The Universe Divide interview

Click HERE for an interview with the The Universe Divide, fresh off releasing their debut, Dust Settles on the Odontophobes. Topics discussed included what led to the split of Canvas Solaris, how this band emerged and what lies ahead.

New Into Eternity track

Into Eternity hasn’t released new material since 2008, with their concept record The Incurable Tragedy and in that time vocalist, Stu Block has found himself in ranks of Iced Earth as their new singer but still pulling double duty with the band that brought him to the ball, Into Eternity. They’re currently streaming their new single ‘Sandstorm’ right now, which you can listen to below.

The track is solid and sounds like Into Eternity to a tee, which is a good thing. The only downside of this news is that there’s no major info on the next album. As the band put it, ‘Sandstorm’ is a “first glimpse of the in-the-works album, set for incremental release over the next year.”

Neurosis - The Button Factory, 25/7/11

This past Monday, the much esteemed Neurosis landed in Dublin for a (as expected) special live show. It's difficult to really put into words what was witnessed that night, but click HERE for the review anyway. Drainland supported too.

Photo: Jonathan Keane

New Hexis tracks online

In case you missed it, Denmark’s Hexis released one seriously killer demo earlier this year, a demo so blistering and unrelenting that it scored a not so frequent 9/10. The band has a forthcoming three-way split record with Euglena and As We Draw as well as a split 7” release, and are now streaming two new songs online – ‘Aspernatio’ and ‘Crux’. The former is short, unyielding smash in the face, while ‘Crux’ is a more expansive affair. Both tracks continue the unholy rage of the demo to devastating effect, have a listen below. The two new releases couldn’t come sooner.

New Mastodon track

As the title says; a new Mastodon track. It’s a short one, at just over three and a half minutes, but it’s enough to hint at another staggering album from a band that, frankly, can’t seem to put a foot wrong. Have a listen to ‘Black Tongue’ here:

The album, The Hunter, will be released September 27th, and will be a Roadrunner job.

Opeth track finds its way onto the internet

Christ on a bike! Today is a busy day! Firstly, Neurosis were incredible last night so I’m still in awe of that, but now both Mastodon and Opeth have released new tracks days, as well as Hexis who have released two. To start, we’ll discuss the leak of this new Opeth track, ‘The Devil’s Orchard’. The song was aired on radio recently and was taken from the broadcast, so the sound quality is not the finest.

If you haven’t been following it, the new Opeth album is going to be completely clean in the vocal department and with Mikael Akerfeldt venturing even deeper into his love of 70s prog, a la Camel.

What first hits you with this song is the riffs, unlike most of Opeth’s material, the jarring heaviness isn’t there. There’s still certainly a lot going on in the track and Akerfeldt’s clean vocals are staggering as always. On its own, ‘The Devil’s Orchard’ isn’t igniting too much, but where that slots into the grand scheme of the whole album of Heritage could change everything.

Stick around for the thoughts on the new Mastodon song later on.

Old Silver Key song posted

Old Silver Key is the intriguing pairing of Alcest’s Neige and Drudkh mainman Roman Sayenko. They’ll be releasing their debut album Tales of Wanderings on September 16th. Right now you can listen to the first salvo from the record, ‘Burnt Letters’. Listen below.

After Drudkh’s venture into pseudo-shoegaze black metal last year with Handful of Stars this project doesn’t surprise too much as it keeps very much in the vein that Neige has been occupying for some time. In fact, ‘Burnt Letters’ has much in common with his short lived shoegaze band Amesoeurs, but it feels a little weak. The atmosphere is heavy and Neige’s vocals are so distinct but ‘Burnt Letters’ doesn’t catch you Alcest would, or even like Handful of Stars.

New Anathema track

Recently, and after several studio updates, Anathema announced exactly what it was they were up to in there. September 5th marks the release of Falling Deeper, a project with a slight difference. According to the band, “Falling Deeper continues where Hindsight left off”, referring to the 2008 album of acoustic re-workings. Falling Deeper takes Anathema’s earliest material, including the likes of Crestfallen and Sunset of Age when the band pioneered death/doom in the early 90s, and reimagined them into the melodic, progressive rock force that Anathema are today.

Surely it is a move that will anger diehard fans of the older material, but now the band have released the first teaser of material from the record, and we can judge little more judicially now. Here’s a teaser clip of the material found on Falling Deeper. There is a also a full track download available by signing up to the Kscope newsletter.

Anathema - Falling Deeper (Album Montage) by Kscope