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Archive for September, 2011

KAURA Releases New Full-Length CD/DVD, ‘That Which Defines Us’

Posted in Artist Watch, News, Releases with tags iTunes, KAURA, That Which Defines Us, The Rock Tribune, TheRockTribune.com on September 21, 2011 by Randy

California natives KAURA are pleased to announce today’s release of their new album, That Which Defines Us. Fans can purchase the record now digitally at iTunes and physically at IndieMerchStore.com. Produced by singer Malcolm Guess, That Which Defines Us is a testament of dedication, taking over two years to record with the assistance of rock luminaries such as Sylvia Massey (Tool, System of a Down, Danzig), Ken Andrews (Failure, A Perfect Circle) and Michael Romanowski (Dredg). Central to the album’s sound were instruments that the band collected on their travels to India, Thailand, Bali, Cambodia, Laos, and Nepal.

The DVD portion of the set includes two music videos directed by drummer Benjamin Jones for the songs ‘Ephemeral Fall’ and ‘Silence Speaks Louder’. It also features an hour long ‘Making of the Album’, and footage of the band’s adventures collecting instruments during their travels.

Tracklisting:

1. Inovocation

2. Sera Phi

3. One Becomes Two

4. Ephemeral Fall

5. Solace

6. Silence Speaks Louder

7. Apathy

8. Alarmico Saturn

9. 2C&B

10. If This Were to End

11. Tether’s End

12. A Lament for Change

Comprised of Malcolm Guess (vocals, guitar, and production), Benjamin Jones (drums, hammered dulcimer), Ben Rojas (guitar), and Josh Albright (bass), KAURA have already racked up an impressive list of accomplishments, including invitations from Live Nation to open for national touring acts like Godsmack and Rob Zombie and garnering the praise of Paz Lenchantin (A Perfect Circle, Zwan, Entrance Band) who appeared on their self-titled EP and airplay on Los Angeles’s World Famous KROQ and Bay Area radio stations such as Live 105 and The Bone. A recent national tour, culminating in a fiery performance at SXSW, earned their song ‘Now or Never’ a spot in a national advertising campaign for Ford Motors.

For more information about KAURA, please visit these sites:

www.kaura.com

www.twitter.com/kauraband

www.facebook.com/pages/KAURA/34203763931

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Rat Pak Records set to release sophomore album “Lords Of The Edge” from Metal Church singer Ronny Munroe

Posted in All Metal, Artist Watch with tags Lords Of The Edge, Ronny Munroe, The Rock Tribune, TheRockTribune.com on September 20, 2011 by Randy

New York, NY – September 20, 2011 – Classic power metal is still alive and well! Ronny Munroe’s (voice of Metal Church) new CD Lords Of The Edge is hands down his finest work to date. Featuring the guitar mastery of Stu Marshall (Empires of Eden), Chris Caffery (TSO/Savatage), and Michael Wilton (Queensryche), Lords Of The Edge is a true metal offering that delivers an onslaught of fist-pumping, guitar-driven heavy metal.

Lords Of The Edge gives us 12 new solid tracks of melodic metal that can only be described as one of those rare albums that captures the magic of the classic metal era. “We wanted to create something that was totally new, but at the same time, true metal fans could hear everything that we were influenced by growing up in the classic metal era,” says Ronny on the recording of the new CD. “Lords Of The Edge sounds a little bit like what would happen if you put Metal Church’s Light in the Dark CD into a blender with Queensryche’s first EP and Judas Priest’s Painkiller, then mixed it with some present day themes and a shot of pure adrenaline.”

The opening tracks, “Just Breathe” and “Full Circle” offer fast and furious guitar assaults with high energy vocals, while tracks like “The Vision” and “Touched By A Demon” take on a more haunting melodic approach that set up the listener for the gritty, power-metal influenced tracks like “Let Them Feed” and “Rock And A Hard Place.”

With 12 strong tracks on this CD, it is a fantastic offering that deserves to be in every metal fan’s music collection!

Track listing:
1 Just Breathe
2 Full Circle
3 Pierced By The Maiden
4 The Vision
5 The Fear Of What’s To Come
6 Let Them Feed
7 Rock And A Hard Place
8 Blood Red Skies
9 Lords Of The Edge
10 Touched By A Demon
11 Still Alive
12 Goodbye To The Black*Mixed and mastered at Frontier Studios – Sydney Australia

For pre-order info and FREE download please visit: www.ratpakrecords.com/ronnymunroe

Pre-Order start date: Tuesday September 20, 2011

Official release date: Tuesday, October 18, 2011

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TEXTURES Stream Full Upcoming Album, ‘Dualism’, at GuitarWorld.com Today

Posted in Artist Watch, News, Releases with tags Dualism, GuitarWorld.com, TEXTURES, The Rock Tribune, TheRockTribune.com on September 19, 2011 by Randy

Dualism Hits Stores on September 27^th, 2011 in North America

Catch TEXTURES on Tour NOW with Periphery, The Human Abstract, and The Contortionist

Progressive technical metallers TEXTURES and GuitarWorld.com are teaming up today to bring you an exclusive full album stream of the band’s upcoming full-length album, Dualism, out on Nuclear Blast in the US on September 27^th, 2011. The exclusive also features a special video introduction recently filmed at the Guitar World studios in New York City. Head to GuitarWorld.com now to listen to the full album an entire week before release!

Dualism will also be released on September 23rd in Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia. The album was recorded at Split Second Sound Studios in Amsterdam with TEXTURES guitarist & producer Jochem Jacobs.

The band is currently giving away their new single ‘Reaching Home’ for free through the smartphone app Repudo! In this embedded video, TEXTURES guitarist Jochem Jacobs explains how the Repudo app works. To download the app please visit www.repudo.com.

Last week, the band released the music video for ‘Reaching Home’, the first single from Dualism, via the band’s YouTube page. ‘Reaching Home’ was shot on the island of Lanzarote (part of The Canary Islands) off the coast of Morocco and was directed by TEXTURES bass player Remko Tielemans together with the help ofKunststoff Media.

The Dualism CD can be pre-ordered from Nuclear Blast USA’s webshop for $10.00. An album art t-shirt + CD bundle is available here. Pre-order bundles with a variety of t-shirt designs to choose from can be purchased from IndieMerch.com. All Indie Merch pre-order bundles will be automatically entered into a raffle to win a TEXTURES Mayones guitar.

TEXTURES are currently on their inaugural North American tour with Periphery, The Human Abstract and The Contortionist. Remaining “Frak The Gods” tour dates are:

09-20-2011     The New Parish                                Oakland, CA
09-21-2011     Branx                                               Portland, OR
09-22-2011     Studio Seven                                    Seattle, WA
09-23-2011     The Venue                                        Boise, ID
09-24-2011     The Complex                                    Salt Lake City, UT
09-25-2011     The Marquis Theatre                        Denver, CO
09-27-2011     Fubar                                               St. Louis, MO
09-28-2011     The Bluestone                                   Columbus, OH
09-29-2011     Mojoe’s                                           Joliet, IL
09-30-2011     Rave Bar                                          Milwaukee, WI
10-01-2011     MXTP                                             Grand Rapids, MI
10-02-2011     Wreck Room                                   Toronto, ON – CANADA
10-03-2011     La Tulipe                                          Montreal, QC – CANADA
10-05-2011     The Palladium                                   Worcester, MA
10-06-2011     Gramercy Theatre                             New York, NY
10-07-2011     First Unitarian Church                       Philadelphia, PA
10-08-2011     Kingdom                                          Richmond, VA

Pre-sale tickets can be purchased via the online links on the band’s Facebook page.

Visit the TEXTURES landing page here.
Follow TEXTURES online at:

www.TEXTURESBAND.com

www.facebook.com/TEXTURES

www.youtube.com/TEXTURESTV

Twitter.com/TEXTURESBAND

www.myspace.com/TEXTURES

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ELECTRIC FLOWER TO RELEASE DEBUT EP ON NARNACK RECORDS NOVEMBER 8TH

Posted in Artist Watch, News with tags ELECTRIC FLOWER, IMAAD WASIF, JOSH GARZA, The Rock Tribune, TheRockTribune.com on September 19, 2011 by Randy

NEW BAND FEATURES JOSH GARZA AND IMAAD WASIF

Los Angeles, CA – September 19, 2011 – Electric Flower, the new band featuring Josh Garza and Imaad Wasif, will release their debut EP on November 8th on Narnack Records. The self-titled EP will be released digitally and on limited (500 copies) foil stamped, red 10-inch vinyl.

Electric Flower had a most unlikely of beginnings. The first time they met, Josh Garza and Imaad Wasif were strangers in an elevator in London. Garza was carrying his kick drum and Wasif had his guitar in hand. They were at the BBC Studios to film performances on “Top of the Pops,” Garza with his band Secret Machines and Wasif appearing as a guest musician with Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Eyeing one another suspiciously, the two maintained a curious silence, until the elevator came to a screeching halt, between floors. Wasif began frantically hitting all the buttons to get the metal box moving, but the lights just flickered and the elevator remained eerily still and suspended. While waiting for the emergency operator to dispatch a technician, the two eventually set about jamming, Wasif, to ease his claustrophobia and Garza, ever-cool and stoic, to deal with the boredom, and, in his own words, to “just get this little freak to calm down.”

Another three years passed before the two men randomly collided again, this time on a street corner in Los Angeles. After picking up the spilled tacos and samosas, they decided to head to Wasif’s rehearsal space. In a blast of inspiration from the cosmic weirdness of it all, they wrote “Circles,” the epic track off of their debut EP. With the pounding of blood, the rumbling of thunder, and the indelicate sensations delicately rendered; its finesse lies in the grafting on such libidinous roots of the more visceral stems of Electric Flower.

“Four16”, the lead track off the EP, is a roaring tower of power inspired by Kurt Cobain’s iconic performance of Leadbelly song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” during 1993’s MTV Unplugged In New York concert. A song about reincarnation, “Four16” refers to the minute mark (4:16) during Cobain’s performance of the Leadbelly song where you can see him become possessed in a flash and his soul leave his body. “He was gone a long time before he was really gone,” asserts Wasif. With Nevermind‘s 20th anniversary approaching next week, the sentiment behind the song resonates even more powerfully.

Imaad Wasif has released three solo albums, including 2010’s highly acclaimed The Voidist, and has established himself as one of the L.A. underground’s most electrifying guitar players. Josh Garza, a Texas native and the drummer of Secret Machines, is widely recognized for his fearless sound, channeling the spirit of Bonham and the space between the beats. Together, their sound is part Motorik, part psychedelic, with strains of post-punk, Japanese Group Sounds and East Indian drone. It’s raw, yet richly detailed and atmospheric, with booming beats and often obscure lyrical themes.

Electric Flower’s live presence is already sending shockwaves of excitement through Los Angeles and other exotic locales, gaining a reputation for being “louder than My Bloody Valentine.” Expect live dates to be announced shortly.