This new Dysrhythmia track “Festival of the Popular Delusions” is easily the best new song I’ve heard all week. I dare you to prove me wrong, because you can’t. It’s irrefutable, like Chuck Norris Facts. This percocet ain’t hurtin’! But for real, this song is blowing my mind right now… not sure how Dysrhythmia has mostly slid under my radar all this time, but good God is this band the shit.

Check it out on Dysrhythmia’s MySpace page; the song comes from their new album Psychic Maps which drops July 7th on Relapse.

If ya got ‘em, pop ‘em.

-VN

It was a short week, but despite Axl being under the weather and Vince gettin lucky in Kentucky, we still managed to get shit done around the ol’ Mansion, even without the help of our favoritest MS Mansion Monkey, Higgins:

• We’re making a list: we give you a hint, another hint and yet another hint. No, it’s got nothing to do with Jacob.
• Ozzy Sharon filed another ridiculous lawsuit, while Dillinger Escape Plan left Relapse Records sans-lawsuit.
• IWABO and Bloodbath released new videos.
• Killswitch Engage gave you a new song for free, we gave you a new Hull song for free, and Job For A Cowboy and Darkest Hour let you hear new songs for free. Crikey!
• We spoke with Nick Hipa of As I Lay Dying and J. Costa of Thy Will Be Done, the former about music and the latter about beards.
• Dallas, The Blogronaut and Eyal all wrote blogs.
• Best Band Ever announces festival appearance atop worst lineup ever.

I had a wisdom tooth pulled this morning so I feel like a giant sack of assholes at the moment, but hey, Percocet! See you tomorrow.

-VN

In fact, the list is the result of a poll.

Members of the following bands all had their say.

Click to read more…

So here I am flying across the Atlantic Ocean again. A few months back I wrote a blog about how much I hate flying and yet here I am doing it again. Press / vacation trip to Paris. I know, I know, such a hard life. But you know what? You guys can eat a dick if you’ve got a problem with it.

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…but I know some of you dug his Halloween re-make, and I know that curiosity will get the best of me and I’ll go see it opening weekend. Here’s a new, very brief featurette on the flick:

-AR

[via /Film]

UPDATE: Our friend Dan Rodriguez over at Metal Insider has a much more detailed explanation. Check it out!

…but with every move the old fucker makes, it’s as though he’s begging me to.

So.

According to local newspaper tabloid the New York Post, Ozzy is now suing Tony Iommi over the Black Sabbath band name:

The “Godfather of Heavy Metal” claims guitarist Tony Iommi illegally claimed sole ownership of the band’s name, in a filing with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Osbourne is suing Iommi for a 50 percent interest in the “Black Sabbath” trademark, along with a portion of Iommi’s profits from use of the name.

The Manhattan federal court suit also charges that Osbourne’s “signature lead vocals” are largely responsible for the band’s “extraordinary success,” noting that its popularity plummeted during his absence from 1980 through 1996.

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Fairly self-explanatory…

IWABO’s full-length Century debut, It’s All Happening, comes out this Tuesday, June 2.

-AR

You gotta hand it to the folks at Roadrunner: they know how to promote a record, and they know how to use the internet to their advantage.

So. Following on the heels of giving away new songs by Dream Theater and DevilDriver for free, the label is currently offering a new Killswitch Engage track, “Reckoning,” right now, for free. Download it here.

The song will appear on the band’s new, self-titled album, which comes out June 30.

After you’ve given it a listen, come back here and let us know what you think.

-AR

Last week’s funny photo caption contest offered one of the biggest and baddest prize packages yet — a ginormous package of stuff featuring Children of Bodom’s entire discography and a ton of other shit from Spinefarm Records — so it’s fitting that we got a shit-ton of funny entries. But the winning caption to the photo at right, posted by Julian, is:

“Look Ma, I’m Chris Cornell’s career!”

This week we’re giving away a double disc vinyl set of the latest Sunn O))) release Monoliths and Dimensions, the CD of which hit stores this week. Thanks to our friends at Red Indie Metal for supplying this week’s prize (follow them on Twitter @REDINDIEMETAL). Don’t be silly and miss out on this opportunity to have this limited edition vinyl for free! Just come up with the funniest caption to the below photo and you’ll end up with a very nice package in the mail sometime soon.

Yeserday we told you that we’re making a list.

Here are some (but not all) of the bands that are, for better or worse, not eligible to appear on this list.

Click to read more…

The track, entitled “Unfurling a Darkened Gospel,” is currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page. It’s fast, it’s mean. I dig it. I also dig that this band always has long, borderline pretentious song titles. That, my friends, is some tr00 death metal shit.

Ruination comes out July 7 on Metal Blade.

-AR

Thanks to Alex Schwarzer for the tip.

Bloodbath’s The Fathomless Mastery was one of my favorite albums of 2008, so I’m beyond excited that the band has finally made a video, for the track “Hades Rising.” Check it out, suckas.

Thanks to longtime reader Nikki Moody for the tip!

-AR

My final interview at last month’s New England Metal and Hardcore Festival in Worcester, MA was with As I Lay Dying guitarist Nick Hipa. I’d met Nick earlier in the day at an industry hang at which he told me he was a huge fan of the site. We instantly hit it off, so by the time our scheduled interview rolled around there were no awkward moments. When I approached him while he was warming up in the back lounge of the band’s spiffy tour bus we got right to it. Nick spoke about the band’s past appearances at Metalfest, touring with Lamb of God, partying with Children of Bodom, the advantages of having a nice tour bus, the band’s recently released DVD, and their plans for a new album in early 2010.

For more New England Metal and Hardcore Festival interview coverage, check out my festival wrap, as well as my interviews with J. Costa of Thy Will Be Done, Peter Dolving of The Haunted, Doc Coyle of God Forbid, Jonathan and Billy from Unholy, Josh and Troy from Cattle Decapitation, and Chris Arp of Psyopus.

My interview with As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa, after the jump.

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This interesting bit of news trickled down the Interwebs grapevine yesterday. Seems DEP’s contract with Relapse has ended, and the band will release their next record on Season of Mist in collaboration with their own Phonogetic Records.

Zuh?

Click to read more…

This morning I read on Metal Underground that there’s a band called Kimaera. And I’d just like to take this opportunity to say that everyone in this band is clearly some kind of mental midget. Even if I wasn’t a huge Chimaira fan, it would be hard to encourage another band to use a name so close to a group that’s achieved such a higher plane of success; for example, as much as I dislike Korn, I would never pat another band on the back for being called “Corn.” It’s just dumb. Did these dudes (and chick, apparently) learn nothing from Chimaera, a band which has apparently now changed its name to avoid any further confusion? Sheesh.

ANYWAY, the real Chimaira are now holding a contest where fans can re-edit the footage from their video for “Destroy and Dominate,” which was originally directed by the awesome Todd Bell. The grand-prize winner will receive the limited edition box set version of The Infection plus tickets to the band’s upcoming US tour, and the second- and third-prize winners will receive tickets and/or Chimaira merch. You can download the footage and enter the contest here.

Honestly, I kinda wanna download the footage just because re-cutting it seems like it would be fun, the same way re-mixing the Sacrament tracks Lamb of God released awhile ago was fun. But if you’re one of those people who constantly bitch about how shitty you think every music video is, here’s your chance to try and do better – and potentially win some cool stuff in the process.

-AR

A giant, that’s-gonna-leave-a-mark smack on the ass to our pal Rob Pasbani at Metal Injection, who noticed that Sean Martin, formerly of Hatebreed, is in the new video for Cage, which was directed by Transformers star Shia LaBeouf. You gotta wonder how the fuck Martin ended up here…

UPDATE: Apparently Martin and Cage are co-owners of a company called Cardboard City. Thanks to Dallas Coyle for the tip!

I can’t stomach the song enough to listen to it, but luckily, Martin appears at the start of the video, before the music kicks in. Check it out:

-AR

Last month we asked you to tell us which 3 Inches of Blood song best represent the Blood Oncore High sneakers, the band’s new collaboration with Nike 6.0. Today we’re happy to extend our congratulations to the MetalSucks Maniac known only as “epic,” who wrote the winning entry:

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The MetalSucks co-sponsored Blackenedfest, featuring Mayhem, Marduk, Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation and Withered is currently underway and, from what I hear, absolutely slaying. As per usual, Metal Injection has been on hand to capture some excellent video footage from the shows. Here’s Cephalic Carnage doing “Kill for Weed” on the tour’s stop at this past weekend’s Maryland Deathfest; you can check out more videos from the tour right here. And get the remaining tour dates after the jump!!!

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We can’t tell you about it yet, but… get excited.

In typical Tool fashion, the current reigning title-holders of “Best Band on the Planet” status have announced a mini U.S. tour for this summer with little fanfare or press hullabaloo. The first date of the tour — the rest of which was announced this morning on their head-scratchingly-still-stuck-in-2001-website — will take place on August 1st in New Jersey, and is actually part of the 3-day All Points West festival. The festival features a bunch of bands no one who reads this site will give a shit about (save possibly My Bloody Valentine; possibly some of you might be into this band, I’m looking at you Gary Suarez), which is quite frustrating as the rest of the country gets just Tool.

Click to read more…