Century Media is teaming up with the Summer Breeze Festival and EMP for the New Blood Award 2013, presented by Metal.de.

It’s Century Media’s 25th anniversary in 2013 and a good opportunity to support the metal scene that helped the label to grow since 1988. Jens Prueter, Head of A&R; Europe comments: “When Robert Kampf founded Century Media Records, the first signings were demo bands from the tape trading scene. ICED EARTH just released their Enter The Realm demo and GRAVE already released three demos (and some more under the names of CORPSE and PUTREFACTION), as well as ASPHYX. The local German death metal cult act MORGOTH had the promising Pits Of Utumno demo out and had been invited to play a showcase in the rehearsal room of Robert’s own band DESPAIR – and became one of the early successes of the young label that basically started in a bedroom. And some years later in the mid-90s even Italy’s shooting stars LACUNA COIL were signed based on a demo tape (as ETHEREAL). Now, we are looking for new hopeful acts from the whole world to show their skills on stage at the mighty Summer Breeze Festival in Germany and win a record deal to start your career!”

The application deadline is March 31st,. Metal.de and Century Media will select the 20 most interesting bands that will go into a public voting. The six best bands of the public voting will play live on the New Blood Award stage at the Summer Breeze Festival on Wednesday, August 14th, 2013. Part of the jury will be Mikael Stanne from DARK TRANQUILLITY as well as Jens Prueter, Head of A&R; at Century Media RECORDS Europe and members of the Summer Breeze, EMP and Metal.de team. The complete jury will be announced soon.

Dark Tranquillity started as teenagers in the late 80’s and laid foundation to the Gothenburg Sound that combined death metal with melodic elements and massively influenced modern metal up until today. Over the years they implemented even more influences from goth, rock, prog and since Mikael Stanne was also the singer for Swedish power metal heroes HAMMERFALL once, you can be sure he is the right judge with an open ear for any kind of metal. The band is self-managed since a couple of years and will give you some useful advices how to push your band to the next level. In case the timing and style fits you might be even offered to open one of the shows for the upcoming fall/winter Dark Tranquillity tour where they will present their new album “Construct” that will be released in late May 2013. The winning band will open the festival on the following Thursday, August 15th, 2013 and will be a proud part of the Century Media Records artist roster and also get a merchandise deal from Europe’s biggest metal mail-order EMP.

Your band will:

- open the Summer Breeze Festival 2013
- get a worldwide record deal with Century Media Records Ltd. and a worldwide publishing deal with our partner Magic Arts Ltd. A provisional agreement including all deal terms needs to be signed by every band member of the 20 bands joining the public voting period. The record deal includes a recording budget of minimum 3.000 Euro.
- get a merchandise deal incl. 100 shirts with EMP
- receive a spot for their album/merch in the EMP shop/catalogue
- get extensive coverage on Metal.de
- obtain professional guidance and support by all New Blood Award partners

For more info visit NewBloodAward.de and SummerBreeze.de.