Hoo-ray for the reader known as “El Ton Côté.” He just sent us a link to the below video, of Between the Buried and Me in the studio, working on their new album. The video is entitled “Soon,” so presumably we’re getting a new BTBAM album, uh, soon. Which is great!

Alas, this video doesn’t have much in the way of new music, but what it does have sounds typically promising. Time to start getting excited for this one.

-AR

May the speculation and waiting end; now you can finally hear the second of two Ocean albums released this year, the stunning and expansive Anthropocentric. The album won’t come out until November 9th in North America, November 19th in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and November 22nd in the rest of Europe… but we’ve got it for you today to enjoy for the entire next week.

So; how does it stack up against this album’s counterpart Heliocentric? Is it indeed the “heavy” release that was promised? How does it compare to past Ocean albums? Should Robin Staps run for World President? You be the judge and tell us what you think in the comments.

Order the album here and help The Ocean recover what they lost last week when they became victims of an actual highway robbery in Spain, or donate whatever you can via PayPal.

[this promotion has ended]

This past Saturday was the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert-led joint “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” in Washington, D.C. And the good news is, metal got its props: While Cat Stevens — who now goes by the name Yusuf Islam — was performing “Peace Train,” Colbert marched out with Ozzy Osbourne and Gus G. and interrupted the performance. I don’t why the other musicians currently in Ozzy’s band, bassist Blasko and drummer Tommy Clufetos, weren’t invited, but The Roots ended up performing the missing members’ duties, which is pretty cool…

…except that Ozzy sounds, uh, not so hot. And I actually feel guilty for criticizing his performance; I’m glad metal got represented at all at the rally, and I can certainly get behind Ozzy putting his star wattage behind the cause.

But holy CRAP does he sound really, really bad. Worse than usual, I think.

Go to 1:46 if you wanna see what I’m talking about. Approximately eleven seconds later, his voice cracks like he was me at my Bar Mitzvah. Ouch.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

When the Almost Big Four Tour was announced this past summer, MS photographic wiz Jacqueline Cheng was the first to email us with a “can I pleeeeeease go?” press request. Since we’re cool like that and we knew we’d get awesome photos in return, we made some magic happen and set her up with a photo pass. Apparently Megadick Megadave wouldn’t allow Ms. Cheng into the photo pit, but she still got great pics of Anthrax and Slayer, posted after the jump.

Click to read more…

Serious question: does anyone actually watch these shred instructional videos and go “eureka! that’s how it’s done! it all makes sense and now i can shred too!” on their way to shred superstardom, or do we all just stare at these videos in awe and use them as proof that there are real, live players behind those leads instead of superhuman automatons? ‘Cause it seems to me like these videos are at way too high of a level for anyone to actually be able to learn anything off of them… or, if you’re at a high enough level to where having these complex shred riffs slowed down a wee bit actually helps them make sense to you, shouldn’t you be able to figure them out anyway without the aid of a video like this?

Whatever… I’m content to watch in awe and be astounded that a man can actually make the sounds that come from Tosin Abasi’s guitar. Damn, that “CAFO” riff is sick.

-VN

[via Got Djent]

In case Agalloch and Electric Wizard weren’t enough to get you pumped this Monday morning, video footage of Turisas performing a new song, “The March Of The Varangian Guard,” has now surfaced. The material is nothing new for Turisas, but it’s not like the world couldn’t use another epic battle metal song that makes you wanna clap, fist pump, drink, rape, and pillage. I mean, life is short and you gotta enjoy the little things, y’know?

Here’s the video. Vocalist Mathias Nygård rambles in Finnish for the first couple of minutes, so if you’re like me and you’re impatient and don’t speak Finnish to boot, just skip to 2:16, when the song starts.

This song will presumably be on Turisas’ next album, which should be out next year on Century.

-AR

[via]

UPDATE: It’s come to my attention that this album was only released overseas today… here in the States, Metal Blade will be releasing the album in January.
Well, don’t I feel like a schmuck? In the absence of any press releases and I guess my failure to keep up with this shit when a label/band doesn’t actually try to tell me about it, Electric Wizard have a new album, Black Masses, out today on Rise Above Records.

And this is total news to me. I mean, I feel like I read in Decibel at some point that the band was in the studio, but I literally had no idea that the album was coming out today. Whoops.

Oh well. This isn’t really bad news; it’s more like a pleasant surprise. Like I woke up, and someone left a gift on my door step. I’m actually kinda glad. I had nothing to look forward to today, and now I do — I can get high and listen to the new Electric Wizard album. There. Afternoon gone.

Whether you’re a yutz like me and this news take you by surprise or you actually have your head screwed-on straight and you’ve known about this for weeks if not months, you can check out the new track “Black Mass” here. It sounds like Electric Wizard, which, y’know, isn’t a bad thing.

And major thanks to “brandonmetal” for opening my eyes.

-AR

It seems like just about ALL of you have e-mailed us about this since it debuted Friday afternoon (when everyone in the MetalSucks Mansion was, regrettably, at meetings or sleeping off a post-Devy/TesseracT hangover), but in case you somehow made it through the whole weekend without hearing the good news: Stereogum is streaming a new Agalloch song, “The Watcher’s Monolith.” (Bonus — they also have an interview with guitarist/vocalist John Haughm.) It’s our first sampling of the band’s new album, Marrow of the Spirit, and it is, needless to say, awesome awesome awesome. I mean, again, I’m assuming you all know how fucking great Agalloch are, given how many of you e-mailed us, but if you don’t… really, don’t bother taking my word for it. Just go listen.

Marrow of the Spirit comes out November 23 on Profound Lore.

-AR