04 | September | 2007 | Hard Rock Hideout

Ten frontman Gary Hughes is currently working hard to put finishing touches to his forthcoming solo album entitled “Veritas”, latin word for “Truth”.

The new cd is taking shape in the Arena studios in Lancashire, UK and according to Hughes, “the songs on this album are among the strongest I have ever written in my lifetime“.

“Veritas” feels like the natural successor to “Precious Ones”, Gary Hughes’ last solo output dated 1998. This time around Gary used a different array of players to enhance the diversity of the album. “I have gone for a variety of music styles with regard to musicians this time around”, explains Gary, ”drummer Dave Ingledew and bass player Rick Stewart are currently members of British Dark Metal band Devil To Pay, Jason Robinson is the drummer with Alternative Metal band Absent Minds, whilst Simon Brayshaw is the bass player with British Blues outfit Nightshift. From the Ten ranks, Chris Francis contributes with leadwork once again and John Halliwell has taken acoustic guitar duties as usual”. Gary is playing keyboards and caring for all the orchestrations.

“Given the long awaited nature this album and the anticipation already beginning I have been working really hard to make this album the best I possibly can” concludes Gary “we could be sitting on a truly outstanding piece of product, and maybe a yardstick for my future releases”.

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Lev2

Frontiers Records is pleased to announce the signing of the Finnish Melodic Metal band LEVERAGE for a multi album deal !Finnish Heavy Rock has of course long traditions, but this type of old school melodic heavy rock with a shade of progressive flavour hasn’t been heard from Finnish bands before.

Leverage debut album “Tides” created a real underground wave among the fans during 2006. Winner of the “Best Metal / Prog” album of the year award on Melodicrock.com (and getting great reviews all around the net), the band’s music offers a variety and exciting Melodic Metal formula with powerful vocals (courtesy of singer Pekka Heino, also known for his stint with Brother Firetribe) and killer guitars.

“Tides” charted in Leverage home country, Finland, reaching the general Top 30 in the first 2 weeks of release.

“This is not a boy band, a studio band, a wannabe-band, project band or whatever fake band. Leverage is a true and honest heavy rock band, for the love of heavy rock!”: states guitarist and main songwriter Pekka Heino and you can bet these guys are definitely one of the musical upcoming brightest stars around.

Leverage are:

Pekka Heino :: vocals

Tuomas Heikkinen :: guitar

Torsti Spoof :: guitar

Marko Niskala :: keyboards

Pekka Lampinen :: bass

Valtteri Revonkorpi :: drums

Check out the band listening to “Superstition”, a sample from “Tides” and judge it on your own !

Leverage spent the entire months July and August in the studio to wrap up the follow up to “Tides”. The new album will be released on Frontiers in early 2008, with a re-release in selected European countries on the band’s monster debut album “Tides” in mid price line with bonus tracks ! Stay tuned for more updates!

You can read the Hard Rock Hideout review of Tides here!

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FTI Danny Vaughn and Fabrizio Grossi have started demoing new songs for the second FROM THE INSIDE album. This time the guys have decided to adopt more of a songwriting union approach that has brought plenty of killer new tracks such as “1st Century”, “Listen To Your Heart”, “Push Me Off”, “Telemetry”, “Making Waves”, “Moment To Moment” and “Light Years”. More songs have been supplied by Joey Carbone (Vertigo, Joseph Williams) and twins Tom and James Martin (Ted Poley, Khymera, House of Lords).

The recording lineup this time will include Jimi Bell (House of Lords) on guitars, Eric Ragno (Takara, Ramos) on keyboards and Pete Lobo on drums with final mix to be handled by Dennis Ward.

Fans of the debut album can expect a top rate production and improved songwriting. Frontiers hopes to release the album before the summer 2008.

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Bassist Mat Sinner sent us his track by track comments for the songs included on the forthcoming PRIMAL FEAR album “New Religion” due out on September 19th on Frontiers Records. Enjoy the insight !Sign of Fear

We wanted to create a very unusual introduction for the album: like a metal band with a kind of orchestra tuning or like Dire Straits did with Money For Nothing. We wanted to create a moment when people are listening very concentrated on what comes next! Of course, we wanted to start the album with a fast paced heavy track. All the people who thought that Primal Fear is getting more & more a pop band should get a kick in their butt with the first song! In my first demo version, my own vocals were based an octave lower, but Ralf is the master of screams and he delivered in an unbelievable way! For a part of the lead guitar on this song, we recruited my good friend Magnus Karlsson, Ralf gave me a lead vocal part in the Middle 8 part and we shot a video clip for this song!

Face The Emptiness

One thing counts for sure on the new album – we worked hard as never before on Ralf’s lead vocals and overall on this album, in my view it’s by far his best performance in his entire career! Face The Emptiness shows exactly this statement, in a sovereign manner. What a great chorus line. Here we used the first little orchestration, conducted by me and maestro Matz Ulmer on a basic idea by guitarist Stefan Leibing. The rhythm of the song is very complicated and it was a tough time for Randy and me recording the rhythm section, but it worked out great, always with the fine ears of co-producer Charlie Bauerfeind.

Everytime It Rains

Seventh album and again we planned to go another big step ahead with our musical claim. What we’ve didn’t realize in the past was indeed a duet with a female singer. We talked with some girls in Europe about joining us on a track for the new album and Ralf finally decided, that he wanted to record with Simone Simons. Next was to find the right track for this exciting new idea. We had a great time during the recordings of this song. Ralf built up a special cabin for Simone with drinks, roses and a candle – very nice and finally a great idea to record this track! We’re working on the idea to shoot another video clip for the song shortly! My sincere compliments to Simone & Ralf for this great performance!

New Religion

The burning tribal eagle marks the reincarnation for the band. The band is born again, with new record company partners in the entire world and we have Henny Wolter back in the band. Henny was always one my favourite guitarist in his Thunderhead days. Then he played on Sinner’s Bottom Line album and he blew me away. I knew, that Ralf & Stefan are big fans of Henny’s playing and his character. We discussed a lot, who will be the right guy for Primal Fear’s future and all guys in the band wanted Henny back! Then we split up after 6 albums with our basic record company partners and we’re looking for a new path for our future. This all together can describe the title of the album and the resurrection of our trademark – the eagle and this song lives by the typical Primal Fear guitar riff which switches to a untypical harmony change in the big chorus and a very nice breakdown part!

Fighting The Darkness

1. Fighting The Darkness

This is a very important song for Primal Fear and I worked very hard with both my brothers from Sweden, Ronny & Tobias on the song. Maybe this is the 15th song we wrote together but the vibe of our songwriting is still magic! You can hear a very detailed orchestration, between power chords and silence. I still get goose bumps when I listen carefully to the song on my headphones. Again an outstanding lead vocal performance by Ralf and a very tasteful lead guitar solo by Stefan, but all of the guys worked very hard on this track. For me personally it’s the best sounding track Primal Fear has ever produced and released. A huge credit goes to mixer Ronald Prent. He worked with a lot of major acts in his career and now we know why all this special bands like Rammstein, Def Leppard, Manowar etc. worked with him. His feeling to understand the music is unbelievable!

2. The Darkness

A lot of bands in the seventies used this kind of combination of huge and long songs. I’m always searching for some new influences to make the next Primal Fear record exciting and interesting, with content, which wasn’t used so many time before. I’ve learnt from Yes, Deep Purple, ELP, Kansas etc. that they built up ten minute songs with different parts. We follow the main melody of the A-Part and then moving into an halftime part, later into a fast part as built up throughout the composition, again with nice choirs, keyboards and orchestration! What I really like here are the outstanding drum breaks by Randy – always creative and played with such an enormous power! I really see a new album as a huge musical project for myself and the band now, which is not only to write and record 4 minute metal song. I think music overall is so special with never ending targets and temptations!

3. Reprise

Of course the Grande Finale of the track with a late “comeback” of the huge chorus line and the end of our opus. Well I’m looking forward to realize the song in our forthcoming concerts. This will be a huge mission to bring this song on stage, but I can imagine, that it will give a Primal Fear concert something special to include and perform this monster song in our set!

Blood On Your Hands

Well, after so much sophisticated music, we need to rock – that’s exactly what we want to do on Blood On Your Hands and of course Primal Fear style. The song is based on a fast paced killer riff from the guitars and the dedicated and controversial lyrics. Stefan is a fan of this kind of guitar riffs, he delivered in the past on some other PF songs like “Fear”, “Evil Spell” or “Fight The Fire” and it is great to play these songs on stage. Great breakdown part right before the lead guitar plays some oriental harmonies!

The Curse of Sharon

Here we can listen to a lot of harmony guitars and a great Ralf idea to singalong the melody line on top the guitars! I can already hear the fans singing with us at the concerts – be prepared! Even this song has a lot of different parts it feels very fluid to play and to listen to. Nice breakdown part with very creative drumming and very cool vocal fills. I really love the vibe and the chorus of the song. It’s very special for me and it’s really great how the band played especially this song!

Too Much Time

………. is starting a two song package with the a back to the roots feeling of the harmonies in Primal Fear’s music and we want to bring the kind of “Nuclear Fire” vibe back into our new album. The first song “Too Much Time” starts with vocals J and turning into a furious pace! Henny is playing a great duelling solo with Stefan and we’re going through a lot of emotion and different parts here! Cool track!

Psycho

A big factor in Primal Fear’s and my songwriting, was always a kind of groove and combination between riff and steady bass guitar, like we did on “Running In The Dust”, “When The Night Comes”, “Eye Of An Eagle” etc. or what was a trademark of, for example, Accept. The new song “Psycho” is a nice example to follow this path of Primal Fear special groove and history in very cool quality. I’m really excited about the great bass guitar sound and it’s not easy to push it, before the guitars are getting too low, but great executed by Ronald! It was the first song Henny played on, since he rejoined the band!

World On Fire

Well it is really nice, that we have such great songs like WOF at the end of an album. This song could also be easily an album opener in my view. Nice double bass drum playing by Randy and a typical Primal Fear chorus, great harmony vocals and tasteful orchestral parts. I love the bombastic breakdown part and again a very furious played lead guitar. One nice little spot too, is the rhythm & lead guitar work at the end of the song – killer! Yes, I love the track!

The Man (That I Don’t Know)

Based on an idea by Stefan, “The Man…” is a very special song on the album. I have always the James Bond kind of score song vibe in my head, when I listen to this total bombastic album closing track. Nice lyrics about when you look into a mirror and you really don’t know if it’s you. Scary J – Ralf interprets this song in an insane quality. I especially love his vocal performance on this track. It’s a kind of untamed cannonade and I really laughed, when he killed a microphone in the recording studio, because his vocals where so extreme loud in the chorus. Finally the album closes with a nice bluesy outro guitar for an overall wonderful dramatic track.

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