www.metal bulletin.blog spot.com Washington state, U.S. October 15th, 2015 www.twitter.com/MetalBulletinZn www.facebook.com/The-Metal-Bulletin-paper-zine-238441519609213

Aethernaeum A Flourishing Scourge (WA state)

Cyclopean (free EP) Fire Strike Evnen (free EP) Spit on Your Grave

Eldritch Axemaster (part 3)

www.fuglymaniacs.com (issues online, videos, …)

— Metal Bulletin Zine P.O. Box 1339 Lake Stevens WA 98258 USA www.facebook.com/The-Metal-Bulletin-paper-zine-238441519609213 issues #1-20: (2006-2009): Wisconsin #21-26: (2009-2010): Texas #27(2010)--now; Washington state All album reviews, news, updates below are by MMB, unless stated otherwise. -— metal programs (these are Pacific Times) Mosh Pit (Madison, WI): Monday night 9:30pm-12am WORT 89.9 fm www.wortfm.org Sweet Nightmares (Houston, TX): Thursday night 9pm-12am KPFT 90.1 fm www.kpft.org Excuse All the Blood (Olympia, WA): Friday night 11pm-1am www.kaosradio.org Metal Shop (Seattle, WA): Saturday 11pm-3am KISW 99.9fm www.kisw.com — Aethernaeum Naturmystik Einheit Produktionen release date: October 2nd 2015 Alexander Paul Blake, Aethernaeum’s creative force, has two main musical fountains. His other band is the excellent Eden weint im Grab [EWIG] (“Eden Cries in Its Grave”), the long-running masters of imagination metal, a band that is a world unto itself. The two bands are as different as night and day, but they both depend on a certain level of culture and intelligence that is required from the listener: the albums need time to be absorbed due to the sheer quantity of music on each album.

To me, EWIG albums are clouds of long compositions where extreme metal meets creativity and the atmosphere of the supernatural. I do not find EWIG to be weird “experimental” music, but it does require a willingness to let the album play and let it become more familiar with repeated listens. Maybe I enjoy EWIG precisely because the songs matter; it’s not just a bunch of haphazard “experimentation.” EWIG makes sense to me, and it is catchy, too. Aethernaeum, on the other hand, works more directly with black metal, and the music could be described as uptempo, melodic black metal with folk and classical elements in long compositions. Remarkably catchy and refined, Aethernaeum features prominently the sounds of the cello. Personally, I consider Alexander Paul Blake, who Metal Archives says is named Sascha Blach, one of the most creative songwriters in all of metal today. So far in his musical journey, he has an impressive discography. He has a great work ethic, that great capacity for making music, and lots of it. Yet, unlike other legendary songwriters that have some limitations, Alexander Paul Blake can do just about everything. In fact, this band began as a solo project called Alexander Paul Blake and released an album in 2012. Then, in 2013, the name changed to Aethernaeum for that year’s album. Now, here we are in 2015 with a new one. This time around, the music sounds more song-oriented than ever before. (Or, maybe I am catching on faster each time a new album comes out!) If you are the type of listener that, like me, likes all of Moonsorrow’s discography,

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you should definitely look into this band and the works of Alexander Paul Blake in general. The lyrics are in German, which is awesome. The songs tend to be long, and they have that epic feel. You see, difficult to turn down, right? Just in case you might it interesting, below you will find the Alexander Paul Blake discography, as given by Metal Archives. Alexander Paul Blake: voice, bass, guitar, keyboards, songwriting Marco Eckstein: guitar Motte: guitar Markus Freitag: cello Hendrik Wodynski: drums Aethernaeum Wanderungen durch den Daemmerwald 2013 Naturmystik 2015 Alexander Paul Blake Die Rückkehr ins Goldene Zeitalter 2012 Eden weint im Grab Traumtrophäen toter Trauertänzer 2004 Krieg im Wunderland 2008 Trauermarsch nach Neotopia 2008 Der Herbst des Einsamen (Eine Dekomposition der Lyrik Georg Trakls) 2009 Geysterstunde I - Ein poetisches Spektakel zu Mitternacht 2011 Nachtidyl l- Ein akustisches Zwischenspiel 2012 Geysterstunde II - Ein jenseitiges Kuriositätenkabinett 2014 Dissolute Paradise Pi 1995 Lichtschmerzkerzenleidfeuer 1996 Dew 1996 Paradoxon 1998 www.einheit-produktionen.de www.aethernaeum.de

www.facebook.com/AethernaeumOfficial www.edenweintimgrab.de www.facebook.com/edenweintimgrab A Flourishing Scourge As Beauty Fades Away release date: September 4th, 2015 Can extreme and prog metal coexist in the same songs? Won’t the songs fall apart when fire and ice, brain and brawn meet? The band has been working its craft right under noses here in the state of Washington, answering this very question. Even though the music requires a certain intelligence (it’s prog, after all) from the listener, the band is wise to keep the prog in check with some black metal sensibilities. A song like “In Continuum” takes prog metal straight to the gates of black metal and shows how successful the hybridization can become. It seems to me that prog bands are too nervous about taking on extreme metal, and when A Flourishing Scourge does it, it makes you wonder why it’s so rare in the first place: the unlikely pairing results in a successful creation.

On the one hand, the band stands out for the conscious alliance of extreme metal and prog metal. On the other, there is a sincere effort to

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keep both genres in an uneasy harmony that will get the attention of the more adventurous listeners. I think that listeners in general search for music that has something a bit unique or different, something that makes the listener notice the songs. It is true that this EP takes time to make sense in a comprehensive way. The first couple of listens the picture is not totally clear. However, the sheer will and pride of the band is very audible and upfront on the first listen, which is the catalyst for further listens that eventually reveal the unfolding of the band’s identity. The bringing together of heaviness and melody, of prog and extreme metal is apparently difficult to do because it’s not common. However, it’s not impossible. Listen to A Flourishing Scourge for yourself! Kevin Carbrey: the thunder Josh Keifer: the cannons Andrew Dennis: the crunch Tye Jones: the grit and the crunch www.facebook.com/aflourishingscourge www.twitter.com/a_scourge www.reverbnation.com/aflourishingscourge for tickets or booking information, please contact aflourishingscourge@gmail.com Cyclopean Free EP of symphonic black metal. Free when last checked October 14th, 2015. Apparently a person named “Caleb Hennessy,” who does the songwriting, guitars, vocals and keyboards, has made this recording, with the help of drum programming. It would be better if the drumming were actually a person, but given the circumstances, it is still very worthwhile for black metal diehards to investigate this EP. It should be noted that this is not a garage demo. The quality is surprisingly good. The

human named “Caleb Hennessy” is from some place called “New Hampshire” somewhere in the “USA.” “Caleb” says that the lyrical topics come from H.P. Lovecraft.

"Book I: The Hounds of Tindalos" by Cyclopean release date: October 1st, 2015 1.I Think I Went Mad Then... 01:01 2.Dagon, The Beast of the Sea 05:51 3.The Hound of Tindalos 04:25 4.Nyarlathotep 04:49 5.Mountains of Madness 06:07 6.The Beast in the Cave 04:46 total time 26:59 www.cyclopean216.bandcamp.com/releases www.facebook.com/cyclopean666/timeline Fire Strike Traditional, high-vocals heavy metal Fire Strike began in 2004 and they have been hammering away since then. The band is irrationally proud to be traditional heavy metal and they stubbornly look up to Saxon, Judas Priest, Pretty Maids, Grim Reaper, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Twisted Sister, Accept, King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. The 2013 EP has five songs: “Night Fever,” ”Streets of Fire,” ”True as a Dream,” ”Master of the Seas” and the title track “Lion and Tiger“. The band says they have full-length album that will be ready soon. No one can say that this band does not live up to its declarations.

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discography Our Life Is the Heavy Metal demo 2008 Fire Strike Demo 2009 Lion and Tiger EP 2013 Panzer Fest 2 Split 2013 Metal Das Ruas Split 2014 The band is: Aline: vocals Henrique Schuindt: guitars Helywild: guitars Edivan Diamond: bass Alan Caçador: drums www.firestrike.com.br www.facebook.com/FireStrikeBand Evnen Free EP of symphonic extreme metal. Free when last checked on October 14th, 2015. The basic idea of Evnen (Spain) in 2012 was to mix death metal with classical and epic sounds. They now have a new recording ready for you to hear. The recording is solid in quality and the songs feature extreme metal with a strong presence of piano/keyboards. The band clearly knows what it is doing and shows a certain level of experience in the execution of the symphonic, melodic black/death metal.

Jonathan Plaza: vocals Daniel Aparicio: bass guitar Sergi Tomàs: piano/keyboards Diego Pérez: guitars Jordy Rodriguez: guitars Yann Parés: drums "Act. I" by Evnen release date: October 13th, 2015 1.Incursus 06:07 2.Rise of the Phoenix 07:12 3.Shades of Suffering 05:34 4.Fate Is Written 01:21 5.Origins 06:13 total time 26:27 www.evnen.bandcamp.com/releases www.facebook.com/EvnenBand www.twitter.com/Evnen_band Spit on Your Grave Spit on Your Grave is upfront death metal and proud. Heaviness and brutality is the calling card of this band from Mexico. I have to tell you the truth, I am not very familiar with them, as they are a new band to me. They make their music with the goal of forming gigantic mosh pits. They do the low-growled vocals and death metal grooves until the goats come marching home. If it’s death metal you want, Spit on Your Grave will gladly oblige. Zitlalic Gómez: vocals Zesy Amezcua: guitar

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Elizabeth Castillo: bass Jahaziel Ramírez: drums "Existential Murderer" by Spit on Your Grave release date: July 10th, 2014

1.Intro 2.You Will Be My Torture 3.Satan Spreads His Wings 4.Defied Death '45 5.Stench of Carnage 6.Sodomy 7.Bloods Flows Freely 8.Revenge 9.Existential Murderer 10.Perversions www.soyg.bandcamp.com www.facebook.com/soygband www.twitter.com/soygband Eldritch Underlying Issues Scarlet Records release: 6 November 2015 I can only assume from this album that the band is in the middle of a major creative upswing. Something great is going on with this band and it all sounds like everything is right. They manage to do many different moods and make it all sound so smooth. Eldritch wants to take you through the range of human emotions within the duration of the

album.

Confused, happy, lonely, alienated, angry, depressed is all here, and just before you think that they might lead you to drinking, they turn and tell you that you might just be ok after all. Eldritch is an excellent choice for quality traditional prog/heavy metal that operates the sphere of introspective songs and emotion. In terms of the songs, Eldritch has written a greatest hits album, except that this is simply the new Eldritch album. Every song sounds so full of work, emotion and energy. This is not a slow album nor is it an album full of ballads, either. For instance, “The Light” is an uptempo tune, yet the lyrics and the vocal delivery overwhelm the song with melancholy. The sensation is uniquely Eldritch. The guitar work sounds exquisite, too. “The Face I Wear” will take you from a rocking energy to melancholy, and back, within the space of five minutes and 41 seconds. It could be that Eldritch has reached a maximum know-how for dealing with broken relationships, lost love and heartache in song. Even with a thrashing song like the album closer “Slowmotion K Us,” which has moshpit-inducing guitar work, the band finds a way to add melody, and raises the song way above a simple thrashing number. This time around, it seems like the full-

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on ballad is “To the Moon and Back.” Don’t listen to this song too much unless you are planning on drinking a whole bottle of wine all by yourself. Eldritch is not responsible if you are not able to get up and go to work the next day. The first demo of the band came out in 1991. This is now their tenth album. They just keep getting better and better at their craft. www.scarletrecords.it www.facebook.com/Eldritchband/ www.eldritchweb.com www.twitter.com/eldritchband (continuation of the interview with) AXEMASTER Number 54 and 56 of Metal Bulletin Zine had two previous segments of this interview with Axemaster. Now the band has submitted more answers to the interview. Axemaster is traditional heavy metal from the state of Ohio, U.S. The band started in 1985, and has gone through lineup changes, including name changes, but lead guitarist Joe Sims, the only remaining member from the old formation, continues to steer Axemaster today. In 2014, the band signed with Pure Steel Records (Germany), and Sims produced, mixed, and mastered the new album "Overture to Madness.” Pure Steel released "Overture to Madness" in 2015, an album which, according to the band, “helps to define Axemaster's overall general style as a combination of the dark riffs and feel of doom metal and the energy and aggression of non-speed thrash metal.”

BAND MEMBERS Geoff McGraw - vocals/rhythm guitar Joe Sims - lead guitar Denny Archer - drums Jim Curtis - bass This segment continues this in-depth interview into the history and the present of the band. Thank you to the band for being so professional about this interview! www.facebook.com/axemasterofficial QUESTION: You have been playing shows, I have noticed on Twitter. Can y'all tell us about getting back on stage, with a new formation, a new Axemaster, if you will? JOE: It's AWESOME to play shows with this band, mostly because of the guys I'm sharing the stage with. Sure, I think the tunes we are playing are cool as hell and especially a couple of our new songs are probably my personal all-time favorites to play live, I have more fun playing those two than pretty much any other songs I have ever done onstage. But more than that, I totally love being able to play shows with Geoff, Jim, and Denny. The entire night is always great with those guys, even when bullshit happens with the show because of like any problems with the club or technical issues. Not only do I never have to worry that someone's gonna possibly act unprofessionally and screw the night up, like someone getting drunk or all pissed off about something stupid, but everyone is so great to hang out with that it makes every show night a good time that I always look forward to. Plus it gives me so much extra confident onstage to know that all the guys there with me are such great players and veterans of SO MANY shows over the years. Like when there's a mistake or we get off-synch with each other because we can't hear correctly, we always pull everything back together pretty much

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right away. Knowing that really sets my mind at ease and cuts the stress level by A LOT. It all comes down to what Denny said at our last gig: everyone bumps fists onstage right before we started the show and he said "it's the Axemaster family!".

Geoff: Axemaster returned to the stage at the 2014 Ragnarokkr Metal Apocalypse festival, since then we have gotten far more comfortable with each other, and Denny joined us as our permanent drummer shortly thereafter. Actually I hope we can go back to Chicago for Ragnarokkr again soon and bring them what Axemaster has really become. QUESTION: After all these years, what emotions do you feel when you get up onstage? JOE: Well, I had a problem in the middle 2000's that kept me from being able to play shows for a number of years. Thankfully everything's straightened out now and for the past few years I've been good to go. But the first show that I did after coming back (which was the first show the "new" Axemaster played together) was pretty strange: in one way I was a total veteran, but in other ways I felt a little like a newbie because I hadn't played with a band onstage in like 5 or 6 years. I really needed to get my stage legs back and it took

a couple shows to totally feel comfortable again. But now that I'm back in the swing of things, my emotions are how fortunate I feel that I'm able to do what I do and how honored and happy I am to be in this band again after all these years and to be able to jam with my band mates cause they're the fucking BEST!!!!!! QUESTION: What is it like for y'all to be onstage playing metal music? Butterflies in your stomach? Do you get nervous? Is it exciting? Do you feel like teenagers again playing air guitar to Judas Priest? JOE: Well, I must admit that I had some butterflies especially the first show the new Axemaster did because it was the first show I had done in 7 or 8 years since Inner Terror never played together period, and from the start of the re-tooled Axemaster, we had just concentrated on doing the CD so we didn't put together a show. That first show was tough too because we were pretty unprepared. That's when the process of our drummer change was happening and Denny was just a fill in at that point that we had only rehearsed with for a little over a month, and he was starting from scratch, had never even heard our stuff before we started rehearsing! The show ended up going ok, we are surely A LOT better together now, but we did as good as you could hope for. Anyway, as I got a couple gigs under my belt and got my stage-legs back, the butterflies pretty much went away. Now, the feelings when I play of course somewhat varies with the show, how I feel (like I played one recently when I was so sick I had no business being out of bed!), and just different circumstances. But overall, I feel proud to be able to do what I'm doing and who I'm sharing the stage with. Besides that, I wouldn't say that I feel like when I was a teenager, I actually feel a lot better about everything because of the experience I have,

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I know that no matter what happens we will deal with it, so there isn't nearly as much to be nervous about. A lot of the excitement comes from the fans and as strange as it may sound, a lot of the excitement comes from talking to fans before and after the show. It gets me so psyched that people think so highly of us, the kick ass things we hear from them, and that they will take their hard earned money to pay to see us and buy our merch. That means a lot to me personally. Geoff: Like I mentioned already our 1st show back was at the Ragnarokkr festival, and we were all a little unsure. We had agreed to do the show months previously, and only a month before had to make the decision to play with a fill in or to bail on the show. It felt so wrong to cancel the show so we practiced hard as we could and went anyway. I personally was very nervous for that show, and then we had some tech issues during the set, But we worked it the best we could. Like I said before I would love the chance to go back and REALLY rock the place. QUESTION: How do you go about deciding what songs to play? Do you play songs from The Awakening and Inner Terror? JOE: It's totally a band decision. When there's a song someone wants to do or I write a new tune I want to do, everyone talks about whether it's something we want to do. Right now there's actually a couple songs I would like to add to our setlist, but we are getting ready to record some new stuff and we want to focus on getting that perfect so I'm putting off talking about adding anything. Actually, yes, one of the songs we are gonna be recording is one that was on The Awakening's "Invictus" album. But we changed it around quite a bit; if you listen to both versions, the Axemaster version sounds like the original on cocaine and steroids!!! We basically make it

into an Axemaster song. I've been thinking about taking the riffs I dig from one of my fave tunes from the Inner Terror CD and totally re-writing it. I think there are some great riffs and parts on that disc, but I think the songwriting overall could have been a lot better. Geoff: The song from the Awakening that we play is called "Flowers For The Dead", it's a lot of fun to sing and I know the rest of the guys like it, it's one of those songs that seems to be over before we even start playing it's so much fun to play. Not only are we playing classics as well as stuff from the new album, but we are playing new songs that have yet to be released. If you want to hear something new from Axemaster all you have to do is see a live show, we're bringing all kinds of songs.

QUESTION: What is the situation for Axemaster regarding Europe in 2015 and 2016? In Europe, some people, like the people that go to Keep It True, for instance, probably already know a lot about Axemaster. Some of those old Germans are total metal maniacs! JOE: Oh god yes, Europe in general and Germany in particular has always been Axemaster's main fan base and the metalheads there are out of hand kick ass!!!!! I'm sure that in the future we will be able to play some GREAT shows in Europe and have had some offers, the only problem is that it's so

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damned expensive to travel there and back that we have to have quite a few cool things set up in advance and have some time to prepare so we would be totally confident that we wouldn't lose our asses. I wish we were in the position to be able to just go over there and not worry about all that because I know we would end up doing some great shows and have a great time. But in our situation it will have to make good business sense in advance because it's a lot of cash to go and we just don't have that kind of money that we could risk. But BELIEVE ME, playing Europe is something I want to do more than just about anything and I know the other guys really want to play there as well, so getting something together to be able to do it is a huge thing for me and us!!!!! Geoff: This is actually probably the question we get asked most, and honestly I think we want to come to Europe even more than folks want to see us there. I have friends who have played KIT, Wacken and Headbangers Open Air, and they feed the flames of my desire to come and share what we do with the insane fans of heavy metal that Europe has. We just have to get the right offer that keeps us from spending every penny we have just to even get there. THE END October 15th, 2015