The Black Queen, led by former The Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato, have been in the studio working on new music so far in 2018. Now they have teased a release in series of posts to their social channels. Infinite Games seems to be the title with a release date of September 18th. That would coincide the the bands fall tour they previously announced. Continue reading
The Black Queen 12-09-2016
At The Gramercy Theater, New York, NY
All Photos By Jonathan Arevalo PhotographyContinue reading
Photo by Jonathan Arevalo
The Dillinger Escape Plan‘s live show is synonymous with chaos, and that’s exactly what they brought to New York City last night. Continue reading
If anything, The Dillinger Escape Plan’s latest LP, Dissociation (Party Smasher Inc), serves as a comprehensive anthology of the various dynamics and styles that this New Jersey act has explored in just about 20 years of existence. This is further compounded by the recent announcement that Dissociation will be the last release before the band collectively buys the farm, so to speak.Continue reading
Electro R&B and Rock collective The Black Queen has debuted a new video for their track ‘Distanced’. You can watch the clip at this link or below:
‘Distanced’ is the fourth video/single from the band’s upcoming album Fever Daydream releasing on January 29th . The other three videos released were ‘Maybe We Should’, ‘The End Where We Start’, and ‘Ice to Never’. Frontman Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan) is joined in The Black Queen by Josh Eustis (Puscifer) and Steven Alexander. Puciato commented on the ‘Distanced’ video:
“The video came about from Steve showing me cloud tanks, which were what a guy named Douglas Trumbull used to make the cloud effects in ‘Close Encounters.’ The visuals produced with those carried such a perfect combination of beauty and implied dread. We wanted to lean on the lyrics a bit in this song, which are about longing and fixation, the burden of absence, and figured we could do that in a more creative way than a normal lyric video, so I got together with Jesse Draxler, who we’ve worked with on the artwork for the album and ‘The End Where We Start’ single, and collaborated with on the ‘Maybe We Should’ video, and we built a cloud tank one night and shot endless amounts of footage until about five in the morning. We put the lyrics on heavy black poster board behind the tank, and then mailed them to people when we were done. The whole feel of this band has been so delicate and personal to us, and we’ve been so hands on with everything, so it’s nice to know that some people out there received a surprise piece of this video. That’s the part that was really gratifying. Knowing that like fifteen people would be like ‘what is this?’ and then see the video a day later. An element of human connection.”
The band has booked a début live performance which promises to be an exploration of the group’s audio/visual style on January 29th.
The Black Queen debuts live:
Jan 29: Complex – Glendale, CA – buy tickets here.
Pre-orders for Fever Daydream are live now on iTunes and Bandcamp.
The Black Queen on Facebook
The Black Queen on Instagram
Los Angeles artsy electonic trio The Black Queen, led by Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato, has released a new video for the single ‘Ice to Never’. You can watch the video at this link or below:
Directed by Rob Sheridan, known for his work with Nine Inch Nails, the video follows TBQ’s Stephen Alexander walking around downtown L.A.
Puciato comments on the ‘Ice To Never’ video
“The bulk of this album was written and recorded living together in a desolate industrial area of downtown LA, a few blocks from skid row, so it felt right to incorporate the area into the video…”
“Our lives at the time were also each in this sort of insular but necessary ‘dark night of the soul’ type of rebuilding period, but this song in particular coming together carried a moment of uplift with it,” “Musically, lyrically, overall energy. The juxtaposition felt tangibly surreal. We wanted to marry all of that together in the video. There is positive energy in the skid row shots. It’s there in reality. In any instance where there is the hope that comes from the camaraderie of a group struggle. The end ocean scene can be a symbol of many things. The ominous unknown, or the prize to which people blindly and unwaveringly aspire to; the top. Or it’s the mistake of trying to do everything alone. Any and all of those can magnetize and then swallow and destroy you. Rob did an amazing job with the concept, as well as with adding visual period piece nods to the time that we all grew our roots in.”
‘Ice to Never’ comes from Fever Daydream, the forthcoming debut from The Black Queen, due out in early 2016. Digital downloads of both “Ice To Never” and another single, “The End Where We Start” are available via iTunes.
The Black Queen is:
Greg Puciato – vocals and programming
Steven Alexander – programming/production
Josh Eustis – multi-imstrumentalist/programming
The Black Queen on on instagram
While speaking to Ghost Cult about the upcoming Soulfly album Archangel (Nuclear Blast), Max Cavalera took a moment to talk about his other projects. Cavalera Conspiracy released their third album Pandemonium (Napalm) towards the tail end of 2014, but it was Cavalera’s third and newest band, Killer Be Killed that caused the biggest of stirs last year, with their self-titled debut being released in the first quarter of last year through Nuclear Blast. They just did a tour of Australia at Soundwave Festival earlier this year and have permanently added drummer Ben Koller of Converge.
When asked how is able to balance three high profile outfits, the enthusiastic metallist replied: “I jump from one to the other, pretty much without thinking! I have a switch in my brain that goes off and on. I work mostly with Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy had some things last year. Killer Be Killed, we did a bit this year too, some shows.”
What does the future hold for Killer Be Killed? As a band, you have to see it as a huge success? “Yes. It was really much better than I thought (it would be) and the singers really work well together, and I had no idea how that was going to work, but it came together really good. I’m so pleased, it’s a cool, melodic record. It was done in the right way, it felt organic and very natural. It came out very pleased with it. I just don’t like the cover. I fucking hate the album cover. That’s the only negative about Killer Be Killed!”
So what is the next step? And will whatever comes out have a “Max approved” cover?
“Yes! I’ll make sure of that! We’re going to make 2 more songs soon to come out next year on Nuclear Blast for the fans, then we’re going to work on a second record next year.”
Archangel by Soulfly will released on August 14th by Nuclear Blast
STEVE TOVEY
About halfway through Lamb of God’s magnificent new album, Sturm Und Drang (Epic/Nuclear Blast) vocalist Randy Blythe screams into the microphone: “How the FUCK did you think this would end?!” It’s both a question and a statement of defiance, summing up five years that have been nothing less than challenging for this band.
You’ve all read about Mr Blythe’s trials and tribulations; I won’t waste space going into them yet again but surely there must have been points when the band must have wondered how it all might end – fearing that they might never make any record ever again. That they have returned and delivered an album this ferocious, this energised, this brilliant, is utterly remarkable and testimony to a sense of collective tenacity and drive that can only be admired.
Suffice to say, there is an air of valediction surrounding Sturm Und Drang. They are right to feel valediction too: this is a quite brilliant record, their most ferocious since As The Palaces Burn (Prosthetic/Epic) and, in all probability, the best thing they have ever done. Scratch that: there’s no “probability” at all – it’s their best record. Period.
There are so many things to get excited about: the song-writing has never been stronger and the musicianship a veritable showcase of individual and collective talent. Whether you opt for Chris Adler’s drumming, Mark Morton and Willie Adler’s astonishing gifts for killer riffs, John Campbell’s hypnotic, rumbling basslines or Blythe’s vocals (is there anyone who sounds more metal than him? That’s correct, there isn’t) it scarcely matters: on this record, the band haven’t just upped their game, they have decided to change it altogether.
From the scabrous and infectious opening of ‘Still Echoes’ which erupts like a line of aural hand grenades in your head, it is clear that Lamb of God aren’t content with throwing down the gauntlet, they are throwing down every gauntlet ever made. It is an instant classic, a song to cheer to the rafters and to howl along with in the circle pits. It is breathless and brilliant.
Lamb of God, photo credit – Travis Shinn
And so it continues: ‘Erase This’ pummels you into submission, a neck cracking riff allied to a chant along chorus line are terrific ingredients to blend together and the sonic cocktail they have conjured here is deeply intoxicating. It’s hardly a surprise that Blythe references the challenging times he has been through. On the blistering and belligerent ‘512’ (the cell number that Blythe occupied during his incarceration in the Czech Republic) we are treated to a deeply personal insight into the vocalist’s sense of outrage at the injustice he suffered; you get the sense that Blythe is straining every sinew as he spits out the lyrics with venomous bile. It’s an extraordinary display backed by a relentless band performance.
Lamb of God are not a band you’d readily associate with ballads but on ‘Overlord’, a song that has echoes of Alice in Chains, we see Blythe turn in a clean, nuanced and, ultimately, powerfully affecting performance. The song’s ambition is more than matched by the band’s ability to execute and it positively radiates.
It’s not just the massive riffs or the killer tunes that you warm to on Sturm Und Drang, although they are here in abundance: ‘Anthropoid’ and ‘Footprints’ are two further effortless examples in how to write killer heavy metal songs. What equally impresses on this record is the creativity and detail that has been taken. For example, when Deftones’ Chino Moreno makes a startling and very welcome appearance on the exquisite ‘Embers’ it sounds so right, so appropriate that you wonder why they hadn’t tried it before; similarly, The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato adds scope, nuance and texture to the album closer, ‘Torches’.
Sturm Und Drang takes all the emotions, frustrations and challenges of the band’s last five years and distills them into an album of relentless, authentic brilliance. It is everything you hoped this band could produce and more. Sturm Und Drang is the most exciting heavy metal album of the year by a country mile.
All Heavy Metal records should sound this good.
9.5/10
MAT DAVIES
In an interview with Metal Hammer, Max Cavalera has reported that he expects another Killer Be Killed album to be released in 2016.
“There’s another Killer Be Killed record coming next year, and more Cavalera Conspiracy stuff in the future. At this point I’m just letting it roll. Whatever happens will happen – that’s my attitude. I’m not forcing anything. If it happens, great; if not then it’s still okay.”
A bonafide supergroup, Killer Be Killed performed their first live dates as a band in Australia earlier this year, is comprised of Cavalera, Greg Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Troy Sanders of Mastodon, and drummer Dave Elitch (Antemasque/ex-The Mars Volta).
Killer Be Killed are streaming drum cam footage of their new drummer Ben Koller (Converge, All Pigs Must Die, Mutoid Man) on “Wings Of Feather And Wax” live from the 2015 Soundwave Festival in Australia.
Greg Puciato – vocals, guitar
Max Cavalera – vocals, guitar
Troy Sanders – vocals, bass
Ben Koller – drums
Juan Montoya – guitar