Congratulations to Caligula’s Horse, whose latest album In Contact hit #2 on the Australian iTunes metal charts, #12 on the Australian rock charts and #48 overall. They hit #50 on the ARIA album chart and #9 on the ARIA Australian Artists charts too. The In Contact tour begins this week. Melbourne progressive instrumental project I Built The Sky will join Caligula’s Horse as special guests. See them at Max Watt’s on Saturday September 30.
The mighty Dragonforce have just released a video for their track Midnight Madness, and it gives you a behind-the-scenes peek into the making of their latest record, Reaching Into Infinity. The album is out now via earMusic/Sony Music Australia.
Have you noticed how much the UK loves Alter Bridge? Those guys are huge there. I mean, they do well pretty much everywhere, but their success in the UK is something else. They played a huge show at the O2 Arena in London last year, and it was recorded for a special set called Live at the O2 Arena + Rarities Disc 1. And as the title indicates, it comes with a second disc of limited-release tracks. Symphony Of Agony, the bonus track from the band’s latest studio release The Last Hero also gets worldwide release on this collection. It’s out right now on Napalm Records.
Did you see Cannibal Corpse when they toured Australia a few years ago? It was one of the most brutal and satisfyingly grrrr shows I’ve ever seen in Melbourne. Hopefully we’ll get another CC tour in 2018 on the back of their 14th full-length album, Red Before Black, which is released via Metal Blade on Friday November 3. The album was produced by Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal, Goatwhore). Bassist Alex Webster says “Throughout our career we’ve tried to improve the precision of both our musical execution and our album production, while still maintaining full-on aggression. Red Before Black continues in that direction.”
Aah, 1992. That bizarre time where hair metal was on the way out, grunge was firmly established, death metal was about to go major label and thrash had gone mainstream. It was a time of change, and somewhere in there was the last majorly successful hard rock band as we knew it, Ugly Kid Joe. UKJ fit into a unique niche: too bratty and dirty for hair metal, too goofy for thrash, but with post-Metallica guitar tones and an unashamed appreciation for Black Sabbath (their drummer even got to fill in for a whole Sabbath gig a while back). UKJ’s major album was America’s Least Wanted, a double-platinum set that sold over two million copies. Twenty-five years later the lads are hitting Australia to play that album in its entirety, and they’re bringing along some Aussie buddies: rock bruisers Dallas Frasca and guitarist Tim McMillan. See them on Saturday December 9 at the Croxton Bandroom.
