Rockportaal op poleposition met de video's van onder meer Carnifex, Nightrange, Immenince en Animal As Leaders

Terwijl in Zandvoort de motoren razen en de race van start is gegaan, zit de gehele evenementensector nog altijd thuis zich te verbijten over het feit dat 75.000 mensen aldaar bij elkaar kunnen komen, dansen, zingen, hossen en vooral hun zitplaats niet gebruiken terwijl alle festivals, concerten e.d. geen doorgang kunnen vinden. Een beslissing van het kabinet dat nog altijd riekt naar vriendjespolitiek en de invloed van keiharde euro’s. En ik weet dat et geen zin heeft om boos te zijn, maar ik kan het gewoon niet tegenhouden dat ik me continu verbijt bij zoveel oneerlijkheid en het meten met twee maten. Vergeet daarom volgende week niet om de diverse Unmute- bijeenkomsten op de een of andere manier te ondersteunen. Houd de website daarom deze week goed in de gaten: www.unmute-us.nl
Nightrange
De Grieks/Zweedseformatie Nightrage is terug met de finale van de trilogie van albums dat met The Venomous en Wolf To Man is gestart. Nu is het tijd voor het album Abyss Rising. Een soort conceptalbum waarop de band het verhaal neerzet van de mensheid die moet leven in de hel die zijzelf vorm hebben gegeven. Geïnspireerd door Inferno van Dante laat Nightrange zien hoe we onszelf om zeep helpen. Van het album is de (lyric) video Swallow Me nu beschikbaar.
Marios and Dino: ‘Mine and Magnus Guitar musical chemistry is really obvious here once again, blending a lot of different ideas that comes always from jam sessions, and focused on melody and hooks. We love to mix all these elements and add a lot of drama creating an amalgam of hooky riffs, brutal vocals, guitar harmonies and melodies into our songs, and “Swallow Me” once again is a great example of that! Ronnie talks this time about how our society have lost control and let religion guide us into false beliefs. This song is about religion. How we humans create a false belief in false gods to hide our own evil deeds behind. And religion is like a virus in our minds and in our society that grows bigger and bigger out of our own control.’ 
‘Well, If anyone asked a Nightrage fan to describe the band with one single word, I am sure he would answer ”MELODY”. The same word describes ‘’Swallow me’’. Melodies blended with Heavy Metal riffs and strong Death Metal elements. It was really fun to record this song, as it’s obviously based on groovy parts and old-school heavy riffing. If you notice, my drum-parts have a really strong bonding with the rhythm guitars and bass. That, of course, was made in purpose, as I feel that with more simplicity on the drums, I am giving more space for the melodies to shine, as it was meant to be.’ 

Carnifex
15 jaar lang al weet Carnifex de metalscene te verblijden met hun definitie van metal. Het achtste album van de band, Graveside Confessions, is uit via Nuclear Blast Records en om dat te vieren kun je kijken naar de visualizer van Cold Dead Summer.
“‘Graveside Confessions’ is available everywhere today, this record is 100% for the fans that kept us alive all these years, come see us on tour and get the record!”

Inner Code
Via Sliptrick Records komt het Italiaanse Inner Code eind september met het nieuwe album. Voor de gelegenheid heeft de band een video online gezet van de single Bu(io).

“There’s light in every cell …but if you dig deep, you’ll find only darkness. Each light, discovers that it’s preceded by darkness. The darkness is in you: master it, and rule over all.”
Cold Night For Alligators
Eind november kun je in Baroeg Rotterdam genieten van een uitstekende line-up. Eén van de bands die je kunt gaan zien is Cold Night For Alligators. Vanuit Denemarken zetten ze een technisch proggeluid om in aanstekelijke composities. Van het nieuwe album The Hindsight Notes kun je met Verism alvast gaan voorproeven.
Cold Night For Alligators:
“We come from a scene where everything is produced and edited very tightly and doesn’t leave much of a human touch. Everything sounds perfect and we wanted to do something that goes a little bit against this. So for the video, we decided to do a live session with a talented pianist and some cool back-up singers we used on the upcoming record. The song itself is very straightforward, tight and meticulous, so it was really fun to open up the arrangement a bit – it feels like a different beast and a cool contrast to the studio version.”
Zanger Johan Pedersen:
“This is one of the more meta lyrics I’ve done, where I reflect on the effect of writing about stuff that can feel a bit voyeuristic.
Art needs to exhibit the real and thereby also the extreme, ugly and vulgar. But it can have a harsh psychological effect, as you step into that space mentally. If it’s not my own story I have to get as close as I can emotionally.”
Over het nieuwe album zegt de band:
“This record is the sound of us growing up as people and musicians. Before and during the pandemic, the creative process was a fixed point in a lot of personal chaos, which we tried to channel towards an honest and personal statement. Everything was allowed, but also had to be executed to perfection. We brought in a ton of cool collaborators to make this vision come through and truly feel like we made a fully formed record that does not follow trends and does not compromise. Whether it was going softer, more straight forward or more experimental, we made a point to follow where our common creative sensibilities led us. It was a huge amount of work, but the album feels intensely rewarding and personal for that reason.”

Imminence
Ook Immenence komt onder de vlag van Arising Empire met nieuw werk in de vorm van de video bij de nieuwe single Ghost. Een psychedelische ervaring waarin wordt geflirt met het occulte en waar de donkere hoeken van het brein worden verkend.

Animal As Leaders
Wanneer je niet echt verzot bent op instrumentale metalcomposities raad ik je toch aan om de muziek van Animal As Leaders toch een keer te gaan beluisteren. Deze band weet het ontbreken van enige zang ruimschoots te compenseren met hun krachtige muziekgeluid. Het trio heeft na lange tijd (5 jaar) weer nieuw werk online gezet in de vorm van Monomyth. Wederom bij Sumerian Records, waarbij ze net hun recorddeal hebben verlengd.
Tosing Abasi vertelt over de nieuwe single: “’Monomyth’ is part fever dream, part ritual. Its imagery represents man’s ceaseless attempts to translate transcendent ideas into movement. The conflation of struggle with meaning. Pain with significance. The ultimate failure of distilling perceived patterns in the world into knowledge”.

Astoria State
Afgelopen week kwam Astoria State met de EP The Suffer, The Salvage. Een EP waarop de band laat horen dat ze leuke rock kunnen neerzetten. Het is fris en heeft goede melodieën.
De compositie die naar voren is geschoven is War.
Danny Resnick : “Musically, ‘War’ is just an explosive rock song with big choruses. The high-energy crowd response each night is a testament to the power of this song. It’s quite punchy through the choruses, but still has room to breathe in the verses as it addresses some of these deeper and more emotional subjects lyrically. The chaos and urgency of this song is really something we wanted to portray not just with the lyrics but with the music, and the whole thing just came together really well for us.” Resnick concludes, “We’re proud of this one. It’s the perfect focus track to release alongside our debut EP, The Suffer, The Salvage”.
“War is a song about a place that most of us have been. – Maybe not in the militant sense,but in the context of a relationship sometimes the metaphor can be the most appropriate way to describe a situation or two that a lot of people have been in. It’s about the moment when you realize all of this cyclical fighting is leading to an inevitable conclusion. That moment when you just can’t fake it or pretend anymore. Resnick quotes the lyrics to War – “Take me to the end, I don’t want to pretend that this is not a war. Here we go again, we’re breaking at the bend just like before, love is a ‘war’.”

Resnick explains that this acknowledgment of the end leads us through a series of realizations; “I’ve gotta let this go” – “I’ve gotta do this all over again with someone new” – “I’ve gotta learn to protect myself from this happening again” – “I need to build a wall, and I better make it tall so this doesn’t happen again”. Powerfully invoking thoughts over poetic melody-driven rock seems to be the trend in Astoria State’s writing style, as “War” is just one of the powerful songs on this debut.