Metal Update – 19 September 2018
Hello and welcome to yet another of my heavy metal round-ups, bringing you news that I hope you’ll find interesting. I may not be the first news source, but I hope that I am at least unique in that I try not to just cut and paste what’s already out there. I’ll let you decide.
In the meantime, allow me to crack on because I have some important news to bring you…
Evergrey
‘The Atlantic’
AFM Records
Release date: TBC
Any news relating to my favourite band is good news, so it is with great delight that I can confirm the title for the new Evergrey album, due early in 2019: ‘The Atlantic’. Rumours have been doing the rounds of late, but I waited to bring you details of this until I had it confirmed. After all, there’s nothing on the official Evergrey pages currently about this.
However, a brief online conversation with my good mate Tom Englund has now confirmed that this information is genuine and that we can now eagerly await further news on ‘The Atlantic’, including a confirmed release date (delayed due to a break-in at the band’s studio), track-listing, artwork, lyrical themes and musical direction. Of course, the minute I get any of this information, I’ll bring it to you. In the meantime, go and listen to some classic Evergrey – you know you want to, because they are obviously the best band in the world!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmmh69G-pt0&w=560&h=315]
Lost In Thought
‘Renascence’
Label: TBC
Release date: tentatively 1 November 2018
Out of the blue, whilst watching Pain of Salvation tear up the stage in London last week, I got a message from the guys in Lost In Thought to say the following:
“Hi Matt, just a quick update. We went live with our PledgeMusic Campaign yesterday (12th Sep), if all goes well we are looking at a November 1st release.”
I’m genuinely excited to hear the new album, ‘Renascence’ from Lost In Thought, because their debut, ‘Opus Arise’, released aeons ago in 2011 was such a great record. I had begun to think that perhaps we were due to have another ‘one-hit wonder’ on our hands, but happily my negativity has finally been proved unfounded. I don’t expect ‘Renascence’ to necessarily sound like the debut due to changes in line-up and what I expect to be a greater maturity in the song writing. Whatever happens, I’ll keep my ears on stand-by to bring you my thoughts asap. High hopes for this one, indeed. Oh and I love the artwork – nice work guys!
If you’d like to support their pledge campaign, click the link: https://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/lost-in-thought
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCGJXzFofM&w=560&h=315]
Seventh Wonder
‘Tiara’
Frontiers Music
Release date: 12 October 2018
As I’ve said before, this is one of the big ones for me this year. It has been an absolute age since we last had new studio material from the Swedes and we’ve had to wait even longer so as to avoid a clash with Tommy Karevik’s other band, Kamelot. However, we’re now at the stage where we have three songs released from the upcoming ‘Tiara’ record and I thought I’d pull them all together here, so you can listen to them in one place. I’m kind like that!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhubRsr11rk&w=560&h=315]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Raz0TKEox6A&w=560&h=315]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJYF_5y1Ljc&w=560&h=315]
Bloodbath
‘The Arrow Of Satan Is Drawn’
Peaceville Records
Release date: 26 October 2018
Who doesn’t like a good dose of dirty and depraved old-school death metal? I do, so that’s good enough to bring you this, the first song released from the forthcoming new Bloodbath album. If you recall, I waxed lyrical about this multi-national ‘supergroup’ in a previous round-up and delightfully, we can all now check out some sounds from ‘The Arrow of Satan Is Drawn’ which is due for release on 26 October 2018. The track is called ‘Bloodicide’ and features guest performances from Jeff and John Walker (Carcass) as well as Bolt Thrower’s Karl Willetts. I’m salivating already!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDDTGAsybMY&w=560&h=315]
