Old school death metallers Memoriam (featuring ex and current members of Bolt Thrower and Benediction) are set to unleash their debut album ‘For The Fallen’ on March 24 through Nuclear Blast Records. It will contain eight tracks, including ‘War Rages On’, ‘Resistance’ (both featured on ‘The Hellfire Demos II’) and ‘Surrounded (By Death)’ (featured on ‘The Hellfire Demos II’).

The album’s impressive artwork was created by Dan Seagrave (Benediction, Dismember, Hypocrisy, Suffocation). He said: “[I started] from the band’s thoughts on visualising a kind of funeral procession with a theme of combat, war and in conjunction with the title ‘For the Fallen’. As with all my works, I then attempted to make the information evolve in my mind’s eye, and allow imagination to take over those elements, but retaining the core concept. The painting thus depicts a funeral procession moving through a long war torn cityscape; twisted shards of towers and buildings. A cathedral facade stands defiantly, yet riddled with destruction and decay. At closer inspection the structures all seem to be infected with an element of natural decomposition, as if organically inclined to fade with the demise of the season.

“The season itself lost in a timeless void. The figures appear … Read More

When your vocalist sounds like a young Martin Van Drunen and you ask legendary designer Dan Seagrave to do the artwork for your debut album, the message is pretty clear, isn’t it? Try to tickle Rude’s guitarist and frontman Yusef Wallace by stating that their debut album ‘Soul Recall’ is “a classic death metal sounding record stuck in 1991” and he’ll answer: “I guess that’s a compliment. I’d have to say most anything from 1995 onward, until the last couple of years, sounds like crap, so I’d rather be on the good side of things.” Formed in 2008, initially Rude had a thrashier vibe and even switched monikers to suit their more straight-forward and primitive sound, calling themselves Forsaker. But after one self-titled demo, they turned back to both their initial name and a more death metal direction. “We still have that thrash aspect in our music but with a different second guitar player and we’re now tuned down half a step,” Yusef admits. “I like that genre still, not the corny stuff though, but I don’t think it’s what makes us different. I’m leaning more towards us playing death metal in E flat. I do like listening to bands in … Read More