Author: fgt

Riff Crew are delighted to announce the release of a pro-shoot from the Kings Of Thrash 2023 Australian tour, featuring former Megadeth members David Ellefson and Jeff Young.

Kings Of Thrash performed at Max Watt’s House Of Music in Melbourne on July 27. This tour featured the band playing the albums So Far, So Good… So What! and Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! in their entirety. Ellefson has described the video as the best live footage of Kings Of Thrash to date. Watch below:

Kings Of Thrash recently announced their “Anarchy In The UK” tour with special guests Andry and Hellgrimm. The tour is set to kick off October 24 and run through November 2. This tour will feature none other than Grammy Award winning bassist David Ellefson and guitarist Jeff Young, drummer Fred Aching and vocalist/guitarist Chaz Leon.

The tour promises an electrifying experience for fans as Kings Of Thrash makes its debut in the United Kingdom, paying homage to the birthplace of heavy metal. This tour holds special significance as it coincides with the 30th anniversary of the groundbreaking album Youthanasia, platinum (US) and gold (UK) a milestone in Ellefson’s illustrious career.

“We are super thrilled to finally bring Kings Of Thrash to the UK, in many ways the origins of heavy metal,” said David Ellefson. “Even more so, celebrating some highlights of the 30th anniversary of the ‘Youthanasia’ album. The UK has been such a fantastic supporter for more than 40 years of our music, so it’ll be great to bring to our fans rare tracks and highlights of some of the most monumental albums in thrash metal history.”

Says Jeff Young, “I can’t wait to get back to the UK! The last time I played there was with Megadeth in 1988 at Castle Donington for the “Monsters of Rock” festival, so this return trip is long overdue!”

In addition to commemorating the Youthanasia anniversary, the tour will also showcase select cuts from”Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good, So Far…So Good… So What!, and Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? promising an unforgettable experience for both longtime fans and newcomers alike.

The “Anarchy In The UK” tour will be a testament to Kings Of Thrash’s enduring legacy and their unwavering commitment to delivering high-octane performances that captivate audiences worldwide.

Limited edition VIP upgrades, Stage Used basses, Best Of The West on CD digipack and LP will be available. For ticket information and tour updates, visit KingsOfThrash.com.

Dates are as follows:

October
24 – The Camden Underworld – London, England
26 – The Waterloo Music Bar – Blackpool, England
27 – Old Fire Station – Carlisle, England
28 – La Belle Angele – Edinburgh, Scotland
29 – Opium Live! – Dublin, Ireland
30 – Limelight 1 – Belfast, N.Ireland

November
1 – Corporation – Sheffield, England
2 – Academy 3 – Manchester, England

Finland’s Where’s My Bible is set to release their long-awaited second full-length studio album, Kave, on September 11th via Inverse Records. The single “Rahko” is released today and a stunning music video can be viewed below. 

Vocalist Jussi Matilainen comments:

“First of all, I need to explain what ‘Rahko’ means. It is a malevolent night spirit from Finnish mythology that paints the moon black. Imagine if the moon is the only lantern in the dark that keeps the beasts at bay. What happens when even that light is taken away?”

“‘Rahko’ and the other songs on the album are based on Finnish and Nordic mythology, which we use as metaphors. We focus on the dark aspects of the human mind and how they can take over. Rahko depicts the full power of the night’s horrors and the threat of dawn. The song gives a taste of what adrenaline-filled death/black metal from Where’s My Bible offers while maintaining melodicism. It also feels dangerous to write such songs because I always strongly empathize with them while creating them and try to infuse the emotional state into the music. I am pleased with the result and the way I used my voice brutally and diversely. And all of this is just a glimpse into the song and the overarching theme of the entire album, which unfolds like a story. I would love to share it all with you, but we need to arrange an interview separately so I can elaborate on the whole concept in detail.”

Guitarist Pasi Löfgren adds:

“‘Rahko’ was the second to last song I wrote on the album. I had a feeling that the album need’s a fast and massive song where Jussi can also show off his talent. And when i started to record ideas at my home studio it was that magical moment as a composer when the whole song came out from one sitting as it is now.” 

Listen to “Rahko” on streaming services here.

Tracklist:
 
“Yö”
“Màni”  
“Fenrir”
“Suden Hetki”
“Creator of Abyss”
“Waves”
“Musta Kuu”
“Kave”
“Deyr Sjalfr It Sama”
“Ghost From The Past”
“Rahko”
“Runo”
“Sòl”
“Aamu”

“Creator Of Abyss”

Photo by Teppo Ristola Photography

You probably won’t hear much of a prog influence in Lamb Of God’s music, and vocalist Randy Blythe admits he’s not deeply into the genre. But in 2011 he explained how Rush became the exception to his rule, and revealed the best place to listen to the Canadian giants.

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“I’m not hugely knowledgeable about prog rock, but I do like Rush. When I was younger there weren’t a lot of underground radio stations to listen to music to in Franklin, Virginia – a little itty bitty blue collar town. But Tom Sawyer was on all the channels. I heard that and I was like, ‘That is crazy musicianship!’

I started investigating a bit further, then got Moving Pictures. Although not a Top 40 band, their musicianship was complex but had hooks, so it could be mainstream at times. That’s what caught my ear.

When we were little, everyone said Neil Peart was the best drummer in the world, cos we’d all heard YYZ. That track has caught the imagination of every single drummer I’ve ever toured with – when they’re warming up, soon enough you’ll hear them hitting the ride!

The other thing I enjoy about Rush is that their lyrics are incredibly smart. To hear a song like Red Barchetta, then realise it’s based on a science fiction story they read and thought, ‘Let’s write a song about it’ – and make it hooky as crap so people are gonna sing along whether they get it or not… that’s genius at work.

I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to hear the first Rush record!’ … I listened for the next five days solid

They could do that about going to the shop to get a bottle of milk. But I couldn’t! There’s also a lot of social commentary, Shakespeare references; with Rush you can look in, find a good story and learn something.

I’ve been obsessed by this band. On one tour I was going through this crazy Rush phase. It started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was sitting there thinking, ‘I’ve got to hear the first Rush record!’ and I made the runner leave the venue to look for it. He was a really cool dude; it was Sunday and half the record shops were closed, but he found it for me. I listened to that for the next five days solid.

Essentially though, they’re just badass. You go back to the very first Rush record and listen to Working Man – it’s awesome; it just speaks to you. For a supposed prog rock band they’ve put their musicianship through the pop sensibility meat grinder, and come out on top.

My favourite place for listening to Rush is in a car. I believe an album is a journey through the psyche of that band and the time period it was made. The best way to hear Rush’s journey is on a journey.”

The new issue of Metal Hammer features Nightwish on the cover, as they gear up to release new album Yesterwynde.

Inside the magazine, Floor and Tuomas reveal the full story behind the epic record, which comes after a turbulent few years for Nightwish. Floor underwent treatment for cancer, while Tuomas lost his father.

“The major theme of this album is time – going back in time, recognising your own mortality,” says Tuomas. “I’ve come to realise how incredibly lucky we are to be alive. “It’s ridiculous, the odds that we are all here. We should celebrate it.”

In celebration of Yesterwynde, the issue comes packaged with a special album-themed bottle-opener keyring, and an art print of Floor Jansen.

In April 2023, Nightwish announced they were taking a break from touring, and wouldn’t be playing Yesterwynde live – but Floor insists otherwise, it’s business as usual for the band.

“I’ve seen a lot of reactions, people drawing conclusions,” says Floor. “Making an elephant out of a mosquito, as the Dutch say – making something much bigger than it actually is. It’s not the end of the band, I’m not going to leave, nobody’s angry at each other.”

Also in the issue, Mastodon remember breakthrough album Leviathan as it reaches 20, we count down the greatest Slayer songs ever ahead of their live reunion this fall, and doom trap queen Mimi Barks lets us into her nihilistic world.

We fly to the Swiss city of Basel for a crash course in anarchy and arse-flashing with Zeal & Ardor, uncover the real story of one-time Slipknot rivals Mushroomhead, and discover why UK hotshots Graphic Nature are a vehicle for catharsis.

Elsewhere, we hit the studio with Anthrax, Kittie’s Morgan Lander answers your questions on equal rights and cats, and Monster Magnet space lord Dave Wyndorf dishes out his life lessons – leather pants included.

All this, plus Nothing More, Thrown, Gojira, Julie Christmas, Battlesnake, AC/DC, Bastard Fest, Crypta, and much, much more.

Only in the new issue of Metal Hammer, on sale now.  Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door.

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In a career spanning more than three decades, Dark Tranquillity have never released a truly duff album. They’ve split opinion a couple of times – particularly with the early stylistic shift of 1999’s Projector – but even that has become an essential part of the band’s back catalogue. 

One of the originators of the Gothenburg sound that defined melodic death metal in the mid-90s, they’ve since embraced new textures and influences while still retaining their core identity. Endtime Signals maintains the musical continuity, despite more major line-up changes that leave frontman Mikael Stanne as the sole original member. 

Newcomers Joakim Strandberg Nilsson (drums) and Christian Jansson (bass) are fully on point, though. The fresh blood may even have invigorated the band, with a few tracks thrashing out in a way they haven’t really done since their second peak in the mid-2000s circa Damage Done. 

Unforgivable was the pre-release single that got fans salivating, but Enforced Perspective and A Bleaker Sun also feature whiplash segments that you can already picture fuelling future festival pits across Europe and beyond. It isn’t all about the speed these days, however, and there are still plenty of the mid-paced and more tangential moments that have defined the band’s latter-day material. 

One Of Us Is Gone is a sombre, string-wrapped ballad dedicated to late former guitarist Fredrik Johansson. Not Nothing is a bleak slab of synth-led gothic metal that’s not too far from Mikael’s side-project, Cemetery Skyline, while Our Disconnect places driving drum fills and growled vocals against a more expansive movie score backdrop. 

It’s not a classic by Dark Tranquillity’s own high standards, with a few fillers letting the side down slightly, but Endtime Signals has enough standout moments to maintain their remarkable levels of consistency. Thirteen albums in and still no duffer.

Endtime Signals is out August 16 via Century Media. Dark Tranquillity play Islington’s O2 Academy on November 5 with Moonspell and Hiraes.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd believes Eddie Van Halen was far different than how he was portrayed in the media.

Shepherd had a long history with the late guitar god, having toured with Van Halen on two separate occasions.

“We toured with them back in the ‘90s when it was Van Halen III and they had Gary Cherone singing in the band for a brief moment,” Shepherd recalled during a recent appearance on the Appetite for Distortion podcast. “And then we toured again with them on the very last tour in 2015.”

Shepherd, who also became social friends with Eddie away from the stage, found the rocker to be friendly and outgoing, a far cry from the aloof figure that had been portrayed in the media.

READ MORE: The Best Song from Every Van Halen Album

“What I’ve learned in my life is you hear stories about people and a lot of times people only tell the stories that, the bad stories because it kind of makes for a good headline or whatever,” Shepherd explained. “So I’ve learned not to judge people based on other people’s experiences and I had nothing but great experiences with Eddie. He was always just, couldn’t have been a nicer guy to me.”

“I think people can often mistake shyness with being standoffish,” the blues rock guitarist continued. “A lot of people like to keep to themselves. A lot of them are not very outgoing people in private settings, but on stage they’re larger than life.”

Shepherd also noted that he never saw any of the reported bitterness between Van Halen and his bandmates.

“[Eddie] never trashed anybody,” he confirmed. “He never was talking trash about anybody.”

Shepherd Noticed a Big Difference Between Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth

While Shepard was clear that all of his Van Halen experiences were positive, he did note one clear difference during the band’s final tour.

“On this last tour, I saw Wolfgang all the time. I saw Alex frequently. I saw Ed every day,” the rocker recalled. “The one guy I never saw, never said hello to me or anything like that was David Lee Roth. So, I can’t speak to him because I never met him.”

READ MORE: Van Halen Albums Ranked

“His guys were always trying to be like, if he entered the building, it was like, ‘He’s entered the building! Everybody, clear the room!’” Shepherd continued. “There was definitely a difference between my interactions with Eddie and then the way that David Lee Roth seemed to approach things. But I’m not gonna judge that guy because I’d never actually had an interaction with him.”

Shepherd’s new album, Dirt on My Diamonds Vol. 2, will be released Sept. 20.

In 1972, daytime TV talk show The Mike Douglas Show got a pair of new hosts for the week: John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Now, a new documentary titled Daytime Revolution, will chronicle that moment in pop culture history. Directed by Erik Nelson, the film will hit more than 50 theaters across the country on what would have been Lennon’s 84th birthday, Oct. 9.

“Daytime Revolution takes us back in time, as we observe John and Yoko interacting with a transfixed studio audience in revealing Q and A sessions where John Lennon was astonishingly candid about his life after the Beatles,” a press release described (via Deadline). “John and Yoko also got to pick the guests, some very controversial at the time, like [anti-war activist and Yippie] Jerry Rubin and Black Panther Bobby Seale, as well as Ralph Nader and George Carlin. In addition, the shows featured blazing musical performances, including an epic duet with Chuck Berry, and a poignant rendition of the now classic ‘Imagine.’ Conceptual art events and even cooking segments were woven into the crazy fabric of the format.”

READ MORE: What if John Lennon Had Starred in ‘WarGames’?

According to Nelson, the documentary — on which both Ono and her son Sean Ono Lennon served as creative consultants — was originally going to be put out in the fall of 2022, but “we made a conscious decision to hold back release until the election fall of 2024, as we felt very strongly that the film’s optimistic and idealistic message would be a far more welcome ‘letter from home’ the closer we got to what promised to be an apocalyptic and tension filled Nov. 5. We were clearly right in that assumption!”

Daytime Revolution will first premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival, followed by its theatrical release. Details on locations and ticketing have yet to be announced.

The Best Rock Movie From Every Year

A look at the greatest biopics, documentaries, concert films and movies with awesome soundtracks.

Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

Some of the numbers associated with Woodstock are well known. The now-legendary festival featured 32 acts performing over three days before half a million fans. But did you know there were hundreds of portable toilets, too?

Kicking off on Aug. 15, 1969, in Bethel, New York, Woodstock gave the world a series of career-making performances – perhaps most notably from a fledgling group of Latin rockers called Santana. There were just as many challenges, from scheduling mixups to overindulgence and arrests to rain delays and some seriously muddy festival grounds. A tractor crushed someone.

And all of that was after Woodstock was banned from its first proposed location in Wallkill, New York, then rejected again by the town of Saugerties. As a result, festival organizers barely had time to set up everything after a late permitting process in Bethel, leaving yawning gaps in the fencing. Organizers were then forced to convert Woodstock into a free event as fans descended from all over America.

Ironically enough, however, the original Woodstock was far and away the most successful of them all. Woodstock ’94 turned into a muddy moshpit while Woodstock 1999 went down in flames. Woodstock 2019, which would have marked the 50th anniversary, simply fell apart.

Meanwhile, a film of the original event earned more than $50 million during its run in theaters, becoming the sixth highest-grossing movie of 1970. The album version, dubbed Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, topped the Billboard chart on its way to double platinum certification.

Here’s a look back at the original Woodstock – by the numbers.

Woodstock By the Numbers

Going inside the numbers at 1969’s legendary Woodstock festival, from the total porta-potties to injuries sustained from guitars. 

Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

Deep Purple and Yes launched their joint 2024 tour on Wednesday night in Hollywood, Florida. See set lists and videos below.

The =1 More Time tour celebrates Deep Purple’s latest studio album, also called =1, and 50 years of “Smoke on the Water.” (Frontman Ian Gillan, in a recent interview with UCR, said he’d have preferred if the tour was called “Unleashed – not that it matters. It’s a Deep Purple tour and we’re happy.”)

Yes’ latest tour follows 2023’s Mirror to the Sky, but the group stuck with old favorites. Their most recent release was an expanded 4CD or limited-edition white vinyl anniversary box set of 1994’s Talk.

READ MORE: Ranking Every Yes Song

Highlights from the evening included Deep Purple’s live debut of “Show Me” from =1. Meanwhile, Yes offered the tour debuts of “Yours Is No Disgrace,” “Clap” and “Siberian Khatru.”

Watch Deep Purple Perform ‘Smoke On the Water’

Sharing the stage wasn’t always so easy. Deep Purple and Yes were both on the bill at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in 1970, a precursor to the U.K.s Reading Festival held at Plumpton in East Sussex, England – and both assumed they’d be the closing act.

Promoter Jack Barrie from London’s legendary Marquee Club stepped in to negotiate a truce. “Jack said, ‘Guys, would you mind going on a bit earlier? I don’t want to push you, but it would help me and it would help the crowd,'” Ian Gillan remembered.

He said Deep Purple responded, “Yeah, sure. Okay, no worries.” But then co-founding Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore set fire to his amplifiers on stage – causing an explosion.

Watch Yes Perform ‘Roundabout’

Joint North American dates with Deep Purple and Yes continue through September, with key stops in Houston, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal, among others. Deep Purple appears as a solo act on Aug. 19 in Oklahoma. Their new LP was preceded by a 3CD/LP/Blu-ray super deluxe edition of Machine Head, home to “Smoke on the Water” as well as “Highway Star” and “Space Truckin.'”

Watch Deep Purple Perform ‘Lazy Sod’

Deep Purple, Aug. 14, 2024, Hollywood, Florida, Set List
“Highway Star”
“A Bit on the Side”
“Hard Lovin’ Man”
“Into the Fire”
“Uncommon Man” (Dedicated to Jon Lord)
“Lazy Sod”
“Lazy”
“Show Me” (live debut)
“Portable Door”
“Anya”
“Bleeding Obvious”
“Space Truckin'”
“Smoke on the Water”
Encore:
“Caught in the Act”
“Hush”
“Black Night”

Yes, Aug. 14, 2024, Hollywood, Florida, Set List
“Machine Messiah”
“I’ve Seen All Good People”
“Yours Is No Disgrace”
“Clap”
“Going for the One”
“Siberian Khatru”
“Roundabout”
“Starship Trooper”

Revisiting Yes’ First LP Without Chris Squire