You can hear it here.

Eran Segal from Whorecore and Soon In Here answers some questions about touring Europe, playing with Hatebreed, and new recordings with Sven de Caluwe, also of Aborted…

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Metal Israel caught up with Metalheart, a longtime fixture of the Netanya metal scene who is now promoting his excellent act, The Afterlife, in light of their forthcoming release “Insanity.” Read it in a Russian accent and the grammar will make more sense.

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Coming soon to Tel Aviv, Noblesse is a catchy rock act from the Netherlands. I caught vocalist/guitarist Orson Sven (a former dancer that lived in five different countries, wow..his parents now live in the North of Israel) on Myspace….

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You hear a bit of the kinda instruments you would hear in the soundtrack of a kung-fu movie (mentioned is the erhu, or two-string Chinese violin) but it mostly sounds like they take a lot from the Swedish metal scene (like everyone else in the world). It’s enjoyable, atmospheric metal with black tinge and obvious classical (not classical metal, classical classical) influence, despite the fact that some of the female vocals are overdone. (Yeh, I normally don’t promote bands with female vocals anyway due to religious reasons, but I said I would do this review before I knew there was female vocals on it so there’s a loophole for that). The male vocals are a nice range of growling and highpitched screeches. There is nice interplay though.

Interestingly enough, Wikipedia notes that “Lead vocalist Freddy Lin is notably active in the political scene, supports negationism and the current DPP government in Taiwan. This helped the band to be the spokesperson of the products of the government owned company Taiyen Biotech Co.. Freddy Lin claimed to have psychological problems to avoid military service.” They’re against Chinese imperialism and the decimation of the separate Taiwanese culture, which is what a lot of the Scandinavian metal is about – getting back to pagan roots and this and that (feh, they lose me with that idol worship bullcrap). I appreciate the fact that they want to fight for their country and go against the UN – good luck with that, guys.

Lin would make for an interesting interview, to be sure. I wonder how Lin feels about American ‘imperialism,’ or how the regular, usually blue-collar Ozzfest crowd will take ChthoniC. I mean, hell, my whole professional industry is picking up and moving to China/Taiwan cause labor is so much cheaper there. Not that I personally hold anything against the Chinese (hey, take what you can get), but some of these Ozzfest people could be pretty racist about it. It’s really rare someone of the regular Chinese culture jumps into the metal world, let alone a subsect of it that didn’t want to be part of it in the first place. But the music should speak for itself. Good stuff.

Hmf.

According to their website, Dark Empire is intended to be “the epitome of the perfect metal band: thrashy riffs, blazing solos and aggressive yet melodic vocals, full of energy and emotion.” With international label attention and a few shows on the horizon, Dark Empire is looking forward to an illustrious career and have good reason to – they rock. I’m not gonna explain them to you, just go to their Myspace site and listen. Check out the interview below to get the dirt.

And a massive thanks to sister Ali whom I met at a Dark Tranquillity show, for doing this interview. She’ll be hitting the shores of the Holy Land later than sooner, so watch out, Old Friend, here she comes.

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So they post upon their blog…

“We’ve uploaded 2 new songs from our new promotional EP ‘Chaos in Flesh’.

“The songs were recorded and produced by the mighty Jonathan Bar-Ilan of DISSONANT (who also played guitar on the promo) in his own studio in Tel-Aviv, and mixed & mastered by Jonas Kjellgren (SCAR SYMMETRY, CARNAL FORGE) in the Black Lounge Studio in Avesta, Sweden.”

This is QUALITY. They will likely be the next band to make it big out of Israel.

Mark my words.

Check their Myspace site, it’s good stuff.

The now extinct group Hangman appears on the Venom tribute album of the name “Gods of Goats.” The selected song, “Raise the Dead,” is of the (intensity?) that only they were able to do. The album is being released out of Poland and will be distributed mainly in Europe.

As posted on Blabbermouth….

The Israeli/German (German my ass) dark death metal band ETERNAL GRAY is looking for a new drummer to join the current lineup. The recordings for the second full-length CD will take place later this year. Interested parties can visit the group’s MySpace page for more information and audio samples from the debut album, “Kindless”. According to a press release, ETERNAL GRAY is seeking primarily a drummer who has live and studio experience. Drummers can e-mail the band for more information or send in their samples: eternal.gray @ gmail.com.

ETERNAL GRAY’s debut album, “Kindless”, was released in 2002 via Listenable Records.