[This post is being live-updated. -Ed.]

This past weekend Metallica got all sneaky and sent out a “Save the Date” for a big announcement happening today at 2pm EST / 11am PST. And here’s the news, via their LiveStream (which started about 15 minutes late, featured a quick trailer announcing the fest, then cut to the band members in a room addressing the camera directly in an informal Q&A session).

Metallica are hosting their own 2-day festival, June 23-24, 2012 in Atlantic City, NJ called “Orion Music + More”. They will headline both nights and will have 22 other artists performing. The official website for the festival is here. The festival is in partnership with C3 who also does Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

Click to read more…

[Updated with official tour poster, 2:16pm EST.]

Prepare to get stangry: we are about to announce the dates of a really sweet tour, and unless you live in or near a major city the chances are pretty high that it’s not coming to your town! If the members of Cannibal Corpse, Exhumed, Abysmal Dawn and Arkaik could speak to you, I’m sure they’d say “We really wish we could visit all of you! We don’t give any fucks about our families, comfortable beds, good meals or regular showers! All we care about is serving YOU, the people of South Dakota! Next time we’ll do a non-stop 150-date U.S. tour and we can all party together!” Or not. Because dudes in bands have lives. Folks of Florida, Montana and Nebraska: deal with it.

Lucky for you, this most brutal of spring tours actually DOES have dates in Florida (two!) and Nebraska. Sorry, Montana, you’re still out of luck. But if it’s any consolation, this tour is not hitting either New York City or Los Angeles, so at least you can revel in that.

Dates after the break [via Noisecreep]:

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Last summer Poison toured with Mötley Crüe, and that seemed like pretty much the best glam metal nostalgia tour imaginable; now Rikki Rockett has announced via Facebook that this summer Poison will be touring with Def Leppard, which is, somehow, an even more sugary confection than the Crüe tour. Whether or not it will be as fun as the Crüe tour will be entirely dependent on Def Lep, since Poison have somehow managed to out-ridiculous themselves into oblivion. I haven’t seen Def Leppard since circa 2001, so I really have no idea how good or bad they are in a live setting now.

ANYWAY, presumably dates will be announced soon. While you wait, enjoy this poster from 2009′s Def Leppard/Poison tour. Just ignore the part that says “Cheap Trick” at the bottom, ’cause Cheap Trick will not, to the best of my knowledge, be playing this new trek.

-AR

The Faceless have been confirmed for Summer Slaughter 2012. That’s not shocking news, seeing as the band — like the fest’s previously announced co-headliners, Cannibal Corpse and Between the Buried and Me — have been rumored to be participating in the tour for three weeks now.

But it is still good news! Anyone who complains about a show where they’ll get to see Cannibal Corpse, BTBAM, and The Faceless should be hit in the head with a Halestorm album. Plus, there’s still at least seven other bands still to be announced; assuming the rumors continue to be true, those will include Job For A Cowboy, Veil of Maya, and Hate Eternal, all of whom are also awesome. And Vince and I got word of yet ANOTHER great band set to be on the tour over the weekend. So, yeah, everyone is going to this.

The next band will be officially announced on Sunday via the Summer Slaughter Facebook page.

-AR

Converge are in the studio right now, and have just announced a two-week tour that will kick off on April 1. And in case you’re retarded, that obviously means they’re going to have completed their new album sometime in March. (Unless they’re doing some Metallica-esque “Escape from the Studio” deal, but I find that unlikely.)

Hopefully that means they’ll unveil some new material at these shows, but even if not, whatever, it’s Converge. They are a rabid dog attack live, so you should go see them one way or the other.

Support is coming from Loma Prieta and Git Some on all shows, with other various cool bands, including Ringworm, Deafheaven, and Weekend Nachos, also participating when regionally convient.

Here are dates, via Lambgoat:

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The rumors are true: Cannibal Corpse and Between the Buried and Me will co-headline this year’s edition of the Summer Slaughter festour. BTBAM and The Corpse obviously play very, very different forms of death metal, but they’re both great. It’s hard to imagine any metal fan who isn’t a total fun-hating grump not being excited about this bill.

None of the other rumored acts — which include The Faceless, Job For A Cowboy, Veil of Maya, and Hate Eternal — have been confirmed yet, and, as Lambgoat reports in a tone I very much appreciate, “Unfortunately, it looks like the Summer Slaughter people are going to string this out, with remaining participants to be announced each Sunday (one-by-one) via Facebook.” The past two Summer Slaughters have featured ten bands apiece, so we should know the full line-up by the end of March.

In any case, between this and the solid line-up Mayhem Fest has put together this year, it looks like it could be a really fun summer…

-AR

(click to view hi-res version)

The Internet’s been a-churnin’ with buzz about the forthcoming U.S. tour featuring the prog-tastic lineup of Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis and The Safety Fire, but MetalSucks has been mum until now. Why? Because we were waiting on the all-important tour poster featuring our very own logo! Ain’t it purdy? Take that bitch and embed it anywhere you please.

Words of wisdom regarding the tour from Luke Hoskin of Protest the Hero:

Reality check 1 – We get to travel beautiful countries that aren’t even ours
Reality check 2 – We get to travel these countries playing music we wrote and love
Reality check 3 – We get to do all this alongside bands like Periphery and musicians like Jeff Loomis who we are inspired by…
Reality check 4 – We need beers.

and from all of Periphery (teamwork!)”

We’re extremely elated to be going on tour with some great friends! We’re good buddies with three of the other bands on this tour, so it’s sure to be a fun time with some great music and awesome shows! We’re all going to be teaching via Bandhappy on this tour too, so we’re excited to connect with our fans, hang with some great friends, and perform in some of our favorite cities across the US. See ya soon!

So, like… duh, this tour lineup is beyond all ruleage. Take the already excellent combo of Protest the Hero and Periphery, add the first North American tours EVER for both Jeff Loomis and djenty up-and-comers The Safety Fire, and holy crap, what a bill. We don’t know much about Today I Caught the Plague, but if they’re among such esteemed company they’re certainly worth checking out.

Dates after the break:

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Obey the Brave, the new project featuring former Despised Icon vocalist Alex Erian and ex-Blind Witness guitarist Jon Campbell, have released their first music video, for a song called “Live and Learn,” and I find that kinda silly, since we haven’t even been able to stream one single entire song by the band anywhere yet. Maybe OtB figured more people would check out a video online than would stream a tune? I’m not sure I agree with that logic, but fuck do I know?

ANYWAY, the video/song. Look. The song isn’t bad — but it is pretty generic 21st century metallic hardcore, and I’d be lying if I said I like it nearly as much as I like Despised Icon, who were one of those bands that actually gave deathcore a good name. I’m not sure I even would have made it through this whole clip if not for my respect for Erian and the work he did with his former outfit.

But watch the video below and make up your own mind… ’cause, as always, opinions are like assholes, blah blah blah.

Obey the Brave have also announced a bunch of tour dates to take place in and around their native Quebec. If you live in the area and wanna check ‘em out, said dates are after the jump.

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Meshuggah recently revealed during an online chat that they’d be embarking on a North American tour with Baroness and Decapitated starting in May, and it turns out they were lying — the tour actually starts at the end of April. GOSH, MESHUGGAH, GET IT TOGETHER!

I’m kidding, of course. This tour is gonna be awesome. And, much like the just-confirmed Mastodon/Opeth/Ghost tour, I don’t really think there’s much else I need to say about this — the chances that any of you need to be sold on checking these shows out is about as likely as the chance that Cliff Burton is going to be on the next Metallica album.

And so, without any further bullshit, here’s the tour itinerary:

Click to read more…

Ulcerate’s The Destroyers of All was one of the most deliciously heavy and crushingly beautiful releases of all of 2011, landing a spot in four different MS staffers’ Best of 2011 lists plus a whole slew of mentions in the lists published by Ulcerate’s contemporaries in other metal bands. Now we’ll finally have a chance to experience all of Ulcerate’s death metal carnage in person when these New Zealanders descend upon North America for the very first time ever this May for a quick tour sponsored by MetalSucks.

As many foreign metal band are wont to do, Ulcerate have used their Memorial Day Weekend appearance at Maryland Deathfest as an excuse to play a few more shows while they’re here, and we couldn’t be happier. The all-too-brief seven-date tour leading up to MDF features shows in the Eastern U.S. and Canada, with NYC’s own Tombs as support on the first three dates and an as-of-yet unannounced opener on the remaining tour stops.

Dates after the break!

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At this point, is there really anything we need to tell you about the Mastodon/Opeth/Ghost tour other than “It’s happening?” We know you’re gonna go; you know you’re gonna go; you’re going.

Dates are after the jump. You’re welcome.

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Have you had enough summer tour-related excitement for one day yet? No? Well, hot on the heels of this afternoon’s official announcement that Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, As I Lay Dying, Whitechapel and two other bands no MS readers will care about will all be playing the 2012 Rockstar Mayhem Festival, Slipknot just posted some kind of flyer/poster on their Facebook page that includes one more awesome band: High on Fire!

High on Fire are about due for a new album (their last was 2010′s Snakes for the Divine), so the timing for a blockbuster summer tour would make sense. Have those guys really taken it to the next level over the past few years, or what? Great gig for High on Fire — their presence on the fest gives us olds one more reason to attend, and they’ll undoubtedly pick up tons of new fans along the way.

Get the full list of tour dates here. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 6th.

-VN

All Shall Perish have announced their next headlining tour, and my snarky headline aside, the line-up is actually not at all terrible. I’m not a huge fan of The Contortionist or Conducting from the Grave, but I certainly don’t hate those bands, and it was nice of Carnifex to be volunteer to provide an intermission for fans with actual taste. And, really, my desire to support ASP and Fleshgod Apocalypse is such that I can forgive a couple of Between the Babies and Me bands on the bill. (That’s what I call bands who sound kinda like BTBAM but look like they’re eleven years old. In case you were confused.)

So, yeah. Go to this. Really, those two bands alone will make the price of admission totally worth it.

Here are dates, via Lambgoat:

Click to read more…

The rumor was that this year’s edition of Mayhem Fest would feature Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, As I Lay Dying and Whitechapel; yesterday, we got confirmation that Slipknot are indeed headlining the outing, and now all the other bands have been confirmed, too. In fact, the only band on the bill that WASN’T rumored to be in the line-up is Asking Alexandria. I’m assuming the festival’s organizers kept that one top-secret on purpose; I mean, I wouldn’t want people to know I was working with Asking Alexandria, either.

All kidding aside, the only bands here I’d consider a total miss are The Devil Wears Prada and the aforementioned Asking Alexandria, and I’m aware that, yes, while I personally may loathe those bands, they will put butts in seats. The rest of the line-up is great; this is obviously Slipknot’s big U.S. comeback tour, and the combination of them and Slayer alone should pretty much guarantee that every metal fan in the country shows up for this thing.

Dates are after the jump, courtesy of Metal Inejection.

Click to read more…

Kinda-but-not-really black metal band Alcest and yeah-pretty-much black metal band Deafheaven are teaming up for a tour, and I’ve thought about it for five seconds and decided that, yes, you should all go. Alcest are really fantastic live, and while I have yet to see Deafheaven in the flesh, I did really enjoy last year’s Roads to Judah, which ended up on Kellhammer’s Top Fifteen Metal Albums of 2011 list. And Kellhammer has good taste, so, y’know. Listen to the lady.

ANYWAY, the tour itinerary is after the jump. The press release we received promised “more dates asap!!”, so don’t cry just yet if you don’t see a show near you.

And if you haven’t done so already, you should totally read this interview that our own Leyla Ford recent conducted with Alcest’s Neige. It’s rad.

Click to read more…

UPDATE, 4:29 p.m.: MSN/Terrorizer/Decibel scribe Adrien Begrand tells us via Twitter, “I can confirm the Meshuggah tour, I talked to Tomas [Haake, Meshuggah drummer] last night. It’s happening in May.” HOLY SHIT! Major props to Adrien for the info. Follow him on Twitter to thank him, okay?

UPDATE #2, 5:10 p.m.: The PRP now tells us that you can watch the video in which the tour is discussed online right here. The part of the video with the relevant info comes at roughly the 31:40 mark.

Meshuggah just completed a live Q&A video session, and according to reader Dan Wolfson, the band did, indeed, say there was going to do a U.S. tour with Decapitated and Baroness.

We don’t have confirmation of this yet, but if it’s true… holy shit, what an amazing line-up that would be. Unusual, sure — Baroness seem way outta place there, no? — but awesome.

More details as we get ‘em. In the meantime, fingers crossed…

-AR

Those mighty scum sucking space dogs in GWAR recently announced not only that they were doing a massive tribute concert for their fallen guitarist, Cory Smoot, but that they’d soon be embarking on a tour with Municipal Waste and Ghoul. Which is, like, the perfect line-up for a GWAR tour. ‘Cause if you split GWAR’s two personalities — fun fun fun and monstrous vicious violent — in half, you’d probably end up with two bands very much like Municipal Waste and Ghoul. So, A++++ job, whomever thought up this line-up.

ANYWAY, my point being, dates have now been released, so you can begin to make plans to attend. And I know I keep saying it over and over and over again, but seriously, do not forget that you can make donations to The Smoot Family Fund here.

And now the tour itinerary…

Click to read more…

High fives all around, dudes and lady-dudes: the itinerary for The Decibel Magazine Tour, the ridiculously awesome trek that features Behemoth in their first U.S. appearances since Nergal laid leukemia to waste + the unfuckwithable support line-up of Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude, has been announced, and tickets are available now.

These include special premium packages, of which there are only fifteen available on each tour stop; they  come with your ticket to the show, a tour T-shirt, a tour poster and a super-exclusive “Skip the Line” pass to move you to the front when doors open. Pretty frickin’ sweet, right? AND it costs less than you would spend on a ticket and a tour shirt at the show, AND  every ticket purchased through Top Spin, whether for a premium package or not, will come with a commemorative laminate, AND you’ll be entered to win an ESP Guitar. So, yeah, go snatch those tickets right the hell up.

Dates and tickets are here.

-AR

Thanks to Hetal Bhatt for the heads up!

So remember last week, when King Diamond announced that he’d hired some new booking agents, and we were like, “Oh, that must mean he’s gonna tour again soon?” Well, hey, guess what? That’s EXACTLY what it meant!

The King has announced two European festival dates — June 9 at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden, and June 15 at  Hellfest in Clisson, France — but it’s hard for me to imagine that he won’t be announcing more shortly. It’s also hard for me to imagine that those appearances won’t be followed by touring in other parts of the world. I’m just speculating, mind you, but… again, why announce new booking agents and festival appearances if you weren’t gearing up for some major activity?

While we wait for further news, enjoy the below video of His Majesty announcing his appearance at Sweden Rock Fest and discussing his current band line-up. I always find it a little odd to see the guy without his make-up, but I gotta say, he’s looking pretty good for a man who was knocking on death’s door not all that long ago. LONG LIVE THE MOTHERFUCKING KING.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

Uh… whoops.

The full line-up for this year’s Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival isn’t scheduled to be unveiled until tomorrow — but a rep for Ibanez has now confirmed that the rumor that Slipknot will be one of the headliners on the this year’s installment of the tour. I don’t know if it was an accident and the guy didn’t realize he wasn’t supposed to say anything, or if he’s a marketing genius and he realized that letting the cat out of the bag early would get thousands of metal fans across the web to watch a video about the product he’s selling, but whatever I guess.

You can check out in the video below; the confirmation of Slipknot’s participating in the fest comes at about the ten second mark.

A source close to the festival told us over the weekend that several of the other rumored acts, including Slayer and Anthrax, will, indeed, also be on the this year’s bill. I guess we’ll find out for sure when the roster is officially announced tomorrow.

-AR

[via The PRP]