Tour blogs are generally boring affairs, but this new video tour blog from Death Angel is a must-watch. In case you didn’t know: not only is Gene Hoglan filling in for Charlie Benante on the current Anthrax/Testament/Death Angel tour, but right before Benante was forced to leave the tour, Scott Ian was hospitalized due to a severe viral infection, and members of the other bands stepped in to temporarily replace him.

Which brings us to the excellence of this video: it’s a first hand account of the behind-the-scenes scramble to make sure that Anthrax didn’t hafta cancel any shows, courtesy of Death Angel guitarists Rob Cavestany and Ted Aguilar. And not only does the video feature those dudes recounting the tale for you, but there’s some fun footage of them rehearsing with Gene Hoglan and ‘Thrax, and performing with the latter (including clip sof Cavestany getting REALLY into playing the Worship Music tracks “In The End” and “The Devil You Know”). So it’s basically the closest you’ll ever get to actually being there for an event like this.

Enjoy:

You can get remaining dates for the in-progress Anthrax/Testament/Death Angel tour right here (bottom of the post).

-AR

Thanks to Ryan Badami for the tip!

Charlie Benante’s mother is terminally ill. Although I know I’ve busted Anthrax’s collective chops over the years, this is obviously terrible news. We are deeply sympathetic, and our hearts go out to the guy. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that there really isn’t anything anyone can say to make you feel better in a situation like this one. But, hopefully, the old cliché is true — time heals all wounds.

Understandably, Benante has opted to leave Anthrax’s currently-in-progress tour with Testament and Death Angel to go be with his mother — but the silver lining, if there is one, is that current Testament drummer/all-around legend Gene Hoglan will be filling in for Benante on the remainder of the tour.

Here’s a statement from Hoglan:

Click to read more…

Anthrax, Testament, and Death Angel is a great bill for a tour, and according to my man Anso DF, the resulting concert was not a disappointment. (Alyssa Lorenzon captured some killer photos from the tour, too; we’ll post those at some point very soon.) And I guess Anso’s not the only one who felt that way, ’cause now the trio has announced a second leg to the tour, which will kick off in late January.

Only twelve dates have been announced thus far, but more are guaranteed to follow. Here’s the itinerary as of now:

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Photos by Brian Schroeter

The guys of Anthrax soon go to south and southeast Asia for a week of shows with Hellyeah [Update: These dates have been postponed -- ADF], but their current US run with Testament finished last week. Since the return of glory-era singer Joey Belladonna, the Anthrax world is a fishbowl to which I have pressed my face. So two Saturdays ago, it was time for me to tap on the glass and take notes. The questions: How does Belladonna sing and look? What’s the band body language? Do drummer Charlie Benante’s fills sound off? Has Scott Ian grown a better or worse beard? Can fans exhale a bit here with the firm knowledge that things are groovy for good in the land of Anthrax?

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Thrash fans that are a) unwilling to shell out $200 for tickets to the Big 4 at Yankee Stadium, b) have a hankering to see Anthrax live anyway, and c) feel Testament were rudely snubbed from the Big 5, you’re in luck: Anthrax and Testament are co-headlining a U.S. tour starting in October!

To many this will surely qualify as way more interesting than the Big 4 show itself… and you know what? I really can’t disagree. Despite wishing John Bush or Dan Nelson had been the vocalist for Worship Music instead of Joey Bellardini, the album is darn good and has some really excellent songs that I’d love to hear live. Testament are great live and haven’t toured in a while, so I’d be excited to see them as well. And with Death Angel confirmed as the opening act, this tour is kind of like the who’s who of the tail-end of the original thrash movement.

Tickets are already on-sale here for Anthrax fan club members and will be available to the general public this Friday. Dates after the jump!

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Hey, so remember when just last week Chuck Billy said there was gonna be a tour this fall with Anthrax, Testament, Overkill, and Death Angel?

Well, yeah, turns out Overkill ain’t doing that tour.

From Metal Insider:

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The usual problems a band must endure from its drummer include tardiness, unfamiliarity with new material, no memory of old material, bringing their gf/driver everywhere, selling gear for food, non-ownership of drumsticks, car trouble, body odor, shortness, loss of one or more shoes, delirium, etc. But some drummer-issues can’t be predicted; for example, completion of the new Testament record has been delayed by drummer Paul Bostaph’s undisclosed injury. Singer Chuck Billy kinda explained Sunday in a radio interview:

Paul Bostaph is injured right now, so he couldn’t [work on] the record. We kind of put the record off a little while waiting for Paul. [Then] we found out he was not gonna be ready, so we brought on Gene Hoglan. Hoglan came in and crushed, killed the drums in about a week.

Awesome! Billy goes on to reveal the new album’s title, its other guest drummer, and the face-fuckingly awesome tour to be announced:

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So 70,000 Tons of Metal, the most metal cruise EV-AR, has now ended — but that doesn’t mean the fun is over. We’re gonna have a couple more Tons of Fun for you during the week, starting with the below video, taken during the cruise, of Testament’s Alex Skolnick, Exodus’ Tom Hunting, and Death Angel’s Rob Cavestany doing a karaoke version of The Eagles’ “Lying Eyes” onboard the ship.

Yep. We’re being totally serious.

We first saw this amazing video over at Metal Insider; they also have clips of karaoke performances from members of Fear Factory, Sodom, Ensiferum, Tyr, and Swashbuckle. So head on over to Metal Insider if you wanna see some of your heroes embarrassing themselves in the name of fun.

Also, our bro-bros at Metal Injection were actually on the cruise, giving constant live updates. Go here if you wanna read all about their adventures, or if you just wanna look at pictures of MI’s resident female, Noa Avior, in a bikini.

-AR

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Presumably inspired by this week’s announcement of a Big 4 show in the U.S., this week’s question was posed by MetalSucks contributor/author of the Reign in Blood entry into the 33 1/3 book series, D.X. Ferris. Mr. Ferris was even good enough to join us for this edition of QOTW! And his query was:

IF THE BIG FOUR WERE THE BIG EIGHT, WHICH BANDS WOULD BE THE NEXT FOUR IN THE GROUP?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Photo by Robert Escue.

Lazarus A.D. bassist/vocalist Jeff Paulick is the latest to join the ranks of musicians we’ve interviewed more than once (see Axl’s March 2009 interview with him here). Perhaps it’s because he agrees with our assessment that his band has been unfairly lumped in with the re-thrash movement; “I never wore a jean jacket in my life and I’ve never bought a patch in my life. Last time I wore hightops, I was in kindergarten or I was playing basketball. We’re not part of that crew and a lot of bands are from California and whatnot. We’re from Wisconsin. It just doesn’t exist here.” He also has nothing but great things to say about Revocation and Sylosis, a good barometer for how he approaches his own thrash-influenced — but not thrash rip-off — music. More than anything else during the course of my interview with Jeff a couple of weeks back, he stressed how he feels it’s important for bands to grow musically from release to release rather than simply writing the same record over and over.

Lazarus A.D.’s new album Black Rivers Flow is certainly a change for the band, which you can find out for yourself before its February 1st release by streaming the entire thing on Metal Underground this week. During my interview with Jeff we spoke at length about the new record, the reality of dudes in metal bands having day jobs when they’re not on tour,

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I am in a seriously cranky fucking mood this morning, but I’m sure a new Ozzy video should cheer me right the fuck up. ‘Cause that shit always hit the spot, right?

Oh, wait. I must have been thinking of someone else, ’cause this video chugs monkey cum and asks for more. Actually, I guess it’s totally fitting for the song its attempting to sell: generic, boring, and sure to appeal only to the medically brain dead.

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Word of who was gonna be on the bill for this year’s Scion Rock Fest, the totally free annual metal super-show, got out yesterday — hell, Wormrot even decided to just go ahead and confirm their presence at the festival. So in that regard, the official announcement of this year’s fest is a little anti-climactic.

Until you realize, holy shit — there really is gonna be a free festival with Morbid Angel, Obituary, Death Angel, Municipal Waste, Agalloch, Wormrot, Kvelertak, Atheist, Black Breath, Nails, Fuck the Facts, and tons more awesome bands. That is a fact about which one ought never to complain.

You can RSVP for the event here starting tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the finalized poster:

-AR

Do I really hafta write a stupid little intro every time we do one of these things? You guys know what you’re in for at this point.

First up we have “Truce,” the new clip from Death Angel. It’s a fairly generic metal video, with corpses, gore, a political message, and performance footage. But it’s friggin’ Death Angel, so it gets respect points right off the bat. I’d ponder the chances of Headbanger’s Blah ever airing such a yucky video, but given that Headbanger’s Belch now airs so late my DVR doesn’t even recognize it as a legitimate program, it obviously doesn’t matter. The right people will see this clip if they wanna see this clip.

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Reader Jaime Abellar, who is presumably either from the Philippines or has spent a lot of time there, sent us a pretty lengthy list of bands from that part of the world that he thinks are worth checking out. I haven’t actually listened to any of these groups yet, but since I don’t know any Filipino metal bands (unless you count Death Angel, but I don’t for what should be obvious reasons), I thought I’d take some time now to go through these recommendations one by one and see if any of them are any good.

The bands and my reactions to said bands after the jump.

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In the early moments of our conversation, I confirmed with busy Atheist frontman Kelly Shaefer that we would limit our interview time to the industry-standard 15 minutes. Shaefer responded amiably, “As much time as you need, man.” To this, I replied jokingly, “Gosh, how much time have you got?” And though we shared a chuckle at this, neither of us could’ve expected our little phone chat to stretch to 2.5 hours over two days. (Of course, it eventually became clear that nothing less should’ve been expected from two lefty pothead metal guitarists who drink a shitload of Mountain Dew and love talking metal.)

Last week, part one found Shaefer and I delving into big, brainy, conceptual stuff, like his approaches to songwriting and singing, the birth of his genre, and the right-on-time return to awesomeness by his classic band (the new record is called Jupiter, but duh you know that).

Today, MetalSucks unsheathes partie deux, in which the tirelessly gracious, funny, and plainspoken Shaeffer (above, right) indulges my questions about more tangible Atheist business, like record label politics, the importance of good packaging, former Atheist guitarist Rand Burkey, current Atheist guitarist Kelly Shaefer (he and his “guitar still are very best friends”), the squashing of inter-band beefs, America’s shameful marijuana policies (I started it, sorry), and so very, very much more. (Spoiler: We do eventually stop talking on the phone.)

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‘Cause two excellent free samplers have been released within the last 24 hours:

• Good Fight have released a free sampler featuring songs from Cancer Bats, Son of Aurelius, The Contortionist, This or the Apocalypse, and more. None of the music is new, but if you’re not familiar with these bands, well, here’s your chance to become familiar with them, all for the the low low price of free. Get it here.
• Adult Swim and Scion A/V have also released a free sampler, and this one includes a new Withered song, “Extinguished with the Weary,” plus “rare or unreleased” tracks from Jesu, Skeletonwitch, Death Angel, Kylesa, Torche, Ludicra, and more. I haven’t had a chance to listen to any of it yet, but, again, it’s new or rare music from a bunch of awesome bands and it will cost only the energy it takes for you to click the “download” button, so go get it here.

-AR

These new Death Angel
Songs sure do sound a lot like
Old Death Angel songs.

-AR

Death Angel’s Relentless Retribution is out now on Nuclear Blast.

It’s a Soilwork kinda week at the Mansion. The Panic Broadcast finally came out in North America (read my thoughts about it), Anso DF published his riveting interview with one of metal’s biggest Peters, guitarist/producer Peter Wichers, and the MetalSucks co-sponsored Panic Over North America Tour — with Soilwork (duh), Death Angel, Augury, Mutiny Within and Swashbuckle — finally got underway. Get dates here.

We’ll be seeing our favorite Soilworkers tonight at New York’s Gramercy Theater. They always put on an awesome show, but the rest of the lineup is really solid too and should make for a fun evening if we don’t drink too much beforehand at DJ Brambo’s Heavy Metal Happy Hour at the Arrow Bar on Ave. A. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen NJ’s finest Mutiny Within live — May of 2010 at Brooklyn’s tiny Trash Bar, to be exact, shortly after they’d signed to Roadrunner but long before their album had come out — so it’ll be cool to see them on a big stage, all grown up and stuff. Here’s a performance clips video of “Lethean” they recently put together.

-VN

The Panic Broadcast, Soilwork’s new album marking the return of guitarist/producer Peter Wichers, dropped on July 2nd in Europe… meaning by now most of you have likely heard the whole thing regardless of the “North American release date” of July 13th. But whether you have or haven’t heard it, I figured I’d share my thoughts with ya’ll since that’s why you visit MetalSucks, isn’t it?

Soilwork embark on the MetalSucks-sponsored Panic Over North America tour with Death Angel, Augury, Mutiny Within and Swashbuckle starting on July 14th. Get dates here then get stoked, ’cause we sure are.

My thoughts on The Panic Broadcast after the jump.
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Y’know what’s fucking metal? Using the carcass of your prey as a means of camouflage yourself in order to hunt and kill MORE of that prey. Now THAT is fucking-A metal.

Nuclear Blast will release Death Angel’s Relentless Retribution on September 3 in Europe and September 14 in North America. And don’t forget that Death Angel are on the the MetalSucks co-sponsored Panic Over North America Tour 2010 with Soilwork, Augury, Mutiny Within and Swashbuckle. Get dates here.

-AR