…Joe Nurre (Shaded Enmity) on guitar, Gregory Macklin (System Divide, Ordinance) on bass, and Anup Sastry (Intervals, Skyharbor) on drums. None of those dudes appear on Loomis’ forthcoming album, Plains of Oblivion, but it was never very likely that the guitarist was gonna be able to get, for example, Dirk Verbeuren to do a tour, so whatever. I would be kinda curious to know why Shane Lentz, the bass player who Loomis recruited for Plains after discovering him via YouTube, isn’t joining the band — it could be any number of reasons, including Lentz just not wanting to tour — but that’s really just my gossipy side getting the best of me. The dudes Loomis landed are all talented musicians, and will surely do him proud, or else be condemned to a lifetime as Warrel Dane’s designated driver.

Here’s a statement from Loomis about how he put this band together:

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FEATURING MEMBERS OF KYLESA, INSOMNIUM, ABORTED, MNEMIC, MARUTA, EAST OF THE WALL, BLOODIEST, BROKEN HOPE, AND IN DE GOOT ENTERTAINMENT

Every year year, MetalSucks asks musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year have been. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike have graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of nine to ten musicians at a time two to three times a day for the whole week.

After the jump, check out the next group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

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For a hot minute Overkill were supposed to be on the currently-in-progress Anthrax/Testament/Death Angel tour, which would have made it the can’t-miss thrash tour of the year, instead of just being a can’t-miss thrash tour (’cause let’s be real, that line-up is still pretty sweet). Unfortunately, they dropped off that tour, and fortunately, it was to record a new album, which, of course, meant it was only a matter of time until they toured again.

Well, hey, guess what? They’re touring again! They’ll hit the road this spring with a bunch of bands of varying degrees of coolness — namely Belphegor, Aborted, Blackguard, System Divide, and Diamond Plate – acting as support. Maybe not quite as cool as seeing them with some other classic thrash bands, but certainly not at all shabby a line-up, either. And, like many of their old school thrash peers, Overkill have been experiencing a renaissance as of late — their last two albums, Immortalis and Ironbound, were both particularly swell. Hopefully the new release will be, too, and the tour will become that much cooler.

Here are dates, courtesy of Metal Injection:

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I was more than a little intrigued yesterday when we received a press release announcing the line-up for the 2011 edition (Have there been previous editions?) of Dame-Nation, “Chicago’s premier female-fronted metal festival” (Does Chicago have other female-fronted metal festivals?). The idea of doing a whole show based around bands that are fronted by women isn’t new; as I write this, the Revolver Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock tour is about half complete. And the organizers of Dame-Nation seem to only kinda-sorta know what they’re doing. But it’s their complete lack of polish that I find, well… admirable, really.

One key difference between the Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock tour and Dame-Nation is that none of the bands on Dame-Nation are famous. In other words, if the Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock tour features bands that no one would care about if not for the fact that they have attractive girls in the group, then Dame-Nation features bands that no one cares about despite having attractive girls in the group.

Maybe the bands on HCIHR have ascended somewhat higher on the metallic food chain (fiscally if not creatively) than the bands on Dame-Nation because they know how to sell themselves; HCIHR makes no bones about its own marketing ploy. Just check out the poster… what product is it actually advertising?

Maria Brink has a nice pair of sunglasses.

Now contrast this with the poster for Dame-Nation:

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[To chronicle their current tour -- the U.S. portion of which features 3 Inches of Blood, Holy Grail and System Divide in support -- Swiss folk metallers Eluveitie will be writing an exclusive tour blog for MetalSucks. Read about the Brazilian tour in the Week 1 Tour Blog, and arriving in America and Canada in Week 2. Week 3 follows, in which Eluveitie learn to enjoy the old American West and encounter zombies in Vancouver. -Ed.]

Chicago. We had more than enough rest and we can’t wait to actually DO something again. Offdays are useless crap. After the traditional morning excursion to Starbucks we can face the day!

Nice location, good sound, great restaurant and a reasonable amount of fans making it to the show, so nothing to complain about at all. Jenna is the lucky contest winner (over a couple of weeks fans could record videos of them covering “Thousandfold” and we chose the winners), so she will be on stage with us tonight to play her “Flying V” violin (with fuckin frets, how weird is that?!).

And FINALLY we get our after-show party!

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Earlier this month I caught Eluveitie, Holy Grail and System Divide at NYC’s Gramercy Theater at the beginning of their month-long North American trek [check Eluveitie's tour blogs]. Unfortunately 3 Inches of Blood were trapped in Cleveland (the horror!) due to van problems, so I was bummed to learn I wouldn’t be catching them on this day… but no matter, I’ve seen their rockage before and I’m sure they’ll be back again. Eluveitie reminded me of what folk metal is like when it’s done exceedingly well, Holy Grail lived up to my expectations of having lots of shred and lots of hair, and System Divide… well, uh, they were there too.

After the jump, further thoughts on all three bands, and plenty of photos from the show.

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[To chronicle their current tour -- the U.S. portion of which features 3 Inches of Blood, Holy Grail and System Divide in support -- Swiss folk metallers Eluveitie will be writing an exclusive tour blog for MetalSucks. Week one of the tour took them through Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Curitiba, Brazil; read about the Brazilian tour in the Week 1 Tour Blog. Week 2 follows, in which we learn that Eluveitie hate touring with other folk/pagan metal bands but absolutely love Walmart. -Ed.]

Sleep for 10 hours straight on the plane and wake up in the freezing cold. Awesome. Temperature shock FTW part II! BUT there’s a Starbucks at the airport which gets us all excited and stuff.

First stop, Philly! Apart from the bad news of people not making it to the show because roads are blocked and shit like that we’re stoked to see our good friends from Holy Grail. 3 Inches of Blood unfortunately can’t make it to the show because their van broke down… System Divide sound really good, great to be on a tour with bands that are worth listening to. Side note: We fucking hate touring with folk/pagan metal bands (apart from Finntroll). Isn’t it ironic ;-)

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Let’s keep this short n’ sweet: the winner for the final evening in the festival of lights is reader Kris Weathers, who correctly answered last night’s trivia question. System Divide is the band with an Israeli female vocalist released an album in September. A lot of you guessed GodWrath, who are Israeli and do have a female singer, but did not, to the best of my knowledge, release an album in September.

ANYWAY, Kris, like the seven other winners of this year’s contest, gets a mystery prize courtesy of Century Media, and a dreidel, courtesy of us. Mazel tov, Kris!

We’d like to thank everyone who played, we’d like to thank Century for continuing to indulge, and unless the world ends or something, we look forward to doing this again next year!

-AR

Man, Eluveitie are a fun live band. “How fun are they?” Why, I’m glad you asked, oh beloved readers. They’re so much fun that, as Vince would say, if you don’t like fun, you shouldn’t go see them live.

Of course, you do like fun, and you will go see them live. And if you live in North America, you’ll go see them live in February, when they’re doing a headlining trek. And they’re taking some great bands on the road with them for support, too — namely, 3 Inches of Blood and Holy Grail. System Divide will also be on the tour.

Get dates after the jumper-ator-ator-ator.

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Death metal butchers Aborted have launched the title-track of their forthcoming EP, Coronary Reconstruction, at the band’s redesigned MySpace page.

Aborted have recently announced a new line-up, featuring Sven de Caluwe (also of System Divide) on vocals, Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork) on drums, Eran Segal (ex-They Swarm/Whorecore) and Ken Sorceron (Abigail Williams) on guitar and Cole Martinez (System Divide) on bass…

Wait wait wait wait wait wait. The dude from Abigail Williams is in Aborted now? How the fuck did I miss that?

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