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Manos Spanos

CAVALERA CONSPIRACY To Release ‘Pandemonium’ In October

Manos Spanos
CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, the band led by brothers and founding SEPULTURA members Max (also of SOULFLY) and Igor Cavalera, has set "Pandemonium" as the title of its third album, due in October via Napalm Records. The CD was produced by John Gray, who has previously worked with SOULFLY. During an appearance on the "Metal Hammer" magazine show on TeamRock Radio, Max stated about the upcoming effort: "It's called 'Pandemonium' and it's very, very heavy — the heaviest of all the three. I was really possessed to get Igor back to his 'Arise' [SEPULTURA] era of drumming, everything fast." Max recently told HardRockHaven.net about "Pandemonium": "There aren't really any guests on the album. Nate [Newton] from CONVERGE plays bass and he sings one song called 'The Crucible' — it's about the witches of Salem; we did a song about that. Nate's got a great voice, 'cause he sings for DOOMRIDERS and I love his voice, so I got him to sing one song. That's the only guest. The CAVALERA album is really more about me and Igor [Cavalera, drums], the brothers, thrashing. This one is almost grindcore. I was really a dictator in the studio with Igor to try to keep him from going into the groove and tried to keep him playing fast; I wanted him play fast for most of the record. So every time he'd go into the groove, I would be, like, 'Fuck the groove! Get out of the groove! Go back to the fast shit.' And I succeeded, man. It's a really brutal album. I think it's definitely the most brutal of all the CAVALERA albums and it's definitely gonna turn some heads when people hear this one."
02 min read

GHOST Shrugs Off NERGAL’s PAPA Photo ‘Leak’: ‘At Some Point It’s Bound To Happen’

Manos Spanos
Swedish occult rockers GHOST, who go to great lengths to keep the identities of their bandmembers a secret, have commented on the recent release of a photo that appeared to show the band's frontman Papa Emeritus II (believed to be Swedish musician Tobias Forge of MAGNA CARTA CARTEL, REPUGNANT and SUBVISION) without his trademark makeup posing backstage at a Dutch festival with BEHEMOTH's Adam "Nergal" Darski. Speaking to Jägermeister at this weekend's Sonisphere festival in the U.K., one of the Nameless Ghouls from GHOST said (see video below): "Adam from BEHEMOTH [who posted the photo in question on his Instagram account] is a really, really nice guy; we only have good things to say about him, and we hope [he feels] the same way [about us]." He continued: "I mean, it's… We don't really know what to say about that except for we keep our identities as secret as we possibly can, of course, but at some point it's bound to happen, some things that are not really optimal for us, of course. But the identity part is always gonna be, for as long as can take it, it's gonna be a hassle in many ways, and I think we have managed to keep it below the radar, for the most part, at least."
01 min read

The Silent Rage: searching for guitarist

Manos Spanos
The Greek power metallers The Silent Rage announced that Laertis Toskas left the band for his own personal reasons so the band is in search for a new lead guitarist. If anyone is interelested can send an e-mail to this address: thesilentrageofficial@gmail.com. Also, they inform the fans that this change will not bring any troubles in the recordings of their new album, nor to their special guest show with Grace Digger in Kuttaro on September 19.
00 min read

DISOLVO ANIMUS Back On The Studio

Manos Spanos
Through the Official facebook page the Greek Death/Black metallers announced their return to the studio for the recording of new album. Bellow you can read their statement: "We have some great news to announce. We are at Esoteron Music Studiowith George Emmanuel and Hryshaorr is recording right now! Stay tuned for more news , 'cause great things are going to happen! (Special thanks to Dimitris & Sofia from S & D Photography)"
00 min read

FAITH NO MORE Debuts New Music At London’s Hyde Park; Video Available

Manos Spanos
Reactivated influential alt-metal act FAITH NO MORE debuted what are believed to be two brand new songs during their concert earlier today (Friday, July 4) at Hyde Park in London, England. Low-quality fan-filmed video footage of the performance can be seen below. FAITH NO MORE recently hinted at the possibility of new music 17 years after the release of the band's last LP, "Album Of The Year". The group, which made a comeback in June 2009 with a headlining performance at the Brixton Academy in London, England and has played sporadic shows for the past few years, launched a new Twitter account and one of the first posts was as follows: "The reunion thing was fun, but now it's time to get a little creative." Speaking to IHeartGuitarBlog.com in November 2012, FAITH NO MORE singer Mike Patton stated about the possibility of the band releasing any live material from its reunion tours: "Right now, we have no plans whatsoever — live, recording or anything. We've done what we set out to do with the reunion, and it's all great, but it's just, 'Let's see what happens next.' And I think you need to take a pause to actually reflect on something like that, because otherwise we could just keep playing, and we're very conscious of overdoing it, y'know, milking material that's so old. You can only do that for so long, and I feel that we've done pretty well. The whole band's naturally came to this conclusion, so now we're just sitting tight." According to Patton, one of the reasons the FAITH NO MORE reunion didn't happen sooner is the fact that they wanted to avoid making it feel like a nostalgia thing — like "Here's FAITH NO MORE again." "We wanted it to feel fresh and still somehow vital," he said. "It wasn't an money grab. It's funny to say, but we all kind of reconnected, and after quite a long time we all kinda looked at each other and were like, 'Man, we actually spent half of our lives together.' It's interesting to see it through that set of glasses as opposed to the ones you wore back then. I suppose, at least personally speaking, I've grown up a lot since then, and I think I approach the music differently, and I felt better about the music than I did then."
03 min read

HALFORD Says Controversy Over DICKINSON’s Teleprompter Comments Is Much Ado About Nothing

Manos Spanos
Rob Halford says that the recent controversy surrounding IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dickinson's apparent condemnation of the JUDAS PRIEST singer's use of a teleprompter during live performances is much ado about nothing. A teleprompter, or autocue, is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script, and it is usually used by singers — including Halford and BLACK SABBATH's Ozzy Osbourne — who are getting on a bit and have a large body of work to remember. "I never realized that people were using autocues," Dickinson told The Guardian in a recent interview. "What the fuck is that all about? People pay good money and you can't even remember the sodding words." He continued: "The daftest one I ever saw was [JUDAS PRIEST's] 'Breaking The Law'. It's on the fucking autocue. 'Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law, breaking the law/Breaking the law' — guess what? — 'breaking the law.' It's ludicrous." Asked by Nikki Blakk of the San Francisco, California radio station 107.7 The Bone to respond to Dickinson's comments, Halford laughed out loud and said: "What we British say is it was just a storm in a teacup [Editor's note: 'Storm in a teacup' is a British variation of 'tempest in a teapot,' an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion]." He added: I love Bruce. I love Bruce. He's a great friend of mine. And he's very outspoken. [He's a] great frontman, a great singer from a great band. And, you know, these things are said in many ways, and I'm sure he didn't mean it in any other way than Bruce sometimes goes off in one of his rants. You know, it's just the way it goes. "But, yes, storm in a teacup. Storm in a metal teacup." In a 2010 interview with the QMI Agency, Halford spoke about how using a teleprompter helped him when he was asked to fill in for Ozzy with BLACK SABBATH for a show after Osbourne was taken ill. "[Like Ozzy], I use a teleprompter now too because I do so many things," he said. "I can't remember. I wish I was like my mate Bruce Dickinson and could do everything, but I need that safety blanket." During the 2005 edition of Ozzfest, the traveling festival's founder, Ozzy's wife and manager Sharon Osbourne, famously cut the venue's public-address system and the main stage's power on at least three occasions during MAIDEN's performance at the tour's final stop in Devore, California because she said that Dickinson was "talking shit about my family, night after night," and was being "disrespectful" to her husband during Bruce's "nightly outbursts from the stage" by saying that "we don't need a teleprompter' (like Ozzy)."
03 min read

MACHINE HEAD Settles Lawsuit Filed By Former Bassist ADAM DUCE

Manos Spanos
A $1.8 million-dollar suit against San Francisco Bay Area metallers MACHINE HEAD, their manager Joseph Huston, record label Nuclear Blast, and current bassist Jared MacEachern filed by the band's former bassist Adam Duce (pictured) was settled out of court yesterday (Wednesday, July 2). The terms of the deal remain confidential, but both sides were able to reach a satisfactory agreement. All claims in the dispute have been dropped against all parties named, including but not limited to the $800,000 claim against the band for breach of fiduciary duty and interference with prospective economic advantage, as well as the $1,000,000 defamation claim against MACHINE HEAD singer/guitarist Robb Flynn regarding a blog he posted on the band's official web site and associated social-media sites. The settlement between MACHINE HEAD and Duce was mediated by Gail Migdal Title, with the litigation team for MACHINE HEAD handled by Kari Keidser, Dawn Coulson and Randall Rich of Epps & Coulson, along with longtime MACHINE HEAD entertainment lawyer Scott Harrington. In his original complaint, Duce claimed that MACHINE HEAD's 2009 tour, which included dates with METALLICA, grossed more than $2 million. A 2012 Europe tour grossed more than $3 million, he claimed. Flynn wrote about Duce's departure in a "diary entry" on MACHINE HEAD's web site by "directly attacking plaintiff's work ethic," Duce said in the complaint. Duce claimed that no agreement was ever made about his share of future royalties and profits. He said the other bandmembers "simply kicked him out of the band and presumed he would forget about over two decades of hard work, dedication, and effort he put into the Band." Duce also said his likeness was used on the band's web site and in promotions without his authorization. MACHINE HEAD will embark on the "Killers & Kings" tour in the U.S. on July 8, with support from ANTI MORTEM. MACHINE HEAD's eighth album — the group's first with MacEachern — will be released in November via Nuclear Blast. MacEachern made his live debut with MACHINE HEAD on June 24, 2013 in Spokane, Washington.
02 min read

Study: Headbanging Can Cause Brain Injury

Manos Spanos
According to The Daily Beast, a new case study published in the medical journal Lancet has revealed that headbanging — described as violently shaking the head in time with the music, most commonly in the rock, punk and heavy metal music genres — can cause damage as the brain bumps up against the skull. The study detailed the case of a German heavy metal fan suffered bleeding in the brain after a night of headbanging at a MOTÖRHEAD concert. The 50-year-old complained of a two-week constant headache while being treated at Hannover Medical School and told doctors that he had been headbanging regularly for years. A CT scan showed he suffered from bleeding — medically known as chronic subdural haematoma — on the right side of his brain. "We are not against headbanging," said Dr. Ariyan Pirayesh Islamian, one of the doctors who treated the patient. "The risk of injury is very, very low. But I think if (our patient) had (gone) to a classical concert, this would not have happened." "There are probably other higher risk events going on at rock concerts than headbanging," Dr. Colin Shieff, a neurosurgeon and trustee of the British brain injury advocacy group Headway, added. "Most people who go to music festivals and jump up and down while shaking their heads don't end up in the hands of a neurosurgeon." MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine is one of several musicians who have spoken about the harm they caused themselves by headbanging on stage. He tried to cope with the pain caused by stenosis — a narrowing of the spinal column — for nearly 10 years through acupuncture, yoga, trigger-point injections, and both narcotic and non-narcotic medication, but ultimately underwent minimally invasive spine surgery in 2011 to fuse a disc in his cervical spine. He said: "I had to have my neck fused — the vertebrae in my neck — from the damage that headbanging has done over the years. It had degenerated the discs. When they were taking out one of the discs to replace it, they discovered a big bone fragment that had broken off and was pushing against my spinal column. It was very painful." SLAYER frontman Tom Araya underwent back surgery in early 2010 after experiencing back problems while on the band's Australian/New Zealand/Japanese tour in October 2009. The rocker initially did not want to take the major surgery route, so the specialist recommended a series of minimally invasive procedures. While those procedures resulted in some improvement, Araya continued to deal with intermittent bouts of severe pain, numbness and muscle spasms. The surgical procedure that Araya underwent, called an Anterior Cervical Discectomy with Fusion, was a relatively routine practice. "I can't headbang anymore," Araya explained in an April 2010 interview with Noisecreep. "When they diagnosed me, they found I was herniating to the left, and normally it's to the back. That was caused by headbanging. I'm an advocate of moderate headbanging now." He told KNAC.COM a month later: "Yeah, I just can't [headbang]. With a plate in your neck, it's not a good idea to do that. The only disclaimer I can have for people is there's nothing wrong with headbanging, just do it in moderation. And understand at some point it could damage you. People are gonna do what they wanna do, and as long as they are aware that this could happen to you, then they have a choice. I'm still gonna rock out, I just won't be able to metal out. [laughs]"
03 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.