It was a week of polar opposites: on one hand, butt rock ruled as Disturbed nabbed the #1 spot on the Current Hard Music charts with Five Finger Death Punch and Evanescence firmly entrenched in second and third place. On the other hand Animals as Leaders scored a big debut, a big victory in the name of all that is right in the music world. As I Lay Dying and Rush also sold well. Let’s take a look at those and more after the jump.

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The line-up for this year’s edition of the annual Thrash and Burn tour has been announced, and it’s terrible; so terrible that I don’t even have any witty way of expressing it’s terribleness. So I’m not here to make more jokes at the expense of some deathcore bands; I hope they all have fun on the tour, and I hope everyone who attends the tour has a terrific time, and I hope that all parties involved cherish the memory forever and ever and ever.

I would, however, like to discuss the fact that, as was the case with this year’s Summer Slaughter trek (which is organized by the same folks who do Thrash and Burn), fans are being asked to vote for one final band to join the bill. Because while some of the candidates are awful (Dr. Acula, The Devastated, etc.) and I don’t know some of the candidates enough to have any real opinion of them, one of the candidates is a band I actually like: White Arms of Athena.

Which is why I am here to ask you to please vote against White Arms of Athena being on this bill.

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