Blog author:  Alex Stojanovic

Well it's a glorious day for us Sodom fans, as the band have announced that their new album is ready to see the light of day, and all the details like release date, track listing, album title and artwork have been revealed.  The album will be titled Decision Day and will be released on August 26th via SPV/Steamhammer.  The last album Epitome Of Torture was one of Sodom's best.  I was wondering how they are going to top it. Well, it won't be long before we find out.

Decision Day track listing

01.  In Retribution
02.  Rolling Thunder
03.  Decision Day
04.  Caligula
05.  Who Is God?
06.  Strange Lost World
07.  Vaginal Born Evil
08.  Belligerence
09.  Blood Lions
10.  Sacred Warpath
11.  Refused To Die
12.  Predatory Instinct (Bonus track)

Configurations

- Digipack including double-sided poster
- Double gatefold LP with printed inner-sleeves, 180-gram, red vinyl, CD in cardboard sleeve and bonus track
- Box set limited to 1,000 units: digipack, 2LP, poster, hand-signed photo-card, sticker, button, patch and flag
- iTunes exclusive version including a bonus track
- Digital download

Blog author:  Alex Stojanovic

By now, you should all know that Revocation has a new record coming out on July 22nd called Great Is Our Sin.  They've already shared the track "Communion" a few weeks ago, and now they've unleashed another beast of a track for our listening pleasure entitled "Monolithic Ignorance", which is available for streaming down below.

Revocation have a handful of dates booked for late July and August, so it they're hitting your city around that time, be sure to go check them out, and pick up Great is Our Sin when it comes out on July 22nd on Metal Blade Records.  Click here to see the full list of dates on the band's website.

​June 11    Castle Donington as part of Download Festival
June 12    Manchester, England @ Sound Control
June 13    Glasgow, Scotland @ The Cathouse
June 14    Newcastle, England @ Think Tank
June 15    Leeds, England @ Brudenell Social Club
June 16    London, England @ The Underworld
June 18    Dessel, Belgium as part of Graspop Metal Meeting
June 19    Clisson, France as part of Hellfest
June 21    Selestat, France @ Fete De La Musique
June 22    Aarschot, Belgium @ De Klinker
June 23    Kassel, Germany @ Kassel
June 24    Ysselsteyn, Netherlands @ Jera Open Air

Vivek Venkatesh and David Hall proudly present a unique celebration of film and music featuring key members of the Norwegian extreme metal music scene. The Norwegian Invasion will feature the Canadian premiere screening of the concert film Blekkmetal, and the Canadian premiere soundscape performance of Norwegian composer Ivar Bjørnson’s Bardspec project. The Blekkmetal screening is free to the public and will take place at 19h00 on July 3 at the VA114 cinema at Concordia University (1395 René-Lévesque Ouest) (Facebook event page). The Bardspec performance will take place at 20h00 on July 2 at Co-op Katacombes; tickets are $15 at the door or online at lepointdevente (Facebook event page).

​Following on the heels of the highly successful world premiere in April 2016 in New York City, The Norwegian Invasion will see the Canadian premiere screening ofBlekkmetal – a documentary about the one-off 2015 festival celebrating the origins of Norwegian black metal. Featuring exclusive interviews and footage of Enslaved, Taake, Aeternus, Gehenna, Helheim, Old Funeral, Kampfar, Hades Almighty and Gaahls Wyrd performing classic and rare songs from their catalog, Blekkmetal features an all-Canadian production team including director David Hall (alumnus of Concordia University), metal studies scholars Vivek Venkatesh (Concordia University) and Jason Wallin (University of Alberta), and mobile media scholar Owen Chapman (Concordia University).
Producer Vivek Venkatesh sees the Blekkmetal film as “a stellar exemplar of how key members of the extreme metal scenes from Canada and Norway have worked collaboratively, provided a stark reimagination of a cultural artform, and revealed an acute focus on the music and visual arts associated with the Norwegian black metal scene in the early 1990s”. Director David Hall says, “I am really proud and eager to present the Blekkmetal documentary to our friends in Montreal – I truly believe we have managed to capture the essence of the Bergen Black Metal scene via interviews, concert footage and fly-on-the-wall guerrilla filmmaking. The fact that our friend and collaborator Ivar Bjørnson has agreed to perform his mythical ambient psych project Bardspec as a prelude to the screening is a dream come true for us!”
​
Blekkmetal is co-produced by the festival’s organizers Ivar Bjørnson, Jannicke Wiese-Hansen and Kirsti Rosseland. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers and festival organizers. The original trailer for the film can be viewed here, an extended trailer is now available here, while exclusive performance footage from select bands who performed at Blekkmetal can be found here: Enslaved,Taake.
Ivar Bjørnson (songwriter, founder and guitarist of Norway’s black metal pioneers Enslaved) describes his BardSpec, project as “Electronic Dark Ambient-Psych wherein the listener is invited into weird and wonderful soundscapes, and where deep minimalism meets cascades of psychedelic harmony and esoteric noise”. The music will be complemented by live manipulations of film co-created by David Hall and Bjørnson, with additional visuals by Vivek Venkatesh and Jason Wallin. Watch a video clip of the Bardspec demo here.
​
Canadian soundscape artist and media studies graduate scholar at Concordia University, Leticia Trandafir, who goes by the stage moniker of Softcoresoft, will perform a live set of ambient and drone music to open the Bardspec performance on July 2 at Katacombes.

​Blekkmetal Video Trailer – https://vimeo.com/158059799
​
Blekkmetal Extended Trailer – https://vimeo.com/165600936

​Bardspec Promo Video – https://vimeo.com/160902696
​
​(version française ci-dessous)

​Visit 
grimposium.com/blekkmetal/ 
​for more information.

Blog author:  Alex Stojanovic

Finally, after two years of waiting, the wait for new music from Meshiaak, the band featuring former 4Arm frontman Danny Tomb on guitars and lead vocals, Termaze guitarist Dean Wells, bassist Nick Walker, and drummer Jon Dette, the guy who is most known for being the stand-in guy for Slayer, Anthrax, Testament and Iced Earth, is over.  It was two summers ago that Meshiaak premiered a demo version of the song "Alliance Of Thieves" and at that time, the members of the band were Tomb, Wells and former Testament bassist Greg Christian.

Now two years later with a solid lineup, the band and are ready to release their debut album Alliance Of Thieves on August 19th via Mascot Label Group, and the band's music video for the song "Drowning, Fading, Falling" can be seen down below.  Down below is also the album's track listing. The album art looks killer right?

Alliance Of Thieves track listing

01.  Chronicles Of The Dead
02.  It Burns At Both Ends
03.  I Am Among You
04.  Drowning, Fading, Falling
05.  At The Edge Of The World
06.  Last Breath Taken
07.  Maniacal
08.  Alliance Of Thieves
09.  Death Of An Anthem

Watch the video down below.

Blog author:  Alex Stojanovic

Don't you just love songs that reference your favourite bands and songs in the lyrics?  Well that's the case with Jim Breuer and The Loud & Rowdy's track "Old School" from their album Songs From The Garage.  The track is one of my favourites from the record with it's killer straightforward groove and references to Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, Megadeth, Scorpions, Twisted Sister, Van Halen and several others.  The video for the song, which can be streamed down below is pretty entertaining as well.  For example, whenever a certain reference comes up, Breuer would say that reference dressed up as that band's singer.  He dresses as Rob Halford, Dee Snider, Brian Johnson, Ozzy and Kurt Cobain.

The video shows Breuer performing with his band under the name Steel Goats in his garage, in an empty bar and on stage at the Paramount in Huntington, New York.

Breuer will be doing select dates with the Loud & Rowdy this year.  You can check his website for all the dates for the Loud & Rowdy tour, as well as all his stand-up dates.