Eighteen Visions announce UK shows

EIGHTEEN VISIONS, the seminal metal band that earlier this year announced they had reformed and signed with Rise Records, have confirmed they will be playing their first UK dates in eleven years in November. Their long-awaited new album, XVIII, is out now.

NOVEMBER Thu 09 LONDON Underworld

Fri 10 GLASGOW Cathouse

Sat 11 MANCHESTER Sound Control

On the announcement, singer James Hart says: “We’ve had some of our most memorable shows ever in the UK. When we knew we were going to start playing again, getting back to the UK was an absolute must. Playing new songs in intimate rooms for our wild UK fans is something we’ve been looking forward to most upon returning”.

XVIII, the reunited and re-energised band’s first new album in over a decade, came out on Rise Records in June this year, and is both mission statement and battle cry. It’s a blistering, dense and diverse album. Recharged and newly partnered with Rise records, EIGHTEEN VISIONS sound liberated from the expectations of the outside world, and driven only by their own personal and artistic directive. This is the album promised by the raw alchemy of every other EIGHTEEN VISIONS record. The unrelenting force and unashamed ambition that fuelled every stylistic incarnation of this always evolving band is finally unleashed in XVIII.

The album was made at home in Orange County with UK producer Mick Kenney at the helm. His close relationship with the band [James Hart – vocals; Keith Barney – guitar; and Trevor Friedrich – drums] lent itself to the most fully realised recording in their discography, emphasising every strength in their unique arsenal. Among the album’s many highlights is LIVE AGAIN, a moving tribute to bassist Mick Morris, who passed away in 2013; PICTURE PERFECT, a super heavy, dirge assault on fakery and wolves in sheep’s clothing, dripping with menace; and FAKE LEATHER JACKET, a Molotov cocktail thrown at the music industry, both threatening and staunchly confident.

TRACK LISTING:

· CRUCIFIED
· THE DISEASE, THE DECLINE AND WASTED TIME
· UNDERNEATH MY GUN
· LIVE AGAIN
· LAID TO WASTE IN THE SHIT OF MAN
· OATH
· SPIT
· PICTURE PERFECT
· FAKE LEATHER JACKET
· FOR THIS I SACRIFICE

You can stream the XVIII album here:

 

EIGHTEEN VISIONS – sometimes stylised as 18 VISIONS and often namechecked by diehard supporters around the world as 18V – were declared part of ‘The Future of Metal’ by Revolver Magazine during their meteoric rise from proto-deathcore indie band nurtured by the DIY scene, to major label ‘next big thing’. A lengthy section of Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal is dedicated to this passion-fuelled Orange County band. Their fusion of hardcore punk energy and death metal fury, and the dark romanticism of grungy 90s alt-rock became something definitively their own.

The band have toured with LAMB OF GOD, KILLSWITCH ENGINE, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, COHEED AND CAMBRIA and fellow Orange County denizens AVENGEDD SEVENFOLD. Their live show is slick, dangerous and impassioned, and the band are incongruously yet brilliantly suited for both the heady arena rock stage and modest gatherings in sweaty basements. Fans celebrate 18V anthems such as VICTIM, BROKENHEARTED, TONIGHTLESS, TOWER OF SNAKES and MOTIONLESS AND WHITE with monstrous singalongs around the world, whether at festivals like Download and Australia’s Soundwave or in intimate clubs.

The impact the band maintains on the scene around them cannot be overstated. Even the notoriously snarky Metal Sucks confessed “every other band under the sun ripped them off” in a post earlier this year. In a previous post, the same tastemaker published an article entitled STEALING 18 VISIONS’ IDEAS: A BOOK BY THE 2011 METALCORE SCENE. But these sentiments, whilst flattering, have never driven EIGHTEEN VISIONS. Their 2017 reformation is guided by the same principles that have always led them: to exorcise demons with brutal heaviness, unashamed melody, and always in service to their authentic, cathartic muse.

Danny Peart
Danny Pearthttps://www.dannypeartphotography.co.uk
Editor / Live Music Photographer / Journalist at Soundcheck-Live

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