The band have also released a teaser track, ‘Legions’, from the forthcoming new album on the band’s ReverbNation page. http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_13424984

Stay tuned to Eyefear’s Official Facebook page for further album updates.

WEDNESDAY 13 has firmly cemented himself as the undisputed leader in Horrorpunk.

With an unruly live show of fun and debauchery, WEDNESDAY 13 manages to always turn any live event into a macabre party; “Everyone leaves sweaty, smiley and enthused by what they just witnessed…they are everything that is right with rock music today” – caughtinthecrossfire.com

WEDNESDAY 13 will be bringing his gore-filled, ghoul-fest, sleazy live shows to Australia in October and will leave fans begging for more!

TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 8 JUNE, 9AM

THURSDAY 25 OCTOBER    BRISBANE, THE ZOO – 18+
www.oztix.com.au

FRIDAY 26 OCTOBER    SYDNEY, THE ANNANDALE – 18+
www.annandalehotel.com

SATURDAY 27 OCTOBER    MELBOURNE, THE ESPY – 18+
www.oztix.com.au

Presented by Soundwave Touring
www.soundwavetouring.com.au

Cancer Bats will be descending upon Australia for a blood spilling assault this July, so Australian fans be warned…’The Bats are back!

Their new album ‘Dead Set On Living’ sees them at their most ferocious; “It’s heavy, it’s catchy, it’s relentlessly brilliant and, above all else, it’s still quite unlike anything else you’re likely to hear this year”. – Metal Hammer. That’s not to say their earlier albums were anything but blistering collections of balls-out rock, because, as anyone who’s shared some blood, sweat, or beers at a Bats show will attest, that sure as hell isn’t the case.

Fuelled by a burning desire to rage harder, play louder, and have more fun than any other band, Cancer Bats are used to turning venues into rolling pits of punk rock hell and will no doubt “have the pit moving, and long-time fans thanking the musical gods that a band of this design continues to exist.” – Killyourstereo. Ferocious front man Liam Cormier cannot wait, exclaiming “Australia is one of our favourite continents to RAGE! We can’t wait to come back and go fuckin nuts!”

TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 8 JUNE, 9AM

FRIDAY 13 JULY     BRISBANE, THE HI-FI – 18+
www.thehifi.com.au

SATURDAY 14 JULY    MELBOURNE, THE HI-FI – 18+
www.thehifi.com.au

SUNDAY 15 JULY    SYDNEY, THE METRO – Lic All Ages
www.ticketek.com.au

Presented by Soundwave Touring
www.soundwavetouring.com

Periphery – Spencer Sotelo

Periphery is one of the few groups which scream musical superiority at first glance. The Meryland metalheads have been on the cutting edge of song composition and musicianship since they released their debut self-titled album in April, 2010. Their next album Periphery II, set for release on July 3 2012, is about to be unleashed upon the ears of metal fans across the globe – something which vocalist Spencer Sotelo believes will bring about a new era for the band.

Metal Obsession’s, James Brady, had the opportunity to sit down with vocalist, Spencer Sotelo, to discuss Periphery’s forthcoming new album, ‘Periphery II’.

Metal Obsession: You guys have just finished your album, how’s it all gone?

Spencer Sotelo: We’re really proud of it and can’t wait for everyone to hear it.

MO: Have you been touring since you guys finished?

Spencer: We’ve been touring off and on for the past six months straight only time we’ve had off was to finish up what we needed to do in the studio, so there hasn’t been much rest for us lately, but I wouldn’t have it any other way – that means that things are going good. If you’re busy things are good, you know.

MO: Have you played any of the new songs at shows yet?

Spencer: Oh, yeah, yeah, we’ve played Face Palm (Mute) we’ve been playing that one for like the past year, we’re actually about to release a track in about a week, maybe a little over a week, that we’re about to start playing live next week actually, before it even hits. That track’s called Total Destroy, if you’ve listened to the album.

MO: Fantastic, I haven’t had time to memorise the names but I’ll go back and listen to it.

Spencer: They’re quirky out-there names, so they’re kind hard to stick on, you gotta drill them into your brain (laughs).

MO: Is that a sign of you guys not taking yourselves too seriously, or is that just how you roll?

Spencer: A little bit of that, it’s a little bit of us just not giving a shit and letting our own personalities come through the band, very transparently. A lot of bands, I feel, take themselves too seriously nowadays and try and uphold this whole mystique aspect – you know? I feel like that used to work before the internet was around, but that doesn’t work anymore so we just like to embrace it, we like to embrace the quirkiness of the band, we’re not going to hide it, you know?

MO: The internet’s obviously helped Periphery rise to fame, are you guys still using it as much as you were?

Spencer: Absolutely, all of us we try to stay in touch with our fans as much as we can online I feel like a lot of bands are starting to catch on to that and do that now I feel like making the frans feel like you’re there and readily available to answer questions and even chat sometimes, fans really, really take notice of that and will latch on. We have crazy hardcore fans man, I don’t know if it’s because of that or not but our fans are nuts man, they’ll like fight to the death for us.

MO: You’ve been with the band for almost three years now, through that are there still times where you’ll get up on stage, look at a crowd and be blown away?

Spencer: It’s kinda a normal thin for me now, I don’t get nervous – I’ve done it hundreds of times and it doesn’t get me like it used to, but I will say when we play giant shows they’re the most breathtaking sights. I’ll walk out and see a sea of heads, you know. We played this festival called the Pulp Summer Slam over in the Philippines about a month or a few weeks ago and we played to over 20,000 people – that was the biggest crowd we had seen to date, that we had played to, we actually played to that many people. It was an insane feeling, you know, I was just speechless, after one of our songs I usually talk to the crowd but at one point I was just speechless, I was just shocked at like how many people are out there enjoying our music, it’s an insane feeling, you know?

MO: Going back to the album here, it will be released in the next month or so, what was the goal with this one – I notice it’s slightly different to Periphery I?

Spencer: The goal with this album was to destroy our last album and make it larger than life, the whole tunes from sound to sonically all the way up to song writing, i feel like we did a really good job with it – my goal with this was to make people not remember the first album. When people listen to this I want them to just want to listen to this one, not the old album ever again [laughs].”

MO: There’s a few guest guitarists – you’ve got Petrucci, Guthrie Govan, even Wes from The Faceless – that’s huge man.

Spencer: Oh, yeah, yeah – Wes is a good buddy of our’s, he’s only been in the faceless for a couple of months and he’s been a really dear friend of our’s, of the whole band, for a couple of years – he used to work for a guitar company that Mischa works tightly-knit with, that’s how we met him. He’s just been a huge supporter of the band and has been a really good friend of our’s for a long time, so we asked if he wanted to do a guest solo but he just, he rips! He’s one of my favourite guitar players and the solo he ended up writing for the album is just breathtaking.

MO: People like Tosin Abasi, obviously both The Faceless guys and the guys in Periphery as well, it seems like there’s a new edge coming to this kind of music.

Spencer: We’re trying to bring it back man, bring back the good song writing. I feel like so much metal nowadays is just watered-down shit man and I get it, I get why certain people like certain styles of metal that are very, uh, not reserved, but they just don’t have that edge. Metal used to have an edge back in like the 80′s early 90′s and somewhere in-between now and then it lost that edge, it almost got like a cookie-cutter sound to it, everything sounds the same. We’re trying to just bring that edge back and that originality back, you know, we’re trying to lead that movement for people in the metal community to start writing original stuff again, you know?

MO: I noticed as well, your vocals are awesome on this album, was that something you wanted to do, to get a different sort of sound?

Spencer: This album is more my sound because I didn’t really write much the vocals for the last album, I joined the band around the time that it needed to be recorded and most of it was witten – I only wrote a couple of the songs on the last album. Just touring and practising and recording just made me a better singer and I wanted to experiment with a different type of singing and I feel like I’ve really started to come into my own in the past year and I wanted to incorporate all the new styles that I’ve picked up over the years on a record. I don’t want to just pidgeon-hole myself to just one sound and do this because the fans like it or because I think this is what people are going to like, I wanted to do it because it felt right to me and I experimented and I’m really happy with the way the singing came out on this album. I think it’s one of the stronger points on the album, the last album I felt like the vocals were cool on it but it just felt like this thing that sat over the music and it didn’t really feel like it worked as a whole, it just felt like these songs with vocals slapped on them. With this album the vocals feel like they’re driving the song, you know?

MO: I’ve read a few interviews here and there and reviews and whatnot, there were some people that were criticising your work, has that been hard to deal with?

Spencer: I’m ok with it man, you’re going to have haters no matter what you do. You could be the most awesome, greatest singer who ever walked the planet and you’re going to have haters man, that’s just how it is. There’s always going to be somebody out there who doesn’t like what you’re doing and wants to stifle you but you can’t let it get to you, because at the end of the day the people out there that are saying that are probably at most like 5%, maybe not even that, of your fans. Chances are most of your fans don’t post on the internet a lot of the people don’t post their opinions, there are hundreds of people looking at your page that don’t post. You just gotta brush it off your shoulder, take it with a grain of salt and give it the flick, don’t let what people say affect what you do, because if you do then you’ve lost, you know?

MO: From what you’re saying it sounds like you’ve had some pretty good support from the rest of the band?

Spencer: They hired me as potential, you know, they knew I wasn’t  the best singer in the world when they hired me but they liked that I could write and they liked aspects of my voice that they knew were going to… I guess they looked at me like a diamond in the rough where they knew I was going to buff out in time and start to shine and I feel like that’s what’s starting to happen now. They had faith in me from the beginning and that was the plan, for me to just keep working on what I was doing and I did, I put in the work and like with anything, if you put in the work you’re going to see the benefits.

MO: Well, what about the singers? We always hear about the guitarists that have inspired Mischa but what about you, who are your idols?

Spencer: I listen to a lot of different things man, I don’t even really listen to much metal but the things that influence me are the things that inspire me, not necessarily things that I’m hugely influenced by. I’m taken more by inspiration rather than influence. If something inspires me to write I don’t go `I want to sound like that’, or `I want to sound like this’, it just inspires me to do what I do. I always try to be as original as possible and not try and copy anybody else’s style or anything like that – I just like taking inspiration from other things, I guess.

MO: What were you doing before you joined the band?

Spencer: I used to be a car detailer (laughs) in my spare time I worked in my friend’s studio, helping him record things and kind of interning under him and studying under him, learning how to navigate around in a recording studio but yeah, I used to wash and detail cars for my secular life [laughs].

MO: We’re coming close to time, but when are you guys coming to Australia next?

Spencer: There’s been some talk with our people about trying to get there asap, nothing written down yet but we are trying to work it out right now but I’m sure there’s going to be an announcement in the next couple of months about next time we hit Australia. I want to get back sooner than later because I love it down there. `Down `undah’ [laughs].

Check out Periphery‘s new album, ‘Periphery II’, available  June 29th via Roadrunner Records Australia.
http://au.roadrunnerrecords.com

Paul Gilbert is here to carryout for the first time a full Master Class tour in 6 states around Australia. Paul is known in the trade as being a high profile guitarist and clinician. Paul is currently recording his latest CD which will be released on the tour. To bring even more excitement to each clinic Paul has requested a local bass player and drummer support him on stage with some of his new tunes. Keeping with Thump Music’s tradition of supporting Australian musicians on our tours means you may get the chance to play with Paul on the night. So Paul will be playing live with a band, demonstrating typical lessons he provides for students from beginner to advanced, answering questions from attendees on the night, covering sound, technique, theory and industry questions.

Paul Gilbert has an extensive biography, which shows his accomplishments.

From platinum album sales and number one chart success as a founding member of MR. BIG, to frightening the guitar community with new levels of ferocious picking technique with shred-pioneers RACER X, to exploring punk, pop, classical, blues, jazz, and progressive instrumental styles in his solo career, Paul Gilbert has recorded a massive amount of stunning guitar music, all while circling the globe to play sold-out arenas from Japan to Jakarta.

Paul’s style stands out for it’s rare combination of accuracy, creativity, and power – all which are balanced with Paul’s sense of humor and pure love of music.

Although Paul is best known for his work with MR. BIG and RACER X, he has also toured with Joe Satriani’s G3, played in a host of tribute concerts with legendary drummer Mike Portnoy, and been integral in the design of his signature Ibanez PGM and Fireman guitars.

Paul’s legacy as a guitar instructor began when he was eighteen, when he was hired to teach at Hollywood’s Guitar Institute of Technology. Paul’s groundbreaking “Intense Rock” videos and DVDs have inspired legions of guitarists to improve their accuracy, speed, and phrasing. Years as a columnist for Guitar Player magazine, and most recently, Premier Guitar magazine, along with giving countless clinics, private lessons, and serving for five years as the dean of MI Japan, have given Paul deep experience in the art of communicating music to all levels of guitarists.

Over twenty-five years in the music business have only increased Paul’s passion to explore the possibilities of music and the art of playing the guitar. Whether he’s playing to 10,000 fans or jamming one-on-one with a student, Paul is living his childhood dream of taking the sounds in his head and bringing them into reality – on the electric guitar.

Brisbane – Monday 8th of October 2012 – 7.30 pm till late 
THE PRINCESS THEATRE
8 Annerley Road
Woolloongabba, QLD
4101

Sydney – Wednesday 10th of October 2012 – 7.30 pm till late 
C3 THEATRE
108-120 Silverwater Rd
Silverwater
Sydney , NSW
2128

Melbourne – Thursday 11th October 2012 – 7.30 pm till late 
360 THEATRE
360 Main Road
Lower Plenty
Melbourne , VIC
3093

Hobart – Saturday 13th October 2012 – 10am till 12.45pm
UTAS – Conservatorium of Music – THEATRE
5 Sandy Bay Road
Hobart, TAS
7000

Adelaide – Monday 15th October 2012 – 7.30 pm till late 
STAR THEATRES
145 Sir Donald Bradman Drive
Hilton
Adelaide, SA
5033

Perth – Wednesday 17th October 2012 – 7.30 pm till late 
JOHN INVERITY THEATRE / HALE SCHOOL
Hale Rd
Wembley Downs
Perth, WA
6019

Clinics will run for over 2 hours and give opportunity for attendees to jam alongside Paul at the clinic.

Standard ticket pricing is $80 per person. However for our loyal clinic attendants we are opening up an early bird price of $69.00 per person. The early bird period will last for only a limited time so we encourage you to jump online fast and secure your ticket.

Book and purchase tickets now via Thump Music – http://bookings.thumpmusic.com.au

A Thump Music Show Bag will be supplied to all pre-paying customers. We cannot assure a Show Bag to customers paying on the night. This Thumpin’ Show Bag comes with over $50.00 worth of awesome gear. As Thump Music has become well known for there will be giveaways big and small on the night ranging from pedals, strings to instruments and more.

In each state Paul will be answering your questions.*

*Due to Paul’s condition with his hearing he has requested that all questions be emailed to Thump Music and we will print out the question and Paul will address that question in your specific state. All questions should be sent to questions@thumpmusic.com.au and should in the SUBJECT have your Name, ticket number and State where you will be attending. There will be a cut off period prior to the tour so that we can travel and have Paul go through the questions prior to each show.

After unleashing their monumental sounds to packed houses across the country last year, experimental metal outfit Russian Circles are back on our shores this September and are bringing Utah duo Eagle Twin along for the ride.

Hailing from the windy city of Chicago, Russian Circles have been making their mark on the international underground since 2004. Starting with their self tiled, self released debut EP, Russian Circles have gone onto critical acclaim by recording numerous singles and split releases, not to mention three full length albums. Their latest offering “Empros” is their fourth and heaviest album to date. Australian audiences, prepare your ears for a serious load of fresh and heavy discordant metal.

Although Eagle Twin is a new entity, its helmsman Gentry Densley is no stranger to innovative, heavy music. Densley was the musical visionary and leader of the legendary Jazz, Prog, Rock, Metal, Hardcore group Iceburn from 1991-2001. In order to disseminate his majestic and mountainous riffs in the present day, he enlisted massively behemoth skinsman Tyler Smith. The two have come together with a love of all things heavy. Its doom/blues/roots/rock backing a new mythology of epic, old testament proportions. This will be their second visit down under, the duo have a new album on the way also.

Heathen Skulls are proud to present Chicago’s Russian Circles in their second showing on Australian soil with special guests, Eagle Twin. They tour nationally this September through to October, see venues for more details.

TOUR DATES:

Friday 28th Sept – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
tickets: https://corner.ticketscout.com.au/gigs/589-russian-circles-with-eagle-twin

Saturday 29th Sept – Fowlers Live, Adelaide
tickets: http://www.fowlerslive.com.au/tickets.html

Sunday 30th Sept – The Bakery, Perth
tickets: http://tickets.lifeisnoise.com/

Thursday 4th Oct – ANU Bar, Canberra
Tickets: TBC

Friday 5th Oct – The Zoo, Brisbane
tickets: http://zoo.oztix.com.au/

Saturday 6th Oct – Hi Fi Bar, Sydney
tickets: www.thehifi.com.au

***Tickets on sale Monday 4th June***

Adam Caciolo – Vocals
Alex Bell – Guitars
Aidan Connell – Guitars
Corey Pearce – Bass
Harry Andrews – Drums

Starting off at 13-14 years old as Men Among Wolves, Geelong death metallers Athenas Wake have sure progressed musically over the past few years; from playing breakdowns in their drummers basement all day long, to their current groundbreaking modern death metal sound. The band head into the studio in July to record their debut EP, which although it mainly sticks to their modern death metal sound, it has been described as very European with a lot of black metal influence. At a Sunday night band practice at Pan Studios, Metal Obsession’s Patrick Emmett rocked up to check out their new material (which is fantastic) and have a chat about the new EP, what’s next for the band, and stupid discussions about the Human Centipede.

Yes, you are correct, that lineup is absolutely fucking monstrous. And, thanks to The Coffins Slave Records, we have a double pass for the Saturday show up for grabs! That means you can see Inquisition (USA), Hobbs Angel of Death, Mournful Congregation, Vomitor, Astriaal, Impetuous Ritual, Lord, Destruktor, Denouncement Pyre, Heresiarch, Rituals of the Oak and Mongrels Cross for free on June 9th at Sydney’s Manning Bar. It doesn’t get much better than that.

All you have to do, is head over to The Coffins Slave website, have a look at their recent additions section, and chuck an email to comp(at)metalobsession(dot)net listing three recent Australian additions to their online store. Entries close on Thursday June 7th, entrants must be 18+

Live photos available in our gallery

The cold Thursday night in Melbourne did not scare away the metalheads that gathered around the Hi-Fi to see the man that once had to fill the shoes that nobody less than Rob Halford as lead singer for legendary Judas Priest! How many people on Earth can actually say that? Only him, as Al Atkins came before Rob… and then he moved on to Iced Earth, and finally Yngwie Malmsteen, besides his own solo project and his band Beyond Fear…

Photo by: Danielle Bonich

Before all that, he started as a singer in an American cover band of Judas Priest, that ended up composing their own material and releasing under the name of Winters Bane… if you don’t have Winters Bane’s “Heart of a Killer”, from 1993, stop what you’re doing now and go get it. Satisfaction guaranteed, Priest meets Pantera, riff machine with high-pitched Metal screaming… ok, back to Earth now!

BerserkerfoX opened the night but unfortunately I missed it due to other commitments (yes, ok, day job), apologies for not covering them properly here, but what I heard about their gig was really positive, so keep it up!

Next opening act were local legends Pegazus – now they are the kind of band that reminds us what Metal is all about: raw, heavy, biker-style, muscular, pounding, powerful… man this band is a powerhouse! I had their albums back in Brazil, before I moved to Australia, as one day a friend of mine who runs a local CD shop said “forget all this nu metal c**p that has been going on in the nineties, this is old school Metal from Down Under!”… Some fifteen years later here I am seeing them live…Road Warrior, from their latest release In Metal We Trust, is a classic of epic proportions!

Local veterans Black Majesty followed them. I had seen them before opening for Blind Guardian, and they are great. They play competent and catchy power metal, and have awesome musicians. If that’s not enough, lead singer leads very well and looks like Ronnie James Dio as a bonus! What else do you want?

After such an exciting warm up, we’re greeted by the man that once sent shivers down axe Gods Glenn Tipon and K. K. Downing while singing “The Ripper”… no frills, straight into the classic “Painkiller”, and if the pain is gone we then go “Burn in Hell!” Priest assault! And then he goes “what is my name?… what is my name?”… The Ripper, that’s for sure! OK, he is not Rob Halford and the competent band around him is not Judas Priest, but these were honest renditions of these classic songs… Still dwelling on the Priest domain (I could live there forever): Victim of Changes!

Change of gears as the band delivers Scream Machine, from the Beyond Fear debut album… The man then interacts with the crowd, and says that he remember coming to Australia last time with Judas Priest… that was five bands ago for him! Happy to be back, he says they will cover the harder material first so he can start drinking beer… and in acoustic style they deliver a beautiful version of “When the Eagle Cries” by Iced Earth, and acoustic evolving into electric version of “Diamonds and Rust”, originally by Joan Baez, made famous by Judas Priest… actually Ritchie Blackmore’s renaissance style band Blackmore’s Night covered this song too, be sure to check it out…

Finally going all the way back to his beginnings as a singer, he mentions how he joined Winters Bane at a very young age and recorded Heart of a Killer, and then delivers the song of the same name, with its catchy riffs and absolute beautiful closing guitar solos!

This concert took place just two days after the anniversary of the passing of legendary Ronnie James Dio, who was for sure one of Tim’s influences, and according to him “best singer ever in any style of music”! So as homage, we’re presented with a magnificent version of “Stand Up and Shout”, from Dio’s band first album Holy Diver…

The night was far from being over. From his solo album Play My Game comes “Starting Over”, and then back to Priest with “Bloodstained” (the second from his era with the band) followed by an attempt at “Rising Force” by Yngwie Malmsteen that was cut off after about one minute… half joking half disguising his frustration he turns at the band and asks “what the f**k happened” they all blame the drummer for going out of tempo… he then goes “well we’ll then need to get another drummer”… so surprisingly they go into a Priest song you don’t hear live quite often these days, ”Desert Plains”, followed by Beyond Fear’s ”The Human Race”, and making the crowd cheer loudly with “One on One”, third and last from his era with the Metal Gods..

After a quick pause, encore starts off with the absolute anthem “Living After Midnight”, and if that was not enough, another tribute to Dio with his Black Sabbath era seminal, groundbreaking, magnum opus ”Heaven and Hell”…one thing is for sure: after all that, the singer lost his voice, and we all lost our breath and speech, so to speak… What a night!

Set List:

Painkiller
Burn In Hell
The Ripper
Victim of Changes
Scream Machine
When the Eagle Cries
Diamonds and Rust
Heart of a Killer
Stand Up and Shout
Starting Over
Bloodstained
Rising Force
Desert Plains
The Human Race
One on One

Encore:

Living After Midnight
Heaven and Hell

The Burial Chamber Orchestra present the third movement from Chopin‘s Second Sonata in Bb Flat Minor for Piano. The Burial Chamber Orchestra has currently (as of mid-2011) been working on the entire sonata, and this is the third of four movements in the piece.

Be sure to follow them over at their Facebook page for updates.