Category: Hard Rock

Throwback: Happy 59th Birthday, Slash!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Slash’s 59th birthday.

New Audio: Orlando’s Stiletto Red Shares an Arena Rock Ripper

Orlando-based rock outfit Stiletto Red, led by frontman Giorgos Panagiotakis was founded by Jared Grey back in 2013. The band re-emerged after a several year hiatus with their recently released album, the Adriel Garcia-produced Breathe, […]

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marshall Kilpatric, a.k.a. Der Baron M. Kilpatric has spent the past two-plus decades as a drummer for a number of different bands including Black Light Burns, The Esoteric, Seaspin, Kylesa, F-Minus, Today is the Day and others.

Kilpatric stepped away from the music industry for several years to refocus and evolve in other areas of his life. Back in 2020, the grizzled music industry veteran began to step out into the limelight as a solo artist when he started his recording project The Behaviour, a representation of the sounds, harmonies and noises he has heard in his head and ringing in his ears for quite some time.

The project’s full-length debut, A Sin Dance is slated for a September 15, 2023 release. While the project — and in turn, its full-length but — has been brought to life with a vision of artistic integrity, passion and substance informed by his decades of experience and intuition. The album’s material is meant to be a cathartic, a medicine for melancholy, a remedy for repressed emotion, an enlightenment for evolving senses, Kilpatric explains.

A Sin Dance‘s latest single “Burning of the Neon Dream,” is a slithering and serpentine-like track that brings Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme‘s The Desert Sessions to mind with the song being built around arena rock friendly power chords and enormous, remarkably catchy hooks.


New Audio: Portrait of a Nightmare Share a White Zombie-like Ripper

Formed back in 2009 by core members Pascal Simpkins (vocals) and Tass Szanto (guitar), the Orange County, CA-based industrial/hard rock/heavy metal outfit Portrait of a Nightmare seamlessly blends elements of hard rock, metal and industrial to create headbanging material that’s danceable.

Since their formation, Portrait of a Nightmare has going through several different lineups that included both permanent members and hired hands. But they typically perform a high-energy and captivating live show as either a quartet or a sextet. Locally, the band has received critical applause — they received a Best New Band Award nomination at the OC Music Awards and have been featured in local papers.

After a lengthy hiatus, the Orange County-based outfit is gearing up for their 11-song full-length debut I Still Remain. The band’s latest single “Dirtier You Dirtier Me” is an enormous, White Zombie-like ripper built around scorching riffage, thunderous drumming, mosh pit friendly hooks and Simpkins’ guttural howls. Play loud — and then start up a mosh pit!

New Video: Brighton’s Tigercub Shares “120 Minutes” MTV-like Visual for Arena Rock Anthem “Show Me My Maker”

With the release of 2016’s full-length debut Abstract Figures in the Dark, the Brighton-based rock trio Tigercub — Jamie Hall (vocals, guitar), Jamies Allix (drums) and Jimi Wheelwright (bass) — exploded into the scene, with the band quickly earning praise for dynamic songwriting and a bruising sound influenced by a diverse range of influences including Led Zeppelin, Slipknot, Sonic Youth and Frédéric Chopin. 

The Brighton-based trio’s acclaimed sophomore album, As Blue As Indigo saw the band broadening the massive sonic palette that won them attention while incorporating a deeply personal introspection with lyrics that thematically explored anxiety, depression, toxic masculinity, the death of Hall’s grandmother and the suicide of a close friend. As Blue As Indigo turned out to be the British outfit’s breakthrough: The album rose to #11 on the UK Albums Charts while receiving praise from the international media, including Guitar.com and Kerrang!

The trio supported the album with an extensive touring schedule that included a sold-out UK headline tour, dates with longtime friends Royal Blood and a North American run with Clutch and Eyehategod. Last summer saw the band celebrating its signing to Stone Gossard‘s Loosegroove Records with sets at Reading and Leeds — and an opening slot for Pearl Jam during their two-night run at London’s BST Hyde Park. 

The band’s third album, the recently released The Perfume of Decay sees the band confidently embracing all the contradictions, counterpoints and catharsis of modern-day rock. “It’s all about opposites,” Tigercub’s Jamie Hall says. “Sweet-and-salty popcorn tends to taste better than regular popcorn, even though those are two opposing forces. I wanted to nail that concept with our heavy guitars, softer-sung vocals, Can-style grooves, and a bit of shoegaze. Counterpoints can come together and make a powerful connection. I’ve crossed the threshold from my 20s to my 30s, so I’m getting older, but I’m also entering my prime. This record is a reflection of that.”

The album sees Tigercub’s frontman drawing the curtains shut to embrace a moody, nocturnal sound. “The Perfume of Decay is set at night,” says Jamie Hall. “It was written at night, I recorded all the vocals at night, and it is at night when my thoughts race and uneasiness pours through me like running water. Under the glimmer of moonlight, my apprehension ebbs and flows like the tide and it doesn’t stop until the morning. Perfume is a diary of my emotional journey from dusk to dawn, an anxiety-fueled voyage through the storm. Lyrically, at points, it is almost a stream of consciousness. I sat up late and wrote the words down as they flashed before my eyes.

“I use my songwriting as a form of catharsis,” he adds, “a tool to examine my anxiety and insecurity about growing older and how those emotions seem to lead me towards turmoil. I pour those feelings into my lyrics and only then can I move on from them.”

The album’s latest single “Show Me My Maker” is a swaggering, arena rock banger built around enormous, overdrive-fueled, Soundgarden-like power chords, thunderous drumming paired with enormous hooks and a nihilistic refrain. Play it loud, it’s Friday, y’all — and it’s time to headbang. 

“‘Show Me My Maker’ speaks for itself,” Pearl Jam’s and Loosegroove Records head Stone Gossard says. “This song has classic guts. The opening cobra strikes of a guitar riff… it’s seriously in the running for ‘mother of all riffs’ to the nihilistic exultation of the chorus refrain. I love it. Thank you Tigercub.”

Fittingly, for such a 90s grunge-inspired song, the accompanying video for “Show Me My Maker” is shot in what appears to be grainy and processed Super 8 and features the members of the band performing the song in a bare studio.

With the release of 2016’s full-length debut Abstract Figures in the Dark, the Brighton-based rock trio Tigercub — Jamie Hall (vocals, guitar), Jamies Allix (drums) and Jimi Wheelwright (bass) — exploded into the scene, with the band quickly earning praise for dynamic songwriting and a bruising sound influenced by a diverse range of influences including Led Zeppelin, Slipknot, Sonic Youth and Frédéric Chopin.

The Brighton-based trio’s acclaimed sophomore album, As Blue As Indigo saw the band broadening the massive sonic palette that won them attention while incorporating a deeply personal introspection with lyrics that thematically explored anxiety, depression, toxic masculinity, the death of Hall’s grandmother and the suicide of a close friend. As Blue As Indigo turned out to be the British outfit’s breakthrough: The album rose to #11 on the UK Albums Charts while receiving praise from the international media, including Guitar.com and Kerrang!

The trio supported the album with an extensive touring schedule that included a sold-out UK headline tour, dates with longtime friends Royal Blood and a North American run with Clutch and Eyehategod. Last summer saw the band celebrating its signing to Stone Gossard‘s Loosegroove Records with sets at Reading and Leeds — and an opening slot for Pearl Jam during their two-night run at London’s BST Hyde Park.

The band’s third album, the recently released The Perfume of Decay sees the band confidently embracing all the contradictions, counterpoints and catharsis of modern-day rock. “It’s all about opposites,” Tigercub’s Jamie Hall says. “Sweet-and-salty popcorn tends to taste better than regular popcorn, even though those are two opposing forces. I wanted to nail that concept with our heavy guitars, softer-sung vocals, Can-style grooves, and a bit of shoegaze. Counterpoints can come together and make a powerful connection. I’ve crossed the threshold from my 20s to my 30s, so I’m getting older, but I’m also entering my prime. This record is a reflection of that.”

The album sees Tigercub’s frontman drawing the curtains shut to embrace a moody, nocturnal sound. “The Perfume of Decay is set at night,” says Jamie Hall. “It was written at night, I recorded all the vocals at night, and it is at night when my thoughts race and uneasiness pours through me like running water. Under the glimmer of moonlight, my apprehension ebbs and flows like the tide and it doesn’t stop until the morning. Perfume is a diary of my emotional journey from dusk to dawn, an anxiety-fueled voyage through the storm. Lyrically, at points, it is almost a stream of consciousness. I sat up late and wrote the words down as they flashed before my eyes.

“I use my songwriting as a form of catharsis,” he adds, “a tool to examine my anxiety and insecurity about growing older and how those emotions seem to lead me towards turmoil. I pour those feelings into my lyrics and only then can I move on from them.”

The album’s latest single “Show Me My Maker” is a swaggering, arena rock banger built around enormous, overdrive-fueled, Soundgarden-like power chords, thunderous drumming paired with enormous hooks and a nihilistic refrain. Play it loud, it’s Friday, y’all — and it’s time to headbang.

“‘Show Me My Maker’ speaks for itself,” Pearl Jam’s and Loosegroove Records head Stone Gossard says. “This song has classic guts. The opening cobra strikes of a guitar riff… it’s seriously in the running for ‘mother of all riffs’ to the nihilistic exultation of the chorus refrain. I love it. Thank you Tigercub.”

Tigercub is about to embark on an international tour that includes a June 8, 2023 stop at Bowery Ballroom.

TIGERCUB – LIVE 2023

JUNE

6 – Cambridge, MA – The Middle East – Upstairs

8 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom

9 – Philadelphia, PA – MilkBoy

10 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery

SEPTEMBER

16 – Camden, NJ – MMR*B*Q 2023 †

21 – Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life † 

23 – Clarkston, MI – 101.1 WRIF Presents Riff Fest 2023 †

OCTOBER

8 – Sacramento, CA – Aftershock †

20 – Brighton, UK – CHALK

21 – Stoke-on-Trent, UK – The Sugarmill

22 – Birmingham, UK – Asylum

23 – Gloucester, UK – Gloucester Guildhall

24 – Oxford, UK – The Bullingdon

26 – Nottingham, UK – Rock City

27 – London, UK – O2 Academy Islington

28 – Milton Keynes, UK – The Craufurd Arms

30 – Bristol, UK – The Fleece

31 – Sheffield, UK – The Leadmill

NOVEMBER

1 – Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK – The Cluny

2 – Glasgow, UK – King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut

4 – Leeds, UK – The Key Club

5 – Manchester, UK – Gorilla

6 – Cambridge, UK – The Junction

7 – Portsmouth, UK – The Wedgewood Rooms

† FESTIVAL PERFORMANCE