Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Shrapnel! As ever, I am very much hoping you find something new here to enjoy that you didn’t know about before – cheers!

THE DRIPPERS
First up we’ve got Gothenburg rockers The Drippers for you, who were once described in these very pages by my colleague Michael Stronge as creating ‘an incendiary noise’!

That was in relation to the band’s last album, Action Rock, but the band have recently released their second full-length studio album Scandinavian Thunder during the winter of 2021. Following the success of their praised debut album Action Rock from 2019, the Gothenburg power trio has returned with an album that’s more furious and action-packed than ever before. With all knobs turned to eleven, the band delivers an uncompromising discharge of raw power. From the said album, the band has now released a brand new music video for the track No Stars.

Frontman Viktor Skatt comments:”No Stars is the third single from The Drippers second album Scandinavian Thunder, produced and mixed in Sunlight Studio by Tomas Skogsberg (The Hellacopters, Entombed, Gluecifer, Backyard Babies etc.). The video was filmed in Göteborg by Eric Rosén (director, editor) and is loosely based on the song’s lyrics, which cover heavy subjects such as substance abuse and mental health from a close to psychotic first-person perspective. We wanted it to be creepy and a little random, so we just went with every stupid idea we had. Twin Peaks horror, fish egg spread Carbonara, Dräpare drinks (a classic Swedish mix with Vodka and Baileys) and the FORCE! It all fits in the chaotic Rock N Roll nightmare that is The Drippers.”

ARCHIE CAINE
British vocalist Archie Caine is preparing to release his debut album, Tommy And The Angels, a fusion of symphonic metal with soft rock and pop sensibility. The album is set to release on April 22, 2022.

Caine is the natural result of a childhood of singing lessons set to a background of Nightwish, Evanescence, Paramore, My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco. His strong (read ‘noisy’) voice blends emotivity with technical proficiency and is inspired beyond all else by the women of rock and metal.

Archie’s debut release Tommy And The Angels – created with his long-time friends Bo Wilde and Holly Nichol – tells the story of a child with a desperately unhappy life, and the angel who teaches him love, joy, and safety. Inspired by a tune that came to Archie in a dream, mixed and mastered at the Netherlands’ Sandlane Recording Facilities, and with instruments recorded in Paraguay by Adrian Benegas (Pergana, Tragul), the album is a trip into a fantasy world underscored by the talents of original composers and the incredibly high calibre of guest vocalists Dianne van Giersbergen (Ex Libris, ex-Xandria) and Damian Wilson (Headspace).

Faster is the second single from Tommy And The Angels. The song features Damian Wilson and Adrian Benegas. You can watch the video for the song below!

“Faster was written quite early on in the process,” Archie reflects, “and I was immediately hooked when Bo (Wilde) first sent me a voice note with the chorus melody in. It has possibly my favourite intro in the album – that bass line!“

GODLESS
Hyderabad, India-based death metal crew Godless recently issued an incinerating new official video for Cormorant, a track found on their acclaimed debut LP, States Of Chaos.

The band delivers eight intense and unfaltering tracks of thrash-laced death metal on SOC, pummelling the listener into submission while thematically exploring psychological trepidation and terror, phantasmagorias, and nightmare-inducing dreamscapes. The result is a uniquely vicious-sounding record that takes no prisoners.

With the drums recorded at Wind Horse Recording Studios, guitars and bass recorded at Infinity Studios, and the vocals recorded at Hydrozoa HQ, States Of Chaos was engineered by Godless’ Abbas Razvi, after which Poland’s Hertz Studio (Vader, Behemoth, Decapitated) handled the mixing and mastering duties, and the album was completed with artwork and design by New Salem and photography by David Dawson.

Self-released in November, States Of Chaos was met with a plethora of acclaim from a wide array of international media outlets. The band released their own signature beer and booked a record release tour across India.

Now, Godless unleashes an official video for the album track Cormorant. The devastating new video was filmed by Couch Potato Productions and edited by Daniel Sharma Video and showcases the band simply devastating their surroundings from what appears to be the edge of Armageddon.

You can watch the Cormorant video below!

States Of Chaos is available on CD, LP, and digital platforms now!

DVL
DVL (formerly known as D3VILMAYCRY) have announced details of their new album and are ready to unleash fresh tracks, music videos and live dates soon.

Mixing blazing sonics with the classic sound of NWoBHM that’s aligned with tinges of U.S. hard rock and heavy metal, the SAMA (Scottish Alternative Metal Awards) nominated group will release their new ten track record Hush through WormHoleDeath Records this May.

DVL’s forthcoming collection of heavy hitting tracks follows the band’s debut album The Pawn That Took The King and live shows with In This Moment, Jinjer, Act of Defiance, Sylosis, and many more.

Hush is a conceptual album made up of short stories that reflect on modern society. Each song tells a different tale, with some lyrics leaning towards fantasy and others possibly too close to unmasking the truth. Yet while the songs may tell their own individual stories they are all tied together by one overarching concept based on Mental Health. Thematically the album deals with how we deal with mental health as individuals and how society perceives it as well as interferes with it. Self sabotage, the self destructive society that we live in, sleep deprivation, religion being used as a form of manipulation, as well as personality disorders.

The poignant lyrics are married to heavy yet melodic soundscapes that are shaped around songs filled with gripping hooks and vocals that effortlessly switch from light to shade throughout this ten song, red hot, heavy metal nirvana.

Co-produced by the Glaswegian band and producer Riccardo Daga at Titan Lab Recording Studio in Ferrara near Bologna, Italy, Hush will be released via WormHoleDeath Records on the 27th May.