Until their new song, “Time and Time Again,” premiered online today (stream it here), I had not heard any music from Kill Devil Hill, the new band featuring Rex Brown and Vinny Appice. (I was about to type those dudes’ previous credits when I realized that if you don’t know who Brown and Appice are, I don’t especially care about you anyway.) I know there have been some live bootlegs floating around — the band has been gigging for awhile now — but I somehow managed to avoid them and wait for the real thing.

And now that I’ve heard it… it’s good. Not great. But not bad at all.

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Friendly reminder: as of RIGHT THIS SECOND, the legendary Richard Christy from Death, Iced Earth, Control Denied, and, oh yeah, The Howard Stern Show, is at the MetalSucks/Vertebrae 33  booth at New York Comic Con signing copies of Charred Walls of the Damned‘s ridiculously rocking new album, Cold Winds on Timeless Days, which is out NOW on Metal Blade Records. He’ll be there ’til 7 pm, so there’s still time for you to hop on a bus, subway, or in a cab and get your ass down there — we’re booth #2625. Myself and/or Vince are also there now, and will be there tomorrow and Sunday, too, and we may have some other special guests in store for you yet. So come on by, pick up some free swag courtesy of Indie Merch and Metal Blade, hang out, whatever. It’ll be a blast! Get all the details here.

And now, some other fun shit we did this week:

• We premiered a new live recording of Death’s “Leprosy” and new music from Trapped Under Ice.
• We spoke to Grutle Kjellson from Enslaved, Rex Brown from Kill Devil Hill/Pantera/Down, producer Shane Frisby, and Skateboard Marketing’s Munsey Ricci.
• Valient Thorr’s Valient Himself occupied Wall Street, GWAR’s Dave Brockie gave us the blow-by-blow on the NFL, and Eyal Levi from Dååth and Levi/Werstler and Audiohammer Studios got all Pacino-in-Heat on us.
• We checked out the latest releases from Warbringer and Årabrot.
• We continued The Countdown to The Metal Suckfest and launched a contest in which you can win some sweet swag and a meet and greet session at the show.
• We watched some inter-Emmure drama unfold.
• We begged Sasha Frere-Jones from The New Yorker to stop writing about metal forever.
• We enjoyed the use of Nine Inch Nails in the new trailer for The Avengers.
• We got excited about Cynic’s new line-up + song.
• We celebrated the best Dragonforce cover ever.

Have a terrific, relaxing weekend everyone. See ya Monday, if we don’t see ya at NYCC!

-AR

I’m gonna tell you right now – I don’t usually get all “fan-girl” and nervous talking to people, even those I greatly admire on an artistic level. When I was told I was going to be interviewing Rex Brown, the fact that I was going to be talking to someone who helped mold my musical tastes as a kid didn’t hit me until probably an hour or so beforehand, and that’s when, admittedly, I started to get a bit weak in the knees. I started to remember so vividly hearing Pantera’s “Floods” for the first time on a family road trip to the Midwest, how it chilled me like nothing else ever had, and those days speeding down 95 in my first car blasting Cowboys from Hell. As one of the founding members of Pantera – up until their unfortunate end – he helped open the gates for a great deal of us to the world of metal. With his involvement in Down, as well as Crowbar, that love for many of us was kept alive.

Of course, with his recent departure from Down, some may have been wondering what else, if anything, Rex had next up his sleeves. Thankfully, there’s plenty.

As soon as I answered the phone, one of the first things Rex said to me (with a laugh) was that he’d been “giving interviews all day.” That in itself I thought was a true testament to someone who, even after over two decades working at it, is not looking to give up anytime soon – a fact that’s emphasized by his enthusiastic involvement with his new band Kill Devil Hill. The new project, featuring Vinny Appice (Heaven and Hell, Dio, Black Sabbath) on drums, Mark Zavon (Ratt, 40 Cycle Hum) on guitar and Jason “Dewey” Bragg (Pissing Razors) on vocals, is currently on tour and looking forward to releasing their yet-to-be-named debut album early next year on SPV/Steamhammer Records.

Talking with Rex was not only an experience in that he’s someone I have long admired; it was something getting to speak with someone so excited and hopeful about his current conquest. After over two decades playing music – through the triumphs as well as the hardships – to be as enthusiastic and passionate is not an incredibly common thing. I think that’s something that all of us can not only appreciate, but hopefully aspire to.

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2007′s Down III: Over the Under was pretty sweet, right? I can’t speak for the masses, but I thought the album found Down sounding as good and as energized as ever after a five-year hiatus following the release of Down II. Five years will be the magic number once again, as according to guitarist Kirk Windstein via Twitter the band is recording a new album (Down IV?) this month:

Kirk followed that up with another tweet three days later saying that recording had already commenced, so it seems like things are moving pretty quickly. New Down record in Spring 2012?

Bassist Rex Brown, however, will not be participating. Following months of speculation and a statement by drummer Jimmy Bower, Rex finally broke his own silence on the situation. From an interview with Metal Maiden:

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Interview with Jimmy Bower about Down… by HecticCase

I don’t think this news is gonna come as a galloping shock to anyone, but at least now it’s official after nearly two months of speculation: Rex Brown will not be returning to Down. Drummer Jimmy Bower, also of the great Eyehategod (among other bands), confirmed it in a recent video interview with Metalchroniques.fr (above). Here’s his quote:

“We just wish him to find peace within himself and be healthy, and we weren’t seeing that for Down. We have Pat [Bruders] now. Pat’s playing bass. Pat’s from New Orleans. Makes sense. He plays with Crowbar as well.

“We love Rex to death, man, and wish him the best. He has a new project as well — Kill Devil Hill with Vinny Appice— and I know he’s having fun doing that. He gave Pat his blessing, so it was on a good term. But he will not be back.”

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Rex Brown is not participating in Down’s current tour, and this interview seems to suggest that he’s never coming back to the band. And so, in an effort to get some clarification, The Delaware County Daily Times, your leading source for rock and metal news, decided to ask Down’s Pepper Keenan outright whether or not Brown is still Down. His answer?

“I don’t know what to really say on that; he’s not out of the band, but he’s not playing with us live.”

Well, that’s reassuring!

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The current run of Down live dates — bloody Phil Anselmo and all — do not include bassist Rex Brown, who has quietly been replaced by Crowbar bassist Patrick Bruders. I’ve searched the Interwebs far and wide (read: one page of Google results) and cannot find any official announcement from Down, Rex or Bruders on the matter, only simple mention of the fact that Bruders is filling Rex’s spot for the forseeable future.

In light of the fact that Brown recently announced the Kill Devil Hill supergroup with Vinnie Appice and Mark Zavon (Ratt,  W.A.S.P., 40 Cycle Hum) and the fact that he recently quit southern alterna-rockers Arms of the Sun, nosy bloggers are left wondering… why isn’t Brown playing with Down right now? Is trouble afoot? MetalAssault.com [via Metal Insider] got right to the point with Rexy Rex at Kill Devil Hill’s live debut this past Friday. If you haven’t the patience for the above 9-minute interview, here’s the money quote:

This is it. I’m not doing any Down. This is my devotion right here. There’s no side gigs, or anything else that’s going on. So this is what it’s going to be for the future.

To me that sounds like Rex Brown is no longer a member of Down… although I’ve been wrong before and certainly will be again. We, citizens of the rumor-mongering metal-verse, demand clarification on the matter! How about it, Down?

-VN

[Like my colleague Vince Neilstein, I too feel compelled to share with you, the readers, some "under-appreciated gems" that deserve your attention and consideration for your personal "Best of 2010" lists. Some of these may have suffered from lack of promotion, or simply may have gotten lost in the shuffle amid higher profile releases. Hopefully this informal series will help rectify that -- and not give too much away in advance of the publications of the staff lists on December 16.]

Pantera, much like their cultural forebears The Beatles, assuredly will never reunite. Even if we could discount the untimely, cataclysmic death of “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott in 2004 at the hands of a mentally disturbed assassin whose very name doesn’t deserve repeating, the fractures that resulted in the band’s dissolution have only deepened with time, categorized by seemingly endlessly feuding between factions of the surviving members and their surrogates. This year’s expanded 20th anniversary reissue of Cowboys From Hell – coincidentally timed with a boxed reissue of John Lennon’s solo discography — provides a view of what we can expect as Pantera’s legacy matures and amplifies, namely that music industry machinery will take advantage of contractual opportunities while the estranged and quarreling factions collect deserved checks and dangle demos, live versions, and previously unreleased “vault tracks” (such as “The Will to Survive”) to disproportionately feed our insatiable hunger for more.

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Kirk Windstein is one of metal’s busiest men; between his three bands — Crowbar, Down and Kingdom of Sorrow — dude’s got his hands full churning out down-tuned, gut-rumbling bad-assery constantly, and according to him that’s just the way he likes it. Unfortunately for Kirk his alcohol abuse problem forced him to take a break this summer as he sat out Kingdom of Sorrow’s 7-date Ozzfest tour to get healthy and sober.

Kirk’s recovery was the first topic we tackled in my phone interview with him last week; it turns out that Kirk did not enter rehab as reported but decided to lay off the booze on his own volition with the help of AA meetings and the assistance of his many bandmembers that’ve been through the process already. As of the day we chatted he was 48 days sober, sounding optimistic and energized about the prospect of turning himself around. We also chatted about all three of his bands, naturally: Kingdom of Sorrow are working on putting together a U.K. tour; Kirk was on his way to jam with Pepper Keenan on new material later that same day, and the band’s DVD chronicling their 2006 reunion run will finally see the light of day tomorrow; and last but certainly not least, Crowbar have a brand new record coming out soon through E1, and a live CD to follow closely after on Phil Anselmo’s Housecore label. Kirk also shed a little light (I said “a little”) on the reasons behind the Down DVD’s many delays, and shared his thoughts on the pride he feels when Crowbar are cited as an influence by today’s young metal bands.

Read the interview after the hop and skip.

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While Arms of the Sun are probably best known in metal circles because their low end is provided by Down / ex-Pantera bassist Rex Brown, Rex’s participation is actually somewhat peripheral — the band is the brainchild of guitarist/singer Lance Harvill. But no matter; Arms of the Sun just write great rock songs, and folks really shouldn’t fixate on the fact that Rex is in the band as Arms of the Sun stand up on their own just fine. (And no, the irony that I just spent a paragraph fixating on Rex Brown’s membership in this band is not lost on me.)

Arms of the Sun have a new video for the track “March of The Dolls”; it’s a clip of stitched together live footage and as such it’s not an especially interesting video, but it does provide me with an excuse to plug this excellent band and hopefully turn a few more folks onto their music. So in that regard, mission accomplished. Enjoy the song below.

-VN

May 8, 2010 – Ridglea Theater – Fort Worth, Texas

The fact that former Pantera frontman Philip H. Anselmo staged his first return to the Dallas/Fort Worth area since the early ’90s to support his latest Housecore signing Warbeast, speaks volumes about the band.

The Old Fart-approved Warbeast is comprised of three former Texas late, great ‘80s thrashers: singer Bruce Corbitt of Rigor Mortis and lead guitarists Scott Shelby and Rick Perry of Arlington-based Gammacide; joined by 2006 Gammacide reunion bassist Alan Bovee, and 19-year-old drumming wizard Joe “Blue” Gonzalez of Demonseed.

Anselmo signed the Dallas-based Warbeast to his own Housecore Records imprint and also produced the band’s debut album, Krush the Enemy, at his home studio in Louisiana. The occasion for Anselmo’s return to his former stomping grounds was the official CD release party for Warbeast.

It was an event for the metal ages.

*(Author’s note: I am currently working with Philip H. Anselmo on his autobiography. Beyond that, I have been a Rigor Mortis and Gammacide fan since the late ‘80s, long before I ever knew Anselmo, when I played both bands repeatedly on my University of Texas college radio metal program, and also booked Rigor Mortis at shows in the Ritz and the Backroom in Austin. So, considered this a completely biased article.)

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It’s worth questioning how much influence ex-Pantera/Down bassist Rex Brown has in his new band Arms of the Sun; to my knowledge he wasn’t a big songwriting contributor to either of his other main squeezes, and not for nothin’ Arms of the Sun sound like neither of them. But it really doesn’t matter because Arms of the Sun sound fucking sweet and are perfectly worthy of being judged independently of their very famous bassist.

The mid-paced, bluesy, guitar-driven rock that Arms of the Sun play kind of reminds me of latter day King’s X combined with the songwriting sensibility of the DeLeo brothers. Either you’ll like it or you won’t, and anyone expecting something even close to as heavy as Down (let alone Pantera) probably won’t. It’s rock, not metal. But Rex probably doesn’t care whether you like it or not. You don’t make music like this during your downtime from your main band unless it’s something you’re really into. It’s always cool to see what musicians do with their downtime when their main bands are still together — dudes from broken-up bands are a whole different story — because commercial success isn’t a concern meaning it’s all from the heart. And for the other dudes in this band it represents a chance to get a whole lot more exposure from sites like this one.

If any of this sounds interesting to you check out the songs that Arms of the Sun have posted on their MySpace page. Every single one of them is really good, but the first song “Falling to Pieces” which is also the heaviest is actually my least favorite one. If you live in Dallas you can catch Arms of the Sun live at the Lakewood Theater on April 17th.

-VN

Of course not every band can be a Pantera or Down, but I’d argue that out of any member of Pantera, one Mr. Rex Brown has the best track record for non-Panteric projects. He wasn’t in Damageplan, a mediocre band we all pretend didn’t exist in the name of not doing any harm to Dime’s legacy; he’s obviously not in Hellyeah, who I still can’t quite believe are a real band and not some elaborate prank; Pantera and Down are only ones of Phil Anselmo’s 1,384 bands that Brown was in. Yeah, Rebel Meets Rebel was way too redneck for this Noo Yawk Jew, but at least they didn’t have a song called “Alcohaulin’ Ass.” So three cheers of Rex.

Of course, now Rex has another new band, Arms of the Sun, so I guess it’s possible he’s about to fuck-up his batting average. The three songs on AOTS’ MySpace page really generic bar-band stuff that sounds like it might have been cat nip for the guy who signed Candlebox fifteen years ago, but again. “Alcohaulin’ fucking Ass.” So Rex gets to keep his title belt… for now.

Check out Arms of the Sun here, then tell me why I’m being too hard on Damageplan/RMR/Hellyeah/Superjoint Ritual/whatever in the comments section.

-AR

Yesterday we discussed all the upcoming Pantera reissues, as well as the fact that the band’s second greatest hits collection, 1990-2000: A Decade Of Domination, is coming out on March 30. I said that it’s hard not to see this compilation as a cash-in, and now that track list has been revealed and details of how the album will be sold, it’s even harder.

For one thing, the band’s original greatest hits album, Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys’ Vulgar Hits, not only had six more songs than this new one will, but came with a bonus DVD showcasing twelve (!) music videos.

Here’s the track list for the new collection, A Decade of Domination…

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This July will mark the twentieth anniversary of the release of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell, and while I know that some of our readers who either a) weren’t born yet when the record came out or b) were in diapers when the record came out don’t “get” what the big deal is about Pantera, I’m hoping that their youthful arrogance will give way to some appreciation of history – which is to say that just because you’ve heard ten thousand bands that sound like Pantera doesn’t mean that Pantera didn’t do it first, and do it best. Remember that dude who told the Alternative Press “fuck Black Sabbath” and claimed they had no influence on his band? Remember what band that dude was in? Atreyu. You don’t wanna grow up to be a member of Atreyu, do you?

So. Pantera have an assload of reissues coming out. Details are still kinda scarce, but here’s what we know right now:

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