Metallica
Danny ClinchMetallica are giving fans a deep, deep dive on their history with a new career-spanning portal, The Metallica Black Box, that the band said will feature “memorabilia, photographs, sketches, clothing and footage straight from our personal collections, hoarded over the last 40 years.”
In a statement on the Black Box site, the band added, “We’ve been incredibly fortunate to travel to all corners of the planet, meet so many amazing people, and do things we once only dreamed of. And when you’ve been around for 40 years, you manage to collect a few things! Along the way, the four of us have hung on to many keepsakes, photographs, articles of clothing, sketches, and so much more, stashing these items away in attics, garages, and storage spaces. But no more as we’re excited to launch The Metallica Black Box! Debuting with The Black Album Exhibition, The Black Box will offer an ongoing deep dive into every era of our career from the early ’80s garage days up to today and beyond.”
Years in the works, the band said they are now officially “unboxing” their collections to pull their favorite, most significant and personally meaningful artifacts in a collaboration with Inveniem and Definitive Authentic. Among the promised features on the site — both virtual and physical — will be weekly livestream events, limited signed memorabilia and “progressively deeper” dives into their vaults.
More artifacts are slated to post before the end of the year as part of the Black Album Exhibition — a 30th anniversary celebration of the band’s self-titled album — and 2021 will bring new exhibits, including a 40-year retrospective and showcase of the many collaborations with graphic artists they’ve worked with during their four-decade career. Among the items available to check out now are “The Snake Pit,” an homage to their most loyal fans that includes classic laminates, archival photos, fan-made t-shirts and illustrations by artist Heath Miller from their 1991-1994 Black Album era.
Check out the announcement below.
NEWS
Supergrass are teasing an upcoming announcement with fans, according to a new post.
The British band, fronted by Gaz Coombes, shared a cryptic new post across their social media channels this morning (September 13), suggesting to fans that a new announcement is on the way.
Posted at 9am BST, the post simply shared artwork of the band’s logo in red, alongside next Monday’s date, September 16. In the caption, the band simply wrote: “Sign up now”, alongside a link to their website’s homepage.
Upon clicking the link, the page prompts fans to sign up for future updates, and asks them to input both their email address and the country they live in. Check out the post below.
While details on the announcement remain sparse, the post has already caught fans’ attention, with some speculating that the news could be around the upcoming 30th anniversary of their debut album, ‘I Should Coco’.
Released in May 1995, the release marked the record that first put the band on the map, and contained singles ‘Mansize Rooster’, ‘Caught By The Fuzz, ‘Lose It’ and ‘Lenny’. It also saw Coombes and Co. nominated at the 1995 Mercury Prize, and contained what would soon become their biggest track to date, the Ivor-Novello winning ‘Alright’.
At time of writing, the band haven’t shared any further indication as to whether the announcement is related to the huge upcoming milestone – whether it be an anniversary tour or reissue – nor whether it has anything to do with new music that could be on the way.
The band’s last studio album was ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, which arrived in 2008. Since then, they have shared remastered versions of both their 1999 self-titled album and their 2003 record ‘Life On Other Planets’.
In other news around the band, last year it was reported that the band’s frontman joined Johnny Marr onstage last month to perform The Smiths‘ classic ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ at Lakefest 2023.
Before then, Coombes opened up about how “nervous” he was about reuniting Supergrass following the success of his solo albums.
Supergrass split up in 2010 but reunited for a series of live shows in 2019. They released a live album in 2020, Live On Other Planets, to celebrate their 25th anniversary and raise money for grassroots venues affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having got into a flow and the last two albums having done so well, it seemed a bit odd, like a backward step,” he said. “But then I was confident that I could operate both things together and it seems that I did, because I was obviously writing this record mainly during the reunion so I feel like I made best use of both things.”
Coombes’ fourth solo album, ‘Turn The Car Around’, came out in January of last year.
