James Rivera's Metal Wave

[Everflow]

Le chanteur de HELSTAR a un nouveau projet. Pas plus d'infos que ça...

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C'est finalement un projet new wave/dark wave, comme son nom l'indique. Reprise de Depeche Mode pour commencer.

01. Black Celebration [Depeche Mode cover]
02. Love My Way [The Psychedelic Furs cover]
03. Lovesong [The Cure cover]
04. Shock The Monkey [Peter Gabriel cover]
05. Black Planet [The Sisters Of Mercy cover]
06. Everybody Wants To Rule The World [Tears For Fears cover]
07. Bela Lugosi's Dead [Bauhaus cover]
08. The Killing Moon [Echo & The Bunnymen cover]
09. Pet Sematary [Ramones cover]
10. Rain [The Cult cover]

James Rivera's Metal Wave will release their debut album, New Wave Gone Metal, on July 28 via Massacre Records. Pre-order the album here, and watch a video for a cover of Depeche Mode's "Black Celebration" below.

James Rivera sunk his teeth into selected songs by some of the greatest bands of the new wave/dark wave era, and turned them into something more metal.

Rivera's love for metal is undeniable, but his heart is also beating for the darker side of music, especially for new as well as dark wave and goth music - and James Rivera's Metal Wave's debut album, New Wave Gone Metal, perfectly combines the best of those genres.

The band puts its own mark on selected classics and thereby invents a new genre: Metal Wave.

James Rivera comments: "Make no mistake that to this day I still love each of these songs in the original forms but I have to admit now that we did them in our own metal way, it's hard for me to listen to them as they were and I know once these new wave classics sink their teeth into you metal wave style, you'll never listen to them the same either!"

"As for 'Black Celebration' it is a kind of a funny story as well as very memorable and the beginning for my passion of Dark Wave," James reveals.

"Back in the late summer of 1985 when we had just finished recording Remnants of War with Helstar, we had an amusement park here in Houston called Astroworld/ Six Flags and they had free concerts. So if you bought a ticket to the park you could go to the concert afterwards.

"Back then it was taboo, if you were a metal head, to listen to that kind of music and vice versa. You practically got your ass kicked by your gang of metal heads. So our whole point even more so now was go and terrorize the nerdy New Wavers, wearing our denim vests with the metal patches with the big one on the back being the Venom one “Welcome to Hell”!"

He continues: "We enter the concert grounds and Larry Barragan turns to me and says "Wow dude! These people look more dead than we do!" And as I'm looking around, yep! Everyone is in black from head to toe and dead pale white!! If that wasn't enough now, Depeche Mode is getting ready to the hit the stage. The stage is completely black, their intro starts, the fog is massive and there is this huge white sheet in front of the entire stage. (which now years later I found it's called a kabuki drop and we use one when we can for our Metal Wave shows for the beginning). Then the red lights come on and all you see is 4 black silhouettes while they are playing the eerie beginning of 'Black Celebration'. When the beat hits, the kabuki drops and then there is the band!! We were floored!!! It was like seeing a King Diamond show but a Dark Wave version of it! We ran up to the front as close as we could and flashed the metal horns to the band and I've been in love with this band ever since and the rest is history.

"On top of it being the very first song we rearranged and recorded for Metal Wave, that is why it had to be our first more official video for the record and opening track for it!"

[Everflow]

Leur reprise de Tears for Fears ci-dessous fonctionne beaucoup moins bien que celle des Sisters pour moi :

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L'ancien groupe de James Rivera, Destiny's End, sort un live d'archives :

Nameless Grave Records is proud to announce a partnership with one of heavy/power metal’s most respected groups, California’s Destiny’s End. Signed to Metal Blade in 1998 to release their heralded debut Breathe Deep The Dark, Destiny’s End joins the label to bring you a true relic of heavy metal time and space: Breathe Deep The Road, an archival live album from 1999 complete with unreleased bonus studio tracks from the band’s classic run. The release date is January 23.

Destiny’s End was a short-lived but essential US power metal supergroup forged in the late 1990s, renowned for delivering aggressive, riff-driven metal with unparalleled technical proficiency. The band was spearheaded by the legendary vocalist James Rivera (Helstar, Malice, Vicious Rumors, Seven Witches) and featured guitarists Dan DeLucie and Perry Grayson, bassist Nardo Andi, and drummer Brian Craig.

Operating during a dark age for American traditional metal, Destiny’s End served as a bastion of classic, high-octane speed/power metal, releasing two acclaimed albums through Metal Blade Records. Though the group’s existence was relatively brief, its members continued to be staples of the genre, with Grayson playing in Falcon with Greg Lindstrom (Cirith Ungol) as well as in Isen Torr while DeLucie started Crescent Shield and Rivera continued onwards in the years directly after Destiny’s End broke up with bands such as Distant Thunder, Seven Witches, Vicious Rumors, and of course, Helstar. Breathe Deep The Road captures the fiery intensity of this potent, professional lineup at its absolute peak.

In the spring of 1999, Destiny’s End was on the road, laying waste to clubs across North America in support of titans Nevermore and Iced Earth. Now, two decades later, the sonic fury of that legendary tour is finally unleashed.

Breathe Deep The Road is an essential time capsule for every fan of 90s power and speed metal. This definitive collection features six raw, explosive live tracks, including a blistering Judas Priest medley, capturing the band’s lethal energy on stage.

But that’s only half the story. The album also delivers three unearthed studio tracks: a powerful King Diamond cover, a soaring Dio cover that pays homage to metal royalty, and a lost bonus track from the original Breathe Deep The Dark sessions.

Meticulously remastered in 2025 by Andrew Lee, Breathe Deep The Road is a powerful, crystal-clear declaration of power metal supremacy. Relive the glory of 1999.

Tracklisting:

Intro
“Unsolved World”
“Breathe Deep The Dark”
“Under Destruction’s Thumb”
“Transition”
“Rebirth”
“Beyond The Realms Of Death” / “Living After Midnight” (Judas Priest medley)
“Thief Of Life”
“Dressed In White” (King Diamond)
“The Last In Line” (Dio)