CD/DVD Releases: News Bits: Rush, Mystery, Edguy, Falconer, more...
Here's a compendium post gathering some of relatively shorter news items, most sent to us during March... [catching up with April and May shortly -ed.]:
Rush will tour in 2015 to mark their 41st anniversary, though as of mid-March no specifics were known, as reported by Blabbermouth.net quoting a comment Alex Lifeson made to Rolling Stone.com.
Staying north of the border, Mystery announced on March 15 that Canadian singer Jean Pageau had replaced Benoit David as their lead singer. "The singer from Gatineau, Quebec became an official Mysteron on March 9th 2014 and is now preparing with the band for up coming live performances and a new studio album.
Jean is a great singer and we are very excited to be making new music together."
"Benoit David leaving Mystery: It has not been as easy for us to say goodbye. Benoit Joined Mystery in 1999 and we released our first album (Beneath The Veil Of Winter’s Face) with Benoit on vocals in 2007 followed by One Among The Living in 2010 and The World Is A Game in 2012. In the spring of 2012, as we were preparing for our first European shows, Benoit discussed with me his desire to take a break from Music and Mystery for a while. He fulfilled his commitment to do all of the shows that were booked for Mystery up until the Toronto show in June. We took the summer off, and in the Fall, Benoit announced that he was officially leaving the band. We kept the search for a new singer a Mystery.
"Benoit’s contribution to the music of Mystery is and will always be considered remarkable, full of passion and emotion for us. He remains one of the best singer I have had the chance to hear, and luckily for me, to work with. I wish him all the best and will always be grateful for the works we created together.
"As things seemed to speed up for Mystery, we had to slow down, take a pause and see where we were going. It has not been easy quest for us in finding someone to fill Benoit’s shoes and has in fact proved to be a difficult task. But we are excited to be back now and are looking forward to seeing all of you soon with new singer Jean Pageau on stage with us." - Michel St. Pere
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While not Progressive Rock or Progressive Metal... Arch Enemy also acquired a new vocalist in March, Alissa White-Gluz (ex-The Agonist). Departing vocalist Angela Gossow will remain the band's business manager, develop her artist management roster and pursue other interests. The band's 9th album, War Eternal, will be released by Century Media Records in early June.
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Oh hey, you probably guessed the next item, yeh? The Agonist announce a new singer - Vicky Psarakis, as Alissa White-Gluz joined Arch Enemy. The Agonist will start work on new material soon, they say.
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Falconer completed recording of their 8th album, Black Moon Rising. Release date is June 6 via Metal Blade.
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Flotsam And Jetsam saw some changes in personnel, guitarist Edward Carlson had to bow out due to back and neck issues, so stepping in is Steve Conley, formerly of F5; bassist Michael Spencer steps in for the departed Jason Ward. The band's No Place For Disgrace was redone and reissued in February Via Metal Blade as No Place For Disgrace - 2014
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Condition Red's second release, Condition Red - II (2003), was reissued with remixed sound in March by Lion Music.
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MoonJune released Resolution by Catalan drummer Xavi Reija.
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On April 18, Edguy released their latest album, Space Police - Defenders Of The Crown. While perhaps not the highlight of the album, it is interesting to note that it includes a cover of Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" [which I recall the friends of my youth changing the chorus to "hot potatoes, hot potatoes..." and to this day, obviously, think of that when I hear the song -ed.]. From Nuclear Blast's blurb: Vocalist and main songwriter Tobias Sammet explains: “You throw in a lot of Metal, heavy guitars, fast drums, catchy melodies, an Austrian Falco cover version, some flamboyant Glam elements, write 9-minute Zeppelinesque epics about the immortality of the soul and then muse over the love-drive of cave-people, you stir it up, record it and put an Evel-Knievel-hotshot-Space-Cop on the cover. Et voilà: You have an album that every band would be torn to peaces for; unless the band is named Edguy- then it‘s a classic, a perfect killing machine, an exploration of places that no reasonable band would ever dare to go, unless you're equipped with sabre, torch and the balls of a Diplodocus; and you take into consideration to just not give a fuck at all. NOW THAT‘S METAL!“
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More seriously, labelmates Epica have had their latest studio album out since early May, called The Quantum Enigma; Sonata Arctica released their Pariah's Child at the end of March, Sabaton's Heroes came out just this past weekend (at least in Europe); Nightwish's Tuomas Holopainen released his tribute to Scrooge McDuck (yes, really!) called The Life And Times Of Scrooge. There's a article about it in the latest issue of Prog magazine, incidentally. We round up all NB releases on our Releases section (no reviews or comments or anything, but you can see what was, is and will be out in 2014).
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Progressive Instrumental Masterpiece: New band, Red Spectrum, based in Los Angeles. Here are some advanced clips. Please find us on soundcloud.com/red-spectrum-band and www.redspectrumband.com. Thanks for listening! - Joe August, Red Spectrum Bassist
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Iced Ink Releasing New Album Television Ears: We are Iced Ink. We have a BRAND NEW SINGLE that we want to share with you. It was released on March 21, 2014. We are following up this single release with our full length second studio album Television Ears to be released this April. If you would like to stream or download our new single called "Plastic Man vs the Giant Red Phase of the Sun" please go to music.icedink.com
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Poland's Defying posted their first single, "Prayers," to promote their debut album Nexus Artificial. You can listen here at YouTube. The band write, "[The m]usicians, after well received demo recordings, prepared their first longplay which shows far heavier face of the band than it was so far. Nexus Artificial is a concept album containing 10 tracks. Lyrically, the band addresses the issue of the human origins and at the same time asking a question: what if the creative force, identified with the divine one, had indeed its extraterrestrial roots?
"The material was recorded between August and December 2013. Mixing and mastering took place in BlackTeamMedia Studio under the leadership of Michał Grabowski. The [...] link below we provide the short 'making of' video."
"A short description: Defying is a post-progressive metal band from Olsztyn, Poland, formed in 2008. Musicians are not afraid to experiment and they often come up with unconventional sounds such a broad range of guitar effects, samples, an acoustic guitar or a cello bow."
