Over the weekend, we got an e-mail from Ron Blackwell — the vocalist for Danny Lilker’s black metal project, Nokturnal Hellstorm — informing us that he had recently proposed to his girlfriend onstage during an Exhumed show. I didn’t get to watch the video of the most romantic thing in the history of love until this morning because I was, y’know, kinda busy, but now that I’ve actually seen it, all I can is, holy shit, this is twice as beautiful as I imagined it would be.

I just cried a little. Anyone else just cry a little? I mean, that was fucking beautiful.

If you need a little romance in your life, don’t forget that Exhumed’s North American headlining tour with Goatwhore and Havok — which, hey!, we happen to be presenting — is ongoing through November 20. Get dates and links to purchase tickets right here.

-AR

The first thing the album art for Brutal Truth’s End Time reminded me of was the poster for the Steven Spielberg version of War of the Worlds. But then I remembered that Danny Lilker is ten-thousands times more handsome than Tom Cruise, and Rich Hoak makes Dakota Fanning look about as cute as a camel’s anus, and all was right with the world.

End Time comes out September 27 on Relapse. The title track is already streaming, and strongly suggests that BT have no intention of letting us down with this outing. That means you need to at least make it through the summer without drinking yourself to death!

-AR

Our friends at The Deciblog are killing it today. I could do two separate posts pointing you towards each of the terrific stories they ran just this morning, but I’m a jerk, so I’m just gonna lump ‘em both together:

• Did you know that legendary pretty boy Danny Lilker has a black metal band now? Because he felt that being a current or former member of Brutal Truth, Nuclear Assault, Anthrax, and S.O.D. wasn’t enough to cement his place in the annals of metal history, I guess. Either that, or he just wanted to try something new. In any case, the band is called Nokturnal Hellstorm, and The Deciblog is streaming a new track from the band, “Naan Kadavul,” here. It doesn’t do that much for me but maybe you’ll like it better. They also have an interview with Lilker in which he explains the history of Nokturnal Hellstorm, possibilities for the band’s debut full-length, and, oh yeah, the new Brutal Truth album. Check that shit out.
• The Deciblog also posted footage of a record store in Berkley, Rasputin Music, enjoying a lively in-store performance from Trash Talk (below). And, uh… wow. That ain’t like no in-store performance I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t look like an inventory was actually damaged in the mayhem, but I do have to wonder how many potential customers were scared away as a result of walking in and seeing dudes moshing/figuring out ways to stage dive despite the lack of a stage. I just can’t imagine, for example, Mama Rosenberg putting up with that shit when all she wanted was a copy of the new George Winston album or whatever, y’know?

-AR

Good news: despite a decade-plus gap between full-lengths, Evolution Through Revolution-era Brutal Truth is just as wooly and weird as the band’s pre-millennial lineups. Reckless grind and punk tempos still hurtle fearlessly and skid into death metal dirges. Kevin Sharp howls the kind of anti-everything sociopolitical invective you’d expect to hear from that crazy old war vet that accosts people outside the gas station, except he’s probably right about it all. Even setting aside the album’s wildman sax solos and noise samples, chaos reigns on Evolution Through Revolution. New guitarist Erik Burke’s abrasive diminished chords grind against themselves in earbleeding dissonance; “Itch” could be Immolation gone grind, its cycling guitars vomiting disharmonic sparks.

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