SERIOUS BLACK have released their new single & video for ‘When The Stars Are Right‘, the first track to be taken from upcoming album ‘Suite 226‘ which will be released 31st January on AFM Records.
The most anticipated release in Power Metal, SERIOUS BLACK are back with their furious and melodic up-tempo and brand new single ‘When The Stars Are Right‘.
The band re-enters the Power Metal arena this fall, Urban breed’s haunting voice, a truly theatrical arrangement of the song and a cinematic video-clip are creating excitement for the new record. The German-American band will release their highly anticipated fourth studio album ‘Suite 226‘.
‘Suite 226’ features more driving guitars, catchy hooks and the finest riffing, as you know from As Daylight Breaks, and will released 31st of January 2020 via AFM-Records.
Human Fortress have released their new lyric video for single ‘Thunder’, taken from their upcoming album ‘Reign Of Gold‘ which is set for release on 6th Dec on AFM Records.
The roots of Human Fortress go back to 1999 and the band from Hannover can look back on an impressive history. With their song ‘The Dragon’s Lair‘ produced by Tommy Newton (VICTORY), they won the Rock Hard Magazin‘ battle for the best unsigned song in 2000, and their debut album ‘Lord Of Earth And Heaven’s Heir‘ was realeased shortly after. Numerous live shows at Wacken Open Air followed as well as four more albums and several line up changes.
In 2012, singer Jioti Parcharidis whose powerful voice was characteristic for the Power Metal formation, handed the microphone over to Gus Monsanto (due to health issues). The Brazilian has a convincing voice as well and together with the 4th release ‘Raided Land’, mixed and mastered by Sebastian ‘Seeb’ Levermann (ORDEN OGAN), Human Fortress raised attention around the globe again and got back to their old style.
After all the positive feedback, the band decided to keep on writing new songs for ‘Thieves Of The Night‘ and re-released their second album ‘Defenders Of The Crown‘ in the same year. Due to the melodic hooks, the heroic hymns and powerful vocals, spiced up with royal-medieval melodies, the sound stays unique. After three years of creative work, the epic Metal band is ready to release their sixth album ‘Reign Of Gold‘ on 6th December with Tommy Newton in control of production.
Human Fortress also planst to get more active regarding live shows. “It is our big goal, to play more concerts and festivals“, the band states. “Our booker Lucky Bob is
looking forward to many requests from event promoters!“
Tracklist:
01 – Imminence
02 – Thunder
03 – Reign Of Gold
04 – Lucifer’s Waltz
05 – Bullet Of Betrayal
06 – Shinning Light
07 – Surrender
08 – The Blacksmith
09 – Martial Valor
10 – Legion Of The Damned
11 – Victory
Line up:
Gus Monsanto – vocals
Torsten Wolf – guitar
Volker Trost – guitar
Dirk Liehm – keyboards
Andre Hort – bass
Apostolos Zaios – drums
BROTHERS OF METAL have released the video for single ‘Njord‘, the first track to be taken from their upcoming new album ‘Emblas Saga‘ which is due out on 10th January.
The hype is real! One must have lived under a rock to not hear of this amazing new band from Falun, Sweden: BROTHERS OF METAL are an extraordinary 8-piece which is taking the Metal world by storm. Their initially self-released debut ‘Prophecy Of Ragnarök’ was officially made available by AFM Records in November 2018, and it became a best seller right away. On top of that, the album’s songs were streamed more than 25 million times!, which is a huge number for a Metal band, let alone a group still in its early stages.
Therefore, anticipation and expectations are equally high – and following up a hit debut like ‘Prophecy Of Ragnarök‘ is not an easy task. BROTHERS OF METAL prevail in this battle and their masterfully crafted new weapon ‘Emblas Saga’ will pave them the way to a lot more future victories.
Fresh off triumphant festival gigs at Sweden Rock festival and Germany’s Rockharz & Rock Am Stück festivals, the buzz is stronger than ever – not only for new material but also live concerts. And again, the band is heeding the call, announcing their first tour – a headlining tour right away – which will precede the release of ‘Emblas Saga‘ (out January 10th) in late January. BROTHERS OF METAL will be joined by their labelmates, Italian folk power metallers Elvenking, on this leg.
LORDI release their new single & video ‘Shake The Baby Silent‘ on 8th November, this is the first track to be taken from their upcoming album ‘Killection: A Fictional Compilation‘ which is due out on 31st January on AFM Records.
This song is one of the newest on the album’s fictional time line, supposedly to have been released in 1995. The song is available on all streaming and digital platforms and you can order this & pre-order your copy of ‘Killection‘ here: https://shop.afm-records.de/de/lordi/
AFM Records are extremely excited to announce the new album ‘Killection‘ from the acclaimed Finnish Hard Rock/Heavy Metal monsters LORDI! ‘Killection‘ will hit the streets 31st January 2020 and this, the tenth album in the band’s history, has turned out to be the most extraordinary and varied album so far.
The album will be available as Digipak, Ltd. Box set, Ltd. Gtf. Picture 2 Vinyl, Ltd. Gtf. Turquise 2 Vinyl, Ltd. GTF Clear 2 Vinyl, Ltd. Gtf. Black/Silver Splatter 2 Vinyl and digital!
Pre-order here:http://afmrec.de/Killection
Rock/Heavy Metal monsters LORDI were founded in 1992 by lead singer, songwriter, visual art designer and costume designer Mr. Lordi. The band has deep Finnish roots originating from the city of Rovaniemi in Lapland. In 2006 they celebrated their international breakthrough by winning the Eurovision Song Contest (‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’).
But is it possible that this is only a pale misperception of our poor, limited reality?
What if LORDI would have already been making music since the early 70’s? And what if they have been releasing one hit single after the other since those times and now, almost 50 years later, are looking back on a full collection of songs that have been successful ever since?
This is exactly the idea that LORDI are executing with their newest studio album Killection.
‘Killection‘ will be released on January 31st via AFM Records. Once more Mr. Lordi, the master of the masquerade, presents us with one of his ideas, absurd and genius at the same time, and comes up with a concept that has never been done before in the music industry: This is a compilation album that simply says “what if” LORDI had been in existence since the early 70’s. It contains all their imaginary hit singles from different periods done with painstaking attention to detail using authentic studios and vintage technology. This is how they would have sounded if LORDI had made music back then and therefore would have had the hit material to release this compilation now.
This is how Mr. Lordi himself sums it up: “Killection is a fictional compilation album. It contains songs that LORDI would have written between the early 70’s through the mid-90’s. The compilation contains one “brand new” song from 2019 as well, cause that’s somehow always typical for compilations.” Tracklist:
01 Radio SCG 10
02 Horror For Hire
03 Shake The Baby Silent
04 Like A Bee To The Honey
05 Apollyon
06 SCG10 The Last Hour
07 Blow My Fuse
08 I Dug A Hole In The Yard For You
09 Zombimbo
10 Up To No Good
11 SCG10 Demonic Semitones
12 Cutterfly
13 Evil
14 Scream Demon
15 SCG10 I Am Here
The album will be available as Digipak, Ltd. Box set, Ltd. Gtf. Picture 2 Vinyl, Ltd. Gtf. Turquise 2 Vinyl, Ltd. GTF Clear 2 Vinyl, Ltd. Gtf. Black/Silver Splatter 2 Vinyl and digital!
Pre-order here: http://afmrec.de/Killection
AFM Records are extremely excited to announce the new album ‘Killection’ from the acclaimed Finnish Hard Rock/Heavy Metal monsters LORDI!
‘Killection‘ will hit the streets 31st January 2020 and this, the tenth album in the band’s history, has turned out to be the most extraordinary and varied album so far.
Rock/Heavy Metal monsters LORDI were founded in 1992 by lead singer, songwriter, visual art designer and costume designer Mr. Lordi. The band has deep Finnish roots originating from the city of Rovaniemi in Lapland. In 2006 they celebrated their international breakthrough by winning the Eurovision Song Contest (‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’).
But is it possible that this is only a pale misperception of our poor, limited reality?
What if LORDI would have already been making music since the early 70’s? And what if they have been releasing one hit single after the other since those times and now, almost 50 years later, are looking back on a full collection of songs that have been successful ever since?
This is exactly the idea that LORDI are executing with their newest studio album ‘Killection‘.
‘Killection‘ will be released on January 31st via AFM Records. Once more Mr. Lordi, the master of the masquerade, presents us with one of his ideas, absurd and genius at the same time, and comes up with a concept that has never been done before in the music industry: This is a compilation album that simply says “what if” LORDI had been in existence since the early 70’s. It contains all their imaginary hit singles from different periods done with painstaking attention to detail using authentic studios and vintage technology. This is how they would have sounded if LORDI had made music back then and therefore would have had the hit material to release this compilation now.
This is how Mr. Lordi himself sums it up: “Killection is a fictional compilation album. It contains songs that LORDI would have written between the early 70’s through the mid-90’s. The compilation contains one “brand new” song from 2019 as well, cause that’s somehow always typical for compilations.”
Tracklist:
01 Radio SCG 10
02 Horror For Hire
03 Shake The Baby Silent
04 Like A Bee To The Honey
05 Apollyon
06 SCG10 The Last Hour
07 Blow My Fuse
08 I Dug A Hole In The Yard For You
09 Zombimbo
10 Up To No Good
11 SCG10 Demonic Semitones
12 Cutterfly
13 Evil
14 Scream Demon
15 SCG10 I Am Here
LORDI – KILLECTOUR 2020
Plus special guest
16.02.20 HU-Budapest – Barba Negra
18.02.20 SK-Bratislava – MMC
20.02.20 ITA-Bergamo – Druso
21.02.20 ITA-San Dona/Venice – Revolver
22.02.20 AUT-Klagenfurt – Stereo
23.02.20 AUT-Wien – Szene
27.02.20 F-Istres – L`usine
29.02.20 ES-Madrid – Shoko
01.03.20 ES-Barcelona – Razzmatazz 2
02.03.20 D.Toulouse – Le Bikini
03.03.20 F-Angers – La Chabada
05.03.20 F-Epinal – Souris Verte
06.03.20 F-Paris – La Machine de Moulin Rouge
07.03.20 NED-Sneek – Bolwerk
10.03.20 D-Muenchen – Backstage
12.03.20 D-Hamburg – Markthalle
13.03.20 D-Berlin – Kesselhaus
14.03.20 D-Leipzig – Hellraiser
15.03.20 D-Stuttgart – LKA
18.03.20 D-Aschaffenburg – Colos Saal
19.03.20 D-Nuernberg – Hirsch
20.03.20 D-Memmingen – Kaminwerk
21.03.20 D-Regensburg – Eventhalle Airport
22.03.20 CZ-Prague – Roxy
25.03.20 D-Koeln – Essigfabrik
26.03.20 CH-Pratteln – Z7
27.03.20 D-Heidelberg – Hallo 02
28.03.20 CH-Schaffhausen – Kammgarn
29.03.20 NED-Amstelveen – P 60
LORDI release their new DVD ‘Recordead Live – Sextourcism in Z7‘ (on DVD, Vinyl and Digipack) on 26th July on AFM Records.
Besides the live cut of the show in Pratteln, Switzerland during their latest ‘Sextourcism‘ tour, the DVD provides a lot of bonus material, including some real rarities.
The live show itself has a playing time of two hours. “We just cut a little bit of my stupid announcements on stage“, said Mr. Lordi about the impressive duration. “Apart from that, everything that happened this evening ended up on this DVD“.
The choice of the Z7 is a matter of duration as well: There is no club that hosted LORDI as often as this one located next to the German border and for that reason, the club became something like a second home to the Finns over the years.
Though there are some live records of LORDI, ‘Recordead Live – Sextourcism in Z7‘ is the first official Live DVD of the band, checked by the musicians, and was a plan that LORDI had been pursuing for years and finally put into practice during the Sextourcism tour. Mr. Lordi states: “I am very happy that we waited until the Sextourcism tour, because we look amazing, the stage looks amazing and everything was perfect to create a stunning DVD“.
The bonus material is stunning as well: Alongside a tour diary with LORDI, the DVD provides all of the official video clips the band ever made. Among them a real rarity, the very first official music video for ‘Inferno’, which was made 1994 and was Mr. Lordi’s final dissertation at the film academy. Besides production, location and the camera settings, Mr. Lordi was also responsible for writing, directing and editing the video and for costumes and the masks.
“That was the historical moment that the masks and costumes became an essential part of the band“, he remembers. “Since it was my final dissertation, everyone was dressed up except me. When I saw the clip for the first time, I was like Fuck, everybody looks way cooler than I do – it was supposed to be the other way around. That was the moment, I decided, to create the most elaborate costume for myself.“
In the video to ‘Inferno’ Mr. Lordi does not wear a mask. But since a real monster never loses face, the clip was censored afterwards. A retrospective edited mask had Mr. Lordi staying Mr. Lordi.
Since their stunning victory at Euro Vision song contest in 2006, the Finnish monster rocker LORDI are omni present. With charm, exciting melodies and elaborate and crazy monster costumes the unconventional formation rocked over all Europe. With their new studio album ‘Sexorcism, released in spring 2018 and one of the most successful in the band’s history, LORDI returned with new costumes and a wonderful live show that now is caught in moving pictures, released in July.
BLOODBOUND release their new album ‘Rise Of The Dragon Empire‘ on 22nd March on AFM Records.
BLOODBOUND can be considered as one of the hardest working bands of the Metal scene. Since Fredrik Bergh and Tomas Olsson toyed around with ideas of founding a new band in 2004, BLOODBOUND have secured an impressive fan following which increased steadily and significantly since vocalist Patrik J. Selleby joined the band in 2010 (and followed in the footsteps of Michael Bormann and Urban Breed). 2011’s ‘Unholy Cross‘ was their fourth studio album, and first for AFM.
Only the biggest optimists (and the band itself) would have imagined where BLOODBOUND’s place in the scene would be today: their 2016 release ‘War Of Dragons‘ was their first to achieve impressive chart results in numerous countries, the band played a successful European headlining tour and a big number of festivals. The years of consistency, delivering quality releases over and over again, as well as making new fans on tours with Sabaton, U.D.O. and HammerFall, paid off. In the process BLOODBOUND have played concerts in 25 countries.
“Our audience is very much a combination of fans who follow us since they early days of our debut “Nosferatu” and ones who joined party somewhere along the way”, keyboardist Fredrik Bergh smiles. “Many of our older songs have become classics among those fans, but at the same time our audience demands that we play lots of songs from the new records, every time we tour again. That’s a great situation to be in for us as artists and keeps things fresh and exciting.”
At the end of 2018, BLOODBOUND once again hit the studio to record the upcoming 8th album. They once again teamed up with renowned engineer Jonas Kjellgren who has been responsible for the mix on the last four BLOODBOUND albums. While the 2012 release ‘In The Name Of Metal‘ was still a kind of celebration of the classic metal the band grew up on, the following album, ‘Stormborn‘ saw BLOODBOUND head into a more bombastic, orchestral and symphonic direction – while still maintaining (and even restore) their preference for solid, hymn-like tracks.
Album #8 is called ‘Rise Of The Dragon Empire‘ and music-wise it is a continuation of the latest two albums ‘War Of Dragons‘ and ‘Stormborn‘, but this time a clearer Nordic folk music influence is mixed in with the typical trademark sound of BLOODBOUND.
The band continues to develop with every album they make and with ‘Rise Of The Dragon Empire‘, they have taken their sound to a new level.
IRON SAVIOR release their tenth album ‘Kill Or Get Killed‘ on March 8th on AFM Records.
Their new video for single ‘Kill Or Get Killed” is out now.
IRON SAVIOR are back in the killing zone with the mission to bring on great power metal with no compromises.
The fact that Hamburg is not only the “most beautiful city in the world” but also the capital of Teutonic powermetal has been well known since the late eighties of the last millennium. Also, it should be familiar to any friend of melodic, heavy sounds that IRON SAVIOR, the band around mastermind Piet Sielck is a staple in the Hanseatic Metalscene. In1996 the multi-talented artist, who made a mark among others as a guitarist and producer, founded his solo project IRON SAVIOR.
In 2019 finally the time has come to turn over a new leaf, the hanseatic Metal-Institution will unleash the martial titled album ‘Kill Or Get Killed‘ The fact that the artwork and the lyrics seem unusually grim in contrast to the earlier concept albums is no coincidence. “We just were up for something new, and I was inspired by the book ‘The Star of Pandora’, a sci-fi novel about the destruction of humanity by an alien civilization,” explains Piet.
Apart from that, IRON SAVIOR stick to their guns. From the first tune, opener ‘Kill Or Get Killed‘ they are bringing the message home that they will take no prisoners. With epic anthems like ‘Eternal Quest‘, ‘Never Stop Believing‘, the stomper ‘From Dust And Ruble‘ and higj-octane-stunner ‘Heroes Ascending‘, coupled with on point guitar solos, perfect hooks, catchy choirs and the extraordinary signature voice of frontman Piet, this album has all the makings for another Power metal classic in the band’s history.
The album was produced by Piet Sielck at Powerhouse Studios.
Tracklist:
Kill Or Get Killed
Roaring Thunder
Eternal Quest
From Dust And Ruble
Sinner Or Saint
Stand Up And Fight
Heroes Ascending
Never Stop Believing
Until We Meet Again
Legends Of Glory
Sin City (Bonus)
In many ways Flotsam and Jetsam are not only one of the heavyweights of the Thrash Metal, a band during 90’s for me far ahead of their time but also one that has so often been underrated in the genre. Something that has perhaps become quite a common thread in reviews I write, but something that could again hold back an album like this is the current need for immediacy in music, and perhaps to a certain extent the older generation that see’s their free time reduced and therefore the ability to sit and properly listen to music is no longer there, this again is an album you need to live with a bit.
What we have grown to expect from this band is a more mature often melodic style of Thrash, well written songs and it’s always most importantly tight as hell and Metal. The band have always had one of the more original sounding vocalists in Erik A.K, and that is still true today. To have existed as a band for 38 years is no easy feat in itself, and there has been a fair share of ups and downs, but to continue to make albums of this quality is a great sign of the hard work they continue to put in. Having listened to the album a lot over the last few weeks it just continues to grow on me, the songs stay fresh and I haven’t wanted to put it down, it’s on constant rotation as I travel around the City and that is never a bad sign.
Of the eleven tracks on offer here you will be grabbed by the power of ‘Control‘ which is just class, everything in proportion, pounding drums, screaming guitars and a layering that just drives it all home, there’s a nice anger in Erik’s vocal delivery on this one too that fits perfectly to the tune. Alongside this we’ve got other highlights including ‘Demolition Man‘ which a really nice bass line, spitting guitars, it’s another no holds barred track and ‘Unwelcome Surprise‘ which just smashes you right in the face and keeps going, pacey, crunchy goodness. Going to be really interesting what they pick from this album to their live set as there are many options.
This is another excellent release from a band that never really went away but appear to have become totally reinvigorated in recent years, there’s power, control and just some really excellent tracks that have translated brilliantly in the live environment. F&J will be hitting the UK in March with Overkill and again in July for the Amplified Festival. Do yourself a favour and get this one, if you are a fan of Thrash, heavy music or just good music, this is one that is sure to satisfy a lot more than just old school fans. Top stuff from a band all too often referred to as the one Jason Newsted left to go to Metallica, they have continued to be relevant in a scene where so many of their peers lost the creative spark many years ago. 2019 sees a band with a great lineup that seems to be working so well together, creatively and live, plenty more to come from this band.
LORDI release their new DVD ‘Recordead Live – Sextourcism in Z7‘ (on DVD, Vinyl and Digipack) on 26th July on AFM Records.
