Blog

Five years after the release of their Return Of The Dragon record, US veterans Sacred Reich are now located at Angel Thorne Music Co LLC Studio (Bethel, Connecticut) where they are recording their 10th full-length offering. More info in due time.
Read more…

Hard rockers Shakra present a brand new single/video “Left Outside Alone”, featuring Seraina Telli. The song is part of the group’s forthcoming long player Just Live Loud, due out on September 4th.
Read more…

Phoebe Bridgers re-emerges, Sombr gets shy and PJ Harvey heads for the cosmos.

Next month, on July 31st, British black/post-metal ensemble Cairiss will unleash their debut full-length offering dubbed Wilderness. For a preview, give a listen to the first single and opening track “Nervosa”.
Read more…

US blues rockers Rival Sons have announced a string of headline shows in United States, kicking off in Boise, Idaho in late October and finishing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the end of November.
Read more…

Classic rock with a modern twist and plenty of power is what you get when two Styrians and a Canadian join forces. Determined to bring rock back to the spotlight, these three dedicated musicians always give it their all. With electrifying live shows, thumping basslines, soaring vocals, killer guitar riffs, and a charismatic drummer, they’ve got something truly special.“Feel the Hell” highlights the contrasts between the rich and the poor, yet shows that every person is equal and that everyone strives to be happy, no matter what kind of world they live in, the band describes.
https://www.instagram.com/glenamplerock/
https://www.facebook.com/glenamplemusic

When Rush returned to the stage at the LA Forum on 7 June, the first faces many fans saw were not Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson or new drummer Anika Nilles. Instead, before the music even began, three young actors appeared inside a gothic, Easter-egg-packed opening film that immediately set the internet buzzing.

For David Spence, Kate Hargrave Murray and Taylor S. Gokyilmaz, the three people in question, the experience began not with a rock ‘n’ roll announcement, but with them sworn to secrecy.

The casting call arrived under the deliberately vague title Project X. The details were minimal. A major Canadian band, a huge live audience, and strict confidentiality. Non-disclosure agreements signed, they waited for the reaction.

It was only when they finally got on set that they realised they were being pulled into one of the most closely watched rock comebacks in years.

David had only recently started acting when the audition came through. “I started with Strutt Central, and I had auditioned for this role. It was called Project X. It was a very secretive role. My agency told me they couldn’t tell me too much about it, but it was going to be a major band, a Canadian band, and it would be live in front of a 50,000-person audience.

“So obviously, I was very eager to get involved with it. Jules from Jules Casting and Dale, the director, liked my audition tape enough to put me in there, which I’m so grateful for, and that was kind of how it went about.”

And when he met the band? “I had to lean on the wall,” David laughs, “so I didn’t fall over when I shook Alex’s hand.”

Kate’s route in was equally opaque. Most of the details were hidden, which she said is not unusual in the industry, but the callback almost slipped away when she was out of town.

“I was just crushed,” she remembered. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not going to get this part because I can’t make it to the callback.’”

Then came the surprise. She already had the role. “I didn’t know who it was for until the wardrobe fitting,” Kate says, “because we came in and they’re like, there’s some people in there getting wardrobe already.

“We’ll get you guys in a minute. Then they bring us in, and they’re like, oh, so you know, this is Alex, this is Geddy. And we’re just there like, Hi.”

Taylor, a recent Toronto Film School graduate, had no representation and submitted himself through Casting Workbook. The brief, he said, called for “the chubby Willy Wonka lookalike”, and he leaned into the audition with improvised abandon.

“I was like, hey, I’m chubby, I can do it, right? So I did the part, improv the hell out of my audition, and farted by mistake,” Taylor says. “That was really, really funny. And they really liked it.”

The prosthetics process meant he found out before the others who he would be playing. “By the way, you’re going to be Alex Lifeson,” he was told. “And I was like, no way. That’s crazy.”

All three actors are from Toronto, where Rush is less a band and more like a civic institution. David’s father is a lifelong fan, which made the non-disclosure agreement especially difficult. “That killed me,” he said. “Not only is my dad a massive Rush fan, but South Park, we grew up watching that. Literally every day, it was like peeling your skin off, how bad you want to talk to him.”

The secrecy lasted for roughly two and a half to three months, depending on when each actor entered the process. Kate, who has worked on other productions with long embargoes, said the lockdown was familiar but still surreal.

The difference this time was personal. Rush songs were everywhere, including where she worked. “A Rush song would come on the jukebox pretty much every other shift. I was out with friends the other day. We went to a game arcade, and this was before the concert had started.

“So, everything was still under NDAs. There was a Rush-themed pinball machine. We all got a song stuck in our heads, and everyone’s joking about it, and I couldn’t say anything because we were still under the NDA”.

When the opening film finally appeared, the actors began seeing clips and comments almost immediately. For Taylor, the most common reaction was disbelief. Fans wondered whether the young Alex Lifeson figure was generated by artificial intelligence.

“Most of the comments we’ve been replying to are, ‘No, that’s me in prosthetics and makeup. I’m a 22-year-old man,’” he said. Even he was startled by the finished result. “Looking back on the tape, I couldn’t recognise myself.”

Kate and David were more recognisable, while Taylor found himself in the odd position of being central to the video and still semi-anonymous. Kate joked that if she wears the pigtail braids, fans might spot her.

Taylor, meanwhile, has behind-the-scenes prosthetics material he hopes will eventually help people connect the transformation with the person underneath. “We’ll see when they get to Toronto,” laughs Kate. “If we’re getting mauled, he’s lucky that he was in aesthetics. If we’re getting mauled with $100 bills, he’s unlucky.”

The trio quickly learned what longtime Rush followers already know that this is a fanbase that studies everything. David described Rush fans as people who “notice everything” and sometimes “overanalyse” because they care so deeply.

Kate saw a generational parallel in the hunt for clues and Easter eggs. “Normally, when I see that sort of thing happening, it’s with Swifties,” she said. “It’s the same thing, just for a different generation.”

David adds, “People want to make a connection so bad that they’re trying to associate, for example, Kate with Anika”. But this is what makes it special, says Kate. “I’m getting a lot of new followers (on Instagram) that are like men in their 50s and 60s and aren’t immediately sending me weird DMs. So, I’m gonna take that,” she laughs before adding with sincerity, “it’s such a pleasure though to know that the community cares like that and is looking deeply.”

We touch on the sheer professionalism of Rush and their crew. “Even their appearance on the Junos just a few short months before, right?” says Kate. “They drop it suddenly, they do everything as such a fan service, and so it’s important. It’s important to keep that secrecy with the cameras kind of tucking them away until the big reveal.”

During auditions, much of the Rush-specific context had been removed. Kate recalled being asked to react to strange situations without knowing their meaning. “We don’t know that it’s the owl from the Fly By Night album. We just know, OK, react like there’s a bird flying at you.”

Only once the film was public did the actors begin to understand how densely packed the references were. If you’ve seen it, there are plenty to unpack, but the glass of Macallan with the napkin with Neil written on it is perhaps the biggest tearjerker of the lot.

On set, the secrecy gave way to comedy. Kate described Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson as “so funny”, with much of the work involving improvisation.

“They’re just great guys all around. I think the hardest part was because we’re riffing back and forth, and there’s a lot of improv, and they’re so funny. We’d be in the middle of a take and the three of us are there like, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.”

Taylor had one advantage, his prosthetics were so restrictive that laughing was physically harder. “My face was so tight that I couldn’t really move it,” he said.

But the respect for the production was unanimous. The hot dog scene, where Geddy reprises Gershon, Kate explained, was built indoors with a wall and green screen to create the transition from the castle animation into the live-action opening shot.

For David, one of the most memorable moments came during the Harry and The Bag sequence. He was trying to stay focused when he saw Geddy in full bagpipes and kilt, while Alex stood nearby in pyjamas holding a hacky sack. “This is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he remembered thinking. “It took me an honest 15 minutes to collect myself.”

There were quieter moments too. Between takes, David spoke with Alex about music, his father’s love of Rush, and his own love of Tool. Alex shared memories of performing “Jambi” with Tool in Toronto. “A Canadian legend like that coming down to earth to talk to me, a mere mortal,” David said, “it was really an honour.”

Incredibly, the actors did not see the completed intro before opening night. Instead, like the fans, they first caught it through clips filmed at the concert and shared online.

David compared the decision to keeping the monster hidden from the children in IT Chapter One. “When they kept the clown from the kids before their first scene with it, right? That was kind of what they did with us. They kept us in the dark so that when we see that, it’s almost like we get the taste with the fans, right? That authenticity, that excitement. So, it was a real pleasure that they did that. And I’m so grateful that they did.”

Taylor was at work when the first clips emerged, and the group chat erupted. “We’re on, we’re here,” the messages said. He stepped away from the counter to watch. “I just looked at my phone like, oh my God, I must watch this. Excuse me for 10 minutes.”

Whether they will see the full show in Toronto remains, as Kate put it, something they can “neither confirm nor deny.” What they can confirm is that they will be at RushCon on 8 August for a Q&A panel, and all three expect to be around for the wider weekend’s events.

As I will be in Toronto for that weekend, I look forward to meeting them in person in a few weeks’ time. 

Asked for favourite Rush songs, David answered instantly: “YYZ.” Kate chose Fly By Night because it so often gets stuck in her head, while Taylor landed on Limelight.

The final joke was perfectly Rush-like. Why were their characters looking for the band in the first place? “We wanted to jam,” Kate said. David added, “I can play in seven-eights.”

Taylor had the last word. “I was there for the snacks.”

If the reaction so far is any guide, this may not be a one-weekend association. Rush fans have a way of making even the smallest piece of band history part of the wider mythology.

David already has a name for it. “We are the Rush Cinematic Universe.”

You can find Kate Hargrave Murray on Instagram here, Taylor S. Gokyilmaz on Instagram here and David Spence on Instagram here.

Rush at 50 Film – Primary creative team:

Dale Heslip — director
Mark Utley — cinematographer
Mark Morton — editor
Sean Cochrane/The Vanity — Visual effects
Chris Bridges — SFX makeup
Misty Fox — MUAH  

---

Rush’s tour opens on 7 June in Los Angeles, where Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will be joined by Anika Nilles on drums and Loren Gold on keyboards. Further articles in this series, including interviews with Rushfest Scotland, tribute band Rushed, and the Something for Nothing Rush Fancast, will follow in the coming month.

To read our Rush At 50 series, click here.

For UK ticket sale information, visit: https://www.aegpresents.co.uk/event/rush.

The post Rush / The Actors Reveal Their Story Behind The Viral Tour Intro first appeared on MetalTalk – Heavy Metal News, Reviews and Interviews.

The timeline of Refused’s initial split is an absolute mess.

Just weeks before the release of The Shape of Punk to Come: A Chimerical Bombination in 12 Bursts, the band imploded during a disastrous tour of the United States.

After a handful of sparsely-attended shows, the quartet officially broke up on September 26, 1998, but played their final show on October 5 at a basement venue in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The local police department ended the gig after just a few songs, further compounding the sense of futility felt throughout the Umeå four-piece.

Shortly after their demise, the band – vocalist Dennis Lyxzén, guitarists Kristofer Steen and Jon Brännström, and drummer David Sandström – issued a statement and manifesto via the Burning Heart Records website.

“We will continue to, at every attempt, overthrow the class system, burn museums and to strangle the great lie that we call culture… we will continue to demand revolution here and now, and not in some vague future that all reactionary leftist fundamentalists and reformists are talking about. We want every day and every action to be a manifestation of love, joy, confusion and revolt.

“This is the last that we have to say about it, WE WILL NOT GIVE INTERVIEWS TO STUPID REPORTERS who still haven’t [sic] got anything of what we are all about, we will never play together again and we will never try to glorify or celebrate what was. All that we have to say has been said here or in our music/manifestos/lyrics and if that is not enough you are not likely to get it anyway. WE THEREFORE DEMAND THAT EVERY NEWSPAPER BURN ALL THEIR PHOTOS OF REFUSED so that we will no longer be tortured with memories of a time gone by and the mythmaking [sic] that single-minded and incompetent journalism offers us. Instead we need to look forward. We got everything to win and nothing but our boredom to lose.”

The Shape of Punk to Come was destined to become one of the most influential and ambitious records in post-hardcore. Almost three decades later, it still sounds truly revolutionary.

While the title of their third album was a nod to Ornette Coleman’s similarly groundbreaking 1959 release The Shape of Jazz to Come, Refused drew a line under a stagnating post-hardcore scene. Recorded at Umeå’s Tonteknik Bomba Je Studios with producers Eskil Lövström, Andreas Nilsson and Pelle Henricsson, they created an avant-garde masterpiece in 12 movements, bringing in jazz and electronic interludes, cellos and violins to soundtrack frontman Lyxzén’s anti-capitalist manifesto.

In the years leading up to their 2012 reunion, the band’s profile grew and influenced a new generation of bands and musicians, while spin-off projects like The (International) Noise Conspiracy and TEXT toiled away in the shadow of their former band’s legacy.

Dennis Lyxzén recognises the far-reaching influence of The Shape of Punk to Come but notes that the scene it was attempting to rejuvenate did not react kindly to the release.

“People were kind of pissed off when that record came out,” Lyxzén told Canadian magazine Exclaim!. “They were like, ‘You heathens. If this is the shape of punk to come then I’m quitting punk.’ We got a lot of that. When Ornette Coleman’s record came out people thought he was an idiot and they wanted to kill him so it’s kind of fitting in a way.”

People were kind of pissed off when that record came out.

Dennis Lyxzén on The Shape of Punk to Come

Of the entire tracklist, two songs in particular kept the album alive throughout their 14-year hiatus. One was Liberation Frequency; the other was New Noise, whose compelling video was aired regularly on alternative music television channels, while the song was included on the soundtrack for the video game Tony Hawk’s Underground.

“To a lot of people, we’re just a rock band,” Lyxzén told Revolver. “So obviously, there’s gonna be a lot of people who don’t understand where we’re coming from or don’t understand our political background or our musical background, even. That’s not to put anyone down, but if you discovered New Noise 10 years ago and thought, ‘This is a killer song. I like this band’, but you have no concept of who we are, you might be offended by the fact that we made a theme record saying capitalism is bad.

“But those are the people we’ve always been, and those are the ideas we’ve always had,” he added. “I don’t think that’s as clear-cut to people now as it was in the ’90s, because in the ’90s we were part of something very specific.”

Crazy Town loved New Noise so much they would massacre the song during their shows around the time Butterfly was a massive hit. The very idea that this band who’d become famous by sampling another band – and singing about “new art for real people” – left a bitter taste in Lyxzén’s mouth.

It’s horrible; they should be shot.

Dennis Lyxzén was not a fan of Crazy’s Town’s cover of New Noise

“It’s horrible; they should be shot,” Lyxzén told Exclaim! in 2000, whose writer Stuart Green noted the singer’s remark was uttered “with only a hint of irony”. “Seriously, I hate that band. Did you ever listen to them? I don’t like to talk shit about bands, there are more constructive ways to work, but sometimes you just have to say, ‘Stop… please stop this.’

“If someone listened to The Shape… and really understood what we were thinking about they wouldn’t be in Crazy Town and they wouldn’t think The Shape of Punk to Come was to add a DJ to a metal band,” he added. “If they really loved Refused, they missed everything that was important about that band.”

In recent years, the television and movie industries have cottoned on to the song’s volatile power.

It has been featured in the films Crank, Here Comes the Boom and Triangle of Sadness, as well as the TV shows Friday Night Lights and Criminal Minds.

Most recently, the song has become a theme of sorts for The Bear, a tense drama set in a busy Chicago restaurant. The show, which began in 2022, boasts an exemplary soundtrack, but it’s the 1998 hardcore classic New Noise which gives the series its most visceral pacing.

“I was watching the Emmys or whatever it was when they constantly played New Noise every time they won an award,” Lyxzén told the CBC podcast Q with Tom Power. “I’m like, this is trippy. Seeing Steve Martin on stage listening to New Noise? That’s wild.”

For the Umeå quartet, it is wild. It’s a surreal coup for the highlight of an album that some sections of their scene originally detested. But almost three decades on, the song and album retains its raw power.

Refused are fucking dead. Long live Refused.

Spencer “Pops” Byrn was like a fine whiskey, aged to perfection when his first album was released in 2015. Unfortunately, much like a subpar whiskey, the album “Never Too Late” remained relatively unnoticed. However, Pops, along with talented producer and instrumentalist Chris Kendrick, shattered that expectation with their follow-up albums: “Another Big Mess” in 2016 and “Highroller” in 2019. After seven long years and the emotional weight of turning 25, their latest album, “Red Duck Creek,” finally emerged in 2026. Whether they’re performing the blues, rock, or old-school country, Pops and his friends do so with smiles on their faces and sometimes tears in their eyes. All songs were lovingly recorded at Whiskey Bear Studio in Virginia Beach, VA.

This is the new single When It Rains: “This track comes from an album written in the aftermath of personal loss. It’s reflective, blues-rooted, and meant for late nights,” says the artist. The song features catchy vocal lines and fantastic guitar, arranged with taste. I love the 70s mood in the second half of the song, with lots of solos. It’s a very cool one, reminding me of The Rolling Stones, for some reason.

Give it a go by clicking on the Spotify player below and follow Spencer “Pops” Byrn, if you like what you hear. The song is also part of my Spotify playlist “Road Trip”. Give it a try.

Music is an excellent way that makes you forget everything that’s wrong or band in your life. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I like it so much. So, what better opportunity than to see a festival, where there is music in abundance? The FemMetal team took a trip to Helsinki to attend Tuska, the most historical festival of the country. Let’s start at the very beginning…

Aurorawave

The first band that I had the pleasure of seeing was Aurorawave, playing at the Nordic Energy Stage. While the festival started a bit earlier, there wasn’t yet a very big crowd gathered there, but the people present were really enjoying the band’s performance. I was really surprised their blend of music, and frankly it was something very interesting to see! Sometimes they all had coordinated movements, and sometimes they would just go crazy on stage. Unfortunately I’m not that familiar with the band’s discography, but I’ll definitely dig in some more because what I saw yesterday was really worth watching.

Photo: Niko Sihvonen.

Skindred

I know, I know, I just saw Skindred performing at Download Festival too earlier in the month. And well, but can we ever have too much of Skindred? I don’t think so. While the Newport band’s set at Download was much more intense and explosive, they didn’t disappoint here either. The weather was getting worse, but not the energy. Benji knows how to command a crowd even if the conditions are tricky, and that’s what makes him a remarkable frontman. The whole group was generally in top shape, and their setlist focused briefly on their latest release “You Got This” and more on classics like “Give Me That Boom” or “Nobody“. If you like Skindred too, stay tuned on FemMetal because there might be something exclusive coming here….

Photo: Niko Sihvonen.

Megadeth

There are some performances that you just know are going to be extra special. Particularly for bands that have made history of heavy metal, and artists that are from Finland. And while just one member of Megadeth is from Finland, the whole audience at the main stage welcomed the legendary thrash band in the warmest way. Everyone was chanting “Teemu! Teemu! Teemu!” in between songs, a sign that Mäntysaari’s talent and expertise is celebrated and noticed especially here. The whole band was playing very tight, I enjoyed every single song of their set despite the weather being a bit moody. Dave’s voice was very good, James was spectacular on bass and Dirk was simply drumming like his life depended on it. Maybe it was just my impression, but when they played “Tornado Of Souls” a very strong wind started: can Megadeth control the weather now? I wouldn’t be surprised if they could. It looks like they can do anything! During “Symphony Of Destruction” the rain was heavier though, and yet no one was moving from the main area. That’s the Megadeth effect! And that’s the kind of performances that we love to see: everybody coming together to see a historical band pay homage to their career, leaving us a legacy that will last for generations. Long live Megadeth!

Photo: Niko Sihvonen.

The post LIVE REPORT: Tuska Festival begins in all its splendor first appeared on FemMetal – Goddesses of Metal.