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Last week, rumors started swirling that there was gonna be a North American tour with Mastodon, Opeth, and Ghost, and, oh hey, wouldn’t cha know it, on Thursday, Mastodon’s Troy “Everyone in This Band’s Name Starts with the Letter ‘B’ Except for Me” Sanders confirmed it during an interview with a Belgian radio station, telling them –
Talk about a first world problems: there are too many awesome tours coming down the line in the next few months! Too many great bands to see! Too many excuses to leave the house even though I’m high and it’s freezing out side! THERE’S TOO MUCH FUN TO BE HAD! AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
The latest “Holy crap I have to go to that show” news comes in the form of a mini-tour from East of the Wall and Black Tusk, two great bands who put on killer live shows. On top of that, some of these shows are going to also feature Intronaut, and some of them will also feature Hull and Royal Thunder. I don’t know Royal Thunder, but if they’re on this bill, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Here are dates, courtesy of The PRP:
Oh. Fuck. YES.
MetalSucks and Dead End Threads are proud to present what has to be not one, but really two of the sickest, most brutal tours of the new year. From February 26 to March 3, death metal legends Dying Fetus are hitting the road with death metal legends-in-the-making Job for a Cowboy and Volumes, plus Last Chance to Reason, one of the most exciting up and coming young prog acts on the scene today. That’s a line-up so solid you’d need a jackhammer to break it. And while you might be bummed to learn that Job for a Cowboy leave the tour after that, not one but two bands will be hopping on to make up for their absence: tech-death spacelords The Faceless and one of the most evil bands ever spawned, the mighty fucking Goatwhore.
So, like we were saying:
Oh. Fuck. YES.
These shows are gonna be beyond insane. Like, a make-sure-all-your-affairs-are-in-order level of nuts. You absolutely cannot miss these bands when they come to your town. So get dates after the jump!!!
The first Cory Smoot memorial show, benefitting The Smoot Family Fund, was, by all accounts, a huge success (see footage from the concert here). So it’s no surprise that the band has announced a second memorial show, which will probably be an even bigger success, given that not only are GWAR themselves headlining, but they’re bringing Municipal Waste, Ghoul, and Suppression along with ‘em.
Here’s the announcement from GWAR’s Facebook page, which also announces that the band will be hitting the road soon with Municipal Waste and Ghoul… in other words, there’s gonna be another awesome tour for you to look forward to in the coming months:
“On Thursday, March 15th, 2012, the National Theater in Richmond, Va., will host the biggest Cory Smoot Memorial Show yet…join GWAR, Municipal Waste, Ghoul, and Suppression in an evening of bone-crushing delight…there will be raffles and prizes and excessive drinking and plenty of group hugs as we send off our Scumdog brother in the most grandiose fashion yet!!! ALL proceeds go to the Smoot Family Fund.The next day GWAR, Municipal Waste, and Ghoul shall depart on the second half of their U.S. ‘Return of the World Maggot’ tour. There will be a big press release next week with all the dates and details, so hang in there faithful bohabs, our Masters are returning to us!”
More details as we get ‘em. In the meantime, don’t forget that you can make donations to The Smoot Family Fund here.
-AR
[via Metal Insider]
Thanks to various teases both in print and right here on this very website, we’ve known for sometime that our friends at Decibel were working on their very own tour; and given how awesome Decibel is, we expected that tour to be something pretty special. But now the line-up has been announced, and… WOW. We didn’t realize it would be this special.
The twenty-six date trek is going to be headlined by Behemoth, making their triumphant return to U.S. stages for the first time since Nergal was diagnosed with, and ultimately defeated, leukemia. And while that fact alone should definitely be enough to get you asking “Where do I buy my ticket?”, just to make extra-extra sure that this tour is unfuckwithable, support is going to come from Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude.
And now I believe the words you’re looking for are, “HOLY SHIT!”
Speaking about the tour, Nergal himself said, “I’m thrilled… seriously, I am thrilled about the fact we are arriving to US shores again after such a long break. It’s a big deal for us.” Watain’s Erik Danielsson added the following:
It’s no secret that I was way into Despised Icon before they broke up at the end of 2010. So I was excited to get an e-mail this morning from that band’s now-former frontman (or I guess I should say “one of their frontmen”), Alex Erian, announcing the formation of Obey the Brave, a new project which also features ex-Blind Witness guitarist Jon Campbell (no not that dude, they spell their first names differently).
Alas, we don’t actually know much about the band right now, as thus far they have only released the below video, in which they a) sit around a table and eat breakfast, b) introduce themselves to the camera and say nothing especially exciting in English for awhile, c) introduce themselves to the camera and say nothing especially exciting in French for awhile, and then d) around the 1:20 mark, finally let us hear a sample of their first single, “Live and Learn.” That being said, “Live and Learn” sounds like metallic hardcore done right — there’s a nice epic section towards the end of the sample that I really like — so fingers crossed, the band may turn out to be cool. Hopefully we’ll get to hear the full song soon enough.
While we wait for more music from the band, they’ve announced their first string of shows. Dates are after the jump; if anyone goes to see them, please drop us a line and let us know how they were.
I am neither the resident Andrew W.K. superfan nor the resident Andrew W.K. conspiracy expert in the MetalSucks Mansion (although I did attend this stupid Q&A that one time), but like everyone else in the world, I do own I Get Wet, and it is a really, really fun album.
So, not at all bad news: Wet is turning ten (Already?!?), and Mr. W.K. is celebrating with his first headlining tour in seven years, on which he will play the seminal party-metal release in its entirety. Which sounds like it could be a blast, no? I mean, it’s not the tour coming up that I’m most excited about, but I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to go, either. They might as well call it the “Get Shitfaced and Pretend It’s Still 2002″ tour.
Here are dates:
OH MY GOD I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW. Godsuck, Suckd, and Halesuck are all going on tour together this spring — and no, that’s not the part I’m happy about. Holy shit, that tour is one more awful band away from signaling the coming Apocalypse. No no no, the reason I’m happy is ’cause the bands are asking for fans to suggest the name of the trek. You can do so by leaving a comment under this post on Godsuck’s Facebook page or this post on Suckd’s FB page; the interns for each band’s managers will then pick the top five choices from each post on Thursday, and people can vote on the name of the tour.
And this is A++++++++ WDBWA AGAIN news for two reasons:
The Black Dahlia Murder are one of those bands I will always go see live, under pretty much any circumstances, just because they’re so much fun. And now they’ve announced a U.S. headlining tour with pretty much the best support acts imaginable: death metal legends Nile and rising blackened deathrashers Skeletonwitch, plus Hour of Penance, an above-average deathcore act that I don’t love but HOLY SHIT BDM + NILE + SKELETONWITCH = I AM SO FUCKING THERE. This tour is gonna rule.
Here are dates for ya:
Last week Vince posted the above totally epic picture of Trivium playing foosball against Ghost, and while we all had a good chuckle at the time, what we didn’t realize was that the stakes of the game were actually incredibly high. See, the winners got to go open for Mastodon and Opeth, while the losers had to open for.. Asking Alexandria. Brutal, right?
A source tells us that Trivium were incredibly confident in their foosball skills, but, alas, it may have been hubris: they lost, and do, indeed, now need to go be on a tour where they are not only going to be playing support for Asking Alexandria, but will find Dir En Grey, I See Stars, The Amity Afflication, and “Shitstain on the Ass of the Universe” alums Motionless in White as their tourmates. You know things are bad when the band you’re most stoked to be on tour with are Dir En Grey, for the simple reason that at least they don’t speak English, and will therefore most likely not bother you.
I’m not going to post dates for this wretched hellspawn of a trek, but you can get ‘em here if you really need to. Meanwhile, that awesome sounding Mastodon/Opeth/Ghost tour is still technically just a rumor, but we’ll post more details as we get ‘em.
-AR
Here’s some not-at-all shitty news: Unsane are releasing a new album, Wreck, on March 20 via Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label (album art above, duh). And right about now, you can probably feel the blood rushing to your sexual organs, but get ready for a full-on orgasm: the band is doing a tour with the Melvins, and will release a split 7″ with ‘em, too, on which Unsane will cover a to-be-announced Melvins song, and the Melvins will cover a to-be-announced Unsane song.
The split is only going to be available on the tour, so if for some reason you needed even more incentive to go check this shit out, well, there ya have it.
Tour dates are after the jump; hopefully Unsane will debute some new music to Wreck our ear drums real soon.
If you live near Baltimore and you just can’t wait for Maryland Death Fest, great news: there’s ANOTHER ridiculously cool fest coming to destroy your town next week! Its’s the A389 Recordings VIII Anniversary Bash, and as you can see from the above poster, the line-up is disgusting: Eyehategod and Integrity are co-headlining, while other bands on bill include Gehenna, Pulling Teeth, Magrudergrind, Weekend Nachos, and a ton of other excellent artists.
It’s a very rare occurrence that I wish I lived in Baltimore. This is one of those times.
Tickets are currently on sale here, and if for some reason you don’t know these bands or you’re not sold on the line-up, you can listen to a sweet, sweet A389 Recordings VIII Anniversary Bash playlist at Stereokiller. Heck, you might just wanna listen to it even if you can’t make it to the show, ’cause it’s an awesome playlist.
Finally, you can also go here to get more info on A389 Recordings.
-AR
The name “Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire” gives me the willies. Have you ever really closed your eyes and envisioned such an act? It’s just… so… fucked up. And it becomes infinitely creepier when you consider the question, “Why would anyone do such a thing?” Are they delusional? Ignorant? Or simply mad?
And the band’s music is more than fitting for such a memorable moniker. I was trying to think of a silly journalistic phrase to sum them up quickly and simply, and the best I could do is “grindcore brutes.”
So. Grindcore brutes Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire are doing a U.S. tour in March. In case the first two paragraphs of this post didn’t make it clear, I think you should go see them.
Here are dates:
So last night Van Halen played at Cafe Wha?, this incredibly small club (capacity is 250 people) here in NYC; alas, MetalSucks did not score an invitation, but, hey, that’s what cell phones are for. You can check out some footage from the show in the above video.
More exciting for the approximately eight trillion people who wanted to attend the show but couldn’t get in is that the band has now announced dates for their upcoming tour in support of their new David Lee Roth-reunion album, A Different Kind of Truth. Vince and I saw the band play Madison Square Garden in 2007, and to our surprise and delight, the show was AWESOME, so, yeah, I’m excited to go see them again, even if I have my reservations about them trying to follow-up 1984 twenty-eight years later. But Truth‘s first single, “Tattoo,” drops Tuesday, so we should have a better sense of twenty-first century Van Halen sounds then.
A Different Kind of Truth will come out February 7 via Interscope; dates for the band’s upcoming tour are after the jump.
In case my oh-so-witty headline didn’t give it away, Corrosion of Conformity are hitting the road for a U.S. headlining trek. I haven’t seen the reunited CoC, but I’ve heard some people say they’re great and some people say they’re not so great… I guess this will be my chance to finally find out.
Support on most dates is coming from Torche, Valient Thorr, and A Storm of Light, so that’s a pretty nifty line-up — regular MS readers will already be aware that we’ve very sweet on Valient Thorr. But the first show of the run, on January 22 in Asheville, NC, will have support from Hail!Hornet — okay whatevs — and a screening of Slow Southern Steel, the documentary about southern metal that CT from Rwake made. That could be pretty sweet, too.
Here are all the dates:
Although their respective sounds are quite different, Goatwhore and Hate Eternal have three important things in common: they’re both on Metal Blade, they’re both produced by HE’s Erik Rutan, and they’re both so endlessly awesome that they put most other bands to shame. If aliens landed tomorrow and said “What is metal?”, you could do a lot worse than to point to these two bands as examples.
So the news that they’re touring together should make you very happy if you live near one of the announced dates, or very depressed, if, like Vince and myself, you do not. I have little doubt that these shows will be spectacular.
Support is coming from Fallujah and Cerebral Bore, who I think are both intriguing young bands with potentially bright futures ahead of them, if not necessarily instant home-run acts. Still, Goatwhore + Hate Eternal should = your attention.
Here are dates, via The PRP:
I somehow STILL have never seen Weekend Nachos live. But their albums, which are just like this big lumps of vile and fuck you, are so goddamn great I hope to remedy that soon.
Like, very soon — ’cause the band just announced a string of Eastern U.S. tour dates, which will kick off in just a couple of weeks. I have no idea what other bands will be playing these gigs, but Weekend Nachos alone should more than enough to lure you to a show.
Here are dates, courtesy of Lambgoat:
I got freaked out for a second when Van Halen no-showed for their rumored appearance at the Grammy noms party in late November. I was spooked by Hagar’s rumor-mongering and by the fact that these things can fall through. But I’m groovy now cuz over the holidays VH announced a 2012 tour (!) and a February 7 release date for their twelfth album (!!). Awesome!
Its title hasn’t been announced yet, but the good news is that the lead single comes out January 10, a tasty billboard went up in Times Square, and good vibes surround this promo clip of VH talking about the old days and this clip (scroll down a little) of Roth looking all fabulous while dancing or subdued and bearded with dog. And they’ve been rehearsing in secret over two months. That’s enough for me to trust this whole thing and thusly I am pumped for this tour! Think about it: These are the first shows since the invention of Fruit Roll-Ups where VH will play new material with David Lee Roth. Shit man!!
And while we’re talking setlist, I vote that VH specialify these shows even further by swapping out a few standards for some seldom-heard mega-jamz. I don’t endorse a vibe-killing focus on obscurities or a promoter-enraging set of only new stuff. Nothing radical. Just a few swaps of worn hits for some shit we’ve not heard in a while — like since said old days; I can think of a few deeper jamz that would be super-fun for everybody:
And so we come to the last of our four consecutive posts about fantastic early-2012 tours that have been announced in the past few days. Are you guys a little sad? I’m a little sad.
ANYWAY, Scale the Summit! Another band that is just great live. And this is gonna be their first headlining tour, which means they’ll probably play for longer than the thirty-or-so minutes we’ve always seen them do thus far. Which is in no way bad news. And support will come from Elitist, if that does anything for you. But missing StS would be a real crime, so, y’know. Don’t do that.
Here are the dates:
Have you guys all seen Junius live yet? Holy shit, they are SO GOOD. I’m not nearly as enamored of their recordings as a lot of other people seem to be, but I’ll happily go see them live anytime. Their energy is just so righteous.
And now they’ve announced a co-headlining tour with O’Brother, who are really not a metal band, but whatever. JUNIUS LIVE! This is gonna be fun.
Here’s the tour itinerary, which I stole from Lambgoat:
