• Byzantine breaks up…3 days after they release Oblivion Beckons.
• Light This City break up before releasing the last record.
• Arsis changes members more than their underwear.
• The Black Dahlia Murder lose a guitarist…steals one from Arsis.
• Phil Demmel of Machine Head passes out twice on stage.
• DJ Sid from Slipknot breaks both of his feet…keeps on trucking.
• Joey Jordison breaks an ankle, cancels UK shows.
• Nachmystium gets booted from the Opeth tour for undisclosed shenanigans.
• Kristen Randal shows her boobs…and they’re only slightly better than Amy Winehouse’s.
• Winds Of Plague drummer Jeff Tenney abruptly leaves the band mid-tour. Says he’s tired of seeing Kristen Randall’s boobs.
• Gwen Stacey singer Bobby Oakley leaves the band…cites that he’s going to sing for Mary Jane Watson.

• All That Remains Cancels remaining US tour dates Thanksgiving week due to vocal issues with Phil Labonte.
• Gorgorath’s Gaahl almost, slightly, kind of admits that he is a homosexual.
• Axl Rose released Chinese Democracy.
• Scar Symmetry loses a singer…hires two more.
• Metallica released an album that wasn’t really all that bad.
• Divine Heresy fires Tommy Cummings and an alleged assault takes place later on.
• Tommy Cummings is hired by funk-metal band Snot to fill the shoes of the late, great Lynn Strait. (That was a totally unintentional rhyme)
• Limp Bizkit reunion rumors float around…for a day.
• Celtic Frost break up again.
• Gas prices rise to over $5.00 a gallon and bands start to drop off tours left and right.

The list goes on but these are just the ones I could think of right now. If you can think of some more, please feel free to fill it in the comments section. Other than that, it’s been a great year in metal. 2009 can only get better!

Post from: Metal Martyr

Opeth – The Roundhouse Tapes

Warrant – They Came From Hollywood

Vision Of Disorder – Dead In New York

On CD

Light This City – Stormnchaser

Adversary – Singularity

Dir enGrey – Uroboros

Six Feet Under – Death Rituals

The Faceless – Planetary Duality

Post from: Metal Martyr

MM: It’s been almost 5 months since you announced LTC’s disbanding. What have you been doing since then?

Ben: Well, I personally started attending UC Berkeley in August, so I’m busy with that.  I also have an awesome job at Pirates Press, who do all the vinyl manufacturing for all major metal and punk labels.  Other than that, jamming on some new music and enjoying life! Laura is bartending and most likely going back to school next year.  Jon, Ryan and Brian are all just working and looking for another project.

MM: Are you still in touch with the other members of Light This City and is there still a friendship factor there? Do you still work with Laura at all?

Ben: I won’t go into details, but MOST of us are on good terms. There was a bit of drama after Laura and my decision to break up the band, understandably.  There were some emotional times for a while, but for the most part things are great now.   As for Laura and I, we are working together on a new project that won’t be uber-professional and full-time,  so yeah Laura and I will still team up on something new, but I don’t want to divulge too much about that yet…

MM: You announced the disbanding on your myspace back in June. A lot of people were disappointed to see this happen so early in to your success. You kind of touched base on why you guys chose to go this route due to how touring full time had taken it’s toll on you, but it was still kind of vague to most. Would you care to elaborate on any of that?

Ben: Again, let me clarify it wasn’t everyone’s decision, just Laura and mine. In that sense we feel bad that we had to cut this career short for the other guys, we definitely do, but they are incredible musicians and they will bounce back soon.   In terms of the decision being early in our success, I am sure we could have gotten much bigger and sold many more records, but I had been doing this band since I was 14, so it was 6 years. We did 4 full length records and it was just enough for Laura and I. We were burnt out on the touring lifestyle, massively in debt, and not so excited about playing that style of music every night.  I guess it happens if you are exposed to it so often, but the band lost its fun and innocence that we really lived for in previous years.  We wanted to end it on a high note with “Stormchaser”, and we always promised ourselves we wouldn’t keep doing it if our hearts weren’t in it anymore.  We also had goals we wanted to accomplish before it got too late, and touring full time with the band wouldn’t allow those to be achieved.   We never wanted to do this band half-assed or 50%, so we decided to stop it altogether. So between all of those factors, we decided it was the best decision for us personally.

MM: Was that one of the toughest decisions that you’ve had to make? To bring to an end something that you put so much time in to?

Ben: It was definitely the hardest decision we’ve EVER had to make, but it suddenly became so clear to us.  It was a gut instinct, and we always follow those.  I don’t regret it, although there are aspects of the band we will always cherish and miss.

MM: The new Album comes out on the 11th. Obviously a lot of work went in to writing and recording this album. After the disbanding do you ever feel like all that work was in vain or is it more or less just another stepping stone in your career?

Ben: No, not at all. None of it was in vain. For me, metal and music in general has always been about the record, the songs, the listening experience. Sure, live shows are great, but sitting there with your headphones and really connecting to the music is what meant everything to me.  The new album is truly amazing, and undoubtedly our best work ever, and I feel honored that our fans will buy it and love it. What matters most to me is that our fans are able to pick up the album and appreciate it, which I am sure they will.  The absence of live shows they can live without I’m sure, but I am happy to leave them with this last record, which really does rule.

MM: You guys worked with Chuck Billy of Testament on the track “Firehaven“. Did you guys work directly with him or was the track finished and he recorded the vocals elsewhere?What was it like working with a legend in thrash metal?

Ben: We worked directly with him. He lives in the Bay Area as well so he just drove over to the studio and hung out with us for a day!  It was really awesome, and totally surreal.  He kept asking how we wanted this and that, and we were just like “Dude, you’re Chuck Billy.  You could do anything to this song and we will love it.”  It was a little crazy having to tell Chuck Billy what to do, but he was awesome!! Totally killed it, and the track is probably the heaviest thing we have ever done.

MM: Are you working on any different projects or bands that we might see in the future?

Ben: Jon, Brian and Ryan are already working on new projects, not necessarily together, but they will have new things in the works soon.  Just stay tuned to the LTC myspace site as we will keep people updated. As I said earlier, Laura and I are working on some new music, which won’t be metal, but will definitely be awesome.  I don’t want to talk much about it though being that it won’t come to fruition for a while, but we will let you know when it does..

MM: Is there any chance that Light This City will ever perform again, if not just for a local show or two?

Ben: We are trying to work out a last San Francisco show, but it is slow coming. There are a lot of details to work out, so it may or may not happen. But I will never rule out any reunions or shows years down the line.  Who knows what will happen. All we knew is that for right now we wanted to stop the band, it was what was best for us as people and musicians.

MM: What is your main focus right now as a musician?

Ben: I am actually writing a lot of music on guitar, as I always have, and really enjoying it.  Writing different kinds of music is totally refreshing, and pretty exciting. I am constantly buying new CDs of new bands that people tell me about. So I would say my main focus is honing my songwriting and really delving into what makes a song amazing, and trying to accomplish that in the future.

MM: Your label Creator-Destructor Records has released Mirror Of Dead Faces new cd and Signed Nekrogoblikon this year. Is there any other new acquisitions or are you just focusing on the bands currently on your roster?

Ben: I am also putting out a new EP by the Funeral Pyre, who’s last record was put out by Prosthetic. That is called “December” and should be out in March 09. Other than that, I am just focusing on Mirror of Dead Faces and Nekrogoblikon. The MODF record is out now, and it absolutely crushes.  Make sure you melodic death metal fans out there check it out, it is true quality!

MM: That’s all the questions I have. Is there anything that you’d like to say or add?

Ben: I just want to thank you for this interview and helping get the word out about this new record. A lot of press are understandably not interested in covering a broken up band, but this album is the best thing we have ever done and definitely deserves the attention. Pick up the new and final record, “Stormchaser” on November 11th!!

Image Source: Amazon.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

After the winter tour with fellow label mates All That Remains, Light This City got in to the studio and started recording Stormchaser. They headed out with God Forbid and Death Angel on the In Thrash We Trust tour early in to the summer but about midway through they announced their plans to disband. Sadly for their many fans, Stormchaser would be the band’s swansong, but the founding members Ben Murray and Laura Nichol had their reasons to disband. You’ll find out more in an interview to be posted later this week.

November 11th will mark the fourth and final release of Light This City and if you’re a fan, then chances are that you’ll be very happy with this album.

Stormchaser picks up where Facing The Thousand left off and does so with a vengeance. Each song has a lot of thrash driven melodic guitar work with great hooks and rhythm. Lyrically the songs are well constructed and each song tells a story. Ben Murray and Laura Nichole offered a little bit of insight in to two of the songs that I favor the most. Firehaven feature Testament front-man Chuck Billy and the last track on Stormchaser, Self Portrait.

On Firehaven:

Laura: This is my favorite title from the album. For a while, I considered titling the album, “Firehaven”, but I was outnumbered. I love the concept because it is the complete opposite of “Stormchaser”, which is all about the hunger for adventure and being a touring machine. This song came at a point where I felt a little fed up with the touring lifestyle. I was reading Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, and one of my favorite short stories in that book is one called “The Long Rain”, about a spaceship from Earth that crash-lands on Venus, a planet where it never stops raining. The men go, unprepared, on a journey in search of a “Sun-dome”, a refuge that earthlings built all around the planet to shelter visitors from the rain. But the Venusians hate earthlings and smash all of the Sun-domes. The guys from the rocketship are just wandering aimlessly, being driven insane by the constant drops pounding on their heads, looking for something they might never find.

At times on tour, I felt similarities the protagonists of the story. Here I was, searching for adventure, and I got it tenfold. Of course there are days you love being on the road. But sometimes the adventure gets to be a bit much, like a cloud constantly overhead, and you end up thinking that you need to be more careful what you wish for.

But then you get Chuck Billy to do guest vocals on a song and everything is right again! …That was such a trip. I would look into the vocal room and see this guy that probably fills up most of the booth he’s in, and then I look to my right and see our little Ben giving him all this direction on how he should be singing for the part. Chuck is the coolest dude ever. I just wish we had better beer to offer him when he visited the studio.

Ben: As Laura said, what stands out about this song is Chuck’s appearance vocally, but the music is also incredible in my opinion. I think the practice-room title for this was “Municipal Waste” because it was SO thrashy, we couldn’t help but call it that! The beginning just hits you in the face and doesn’t let up until it’s over. The chorus is a bit darker/melodic death, while the verses are totally mid tempo thrash, which we really explored on this record. When Chuck’s vocals come in at the end it just peaks and ties it all together, from there there is a heavy slam anthrax-style riff, followed by a ripping solo. All of that was really new to us and totally fun to play.

On Self Portait:

Laura: Music has a way of traveling through one’s body like water through cracks in a rock, searching out and filling up that core of someone, touching on emotions one didn’t even know how to bring out of themselves. Working these lyrics into the music flowed just like that. Ben sat down with what I wrote, played the song, and we were able to figure out the vocal patterns in half an hour, without changing a thing.

I always wanted to find a way to thank the bands that have inspired me and pushed me to accomplish things like creating “Stormchaser”. I remember riding around on the bus when I was fifteen years old, listening to Darkest Hour, and feeling like my eyes were being opened to the world of music. Not radio crap or the stuff my guitar teacher showed me. Real music. Music I could make if I just listened and learned. “Self Portrait” might read like a love song, and it sort of is one, but it was inspired by listening to my favorite bands. And I wrote it as an ode to them (and one band in particular) for continuously challenging me, causing me to realize certain aspects of myself that make up who I am today.

Ben: This song came together pretty slowly in the practice studio, and it was one of the last ones we wrote. I feel like this along with “Beginning with Release” has the most impressive guitar work the band has ever done. Ryan’s solo at the end just blows me away. This song always felt like the last track, it was so epic and felt like a finishing track. The chorus reminds me of a Darkest Hour Kris Norris kind of melody, and the harmonies are just so sweet. We didn’t really anticipate how well this song came together but I’m pretty sure it is a band favorite. The whole thing just flows great, and turned out being a really nice surprise towards the end of the writing process for “Stormchaser”.

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill metal album thrown together to satisfy a contractual obligation of a band on their way out. A lot of time and effort was obviously put in to this record. Brian Forbes and Ryan Hansen are great guitar players and bring a lot to the table with lead riffs and rhythms that are both memorable and relevant to the style of metal that Light This City established themselves with. Self portrait has a solo near then end that almost oozes with Dave Mustaine influence, or at least it kind of has an Into The Lungs Of Hell feel to it, to me.

The only thing that I can say that can be taking in a negative manner about Stormchaser is that I would have liked to see a bit more variation in Laura Nichol’s vocals. She has a great scream but there is something that I feel could make it sound even better and I can’t quite explain it. If there was a bit more of a fluctuation in her vocal tone at times I think I would enjoy it a little more.

Overall Stormchaser is a great album and a good closing to a band who’s career was just starting to take off. If you liked Remains of The Gods and Facing The Thousand then you will love Stormchaser.

Keep an eye out later this week for a short interview with Ben Murray. He will catch us up on what he’s doing these days and a little more detail in to what led up to the decision to disband Light This City.

Image Source: Amazon.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

On CD

• Beneath The Massacre: Dystopia on Prosthetic Records. (I just reviewed this yesterday. Some good stuff if you like a lot of melodic, treble string work in your death metal.)
• Carcass: Reek Of Putrefaction CD/DVD. (As I said yesterday, if you’re a Carcass fan then you will want to add this to your collection.)
• Cradle Of Filth: Godspeed On The Devil’s Thunder on Roadrunner. (If you read the title slower it says “God’s Peed On The Devil’s Thunder”)
• Burning The Masses: Mind Control on Mediaskare
• Machine Head: The Blackening Special Edition (I hate late release special editions, but this one seems like a must-have)
• Hatebreed: For The Lions on Koch. (All Covers album)
• Enslaved: Vertabrae on NUclear Blast
• Bloodbath: The Fathomless Mastery on Peaceville. (A must-have if you’re a fan of Bloodbath or Opeth.)
• Abigail Williams: In The Shadows Of A Thousand Suns. (Is that even possible?)

On DVD

• Mushroomhead Vol. 2 (This is an awesome DVD with a lot of tour and backstage footage)

Post from: Metal Martyr

LIGHT THIS CITY have begun pre-orders for the bands forthcoming swansong, Stormchaser, online here. The album will see a Nov. 11 release through Prosthetic Records and marks LIGHT THIS CITY’s first posthumous release following the band’s hiatus announced earlier this summer.

The album’s music was finished and artist Kristian Wåhlin (Emperor, Dissection, The Black Dahlia Murder) had completed artwork for the effort, so a release was scheduled as the band’s fourth full-length and third for home Prosthetic Records since LIGHT THIS CITY’s birth in 2002. A new track from Stormchaser, "Sand And Snow," is available on the band’s MySpace page.

Image Source: Prosthetic Records

Post from: Metal Martyr

LIGHT THIS CITY – STORMCHASER

1. Stormchaser
2. Fragile Heroes
3. The Anhedonia Epidemic
4. Beginning With Release
5. Firehaven
6. The Collector. Part 1: Muse
7. The Collector. Part 2: Donor
8. A Desperate Resolution
9. Wake Me At Sunset
10. Bridge To Cross
11. Sand And Snow
12. Self Portrait

“Looking back on the writing and recording of ‘Stormchaser,’ I have to say it couldn’t have been a more amazing experience,” drummer Ben Murray says. “Rehearsing every day for two months to write this record was grueling, but rewarding in the end. Working with producer Zack Ohren was awesome as usual, and he definitely got the best performances out of all of us.  Having Chuck Billy do vocals was a surreal honor, and having our friend John from the Funeral Pyre contribute his vocals was also an awesome addition. Both tracks, ‘Firehaven’ (with Chuck) and ‘Collector Part 2: Donor’ (with John) came out heavy as hell thanks to those guys.” 

“We also hope you guys dig the artwork by none other than Necrolord [Kristian Wåhlin] himself (At the Gates, Dissection, Emperor),” Murray continues. “This time around, we wanted him to conjure up an epic image of the idea behind the record title, which we think he nailed perfectly! Thanks again to him for hammering that out for us.”

‘Stormchaser’ is the follow-up to 2006’s ‘Facing The Thousand,’ which took the band on the road Death Angel, labelmates All That Remains, the Death By Decibels tour with Vader and Malevolent Creation, HORSE the band, Edguy, Into Eternity, The Funeral Pyre and Antagonist, among others, over the course of nearly two years. Three in-studio updates from LIGHT THIS CITY’s time recording ‘Stormchaser’ are available here in three parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, while the video for “The Unwelcome Savior” from ‘Facing The Thousand’ is available here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H4SVRApGhM).

Image Source: Prosthetic Records Press

Post from: Metal Martyr

As you know LTC announced back in June that they were disbanding shortly after finishing recording their new album and in mid-tour of Thrash And Burn.

It’s also rumored that the new record, being their final cd may be released in November.

Image Source: Prosthetic Records

Post from: Metal Martyr

DALLAS WAS RIGHT: SUMMER TOURS ARE BEING CANCELED WILLY NILLY

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There are still a crapload of bands on the bill to enjoy and honestly I don’t know how the hell anyone is making any money with so many bands and the low price of tickets.

For tickets, dates and bands go to: http://thrashandburn.outerloopmanagement.com/

Post from: Metal Martyr