NWOBHM legends Raven are celebrating their 41st year as a band with their new album, ExtermiNation. Scheduled to be released in Scandinavia on April 22nd, in Germany on April 24th, in Europe on April 27th and in North America on April 28th as a digipak version (including 1 bonus track), 2xLP gatefold green vinyl version and download through SPV/Steamhammer.
Raven had a crowd funding campaign in Kickstarter and managed to raise more than $27,000 to finance the recording of its next studio album. The band recorded a full-length covers CD titled Party Killers that was given away as an exclusive Kickstarter reward for backers. The group also offered exclusive t-shirts, patches and a seven-inch vinyl single via the campaign, which ran through November 28. "It seemed more obvious the longer we went into this that it was gonna cost more than the budget we have", Raven vocalist and bassist John Gallagher recently told in a interview.
"We have a good relationship with our record company, SPV, but this is gonna cost about twice as much as the last one due to the extra rehearsals. We took a lot of time writing the record and condensing and looking into it, 'Does this part suck?' 'Could we do a better part?' 'Is this something obvious that we've done a million times before? Get rid of it. Come up with something different.' And [we've come up with] very strong melodies as well. So you've got very heavy songs with great melodies, which is king of all things".
Raven had an exciting 2014 opening for Metallica (the very band Raven took on their first tour back in 1983) in Sao Paolo in front of 70,000 fans and doing a 43-date headlining USA tour as well as completing their finest album to date ExtermiNation. It may be the band's 41st anniversary but these guys it seems that they are just getting started!
In commemoration of Bon Scott's death 35 years ago today, Raven release a snippet of their new song "Thunder Down Under".
You can listen to the snippet below: