Metal Martyr » dream theater

Contest: Win Bigelf ‘Cheat the Gallows’ CD and T-Shirt

Eric J — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:19:01 +0000

I was given the opportunity last week to listen to Bigelf’s new CD Cheat the Gallows, and I absolutely love this band. While most of their songs wouldn’t be considered “metal”, one of their jams, titled “The Evils of Rock and Roll” is featured on Revolver Magazine’s free 21 song Metal Mayhem Compilation, which is the first song I heard by the group.

As part of the Progressive Nation Tour, Bigelf is currently touring with Dream Theater, Zappa Plays Zappa and Scale the Summit. Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy says:

Los Angeles’ Bigelf are my personal favorite new band to come along in many years…their latest CD “Cheat The Gallows” is my favorite album of the year and I already had positioned them onto the European run of Progressive Nation in the Fall….with them now joining us on PN09 in North America as well, it looks like world domination is now not that far out of reach for them!

Bigelf has a very refreshing sound, a pleasing mix of the Beatles, Pink Floyd with a hefty dash of Black Sabbath thrown in for awesomeness. Cheat the Gallows is “30 years behind and 5 years ahead of what’s happening in music today.”

Read my review and contest details after the jump!

The album starts with “The Gravest Show on Earth”, and is an absolutely brilliant way to kick off this CD. With a beautifully dark “here comes the carnival” feel to it, I was reminded of classic Sabbath, and for some reason The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” popped into my head at one point. Brilliant.

Bigelf captures a 70’s style that I haven’t heard in a long time, and didn’t know that I was missing until now. Paying homage to some of the best artists in music history, but with a style all their own, Bigelf is set to take the stage and show us what they bring to the rock table on the following dates:

Fri July 31st – Tower Theater – Philadelphia, PA
Sat Aug 1st – Merriweather Post – Washington DC *
Sun Aug 2nd – Bank Of America Pavillion – Boston, MA
Tues Aug 4th – The Palace Theater – Albany, NY
Wed Aug 5th – Chevrolet Theater – Wallingford, CT
Fri Aug 7th – Convention Hall – Asbury Park, NJ
Sat Aug 8 – Brookhaven Amphitheater – Brookhaven, NY
Tues Aug 11th – The Agora – Quebec City, QUE
Wed Aug 12th – Bell Center – Montreal, QUE
Fri Aug 14th – Molson Amphitheater – Toronto, ONT
Sun Aug 16th – The Burton Cummings Theater – Winnipeg, MAN
Tues Aug 18th – MacEwan Hall – Calgary, AB
Wed Aug 19th – Shaw Conference Center – Edmonton, AB
Fri Aug 21st – The Orpheum Theater – Minneapolis, MN
Sat Aug 22nd – Riverside Theater – Milwaukee, WI
Sun Aug 23rd – Chicago Theater – Chicago, IL
Tues Aug 25th – Temple Hoyne Buell Theater – Denver, CO
Thur Aug 27th – San Jose Civic Auditorium – San Jose, CA
Fri Aug 28th – The Joint – Las Vegas, NV
Sat Aug 29th – The Greek Theater – Los Angeles, CA

* – Additional Special Guests on the 8/1 Washington DC show will be Queensryche (a special one-off 5 band Progressive Nation bill for 1 night only!)

Contest Entry and Rules:

You only need to leave a comment to enter the contest. One comment per reader, per day. However, to make it a bit more fun, you could watch the video below and leave your own “mini review” of Bigelf’s song “Money, It’s Pure Evil” in the comment section!

The contest will run from today (July 30) until August 6 at 5pm CST. One winner will be chosen at random from the comments section, and will be sent a copy of Bigelf’s Cheat the Gallows CD and a t-shirt (men’s sizes medium and large only). Winner must live in the U.S. or Canada to receive prizes.

(Watch the video here)

Hear the full song here! (To download the MP3, right click and choose “save as”)

[image: Amazon]

Post from: Metal Martyr

Dream Theater: A Rite Of Passage Video

Scott — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:46:21 +0000

Here is the new video from prog-metal pioneers, or whatever you want to call them these days, Dream Theater. The new video, A Rite Of Passage, comes off of their upcoming album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, set for a June 23rd release date on Roadrunner.

Post from: Metal Martyr

Progressive Nation Goes International This Fall

Scott — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:33:24 +0000

Dream Theater will be taking their Progressive Nation tour to Europe and the UK. Along for the ride will be Sweden prog-metal masters, Opeth. Also on the tour will be Bigelf and Unexpect.

I’m sure you’re familiar with Dream Theater and Opeth, but chances are you haven’t heard of or heard much of Bigelf. Bigelf is a rock outfit that kind of fuses the sounds of Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and The Beatles into an amazingly different, yet cool sound. They released Cheat The Gallows last year through custard records. Dates have yet to be confirmed for Progressive Nation.

Image: Amazon.com

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Dream Theater Recording New Album

Scott — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:30:59 +0000

Dream Theater have wrapped up the drum tracks on the next Dream Theater album. Metal Underground reports that drummer Mike Portnoy has made the following statement about the new record:

“Imagine a Dream Theater album with ‘A Change Of Seasons,’ ‘Octavarium,’ ‘Learning To Live,’ ‘Pull Me Under’ and ‘The Glass Prison’… all on one album… COULD YOU HANDLE IT?? Excited? I sure am!!!!”

Sound like this could be an interesting album, but we’ll have to wait until next year to find out.

Image Source: Newscom.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

Dream Theater | Forsaken Video

Scott — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:43:14 +0000

Headbanger’s Ball was alright last night, from what I saw. I really like that Pelican video for Dead Between The Walls, the Dead Child Sweet Chariot Video and the Dream Theater video for Forsaken. However I really wish they would take that Century Black Ocean video out of rotation. I’m not a huge Dream Theater fan by any means but this new (Yeah I know, not really new) song and video are pretty cool. Mike Portnay must have said Opeth about a hundred time. Dude, I know you like Opeth, but damn. Anyway, enjoy the video.

Post from: Metal Martyr

Metal Shavings 5/23

Scott — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:07:05 +0000

Holy shit it’s been forever since I did a Metal Shavings bit. I’ve been covering so much press releases and such lately that I have lacked the human side of this site. My opinion is my outlet on things that are wrong, right or indifferent. And like everyone else I have to get shit off of my chest. Let’s see what we have on our platter tonight…

Anheuser Busch settled it’s lawsuits with the families of victims of the 2003 Station nightclub fire, paying 21 million dollars as opposed to going any further with legal actions and fees. How the hell Anheuser Busch was responsible in any way of this tragedy is beyond me. It’s like the stupid woman that didn’t know here McDonalds coffee was hot. The legal and justice system in this country is all f*cked up. Next up to settle is the company that makes the urinal candies…cause you know they are responsible for this somehow as well.

Morbid Angel announced earlier this week that they have added a new guitar player into the mix. That’s cool to take a little pressure off of Trey Azagthoth. It’s also really cool to see the band back to the best line up with David Vincent back on vocals. The new guitarist is Thor Anders Mythren from Zyklon.

You may have saw earlier that All That Remains have names their new recording ‘Overcome‘ as opposed to ‘Fozzy’, which I suggested on Blabbermouth awhile back due to Chris Jericho’s band naming their last album All That Remains. ‘Overcome’, a kind of a generic name for an album in my opinion but I think Phil may have been having some personal problems during the time of recording or whatever and perhaps this is where the name came from. Phil also said it’s a much darker album than The Fall Of Ideals. I don’t give a shit what they name it, it’s sure to kill! ATR!!!

Lars Ulrich’s father says the new cd “Sounds like Metallica” which could mean a number of things but at least he didn’t say “Delete that” like he did on Some Kind Of Monster, which in my opinion they should have listened to him. Whatever…we’ll see.

Hammerfall is releasing a Cover album with a bunch of cool songs on it…Makes me wonder why Dream Theater never did this because whenever you heard them doing covers live, they always sounded amazing. Or did they actually do this? They should.

Tommy Lee will be lending his voice to a half hour animated series called “The Life and Times Of Jimmie Jaxx” which is supposedly based on actual events of his life. So what they are saying is this cartoon is going to be about a mediocre drummer who screws a super-model, makes 4 different career changes in an attempt to stay relevant, and ends back up in the same band that gave him fame but he wanted to abandon but realized that THIS was the only way he could stay semi-relevant….does that make sense?

Well that’s all the cynicism and/or enthusiasm I can expend in one day.

Post from: Metal Martyr

Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy At Record Store Day

Scott — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:19:57 +0000

For those that do not know, Record Store Day was a day to celebrate and emphasize the importance of independent records stores. Not only are independent records stores a great place to pick up records but they are a cultural icon. Even though I encourage and support legal internet downloads I still like to be able to go into a small record store and look through their catalog and see what they have. Sometimes you can find some rarities and cds at good prices. Although larger stores like F.Y.E. have a great selection you can bet that the prices will be higher than most places and the employees are clueless about what they have and what it is about. They have to look in the computer if you ask them if they have something. Smaller, independent records stores usually hire employees that have a love for music and are knowledgeable in different genres. Getting to the video, various bands and artists came together to support Record Store Day to include Prog Metal Icons Dream Theater and Metal Icons, Metallica. Below is Dreamtheater’s Mike Portnay.

Post from: Metal Martyr