In the absence of new Faith No More (which seemed like it might actually be a thing for a minute earlier this week), Tomahawk has always been my favorite (read: most FNM-like) of Mike Patton’s myriad side projects. If I’m being honest, the Patton-led collabo — which also includes Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison, ex-Helmet drummer John Stanier and ex-Mr. Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn — kinda lost my interest with 2007′s Anonymous, a record that lacked gusto and reminded me a very mellow, spiritual version of Bungle. 2003′s Mit Gas is the record that hooked me, but 2001′s self-titled debut is a ripper too (stream it on Spotify here).

So it’s with cautious anticipation that I report that Tomahawk are working on a new album, according to their Facebook page. Hooray! Hopefully it’s more Mit Gas / self-titled and less Anonymous. Presumably we’ll find out in the first half of 2012, and presumably it’ll be issued via Patton’s own label Ipecac.

-VN

Thanks: Mykee Shaffer

Say, are you one of the three people in the world who not only thought that metal needed another supergroup, but also thought that metal needed another supergroup featuring Anthrax/The Damned Things guitarist Rob Caggiano? If so, have we got a band for you!

They’re called Temple of the Black Moon, and in addition to Caggiano, the group features Cradle of Filth vocalist Dani Filth, former Gorgoroth bassist King ov Hell, and drummer John Tempesta, who has played a gajillion different bands, including both White Zombie and Rob Zombie’s solo group, Exodus, Testament, The Cult, and Helmet. It seems safe to assume that Caggiano played a significant role in putting this project together — not only did he produce two Cradle of Filth releases (2004′s Nymphetamine and 2006′s Thornography), but Tempesta has also worked as a drum tech for ‘Thrax — but between the two bands he’s already in and the producing he does, I can’t believe he felt like he had too much free time. Maybe Worship Music is seriously never coming out.

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I have been to practically every South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW) since the second one way back in the ’80s. I love the atmosphere of the conference, from its much smaller and humbler days back then, to its over-blown monstrous corporate whoredom current-filled state. But as I have noted here in the past, SXSW has almost always been severely lacking in official heavy metal-friendly sanctioned showcases. If you ever wanted to get your real metal fix at SXSW, you usually had to depend on the non-sanctioned day parties that are thrown around town concurrently with the festival.

Not this year!

I can honestly say that the organizers of SXSW have finally woken up to the beast that is heavy metal and have gone out of their way to cater to our needs. Kudos! Huzzahs! and Hurrahs! to them.

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Hats off to reader Michael Teague, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Decrepit Depravity. Michael wins an awesome Lamb of God/Splatterhouse prize pack, which includes a copy of the Splatterhouse game, a Splatterhouse t-shirt, a Splatterhouse set of iPod Speakers, and a Splatterhouse logo statue. Michael, don’t forget to play that game as loud as possible, ’cause not only is it fun to kill digital pixels, but the soundtrack features not just Lamb of God, but also Mastodon, Goatwhore, The Haunted, Municipal Waste, High on Fire, and Cavalera Conspiracy. Niiiiiice.

This week we have another awesome prize for you: five bottles of Metalliance Hot Sauce, the new sauce from GiddyUp! Sauces created to celebrate the Metalliance Tour, an KICK-MOTHERFUCKING-ASS new package trek featuring Helmet, Saint Vitus, Crowbar, Kylesa, Red Fang, Howl, and The Atlast Moth. Holy shit, that’s a great line-up. And since GiddyUp! Sauces is the brain child of Steve “Buckshot” Seabury, author of Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes, and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal and bassist for Moth Eater, you know this sauce is gonna be all kinds of delicious.

Below is the super-evil-looking poster for the Metalliance Tour; you can get dates after the jump, and tickets, including special VIP packages, here.

So how do you get the sauce? All you gots to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select up to five winners (less, if fewer of you get the right answer!) and announce their names next week. Please note that the sauce has not yet entered production, and will therefore take 2-3 weeks to ship.

Thanks to Dillon Lyons for this week’s logo…

And here are those Metalliance Tour dates…

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Hats off to reader Michael Teague, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Decrepit Depravity. Michael wins an awesome Lamb of God/Splatterhouse prize pack, which includes a copy of the Splatterhouse game, a Splatterhouse t-shirt, a Splatterhouse set of iPod Speakers, and a Splatterhouse logo statue. Michael, don’t forget to play that game as loud as possible, ’cause not only is it fun to kill digital pixels, but the soundtrack features not just Lamb of God, but also Mastodon, Goatwhore, The Haunted, Municipal Waste, High on Fire, and Cavalera Conspiracy. Niiiiiice.

This week we have another awesome prize for you: five bottles of Metalliance Hot Sauce, the new sauce from GiddyUp! Sauces created to celebrate the Metalliance Tour, an KICK-MOTHERFUCKING-ASS new package trek featuring Helmet, Saint Vitus, Crowbar, Kylesa, Red Fang, Howl, and The Atlast Moth. Holy shit, that’s a great line-up. And since GiddyUp! Sauces is the brain child of Steve “Buckshot” Seabury, author of Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes, and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal and bassist for Moth Eater, you know this sauce is gonna be all kinds of delicious.

Below is the super-evil-looking poster for the Metalliance Tour; you can get dates after the jump, and tickets, including special VIP packages, here.

So how do you get the sauce? All you gots to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select up to five winners (less, if fewer of you get the right answer!) and announce their names next week. Please note that the sauce has not yet entered production, and will therefore take 2-3 weeks to ship.

Thanks to Dillon Lyons for this week’s logo…

And here are those Metalliance Tour dates…

Click to read more…

Much like 2006′s Monochrome, last year’s Helmet album Seeing Eye Dog didn’t do much for this longtime fan. In fact, it sent me back to the band’s older glorious records like Strap It On and Betty, reminiscing on the days when the pioneering quartet reigned in that golden age of American noise rock. So it gave me great pleasure to learn that they too intend to look back on those days, by playing all of 1992′s seminal Meantime LP live on tour.

A full list of dates have yet to be released, but according to BrooklynVegan’s Black Bubblegum the tour will run from March 17th through April 5th. What’s even cooler is that the openers are Saint Vitus and Crowbar. That’s right, folks: this is a PROPER nostalgia tour for headbangers of a certain age.

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Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli to get in on today’s needless-listing fun…

Demon Hunter — 7
The World Is a Thorn
Solid State

Admittedly, I’m just singling these guys out. My dream version of Decibel = no Jesus bands under any circumstances. Mind you, that version also entails a Hall of Fame on Nine Inch Nails’ Broken EP, which would have included a sidebar about the long-form video’s cock torture, butt rape and sewage guzzling. If Peter Christopherson and Bob Flanagan weren’t dead, that is. Good thing I’m not in charge.

GET ISSUE HERE.

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For some reason, internet metal nerds love to talk about drummers, even if they themselves do not play drums. Whether it’s “Who has the fastest double bass/blastbeats?”, “Should I use one bass drum or two?” or “What does Pete Sandoval’s drum throne smell like?”, there are few things more tiresome than the topic of metal drumming. What that in mind, in this post I will put the discussion of this topic to rest forever by conclusively saying all that there is to say about metal drumming. After this post has been published, anyone who still debates these points is as foolish, ignorant and stubborn as people who believe the Earth is flat or that God exists. So if you have anything to say, say it now, because this is it — this is your chance to become part of the moment in which we closed the door on dorky, redundant debates about metal drumming.

This is THE FINAL WORD on metal drumming!!!!

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In honor of my first-ever time seeing Helmet tonight (following the MS afternoon show at Fontana’s, of course), I’m reposting an oldie but goodie….first published on Nov. 26th, 2007

Helmet perfectly exemplifies where backbone groove finds its place into the world of metal. True — guitarist/monotone vocalist Page Hamilton has always provided the overall vision of this outfit, but it is mega-thick pocket drummer John Stanier that people usually seem to remember the most about NYC’s Helmet.

As far as I’m concerned, Meantime is one of the greatest heavy albums from the 90s, and I still rock that joint several times each year. Every song is a gem, and the style perfectly melds with both the melody and the fury throughout. After I discovered the awesome might of this record back in the day, I went on to check out subsequent release Betty and previous offering Strap It On, and both of these albums truly have their strengths but at the end of the day, Meantime is the one. Fierce and incendiary and yet pretty accessible for a hard pocket aggressive blend.

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Wow, can this really be twentieth anniversary of Helmet? Well, yeah, the classic core of Henry Bogdan, Page Hamilton, and John Stanier disbanded in 1998. And sure, the reconstituted line-up that Hamilton unilaterally pulled together for 2004′s better-than-expected Size Matters has degenerated entirely into an unrecognizable cast of hired guns spilling in and out of a literal revolving door. But, uhhh, barring that, technically the band did form in 1989, so even though there’s only one original member and his last album Monochrome was fucking awful, I guess Hamilton is allowed to celebrate this moment.

But not like this.

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Tonight, Gavin Rossdale will be playing New York’s Gramercy Theatre as part of a May/June U.S. tour supporting his 2008 solo effort Wanderlust. Those of you familiar with this record or its corresponding singles know that the former Bush frontman has departed significantly from the raucous yet melodic post-grunge of his old band, opting for a softer, essentially adult contemporary sound not entirely dissimilar to Chris Cornell’s post-Audioslave offering Carry On. While this description likely wont appeal to you metal maniacs (I sure as hell didn’t buy it), here are a few reasons why you should load up on alcohol and catch one of the upcoming dates.
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Page Hamilton’s latest batch of hired guns masquerading as “Helmet” is about to embark on a month-long European jaunt that will hit up cities in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and The Netherlands. Kicking off January 13 in Helsinki, the tour includes opening act support on most if not all dates from Totimoshi, whose 2008 record Milagrosa was produced by Mr. Hamilton and engineered by Deaf Nephew Toshi Kasai (of Altamont and Big Business). Details can be found here.

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If you’re like me, you likely spend a shitload of your time on The Internets, feverishly pleasuring yourself and plugging random phrases into The Google and other websites for cheap thrills. After learning from Brooklyn Vegan’s Black Bubblegum of some potential NYC-area shows from one-time Amphetamine Reptile act Boss Hog, I made my merry way to the Youtubes to watch some old videos. Much to my delight, some dedicated user has posted a ton of the old AmRep spots from its Dope, Guns, and Fucking Up Your Videodeck series. Check out some classy cuts below from Helmet, Today Is The Day, and the aforementioned Boss Hog. It’s not like you were going to do anything else today, right?

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Just because it’s simple don’t mean it ain’t good. In fact, 16′s brand of stripped-down sludge is strikingly simple and raw but so, so brutal in its agitated energy. A press release we received yesterday declares 16 “Legendary sludge misanthropes” — I can’t argue for “legendary” ’cause I’ve never heard of ‘em (there go my precious scene points) but I’ll take the press release’s word for it; I can’t argue for “misanthropes” because I’m not focusing on the lyrics (not that I ever really do); but 16 are most certainly swampy, dirty, murky, muddy and sludged the fuck out. If Page Hamilton had taken a few more bong hits he just might have formed 1 instead of Helmet.

I just listened to all five songs on their MySpace page twice through (my favorite: “Born To Lose”) and I still want more; guess I’m gonna have to pick up their new (reunion!) album Bridges to Burn when it drops January 20th on Relapse Records.

-VN

[Read about 16's history on the Relapse website.]

Here’s a fucking fresh new band for ya’ll to check out. Despite their puzzling name, Don the Reader are the explosive result of what happens when you mix the dissonant, raw energy of The Dillinger Escape Plan with the aggression and riffage of the Deftones and the post-punk melodic sensibility of Helmet or Quicksand. The LA-based band have a new album called Humanesque available on October 7th via Deathcote Records — and we have the exclusive leak of their song “Teethgrinder.” Enjoy it below, and send out to the masses.

Don the Reader – “Teethgrinder” (mp3)

Listen to more Don the Reader on their MySpace page.

-VN

Happy Memorial Day to our U.S. readers, and we hope you’re enjoying your day off by stuffing yourselves silly with grilled meat and beer.

Mike Patton has done a hell of a lot of weird shit over the past decade, but as far as I’m concerned Tomahawk has been his best (read: most Faith No More-like) output since Faith No More. Tomahawk has consistently been his rockingest project to date, featuring a metal pedigee of Jesus Lizard/Hank Williams III guitarist Duane Denison, former Helmet drummer John Stanier, and Melvins bassist Kevin Rutmanis. And this song, from 2003′s Joe Barresi-produced Mit Gas, came closest to equaling the sound and ethos of latter day Faith No More.

Tomahawk – “Captain Midnight”

-VN

HELMET @ RED 7 – 4:30 P.M., Thursday, March 13

One of my all-time favorite top 10 records is Helmet’s Meantime. I have not seen Helmet since back in their heyday when they tore through San Antonio, Texas in support of their not quite as impressive but still excellent follow-up Betty back in 1994. They played the old Showcase along with Therapy? and San Antonio industrialists Evil Mothers.

I cannot say I am a huge fan of Helmet’s work in later years, especially Page Hamilton’s higher pitched vocal stylings. The scratchy baritone he displayed on Meantime is easily one of my favorite vocal styles in all of metal. As a result, a part of me was hesitant, yet excited to see Helmet again for the first time in fourteen years.

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