Rock Report 01/25/23 – Pantera, Slipknot, and Escape The Fate !

After “intense conversations,” the organizers of the Rock Im Park and Rock Am Ring festivals, located roughly 250-300 miles apart in Germany, have made the decision to remove Pantera from the lineups in response to the government’s renewed attention on singer Philip Anselmo’s 2016 actions involving a Nazi salute and racist words.

Slipknot’s Knotfest will return to Japan in 2023, finally realizing a plan that was initially set in motion to take place in 2020. The pandemic kept pushing back the group’s Knotfest Japan plans, but they’ve now revealed the lineup for the 2023 edition.  Korn, Trivium and Parkway Drive to name a few.

Escape the Fate have been called out after the artwork they have been using to tease the new single “H8 Myself” closely mirrored that of the single artwork used by the band Dead Letter Circus for their 2010 song “Cage.” Bringing the similarities to attention was artist Cameron Gray, who initially created the “Cage” artwork and claims that he was approached by the band about his album art, only to recently see a variation on his imagery turn up promoting Escape the Fate’s upcoming single.