It’s the end of an era for Victory Records; the only two credible metal acts they had on their roster have finished their contracts and are free to sign elsewhere. Darkest Hour ended up on E1, a good fit for a label who has signed a number of already-established metal acts over the past few years (High on Fire, Hatebreed, Black Label Society, Overkill and In Flames, just to name a few). Where will Between the Buried and Me end up? It’s gettin’ to be about that time for them to release an album, whatwith those EP rumors and all.

If I were a betting man I’d put a few fat ones down on the table on BTBAM ending up with Metal Blade. The reason why has nothing to do with the actual music but with the folks behind the scenes. In fact, there’s a good chance the deal is already done, the t’s crossed, the i’s dotted, the ink dried.

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Well, that didn’t take long; just one day after Kingdom of Sorrow took over MetalSucks, Crowbar debuted two new songs at a show in New Orleans and Axl posited that Crowbar must be working on a new record. After all, it’s been five years already. And as we learned yesterday via press release, he was correct.

“Sludge Metal legends CROWBAR have signed a worldwide deal with E1 Music,” says the press release. “The band will be releasing a new full-length album later this fall. ‘CROWBAR is very excited to have landed this deal with E1 Music! We have always been very proud of what we do and the new record will not disappoint and of our die hard fans.’ says front man and guitar player Kirk Windstein.”

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Well, not quite… but the announcement that the label has signed “videogame metallers” Powerglove does come as something of a surprise.

E1 has built up a business model over the past 3 years predicated on signing established metal acts that already have a fanbase of a certain size or greater — see: In Flames, Overkill, Hatebreed, Darkest Hour, High on Fire, Satyricon, Kittie — and while the label has taken a couple of stabs at developing new metal acts, they’ve largely missed (see: Arkaea and Dirge Within). The notable exceptions are Straight Line Stitch — who, though we may hate to admit it, have built something of a following for themselves in states that voted for Bush in ’00 and ’04 — and Zoroaster, who have yet to release an album on the label.

But I like when labels take chances, and signing a band like Powerglove should definitely be considered a chance for a label that specializes on signing sure things.

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Six albums and ten years after signing with Victory Records, Darkest Hour found themselves free agents after their most recent release, 2009′s The Eternal Return. Last month’s announcement that Darkest Hour had signed with E1 (formerly Koch) came as a surprise to many who thought they’d end up on a more established metal label but makes perfect sense given E1′s recent track record of signing already established metal acts.

Shortly after the band announced their new label, I caught up with Darkest Hour guitarist, occasional MS columnist, fellow member of The Tribe and MS interview alum Mike Schleibaum to chat about the band’s career, their recent label move, and what to expect on the next record (it’s already being written). Darkest Hour were doing a short string of headline dates on their way back from their U.S. tour with Dillinger Escape Plan, Animals as Leaders and Iwrestledabearonce, and though a slight snafu prevented us from talking the day we’d originally planned on, we hooked up the next afternoon. Our chat after the cut.

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In a recent editorial on Invisible Oranges, Cosmo Lee (and yes, it was actually Cosmo who wrote this one… I triple-checked!) used the recent success of High on Fire as a case study to discuss why metal fans hate it when their favorite bands become successful. Cosmo posits three theories and they’re all on point (as usual), but I’ll let you check out Invisible Oranges for that because that’s not really what I’d like to discuss today. I’d like to explore when the fuck High on Fire suddenly became such a big deal.

I’ve never been a huge High on Fire fan, but I haven’t got anything against the band. To me they’ve always been a sweet bonus, that band that’s opening on tour with a bigger, cooler band — “Ah, nice, High on Fire’s on that tour… cool, we get to see Matt Pike rock the fuck out with his shirt off!” — but they didn’t really warrant much attention individually. No doubt, the band has a rich history (hi Sleep) and had a core of die-hard fans, but by and large they lived in the underground. They were always that band that were either a) supporting a bigger band, or b) playing in small, cramped sweaty bars.

There’s a ton of hype around their new album Snakes for the Divine which had a HUGE first week with almost 9k copies sold but, by and large, isn’t all that different from their past work. All of a sudden they’re on the cover of Decibel right out of the gate, with a snake-adorned Matt Pike wearing more makeup than a 50 year-old stripper. And they’re on their own headlining tour of decent-sized legit venues, selling them out across the country. Make no mistake about it; like Cosmo points out, High on Fire are a big band now. They’re in the mainstream metal consciousness.

So when did this sudden transformation happen?

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