The excellent metal blog No Clean Singing — which I, and you, really ought to pay more attention — posted two songs with the expressed intent of scrambling your brain. When I think “brain scrambling” my mind immediately turns to death metal, and thankfully NCS scribe Islander’s does too.

A double shot of new death metal — with mp3s — after the jump!

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Protest the Hero’s recent release Fortress is, even at this early stage, in the running for my favorite album of 2008 (read my review). So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to chat with vocalist Rody Walker, who, between the time of our chat and now, posted a message on the band’s MySpace announcing they’d be pulling out of their already-underway tour with Silverstein due to being “exhausted and miserable.” Though this interview was conducted on the second day of Protest the Hero’s tour for the Fortress album cycle, it’s evident that the band were already having their share of problems on the road.

Rody told us about the pitfalls of touring during the winter, his feelings on the commercial success of Fortress, the band’s writing process, and his perpetual hard-on for Symphony X. Read the entire chat transcript after the jump.

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