So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

Click to read more…

Salome
TBD
Label – Profound Lore
Release date – TBD

We’ve been singing Salome’s praises for awhile, but following last year’s announcement that the band was signing with Profound Lore, 2010 will finally bring the release of the band’s first full-length. And there is literally not a single doom metal album I’m more excited about this year. Even if it’s only half as good as the band’s live show and and a quarter as good as the band’s self-titled 2008 EP, it will still be better than almost anything any other band releases in 2010.

Click to read more…

Salome, who are both a) one of our favorite doom bands and b) one of our favorite live bands, played the Relapse showcase at CMJ last month, and, as is so often the case, our brostafas at Metal Injection where there to capture some awesome live footage. Check it out:

-AR

On Sunday night we caught the Beard Destroyer 2009 tour with Hull and Batillus (sadly for us, Salome didn’t play that date). It crushed even harder than we thought it would, so we asked our friend, Batillus skinsman Geoff Summers, to do a tour wrap-up for us. We hope you enjoy!

So, here I sit with a mild case of PTD (post-tour depression) writing up this wrap report for the so-called Beard Destroyer tour featuring Salome, Hull, and my band, Batillus. We had some good times, and we had some bad times. It rained. A lot. Everywhere we went. Fortunately, though, the good dwarfed the bad. Let’s recap…

Click to read more…

This is just a friendly reminder that one of the best tours of the year that MetalSucks isn’t actually associated with starts tonight. Hull. Batillus. Salome. What the fuck else could you want?

Get the complete tour itinerary after the jump. And don’t forget that you can download an awesome new Salome track, “With Hell for a Mouth,” absolutely free, right here.

Click to read more…

It’s Labor Day weekend here in the U.S., which means we’re shuttering the Mansion early this week, and won’t be back ’til Tuesday. We’re sure you’ll find some way to live without us.

Here’s some shit that happened this week:

• We debuted a new track from Salome.
• Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima sent in his final guest-blog from the studio, and revealed the track listing for the band’s upcoming album, Scenes from Hell.
• We chatted with Trivium’s Matt Heafy, The Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad, Job for a Cowboy’s Brent Riggs, and All That Remains’ Phil LaBonte.
• We celebrated the triumphant return of Beavis & Butt-Head, and decided that in their particular relationship, Vince is the Beavis to Axl’s Butt-Head.
• Tom Araya thinks Dave Mustaine is a dick, Kerry King thinks Dave Mustaine is a dick, Scott Ian thinks Kerry King is a dick, and everyone in Dimmu Borgir thinks that everyone else in Dimmu Borgir is a dick.

Alright. I’m going to enjoy a little sunshine while I still can. See ya Tuesday!

-AR

New York’s own Batillus are a band we don’t write about nearly enough. But you should definitely know who they are; like Salome, they make awesome, nut-crushing doom. In fact, they’re about to hit the road with Salome and Hull as part of the awesomely-monikered Beard Destroyer Tour 2009, and are celebrating by unveiling a new song, “The Division,” on their MySpace page.

A press release tells us the following:

The song, entitled “The Division,” is the first BATILLUS song to feature vocalist / synthesist Fade Kainer (Inswarm, Jarboe) and will only be available on a special limited-edition (75) Beard Destroyer Tour CDR-EP. The EP features hand-crafted packaging by Northern Owl and contains three songs at a total running time of 24:10. The tracks were recorded at Sterling Audio in Brooklyn, NY by Brendan Tobin (Red Sparowes, Made Out of Babies) and mastered by Josh Bonati.

The band is looking for additional gigs and places to crash; if you can help out, please drop them a line ASAP.

Get a complete Beard Destroyer Tour itinerary after the jump – it includes a stop at the awesome, MetalSucks-sponsored Planet Caravan festival.

And on a semi-related note, don’t forget that we’re giving away an awesome new Salome song, “With Hell for a Mouth,” for free download right here. I listened to it like five times in a row last night. It slays.

Click to read more…

Salome, who just might be our favorite modern doom metal band on the planet, are about to hit the road with Hull and Batillus as part of the Beard Destroyer Tour 2009 (Best tour moniker ever? We think so!). The band also recently completed a split with Thou (cover art above), which is being mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, OLD, Sunn O))), Isis, etc.) and should be out on Vendetta Records in the next couple of months.

But why wait a couple of months when you can hear some new shit right this very second? The band has been cool enough to graciously allow us to debut a brand new track, “With Hell for a Mouth,” as a free download. Like all Salome, the song is slow like honey and crushing like an anvil, with Kat’s inimitable vocals from the bowels of hell bolstering the performance of guitarist Rob Moore and drummer Aaron Deal. It also marks the next evolutionary step for Salome, as it features slightly brighter production than their EP and even has – gasp! – some sections that are kinda bouncy. It is, in a word, awesome.

Download the song, absolutely free, below. Then, after the jump, get dates for the Beard Destroyer Tour 2009. You need to see Salome live; they are truly otherworldly.

Salome, “With Hell for a Mouth”

Click to read more…

I haven’t sung the praises of Salome in awhile, so here goes: this band crushes. Everyone I know who has seen them live has just been floored with them. Guitarist Rob Moore and drummer Aaron Deal (read my interview with Mr. Deal here) play as though they’re actively attempting to use soundwaves as a weapon, and vocalist Kat… well, she goes to some other place. Like, she temporarily becomes psychotic or something. (Actually, maybe she’s always psychotic. I’ve never actually met her, but her art is pretty dark. I once considered buying a piece because I think it’s so cool, but I was afraid if women saw it on my wall, I’d never get laid again. Of course, right now I’m having trouble finding the link to the page where you can buy her art, but just take my word for it. It’s bleak.)

Now Salome have signed a deal to release their next full-length – actually, I think it’s their first full-length – through Profound Lore. That makes them label mates with Agalloch, The Gates of Slumber, Cobalt, Alceste, and some other awesome bands. In other words: it seems like a good fit.

The band is still writing said full-length, but they have a split with Thou coming out sometime soon (more details as I get them!), and I strongly encourage you to check out their EP in the meantime – or, even better, go see them live. As we reported before, they’ll hit the road in September on a tour with the equally fantastic Hull and Batillus, and will even be playing the MetalSucks co-sponsored Planet Caravan fest in North Carolina alongside Clutch, Kylesa, Burst, Wino, and a whole bunch of other great groups. Really. Go see them. It is truly a fucking experience.

Complete tour dates after the jump. If you don’t know Salome, visit them on MySpace ASAP.

Click to read more…

A couple of weeks back we reported on the sudden glut of U.S. metal festivals this year, the latest of which is the MetalSucks-sponsored Planet Caravan 2-day metal festival being held in Asheville, NC this September. Quick refresher: Clutch, Pentagram, Kylesa, Burst (first and last U.S. tour ever!), Wino and many others. Today we’re thrilled to announce that the already strong bill has gotten that much stronger with a slew of heavyweight bands added: Tombs, The Gates of Slumber, Zoroaster, Bison B.C., Sourvein, doom kings/queen Salome, and friends of MetalSucks Hull and Battilus, the latter 3 of which will be touring the U.S. together around that time. All of the newly added acts will perform on the also-newly added second stage, right next door to the Orange Peel mainstage at Mo Daddy’s.

If you live anywhere close to North Carolina, how can you even consider not going to this event? It’s going to be a fucking rager. Tickets are on sale here or at the Orange Peel box office.

-VN

For my money, Salomé are one of the best doom metal bands out there right now. The self-titled EP they released last year is the shit, and they absolutely blew me away at Scion earlier this year (the friends I was with were equally floored). They are a band of unusual evil and power, and must be experienced live if you get a chance.

The band’s MySpace page says that they’ll be embarking on a tour with two other kick-ass bands, Hull and Batillus, starting in Septmebr. Thing is, while the tour itinerary is apparently mapped out already, lots of the venues remain TBD, accompanied only by the note “please help!”

If you live in one of these still-unbooked cities or towns, I would plead with you to help out these excellent bands. If you’re a position to book them somewhere, great, but even if you’re just in a position to nag your local club/basement/whatever to give them a place to play, you should really do that, to.

The page doesn’t list a booking agent for the band or tour, but they can be reached at salomedoom AT hotmail DOT com. Do something to help ASAP. To miss these bands live would be to deprive yourself of a seriously excellent evening of metal.

-AR

Major props to Charles Hedrick for the tip!!!

The arrival of June means that all the big metal bands are over in Europe playing the festival circuit, but this isn’t all a bad thing. For one, it means some much-needed R and R (that’s rest and relaxation, fuckos) after a hectic Spring show season. It also means more time to go to smaller shows; ya know, ones that aren’t in huge concert halls where beer costs $7, and ones that are in real places where actual real / non scene-kid people hang out. The DIY (by comparison) shows of late Spring and early Summer offer a welcome respite from the big headline tours of early Spring and the packaged, brand-sponsored traveling festivals of Summer. This weekend I went to see the debut of NYC’s Motheater — a wicked brew of southern soul and northern fury — and a four-headed best of underground metal at Pitchfork’s “Show No Mercy” show serie, featuring Salome, Woe, Black Anvil, and Snake Sustaine.

Click to read more…

Multiple people have RAVED to me about New York’s own Black Anvil over the past couple of months, swearing up and down that this band was the absolute brownest, stinkiest shit in metal right now.

And now the band has signed to Relapse.

Because I’m a total dick who doesn’t always heed his friends’ advice, I still haven’t listened to Black Anvil’s most recent release, Time Insults the Mind. But they’re doing a show at Public Assembly in Brooklyn this Sunday with some cool bands, including perennial MetalSucks doom faves Salome. Schedule permitting I’ll get to check out Black Anvil then. In the meantime, here’s some footage of the band I stole from Metal Injection. Watch it and then hit up Black Anvil’s MySpace page and let us know what you think.

Also, get details of the Black Anvil/Salome gig after the jump. Even if you don’t dig Black Anvil, Salome are an absolutely amazing band that need to be experienced live.

Click to read more…

It’s only April and it’s already turning out to be an amazing year for grind – Napalm Death’s Time Waits for No Slave is the tits (read my review here), Brutal Truth’s Evolution Through Revolution kills (Satan Rosenbloom’s review coming soon), and we still have new music from Graf Orlock, Magrudergrind, and, knock on wood, Pig Destroyer to look forward to.

And, of course, there’s a new Agoraphobic Nosebleed album, Agorapocalypse, out on Relapse today. We’ll get to a review sooner or later, but for now you can judge for yourself – the entire album is streaming right here. Aside from the usual Scott Hull awesomeness, the band now counts Salome’s Kat as one of its three (!) vocalists.

Seriously, I love this fucking record. It’s just so snotty and brutal and… I can’t say enough good things about it. Please please please go check it out, and if you dig it, remember you can buy an actual copy as of right now.

-AR

So I was thinking back to the CMJ Music Marathon here in NYC last fall, and how Bison B.C. seemed to be the “buzz” metal band on everyone’s tongue. If you were there to see them you witnessed something awesome, and if you weren’t there you heard about it from everyone else and felt like a dipshit because you missed it. At the Scion Rock Fest last month in Atlanta the buzz bands were Krallice and Salome, depending on who you asked (there were, after all, four stages running simultaneously). So who’s it gonna be at this year’s SXSW? My bets are on any one of the awesome bands on The End Records / MetalSucks showcase, but your guesses are as good as any.

Here’s a live video of Bison B.C. performing in their native Vancouver. What are the shows you absolutely must see at this year’s hoedown in Austin?

-VN

That I’m sitting here in the MetalSucks Mansion this snowy Monday morning has gotta be some kinda heavy metal miracle; as I type this, Anton OyVey, Rob Pasbani from Metal Injection, our friends from BITPOM.com, and a lot of other fine friends are still stranded in Atlanta due to the weather.

And honestly, there are worse towns in which to be stranded. To my shock, not only is the booze in Atlanta shockingly cheap, not only is the purp somehow completely fucking magical, but the city is about as chill as you could hope for. I kinda miss it already.

But enough wistful reminiscing. After the jump, get my thoughts on some of the best bands of Saturday’s totally excellent Scion Rock Fest!

Click to read more…

I’ve been trying for some time to figure out a way to articulate the feelings the created by listening to Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and here’s the only thing I’ve been able to come up with: AFDUTKASD’NAS#*%^^^DLABDNAPFUQ!!!NSDFW.

Now that we’ve gotten that out the way: AN have a new album coming out April 14, Agorapocalypse, and have now given fans a first taste of the music from that album – new song “Agorapocalypse Now” is currently streaming on the group’s MySpace page.

In case you didn’t think the band could get any crazier than they already are, brace yourself: this song is pure chaos in music form. And little wonder: the band has added Salome front chick Kat to their ranks, which means they now have three, count ‘em three, vocalists. The song they released with Kat last year, “Home Invasion,” was fucking wicked (and is also streaming on AN’s MySpace page); based on this new track, I’d say we’re in for some fucking aural violence come April 14.

-AR

So Axl and I are shuttering up the gates to the MS Mansion when we get wind that there’s a new Lamb of God video for “Set to Fail” available. Fucking BAD ASS!!!

Before this event of over-arching importance occurred, here’s what we would’ve said was important this week:

• We spoke with Salome’s Aaron Deal and Chimaira’s Mark Hunter.
• No Ozzfest this year. We don’t buy the excuse that it’s because Ozzman’s working on a new album, but at least the Osbournes will be making asses of themselves on national TV again… oh wait.
• We watched Mastodon in the recording studio while we falsely assumed a new track of theirs appeared in a videogame trailer. No matter; Crack the Skye is coming March 24th and there’s a super-special limited edition package available for pre-order.
• Limp Bizkit announced their inevitable reunion. With Wes Borland. No surprise.
• We joined Twitter. Webernets, watch out!
• We looked at new releases by Scale the Summit, Obscura and the new DVD by Dir En Grey. The world previewed the new God Forbid record… and overwhelmingly liked it, by golly! In the Coyle Commune annex of the MS Mansion, Dallas slyly grinned while tapping his fingers slowly together and saying, “Exxxxxxcellent.”
• We pontificated the seemingly complete irrelevance of the Grammies and then immediately forgot about them.

Enjoy cuddling up with your shnookums (metal!) on Valentine’s Day tomorrow and celebrating a day called “Presidents Day” — even though no U.S. presidents were actually born on said day — by not going to work on Monday. Seeya Tuesday.

-VN

In the past year, Salome – who allegedly hail from a magical land called Fort Awesome, Virginia – have quickly become one of our favorite doom metal acts on the planet. Slow like molasses and heavy like a tumor, Salome’s music is a big middle finger to convention and cliché.

The band is playing a show this Sunday, February 15 at Public Assembly in Brooklyn, alongside Ocean, Batillus, and Riff Cannon (get details here – the show is sponsored by Pitchfuck but don’t let that deter you from attending). In anticipation of the event, I recently e-mailed some questions over to drummer Aaron Deal. After the jump, get Aaron’s thoughts on Sunday’s gig, the upcoming Scion Rock Fest, the influence of The Wu Tang Clan on Salome’s music, and more.

Click to read more…

Batillus, one of New York’s best up and coming doom acts, have released their self-titled EP for free download here. I could tell you how awesome it is, but luckily for both you and me, Cosmo Lee – who has written for just about every metal publication under the sun – has already reviewed the album far more eloquently than I ever could at his awesome blog, Invisible Oranges:

“The guitars are all over the place, which is uncommon for their doom milieu. While the band is duly slow and low (the three songs on this EP each top 10 minutes in length), it traverses diverse terrain: trippy Sabbath-isms, mutated Helmet riffs, even black metal tremolo picking. It’s an excitingly open system. There are lots of riffs – if you dislike one, one you like will likely arrive minutes later. Songs morph between riffs with surprising mobility, given the lumbering framework… I saw this band live and was impressed… [the album is] well played and well recorded.”

Click to read more…