CD/DVD Releases: News Bits 2: And Now That We're Awake...
In playing catch up once again, here's some brief notes on prog (or, in some cases, not prog) happenings in the last few months:
Badass Releases The Video Of Their Powerful Rock Version Of "Wonderful Life": Badass is a brand new Italian power rock band founded by bassist and composer Alberto Rigoni (solo, TwinSpirits, Vivaldi Metal Project) featuring singer Stefano "Stex" Sbrignadello, guitarist Albert "Marshall” Biason and drummer Denis Novello.
While working on original material, the band is also covering famous pop songs (Tina Turner, Roxette, Michael Jackson, REM etc. ) in a powerful rock style and will be playing live in 2015.
Follow the link to watch the video (directed by WOM Videos) of their version of "Wonderful Life" by Black: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHS_nEUUBhI.
[Source: Badass]
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Dr. Living Dead! Launches First Track From New Album, Crush The Sublime Gods; Reveals Artwork: While this is may be out of our scope (which is, admittedly broad…ish), I thought the artwork was pretty cool. So for that alone, I include this from Century Media: "Dr. Living Dead! has revealed the artwork for their upcoming third studio album, Crush The Sublime Gods. The artwork as well as the entire layout of the album has again been done by Dr. Ape, the band's previous vocalist who has been responsible for the artworks of the two preceding albums. Crush The Sublime Gods is scheduled to be released on February 23rd in Europe and February 24th in North America (digital only). For those of you who need some good ol' straight forward thrash to survive the Christmas madness, check out the brand new track "Civilized To Death": soundcloud.com/centurymedia/dr-living-dead-civilized-to-death/s-Zbx18
Crush The Sublime Gods offers a wide array of mid-tempo stompers, slayerized fast and aggressive tracks and grooving melodic numbers, uniting all elements of Dr. Living Dead!'s multi-faceted sound."
The band will tour Europe with Suicidal Angels in February and March, 2015.
[Source: Century Media]
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Blind Guardian - Third Album Trailer ("In The Studio") Revealed!: Metal’s highly-esteemed storytellers Blind Guardian have just released the third new album trailer for their highly-anticipated tenth studio release, Beyond The Red Mirror, due out in Europe on January 30th, 2015, February 2nd in the UK and February 3rd, 2015 in North America.
“In terms of sound we were able to keep our stylistic integrity, yet we delivered something incredibly new and dark vibed”, commented guitar player André Olbrich.
[Source: Nuclear Blast]
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Duo Symphonia - Pipe Organ & Piano : Mistheria writes "My friends, it is time to announce a project I have [had] in preparation over a year with Roberto Scarpa Meylougan, the Duo Symphonia, classical/modern duo formed by Pipe Organ and Piano. Soon there will be the debut live. It's not a conventional duo, of course! ;-) You know my musical attitudes shared between Classical and Metal, just think to my colleague Roberto as my big brother. We range from Classical to Modern music, including ad-hoc arrangements of Rock songs by combining use of classical and digital instruments instruments and media.Find out more on our site www.duo-symphonia.org.
[Source: Mistheria]
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Tesseract Recording Live Album And DVD: In October, TesseracT announced the recording of their first live album and DVD that is planned for early 2015 release through Century Media Records. Amos Williams, TesseracT bass player comments:
"This is a very special moment in the career of TesseracT, we have in essence gone full circle with the return of Daniel Tompkins as our vocalist. There is an enthusiasm and energy amongst the band that we wished to capture for CD and DVD. So, we have been recording as many shows as possible on this tour [with Animals as Leaders this past October] in the hopes of producing a very best of live CD. Where we take one song from one show, say 'Nocturne' in Rome, and maybe 'April' from this year's headline set at Euroblast. It's very challenging both artistically and technically, but if any band can pull it off at this level, TesseracT can. If you're at a show on this tour, and you're singing along, you may well end up on the album! Alongside this we have planned to film our hometown show at Scala in London. This show has been sold out for months now, so we know it'll be intense. It will feature a light show run by our good friend Conor Vennard, with whom we have been working with for 2 years now. The show will be filmed by Sitcom Soldiers, who produced our last promotional video for 'Nocturne'. We are very happy to be working with Sitcom Soldiers again as they have the same enthusiasm for high quality as we do. And finally the audio for the whole project has been handled by 4D Sounds, meaning we should end up with a studio quality recording from a live scenario."
[Source: Century Media]
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Paradise Lost Begins Recording New Album: After taking a trip back in time with the Tragic Illusion 25 (The Rarities) album and the last studio album Tragic Idol (2012) -- which entered the charts at #2 in UK Rock Charts, #6 in Germany, #15 in Austria, #30 in France and #32 in North America Top New Artists/Heatseeker Charts -- it's now time for Paradise Lost's 14th studio album!
The band is about to begin the recording sessions for their highly anticipated 14th studio album with Jaimie Gomez Arellano from Orgone Studios in London (Ghost BC, Ulver, Cathedral, Angel Witch / http://www.orgonestudios.com).
Paradise Lost's Nick Holmes (vocals) comments: "We wanted to approach the new album differently this time, by embracing the band's VERY early days with the last few years. We have written a very dark yet melodic album, but this time many songs definitely have a death metal edge, which is something we haven't done for a long, long time in Paradise Lost."
The new album is tentatively scheduled for a worldwide release via Century Media Records in late April 2015. Stay tuned for more news coming soon!
[Source: Century Media Records]
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The Safety Fire Launch Acoustic Reworking Of "Wise Hands": Following a busy summer of festivals, The Safety Fire have been hard at work writing for their third studio album. However the band have also been experimenting with some different arrangements of songs from last years Mouth Of Swords, and now they are pleased to reveal a beautiful, acoustic reworking of the track "Wise Hands." You can view the equally stunning video for the track here: youtu.be/nUFWDDprbSI
The band had this to say: "Growing up with bands like Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam during the era of MTV-unplugged, we have always had a fondness for acoustic interpretations and versions of songs. This was something we just did for fun but were really happy with how it turned out. With the music being stripped back we felt the video was a fitting portrayal."
[Source: InsideOut Music]
