Pantera, Tool, Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold will headline the 2023 edition of the Welcome To Rockville festival, set to take place May 18-21 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. Also scheduled to appear are Deftones, Rob Zombie, Godsmack, Evanescence, Incubus, Queens Of The Stone Age, Alice Cooper, Chevelle, and Coheed & Cambria, among many others. Tickets are on sale now at the link below.
Press on, intrepid reader, to find out our top albums of 2022, as voted for by the cast, crew and hangers-on of the good ship Ghost Cult. Over 275 albums were nominated (including one stray and errant vote for Stryper… we’ve had words), some people lauded albums as the greatest of all time that no one else noticed, other albums picked up a steady stream of votes across the board without tickling the top of anyone’s charts, but through it all, we’ve been able to compile our team list of the best 75 albums of the year. And there are some absolute corkers, here. 75 of them, to be exact…
As we move into the meaty part of the Ghost Cult albums of the year for 2022 (as chosen solely by the team that dedicate their time to promote, analyse and share the love for the great alternative music that we exist to talk about), we find a mix of old favourites and a sprinkling of new rising and shining stars…Continue reading
Having a father famous in the same field as you must be a blessing and a curse – being the son of Diego Maradonna, Michael Schumacher, Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan helps get your foot in the door but are hard acts to follow. Eddie Van Halen was the best of the best and after his untimely passing in 2020, his son Wolfgang focused his energies on his solo project Mammoth WVH. His self-titled debut came out a year later, with Wolfgang playing all the instruments himself.
This deluxe edition comes with three extra tracks, the best of which is ‘Talk and Walk’ – a stomping rocker with a smooth, AOR chorus. As for the album, as a whole, it is a decent offering of arena-friendly hard rock, with alternative, Foo Fighters, and Alter Bridge influences. It starts off with ‘Mr. Ed’, a glossy alt-rock bruiser with a sweet chorus and a 4/4 rhythm, a fiery tip of the hat to his dad.
With its seventy-minute runtime you certainly get your money’s worth, from the punchy swagger of ‘Horribly Right’ to the crunchy guitars, short and sweet solo, and thunderous drums of ‘You’ll Be The One’ there is plenty here to like. The best ones are ‘The Big Picture ‘ and ‘You’re To Blame’ – the former is a hefty slab of metal with a pounding riff and a consummately crafted chorus, the latter a sharp alt rocker made for radio with a fiery solo. Not far behind is ‘Feel’ – a lively, Foo Fighters-like track powered with a sprightly drum beat and a restless rhythm.
It is not all thrashing guitars and distortion, he lets his softer and poppier side out occasionally – the lush guitars and the soaring vocal harmonies of ballad ‘Resolve’ offers a sweetly struck bit of variety. Alas the other moments do not quite reach these heights, with ‘Circles’ sounding like a humdrum version of ‘How Soon is Now’ by The Smiths and the polished pop punk of ‘Think It Over” belongs on the soundtrack to some nameless mid ‘00s teen movie.
A mid-’00surs aside, Mammoth WVH (EX1) is a relentless album full of loving made, hard and heavy rockers with a commercial sheen. It is full of attitude and energy, and a big chorus or two, but its length and well-worn stylings means it gets a bit generic at times.
Buy the album here:
https://found.ee/MammothWVHDeluxe
7 / 10
THOMAS THROWER
Guitar Gods rarely look backward in coming forward. Mark Tremonti, for instance, has recently aligned his star with none other than a certain Frank Sinatra – but more of that later. The pressing matter in hand is the fretboard master’s ongoing tour of the UK and Europe.
Mark Tremonti has cemented himself as one of the staple musicians within the hard-rock scene over the past 3 decades with Creed, Alter Bridge & his own project Tremonti. With this repertoire of music projects, this album is still probably the last thing anyone expected from the man. Covering the ageless classics from Frank Sinatra himself is Tremonti Sings Sinatra (NDSS).
Alter Bridge has booked a headline tour of Europe for late 2022. The “Pawns & Kings” tour will hit 25 cities over 18 countries, kicking off on November 1st in Hamburg, Germany, and wrapping up on December 12th in London, England. Direct support on the tour will come from Halestorm and Mammoth WVH. Alter Bridge will soon announce their new album, due for release later in the year. Pre-sale and general on sale details are available below.
Mark Tremonti (Creed, Alter Bridge) will release the new album from his band Tremonti, Marching In Time this Friday, September 24 via Napalm Records. The band will also host their first-ever livestream event that night, on 9/24 at 9PM ET/6PM PT at the link below.
In 2019 things were on the up for the independent LA quartet Dirty Honey; their debut single ‘When I’m Gone’ topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, they toured with Alter Bridge, Guns n Roses, and The Who and sold out their first headline tour in the first two months of 2020 but then covid reared its ugly head put life on hold. Finally things are opening up again and their debut album Dirty Honey is out, and its sound is firmly rooted in 1970s rock.
Hellfest Open Air recently completed its first-ever online streaming festival. Hopefully, the real thing is coming back next summer! The venerable metal and rock fest announced their lineup for 2021, with most of the bands slated to have played in 2020, but canceled due to COVID-19. Deftones, Faith No More, System of A Down, Judas Priest, Puscifer, Korn, Volbeat, Opeth, Dropkick Murphys, Northlane, Deep Purple, Wardruna, Rival Sons, Devin Townsend, Suicidal Tendencies, and many more will perform. Ten more bands will be added soon. Thirteen bands slated to play in 2020, but cannot attend 2021 include Incubus, Mastodon, Infectious Groove, Thy Art Is Murder, Alter Bridge, Baby Metal, Joyous Wolf, Unleashed, Meshuggah, The Black Dahlia Murder, Periphery, Body Count and August Burns Red.Continue reading