Metal News for January 26, 2004
Last updated on October 4, 2025 at 3:07 AM ET
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Hot Topics
- Trivium Parts Company With Drummer
- Kreator To Release New Album In January
- Enthroned To Release New Album In December
- Potato Premiere New Single & Music Video "YUGE PP"
- Omnium Gatherum Drops "Walking Ghost Phase" Video
- Messa Shares New Music Video "Reveal"
- Spite Premiere New Single & Music Video
- Carcosa (AngelMaker) Premiere New Single & Video
- Stellar Circuits Premiere New Single & Music Video
- Agnostic Front Premiere New Single & Lyric Video
14 news articles posted on this day.
Sunride And Good Witch of the South Euro Tour
Sunride (Fin) and Good Witch Of The South (Ger) have their complete itinerary for their EUROTOUR Feb 2004 set: More...
Seven More Bands Confirmed For 2000 Decibel Fest
Seven more bands have been confirmed for the fifth edition of the 2000 Decibel-festival, which will be held the 21 st and 22 nd May in Bengtsfors , Sweden (180 km north of Gothenburg). The bands are Hypocrisy, Cans, God Among Insects, Grand Magus, Lefay, Månegarm and The Crown.
Already confirmed is Ablaze My Sorrow, Arise, Astral Doors, Count Raven, Draconian, Morifade, Notre Dame, Pain Of Salvation, Persuader, Tad Morose, Vintersorg and Wolf.
As HammerFall is on a well deserved break their singer Joacim Cans has taken the opportunity to record an album on his own (“Beyond The Gates” will be released in April). We are really proud that he and his band have decided to do their first live show at 2000 Decibel in Bengtsfors. We know that Joacim will be backed by his fellow band colleague Stefan Elmgren as well as Metal Mike Chlasciak (ex-Halford) on guitars.
40 Below Summer & Dog Fashion Disco Tour
40 BELOW SUMMER and DOG FASHION DISCO will be doing shows at the end of February leading into March, with the dates coming soon.
DOG FASHION DISCO will enter the studio soon to record some new demo tracks
KillSwitch Engage Release Date
Killswitch Engage have been hard at work in the studio. The album is still as of yet untitled, however its tentative release date is May 11th. It will be released through Roadrunner/Island/Def Jam records.
Fear Factory To Record New Video For CyberWaste
Fear Factory will be filming a live video for their track "Cyberwaste", here's what band frontman Burton C. Bell had to say on the matter:
"The FF crew is heading out to Australia to prepare for some shows with Korn and to shoot a video for 'Cyberwaste'. We are going to get some cheap but well made, live video footage type of imagery. We have never shot a video like this before, so we are looking forward to this one. The point of it is to place it on the enhanced album CD that will be released. An album with the video footage!'
Drummer Nick Barker Out Of Dimmu Borgir?
DIMMU BORGIR are strongly rumored to have parted ways with Nick Barker (ex-Cradle of Filth, Lock Up). Their publicist Maria Ferrero has confirmed that drummer has left the band.
The group, who recently cancelled their Japanese/Australian tour, have yet to officially comment on the matter. Furthermore, the official website has been down for the past few weeks.
Barker joined DIMMU BORGIR in 1999 as a replacement for original drummer Tjodalv (a.k.a. Kenneth Åkesson). He has since appeared on two full-length studio albums with the band: "Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia" (2001, Nuclear Blast) and "Death Cult Armageddon" (2003, Nuclear Blast).
Dino Cazares Leaves Skumlove
Former FEAR FACTORY guitarist Dino Cazares has left SKUMLOVE, the California-based group he has been gigging with for much of the past two years. "Dino has gotten back into his work with BRUJERIA and ASESINO as well as his own main project," SKUMLOVE frontman Skum explained. "We wish him the best and I'm sure we'll be working on SKUMLOVE studio stuff with him.
"We are currently auditioning people who can play guitar/keyboards and also a solid drummer as Chris 'The Hitman' Anotopolis is busy with VANILLA ICE and a new band with Logan Mader (ex-MACHINE HEAD, SOULFLY). If you think you fit the bill email us @ skumlove@aol.com. We want someone young energetic with an attitude and talent. We want to take this year even further then last!"
In other news, SKUMLOVE will be releasing a CD through Hot Topic along with new merchandise, according to Skum. "The CD will include the three song previously released through our site along with three more new songs some remixes and a cover song."
Summary/Misc
Daily Reviews
Metal Reviews has churned out 18 new reviews this week:
- Amaran - Pristine in Bondage
- Apostasy - Cell 666
- Cannibal Corpse - The Wretched Spawn
- Deafening Silence - Edge Of Life
- Def Leppard - Adrenalize
- Diablo - Eternium
- E-Force - Evil Forces
- Holy Dragons - Gotterdammerung
- Jack Blades - Jack Blades
- Judas Priest - Turbo
- Metalium - As One - Chapter Four
- My Dying Bride - Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light
- Nasty Savage - Pyscho Pyscho
- Sittin' Idol - Sittin' Idol (Demo)
- Subject to Thoughts - The Thought Process
- Thunderstone - The Burning
- Thy Majestie - Echoes Of War
- Vintersorg - The Focusing Blur
Narnia Frontman's Audiovision
Jeff Scott Soto (TALISMAN , ex-YNGWIE MALMSTEEN ), Tony Franklin (ex-WHITESNAKE , BLUE MURDER , FIRM ), Mats Levén (KRUX , AT VANCE , ex-YNGWIE MALMSTEEN ) and Mic Michaeli (EUROPE ) are among the special guests set to appear on the debut album from CHRISTIAN RIVEL'S AUDIOVISION, the new solo project from NARNIA frontman Christian Rivel .
According to an official press release, the vision for the project is "to create good heavy metal with strong melodies and lots of harmony vocals like QUEEN & THE SWEET . Everything will be packed in a superb production by producer & guitarist Lars Chriss from LION'S SHARE ," who has co-written most of the songs together with Christian Rivel .
The first chance for anyone to hear AUDIOVISION will come with the release of the band's contribution to the Swedish tribute to THE SWEET titled "The Sweet According To Sweden". AUDIOVISION recorded the album's opening cut, "Love Is Like Oxygen" , featuring a duet between Rivel and Jeff Scott Soto . The album is scheduled for release on February 9. (for more info visit
www.rivelrecords.com/sweettribute)
The AUDIOVISION album will feature contributions from some of the best musicians in melodic hard rock and heavy metal. Confirmed guests include: More...
Iron Maiden Gig Cut Short Due To Beer
IRON MAIDEN has to cut short a performance at New York's Madison Square Garden on Saturday night due to a fan pooring beer on the sound board. The band's manager, Rod Smallwood issued this statement:
"It's Sunday morning and already l see many posts in the forum. On behalf of the band and myself all of you have our sympathy, especially the many of you who traveled great distances to be there. This gig sold out in a matter of minutes when it went on sale last December and we know, being the weekend show, a lot of you traveled in from many parts of the USA and Canada. For those who aren't sure what happened, some idiot in the first couple of rows on the mezzanine above the mixing desk thought it was a good idea to chuck his beer in the air rather then down his throat. It landed on the desk blowing too many channels to be retrievable. This prevented us playing any encores. We are very sorry for the fans there and we know you know there was absolutely nothing we could do. Believe me, the band were gutted. It was a great gig up 'till then. Thanks from the band for the good-natured way you accepted this bad news — we always say MAIDEN fans are the best.
"Maybe we will see some of you again on Monday or Tuesday and to anyone else coming along, remember beer is to be drunk not thrown at a gig. And to the idiot who caused this, l do hope you learned a lesson."
Nocturnal Rites New Album And European Tour
The Swedish Power Metal fortress NOCTURNAL RITES announces the release of their sixth studio album "New World Messiah" on March 24th 2004. This brilliant new forged piece of steel was produced in their hometown Umea. For the mixdown and mastering they left Sweden for the first time to get a glorious sound from Finnvox Studio in Helsinki, Finland. The man behind the desk was T.T. Oksala who recently did a great job for bands like Tiamat, Apocalyptica and other stars of the global Rock empire. A warm and powerful sound was ensured by Minerva Pappi, one of the finest female mastering engineers currently in the business. Once more the five defenders of true metal deliver finest melodic, bombast Power Metal garnished with delicious chorus lines.
Directly after the release of "New World Messiah" the band will head out April 2nd 2004 for a massive European tour together with EDGUY and BRAINSTORM. Label mates TAD MOROSE, recently released the highly acclaimed "Modus Vivendi", will replace Brainstorm for the last five shows in Scandinavia.
The complete European tourdates are listed below: More...
EverEve Update
After numerous festivals - and single shows as well as selective supporting (Type O Negative, Placebo....) in 2003, the German Cyber- Gothic kings EVEREVE are currently working on some new ideas for their next album. The band is about to enter the studio to put The Cure's "Cold" through the EverEve grinder. For the first time in the band's history they will be traveling to Russia for an extensive feature on MTV Russia. Highlight of that trip will be a headliner show in Moscow on March 20 in Estakada Club. If the guys survive this journey without any permanent damage you can salute them live twice in the springtime in Germany: More...
Behemoth Working On The New Album
The Black metal invaders from Poland BEHEMOTH have already started working on new songs that will appear on their forthcoming album for Regain Reacords( Europe). Current line up is: Nergal- guitars and vocals, Inferno- drums and Seth- bass, guitars.
"2003 was probably the most hard working period in band's history. Especially the US leg of ZOS KIA tour, more than 60 shows that we played, was a breaking point for Behemoth. We took a very short break after last shows, and now we focus totally on writing..."
"I'm very excited about new songs" says Nergal. We've just started working on new songs, and develope ideas and riffs I've been working on for last months. It's just insane, I can tell you. This new stuff is goin to be so much ahead of what we've done before...we've never reached such a point of intensivity. Working title for our 7th album is 'Demigod' and this should tell you everything about what it will sound like. With no doubts it's gonna be the most devastating, technical and crushing record we've ever come up with ! New riffs just flow, the working atmosphere is just perfect...we've got so much new inspiration lately.
It will all have strong impact on what you will hear on "Demigod".
Behemoth is also planning to finally complete mixing of their first Official DVD.
In March they will be playing two shows in Greece with Norwegian CARPATHIAN FOREST. Check them out if you have a chance!
Dimmu Borgir Cancel Japanese And Australian Tours
Norwegian Black metallers DIMMU BORGIR have reportedly cancelled all of their Australian/Japanese dates that were scheduled to take place in early February. Although no official reason was given for the cancellation, it is believed that problems with the Japanese portion of the trek led to the decision to call off both tours. This is the second time Dimmu Borgir have cancelled an Australian tour, having previously axed what would have been their first-ever trip Down Under back in 1999. DARK FUNERAL will cover up for them, co- headlining with ZYKLON.
The affected dates are as follows: More...
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