Sad news: The music world mourns the loss of Ray Manzarek (74), founding Member and keyboarder of The Doors, White Zombie drummer Phil Buerstatte (44) and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder (63). R.I.P.!
German Hardrockers BERSERKER will donate 18.000€ to the Berlin cancer charity for children on May 25. November 2011 BERSERKER front man Schröder was diagnosed with cancer, now he is cancer-free. In 2012 the band collected money for this charity at their concerts and will also continue to do so in the future. Slayer´s Jeff Hanneman is dead: he passed away at about 11AM on May 2nd near his Southern California home because of liver failure due to an infection after a spider bite. R.I.P. Jeff!
The Siberian Jay music video "I´m Holding" featuring Mikko Sirén from Apocalyptica on drums - we reported about the videoshoot in our "1h with" Special - can be watched here: http://youtu.be/C-hSNurZVcs
After their debut "Twelve Years Silence" and an EP called "The Black Porch Acoustic Session" there was but silence from the alternative Rock band, which was built up from members of Sevendust, Evanescence, Virgos Merlot and Eye Empire.
Before the release of their next album, Warner let them down and they all concentrated on their other bands as Dark New Day was on ice. Now the five Americans are back and try to throw new logs into the old fire with their new creation, "New Traditions".
There are songs, which were meant for their previous digital album, "Hail Mary". Why it was not just named "Hail Mary" instead of "New Traditions" is beyond me.
Apart from some whining parts -which unfortunately come too often- Brett Hestla is able to amaze with his vocals. There are all sorts of songs on the record from the unbelievably cheesy title song "New Tradition" as well as "Sorry" and "Breakdown" to some good Rock songs. As a few tips for the fans of the Rock songs, I´d say "Fiend" and "Burn Your Eyes".
As far as the production goes, there is nothing to complain. Everything fits together, but due to too much whining and moaning, the album turned out as a mere average album, mostly intended for the fans of softened up alternative Rock -similar to Evanescence and Sevendust.
There is, however, hope that their next album will be one with more of the fire, which Dark New Day showed in some of their stronger tracks.
