This week sees new releases by Graveyard, Periphery, Blut Aus Nord, Septicflesh, Winds of Plague, and tons more. MS new release expert Vic Vaughn takes a looksee at each after the jump!

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Admit it: this picture makes you SO FUCKING HAPPY.

Recently, my friend sent me a YouTube link to a Bee Gees cover group. Excuse me, tribute band. That is the proper way of addressing them, as Mark Wahlberg taught us in Rock Star. I don’t like the Bee Gees. I don’t like disco. Disco is kind of terrible. Disco blows dogs for quarters. Disco is never amazing, especially not when KISS attempt it. To say I was a little confused would be an understatement. But my friends aren’t totally clueless to what I listen to, so I gave it a shot. It turned out it was a heavy metal Bee Gees tribute band. Okay, it was a little bit awesome. Weirdly enough, it worked. I only like thin-voiced men screeching when accompanied by equally high-pitched guitars, and that’s basically what heavy metal “Stayin’ Alive,” was. I turned it off about halfway through because, well, I still have my limits, but it kind of makes you stop and go, “Huh!” Metal just makes everything sound better.

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[This is Part 2 of Norther's tour diary from their first-ever North American tour. Part 1 can be viewed here. Enjoy. -Ed.]

22.09.2008 Quebec, I’ imperial

Our next show was in Quebec. The place was this fantastic looking venue called I’imperial, but when we arrived to the venue, we heard from the local crew that (thanks to our schedule) we were running about 4 hours late. So very quick setup on stage, about 10 minute sound check and off to give room for the local support to play. It was a very big stage, so support band could set their gear up easily and we wouldn’t have to move anything. We tried to delay the doors to have some more time for sound-checking, but it couldn’t be done for some reason. This later bit us in the ass..

When Nefastus Dies goes on stage, we start our “backstage rituals” (More to come from these). Usually Pete entertains everyone with a bunch of crappy hard rock or death metal riffs that always end in crazy ass laughter. :) if that isn’t happening, we’re listening to good music to get the mood going. Artists like September, The Haunted, Slayer, Fun Lovin’ Criminals or others that get us all in good mood is a must before the show. :)

Anyways, show time. We rushed to the stage to kick off with “My Antichrist” followed by “Down.” One, Two, Three, Four… CHAOS… This would be the exact description of unleashing hell. Everything was totally fucked, instantly.

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Congrats to the winner’s of last week’s Funny Photo Caption Contest. “Jonowev” won the grand prize, a limited edition, beer-colored double-gatefold vinyl of Nachtmystium’s excellent Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1 with the following caption to the photo at right:

“Kiss had been forced to spend less on their stage shows due to the credit crisis.”

These two runners-up also win CD copies of Into Eternity’s latest The Incurable Tragedy and Intronaut’s Prehistoricisms:

villanj1: “The practicing of a rare and bizarre ritual for the regrowing of Devin Townsend’s skullet.”

Scott: “We’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Winds Of Plague shows get NUTS!”

This week we have a mind-blowingly radical God Forbid prize package courtesy of Century Media: two grand prize winners will each get a limited edition God Forbid IV: Constitution of Treason picture-disc vinyl, a IV: Constitution of Treason lithograph and a copy of the Beneath The Scars of Glory & Progression DVD. Holy shit is that cool; like, I’m seriously jealous of whoever wins that! Two runners-up will also each receive a copy of Norther’s new album N and the Jeff Loomis [of Nevermore] solo-album Zero Order Phase. Alls ya gotta do is come up with a funny caption to the below photo. Go!

[Thanks: DamagedMike]

[Finland's Norther bring just the kind of Scandinavian metal we love around here -- big, epic, heavy, fast and undeniably catchy. Though the band is relatively new to us, they're well-established in their home territory, having already released five full-length studio albums, the latest of which -- N -- came out earlier this year in Europe and drops September 30th in the U.S. on Century Media. They also happen to overlap members with Wintersun and folk-metal masters Ensiferum, two MetalSucks faves. So when the band contacted us about an exclusive road blog from their first-ever North American tour, we couldn't help but say 'yes.' Be sure to check out the band's music on their MySpace page when you're done perusing their tour blog and photos.]

9/18/08

Alright… It was 3:32 am when I hopped in a cab along with our beloved bass-boy Jukka on our way to our rehearsal lair to pick up the gear when I made the first notes to our tour blog-to-be. We gathered up our gear and after this we grabbed another cab and continued to the airport after going to Kride’s place to pick him up. Petri and Tuomas arrived by their own taxi.

And so the trip starts… Everyone was feeling more or less fine, although the ‘early’ wakeup at 3 at night required some extra coffee. We got our asses to the plane to first fly to Amsterdam, then to Detroit and finally to Montreal. Yes, it’s a long way to go, but not so bad for us, anyways. The only thing that got us somewhat worried/pissed was that Petri had to fly alone… Petri had to take a separate flight, since he’s going to continue straight to L.A after this tour ends to join another tour with Ensiferum! It’s not like he can’t handle himself, no problem at all, but we just wished that he could join us as well. And I guess Petri would rather have flown with us for the next 10 hours, rather than flying alone. :)

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