What’s better than great music? Great music for free, of course! And we know you downloading motherfuckers agree with us, because you’re always e-mailing us about leaks n’ shit.

So why not download something that will neither a) make you feel guilty for stealing nor b) possibly condemn you to a life of living in a cage and being anally gang raped in the shower?

Deathwish have a new sampler, entitled MMIX, which they are making available for free download. And there’s some pretty cool artists on it, including Coliseum, Doomriders, The Hope Conspiracy, Converge’s Jacob Bannon, Pulling Teeth and Trap Them (who Vince and I don’t get but I know a lot of people really dig so I guess I should give them another chance).

After the jump, get the complete track list and download links.

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Lots and lots of you have e-mailed us this week to ask about the fact that Intronaut and Kylesa have both dropped off The Haunted’s upcoming, MetalSucks-sponsored headlining trek in order to go tour with the almighty Mastodon. And, yeah, it’s bittersweet news at best; we were looking forward to seeing them with The Haunted, but it’s not as though the Atlanta quartet is really any less awesome than our favorite Swedes.

Of course, the always spectacular non-Nazis in Nachtmystium are still doing The Haunted tour, and now the replacement bands for Intronaut and Kylesa have been announced: Merauder and The Agonist.

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Headbanger’s Blog has just debuted the new Mastodon video, “Divinations,” and I gotta say, it’s pretty friggin’ cool. It’s directed by Roboshobo, who apparently also gave us Mastodon’s equally awesome video for “Sleeping Giant,” and the cool but rhythmically challenged video for Metallica’s “All Nightmare Long.” Check it out:

Mastodon’s incredibly cool prog masterpiece, Crack the Skye, will be out March 24. I can’t tell you how stoked I am to hear them play it live, in its entirety, on their upcoming tour.

-AR

In 1994 Ved Buens Ende released their demo For Those Who Caress the Pale and from then on everything, well, everything pretty much stayed the same as if it had never been released. Mayhem’s De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas and Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse were released the same year, and I can only imagine that the whole underground metal scene worldwide was too busy trying to pick its collective jaw off the floor to notice a lo-fi demo from a band with a funny foreign name. The next year, VBE recorded their full-length Written in Waters and broke up without much notice in 1997. The band reformed briefly in 2006 but broke up again in early 2007 without having fulfilled any of their promises of live performances or new material, leaving Written in Waters as their first and final album.

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We’re big fans of pagan metal here at the MS Mansion. BIG fans. Just last night Sammy O’Hagar waltzed in at about 5pm, still drunk and rowdy from the night before (!), dressed in a full get-up of warpaint and animal skins. Obviously there was no other choice at that point but to hand over control of the MS Mansion Mothership to the capable hands of the monkeys, so we put on Turisas’ The Varangian Way and started the party right back up again for the ol’ chap; the freight train kept rolling until at least 4am. Last thing I remember is Kip jumping on top of Axl’s desk and screaming something about “Battle!” and how we need to take vengeance against the other metal websites that constantly rip us off. As I type this, Sammy’s passed out in the bathtub clutching a bottle of Jim Beam while DBR and Satan Rosenbloom are snuggling in my bed; I had to sleep on the couch. Those fucking assholes.

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