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Manos Spanos

Reunited SANCTUARY Signs With CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS

Manos Spanos
Reunited '80s cult metal outfit SANCTUARY has inked a deal with Century Media Records. The band's "comeback" album — tentatively titled "The Year The Sun Died" — is scheduled for release before the end of the year. In 2010, four of the founding SANCTUARY members — Warrel Dane, Jim Sheppard, Lenny Rutledge and Dave Budbill — came together for a few select reunion performances. At first, it was just going to be a handful of shows, but the response and chemistry on stage was so overwhelming that the guys changed their minds. Now, some 20 years after they left off,SANCTUARY will continue with their unique mix of U.S. power metal, hard rock and progressive elements and begin work on a new LP. To complete the lineup, Brad Hull (FORCED ENTRY) will be filling in for former guitar player Sean Blosi.
04 min read

CANDLEMASS To Release ‘Epicus Doomicus Metallicus – Live At Roadburn 2011’ Vinyl LP

Manos Spanos
Svart Records has set a June 14 release date for CANDLEMASS' vinyl-only "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus - Live at Roadburn 2011" album. CANDLEMASS' debut LP, "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus", is a genre-defining classic if there ever was one — the starting point of modern epic doom metal, even. In 2010 and 2011, CANDLEMASS invited the original "Epicus" vocalistJohan Längqvist back into the fold for a few select shows celebrating the album's 25th birthday. This vinyl-only release captures the band performing "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus" album live at the sold-outRoadburn festival in Holland in April 2011. Mixed from a professional 32-track recording and mastered vinyl under the supervision of band founder/mainman Leif Edling, this is the ultimate live version of the classic.
01 min read

JAMES HETFIELD On Next METALLICA Album: ‘I Want It Done Yesterday’

Manos Spanos
METALLICA guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield and bassist Robert Trujillo spoke to Billboard.com about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's long-awaited follow-up to 2008's "Death Magnetic", tentatively due in 2015. "I want it done yesterday," Hetfield said, "and [METALLICA's second Orion Music + More festival] and [the upcoming 3D] movie ['Through The Never'] is keeping us pretty busy at this point and it's taking a lot of our time and effort. We've been touring some obscure places; I guess basically what we're trying to do is pay for this movie, so the touring is keeping us from getting in there and finishing the record. Right now the focus is on the movie." He continued: "We got out into the room and jammed and we've come up with enough material for a record, for sure. We've gone through maybe one-tenth of the material that's on our riffs CDs. We've got enough for an album, we just haven't had enough time to really focus on it and dial in and start whittling it into these masterpieces, hopefully."
02 min read

LAMB OF GOD Members Discuss Safety At Shows: ‘You Need To Be Responsible For Your Own Actions’

Manos Spanos
Fuse conducted an interview with LAMB OF GOD drummer Chris Adlerand guitarist Mark Morton at this year's Rock On The Range festival, which took place May 17-19 at Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. In the wake of LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe's recent acquittal after a fan death in the Czech Republic, Adler and Morton discussed safety at shows and emphasized how important it is for fans to have fun without getting hurt. Chris: "Since I've been growing up, it's been a common practice — stage diving and stuff like that. And we just see more and more people getting hurt doing that kind of thing, and whether it's the band, the security, the barricades, the venue… whatever it is… there's so many random pieces to the puzzle that could end up with loss of life, which is what we had; it happened to us. So it's not that we wanna change the show — we can't just stop people from stage diving for the rest of eternity; it's not what we're trying to do. But I think that when you come into a show, you need to know that you need to be responsible for your own actions and you need to think about what you're doing."
02 min read

RED FANG To Release New Album In The Fall

Manos Spanos
RED FANG return this fall with their as-yet-untitled third studio album on Relapse Records. The Portland-based group is currently in the studio finishing the disc with the producer Chris Funk (DECEMBERISTS) and mixer Vance Powell (THE WHITE STRIPES, RACONTEURS, KINGS OF LEON). This same team worked on RED FANG's last album, "Murder The Mountains", tagged by NPR as "a sleeker style of riff-heavy metal" (April 2011) and Alternative Press magazine as "a near masterpiece of tangled tar pit riffs and whisky-and-bong-hit vocals" (April 2011). Comments the band: "We're hyper excited about this new album. The basic tracks are like rabid monkeys we're wrangling at Type Foundry in our hometown of Portland. Producer Chris Funk has almost been amputated twice. Surprise guests abound! We're in the final moments before all systems are go on this sucker. Dig people!"
02 min read

ANVIL: Entire ‘Hope In Hell’ Album Available For Streaming

Manos Spanos
"Hope In Hell", the new album from Canadian metal legends ANVIL, can be streamed in its entirety using the SoundCloud widget below. Due on May 27 in Europe and May 24 in Germany on SPV/Steamhammer, the follow-up to 2011's "Juggernaut Of Justice" will be available in four different formats: as a limited-edition digipak including two bonus tracks, as a jewel case CD, double gatefold colored vinyl LP and as a digital download. These are the first cuts featuring ANVIL's new bassist Sal Italiano, who joined the band a year ago. "We're really happy with Sal. His style is powerful and amazingly imaginative," says ANVIL guitarist/vocalist Steve "Lips" Kudlow, who composed the entire album along with drummer Robb Reiner. "It's a little as if we'd enlisted Steve Harris." "Hope In Hell" was written and recorded following an 18-month world tour which took ANVIL around the globe. "We hadn't expected this kind of extensive tour when we brought out 'Juggernaut Of Justice'," Kudlowconfesses. "Time just flew by. I could hardly believe it when I found myself in the studio again after the tour, ready to work on the next album. The reactions to 'Juggernaut Of Justice' and the shows had been so positive that we had plenty of ideas and inspiration for new material."
04 min read

WHITE WIZZARD: New Song Available For Streaming

Manos Spanos
"Strike The Iron", a brand new song from Los Angeles metallers WHITE WIZZARD, can be streamed below. The track comes off the band's third full-length album, "The Devils Cut", which will be released on June 3 in Europe via Earache Records and June 25 in the USA through Century Media/Earache. The CD features artwork by Cameron Davis, who is known for as the lead character designer and illustrator for the Guitar Hero video game series. Comments WHITE WIZZARD bassist and mainman Jon Leon: "'Strike The Iron' is my favorite WHITE WIZZARD song I have ever written, along with'The Sun Also Rises', which closes the new record. I am very proud of the arrangement. I had the verse melody in my head and chorus line before I even picked up the guitar and started writing it. It has stunning leads by Jake and Will, and Joseph interpreted the vocal melody fantastically and gave so much character to it. This song really exemplifies everything this lineup is capable of and everyone's talents really came through on it. It never lets up and we are very excited to get this one out there live...I expect it to be our opening song for the next couple of years."
03 min read

BLAZE BAYLEY To Release 30th-Anniversary Booklet

Manos Spanos
To celebrate my 30 years as a singer next year, Blaze Bayley (WOLFSBANE, ex-IRON MAIDEN) will release a booklet with career information, albums, personal comments and stories, tour dates and pictures. Blaze says: "I will add fan pictures to the booklet as YOU have made it possible for me to keep going for 30 years! "You can send your favorite picture with Blaze to management@blazebayley.net (only pictures you own rights to with email subject 'Booklet fanpicture'). Around 80 pictures will be picked to be added to the booklet." Blaze released a collaborative acoustic EP with Belgium-based classical guitarist Thomas Zwijsen, "Russian Holiday" on February 5. The effort features four re-arranged songs from previous albums and one brand new song written by Bayley and Zwijsen. "Russian Holiday" includes a "full classical guitar arrangement" of theIRON MAIDEN song "Sign Of The Cross", which the duo performed on their 2012 U.K. acoustic tour.
01 min read

KING DIAMOND Kicks Off European Tour At Germany’s ROCK HARD FESTIVAL (Video)

Manos Spanos
KING DIAMOND kicked off its European tour this past Sunday, May 19 at the Rock Hard Festival at Amphitheater in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Fan-filmed video footage of the performance can be seen below. KING DIAMOND's setlist was as follows: 01. The Candle 02. Welcome Home 03. At The Graves 04. Up From The Grave 05. Voodoo 06. Dreams 07. Sleepless Nights 08. Drum Solo (by Matt Thompson) 09. Shapes Of Black 10. Come To The Sabbath (MERCYFUL FATE cover) 11. Evil (MERCYFUL FATE cover) 12. Eye Of The Witch Encore: 13. The Family Ghost Encore 2: 14. Halloween Encore 3: 15. Black Horsemen KING DIAMOND in December signed a new three-album worldwide deal with Metal Blade Records.
04 min read

‘Heavy Metal And Punk Fossils’ Exhibition To Open In Denmark Next Month

Manos Spanos
When a scientist discovers a new and unknown fossil, he gets to give it a scientific name. Some choose a name that reflects the shape of the animal, some choose a name that relates to where it's found, and others choose to name them after their favorite rock stars. A new exhibition, "Heavy Metal And Punk Fossils", explores this more amusing part of natural history by focusing on a series of bizarre fossils that all are named in honor of rock stars. One of the pieces on display will be a 420-million-year-old worm with huge jaws, which carries the nameKingnites Diamondi, named by Professor Mats Eriksson, from Lund, Sweden, after the Danish metal maestro King Diamond. Another equally old and ferocious-looking worm is named Kalloprion Kilmisteri, after Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister of MOTÖRHEAD. Other fossils that are portrayed in the exhibition are named after members of AC/DC, BAD RELIGION, SEX PISTOLS, and RAMONES. And although not very metal, a fiercely looking dinosaur, Masikasaurus Knopfleri, is named after Mark Knopfler fromDIRE STRAITS. The exhibition portrays the story behind the fossils, the rock stars and the scientists behind the names, and the funny anecdotes about why they choose the names they did.
02 min read

Manos Spanos

Manos Spanos (Metalpaths' co-editor-in-chief), eight years in this site but still can't be characterised as a metalhead.