Listen to This Lost Track from DMX and Produced by Jürgen Engler (Die Krupps) – “Silent Night”


From the vaults of Grammy-winning, multi-platinum hip hop icon DMX comes a brand new, never-before-heard track, a hard-hitting street-wise version of the holiday classic “Silent Night!” Meticulously produced by Jürgen Engler, the genius behind German industrial band Die Krupps as well as albums by Ann-Margret, David Hasselhoff, and William Shatner, “Silent Night” is a meeting of musical titans you never saw coming. DMX passed away on April 9th, 2021. Listen to “Silent Night” now, out on Cleopatra Records!

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Listen to Die Krupps and Ross the Boss Team-Up For For New Cover of “No More Heroes” Single


Industrial metal kings Die Krupps and Heavy Metal legend Ross The Boss Friedman, famous from his stints in Manowar, The Dictators, and his solo career have teamed up for a new single, out now via Cleopatra Records. “No More Heroes” is a cover of the 1977 track from The Stranglers, which The Dictators supported on their No More Heroes UK tour. The song, which name-checks several recently passed historical figures, is a fitting tribute to the also recently passed Stranglers keyboardist Dave Greenfield, one of the last heroes of British rock, who died in May of this year from complications related to COVID-19. The single will be featured on a forthcoming full-length effort from Die Krupps to be released in 2021, so jam it out now!

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Days of Darkness 2018, Various Venues, Baltimore, MD


Days of Darkness, Ram’s Head Live, Baltimore, MD 10/28/18

Brought to you by the minds behind Maryland Deathfest, Days of Darkness Festival held their 2018 edition last month in the same hallowed halls that host MDF: Rams Head Live and Baltimore Soundstage. Once again, Ghost Cult was on hand with our intrepid photographer supreme Hillarie Jason on hand to capture the moods and the moments from the fest.Continue reading


Days of Darkness Festival Adds Bell Witch, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin, John Haughm And More


Brought to you by the minds behind Maryland Deathfest, Days of Darkness Festival have added more names to the bill Bell Witch, Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin, John Haughm (ex-Agalloch), Heavy Temple, Ecstatic Vision and more have been added to the already killer bill. They have one more major announcement, coming up soon. Full lineup so far and ticket links below.
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The Dead Soul Communion – Dead Soul Communion


There used to be a time when side projects and “super-groups” were a big no-no in Metal. You had your band, you knew your place, and that’s where you stayed or else. Nowadays of course, you can’t walk down to the shops without another twenty bands trading members and forming new acts in the time it takes to buy a pint of milk and a cucumber sandwich.Continue reading


Festival Preview: Brutal Assault 2016


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Tomorrow kicks off the 21st Brutal Assault Festival with Parkway Drive, Neurosis, Arch Enemy, Behemoth, Mastodon, Abbath, Devildriver, Exodus, Ministry, Nile, Obituary, Satyricon, Ihsahn, Dark Tranquility, Dying Fetus, Unearth, Conan, Voivod, Taake, Septic Flesh, Insomnium, Stuck Mojo, and Mono among others. Making the festival unique compared with other events are the art exhibition, horrror film festival, revolutionary Cashless/Access card system, and other features that have always made Brutal Asault the leaders in the festival going experience. Previously announced bands Electric Wizard (visas) and Terror (surgery for Scott Vogel) have cancelled and replaced with Uffommamut and Raised fist respectively.

BRENT HINDS of MASTODON

Mastodon, by Echoes In The Well Photography

Wednesday kicks off with bands like Abbath, Mastodon, Neurosis, Devildriver, Mutooid Man, Chelsea Wolfe, Tribulation, Conan, Vektor, Gruesome, Shining and more.

 

Gojira, Photo by Hillarie Jason

Thursday features Parkway Drive, Gojira, Ministry, Exodus, Ihsahn, Dark Tranquility, The Black Dahlia Murder, H20, Animals As Leaders, Immolation, Aborted, TesseracT, Obscura, and more.

Friday has Arch Enemy, Moonspell, Taake, Satyricon, Cattle Decapitation, Sigh, Coroner, Obituary, eptic Flesh, Voivod, Raised Fist, iron Reagan, In The Woods and others.

 

Arch Enemy, by Meg Loyal Photography

Arch Enemy, by Meg Loyal Photography

Saturday closes things out with headliners Behemoth, Agnostic Front, Insomnium, Moonsorrow, Destruction, MGLA, Venom INC, Archgoat, Stuck Mojo, Holy Moses, Stick To Your Guns, Lightening Bolt and more. Tickets are still avaialble at this link:

Behemoth, by Susanne A. Maathuis Photography

Behemoth, by Susanne A. Maathuis Photography


Mastodon, Ministry, Parkway Drive, Behemoth And More Booked For Brutal Assult 2016


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Long-running and legendary Brutal Assault Festival takes place again this year for their 21st edition. Taking place which takes place in a military fortress Jofesov in Jaromer, in the Chech Republic the four day festival runs from August 10-13th. In addition to headline acts Mastodon, Ministry, Parkway Drive, and Behemoth, the fest features names from across all genres of rock and metal such as Aborted, Agnostic Front, Angelcorpse, Animals As Leaders, The Algorithm, Archgoat, Birdflesh, Bury Tomorrow, Conan, Coroner, Dark Funeral, Dark Tranquility, Devildriver, Die Krupps, Disavowed, Destruction, Electric Wizard, Eskimo Callboy, Exodus, Eyehategod, Gruesome, Hypnose, Immolation, Insomnium, Iron Reagan, Jig-Ai, Knuckledust, Leprous, Mgla, Misery Loves Co., Mithras, Moonspell, Mono, Mutoid Man, Nile, Obituary, Omnium, Gatherum, Satyricon, Septicflesh, Shining, Sigh, Sikth, Slagmaur, Taake, Terror, Textures, The Black Dahlia Murder, Tribulation, Vektor, Valkyrja, Voivod, Whiplash and more. Tickets are on sale now with camping packages at this link:

 


Enter Shikari – The Mindsweep: Hospitalised


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I’m going to do something that bugs the crap out of me in music writing and break one of my own unwritten rules. I’m going to talk about myself. I hope by the time you get to the end of the review you’ll see why.

I fucking hate remix albums. Can’t be fucking arsed, and I’ve only properly ever bothered with three of them, of which two I actually like (go figure) – Linkin Park’s ‘Reanimation’ and Die KruppsII – The Final Remixes, though the third, Remanufacture can bog right off. I don’t particularly “do” or care for dancey or electronic music, and I don’t really have the frame of references, so I’m not going to patronise you, or myself, by guessing or pretending to have more than a superficial understanding of the styles of music these tunes have been adapted to.

OK, stepping back behind the fourth wall and sitting back down… One of the (other) unwritten rules some smart arses love to pedal is that it truly shows that a song is a genuinely good one if you can rip it from its original trappings and endowments and present it in a different, usually barer format and it still stand true. So, all that bollocks said, and it comes down to this; The Mindsweep: Hospitalised don’t ‘alf prove them smart arses right. While The Mindsweep¸ a cracking album, is the better version, the new presentations, for the most part stripping the vitriol of the origin and refracting the tunes, do showcase the quality songwriters Enter Shikari have developed into.

Following the original tracklist, first track ‘The Appeal and The Mindsweep I’ (Metrik), with guitars replaced, and with beats tricky, works superbly to ease the mind into accepting the styles incoming. Other highlights include, ‘The Anaesthetist’, the original albums’ tribute to The Prodigy, is spread out by Reso, now running through treacle, and becomes a warped spiral of a jogging on a treadmill tinnitus breakout, ‘Never Let Go Of The Microscope’ (Etherwood) grimes and judders and Hugh Hardie’s remix of ‘Torn Apart’ plays with the pop-epica of the original, nodding its way through to the end with an understated smile. ‘The Bank of England’ (Lynx) and ‘There’s A Price On Your Head’ (Danny Byrd) casually saunter, teaming up with a subtle ‘Dear Future Historians’ (London Elektricity) as a reflective, effective trio late on in the album, though perhaps the Erised remix of ‘Interlude’ is the best reinterpretation, bringing in a cool female vocal and working the basics into a whole new song.

The Mindsweep: Hospitalised sees artists from Shikari’s label, Hospital Records, rework their newest album, and while the quality and allure vary, it is actually a probing and stimulating release that further enhances the reputation of its originators as a group that has grown into a set of songwriters par excellence, and sees this curio as a valid sister release to the original.

So… guess that makes it three I can be bothered with, then.

 

7.5/10

STEVE TOVEY