Alright! After an initial slow news week, 2010 is finally start to get back into the swing of things. Here are some highlights from this week:

• Vince got an exclusive interview with Obituary/ex-Andrew W.K. drummer Donald Tardy about the AWK conspiracy mystery. We also spoke to Richard Christy and Pelican’s Larry Herwig.
• We debuted new music by The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, Karnivool, and Blood of the Tyrant.
• Dallas is giving away free music, Eyal’s faith in metalheads has been restored, and Justin pontificated on the format wars.
• These Arms Are Snakes are done…
• …but System of a Down are reuniting! Or maybe not. But maybe.
• The dude from Weedeater shot himself in the foot. Literally.
• We’re sponsoring The Red Chord’s Burgers & Bowling tour!
• Underoath don’t like abortions.

Next week we’ll have some previews of 2010 releases we’re stoked on for you. And Vince is gonna be in sunny Los Angeles, so you poor-ass muthafuckas is stuck with me. BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!

-AR

Larry Herweg’s role in Pelican is arguably its most distinctive and most controversial. Some say his on-par-with-AC/DC beats allow the winding guitar lines to breathe; others argue that his drumming is sub-par and holds the band back from greatness. What’s harder to argue is that Pelican’s latest, last year’s What We Come to Need, isn’t one of their best, a welcome return to evocative, slightly dark riffs after the stylistic shift of 2007′s City of Echoes. Some even thought highly enough of it to throw it on their year end list. And Herweg seems happy with the record, as well as sympathetic to those who found fault with the band’s previous album. In an interview with Metal Sucks, he discusses the meaning WWACTN‘s title and creation, “Final Breath”‘s controversial use of vocals and whether there will be more of them, and one reviewer’s nasty attack on his drumming technique.

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