Progressive Metal
Mental Metal: Tool’s Ænima Turns 25
Dusting ‘Em Off is a rotating, free-form feature that revisits a classic album, film, or moment in pop-culture history. This piece celebrates Tool’s acclaimed sophomore album Ænima. Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in 2016, but has been updated in 2021 to reflect the 25th anniversary of Ænima. Many musicians have been influenced by books, but there seems to be something especially literary about the genres of hard rock and metal. This goes double for horror and fantasy fiction: Led Zeppelin meditated on The Lord of the Rings, Black Sabbath wailed about “The Wizard,” and Metallica thrashed to the monster Cthulu. Others have drawn imagery out of the Bible, Norse mythology, or the bloodier epochs of European history. For their second album, Tool drew on the writings of Carl Jun...
Scientists Honor Gojira by Naming Three Fossils After the Metal Band
Gojira have always been an environmentally conscious band, and now scientists have honored the French metal act by naming three newly discovered fossils after them. The brittle star fossils were found in France, Luxembourg, and Austria on what was once the bed of the Jurassic Tethys Ocean. Each of the new species were named after the members of Gojira: Ophiogojira labadiei honoring bassist Jean-Michel Labadie; Ophiogojira andreui for lead guitarist Christian Andreu; and Ophioduplantiera noctiluca for both Joe and Mario Duplantier. Scientists Lea Numberger and Ben Thuy from Luxembourg’s Natural History Museum and biologist Tania Pineda from the Florida Museum of Natural History were behind the fossils’ discovery and naming. Advertisement Related Video “Genus named in honor of French metal b...
Mastodon and Opeth Announce Co-Headlining Fall 2021 US Tour
Mastodon and Opeth have announced a co-headlining fall 2021 US tour with support from Zeal & Ardor. The coast-to-coast trek kicks off November 16th in Asheville, North Carolina, and heads up the East Coast before routing through the South. After hitting the West Coast, the tour wraps up on December 5th in Denver. Mastodon will be out in support of their forthcoming album, Hushed and Grim, recorded over a 12-month period with producer David Bottrill. Openers Zeal & Ardor should also have new music in their setlist, with the avant-metal act set to drop a new self-titled album on February 11th, 2022. Advertisement Related Video Meanwhile, progressive metal vets Opeth played one of the last theater shows we saw prior to the pandemic. The band looks to head back out in support of its mo...
Coheed and Cambria Unveil Video for New Song “Shoulders”: Watch
Coheed and Cambria have unveiled a music video for their new single “Shoulders.” Upon its premiere on YouTube earlier today (August 9th), the band members participated in an online Q&A with fans, answering a number of questions covering various topics. “Shoulders” was released a couple weeks ago as Coheed’s first proper single in nearly three years, save for last year’s surprise song “Jessie’s Girl 2” featuring Rick Springfield. The new tune has already surpassed 1 million collective streams and has cracked the Top 40 of the Active Rock radio chart, the band’s first single ever to do so. The video mostly shows the band delivering a high-energy performance in an industrial space, but also contains a narrative featuring masked characters who unveil themselves toward the end of the clip. ...
Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez on Navigating the Pandemic, 2021 Tour, and New Music
Coheed and Cambria have kept busy during the past year, between launching a coffee line, collaborating with Rick Springfield on the song “Jessie’s Girl 2”, doing Twitch streams, and working on some musical side projects. “We each tried to be creative in our own unique ways apart from each other and navigate the isolation as best we knew how,” frontman Claudio Sanchez tells Heavy Consequence. Sanchez caught up with Heavy Consequence to discuss Coheed and Cambria’s upcoming tour with The Used, how he and the band navigated the pandemic, and various other projects. He also gave us a hint as to what fans can expect as far as new Coheed music. Advertisement Related Video Pick up tickets to Coheed and Cambria’s tour with The Used via Ticketmaster, and purchase Coheed’s line of Coffee Roasters pr...
Limp Bizkit Announce Summer 2021 US Tour with Spiritbox
Get ready, y’all! Limp Bizkit are taking their show on the road this summer for a month’s worth of headlining US gigs with support from rising metal band Spiritbox. The jaunt, dubbed “The Limited Post Pandemic Popup Party”, will feature Fred Durst and company playing a number of intimate venues. The tour kicks off July 29th at the Metro in Chicago, and runs through an August 24th gig at the Palladium in Los Angeles. An August 13th show at the recently renovated Irving Plaza in New York City takes place in the middle of the trek. It’s been 10 years since Limp Bizkit released a new studio album (2011’s Gold Cobra), but the band has continued to tour sporadically as fans await the long-reported follow-up, which at one point was slated to be titled Stampede of the Disco Elephants. Related Vide...
Jinjer Announce New Album Wallflowers, Share New Song “Vortex”: Stream
Jinjer have announced their fourth studio album, Wallflowers, arriving August 27th via Napalm Records. The Ukrainian prog-metal band also unveiled the video for the lead single, “Vortex”. The song entwines complex grooves with the powerful vocals of singer Tatiana Shmailyuk. The emotional weight of her performance lies at the heart of the intense track, which again sees Jinjer dealing with introspective lyrical themes. “This is a perfectly balanced song in our opinion,” the band stated in a press release. “A story told through the music and it deserved a video to perfectly match it… The video is a journey, giving the single another layer, another message, as Tatiana sings about the burden of heavy thoughts and how devastating it can be, the video mirrors what the world has sadly become for...
Spiritbox Announce Debut Album Eternal Blue, Share “Secret Garden”: Stream
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-25T18:06:10+00:00“>May 25, 2021 | 2:06pm ET Rising metal band Spiritbox have announced their highly anticipated debut album, Eternal Blue, out September 17th via Rise Records. The Canadian trio also shared the new single “Secret Garden”. The album will arrive on a wave of hype following the band’s 2017 EP and a long string of successful one-off singles — three of which made the tracklist for Eternal Blue (“Constance”, “Circle with Me”, and “Holy Roller”). In a way, the singles format has both helped and hindered the band. As singer Courtney LaPlante explains, the single limits the listener’s perception to just one song at a time. In turn, the expectations for each new song b...
Gojira Announce Fall 2021 US Headlining Tour
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-05-03T16:22:51+00:00“>May 3, 2021 | 12:22pm ET Gojira have announced a 2021 U.S. fall headlining tour, set to kick off October 11th in Salt Lake City. Kentucky hardcore band Knocked Loose and New Zealand thrashers Alien Weaponry will provide support on the October outing. The run of fall shows will come right after Gojira play the Aftershock Festival on October 9th in Sacramento, California. The band will head across the Midwest and South into Florida before making its way to upstate New York, and eventually wrapping up October 29th in Cleveland, Ohio. The dates also follow the French metal band’s trek in support of Deftones that runs from August through September. That tour was pre...
Gojira Release Fortitude, First New Album in Five Years: Stream
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-30T04:03:19+00:00“>April 30, 2021 | 12:03am ET French metal band Gojira have released their highly anticipated seventh studio album, Fortitude, via Roadrunner Records. As we stated in our review of the new record, the acclaimed metallers embraces melody on Fortitude without ditching the tactful compositions and cinematic atmospheres for which they’re known. The tracks are even more honed and concise than 2016’s Magma, bringing lyrics and hooks to the forefront. In the years before the release of Fortitude, fans grasped for any detail they could find about Gojira’s next project. The band took their time, revealing little aside from an occasional remark from the Duplantier brothers...
Gojira Unleash New Song “Into the Storm” Ahead of Upcoming Album Fortitude: Stream
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-12T16:09:28+00:00“>April 12, 2021 | 12:09pm ET Gojira have unveiled a fourth single, “Into the Storm”, from their upcoming new album, Fortitude, arriving April 30th. The crushing new track will undoubtedly satiate eager fans as the release date fast approaches. Opening with a wash of blast beats and frenetic tremolo picking, “Into the Storm” is arguably the most dynamic and technical piece we’ve heard from Fortitude. It manages to be both atmospheric and catchy, with a bouncy vocal delivery emphasizing the lyrics — always an important facet for Gojira. “Into the Storm” is “infused with the concept of civil disobedience,” according to frontman Joe Duplantier. Related Video “Acting...
