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At Wacken Open Air we got the chance to interview the folk metal band Finsterforst. We talked about the festival, women in metal and more!
Benedetta
I’m here with the amazing Finsterforst. How are you doing, guys?
Finsterforst
Great. Yeah, really great. A little bit tired because we drove the whole night yesterday. But I’m feeling right now really great.
Benedetta
You’re playing at the anniversary edition of Wacken Open Air. This is the 35th year of the festival. How does it feel to play this year?
Finsterforst
It’s great. I mean, for me, I was here first time in attendance in 1999. So, yeah, I always wanted to play here. We’ve done it before, to come back is great. It’s just a great festival, great place to play. For me, it’s the same. I didn’t realize that it’s an anniversary edition. But it’s always great to play big festivals, especially that kind of festivals like Wacken. It’s always great to enjoy time here. We have good time with all people we met here. We’re looking forward to our gig.
Benedetta
For sure. Awesome. So, of course, you have a lot of experience with playing live shows, but you also have experience recording music. Do you think that the life of an artist is a lonely life?
Finsterforst
I would say that Finsterforst instrumentalists have a lonely life. Because in our band it’s that way that our other guitarists, Simon, he’s writing all the songs at his home and he’s sending to everybody. Then everybody is learning the songs he wrote. Afterwards, maybe, we’ll meet at some point in the rehearsal room. That will happen maybe once or two times a year. So, if you’re looking at it in that way or that perspective, then it is a lonely life. But, yeah, you know, life has different facets. I think all of us have different things to do in our lives. None of us are really lonely in their private life. I’d love to be more lonely sometimes.
Benedetta
Do you think that we will ever reach equality between men and women in the metal world?
Finsterforst
I don’t know. But, honestly, I’m not sure if it’s important. It’s art. We’ve played with Burning Witches. Great band. Love them. Then again, there are some women. It’s more like a gimmick. I don’t like that at all. And I think it hurts the idea of being equal. If you’re a great musician, I don’t care what gender you are. So, yeah, to me it doesn’t really matter. But I think that’s kind of equality, actually. But, yeah, in numbers, could be more, should be more. Definitely. I think that maybe there’s still a mindset, for example, for an instrumentalist. So, if you’re like a girl, thinking that you’re playing drums or something like that, maybe isn’t the right choice. I don’t know. But sometimes I think what I’m feeling, because you notice this sometimes. But otherwise, you saw a lot of girls drumming on YouTube and they are really great. So, I don’t know how much the gap is, really. I think we would love to see more girls and equality in metal music. Because I think metal has to do something with equality, with doing something together. Music has to do something together. It doesn’t matter if you’re a girl or a boy or something in between. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to do music together
Benedetta
Guys, thank you so much for being such a good sport and for taking the time to do this interview. Is there anything else that you want to add to our viewers and readers?
Finsterforst
Yeah, we’re bringing out a new album. It’s a little bit different like the last ones, but it’s known for us to have a little bit of evolution and to experiment some new things we want to put into the music. I hope you like it, everybody reading our interview. And I hope to see all of you at some point in our shows and have a great time Let’s get back to Italy. Long time we didn’t visit.
The post Interview with Finsterforst first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.
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Boston rock veteran Geoff Abraham has a storied history: he fronted ’90s local legends The Fighting Cocks. Today, his latest project, Geoff Abraham Band, delivers pure, soulful blues-rock loaded with catchy melodies, raw energy, and decades of heart.
“Top of My Game” is the name of the first single from the band’s upcoming second album, and it’s a straight-up, guitar-driven rock & roll song about getting older without slowing down. It’s about keeping that hunger, confidence, and fire to keep pushing forward right when you’re supposed to be easing off the gas.
I love the riffs (the guitars sound fantastic), the dynamic and precise rhythm section, the catchy vocals and the overall production. It’s a straightforward song, reminding me of The Black Crowes, fun to listen to and quality from every point of view, with a stellar performance by the band.
Give “Top of My Game” a go by clicking on the Spotify player below and follow Geoff Abraham Band on social media if you like what you hear.
https://instagram.com/geoff.abraham.7/
https://facebook.com/geoff.abraham.2025/
In 2022 Jean-Michel Jarre released his 22nd and most recent album, Oxymore. Explaining that stereo wasn’t a natural form of sound, he produced the record in several more recent audio formats, and created a VR live show based in his imaginary city of Oxyville. That year – before AI had become the industry’s hot topic – he told Prog where he believed music was going next, and relished the chance of taking part in another great disruption.
I’ve been quite involved with VR and immersive worlds for a while. I think the Covid period played a role of an accelerator in our relationship with digital worlds and interfaces.
Everyone is talking about immersive worlds visually; no one is talking about immersive worlds of sound. The visual field for a human being is 140 degrees – but the audio field is 360 degrees.
And really, we don’t care about technology; only the result matters. Is it working? Is it creating feeling or emotions or not? This new approach is sending us back to a very natural way of listening to sounds in everyday life.
I wanted to create a live event for Oxymore, and in VR we can explore the visual possibilities. I thought it would be fun to create a music city: the city of Oxyville, somewhere between Metropolis and Sin City, with buildings made from the broken parts of old synths and old tape recorders.
Then I’ll play live in the city. Each track will be dedicated to a district, and at the end of each track you’ll be teleported to another district.
The whole thing is based on spatial audio and surround sound, because I’m convinced that’s the way we’re going to listen to music in the very near future.
People have electric cars, which are going to eventually become pocket auditoriums. People have incredible soundbars with their TV sets. We’re going to have a much more 3D relationship with the music.
If I play live in reality, I want to do it without any visuals and go back to what the music is about: closing your eyes, listening and having a real trip and a real music experience. But I want to keep the visual experience within VR.
It will make sense to young people, I think. But this idea of imaginary worlds is not new. Our first virtual world is a book – it could be Dickens or Harry Potter, and you’re imagining the faces of the characters. You’re being an observer within the story, in a sense. We’re just going one step further.
I think young musicians are very lucky to live in this world of ideas and disruption. We always have a very dark vision and attitude about the future. We always think tomorrow is going to be worse than today. But if all those previous futures were so bad, we wouldn’t be here to talk to each other!
I’ve been lucky to live through three moments of disruption. The first was when I started, at the beginning of electronic music. The second was the digital era, with the rise of computers, and the third is this revolution of immersive worlds and the metaverse, and the fact that we can again push the boundaries of creativity.
This project makes me feel like a beginner – I’m opening doors on something new.
Prince Buster: Blue Beat Hits (Blue Beat) Out now LP only An album of remastered early singles from ska icon Prince Buster gives new life to songs whose influence persists to this day. The brilliance shines through, according to Nathan Brown. The 2 Tone beat of The Specials, The Selecter, Bodysnatchers, Madness and The Beat; […]
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Gooseberry’s Fault Lines hits with a heavier side of the band, bringing alternative rock, grunge and blues-rock influences into a tense, guitar-driven arrangement. The track carries a strong sense of isolation and homesickness, translating the feeling of watching life continue from a distance into something much more visceral. The guitars provide plenty of weight and grit, with a clear nod to the heavier atmosphere of Soundgarden, while the rhythm section keeps the song moving with a muscular, grounded pulse. There is an impressive balance between melody and heaviness here, allowing the emotional core to remain present beneath the distortion. Fault Lines feels raw, restless and appropriately unsettled, capturing the frustration of being separated from familiar places and communities while turning that disconnection into a compelling rock track.
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