Heavy Music News
Gone Is Gone (Mastodon, At the Drive-In, QOTSA) Unveil New Song “Everything Is Wonderfall”: Stream
Gone Is Gone, the supergroup featuring members of Mastodon, At the Drive-In, and Queens of the Stone Age, are back with a new song called “Everything Is Wonderfall”. The band, which formed in 2016, is made up of Mastodon singer-bassist Troy Sanders, At the Drive-In drummer Tony Hajjar, Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, and multi-instrumentalist Mike Zarin. In December 2019, Gone Is Gone returned with the stand-alone single, “No One Ever Walked on Water”, which marked their first new music in nearly three years. Seven months later, they’ve unleashed “Everything Is Wonderfall”, featuring soaring vocals by Sanders, thunderous drumming by Hajjar, and grand guitar playing by Van Leeuwen. A haunting spoken-word section comes at the two-minute mark, before the riffs return to cl...
Boris Unveil Dystopian Music Video for “-鏡 -Zerkalo-” from Latest Album NO: Stream
Japanese metal auteurs Boris have offered up the dystopian music video for “-鏡 -Zerkalo-”, the third single from the band’s latest album, NO. Much like the tracks cascading doom chords and passionate vocal rasps, the video for “-鏡 -Zerkalo-” is epic and transportive. Slow pans depict the barren rocks and surging oceans of a future, post-nuclear landscape. After traversing what looks like an alien planet, we’re taken to a dystopian cityscape. Created by CG artist Yoshiki Shimahara and directors fangsanalsatan and Ryuta Murayama, the video is like Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi by way of Dark Souls. In a press release, Boris gave only this brief cryptic comment on the song and video, revealing that it’s not an alien planet, but our own: “The song as a mirror that reflects this world.” The video...
IK Multimedia Unveils New AXE I/O SOLO Guitar Interface and T-RackS Space Delay Plug-In
IK Multimedia has rolled out a pair of products that will appeal to guitarists looking to cut new tracks in their home studio. The AXE I/O SOLO allows you to interface your electric guitar with your computer or recording device, and the T-RackS Space Delay plug-in offers new production effects. The latest in IK’s AXE I/O line, the SOLO is true to its name — perfect for plugging in your guitar and getting results fast. It can power and ampilfy both a line or XLR input via IK’s Class A PURE mic preamp. In layman’s terms, it means you can use it as a pre-amp for guitars and other instruments, as well as XLR microphones. But as a guitarists’ tool, the SOLO excels, providing what IK calls “tone shaping.” This allows for a single instrument to emit a wide range of tones, which can be dialed...
Rammstein Announce Rescheduled North American Tour Dates for 2021
Rammstein have just unveiled the rescheduled dates for their highly anticipated North American tour, following the postponement of their 2020 outing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The stadium tour originally was set to kick off this summer in late August, but will now take place in late summer / early fall of 2021. While the outing will still be comprised of 10 dates, the band has canceled its Washington, D.C. show outright due to scheduling issues, adding a second show in Mexico City instead. The 2021 tour kicks off August 22nd in Montreal, and hits Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, East Rutherford, N.J. (New York City area), Los Angeles, and San Antonio, before wrapping up with the aforementioned two-night stand in Mexico City. When the North American tour finally does commence, the dyn...
Sebastian Bach: Supporting President Trump Is a Stance Against Every Out-of-Work Musician in America
Veteran metal singer Sebastian Bach is lashing out against supporters of Donald Trump, telling them that they are taking a “stand against … every musician in America who has been put out of work” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The former Skid Row vocalist has long been highly critical of Trump’s presidency on social media, but his new tweet from Wednesday night has gone viral with nearly 60,000 likes as of this posting. The full tweet reads, “If you support Donald Trump you stand against rock n’ roll and every musician in America who has been put out of work because a reality television show host doesn’t believe in science.” Bach also included a mask-wearing emoji, driving home the point that by not wearing masks and social distancing, people are extending the pandemic and ultimately p...
Rise Against Release Expanded Edition of The Black Market: Stream
Rise Against have surprise released an expanded edition of their 2014 opus, The Black Market. The reissue collects the original LP and three B-sides from the era and is now available on digital platforms. It’s also streaming in high-fidelity via TIDAL (which is offering a 60-day free trial right now). The B-sides “About Damn Time” and “We Will Never Forget” were previously included on The Eco-Terrorist in Me 7-inch single, and “Escape Artists” was a bonus track on the album’s original Japanese CD release. The songs, equal in quality to much of the material on The Black Market, can now receive a larger audience after being fan-only rarities for years. Released six years ago The Black Market remains a definitive album in Rise Against’s discography. Coming at an apex in their career, the...
Trapt’s New Album Only Sells 600 Copies in First Week, Band Says It’s Fake News
Lately, it seems like dubious nu-metal dinosaurs Trapt will do anything to trudge up publicity, mostly at their own expense. Unfortunately for them, it doesn’t look like all that press did much to move copies of their new album. According to Nielsen SoundScan data, only 600 copies of Trapt’s Shadow Work were sold in the first week of its release. How could the “Headstrong” band sell so few copies of their zero-acclaim new album? Well, for all intents and purposes, the album release and rollout were a complete mess. Without any semblance of a proper promotional cycle — unless you count singer Chris Brown’s racist Twitter rants and being shamed in an e-beatdown delivered by Power Trip frontman Riley Gale — there is confusion as to when Shadow Work even came out. Whil...
Heavy Resistance: A Playlist of Hard-Rocking Protest Songs
Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen a sea change across the nation and throughout the world. Millions of people have taken to the streets to protest against systemic racism, and the impact has been powerful. In heavy music, protest songs have provided strong condemnations of racism, oppression, war, authoritarianism, and more. Protest songs in heavy metal date back to the genre’s godfathers, Black Sabbath, who released the anti-war track “War Pigs” in 1970. Throughout the years, heavy music has produced hundreds of memorable protest anthems, with punk rock acts like The Clash and Sex Pistols leading the charge in the late ’70s, and hardcore bands like Bad Brains and Black Flag bringing the rebellion in the ’80s. In the ’90s, Rage Against the Machine took protest music to the masse...
Ho99o9 Unleash Grand Theft Auto-Style Music Video for New Song “Pigs Want Me Dead”: Watch
Industrial hip-hop act Ho99o9 (pronounced “horror”) have shared the music video for their brutal new single, “Pigs Want Me Dead”. The video was ostensibly made with Grand Theft Auto V and features the voice of comedian Eric Andre during the opening disclaimer. To be expected from a GTA-style video, it’s total carnage — like when your little cousin takes the controller and blows everything up instead of playing the actual missions. As the song title implies, Ho99o9’s avatar takes a particular interest in the rampant destruction of police property. As Andre warns in his voiceover, it’s chock-full of violence and explicit language, so viewer discretion is advised. Director Tyler Bradberry is behind the video, which is very timely given the current state of turmoil in the United States surroun...
Fender Launches New Player Offset Electric Guitar Models
Fender has announced new additions to its Player line of entry-level electric guitars. The Offset models are designed especially for aspiring guitarists playing “styles that thrive on nonconformity.” The Offset collection features some of Fender’s most bold and eccentric body styles, featuring the Mustang, Mustang 90, Mustang Bass PJ, and Duo-Sonic. Fender fans will recognize these shapes from the guitar company’s stable of iconic designs, but the Offset series brings a new level of accessibility. With their budget price point and smaller, lightweight bodies, the guitars are targeted toward beginner-to-intermediate level guitarists and female players, according to a Fender representative. “Each model delivers the signature Fender sound that has dominated the guitar scene for more than 70 y...
David Lee Roth Casts Doubt on Eddie Van Halen Ever Touring Again
David Lee Roth believes that his Van Halen bandmate Eddie Van Halen is likely done touring, doubting that the guitarist will be willing to endure “rigors of the road again.” Van Halen, the band, have not toured since 2015, and reports surfaced last October that Eddie Van Halen was battling throat cancer for the past five years. A month later, the guitarist was reportedly hospitalized for complications from drugs he was taking to combat the disease. Eddie had previously battled tongue cancer in the early 2000s. Just prior to the reports on Eddie’s health, Roth told radio station WRIF, “I think Van Halen is finished” and that “Eddie’s got his own story to tell.” Now, in an interview with the New York Times, Roth expressed doubt that Eddie would ever return to the road, in any capacity. “I do...
Alice Cooper Is Getting His Own … Chocolate Milk
Alice Cooper has been delivering shock-rock creepiness for 50 years, beheading himself thousands of times onstage along the way. Now, he’s ready to take a slice out of the chocolate milk business. That’s right, Alice Cooper is getting his own chocolate milk, and it’s all for a good cause. Proceeds from the sale of the chocolate milk will benefit the rocker’s nonprofit Solid Rock. The organization operates the Rock Teen Center in Phoenix, Arizona, providing free instruction in music and other creative arts to local teenagers. The rock legend is teaming up with Danzeisen Dairy to produce the chocolate milk, which bears Coopers’ image on the bottle. The milk will be sold at retailers and via home delivery across Arizona beginning this fall. The Solid Rock organization also mentioned in a Face...
