ‘Darkness and Hope’, and
Californians Deeds of Flesh who have just completed work
on their latest CD ‘Reduced to Ashes’.
Got metal news? Send it to atrocity@angelfire.com
