SAXON’S HARD HITTING NEW VIDEO: “HAMMER OF THE GODS” TESTAMENT’S FIRST FOUR ALBUMS TO BE RELEASED ON 180 GRAM VINYL. NEW FAIR TO MIDLAND VIDEO HERE.
The video for “Hammer Of The Gods”, the new single from British heavy metal
legends SAXON, can be viewed below.
Packing an armory of steel-coated riffs and songwriting swagger, SAXON has just released “Call To Arms” in Europe via Militia Guard Music, UDR and EMI.
Recorded at Chapel Studios in Lincolnshire, U.K. and Brighton Electric Studios in Brighton, U.K., the 11-track album was co-produced by singer/songwriter Biff Byford and Toby Jepson (LITTLE ANGELS). Featuring Byford on lead vocals, Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt on guitars, Nibs Carter on bass and Nigel Glockler on drums, “Call To Arms” is bang on-the-money brilliant SAXON music, a confident embrace of the aura and writing values from their early years married perfectly to a modern SAXON crunch.
“This is probably the best album we’ve written and recorded in the last 20 years,” states Biff Byford unapologetically. “I know a lot of bands say that, but ‘Call To Arms’ really does feel like that to me. It’s the perfect embrace of our past with a great modern edge.”
Between the furious riffage of “Hammer Of The Gods” all the way through to “Ballad Of The Working Man”, SAXON also found time to invite fans to sing on the nostalgic stomp of “Back In ’79” thanks to a Byford brainwave the night before recording.
“We put something up on our website 24 hours before recording the track in Brighton, and funnily enough we had exactly 79 people show up on time to sing on the song. It was a fantastic result which is a direct tribute to ‘Denim & Leather’ where we did the same exact thing.”
There is also a guest appearance from keyboard legend Don Airey (RAINBOW, ELO, OZZY OSBOURNE, DEEP PURPLE) on “When Doomsday Comes”.
“We were at the American embassy in different lines queuing for our visas and by the time we’d got them, Don had agreed to come and play on the
song,” chuckles Byford.
It also features alongside the track “No Rest For The Wicked” in the forthcoming movie “Hybrid Theory”, a sci-fi thriller which follows a group of British soldiers who find themselves in a life or death battle with an enemy far beyond their wildest nightmares. The film is directed by James Erskin, who made “One Night In Turin” about England at the World Cup in 1990.
“We’ve done our darker albums, our full-on metal albums, we’ve been to those spaces and experimented with them and people came on the journey with us,” says Byford, “and with ‘Call To Arms’ you have the culmination of those 10 years and the 20 years before it. I love this album. I love the songs. I love the sounds. It’s right on the money.”
“Call To Arms” track listing:
01. Hammer Of The Gods
02. Back In ’79
03. Surviving Against The Odds
04. Mists Of Avalon
05. Call To Arms
06. Chasing The Bullet
07. Afterburner
08. When Doomsday Comes (Hybrid Theory)
09. No Rest For The Wicked
10. Ballad Of The Working Man
11. Call To Arms (orchestral version)
“Hammer Of The Gods” video:
* “The New Order” (originally released in 1988) (clear vinyl)
* “Practice What You Preach” (originally released in 1989) (white vinyl)
* “Souls Of Black”(originally released in 1990) (blue vinyl)For more information, go to this location.
TESTAMENT‘s last album, 2008’s “The Formation Of Damnation”, was reissued on February 23, 2010 in a deluxe tour edition. The two-disc edition includes the band’s comeback album plus bonus footage of classic tracks and more.
Prosthetic Records recently re-released TESTAMENT‘s out-of-print 1995 hometown-show album “Live At The Fillmore” on CD. The LP was reissued digitally last spring.
The “Live At The Fillmore” re-release includes expanded artwork and new layout by Carson Slovak and new liner notes by Robert Deutsch.
Prosthetic previously reissued four TESTAMENT efforts: the acclaimed late-’90s studio albums “Demonic” and “The Gathering”; the re-recordings compilation “First Strike Still Deadly”; and the vintage live album “Live At Eindhoven ’87”.
TESTAMENT is currently writing material for the follow-up to “The Formation Of Damnation” for a tentative late 2011/early 2012 release. The new CD will be recorded this summer with British producer Andy Sneap, who has previously worked with MEGADETH, ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE, EXODUS and MACHINE HEAD, among others.
Regarding the musical direction of the new TESTAMENT material, the band’s vocalist, Chuck Billy, stated in a 2010 interview, “The new album will most likely be a culmination of ‘The Gathering’ [1999] and ‘The Formation of Damnation’, but we’re definitely not going to forget who we are or our roots. I think we’ve found a comfortable spot in our writing style.”
“Musical Chairs”, the new video from Texas natives FAIR TO MIDLAND, can be viewed right here: http://bcove.me/nweozmdp
The song comes off the band’s new full-length album, “Arrows And Anchors”, which will be released on June 14 via eOne Music. The follow-up to 2007’s “Fables From A Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True” was produced by Joe Barresi, who has previously worked with TOOL, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE and COHEED AND CAMBRIA, among others.
“We’re all huge fans of what Barresi did with QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE. We wanted a stellar rock producer and were lucky enough to find one who has managed to find the happy medium between polish and performance,” said FAIR TO MIDLAND frontman Darroh Sudderth.
“We are a band that makes albums and this is the best one that we’ve ever made. It might be the heaviest non-metal album you will hear this year,” Sudderth added.
Not wanting to sit still, FAIR TO MIDLAND recently embarked on a month-long headline tour with support from PERIPHERY and SCALE THE SUMMIT. FAIR TO MIDLAND will also support THE DAMNED THINGS and MAYLENE & THE SONS OF DISASTER
on “The Inked Magazine Tour” this summer.
Founded in 1998 in the quiet farm town of Sulphur Springs, Texas, FAIR TO MIDLAND quickly became one of the Lone Star State’s fastest-rising bands, earning critical acclaim for their first two independent releases, 2001’s “The Carbon Copy Silver Lining” and 2004’s “inter.funda.stifle”.
Since the release of “Fables From a Mayfly”, they have shared the stage with bands such as THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, FLYLEAF, CHEVELLE, DIR EN GREY, ALICE IN CHAINS, and SERJ TANKIAN throughout the U.S. and Europe. The band has made appearances at festivals such as Coachella, Bamboozle, Download, Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park.
FAIR TO MIDLAND is Darroh Sudderth (vocals), Cliff Campbell (guitar), Brett Stowers (drums), Matt Langley (keyboards) and Jon Dicken (bass).
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