I\'m A Badass Caption: I can haz links, style or anything that is valid markup :)

Artist News: Dream Theater Enters Studio; Rudess, LaBrie Guest; New Portnoy Project

Posted on Friday, January 07 @ 19:00:00 UTC by nightowl

In a quartet of items posted to Blabbermouth.net, we get some updates on current and former Dream Theater members, beginning with the news that the band has "officially entered the studio to begin work on their first album without drummer and founding member Mike Portnoy. The band's guitarist, John Petrucci, writes on his Twitter profile, "First day in studio [and] the dawn of a new era for Dream Theater. Can't wait to get the music flowing."

Dream Theater has yet to announce a replacement for Portnoy, who left the band last September. Petrucci recently stated about the group's drummer search, "Auditions went great and we do have someone but we are spending some time getting everything in order before making an official announcement. Let me just say that we are all incredibly excited about our choice and just bursting at the seams to let the world know!"

[Rumour mills have already started as one posting to Blabbermouth speculated it was Marco Minneman... but we'll share the official announcement of whomever it is when it's released -ed.]

Dream Theater will co-headline next year's edition of Classic Rock magazine's award-winning High Voltage festival, set to take place Saturday, July 23 and Sunday, July 24, 2011 in Victoria Park, London, England. The band will headline the main stage on July 24. High Voltage 2011 will mark the first U.K. performance of the group's new lineup following the departure of Portnoy. [well, given he only left late last year, that's hardly surprising -stating-the-obvious ed.]

Just days after it was announced that he'd been dismissed as the touring drummer for Avenged Sevenfold, Portnoy revealed that he tried to rejoin Dream Theater, and was rebuffed.

Portnoy, who co-founded Dream Theater more than 20 years ago, abruptly quit the band this summer while on tour with Avenged Sevenfold.

He played on Avenged Sevenfold's latest album, Nightmare, following the death of that band's drummer, Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan, and has toured with them since early summer.

We'll have more on Portnoy (but not his complaint) shortly. Before that, there's the guesting role keyboardist Jordan Rudess is making. Asylum, the Illinois-based project featuring Markus Johansson (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Johnny Rox (bass), has changed its name to Sylencer. The band's debut album, A Lethal Dose Of Truth, has been completely self-produced by Johansson and Rox and is nearing completion. The CD will contain 15 tracks with guest appearances by some of hard rock/heavy metal's brightest stars, including Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), Rob Caggiano (Anthrax, The Damned Things), Steve Smyth (Forbidden, Testament, Nevermore) and Christian Lasegue (Jag Panzer).

Sylencer is:

* Markus Johansson - Lead Guitar/Lead Vocals
* Johnny Rox - Bass

Featuring:

* Kevin Talley (Daath, Chimaira, Dying Fetus) - Drums
* Larry Tarnowski (Iced Earth) - Lead Guitar

Guest Appearances:
* Gene Hoglan - Drums (SYL, Dethklok, Zimmers Hole, Death, Dark Angel)
* Brendon Small (Dethklok, Metalocalypse) - Lead Guitar
* Andy La Rocque (King Diamond, Death) - Lead Guitar
* Michael Angelo Batio (Nitro) - Lead Guitar
* Roland Grapow (Helloween, Masterplan) - Lead Guitar
* The Heathen (Zimmers Hole) - Vocals
* Bill Hudson (Cellador, Power Quest) - Lead Guitar
* Emil Werstler (Daath) - Lead Guitar
* Rob Caggiano (Anthrax) - Lead Guitar
* "Metal" Mike Chlasciak (Rob Halford, Sebastian Bach, Painmuseum) - Lead Guitar
* Steve DiGiorgio (Sadus, Death, Testament, Iced Earth) - Bass
* Alexei Rodriguez (Prong, 3 Inches Of Blood, Walls Of Jericho) - Drums
* Eyal Levi (Daath) - Lead Guitar
* Sean Reinert (Cynic, Aeon Spoke, Death) - Drums
* Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment) - Keyboards
* Steve Smyth (Forbidden, Testament, Nevermore) - Lead Guitar
* Christian Lasegue (Jag Panzer) - Lead Guitar

Production:

* Christian Olde Wolbers (Fear Factory) - Vocal Engineering
* Wes 'Waxley' Seidman (Green Day) - Engineering
* Ulrich Wild (White Zombie, Pantera, Dethklok) - Mixing
* Maor Appelbaum (Halford, Yngwie Malmsteen) - Mastering

Sylencer is currently unsigned and looking for a suitable record label to release A Lethal Dose Of Truth.

And, there's LaBrie's guesting role with multinational melodic metal band Eden's Curse [who] will return with its latest and third studio CD, Trinity, on March 18 via AFM Records. The band has been working daily on this release, fine-tuning every last detail over the last twelve months.

Eden's Curse has announced that leading the infamous Curse Choir this time around is none other than Dream Theater vocalist James LaBrie. LaBrie lends his backing vocals to the entire album and also duets with Eden's Curse frontman Michael Eden on the slamming epic "No Holy Man," which is also set to be released by AFM Records as a digital single on February 25. A promotional video is currently in production as well.

Michael Eden says: "James recorded the Trinity sessions at Iguana Studios in Ontario straight after he finished his solo release, Static Impulse, which was perfect timing as he headed off on tour with Iron Maiden immediately after. "

James LaBrie himself adds: "In 2010 I was fortunate to discover Eden's Curse. I absolutely love this band. Great players and people and they deserve nothing but huge success. They belong with the best of today's music. Trust me, you're going to love this from beginning to end."

Bass player and main songwriter Paul Logue explains: "James was highly professional, as you'd expect, extremely approachable and very enthusiastic about our music. We sealed the deal very quickly and we got him in top form as he was also in the middle of recording and we feel the end results are breathtaking."

Michael Eden further adds: "Trinity has been a long time in the making as we always strive to bring our current fan base and new fans our very best. I spoke with James LaBrie backstage on the Iron Maiden tour last summer and we had a great conversation. James has a way of making you see things in a different light than other people. It was an honor to have him along for the ride and we hope that it is not the last time we work together."

Eden then goes on to add, "We still have more cool surprises we will announce soon, this party is just getting started."

And, finally in this roundup - Drummer Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater, Transatlantic), guitarist Steve Morse (Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs), multi-instrumentalist Neal Morse (Transatlantic, ex-Spock's Beard), bassist Dave LaRue (Dixie Dregs, Steve Morse Band) and vocalist Casey McPherson (Alpha Rev, Endochine) have joined forces in a brand new project. The as-yet-unnamed band has just entered the studio to begin work on a new album, due later in the year.

Regarding how the new project came together, Neal Morse said, "Last April I got together with Steve Morse to do some writing and to see what would happen with a collaboration between the two of us and how I went down to his house in Florida and spent some days with him, getting to know him and writing some music and we had a really good time. So we've been talking about doing a project together for a while."

As for the musical direction of the new project, Neal said, "We're all going to get together and work from scratch with no pre-prepared material and see what comes out.

"I'd like to do something different. Something to make it very different from like my solo stuff or Transatlantic.

"There are some demos and some things that Steve and I did in April that we've worked on and so we'll have some things to start with, but I think the plan is to get together and see what happens and write in the room."

He added, "We're all excited about the project, but it is a bit of a mystery as to what will come. The vision is to do something a little more song-oriented and not quite so riffy, as one might expect. But still, of course, having the musical elements that people like Steve Morse, Dave LaRou, Mike Portnoy, and myself can provide."

Although Neal is hoping to release the album this year, he was quick to point out that there is no firm timetable set for the completion of the new project's debut.

"We've mapped out about 10 days [in the studio for the project's first session]," he said. "We'll see what happens and see how much we can get done, if we can't get the basics down enough for an album then we'll have to continue on later.

"Everyone's schedules are a bit in flux and their very busy people so I don't know how long it will take us to actually finish and release the record."

[Source: Blabbermouth.net]

Posted in Band News (tours, comings/goings, etc)

Associated Topics

Album Release News