Hitpiece sparks outrage among the ongoing NFT creep within music
Last Tuesday, February kicked off with a dramatic start with the website Hitpiece, which began selling NFTs of thousands of artists tracks across their website. Ranging from the likes of Disney music to Guildford’s own Pintglass, the site had seemingly crawled streaming services and replicated these in the blockchain as NFTs. With the lowest bid of each NFT being $100, “bids” pushed certain auctions into the thousands for well-known artists.
Even if Hitpiece sees is likely demise, it is becoming increasingly likely that NFTs will soon become a part of the music space. With Avenged Sevenfold minting 10,000 NFTs for sale as part of their Deathbats Club, it seemingly set a ball rolling for what is to come. With several bands either having plans for NFTs this year or considering it, Avenged Sevenfold will not be the last band to enter into the space. FEVER 333 have openly discussed with their fanbase about them venturing into NFTs with a largely negative response. Support for the bands who choose to move into the NFTs is coming directly from their labels, so it is unlikely we will see any independent bands putting together similar schemes.
God Complex unreleased track + Farewell show lineup announced
Ahead of their final show later this month, an unreleased God Complex track titled “Flooded Lungs” has made its way online in recent days, the video for which was directed and filmed by Zak Pinchin of Modern Error and Olli Appleyard of Static Dress. Erik Bickerstaffe, who contributed towards writing of last year’s To Decay In a Deathless World, put the track itself together on the production side. Kadeem France (Loathe), Olli Appleyard (Static Dress), Cameron Humphrey (Love Is Noise), and Haydn Connolly (In Fear) will be performing vocals at the upcoming God Complex farewell show in Liverpool.
This comes after vocalist Harry Rule departed the band for Blood Youth in September of 2021, after being a mainstay of the group since their formation. Rule was teased in each music video from Blood Youth‘s Visions Of Another Hell, mostly notably in the video for “Iron Lungs“. New music with Harry Rule is already in the works, and there will be further noteworthy news coming from Blood Youth later this year.
Spiritbox return to the studio
Metalcore’s blue chip prospect, Spiritbox, have returned to the studio ahead of their tour with Underoath this month. Once again working with Dan Braunstein, who produced their debut album Eternal Blue, Mike Stringer and Courtney LaPlante are busy writing and recording new material. Work began on this in December of last year in LA, when interaction between LaPlante and Dayseeker’s Rory Rodriquez lead to speculation around a collaboration on Dayseeker’s upcoming record, which has since been confirmed to not be happening. Stringer has previously stated on livestream’s with the likes of Nik Nocturnal that there are no plans for a deluxe edition of Eternal Blue, which points in the direction that this will be new material to be released in a similar fashion to their Singles Collection EP.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s 1994 cassette finally unearthed
Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling has been a musical artefact for those who follow the post-rock veterans that has evaded them for decades. Originally released on 33 cassettes in 1994, there has been years of searching with brief snippets appearing online but finally the cassette’s content has been fully uploaded online. Consisting of 24 tracks over 68 minutes, the album was uploaded to 4chan’s /mu/ board and has now since been uploaded to Youtube. Featuring GY!BE’s hallmark avant-garde rock and sampling the group became known for with their debut in 1997 with F♯ A♯ ∞, and follow on releases such as Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven.
Veil of Maya re-entering studio to complete seventh studio record
Four years following their last studio record, and further following a string of stellar singles since 2019, it seems Illinois progressive metalcore outfit Veil of Maya are re-entering the studio to finish off their long-awaited seventh studio album. The news was shared by founding guitarist Marc Okubo on social media, alongside a video teasing an insanely technical breakdown riff, presumably from the band’s forthcoming album. Previously, the album was rumoured through various Twitter posts to include newly-crafted ‘death growls’ from vocalist Lukas Magyar, along with the promise of the “heaviest Veil of Maya track [to] date”, and mutterings of a brand new single soon-to-come. Here’s to hoping brand new Veil of Maya content is just on the horizon as we approach False Idol’s fifth anniversary this year.