The second-to-last night of Summer Slaughter — the first of two nights at NYC’s Irving Plaza — was a fucking party. Axl and Vince arrived before doors opened to interview Darkest Hour mastermind Mike Schleibaum and were summarily handed beers. “New York City . . . oh god. Suffocation, and also sharing your dressing room [with Suffocation]. . . there’s going to be a lot of drinking. Beer is going to be hard to get. We should really start right after this interview!” mused Schleibaum before handing us a couple of Bud Lights to get things started off right. “It’s just a Bud Light, my friends,” he responded after we thanked him for the hospitality; true, but somehow “just a Bud Light” turned into “just a bottle of Jack Daniels” being completely polished off in the DH / Suffocation dressing room shortly thereafter. “The thing is – it’s going to get all drank by the time Blackguard’s finished,” prophecized Schleibaum. And so it went. The men of DH like their Jack (and their weed) and the endless stream of Suffocation ladies — 40-something Lawngisland bleach blondes with giant, fake tits — that paraded through the room all night provided much amusement for our chemically altered brains.

But before all of the shenanigans went down we sat with Mr. Schleibaum and chatted about the Summer Slaughter tour, the band’s new album The Eternal Return, the end of Darkest Hour’s deal with Victory Records and what that means for the band, the departure of guitarist Kris Norris and subsequent replacement with ex-At All Cost axeman Mike “Lonestar” Carrigan, working with producer Devin Townsend in the past, and a slew of other topics. Our chat, after the jump.

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I’m all for break-up sex. Yeah, the relationship is over, and yeah, it might be kinda bittersweet, but you were into each once, so why not enjoy one last fuck, right?

To that end: I really appreciate it when a band announces that they are going to break-up, and plays a few last shows to give the fans a chance to say good-bye. Burst have done it, and now another long-standing MetalSucks favorite are doing it: At All Cost.

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If, like me, you’re too lazy to download the new Victory Records sampler so you can get the new Darkest Hour song, “No God,” you’ll be happy to know that it is now streaming on the band’s MySpace page.

What can I say about this track? It’s Darkest Hour. It rocks. And, as Vince noted last week, there’s a killer solo by new lead guitarist Mike “Lonestar” Carrigan, formerly of At All Cost, a.k.a. MetalSucks’ favorite band that fell apart under unfortunate circumstances.

Darkest Hour’s new album – their first with Carrigan and without Kris Norris – is called The Eternal Return, and drops June 23 on Victory.

-AR

We’re late to the party on this one, but Darkest Hour have parted ways with guitarist Kris Norris. It’s very sad and blah blah blah and honestly, I don’t care that much. I like Darkest Hour but I’m just not emotionally involved enough in the idea of Norris remaining in the band for this to phase me the way, for example, news of Mark Morton leaving Lamb of God might.

What I do care about is that Norris’ replacement is Mike Carrigan (pictured above), a.k.a. lead guitarist for MetalSucks’ favorite underappreciated geniuses, At All Cost.

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