Danski black/death metalci Crocell so z videospotom za komad Search of Solace napovedali Of Frost, of Flame, of Flesh, svoj album številka šest. Celoten seznam pesmi je tak:

Search of Solace
Chanting Fire
Claws of Piety
Serpent’s Hunger
Vortex
Of Frost, of Flame, of Flesh
Fierce Desire
Epilogue

Švicarski black metalci Cold Cell sporočajo, da so združili moči z založbo AOP Records. Band je konec lanskega leta zaključil snemanje petega albuma, ki bo tako izšel pri novi založbi. Več informacij sledi kmalu.

Organizatorji dogodkov Hangtime Agency sporočajo, da je nedeljski koncert zasedb Grima in Ultar v zagrebškem klubu Močvara odpovedan. Odpovedana sta tudi koncerta v Beogradu in Novem Sadu ter tudi 40 drugih nastopov skupin po Evropi. Zapletlo se je namreč pri vizah. Izjava banda:

»Dear followers of the Grima cult, sometimes even the biggest and oldest spruce tree can't withstand (in)human acts. There is a point where we have to bow down and accept what cannot be changed.
After 4 months of non-stop efforts from everyone involved behind the scenes, the best we got is a 30 days stay in the Schengen area. We have applied for a 90 days arts science visa, which we have been granted in past years, but not this time, the reasons have not been communicated to us.
We did everything we could do, Asgaardian Events and even Les Acteurs de L'Ombre Productions helped us as much as possible, but all we got are these 30 days for now, which we shall use to the fullest.
Our first show will be on the April 25 in Switzerland and the last one will be on the May 22 in Paris. Any other show will be cancelled. There will be no further rescheduling. We will be happy to see each one of our cultists at these shows. We won't have any other Central European tours in the near future, except a few festivals next year, which we are already negotiating with.«

Domači power metalci Space Unicorn On Fire že nekaj časa niso stopili na oder, saj so se posvetili ustvarjanju nove glasbe, ki jo fantje sicer v teh dneh snemajo pri The Kraken Productions v Studiu Urgenca in jo bodo premierno predstavili prav na našem odru. Ljubljančani pravijo takole: »Ključne besede so sence, preporod, prihodnost in gas. Oziroma Cellar Door, Island Rising in Ocean Drive. Samorog je našpičen in pripravljen na dir!«

Finski čelisti Apocalyptica se vračajo h koreninam, in to na čisti začetek v leto 1996 k izdaji debitanskega celovečerca Apocalyptica Plays Metallica By Four Cellos. 7. junija bo namreč izšel njegov naslednik – Apocalyptica Plays Metallica Vol. 2. Gre za prelomno izdajo, in to iz dveh razlogov. Omenjeni plošček je nastajal praktično 20 let, pri prvem singlu The Four Horsemen pa je sodeloval Robert Trujillo (Metallica). Po malo manj kot 20 letih pa je zasedbo zapustil bobnar Mikko Sirén, ki je svoj zadnji pečat pustil na omenjenem prihajajočem albumu. Apocalyptica se tako res vrača h koreninam kot trio s poklonom Metallici. Jeseni bodo plošček predstavljali po Evropi in nam najbliže bosta koncerta na Dunaju (10. oktober) in v Budimpešti (25. november).

Ride the Lightning
St. Anger
The Unforgiven II
Blackened
The Call of Ktulu (in memory of Cliff Burton)
The Four Horsemen (ft. Rob Trujillo)
Holier Than Thou
To Live Is to Die
One
One (Instrumental)

Švedska progresivna death metal zasedba Carnosus sporoča, da je sklenila sodelovanje z Willowtip Records. Poleg naznanitve nove založbe band še sporoča, da bo kmalu začel z delom na tretjem albumu:

»As the year ends we are buckling up and getting ready to record our third album. We are happy to announce that this time we are working with Willowtip Records and joining their roster of amazing bands!

Expect more ‘Visions’ as we venture into our third installment, with tales of the vicious majesty and the world it lives in. This project comes with some of our finest riffs to date and is a bit more progressive than our last album. We will, once again, team up with the trustworthy and excellent producer Robert Kukla at Obsidian Recording Studios in Gothenburg, Sweden. We are beyond stoked to let this material come to life, and we hit the studio early 2024! Giddy up!«

Italijanski black metalci Giliath so s singlom I am Alive napovedali svoj debitantski album Sefiroth. Ta bo izšel januarja pri Nova Era Records v sodelovanju z Broken Bones Promotion. Giliath so:

Dario Stella (vokal)
Alessandro Dionisio (kitara)
Vito Volpicella (baskitara)
(bobne komponiral Dario Stella)

Organizatorji Inferno Metal Festivala 2024 z novim tednom najavljajo nov paket bandov:

Automaton
Celestial Scourge
Cynic
Deception
Dwaal
Jo Quail

Inferno Metal Festival 2024 se bo odvijal med 28. in 31. marcem 2024, vstopnice so tudi že na voljo.

Švicarji Cellar Darling se oktobra odpravljajo na evropsko turnejo, na kateri želijo skupaj z Iamthemorning in Maer, dark folk projektom Anne Murphy in Marjane Semkina, pričarati prav posebne jesenske večere.

Nam najbližje se bodo zasedbe ustavile na Dunaju, in sicer 24. oktobra v tamkajšnjem klubu Viper Room.

Zaradi slabega zdravstvenega stanja dveh članov banda je julijski nastop Suffocation v Zagrebu odpovedan. V nadaljevanju lahko preberete celotno objavo za javnost:

»It is with deep regret that we have to announce the cancellation of our Summer June/July 2023 tour scheduled within Europe/UK. As you may know we previously toured Europe last month and during this tour a few members of the band suffered extreme physical strain resulting in injuries preventing us from returning back to the area less than a month from our previous tour.

Although it's never our intention to cancel any tour the health of our bandmates is key for continuing forward into the rest of the year and it's required that these members rest accordingly and recover from their injuries sustained during this tour. The physical strain that touring takes on the bodies of musicians manifests itself in many ways that are out of our control.

We have a lot in the works for the remainder of the year including writing and completing our new album and we look forward to returning to one of our favorite territories and fans in the EU/UK bringing you Suffocation at full strength, blazing and cranking alongside you all.

As you all know, Suffocation puts their all into our live show and we want to make sure fans get our all moving forward. Health and safety is our number one priority to ensure that we can bring it for you guys for the remainder of 2023 and beyond.«

Vračilo kart je možno od danes dalje v trgovini Dirty Old Shop.

Organizatorji legendarnega festivala Bang Your Head sporočajo, da se je ta za vedno poslovil. Več podrobnosti lahko preberete v izjavi organizatorja:

THAT WAS IT! Hello friends, it is with a heavy heart that we are writing these lines. But there is no other way. We really gave and did everything we could to finally catch up with celebrating the big BANG YOU HEAD!!! anniversary in 2023, and eagerly anticipated this summer like no other. But: We alone, unfortunately, did not have control over creating the circumstances needed to set up an event of this caliber with the requirement to quality connected to the name BANG YOUR HEAD!!! and actually make it happen. A lot changed in the past three years and not a lot of it was and is good. All in all, it can and must be said: The whole scene changed, and the preconditions for organizing an open-air event in Balingen are completely different in 2023 than they were in 2019 – also from an economic perspective. All in all, we thus come to the conclusion, even if it is incredibly sad, that there are too many factors and forces working against us, and pushing through to organize an event at any cost would cause more losses for us and others involved than putting an end to it now. And this is how it is now: The BANG YOUR HEAD!!! 2023 can and will NOT take place. Due to the abovementioned reasons which we can’t describe in further detail due to reasons that are hopefully understandable, there is no viable path that we can take responsibility for aside from calling off the big anniversary party in Balingen. We hope for your understanding and thank everybody from the bottom of our hearts that supported us, believed in us, and kept their tickets or even bought new ones. Especially for you we tried everything to finally raise the BANG YOUR HEAD!!! flag again over the Swabian Alb, but it seems like it was not meant to be. And to make sure to avoid any potential misunderstandings: There will be no more BANG YOUR HEAD!!! festivals in the future. This was it. Because we know that many of you waited for the BYH!!! this year with immense anticipation, we intensely tried to come up with a way to marginally make up for the cancellation of the event. So, we had an idea for a ticket exchange to the ROCK OF AGES festival 2023 which you can read up on in the detailed statement on www.bang-your-head.de. Of course, we will also reimburse the purchasing price to everybody who would like to return their tickets – irrespective of which of the past years the tickets for 2023 were purchased. We will inform you about the detailed process shortly through our channels. We want to thank you once again for your support at all 24 festivals and we would be thrilled to greet you as part of the LOYAL ONES in Seebronn on 28th June! Stay heavy! Horst and the BANG YOUR HEAD!!!-Team

Po tem, ko so pred kratkim turnejo odpovedali White Ward, je ista usoda doletela blackened death metalce 1914 iz Ukrajine. Upamo, da se stvari umirijo in nas bo zasedba lahko obiskala letos poleti na festivalu Črna Loka. Sledi bandova izjava za medije:

»Many of you could have been noticing a recent wave of European tours cancellations by UA bands. Unfortunately, 1914 is not an exception here. With heavy hearts we must inform you that we cannot play for our fans this April and have to cancel our upcoming tour.

Just to make it clear, it is still a 'wartime' on the territory of our land, and this specific time makes it impossible to leave the borders by the men of a conscript age. How could we travel last year? It was possible to get a special permission from the state authorities for the artists to leave the country and do shows and other activities in order to aid the country and spead the truth about unprovoked and brutal war started by russia. There were some irresponsible people who used such permissions to leave the country and never come back, and after it became public and went through a media - the state authorities stopped granting the special permissions for the artists by artificially overcomplicating the process of getting all the necessary documents, by enlarging the list of the documents and making it impossible for bands to obtain what is needed. This affected a lot of different bands in UA.

Last couple of weeks for us were in a constant fight with that new stupid system trying to show that we had a positive experience of returning back home after foreign tours, trying to display the value of such tours for our country benefit, but no matter how hard we tried - we couldn't break that system and it made impossible for us to go and play this time. We want to apologize to our fans, other bands, promoters, but currently we are powerless here. We will work hard to be able to get to our other shows this year, maybe the ice will melt and we will see some easement in the future, but currently we just did everything we could.

Міністерство культури та інформаційної політики України - Thank you for nothing!«

Koncert zasedb Loudness, Grey Attack in Thola, ki bi se moral zgoditi 15. aprila v ljubljanskem Orto Baru, je odpovedan. Dejansko je odpovedana celotna evropska turneja. Tukaj pojasnilo banda:

»We are very sorry that we must announce, the European Tour of Loudness is cancelled. We discussed multiple options back and forth in order to find a solution.

However, we can’t perform the tour under the circumstances given.

We are very sorry for everyone, who looked forward to these shows and hope to be back as soon as possible.«

Organizator koncerta pa še dodaja: »Kupnina vstopnic bo povrnjena na mestu nakupa.«

Ukrajinska post/black metal zasedba White Ward je bila zaradi situacije v Ukrajini žal primorana odpovedati vse načrtovane nastope in turneje. Spodaj lahko preberete izjavo banda:

»Dear friends,

With a heavy heart, we need to inform you that our April tour is canceled. Last 2 weeks we fought for the fate of the tour. We tried all the possible ways, but the system proved to be stronger.

So, let's make it clear about what happened and about the reasons for the cancellation.

Right now “wartime” restrictions are applied in Ukraine, and they include limitations for men in ages 18-60 to cross the border, because it is a range when men are available for military service. So, there is a need to get special permission from state authorities to travel out of Ukraine. During the year 2022 the Ministry Of Culture helped Ukrainian musicians and different artists and assisted in acquiring such permits (for a limited time) and that is why we, and many other bands, were able to play in Europe last year.

But a working algorithm that allows to control the “way back” was not created and responsibilities related to the violations of the permission terms - were nowhere written. And that is why some impudent people just used this opportunity to run out of Ukraine and decided not to come back. Very few cases are known, but after the last one, which raised a lot of noise and dissatisfaction in the media, the Ministry Of Culture decided to implement immediate changes and new rules, even for artists who have already sent a request for permit weeks before an accident - we have sent such request on February, 20th. That is the reason why many Ukrainian bands like Schizogen, Bezlad, The Hypnotunez, Kazka, and many more have already canceled or almost canceled their tours. Some bands were affected when they were already at the border and shows should take place the next day, but due to new rules, they were not allowed to leave Ukraine!

The new rules suppose some additional documents to a request. In our case, every member of the band has his own difficulties in acquiring that, even with an immediate start - there is no guarantee that the process will be successful and accomplished in time. Also, that is anyway not a guarantee that the request will be approved - our colleagues` request was refused even with all the requested documents. So, we just can't get this permission and it is over.

We have tried everything, and the media noise was our last hope. But it hasn’t worked, unfortunately. Months of work, preparations, money - all this is now in vain.
We sincerely apologize to our fans, promoters, and everyone who helped us with this tour. We hope that one day we will make this tour real, and you will wait for us. We will still try to figure something out before Hellfest and August festivals, but no new tour announcements till the end of the war will be made.

But, the one and only responsible for this is russia. They broke everything by invading our country, killing our children, bombing our cities, destroying our culture, and applying all fascist methods to destroy us and we will never forget what they DID and are still DOING!«

Beloruski black metal projekt Pa Vesh En predstavlja komad In The Torment Cell s svojega četrtega studijskega albuma Martyrs, ki bo izšel 19. maja pri Iron BoneHead Productions.