Photo gallery: Down @ Koolhaus, Toronto ON, Sept 18, 2009
All photos by Adam Wills. All photos are the property of Adam Wills and Hellbound.ca – do not copy without written consent.
Features
CONTEST: BLACK DAHLIA MURDER autographed CD/DVDs giveaway!
eta: new rules!!! Like to win things? Yeah, us too! Well, courtesy of the fine folks over at Metal Blade we have two (2) copies of the brand new BLACK DAHLIA MURDER Deflorate album to give away. And if that in itself wasn’t good enough, these are the limited edition CD/DVD versions of the album and it comes fully autographed by the members of the band.
Forest Stream’s Somn on Songwriting and Storytelling
I asked Forest Stream if they consider their music to be driven more by emotion, storytelling, visual imagery, social interactions, or something else altogether. Somn replied:
Forest Stream: Nature and Society, Misery and Hope
“Russia is a very good country in many ways, but that is also the country I, personally, hate many things about. The main issue causing this glaringly negative feeling is human indifference. Sometimes it reaches the top level of some sort of cold desperation, and it starts being felt like absolutely nobody cares about anything. Whatever happens they don’t care. Quite often this indifference is shared with another treasure – an ultimate stupidity and even complete assholicism as I tend to call it. I am very tired of it…”
Laura Wiebe Taylor speaks to members of Russian doom metal sextet Forest Stream about their new album, their native homeland and the advantages of recording in studios.
STAFF PLAYLISTS: September 2009
Find out what HELLBOUND’s contributors are listening to going into the month of September. Each writer has submitted their Top 5 list and have an option to list a book and a film they are into right now too.
Megadeth: From Vic’s Garage To Endgame With Shawn Drover
The words “Megadeth” and “Dave Mustaine” are pretty much synonymous. In fact, we’d be willing to wager substantial sums of money that we don’t actually have that “Megadeth” and “Dave Mustaine” are far and away more synonymous with each other than “megadeath” and “Herman Kahn,” the gentleman who just happens to be the RAND military strategist who devised and first used the term in 1953 to describe one million deaths as a result of a thermonuclear war.
Kevin Stewart-Panko speaks to Megadeth’s Shawn Drover about their new studio, new guitarist and upcoming new album.
The Gathering: The Next Chapter
When Anneke van Giersbergen announced her departure from The Gathering it was a shock – for many fans but for her bandmates as well. But shock doesn’t have to lead to death or paralysis, and in a sense The Gathering had been down this road before. Reinvention is a familiar enterprise for the Dutch alt rockers, who started out as a doomy metal band with male vocals in the early nineties. Van Giersbergen’s entry on lead vocals was merely one shift, the eventual transition from aggression to shoegazing another. Though Anneke was the voice and forward face of The Gathering for well over a decade, her decision to leave meant another change, not the end.
Contest: AUGURY Autographed CD giveaway!
Hey, it’s a contest. Check inside to see how you can win an autographed copy of the brand new AUGURY CD!
STAFF PLAYLISTS: August 2009
Find out what HELLBOUND’s contributors are listening to going into the month of August. Each writer has submitted their Top 5 list and have an option to list a book and a film they are into right now too.
Killswitch Engage: Turning Liquid Sugar Into Gold
Whether it’s because they have definite hardcore roots, forming as they did from the ashes of Overcast, Aftershock and, later, Blood Has Been Shed, or because they have choruses that sound more like globules of liquid sugar instead of caustic battery acid, Massachusetts’ Killswitch Engage has always had troubles being accepted by metalheads across the board. Arguments range from “they’re metalcore/screamo/not metal therefore they suck” to “they may be metal, but they suck” and other such subjectivity disguised as scene police fact. That they’ve gone ahead and managed two certified gold records in the U.S. means that the underground has yet another reason to chastise them beyond the speciousness of arguments surrounding what genre they call home.
Kevin Stewart-Panko discusses KSE’s second self-titled album and their rise to modest fame with band guitarist Joel Stroetzel.