A great, budget minded shred guitar. Although not ideally balanced, this guitar comes out swinging with excellent tone and blazing playability thanks to a great neck and smooth fretwork!

4/5 Stars

Here’s a play-through and break down of the solo from “Betrayer” off of the Hellion ‘Karma’s a Bitch’ EP. Key of B minor. Half-step down tuning.

Maxxxwell performs a guest solo on Lords of the Trident’s cover of Mago de Oz’s “La Conquista” from their new covers EP, re:Quests.

The EP is available for purchase and download here.

Lords of The Trident vocalist Fang VanWrathenstein recently appeared as a guest vocalist on Maxxxwell’s cover of “Black Widow”, originally from the U.D.O. Animal House album, the 2nd single from the upcoming When The Clock Strikes Metal full length album of covers and originals.

LOTT have also released a new music video for their version of Chris Dane Owens “Shine On Me”.

The 2nd single from Maxxxwell’s upcoming solo album, When The Clock Strikes Metal, has been released. Featuring Michael Yancy on vocals, the track is a cover of U.D.O.’s “Black Widow” originally from the 1987 Animal House album.

“Black Widow” is available now on iTunes and Amazon.com

When The Clock Strikes Metal will be Maxxxwell’s sixth solo album and features a host of guest vocalists and guitarists, playing a mix of original songs and carefully selected covers. In addition to his upcoming solo album, Maxxxwell continues to work with Hellion on a new live album, new studio tracks and touring. Hellion is scheduled to perform on the East Coast Monsters of Rock Cruise in February. Maxxxwell also hosts a weekly radio show on Metal Express Radio, playing select Power Metal and Classic Metal cuts.

I’ve tried to pick out cover songs that are a little off the beaten path. This is one of my favorite deep cuts from the U.D.O./Accept catalog. It’s a hard hitting classic metal track that was a total blast to record. It was also great to work with Michael Yancy again. He always brings a lot of enthusiasm to the project and think it really comes through in the finished product.

ONLINE METAL PROMO, FOCUS ON METAL podcast (USA) and MARIC MEDIA (Australia) have partnered to offer “Metal of Oz”, a free digital download music compilation featuring a mix of 40 past, current and unreleased original songs from established and up and coming bands from the United States, Canada and Australia.

Legendary Australia rock / metal industry publicist Chris Maric has checked in with the following statement:

Australia’s impact on the global scene is at an all time high and in the last few years the quality of musicianship coming out of our country has been world class. The bands represented on this compilation cover so many of metals intricate genres that Im sure there is something there for everyone. Enjoy!!

Bands featured on the compilation include:

1. Arcane Saints
2. Azrael’s Bane
3. Blackened Angel
4. Blasted to Static
5. Broken Teeth
6. Canedy
7. Corners of Sanctuary
8. Daemon Pyre
9. Diamond Lane
10. Envenomed
11. Eternal Voyager
12. Flames of Fury
13. Gods of Eden
14. Gundriver
15. Hasta La Muerte
16. Hazmat
17. Heaven The Axe
18. Jimmy Lardner Brown
19. Kara and the Dam Band
20. Killen
21. Killrazer
22. Lillye
23. Lord
24. Lords of the Trident
25. Love N War
26. Maxxxwell Carlisle
27. Melody Black
28. One Kingdom
29. Orpheus Omega
30. Our Last Enemy
31. Outlaws & Moonshine
32. Platinum Brunette
33. Rabid Assassin
34. Segression
35. Shallow Ground
36. Silent Knight
37. The Arbitrary Method
38. Vanlade
39. Whoretopsy
40. Witchcross

Download the free songs, compilation artwork and track listing at the following location: OMP, Focus on Metal Compilation Download Link.

Focus on Metal Podcast Official Site.

Maric Media Site.

The latest issue of Germany’s Metal Gods Magazine has published a 2 page featured interview with Max. The interview covers a variety of subjects including the Maxxxwell Carlisle live band, the latest full-length release “Visions of Speed and Thunder”, playing in HELLION and upcoming projects. Max also gives his opinion on the “guitar hero” label and why so many guitarist avoid it. Other topics like the value of music videos, working with guest musicians and the influence of Grunge on the current music scene, are also covered.

Click image below.

Metal news giants BraveWords have reviewed Maxxxwell’s latest full-length album, “Visions of Speed and Thunder”.

Fist-pumping, American heavy metal is what you’ll get from mohawk-sporting bodybuilder guitarist Maxxxwell Carlisle…As you can imagine, the guitar skills from every player here is exceptional…If headbangable, straight-ahead metal songs is what you crave, then Visions Of Speed And Thunder will more than do the trick.

Click here for the full review.

LA Metal Media has posted a gallery of photos by Roc Boyum featuring HELLION performing at the Lucky Strike Ultimate Jam Night, Wednesday October 14th, 2015.

Click Here for full gallery.

Wednesday, October 15th 2015, HELLION performed a cover of “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)” and their classic hit “Stormrider”, at the Lucky Strike Jam Night in Hollywood. Ann Boleyn on vocals, Scott Warren on keyboards, Maxxxwell Carlisle and Ira Black on guitars, Bjorn Englen on bass and Simon Wright on drums. A HELLION live album is slated for release later this year.

Musicians have no shortage of big plans. From 2 hour concept albums to mind blowing stage productions that would put Cirque du Soleil to shame, we often have an unrivaled ability to dream up things we’d like to accomplish…someday…as soon as we finish that press kit and play that Monday night show at the Viper Room. We’re going to blow the mind of each and every one of those 25 people who we begged to come out. But we need to be ready, so it’s cool that we’ve been rehearsing for 8 months to perfect our 30 minute set. Of course we’re on our 3rd bass player now… those first 2 guys just had a bad attitude, you know, wanting to be paid and everything. Anyway, we’ll be ready in a couple more months, probably. Although we might need a new in-ear monitor rig, but once we get that dealt with, for sure we’ll be ready… Does this sound familiar?

I’m sure you know or have known people who just can’t finish things. Let’s look at a more specific example. I won’t mention names, but I’ve got a particular lead singer in my mind. Who it is doesn’t really matter, you just have to know that he is real and he was once the lead vocalist of one of the top veteran metal bands. The band was and still is a household name in the world of metal. This singer was part of the band’s humble beginnings appearing on their debut album. His contributions were considerable but for various reasons that are not important now, he parted ways with the group very early on. That was 30 years ago, and after exiting that band, his artistic output quickly sank to nothing. Despite this, his former band’s subsequent accomplishments and rise to fame was enough to keep his name coming up in conversation, generally with speculations of “what if” he hadn’t left so early. Fast forward to today and we find that for the past 8 years (at least), he has been working steadily on his current band’s debut album. Debut album. This band has been around for at least 10 years. Let that sink in. There is plenty of material for a full length album, modest interest from labels and promoters, interest from fans, and yet the album is never quiet done. It always needs one more mixing session or re-do, one more mastering engineer, or one more new song to really finish it off. Over the years, there have been countless news headlines about how the album is almost done and coming out soon. These headlines repeat themselves every 6 to 12 months, with the album’s name changing every couple years. When pressed on the album’s lack of…a deadline or perhaps existence, our mystery lead singer will say things like, “we’ll we’re taking our time to make sure it’s done right”, or “I don’t want to cut corners and cheat the fans”. “Doing it for the fans” always makes a good fallback position. The bottom line here is that the album has been 6 months away from being finished since it was started. I’m not singling out one person here (or lead singers in general), but that story makes a great example. We have all known people like this. They have songs, but they’re never quite ready to record. Or they have songs recorded but the mix is never finished. Maybe they’re students, and they got to the last class but got to their final exam and then backed out. So close, but never finished. Why does this happen?

Simply put, this kind of “anti-finishing” behavior comes from the paralyzing fear of final judgment and rejection. If we never finish, we can always think that success and achievement is just around the corner. For artistic types like musicians, the fear of our work being deemed unworthy runs deep. We are defined by what we create. When our work is judged to be poor or underwhelming we take it as a direct reflection of who we are. What if those haters were right? What if those moments of self-doubt were more justified than we had hoped? For many, the possibility of facing that judgment is simply too much. Too much of a risk. Better to live in a world with the possibility of success than one with the certainty of failure. That is of course, a very short sighted view. These fears lead to crippling self-sabotage, mental paralysis and (let’s cut to the chase here) the pissing away of opportunity and sometimes even entire lives. In the case of this unnamed singer, his lack of creative output over the decades has made his current situation even worse. He’s comparing his new work to the work he did as a young man 30 years ago. He is no doubt a very different person with very different abilities now than he was and had then. In a genre that puts so much emphasis on technical skill and physical appearance, this situation doubles down on the pressure that he’ll put on himself. It’s no excuse though. The only way out of this situation is to finish what you start.

The lessons and knowledge we learn from our failures is priceless. As the late IBM CEO Thomas Watson Sr. put it, “the fastest way to succeed is to double your rate of failure”. Rising up from the ashes of previous failures is how we build quality and precision into our future work. There is a clarity of vision and perspective that can only be achieved through hindsight. Get that song recorded. Get that album out. Send the press-kit to the promoter. Do your best, but then let it go and let it be judged. Your audience will tell you what works and what doesn’t. From that reaction and from your own feelings 6 months down the road, you will learn and grow. As artists our work evolves, gaining quality and precision as we move forward. The process can only work if we can finish things and then move on to the next.

There is of course a fine line between never having the confidence to finish something and rolling something out before you’ve done your fair share of work. Personally, I tend to err on the side of overconfidence. In retrospect, my first solo album (no longer available), was not a quality product. The production was dubious at best, the songwriting was self-indulgent (did “Victory Foretold” really need five verses?) and even the cover was phoned in. However, I could only fully realize the seriousness of those issues after I released it and saw and heard the reaction of the audience. I learned from the experience, and it pushed me to work much harder on my 2^nd album, which I’m still happy with to this day.

Although I’ve used one particular person as an example, I hope I’ve made it clear that this problem is one that affects a huge number of people, musicians and artists of various types in particular. Some of us never start, but so many more start but never finish. Imagine looking back on your life after having spent decades making excuses as to why something wasn’t finished, only to wonder where the time went and how it was possible for you to accomplish so little. Somewhere along the line you got stuck and couldn’t finish what you started. Let’s not fall into this trap. Just get it done.

– Max Carlisle