Nirmal “Nims” Purja became known around the world as the man who chased impossible mountains. But behind many of his greatest achievements was someone who rarely stood in the spotlight: his wife, Suchi Purja.
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Lacuna Coil singer Andrea Ferro says the challenges facing bands in today’s world of short attention spans is making it harder for artists to make an impact – but he believes metal and rock bands are going a great job of maintaining high standards in their work.
The Italian vocalist discusses the differences facing musicians today compared to when Lacuna Coil were starting to make their name in the 1990s in a new interview with Rock Hard Greece.
He says that grabbing and holding people’s attention gets harder all the time. But in his view, metal still sounds great compared to a lot of other genres where quality is sacrificed for quick wins,
Ferro says: “The system of how you find out about bands, how you sell the records or the music has changed completely.
“When we started, it was still the magazines and then the little bit from the TV, a little bit from the radio and the webzine. And nowadays these things don’t exist. Nowadays it’s all about the social media.
“Some magazine are still surviving, but it’s also harder for them. People want to read the news the minute they come out. They don’t have any patience anymore to go in the store and buy the mag.
“I love to go in the bookstore and buy the magazine and then read it at home. But now that doesn’t exist anymore.
“Everything is way faster and shorter, and the attention span of the people is way less. So you can be a very famous band very quickly, but you can also disappear with the same quickness, because people have always want something new, something fast, and it’s very hard to get their attention for more than a minute.
“I think rock and metal is one of the few genres that has kept a certain quality. Different maybe, but still quality all along, compared to other musical styles.”
Ferro is grateful to have come onto the scene with Lacuna Coil when the process set them up for longevity rather than instant success.
He adds: “We’re lucky that we grew up in a different time, and we made the most of our fanbase in times where you could still go door by door and tour every city and open for this band and that band and convince everybody through playing every show – so in the classic way.
“I think nowadays it’s way easier and faster but also way more complicated to build something solid that is gonna last.”
Lacuna Coil have a number of festival dates coming up in 2026 and a string of shows planned for 2027.
Shadows Fall have completed their eighth studio album, guitarist Jon Donais has confirmed — the Springfield, Massachusetts band’s first full-length since 2012’s Fire From The Sky. Producer Zeuss (Rob Zombie, Hatebreed) handled the record, which will be released through MNRK Heavy.
Donais told Mike Zara on 96.7 KCAL-FM’s “Wired In The Empire” that the album is done, but they’ve just gotta go through everything and figure out the right times before releasing it. The record is tentatively due in 2027. Donais has said he wrote the material by deliberately only listening to the thrash and ’90s death metal that made him want to start the band as a teenager.
STREAM THE METAL BREAKDOWN DAILY NOW:On Monday’s Metal Breakdown Daily, Scott Penfold gets into the Shadows Fall comeback — why an album that’s finished still isn’t coming out for another year, the writing trick Jon Donais used to find the band’s original sound again, and whether fifteen years away can ever really be made up. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and take the show with you.
Fourteen years. And they’re not done waiting yet.
Jon Donais has confirmed that Shadows Fall’s eighth album — their first since 2012’s Fire From The Sky, and the record fans have been circling since the band came back in December 2021 — is finished. Tracked, mixed, in the can.
The catch: it’s tentatively pencilled in for 2027.
Donais put it plainly on Mike Zara’s KCAL-FM show. The album’s done. What’s left is going through everything, figuring out the right timing, and working around people’s schedules.
That last part is doing an enormous amount of work, and we’ll come back to it.
Here’s the detail that makes this interesting rather than just another “album is finished” story.
Donais said that when he was writing, he made a conscious decision to only let himself be influenced by the bands he was listening to when he started Shadows Fall. So he went back to thrash. He went back to ’90s death metal. He was trying to get back inside the head of a 17-year-old kid in Springfield, Massachusetts, asking himself why he wanted to start this band in the first place.
And he described going back to those records with what he called new ears — hearing them again after what felt like a million years and being genuinely knocked out by how good they still were. That, by his account, is where the excitement came from.
That’s a smart move, and it’s the opposite of what most reunion records do. The usual failure mode is a veteran band trying to sound current, chasing whatever’s happening in the genre now, and ending up sounding like nobody in particular. Donais went the other way. He went back to source.
Brian Fair described something similar when the band first started jamming again — that Donais was sitting on a vault of riffs, and that the nervous question in the room was whether it would still sound like Shadows Fall. The answer came back fast. It did.
We covered Fair’s own account of those sessions and the MNRK signing back in April 2025, where he talked about keeping things stripped down with Zeuss and bringing a bit of thrash energy and a more live feel to the recordings. Everything Donais is saying now lines up with that.
LIVE & LOUD: Stream the World’s Hardest Radio Station 24/7This is the part nobody’s explaining, so let’s explain it.
“People’s schedules” sounds like a throwaway line. It isn’t. Look at what these five guys are actually doing:
Jon Donais has been a full-time member of Anthrax since 2013, when he replaced Rob Caggiano. Anthrax are in the middle of their own album cycle — we covered their first record in a decade earlier this year. A Big Four adjacent band with a new album is not a part-time commitment.
Jason Bittner spent 2017 to 2024 drumming for Overkill, left in August 2024, and now plays in the supergroup Category 7.
Matt Bachand has Act Of Defiance, and played guitar in Living Wreckage with Donais through the hiatus — a band that’s still active and released new music this year.
Brian Fair has kept Overcast and Downpour going, and turns up in Living Wreckage territory too.
Five guys. Five other bands. That’s not a lack of commitment to Shadows Fall — it’s what happens when a band takes eleven years off and everybody builds a life in the meantime. It’s also exactly why Fair has said the reunion works: no agenda, no pressure, no machine.
The trade-off is that you can’t just drop a finished record whenever you like. You need a release window where the guitar player isn’t on a bus in Europe with Anthrax.
Quick catch-up for anyone who lost the thread.
Shadows Fall announced their hiatus in August 2014 and played farewell dates into the summer of 2015. They reunited in December 2021 for their first show in six years, in Massachusetts, with no promise of new music attached.
Then it started coming anyway. “In The Grey” landed in December 2024 — their first new song in twelve years. “Souls Devoured” followed in May 2025. They signed to MNRK Heavy. They played a run of dates with Killswitch Engage, hit festivals, and supported Lamb Of God in their hometown.
That Springfield show in July 2025 came with a genuinely great footnote: Mayor Domenic J. Sarno declared July 18 “Shadows Fall Day” and handed the band an official proclamation. A year later they came back to Springfield’s MGM Aria Ballroom on the same date for a 30th anniversary hometown show with Unearth and Within The Ruins — the only show they booked all year.
Thirty years. Two Grammy nominations, for “What Drives The Weak” and “Redemption.” One of the defining bands of the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal alongside Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Unearth and Lamb Of God.
An album being finished a year before release is frustrating, but it beats the alternative — and metal fans have been burned enough times by comeback records announced before a note was written.
This one exists. It’s done. Zeuss produced it, the classic lineup played it, and the guy who wrote it spent the whole process trying to remember what it felt like to be seventeen and obsessed with thrash.
Fifteen years between albums is a long time. But Shadows Fall never really got a proper goodbye — the hiatus was a slow fade, not a statement. Getting a real record out of them, on their own terms, with no label breathing down their necks, is worth waiting a bit longer for.
Yes. Guitarist Jon Donais confirmed the record is complete and that what remains is sorting out timing and everyone’s schedules before release.
No firm date has been set. It’s tentatively pencilled in for 2027.
Their last full-length was Fire From The Sky in 2012. If the new record lands in 2027, that’s a 15-year gap.
Zeuss, real name Chris Harris, whose credits include Rob Zombie and Hatebreed. He’s a longtime collaborator of the band.
Donais wrote it by deliberately only listening to the thrash and ’90s death metal that inspired him to start the band as a teenager. Brian Fair has described the sessions with Zeuss as stripped down, with more thrash energy and a more live feel.
The classic lineup: Brian Fair on vocals, Jon Donais on lead guitar, Matt Bachand on guitar, Paul Romanko on bass and Jason Bittner on drums.
Fifteen years between albums, and the wait isn’t quite over — but this one actually exists, and it was written by a guy trying to remember what it felt like to be seventeen. Are you still holding out for this record? Let us know in the comments.
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Is No Prayer For The Dying up there with your favourite Iron Maiden albums? If the answer is ‘yes’, you’re in a fairly select group. It would be a massive stretch to say the record, released in 1990, is as beloved as such nailed-on classics as The Number Of The Beast, Powerslave, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son or A Matter Of Life And Death.
But if you are willing to go into bat for the metal legends’ eighth album then you’re in good company. One person who really loves it is Maiden bassist Steve Harris himself. Speaking to Metal Hammer as part of a feature on supposedly rubbish metal albums that are nowhere as bad as people say they are, ’Arry leaps to No Prayer For The Dying’s defence – and reveals the one thing he’d change about it that would have cast it in a completely different light.
“I think it’s a really strong album,” he says, pointing out that it came on the back of a run of increasingly ambitious albums and tours. “At the time, we had gotten so big, with all the grandiose shows, that we were trying to go back to basics a little bit.
“If I’m totally honest, I think it was slightly influenced by Bruce’s solo album, Tattooed Millionaire [also released in 1990], where he was trying to get a bit more basic,” continues Steve. “There are a couple of songs on there where he sings a bit rougher. I was thinking I could write something where he could sing with that gruff delivery as well.”
This commitment to stripping things back extended to recording the album in a converted barn in the grounds of Steve’s house. And the one change he would make if he could do it again? Well, it’s a pretty major one.
“We were trying to make it sound like a live album, which is why we got the Rolling Stones Mobile studio in to record live in the barn. We probably should have put audience noise on it, because it would have sounded more like a proper live album – we did that with the Tailgunner video, and it made a big difference.”
Ironically, one of the more derided songs on the album is its most epic-sounding: Cossack-metal anthem Mother Russia. “Mother Russia got really slagged off, but I listened to it recently and I thought, ‘This is really good,’” says Steve. “I was going for a [20th century Russian composer] Sergei Prokofiev kind of vibe, which I felt I got, but it got slagged off anyway.”
Not that Steve Harris is bothered by whether you like No Prayer For The Dying or not. “I don’t care about that kind of stuff,” he says. “I remember when Jethro Tull’s album A Passion Play got slagged off, [Tull mainman] Ian Anderson didn’t want to play the UK anymore,” he says. “If it were me, I would have embraced it. I would have gotten all the journalists into one room, and piled into them – not physically, but verbally. If someone says they don’t like something, that makes me embrace it even more. You’ve got to believe in what do, don’t you?”
You can check out the list of albums that are nowhere as bad as people say they are – also featuring Judas Priest, Metallica, Machine Head and more – in the brand new issue of Metal Hammer, onsale now.
It takes a lot of talent – and panache – to turn a group’s description into their name, but then THE BLUES BAND had it all from the off. When erstwhile ‘s sidekicks – or, rather, front men – Paul … Continue reading
The post THE BLUES BAND Celebrate Anniversary With (Mostly) Live Box Set appeared first on DMME.net.
Recommended for fans of: Orchid, Envy, (early) Deafheaven What’s in a (genre) name? Well, quite a lot – to some people, anyway – it seems, as picking the wrong genre tag for a band will mean some potential listeners might choose not to check out their music, under the wrong impression that it’s “not for […]
The post THE SYNN REPORT (PART 197): OSTRACA appeared first on NO CLEAN SINGING.
Bruce Dickinson has announced completion of vocals for his eighth solo album, with mixing sessions set to take place in Florida. His social media channels posted on July 31: “Finished vocals for the new album today — Now he’s off to mix it in Florida.” The album was recorded at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606 in Northridge, California during January and February 2026, produced by Brendan Duffey, who will also mix the record at Brendan Duffey Audio in Jupiter, Florida. The finished record is expected in early 2027 via BMG. Dickinson and Duffey previously collaborated on More Balls To Picasso, released in July 2025.
The record features Dickinson’s touring band: Mistheria on keyboards, Dave Moreno on drums, Tanya O’Callaghan on bass, and guitarists Chris Declercq and Philip Näslund. Andreas Kisser of Sepultura contributes percussion. The project marks a departure from Dickinson’s long creative partnership with producer Roy Z, who is not involved.
At a Comic-Con appearance in July 2026, Dickinson confirmed a creative collaboration with his son Austin Dickinson (35), frontman of Rise to Remain and As Lions, and said he planned to shoot four or five music videos “this month.”
On what awaits in 2027, Dickinson was teasing but emphatic: “I’m pretty busy in ’27. And I think everybody’s gonna be very happy with what I’m busy with — in every sense of the word.”
Dickinson most recently toured North America on “The Mandrake Project Live 2025,” which launched on August 22, 2025, in Anaheim, California, in support of his seventh solo album The Mandrake Project (2024). The new studio album will be his first follow-up to that record.
Dickinson first achieved global fame as frontman of Iron Maiden, joining the band in 1981 and appearing on landmark albums including The Number Of The Beast (1982). He departed in 1993 — briefly replaced by Blaze Bayley of Wolfsbane — before rejoining in 1999 alongside returning guitarist Adrian Smith. His solo catalog with producer Roy Z spans Balls To Picasso (1994), Accident Of Birth (1997), The Chemical Wedding (1998), Tyranny Of Souls (2005) and The Mandrake Project.
The post BRUCE DICKINSON Completes Eighth Solo Album Vocals: “Finished Vocals for the New Album Today — Now He’s Off to Mix It in Florida” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
“Hey, don’t write yourself off yet…’
The lyrics to The Middle – Jimmy Eat World’s breakthrough hit and an absolute emo anthem – might have been intended as words of encouragement to a teenage punk struggling with ideas of self-worth and acceptance, but they could equally have applied to the band’s own career as they entered a new century.
Throughout the mid-to-late 90s, the quartet werea a cult act who had garnered a little airplay on US college radio before being unceremoniously ditched by their label. Their third album in particular, 1999’s Clarity, would eventually come to be viewed as an emo classic but at the time it was considered a commercial flop.
As the band took on day jobs to self-fund the follow up, they looked as likely to crew the next manned space flight to the Moon as break into the musical mainstream. But bolstered by the huge success of The Middle, 2001’s Bleed American changed all that. It wasn’t just a massive album for Jimmy Eat World, it blew the doors wide open for every other emotionally charged rock and punk band to follow.
When Jimmy Eat World formed in Mesa, Arizona in 1993, they had no such grand ambitions. “Our goals were really small when we first started,” guitarist and original lead vocalistTom Linton told Columbus Underground. “We just wanted to put out a little seven-inch and we were freaking out about that. And be able to go to California, you know – leave Phoenixto play a show outside of Arizona.”
They soon went beyond such modest aspirations with debut EP One, Two, Three, Four and a self-titled full-length album, both released in 1994 on local label Wooden Blue Records. Their early material was more in the vein of ramshackle skate-punk and it wasn’t until their second album, 1996’s Static Prevails, that they started to hone their sound into a more refined format.
Lead guitarist Jim Adkins started to take on more of the lead vocals, adding his crystalline highs to Linton’s Jawbox-style rasps, and they brought in more post-hardcore and emo elements. They were signed to Capitol Records on a development deal, which guaranteed one album and gave the label the option for several more, and things appeared to be looking rosy.
In the wake of Green Day’s Dookie though, major labels weren’t looking for bands who could slowly develop their own sound and fanbase. They wanted big returns quickly, and when Static Prevails failed to shift the units, the band already started to see the writing on the wall.
“We approached making [follow-up album Clarity] like we would never get a chance to make another record in an actual studio again,” Adkins told the Washed Up Emo podcast. “So we didgo kinda nuts…like: ‘Alright, today we’re renting timpani!”
The album certainly had its grandiose elements, with a strings, keys, piano, bells and a vibraphone, but there was also the more personal, relatable side that has always been such a key part of emo’s appeal.
Clarity’s lead single Lucky Denver Mint gained some traction and remains a fan favourite to this day, but the album again failed to match their record label paymasters’ expectations. When Capitol decided not to renew the contract, the band were philosophical.
“All big labels are extremely adept at pushing bands that are moving 20,000 or more records a week,” Jim Adkins told Spin. “Capitol knew exactly what to do with that. But they had no idea what to do with bands like us that sold 10,000 copies between all releases. [Clarity] grew over time into what it is now, but that wasn’t the case back then. It made complete business sense to not spend any more money on us.”
Jimmy Eat World were down but certainly not out. Regrouping for the next step, they channelled money from their day jobs and touring that had stepped up a level. Adkins recalled Tom Linton sitting in a bar nervously clutching a backpack with $35,000 in it because they didn’t want to leave it in the car and couldn’t deposit so much in the bank in one go.
Producer Mark Trombino agreed to work on the album that would become Bleed American, with the band paying him when they could, going back on tour to raise funds as needed.
“It turned out to be one of my favourite record-making experiences because it was literally me and four guys just making a record together without any label involvement,” Trombino told Entertainment Weekly. “That was the reason it turned out the way it did.”
As they worked on the album, new record labels sniffed around and the band eventually signed with DreamWorks Records. Bleed American was released in July 2001 (the title was temporarily changed to Jimmy Eat World in the wake of the September 11 attacks).
It featured a more streamlined, accessible sound and The Middle was its most anthemic moment. Written in direct response to a fan who contacted them on their AOL account, it featured a dream sequence video in which the protagonist shows up to a party fully clothed, while his peers all dance in their underwear.
“I think we just decided, ‘Let’s lean into this and do it and make sure it’s done right’, make sure it’s not overly gratuitous or inappropriate in a way that feels creepy,” drummer Zach Lind told Grammy.com.
The video was a hit and they toured relentlessly on the back of it, including stints on the Warped Tour and the Pop Disaster tour with Blink-182 and Green Day. By the time they came up for air, this most unassuming of bands were rock stars with a million-selling album behind them.
“The way that Bleed American just opened doors for us was maybe one of the most satisfying experiences of my life,” Lind told Grammy.com. “In the wake of all the frustration and banging our head against the wall at Capitol, it just felt like everything aligned perfectly, and I think we were lucky to be able to experience that in that way, because I don’t think a lot of people get that moment in their life.”
It didn’t only open doors for the band who made it but for the scene as a whole, ushering emo into the mainstream spotlight. It also set up Jimmy Eat World as global stars who would outlive the musical andcultural wave they helped to generate.
They would never match Bleed American sales-wise, but follow-up Futures went Gold and 2007’s Chase This Light would become their highest charting album, peaking at No.5 in the US Billboard 200. They would continue to release a string of consistent and highly regarded albums over subsequent years.
With no splits or lengthy hiatuses, they’re one of the few major players of the 2000s emo boom who haven’t had to affect a reunion to benefit from the recent resurgence of interest, supporting a revitalized My Chemical Romance in Australia and touring with Fall Out Boy in the US. They might dispute the term but Jimmy Eat World remain emo royalty and their legacy is assured.
Originally published in The Story Of Emo. Order it online here and have it delivered straight to your door