BLACKGUARD have premiered their new album “Storm” in its entirety ahead of its scheduled release this coming Friday, January 3rd. The outing is their first since 2011’s “Firefight” and includes several guest appearances, including Morgan Lander (Kittie/Karkaos), Cradle Of Filth’s Lindsay Schoolcraft and Scar Symmetry‘s Per Nilsson.
If ever there was a test case proving that hard work, tenacity, a healthy amount suffering and word of mouth pays off, BLACKGUARD is it. Formed in 2001 as a genuine black metal outfit, the heavy metal sextet began as lesser known “PROFUGUS MORTIS”, made popular in their hometown of Montréal. Hungry for bigger stages, they fought a pitched battle to stand out amongst their international metal brethren, going through numerous line-up changes along the way. Over a decade later, BLACKGUARD stands strong, remaining the pride and joy of the French-Canadian death metal scene.
In late 2004, the band welcomed gritty vocalist Paul Zinay, bassist Étienne Mailloux, and began working on a cleaner, more definitive sound. Committed to their Northern roots, the band zeroed in on their own unique blend of Scandinavian folk-metal and melodic black metal. “This comes to us naturally,” says Zinay “and we’re definitely the sum of our parts. What’s going on around us influences us to a certain degree, of course, but in the end we’re putting our own spin on it and giving the band its own defining characteristics. Before we came in the band’s sound was a lot more progressive black metal; there were a lot of riffs and tempo changes, but we’ve gone in a much more straightforward direction since then. I guess we took on a power metal and a straight up folk metal influence along the way.”
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