It Books / HarperCollins The history of metal music is not an easy story to tell. With over 45 years of the world’s most brutal music genre having already passed, the realms of progression, brutality and experimentation are constantly expanding thanks to both metal legends and new school heroes. Despite the difficulty of the challenge, rock journalists Jon Wiederhorn and Katherine Turman have crafted the upcoming book ‘Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal,’ which will see a May 14 release date. To create a truly definitive portrayal on metal music, ‘Louder Than Hell’ was assembled from more than 300 interviews with metal’s finest icons, including members of Metallica , Megadeth , Iron Maiden , Slayer , Death , Motley Crue , Pantera and many more. As if 300 interviews wasn’t legitimate enough, the comprehensive book will include an introduction by Scott Ian of Anthrax and an afterword by Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford . ‘Louder Than Hell’ promises to deliver all the info without censorship, delving into topics such as traumatic upbringings, drug addiction and bizarre sexual exploits, along with stories of the music business, songwriting, touring and a lot more. Metal musicians themselves have come out to praise ‘Louder than Hell,’ along with its authors. “Katherine Turman and Jon Wiederhorn know metal,” gushes Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello . “Louder than Hell is an amazing gathering of different breeds of heavy metal rockers telling the tales metal fans want to hear.” Heavy metal legend Alice Cooper also endorses the book. “This is the book every metal fan should own,” says Cooper. “A fascinating high-octane chronicle of metal mayhem that takes readers on a wild ride, from metal’s earliest days to the head-banging present. I’m not saying this just because I’m in the book, but . . . if you love metal, great stories, and music history told by the people who made it, then Louder than Hell is a must-read.” Jon Wiederhorn is a senior writer for Revolver magazine, a former editor of MTV2′s Headbangers Blog and has worked for publications such as Rolling Stone, Spin, Entertainment Weekly and Guitar World. Wiederhorn has also penned a biography on Ministry mastermind Al Jourgensen , ‘Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen,’ which will see a July 2013 release. Katherine Turman currently produces the syndicated radio show ‘Nights with Alice Cooper,’ and has written for publications such as Metal Hammer, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone and RIP, the last of which she was the editor. Get ready for the release of ‘Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal’ on May 14. To pre-order the book, click here . Check Out a Video of Alice Cooper Promoting ‘Louder Than Hell’ [button href=”http://loudwire.com/best-metal-albums-of-2012/” title=”10 Best Metal Albums of 2012″ align=”center”]
Metal Blade Records Florida’s legendary death metal merchants Six Feet Under will unleash their tenth studio album, ‘Unborn,’ on March 19 via Metal Blade Records. A lyric video for the song ‘Zombie Blood Curse’ is now available, as well (watch below). Released less than a year after 2012′s ‘Undead,’ ‘Unborn’ will be the band’s first album featuring guitarist Ola Englund and bassist Jeff Hughell. It’s the second SFU under album for drummer Kevin Talley. Vocalist Chris Barnes once again brought in some guest songwriters for the new album. “The journey to create, write, and record ‘Undead’ and ‘Unborn’ has been the most challenging and exciting musical endeavor and process I have ever been involved with,” says Barnes. “Working with all these amazing writers and musicians like Ben Savage (Whitechapel) on songs like ‘Neuro Osmosis’ and ‘Fragment’ are some of the most dynamic, beautiful, and brutal songs I’ve ever had the pleasure of putting lyrics to. I believe Ben is a true innovator of the death metal genre.” Barnes continues, ”It was also a lot of fun working Jari Laine from Torture Killer again. We wrote a great album together a few years back called ‘Swarm!’ – one of my favorite releases I’ve been involved with – and Jari is someone who I have really wanted to work with again ever since. I wanted to revisit collaborating with Jari because of how well we work together; proof of that on ‘Unborn’ are the hook heavy sounds of songs like ‘Zombie Blood Curse’ and ‘Incision’.” ‘Zombie Blood Curse’ is vintage Six Feet Under, a mid-tempo behemoth that slows down to a skull-crushing pace midway through before picking back up. And since its not always easy to make out Barnes’ death metal growls, a lyric video is perfect for Six Feet Under. Check it out below: Watch Six Feet Under – ‘Zombie Blood Curse’ Lyric Video
Fearless Records Italian metal band Upon This Dawning dropped their latest album ‘To Keep Us Safe’ in October, and now they’re unleashing a lyric/music video for new single ‘The Sound of Your Breath’ exclusively on Loudwire. “‘The Sound of Your Breath’ is one of the last songs we wrote and it’s absolutely our favorite song to play live,” says frontman Matteo Botticini. ”We always have so much fun when we play that song.” The lyric/music video portrays the band’s intense performance onstage while showing black and white clips of the band loading up their gear and roaming around Los Angeles. As for the video itself, Botticini adds, “We shot the video in Hollywood during the Infamous tour with Motionless In White and it was definitely one of the funnest moment we had on that tour. I really hope our fans are gonna like this video.” ‘To Keep Us Safe’ debuted at No. 9 on Billboard’s Heatseeker’s Album Charts. The release is available on CD at the Fearless Records merch store or digitally at iTunes . Upon This Dawning have a handful of shows in February with bands I See Stars and For All Those Sleeping. For a full list of dates and cities, go here . Watch Upon This Dawning’s ‘The Sound of Your Breath’ Video [Exclusive]
Kevin Winter, Getty Images / Puscifer / Jason Merritt, Getty Images The 55th Annual Grammy Awards were held last night (Feb. 10), and it was business as usual for the famed awards show. Music’s biggest names walked the carpet, while shiny golden gramophones were given out to rock artists such as the Black Keys , Halestorm and Trent Reznor + Atticus Ross. However, a sense of disarray resonated with various musicians, who took to Twitter in order to vent their disapproval of the Grammy Awards. Out of any rock act nominated, the Black Keys were one of the night’s biggest winners, having taken home trophies for Best Rock Album (‘El Camino’), Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance (‘Lonely Boy’) and Producer of the Year, Non-Classical for frontman Dan Auerbach. Halestorm took home a Grammy after ‘Love Bites (So Do I)’ won Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance and Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor and his partner in sonic crime Atticus Ross won the Best Score Soundtrack Grammy for their work on ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.’ Despite those victories, the Grammys were met with much criticism within the rock and metal community. Slipknot / Stone Sour vocalist Corey Taylor congratulated Halestorm on their win, but expressed disappointment in the Grammys’ lack of respect for metal music: I’m happy for Halestorm, but sad because the Grammys don’t respect our genre AT ALL. We get one category and it’s not even televised. — The Boogie Knight (@CoreyTaylorRock) February 11, 2013 Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro offered his own thoughts on the Grammys, opting to switch channels to catch the return of ‘The Walking Dead’ instead. People watch zombies on #thewalkingdead , zombies watch people on The Grammys — Dave Navarro (@DaveNavarro) February 11, 2013 Next up is Tool / A Perfect Circle / Puscifer singer Maynard James Keenan , who took more of a passive objection to the Grammys, responding to a fan who tagged Keenan in a tweet. “@ ninelocal : Tnite’s Award Show is Irrelevant, Overrated & Not “fun.” wp.me/p2Fm11-gq I think @ mjkeenan of @ puscifer agrees.” Yup. — Maynard J Keenan (@mjkeenan) February 11, 2013 Adelitas Way also checked out the Grammys last night, but found the ceremony to be rather dull and uninspired. Watching the Grammys with respect for every artist involved, but this year is very boring, I would be def be breaking shit up there — adelitasway (@adelitasway) February 11, 2013 What did you think of the 2013 Grammy Awards? Let us know your thoughts on who should have won the many awards presented by the show in the comments section below! [button href=”http://loudwire.com/2013-grammy-award-winners/” title=”See the 2013 Grammy Awards Winners” align=”center”]
Machinehead1.com Metallica ‘s Cliff Burton is one of the most beloved figures in the history of hard rock and metal and his memory lives on with the legacy of the band’s early albums. One of the future rockers who was influenced by the work of Burton and his Metallica bandmates was Machine Head ‘s Robb Flynn , who posted a new journal entry reflecting on what Burton meant to him in honor of the celebration of the bassist’s birthday. “It’s amazing to think how the music world may (or may not) have been different had the tragic bus accident not taken his life,” says Flynn, who has been reflecting on the times he actually got to see Burton perform in his youth. He recalls hanging out with his friend Jim Pittman as a kid and the first time he heard ‘Kill ‘Em All.’ The frontman says, “We’d never heard anything like it. We gleefully stumbled around the running track behind American High School for hours and probably played ‘Whiplash’ fifty times in a row, headbanging wildly the whole time. What a great memory! Still blasting the bootleg, we stumbled back to my house where my parents were gone, we vowed to jam more and to get better at our own band … and to see Metallica the next time they played.” After catching a ride from his dad, Flynn says he had the time of his life. He recalls, “When Metallica took the stage, the world came alive … When it came time for Cliff’s ‘(Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth’ bass solo, I just remember being mesmerized. I’d had so many metal debates with Jim and other friends that there’s no way that was a ‘bass’ solo. It was a ‘guitar’ solo. Fact. End-of-story. My mind was blown.” Flynn says Metallica’s works with Burton have resonated with him to this day. He explains, “The bass lines were hypnotizing me ever-so-subtly to the point where even now, I know every bass line on those albums like it’s part of my DNA. Go and listen to our song ‘Now I Lay Thee Down’; the triad bass line in the chorus? That’s just one of my tributes to Cliff. The three-part lead section in the middle … I wrote that with Cliff looking over me. Hell, I called it ‘the Cliff part.’” When Burton died in a tragic bus crash, Flynn said it was one of those occasions he’ll always remember exactly where he was when he heard the news. “I was at a kegger party in Cliff’s hometown, Castro Valley, wired and drunk when ‘the news’ came on. 10PM, someone I didn’t know came running into the backyard and yelled, ‘Cliff’s dead, Cliff from Metallica is dead!,’” Flynn recalls. “It was unreal. A stunned silence took over the party. They were ‘our’ band. This didn’t happen to ‘us.’” In the years since Burton’s death, Flynn says he’s read the Joel McIver biography on Burton and learned about how some diehard Metallica fans had made a memorial to the bassist at the site of the bus crash in Sweden. To pay homage, Flynn says he too made the pilgrimage during a tour of Sweden and stopped to leave a guitar pick with the mementos that many fans had left. He concludes, “As this Sunday (Feb. 10) comes to pass, I’m sure in our own way, some of us will pay tribute to a man whose attitude, demeanor, vibe, genuine love of music and unequaled talent affected us. I know I will. Happy birthday Cliff Burton, rest in peace.” To read Flynn’s full posting on Burton, click here . [button href=”http://loudwire.com/favorite-cliff-burton-era-metallica-album-readers-poll/” title=”Next: Favorite Cliff Burton-Era Metallica Album – Readers Poll” align=”center”]
Kevin Winter, Getty Images One of the reasons Megadeth has lasted as long as it has is Dave Mustaine ‘s commitment to evolving the band’s sound. And it looks like Mustaine has another trick up his sleeve. In a new Facebook posting , the vocalist asks his followers, “Any ideas for a guest singer on a track? I have a few ideas, but wanna know what you think.” The timing of the posting is a bit of a head-scratcher as Megadeth recently completed recording on their new album and are currently in the mixing process, so it’s not known if the idea of having a guest vocalist on a song is meant for a future recording or something that might turn up on their next album. In the short amount of time the posting has been up, Mustaine has already received over 3,000 comments from fans with suggestions such as Anthrax ‘s Joey Belladonna , Metallica ‘s James Hetfield and Down ‘s Phil Anselmo among those frequently mentioned. Megadeth have been holed up in the Vic’s Garage studio in San Marcos, California over the last few months with producer Johnny K overseeing the effort. Bassist David Ellefson recently stated , “Really some great, great songs taking shape at this point in the recording process. I told Dave [Mustaine] today that one of them totally reminded me of the earliest stuff back when we first met — fast, rippin’ and fully bringing the REAL old-school Megadeth sound!!!” An official release has not been revealed, but it’s safe to say that Megadeth’s new album is on target for a 2013 street date. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/dave-mustaine-designed-jackson-y2kv-guitar-auctioned-for-11k/” title=”Next: Dave Mustaine Guitar Fetches $11K at Auction” align=”center”]
Relapse Texas death metal band Devourment are soon to release their fourth studio album, ‘Conceived in Sewage.’ Produced by death metal royalty Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal / ex- Morbid Angel , the record is set to drop on Feb. 19, but we’ve got one of the album’s brutal songs, ‘Parasitic Eruption,’ available for streaming exclusively on Loudwire. Devourment have been creating death metal on and off for nearly two decades after experiencing a carousel of member changes. The band’s lightheartedly titled debut album, ‘Molesting the Decapitated,’ was released in 1999, followed by ‘Butcher the Weak’ in 2005 and ‘Unleashing the Carnivore’ in 2009. ‘Parasitic Eruption’ is a purely brutal piece of American death metal with a backbreaking vocal performance from Mike Majewski and solid instrumental work from guitarist Ruben Rosas, bassist Chris ‘Captain Piss’ Andrews and drummer Eric Park. Devourment have even filmed a music video for ‘Parasitic Eruption,’ with the band informing their fans via Facebook on Feb. 6. We shot our first music video last night for the song ‘Parasitic Eruption’ with Malone Pictures, coming soon you filthy f—ing whores! Check out the exclusive premiere of Devourment’s ‘Parasitic Eruption’ in the audio player below! Pre-order Devourment’s ‘Conceived in Sewage’ at the band’s Relapse Records merch page or on iTunes . Devourment, ‘Parasitic Eruption’