metal

During the turbulent and uncertain years of 2020-2021, perhaps none were plunged deeper into darkness than those from down under as Australia imposed some of the strictest, harshest, and most devastating lockdown measures in the world, forcing their civilians into years of isolation. However, through solitude and desolation, some of the greatest art is created, as is the case with BLACK LAVA, the emerging blackened death metal quartet from Melbourne (AU). Founded by drummer Dan Presland (Vipassi, AMDBL, ex-Ne Obliviscaris) and guitarist Ben Boyle (Vipassi, AMDBL, Hadal Maw), BLACK LAVA draws influence from old school death and black metal bands while injecting groove-laden melodies and progressive elements to create their own experimental sound.

“The idea came about from just pure frustration of the situation at hand during 2020/2021,” explains Presland of the band’s formation. “Ben and I live locally together, and in the beginning of the pandemic, I built a working studio, so we got together to just initially jam to release some frustrations and vent some music around the second half of 2021. We had a pretty casual jam together and Ben came back with a few fleshed out ideas a few days later.” As the ideas started to come to fruition, the duo quickly realized that the project had more potential than just a jam session. “Both of us were really into the direction Ben pushed,” continues Presland, “and it was something pretty new to both of us – we have worked together quite extensively over the years within music, playing in several bands together (Vipassi, AMDBL, Aphotic Dawn and more) – so to go in a totally new direction was pretty refreshing.”

As the pair fleshed out more ideas, they turned to their good friend Rob Watkins of Blackhelm to fulfill vocal duties. “Within 10 minutes we had found a vocalist and the search for a bassist was on. Tim Anderson (Blackhelm) was found pretty quickly and was keen to jump on board the idea also, so within a very short time frame we had a full lineup, a record ready to go, and 4 guys full of enthusiasm to push something new.”
Sharing a diverse love for black metal, death metal, and progressive music, the quartet quickly found their sound and hit a stride. And thus, Soul Furnace was born – a searing 34-minute aural assault that conjures up nostalgia while still sounding fresh and current. While the record promises to usher in a new musical era of the 2020s with its forward-thinking and contemporary energy, the lyrics dwell somewhere between fantasy and the old world.

“In the world of Black Lava, the lyrics are set in a time and world long gone and forgotten, mostly made up of fantasy and a medieval theme, fitting for the realms of our style of music,” explains vocalist Rob Watkins of the album’s themes and inspirations. “We draw inspiration from the natural environment and mother nature, ancient witchcraft and the glory of warriors in battle. I picture Black Lava as visiting an ancient beast in a cave giving you a chance to escape the outside world through its tales and mythology.”
With a new deal with Season of Mist and a team of some of the music industry’s most revered artists, producers, engineers, and professionals behind them to help render their vision, Black Lava is ready to make its debut and unleash its fury upon the masses.

Caligula’s Horse, hailing from Brisbane, Australia, are a leading light in contemporary progressive metal. Their colourful and emotional music, spanning influences as diverse as King Crimson, Steely Dan, Opeth, and Jeff Buckley, has forged a deep and lasting connection with fans across the globe.

Caligula’s Horse have taken ambitious strides with every release, maintaining a course of continual artistic development and reinvention. Formed in 2011, the band garnered critical acclaim for their eclectic and exploratory debut, Moments from Ephemeral City (2011), and its dark, conceptual follow-up, The Tide, the Thief & River’s End (2013). But Caligula’s Horse truly made their mark worldwide with their vibrant and hard-hitting third album, Bloom (2015), the first on prestigious German record label, Inside Out. It was on the back of this record that the group expanded its touring regime beyond Australia, including shows with the likes of Mastodon, Opeth, the Dillinger Escape Plan, Tesseract, and Anathema. Caligula’s Horse’s fourth album, In Contact (2017), with its grand concept and expansive dynamics, was the first to break the Australian ARIA Top 50 Chart. Its critical and commercial success saw the band grow its reach tremendously, packing out venues across Australia, the UK, and Europe, and touring the Americas for the first time.

In 2020, Caligula’s Horse released their most focussed and potent artistic statement yet: Rise Radiant, an uncompromising exploration of the human experience dressed in vivid musical colour and virtuosic performances. It was the culmination of the band’s artistic development, concentrating the expressive stylings which have endeared Caligula’s Horse to legions of fans worldwide. But it is also far more. Rise Radiant is the Caligula’s Horse sound pushed to its extremes: at once its most ferocious and its most touching, its most expansive and its most condensed, its most poetic and its most vicious. Rise Radiant is an anthem for the regeneration of self-belief, an exploration of the themes of legacy, and a rallying cry for survival.

With the release of Rise Radiant, Caligula’s Horse celebrated their highest international chart positions yet, highlighted with #23 on Australia’s ARIA Albums Chart, and #43 on the German Albums Chart, plus #5 UK Rock Albums and #10 USA Current Hard Music Albums. Rise Radiant has registered over 5 million streams on Spotify to date, and has received fantastic reviews worldwide, with Prog Magazine (UK) calling it “the best yet from Caligula’s Horse, a triumph of passion and performance.” Produced by the group’s Sam Vallen and mixed by the esteemed Jens Bogren (Opeth, Devin Townsend Project, Leprous), Rise Radiant features lead single ‘Slow Violence’, plus 2 bonus track covers of the Split Enz song ‘Message To My Girl’ & Peter Gabriel’s ‘Don’t Give Up’, which also features a guest appearance by Lynsey Ward of Exploring Birdsong.

In 2024, the band will release their 6th studio album Charcoal Grace, and it combines raw rockpower with immense emotional depth.Charcoal Grace is borne of the static hopelessness that the pandemic forced upon the band and, indeed, much of the world, these past few years. It is an album reckoning with the experiences and outcomes of this time geared, ultimately, towards catharsis – moving towards a more hopeful future.

Caligula’s Horse proudly endorses Ernie Ball Music Man strings and guitars, Klotz, Mesa/Boogie, and Fractal Audio, Dingwall basses, Pearl Drums, Remo drum heads and VRATIM Drum Shoes.

Husband and wife team, Rich and Sarah Wood met through being in a band together and are continuing the dream together 9 years on. They teamed up with Drummer Shane Tinetti in 2007 and recorded their debut album in 2010. Their music is influenced by such Artists as Paramore, Evanessence, Foo Fighters, Creed, Smashing Pumpkins, Brook Fraser, U2. Lyrics are personal, poetic and relatable.
Its Rock, its Alternative, its passionate, its inspiring, its honest, its catchy and its creative and original.

Pummeling drums, mammoth riffs, guttural screams, and anthemic choruses are the norm for Rural Victoria-based Australian metalcore outfit Ocean Sleeper. Blasting onto the underground scene in 2016 with the release of Breaking Free, the group cemented their position as one of Australia's finest homegrown talents with the release of 2019's long-player Don't Leave Me This Way.

Hailing from the rural Gippsland region in southeastern Australia, the group -- Karl Spiessl (vocals), Ionei Heckenberg (guitars/vocals), Stan Liagourdis (guitar), and Jarred Robson (drums) -- came together in 2016 and quickly made a mark with their debut, Breaking Free. Within six months of the release, the band were booked to play the alternative festival Unify in 2017, dropping their debut EP, Six Feet Down, at the same time. With the group's impressive display of brutal but anthemic metal winning over fans, the band headed out on a national sold-out tour before also playing support slots with the likes of Stray from the Path and Deez Nuts. By 2018, the group had headed out to Portland, Oregon to start recording their debut album with Kris Crummett (Sleeping with Sirens, Dance Gavin Dance). Before its release, Ocean Sleeper hit the road on a national tour with Dream on Dreamer and the Getaway Plan, as well as playing their first overseas show, headlining the Heartown Rockfest in Taiwan. The debut album, Don't Leave Me This Way, followed at the end of 2019, preceded by the singles "Killing Me" and "Light in My Dark."