Two horror comic books to be released shortly

Hairy Things is a three issue limited series written by Jay Carvajal with Marc Borstel providing the visual side of the project. The first issue will be out January 13, 2010. You can order it here.

The Wild West can be a scary place, as four unlikely friends discover, when they stumble upon a remote town deep in the Colorado Rockies that is being attacked by big hairy creatures. Sadly, for this gang, these hairy things may be the least of their worries! Ships Weekly in January!

The Waking was written by Raven Gregory, penciled by Vic Durichio and olored by Garry Henderson. The story is all about the zombies, fucked up scary kids and big breasted women.

In the big city, four police detectives investigating two routine murders discover that the victims of these crimes are coming back from the dead in search of those responsible for taking their lives. Now the detectives are in a race against time to find the source of the recent "awakenings" and will be torn between doing their jobs or allowing the victims to find their own justice. Meanwhile, a father with an incredible ability must choose between avenging his daughter's death or losing her forever.

Metal pick of the week: Musica Diablo

Musica Diablo is Sao Paolo based thrash project having Derrick Green of later day Sepultura fame on vocals. I haven't been following Sepultura for the last couple of albums so the fact that is doing all the shouting here wasn't really of a big importance. What matters is that this stuff is really good. With powerful chugging riffs, brutal vocals and a tight rhythm section they immediately managed to grab my attention. The band throws down some grimy but aggressive vibes. It's raw and energetic with a lot of good things going on. The song writing is great as the transitions from straight up fast and some more experimental parts goes naturally and the whole deal is very organic and flowing. Musica Diablo is working on the new album which is about to be released in early 2010 so let's hope it's gonna be as good as the songs on their myspace profile

This is pretty scary actually....

Face Your Enemy - Hard To Forget


Cold Hard Truth - Reflect The Conflict

In a time where "beatdown" style bands are a dime a dozen and attention spans are that of birds, it's the right mix of attitude, aggression, and (sometimes) relatability that makes a band truly stand out. Cold Hard Truth have that concept nailed to the wall with a sharpened leg bone and let me tell you, sleeping on these guys would be like resting your head on railroad tracks.
Expect a new cd in the coming months loaded with more stake-driving, stomping brutality. For now, "Reflect The Conflict" remains a staple in my cd-players diet and stands above and beyond most of the current crop. Their uncompromising style immediately evokes the essence of such old-time heavyweights as Clubber Lang, Next Step Up, Bulldoze, and Fury of Five. So if you like your hardcore to the point, mean, and dirty, then this needs to find it's way into your collection fast!

Lyrically, expect straight up tales of vengeance and contempt-for-stupidity which we all encounter at some point or another. They don't go too deep so the relatability factor is on point.

Author: Jay Vindictive
Label:IWO
Year: 2008

Deflectime - Prepain For Pain


2010 Zombie Calendar by Empty Room Studio

The times are tough so this is exactly just a type of stuff that you least think about when planning your budget for the next year but if you tell me this shit looks weak you're a joke. Whether you got the money or you just wanna take a look at it, Empty Room Studio released the zombie themed calendar for 2010 and it can be purchased here.
Empty Room Studios provides high quality illustration and writing services for the creative needs of companies and studios in the entertainment industry- namely comics, games and television/film.

And we are proud to announce one of the first of many ERS projects we’d like to share with all of you: our fans, our clients, our friends.

This project was designed for our artists to have fun, do something different and for ERS to showcase some of our best and most talented.

The shape of dread to come

There's nothing better in life than hardcore and horror. Here's a couple of upcoming flicks you should keep an eye on. Stylistically, they range from atmospheric and eerie stuff to straight up zombie action. Some of it I'm really looking forward to and some just caught my attention, nonetheless I've got a feeling all of them gonna be a good watch.

Survival of the Dead
On a small island off North America's coast, the dead rise to menace the living. Yet...the islanders can't bring themselves to exterminate their loved ones, despite the growing danger from those the once held dear. A rebel among them hunts down all the zombies he can find, only to be banished from the island for assassinating his neighbors and friends. On the mainland, bent on revenge, he encounters a small band of survivors in search of an oasis on which to build a new life. Barely surviving an attack from a mass of ravenous flesh-eaters, they commandeer a zombie-infested ferry and sail to the island. There, to their horror, they discover that the locals have chained the dead inside their homes, pretending to live 'normal' lives...with bloody consequences. What ensues is a desperate struggle for survival and the answer to a question never posed in Romero's Dead films: Can the living ever live in peace with the dead?


Ghost Machine
Thrill-seeking military technicians and computer-game enthusiasts Tom (Faris) and Vic (Ford) recklessly smuggle a top-secret, virtual warfare training programme out of their base and into a spooky disused jail, while a vengeful spirit infiltrates the software and draws them into an all-too-real game of life and death. When Special Forces trainee Jess (Taylor) tracks the group down she embarks on a rescue mission that will take her into a virtual world as deadly as any real war-zone as she becomes their only hope for survival.

Junkyard Dog
Inspired by actual events, JUNKYARD DOG is a gritty psychological thriller that delves the demented mind of a cannibalistic serial rapist who kidnaps his tenth victim in as many months on Halloween night.

JUNKYARD DOG tells the terror-filled tale of Audra Buckman, a nineteen year-old college co-ed, trapped in a month-long nightmare, struggling to stay alive and uneaten while being held captive, left half-starved and repeatedly savaged by JYD, an oddly charismatic, vicious man-eating monster. Audra's only hope of escape from this hell--and the mouth of a madman--is Samantha Deatherage, a tough FBI agent who is sent on a solo assignment to search for the missing girl.



Under the Dome
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when--or if--it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens--town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing--even murder--to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.

Drifter
Four characters wake in a desert, disoriented and lost with no clue where they are or how they got there. All four have fresh surgical scars and are on the verge of death. As they run desperately through a labyrinth of realities, both past and present, their ties are revealed and they come to see that only one of them will survive.

Blood: a Butchers Tale
Blood: a Butchers Tale, is the harrowing tale of Sam, a simple butcher who discovers that the love of his life, Darcy, is being seduced by a vampire.
As he investigates further, Sam realizes that his destiny is to become the destroyer of this blood thirsty race. Sam begins a killing spree with the slaughter of his beloved wife, then her blood addicted lover.
Sam then makes it his duty to systematically destroy the remainder of the clan, until he hesitates about killing Lily (Campbell), the last of her race. Helplessly he falls in love with Lily and learns to respect her desire to be normal.
Eventually Sam must battle with the possibility of repopulating the planet, with the exact race he set out to destroy.

Descent 2
Distraught, confused, and half-wild with fear, Sarah Carter emerges alone from the Appalachian cave system where she encountered unspeakable terrors. Unable to plausibly explain to the authorities what happened – or why she’s covered in her friends’ blood – Sarah is forced back to the subterranean depths to help locate her five missing companions. As the rescue party drives deeper into uncharted caverns, nightmarish visions of the recent past begin to haunt Sarah and she starts to realize the full horror and futility of the mission. Subjected to the suspicion and mistrust of the group and confronted once more by the inbred, feral and savagely ruthless Crawlers, Sarah must draw on all her inner reserves of strength and courage in a desperate final struggle for deliverance and redemption.

Fever Night aka Band of Satanic Outsiders
Terry loves Elliot. Warren loves Terry and Elliot. Elliot loves Elliot. He used to love Terry. And when Warren decides to invite Elliot along on Terry’s Satanic ritual outing, all hell breaks loose.
Now they’re lost. Terry’s unconcious. Their car won’t start. So, when Elliot and Warren see an omnipotent light, they gotta get there - but Terry must have been dragged off or something, so they have to go find her and bring her dead ass back to the goddamn car ‘cause the light’s too far to carry her.
Along the way, they encounter the frightful and ghoulish reckonings of their night’s work: Terry is neither dead nor alive, crows seem to be exploding without the aid of Alka-Seltzer, and Satan might be on hard drugs.
Can Elliot and Warren trudge the bowels of Hell to the Light of Salvation, or will they succumb to their most Satanic desires?



Reykjavic Whale Watching Massacre
When a group of whale watching tourists find themselves stranded at sea on a stalled boat, their only chance of rescue comes in the form of an old whaling ship.
Not long after they board, it's clear that the crew that saved them are crazed lunatics and so begins a horrific rampage that covers the deck in blood. Each tourist finds themselves in a nightmarish battle to survive and get to dry land before the sick whalers make chum out of them.

Self Respect - Raz Na Zawsze


Show Of Force

"The overall message is that this world is fucked up. It’s not just the constant threat of war or diseases that these so called governments are shoving down your throat. But you also have to deal with all sorts of day to day crap. I say burn it all down and start fresh."
"The overall message is that this world is fucked up. It’s not just the constant threat of war or diseases that these so called governments are shoving down your throat. But you also have to deal with all sorts of day to day crap. I say burn it all down and start fresh."
Could you please introduce Show Of Force to our readers? How did you meet and how long have you all been a band?

We’re Show Of Force and we’re from Holland. I’ve met this crazy French guy called Sebastien at work and he was into the same kind of hardcore as I am.So he said we should start a band. I called up Joost who I knew from our previous band and found a new drummer called Tijs. We started rehearsing in early 2007. The crazy French guy emigrated to Australia and Cas has since then replaced him.

Is it your first band or were or still are any of you in side-projects?

Joost (bass) and me (vocals) were in a metalcore band called Stone Cold that started in 1995 and lasted until 2002. We released a DIY EP and a full length album on Gangstyle records. Check out myspace.com/stonecoldrip for some tunes. We’re doing a thrash metal side project with some old members. Our guitar player also plays in a metalcore act called Burn Brighter check it on www.myspace.com/burnbrightermusic. And our drummer plays with himself in his spare time hahaha.

Your debut EP has just been released recently via Real Recognizes Real records. How do you feel about the finished product and the response it has been getting?

We’re satisfied with the end product. The overall sound is hard and aggressive. But we’re looking ahead and working on new tracks so hopefully we’ll be able to hit the studio in early 2010.
Reactions have been very positive thus far. Older guys recognize the sound and younger kids are enthusiastic because you don’t have a lot of bands around that still play this style.

Do you have a favorite song on the EP?

Sentenced To Death. It has this old school, even a bit melodic vibe to it but also has this pounding mosh part. Also the lyrics and the sample at the end came out really well.

How would you describe the lyrics on the album? Is there any message you would like to get across to the listener or it’s more personal stuff?

The overall message is that this world is fucked up. It’s not just the constant threat of war or diseases that these so called governments are shoving down your throat.
But you also have to deal with all sorts of day to day crap. I say burn it all down and start fresh.

Would you say the hardcore music is therapeutic to you, like you can have your say and just get some things off your chest?

Yes. I’ve been in bands since I’ve been 14 years old. And screaming your lungs out at least once a week is very therapeutic. I could recommend it to anybody.Also other band related issues that need to happen keep you busy. I don’t want to think about what I would be doing without it.

One thing that I like when listening to your songs is that it somehow sounds fresh at the same being deeply rooted in the traditions of the genre. How do you go about, when writing new material? Where do you try to find your influences?

Our main goal when we started this band was to bring back that 90’s hardcore sound which we all grew up on. But at the same time have that brutal hardcore sound you have nowadays. Joost comes up with the music and I write the lyrics. Influences are of course NYHC bands like Madball, Killing Time, Cro-Mags, Bulldoze, Breakdown, Merauder....etc. But also that Cleveland sound from bands like Integrity, One Life Crew, Ringworm. Basically bands that make you want to destroy everything around you.

Your EP is distributed by Allhiphopshop.com. How this collaboration did come about?

The owner of Allhiphopshop.com used to play guitar in our old band Stone Cold. We always kept in touch and in the meantime he started to sell hiphop and hardcore albums through his shop. Eventually he also started Real Recognizes Real records and he put out records for Danny Diablo and the Shotblockers.
Then we recorded our EP and he offered to bring it out on RRR. He’s got all the contacts so that’s very helpful. Also check out the new albums for Grizz Rock and Skam Dust coming out soon on RRR.

How important is playing shows for the band and basically giving a good performance? Are gigs more of the fun or rather hard work for you?

Very important. You can be the tightest band in the world but if you don’t deliver on stage you might as well go do something else especially in hardcore. I remember the first time I saw a hardcore band on stage it blew me away. Before that I only saw metal bands but those dudes mostly stand there banging their heads. Cool but not the same. We want to keep it fun and want to play shows with hardcore bands and a hardcore crowd. So we’re more picky and don’t play every shit hole for a couple of bucks each weekend like we did back in the days.

If you could put together a show with any band of your choice, what would this band look like?

Killing Time with Anthony Comunale on vocals. I saw them this year at the New York Hardcore Superbowl and his voice is amazing. One of the greatest hardcore bands that is still playing. They did a European tour a while ago but with a different singer. I think a lot of people would come out to see this.

There always has been pretty massive hardcore scene in The Netherlands. What’s happening with it now? What are some of the bands kids should check out?

I think it’s getting better. There was a period when there was not a lot going on in the scene. Nowadays the bigger bands still draw a crowd and there’s a lot of new bands coming up. So hopefully there will be a next big hardcore wave like we had in the 80’s and 90’s.Metalcore is getting bigger and bigger but a lot of these kids have no idea where it came from. Also the bands are drifting away from the hardcore sound. Dutch bands to look out for are All For Nothing, New Morality, Strike First and us of course.

What do you think is it about hardcore that make it a lifestyle to kids all around the globe?

It appeals to kids because of the rebellious nature of hardcore. Ideal when you’re young and you want to listen to something different then that top 40 bullshit. Hopefully you pick up some different views about life in the meantime. That you can apply in your personal life later on.

Plans, gigs and releases planned for the rest of 2009 and beyond?

We got some shows planned and writing new material. So hopefully we’ll hit the studio next year.

Wrapping up this interview please tell the kids why they should go out and cop your debut EP?

Check it out if your into no nonsense hardcore like it used to be made. Order it online at www.allhiphopshop.com and check out some tunes at www.showofforcehardcore.com.