Make Them Suffer guitarist Nick McLernon has joined the Jackson Guitars artist roster. McLernon brings an aggressive and technical playing style that is replicated through energetic and chaotic live shows. Make Them Suffer, who are signed globally to Rise Records and Roadrunner Records in Australia, will release their third studio album Worlds Apart on Friday July 26. The first single Fireworks was released last month, and Nick uses a Jackson Pro Series Monarkh in the video.
Heavy rock mixed with stoner jams and a touch of psych sojourns all soaked in a mountain of fuzz are to be celebrated once again at Cherry Bar this Friday September 22 and Saturday September 23 for the second Fuzz Fest. Curated by Andy Simpson of Don Fernando and featuring a stellar lineup of national, international and local touring acts including Front End Loader, King of the North, Peeping Tom, Fluff, Fuck the Fitzroy Doom Scene, Don Fernando, Dr Colossus, Los Labios and Redro Redriguez & His Inner Demons.
Australian metal veterans Frankenbok return with a triumphant new album Vicious, Lawless on Friday July 14. The album marks the band’s eighth official release and 20 years of playing metal for the masses. Fresh from dates with Superheist and Dreadnaught, Frankenbok will hit the road through August and September in support of the album. You can see them at The Evelyn Hotel on Saturday August 19.
Legendary German power metallers Blind Guardian have just released their stunning 3CD live album Live Beyond The Spheres via Nuclear Blast. The record includes material from numerous shows recorded during their European tour in 2015. “I’m completely satisfied with the songs we’ve chosen and with the way we’ve presented the album in sound and technique,” vocalist Hansi Kürsch says. “Even though we compiled »Live Beyond The Spheres« with songs from more than ten different shows, the result sounds really uniform.”
Philadelphia-native progressive group In The Presence Of Wolves rattled the East Coast metal scene with their 2015 full-length release, Thalassas, deftly mixing a bevy of classic progressive rock, modern prog-metal, experimental, post-hardcore and jazz rock influences that has since been unparalleled by any up-and-coming local artist. Tight live and recorded performances and mind-boggling technical precision have already pushed the band far beyond the limitations of their contemporaries, and they’ve only just begun. Their new conceptual EP, Of Two Minds, Stages 1-2: The Ape and The Cage’ reaches far beyond the confines of ITPOW’s experimental predecessors – plainly inspired by the piercing vocal attacks, tasteful theatricality and frantic musical kaleidoscopes pioneered by artists like Rush, Coheed and Cambria, Queen, The Mars Volta and Between The Buried And Me –leaving the listener with something overtly inspired yet fresh and uncharted. It’s out now.
