Forbidden guitarist Craig Locicero confirmed in a post on his Facebook page that the band has been working on new material for their long-awaited sixth studio album, but stated that fans will have to wait until early 2025 for its release. The new album by the recently-reunited legendary Bay Area thrash metal band will be their first since 2010's Omega Wave and the first one with new vocalist Norman Skinner, who is the replacement of the now-retired Russ Anderson.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

After it was announced nearly six months ago that Bay Area thrash metal legends Forbidden were reuniting, new vocalist Norman Skinner (who is the replacement of the now-retired Russ Anderson) confirmed on his Facebook page that the band has begun writing new material for its first studio album in over a decade. The follow-up to 2010's Omega Wave is tentatively planned for release sometime in 2024.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Texan black metal outlaws Necrofier are now premiering the brand new single, "Forbidden Light Of The Black Moon," along with a new music video. The song is taken from the band's second full length, Burning Shadows In The Southern Night, which will be released on June 2, 2023 via Season Of Mist Underground Activists.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Necrofier

After more than a decade off, Bay Area thrash metal legends Forbidden are reuniting once again and will make their only European appearance in 2023 at Belgium's Alcatraz Metal Festival in August. In addition to its founding members, guitarist Craig Locicero and bassist Matt Camacho, the reunion lineup includes guitarist Steve Smyth, drummer Chris Kontos and vocalist Norman Skinner, the latter of which is replacing the now-retired and sober Russ Anderson.

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Source:	blabbermouth.net
Band profile:	Forbidden

Forbidden guitarist Craig Locicero (who is now in Dress The Dead and The Boneless Ones) had recently spoke to James from the That Metal Interview Podcast about the current status of the legendary Bay Area thrash metal band, which has been on hiatus for over half a decade. Formed in 1985 as Forbidden Evil, they released only five studio albums, the most recent being 2010's Omega Wave.

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Source:	youtube.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Sad news come from the U.S because thrashers Forbidden just announced that former guitarist Tim Calvert (also in Nevermore from 1997-2000) has died. He was in Forbidden from 1990 to 1997 and also played on and contributed to Nevermore's concept album Dreaming Neon Black.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

After cancelling last year's Wacken Open Air performance, American thrash veterans Forbidden have recently revealed that the band might not record any other albums even though they had written new material and had plans to "finish it up when Russ feels good enough to Thrash it up again!"

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Bay area thrash legends Forbidden sadly had to cancel their performance at this year's Wacken Open Air festival. Long time bass player Matt Camacho has left the band and vocalist Russ Anderson decided to take a break from music business, forcing Forbidden to cancel their appearance.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Posted on the band's Facebook page:

Craig Locicero, Russ Anderson, Matt Camacho, and Steve Smyth of the Bay Area thrash band Forbidden are proud to make the following announcement: "After a couple of grueling months of sifting through video auditions, we've finally got our man. Let it be known that on Halloween 2011, Sasha Horn from Chicago is Forbidden's new drummer!"

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Guitarist / founding member / songwriter Craig Locicero of the Bay Area thrash band Forbidden has issued the following update:

"This is the most painful update I have ever had to write...

Due to family obligations on the part of our longtime drummer, Mark Hernandez, Forbidden is forced to cancel it's tour of Europe and will start to search for an adequate permanent replacement right away. Compounding things is the fact that Mark and I also play in Demonica, who were to open the tour. Unfortunately, at this late date, there is no time nor budget to find a replacement who can handle both bands and our only option right now is to cancel the entire tour.

Forbidden would like to apologize to all of the different promoters, Continental Concerts, the bands Communic and Demonica, our label Nuclear Blast, and most importantly our fans who have been waiting for us to finally make it overseas for our first proper European tour in support of Omega Wave. You all deserve better. This is a collective kick to everyone's stomach and it is very difficult for us to swallow.

If there were any way to find one drummer to do both jobs and learn over 22 songs of material in only a couple of days, we would do it. But there is no way to teach somebody all of that material from the ground up and give the fans our very best. Our first choice was longtime Brother, Gene Hoglan, and since Gene is very familiar with our current set list, this makes the most sense. However, he only has a very small window to work with and no time to commit to an entire tour. But he did agree to fly out to Belgium with us so that Forbidden can play the Alcatraz Festival on August 27th! That works out to be the only days that work within Gene's busy schedule and it also allows us to get in front of as many fans as possible for one show.

In no way does this make up for all of the other gigs we will miss. They MUST be rescheduled for the future!

Unfortunately, that future will have to be without Mark Hernandez. He has played for the last time with Forbidden and we will be looking for the right replacement as soon as the dust settles. Obviously it takes a great player to play drums in Forbidden. We will only accept the best!

We all love Mark and hope he finds peace and serenity in his future with his family.

In the meantime we will continue and take the momentum we have gained from Omega Wave and use it as fuel for the next record and beyond!

Looking forward, not back..."

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Source:	nuclearblast.de
Band profile:	Forbidden
Event:	Forbidden + Communic: Omega Wave Over Europe Tour [CANCELLED]

"Omega Wave", the brand-new video from Bay Area thrashers Forbidden can now be seen in the YouTube-video below. The video for "Omega Wave" was created by SchneppZone video director Jon Schnepp of Metalocalypse fame.

"Omega Wave" is the title track of the band's latest studio album, which was released last year on Nuclear Blast Records.

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Source:	guitarworld.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Reactivated San Francisco Bay Area thrashers Forbidden have uploaded the track "Forsaken At The Gates" to their official MySpace page.

"'Forsaken At The Gates' is Forbidden's new thrash anthem for the 2010's and beyond," commented guitarist Craig Locicero. "If we could go back in a time machine to when we called it a day in 1997, there still would have been no way that we could have written 'Forsaken?" back then. We needed the distance and hind-site to write this record and had to get a grip on what the hell Forbidden was all about when we started. Our vision is clear. We are a Thrash Metal band! "Forsaken At The Gates" says it all.

If I were to compare "Forsaken At The Gates" to any of our old songs, it would be "March Into Fire", which was one of the first songs that I'd ever written in my life. Ironically, "Forsaken..." was the last song we'd written for Omega Wave. Funny how things work.

As far as the song itself, Mark was a fucking beast when we tracked it! I knew we had a monster on the first take, great energy and sense of urgency in his performance. It made one hell of a spine to connect all of the other moving parts to. Everyone blasted through their tracks with the same sense of urgency too. Playing those riffs, my blood pumps harder then in any other song I've played on. It was an intense session to track and Matt cruises through the entire thing like a bulldozer! The solo section brings me back to the good 'ol days when trade-offs were all over the classic metal records we all love. I really love playing and writing with Steve, he makes me so much better and I think we make a great team.

After that, it's Russ that's next fucking level! Tim and I got him fired up and locked him behind the glass until he sounded as crazed as they lyrics are intended to convey. The song itself is about turning away the masses from the numerous underground shelters around the planet that will try to seek protection from any natural or unnatural disaster that would effect all of us on the surface. The main line of the song says 'Corpses laid out for the Rapture, New World Order buried in it's tomb.' In other words, if the surface isn't worth living on and the powers that be decide who lives in a canned air bunker for future generations to come...let them rot down there, that's not a world worth living in!"

Vocalist Russ Anderson added: "Looking back on recording our first album Forbidden Evil and recording Omega Wave, there really is no comparison. During the recording of Forbidden Evil, we were in a time crunch and I sang the whole album in about one and a half days, impossible some could say, but true. I was happy with the results because that gave the album it's rawness, that in my opinion goes down in history as true as a thrash album gets.

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Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Reactivated San Francisco Bay Area thrashers Forbidden have debuted the artwork to their new studio album, Omega Wave. Omega Wave will be released in Europe on October 22 and in North America on October 26 via Nuclear Blast Records. Album details are available here.

Forbidden guitarist/songwriter Craig Locicero checks in about his collaborative process with artist Kent Mathieu, the visual elements that can be found in the album's artwork, and his concern for the future of the human race:

"As soon as Forbidden committed to writing a new record, I wondered where Kent Mathieu was. I'd always felt like Forbidden Evil and Twisted Into Form were pretty iconic album covers... when things like that actually seemed to matter; Then, the good people at Nuclear Blast actually located Kent! I got pretty excited and reached out to him immediately. He was equally excited to hear from us, too. The only real direction I gave Kent was to somehow tie the past into the future. Find a way to make the two skulls Forbidden Evil's artwork] vital again. He had worked up about 12 sketches all kinds of variously cool stuff. Out of all of the pictures he sent me, I liked the way one of them was laid out because of it's simplicity. After thinking about it for a long while, I had a concept for Kent to work with. The Omega Wave concept. The title wasn't decided until I had a good idea for the cover.

I don't want to over-explain the actual picture because there is enough symbolism for everyone to interpret everything differently. That is always a plus, in my book. What I can tell you is that the skull in the center is based upon the crystal skull of Belize. This skull was found at some of the pyramid ruins in two perfect pieces, jawbone and upper cranium. It was always quite a mystery, but some years later Hewlett Packard scientists did extensive tests on the skull and found many anomalies. One of them was that there is no way, even with our most modern technology, that we could cut into the crystal the way this skull was formed. It would shatter with any instrument we have available, even today. Another thing was the fact that no matter what temperature the skull was placed in, the skull's temperature would stay almost exactly the same. Scientists even believe the skull holds information that they could not tap into, like a giant computer chip with an impenetrable code.

So I got to thinking: Does this skull - and the other ones found throughout the most ancient places on Earth - hold something that we would need to know to possibly save ourselves? This is not an entirely new concept, but it hit me pretty hard. What could we learn about ourselves that may save us at this all-important juncture for the human race? It seems as if we've reached our Omega stage as a civilization. Meaning, we as people seem to be in a hurry to reach some sort of ending... possibly all self-manifested by accepting some sort of pre-determined fate. Or possibly just pawns in a game that was played out before and will be repeated again and again in other times and dimensions. So Omega Wave is part science fact and part from my imagination.

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Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Forbidden

Forbidden have announced headlining shows just prior and after their tour with Overkill this November. Support will come from fellow thrashers Evile, Gamma Bomb, and Bonded By Blood. Confirmed dates are as follows:

Forbidden, Evile, Gamma Bomb, Bonded By Blood:

11/04/10 Jaxx - W. Springfield, VA

KillFest Tour: Overkill, Forbidden, Evile, Gamma Bomb, Bonded By Blood:

11/05/10 Montage Music Hall - Rochester, NY
11/06/10 Crazy Donkey - Farmingdale, NY
11/07/10 Club Hell - Providence, RI
11/08/10 Sonar - Baltimore, MD
11/09/10 Gil's - Virginia Beach, VA
11/10/10 Amos - Charlotte, NC
11/11/10 Volume 11 - Raleigh, NC
11/12/10 Hooligans - Jacksonville, NC
11/13/10 Club Firestone - Orlando, FL
11/14/10 Culture Room - Ft Lauderdale, FL
11/15/10 The Masquerade - Atlanta, GA
11/16/10 Peabody's - Cleveland, OH
11/17/10 Newport Music Hall - Columbus, OH
11/18/10 Diesel Nightclub - Pittsburgh, PA
11/19/10 Rocko's - Manchester, NH
11/20/10 Starland Ballroom - Sayreville, NJ

Forbidden, Evile, Gamma Bomb, Bonded By Blood

11/22/10 Foufounes Electriques - Montreal, QC
11/23/10 MOD Club - Toronto, ON
11/24/10 Blondies - Detroit, MI
11/26/10 Phoenix Hill Tavern - Louisville, KY
11/27/10 Reggie's - Chicago, IL
11/28/10 The Rave - Milwaukee, WI
11/29/10 Station 4 - St Paul, MN
12/01/10 Scout Bar - San Antonio, TX
12/02/10 Emo's - Austin, TX
12/03/10 Scout Bar - Houston, TX
12/04/10 Trees - Ft Worth, TX
12/06/10 The Rock - Tucson, AZ
12/07/10 U.B.'s - Mesa, AZ
12/08/10 Whiskey a Go Go - Hollywood, CA
12/09/10 Ramona Mainstage - Ramona, CA
12/10/10 New Oasis - Sparks, NV
12/11/10 DNA Lounge - San Francisco, CA

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Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Forbidden
Event:	Forbidden + Evile + Gama Bomb + Bonded By Blood

Reactivated San Francisco Bay Area thrashers Forbidden continue their work at Sonic Room/Audio Voyage Studios in Livermore, California recording their upcoming new album Omega Wave. Album artwork has been commissioned from Kent Mathieu (Forbidden, Exodus, Autopsy, Exhorder). The album is being produced by Forbidden guitarist/songwriter Craig Locicero and Tim Narducci. All tracks will be mixed by Sean Beavan (Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails).

States guitarist Locicero: "After a year of writing and a couple of months recording this son of a bitchin' album, we've finally decided to call it Omega Wave. It certainly would have been easy to self-title it, but anyone who knows anything about Forbidden and our history understands that we spend a considerable amount of time thinking about these things. That's just what we do. Omega Wave seemed most fitting and it's one of the thrashiest songs on the record! An "omega wave" is the feeling of impending doom that hangs over everyone in these difficult times, more so than any other era in history. Many feel that our time is almost up, partly because it has been written and predicted in almost every ancient society; also because most people can tell which way the wind is blowing, if you know what I mean. So the question is, is this all really happening by design or is it a self-fulfilled, man-made hysteria that we are creating by accepting it in our collective consciousness? Either way, it's a black wave of negative energy that exists to billions of people. That is the Omega Wave."

On why the band sought out the artist Forbidden's career began with: "Within the last few months, we've reconnected with the original artist who painted the artwork for our first two albums, Forbidden Evil and Twisted Into Form: Kent Mathieu. I love the work he's done with everyone, but there is no denying that the first two covers he did for Forbidden are a couple of the most iconic pieces for our genre. Getting Kent on board was a coupe and he gets us like no other artist could. He's got a pile of lyrics to inspire him and he fully understands the Omega Wave concept. I can't wait to see what he comes up with. Should be perfect!"

On the dedication of co-producer Tim Narducci: "Tim and I have know each other since '86, when I was in Forbidden Evil and he was in Tyrannicide. We were under-aged kids drinking beer in the Ruthie's Inn parking lot. That's some history and he knows his metal. Some of my peers have been grilling me on what it's like to produce a record for the first time. It's time consuming and somewhat difficult to get the performances out of someone you've known since you were kids, but I am not doing this alone. Tim Narducci has been by my side every step of the way. We help each other stay focused and motivated. He's excellent and catching the little things and bringing the big picture together. We also have a great engineer and person in Brad Barth, who is a recording wizard and also owns Audio Voyage/Sonic Room (where we're tracking). I really love working with these guys. Tim, Brad, and I have been playing together in SpiralArms since 2005. We've learned a lot about ourselves and recording over the last 5 years and recently completed Spiral's first full length album that comes out this summer. We started recording and finished that album before we began the Forbidden record."

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Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Forbidden