Dying Victims Productions is proud to announce the following new Pre-orders:
DVP 297 Lucifer’s Hammer – Be And Exist LP/CD
DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present the highly anticipated fourth album of Chile’s LUCIFER’S HAMMER, Be and Exist, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Since their formation in 2012, Chile’s LUCIFER’S HAMMER have been fighting the good fight for heavy metal, both at home and abroad. During their first years, the homeland wasn’t as renown for traditional metals, but ever since their ascent to the international stage, LUCIFER’S HAMMER have wielded a wealth of influence on the wider Chilean heavy metal scene. Their Night Sacrifice demo in 2013 was their first public work, but it was the full-length Beyond the Omens debut in 2016 which really blew the doors open, reaping widespread acclaim and firmly establishing their trademark sound: pure & proud HEAVY METAL equally rooted in the ‘70s and ‘80s, with an air of anthemic memorability ala classic radio metal but never forgetting their underground roots. LUCIFER’S HAMMER really expanded upon that radio angle with the subsequent Victory is Mine mini-album a year later, showing darkness and versatility in equal measure. They further consolidated this sound with two more full-lengths, 2018’s Time is Death and 2021’s The Trip.
Now, longtime fans DYING VICTIMS step forth to raise high the banner of LUCIFER’S HAMMER with their fourth album, Be and Exist. The title is something of a clarion call for the Chileans: staying put in the ‘80s for years now, the band simply want to continue crafting true-as-steel HEAVY METAL that bangs the head as profoundly as it enflames the heart. Like an iron fist lined with velvet, there’s a deceptively silky surge to Be and Exist that drives deepest into the heart of mid ‘80s metal, all the while pumping pistons patiently and powerfully. With leads moody and emotive and founding frontman / guitarist Hades’ vocals ringing out through the night, across rain-soaked streets and through the back alleys, LUCIFER’S HAMMER here deliver a masterclass in mystery & atmosphere. The album’s attention-grabbing cover art vividly illustrates the point, but the band are certainly tackling more cosmic matters here, and it fits perfectly with the classy classic metal across Be and Exist. At any one point, one can detect the likes of prime Dokken, Heavy Pettin’, Diamond Head, Europe, Witch Cross, Virgin Steele, and even ‘80s KISS at their most metal – but the way these noble influences are rearranged and reformed into anthems is 100% LUCIFER’S HAMMER.
Indeed are LUCIFER’S HAMMER a band with a vision of the future, treading the metal boards for over a decade now with pure passion and hunger. Life doesn’t come easy in South America, and so have they made their music the ideal stage where the hammer will fall with force to demonstrate all that’s in their hearts. To Be an Exist – this is what heavy metal dreams are made of!
– Regular edition on black vinyl, with noble embossed cover sleeve, insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code.
– Special edition on transparent blue inyl, with noble embossed cover sleeve, insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch.
– CD edition with sticker and obi.
Out 14th June
DVP 298 Angel Sword – World Fighter LP/CD
DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present ANGEL SWORD’s highly anticipated third album, World Fighter, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
Hailing from Helsinki, Finland’s ANGEL SWORD formed in 2010 with the intent to play old-school heavy metal. And they get right to it with the too-perfectly titled demo Where We Are Going You Cannot Come demo later that year. Two EPs followed – 2013’s Ripping the Heavens and 2015’s The Midwinter Tapes – before their decisive debut album, Rebels Beyond the Pale, in 2016. Another perfectly titled recording, ANGEL SWORD’s first full-length was a fresh breath of old air, finding some elusive (and deceptively laidback yet rough) landscape of late ‘70s heavy metal, subsequent NWOBHM, and adjacent early US power metal. Three years later followed the tighter and slightly more aggressive Neon City, expanding the band’s still-‘80s-bound gaze through a charmingly rustic retro-futurist lens. During all these years, ANGEL SWORD have opened for Manilla Road, Blitzkrieg, and Satan as well as playing such festivals as Metal Assault, Metalheadz Open Air, Storm Crusher warmup, and Up the Hammers warm-up. Oh, and along the way, Darkthrone’s Fenriz thoroughly championed the band!
“Our goal in this age of soulless, overproduced modern metal is to re-summon the metal gods of old with a skull-crushing, vomit-inducing dose of rough-edged heavy metal,” state ANGEL SWORD, and that’s exactly what they do with World Fighter! It’d be easy to simply say that their third album is a fairly even balance between the first two albums and…well, it’s kinda the truth! Sporting yet another amazing cover artwork, World Fighter brings the bathos and bravado right from its opening seconds, ANGEL SWORD sounding like true world fighters as they chug forward to their battle hymns. From there, nuance and shade – or, rather, just MOOD – become the watchwords as the quartet keep the thrust mostly mid-tempo, allowing their dark melodicism to fully take flight. And, while ANGEL SWORD never seem like they’re in any hurry, the eight tracks of World Fighter are actually the band’s most uptempo work yet; it’s just that they’re exuding such poise now that that pace feels deceptively relaxed, that big & brassy pulse coasting with coolness and heaviness. Put another way, the album’s almost-uniformly balls-to-the-wall gait summons an effervescent energy – and maximum attitude. Truly, ANGEL SWORD are nothing if not engaging in their rough ‘n’ tumble, raise-the-swords charisma, becoming those very blue-collar ruffians you can really believe in. Coupled with a smoother, somewhat-shimmering style of production that still allows their intrinsic grit to “shine” through, World Fighter goes against all odds to become ANGEL SWORD’s crowning achievement to date. All weekend warriors, enter their Church of Rock post-haste!
– Regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code.
– Special edition on neon yellow vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch.
– CD edition with sticker and obi.
Out 14th June
DVP 299 Vendel – Out In The Fields LP/CD
DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present VENDEL’s highly anticipated debut album, Out in the Fields, on CD and vinyl LP formats.
VENDEL are an epic heavy metal band hailing from Moscow, formed in 2015 by a group of friends who are all members of the local metal community. From the onset, their inspiration was taken from genuine NWOBHM and ‘80s doom metal as well as the history and archeology of the Dark Ages period, which serves as the strongest influence on the band’s lore and their attendant lyrical and visual concepts. This combination – with a particular emphasis on the epic side of heavy metal ala classic Candlemass, Manilla Road, and Viking-era Bathory as equally as contemporary doom informed by the likes of the UK’s Solistice and Russian heroes Scald – manifested in VENDEL’s self-titled debut EP in 2017. Lyrically and aesthetically, there was a deep appreciation of the late Iron Age, also known as the “Vendel Era,” and hence the band’s moniker. They followed up that EP with another one, titled Dirge, in 2019, which included one new track as well as covers of Manilla Road and Saint Vitus. Also in 2019, VENDEL made their first live appearance outside Russia at the Riddle of Steel Fest, which made a huge impact on the band’s next activity.
At long last, that “next activity” has manifested in VENDEL’s debut album, Out in the Fields. While the band’s first full-length comprises two songs rerecorded from their EPs – the first one’s “Defender” and the title track to Dirge – this structure more so underlines where VENDEL are coming from and, with a suitably stage-setting intro segueing into the first track, then where they are going. Absolutely HUGE in sound and songwriting, atmosphere and execution, VENDEL here give a masterclass in EPIC heavy metal; “doomed,” definitely, but there’s energy to spare no matter the tempo, and thus do the four component tracks of Out in the Fields seemingly fly by in a flash. Make no mistake, the journey is vast in scale and arduous in terms of emotional reserves tapped, but the album is utterly engrossing each (HUGE) step of the way. Thankfully, VENDEL don’t abandon their core sound but, rather, re-solidify it with bigger & better production, performances that dazzle in their technique yet hit hard with their physicality, and vocalist Alexey Goryachev absolutely spellbinding the listener with tales of heroism and death, particularly on the poignantly titled “Never Surrender.” It all becomes the very definition of what a debut album should be.
Fans of the aforementioned as well as Solitude Aeternus, Atlantean Kodex, labelmates MEGATON SWORD, and even Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath, you are hereby commanded to bend the knee before VENDEL’s Out in the Fields. NEVER SURRENDER!
– Regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code.
– Special edition on golden vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch.
– CD edition with sticker and obi.
Out 14th June