Germany‘s Endseeker are back with their fourth full-length album, Global Worming, due for release via Metal Blade Records on October 27. With this announcement, they have also dropped theie brand new single, “Violence Is Gold”, along with its official music video. Check it out below, and read more from Endseeker.
Let’s be straight up: Final Gasp’s debut Mourning Moon (Relapsev Records) is a great album, but going into this we need to be clear in what we expect from it. The album cover, and marketing hype around this album makes you think it’s the second coming of Type O Negative. This is not the case. They draw inspiration from one of my favorite eras of punk rock…the mid eighties. This is when bands like T.S.O.L. and Die Kruzen took a darker turn in a more shadowy direction.
When legendary New York Hardcore band Earth Crisis temporarily went their separate ways in 2001 Freya was born, formed by three members of EC, bassist Ian Edwards, guitarist Eric Edwards and vocalist Karl Buechner. Named of course after the Norse goddess, Freya picked right up where Earth Crisis left off and have released a plethora of music over the last two decades, blending their Hardcore roots with a good dollop of Thrash Metal, while often using mythology as a basis for their lyrical content.
Ghost Cult Keefy caught up with Phil and Justin of the long-running New York City Psych/Doom band Somnuri! The band just dropped their excellent “Desiderium” album via MNRKheavy and we discussed the entire album, going track-by-track to uncover the secrets of the album!
On the face of it, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is the perfect motto for death metal icons Cannibal Corpse. After thirty-five years of blood splattered riffs and gore drenched lyrics, you know exactly what to expect and disappointment is a rarity. However, despite the technicality so clearly on display, the band’s musical proficiency is often overlooked by those who choose to concentrate on the cartoonishly grotesque lyrics and occasionally controversial album art.
Next month Bell Witch hit the road in support of their new album Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate, available now via Profound Lore records. All shows this year will have a visual accompaniment created by photographer/director Bobby Cochran. This week, the band share a prelude of what audiences will experience with “The Clandestine Gate – Movement 2 (Official Visualizer).”
In the midst of a seven date run of UK shows, Ghøstkid have unveiled their brand new track and video, “Heavy Rain”. The accompanying video deals with the sensitive topic of domestic violence which may be triggering for some viewers. You can watch it in the article below, and read more from the band.
Still pushing their most recent longplayer, 2021’s Tangaroa, Māori metallers Alien Weaponry have dropped a brand new animated video for album track “Īhenga”. The video tells the story of the Te Arawa explorer, also the nephew of one of the de Jong brothers’ ancestors, Kahumatamomoe. Catch it in the article below.
Northern California thrashers Blessed Curse have announced that they will release their second album, Pray For Armageddon, on October 13th via the M-Theory Audio label. This is the band’s first full-length since their eponymous debut in 2012. Find out more below.
Trivium singer and guitarist Matthew Kiichi Heafy has released a new video for the track “Jigoku Dayū” by his Ibaraki project. The video was directed by Black Card Films, and the song features on the 2022 Nuclear Blast Records album Rashōmon. Watch the video below, and find out more.
Buy/stream Rashōmon here.
“When I first witnessed the original classic Japanese painting of Jigoku Dayū, I was mesmerised; then I read the story,” Heafy explains. “The story is one that still haunts me to this day: a woman captured, enslaved, and forced into a world of servitude. The kimono she forged for herself depicted all the scenes of hell — a metaphor of the prison she now lived in.”
More from Ibaraki:
Ibaraki — the name for a terrifying Japanese demon taken from feudal legend — is more than a solo record. It’s the end-result of a journey of an artist finding his voice. Its inspirations include everything from an adoration for the extremes of black metal to the exuberant storytelling of Gerard Way to the adventuresome worldliness of tragic bon viveur Anthony Bourdain. It’s a reflection of Kiichi’s multifaceted interests as well as a profound affirmation of his Japanese-American identity, and one that led him to confront one of his family’s most tragic moments. Like the artist behind it, there is much to the story of Ibaraki and it began with a timid email to one of black metal’s most revered and influential figures.
Kiichi, a fan of black metal before he even started Trivium, reached out to label reps for Ihsahn of Emperor, and the artist personally responded. He recalls, “It was so cool to get that nod and it inspired me to start checking some of his solo stuff. He’d just released his own solo record and I’d never heard anything like it — saxophones, clean singing, jazz chords. It was incredible to me. He’s this non-stop inventor. So I started writing in a totally different way.”
While much of the material for Ibaraki was assembled over those months and years — as much a song-writing process as an exchange of ideas between friends — it wasn’t until the pandemic that the space was created and the idea could really flourish.
“It was very loose,” says Ihsahn. “We just had rough demos for a very long time because we’re arguably pretty busy people, but suddenly, everything was cancelled and we had time on our hands for the first time, so it was like, ‘OK, let’s do this.’ We never got to work in the same room; he’d track guitars and send them to me, I’d run them through my studio and send them back. It was a new way of working, but it was like he was there on the other side of the glass. Matt is a very, very positive, energetic, and passionate music fan – we have similar attitudes to music and open mindedness. We hit it off, and it’s been really rewarding to me.”
The creative interactions between the pair are the result of a deep trust borne of a commonality of their experience. “We both started our respective bands when we were 13,” Ihsahn says. “We got signed when we were 16. That’s young, and in essence we both found our path in life at an early age. We’ve talked a lot about that and our different experiences with that, because it’s like we know nothing else.”
While material was primarily written by Kiichi, Ihsahn engineered and produced and contributed some song structures, plus Trivium drummer Alex Bent, bassist Paolo Gregoletto, and guitarist Corey Beaulieu contributed to various tracks. Ihsahn’s wife Heidi even sampled some natural sounds from the forest near their home and his entire family. Additional guests include the aforementioned Way and Behemoth’s Nergal.
Follow Ibaraki:
https://www.facebook.com/ibarakiband
https://twitter.com/ibarakiband
https://www.instagram.com/ibarakiband/
https://youtube.com/@IbarakiBand
https://www.tiktok.com/@ibarakiband
