2018 is shaping up to be a great year for tours. Swedish industrial metal legends PAIN will tour Australia for the first time ever in May 2018 in support of their eighth studio album, Coming Home, on Nuclear Blast. Led by Peter Tagtgren, PAIN mixes metal and electronica with techno, and is just one of many of Tagtren’s projects. He’s also frontman for Hypocracy, owner of recording studio The Abyss, and partnered with Rammstein’s Till Lindemann for the Lindemann album/band in 2015. Support is from Witchgrinder. Catch them at Max Watt’son Friday May 25.
Melbourne proggers Teramaze have just announced their new lineup, which now includes Jon Beckx on guitar. Beckx is a hell of a player who you may have seen touring the country together with Teramaze founder Dean Wells to demo the Line 6 Helix guitar processor in recent months. He’s one of the nicest dudes in the Australian music industry and plays like an utter beast. I had the pleasure of jamming with Jon at an Ormsby Guitars event one time and I remember thinking “Why is this guy not in a major band right now?” And now he is. A new album is coming in 2018.
It’s gonna be a brutal week. In a good way, for once. Death metal legends Morbid Angel release their ninth studio album, Kingdoms Disdained, on Friday December 1 via Silver Lining Music. It sees founder Trey Azagthoth reunite with bassist/vocalist Steve Tucker, and the whole thing is crushing. It was produced by the band with Erik Rutan. Azagthoth, Tucker and drummer Scotty Fuller created 11 pieces of devastatingly dynamic death metal. Compositions such as ‘Garden of Disdain’, ‘Architect and Iconoclast’ and ‘The Pillars Crumbling’ supremely illustrate Azagthoth’s incredible creative alchemy with Tucker as well as his own peerless, legendary guitar work. “The album title says it all,” Tucker says. “Everybody’s fed up and nobody can figure out how to fix it. We’ve got all these miniature wars in neighbourhoods, cities, countries, and we’ve got people with varying opinions causing chaos, yet everyone is doing what they feel is right. Which all makes it feels like the world has reached a point of utter madness and confusion.”
Stargazing post-progressive rockers (can you be stargazing and not be a post-progressive rocker? Not in my experience) Anathema return to Australia this December to celebrate the release of their eleventh album The Optimist. They’ll be at 170 Russell on Wednesday December 6.
