RAGING METAL - Site News

SITE NEWS ARCHIVE

This is the Site News Archive, with News from February 2005 right the way back to March 2001, when the site launched as "METAL WWWEB". This Archive has been kept online, merely for nostalgic purposes.

13/02/05

There hasn't been many updates in the past month, but there has been a build-up and many new Reviews will soon be online, now that our Staff is getting back to full strength, after a year long dry spell.

Recently added, however, is a new edition of Hells Rock And Roll, this time focusing on some Lost Classics. Check it out - http://www.raging-metal.com/columns/hrar/

Over the past 2 months, our site hits have increased dramatically. We are all very pleased at this new-found progress and we especially thank those who have given us feedback on our themes... and liked them, we appreciate your support!

Let me also use this oppurtunity to invite people to join our Forum, a lively active community, with constant regulars. It is a great place to make friends & learn/discover more Metal. http://www.raging-metal.com/modules.php?name=Forums

03/01/05

Happy New Year to all of our visitors. Since it's a new year, it's also time for a new theme. Gone is the Christmas Theme and instead, we dedicate a whole month to British Metal. That's not all, because for the rest of 2005, we're going to have a new theme each month. Here is what is planned for the year ahead:

January - British Metal
February - German Metal
March - American Metal
April - Scandinavian Metal *
May - Fantasy Metal
June - 70s
July - 80s
August - 90s
September - Doom/Death
October - Halloween
November - 2000s **
December - Christmas

* This theme is to be confirmed. It shall only go ahead if we have enough content, otherwise it will be replaced.

** I don't really wish to do a 2000s theme, so am looking for suggestions for a different theme. Please e-mail any suggestions to the webmaster!

Further information will be available as and when.

23/12/04

Well, Christmas is upon us very shortly and our Christmas theme, is upon us now!

New CD reviews will be added shortly, keep em pealed.

30/10/04

Halloween is approaching, so time for yet another Halloween theme. This year we are focusing on all Black Metal and any Metal with dark/evil/scary/horror/etc lyrics.

Reviews added recently to the Reviews section include:

How Like A Winter - Beyond My Grey Wake

Rhapsody - Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II: The Dark Secret

Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond

Rhapsody - Legendary Tales

Megadeth - The System Has Failed

16/09/04

New reviews added to the Reviews section:

Death - Individual Thought Patterns

Goat Horn - Storming The Gates

Rhapsody - Power Of The Dragonflame

Lamb Of God - Ashes Of The Wake

A Lower Deep - Parable Of The Thorn

Devil In The Kitchen - Wizard's Walk

Of Infinity - The Essence Of Infinity

Megadeth - The System Has Failed

Nightwish - Once

Skulgrinder - Island Of Lost Souls

A new interview is to be added, tomorrow, so check back!

02/09/04

New Reviews & Interviews on the way and not to sound like a stuck record (remember those?) the site revamp is still in progress and I'm slowly revamping a section at a time. The site has been rather slow these past few months, this should change soon. However, our Forum activity is by far the best this year, so do check it out.

The winner of the Raging Metal Big Brother event was MetalSaviour. Check out what you may have missed, over on the Forum now.

01/08/04

11 new reviews, just added to the Reviews section. The reviews are:

Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death

Overkill - Taking Over

Megadeth - Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good

King Diamond - Them

Pantheist - O Solitude

Katatonia - Tonight's Decision

Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Done

Goat Horn - Voyage To Nowhere

S.D.I. - Sign Of The Wicked

Vicious - Vile, Vicious & Victorius

Requiem - Mask Of Damnation

VII Gates - Fire, Walk With Me

And there are more to come...

This month's Featured Artist, is a band called Angel Fallen. Check them out now, over in the Featured Artist section.

Work on the major site revamp, is still in progress!

27/06/04

There are new reviews going to be added soon.

We're currently working, behind the scenes, on a site revamp. The whole site is to get a new look, within the next 2 weeks. Parts of the new design are already online in the following sections: Forums, Journals, Gallery & News. The new design will be neater and easier to navigate, than the current design. Most of the new site will be database driven, rather than flat HTML files. The exceptions being - the Reviews section (this will be changing later, as it requires a LOT of work to transfer over 600+ reviews) & the Columns section (the Columns section is NOT going to become database driven, as there would be no benefits in doing this). Ofcourse the Radio & IRC Chat sections are also not going to be database driven, however the Java IRC chat client WILL integrate with the rest of the site, so if you're a registered member, logged in and you visit chat, it'll automatically use your username in the chatroom! \m/

So fear not, for we are NOT dead, just merely working our butts off, to get this thing ready!

Coming shortly: Raging Metal's own Big Brother, this will be a Forum competition and the event is Forum-based. Please see the announcement on the General Babble board, for more details.

02/06/04

This month's Featured Artist is a band called "Burning Blade". Check them out now, over in the Featured Artist section.

30/05/04

Registration for all areas on the site is now integrated. If you're registered to 1 section of the site, you are immediately registered to ALL sections that require registration, before you can participate.

Raging Metal has gotten new & improved sections. If you're reading this, you can already see that the News section has returned and is now a single purpose PHP script, that stores it's information in an SQL database.

Raging Metal also has new Forum software. Instead of the old flat file based UBB, we are now using an integrated and more advanced phpBB forum.

Also, we have another new section - The User Journals Section. This is a place for all registered members to have their own journal/blog.

These new features & upgrades are merely the beginning of what we have in store here at Raging Metal. Eventually, we plan to have the WHOLE site database driven, but for the moment we are mainly making the sections that are ready, publicly available. Hope you enjoy the new stuff!

28/05/04

There are new reviews online over in the Reviews section. Here are the latest additions:

Witchfinder General - Friends Of Hell

Witchfinder General - Death Penalty

Cirith Ungol - Paradise Lost

Cirith Ungol - One Foot In Hell

Cirith Ungol - King Of The Dead

Cirith Ungol - Frost & Fire

Exodus - Bonded By Blood

Dead Head - The Feast Begins At Dawn

Celtic Frost - The Dying Truth

Celtic Frost - Into The Pandemonium

Black Hole - Land Of Mystery

Check them out now!

The Home page will be updated on Saturday, when a new feature is added to it, aswell as the new Forums, Gallery, User Journals, News & Links sections.

26/05/04

Sad news to report: Toto Vellani, a former member of Staff here at Raging Metal, passed away on Monday (24/05/04). He had gone to Goa (a tourist spot in India), where he drowned. He was only 21 years old!

Toto was a great guy & a great writer, who shall be missed by many at Raging Metal. On the Message Board he went by the names "NextInLine" & "Filosofem".

20/05/04 (Updated)

There are new reviews being added on Saturday and more to follow in the coming weeks and hopefully, a load of new reviews in June.

There are exciting things happening behind the scenes at Raging Metal, the first elements of which, shall appear shortly on the site, including a Forum software change, a new User Journals section, Integrated Gallery with new Forum Members Section, an advanced Metal News section (which will allow visitors to submit news articles on new releases, tour dates etc etc) & an advanced new Links section. We are also working on a fully SQL database driven site, which will include all sections - Reviews, Interviews, Featured Artist, Columns & Articles. As each new revamped section is ready, it will be made publicly available, replacing the current sections. Expect these new sections to start appearing on the site, over the next few months. Information specific to current message board users, will be posted on the board soon!

15/05/04

This week's Raging Metal Radio show, was by far the most successful yet. We got the maximum of 7 listeners, at one point!

Here is what was played:

What's New

Progressive Death Procedure - Global Warning
VII Gates - Like A Rock
AnAkA - Carry On
Vicious - Deathrash
Memorized Dreams - Cardinal Sin
Dragonforce - Fields Of Despair
SCYTHE - On My Way Home
The TRUE Rampage - Displeasures Of The Flesh
Iron Maiden - No More Lies

The Classics

Poison - Nothin But a Good Time
Whitesnake - Is This Love
Accept - Fast As A Shark
Ratt - Loose Lips Sink Ships
Helloween - I Want Out
Vixen - Edge Of A Broken Heart
Judas Priest - United
Blind Guardian - Guardian Of The Blind
Megadeth - Killing Is My Business...
Guns N' Roses - Nightrain
Bon Jovi - Breakout

The Master's Metal Mix

Bruce Dickinson - Chemical Wedding
AC/DC - Highway To Hell
Bathory - Valhalla
Black Sabbath - Children Of The Grave
Impaled Nazarene - Blood Is Thicker Than Water
Pantera - Cemetary Gates
Soilwork - Bulletbeast
Immortal - Blacker than Darkness
Destruction - Nailed To The Cross
Bolt Thrower - Mercenary
Summoning - The Rotting Horse On the Deadly Ground

12/05/04

An explanation for the downtime a few days ago: The server was being upgraded, afterwards due to a network problem, the server was offline for 40 minutes. The problem was corrected and as you can see, everything is now working absolutely fine.

There are updates coming very soon. There is also alot of work going on behind the scenes, that relates to even bigger updates over the next few months. You can expect to see an upgrade of the Message Board within the next few weeks, including a new User Journal feature, which is merely only part of what we have lined up for the next few months.

A recent review addition: Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death, can be found over in the Review section. Check it out now.

16/04/04

Raging Rants #7 is now online. The newest edition raises the question - "Does religion have any place in Metal?" Check this out now over in the Columns section. Warning: This edition of Raging Rants might cause offense to some people.

15/04/04 (Updated)

Raging Metal Radio is to make a triumphant return, after nearly 2 years off-air. When this site began in 2001 under the name "Metal WWWEB" it was merely to accompany the radio station (which had been online since October 2000) and was not a webzine at the time. When the site became a webzine & was later renamed to "Raging Metal" the radio station became just an additional feature, until Live365 started charging royalty fees, which meant that the radio station had to be closed down in late 2002. Now in 2004, the radio station is to return, albeit in a limited form. The radio station will not broadcast 24 hours per day, like it used to on Live365. Also, when it is broadcasting, the stream is limited to a maximum of 7 concurrent listeners. If the radio station proves to be popular (eg. if it constantly maxes out at 7 listeners) then the service may be upgraded, with a possible return to using Live365. In the meantime, check out the Radio page for broadcasting hours & the schedule.

The top navigation bar has been redesigned to fit in more content. With the recent return of Raging Metal Radio, there was no longer enough room to fit in any more buttons and there were already several pages that could not be linked on the top navigation bar. The new design manages to fit everything in and still leaves room for an additional 2 buttons, in the future.

Reviews recently added to the Reviews index, include:

Catharsis - Imago

Epidemia - The Elf's Manuscript

so, check them out now.

This month's Featured Artist is: Of Infinity. You can check them out now over in the Featured Artist section.

The Articles section is alive. The first article has just been added - Metallica: The Metal Years Reviewed.

07/04/04

Don't you just love to hate those E-Mail Money Laundering Scams? - Raging Rants #6 - Totally check it out now over in the Columns section, it's totally tubular to the max.

01/04/04

For those of you who didn't guess already (thicko!), the previous news entry was a complete April Fools joke. The site is NOT being taken over by a Nazi dictator and you can't get rid of me that easily, muhahahahaha!

Now onto the REAL news, 2 new CD reviews just added to the Reviews section:

Dragonforce - Sonic Firestorm &

Tesla - Into The Now

Totally check out these reviews now, over on the gnarly reviews section.

01/04/04 (April Fools Joke)

To all site visitors:

Raging Metal is now under NEW ownership. The new Webmaster is Den Grant, a personal friend of mine. Due to circumstances in my own life, I felt that I could no longer continue running this site. I'm sure that Den (aka General Lügner on the board) will do a great job and I hope to pop by again on the boards, in the future. Thanks for your continued support of this site and I hope that you will give Den the same support that you have given me in these past few years.

Thanks

David Williams, The Master.

Message from Den:

This should not be taken as unhappy news, David has done what is best for him and thanks to him, the site shall continue into the foreseeable future. I shall certainly do my very best to maintain the current high standards that David has set and shall help this site to grow even further than it already has.

Den Grant, General Lügner.

24/03/04

The Raging Metal Image Gallery has now launched. Currently with 1 section: 80's including the following albums:

80's Bands

80's Hair

80's Babes

80's Babes (X-Rated)

Totally check it out, it's really gnarly. All visitors to the site may upload images to the Gallery, all that is required is simple Free Registration to the Gallery. Do it guys, it'll be rad!

Radical new game added to the Games Board: Yahtzee.

10/03/04 (Updated)

WE ARE TOTALLY NOT DEAD DUDE!

For our 3rd birthday dude, Raging Metal totally celebrates with a whole month dedicated to the Rocking 80's. The site now has a gnarly retro look and a super cool to the max, Reviews section, dedicated to the 80's. A new Raging Rocking 80's forum has been launched on the Message Board. You should like totally act 80's in there, it will be really rad.

New CD reviews have been added to the Reviews section:

Warrant - Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinkin Rich

Bon Jovi - Bon Jovi

Judas Priest - Screaming For Vengeance

Evil Silence - No Will, No Hope

Ozzy Osbourne - Bark At The Moon

Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears

Ozzy - No Rest For The Wicked

Black Sabbath - Reunion

Nativity In Black: Sabbath Tribute

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Check them out, dudes!

This month's Featured Artist is Reaper, totally check them out now over in the Featured Artist section.

26/02/04

An additional forum has been added to the Message Board, for discussion of Movies, Books, TV & Radio (not music). Check it out now!

16/02/04

Raging Rants #5 is now online. This edition discusses Glam Metal & Glam Rock. Check it out now over in the Columns section.

11/02/04

Just added to the Chat section: IRC Chat Logs of previous chat sessions. Wanna find out what you've been missing? Check out the logs now over in the Chat section.

06/02/04

Raging Metal is now available via: http://www.raging-metal.com/

The D2G domain will remain online for the foreseeable future, however we shall be publicising our new domain as our primary address, so please use the new domain to access the site.

22/01/04

New CD reviews have been added to the Reviews section. The reviews recently added are:

Overkill - From The Underground And Below

Overkill - I Hear Black

Pantera - Far Beyond Driven

Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin

Kreator - Renewal

Megadeth - Cryptic Sounds

Judas Priest - '98 Meltdown

Blind Guardian - Follow The Blind

Dream Theater - Train Of Thought

Katatonia - Discouraged Ones

Katatonia - Brave Murder Day

Head on over to the Reviews section now, to check them out.

21/01/04

A new interview has just been added to the Interviews section. The interview is with Count Gorgul, the guy behind the Bare Sark project. Check out the interview now over in the Interviews section, also linked in the Newest Content bar on the Home page.

New CD reviews are to be added tomorrow, please check back!

07/01/04

First of all, since this is the first update of the new year, let me first wish all of our readers a Happy New Year. Now, onto today's business:

This month's Featured Artist is "Skull Session". Check them out now over in the Featured Artist section, or alternatively, via the link on the home page.

There is a big update coming this week: New editions of Raging Rants, new reviews & 1 new interview. Keep 'em peeled.

25/12/03

Merry Christmas from Raging Metal to all of our readers. 2 new Christmas reviews have been added to the Reviews index. The recent additions are:

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Eve & Other Stories

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Attic

Check them out now over in the Reviews section, or alternatively via the Newest Content bar on the Index Page.

Raging Rants will be updated next week with 2 new editions, a light-hearted edition (5) & a serious edition (6).

08/12/03

This month's Featured Artist is Black Sun. Check them out now, over in the Featured Artist section.

03/12/03

It's Raging Christmas Time here at Raging Metal. For this entire month, the site will have a Christmas theme and will focus upon Christmas Metal! Already there is 1 CD review online for a Metal Christmas compilation CD, titled "Rock Ya Christmas". Check this out in the Reviews section now! More reviews of Christmas Metal will appear over the course of the next 4 weeks.

02/12/03

We've got new CD reviews online here at Raging Metal. Here is what has recently been added:

Children Of Bodom - Hate Crew Deathroll

Kamelot - Epica

Primal Fear - Nuclear Fire

Primal Fear - Primal Fear

Judas Priest - Sad Wings Of Destiny

Queensrÿche - Tribe

Anthrax - Attack Of The Killer A's

Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

You can find these and more over in the Reviews section.

26/11/03

New edition of Raging Rants just added. Edition #4. This edition talks about "Metalheads Against Racism". Check it out now, over in the Columns section.

18/11/03

Hi there, lots of new stuff added today. First up we have 17 CD reviews:

Conception - Parallel Minds

Arch Enemy - Black Earth

Amon Amarth - The Crusher

Amon Amarth - The Avenger

Agalloch - The Mantle

Sodom - One Night In Bangkok

Moonspell - The Antidote

Jag Panzer - Decadence Of The Nail-Spiked Bat

Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death

Iced Earth - The Reckoning

Gamma Ray - Skeletons In The Closet

Edguy - Burning Down The Opera

Dream Theater - Train Of Thought

Destruction - Metal Discharge

Destruction - Live At Wacken 2002

Arch Enemy - Anthems Of Rebellion

Annihilator - Double Live Annihilation

These can be found over in the Reviews section.

4 DVD reviews (1 of them a DVD Audio review):

Nightwish - End Of Innocence (DVD)

Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? (DVD)

Iron Maiden - Wildest Dreams (DVD)

Monsters Of Metal Vol. 1 (DVD)

These can also be found over in the Reviews section.

Also Raging Rants #3 is now online. #3 is another light-hearted edition, #4 will probably be a little more serious when it appears later this week. You can find the latest edition of Raging Rants over in the Columns section.

12/11/03

Raging Rants #2 was added to the site 2 days ago. #2 is a complete work of the imagination. Check it out now, over in the Columns section.

The Featured Artist section now has an A-Z listing, of all artists that have been featured in the past 14 months. Head on over to the Featured Artist section now, to check out some new, upcoming, unsigned & underground Metal artists.

10/11/03

There are new CD reviews online over in the Reviews section. Here is what has recently been added:

Alice Cooper - Dragontown

Alice Cooper - Brutal Planet

Ark - Ark

Ark - Burn The Sun

Anthrax - Fistful Of Metal

Dark Suns - Swanlike

Conception - The Last Sunset

Conception - In Your Multitude

This month's Featured Artist is Soul Vomit, a Death/Thrash Metal band from Karachi, Pakistan. Check them out now in the Featured Artist section.

Raging Rants hasn't been updated yet, as was previously promised. Please bare with us, the update is on the way...

03/11/03

Well we're back to normal again after our Happy Helloween Week here at Raging Metal. But the action doesn't stop there. There are many new reviews waiting to be added, these will be added either today or tomorrow. Plus there is also a new edition of Raging Rants planned, which shall appear on the site tonight. There will be another new edition of the Raging Rants column at the end of this week, since edition #2 is late due to the Helloween week. The final results of the Happy Helloween Week Poll, are now online in the Polls section. Only 5 people bothered to vote in the poll though, which is rather dissapointing, though this may be due to the poll only being online for 2-3 days.

31/10/03

Today is the day. Happy Halloween everybody! If you haven't already noticed, there is a Helloween poll now listed in both the Polls section & on the home page. Get voting now!

The Special Featured Artist addition has been removed, it was decided at the last minute, not to add this feature. But with so much else to see on the site... who the hell cares? Rock away to Helloween NOW!!!

27/10/03

Happy Happy Helloween. For this Halloween week, Raging Metal dedicates an entire week to Helloween. You can find the full listing of Helloween reviews on the Reviews index page, in an A-Z listing. In addition, you can also find several Helloween reviews publicised on the Home page. An additional board has been added on the Message Board, titled "Happy Helloween". This board shall remain online for the rest of this Halloween week, when it will eventually be merged back into the Iron Foundation board.

There are new CD reviews now online, all Helloween:

Helloween - The Dark Ride

Helloween - Pink Bubbles Go Ape

Helloween - Master Of The Rings

Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 2

Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 1

Helloween - Chameleon

Helloween - Better Than Raw

Helloween - The Best, The Rest, The Rare

The Special Featured Artist & the Helloween poll shall be added tomorrow (28th October 2003).

23/10/03

The following Interviews are now online:

Interview with Soul Vomit drummer, Ali Kazmi.

Interview with Utuk Xul guitarist, Salman Mumtaz & drummer/vocalist Essam Siddiqui.

Interview with Myrmidon vocalist, Chris Jones.

These interviews can be found on the Interviews index, aswell as in the Newest Content bar on the Home page.

21/10/03

As promised yesterday, new CD reviews have been added to the Reviews index. The following are the CDs that have just been added:

Rapture - Songs For The Withering

Rapture - Futile

Conception - Flow

Luror - Luror

Blind Guardian - The Forgotten Tales

Iron Maiden - Rock In Rio

Iron Maiden - Brave New World

Megadeth - Youthanasia

KMFDM - WWIII

Sodom - In The Sign Of Evil

Heathen - Pray For Death (Demo)

and there are more CD reviews on the way...

The new interview addition has been delayed until tomorrow (23/10/03). However there isn't just 1 new interview, as originally stated, there are 3 new interviews to be added: Myrmidon, Soul Vomit & Utuk Xul. Please check back tomorrow, to read these interviews.

20/10/03

There hasn't been a site news update for a while and updates here on the site have been a little slow. However, please bare with us, there are many things going on behind the scenes, we're not dead! I can't go into much detail (well I could, but then I'd have to kill you and killing the visitors to the site isn't a good thing), however what I can say is that it is going to be very cool indeed, both for this site's staff & for the people who visit here.

New reviews & a new interview will be added tomorrow (21/10/03).

Meanwhile, as you are aware, Halloween is approaching... watch this space!

This month's Featured Artist is: AnAkA, check them out now in the Featured Artist section.

CD reviews recently added to the Reviews section include:

Anthrax - We've Come For You All

Overkill - Killbox 13