Alternative Music

RATING: 9/10 Rhetorical question coming up: has there even been a more underrated band than AMORPHIS? Despite being insanely consistent and unwaveringly singular for over 30 years, the Finns have never really fit neatly into any ongoing or newly revived category, and the result is that far too little attention is paid to the overwhelming quality of this band’s music. Whether that will change when “Halo” reaches people’s ears is debatable, but this is yet another tour de force. The album is yet another collection of intricate but emotionally supercharged metal songs, all steeped in the imagery and atmospheres of Finland’s sacred Kalevala, but as punchy, timely and pertinent as anything else going on in modern metal. Part of the magic that lurks on just about ev...

Grammy Award winners MASTODON will return to the road for the second leg of their acclaimed co-headline tour with OPETH this spring. The North American jaunt resumes on April 21 at Place Bell in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, stops in major markets coast-to-coast, and comes to a close on May 11 at Municipal Auditorium in Riverside, California. A special BLABBERMOUTH.NET presale will begin on Tuesday, February 8 at 10:00 a.m. local time and end on Wednesday, February 9 at 10:00 p.m. local time. When prompted, type in the presale code “HUSHED2022” to access tickets before the general public. General on-sale will be Friday, February 11 at 10 a.m. local time. Comments OPETH mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt: “We’re excited to come back to North America for the second leg of shows tog...

NINE INCH NAILS will embark on a 2022 U.S. tour this spring. The trek will include three shows in April and May, followed by more than half a dozen dates in September. One of the shows, on September 24 at the Blossom Music Center in Cleveland, will include support from MINISTRY and NITZER EBB. The tour includes appearances at the Shaky Knees festival in Atlanta and the inaugural Primavera Sound in Los Angeles. Tickets go on sale on Friday, February 11 at 10 a.m. local time. NINE INCH NAILS 2022 U.S. tour dates: Apr. 28 – Raleigh, NC @ Red Hat Amphitheater Apr. 30 – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Festival May 01 – Franklin, TN @ First Bank Amphitheater Sep. 02 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre Sep. 03 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre Sep. 07 – Tro...

The official lyric video for “In The Lonely Light Of Mourning”, the title track from former TROUBLE singer Eric Wagner‘s posthumous solo album, can be seen below. The song features a guest solo from PLACE OF SKULLS/ex-PENTAGRAM guitarist Victor Griffin. “The title track is lyrically foreboding musically, vocally raw and emotional,” says Dave Snyder, who co-wrote the entire album with Wagner. “It’s intentionally spacious. We talked about the ‘less is more’ approach,’ leaving space to breathe. When we were putting this one together, Eric said once the chorus kicks in, ‘it’s gut-wrenching.’ I love that! “Being a huge fan of Eric and Victor‘s work, I was ecstatic when Eric told me Victor was on board for ...

Nita Strauss, the Los Angeles-based guitar shredder for the ALICE COOPER band, spoke to Toronto’s 94.9 The Rock radio station about what it has been like to work with legendary Canadian producer Bob Ezrin on Alice‘s upcoming follow-up to last year’s “Detroit Stories” album. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Bob definitely has his own style of working, his own personality, and as long as you understand that and that rapport, I think Bob is an amazing, amazing person. He’s an amazing person to work with regardless, but I definitely think you have to understand his production style and his critique style and understand where he’s going with everything in his specific vision. We had a great time making the record.” According t...

In a new interview with Pierre Gutiérrez of Rock Talks, former MEGADETH guitarist Chris Poland reflected on the lawsuit he reportedly filed against Dave Mustaine over the 2004 reissue of the band’s “Rust In Peace” album, which contained demos on which Chris performed. “I know there was some flak after when [Dave] released the demo solos or whatever,” Poland said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “And I couldn’t get hold of Dave. I called his manager 10 times and finally, on the eleventh time, I left a message. I said, ‘If you don’t call me back, you’re gonna be hearing from [my attorney].’ And so he calls me back. And then he insults me and tells me, ‘Well, Chris, all you did was a couple of solos and Dave and us t...

“Faced with a choice, do both,” Brian Eno once proffered. On Cate Le Bon’s apocalyptically titled but sky-reaching sixth album, the Welsh art-pop iconoclast orients her bemused songs by the compass of this oblique strategy. Le Bon collages the saxophones and bass grooves of Pompeii into a heady harmonic mix of psychedelia and pop, awe and bewilderment, amplifying both her criss-crossing inscrutability and the inexhaustible pleasures of clarity. These inquisitive songs feel, to borrow a word from one of her lyrics, “multidirectional.” Now based in California’s Mojave Desert—a peculiar, austere, and immersive landscape, not unlike that of her songs—Le Bon has been making records for her entire adult life. But she likened the process of her last, 2019’s Reward, to writing a first album. She h...