News: Dragonforce Announce New Album and Tour For 2014
April 2, 2014Including an intimate date at The Joiners in Southampton
UK Metal titans DRAGONFORCE are nearing completion of their sixth studio album entitled “Maximum Overload”. Produced by Jens Bogren at Fascination Studios in +Rebro and Varberg, Sweden, the new opus will be the band’s first ever album involving an outside producer, having historically opted to record themselves in association with Karl Groom.
Maximum Overload will be the band’s debut album for new label Ear Music, part of the German Edel music group, who will release the album in the UK on August 18th.
“Working with Jens gave us a different perspective on the songs and a different sound dynamic. We always previously recorded in our own studios but recording in Sweden made us focus and maybe drove us harder, Jens certainly did, he doesn’t believe in days off!” said guitar maestro Herman Li.
“The album title and album cover artwork is inspired by the constant bombardment of information we are subjected to during our daily lives” Li added. “We were in an airport departure lounge surrounded by TV screens, flight information screens and advertising screens. We then looked around and no one was saying a word, they were all looking at more screens on tablets, laptops and mobile phones, there’s no escaping it, it’s complete information overload”!
“Maximum Overload” features a couple of surprises, notably a guest appearance on some of the songs from Trivium’s Matt Heafy. “We’ve always gotten on really well with the Trivium guys and it was great when Matt had a couple of days to spare and agreed to weigh in on some of the songs”! added Frederic Leclercq.
The album also features an all time first for DragonForce…..a cover version! Sam Totman explained “Just before the last Australian tour our manager suggested it might be interesting to do a cover for the next album, something we’ve always refused even to consider. Because we had all had a couple beers every band member wrote down 3 songs each and we compared them all, just for a laugh. I wrote down ‘Ring Of Fire’ by Johnny Cash, an idea which the rest of the band loved, so we’ve DragonForce-ized it”!
The album will be released on Standard CD, Standard Digital Version, Special Edition CD with 5 bonus tracks and a bonus DVD, Special Edition Digital Version (same bonus material as Special Edition CD), and Vinyl.
The band will embark on a massive 20 date UK & Ireland tour in September under the strapline “This time it’s personal” alluding to the fact that instead of playing a handful of larger venues the band are playing many shows geographically spread out across the country. Commenting on the nature of the tour Herman Li said “We did a tour like this in between the Sonic Firestorm and Inhuman Rampage albums and have wanted to repeat it ever since but couldnít because of touring commitments elsewhere in the world. This time we were determined to make it happen so weíre going to some cities we havenít visited for years and some weíve never visited at all. One of the venues is a boat and one is a deconsecrated church! It will be great to see the fans up close and personal again, itís going to be very hot, very sweaty and great fun!”
Live Dates 2014
September
Wednesday 17th | EDINBURGH, Liquid Room |
Thursday 18th | ABERDEEN Lemon Tree |
Friday 19th | GLASGOW, King Tuts |
Saturday 20th | BELFAST, Limelight 2 |
Sunday 21st | DUBLIN, Whelan’s |
Tuesday 23rd | CARLISLE, Brickyard |
Wednesday 24th | MIDDLESBRO, Empire |
Thursday 25th | MANCHESTER, Deaf Institute |
Friday 26th | STOKE, Sugarmill |
Saturday 27th | BIRMINGHAM, Institute |
Tuesday 30th | BRIGHTON, The Haunt |
October
Wednesday 1st | SOUTHAMPTON, Joiners |
Thursday 2nd | PLYMOUTH, White Rabbit |
Friday 3rd | BRIDGEND, Hobo’s |
Saturday 4th | BRISTOL, The Thekla |
Tuesday 7th | LEEDS, Brundenell |
Wednesday 8th | NOTTINGHAM, Rescue Rooms |
Thursday 9th | COLCHESTER, Arts Centre |
Friday 10th | NORWICH, Waterfront |
Saturday 11th | LONDON, Bush Hall |
Dragonforce tickets go on-sale 9am on Friday 4th April priced at £17.50 in London & £16.00 regionally (subject to per-ticket charge plus order processing fee) and are available from LiveNation or TicketMaster.
Links
http://www.facebook.com/dragonforce
http://www.dragonforce.com
https://www.youtube.com/dragonforce