Back in March, BW&BK was invited to attend the listening session for Children Of Bodom’s highly anticipated new album, Halo Of Blood, to be issued through their new label Nuclear Blast on June 7th. The ‘net is abuzz with reports that the band have taken a back-to-the-roots approach this time out, and while it may seem that way on the surface, turns out Halo Of Blood is so much more than a rehash of a successful formula. For those that have written off the Hate Crew as having their best years behind them, Halo Of Blood will be a a pleasant surprise for some, a kick in the nuts for others.

We sat down with keyboardist Janne Wirman and drummer Jaska Raatikainen following the initial run-through of the new album.

BW&BK: Making the move from Universal to Nuclear Blast seems like a logical step considering you were on Spinefarm/Nuclear Blast at the start of the band’s career. Was moving to a smaller label a case of feeling lost in the shuffle on a big roster of artists?

Janne: “The first three albums were just licensed to Nuclear Blast, so we didn’t really have that much of a relationship with them, but we’re excited about the move. We had a great relationship with Spinefarm, but Spinefarm got sold to Universal as you know, and when a major label takes control of a smaller label things don’t always go as planned. Little by little it started to be a sucky deal for us, so when our deal ended with them we started shopping around for a new deal. A lot of labels made offers, but in the current market when major labels are going down anyway, it was a good decision to go with an independent metal label that is also the biggest metal label in Europe.”

Jaska: “Everybody always says we were a Nuclear Blast band because of the licensing deal, and the first tours we did were Nuclear Blast festival tours. Still, we knew the people involved so it was nice to come to this label. As Janne said, it was a logical decision.”

BW&BK: Alexi (Laiho/vocals, guitars) is and always has been the songwriter in this band, but there has to be more that one guy involved in the creative process for a band to be around for 15+ years. Did the rest of the band have more input on Halo Of Blood compared to the last few records?

Janne: “Maybe the whole band’s arranging of the songs had even a little bit more to say this time. Alexi is the musical director, he’s composing the music, but we played around with ideas more this time. We tried different things and experimented a lot. I think we spent more time arranging these new songs together than we ever have in the past.”

Jaska: “I noticed that if someone had an idea, and we tried it out and it didn’t work, someone in the band would still be working with it to see if we could get something out of it after all.”

Janne: “We spent hours working on changing the drum beat in one part of a song, then we’d play the whole song and listen to how that would change affect the whole thing…”

Jaska: “… And we found that these little things did change the entire song.”

BW&BK: Halo Of Blood is loaded with double-take moments, but the title track sits at the top of the heap with the reappearance of blastbeats in the Children Of Bodom arsenal. Completely unexpected…

Jaska: “I love these kinds of challenges. I was glad that Alexi came up with this idea of using the blastbeats. We had blastbeats on Hatebreeder, but after that, never again. So, that’s over 10 years. One day Alexi came to the rehearsal space and he had this idea for a riff, and I was like ‘Are you kidding me? Blastbeats?’ (laughs). This new album was full of surprises for us while we were making it. There was always something new going on. One day it was blastbeats, the next day it was the slowest song we’ve ever done (‘Dead Man’s Hand On You’). It was good that Alexi could still surprise us.”

BW&BK: But it was still a group effort, for better or worse.

Janne: “There were a lot of times when we disagreed on things, a lot of things, and like I said, we’ve never spent so many hours trying so many different things making an album.”

Jaska: “Once we had a song completely ready, and I suggested we slow the tempo right down and Roope (Latvala/guitars) got pissed. He was like, ‘We finally got the song done and you want to do it over again?!’ (laughs).”

Janne: “We also made the correct decision on three of the songs to slow the tempos down just a pinch, and it made the songs so much clearer. I’m not saying that we couldn’t have played them live, but when you lower a tempo slightly it makes something like a 16th note guitar riff way more audible and clearer.”

“It’s funny how stubborn Roope can be, because for him, lowering the tempo is like a huge insult or something (laughs). We lowered the beat 2 bpm and he got mad at the rest of the band. It was like, ‘What the fuck…’ (laughs).”

BW&BK: The first song ‘Waste Of Skin’ is standard old school Bodom, and might be dismissed as same old same old, but from ‘Halo Of Blood’ on you can’t predict where it’s going to go. And the last four songs (‘Dead Man’s Hand On You’, ‘Damaged Beyond Repair’, ‘All Twisted’, One Bottle And A Knee Deep’)… what a way to go out on an album. It’s all over the place dynamically but it works.

Janne: “That’s something I like about the new album. Even I couldn’t figure out or predict what was coming next during the first listen, and I played on it. After the third time through we were all thinking ‘Fuck yeah, this is killer. There are no filler tracks on this. We made sure that if we were going to have 10 original tracks, the shit was going to be good all the way through.”

Go to this location for the complete interview. Check out my review for Halo Of Blood here.

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It was announced back in February 2012 that Norway’s Theatre Of Tragedy, who spawned the career of Leaves’ Eyes vocalist Liv Kristine and officially called it quits in October 2010, were working on remastered re-issues of their first three albums: the self-titled debut, Velvet Darkness They Fear, and Aegis. Initially meant to be released in late 2012, Massacre Records have confirmed July 5th as the official release date for all three albums in digipack CD and double vinyl LP formats.

Enjoy….

The journey started with a simple demo tape, which received favourable reactions first in Theatre of Tragedy’s hometown of Stavanger, Norway and then from the international metal press. From there everything snowballed, and the rest is history.

“Most of us were so young and inexperienced at the time, so we didn’t really have the fear of being ridiculed, nor the ambitions to make it big,” says drummer Hein Frode Hansen. “We were just a bunch of kids wanting to make a hybrid of our different musical influences at the time. Individually, we were mediocre musicians at best, but together we were something fresh and new.”

“We all came from different backgrounds and that what made it so special,” continues guitarist Tommy Lindal. “We simply put some elements of all the members together and it sounded really cool; metal with piano and soprano vocals. My impression at the time was that we didn’t worry too much about if the people liked it or not, as long we enjoyed it ourselves.”

The debut album seemed to be a risky affair on many levels. The Theatre was more than a bit daring when one considers there was nothing heavy or metal about ‘…a Distance there is…’ , a track featuring piano, cello, Liv’s vocals, and the sound of falling rain. The song has since become the cornerstone of the debut for many diehard Theatre of Tragedy fans. Tommy remembers working on the track:

“…’a Distance there is…’ is a song that I think everybody in the band has a different relationship to. We were in Sweden at Dan Swanö´s studio, spending our Christmas alone in Sweden recording the debut. Lorentz and Liv had some ideas and ended up recording the song. The cello was Dan Swanö’s brilliant idea; he called a friend to drop by the studio and record some cello parts. It took some hours and the result was amazing. We were all was excited about it and decided to put it on the record.”

“The strange thing looking back we didn’t really see it as a risk,” Hein recalls, “but rather a way to differentiate ourselves from other bands by incorporating a bunch of elements that normally didn’t get that much attention in metal. The Victorian English was something Raymond came up with and we though it original and fitting to our sound. The song ‘… a Distance there is…’ was originally only meant to be a small snippet or a filler, but became – together with ‘A Hamlet For A Slothful Vassal’ – one of the album’s signature songs thanks to Lorentz’ brilliant piano playing and Liv’s soothing fragile vocals. At the time the goth scene though us a bit too metal, and the metal fans maybe a bit to goth. Hard to say, but the formula seemed to work.”

It worked so well that even press people sitting on the fence when the album first came out – and the band did have its detractors – were converted by the time 1995 came to an end. Liv was particularly aware of Theatre of Tragedy winning people over due to the fact she had been thrust involuntarily into the spotlight.

“The first reactions from the metal press were like ‘Okay, it’s doom metal and we’re fine with that, but there’s a girl singing… which is absurd…’” she laughs. “But, because we were located in Norway we didn’t get all that feedback at first. We didn’t know people were talking about us. People were either pro or against, but at the end of the year we were in the top of all the readers’ polls in the metal magazines. It was quite scary.”

“The release of our debut album was overwhelming even for us,” Tommy admits. “It was as if our expectations we had were multiplied by a hundred. Personally, I didn’t expect much feedback from the goth scene since I didn’t see the connection very clearly, but even they got really excited about our band.”

And that’s only half of Part 1. To see the rest, mark down July 5th in your calendars and watch Theatre Of Tragedy’s Facebook page here for updates.

Stay tuned…

“It doesn’t matter if someone likes the album; it matters whether or not we as a band like the album.”

Thus, guitarist Esa Holopainen offers no apologies if you, as an AMORPHIS fan, can’t find worth in the band’s new outing, Circle. But really, if you’ve been a devout follower even through the experimental Am Universum / Far From The Sun era (2001/2003) and the entrance of vocalist Tomi Joutsen in 2005 (who replaced Pasi Koskinen), there’s nothing to complain about. Circle boasts the full-on Amorphis quality of recent years, albeit heavier and more face-grabbingly immediate than some folks might expect.

“I’ve only heard from one reporter saying that he wishes Circle sounded more like the previous albums,” Esa admits. “But, that’s always been the way with this band. You know you’ve done something right when you please some of the people. If everybody would hate us there wouldn’t be any point to releasing albums at all. We’ve received lots of positive feedback, and when you know yourself that you worked hard on the songs and you truly enjoy the results, it’s a great feeling to talk about the album with people.”

Circle is a pleasant surprise in that it’s heavy without bordering on overly brutal, probably more up-tempo than some fans expect, and dark without venturing into the realms of goth/doom melancholy.

“I definitely agree with you,” says Esa, “and that’s why we brought the guitars up front, to make things heavier. The guitars on this album are much more up front and in-your-face compared to the previous albums. As a guitar player, that really works for me (laughs). We paid more attention to the overall sound. We used different guitars sounds on certain parts of the album, and there were songs that we wanted to sound more organic, more old school. We didn’t want to changes things radically; we had a new producer and a new environment for the recording sessions and that really helped us achieve our goals.”

Said producer is no mere soundbooth knob-twister. Circle was brought to life with the assistance of none other than Peter Tägtgren, known for raising hell with both HYPOCRISY and PAIN, as well as having years of experience as a (primarily) black metal producer at his famously infamous Abyss Studios.

“I think it’s sort of the best of both worlds because we’ve known Peter for years,” Esa says of how the collaboration with Tägtgren came about. “We did our first tour with Hypocrisy in 1995 – it was the first Nuclear Blast festival tour – and he was just building up his Abyss Studio is Sweden at the time. Every since then we’ve played with the idea that it would be nice to work together, and he’s always said that we should come to him to record an album.”

Put Amorphis up against Hypocrisy or Pain and one would think there’s nary a thread to link them except for their metal heritage. Listen to Circle and, if you give a damn about production values, the record does have that noisy seal of Tägtgren approval even during the album’s more atmospheric moments.

“The music that Peter does for Hypocrisy and Pain is so different from what we do, but we share a lot of the same interests. He can work with bands completely different from his own, no problem. He once told me that when he started producing black metal bands it was because there were no other bands around at the time. When he did the first DIMMU BORGIR album, the more extreme bands out there wanted to record at his studio. He ended up being labelled as a savior for black metal album (laughs).”

Go to this location for the complete story.

Check out audio clips from Circle here.

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Arch Enemy guitarist Michael Amott’s long-lived other band, Spiritual Beggars, have enjoyed a successful under-the-radar 20 year run, and it’s bound to continue with their new outing Earth Blues. The timing of the release couldn’t be better, what with acts like Adrenaline Mob, Black Star Riders, The New Black and Tremonti – to name a noteworthy few – making some serious highly praised noise of over the last several months with “simple” straight-up rock records. Sure, deliveries from the bands mentioned vary in levels of heavy and modern rock versus classic old school, but at the end of the day there no clutter and no bull to muck up the works. Earth Blues sits high and mighty within this pack for anyone that believes the word “organic” can be used to describe music as well as a vegetarian platter or bag of weed.

“I haven’t heard the bands you mentioned,” Amott admits, “but we’ve been doing this since ’93 and have put out eight albums in that time. What I’ve noticed is that at some points it’s more hip to put out a vintage classic rock album than others. It goes in waves and you can’t really do anything about that. I’ve never really thought about fitting in. Even if it’s been embarrassingly bad timing, this is what we do. We’re just a band that rocks out when we feel like it. For me as a songwriting guitar player, it’s an opportunity to stretch out a little bit and do something different. I’m not the world’s most adventurous guitar player, but I do like to write and record and play live in two different styles; the extreme metal thing and the Spiritual Beggars thing, which is more rock.”

In an unusual move, the band opted to do a low key European headline tour for Earth Blues right on top of the release. As such, the album didn’t have time to build any momentum and possibly stoke the buzz. On the other hand, it have Amott and his bandmates the chance to hear a lot of unfiltered first impressions.

“A lot of people like the album, some people don’t like it,” says Amott. “Some people call it an irrelevant piece of crap while others call it a masterpiece (laughs).”

For the record, someone in the music press actually did call Earth Blues “an irrelevant piece of crap,” which Amott shrugs off because at the end of the day the new songs weren’t written in the interest of public acceptance. The band adopted a similar approach when putting the tour setlist together.

“We’re playing four or five new songs and some of the classics. We’re not even playing our so-called hit songs, just the tracks we enjoy. We did a short video trailer to promote the album and did some streams of a couple tracks through different media partners, and we’ve noticed that people know the songs because of that. Our songs are instantaneously catchy and they’re very simple, so you can hear them and get into them immediately.”

“We’re testing the waters right now,” Amott says of going on tour out of the gate. “We want to see if there’s any real interest in Spiritual Beggars, which is why we decided to go out and do some shows right on top of the album release. We figured people would be enthusiastic about it, and we have the label support from InsideOut. We actually shot the show in Cologne, Germany for the Rockpalast televison program, which was an honour. The shows in Japan that we’re doing will be a lot bigger because the people there pay attention to what’s going on, and they know the guitarist and bassist from Arch Enemy are also in Spiritual Beggars. I think that many people in Europe and North America aren’t even aware that I’m in this band.”

If you’re a follower of Amott’s work his playing is instantly recognizable, making for some double-takes over the course of Earth Blues for any Arch Enemy fans worth taking the Beggars plunge. A perfect example is the lead break on ‘Sweet Magic Pain’, which sounds like it was lifted from any Arch Enemy record of your choice.

“Angela (Gossow/vocals) and Daniel (Erlandsson/drums), when they heard that, they said ‘That’s Arch Enemy, what the hell are you doing?’” Amott laughs). “I’m just one person contrary to popular belief (laughs). There’s a little bit of crossover with the fans, but not a lot. I’ve got my sound and style, I guess. I just approach both bands in a similar way. Some people make solo instrumental guitar albums but I don’t listen to those. I find them incredibly boring. I like vocals, and it’s fun doing something with melodic vocals. Spiritual Beggars is a small band, small tour, small crowds, but we’re still having a blast. We spend a lot of time laughing our asses off. Arch Enemy is my main creative outlet, and extreme metal is where my real roots are.”

Go to this location for the complete story.

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The day before this interview went down, Swedish/Danish outfit Amaranthe released their new album The Nexus, which promptly hit #1 on the US iTunes heavy metal charts, beating out the likes of Volbeat and Anthrax for top spot. In the days that followed the album did similar damage on rock, alternative and metal charts across Scandinavia, and landed on the Soundscan Heatseeker and Hard Music charts in the US. To top it off, Amaranthe were still on the road in Europe at press time on a co-headlining tour with Stratovarius playing to packed houses every night (including one memorable evening when Stratovarius had to cancel due to illness). Huge achievements for a band that has supposedly been under the radar since the release of their self-titled debut in 2011, and definitely a jump start towards bigger and better things.

Not to take away from Amaranthe’s current shine, but part of the reason for this current buzz is singer Elize Ryd, who has toured with Florida-based Kamelot as a backing vocalist for the last four years and hit the studio for their latest record, Silverthorn. The ongoing collaboration has been a blessing for an up-and-coming young band like Amaranthe trying to gain a foothold in the big leagues.

“I think working with Kamelot has had an effect,” Elize agrees, “because we have a lot of fans in South America and in North America, and I’ve been on tour with Kamelot in those territories. I was with them when they supported Nightwish on top of that, and Nightwish have a huge audience.”

As for how she became involved with Kamelot in the first place…

Elize: “From the beginning, when we started Amaranthe, we didn’t have a lot of shows so I had a lot of free time…”

Male clean vocalist Jake E. picks up the thread: “The whole story is like this: I used to be a pyro-technician and I toured with every band out there. We started this project called Amaranthe, and I was great friends with Kamelot so they asked me if we’d like to go on tour and if they could ‘borrow’ Elize. We actually did two tours with them, when I was also a back-up singer, so we were pulling double duty. Then we grew, of course, so Elize works with them when she has the time. This year, for example, it’s totally impossible…”

The depth of Elize’s involvement with Kamelot has increased over the last four years, to the point she’s become a recognizable part of the band’s roster. Amaranthe is her first priority, but going in to record The Nexus still ended up being a balancing act.

Elize: “The Nexus was done in between tours. I only had five days to record my vocals. I told the Kamelot guys that if I’m not going to finish we need to find a solution because I need to prioritize the Amaranthe album. But, I told them I’d go in and do my best to get my parts done in those few days that I had. And I actually work better under pressure. I think it’s better for me when I don’t have a lot of time and I just have to get things done.”

In spite of her commitment to Kamelot, Elize makes it clear that if she has to choose between the two camps – as she’s had to do for 2013 – Amaranthe will always come out on top.

Elize: “Amaranthe is my band. As Jake said, Kamelot ‘borrowed’ me (laughs). I was actually stepping in for Simone (Simons/Epica) to sing ‘The Haunting’; that was the main reason for me being there. Then they asked if I could do back-up singing, and of course I said yes because I love that sort of thing. This year I won’t have time for that. Alissa (White-Gluz) is going to Japan with them in May when she has time off from The Agonist, and I think she’s also going to come to Europe. I don’t know for sure. I guess that’s how we’re going to work from now on; if I have time I’ll go out with Kamelot, but Amaranthe is my priority.”

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Check out a separate interview with Elize Ryd here discussing her Nightwish experience.

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As of October 2012, guitarist Glen Drover’s second official solo album was reportedly half finished. Six months later and the only real buzz out of Drover’s neck of the woods is his recent and brief association with vocalist Geoff Tate’s new incarnation of Queensrÿche. Contacted initially to discuss the ‘Ryche situation – some folks might call it a debacle; depends on who’s side you’re on – Drover revealed that his new solo album is still in the works. It would have been finished by now if not for his decision to go back and remix last three albums – Coma Nation (2001), Apostles Of Defiance (2003), The Parallel Otherworld (2006) – from his pre-Megadeth / pre-King Diamond band Eidolon.

“Without getting into all the details of why we’re doing it, the way technology is now we realized that we could really make the quality of the albums a lot better than it was,” says Drover. “It’s a major step up in overall production. There were things that we weren’t 100% happy with, but I guess most musicians go through that. Something just came along that made us decide it was a good idea to go back and remix the albums. Me and Pat (Mulock/vocals) and Shawn (Drover/drums) are really excited, and Jon (Howard/vocals) from Threat Signal is helping out on it, too.”

“It’s a really cool project. We’re taking our time, going through one song after the other. We started with Coma Nation and it’s half finished. It’s a remix and not a remaster, so we’re changing the face of the whole thing for the better. If there wasn’t a noticeable increase in production I would never waste my time with this. For what it is, those albums came out good at the time. We used what we could and we made the best of what we had, and it worked. Now things are a little bit different. We’re not changing the performance – that’s going to be the same – but we might tweak a couple of thing effect-wise. The albums are going to be the same, but with a far stronger production.”

Still, weeding through the archives, the temptation to go back into the studio and tweak the recordings with up-to-date performances…

“Of course. A good example of that would be going into the older albums, the one we did with Brian (Soulard/vocals). If we were going to do that… talk about opening a can of worms (laughs). We’d probably end up re-doing half of each of those albums. It’s best to leave them alone, but the last three in my opinion – and I think most people share it – they were the pinnacle of what we were trying to do. I’m very happy with them, but we knew we could go in and get things situated the way we want without actually interfering with the performances. We’re not going to be replacing vocals or guitars or anything like that. If anything I might be adding a guitar here and there with the rhythms, which we’ve been experimenting with. They’re going to be the ultimate versions of those albums, definitely.”

Funny how, after everything Drover has done in his post-Eidolon career – King Diamond, Megadeth, touring with Hail! and Testament, recording with Saga’s Michael Sadler – people are still interested in the band and want to know when a new Eidolon album is going to surface.

“I’ve had that question asked more times than you can count (laughs). That’s another reason we thought this would be a cool time to do this.”

Since the April 2012 announcement of a new solo album in the works Drover has revealed that it won’t be issued through Magna Carta, the prog label responsible for getting his debut Metalusion out to the masses. He clarifies his reasons for the change:

“Unfortunately, there was a little bit of a falling out there. I was really pleased with the way they handled the Metalusion album, from the artwork to the promotion. It was all great, but a couple things happened when we did the Metalworks DVD shoot (in September 2011) that I wasn’t really keen on. It wasn’t the way I like to work, so I opted to get out and not do the next album with them.”

As for the status of the DVD, which was originally a podcast seen worldwide by an estimated 25,000 people in 64 countries, it should be out this year. “Should” being the operative word.

“It’s been delayed for a while. It should have been out a long time ago. Christ, we recorded it in 2011. The last I heard from one of the guys at Magna Carta that it’s supposed to come out this year. I’ve already seen the cover, I know things are moving forward, so it’ll hopefully be out in spring/summer 2013. I did the mixing and mastering for the audio on the DVD, and I did a second version which was more for audio play rather than video.”

Wrapping things up, Drover offers up s few details of the forthcoming album, which he hopes to have finished by the summer.

“There aren’t going to be as many covers as there were on Metalusion, although we really did make those covers our own, anyway. We released the Saga cover of ‘Careful Where You Step’ with Mike Sadler singing, which came out great. That’ll definitely be on the album. There’s also going to be another song that was a piece of music that was played by the Ozzy Osbourne band when Randy Rhoads was still alive, during his last tour. They did this thing – really a classically influenced kind of instrumental piece – that they would play before the drum solo, and after the drum solo they’d go back into it and end it. I always loved it but I had no idea what it was or where it came from. I ended up asking Rudy Sarzo (bass) about it when I was looking into the Queensrÿche thing, and he told me it was just something Randy came up with and built it around the drum solo section of the show. I decided to take it and add a solo section in the middle, and just constructed it into a regular length track. That was one of first tracks recorded for the new album.”

“There’s also a possibility of us doing an old Eidolon song called ‘Seven Spirits’, the title track from an album we did a long time ago (1997). I’ve always liked the song but there are a few things about the recorded version that I don’t like. We’re toying with the idea of putting a version on the album with Henning Basse (Sons Of Seasons, ex-Metalium) singing it. That’s probably going to happen. Three or four songs will probably have vocals and the rest will be instrumental, but that’s not 100% confirmed yet.”

“We’re taking the same kind of approach that we had for the last album; do one or two songs, concentrate on those and get them finished, then move on. All of that is being done in between everything else that I’m doing. We’re going to try and get the album done for the summer. As a matter of fact I’m finishing one track up right now.”

Check out Drover’s comments on his Queensrÿche experiences here.

All photos taken from the Glen Drover Band’s official Facebook page here. If you happen to be the photographer, let me know and I’ll make sure your credited / linked as required.

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Word of a new Children Of Bodom album on the horizon always seems to be accompanied by a chorus of bitching and moaning from the fans as they hope and pray for a return to the band’s Hatebreeder / Follow The Reaper heyday. The build-up to Halo Of Blood is no different, and having attended a listening session for the record on March 16th courtesy of Nuclear Blast, I can tell you that Halo Of Blood isn’t the full-on back-to-the-roots album you’d sell your siblings’ internal organs for.

It is, however, the best damn thing Children Of Bodom have released since Hate Crew Deathroll in 2003.

First time through, chances are most fans will end up somewhere between relieved and perplexed at hearing trademark Bodom-isms from the early years back-to-back with numerous WTF moments. It’s bloody overwhelming at times trying to process how the band has re-invented themselves when you look back on Are You Dead Yet?, Blooddrunk and Relentless Reckless Forever; the three records that polarized and/or pissed off the COB fanbase. Lead-off track ‘Waste Of Skin’ is a solid indication of something old school in the works on Halo Of Blood, with ‘Scream For Silence’, ‘Bodom Blue Moon’, ‘One Bottle And A Kneep Deep’ and the future live show fan favourite ‘All Twisted’ (think ‘Hate Me!’) also slamming people into that good ol’ days comfort zone. That said, the tracks aren’t one-to-one predictable, even if the riff / solo / keyboard attacks are familiar.

Hats off to the band for pulling off the ‘Damaged Beyond Repair’, which seemingly mashes the best parts of Hate Crew Deathroll and Follow The Reaper together to create a masterclass of the almighty Bodom riff.

Halo Of Blood’s biggest surprises – other than FINALLY having album cover art worth looking at, wearing, or taping to the bedroom wall – are the bordering-on-black-metal title track and the plodding doom-heavy ‘Dead Man’s Hand On You’. The songs are completely different from one another and everything else on the record, yet they aren’t even a little out of place. Drummer Jaska Raatikainen is the backbone of ‘Halo Of Blood’, serving up blastbeats (which he reportedly hadn’t done in years) in top-notch black metal form, making it the heaviest Children Of Bodom song to date. In complete in-your-face contrast, ‘Dead Man’s Hand On You’ is a dark-hearted “ballad” that opens with clean guitars and grand piano, featuring frontman Alexi Laiho offering up spoken word verses before returning to his trademark hellmouth delivery. Funny how, for all the talk of wanting an old school Bodom record, the majority of fans are going to come back to these two tracks because they stick out like a death metal band at a casting for Glee.

Halo Of Blood is a huge surprise, easily the most impressive and exciting batch of music Children Of Bodom have served up in a decade.

And no, that’s not the alcohol talking…

Halo Of Blood tracklisting:

‘Waste Of Skin’
‘Halo Of Blood’
‘Scream For Silence’
‘Transference’
‘Bodom Blue Moon’
‘The Days Are Numbered’
‘Dead Man’s Hand On You’
‘Damaged Beyond Repair’
‘All Twisted’
‘One Bottle And A Knee Deep’

Release date: June 7th, 2013

Watch for exclusive interviews with Janne Wirman (keyboards), Jaska Raatikainen (drums) and Alex Laiho (vocals/guitars) coming to BW&BK soon.

Photo by Jarmo Katila (www.jarmokatila.fi)

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On September 28th, 2012 in Denver, Colorado fans of Finnish bashers Nightwish witnessed something special at the Ogden Theater. So special, in fact, that if everyone who claims they attended the show was actually there the venue would have literally burst at the seams.

To recap, now ex-Nightwish vocalist Anette Olzon fell seriously ill prior to the show and was hospitalized. Her bandmates had the difficult task of choosing between cancelling the gig and going ahead with support band Kamelot’s backing vocalists Elize Ryd (Amaranthe) and Alissa White-Gluz (The Agonist) in Olzon’s place. With the audience’s blessing they chose the latter, resulting an unforgettable and historic show. Elize, Alissa and Nightwish were applauded for their efforts by seemingly everyone except Olzon, who made her rather ungrateful opinions known the next day via an online post. A few days later – October 1st, 2012 – Olzon was officially given the boot and the tour continued with ReVamp / ex-After Forever singer Floor Jansen fronting the band.

During a BW&BK interview (found here) for Amaranthe’s new album, The Nexus, Elize discussed the unexpected once in a lifetime experience. Note that we kept any behind-the-scenes dirt regarding the disintegration between Nightwish and Anette out of the conversation, so if you’re a tabloid drama junkie you’ll be disappointed by what you’re about to read.

“It was a very special thing,” Elize says of the night. “I love Nightwish and I’ve sung their songs many times for myself (laughs). When you’re on tour you’re in a little bubble, so you don’t really think too much about what’s happening outside that bubble. They asked me if I would be willing to sing for them that night, and we decided that if the audience agreed it was okay for them that I sing, of course I was going to help Nightwish out so they could do the show. At least with some singing so they wouldn’t have to do it all instrumental.”

“It was a little bit like a dream come true for me because I always wanted to sing for Nightwish (laughs). I did audition for them years ago, so to actually be on stage with them was great. And the response from the crowd really helped. I was almost crying on stage because the people were so supportive.”

Keeping in mind that Elize and Alissa had almost no time to prepare for the show, they hit the stage for ‘Storytime’ with lyric sheets in hand. Over the course of the night Elize returned to the sheets of paper as required to help her along. Sure, there were some minor gaffs over the course of the gig, but from a purely personal point of view it was a ballsy move for Elize to even attempt the show, never mind read the lyrics. She deserves huge respect for her performance, and judging by fan reactions online I’m not alone in my thinking.

“That was odd,” Elize admits with regards to reading the lyrics. “I don’t think that’s ever happened before (laughs). It was really cool, though.”

“The day after the show was very weird because I saw posts in the Finnish newspapers and all over the internet, and all the comments on YouTube. I was kind of surprised by just how many positive reactions there were. The crowd could have booed me and thrown stuff at me, but it was a very magical atmosphere that night. I didn’t have much time to think about it. I just went and did it. I like that in general, to take opportunities and just do stuff without thinking too much about it.”

Check out footage from the Denver show via the links below:

Photos by Carl Begai. All rights reserved.

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Anybody can claim to be a professional anything, but when you get down to the blood and guts it’s action – and more often than not, the lack of it – that separates the wannabes from the real deal. It’s easy to find both in the music industry.

A couple years ago I witnessed an unforgettable display of professionalism by a band, right on the heels of a disgusting example of betrayal by a so-called professional promoter. All in the space of one evening.

The band in question is a Norwegian/German outfit called Vinland (the name has been changed to spare them any undue embarrassment). They’ve been around for over a decade, are signed to a major metal record label, and have toured the world several times over playing clubs, theaters and festivals for numbers ranging anywhere between a couple hundred people a night to 70,000+ depending on the territory. In other words, they know the ropes. They’re also very aware of the music industry’s First Commandment:

Shit happens.

As a fan and friend of the band, it was good news when they announced a stop on their European tour in Nuremberg, Germany (where I’m currently residing as a travelling Torontonian). As a town of approximately 400,000 people it isn’t a hotspot where tours touch down regularly, particularly for artists with a large fanbase, so when a promoter actually snags one it’s an event.

That said, in the weeks leading up to the show I was surprised to see exactly zero promotion in town for the show. Sure, there was some internet chatter, but in a country notorious for advertising concerts and theater productions and grand openings via the almighty poster – there’s no such thing as available wallspace in Germany – the lack of a visual buzz is the equivalent of a kick in the balls with steel-toe boots come showtime. To make matters worse, the gig was booked for a venue used sporadically for shows of any kind, and even then only for acts of Youth Center quality.

Turning up for a pre-show interview on the day, I was appalled to learn that Vinland wouldn’t be in the large room at the venue (capacity 600 or so), and not in the smaller room (capacity 200 if you’re standing armpit to elbow). Nope; the “promoter” had booked the band into the venue’s lounge, a quaint little chamber equipped with a bar, a riser better suited for an open mic night than a concert stage, maybe four lights in varying shades of red, and a single door leading in from the hallway that the band would have to use for a very non-dramatic entrance. Capacity looked to be less than 100, and the show wouldn’t even get half that.

Go to this location for the complete story.

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Japanese fusion guitarist Nozomi Itani is a musical personality that, up until recently, has been flying below the rock scene’s radar. He’s been flying for quite some time though, and not only in his homeland. Itani’s roots as a musician were planted in Germany, where he lived from the age of four for over 30 years when his father – a pioneering businessman that helped introduce Japanese companies to the Western world – moved to Europe in 1962. In that time he carved out a successful albeit behind-the-scenes career, which eventually brought him home. These days he spends the bulk of his time teaching music, but Itani still managed to write and record and new instrumental album to showcase his talents, appropriately titled Station To Station.

“My mother studied classical piano, and she always wanted the kids to learn how to play an instrument,” Itani says of his start in music. “I started playing piano and violin when I was a kid but I was very lazy (laughs). I took lessons for a few years but I gave up. I didn’t want to play a musical instrument, but by the time I turned 16 rock n’ roll was something very special. It was the time when rock n’ roll was really cool, so to have an electric guitar was very special. When I bought my first Deep Purple LP, my mother saw the picture of the band members and shouted ‘Oh my God, they’re terrorists!’ (laughs). When I started playing guitar I really loved to listen to Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and all kinds of progressive rock stuff like Genesis, Yes and Gentle Giant. Most of my friends listened to pop music, Top 10 hits, but I wasn’t very interested in that.”

“The cool thing was that at the end of the ’70s and in the early ’80s, there was this big punk movement and the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, and on the other hand there was this big jazz fusion movement. I listened to all these so-called studio guitarists, and the heavy metal thing was interesting too because there were guitar heroes like Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, but I think my real roots are in jazz fusion. On the other hand, I really love to play power chords on the guitar (laughs). This is the balance in my music. I always have this image of playing chord progressions and melodies that are linked to jazz but should sound like hard rock and heavy metal. My vision is to play a jazz standard on a Flying V one day (laughs).”

“I never expected to become a professional musician,” Itani admits. “I started out playing just for fun, but when I stopped working at the trading company that employed me I needed to find an alternative. I decided to try being a professional guitarist. Of course, it wasn’t easy at first but it was fun, and I learned a lot of things in the ’80s. I started my career as a guitarist with 20, and I did a lot of recordings for pop singers, jingles, things like that, but I was mainly hired as a touring guitarist for musicals, blues and soul bands. The job always had to do with connections to other people, so it kept getting longer and longer, and the next thing I knew it was over 30 years (laughs). During my time in Germany, I also did a lot of teaching for professional and amateur musicians. One of my former students is Kuddel, the guitarist of the German rock band Die Toten Hosen. Now in Japan, I’m working a lot by teaching music.”

There’s no shortage of talented guitar players in Japan, but they are often compared to their Western counterparts rather than being allowed to own the spotlight. Itani is a rarity in Japan, as he isn’t bent on sounding like the next Yngwie Malmsteen, Timo Tolkki or Eddie Van Halen.

“Music should be individual,” says Itani. “There are a lot of Japanese musicians that really love to copy what they hear and make it sound better, but the roots are still a copy. I don’t like that very much. What I want is some kind of originality, and that means some of the audience will be confused when they hear me play. I still get reactions from the Japanese audience when people see me for the first time, most of them say I don’t sound like a Japanese guitarist. They always say it sounds different. Sometimes some of the audience is a bit confused because they see a Japanese guy on stage but it doesn’t sound like a Japanese guy. I had the same situation in Germany because they see a Japanese guitarist on stage that doesn’t sound Japanese (laughs).”

For someone who’s been in the business seemingly forever, Itani hasn’t had a lot of time to put his own music to tape. To date he’s recorded an EP and two full length albums, with Station To Station being the best representation of him as an all-round artist.

“The first album I did (The Journey) was in 1997 in Germany, with German musicians. It was an EP with four tunes. I brought it back to Japan and the reaction was very good; they said it sounded European. I did my second album (Between Shadow & Light) in Japan in 2003, and on that oneI tried to do something between hard rock and jazz fusion. The reaction wasn’t bad, but some of the rock fans said it sounded like a jazz fusion album and the jazz fans said it sounded like a hard rock album. The problem was I didn’t have so much control because the label told me how to produce it. This time I decided I wanted to have total control over the production. I didn’t want to make any compromises and it’s gotten a great reaction, especially among the hard rock and metal fans. I didn’t want to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. The concept was very clear; the composing of the tunes was more of the idea of jazz fusion, but the overall sound should be hard rock.”

“Station To Station is sort of a ‘best of the live repertoire’ at the current time. It’s probably my most rock-oriented album, but on the other hand it’s still got elements of other styles which gives the sound more color.”

Case in point: Station To Station features two guest appearances; fretless harp guitarist Tim Donahue – who made a name for himself on the metal scene with Madmen & Sinners featuring Dream Theater’s James LaBrie – and veteran shredhead Singo Otani from Japanese thrashers United. Both collaborations add a metal flavour to the album, sharpening the edges of a record that is firmly based in the neighbourhoods of jazz and prog rock.

“Working with other musicians always means new inspiration,” says Itani. “It’s like a movie with many excellent actors, or a great painting with a lot of interesting colors. I had the honour to have great representative musicians from metal, progressive rock and fusion on Station To Station, and that’s far more than someone can expect.”

“Takeshi Minami, who played the drums on the album for eight tunes – he is also the co-producer of the record – is an old friend of Singo Otani, and it was his proposal to call Otani for a tune. Maybe the fans of Otani and United are not aware of it, but he’s a huge fan of rock music from the ’70s. That was the common point with my own background. I went with Otani into the studio and asked him to imagine a Led Zeppelin feel during the recording. He did several takes, and I selected the best one for the record.”

Itani’s connection to Donahue was a little more personal…

“Tim is a good friend of mine. In the past years, he concentrated on his harp guitar, which I really love to listen to. I did few gigs with him and his harp guitar, and it was great, but for my record I wanted to have the Madmen & Sinners sound because I love the album so much. I asked him to play crazy things that could only be realized with the fretless. He understood immediately what I meant. It’s probably the first record after Madmen that he’s done with his fretless guitar, and I’m proud of that.”

“It’s a big culture shock when you see him play for the first time,” Itani continues. “I saw Tim the first time with his harp guitar and I was totally blown away. After that we had a few sessions and it was so amazing. He really enjoyed doing these duo things, but I didn’t expect that he’d agree to do the recording in Station To Station because he hadn’t played his fretless guitar for years. I expected him to say no, but he agreed to it, and what he came up with for me was just amazing.”

For the future, Itani will continue to teach the tools of his trade, and record and perform live when he can. With luck the msuic world will clue into Station To Station and give it the attention it deserves. Nothing over-the-top; simple acknowledgement of a job well done will do just fine.

“After everything, I’m still a guitar kid,” he says. “I love to play, and if someone says ‘After listening to this album I’d really love to learn how to play guitar…’ that’s the best comment I can get.”

Check out Itani’s official website here. Station To Station is available via CDbaby.com.

Flying V – Shinobu Suzuki
Promo / album cover – Nao Nakanowatari
Tim Donahue and Nozomi Itani – Kohta Kobayashi

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