(Photo by Alyssa Lorenzon. View the full set here.)

Hats off to No Clean Singing contributor BadWolf, conductor of this fascinating interview with Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd, Will Lindsay and Sanford Parker during their winter tour with Cradle of Filth. Among the topics: Blake Judd’s ongoing struggle with heroin addiction (at interview time he claimed to be drug-free), various band members’ opinions of Cradle of Filth, being labeled a “sell out” by black metal purists, the trials and tribulations of being on record label Century Media, the metal scene in Chicago and more. Here’s an excerpt:

Blake Judd- Every record with us is a drug record. Addicts is the record I made while I was a heroin addict—which I have kicked.

No Clean Singing- Congrats on kicking the habit.

Blake Judd- Well, I only did it so these guys would come on tour with me, and I’m not kidding. That album is about hard living. I want to live hard. I don’t want to skip a beat ever. If I can have a good time I will have it, if I can have an experience I am going to indulge in it, and if I die tomorrow I never had a dull moment. That’s how I want to live my life, and how I have done so since I was eighteen years old.

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Major, major props to reader Bob Furtado, who not only caught the above cameo by Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd on Family Guy this past Sunday, but was even nice enough to send us a screen cap. I hadn’t actually watched the episode until just now, but the Judd character is referred to only as “Other Guy” (seriously, that’s what one of the characters calls him) and has no lines. I’m assuming Judd didn’t even know that he’d be making an appearance on the show.

The question is: How the hell did he end up on the show at all? Is one of the show’s animators/producers/whatever a fan, or did they just somehow come across the video for Nachtmystium’s “Every Last Drop” — in which Judd portrays a pretty cretinous-looking drug dealer — and think, “Yeah, that’s what an addict should look like!”

In any case, you can check out the episode here. And if you haven’t already seen the video for “Every Last Drop,” enjoy it after the jump.

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Photo by Chris Roo

Back in August, I got a chance to talk with Yakuza front man Bruce Lamont about all things Yakuza, his band’s stellar new album, Of Seismic Consequence (which is a contender for this curmudgeon’s year-end “Best Of” list), his upcoming side projects and collaborations, his other fellow musicians from the Windy City, and Yakuza’s then not-yet-announced tour with Triptykon and 1349 — a tour that is now under way.

Unfortunately, then the Bob Cock penchant for procrastination kicked in. But whilst Yakuza are still in the midst of the aforementioned tour (get dates here), I present you with the always charming Mr. Lamont’s take on…well, just about anything he’s involved in nowadays – including an upcoming solo album.

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There’s been some backlash in our comments sections with regards to Nachtmystium’s live show. And though it pains me to say it because I love this band to death — Assassins was near the top of my “best of” 2008 list and Addicts will no doubt be near the top of my list for 2010 — it’s kind of warranted.

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But he, like, totally had it coming. He was the singer for some band called Beneath the Sky.

I’m kidding. I don’t endorse violence against untalented people. Just front row games of Uno.

ANYWAY, here’s some other shit we happened this week:

• We’re streaming Watain’s Lawless Darkness and the Monolith/Voyager split.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable talked about his new band and Sick of it All’s Lou Koller concluded his “Quintessential Guide to Hardcore.”
• We spoke to Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd and Heaven Shall Burn’s Maik Weichert.
• We checked out Thou’s Summit.
• We met the world’s youngest Nile fan.
• We wondered if Opeth ripped-off Immortal.
• We came up with awards that could be named after metal stars.
• Vince isn’t that into Kylesa, and has some advice for Portal, too.
• Anso thinks that No Prayer for the Dying is the worst Maiden album ever.
• As it turns out, Fred Phelps is still an idiot.

Next week we get to debut that video we were supposed to debut this week, and we have another stream, and some other stuff I’m probably forgetting. ‘Til then, enjoy your weekend!

-AR

Darkthrone. Immortal. Mayhem. These are bands that are part of the black metal lexicon spoken by every fork-tongued and cloven-hoofed miscreant in the scene.

Sonic Youth? Interpol? Wax Trax Records? Not so much.

It’s a crystalline look into the mind of Blake Judd, the figurehead of the behemoth known as Nachtmystium, the black-metal rooted Chicago band that morphs it’s shape with every release. On the heels of their much lauded and much respected fan-favorite 2008 LP, Assassins: Black Meddle Part I, the band is prepping a second LP that is bound to confound the black metal purists and tip the scales in their favor for best-of year lists. Enter Addicts: Black Meddle Part 2, due June 8 via Century Media.

In between crafting his Nachtmystium material, Blake has stayed active with Twilight, a black metal supergroup of sorts that features multiple notables in the heavy music scene: N. Imperial (Kreig), Wrest (a.k.a. “Leviathan,” Lurker of Chalice), Aaron Turner (Isis), Sanford Parker (Minsk), and Stavros Giannopoulos (The Atlas Moth). The hydra-headed (pun!) beast recently released their second LP, Monument To Time End, via Southern Lord.

With Addicts on deck and the ravenous beast Twilight already in the wild, I sat down for a chat with Blake Judd himself to discuss the new Nachtmystium LP, Monument To Time End, his label Battle Kommand, hitting the road (they play NYC on June 12th), and black metal in 2010.

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You probably know Century Media for their work with groundbreaking, legendary artists like Stuck Mojo and My Own Victim, but they are also home to lesser-known bands like Lacuna Coil, Arch Enemy, Nevermore, Warbringer, Terror, and deathcore sensations Winds Of Plague and Suicide Silence. In all seriousness, though, I’ve worked with CM in one form or another since the mid-90s, and have nothing but good things to say about the CM crew. In addition to Despise You frontman/ CM warehouse manager Chris Elder, one of the many great people at CM is A&R guy Steve Joh. With the label’s 20th anniversary coming up soon, I figured it would be a great time to catch up with one of the nicest guys in metal and give the label some much-deserved props. Thanks to Steve for his time and help, and thanks to CM for being cool enough to send me promos when I was a teenager with a fanzine back in the day!

Note: I am a fan of both WoP and Suicide Silence. Knowing that they are lightning rods for the (negative) attention of angry metal dorks, I included their names in the headline for this post in hopes of attracting maximum viewership, and therefore giving the most possible publicity to Steve and the bands. Thank you for participating in this exciting social media marketing initiative.

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When we heard that our friends in Brooklyn doom-crew Batillus were heading into the studio to record a new album,  we were all, “Dudes, do a studio blog for us!!!” And they were all, “Okay!!!” And so here we are! Below, find the inaugural installment, which was written by bassist Willi Stabenau; more entries from the other members of the band will follow in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

Waiting eighteen months for amps is almost worth it, if your amps are two Electric Power Units. After months and months of anxiety and crappy tone from my Coliseums, my two Greens showed up here in Chicago, just in time to start recording. Probably the best-sounding amps I’ve ever heard, and hugely powerful. Not sure I would wait that long again, though. You will love this bass; I guarantee it to be all over your ears like a cheap Men’s Wearhouse suit.

Yesterday, we discovered that [guitarist Greg] Peterson looks suspiciously like Varg Vikernes:

And shortly thereafter, we realized that the dude who’s recording us looks a hell of a lot like one Sanford Parker, knob-twiddler to the metal stars:

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The Nachtmystium/Addicts flame wars have already begun. I know this because some fans – including one reader of this site – have expressed concerns over the band’s new logo in lieu of actually having new music to criticize. I recognize that logos often tell you what kind of band you’re about to hear, but… it’s not like Nachtmystium are a new band. And concern over logo changes make me think we’re all still suffering from the PTSD caused by Load – when Metallica’s long-time logo changed, that’s when the band really started to suck. But I promise you, Nachtmystium are not about to release a Load, or pull a Cryptopsy and put out a deathcore album. So why did they get a new logo? Is it because having a pentagram and inverted crosses probably makes the stocking of their albums and merch in certain venues less likely? Or were they just tired of the old one? I honestly have no idea what the answer is, but it strikes me as a moot point. Addicts is a truly great record, and their logo could be a poop smear for all I care – in fact, their new logo does kinda look like poop smears.

If people got in a tizzy over nothing more than a little over one minute of music and some album art, then I can’t wait to see what they have to say about the actual music, which is now starting to emerge into the world. First, we have some pro-shot German television footage of the band performing the opening track from Addicts, “High on Hate.” It’s actually one of the only kinda-sorta traditionalist black metal songs on Addicts, and isn’t really all that indicative of the sound of the album. Which is not to say that it doesn’t rule, because, clearly, it does.

Meanwhile, Stereogum is giving away a free mp3 of the song “No Funeral,” which, as I noted a few weeks back, is that rarest of commodities: a metal song you can dance to. You’re either gonna hear those keyboards and think “AL-RIGHT!”, or some homophobic slur is going to pop into your brain. Either way, I’d be surprised if anyone had a mild reaction to the song. Download it here.

-AR

After Corey Mitchell’s perfect review of their album Executioner, how could we resist running a tour blog from Mantic Ritual guitarist Jeff Potts? Read his first installment below, and if you’re very well behaved, others will follow…

Right now I’m sitting back stage at the Masquerade in Atlanta with the peculiar kind of sore throat that only comes from prolonged screaming and generally abusing the hell out of the vocal chords.  This doesn’t sound that weird for a guy who’s in a  thrash band on a black metal tour, but it’s actually pretty odd – because I’m the guitarist.

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Seriously, does anybody have worse luck than this poor dude? First Nachtmystium weren’t able to complete last year’s tour with Opeth, then they’re kicked off of the free Scion fest for some bullshit about Nazis (which, for the umpteenth time, is NOT TRUE), and now the band has to drop off their upcoming, MetalSucks-sponsored tour with The Haunted because Judd has broken his leg. Says the band:

“Sorry to anyone hoping to see us in April! After this whole bullshit fiasco with the Scion Rock Fest a few weeks back, and now this, it’s been one thing after the other around here. Fear not, we will be back soon enough.”

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“A Seed for Suffering,” the first proper song on Nachtmystium’s last album, Instinct:Decay, felt like a thrown gauntlet. After almost four minutes of pretty good black metal, the following three are a wall of psychedelic guitars all looping around a riff that wouldn‘t sound out of place on an early Burzum record. In a world as narrow as that of black metal, it was akin to handing out British flags in the dingiest pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This, of course, lead to two years of anticipation for their next record, to be put out on Century Media with an actual budget. After months of reading overwhelmingly positive press for the album, it only left one to wonder whether or not the band would collapse under the weight of their own hype or continue to establish a solid link between psychedelia and black metal.

Gods be praised, it’s the latter.

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