Saturday, March 22, 2025
Ikitan: from Italy to outer space
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Leather Leone show announced for Seattle in August
I came across this announcement from singer Leather Leone and it involves Seattle. This is not until August, but maybe write it on your calendar now, just in case you forget about the month of August when it rolls around. If you are new to Leather Leone, here is the bio and also the Wikipedia information, just to give you an idea about Leather, in addition to some more information that I hope is useful to you.
BIO: Leather Leone needs no introduction. She has forged her unique place in metal history a long time ago. After being scouted by Mike Varney (President of Shrapnel records), Leather emerged in the early 1980s as a pioneer of the power metal vocals with the band Chastain. After releasing five celebrated metal records with the band during that period, Leather re-emerged again in the 2000s alongside David T. Chastain to release two critically acclaimed albums, “Surrender to no One” and “We bleed Metal”. In the last few years, Leather has allowed her creative urges to match and expand her loyal international fanbase, resulting in widely successful South American and European tours, and in the release of “Leather II” in 2018. Anchored in her strong writing partnership with lead guitarist Vinnie Tex, and against a backdrop of unexpected Covid-19 lockdowns, the creation of a new album became Leather’s focus from early 2020. The long-awaited “We Are The Chosen” came to light in the Autumn of 2021 at Hertz Studios in Poland (Behemoth, Vader, Hate), undoubtedly containing ten of Leather’s most ambitious material yet. All the songs were written, produced and recorded by Leather Leone and Vinnie Tex, except the drums recorded by Braulio Drumond and keyboard orchestration by Douglas Pinella. The album was mixed and mastered by Woitek and Slawek Wieslawski. The cover art was created by Marcelo Vasco (Slayer, Dee Snider, Kreator, Testament). With her trademark boldness, Leather traverses several musical decades effortlessly, instilling the new album with the straight-from-the-furnace steel that metal legends are made of. If anything, “We Are The Chosen”, tells us that Leather is here, she is the real deal, and she is ready for more!
Wikipedia: Catherine Anne Leone, known professionally as Leather Leone, is an American heavy metal vocalist, best known for fronting the groups Rude Girl and Chastain in the 1980s. She released one solo album, Shock Waves, in 1989, before taking a twenty-year break from the music scene. In 2011 she began performing again in The Sledge/Leather Project, which released a debut heavy metal album, Imagine Me Alive, in 2012. Leather Leone started singing in the early 1980s. She joined with drummer Sandy Sledge to start the all-female metal band Rude Girl in San Francisco, California. Leone handled vocals. The group began headlining metal shows in the San Francisco area, and were on stages with groups like Exodus and Megadeth. The band was asked to sign a seven-year record deal with Columbia Records, with producer Sandy Pearlman of Black Sabbath, but the band split before they recorded their first album. Rude Girl would morph into Malibu Barbi. Leather Leone guest sang on a released highly collectible "Rude Girls" 2-song 12" EP in 1987.
Leone soon became lead vocalist of the band Chastain. The group was put together in 1984 by Mike Varney, president of Shrapnel Records for a David T. Chastain solo album. Varney had noticed the shred guitar ability of Chastain, member of the Cincinnati-based band CJSS and, at the same time, he wanted to create an output for the talent of young singer Leather Leone, formerly with the San Francisco band Rude Girl. She recorded five albums with him over six years, and the group at different points contained members from Alice Cooper, Cannibal Corpse, and King Diamond. After a long hiatus Leather Leone has begun recording with Chastain again. They released "Surrender to no one" in 2013. An uncut version of "Surrender to no one" in 2014. Chastain also released "We bleed metal" in 2015 on the Leviathan label. Chastain, with Leather Leone hasn't toured since 1990. However Leather Leone has once again begun to play shows as the voice of Chastain. In 2016 she began working with a new band in Brasil with tours in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Leone released her debut solo album, Shock Waves, in 1989 on Roadrunner Records. The album was first released in 1989 through David T. Chastain's own label Leviathan Records. After a final tour in 1991, she disappeared from the music scene. Leone resurfaced in 2011 to form the duo The Sledge/Leather Project with former bandmate Sandy Sledge on drums, and Matthias 'Matthew' Weisheit on guitar. The heavy metal duo released a debut album, Imagine Me Alive, in early 2012.
Leone has recently resurfaced with a band in Brasil. In 2016, 2018, and 2019, she did a South American and European tours with much success. She has since released another two full-length studio albums: Leather II was released on April 13, 2018, via Divebomb Records in the United States and via High Roller Records in Europe; We Are the Chosen was released on SPV/Steamhammer in 2022.
Here is an excerpt from an interview that Leather did with Sonic Cathedral. I think Sonic Cathedral did a good job transcribing this interview. Again, if you would like more information about Leather, this excerpt provides more context.
Leather: I don’t think anyone in my circle in the ‘80s was sitting around wondering how to get on radio. I was out there with Metallica and Megadeth and Exodus; people just wanted to play, they wanted to pull out their guitars and play at clubs. Many people make it for different reasons; most of those bands just wanted to create music that made them happy, and they were lucky that somebody came along for the ride.
C.: Or for a lot of those bands, to just make it enough to where they didn’t have to work a shitty day job anymore!
Leather: Good luck with that! [Laughs] Back in my day, there were clubs on every corner. I hate saying “back in my day”, but it’s true…you could play every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night and have a packed house. Labels would come and find you…I remember eating pizza in San Francisco, and running into someone from Shrapnel [Records], looking for us. It was just a different time. I don’t know what people do nowadays; they have to “pay to play”, you can’t play within a 30-mile radius of certain places…I don’t know what people do now. I have no idea!
C.: It’s not only tough for bands nowadays, but for fans too, especially fans like myself who have to travel long distances to see good metal shows.
Leather: I’ve been blessed to be able to create and to play shows; people like me, so it’s been a lot of fun. I get to do it again, and I’m gonna get out there. Nobody’s gonna stop me. Nobody can stop me!
C.: I think you have a great advantage to be in a band but still be your own entity. You’re sort of like a Sammy Hagar; he was still the Red Rocker even when he was in Van Halen.
Leather: Right; and people are interested in seeing me, which is really cool, because working with Chastain is pretty intense. I’m really excited to talk to people who take the time to talk to me. I’m just really lucky. I’m so excited about what’s gonna happen this year. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.
C.: Are you considering doing a solo album in the near future, or a project outside of Chastain?
Leather: I don’t know; I’ve never really considered myself a solo artist. That Leather Shockwave thing came about through Chastain. Roadrunner [Records]—who was known as Road Racer [Records] at the time, I think—it was just a scam to get Chastain on the label. Now that I’m older and wiser, I realize that now, because they never pushed it. I don’t know; it’s not like I’m sitting here in Northern California and I have this guitar player that I just hang out and write music with all the time. It’s not like that for me. Probably not; I consider myself a “band person”. I like the feeling of tribe, of family, of 3 or 4 people sitting around and putting in their two cents. I’m not this prolific songwriter with amazing ideas from A-Z. I need to hear a guitar piece, and then the drummer adding in something…I don’t know; you never know.
C.: I imagine it does get frustrating sometimes, because you did say Chastain doesn’t like to tour, where you do.
Leather: Yeah, I want to knock him over the head every day! [Laughs] But I adore him; I respect his wishes, but I argue with him about it at least once a week. We’ll see what happens!
C.: Maybe he’ll change his tune after he sees what a success you are on the road!
Leather: Like I said, touring was never one of his favorite things to do. I hate to repeat myself, but we’ve never had “the machine” behind us. It’s always been out-of-pocket money; it’s not like we ever had tour managers, he has always done all this. I was running around like, “woo-hoo, we’re playing another month!” He just didn’t want to lose money anymore. We’re also considering doing another Chastain record, so if we put out another record, the offers will probably come in. We’ll see.
C.: The new album is kick-ass, so that’s good news to hear!
Leather: Thank you! We have another one ready to go, but we’re kinda waiting to see what happens.
Chastain - For Those Who Dare
Leather - We Are The Chosen (Official Video)
Leather II
by Leather
https://metal-samples.com/category/Leather/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094755846029
Brainstorm - 14th album of heavy metal from Germany
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
CONTRARIAN's George Kollias and Jim Tasikas Back in the Studio!
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Sepulchral Curse - death metal, let's get ready to rumble!
Sepulchral Curse
Crimson Moon Evocations
Dark Descent Records
28 February 2025
Is it time for this band to dismiss the vocalist? I conducted an experiment to determine the answer. I'll tell you about the experiment in a minute.
Have you ever done a group project, with a certain person not pulling their weight while getting credit as the people who did most of the work? Imagine working on a presentation and one person in the group does the minimum, but on the day of the presentation itself this individual is all smiles, leading the audience to believe that this person played a bigger role on the presentation, while in reality this individual showed up "ready" only during the presentation: ready to be the center of attention.
This album is kind of like that. It is a type of melodic, even catchy, ominous death metal from Finland. It's not truly brutal, but it is very heavy and underground. There are plenty of good melodies and riffs on this album. A lot of work has gone into making these songs, and those melodies and riffs are overwhelming evidence of how hard the guitars have worked to add melodies to the heaviness, working with a rhythm section does a lot towards a cavernous, knuckle-dragging album. It deceptively seems like basic caveman brutality, but it is more sophisticated than that.
The problem. The album is held back by the stubbornly monotonous, monochromatic, almost 100% one-dimensional boring, faceless, harmless "cavernous" low growling. There may be justifications for the nondescript vocals, which are about as exciting as a bowl of plain white rice for dinner. Perhaps the vocalist is a really good friendly member of the band and a good drinking buddy. Maybe the vocalist has been told to be monotonous by the band: "Don't act like you are Ronnie James Dio, dude," they told him, "Just do a low growl, and keep it that way." Whatever the reason, the end result is a sound of everyone, except one person, working hard to deliver a quality album. This recording sounds like a vocalist that could record a whole album's worth of this type of growling every single week: just grab a microphone and proceed to do this comfortable, low, forgettable growling. It’s not awful growling, but it’s ok only, not great. Well, what about the guitars? Could they knock out an album every week? No way! There are too many melodies that have taken a long time to be crafted and too many riffs that have to created and then arranged. I doubt the drummer or bassist could also just get on the instruments and play mindlessly without thinking.
I conducted an experiment with this album. I read a whole bunch of reviews and looked to find reviewers that had even mentioned the vocals on this album. How many reviewers felt enough enthusiasm about the vocals to write about them? Do you know what I found?! There is not one single review in which the writer is enthusiastic about the vocals. Not a single one, and the vast majority of the reviewers, like me, enjoy this album a lot. The most positive thing that I could find was reviewers writing words like "monster" and "brutal" (or similar) to describe the vocals, but such descriptions are debatable: the problem with the vocals is precisely that they are not brutal nor monstrous. However, not a single reviewer really dove deep into the vocals. Why? Because they are not interesting, that's the real reason.
Death metal fans have been forced to accept the idea that in this genre the vocals do not matter. It's a weird idea: The vocals supposedly don't matter, just put a warm body in the center of the stage because this is what people expect, want and need. Fans expect a person, any person, doing vocals, and as long as it sounds ok, fans do not even care. The vocalist is there like a pacifier for a child: Fans feel better with some dude, any dude, a dude, growling. Do bands and fans feel wrong, feel naked, without a vocalist on the stage? It is clear that 99 percent of death metal bands would not dare get on the stage without the growler, even if the growler is rather lazy and only writes mind-numbingly stupid lyrics, because there is this incorrect idea out there, which we have not been able to get rid of: that death metal is death metal because of the vocals.
Is this particular vocalist hopeless? Interestingly enough, no, he isn't! It seems to me that perhaps he is on autopilot. There is actual evidence that he is capable of a lot more than he has decided or has been ordered to deliver. For example, the song "Empress of the Dead" is one of the better examples of what is possible. By the way, said song features some rather nice guitar harmonies or melodies at the beginning before jumping into a barnstormer of a song that induces headbanging irresistibly. It has a bunch of awesome things: black, thrash, death riffs, with a cool shreddy solo in which the guitars do some switching out for some segments, like classic heavy metal. It's all very nice, indeed. After the guitar, there is some rough-nosed riffing that could not be more metal. Good stuff. Now then, the song has been going for a full six minutes, with the vocalist doing his thing, his low, gruff, gentle-ogre growl. Then, at the six-minute mark, inexplicably, my guy launches into an awesome brutal, vocal chords ripping, black metal growl. It sounds unbelievable! It's like the student that everybody thought did not know how to read all of a sudden is reading The Old Man and the Sea aloud to the class perfectly pronouncing every word with excellent, clear enunciation. Like, what on earth! I didn't know you could read, Johnny!
Alright, then, that is very good! Nevertheless, we now have a different problem, don't we?! Why have you not been using all your abilities on the songs?! The predominant growling on the album would be wonderful if dialed back to one third of the album; the black metal increased to about a third, and leave plenty of room for the vocalist: Paint the town red! Get crazy. Imagine you are the Jim Carrey or Robin Williams of extreme metal and amaze us with some creative, unexpected vocals. What about some cavernous monk chanting? How about taking the low growling much lower to the point in which the words are 100% super indecipherable, like a rumbling murmur? What about some higher black metal screaming? What about actual brutal death metal growling?
About the lyrics. I do not have the lyrics. Judging this book by its cover and by the titles of the songs, I would assume that the lyrics are some type of garbage, meaningless "dark" and "occult" hogwash that metal bands like to do. I guess it's what you do when you do not have anything to say. Finland has a long history and prehistory. It's not like there is a shortage of topics: the relation to Sweden, to Russia and Germany. Of course, nowadays Finland is preparing for the inevitable conflicts and wars that are going to take place in neighboring lands and in Finland itself. Thus, it's not like Finnish metal bands, like the Finnish population in general, have nothing serious on their minds. Or, what about writing about life experiences? What have you lived? Or, what about your beliefs, if you have any, unless you stand for nothing?
To end, this album is awesome and it makes you bang your head. Death metal fans should find lots to enjoy. My critique has to do with the lack of creativity in the by-the-numbers growling. The album is worth keeping, despite the shortcomings in the vocals and subject matter.
https://www.facebook.com/SepulchralCurse
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Xoth - Washington metal band announce U.S. West Coast tour
Saturday, March 1, 2025
The 7the Guild - power metal goes to the opera
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