The song "Push The Button" from EVANESCENCE singer Amy Lee can be streamed below. The track is taken from her new album, "Amy Lee Featuring Dave Eggar: Aftermath", which was released on August 25 via 110 Records, Inc. The disc is a film-score collaboration with Dave Eggar for the movie "War Story", which premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Lee told MTV earlier the year that the music for "Aftermath" is unlike anything she's done before. She explained, "It's going to surprise my fans. It's not what you'd expect; the film is very dark, very introspective . . . There are moments of playing, and it's musical, but there are a lot of moments where Dave and I just built walls of sounds, out of blaring cellos and trombones and synthesizers and harp, all on top of each other. Sort of creating new sounds. It's not, like, a soundtrack. it's an atmosphere."
Lee did write one new song for the film, called "Push The Button", about which she said, "It's very different for me, it's electronic; I did it all myself." She added, "This whole process has been really different, and freeing. Doing my band, it's always been a big deal, a lot of pressure, a lot of hoops to jump through and things to live up to . . . (this) wasn't about production and singles and worldwide success, it's about the integrity of the art piece we're creating."
Lee said that she would like to score more films, explaining, "Dave and I were already talking about taking a meeting for another film, and I definitely want to work with him again."
"Amy Lee Featuring Dave Eggar: Aftermath" track listing:
01. Push The Button
02. White Out (featuring Dave Eggar)
03. Remember To Breathe (featuring Dave Eggar)
04. Dark Water (featuring Malika Zarra)
05. Between Worlds (featuring Dave Eggar)
06. Drifter (featuring Dave Eggar)
07. Can't Stop What's Coming (featuring Dave Eggar)
08. Voice In My Head (featuring Dave Eggar)
09. Lockdown (featuring Dave Eggar)
10. After (featuring Dave Eggar)
Lee has confirmed in a new interview with Rolling Stone that she doesn't have any plans "to do anything with [EVANESCENCE]" for the foreseeable future. Asked about the group's current status, Lee explained, "The situation is we're not doing it now. I don't like to make predictions about the future, because I'm honestly open-minded, and I would never want to say I'm done with any of it, because it's a huge part of me. I've loved my time with Evanescence, I wouldn't want to just throw it away, but, for the foreseeable future, I don't have any plans to do anything with the band."
Lee continued, "It's really important to me to take some time to show some different sides of myself . . . there does need to be other outlets for me to make music."
Lee, who became a mother for the first time last month, said that she keeps in touch with the members of the band, but added that "the days of living on the road and an album cycle be this giant daunting thing of working in the studio for six months then going on the road for a year or two, they're behind me."
The last EVANESCENCE album, a self-titled effort, came out in 2011.
SLAYER has returned to the studio to resume recording its new album for a tentative early 2015 release. The effort will make SLAYER history as it will be released on Nuclear Blast Records through the band's own label imprint, closing out a 28-year relationship with Rick Rubin and American Recordings. It will also be SLAYER's first album without the group's co-founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who passed away in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. He is credited for writing many of SLAYER's classic songs, including "Angel Of Death" and "South Of Heaven".
A photo from the latest studio sessions can be seen below.
SLAYER's follow-up to 2009's "World Painted Blood" will include the song "Implode", which was made available as a free download as a "thank you" to the band's fans for their continued support following SLAYER's surprise performance at this past April's Revolver Golden Gods awards in Los Angeles. The track was recorded in April at Henson Studios in Los Angeles and produced by Terry Date and co-produced by Greg Fidelman.
"I never go online and see what people are talking about because people are ten foot tall behind a computer screen, you know?!" SLAYER guitarist Kerry King told ARTE Concert at this month's Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany. "But, you know, a lot of [the reaction to 'Implode'] was positive, a lot of people said, 'For anybody that was worried about what SLAYER was gonna sound like post-Hanneman, don't worry about it.'"
He continued: "I know people are gonna think that [we can't make another quality album], people are gonna expect us to fail because it's the first record without Jeff; I get it. But I'm also very proud of what of we've done so far towards new material. It's fast, the slow stuff's heavy. I mean, it's… Everything that people liked SLAYER for in the past is on this record."
In the February 2014 issue of U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine, Kerry was asked if he has found himself tempted to write the kind of songs that Jeff might have contributed to an album, Kerry said: "I think that would be shooting myself in the foot. I can't pretend to be Jeff. We both learned from each other in 30 years of writing together. As far as going out of my way to write something that Jeff might've done? I won't do that. If it happens to end up sounding that way, good for me!"
At the time of the Metal Hammer interview, it was still undecided as to whether any of Hanneman's previously unused ideas would make it to the next SLAYER album. "There was a song we finished on the last record, but I know for a fact [Jeff] wanted to rewrite the lyrics on, so that one got to deconstruct and make better," Kerry said.
"I've said, and I'll continue to say, that if we use any of Jeff's songs, I don't want it to come out just because Jeff wrote it. I want it to come out because it's awesome," he added. "We've just got to put out something that I think Jeff would be proud of."
Regarding what fans can expect from the new SLAYER material, King told Metal Hammer: "I've got a surprising amount of heavy stuff for me. I do tend to lean on the fast side, but I have some exceptionally heavy tunes, Like, 'Wow, man, where did that come from?' I expect my stuff to be angry and fast, but it's all over the map. I'm stoked. We'll have enough so we can pick great stuff whether we use any of Jeff's material or not. It should add up to as good a record as we can hope for with one of our original songwriters being gone."
Joining King and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya during the sessions for SLAYER's new album are returning drummer Paul Bostaph, who replaced Dave Lombardo last year, and guitarist Gary Holt (also of EXODUS), who has been filling in for Hanneman on tour for the past four and a half years.
Asked if Holt will play on the new SLAYER album, Kerry told Canada's Metro in an October 2013 interview: "I've told Gary that I'd like him to play some leads, just to keep it interesting.
"We've always been a two-guitar attack, so if you're looking to have a segment like the 'Angel Of Death' lead trade-off, you can't do that with one guitar.
"As far as Gary being a contributing writer, number one, fans aren't ready for it, and number two, that's like throwing somebody to the wolves.
"I think if there's another record after this one and Gary is still with us at that point, I think that will be a time where I say, ‘Hey dude, feel free to throw any riffs my way if you're interested'."
King told Metal Hammer about SLAYER's current touring lineup: "Not to toot my own horn, but we sound fucking great right now. It's a juggernaut. Paul's a machine. He always has been. Also he's been here before, so that made this transition as easy as it could be as well as for the fans because I think they always felt he was part of the band, even though he wasn't for many years."
Bostaph was SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band — the gold-certified "Divine Intervention" (1994), the 1996 punk covers album "Undisputed Attitude", "Diabolus In Musica" (1998), "God Hates Us All" (2001) that received a Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance", as well as the DVD "War At The Warfield" (2001), also certified gold. In addition to SLAYER, Bostaph has been a member of FORBIDDEN, EXODUS, SYSTEMATIC and TESTAMENT.
Original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo was effectively fired from SLAYER after sitting out the band's Australian tour in February/March 2013 due to a contract dispute with the other members of the group. Filling in for him was Jon Dette (TESTAMENT, ANTHRAX).
"Blind Rage", the new album from German/American metallers ACCEPT, has topped the official German chart.
Comments Nuclear Blast owner Markus Staiger: "We are proud and thankful to be part of ACCEPT's rebirth in 2010. With a No. 1 position in the German chart, they climbed the to the top of Mt. Olympus. This is the reward of the consequent hard work of the band, their manager Gaby Hoffmann and Deville Schober and the whole Nuclear Blast team. Together we stand strong!"
Adds ACCEPT in a statement: "Four years ago we decided to start ACCEPT anew. Of course we hoped to reach the fans of heavy metal and leave a few more marks in its history. None of us would have thought that we could reach No. 1 in the official German charts.
'We would like to thank our team, our label partner Nuclear Blast, Warner distribution and Brainstorm Music Marketing, all of who gave us enormous strength and the will to continue in order to make this happen."
"Blind Rage" was released on August 15 via Nuclear Blast. Like its two predecessors, 2010's "Blood Of The Nations" and 2012's "Stalingrad", the new effort was helmed by British producer Andy Sneap, who has previously worked with MEGADETH, EXODUS, TESTAMENT, ARCH ENEMY and KILLSWITCH ENGAGE. The cover artwork was created by Daniel Goldsworthy.
The "Stampede" video can be seen below. The clip was filmed on location in the high desert of California at the Devil's Punchbowl (a rock formation that looks like it's from another world) with director Greg Aronowitz ("Batman & Robin", "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", "The Lost World: Jurassic Park").
ACCEPT will promote "Blind Rage" with a European headlining tour which will kick off on September 19 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
In a recent interview with Metal Assault, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann stated about the musical direction of "Blind Rage": "I think what we have here is really a collection of totally typical ACCEPT songs with the classic feel, and, of course, as always, there's an overriding theme of aggression and rage in all our music. I mean, otherwise it wouldn't be metal.
"People call our music at this point 'classic metal,' I believe, and we just fell in love with the title 'Blind Rage' and the artwork. Interestingly enough, we don't even have a song called 'Blind Rage'. We just have a collection of songs that to me all feel totally 100 percent classic ACCEPT."
Regarding the songwriting and recording process for "Blind Rage", Wolf said: "Andy is such a good partner now, we couldn't even imagine working without him on this album. He's such a natural fit and he did a great job on the last two albums. The only thing that we did way different this time from 'Stalingrad' is, we really took our time. 'Stalingrad' was really made almost in a rush, to be honest, because we had so many commitments right before we went to the studio to do the album and right after. Basically, by the time we started working on that album, we already knew when it had to be finished and what gigs we had booked. So that put us under enormous pressure, but this time, we really made sure it's right before it's ever released. We didn't work excessively long, we just took a little more time to make sure that we were in a little more comfortable place. These last few weeks we've just refined and tweaked little things that we normally wouldn't have the time to do."
Speaking to Metal Wani ACCEPT singer Mark Tornillo stated about what fans can expect to hear on "Blind Rage": "You can expect more of the same, but you can also expect, on this album, a little more diversity, I think. And the way I see it, some of the songs sound more classic than the stuff that we've done. I mean, there are songs, I think, when I hear the opening riff, I go, 'Wow! That could be on 'Balls To The Wall'.' So you're gonna get a few different… I mean, we're not searching for a direction at this point. We're writing to please ourselves and to please our fans… We're not changing horses in the middle of a stream. I mean, if something works for us, we're gonna stick with it. We're certainly not gonna change direction, but I think we're not afraid to step out a little bit. We're also not afraid to go back and be what the band was in the '80s, which is what we've really strived for."
On the topic of the vibe in ACCEPT during the songwriting process for "Blind Rage", compared to how it was for its two predecessors, 2010's "Blood Of The Nations" and 2012's "Stalingrad", Tornillo said: "The vibe is good. We're, I think, more relaxed at this point. 'Blood Of The Nations' was… We really had no idea where we were going at that point; we didn't even have a record deal when we wrote that record. We had no idea what was gonna happen and where it was gonna go, and we had a lot of time to do it. And then the response came, and we set the bar pretty darn high with that record. And then when we went back to do 'Stalingrad', we didn't have that luxury of time; they gave us a deadline, that they wanted the record by such and such a time, and it was a little more hectic. There was a lot more pressure than [there was on 'Blood Of The Nations']. Plus we had 'Blood Of The Nations' out there, and we had to try to top it, if possible, or at least try to get to where that record was. This one, we've had a little more time. This past year, all we did was festivals, which was nice, which gave us time to write on the road. And when we were done touring, we had a good three or four months to complete everything, which is a nice time frame."
