Bullet - true Highway Pirates

Sweden's kings of old-school heavy metal, Bullet, are back with a vengeance. Their third and greatest album, Highway Pirates, was released just two weeks ago and features ten brilliant songs about the road, party and metal itself. Here are a few tunes performed at the release party in Växjö, along with all the tour dates! ”We're five kids that never grew up and love heavy metal, denim and leather”, says guitarist Hampus Klang. We thank you for that!

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Gary Moore remembered

Legendary rock/metal/blues/fusion guitar hero Gary Moore died this weekend, apparently the unfortunate rocker way having a few too many to drink, according to the latest reports. Strange, seeming as he was the kind of sober guy to call on when others couldn't be relied on - Thin Lizzy guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson at various points in time due to their own drink, drug and other rowdy ways. Rest in peace, Gary!

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Ramones' message for the holidays

Regardless of religious persuasion, I think most agree with Joey Ramone on the no-fighting bit for these winter festivities. They pass so much faster without the fuss. Ramones will receive their Lifetime Achievment Grammy in February, at long last recognized for their influence as punk pioneers.

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King Diamond in a festive mood

A few weeks ago Kim Bendix Pedersen, a.k.a. King Diamond, the god of evil, falsetto proto-black metal shrieks, was admitted to hospital and had triple-bypass surgery. As of the 11th of December, we've received news that all is well and we wish him a speedy recovery. He, in turn, wishes all headbangers a festive X-mas, with his bizarre classic No Presents For Christmas, sounding surprisingly good in this clip from a 1986 concert.

Roky Erickson returns, again!

Garage rock legend and pioneer Roky Erickson is on tour, playing Stockholm tonight for I don't know which time since his comeback from the other side a few years back. Whether Sweden has such a large number of fans is to an extent attributed to the work done by bands like Entombed, who covered Night Of The Vapire in the 90’s when most kids hadn’t even heard of Roky. First, a recent clip of Two Headed Dog, along with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

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Kanye's Schizoid Sampling

I don’t know if you have heard about Kanye West’s new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but according the every single newspaper in the world, it's the hot shit this week, December 2010. The samples are quite remarkable, from a rock point-of-view, and surprisingly the first single, POWER, uses the hook from 41 year old prog-rock/free-jazz/proto-metal classic 21st Century Schizoid Man, by the mighty King Crimson. This clip is from one of their first large gigs, Hyde Park, London 1969.

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Winter re-unites for the 2011 Roadburn festival

The world’s leading stoner/fuzz/doom/sludge metal festival, Roadburn, keep presenting interesting additions to their 2011 line-up, the latest being the recently reunited American doom/death band Winter! This is part of one day’s line-up that is curated, i.e. hand-picked, by drone maestros Sunn O))), together with other semi-legendary bands such as Scorn, Earth and Mayhem singer Attila Csihar’s new project Void Ov Voices.

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Enforcer survives major car crash!

Swedish metal band Enforcer were in a major car accident yesterday, but miraculously made it with only minor injuries! Ironically, even though the band's been pretty much constantly on tour since their latest album release in May, this accident happened near their home town of Arvika in western Sweden, when their van slid over to the other lane and was mashed by oncoming heavy machinery dealing with the recent snowstorms...

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Stereo Generator - new EP out!

Gotland’s finest, the trio-recently-cum-fourpiece Stereo Generator, have just released a critically acclaimed EP called 12 Gauges & Cocktails that’s gotten rave reviews in Metal Hammer and Sweden Rock Magazine. Here are two of the tracks live at a recent showcase, Berg & Dahlbana and Found My Thrill. More at Myspace.

Soft Satanic Sounds

The big rock journo hype at the moment is the occult, hooded congregation Ghost, who released their debut album Opus Eponymous last week. While there's no real good video of them on the net yet, let's look back at one of the first Satanic rock bands, Black Widow, who also played music slightly softer than the subject matter would suggest. For subversive reasons?!

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