Rise To Remain frontman Austin Dickinson has shed light on the recent departure of Joe Copcutt and Pat Lundy. In a statement he says " It's very sad that things did not work out between us, but they are great guys and all of us wish them the absolute best in their futures". The singer also tells of his regret of having to pull out of the US Machine Head tour. " We apologise to all our stateside fans for this cancellation, we did not want to let you guys down, as this is obviously sudden news." He goes on to say that they are already audition for new members and that the US release of City Of Vultures will have four new and exclusive songs. The full statement is as follows:
"Hey guys, as you’ve probably heard we’ve parted ways with Pat and Joe. It’s very sad that things didn’t work out between us, but they are great guys and all of us wish them the absolute best in their futures.
As an unfortunate result, we’ve had to pull out of our debut US tour supporting Machine Head, and our album release date is now June 5th for North America. We apologise to all our stateside fans for this cancellation, we did not want to let you guys down, as this is obviously sudden news. However, we will be including four brand new and exclusive tracks on our US release of City Of Vultures, and we have got many more new and exciting things to announce over the coming weeks. We are in the audition process right now, and we are very much looking onwards and upwards.
Please say a collective thanks to Joe and Pat for everything they did in Rise, they are great dudes and they will go far in whatever they choose to do next. See you all in March for some mayhem, and thank you for everything,
All our love,
Austin"
We are now into our second day of 2012 but what can we expect this year before the world supposedly ends in December?
Firstly bands that are due to release new albums for 2012 are: Lamb Of God, Periphery, Gojira, Eluveitie and Woods Of Ypres.
Lamb Of God are due to release the follow up to 2009’s Wrath.
The highly anticipated new album Resolution is due out on 23rd January through Roadrunner Records who have already released a song from the album Ghost Walking which is available for download from digital retailers.
Having already heard the track (Ghost Walking), Resolution promises to be crushing album and possibly album of the year.
The Djentlemen from Periphery are also in the studio recording their second album and a concept album.
The concept album is to be called Juggernaut but no release date has yet been given and their second album is to be called Periphery 2:This Time Its Personal and again no release date has yet been given.
French band Gojira are also in the studio recording their new album, which is expected sometime in spring.
Folk Metallers Eluveitie are back with there new album Helvetios which is released on 13th February.
Also released on 13th February is the new Woods Of Ypres album Woods 5: Grey Skies and Electric Light.
Although many people have heard the album due to it being made available freely because of the passing of frontman Dave Gold the album is going to be released properly through Earache records.
This is a very strong album from a not very well known band and should be checked out by those who are into the doomy side of metal.
Of course there is one album that we haven’t mentioned …
The new Black Sabbath album which is due out sometime in 2012.
This is the first Black Sabbath album with the original line up for 33 years. With Rick Rubin producing the album and Tony Iommi’s formidable riffing this is sure to be one of the highlights of 2012 by far!
Apart from new music there are also many events taking place this year.
Firstly Download festival, with Black Sabbath and Metallica headlining this has got to be the festival of 2012.
Just to see Black Sabbath is something but to have Metallica as well is just outstanding.
Not only is it great to have these two metal icons but it is even greater to have Metallica playing their entire Black album.
Sonisphere have yet to say who is headlining at Knebworth yet but it is fair to say that they are really up against it this year.
Also returning to the UK this year are the mighty Rammstein.
The crazy German industrial metalers are coming to the UK for an arena tour in February and March.
With their vivid displays and stunning performance this is a tour not to be missed.
Down under Soundwave festival is taking place with a whole host of insane acts (Slipknot, Machine Head, Mastodon, Lamb Of God, Trivium, In Flames and the reunited Coal Chamber to name but a few).
Other tours to look out for in the UK are: Dream Theater – Periphery, Mastodon – Dillinger Escape Plan – Red Fang and Rise To Remain – Heaven Shall Burn tours all coming to the UK very soon.
Looking back at this 2012 promises to be brilliant year!
Before it had even started we knew that 2011 be a strong year for metal. With Sonisphere Festival announcing that Slipknot would be returning to Europe for the Paul Gray memorial shows, the Big Four playing together in the UK for the first time and bands that were in the studio recording new albums such as Trivium, Anthrax and Devildriver we could tell that 2011 was going to be a year of metal monstrosity.
Sylosis came out with a new album and new frontman after vocalist Jamie Graham left the band. Graham was replace by guitarist Josh Middleton who fit the bill perfectly.
Their album Edge Of The Earth was released early in the year and since then the band has risen to new heights, most notably playing on the main stage at Sonisphere festival this year.
Even when the album was released in March we said that it was in contention for the album of the year and still is well in the top ten releases of 2011.
Trivium returned to form with their crushing album In Waves. After much delay and problems with studios and labels the album was released in August.
The album is the first to feature new sticks man Nick Augusto whose entrance to the band has clearly revived them to their former glory.
The old adversaries Megadeth and Metallica both released new albums this year and Mustaine finally beat Hetfield and co on the sales front however they did have the burden of Lou Reed on their backs.
Of course you can’t talk about 2011 without mentioning the disaster that was Lou Reed and Metallica.
Painful to listen to worse to watch, Metallica call it the best thing
they’ve done but we think otherwise.
However Megadeth capitalized on this by releasing Th1rt3en, which also saw the return of former bassist David Ellefson.
Worship Music, the album that was then wasn’t and finally was again.
After going through two previous vocalist Anthrax settled on Joey Belladona to release worship music with and dear lord it as worth the wait. Worship Music was a stunning album which gripped you from start to finish and has Belladona sounding better than ever.
Hats of to Anthrax for releasing such an epic album.
As we all know The Blackening was hailed album of the decade by Metal Hammer so when we heard that Machine Head were to release a new album we couldn’t wait to hear it.
Unto The Locust certainly lives up to the hype albeit a bit more diverse than its predecessor.
Machine Head have well and truly stamped their mark on heavy metal history by releasing these two utterly mind blowing albums.
Other notable albums that were released this year were The Hunter – Mastodon, Sounds Of A Playground Fading – In Flames, Beast – Devildriver and A Dramatic Turn Of Events – Dream Theater.
As well as albums there have been many stonking events taking place in the past year.
As previously mentioned this years Sonisphere festival just blew its competition out of the water.
Slipknot returned on their Paul Gray memorial tour and the Big Four of thrash metal played together for the first time in the UK.
This was by far the live event of the year in the UK but abroad there was something even better.
In the first week of December Metallica took over the Fillmore theatre for three nights to celebrate being together or 30 years.
This was not just a gig this was a celebration of what Metallica is.
They were joined by guests such as Brian Tatler, Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne, former bassist Jason Newstead, Bob Rock, and the original line up of Ron McGovney, Lloyd Grant and Dave Mustaine to name but a few.
Other events that were not to be missed were the Iron Maiden UK arena tour, Dream Theater’s headline performance at High Voltage the first ever UK headline appearance with Mike Mangini and finally to complete the year we had the Black Sabbath conference on 11/11/11.
In this press conference it was announced that Black Sabbath was going to reform for a world tour and a new album with the original line up.
As we can see 2011 has been a fantastic year for metal and we hope for much more in 2012.
Until then peace out: Charlie Day \m/(>_<)\m/
