Headbangers Open Air Festival 2012
It started in 1998 as a garden-party from the legendary Headbangers Ballroom Hamburg with 3 bands on a trailer. Nowadays it's 2000+ Metalmaniacs watching 25 bands, mainly traditional metal...
traditional
Grand Magus - The Hunt
Having been around from more than 15 years… JB (vocals, guitars) & Fox (bass) are faithful to what they love best… and only the drummers seem to come and go while the duo is as solid as a rock. This time the new drummer is Ludwig “Ludde” Witt. Let’s hope he stays with them a lot more than his predecessors.
Stonecreep - Tourdates & album re-release
Portland, OR metallers STONECREEP have issued a statement regarding the cancellation of the first two dates of the Storm of the Deathmarch U.S. Tour 2012. "Due to a major family emergency, we have been forced to cancel the first two dates (Portland and Eugene) of the tour. It is with extremely heavy hearts that we do so. We are currently working on make-up dates for those shows and we apologize to anybody and everybody who was planning on coming out on June 16th & 17th. The rest of the tour will continue as planned. Thanks to all for your ongoing support. Hails".
Warriors of Metal Festival - Announcement
Tuesday, June 12, 2012. Amelia, Ohio. Warriors of Metal, Inc. is disappointed to announce that the Oklahoma City Speed Metal band, Forte' has been forced to cancel their appearance at this year's Warriors Of Metal Fest V Open Air on June 30th. In an e-mail message to the organizers on June 4th, drummer and band leader, Greg Scott stated the following:
Clairvoyants - The Shape of Things to Come
Clairvoyants is a band from Italy that was formed in the beginning of the 00s and started out as an Iron Maiden cover band (they still are as The Clairvoyants)… something that’s not hard to understand if you take a look at their name. At some point they wanted to be more than another IM cover band… so they started composing and releasing albums with their own music.
Rising West - new band featuring Queensryche members & vocalist Todd La Torre
As posted on ticketweb.com:
On Friday June 8th and Saturday June 9th, the core members of Queensryche will debut their new band “Rising West” at the Hard Rock Cafe in Seattle WA. Rising West features Michael Wilton, Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield, and Parker Lundgren of Queensryche, with powerhouse vocalist Todd La Torre of Crimson Glory. The band will be performing rare and classic hits from the first 5 Queensryche albums and plan on hitting the studio sometime early summer to begin recording their first release.
Absolva - new band by Chris Appleton & Martin McNee of Fury UK
Official message from Chris Appleton & Martin McNee:
"Hi everyone,
we're just a few days away from finishing the Fury UK "Death By Lightning" Tour - at Kendal on Thursday, Ebbw Vale on Friday & Stoke on Saturday - www.furyuk.com.
Accept - Stalingrad
Two years after their comeback album “Blood of the Nations”, which also introduced us the band’s new vocalist Mark Tornillo (ex-TT Quick), Accept are back with “Stalingrad”. It’s always “weird” when it comes to review albums from bands that have marked out metal music generally. I was skeptical and a little bit cautious about this album… not in terms of music quality… but due to UDO’s absence. I’m a big UDO fan and I believe that he should have been with the band in the first place… but I must also admit that Mark has done a hell of a job.
Crimson Cult - Tales of Doom
They say that when something is ending… then surely something new will come up eventually… so that seems to be the case here with the Austrian Crimson Cult… a band which was formed by Günter Maier (guitar & keys) and Alex Hilzensauer (bass) who were on Stygma IV. I have had the chance to follow the band since 2008… when they took shape… and I also listened to their debut album in 2009.
Katana - new album out on May 14th
Tobias Carlsson (guitar/songwriter) sent us an update about KATANA's new album "Storms of War" to be released in May on Listenable records.
"It was once again recorded, mixed and mastered at Sonic Train Studios by King Diamond guitarist Andy La Rocque.
We were very focused and determined right from the beginning to create a sound that no one had heard on an album since the 80s. To accomplish this, we and Andy listened alot to albums produced by Martin Birch when mixing and setting the sound. Mostly Rainbow, Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath, Killers by Iron Maiden and Assault Attack by MSG.