Behemoth are one of the driving forces of the extreme metal scene. Never one to shy away from the epic and the magnificent, the band have consistently released one blinder of a record after another. Even in the face of legalities with the Polish Church, Nergal and co continue to push the boundaries and throw in some surprises in the process. Having just performed at the Bloodstock Festival in August with a firey headlining set and abandoning the traditional forested black metal backdrop for a rooftop skyscraper performance, the band’s 12th studio album Ops Contra Natvram is another worthy addition to an already strong discography.
The record opens with ‘Post-God Nirvana,’ a sinister and ominous introduction incorporating a heavy brass orchestral element with brooding war-like drumming and chanting. It suddenly blasts full speed ahead with ‘Malaria Vvlgata,’ a swift punch to the jugular with thunderous blastbeats and blistering shredding. Although this track is only 2 minutes long altogether, it incorporates everything that Behemoth do best; it’s straight to the point, dense and desecrates in the process. ‘The Deathless Sun‘ is epically atmospheric and aggressive with grand chant-worthy choruses and epic riffage carried by ominous choirs. ‘Ov My Herculean Exile‘ slows the tempo down opening with more atmospheric choirs with an almost anthem-esque feel to it with its steadier rhythm.
‘Neo-Spartacvs‘ is a blackened masterpiece which twists and turns at every angle. With catchy hooks and rhythmic drumming giving way to more blistering blastbeats and soaring solos and back again, this track keeps you hooked. ‘Disinheritance‘ is formidable and continues to drive forward with a barrage of catchy hooks and sheer ferocious aggression. ‘Off To War!‘ was written before the Ukrainian War however the subject matter fits the current state of things in that regard. The track itself is another gloriously blackened work of art with more thunderous drums, epic riffage and Nergal’s ominous growls on the backdrop of unworldly atmospheric choirs.
‘Once Upon A Pale Horse‘ has a slight groove-infused tone to the blackened mid-tempo beat which serves to give the record a bit of a breather before it descends into its conclusion. The penultimate track ‘Thy Becoming Eternal‘ descends into sinister chants and a roaring force of fast paced energy and fevered aggression off-set by the occasional groovy drumbeat and ethereal choirs. The closing track ‘Versvs Christvs‘ is piano-led with Nergal’s evil whispers creating a foreboding tension. This track is one final push which showcases the band’s flawless creativity and experimentation as it incorporates every aspect of the record as a whole and ends in an epically cinematic fashion.
Settling in nicely beside the brilliance that is 2014’s The Satanist and 2018’s I Loved You At Your Darkest, Opvs Contra Natvram has solidified Behemoth‘salready imposing presence within the extreme metal scene. Behemoth have amplified a winning formula from previous years to create a record that is refreshing, dark and one of extreme metal’s strongest releases of the year.
Rating: 9/10
Released By: Nuclear Blast
Release Date: 16th September 2022
For Fans Of: Morbid Angel, Dimmu Borgir, Watain
Favourite Track(s): The Deathless Sun, Off To War!, Once Upon A Pale Horse, Thy Becoming Eternal
Sept 12th 1985 Savage Grace released their debut album “Master of Disguise”
Did you know.. The album’s controversial cover depicts a police officer with red demon-like eyes keeping a topless girl cleave gagged and handcuffed to his motorcycle.
Sept 12th 1989 Aerosmith released the album “Pump”
Did you know… The album produced 6 singles and peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Charts.
Sept 12th 1990 Annihilator released the album “Never, Neverland”
Did you know… This would be the band’s first album with vocalist Coburn Pharr.
Sept 12th 1994 Warpath released the album “Against Everyone”
Did you know… The album was produced by Andy Classen (Holy Moses).
Sept 12th 2006 Black Label Society released the album “Shot To Hell”
Did you know… The album peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Charts.
Sept 12th 2006 Mastodon released the album “Blood Mountain”
Did you know.. Blood Mountain was voted the best album of 2006 in the UK Metal Hammer magazine end-of-year polls.
Sept 12th 2006 Meliah Rage released the album “The Deep and Dreamless Sleep”
Did you know… The outfit’s second U.S. tour with Metal Church would follow in support of the album.
Sept 12th 2007 Steel Assassin released their debut album “War of the Eight Saints”
Did you know… The song “The Executioner” was on Metal Massacre VI (Metal Blade, 1985).
Sept 12th 2008 Metallica released the album “Death Magnetic”
Did you know… Death Magnetic made Metallica the first band to achieve five consecutive number 1 studio albums on the Billboard 200.
Sept 12th 2011 Anthrax released the album “Worship Music”
Did you know.. The record debuted at number 12 in the United States, their highest chart position since 1993’s Sound of White Noise.
Sept 12th 2011 Dream Theater released the album “A Dramatic Turn Of Events”
Did you know… It was the band’s first recording to feature drummer Mike Mangini.
This Day In Metal: Thank you for joining us today, Tuomas! For any of our readers who’ve not heard you before, how would you describe the sound of Wolfheart in 2022?
Tuomas Saukkonen: I describe our music as “Winter Metal”, as weird as it sounds. It’s as massive and raw but as beautiful as the Nordic winter. I do really try to make it sound like “Winter Metal” too, it’s not just to have a fancy title for the music style.
TDIM: Do you think winter is a state of mind as well as just a season?
TS: It is, yes. At least, for any Nordic people. The longer the winter is, the more it affects you, in a way. I think that is the reason why there’s so much melancholic music coming out of Finland in general, becuase we are so affected by nature and the winter.
TDIM: Of course. A lot of your lyrics are inspired by Finland itself. Your last album (Wolves of Karelia) was based on more modern history – the Winter War with the Soviet Union – but with the new album (King of the North) you’ve gone back to much, much older history… is that right?
TS: Yes, the whole album is about Finnish and Nordic mythology. It goes as far back as history is known in these regions.
TDIM: What was it that made you want to look back even further into the past?
TS: I am really fascinated by doing a whole concept or theme album, and keeping the writing style from the previous album. But Finnish history itself is very short and the biggest event really is the War and I really didn’t want to do a second album about the same thing. At the same time, I’m very used to spending time with nature, I work outdoors. Nature itself in Finland is very important to me so it was very inspiring and interesting to go back that far in history. The whole mythology is based on different gods and demigods and beliefs and myths that try to explain nature, stuff like the Northern Lights…
TDIM: Do you do a lot of research before writing these albums?
TS: Well, I was already familiar with the main Finnish mythology book, Kalevala. That is actually the foundation of all the lyrics of Amorphis. Tales From A Thousand Lakes, that album, all the lyrics are translations from that book, and that symbol that they have is also the Finnish version of Thor’s Hammer. They are really like the ambassadors of that particular book of Finnish mythology! So I knew that book but I didn’t know all the small stories around it. Kalevala is like a compilation, the author just travelled from village to village to document different stories and beliefs that were told by basically the old Pagans of the village. It’s spoken stories from one generation to another, but there are dozens of stories from each region that didn’t make it into the book. So it’s very scattered, very historic and very valued as a document. I did a lot of research though and was able to find a lot of other stories that have not already been used in any of the albums by Amorphis! [laughs]
TDIM: Ah, that’s cool. You’re almost continuing that tradition of telling those stories orally, from one person to another, through your songs.
TS: Yeah! There are stories that aren’t documented in any actual books. Some of the stories are just like a few verses of a poem that was told in a certain region of the Karelian area of Finland, for example. So there was a lot of room for imagination. There are hundreds of years of stories, so I was trying to figure out what was the core of the story was when it was told the first time, before it started to grow bigger each time it was told.
TDIM: So do you come up with these concepts and lyrics first and then write the music? What’s your songwriting process?
TS: It’s completely the opposite! I always need to have the music first. What I have in my mind is the album concept almost like a movie poster. All the songs I write start as kind of like a soundtrack for that image. That comes first. Then I have to write the songs. I usually have the song recorded as a final version before I even start working with the lyrics. Most of the lyrics, I usually write near to the vocal recording time, because I really need to feel the song and be able to tell the story. Now, it is a little bit different because the lyrics came from the mythology – there was like some kind of basic idea. But when I write more personal lyrics, it doesn’t make any sense for me to write anything down first. It just feels completely ridiculous and pointless to write lines that are not connected to anything if there’s no music to write on top of.
TDIM: That makes sense – and I guess you feel it more intensely when you do it like that. It’s still new.
TS: Yes!
TDIM: Sowhile you’ve always had a more melodic element to your sound – with acoustic passages, clean vocals, all that stuff – the new album feels to me a lot more melodic than anything you’ve done before with Wolfheart. For one, would you agree? [laughs] And if you do, was it intentional to make it more melodic?
TS: Oh, I definitely agree. It was a very clear plan. The plan was in my head already when we were finishing the previous album. I was writing about war and had a very clear and precise history-based theme that would steer the songwriting. It’s hard to write beautiful music about war. So I knew that the new album had to move more towards nature, towards the Nordic inheritance and history, and the music had to move more in the direction of our debut album, Winterborn.
But also, Vagelis (Karzis, ex-Rotting Christ), our guitar player also came to the band when we had already completed the previous album so his role was only playing the solos. But now there is more time to put the whole band in the right places. Having reviewed his range as a vocalist, I was able to write music knowing that this part is going to be for Lauri (Silvonen), our bass player, this part is gonna be for Vagelis, and that gives us a totally approach when it comes to melodies. When I only did Lauri and myself, I needed to look at the melodies differently. Of course, the melodies come from the guitars and keyboards and stuff but having two different clean vocalists providing the melodies gives me basically two new instruments. Human voice carries melodies differently to any instrument. You write a strong melody for vocals and that will overpower any other instrument. The same melody becomes stronger.
TDIM: Yeah, Vagelis, in particular has got such a huge voice. His clean vocals on this album are amazing.
TS: Yeah, it fits for the size of the guy! [laughs]
TDIM: [laughs] It’s really interesting actually that you’ve written the songs around their abilities. You’ve also got a couple of really prestigious guests on this too, with Jesse Leach (Killswitch Engage) and Karl Sanders (Nile). How did they get involved?
TS: That’s two completely kind of stories… [laughs] Jesse Leach, to me, is just a really cool story that will remain a super-cool story until the end of my career. I was and still am a huge fan of his vocals. His vocal work on the Killswitch Engage album Alive Or Just Breathing had a huge impact on me when I was learning my vocal style. It wasn’t about trying to copy his, but the primal and the raw sound, the certain chaos in his voice, was the impact. Last October, we were mixing the album already and I got a message from this one Russian fan on Instagram. He was sending me a link to Jesse’s Instagram stories. There was a story about his girlfriend moving to the States and it had one of our songs, called Valkyrie, in the background.
At first, I thought it’s an accident, he just wanted to have any song that has that title, because that was the theme of the post. I had no connections with Jesse, I’d never met him, we don’t share management or labels or anything that would connect us. But I had to write a comment on the story, so I said “nice choice of song!” I didn’t really expect any reply but I got one in minutes, with Jesse telling me he’d been a fan of Wolfheart for years, his music had been introduced to him by one of his friends and they regularly listen to Wolfheart. Then he was asking how things were going with the band, and is something happening and I told him we were in the studio and we started talking about music and he was telling me about Wolfheart, as a style, is the thing he would most like to do as a vocalist. So my reaction was, of course, “okay! Let’s get it done!” [laughs]
Like, this is the easiest timing for that ever. One thing that I didn’t tell Jesse was that I didn’t have the song… I told him that he’d be donating vocals to this black metal kind of song, I promised to send him the demo in a few days but I didn’t have the song. So I wrote the demo in two days! But it boosted the excitement of the album so much. In the last minute of mixing to be able to add one extra song that has one of my idols on it… that’s gonna lift the bar for the next album! [laughs] Something extraordinarily cool needs to happen with the next album recording to top this one.
TDIM: [laughs] Damn! I really hope it does!
TS: The Karl thing was completely different, Cold Flame, where he’s doing his part. The lyrics are very grim, all about the mythology of the creation of the Northern Lights. There are different variations depending on which region the story was told, it was either a giant well splashing water in the sky with different colours or it was a fox with a burning tail, but the most grim version was that, if you were killed by violence and you went to the northern version of the underworld, you were bleeding there eternally and the blood was colouring the sky. The Northern Lights were the blood of the murdered people in the underworld.
TDIM: That’s so Karl.
TS: Exactly! He’s very into Egyptian mythology and this kind of stuff anyway and the song is very heavy too. I tried to do the vocals myself but I couldn’t get that monster kind of sound. It’s just not a thing that I do. We share a lot of connections with Nile. Vagelis is a really good friend a the drummer and we shared the same sound engineer on some of our tours so it was super easy to contact Karl and ask and he did very good monster growling. It was perfect, exactly what we needed. What I really like about it is that I knew that because he’s so into history and mythology, he’d appreciate the topic It wouldn’t just be a guy doing a vocal.
TDIM: Yeah, that’s exactly his kind of topic. He loves blood and he loves history – the bloodier and the older, the better! It’s a great song too, I really like Cold Flame. Ancestor (the song with Jesse Leach) as well. Damn, that goes hard. Such a huge anthem. Although actually I think my favourite song on the album is Knell.
TS: Yeah?
TDIM: Yeah. It gives me a real Iron Maiden vibe with the twin guitar harmonies and that kind of slow galloping rhythm. [laughs] I dunno. I just love it. It’s really good.
TS: [laughs] I didn’t see that coming. I do appreciate the Iron Maiden reference. I’ve never been a fan myself but I think it’s only a good thing to get the comparison. I’ve heard so many different comparisons and a lot of people have completely different favourite songs on the album so, like, if that’s your favourite because it sounds like Iron Maiden, that’s only a good thing. Also, the album is very varied, but it is genuinely one of my favourite tracks too. It’s definitely going to be in the setlist.
TDIM: Great stuff. That’s perfect for my next question too, about playing live. Obviously you’ve not been playing much during the pandemic but I believe you’ve done a couple of festival dates now?
TS: Yeah, we were lucky . We played two festivals in both pandemic summers, in 2020 and 2021. In August they lifted the restrictions here and there were some festivals. So every year we got to play just two gigs [laughs] but we haven’t done much in the way of touring lately…
TDIM: You’re starting a tour at the end of September tho? Excited? [laughs]
TS: I am very, very much excited. Like, even more excited because, while I was really sad to hear My Dying Bride weren’t able to join us, they replaced them with Insomnium. We go way back with Insominum. With my previous band Before The Dawn, both of us had our first albums out at the same time, we had tours together than we booked together here in Finland so we have such a long history. To be able to tour with them again, it’s gonna be great.
TDIM: Yeah! I hope you can make it to the U.K. at some point… maybe… but I guess that’s still pretty difficult because of all of our… problems…
TS: Yeah, nothing became easy during the last few years. I thought maybe with the pandemic over it’d be easier but now with Russia and Ukraine, that’s not easy for Finland either. It’s going to be a very fucked up winter coming for the whole of Europe. Then you’ve got Brexit and the visa situation. Even a small visit to the U.K. doesn’t make any sense now. The gasoline prices on top of the visas…
TDIM: Yeah, it sucks…
TS: We’ve done one tour in the U.K. that was more than just a gig in London. We should play there a lot more but… it’s not in my hands.
TDIM: Maybe next year someone will sort it out and you’ll get here.
TS: Well, I just saw you’ve got a new Prime Minister…
TDIM: [laughs in British]
TS: Well, maybe soon something will change for the better. You’ve had a downfall for the past 3 years…
TDIM: At least 3, yeah… but hey, maybe you’re right. Maybe something will turn around soon. I certainly hope so! Anyway, since you just mentioned one of your old bands… what’s going on with your other projects? I know you’ve got Dawn Of Solace back again and I keep hearing rumours online about some kind of mystery project… [laughs]
TS: Well… what’s going to happen is my oldest band, Before The Dawn, we’ve been doing these on and off special gigs since we buried the band in 2012… we released one new song two years ago, a vinyl release… and a lot of things have been happening behind the curtains and… now there is going to be a new single from Before The Dawn! Released tomorrow! [Note: This interview was conducted on the 6th September 2022 – Downhearted, the new single was released on the 7th!]
TDIM: Wow!
TS: Yeah, we’ll introduce the new line-up and reveal our future plans, including a new album that I’ve already started recording. We’re actually making a full comeback.
TDIM: That’s awesome, I’m really glad to hear that.
TS: There’s big changes. I’m calling the whole thing Before The Dawn 4.0 because we have had 3 different line-ups. There was the first one with Panu on clean vocals, then there was the middle part with Lars, then the last album with only growling and that was the passage to Wolfheart… so this is the fourth version. There will be surprises for people.
TDIM: Ah, man. That’s cool. Before The Dawn were great. Speaking of things from the past, obviously this site is called This Day In Metal, we love to look back at metal history. We’re super nostalgic people. So I’m curious about your metal history. Do you remember the first time you ever heard heavy metal music and how it made you feel?
TS: Yes, I do. I remember really well. I don’t remember exactly when but I remember the moment. I think I was maybe six or seven years old. I was living in a very small village on the eastern border of Finland, there was no radio or music magazines, nothing I could actually get my hands on, but there was this one show on TV that showed like music videos. Normally just the basic mainstream stuff but in one of the shows, they had Over The Hills And Far Away from Gary Moore. The music there, the Irish vibe in the melodies. I remember how amazed I was by the video, with the violin and the guys on the bedrock and I was like “wow”. That was the first time that I heard actual rock and metal music.
It needs to be mentioned also, it was a very small village with nothing happening but there was one death metal band in the village and the singer just happened to be my neighbour! He gave me the first demo that they made and that was the first album where I heard growling vocals. I didn’t even know what death metal was but that made a huge impact. It was actually a really good demo, it still is, and some of my favourite vocals. It was one of the first bands that got a record deal outside of Finland, but they just didn’t have the kind of management that could make things happen. Actually, the drummer of the band is now the manager of Nightwish!
TDIM: Ah, wow. I guess he got better at managing.
TS: If you talk to him ever, you can ask him about the band. He’s not very amused when I ask him about it. [laughs] But those are my two very defining moments. Seeing the music videos of that age was important. There was one friend of mine who had MTV, the American version, and he was giving me old tapes of Headbanger’s Ball. So there was a lot of music I discovered through watching music videos rather than listening to albums. I think, early on, I already developed close connections with the visual side.
TDIM: Yeah, because of course you direct all your own music videos too, right?
TS: Yes, I really enjoy the whole process. Doing the pre-production, seeking out the locations which will fit the music. We’ve travelled to Iceland and Norway and Lapland and it gives a completely different level to the music, to be able to produce the visual image. I think it’s those few things in my childhood had a lot of impact, when I look back now.
TDIM: That all makes so much sense. I can see a direct connection from that Gary Moore video to so much of what you do. Even though it’s completely different, I can still see that influence really clearly, now you’ve said it. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today and hopefully we can talk again soon when the new Before The Dawn comes out.
TS: Well, the new album is planned to come out in early June so yeah, let’s talk next Spring!
Sept 4th 1984 Fisc released their debut album “Tracker”
Did you know… The band is from France and formed in 1981.
Sept 4th 1987 Vengeance released the album “Take It or Leave It”
Did you know.. Arjen Anthony Lucassen, the head of Ayreon and other progressive metal projects, played in the band from its formation until 1992.
Sept 4th 1988 Destiny released the album “Atomic Winter”
Did you know… The album cover was painted by Derek Riggs, of Iron Maiden fame.
Sept 4th 1990 Eviction released their debut album “The World Is Hours Away”
Did you know… The band is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and formed in 1986.
Sept 4th 1998 Paragon released the album “The Final Command”
Did you know… The band did a cover of the Warrior song “Fighting for the Earth” on this album.
Sept 4th 2007 Baroness released their debut album “Red Album”
Did you know… It was named Album of the Year by heavy metal magazine Revolver. It is their only album to feature Brian Blickle on guitar.
Sept 4th 2015 Five Finger Death Punch released the album “Got Your Six”
Did you know… The album debuted at number two on the Billboard Charts.
Sept 4th 2015 Iron Maiden released the album “The Book Of Souls”
Did you know… The album was a commercial success, reaching the number 1 spot in 24 countries.
Sept 4th 2015 Amorphis released the album “Under The Red Cloud”
Did you know… This would be the band’s last album with longtime bassist Niklas Etelävuori.
Sept 4th 2020 Stryper released the album “Even the Devil Believes”
Did you know… The band has sold over 10 million recordings worldwide, and it is estimated that two-thirds of their albums were bought by non-Christians.
Sept 4th 1956 Blackie Lawless singer with W.A.S.P. was born!!
Sept 3rd 1984 Iron Maiden released the album “Powerslave”
Did you know… In 2017, it was ranked 38th on Rolling Stone’s list of “100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time”.
Sept 3rd 1984 Samain released their debut album “Vibrations of Doom”
Did you know… Vibrations of Doom Magazine, the longest running Internet-based music publication on the planet, took their name from this album.
Sept 20th 1985 Icon released the album “Night Of The Crime”
Did you know… “Night of the Crime” was voted 3rd best AOR album of all time by Kerrang Magazine readers.
Sept 3rd 1986 Krank released their debut album “Hideous”
Did you knoe… The song “Rented Heat” was on Metal Massacre VII (Metal Blade, 1986)
Sept 3rd 1987 InfernälMäjesty released their debut album “None Shall Defy”
Did you know… The album was recorded at Metalworks Recording Studios, Toronto, Ontario. Canada. 🇨🇦
Sept 3rd 1989 Evil Dead released their debut album “Annihilation of Civilization”
Did you know… “F.C.I. / The Awakening” contains an audio excerpt from the horror film “The Evil Dead”, the same film the band took their name from.
Sept 3rd 1990 Judas Priest released the album “Painkiller”
Did you know… The album reached number 26 on the Billboard Charts. It was also their first album with drummer Scott Travis.
Sept 3rd 1991 Overkill released the album “Horrorscope”
Did you know… It was the first Overkill album to feature the duo of guitarists Merritt Gant and Rob Cannavino.
Sept 3rd 1992 Saint Vitus released the album “C.O.D.”
Did you know… This is the only album to feature former Count Raven vocalist Christian Linderson. The song “Children of Doom” was on Rock Hard Presents Tough Enough Hardcore Metal (Roadrunner, 1993)
Sept 3rd 2001 Entombed released the album “Morning Star”
Did you know… The song “When It Hits Home” is influenced by the 1997 film The Devil’s Advocate.
Sept 3rd 2002 In Flames released the album “Reroute To Remain”
Did you know… The 2010 re-release included a cover of the Genesis song “Land of Confusion”.
Sept 18th 2007 Ministry released the album “The Last Sucker”
Did you know… The album is the 3rd and final part of the band’s anti-George W. Bush trilogy, preceded by 2004’s Houses of the Molé and 2006’s Rio Grande Blood.
Sept 3rd 2010 Death Angel released the album “Relentless Retribution”
Did you know… This was the first Death Angel album done without longtime drummer Andy Galeon.
Sept 1st 1980 Saxon released the album “Strong Arm Of The Law”
Did you know… The album debuted at number 11 on the Official Charts.
Sept 1st 1984 Nightmare released their debut album “Waiting for the Twilight”
Did you know… Nightmare was formed in 1979 and became known when opened for Def Leppard at the Alpexpo of Grenoble in 1983.
Sept 1st 1986 Lizzy Borden released the album “Menace To Society”
Did you know… The album was considered a success and peaked on the Billboard Charts at number 144.
Sept 1st 1987 Deathrow released the album “Raging Steel”
Did you know… The band was originally called “Samhain” and formed in 1986.
Sept 1st 1988 Celtic Frost released the album “Cold Lake”
Did you know… The album was not popular with the group or its fans and is no longer available to buy, making the album much sought after by collectors.
Sept 1st 1989 Mötley Crüe released the album “Dr. Feelgood”
Did you know… The album won the best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal album of the year at the 1991 American Music Awards.
Sept 1st 1990 The Exploited released the album “The Massacre”
Did you know… The band have influenced multiple bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Napalm Death among others.
Sept 1st 1993 Threshold released their debut album “Wounded Land”
Did you know… It’s the band’s only album to feature Tony Grinham on drums.
Sept 1st 2006 Blind Guardian released the album “A Twist In The Myth”
Did you know… The album peaked at number 4 on the German music chart.
Sept 1st 2017 Paradise Lost released the album “Medusa”
Did you know… Decibel Magazine ranked it the number 1 album of 2017.
Aug 31st 1986 Hallows Eve released the album “Death & Insanity”
Did you know… The song “Lethal Tendencies” was on The Best of Metal Blade Vol. 2 (Metal Blade, 1987).
Aug 31st 1998 Death released the album “The Sound Of Perseverance”
Did you know… This was their only album to feature guitarist Shannon Hamm, drummer Richard Christy, and bassist Scott Clendenin.
Aug 31st 1999 Megadeth released the album “Risk”
Did you know… The album debuted at number 16 on the Billboard Charts. It was also their last album with guitarist Marty Friedman.
Aug 31st 2004 Mastodon released the album “Leviathan”
Did you know… Three magazines awarded the album Album of the Year in 2004
Aug 31st 2004 Lamb of God released the album “Ashes Of The Wake”
Did you know.. The album debuted at number 27 on the Billboard Charts. It was rated by Metal Hammer as the 5th greatest Metal Album of The 21st Century.
Aug 31st 2007 Agent Steel released the album “Alienigma”
Did you know… It is the band’s last album with vocalist Bruce Hall.
Aug 31st 2012 Grace Digger released the album “Clash Of The Gods”
Did you know… A music video was made for the song “Home at Last”.
Aug 31st 2018 U.D.O. released the album “Steelfactory”
Did you know… It is the first album to feature Udo Dirkschneider’s son Sven as the new drummer.
On the 9th September 2022, our ears will be blessed with the eighth full-length album from Revocation called “Netherheaven” (via Metal Blade Records). I had the pleasure of talking to ‘The King of Yellow’ himself, David Davidson – vocalist and guitarist of Revocation.
The band say that the songs on this album are“evil and sinister but also have a progressive element to keep things interesting”, whilst also commenting that this album is their “crack at Satanic, diabolical death metal”.
Album cover art for Netherheaven. Artist: Paolo Girardi
We talked about the writing of the album, the “fucking twisted” cover art, their upcoming European tour, origami and much more!
Listen to the singles that have been released so far and check out the full interview below…
Aug 29th 1988 Helloween released the album “Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Part II”
Did you know… “I Want Out” remains the band’s best-known song, and has been covered by several metal bands including Gamma Ray and HammerFall.
Aug 29th 1988 Protector released their debut album “Golem”
Did you know.. The band is from Wolfsburg, Germany and formed in 1986.
Aug 29th 1995 Excel released the album “Seeking Refuge”
Did you know… Some of the material on this album was originally recorded as early as 1991 while Excel began writing The Joke’s on You’s follow-up.
Aug 29th 2000 Nocturnal Rites released the album “Afterlife”
Did you know… The band originally started out as a death metal band named Necronomic.
Aug 29th 2005 Opeth released the album “Ghost Reveries”
Did you know… Ghost Reveries received critical acclaim and peaked on the Billboard 200 at number 64.
Aug 29th 2005 Savage Circus released their debut album “Dreamland Manor”
Did you know… The band originally formed as a side project of Thomen Stauch, Savage Circus became his main band when he left Blind Guardian in 2004.
Aug 29th 2006 Motörhead released the album “Kiss Of Death”
Did you know… It was notable for being the final Motörhead album to feature original artwork by longtime artist Joe Petagno.
Aug 29th 2006 GWAR released the album “Beyond Hell”
Did you know.. The band did a cover of the Alice Cooper song “School’s Out” on this album.
Aug 29th 2007 Amorphis released the album “Silent Waters”
Did you know… The lyrics are English translations of Finnish poems written by poet Pekka Kainulainen, who wrote them based on the character of Lemminkäinen in the Kalevala.
Aug 29th 2008 Destruction released the album “D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N”
Did you know.. The album features three guitarists doing guest appearances -Gary Holt of Exodus and Jeff Waters of Annihilator, in addition to Vinnie Moore of UFO.
Aug 29th 2008 Serenity released the album “Fallen Sanctuary”
Did you know… The album marks the turning point of the band from a power metal group to a symphonic metal group.
Aug 29th 2008 Haggard released the album “Tales of Ithiria”
Did you know… Haggard was founded in 1989 and originally played death metal.
Aug 29th 2014 Striker released the album “City of Gold”
Did you know… The band did a cover of the Iron Maiden classic “Two Minutes to Midnight” on this album.
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Next week’s “This Day in Metal” podcast guest is the beautiful and amazing “Carrie Stevens”
