News Posts

Brazilian progressive power metal legends Angra are celebrating kicking off their European “Cycles Of Pain” tour by releasing a new music video for the track ‘Here In The Now’!

Hungarian avant-garde outfit Thy Catafalque are about to embark on their very first European headline tour in March and April with the support of The Answer Lies In The Black Void!

Ukrainian collective Waidelotte is gearing up for the release of their debut album ‘Celestial Shrine’ via Debemur Morti Productions in some weeks by sharing the title track as a second taster!

For the prog fans under us who somehow missed this exciting news… Wheel is back with their third studio album ‘Charismatic Leaders’ in May via InsideOutMusic and launched a first single with ‘Empire’ a while ago!

Chinese progressive metal band OU is set to unleash their mesmerizing sound once again on their upcoming new album ‘蘇醒 II:Frailty’, out in April via InsideOutMusic and unveiled the title track as the first single with a captivating music video!

US progressive metal outfit Exist shares first single ‘Blue Light Infinite’ from their upcoming album ‘Hijacking The Zeitgeist’, set for release in April via Prosthetic Records!

Extreme prog merchants Voidgazer unleashed the track ‘Jesus Take The Needle’ from their upcoming debut album ‘Dance Of The Undesirables’, set for release in April via Reigning Phoenix Music!

Finnish-Australian metal quartet The Eternal signed to Reigning Phoenix Music for the release of ‘Skinwalker’, their first new album in 6 years. Pre-save their upcoming single ‘Death Like Silence’ now!

Finnish melancholic progressive metal outfit Lucidity released their second single ‘Threads To Follow’ from upcoming album ‘Escherian’, set for release later this year via Inverse Records!

The doomsday clock advances with Kelevra’s progressive single ‘Cleanse With Fire’, another track from their upcoming album ‘Oneiric’ set for independent release in a couple of weeks!

Interviews

Back in 2023, when Leprous was last in Helsinki, we met up with Simen from Leprous to have a fun chat about touring, his highlights when being on tour and supporting your local live and cultural scene!

Since they’re playing in Finland again this coming week, we wanted to share this fun little bit from our archives, so enjoy and don’t miss out on their shows!

A chat with Pressure Points about how they’re happy with the new line-up of the band and their brand-new album ‘The Island’, released on Art Gates Records last Friday. Make sure you catch them live at one of their future dates, like for instance the Kaamos Cruise in September!

A chat with Johannes from Avatar on the new album ‘Dance Devil Dance’ on why this is the best album of them as of yet, how they did things somewhat different and tried to approach everything in such a way that they thought people could dance to even blast beats and why now was the time for them to self-release the album.

We have a chat with Patrick Walch, the man behind the successful and interesting new label Noble Demon! Check out what he has to say!

An old chat with Olly and Mike from Monuments we dug up from our archives because it was just too much fun to keep it from you!

A chat with the Finnish progressive outfit Wheel about their upcoming sophomore full-length ‘Resident Human’!

A chat with Evergrey’s main man Tom Englund about their latest release ‘Escape Of The Phoenix’!

The video of the talk we had with Wheel about their quick rise in 2019, some of their highlights of the year and what they think of the new Tool album…

We talked with drummer Martin Lopez from Soen about the new album “Lotus” and more!

We talked with drummer Martin Lopez from Soen about the new album “Lotus” and more!

Gig Reports

Tesseract came, saw, and absolutely conquered with a mesmerizing and mindblowing set of music at Tavastia in Helsinki, and with them they brought Unprocessed and The Callous Daoboys for a night of proggy delights!

“The Great Metal Circus 2024” landed in Helsinki, where Avatar turned being at Tavastia that night into something absolutely spectacular and memorable! And the support Æther Realm came all the way from the US to Finland for the very first time, doing a great job at warming up the crowd!

Amorphis managed to captivate our reporter once again when attending to their stop at Pakkahuone in Tampere on their “Halo Finland 2023 Tour”, a wonderful night hosted by TuskaLive and Greybeard Concerts & Management.

Lost Society and Amorphis played at Logomos Terassikesä in Turku, Finland last Friday and although there were some issues it was still a very enjoyable show from two great Finnish bands.

Ne Obliviscaris came to Tavastia in Helsinki to kick off their tour promoting their recently released ‘Exul’, and proved that they can overcome anything with an intense and masterful performance! Supported by their Andorran friends of Persefone and the Italian instrumentalists of Asymmetric Universe, they gave us a night of mind-bending prog music!

The French symphonic melodic death metal outfit Aephanemer came to On The Rocks, saw a wild crowd and conquered everyone’s hearts! Here’s for hoping that they get to come back to Finland some time really soon! And local up-and-comers Numento definitely got us warmed up properly for the main event!

Kamelot struck down in Helsinki to give us a proper “awakening” on their European tour, and brought with them some excellent support through Myrath, Eleine and League of Distortion! A night of absolutely excellent music that left a positive feeling with anyone who attended the show at Vanha Ylioppilastalo at the end of March!

Back in March, Leprous dropped by Vanha Ylioppilastalo in Helsinki on their “Aphelion European Tour” and swept us away with a night of exceptional music, supported by Monuments and Kalandra.

With the Island In Limbo Tour of co-headliners Haken and Between The Buried And Me embarked through Europe, where they once again proved that the love for progressive technical music is very alive. What a feast. Support came from the lesser known, but impressive Cryptodira.

The kickoff of the European tour of Kataklysm came in a package of some old school Canadian death metal mixed with the Swedish melodic death metal of Soilwork topped with a sauce of the progressive antics of Wilderun. Quite a lot of variation which satisfied a lot of people. Make sure you catch this tour whenever it comes to a venue near you!

Photo Reports

The UK progressive metallers Tesseract were touring around Europe to present their latest release ‘War of Being’, bringing a visual and musical delight to a packed Tavastia in Helsinki! With them, they brought the German proggers of Unprocessed and US mathcore up-and-comers of The Callous Daoboys!

Best Of 2023 Tom VM

Our Benelux and France head of accreditation and most active photographer in that region, Tom VM, made his own selection of favorite pictures he took in 2023, including some new stuff that wasn’t shared on our site before with Biohazard, Bleed From Within, Brutal Sphincter, Brutus, Electric Callboy, Michael Schenker Group, Sepultura, Arion, Blackrain, Overdrivers, Avatar, Winery Dogs, Charlotte Wessels, Devin Townsend, Dream Theater, Extreme, Ghost, Michael Angelo Batio, Arch Enemy, Doodseskader, Halestorm, I Prevail, Powerwolf and SKYND!

Shereign finished off their year with a gig at Tampere YO-Talo on December 9th, organized by Nem Agency. They brought along Ikinä, Everwave and Lastout to make the night complete with up-and-coming Finnish artists.

Yet another great gig of the Amorphis “Halo Finnish tour” at Tampere’s Pakkahuone last week, in front of an almost full house. An event hosted by TuskaLive.

The second night of John Smith Rock Frozen 2023 was pretty epic with some of the best of the Finnish scene with Red Eleven, Kiuas, Finntroll, Turmion Kätilöt and headliners Amorphis! Throw on top of that the Swedish up-and-comers of Orbit Culture, and you know it was good!

The Technikum venue in Munich was completely filled with musicians and aspiring musicians, to welcome the virtuosity and weight of Animals As Leaders, who came very well accompanied by the Swedes Allt last week!

Second day at an exciting edition of Alcatraz we had a very black metal heavy one with Gaerea, Taake and Belphegor, old school punk with The Exploited, gloomy industrial from Godflesh and one of Finland’s favorite bands Amorphis!

Lost Society and Amorphis gave us a little preview last Friday of the upcoming ‘Halo’ European Tour, when they did a show together at Logomo’s Terassikesä in Turku, Finland.

A night of incredible music from Ne Obliviscaris, Persefone and Asymmetric Universe at Tavastia in Helsinki at the beginning of last month, the start of what was going to be an incredible tour in Europe for these guys!