Montreal-based prog band THE CHRONICLES OF ISRAFEL's new full-length A Trillion Lights, Tome II' is now available as of October 15th through BOH Records.

Italy-based CRAWLER has issued an album called Hell Sweet Hell through Valery Records. The band was founded in 2002.

STRIKER has won the 2016 Western Canadian Music Award for Metal/Hard Music Artist of The Year award. The band’s recent demo was called Stand in The Fire. The band is opening for SONATA ARCTICA in Europe early next year.

The new album by Italian hard rockers VICOLO INFERNO is called Stray Ideals and will be released on November 11th through Logic Il Logic Records.

EDDY MALM BAND’s album Northern Lights is out December 9th. The man was formerly in HEAVY LOAD.

SHAPE OF DESPAIR will release its demo Alone In The Mist of (1998) in full through Season Of Mist on December 9th.

GOTTHARD will release a new album, called Silver, on January 13th through Musikvertrieb. The album was recorded at the Yellow House Studio in Lugano.

Denmark's RISING has released a video for Death Of A Giant, which is on the band's third album, Oceans Into Their Graves.

HELSTAR will tour the USA this November and December with FLOTSAM AND JETSAM and HATCHET. The band will play at Metal Assault VII Festival, which will take place on February 18th at the Posthalle in Würzbug, Germany.

GOTHIC is working on the upcoming release of its next full-length album, which is expected to be out in the beginning of 2017 on Loud Rage Music. The band was formed in 1992 and has become a much softer entity since.

EXTREME's Pornograffitti Live 25: Metal Meltdown DVD was released on October 28.

AorBlvd Records will release an album by LOVE/HATE called Before The Blackout. It features a collection of demo material recorded between 1986 and 1987.

Escape Music will release an album by former FIREWIND and current SPIRITUAL BEGGARS singer APOLLO PAPATHANASIO called Waterdevils on November 18th.

MADDER MORTEM has released its next full-length album on October 28th through Dark Essence Records. It is called Red In Tooth And Claw. It is produced by guitarist BP M. Kirkevaag.

NOVEMBERS DOOM is in the studio recording its next studio album, which is due in 2017 through The End Records. The band’s producer is Chris Djuricic.

QUIET RIOT has recruited Seann Nicols, formerly of ADLER'S APPETITE, as its new singer. QUIET RIOT is in the studio recording its forthcoming album which will be released on Frontiers Music.

AMORPHIS will return to North America next March for a headlining tour. The support will come from SWALLOW THE SUN.

UFO and SAXON will tour the USA next March and April.

Peaceville Records is commemorating the 25th anniversary of MY DYING BRIDE with a 92-page hard cover book and demo and rare material in one package called A Harvest Of Dread.

Black Tears label has signed Italian atmospheric metal band TENEBRAE for the release of the full-length album My Next Dawn on CD. It will be out in December.

ACCEPT will release a live package called Restless And Live on January 13th through Nuclear Blast. It feature ACCEPT’s show at 2015's Bang Your Head festival in Balingen, Germany on DVD and CD.

Italy-based MYR has an album called Habits through Revalve Records. The band plays progressive metal. The label has also issued progressive thrash metal band REAPTER’s Cymatics and CARVED’s Kyrie Eleison album.

ELIXIR recently signed a worldwide deal with Canadian label Maple Metal Records to release its full-length album, Where The Secret Lies. As part of the deal, Maple Metal Records will re-distribute ELIXIR's Unleash The Magic release from 2012.

Turkish band PITCH BLACK PROCESS has signed with David Ellefson's EMP Underground/EMP Label Group. The band’s new album Derin shall be released digitally on December 3rd.

Minotauro Records is issuing SETH’s Apocrypha album and UFOSONIC GENERATOR’s The Evil Smoke Possession albums. The former band is described as a cross between RUSH and BLUE OYSTER CULT. The latter band is described as sounding like CANDLEMASS and URIAH HEEP.

Talk about not being aware that one does not need to listen! On a show called SixX Strings, the obviously oblivious to the history of art and speaking truth to power, JACKYL singer Jesse James Dupree offered profanity and criticism of Bruce Springsteen and U2’s Bono. Claiming he does not want to hear their political opinion he went on to offer his own about USofA’s political leadership!

CHARIOTS OF THE GODS – AGES UNSUNG
This is what happens when you expose impressionable youth to a retarded and weak trend. A band that has all the power and talent in the world, which attacks the jugular with powerful and multi-layered punch in the face stops every couple of minutes to deploy cheesy clean vocals. The metalcore – which is neither ‘metal’ nor ‘hardcore’ and is spelt ‘N Flames’ – is the result of a modern tendency to not be pure, consistent or absolute and yield to juvenile mallcore demographics. This propensity is egged on by the wimpy commercial media, internet sites and wussy so-called metal reviewers who also have a more ‘sensitive’ side and want to be metal-tough, but also show their girlfriends that they are pussywhipped enough to be allowed to live. The singer should be ashamed of himself. Suicide is a solution. If this were ancient Japan, he would be condemned to harakiri for the shame he inflicts on himself, his family, the genre and all art. In modern Canada, the punishment is even worse. He would be consigned to get a McJob and never interact with respected society again.
Otherwise, Chariots Of The Gods is fantastic. This band and its new full-length demo are some of the best music played at Metallian Towers in the last couple of years. Bands like Chariots Of The Gods, Diesear and Sludgehammer prove that new and younger bands have the chops and energy to match the world’s best and succeed, but then comes the crooning at the beginning of Through Darkness And Decay and everything crashes down. The end leads on War Of The Gods are very skilled and unfortunately also very familiar. The guitars are impressive, the solos clearly high-class metal, the lead, rhythm and the blasting drums on As The Sky Falls are not a narrative, but causal and so it goes. Throughout the singer’s screams, growls and anger blow one away. One last thing that needs to be noted is how the band clones Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven solo on the song War Of The Gods. Perhaps it was the Brits who stole from the Canadians? Unfortunately, the production is not perfect and the toms are mostly hidden like Stephen Harper hid his ugly conservative scalp – forgive the redundancy - under a designer toupee.
This band is so good that even the clean and commercial vocals should not provide enough deterring turbulence for them. Here is their website http://www.chariotsofthegods.net/. - Ali “The Metallian”

HOUR OF ANGUISH – SOLACE OF SORROW
It would seem the band is an exercise in mistaken identity. One would judge the band to be either heavy metal (the monicker), doom metal (the demo title) and possibly American (the music and vocals). The band is none of the above.
The young Swedish band specializes in mainstream and clichéd mall-oriented music that comes complete with lots of affected emo singing Instead the Swedes are an exercise in lots of affected and clichéd emo singing interspersed with the aggressive, the latter of which appears typically is heard simultaneous to the speedier musical interludes. The vocals are often doubled up as well.
The music is back and fort‎h, but no one would ever claim the material is anything other than mid-paced generic stuff that comes and goes without much of an impact. Aside from the obvious derivative nature of everything the band does, the matter of anything hardly standing out is problematic. If you like Soilwork, newer In Flames and Maroon 5 and need more material within that range played competently here is Hour Of Anguish.
If the mood for sardonic humour visit http://www.hourofanguish.com and see how the band believes it is “the future of Metal.” – Ali “The Metallian”

HOUR OF ANGUISH - SOLACE OF SORROW
Hour of Anguish presents a confusing picture. The bio lists the band as the duo of Andreas Henriksson & Richard Lee; however the interior of the CD cover has the band as Andreas Henriksson & alternatively Richard Lee Potts and Richard Potts. The bio lists a US number with a 352 number which apparently is a Florida area code but not only is the CD shipped from a California address but the duo seems to be Swedish, at least originally. After all that it is time to say that Solace of Sorrow is the band's debut and the band lists Soilwork, In Flames and others as influences. The eleven songs start with The Silence sounding somewhat reminiscent of Dark Tranquillity, before long the clean vocals and the start stop breaks proceed to diminish the heaviness. Ouroboros is up next and insists on giving the clean vocals a continued platform, groove metal it is called perhaps? There isn't too much to distinguish between each song, the roots of all this is in the Gothenburg sound, the one which has At The Gates occupying the heavy end but HOA don't often go there and when they do they either don't stay long or let clean vocals and the other 'melodic' elements of that sound take over. The production and sound are solid and the musicianship competent for a young band formed in 2014. HOA are heading on a world tour with a promise of shows that include performance art, spectacle and "not just music." Check www.hourofanguish.com for more. – Anna Tergel