The News Review:
- … Death Angel & More: Metal File – News Story | Music…
- The Gauntlet :: Therion – Heavy Metal – News – Therion Videos -…
- Rod y Gab: Playing guitar like the devil … on Halloween
- Staten Island Composers Project – David Johansen – Music – New York…
… Death Angel & More: Metal File – News Story | Music…
MTV.com – Oct 26, 2007
We’ll find out who takes the honor home on December 1 when the awards invade the city’s rpheum Theatre. The Red Chord Unearth Isis and Converge are also in the running for the award. Meanwhile the Shad and Killswitch have also been nominated in the Album of the Year (Major) and Act of the Year categories.
The Gauntlet :: Therion – Heavy Metal – News – Therion Videos -…
The Gauntlet – Oct 26, 2007
Last Friday the elements conspired against me once again on my way to The Pearl Room making for a stormy bumper-to-bumper exercise in patience. At the end of the road though awaited a fine reward in the form of Sweden’s Therion who are making their second Stateside tour this time in support of ‘Gothic Kabbalah’ their 11th studio LP. I had seen the band back in 2005 when they played ProgPower USA so I spent the onerous commute this time around wondering how this year’s version would stack up. That first performance had been one of the festival’s most memorable featuring a five part choral ensemble alongside the firebrand Mats Lev?on lead vocals in addition to the band’s core members… From what I could see it was the same quasi-meatloaf and salad combination I’d seen back in June during Summer Slaughter when it had met with a similarly lukewarm response. Such is life of a touring artist I suppose. Although I hadn’t expected to speak with Johan our interview turned out to be quite a success. ur discussions were both obvious (their new album ‘Gothic Kabbalah’ Therion’s unique place in the metal world) and tangential (our shared love of King Crimson the Swedish grindcore band Splitter whose shirt he was wearing) and by the time I ran out of questions nearly an hour and a half had passed. And while most of our topics ultimately turned back to Therion the last 15 minutes or so were spent on Demonoid a side project of the Niemann brothers’. Back in 2004 they released one of the year’s finest (and most overlooked) death metal albums in ‘Riders of the Apocalypse’ which featured Therion’s own Christofer Johnsson in the last performance of his to be published before his retirement from vocals. Now years later the band is working with new material as well as a new singer who will no doubt bring the band much more well-deserved attention: Emperor Magus Caligula.
Rod y Gab: Playing guitar like the devil … on Halloween
Seattle Times – Oct 26, 2007
The accolades have been nonstop for the Mexican natives who met as teens according to the DVD. Sanchez played drums in his brother’s metal band and Quintero joined them on the guitar. She liked the passion of playing heavy metal. But acoustic music “equals freedom” she says. After playing hotel bars in Mexico City they busked in Dublin Copenhagen and Barcelona also doing assorted venue gigs. Club and bar owners continually couldn’t quite figure them out.
Staten Island Composers Project – David Johansen – Music – New York…
New York Times – Oct 26, 2007
Johansen is now is in a graffiti-scarred chair in the sixth row of a borrowed high school auditorium on Staten Island staring down at his pointy white leather ankle boots and listening to a 15-piece ensemble breathe life into the bittersweet tone poem he has just completed. The occasion is a rehearsal for a concert called “The Staten Island Composers Project” taking place tomorrow night and featuring work by three musicians who call the island home: Mr. Johansen; Vernon Reid founder of the ’80s funk-metal pioneers Living Colour; and Galt MacDermot best known as the composer of the musical “Hair. “The Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island commissioned the program and asked each artist to write 20 minutes of music conveying something of his connection to the island often referred to as New York City’s forgotten borough. Johansen’s opus a cinematic and unabashedly romantic Adagio scored mostly for strings is called “Mara Dreams the Moon Gate of Uncommon Beauty. ” Mara is his companion Mara Hennessey… Johansen said “Mara” was an organic progression. “All through my life I’ve always listened to music I’m not playing” he said. “So when I was doing rock ‘n’ roll at the beginning I was listening to really mostly kind of country blues and Chicago blues. Then I started listening to a lot of kind of jump jazz and ended up doing that later with the Poindexter thing” meaning Buster Poindexter Mr. Johansen’s pompadoured alter ego who flourished in the late ’80s. Last year even as Mr.