Former Iron Maiden singer Blaze Bayley has suffered a heart attack while at home in the UK. He is in stable condition, awaiting further tests and possible surgery. Blaze has postponed upcoming shows for March and April, with a decision on future shows coming eventually. Get well soon!
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Linkin Park exploded on the scene with their debut album Hybrid Theory (Reprise Records), immediately becoming a chart topping leader of a new generation of fans. After a tour consulate with their sales and success, the stakes were impossibly high for the sequel. The true meaning of success as a popular act is making another album as good as the first, as well as more sales. Many bands fail at this, but Linkin Park rose to the occasion on 2003’s Meteora.
The band spent nearly a year workshoppibg 80 song ideas with producer Don Gilmore. Songs that they had amassed on several world tours. The result of the wealth of ideas was a willingness from the band members to push each other and perfect the tracks so everyone in the band could be happy with them.
While they didn’t break much new ground artistically, the made an album of fire rap-rock songs. The record had five singles, including some of their signature songs such as “Faint” and “Numb.” The rock cuts rocked harder, and the Hip-Hop influences were much more pronounced than on the debut. There are also some quality deep cuts showing off the chops of the band, such as “From the Inside” or the instrumental “Session” which might be a nod to 1990s hit movies like Fight Club and The Matrix.
While every member of the group brought their A-game, you have to shout out the blend of vocals from the late Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda. The alternating rap verses with sweeping chorus parts were just made for the early aughts playlists and MTV’s TRL crowd. Chester also screamed his guts out on a lot of tracks, which showed growth from him. Credit also to DJ Joe Hahn as this is one of his best efforts.
Thematically, the album delves deeper into insecurity, loneliness, anxiety, ennui, and coming back from the abyss within and existentially. One of the reasons that Nu-Metal resonates hard with fans is it has the groove and swag of rap, but a lot more real, raw emotions than many other bands.
Meteora cemented LP as a leader, not a follower in their genre. They surpassed their heros in Korn and Limp Bizkit in just a few years.
Buy the Meteora 20 anniversary edition here:
WORDS BY KEEFY
In between headline tours and future festival dates in 2023, Machine Head has brought back their “Electric Happy Hour” weekly livestream shows. They performed all of their influential album The More Things Change (Roadrunner) for its 20th anniversary, a snippet of a Metallica cover, and a few more hits and recent tracks as well. The band also released some anniversary merch via their company Ten Ton Trading. Watch the video below and check out the retrospective on the album we did a while back.
One year ago, Foo Fighters Taylor Hawkins died in his hotel room in Bogota, Colombia, where the band was scheduled to play at The Estereo Picnic Festival. In the year since his passing, there have been many musical and written tributes to Taylor from across the world of entertainment. Two charity tribute concerts were held on two continents with a who’s who of talent coming out to perform classics that he played on and music by other artists that he loved. Continue reading
As I approached The Observatory in Santa Ana, California, people were still hanging in the parking lot, talking about bands and shows. But one group that caught my attention, was a group of people putting on corpse paint on their faces. Such admiration for them to be able to get dressed up for shows.
Warner Music [Sony Music outside Europe] today release the newly remastered Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon as a deluxe box set to celebrate 50 years since the release of one of the best-selling albums of all time. Click here for details. The album will also be available for the first time in Dolby Atmos on streaming platforms, as well as part of the deluxe box set.
Read our retrospective on the album here:
Modern Crossover Thrash Metal veterans Warbringer shared a new music video for “Unraveling” from their underrated 2022 album Weapons of Tomorrow, out now via Napalm Records. The band kicks off their European tour tonight with Evil Invaders, Schizophrenia, and Mason. See the full tour dates below and watch the video filmed, produced, and edited by Juan Rodriguez with Roberto Maqueo, now!
Linkin Park released a new single and animated video for their previously unreleased track called “Fighting Myself” – today Friday, March 24th, 2023. The song is leftover from the Meteora album sessions in 2003. The track comes six years after the tragic death of Chester Bennington. The band has stated repeatedly there is no roadmap as yet to continue without Chester. Meteora celebrates its 20th anniversary tomorrow, which gave us the hits “Somewhere I Belong,” “Breaking the Habit,” and “Numb!” The Album which sold 8 million copies is getting a reissue boxed-set on many formats. To mark the 20th anniversary of this landmark release, it is being reissued on April 7 in multiple formats: Limited Edition Super Deluxe Box Set, 4 LP Deluxe Vinyl Box Set, 3-disc Deluxe CD, and digital: all containing a wealth of previously unreleased or rare tracks. Watch the new video now and pre-order the set!
Empire State Bastard, who recently announced their signing to Roadrunner Records, have shared their debut track “Harvest” which is available now on all streaming platforms and accompanied by a visualizer streaming on the band’s YouTube channel.Continue reading
