Toronto, Canada-based PHEAR has returned with a new demo called The Curse Lives On. The band features former RAMPAGE and EIDOLON singer Patrick Mulock and hopes to tour Canada later this year.

London, Canada-based hard rock band ABANDONED SOULS has a video for the song Make It Last from its demo of the same name. The band is playing shows in Ontario.

DANGEROUS TOYS, which formed in Austin, Texas, USA in 1987, has its thirtieth anniversary in 2017, and EMP is issuing a Dirty Thirty Remastered CD and LPs of the back-half of the band’s catalog including Pissed, The Rtist 4merly Known As Dangerous Toys, And XX: Live beginning this September.

SAXON and crew have had their mobile phones, passports and money snatched from the group’s dressing room on Friday, June 1st at the U Rock Festival at Campus Arena in Umeå, Sweden. The band has picked Thunderbolt as the title for its new album, which is due in January of 2018. It is the follow-up to 2015's Battering Ram. SAXON will also release The Solid Book Of Rock on August 4th, a fourteen disc package featuring the band’s albums from 1991 to 2009, as well as bonus CDs.

ESSENCE OF DATUM’s Nevermore album is out now. The Belarus-based band plays progressive metal.

Finland-based rock and metal band ZARTHAS has signed a worldwide deal with WormHoleDeath for the release of its Reflections album.

Dutch stoner metal band ONEGODLESS has a demo called Mourner on June 9th. The CD comes with earplugs!

UK-based POWER QUEST will release a new album called Sixth Dimension on October 13th through Inner Wound Recordings.

Germany-based sludge and doom band ZEIT has a debut full-length demo called Konvergenz.

Danish power metal band SEVEN THORNS has a single called Black Fortress, which comes in advance of its album that is expected in the autumn.

Following its Cosmic Poems debut hard rock band TERRIBLE OLD MAN returned with Fungi From Yugotth, an album inspired by the work of H. P. Lovecraft, which shall be released this summer through MDD Records.

France-based power Metal band ÖBLIVÏON, which features former NIGHTMARE members, has signed with European label ROAR! Rock Of Angels Records. ÖBLIVÏON's debut album is called Resilience.

Germany-based FVNERAL FVKK has an album called The Lecherous Liturgies through Solitude Productions. The band plays doom metal.

Ireland-based doom metal band DEATH THE LEVELLER has issued its self-titled demo in June.

KISS singer and bassist Gene Simmons, who is currently touring North America with his solo act, has applied to trademark the ‘devil’s horn’ hand gesture. The former manager and widow of Ronnie James Dio, who has recently been touring a hologram image of her dead husband through a company she has equity in, has called the application “laughable." Dio used the signal extensively. Simmons subsequently has attributed the gesture to Spiderman.

This news item is serious! THE GREAT KAT has filmed a cooking video for what she claims is Beethoven's favourite, namely Mac & Cheese.

MALET GRACE’s Malsanity demo is released digitally on May 26th. The band is compared to HELLOWEEN and FATES WARNING.

Canada-based progressive metal band SLANDERUS has a demo called Walls Of The Mind.

PHIL CAMPBELL AND THE BASTARD SONS' (formerly dubbed PHIL CAMPBELL'S ALL STARR BAND) has signed a contract with Nuclear Blast. PHIL CAMPBELL AND THE BASTARD SONS features the former MOTÖRHEAD guitarist Phil Campbell alongside his sons Todd, Dane and Tyla all fronted by singer Neil Starr. The band had a demo last year and is recording a full-length this year.

MARTY FRIEDMAN will release a new solo album, called Wall Of Sound, on August 4th through Prosthetic Records. It is self-produced. Friedman is touring the USA with SCALE THE SUMMIT and THE FINE CONSTANT. No Remorse Records will issue three albums of older music featuring guitarist Marty Friedman, namely VIXEN’s Made In Hawaii EP, HAWAII's Loud, Wild And Heavy EP and a collection of late ‘70s material by DEUCE, which went on to become TNESION. All EPs have been augmented by additional material which would make them full-lengths.

NOCTURNAL RITES will release a new album, called Phoenix, on September 29 through AFM.

LIONHEART, featuring Dennis Stratton of IRON MAIDEN fame, which reformed in 2016 to play the Rockingham Festival played at the Sweden Rock Festival in June, will release its second album, called Second Nature, through AOR Heaven on August 25.

UDO will release Live – Back To The Roots - Accepted! on August 4. It is a DVD/2CD or Blu-ray/2CD package of the man performing songs of ACCEPT, which he founded and fronted.

After a six-year absence, Sweden-based band LION'S SHARE has released a new song and video called Another Desire.

Michael Schenker has entered the studio as MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST. The band has begun recording a new studio album with producer Michael Voss. It is due in the spring of 2018 through Nuclear Blast. MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST, which performed a show in Tokyo and issued a DVD, features singers Gary Barden, Graham Bonnett and Robin McAuley. The band will tour North America in 2018.

The GRAHAM BONNET BAND has recruited guitarist Joey Tafolla of JAG PANZER fame.

JAG PANZER will release a new album, called The Deviant Chord, through SPV on September 29th.

SEPTICFLESH will release an album, called Codex Omega, on September 1 through Prosthetic Records.

Finland's BLACK ROYAL, which is described as a mixture of death metal and ‘70s bluesy heavy rock, has a 7" called Dying Star on Suicide Records.

WARBEAST will release a new album, called Enter The Arena, on August 4h through Housecore Records.

DON DOKKEN performed an acoustic show at a special A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors 30th anniversary show on June 3rd at Underground Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE will commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of GREAT WHITE's album Once Bitten with a tour and new acoustic album, Once Acoustically Bitten. The acoustic album will be released on July 14th.

Romania-based funeral doom metal band DESCEND INTO DESPAIR has released its second studio album, Synaptic Veil, a 5-track effort with a duration of over 55 minutes through Loud Rage Music.

TANK has recruited PINK CREAM 69 singer David Readman replacing ZP Theart who has joined SKID ROW.

MALET GRACE's Malsanity demo is out now. The band is compared to METAL CHURCH and FATES WARNING.

Spain-based doom metal band EVADNE is back with an album called A Mother Named Death through Solitude Productions.

VIRTUAL SYMMETRY’s X-Gate demo is out now.

SHADOWSIDE will release an album, called Shades Of Humanity, through Furia Music in September.

UK-based SYNTHETIC has a demo called Here Lies the Truth. The band is compared to IN FLAMES and SOILWORK.

Mallcore bands FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH and IN FLAMES will tour Europe together this autumn.

United Kingdom-based KROH has a demo called Altars. The band plays doom metal. KROH is the brainchild of Paul Kenney, founder of MISTRESS and FUKPIG.

Germany-based BLOODY TIMES started as Simon Pfundstein’s solo project and now have evolved into a heavy metal act which released Destructive Singles, a two-track demo, on July 21st.

VARDIS will have the albums 100 MHP, The World's Insane, and Quo Vardis remastered and re-released on CD and Vinyl through Dissonance Productions and Back On Black Records this October.

ZAUM’s second and latest full-length Eidolon was released October 24, 2016 through I HATE Records. The New Brunswick, Canada-based band is touring Canada in its support this summer.

By the time this has been published Gene Simmons has said twenty stupid things to get his irrelevant name into the news.

SUSAN AQUILA – MISS CONDUCT
As soon as Metallian himself handed me this CD it was a case of ‘oh no, it’s The Great Kat all over’ and it was off to read a few interviews by Susan Aquila on the net about how she is the reincarnation of… Vivaldi and how her music will defeat the terrorists and what have you. Well, I did not and I assume that none of those things is true (I hope).
She is a feminine guitar playing, violin carrying, long haired and blonde wildress so who knows, but certainly compared to The Great Kat the music is less wild, more poppy and there is even a mention of a full line-up.
Released through the Original Kitchen Music imprint, Susan’s disc has her on the cover an empowered figure and in full sexiness. It looks like she has fans from different backgrounds including a Japanese schoolgirl. The songs and lyrics are too commercial for their own good. I would say the lyrics are full of clichés and catch phrases, which is a waste and the music is candy coated where Susan shows off her commercially viable vocals. She can roar if she want to, but often doesn’t want to. The song Why? should be on the radio for her. Lightnin’ (why not ‘Lightning’?) ends with a sounds that makes out like bagpipes, but since the instrument is not listed that may be the violin which Ms. Aquila so loves. The sound production and package are quite professional, but let us be clear this is neither metal nor hard rock, this is pop rock. – Sheila Wes Det

THE LIGHTBRINGER - HEPTANITY
Heptanity is a concept album of sorts and is this Quebec, Canada band's second release since 2010's Quintessence Of Dawn. The band claims to be a melodic power metal and black metal combo. The band was formed in 2008 and is led by brothers Simon and Olivier who seem to have a strong affinity towards ‘90s music. The members of the band are each a mythical character "incarnated by" (or is that into?) the human bodies they occupy. Other than the aforementioned jack of all trades brothers, Auraeon and Archan respectively, the other members of the band are Sol-Orcus aka Stanislav Stefanovski (Abyssal Voice), Aethera aka Amelie Cote (Keyboards) and Celestheia aka Fanny Grenier (Celestial Voice). Seven songs totalling almost one hour vary between Nightwish type melody with operatic or gothic type female vocals and speedier simpler sections with keyboards and black metal influences. Fanny Grenier's voice is not unlike Stream Of Passion's Marcela Bovio. The third song, The Fire Of Life And Death, presents a much clearer black metal side with an Emperor and Cradle Of Filth like speedy chaotic sound interspersed with a higher pitched power metal vocal section or two. The Crushing Thunderbolt Of Skies features a DragonForce type start but then travels all over the place in its perhaps too long travels. The long songs, the shortest is the aforementioned six minutes long The Fire Of Life And Death, tend to try to be all things and therefore there is very little constant about The Lightbringer. Follow the scepter into the darkness at www.thelightbringerofficial.com. – Anna Tergel

DARRIN EVIL - SHADOW SIDE
Vancouver, Canada native Darrin Evil has decided to release a one-man album after drumming for various bands for the past years. Shadow Side is a true one-man project with the man doing everything including producing, mixing, singing and of course drumming. One of the songs, House Of The Rising Sun is credited as "origin unknown" but the rest are of course written by the man himself. Shadow Side is 15 songs and 62 minutes long and the bio cannot avoid the cliches and mentions 'eclectic blend of hard rock, metal, punk and new age, grooves, catchy melodies and infectious'. A true all in one! A New Beginning starts, naturally, with drums dominating. The song settles to an almost tired sounding rock song with a short outburst-like section. Don't Panic has a harder rhythm. Exploited keeps up the harder edges and is bass dominated. Darrin tries to break out of his monotonous singing style too. At least one of Shadow Side's lyrical concepts becomes clearer with phrases and verses mentioning the corporate ladder and insurance. Yesterday Is Coming is a bit too simplistic. Heart Wall is more commercial sounding. Invaders is punk oriented. Stories Of Water's lyrics start with “water water everywhere”! Sunset Burning is almost a ballad. Affirmation has a different sounding production and is closest to metal Shadow Side has gotten so far. It features a higher tempo and thicker riffing. The title track is back to the norm. Tribal is up next and in keeping true to its title tries to incorporate other sounds and surprisingly keeps it up throughout its near six minutes. The aforementioned House Of The Rising Sun can belong to a movie soundtrack, perhaps a western or Kill Bill. You Too is a more straightforward punk-ish song. Western Medicine Hamster Wheel is anti-modern medicine presumably and is a faster song. Stoned Nobody closes Darrin Evil's venture into songwriting with a ballad. It is all here. Find the man at www.facebook.com/darrinevil. – Anna Tergel