News Posts

The iconic Slash announced his highly anticipated sixth solo album ‘Orgy of the Damned, set for release in May via Gibson Records, and filled with blues classics and special guests! With the announcement comes a first single with the Howlin’ Wolf blues standard ‘Killing Floor’, featuring Brian Johnson of AC/DC on vocals and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith on harmonica!

Pearl Jam announced their 12th studio album ‘Dark Matter’ to be released in April on Monkeywrench Records and Republic Records, followed by a massive world tour!

Hardy releases a banger of a country rock single with ‘Rockstar’, a tongue-in-cheek track paying homage to iconic rock bands with a great video, released via Big Loud Records / Big Loud Rock!

North Sea Echoes, the new project featuring Fates Warning members Ray Alder and Jim Matheos, have dropped the new single ‘Unmoved’, from their upcoming debut album ‘Really Good Terrible Things’ set for release later this month via Metal Blade Records.

Manchester icons Liam Gallagher and John Squire announced their debut album to be released in March via Warner Music and shared a second single with ‘Mars To Liverpool’!

Indomitable Australian rockers The Neptune Power Federation are returning with their 6th album ‘Goodnight My Children’, set for release in March via Cruz Del Sur Music and shared the video single ‘Let Us Begin’!

The Rolling Stones and Mercury Studios are proud to be releasing ‘The Rolling Stones Live At The Wiltern’ on March 8, arguably one of their best shows ever with a focus on tracks that weren’t played live on a regular basis!

Get your yearly fix of ‘Last Christmas’ without getting “Whammed” with the rock take by Felicity of the Christmas classic, released via Zodhiac Records!

American NWOCR band Hearts & Hand Grenades meld rock, country, hip hop and pop in their new single ‘I Just Want My Rock’, another track from their upcoming album ‘Where I Begin’, set for release on January 26 via Eclipse Records!

Photo Reports

In honour of their latest album, Everwave played a “big band” show at Tampere’s Hönö Baari last weekend together with Golden Rot and Paha kurki.

Our recently joined photographer Lindy is excited to see what 2024 is going to bring for her, but for now, let’s have a look back at some of her favorite pictures she took in 2023 at shows from bands like Across the White Water Tower, Alesana, Autopsy Affair, Brand of Sacrifice, Currents, Emmure, Greyhaven, Knuckle Puck, Magg Dylan, Magnolia Parl, Midnight Threat, Norma Jean, Origami Angel, Pink Shift, Saliva, See You Space Cowboy, Silverstein, Sweet Pill, The Contactees, The SoapGirls, Virginia, and We Came As Romans!

It has become a true tradition that DIE HAPPY plays some warm-up gigs at the end of December for the shows or tours of the following years. In this round, it’s the ‘Pre-Anniversary Shows 2023’, preparing for the upcoming anniversary tour in 2024, celebrating their 30th anniversary as a band. Support came from Templemind at their stop in Stuttgart’s Im Wizemann in Germany!

Extreme

Extreme was on tour throughout Europe to present us their brand-new album “Six” and brought The Last Internationale with them as a support act. We caught their high energy shows at their stop at Trix in Antwerp, Belgium!

The last Wednesday night of November at The Clyde Theatre in Fort Wayne, Indiana was definitely NOT a “Nightmare” or a cause for “Panic” for fans anxiously waiting to catch a stop on the “Blackout Tour” with From Ashes to New, The Word Alive, Catch Your Breath and Ekoh!

We had a great time catching Poets of the Fall on the last stop of their 20th anniversary tour, at Tampere’s Pakkahuone venue on December 1st!

Black Stone Cherry fans flocked to Piere’s in Fort Wayne, Indiana for a night of good rocking out! And not only BSC blew us away, the support from Giovannie & The Hired Guns and Jigsaw Youth was amazing!

Every year the Lost in Music Festival brings around 100 Artists to Tampere, showcasing what the Nordic region has to offer of music. And we made it to one of the shows happening at Olympia-Kortteli, featuring rising stars Bloodred Hourglass, One Morning Left and Shereign. It was packed, it was hot and it was a big party!

People at the Backstage venue in Munich were eager to see The Baboon Show play the songs of their new album ‘God Bless You All’ live, and we were not disappointed! What an energetic punk and rock ‘n’ roll show was that! Support came from the equally killer Spiders, both bands you need to go see live whenever you can!

Interviews

We sat down with the Finnish rockers of The Empire Strikes to have a chat about their new album ‘Motell Scandinavia’, how come it took so long to get it out, what the idea is behind the title and some nice background bits about how some of the songs came together! Catch them live at their release show in Helsinki tonight or Spain and Germany later this year!

A good week ago at Rockfest 2023, shortly before his set at the festival, we met up with Finnish rock ‘n’ roll icon Michael Monroe, where he talked candidly about meeting Vince Neil for the first time, reconnecting with Nikki Sixx, an upcoming Michael Monroe album, the documentary about his life that is coming really soon now, the recent Lords Of The New Church reunion show and more!

Watch the chat we had with the lovely people of Brunhilde about their infections rock music and latest full-length release ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’!

Watch the interview we had with the people from the up-and-coming Finnish alternative rock band Luna Kills about the band, their music and the new album!

A chat with the Finnish trio that is the indie punk/rock outfit called Messier about their debut album, music and signing to the LA based label SideOneDummy

A video of the chat we had with Ero and Nile of the new Finnish alternative rock outfit St. Aurora about their music and upcoming debut EP ‘They All Remember’!

A chat with brand new vocalist Mike Rivkees of The Rumjacks about their album ‘Hestia’ and more…

A chat with Pekka from Brother Firetribe about their upcoming new album “Feel The Burn” and doing things a bit different this time.

A Skype interview with Rob Martin from RRRags about their upcoming new album and “feel good” heavy rock perfect for a Summer roadtrip!

A video interview with vocalist Arde from Temple Balls about touring with Sonata Arctica and the upcoming tour with Shiraz Lane and Block Buster.

Lists

While we are still regularly looking back at what 2023 brought us, we of course also need to look forward. So here is the first edition of our 2024 series of articles where we bring the editorial team’s most anticipated releases with Escuela Grind, Green Day, The Empire Strikes, Saxon, Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, Static-X, The Gems, Lucifer, Manticora and Hiraes in January!

As usual, Mazen’s top albums are a mix of death metal, black metal and a touch of doom metal, heralding everything that is underground and extreme with bands like Phobophilic, Autopsy, Stormruler, Watain, Shape of Despair, Ars Hmu, Sedimentum, Chaotian, Trolldom and Immolation!

The music industry is at it again at full force after the festival season with a massive amount of really cool releases coming out, just look at the number of our most anticipated releases for September have grown into and then we probably could have included more still. With new albums from Blind Guardian, Yungblud, Wolfheart, Slipknot, Starcrawler, Lost Society, The Hu, Vermin Womb, Vermilia, Bloodbath, Slugcrust, Electric Callboy, Innumerable Forms, Tribal Gaze, Gaerea and Graceless, it’ll be quite the month again!

A selection of the finest work our concert photographers have gathered in 2021!

August proves to be a highly exciting and surprisingly full month for new releases! Here is a small selection of those that are most anticipated by our editorial staff!

A dozen of picks by our editorial team what they deem as the most anticipated releases of April 2021! Good stuff to be found here!

Albums of the year 2020, ranging from Halestorm to Trivium and more. Get ready to headbang and make your neighbors move.

Annet’s personal choice of best albums of the year 2019 brings a nice mix of accessible power metal, metalcore and modern metal releases. Check it out!