To cut to the case and with Four of the worlds hottest acts getting ready for major release's this month HERE are the Rock3 reviews of the Best of Roadrunner records this month.
Dream Theater - Chaos In Motion DVD review ( hear them on the rock3 prog metal webcast )
Within Temptation - Black Sympony DVD review ( hear them on the rock3 prog metal webcast )
Trivium - Shogun ( hear them on the rock3 Metalbox webcast )
Staind - The Illusion Of Progress - ( hear them on the rock3 webcast )

The Trivium story began back at the dawn of the millennium, when drummer Travis Smith and then frontman Brad Lewter recruited 15-year-old guitar prodigy Matt Heafy for their new band, after seeing him blaze his way through Metallica’s ‘No Leaf Clover’ at a school talent show. After a handful of gigs, Lewter departed, enabling Heafy to take over as the band’s singer, as the band – which also featured bassist Brent Young - hit the studio to record their debut album, ‘Embers To Inferno’. A strident and preternaturally confident first effort from such a young band, ‘Embers...’ (released in 2003) showcased the trio’s highly original but extremely timely sound; a ferocious blend of classic metal, thrash and extreme influences that stood in stark contrast to much of what was popular at the time. It also gained the interest of Roadrunner Records, who duly signed the band and set them to work on their second studio album. Meanwhile, Trivium bolstered their ranks by bringing in Corey Beaulieu as their second six-string wizard, and replacing Young with new bassist Paolo Gregoletto. Recorded at Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, Florida, with engineer and all-round nutjob Jason Suecof, ‘Ascendancy’ (2005) was the perfect album to introduce the now four-man Trivium line-up to a now revitalised global metal scene. Anthemic songs like ‘Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr’ and ‘Like Light To The Flies’ exhibited great depth and musicality and immediately set the band apart from the rest of the metal scene, turning them into one of the most widely hailed new bands the genre had produced in years.

“’Ascendancy’ was ahead of its time,” states Matt Heafy. “We were doing that stuff before we knew it was ‘in’. People put all kinds of terms on it, but always thought it was metal as fuck. It was never metalcore. There’s death riffs all over that shit. The pre-chorus riff on the title track is so ‘Symbolic’-era Death! How could you think it was anything else, you know?” Both in the US and in Europe – and particularly in the UK, where Trivium shot from nowhere to conquering the annual Download festival at Castle Donington and becoming a major headlining act, all within a matter of weeks – Heafy and co were making major waves, touring relentlessly on both sides of the Atlantic and building up a huge international fan base that was frothing at the mouth in anticipation of the band’s next move.

Again recorded with Suecof at Audiohammer, and released in the autumn of 2006 - a mere 18 months after its predecessor - ‘The Crusade’ was a massive milestone for Trivium; a bold, and adventurous move that both consolidated their reputation as metal’s hottest young band and proved that unlike their peers, Trivium were more than happy to take a few risks in order to further nurture their art. Shedding every last trace of metalcore from their sound – including losing Heafy’s screamed vocals – the band’s new material ranged from the punishing modern thrash of ‘Ignition’, ‘Detonation’ and ‘To The Rats’ through to the Megadeth-meets-Motley propulsive rock of ‘Anthem’, the moody balladry of ‘And Sadness Will Sear’ and the epic instrumental craziness of the album’s eight-minute title track.

“With ‘The Crusade’ it was very much a reaction to the previous record,” says Heafy. “We wanted to do something completely different, something out of the box for Trivium. We wanted to go with whatever the opposite of ‘Ascendancy’ was. If we’d made Ascendancy Part 2, we wouldn’t be doing this anymore. We wanted to state early on in our career that we’re not afraid to do something different and to diversify.”

Buoyed by critical acclaim, a hugely positive response from the fans and a seemingly never-ending stream of high profile tours, including a successful cross-Europe joint as special guests to Iron Maiden and a triumphant stint on the Ozzfest tour in the US, Trivium quickly threw themselves into the writing process for their fourth album, spending many on-the-road hours honing and refining their newest material in anticipation of hitting the studio, this time with renowned producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters/Stone Sour/Death Angel).

“We were writing on tour for a year straight,” says Heafy. “When we were on the Black Crusade tour in Australia, I showed the Machine Head guys the songs. I respect Robb Flynn such an incredible amount as a musician and a person and I wanted to know what he thought. He called me up and gave me a really good talk about demoing and revisiting songs and all that, so we went back to the rehearsal studio and completely re-wrote everything. Then we sent the stuff to Nick, and then between us we picked the 13 best songs. We went to Franklin, Tennessee, where we lived for eight weeks, and recorded at Sound Kitchen Studios. It’s a legendary country music studio where Willie Nelson recorded. We met Lynyrd Skynyrd there! Everyone was amazing and so nice, so it was a great working environment for us.”

There is a moment for every great band when everything comes together and a definitive musical identity emerges. This is precisely that moment for Trivium, as the thrashy energy of ‘Embers…’, the cocksure melodies and aggression of ‘Ascendancy’ and the adventurous bravado of ‘The Crusade’ coalesce around a core of new-found creative muscle ‘n’ bone, resulting in an album of songs that proudly surpass everything the band have achieved in the past. ‘Shogun’ sounds huge, in every sense. The collaboration with Raskulinecz has taken Trivium to new levels of compositional and technical brilliance, while the album’s brutal, bone-shattering production means that they’ve never sounded heavier or more powerful. With lashings of vicious riffs that celebrate the band’s love of death, black and thrash metal, alongside the most incisive and memorable melodies the quartet have ever written, ‘Shogun’ is a monstrous achievement that promises to have the cynics and naysayers choking on their toast.

“It was all very natural,” explains Heafy. “We didn’t care what was going to come out, and that’s why it sounds this way. We all still love extremely heavy music with the brutality and no melody, but we also love stuff that’s incredibly melodic and simple and memorable, so that explains the two extremes. We like to have everything. Vocally we tried everything from the lowest note I can sing to the highest note, from the lowest growl to the highest scream, and everything in between. We wanted to try it all. That was the whole concept behind the record. No limits. Just try anything and see what comes out.”

Simply one of the most important metal bands on the planet right now, Trivium have been threatening to make that final leap from established contenders to full-on metal heroes for the last few years. With ‘Shogun’, their fourth and manifestly best album to date, they have clearly mastered the metal arts and are ready to step into the arena with the genre’s greats. From the bludgeoning bombast of opener ‘Kirisute Gomen’ – a dynamic paean to the ways of the Samurai – through to the hook-laden savagery of ‘Down From The Sky’ and ‘Into The Mouth of Hell’, and on to the towering steel-plated genius of the 13-minute ‘Shogun’ itself, this is truly Trivium’s defining album and the first stone-cold classic of their career. With over 600 live shows under their belt to date, Florida’s finest are ready to hit the road again and this time they have both the songs and the self-belief to take on all-comers.

“We wrote this album exactly the way we all wanted to,” concludes Heafy. “We really did our own thing this time. When people check it out, they’ll realise that we’re not an exclusive band. We’re not doing this for one specific kind of person. If you want to come to a show and rock out, that’s what we’re here for. We’re just four normal guys who just happen to be able to play metal for lots of cool people around the world. And that’s what we’re gonna do. This first shows we do for this album are gonna be just us, our instruments and the music. There’s not going to be any fancy shit going on. It’s just gonna be raw, brutal and exactly what this album is. It’s about the music, and that’s all we’re about. We hope everyone comes out to see us and we hope you all dig the record. We’re really fucking proud of it.”


Thanks to Roadrunner records for allowing us to reproduce this text

Within Temptation have come a long way in the last ten years. From their humble beginnings, the Dutch band have now sold over 1.2 million CDs and DVDs world-wide, making them not only Holland’s biggest selling musical export but also one of the fastest growing new rock acts internationally. Formed in 1996 around the nucleus of guitarist Robert Westerholt and vocalist Sharon den Adel, Within Temptation released their debut album Enter through Dutch indie label DSFA the following April.

The album saw the band playing gigs across the continent, firmly cementing their phenomenal live reputation – most notably two appearances at the legendary Dynamo festival (in both 1997 and then on the main stage in 1998). Unbelievably for a band who were attracting such critical and commercial acclaim, they were actually all still in college. And so in 1999, Within Temptation went on hiatus to allow the band to finish their studies. Returning to the fray twelve months later, 2000 was to prove a pivotal year for the band. Building on their strong live following by playing all the major European festivals, the band released their second album Mother Earth in December. The new album again garnered critical acclaim - hugely influential Dutch music magazine Aloha tipped Within Temptation “for a major breakthrough” – and Mother Earth stayed in the Dutch charts for over three months. Starting the year with a major club tour of their homeland, Within Temptation released two singles from Mother Earth, Our Farewell and Ice Queen. It was Ice Queen that finally led to Within Temptation’s first mainstream commercial success. The single peaked at #2 in the Dutch charts with the album re-entering the charts at #3, eventually reaching Platinum status. The band’s popularity in Holland continued to grow and in 2002 it spread like wildfire across the continent.

Mother Earth clocked-up Platinum and Gold status in Germany and Belgium respectively, while the Mother Earth Tour DVD received Gold status in their homeland and won the band an ‘Edison Award’. Returning to the studio in 2004, Within Temptation were set to record their third and most successful record to date, The Silent Force, with producer Daniel Gibson. Fuelled by the massive international radio hit Stand My Ground, the album went to #1 in the Netherlands and Finland, #5 in Germany, Top 10 in Belgium, Portugal and Spain, Top 20 in Austria and Switzerland and Top 30 in Greece, France, Turkey, Sweden and Norway. A myriad of Gold and Platinum certifications followed.

The single Angels was released in June 2005 to coincide with their now annual festival run - which included appearances at Pinkpop, Werchter, Rock Am Ring, Sweden Rock, Ruisrock, Aerodrome and Gurtenfest – and European tours with Iron Maiden and Rammstein. In August, Within Temptation received a World Music Award for Best Selling Dutch Artist In The World. A release of The Silent Force in Japan, Australia, and the UK was next. More plaudits followed in 2006 with Within Temptation receiving the Dutch Export Award (“Best International Selling Artist”) for the third consecutive time in a row and a Golden God Award from the UK’s Metal Hammer magazine for Best Video.

They also released a special video trailer of new song The Howling via the internet in December in cooperation with game developer Spellborn. 2007 will see Within Temptation release the brand new single What Have You Done, featuring guest vocals from Life Of Agony front man Keith Caputo, and tour extensively across Europe (starting March 24 in Lisbon). Their new album, The Heart Of Everything, is set for release in March, produced again by Daniel Gibson and mixed by Stefan Glaumann (Rammstein). In describing The Heart Of Everything Westerholt comments, “Although you can still clearly hear that this is a Within Temptation record, many things have changed and evolved. Sharon shows how versatile she is as a singer more than on any record we've done. On some songs, she sings with a lot of power; on other songs she is more melodic… a siren enchanting her subjects. Sometimes she is emotional and sensitive. The guitars also play a larger part, and we have added an extra dimension to our new songs too by enhancing them with historic samples, as we did before on Our Solemn Hour. Compared to The Silent Force, our new album is more dynamic and energetic. It has a more natural sound.


Thanks to Roadrunner records for allowing us to reproduce this text

In the past decade, Staind have sold more than 12.0 million records worldwide, had four No. 1 singles at mainstream rock radio, seen six more singles break the Top 10, and watched their last three albums debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Album Chart. They have earned their place as one of the most successful rock bands of the new millennium, but that success is something that they refuse to take for granted.

“We’ve seen too many bands come and go to ever feel like we have a sense of security,” says guitarist Mike Mushok, reflecting back on his band’s four major-label studio efforts, and taking into account Staind’s highly-anticipated new release, due later this summer. “With each new album, we never want to rehash what we did before, but we also don’t want the new music to be so different that it alienates our fans. We try to walk that line. As a band and musicians you want to grow and mature, not just put out another ‘It’s Been Awhile’ eight years later. You want something new that hopefully builds on that, and you want something that enables you to continue to grow as songwriters.”

To Staind’s credit, growth is one thing that has been paramount to all of their success. “We just always wrote music that we liked and that we thought was good music,” says frontman Aaron Lewis. “Our biggest concern is always that it is a good song at the end of the writing process, whether it is a song that is so heavy that your intestines fell out, or whether it is a song that is a lot lighter and makes you want to cry.”

From the heavy-handed gut-punches that marked the band’s early days trying to out-muscle their local competition on the Western Massachusetts hardcore scene, to the breakthrough success of back-to-back ballads “Outside” and “It’s Been Awhile” in 2001 and the seemingly endless array of radio hits that followed, Staind have stood out because they focused their attention on music while too many of their peers were focusing on image, fashion and trends.

“You look at any band that’s had any kind of longevity, and you have to have the music,” says Mushok. “Whether you’re playing a heavy song or not, there has to be a catchy riff there. Once that riff is there, Aaron does a great job of finding a really nice melody to go over it.”

In a band of reluctant rock stars, Lewis is the face of Staind, a position that has played host to more than its share of emotional purging as the band progressed through their double-platinum major label debut “Dysfunction” in 1999, and into the new millennium with a succession of multi-platinum follow-ups in “Break The Cycle” two years later, “14 Shades Of Grey” in 1993, and “Chapter V” in 2005. “The albums were definitely the darkest in the beginning,” Lewis recalls, “then they got less dark as my personal feelings evolved and it became easier to write about pertinent things in my life. ‘Chapter V’ is an angry record, but for different reasons, because I was looking at all the fucked up things happening around me, rather than looking inward, like I did in the past.”

What Lewis may spurn in terms of showmanship, he makes up for with a conviction that has proven to be Staind’s calling card, his vocals piercing the soul and his lyrics flowing like blood from the wounds. He doesn’t just perform in front of audiences, he connects with them, relates with them, tells them that it’s okay to be angry, then consoles them. “Aaron’s lyrics are very emotional and personal, and early on it was really tough for us to see how our records were going to touch people,” explains Mushok. “But it really affected him to have people come up to him and tell him how much they took away from what he wrote and how they related to it. For me, that was a one of the biggest adjustments we really had to make early on; One day you’re in Springfield, MA, writing some tunes, and the next thing you know those same tunes are really affecting people. That’s really an eye opener, it’s a really powerful thing.”

Yet as much solace as fans find in Staind, you’ll still find Lewis keeping to the shadows and avoiding the spotlight. “If I go to the Grammies, it’s going to be because I got nominated, not just to be there,” says the softspoken frontman. “Most of my life I haven’t even been comfortable in my own skin, let alone being comfortable as the center of attention. I know it sounds silly, because I’m not really hiding behind anything, but I when I’m on stage I can at least hide behind my microphone, I can hide behind the guitar I’m playing, and in my mind I’m hiding.”

If the members of Staind have learned anything in the past decade, it’s that they can trust their emotions, even when they bring them somewhere unsuspecting. “For our new album, we went into the studio with the mindset of making our heaviest record yet,” offers Lewis, “but the record that came out, with us writing in the studio, some of it has flavors of Pink Floyd and some has flavors of straight-up blues. We didn’t use the same rigs that we use onstage, we used all vintage shit, guitars and amps, and I’m pretty psyched about it. The songs are pretty timeless in their texture, whereas typical Staind isn’t, sonic wise, necessarily timeless.”

“We’ve been fortunate that the last three albums have been No. 1 records, but that was never even a goal of ours,” concludes Mushok. “It never even entered our minds that we could have a No. 1 record, let alone three in a row! Will this next one be one? I don’t know… But if it’s not, I’m not going to be heartbroken. The most important thing for us is that it’s a record we love, because writing is a really selfish thing and you have to love what you put out. After that, I want other people to hear, like it, and be able to relate to it. If we can just accomplish that, that’s all we can ask for.”

Thanks to Roadrunner records for allowing us to reproduce this text

“The way we were perceived in 1985 is the same way that we were perceived in 1995 and the same way we are perceived in 2007,” says Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy “We aren’t part of what’s on MTV or what’s in Rolling Stone,” Portnoy continues, “We haven’t succumbed to trying to be what is popular, because usually that stuff passes within a year or two. But what we’ve done and continue to do has been on our own terms, so Dream Theater strikes a chord with young musicians and rock fans all around the world, and that’s what has sustained us.” Indeed, Dream Theater has always done precisely as Dream Theater does.

The New York-based quintet’s new, ninth album, Systematic Chaos, is comprised of the kind of punishingly complex, technically accomplished, and simply sprawling —which is to say, uncompromising— progressive rock that has endeared them to fans all over the world for over 20 years. “How uncompromising?” you may ask. How about the fact that the shortest song, “Forsaken” runs just over five and a half minutes, and the longest, “In the Presence of Enemies” a two part epic that opens and closes the album, spans over twenty-five minutes? How about the fact that each track features the kind of demanding musicianship that has landed each instrumentalist in the band the long-term respect of peers and aspiring virtuosos? In total, Systematic Chaos demonstrates the cold, hard fact that Dream Theater is the most prominent progressive metal band on Earth.

The band has not only paved the way for similarly inclined artists like Spock’s Beard, Porcupine Tree and a host of others, but has gone some distance in rehabilitating the much-maligned prog-rock genre. “As a metal band,” explains guitarist John Petrucci, “we’ve taken elements of music that aren’t deemed cool by younger people into a more modern light.” According to Portnoy, the record’s title “describes the sound of our music, which is methodical and meticulous on one hand, but on the other is acrobatic and abstract.”

Systematic Chaos takes rock and metal to epic extremes: The Pantera-esque “The Dark Eternal Night” portrays the battle between a heroic protagonist and a demonic antagonist, while the “The Ministry of Lost Souls” and “In the Presence of Enemies” are reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and Rush’s “La Villa Strangiato,” respectively. The band—Portnoy, Petrucci, bassist John Myung, vocalist James LaBrie and keyboardist Jordan Rudess— recorded Systematic Chaos in New York City’s Avatar Studios with engineer Paul Northfield (Rush, Queensryche) in the fall of last year. Portnoy and Petrucci co-produced, as they have done on every album since 1999.

Portnoy and Petrucci have led Dream Theater since its inception, having met during their freshmen year at Boston’s Berklee School of Music in 1985. Oddly enough, they grew up less than an hour from each other in Long Island: Portnoy in Long Beach, Petrucci and Myung in King’s Park. The latter two had been pals since junior high as budding musicians, and both spotted Portnoy through a rehearsal room window playing with other guys shortly after arriving at Berklee. As Petrucci puts it, “we were away from home, and to meet another Long Islander who’s a drummer and was into Rush and Iron Maiden was fate.” “In 1985,” Portnoy adds, “Berklee was strictly a jazz school, and we were the heavy metal rebels. Everyone else wanted to practice alone, but we wanted to practice together and be in a band, and after a year, it was obvious that that is what we wanted to pursue. Now,” Portnoy laughs, “Berklee is filled with Dream Theater fans.”

Calling themselves Majesty, Portnoy, Petrucci and Myung returned to Long Island and set about finding singers and keyboardists, as well as getting down to some serious woodshedding. “We never sat down and said we want to make a mixture of ‘70s prog and ‘80s metal: it just flowed out,” Petrucci says. “Our initial purpose and sound hasn’t really strayed from when we got together.” By 1989, the now-renamed Dream Theater released their debut When Dream and Day Unite, now considered a progressive metal landmark. The band found James LaBrie in 1991, a Canadian who would henceforth be the voice of Dream Theater. With LaBrie, the band recorded Images and Words, which yielded “Pull Me Under,” an MTV hit in the age of grunge, Guns ‘n’ Roses and an increasing anti-chops ideology in music. After that brief dalliance with the mainstream, the band focused on crafting six ever more complex, uncompromising studio records from 1994 to 2005, including the 1999 concept album Scenes from a Memory (the first to feature Rudess, formerly of the Dixie Dregs and Portnoy’s side project Liquid Tension Experiment) and 2003’s dark, ultra-heavy Train of Thought.

But nothing is more crucial to the Dream Theater experience than the band’s dogged touring schedule, one that has seen them blowing minds around the U.S., Europe, South America and Japan, cementing not only a devoted worldwide fanbase, but paving the way for an upstart progressive metal scene. “We’re the metal version of Phish,” states Portnoy. “Like them, we have this fanatical hardcore following that follows us no matter what we do, and I write completely different setlist for every single show. Even occasionally covering entire classic albums,” he says, referring to concerts that found the band covering classics such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Metallica’s Master of Puppets in their entirety.

Which brings us back to Systematic Chaos, in its own way as unrelenting as Metallica’s 1986 breakthrough. “If there’s anything we did on this record on purpose,” confirms Petrucci, “it was that we left out more sensitive, softer material.” Although the music therein is written jointly by all members, the lyrics to each song were written completely by either Petrucci, Portnoy or LaBrie. Petrucci, who penned the lyrics to “In the Presence of Enemies,” “The Ministry of Lost Souls,” “Forsaken” and “The Dark Eternal Night”, describes his lyrics as “total fantasy, about alternate worlds, vampires, dark lords, the internal battle between good and evil.” Two songs on the album, though, take on issues with very real consequences. LaBrie’s “Prophets of War” is a searing indictment of the war in Iraq, and Portnoy’s brooding “Repentance” is part of what will eventually be a musical exploration of Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 Step program. “I’ve been writing about 12 steps for four albums in a row, and “Repentance” represents the eighth and ninth steps,” Portnoy explains. “It’s been incredibly therapeutic to write about the steps, because every time I write one of these chapters, I’m doing the steps in my life, and writing about it cements it into my being. Once the saga concludes with the final three steps on the next album, it will make for a 60 minute epic that’s a healing piece of music.”

In its 22nd year, Dream Theater finds itself on a new label, Roadrunner Records and with a new album, but it’s still enhanced by the same grit, single-minded determination and independence that has set the band apart from the pack. “You can’t compromise with the type of music that we play and the relationship we have with the fans,” says Petrucci. “The integrity factor always has to be there, otherwise people see right through it.” That said, Portnoy stresses “with all of our achievements, I feel that the best chapter of Dream Theater has yet to be written.”

Thanks to Roadrunner records for allowing us to reproduce this text

I like Dream Theater, and cant wait for the DVD release