Alternative Music

Swedish/Canadian/American melodic death metallers ARCH ENEMY played the first show of “The North American Siege 2022” tour with BEHEMOTH and NAPALM DEATH last night (Saturday, April 16) at The Marquee in Tempe, Arizona. ARCH ENEMY‘s set included the three new songs the group released over the last few months: “Deceiver, Deceiver”, “House Of Mirrors” and “Handshake With Hell”. Fan-filmed video of the concert is available below. After the show, ARCH ENEMY singer Alissa White-Gluz shared a post-performance photo of her band and she captioned it: “@archenemyofficial We just kicked off the North American Siege Tour in Tempe, AZ!!! Our first show after 2 1/2 years off the road… A lot of emotions tonight & you guys were fckn aw...

Polish extreme metallers BEHEMOTH debuted a brand new song, “Ov My Herculean Exile”, at the first show of “The North American Siege 2022” tour with ARCH ENEMY and NAPALM DEATH last night (Saturday, April 16) at The Marquee in Tempe, Arizona. Fan-filmed video of the performance is available below. “Ov My Herculean Exile” is expected to appear on BEHEMOTH‘s next studio album, which is due later this year. Last year, BEHEMOTH announced that it had extended and expanded its contract with Nuclear Blast, which will now distribute the group’s music worldwide outside of Poland. The band originally signed with the European branch of Nuclear Blast prior to the release of 2009’s “Evangelion” LP, but BEHEMOTH‘s upcoming effort wil...

During an appearance on the “In The Trenches With Ryan Roxie” video podcast, URIAH HEEP guitarist Mick Box spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the legendary progressive rockers’ 26th LP. “At the moment, we’ve recorded a new album,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “It’s in the bag. We used Jay Ruston, the producer that produced the last album, ‘Living The Dream’, which, for us, was marvelous because it was revered by both the media, the press as well as the fans and also is one of the best of our career. So to get an album like that 50 years on and get those sort of accolades, we kept with the same team. So, yeah, it’s a great album. It’s rockin’. It’s got all the elements th...

Two months ago, longtime VIXEN bassist Share Ross announced that she was “taking a hiatus” from the band. Her replacement is Julia Lage, formerly of the Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian rock group BARRA DE SAIA and wife of Richie Kotzen. Lage made her live debut with VIXEN on February 8 at the pre-Monsters Of Rock cruise concert at Magic City Casino in Miami, Florida. VIXEN singer Lorraine Lewis discussed Share‘s departure from the band in a new interview with Metal-Net. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We already knew the news from Share. And we were planning to go out to the Monsters Of Rock pre-cruise party. The plan was for VIXEN to also go on the ship. But we had already pre-planned all of this; we knew what was going on. “Bands have their ...

DREAM THEATER keyboardist Jordan Rudess spoke to Andrew Daly of VWMusic about the band winning its first-ever Grammy in the “Best Metal Performance” category in the pre-telecast ceremony at the 64th annual Grammy Awards, which was held on April 3 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. DREAM THEATER was nominated for “The Alien”, a track from its 2021 album “A View From The Top Of The World”. DREAM THEATER‘s previous Grammy nominations were for the song “On The Backs Of Angels”, from 2011’s “A Dramatic Turn Of Events” album, and the single “The Enemy Inside” from 2013’s “Dream Theater”. Jordan said: “It was very exciting to get that Grammy, as we’ve been nominated three tim...

Blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa and TESTAMENT‘s Alex Skolnick have weighed in on a viral video of a man playing his guitar while singing worship songs about Jesus to a plane full of passengers. The clip, which originated on TikTok before shared on Reddit‘s Travel Freakout subreddit, shows a young man strumming his guitar, singing what appears to be a worship song. Several people who appear to be part of the worship service later join in for a singalong, much to the dismay of some of the other passengers on what is believed to have been a European flight (due to the fact that mask restrictions were not being enforced). According to TMZ, the video was shot/posted by Jack Jensz Jr., who seems to be a pastor of some sort, and who founded an organization called Kingdom Realm Mini...

ASKING ALEXANDRIA guitarist and co-founder Ben Bruce was the featured guest on BBC‘s “The Rock Show With Johnnie Walker” during the “Rock God” segment. Ben picked SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman Corey Taylor and stated about his choice (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Corey has been someone that’s inspired and influenced me since I was — I don’t know — probably 10 [or] 11 years old. I was listening to a lot of blues music and other rock and metal music that’s passionate too, but there was just something about SLIPKNOT where I was just mindblown. I’d never heard anything like it. And then from there I discovered STONE SOUR, obviously, and I think the first song I heard by them was actually ‘Bother’, and I just re...

GOJIRA frontman Joseph Duplantier has reflected on the passing of FOO FIGHTERS drummer Taylor Hawkins, whose death shook the music world late last month. Speaking to the Associated Press on the red carpet of the 2022 Grammy Awards on April 3 in Las Vegas, he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Yeah, obviously, it affects everybody, the whole music community and all the fans. It’s not the first time that a beautiful soul, a fragile soul is sacrificed on the altar of entertainment and rock and roll. And we are all about going out on the road and giving everything for that, but there’s a price to pay. It’s really, really, really hard on the mental and the soul and the families. We leave kids behind. It’s hard on everybody. And I think that he’s simp...

The Ohio State University Spring Athletic Band honored VAN HALEN during its halftime show Saturday (April 16) at Ohio Stadium as part of Ohio State’s spring football game at home in Columbus. The band blistered through some of VAN HALEN‘s greatest hits, including “Runnin’ With The Devil”, “Dreams”, “Panama” and “Jump”. Formations spelled out “Van Halen”, “Dreams”, “Jump”, “1984” and the band’s iconic “VH” logo. The Ohio State University Athletic Band performs at various Ohio State varsity sporting events during the autumn and spring semesters, with the exception of fall football games. The number of participants in Athletic Band each semester varies between 25...