Why should major label bands be the only ones who get love? Unsigned & Streamed is a column where we stream a song from an unsigned band we at Metal Insider really dig.
This week, we’re excited to shine a light on Hamilton, ON, Canada’s Islands. Guitarist Adrian Levasseur, also of Straight Reads The Line, intended to release Waves as his solo debut. After the positive response he received from releasing the EP via Facebook and Rapidshare, though, Levasseur put together a live lineup with Straight Reads The Line singer Blake Prince. And that led to the birth of Islands. This five piece band’s blend of hardcore and djent metal reminds us of bands like Suicide Silence and Periphery. So without further ado, give a listen to the song “Deception,” off of their EP Waves, in the stream below.
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Islands will be filming a music video for “Deception” this Friday (December 2). The band hopes to make their live debut this coming January or February, while they’re also in talks to partake in a Spring/ Summer tour. You can download Waves for free via Rapidshare, while you can keep up to date on Islands’ upcoming plans via Facebook.
If you’re in an unsigned band and would like to participate in Unsigned & Streamed, email a link to your band’s music and a brief bio to tips [at] metalinsider.com for consideration.
What better way to scare the hell out of Santa Claus when he’s coming down the chimney to give you gifts than with Slayer holiday apparel? The band is currently selling holiday ornaments and stockings (as seen up top) exclusively via their webstore. We already know one gift we could stuff in the Slayer stocking. So this holiday season, Slayer fans better watch out, better not cry, and better not pout, or else Kerry King is coming to town. And unlike another chubby bearded guy, he will kick your ass.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been spending quite a bit of time in the all-immersive world of Skyrim. The latest incarnation of the Elder Scrolls series of role playing games is the best one yet, with some calling it best video game ever. It’s already a pretty metal game as is, with all the dragon slaying, mead drinking and skeleton-slaughtering going on, but our bros over at Metal Injection found a video of a power metal version of the theme with some guy shredding all over it. Hearing it makes me want to play the game some more. I’ll see you all in the Spring.
Metal By Numbers is a weekly column in which we look at the top metal sellers and debuts of the week.
Unfortunately, we missed out on all of the action on the charts last week because of Thanksgiving break. However, we return just in time to see the holiday shopping season kicking into gear. One way you can always tell Christmas is right around the corner is when you see half the charts dominated by Christmas albums, greatest hits compilations, and mainstream acts (this week, it’s Nickelback’s seventh album that tops the latter category). And while not many new releases made a splash on the charts this week, a few big metal/ hard rock titles from the past year saw a nice boost in sales thanks to Black Friday and Christmas shopping.
Notable Debuts:
Nickelback, Here And Now (Roadrunner) #2, 226,700 sold
Guess even a few angry Detroit Lions fans can’t stall sales for the Canadian rock band. And sales for Nickelback’s seventh album are also impressive considering it only sold around 100,000 copies less than 2008’s Dark Horse. Granted, these guys aren’t metal, and won’t be a mainstay of Metal By Numbers, but their success allows Roadrunner to keep putting out albums by the likes of Machine Head and Opeth.
Chris Cornell, Songbook (Universal) #68, 18,550 sold
Considering that this acoustic live album is simply a collection of the Soundgarden frontman’s three EPs that were released in the past few weeks, this is an impressive first week.
In the Midst of Lions, Shadows (Facedown) 1,080 sold
Christian deathcore may seem like a weird subgenre, but this band’s third album has a solid first week.
Theocracy, As the World Bleeds (Nightmare) 640 sold
The Christian prog metal band’s third album is off to a slow start. Read more »
It’s always an experience to see a band play in front of the fans that made them famous. That’s amplified even more when it’s in a different country. Metal Insider contributor and huge Rammstein fan Melissa Meyers fan planned a Germany vacation around being able to see the band play in Berlin. Here’s her account.
Without a doubt bands play better in front of a hometown crowd. Rammstein was no exception to this rule. I was fortunate enough to see the fury of the six play in front of a rabid crowd at two sold-out shows in Berlin at the O2 World Arena this past weekend. With the release of their first-ever greatest hits album, Made In Germany, on the horizon (it’s out in the States on 12/13), and an impending U.S. tour in the Spring, the band gave a preview of the new stage show that Americans can look forward to next year.
The band, known for taking an idea and pushing it to the extreme, did just that on their “Made In Germany” tour. As reported earlier, the album has six different covers, with one death mask for each band member. Before their first show, they had a four black horse drawn carriage pull up to the venue and a “funeral” procession to commemorate a lifelike bust and placing them each on a candlelit altar. Almost as if this was putting the past to rest with their greatest hits album. And as the video shows, even the band’s merch booth had pyro!
As has been noted elsewhere, those lucky enough to have seen the band play in America in the past year can look forward to an entirely new stage show next year. At the start of the show, the band marched imperially through the crowd with torches and flags up to their center stage and continuing on to the main stage by a bridge descending from the rafters. This epic entrance kicked off two hours of a non-stop fiery set. In the middle of their set, they crossed back over the bridge, on leashes, (“Mein Teil” style) to play several songs that they would not otherwise be able to play in America. These songs included “Mann gegen Mann” and the infamous “Buck Dish.” If you ever wondered what Till was spewing into the crowd during Warped Tour 98’, it was a whole lot of Jager.
The energy between the crowd and the band was far more intense than I have ever seen it at any Rammstein show. It was a show I will never forget.
Set list and more pictures after the jump Read more »
In Flames and Trivium will be embarking on a North American tour together in early 2012. So to celebrate the co-headlining tour, Trivium frontman Matt Heafy went to In Flames’ guitarist Björn Gelotte and bassist Peter Iwers’ restaurant 2112 in Gothenburg, Sweden on November 19. There, Heafy challenged In Flames singer Anders Fridén to see who’s the bigger gourmet. Though the video of the eat off posted online is dubbed “Food Wars,” it looks more like Heafy and Fridén are having a romantic dinner while being served food by members of In Flames. Still, the food at 2112 does look pretty good. You can watch video of Heafy and Fridén’s “food war,” which also features interviews with the Trivium and In Flames members, above.
Metal Insider is extremely proud to announce that we’ll be co-sponsoring Hail!Hornet’s first ever U.S. tour. The Southern metal supergroup (featuring members of Weedeater, Buzzov*en, Sourvein, Alabama Thunderpussy, Birds Of Prey, and Parasytic), will be hitting the road starting in January with support on most dates coming from psychedelic sludge metal trio Zoroaster. Plus, each night of the tour will include a special screening of Rwake lead singer C.T.’s documentary on southern metal Slow Southern Steel.
Two awesome bands live AND a film? Talk about a metal tour you definitely don’t want to miss! Hail!Hornet will kick things off on January 20 in Wilmington, NC, though Zoroaster will join the tour on January 23 in Atlanta (support for the first two shows will come from ASG, while Hail!Hornet will open for Corrosion Of Conformity in Asheville, NC). You can check out the complete rundown of dates for Hail!Hornet’s first U.S. tour, as well as a trailer for Slow Southern Steel, after the jump. Read more »
It looks like Rick Rubin isn’t the only person on Corey Taylor’s shit list. While in Indianapolis, Indiana for the An Evening With Corey Taylor tour, the Slipknot/ Stone Sour frontman shared his thoughts on Scott Weiland and his Christmas covers album, The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. To be more exact, Taylor used Weiland’s decision to record a Christmas as an example of how, as he said, “more and more people are only interested in money than fucking doing anything that’s good.”
You can watch fan filmed video of Taylor’s entire rant on the Stone Temple Pilots/ex-Velvet Revolver singer above (starting around the 7:30 mark). But in addition to showing off his impersonation of Weiland singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and emphasizing how bad the album is, Taylor had this to say:
“So I’m watching this — painfully watching this, because hey, know your enemy — and I’m just like, ‘Why?’ It’s not that he’s a bad singer, ’cause he’s not. I love STP, I love some of the shit that he did with Velvet Revolver. It’s not that he’s a bad fucking singer. He’s a lazy piece of shit, is what he is at this point…
It’s all these people who would rather cash in on the little fucking notoriety that they have and take your money and give you nothing back. And that, to me, is the real — the real — sloth in this country.”
Hmm, you sure you’re not the new Velvet Revolver singer, Taylor? While we’d prefer not to take sides in this feud, Taylor does make a good argument. We also tried watching the music video for Weiland’s “Winter Wonderland,” as well as his performance of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” on The Tonight Show (both of which you can watch after the jump if your heart so desires). And while we’re sure Weiland is having some sort of fun singing Christmas songs, we wouldn’t necessarily put it on any of our end of the year lists. Plus, Weiland himself even admitted in his memoir that he reluctantly joined Velvet Revolver for the cash.
Judge for yourself. You can watch Taylor’s rant on Weiland and his Christmas album in the video above (again, starting around the 7:30 mark), as well as a few videos of Weiland singing some holiday jingles after the jump. Read more »
It’s no secret that we love Kvelertak. It’s also a well-known fact that we love beer. So imagine our reaction this morning when we discovered that the Norwegian black metal/punk band have brewed their own line of beer. Called Kvelerbräu, the beer is made out of honey and hate and has an alcohol vol. of 6.66%. The bottle’s artwork (which can be seen off to the side) was done by Michael Hacker.
So when can we get our hands on Kvelertak’s beer? Well that’s the sad bit of news. Not only is Kvelerbräu being sold exclusively at the band’s show in Vienna, Austria this coming Saturday (December 3), but it’s also limited to 30 bottles only. No word on whether the band intends to brew more, but unless you’re going to the Vienna show, chances are you won’t get to taste Kvelertak’s beer.
If Kvelertak ever changes their mind and brews more bottles of Kvelerbräu, though, you can bet we’ll be first in line for taste samples. Until then, we’ll just continue to drink Clutch beer while at work.
In an interview last month, Canadian singer/songwriter Feist mentioned that while performing on UK show Later… With Jools Holland, she formed a mutual appreciation with fellow performers Mastodon and pitched them on the idea of doing a split 7″ covering each other’s songs. It looks like the idea might have stuck, as bassist/singer Troy Sanders recently told MTV News Canada that they would be collaborating on a split for Record Store Day.
“In support of Record [Store] Day, which we always try to be a part of and falls every April, we try to do some sort of release to support independent record stores. So the idea is for Mastodon to cover a Feist song and throw some hair and dirt on it, and they’re going to take a Mastodon song and pretty it up a little bit… We only have a short window to make that happen, which is the month of December, but we’re going to do everything we can to work with Feist and have a split 7″ in support of record stores.”
It’s great that this might actually come to fruition, especially in support of Record Store Day. Given that the band’s hometown independent record store, Criminal Records is in serious danger of closing, every little bit of support helps. And as far fetched as the idea sounds initially, Feist’s dark, sparse acoustic sound could definitely work in Mastodon’s favor, while hearing a female’s take on the band will certainly make for an interesting take on things.
Kylesa’s new album, Ultraviolet, is streaming online at Pitchfork. Check out the album, as well as some pretty awesome visuals, here. The album will come out on May 28 on Season of Mist.
Unsigned & Streamed vets Anciients, who’s Season of Mist debut Heart of Oak is out now, have landed the opening slot on the Lamb of God tour. They’ll be playing from May 16 – June 10. Check out the dates here.
Sinestra Studios (who very often provides Metal Insider with some killer live photos) is hosting its very first art galleria and metal show on Saturday, May 25, at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, NY. Tickets for the event are onsale now.
Louna has premiered a new music video for the song “Business” with Crave Online. The extravagant and politically themed music video comes in support of the Russian hard rock group’s new album, Behind The Mask, available now via Red Decade Records and MEG/RED.
Why should major label bands be the only ones who get love? Unsigned & Streamed is a column where we stream a song from an unsigned band we at Metal Insider really dig.
Posted by Metal Insider on Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Unsigned & Streamed