Following last week’s news that Primal Fear have parted ways with guitarists Alex Beyrodt and Tom Naumann, drummer Michael Ehré and bassist Alex Jansen, founding members Ralf Scheepers (vocals) and Mat Sinner (bass) have announced that Italian / Cuban guitar sensation Thalia Bellazecca of Angus McSix / ex-Frozen Crown will join Primal Fear as a full member and guitar partner of Magnus Karlsson.
Comments Thalia: “I’m stoked and excited to have the opportunity to play with these giants of the heavy and power metal scene. I feel so honored to share the stage with these amazing musicians and to start a new journey also with this incredible and historical band! Can’t wait to start working with all of you!”
Ralf Scheepers: “After my last show in Italy, I got to know Thalia personally and I realized what a wonderful person she is. Anyone who knows me knows that personal contact and sympathy is very important to me. So I read up on her musical projects and skills and was blown away by her incredible talent! I can’t wait to work with her in the studio and of course live soon!”
Primal Fear recently announced that guitarist Magnus Karlsson – who has been a studio member of the band – will rejoin them for all upcoming live activity.
A message from Primal Fear states: “To answer some of your questions – Magnus Karlsson is still in the band! The only difference to a week ago is that he will join Primal Fear permanently on albums (like always) and from now on @ all live shows and tours again!”
Says Magnus: “Can’t wait to hit the stage with Primal Fear again! It’s going to be an incredible ride! We’re going to create something truly special together, both live and in the studio, and I’m so grateful to share this journey with all you metalheads! Metal is forever!”
German symphonic metal band Xandria have checked in with the following update:
“Dear people, in November we will visit eight European countries on a co-headliner tour with gothic metal legends, Sirenia. We will also release new music before, so don´t miss the first live performances of the upcoming new songs!”
Tour dates are listed below. Tickets are available here.
Order Xandria’s latest album, The Wonders Still Awaiting, here.
The Wonders Still Awaiting tracklisting:
“Two Worlds” “Reborn” “You Will Never Be Our God” (feat. Ralf Scheepers) “The Wonders Still Awaiting” “Ghosts” “Your Stories I’ll Remember” “My Curse Is My Redemption” “Illusion Is Their Name” “Paradise” “Mirror Of Time” “Scars” “The Maiden And The Child” “Astèria”
“My Curse Is My Redemption” lyric video:
“Two Worlds” video:
“The Wonders Still Awaiting” video:
“Ghosts” video:
“You Will Never Be Our God” video:
Xandria lineup:
Ambre Vourvahis – Vocals Marco Heubaum – Guitar Robert Klawonn – Guitar Tim Schwarz – Bass Dimitrios Gatsios – Drums
Alice In Chains guitarist, Jerry Cantrell, threw the first pitch and performed the US national anthem with touring guitarist Zach Throne at the Cleveland Guardians vs. Chicago Cubs game at Progressive Field in Cleveland on August 12. Video can be viewed below:
Cantrell will release his new album, I Want Blood, on October 18. The album, co-produced by Cantrell and Joe Barresi (Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, Melvins), was recorded at Barresi’s JHOC Studio in Pasadena, Calif. The album also features contributions from bass heavyweights Duff McKagan (Guns N’Roses) and Robert Trujillo (Metallica), drummers Gil Sharone (Team Sleep, Stolen Babies) and Mike Bordin (Faith No More), and backing vocals from Lola Colette and Greg Puciato (Better Lovers, ex-Dillinger Escape Plan).
Album pre-orders, which include CD, digital and multiple 2LP variants are available here. Exclusive to the 2LP vinyl versions of I Want Blood are atmospheric, spoken word versions of each song on the album.
I Want Blood tracklisting:
“Vilified “Off The Rails “Afterglow “I Want Blood “Echoes Of Laughter “Throw Me A Line “Let It Lie “Held Your Tongue “It Comes
“Vilified” video:
“Vilified” visualizer:
Jerry Cantrell is out on a North American tour, joining Bush for a seven-week trek across the continent. Remaining dates below:
August 27 – Red Hat Amphitheater – Raleigh, NC 29 – Daily’s Place – Jacksonville, FL 30 – Hard Rock Live – Hollywood, FL
September 1 – Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park – Atlanta, GA 4 – Freeman Coliseum – San Antonio, TX 5 – 713 Music Hall – Houston, TX 7 – Choctaw Casino – Durant, OK 8 – Dos Equis Pavilion – Dallas, TX 11 – Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood – Las Vegas, NV 13 – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre at SDSU – San Diego, CA 14 – Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre – Phoenix, AZ 15 – The Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
AC/DC claims a trio of Top 10 hits on the same chart in the UK this week, reports Forbes. They easily fill the most spaces inside the highest tier on the Official Rock & Metal Singles tally this time around, as fans in the United Kingdom are still loving the tracks that made the outfit a household name years ago.
“Thunderstruck” holds as AC/DC’s loftiest win on the Official Rock & Metal Singles chart this frame. That tune, which has turned out to be the band’s most successful in many respects, is steady at #6.
Two spots further down, “You Shook Me All Night Long” advances slightly. The tune was present inside the Top 10 on the Official Rock & Metal Singles chart last frame, and now, it’s climbed again. This period, it pushes from #10 to #8.
AC/DC rounds out their trio of winners with “Back In Black”, which finds its way back into the top region on the Official Rock & Metal Singles list. The smash improves its standing from #11 to #10, re-entering the space once more.
On August 17, Swiss heavy metal force, Burning Witches, performed at Summer Breeze 2024 in Dinkelsbühl, Germany. ARTE Concert has uploaded professionally-filmed footage of the band’s full set, which can be viewed below.
Burning Witches’ setlist (as per Setlist.fm):
“Unleash The Beast” “Wings Of Steel” “Dance With The Devil” “Hexenhammer” “Lucid Nightmare” “Evil Witch” “The Dark Tower” “Burning Witches”
Burning Witches cannot be stopped. After winning over American audiences earlier this year on their support run with the mighty KK’s Priest, the blazing quintet returns for a US headline tour this fall.
Featuring support on select dates from Graveshadow, the tour kicks off in Hollywood, CA on October 24 and hits several major markets, ending in Satellite Beach, FL on November 15. Tickets for all dates are on sale now, head here for more information.
Says the band: “We are stoked to continue our conquest of the USA with this new tour leg through the Western and Southern states! America has treated us so amazingly since our first shows – we feel deeply connected with the country of Rock N Roll! Our run in July was so overwhelming, we are looking forward to new adventures in October! See you soon again, ‘Merica!”
Tour dates:
October 24 – Hollywood, CA – The Whisky 25 – Roseville, CA – Goldfield Trading Post* 26 – Fresno, CA – Fulton 55 27 – Morro Bay, CA – The Siren* 29 – Salt Lake City, UT – Leatherheads* 30 – Grand Junction, CO – Mesa Theater* 31 – Denver, CO – HQ Live*
November 2 – Las Vegas, NV – Vamp’d* 3 – Glendale, AZ – 44 Sports Grill and Nightlife* 6 – El Paso, TX – Rockhouse Bar and Grill 8 – San Antonio, TX – Fitzgerald’s 10 – Dallas, TX – Sundown at Granada Theater 11 – Houston, TX – Warehouse Live Midtown 13 – Buford, GA – 37 Main 15 – Satellite Beach, FL – Wynfields
* with Graveshadow
Lineup:
Laura Guldemond – Vocals Romana Kalkuhl – Guitars Courtney Cox – Guitars Jeanine Grob – Bass Lala Frischknecht – Drums
Oklahoma City experimental, psychedelic, alternative rock band The Flaming Lips have spent the last four and a bit decades casually and gleefully ripping up their own rule book. Skillfully transitioning from noisy, underground, art-rock oddities to arena-conquering, mainstream-courting, dream-pop crossover heroes, and back to explorative, psych-cult elder scene statesmen.
There really have been few careers in modern music that have managed to pack in quite as much as Wayne Coyne and his crew. In that time, they’ve released 16 studio albums that range wildly in style, but here they all are, ranked from worst to best.
16. Hear It Is (1986)
(Image credit: Restless Records)
Not only is Hear It Is The Flaming Lips’ first full length album, it’s also their first release to feature Wayne Coyne on vocals following the departure of his brother Mark the previous year. It’s an interesting document of a band in their infancy, and the screaming, squealing opening noise-rock of With You or the slow burning dread of seven-minute album highlight Jesus Shooting Heroin probably sounded great upon release. But with the knowledge of where the band would go as their career progressed, this rather rudimentary Cramps-meets-Butthole Surfers punk rock can be filed under “interesting” rather than “essential”.
Initially released for Record Store Day, with a limited edition run of just 4000 copies pressed, King’s Mouth was conceived as the soundtrack to an art exhibition, with Mick Jones from The Clash providing narration throughout the album. It’s certainly worth a listen for completists. But, although many enjoyed the band stylistically harking back to the Yoshimi… era, this is some way off that album’s quality in pure songwriting terms, and feels like something created with focus elsewhere.
14. Oh My Gawd!!!… (1987)
(Image credit: Restless Records)
A year on from their debut, The Flaming Lips exhibited a great deal of growth as a band on their follow up. Oh My Gawd!!!… is by no means the finished article, but there are plenty of signs that this was a band who were not going to be content being another bog standards noise-rock band. There’s obvious influences taken from ’70’s rock, and the maniacal nine-minute-plus journey of One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning was comfortably their finest song to date. That said, there are stodgy moments on here as well, so it’s a mixed bag overall.
One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning – YouTube
Having basically done everything they felt they could do with the traditional sound of rock music, of course The Flaming Lips would decide to make an album of experimental dream-pop comprised of four separate releases that all need to be played simultaneously on four different sound systems. An interesting idea, not without its merits as a piece of music, but, especially back in 1997, a total nightmare to listen to as intended for anyone who didn’t have access to their own recording studio. The desire to change should be encouraged, but this is the sound of a band chucking the baby out with the bathwater.
12. The Terror (2013)
(Image credit: Warners)
Although there is plenty of melody on it, The Terror is aptly named. This is one of the harder Flaming Lips albums to fully appreciate and understand. Long, experimental jams, passages of throbbing, electronic buzz, Coyne’s vocals sounding disconnected and ghostly, a fifteen-minute-long drone song named You Lust, yep, The Terror sure is a daunting listen for those people who just remembered She Don’t Use Jelly. There’s pleasure to be had here if you really put the work in, but this is no place to start for newbies.
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11. Telepathic Surgery (1989)
(Image credit: Restless Records)
Initially intended as a one-track, 30-minute soundscape, Telepathic Surgery may not have come out as first intended, but not all of those ideas were binned off completely. It’s an odd album, with the gruff, industrialised riffing of Drug Machine In Heaven and Right Now kicking things off, before we get 29-seconds of aimless noise called Michael, Time to Wake Up and then Chrome Plated Suicide deliberately and shamelessly ripping off Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine. It never really gets any easier after that maddening opening. File under ‘divisive’.
Three years after their biggest chart success, of course The Flaming Lips were going to make a sprawling, acid rock double album. Embryonic peaked at an astonishing number 8 on the US Billboard 200, which for a 70-minute-long trip that features the bug-eyed garage, psychedelia of Aquarius Sabotage, the freeform noise of Scorpio Sword and the ambient krautrock of The Ego’s Last Stand is wild. Despite the length, form and general weirdness of the album, it remains a coherent and fascinating listen.
9. Oczy Mlody (2017)
(Image credit: Bella Union)
After finding the formula to conquer the mainstream and then promptly doing everything in their power to reject it, The Flaming Lips hit on something of a middle ground with their thirteenth album. Oczy Mlody continues the weird experimentation of their previous pair of records but re-introduces some of the pop nous that made their late ’90s/early 2000s work so successful. So, we get the shimmering synth pop of There Should Be Unicorns alongside the weird seven-minute trip of Listening to Frogs with Demon Eyes. The best of both rather excellent worlds.
8. American Head (2020)
(Image credit: Warners)
Easily the most straightforward album The Flaming Lips have made in decades, their most recent effort is a charmingly subtle and personal effort that leans heavily on classic Americana and soothing acoustic driven songs. At it’s best, American Head is an incredible listen, with the wonderful Dinosaurs on the Mountain and the tearjerking piano ballad Mother Please Don’t Be Sad coming across as if Neil Young had been the fifth Beatle. Releasing material this strong 16 albums into a career is a hugely impressive feat.
7. Hit To Death In The Future Head (1992)
(Image credit: Warners)
The band’s major label debut is a lovely little bridge between their noisier indie years and the grandeur that they would come to embrace in the future. Hit Me Like You Did The First Time comes across like a nerdier US Jesus and Mary Chain, the woozy Halloween On The Barbary Coast sounds like R.E.M. after having their drinks spiked, whilst the brilliantly driving, straight-ahead rock of Frogs had all the potential to be a classic ’90s chart bothering single. Not everyone was onboard, however: citing musical differences, guitarist Jonathan Donahue and drummer Nathan Roberts left soon after its release, the former to focus on Mercury Rev.
Four albums in, The Flaming Lips finally hit upon a sound that really worked for them. A concept album of sorts, based on Coyne’s intrigue at religion, In A Priest Driven Ambulance is where we say hello to the meld of jaunty, lo-fi melody and fuzzy, erratic indie rock that would become their calling card over the next few albums. When it’s good, …Ambulance takes some beating; Unconsciously Screaming is oddly anthemic and the post-punk throb of Take Meta Mars and God Walks Among Us Now’s Sonic Youth-go-country both ooze cool. It earned them a major label record deal the following year, quite a coup for a band so odd.
5. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002)
(Image credit: Warners)
Although maybe not quite up to the level of quality that came directly before it, Yoshimi… is The Flaming Lips’ most commercially successful record. And if there was one album that you were going to be associated with by most people, this is a pretty great one.
A gorgeous, melancholic effort, with an even greater focus on electronic elements, the band’s tenth full-length set is like a cozy, warm, sonic duvet, with both parts of the title track creating lilting acoustic dreaminess and some breakbeat-filled, marshmallow funk. It won the band their first ever Grammy (Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia) taking the Best Rock Instrumental Performance), was their first to enter the Billboard Top 50 and first to be certified Gold in the US. It’s also probably the one you already own… but they have made better records.
The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize?? (Glastonbury 2017) – YouTube
Coming off the back of their best-selling album, The Flaming Lips were now a very big deal indeed. It’s something they obviously felt comfortable with, as much of At War With The Mystics is another gorgeous pop record that features some of the most conventional songs they had released at this point. An opening one-two of The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, with its joyous, fizziness, and the geek-Stones shuffle of Free Radicals is some way to kick the album off. But, obviously, it’s far from straightforward all the time: the prog-flute funk out of The Wizard Turns On… is just one example of a band unafraid to keep their freak flag flying. The song also won them a well-deserved Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 2007.
3. Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993)
(Image credit: Warners)
AKA, the one with the really big hit on it. Even the most casual fan of The Flaming Lips will know the massive crossover hit She Don’t Use Jelly, unquestionably the most famous song of their early years. It’s a typically weird, but instantaneous, lo-fi indie banger, but it’s far from being the only moment of worth on Transmissions… Opener Turn it On is fantastic, the swerving garage riff of Superhumans is also great and When Yer Twenty-Two might be the best Janes Addiction song that Janes Addiction never got round to writing. An album that deserves to be remembered for far more than just one singular crossover tune.
(Image credit: Warners)
There’s a reason that The Flaming Lips’ seventh album was their final to truly fall under the umbrella of “alternative rock”; this is as perfect a document of the style as the band were ever going to manage, so why bother trying to top it? It’s understandable that there are some fans who dropped the band after Clouds…, The Flaming Lips never again came close to replicating the glorious, slacker noise of the likes of Lightning Strikes The Postman or Placebo Headwound. But listening back to the album, you fully understand why they felt the need to move on. Indie rock? Completed it mate.
1. The Soft Bulletin (1999)
(Image credit: Warners)
Whatever it was that The Flaming Lips felt they had to get out of their system with Zaireeka, it was exorcised by the time they came to record its follow-up. And, respectfully, thank fuck for that, because if it hadn’t had been then we may not have got the finest album of their career.
Anyone who said they saw The Soft Bulletin coming at the time would be a liar. Indeed, given the lukewarm reaction to their previous album, drummer Steven Drozd nearly losing his arm to a spider bite, and bassist Michael Ivins being involved in a serious car crash (as spelled out on the song The Spiderbite Song), it actually looked unlikely that The Flaming Lips would be a band for much longer. Instead, they rallied and created a soaring, gorgeous, symphonic, alt-pop masterpiece that turned them into superstars and was well deserving of the “90’s Pet Sounds” moniker it so often received. Race for the Prize, Buggin’, Waiting For A Superman…, we could go on, but this entire record is The Flaming Lips operating at the peak of their powers.
The Flaming Lips – Waitin’ for a Superman [Official Music Video] – YouTube
Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.
In the cartoonish wild west of the nu metal era, few band-on-band beefs were more iconic than Slipknot vs Mushroomhead. Despite having donned horror-influenced masks for years before Slipknot exploded in popularity with the release of their 1999 debut, Mushroomhead were often accused of riding on the Des Moines giants’ coattails, leading to some bitter wars of words and even an infamous incident where Slipknot were allegedly pelted with missiles by fans while playing a show in Mushroomhead’s home state of Cleveland.
Today, it seems cooler heads have prevailed. Speaking to Metal Hammer in their latest issue, Mushroomhead leader Steve ‘Skinny’ Felton insists that much of the feuding between the two bands was exaggerated by the media, and has nothing but positive things to say about Slipknot.
“Slipknot, man, amazing,” he effuses. “One of the biggest heavy metal bands in the world. Holy shit, it’s gigantically huge and what they have done is amazing. And I think it opens the doors for other bands as well as my own. People like this masked metal. They like theatrics.”
When asked by Metal Hammer‘s Paul Travers about the Cleveland incident specifically, Skinny suggests that it was nowhere near as bad as made out at the time. “A bit of it over time has been inflated,” he insists. “I wasn’t there personally and I’ve heard 20 different versions over the years. And let’s not forget that it was popular in that era to have beefs in bands and stack people against each other. It was huge with the West Coast and East Coast rappers. The media fuelled it and fans bought into it.”
Skinny is also philosophical when pondering how his band’s careers may have turned out had Mushroomhead been signed to Roadrunner instead of Slipknot, once again giving Slipknot praise for their status in the scene and the battles they’ve faced over the years.
“There were lots of people signing lots of bands in the day, he explains. “It wasn’t like we got the exact same offer by the same guy who signed Slipknot. And I have a lot of compassion for them, because they’ve put up with a lot of bullshit just to make music and art, and they’ve lost good people. I commend them for everything they do and it just goes to show that I wasn’t that far off many years ago that this type of thing was going to be bigger than we even knew. I wasn’t wrong. It just wasn’t my band.”
While Slipknot have gone on to become one of the biggest bands in the history of heavy metal, Skinny has enjoyed a long and healthy career with Mushroomhead, with the band’s ninth album Call The Devil releasing earlier this month. Read the rest of Mushroomhead’s interview in the new issue of Metal Hammer, out now.
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(Image credit: Future)
Merlin moved into his role as Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has previously written for the likes of Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N’ Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.
“Very upset to learn of Richard Macphail‘s death last night,” Gabriel wrote eon his Facebook page. “We had sixty years of history together, from when we were at school and he was the cool singer in the band called the Anon to when I spoke to him last week after he had had a nasty fall.
“Rich was the person who time after time bailed us out of difficult situations. When we couldn’t afford a rehearsal space he persuaded his parents to let us have their family’s country cottage in Abinger Hammer for a year and when we couldn’t afford a van he persuaded his father to let us have an old Hovis bread van that we drove around the country. When some of the band were having doubts about our future, he would inspire all of us and convince us to carry on.
“He went from friend and champion to became Genesis’s tour manager and then my own tour manager when i started working agin. His determination, good humour and enthusiasm got us all through so many difficult moments.
“Richard, I can’t believe you are no longer here. Ours wasn’t always an easy relationship but it was built on love respect and shared experience and there’s now a huge hole in my life. Going to miss you Rich.”
“I’m incredibly shocked and sad to hear about the passing of Richard Macphail,” Hackett posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He was one of the most special people I’ve ever known and he brought out the best in everyone. He was so kind to me in those early Genesis days and he remained a lifelong friend.”
Amand Lehmann, who works closely with Hackett also added, “I am so sad and shocked to hear about the passing of Richard Macphail. He was a truly lovely man, one of life’s absolute gems. He will be missed by so many and my thoughts are with Maggie and his family.”
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A contemporary of Tony Banks, Gabriel, Anthony Phillips, Mike Rutherford and Chris Stewart at Charterhouse school, Macphail sang in the group Anon, which featured Phillips, and later Rutherford. Those two eventually hooked up with Gabriel, Banks and Stewart of the Garden Wall to form Genesis.
Macphail may have quit Anon, but he did not quit on his schoolmates, and after returning from a kibbutz, he instigated, thanks to his parents, the use of Christmas Cottage near Wotton in Surrey, rent-free for Genesis as they developed their sound above and beyond that of their From Genesis To Revelation album.
Having been otehr the band and Gabriel’s tour manager, he later ventured off for a career in ecological and environmental fields.
Macphail was well known to the prog community, not just for appearing on the Genesis album covers for Foxtrot and Live, the latter of which bore the inscription “This album is dedicated to Richard Macphail who left April 1973,”, but also for the release in 2018 of My Book Of Genesis, which looked at his time with the band. Prog attended the launch of his book on the band, attended by Banks, Gabriel, Hackett and Rutherford at Daunt Books on Holland Park Avenue.
Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.
A recent news report has revealed the astonishing numbers behind Metallica’s ongoing M72 world tour.
US news station WCCO–CBS went backstage before the metal juggernauts’ two concerts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on August 16 and 18. They interviewed tour coordinator Jon-Michael Marino and published some impressive stats about the team that put together the Minneapolis gigs, which was reportedly more than 400-strong. It included 156 of Metallica’s own crew, 40 steelworkers, 148 local production staff and 92 truck drivers.
Metallica used eight video towers for the Minneapolis shows, which, according to Marino, took 36 hours each to build. The stage itself and the audio-visual production took another 12 hours to put together.
Marino also revealed that Metallica take 64 guitars on tour with them, 36 of which need to be ready at all times during live performances. This is so the band can quickly play songs in different tunings, but also in case of technical problems like a string breaking.
In addition, Blabbermouth reports that Metallica get through 6,000 guitar picks at every concert. While some of these are used by guitar players James Hetfield (also vocals) and Kirk Hammett, the vast majority are thrown out into the audience at the end of the night. Meanwhile, drummer Lars Ulrich makes his way through an average of 25 sticks per show.
Metallica play the last two US dates of the 2024 M72 tour this weekend, taking the stage at Lumen Field in Seattle on August 30 and September 1. They’ll then host a four-show residency at Foro Sol, Mexico City, from September 20 to 29. See the full details below. The band haven’t announced any further concerts at time of publication.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo recently jammed a cover of Rush’s Working Man at an M72 stop in Edmonton, Canada. This month, the band donated $40,000 to Minnesota charity People Serving People, which aids individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
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What does it take to put on a concert at U.S. Bank Stadium? – YouTube
Aug 30: Seattle Lumen Field, WA, USA Sep 01: Seattle Lumen Field, WA, USA Sep 20: Mexico City Foro Sol, Mexico Sep 22: Mexico City Foro Sol, Mexico Sep 27: Mexico City Foro Sol, Mexico Sep 29: Mexico City Foro Sol, Mexico
Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.
At least 30 notable metalcore and deathcore bands – including While She Sleeps, Bury Tomorrow, Fit For An Autopsy, Thy Art Is Murder and Currents – have had fake songs published on their Spotify accounts.
The false uploads were spotted by X (formerly Twitter) users earlier this week and have affected dozens of artists. All the tracks appear with similarly styled black-and-white artwork, which seem to be AI-generated. One of the bands affected, German metalcore act Caliban, publicly commented on their profile falling victim to the unauthorised upload and claimed that the music is also AI-generated.
“Dear Fans,” they started (via The PRP). “A song has been released via our Spotify artist profile that is not ours. A fraudulent artist posing as Caliban has uploaded an Al-generated song via a dubious distributor that is now scheduled for release. Caliban is not affiliated with this release.”
The band continued: “We and our team are working on resolving this issue. This appears to have occurred with various bands throughout the scene at this time as labels and managements are committed to rectifying the situation. That being said, we thank you for your ongoing support of real, handcrafted music written by human beings.”
The similarities between the songs and their covers suggests that this mass hacking was a concentrated effort by one individual or group. However, it appears that no one has yet identified themselves as the perpetrator, nor explained the intention behind the false songs.
AI-generated music is currently a hot-button topic, as the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) is embroiled in a lawsuit with music generation startups Suno and Udio. The suit – filed on behalf of record labels Warner Records, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music – alleges that the companies are infringing copyright by using trademarked songs to “train” their AI software. The plaintiffs are seeking up to $150,000 in damages for each infringed work.
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