finland

Finland’s FRONT set release date for new IRON BONEHEAD mini-album, reveal first track

Today, Iron Bonehead Productions sets June 5th as the international release date for a new mini-album from Finland’s Front, Antichrist Militia, on CD and 12″ vinyl formats.

It’s been four long years since Front‘s celebrated debut album for Iron Bonehead , Iron Overkill. Firmly committed to the original war metal tenets laid down by Bestial Warlust and blitzing ’em to fuck in a manner most Marduk circa Panzer Divison Marduk, Iron Overkill was ever accurately titled: wave after undulating wave of teeth-gnashing speed and disgusting filth, all set to pulverizing stun, evoking an all-consuming sensation of total and utter oblivion. Now expanded to a quartet, Front are set to deliver their most complete statement yet, Antichrist Militia – which, paradoxically, is a swift ‘n’ decisive 23 minutes.

Sheering away the more conventional aspects of tried-and-true war metal in favor of time-honored heavy rock sleaze, Antichrist Militia is immediately a more memorable and altogether MEANER listen. The downshifts into headbanging moments infrequently found on Iron Overkill have been maximized here – and pumped full of nitrous. Just witness the Motörheaded charge of “Iron Front,” a fitting(ly filthy) tribute to their god Lemmy.

The cover art courtesy of the masterful Jenglot Hitam says everything it needs to: this is Front ravaging and rampaging the wastelands, veritable Road Warriors stocked full of black & death metal’s deadliest arsenal. Tighter, more finessed, but also more caustic, Antichrist Militia gets in and gets out with militaristic precision, this time with a booze-reeking smirk across its barbed-wired face. Call it “fun”…if you dare.

Think you’re fucking tough? Made of the sternest stuff? Then stand before Front and face the nuclear-powered force of their Antichrist Militia!

The opening fire can be found with the brand-new title track “Antichrist Militia” HERE :
Aforementioned cover art as well as tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Front (Finland)’s Antichrist Militia
1. Doom Cult Legion
2. Antichrist Militia
3. Iron Front
4. Venom & Salt
5. Mouths of War
6. Machinegun Blasphemy
MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/legionfront
www.facebook.com/IronBoneheadProductions

Speed metal upstarts Bonehunter premiere new track

Today, speed metal upstarts Bonehunter premiere the new track “Digital Evil”. The track hails from the band’s highly anticipated second album, Sexual Panic Human Machine, set for international release on August 4th via Hells Headbangers.

In 2015, this Finnish power-trio unleashed the surprise hit of the summer in their debut album, Evil Triumphs Again. Word of mouth spread like wildfire about the record’s simple-yet-supremely-evil pleasures, and Bonehunter soon became one of the most talked-about performances at Hells Headbangers’ Hells Headbash 2. The album was both a sincere homage to earliest/best Bathory and an extension of it, as if the very soul of a young Quorthon had been reborn in these far-north miscreants. Even today, Evil Triumphs Again is held in high regard by many the world over, but the best is yet to come in Sexual Panic Human Machine.

Right from the start, even with the album title itself, Sexual Panic Human Machine is a different Bonehunter and one not merely replicating past glories. For one, the trio abandon the “tribute” aspect of the debut and drive deeper into what made that ancient metalpunk sound work: hooks, heaviness, and hellish drive. For another, the cauldron-born evil of that debut gives way to a more earthly, seedier-side-of-the-tracks evil where no lust nor perversion is turned away. From there, Bonehunter dive headfirst and headlong into a raucous yet well-oiled attack that, more often than not, lands well within the bounds of shredding speed metal: the chrome chassis gleams, but the engine pumps pure, black disgust. Leaner and most definitely meaner, this Sexual Panic Human Machine nevertheless never loses sight of that devilish FUN which made Evil Triumphs Again such a modern classic. Stocked with brand-new arsenal, awaken the machine with Bonehunter!

A statement from the band reads: “Sexual Panic Human Machine is a nasty, violent slab of cyberdelic metalpunk anthems, and we are proud to be working alongside Hells Headbangers again to get this record in the hands of people who appreciate our noisy devil gospels!”

Tracklisting for Bonehunter’s Sexual Panic Human Machine
1. Intro (Awaken the Machine…)
2. Enter the Satan’s Dimension
3. Digital Evil
4. Electric Nightmare
5. Doom Desire
6. Devil Science
7. Spectre of Sex Vengeance
8. Substance Creator
9. Sexual Panic Human Machine

MORE INFO:
www.facebook.com/bonehuntermetal

Finnish Doom Lords Hallatar premier the official music video for “Mirrors”

Today, Hallatar release the first music video off the forthcoming album, No Stars Upon The Bridge, for the song “Mirrors.” As all the material on the album, the song is based on the lyrics and poems of Aleah Liane Starbridge. The video is co-directed by renowned Finnish artists Aapo Lahtela and Vesa Ranta. The album No Stars Upon The Bridge will be out on October 13th in various formats, with pre-orders via Svart Records already available HERE.

Although a brand-new name, Hallatar features among its ranks Swallow the Sun and Trees of Eternity guitarist Juha Raivio, Amorphis vocalist Tomi Joutsen, and former HIM drummer Gas Lipstick. In fact, one could see Hallatar as an extension of Trees of Eternity, whose massively acclaimed debut for Svart, Hour of the Nightingale, served as the swansong of vocalist Aleah Starbridge.

Juha Raivio explains the genesis of Hallatar: “After the death of my beloved and my life partner Aleah Starbridge on April 18th a year ago, I have been gathering writings, lyrics, and the poems of Aleah to keep them safe and close to my heart. About one month after the world came down on the blackest day of my life, I knew I needed to pick up the guitar and try to create something or I would be truly destroyed. And something did arrive out of the darkness, and I wrote the music for the Hallatar album in a week’s time. I don’t have much memory of this week, not a memory of a single day of writing the music. But all I remember when going into this abyss of the writing process was a promise to myself that whatever music would come out, I would not touch or change anything of it afterwards. What mattered was that the music would stay forever as an absolute truth of those moments as they came out. I asked my good friends – and amazing musicians – Tomi Joutsen and Gas Lipstick if they would want to record this music with me, and both of them said yes without even hearing a note of it. I am forever grateful to both of them for sharing this road with me; even the weight of the process has not been easy to carry, or will be.”

Adds Gas Lipstick, “I am grateful and very honored to be asked to join this band. Juha is a dear friend of mine since many years ago, and when he told me about his vision for Hallatar and asked me to join, I said yes instantly – I just had to be part of this amazing journey. I had never heard a single note of the music before I gave my ‘yes’ because I didn’t need to. Juha has been one of my favorite songwriters already for years, and I knew that Hallatar will be a very deep, personal, and one-of-a-kind story which I wanted to help him to bring alive.”

Continues Tomi Joutsen: “I have known Juha from the year 2007, when we worked together for the first time. A couple years ago, I had the privilege to meet Juha’s life partner, Aleah Starbridge, who was such a beautiful person, inside and outside, and had an angelic voice out of this world. Aleah lent her voice on the latest Amorphis album, and we called her ‘the whispering ghost.’ When I heard about Aleah’s passing last spring, it came as a total shock and heartbreaking news out of the blue. When Juha asked me if I would want to be part of this album and carry Aleah’s flame with him, I didn’t have to think twice. When everything has been taken, all that is left is the music. The sorrow strips us naked and leave us humble – this is how it sounds like.”

Concludes Raivio, “What we recorded was a raw moment in time honoring the memory, lyrics, and poems of Aleah Starbridge with all its pain, beauty and darkness. There are no stars left upon the bridge to light the way anymore, but the music will always be a dim light, even in the darkest of the night.”

Cover art and tracklisting for Hallatar’s No Stars Upon the Bridge to be revealed shortly.

HALLATAR is:
Tomi Joutsen – vocals
Gas Lipstick – drums
Juha Raivio – guitar, bass, keys

Finland’s Urn set to release their fourth album of blackened Thrash “The Burning”

Today, Iron Bonehead Productions sets July 28th as the international release date for Urn’s highly anticipated fourth album, The Burning. One of the Finnish underground’s longest-running yet best-kept secrets, Urn have been flying the flag of hate for unholy blackthrash since 1994. Founded by ex-Barathrum guitarist Sulphur, Urn have been a study in delayed-gratification patience and trend-bucking defiance. Their 2001 debut LP 666 Megatons sounded exactly like that, detonating a nuclear blast of classic blackthrash-cum-speed metal, which was further roughed up and refined on the successive LPs Dawn of the Devastation (2006) and Soul Destroyers (2008). But just as Urn had seemingly perfected their addicting ‘n’ acidic style, their classic power-trio lineup disintegrated and it was up to Sulphur to rebuild the band again. And rebuild, the bass-playing frontman did, as The Burning is the triumphant phoenix from the ashes.

Still maintaining that power-trio formation but now featuring a new lineup that includes guitarist Too Loud and drummer Revenant, The Burning literally explodes with an excitement that’s long been missing in black metal – suitably so, as it’s Urn’s first new recording in nearly a decade. Well rested, then, but certainly not resting on past laurels, Urn here fire off one veritable anthem after another with an urgency that’s startling to behold; the energy and passion are writ large across The Burning, and absolutely impossible to contain. And yet, for all its immediacy, there’s a certain grace and grandeur to The Burning that Urn have never revealed before: a wide-open, widescreened “man on the mountain” type of atmosphere that makes this pure black HEAVY METAL all the more majestic. However, let it be known that these Finnish bastards still revel in the dirt, just that now they’ve delivered their rancorous visions in a recording that’s their most robust and powerful to date.

Feel The Burning? It’s Urn, 666% back with a bestial invasion in the sign of evil! Bow before its first sign HERE at Iron Bonehead’s Soundcloud with the new track “Sons of the Northern Star.” Cover art, by Rok of Sadistik Exekution, and tracklisting are as follows:

Tracklisting for Urn (Finland)’s The Burning
1. Intro – Resurrection
2. Celestial Light
3. Hail The King
4. Morbid Black Sorrow
5. Sons Of The Northern Star
6. Nocturnal Demons
7. Wolves Of Radiation
8. All Will End In Fire
9. Falling Paradise
10. The Burning

www.facebook.com/Urnofficial