Tunisian black/death metal formation Primordial Black has revealed a video clip for âRuines Suspenduesâ, the first single from their upcoming album Heterotopia. The latter will see its official release on May 15th through Darkside Records. Read moreâŠ
As part of their ‘Ghost Town Tour’, Axel Rudi Pell have confirmed a string of European headline shows in autumn whit special guests and fellow countrymen Night Laser. Read moreâŠ
Today, German power metal force VICTORIUS celebrate the release of their brand-new albumâWorld War Dinosaurâ, out now via PERCEPTION – A Division Of Reigning Phoenix Music. Marking the occasion, the band also unveils a lyric video for the albumâs explosive title track, featuring special guest appearances by Angus McSix and Orden Ogan! âItâs the most epic and hymn-like album weâve ever written,” the band […]
Swedish rockers THUNDERMOTHER share a final single from their first live album. âThe Road Is Ours – Live in Cologneâ invites listeners right into the venue to experience the bandâs energetic performance. Recorded live in Cologne, Germany, the track was originally released on the 2021 deluxe version of their Top 10 album Heat Wave. Without a shadow of a doubt, THUNDERMOTHER once again […]
Ukraine gothic doomers Edenian are excited to announce that they have inked a new deal with Elevate Records for the release of their third long player dubbed Black Moon. Additional details coming soon. Read moreâŠ
The “Wake Of Aquarius” single marks the first glimpse into the Dead Kosmonaut‘s brand new album Retrospectre, which will receive its release on the 26th of June through Edged Circle Productions. Read moreâŠ
Roger Fisher, the co-founder and original lead guitarist for the rock band Heart, played a pivotal role in the band’s early success, contributing to albums like Dreamboat Annie, co-writing hits, and famously creating Barracuda. MetalTalk’s Sunil Singh spoke to Roger at length about his career, and we will soon discover more about his SoulGarden Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing mentorship, studio access, and opportunities to emerging musicians.
This is my second interview for MetalTalk. My first one was with the Dutch band The Gathering, one of my favourite bands of all time. And now, once again, I was interviewing a personal favourite, both band and guitarist.
On March 27, 2024, Roger Fisher joined my Sonic Seducers group on Facebook. But, before that, I messaged him earlier in the year, hoping he might want to contribute something to the Love Alive chapter of Sonic Seducer. He responded almost immediately with an enthusiastic yes. Below is an excerpt of what he shared.
Roger Fisher – Heart. Photo courtesy of Roger Fisher
The romantic story that gave birth to that song is filled with details that intersect his love affair with Nancy Wilson and the height of the band’s collective songwriting.
“In the early 1970s, I was living with a luthier, Ed Myronyck, in Vancouver, BC. The idea of living with a guitar builder and learning the craft was to me like a bee discovering a fresh flower. It seemed like my raison dâĂȘtre.
“It was while transforming my Gibson SG into a double-neck guitar that Nancy Wilson stopped in to see what I was doing. She was visiting her sister Ann, considering joining our group, Heart.
“Evidently, she was impressed. That night, seeing her off in her old Datsun, she kissed me. I don’t know what it’s like for other people, but for me, the universe stopped for a moment right then.
“The world was a new, vibrant place crackling with life. We began seeing each other regularly, thriving in the passion we both felt for climbing the staircase to becoming good musicians. I took Nance to see guitar seminars – Barney Kessel; Joe Pass; Johnny Smith. Those meanderings were enhanced by our elevated state.
“Ed had gifted me with a jar of psilocybin mushrooms suspended in honey, adding a dimension to our otherwise enthusiastic explorations. It was tripping in this alternate world that we wrote the main riff of Love Alive. I had asked everyone I knew if it sounded familiar to them, as it seemed to me it was something I’d heard Jimmy Page play. Nope, no one had heard it before.
“Nance made up one of her always-perfect, complimenting guitar parts, and we had the foundation for a cool song. Working on it with Ann, a version emerged that we called Incognito In Sausalito. One of the joys of being a composer and poet is that an epiphany can suddenly change everything, and it did when Ann bore the inspired body of the lyrics to Love Alive.
“The song was now a living, breathing entity that longed for attention⊠global attention. It was just before sunset on a warm summer day. I was on Ed’s roof, sitting on moss, playing an acoustic guitar he had built.
“Out of nowhere, a simple chord progression appeared like a sunbeam arch from heaven. When I played it – by accident – my hair stood on end. I was goosebumps head to toe. This was Gold! The bridge to Love Alive was born.”
Two years to the day after he joined the book’s Facebook group, I got to sit down with him, myself in Toronto and he in a little town called Goldbar, which is about 30 minutes outside Seattle, and spend one magical hour musing and reflecting on the intricacies of life, relationships, music, and creativity.
Notice that the word “music” was organically folded into a sentence that incorporates the aspiration of intersecting realms. This should alert everyone that this interview was special.
This was not an interview that revolved around unearthing the greatest hits of answers to already asked questions over the last 50 years. That would have been a waste of time for Roger Fisher, me, and you, the readers.
I think I watched a dozen interviews with Roger Fisher. What he demonstrated consistently and constantly was an unbridled glow about the classic lineup of Heart.
That youthful vigour, happiness, and kindness that has pierced Fisher’s soul is something I wanted to tap into more deeply. And, with this candour swimming effortlessly throughout the interview, he made it so easy for this to happen. There’s a special spirit of living and loving that he is not shy about sharing.
However, the interview could have only been special if I started with a banger of a question.
It had to be a question that was never posed to him before. And, he could only answer it one way, or the whole interview was going to fall apart.
I was not disappointed by this answer. It was emphatic, as though both the question and answer had remained unnecessarily dormant since Heart roamed the ’70s with unique brilliance.
One of the first things Roger Fisher discussed in passionate detail was the chemistry and democracy of the band of six, how each memberâhimself, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Michael Derosier, Howard Leese, and Steve Fossenâfostered collaborative joy and openness to ideas.
The proof is the bandwidth of musical exploration the band committed to all their albums in the ’70s. They swung wildly from soft acoustic to hard rock, inspired by and emulating the freedom of songwriting from their heroes, Led Zeppelin.
Have you ever heard their live cover of The Rover? It’s from a 1976 show. I spent over $30 in the early ’80s to obtain that bootleg. It’s the best one out there, and yes, that includes the mighty Zep themselves. Fisher just hits that needed extra dirtiness with the guitar that’s absent in other renditions. You be the judge.
But let’s go to Heart’s own discography to illustrate the guitar wizardry of Fisher. Let’s go right back to the first song on the first side of their first album, Magic Man.
Can you think of another debut song from the ’70s that is a band’s kind of “hello” to the world that is rooted solely in a hypnotic, slightly psychedelic guitar, becoming iconic almost instantly?
I cannot. In about 10 seconds, Fisher quickly defines the tone and mood of this song of young lust.
Most of us know that Michael Fisher, Roger’s brother (Michael passed away last August), was the inspiration for Magic Man. He and Ann Wilson were in love at the time. But that song, and the band in general, needs more credit to swing the way of both brothers. Michael, as a brilliant manager, fully understood the unique talents of each member of Heart. And of course, Roger, never fully getting his dues as not only a gifted guitarist/musician/songwriter, but also a gifted storyteller.
The heart of the interview was the deep connection that he and Nancy Wilson had in songwriting and playing live. As Roger Fisher commented, “it was romantic and telepathic.” It was not just love for each other, it was a love for music, and the intertwining of those heated passions resulted in a deep spiritual connection and some of the best songs ever crafted in rock ‘n’ roll
You can feel all of that in just the acoustic opening of the song that defines the philosophical nectar of Heart. It, the bridge that Roger wrote about, and the rest of the song remain timeless and magical.
The legacy of Heart needed a deeper audit. Thank you, Roger Fisher, for sharing with us that in our interview, and for keeping the love alive for your band and music in general.
Few musicians in the world of extreme music were as revered as Tomas Lindberg. Frontman and singer with the seminal Melodic Death Metallers At The Gates, his untimely death at 52 in September 2025, prompted an outpouring of emotion across the Metal world that was usually reserved for more mainstream musicians. Such was his standing in the underground.
That The Ghost Of A Future Dead stands as his epitaph is hard to swallow, especially as his vocals on this release were recorded over two years ago, before he entered hospital for vital surgery.
Guitarist Anders Björler had rejoined the band in 2022, the line-up of the classic Slaughter Of The Soul reuniting three decades after that seminal record. Lindberg and Björler are completed by bassist Jonas Björler, drummer Adrian Erlandsson and guitarist Martin Larsson.
At The Gates – The Ghost Of A Future Dead Is A Blistering Tribute to Tomas Lindberg’s Enduring Influence
Björler reflects on his return and the progression the band had made. “After all that time away from the band, it started to sound like a fun thing to me again. We did Damnation Festival in the UK, the In Flames tour in Europe, and everyone was pretty excited about me coming back and working on a new album.
“We had some festival shows and then started making plans. Tomas started writing some lyrics, and in the spring of 2023, we started making some music. We were working on that for six months, but then Tomas was diagnosed in December 2023, when we’d booked a studio for February. That was a major blow for everybody.”
Despite these challenges, the band were able to complete demos which included Lindberg’s final vocals before they decided to maintain course and headed into Fascination Street Studios in Ărebro, Sweden, with producer Jens Bogren.
With Anders resuming his role of chief songwriter, alongside twin brother Jonas, this is an album that stands alongside the best that the band has offered. “It’s a lot like what we had on At War With Reality,” says Anders. “It’s reminiscent of that album in some ways because it’s a bit more straightforward, maybe thrashy and in my style, but mixed together with his more old school and quirky At The Gates stuff. It’s a great mix, I think.”
2021’s The Nightmare Of Being saw At The Gates expand their sound in a more diverse and progressive manner than its predecessor. The Ghost of A Future Dead returns to the band’s more aggressive and classic Melodeath style, with blistering speed across the landscape of 12 tracks.
With Lindberg’s vocals on point throughout, it is difficult to contemplate that the frontman is no longer with us. The punishing Thrash that rages through the opening duo, Fever Dream and The Dissonant Void, grabs the attention immediately, whilst there is a malevolent menace on Det Oerhörda, which slams hard.
The intensity throughout The Ghost Of A Future Dead rarely lets up. A Ritual Of Waste increases the temperature and tempo, a bruising salvo that sees all the band operating at maximum.
It does not stop until the intro of Tomb Of Heaven, which provides a welcome pause with its short synth beginning, although it is short-lived as the band soon lock in, a burst of melody that often underpins their music, bursting through alongside a glorious solo that breaks out for a few seconds.
Swirling motifs bring temporary calm on The Unfathomable. It is mere seconds, though, before the explosive aural assault recommences. 44 minutes of intense Metal, thick riffs and pulverising drums all converge into a phenomenal record.
Hard and heavy, there is nothing to dislike here at all. Towards the final tracks, there is no application to the brakes at all, with The Phantom Gospel as muscular as those that go before it. Respite finally comes on the beautifully crafted FörgÀngligheten, with its gentle acoustic elements that serve as the essential interlude before the final plunge into Black Hole Emission.
The title is understandably poignant. “If I remember rightly, we had all the lyrics before it was recorded,” says Anders, “but we played with the title after he was diagnosed. So, the title reflects his situation, that he might not survive the illness.
“The working title was The Dissonant Void, but in the spring of 2024, we changed it to The Ghost Of A Future Dead. I don’t know if it was like a premonition of what was about to come or anything. But now it’s an eerie title, because he has passed. It makes the title even more real somehow.”
Whilst Tomas is no longer with us, The Ghost Of A Future Dead is an important and welcome final statement. An essential piece which brings closure to his short but massively influential life.
“There’s a legacy surrounding Tomas, especially in Sweden,” says Anders. “He’s a forefather. He was one of the first people in Gothenburg involved in this scene, and he was an important figure in the tape-trading scene.
“He was really warm and welcoming to new people. You felt welcome in his presence, somehow. He was super social. He had a lot of friends in a lot of bands around the world.
“The new album feels like a good, emotional release. To get our last creative moment together out on CD and vinyl, it’s more of an existential thing. The music will speak for itself.”
Rest in peace, Tompa.
At The Gates release The Ghost Of A Future Dead on 24 April 2026 via Century Media Records. For more details, visit atthegates.lnk.to/TheGhostofaFutureDead.
Thrashers Phantom (MEX) have set June 26, 2026 as the official release date of their forthcoming new full-length offering titled Not Midnight Yet. Alongside unveiled details, you can also check out the newest single “In Death Throes”. Read moreâŠ
Today, on April 17, 2026, THE MOON AND THE NIGHTSPIRIT drop their highly anticipated new album “Seed of the Formless” that scored a #4 position in the soundcheck of German magazine Sonic Seducer. Shop link: https://spkr.store/collections/the-moon-and-the-nightspirit THE MOON AND THE NIGHTSPIRIT comment: “This album was our journey into the silent, resonant void â both within and above”, MihĂĄly Szabó writes on behalf of the duo. “We left the […]
