FORTRESS EUROPE (The Big Shiny Prison Vol II)’ is the sequel to 2009’s ‘THE BIG SHINY PRISON (Volume One)’ and chronicles the authors journey through the European Counterculture in 2011.

This is a nonfiction road book/music journalism expose which defies all conventions, existing in the territory of Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road,’ Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Cancer’ and Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas.’ This modern version of such writing follows author Ryan Bartek as he reveals a postmodern, dystopian vision of the European counterculture while interviewing a number of living legends face to face and drudging through the gutters of society.

‘FORTRESS EUROPE (The Big Shiny Prison Vol. II)’ covers all forms of extreme metal, punk rock, industrial, experimental, rock & electronic and features appearances/interviews with members of Brutal Truth, Master, Agathocles, Wolfbrigade, Rotting Christ, Killing Joke, Funeral Winds, Nahemah, Enochian Crescent, Moonsorrow, LAIBACH, Defeated Sanity, First Blood, Hello Bastards, Abortion, Panthiest, Arkangel, HATE, Repulsione, Dehuman, General Surgery, Corpus Christii, Fides Inversa, Excavated, Primordial, Splitter, Pyramido, Black Breath, Ingurgitating Oblivion, El Schlong, Spacemen 3 & legendary Detroit writer/60’s radical John Sinclair and more.

FREE DOWNLOAD (PDF)

Interview with the author on Berlin TV:

Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris will be taking his new solo/side project British Lion out on the road next month, visiting fourteen countries and twenty four cities across Europe starting in Portugal on Feb 21.

Harris comments, “It’s fantastic to get out there and once again experience the sheer vibrancy of small clubs with the fans right up front and in your face. I think the fans will enjoy that too. It’s exciting, going back to the roots, and it’s going to be fantastic. We are taking this to clubs all round Europe – a full club tour, with club shows at club prices, hot, sweaty and loud.”

British Lion is Harris’ debut solo/side project CD which was released by EMI in September 2012. Alongside him are Richard Taylor on vocals, David Hawkins on guitar and keys, Grahame Leslie on guitar, and Simon Dawson on drums. The 10 track album was mixed by Kevin Shirley, Iron Maiden’s longstanding producer, and is both similar to Iron Maiden and taking the characteristic Steve Harris songwriting in new but faithful to influences directions.

Long-time progressive rock, alternative rock, death metal and Voivod crossover band Supuration (sometimes called S.U.P.) are releasing yet another album of their eccentric yet interesting music.

Cube 3 will hit the CD stores on February 25, 2013, or you can pre-order it here on Listenable Records. Expect more unusual but logical death metal.

Supuration‘s material ranges from early death-grind, recently released on a demos compilation Ultimate Sessions 1992-1993, to this kind of rock-metal fusion that keeps the metal at the forefront and while it is experimental, never forgets to actually write a song.

Unlike most of the rock-metal hybrids now, it is not so much jazz-based as rooted in the oddball progressive and folk rock of the 1970s and the alternative rock of the late 1980s, giving it a richness against which it can play its rougher metal elements.

Following up on Supuration‘s greatest success, 1993’s The Cube, this album promises to restore this band to the spotlight at a time when most “progressive metal” bands can noodle all day long but never write a coherent song.

Here’s the released teaser track, “Consummate,” from the forthcoming Cube 3:

Most metal bands apply intro tracks to greet and set the mood before their music takes form. Metallica used ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’, which readied their audiences and became somewhat their trademark (which suits their country-metal).

Death metal on the other hand went a bit further. From Deicide’s goats in anguish, to Carcass’ surgical salute, to Morbid Angel summoning the Ancient Ones; it’s become standard to employ sounds outside of what bands typically use in their songs. What are your favorite intros?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCP-No1DcQI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mEH4ZTdE34

During most of its active life, this one-man band (with occasional collaborators) was ignored for being primitive, primal, raw and feral. Its few-chord songs and droning incessant beat made it an obvious target for mockery; from a distance, it sounded like a mis-tuned Toyota with a broken fan belt.

However, as the 1990s wore on and it became clear that black metal had expressed itself fully and wasn’t “coming back,” people listened to the advice of our reviews and decided that Ildjarn was, after all, part of the essential black metal collection.

In the mid-2000s, Ildjarn re-surfaced with a spate of re-releases on Northern Heritage Records and Full Moon Productions, but then vanished as its creator moved on to other things. However, as of this month, Season of Mist Records plans to re-release the entire Ildjarn catalogue, first digitally and later, on CD and LP.

• Norse (EP)
• Ildjarn (album)
• Strength and Anger (album)
• Landscapes (album)
• Svartfråd (EP)
• Forest Poetry (album)
• Hardangervidda (album)
• Hardangervidda part 2 (EP)
• 1992-1995 (compilation)
• Eksistensens Jeger (single)
• Nocturnal Visions (EP)
• Minnesjord – The Dark Soil (EP)
• Ildjarn 93 (EP)
• Ildjarn Is Dead (compilation)
• Sort Vokter – Folkloric Necro Metal (album)

All 15 reissues will be available digitally in the upcoming weeks and most of them will hit the stores in physical editions later on.

The label warns us: “Please note that Ildjarn ceased all musical activities a long time ago and therefore does not do interviews and does not run any official web page or social network.”