It's been a strange few months, with response to the last record being frankly incredible. The first vinyl pressing selling out in 5 days, and now the second pressing not even received from the pressing plant but being close to selling out already. Naturally we are busy working on new songs for the next record as there would seem to be no need to dwell in the past, and every need to push forward. But, we would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of you who have made this possible.
To obtain a copy of the vinyl version, please go to these dealers :
BLACK TEARS (UK)
PARIAH CHILD (UK)
INTO THE VOID (Eire) VAN RECORDS (Germany) HIGH ROLLER (Germany) UNDERGROUND POWER (Germany) IRON BONEHEAD (Germany) NO REMORSE (Greece) EAT METAL (Greece) HORROR RECORDS (Denmark) WAR ON MUSIC (Canada) CRUZ DEL SUR (Italy) SHADOW KINGDOM (USA)
BOY RECORDS (Japan)
KOZMIK ARTIFAKTZ (Germany)
On the merchandise front, we have received alot of requests for Shirts and patches, these are currently in production also, the DCIV Mini LP sleeve design will be available soon from NIGHTGAUNT in the USA, and we are just negotiating a deal with a European company who will we feel offer the best option for Europeans. Patches we will be selling at live shows, or mailorder if folks are desperate to own one. But please be advised that shipping costs from the UK are expensive.
On the live front, we will be in Italy in two weeks, and Ireland in February, Greece will be happening in May, and in-between that, or later depending on what time we can get away from our other concerns, we will be announcing some more shows around Europe. As for the UK, we will be playing London and Bradford again very soon also. Bradford in particular will be of interest as we intend to host a few small shows that will be free entry with two other bands on each one purely for the hell of it.
As we played a small show in Bradford at the weekend, it bought back many happy memories of all the small club/pub gigs we were playing 20 years ago, how time fly's when your having fun....but it also bought home the reality that most bands we see these days refuse to play to 2 men and a dog because they feel it's beneath them. This attitude is bollocks, even if only 1 person was there, they would still get the same show from us the same as 1000 people would. And on that note, we shall leave you until the next update..
Thankyou to all of you who made the vinyl release a success. 5 days after we received the finished copies from the pressing plant, we sold the entire pressing. We shall look into a repress shortly, until then please contact the dealers listed on our facebook page to obtain a copy if they still have any left.
Pre-orders are now beginning on the cassette version of "DEATH'S CROWN IS VICTORY" via INTO THE VOID Records. The actual Release date will be announced in the next few days, and the pressing is limited to 300 copies so move fast if you want a copy. Vinyl pre-orders will begin about 7days after we have approved the test pressings, which we are expecting to receive this week. The "winning bid" on the compact disc licensing deal will be announced very soon too, but we are still discussing the various offers that have been propsed. We were in the unique position of being offered deals from 5 reputable labels, and 1 label ran by clearly someone who has suffered severe trauma to their brain, and to top it off nicely, we were also offered a publishing and promotional deal from another reputable company in Germany. Clearly, there is life in the old dog yet!!
Tape sleeve Outer
Tape Sleeve inner
But back to the tape. You can make a pre-order on the cassette by visiting the INTO THE VOID RECORDS webstore at the following address :
Also on the horizon, we will be announcing more gigs, more unruliness and more general upsetting of the weak willed and slack jawed who think by posting away as fast as they can on facebook about their opinions (i.e. some imaginary gripe because they tried to rip us off or they were told to fuck off) someone actually gives a fuck about their point of view and we will go away. It's time to bring the Hammer Of Damnation down on their skulls and shut these yapping fishwives up.
We would like to thank sincerely everyone who bought a download officially from the bandcamp site, the response has been nothing short of phenomenal. Far exceeding our initial expectations, we have noticed also since the opening deluge of the first week, a steady stream of purchases that are occurring on a daily basis. We will be honest, we cannot understand why bands are charging £7 GBP and more for a digital recording, the most we will be charging is £4, anything else is utterly shameful and a rip off. Clearly, some bands are purely in it for the money and their brief 30 seconds of fame...
Finally, watch out for upcoming features and interviews with ourselves in such publications as ZERO TOLERANCE (UK), METAL HAMMER (Greece) and SWEDEN ROCK (Sweden, naturally).
The Vinyl and Cassette versions of the "Death's Crown Is Victory" mini LP are now both in production, and in a short while we shall be posting ordering details, in the meantime we are pleased to announce our first show of 2014, which will take place in the company of such luminaries as DARK QUARTERER and BLACK OATH in Italy, on January 18th.
So here it is, the new mini-LP from our good selves, 27
minutes of skull crushing epic heavy metal. Composed and performed by Paul Kearns, Rich Walker, Andy
Whittaker, Ian “Izak” Buxton and James Ashbey. But none of it would have been
possible if it wasn’t for these three fine men and their hard work in support
of ourselves -
Kerry Hughes at GN Studios, Huddersfield, England
(Recording & Engineering)
Richard Whittaker at FX Mastering, London, England
(Mixing & Mastering)
Chris Smith, of Grey Aria Design Studio, USA (Sleeve
artwork)
You can listen to the title track on Gluetube, and once
again we would encourage everyone to spread this video and a link to this page
around facebook or whatever (Anti)social media they choose to do so –
And for those of you wanting to have something for your
ipods in advance of the physical release date, the digital version is now
available to download for a modest fee on our bandcamp page. We’ll be
announcing details of the Vinyl and Cassette in the next week or so as the
final touches are made to the sleeve designs for both. As well as listing distributors around the globe where you will be able to purchase this release from
Well, it's been seven days since we published online a first taste of our new recording, and in all honesty we were very pleased with the positive response we received. Time continues to move forward, as do we, and no matter the obstacles placed in front of us, we as a band always find a way to overcome them. From crooked contracts, to the censorship placed upon us by certain magazines, from feeble 1 US dollar royalty offers, to illegal downloads.
The actual digital release date is only a matter of days away, and upon receipt of the artwork we shall send the finished master to the factory to be pressed onto vinyl via our own WHITE HORSE label. We hope around the end of October, which would mean mid to late November when we can offer copies for sale in Europe, and publish a small list of mail orders around the globe we have chosen to distribute copies. Most certainly, it will be available via BLACK TEARS and INTO THE VOID in Europe, or directly from us.
At this point, having decided to push ahead, our future plans are simple, to play some more live dates which we have been promising, but had no time to do so due to other commitments, and to begin work on our next release, "TO SOL A THANE". This will take the form of a five song Mini LP, released upon the same formats, and unless something changes drastically, via the same channels.
"TO SOL A THANE", "WHITE HORSE HILL", "BEHOLD, A MAN OF STRAW" will be included as well as two yet unnamed compositions. We aim to adhere to the same strict song writing standards, and we should imagine a running time of 35 to 40 minutes. When we enter the studio is down to purely when we have spent some time jamming on the songs and their arrangements. The Mini-LP format in truth suits our position best, we live in different parts of England/Europe and do not have any label pushing us to record 60 minutes worth of new songs to appeal to a specific demographic. Quality, not quantity is the only thing that matters at the end of the day to us, not 60 minutes of musical dross as some bands are keen to release and have their label tout it using the sales pitch of "as good as Candlemass".
Another short news update will be made in a week or thereabouts when we shall alert those interested in the availability of "DEATH'S CROWN IS VICTORY" to purchase via download, or simply to listen to via the internets. Again, we offer our thanks to all those who support us. Never Surrender, no remorse.
It's the morning of the autumn equinox, although it's early we thought we may get the ball rolling, and here is the first taste of what we have being involved in creating the past few months. Recorded at GN Studios in Huddersfield, we are much in debt to our recording engineer and also our mix and mastering engineer for their patience and advice and most importantly, their hard work in bringing out the best in us.
The past.
The past is dead, we have no interest in those who fell by the wayside, weighed down by their vanity and avarice, they are formless shades, no more of a concern to us with their vapid waxings lyrical of self importance, than any other minor irritation. Let them , and their sycophants begone, cast back into the pit of mediocrity they so richly deserve
The present
The present is here, is now,it is the five of us, making music we enjoy and to the best of our abilities for our own enjoyment
The future.
The future is what we choose to make of it, we choose therefore the following. In a matter of weeks we will make the whole of this recording available to download for a small fee upon our bandcamp site, and begin to put into production the vinyl version.
Four songs, 27 minutes, of epic heavy metal.
As a bonus, we will also release upon Irelands "INTO THE VOID RECORDS" a cassette version for those of you who enjoy this format, and to further cement our longstanding relationship with our Irish comrades.
A compact disc version will be available, but only from our future gigs, we will be offering vinyl via mail order though.
We encourage you all to share this video on your own pages, help us spread the word. And over the next few days, we'll make a few more bits of interesting news available. Until then, enjoy the first glimpse of the new record, and never surrender!
We are currently mixing, and finalising the new release details. Until then here is a small video of our Bassist making an unholy racket. It comes as no surprise to us as well, that what we have laid down in the studio has inspired us to start rehearsals again ready for some gigs and our next release after this one....
Upon arrival, after driving round the windswept streets and rain lashed back alleys of Northern England for more than 18 hours searching for our destination, we leapt out of the Solstice armoured personnel carrier to be confronted by the sight of a virtual military style compound. Razor wire and broken glass cemented atop whitewashed walls surrounded the studio buildings, and to compliment this, a slavering Staffordshire Bull Terrier which snapped hungrily at Andy’s groinal regions through gaps in the main gates steel mesh.
“Never mind him lads” sounded a whisky soaked death rattle of a voice, “I fed him yesterday with a stray taxi driver”. We turned and faced our studio engineer for the session; a grim pallor lit his features in the gray light and pissing rain of the cheery Yorkshire spring weather. First mate on the Good ship Venus, and now turned sound emporium proprietor, Kerry “The Hatchet” Hughes gazed upon our dishevelled forms, a gleam of contempt in his glass eye as he decided to himself whether to feed us to his dog, Nosher, or welcome us in, or maybe bludgeon us with the piece of lead piping he carried in his gnarled club of a fist.
Our newest recruit, Squire James twitched nervously, his nervous tick which normally only surfaced after 17 pints of real ale and a kebab becoming more apparent, as he noticed the backstreet we were now in was deserted (except, for a urine soaked corpse of a tramp someone had left in a shopping trolley). We were on our own, and there was now no going back.
“Let us in ya bastard” mumbled Andy, his eyes averted and sweeping the ground as if looking for spare change for a bottle of cider, or a discarded jazz mag. The hatchet again cast a withering gaze with his glass eye upon us, and with a laugh that sounded closer to a broken beer glass being inserted between the buttocks of a nancy boy, swung back the gates to allow us entry….
Finally, we will be ensconced in a recording studio in a matter of weeks to begin laying down some new songs, "FORTRESS ENGLAND", "I AM THE HUNTER", "DEATH'S CROWN IS VICTORY" and "AEQUINOCTIUM III" will be first studio recordings we have made in quite some time. Naturally, we are pretty excited to hear the results of our work over the past few months and what the results of our labours are.
Upon completion, we shall review the results and begin working towards a second set of studio demo's with some more songs. The demo's we complete will make up the bulk of the "ENGLANDER" album in rough draft, but something will appear in some form shortly before we play a few more European festival dates this summer. Watch this space for details...
For the internet orientated among you, there is now a SOLSTICE youtube channel, over the next few months we will add some old live footage, and whatever else takes our fancy. Search for "Solstice-Englander" or use the link below
Good Evening, as a great man used to say. But the question is, is it a good evening? That remains to be seen, and how to set the parametres used to measure the evenings "goodness", if indeed we can measure them at all. Not if we have no yardstick to actually measure anything, or even a pot to piss in. Which is most likely the case in this day and (New Dark) age.
Enough of that though, firstly in response to increased awareness of illegal downloads offered by certain quarters without our knowledge and consent, we have rectified this by uploading our previous recordings to the bandcamp site. These high quality audio files are available as official and legal downloads ONLY from bandcamp. Any other downloads offered either via Itunes (Whom we threatened with legal action unless they complied in removing our songs) or any number of dodgy MP3 sites from eastern Europe are total dogshit quality and will only finance organised crime rings who also specialise in Heroin dealing etc. Fuck these scum.
The recordings are priced modestly, as we feel if you are not actually buying anything physical, and it would be wrong to ask anymore. On the plus side, if you do choose to purchase from us via bandcamp, you are supporting the band directly.
There will be a variety of other downloads available shortly from both SOLSTICE and a couple of related side projects, such as the ONLY authorised digital version of the ISEN TORR "Mighty & Superior" EP, the entire WARTORN discography from 1990 - 1994 (Featuring Rich & Lennaert of SOLSTICE and James of IRON MONKEY) and whatever else we can dredge up in the vain hope of making more money for cider. The bandcamp link can be found to the right of this page in the "Solstice Links" section.
We also recently had some new band photos taken by Mr. David Naylor of Bradford, the first of which already made it onto Face(Arse)book. However, for the sake of those of you sensible enough not to spend your lives posting on there, we shall repost them here.
Handsome bunch of lads, what? Moving swiftly on, and to answer the burning question, yes we will be in the studio very soon, thats all we can say right now, we've been working our collective testicles off correcting the wrongness that had crept over the past 18 months, but, no point in going on about past history, the wait is nearly over.....as ever, watch the skies!!
"I rode over the mountains to Huddersfield. A wilder people I never saw in England. The men, women and children filled the streets and seemed just ready to devour us." - John Wesley (Methodist Church Preacher & Founder) 1757.
And on that jovial note, I bid you all Good evening, morning and whatever else. It's been a while since the last large update regarding our activities as a band, and since then, there have been a couple of line up changes for the better we feel, bringing in individuals more attuned to what we are about musically, and also bringing with them a greater talent that can only add to the overall epic metal holocaust that we are aiming to deliver on the next album.
First we have a new bass player, and it be none other than our old comrade Mr Ian "Geezer" Buxton (Aka Izak Gloom) also of MONOLITH and LAZARUS BLACKSTAR (And previously with local legends CHORUS OF RUIN and THE DEAD RESURRECTED. Ian's credentials are impeccable, and more importantly he likes a fucking good booze up as well as making a loud noise with his bass guitar. The more eagle eyed among you will have spotted him performing his duties at the HAMMER OF DOOM festival in Germany earlier this month, which for having had only a few weeks to learn the songs he performed admirably we feel.
Mr. Ian "Geezer" Buxton, yesterday.
Our next addition is our now new drummer, Mr James Ashbey, also of London power/thrash gods DECEPTOR and CIMMERIAN SHADOWS fanzine fame. All of you who know James, will know he is a drummer of phenomenal capability and talent, and having only had a few rehearsals with him we are already able to gig should we so desire, such is his playing. Any man who turns up, already knowing the songs and pounding the living hell out of his kit gets our vote of approval. James has finally bought the tightness and power we have been sorely missing for the past 12 months with his empathy to this style of music. I am currently looking for a suitable picture of James, but my search has proved fruitless, but should any of you so desire you can find his likeness on the DECEPTOR bandcamp page of Facebook etc.
And so, Myself, Andy and Paul would like to welcome both into the band, and raise a toast to both fellows and look forward to getting down to the real business of writing and recording now we have a clear 6 -8 months or so of no live gigs booked. Naturally this is what we have been aiming for for the past 20 months, but with the hinderance of disinterest from certain quarters it was apparent that nothing was happening and we were struggling to even honour our commitments to live appearances. A pretty sorry state of affairs when looking on the online sewer that is Facebook on ones mobile phone takes higher priority than learning new songs. Despite that, the weight from around our neck has been disposed of, and we feel confident of entering into a studio just as soon as our engineer and producer have free time and we more importantly, have finished the final versions of the songs we will demo. There is however some debate as whether we will actually release the recordings in advance of the album versions as a limited cassette, purely on the ground when we see shitty labels like Rise Above trying to jump on the tape bandwagon, we know that releasing tapes HAS become a trend rather than a love of this most noble of formats. Something will be out there shortly, though what format it is released in now has to be decided at the annual SOLSTICE Yuletide booze up on December 21st in Huddersfield.
On the live front, we have a couple of shows booked already for next summer, and naturally are always interested in hearing from people looking to book us, our booking contact is Paul, and his details are to be found on the Faecesbook page (Search for "Solstice-Englander"). Locally we may play in the West Yorkshire area after Yule just for the hell of it, in small drinking establishments purely for our own enjoyment, and there is talk of a small 5 band festival in the Bradford area with DESOLATION ANGELS and DEEP MACHINE also in attendance. However, these small "unofficial" shows are not set in concrete, and may not happen at all, it's purely conjecture on my part as to what might happen should the stars align and we are all in the area at the time for rehearsals and the chance of making an unholy racket in a Public house arises. As I have said before, our high priority is now writing and recording, and we have promised ourselves that we will make the "ENGLANDER" album a reality as soon as we possibly can. As well of course, as updating our live set, which I personally have thought has become a little stagnant of late. But, heres a small clip of "The Sleeping Tyrant" live at the Hammer Of Doom
Finally, thanks are due to everyone who has turned up to this years batch of shows in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Denmark, England etc and shown us their support. You cannot imagine how much it means to us all, we are simply overwhelmed by the positive response we have recieved, especially that now Paul is finally hitting his stride as the frontman we knew he could be, no further proof is needed by the mindblowing response to the show in Dublin. So all there is to say really is, buy a shirt, turn up to the shows, watch the skies, and if all else fails, drink thyselves blind and turn it fucking up!!!
Greetings, we are sorry to announce that we will NOT be playing at the Full Moon Dog festival in Leeds in October, due to unforseen complications we have had to withdraw from the event. In the meantime, we will endevour to keep you all informed of current happenings.
The new SOLSTICE shirts are finally ready. We will have them to sell at HELL'S PLEASURE next week, and at BEYOND THE GATES etc. Price will be 15 Euro's. Sizes available are Small, Medium, Large and X-Large. The design is Black and white printed on Charcoal gray Gildan Softstyle shirts. Very classy indeed if I may say so myself. Sorry no mail order right now until September...We simply don't have the time over the next couple of months with everything else that's happening!!
And if it wasn't enough that we've made new shirts, we've even got off our collective aerses, and made new button badges too!! Shiny, shiny, button badges. Lovely. Black and metallic silver, or red, silver and metallic red. Take your fucking pick! These will look fucking grand on your leather, or your denim. There's simply no stopping us now, today Huddersfield, tomorrow, the fucking world!!
Please Note, we will also be playing the BEYOND THE GATES Festival in Bergen, Norway, on August 24th. It will be our first ever gig in Norway, and also Paul's first appearance live in his adopted home country. Until then, see you all at HELLS PLEASURE on July 20th, we'll be playing about 8pm or so on the Saturday night, the new shirts and badges will be on sale, and we'll be accepting free drinks....we will also be happy to receive money, food, and records/tapes etc. Anything, as long as it doesn't cost us.
Thanks indeed to everyone who showed up in Switzerland, and in Denmark for the gigs, especially those of you who travelled long distance to glimpse in real life the miracle of nature that is Paul's hair in action. Below are a selction of photograph's snapped at Lucerne by Mike Wiener, and it was great gig, possibly the best we've played in the last 12 months proving yet again we made the right choices in Paul as a frontman and Del as a drummer. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Don't forget the London show on June 3rd with Manilla Road at The Dome in Tufnell Park either, as Paul and Andy will be free after the show if anyone would care to buy them drinks.........by gum!
