The tides of maggots were shocked worldwide, to find out that main songwriter and early member of the band Slipknot died on the 24th of May. Paul Gray aka #2 or Pig Man was found in his hotel room at the Uniondale in Iowa. The body was found at 10:50 am and the Des Moines Register has confirmed the story to be true.

As a huge Slipknot fan here is my tribute to the great inspiration that Paul Gray was to me.

Slipknot was the first proper ‘Metal’ band I listened to. I was 11 and new to the whole genre and right from the start Slipknot was my guiding light forward. I bought Slipknot’s self titled album for my birthday and was blown away by its aggression and musical ability. All the parts fitted together like clockwork and gelled together like no other album I have heard since. I bought their self titled record and a couple of months later I went out to buy Iowa and Volume 3. Once again my brain melted away at the sound of the death metal like riffs and the deep growling lines of the bass. It was just so heavy and it was the kind of music that made people think “You know what? Metal isn’t dead”.

Without Paul Gray I believe none of this would have been possible. He had such a great attitude when writing towards the 4 albums the band has released, and is a soul performer when it comes to live sets. He was always the fans man and would talk open armed to the maggots waiting and all in all was the one of the main reason Slipknot is as big as it is today.

With the death of Dio only last week and the death of Pete Steele the month before hand. Paul Gray is another great defender of the faith, who has gone to metal heaven for just saying sick.

All thoughts are with the band and Paul’s friends and family.

01. Intro 02:03 02. Spawned by the winds of the Black Death 04:27 03. Glacial Void 06:25 04. Buried by the ashes of sorrow 07:11 05. Wrecked and Destroyed 09:27 06. Planet of the Tombs 06:21 07. Centuries of Cadavers 04:25 08. Sideral Terror 05:26 09. Outro 03:27

Screams, screams and more screams. Is this all that Buio Omega can offer us? Sure they are a black metal band, but surely the music has to sound good even though it sounds like it is recorded in a slaughter house. From first listen you can clearly distinguish the musicianship from the quite frankly scary and wierd whaling vocals. I’ve heard whales that can sing better than this. So lets disect as throughly as possible this Whale of an album, to find out whats wrong with the state of its vocal box.
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01. Sulfur Preacher 05:19 02. Apple of Eden 04:03 03. Wave Master 04:51 04. Stranger Within 05:25 05. Monument of Shame 04:37 06. Soul Catcher 03:53 07. Unbreakable 04:32 08. Dominate and Overload 04:34 09. I Just Smile 03:59

Circle Pits. Thats what this album reminds me of. Fractures debut album ‘Dominate and Overload’ is back to back pure thrash metal goodness. The riffs are insane, the drumming is as heavy as hell and the vocals are powerful and piercing enough to unleash Satan himself from his hollow dominion in the underground. Its quite hard to belive they haven’t been signed yet as they are just as good as some of Sweden’s other bands it has to offer. One band that can give King Diamond a run for his money are definitely going to be the way forward when defending the faith of metal.
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On November 25th Ronnie was diagnosed with stomach cancer, sadly on May 16th he passed away losing his battle with the disease but leaving behind a legacy which will be remembered forever.

Ronnie was originally born Ronald James Padavona in New Hampshire in the US. He took up the name Dio from the mafia member Johnny Dio using the name professionally in 1961.

He was a notable member of Rainbow and his own band Dio which formed in 1982. Working on songs with Vinny Appice he created some of the most memorable metal songs of all time including Holy Diver and Rainbow In The Dark.

However he’s best remembered for his work in Black Sabbath which later became Heaven And Hell. If you watch ‘Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey’ he also reveals that he was the originator of the ‘devils horns’ that you now see at every metal gig around the world.

Ronnie was always distinguished by his professional nature and his incredible voice. He always had time for the press and fans alike.

I’m sure his loss will be felt by the metal community for many years to come.

We can all contribute to the battle against cancer by donating to charities urgently needed by sufferers and their families.

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/
http://www.macmillan.org.uk/
http://www.mariecurie.org.uk/

When Risen Prophecy were first interviewed on our show they were an out and out thrash act. So I was surprised when I popped this CD in and found that its largely British Heavy Metal inspired tracks.

There aren’t very many traditional acts of this kind around at the moment since its somewhat of a specialist niche, but if Risen Prophecy are looking to revive the genre they’re doing a very good job!

Risen Prophecy formed back in 2005 and released their first two track EP however this is all together quite a different beast. The album itself features 8 songs totalling an hour in running time.
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01. Shamayim 01:53 02. Firmament 07:29 03. The First Commandment of the Luminaries 06:47 04. Ptolemy Was Wrong 06:28 05. Metaphysics of the Hangman 05:41 06. Catharsis of a Heretic 02:08 07. Swallowed by the Earth 04:59 08. Epiphany 03:21 09. The Origin of Species 07:23 10. The Origin of God 04:33

I’ve heard a lot of interesting things about The Ocean. Their origins lie in The Ocean Collective, a small army of creative types that founder and guitarist Robin Staps set up in the basement of an old aluminium factory in Berlin. They’ve been through 30-40 members, and have toured all over the world supporting the likes of Opeth and Cult of Luna. Their biography is so complex that you actually have to download it in a Word document from their website…I could go on for hours. The most important fact for right now, though, is that they’ve just released their fourth studio album, ‘Heliocentric’.

Frankly, the only way to “get” what The Ocean are really about, is to take a listen to their music. ‘Heliocentric’ is…well, it’s ambitious. It’s a simply mad album. It’s got a little bit of just about everything, from orchestral-backed jazz piano to double-bass drumming and growled death vocals. It’s sort of like a marriage between Opeth and The Mars Volta, at least in terms of vision and sheer manic ambition. It’s hard to sum up the scope of the album as a whole, really, so let’s go track-by-track…
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It’s about bloody time Kiss came back for a full UK tour. Last time they played Scotland, according to Paul Stanley, they performed at the Glasgow Apollo – a venue that closed 25 years ago. A lot of time has passed, and the painted rock legends have a lot of missed time to make up for.

First, however, hotly-tipped new rockers Taking Dawn largely fail to prove why they’re hotly-tipped. Sounding like Black Tide with a bit more hair on their balls, they power through a short set of heavy metal cannon fodder. Shapes are all present and correct; hair is swinging, guitars are being thrown around and textbook crowd-riling banter is spat by singer Chris Babbit, but there’s little more to it.
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01. For Me 05:38 02. Burn Black Light 04:59 03. Reaching Down 06:20 04. What I Breathe 04:49 05. Forgiveness 03:38 06. Don’t Falter 06:17 07. Then Fall 05:39 08. Into The Ocean 03:14

A cursory squint at their Myspace reveals that Order of Voices state their intention to exist somewhere in the region of the cutting edge of British alternative rock. At present, it’s true that this edge isn’t particularly sharp, and has seen far more cutting days, but Order of Voices are seeking to change this; an ambitious goal, to say the least, but ambition is one of the band’s strong suits.

What Order of Voices provide is an epic sound, layer upon layer of melodies. They specialise in having a melodic chorus soaring over heavily distorted mid-tempo riffs. It’s very slickly performed and produced, the various guitar melodies slot together nicely and the drums keep everything ticking over, and the vocals are near enough pitch-perfect. Can you feel me building to a “but“? Because I am…
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01. Sexual Chocolate 01:24 02. A Breaking Dawn 04:21 03. Six Weeks 02:53 04. Remember Who Put You There

‘Remember who put you there’ contains influences down the lines of: Metallica, Clutch, Snot and Down. The heavy metal crusaders from Portsmouth may have just been able to match them in producing an great album consisting of 4 amazing tunes. It’s been one of my favorite albums of 2010 so far which hasn’t been from a band on a major label. One album, four tunes, one hell of a time.
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01. Born to Kill 03:39 02. No Way but the Hard Way 03:34 03. Blonde, Bad and Beautiful 03:49 04. Raise the Flag 03:32 05. Bottom of the Well 04:29 06. White Line Fever 03:10 07. It Ain’t Over til it’s Over 03:17 08. Steel Town 03:08 09. Chewin’ the Fat 03:11 10. Armed and Dangerous 04:12 11. Overdrive 03:22 12. Back on the Bottle 03:50

Airbourne are just one of these bands that go out on the circuit to have fun and cause mayhem. Their first album ‘Runnin’ Wild’ was from start to finish one of the best rock albums I have heard in a long time. But then in 2010 the world was hit with another party anthem, fun loving album by Airbourne. Entitled ‘No Guts, No Glory’ its 13 amazing songs and best with a couple of pints of beer at which point anything can happen.
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