Ulcerate’s The Destroyers of All was one of the most deliciously heavy and crushingly beautiful releases of all of 2011, landing a spot in four different MS staffers’ Best of 2011 lists plus a whole slew of mentions in the lists published by Ulcerate’s contemporaries in other metal bands. Now we’ll finally have a chance to experience all of Ulcerate’s death metal carnage in person when these New Zealanders descend upon North America for the very first time ever this May for a quick tour sponsored by MetalSucks.

As many foreign metal band are wont to do, Ulcerate have used their Memorial Day Weekend appearance at Maryland Deathfest as an excuse to play a few more shows while they’re here, and we couldn’t be happier. The all-too-brief seven-date tour leading up to MDF features shows in the Eastern U.S. and Canada, with NYC’s own Tombs as support on the first three dates and an as-of-yet unannounced opener on the remaining tour stops.

Dates after the break!

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So, to review the ways in bass players let us down this week:

• Coheed and Cambria’s Michael Todd robbed a pharmacy.
• Nick Oliveri from Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss held his girlfriend hostage in a four-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team.
• Jeroen Paul Thessling quit Obscura.

My love of Tombs’ last album, Winter Hours, is well documented. It was my #4 album of the year in ’09, and I proudly displayed my critical hard-on for it for all the world to see in my initial review of the record. And yet, there was something holding it back from being an all-out classic: it was too short. And not in a “IT WAS SO GOOD I JUST WANTED MOOOOOORE!” way, but after “Seven Stars The Angel of Death,” there was a brief instrumental (“Old Dominion”) then it just… stopped. The arc of the album felt like it was setting you up for another song or two, then a big finish, but Winter Hours was ultimately a collection of (admittedly excellent) songs that petered out after about a half hour. Which in its own way is fine — better to understay your welcome than overstay it in terms of the eighty minutes a CD provides — but Tombs seemed to be reaching for so much more. Winter Hours was as frustrating as it was satisfying.

So despite the fact that Winter Hours was the band’s full length debut, Paths of Totality, their latest, feels like their first proper album. It’s significantly longer, yes, but instead of a collection of songs, it feels like a statement of purpose. They delve more deeply into testosterone-fueled blackened hardcore and (good) goth-y/post-punk avenues, as well as explore the relationship between the two. There’s plenty of the charm from Winter Hours still present, but Tombs also make good on the potential they showed on that album as well as fostering more to come. Their workmanlike soul and penchant for brashness remain intact, making them already one of the more interesting and satisfying bands in heavy music. But even though they’ve never a band that were wrapped up in shallowness or gimmicks in their brief existence, Totality feels more mature.

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So remember a couple of weeks back, when Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas attempted to see how many illegible band logos their employees could actually identify or, better still, just plain read? Well, now they’ve done it again, this time with members of Tombs and Kill the Client. And at first, the band dudes are all cocky, probably because whomever selected these logos somehow thought that these guys wouldn’t know who Slayer, Emperor, and Nachtmystium are. But then they start to break out some actually difficult-to-decipher logos — including several we’ve used for Completely Unreadable Band Logo of the Week — and, well, these guys start to have just as much trouble reading ‘em as anyone else might.

Check out the video below. It’s worth watching almost entirely for Kill the Client’s Champ Morgan, who is apparently a very opinionated, facetious, funny motherfucker, that I will now begin pursuing to write a column for MetalSucks, although based on this clip I’d guess he thinks we blow.

There’s still about twenty-four hours left to enter this week’s Completely Unreadable competition for a chance to win a copy of Turbid Norther’s Orogeny; then, tomorrow, we’ll start a new competition, in which we’ll be giving away some sweet vinyl copies of Sick of It All’s Based on a True Story. Get stoked.

-AR

Thanks: Slippy MacNeil

June is going to be a huge month for metal releases and it starts with a bang today, the month’s first Tuesday. New releases by Morbid Angel, Arch Enemy, Job For A Cowboy and Amorphis are the biggest hitters, while new ones from Origin, Engineer, Gigan, Khann and Tombs are sure to put some hair on your chest. And that’s just a small sampling of all that comes out today. Vic Vaughn on each and every one of ‘em after the jump.

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If you’re American, you already know it’s Memorial Day weekend, and, in fact, you’re probably either already on your way to the beach/a BBQ/a terrible summer movie/whatever, and are reading this after it was published. If you’re not American, all you really need to know is that we’re breaking out right now, and won’t be here on Monday. Usual tomfoolery will resume on Tuesday, May 31.

In the meantime, here’s how we kept busy this week:

• We debuted new music from Job for a Cowboy, Tombs, Unearth, and Vaulting.
• We spoke to Neil Fallon from Clutch.
• We continued to unveil our list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists.
• We checked out the latest releases from Dark Castle and Embers.
• Sergeant D. examined comedy metal.
• Leyla Ford examined Lady GaGa’s metal-ness.
• Anso wondered if Slayer pinball is better than recent Slayer albums.
• We got really excited about the new Gojira song.
• We got less excited about the new Bury Your Dead song.
• We watched you folks debated about the new Trivium song.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to put these tips for using the toilet to good use before I head out for the weekend. See ya Tuesday!

-AR

We’re only two weeks away from the release of Tombs’ crushing new album, Path of Totality. But two weeks can seem like an eternity when waiting for new music from a band as awesome as Tombs, which is why we got ya covered early — you can stream the title track below. Constantly shifting and evolving, slithering slowly towards you one moment and then suddenly oh-fuck-it-has-legs chasing you the next, the song never sounds like anything less than Pure Fucking Evil, a merciless black hole of despair and rock. You will fucking love it.

Path of Totality comes out June 7 on Relapse. You can pre-order it here. The band is also on tour throughout June; you can get dates here!

Sooo… just thought we’d take this opportunity to remind you yet again that MetalSucks, with a special assist from The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley, will be presenting Heavy Metal Literature Night at at Hank’s Saloon in Brooklyn this Thursday, February 17. Members of God Forbid, Tombs, and, of course, this very website, will be doing readings from from some of metal’s greatest tomes, including Motley Crue’s The Dirt, Led Zeppelin’s Hammer of the Gods, Slash’s Slash, Marilyn Manson’s Long Hard Road Out of Hell, and more — kinda like what Will Forte does in the below video. Only we don’t make one of the biggest bombs of the year and get fired from Saturday Night Live at the end.

And, oh yeah, Vince is DJing!!! Come get st00pid with us. Thursday night. See ya there.

The above video (which I first saw on Movieline) is of Mad Men star Jon Hamm doing a reading from My Dad Was in ZZ Top, a new book by Conan writer John Glaser. The book uses allegedly “found” documents to tell the secret history of rock n’ roll — Hamm is reading a chapter about the secret origins of the Butthole Surfer’s moniker.

Sadly, Hamm will not be at the MetalSucks sponsored Heavy Metal Literature Night at Hank’s Saloon on Thursday, February 17 — but lotsa other cool people will be! Members of God Forbid, Tombs, and The Austerity Program will all be on hand to do readings from some of metal’s greatest tomes, including Motley Crue’s The Dirt, Led Zeppelin’s Hammer of the Gods, Slash’s Slash, Marilyn Manson’s Long Hard Road Out of Hell, and more; MS’ own masters of mischief, Axl Rosenberg and Vince Neilstein, will also be on hand to read and DJ, respectively.

Oh yeah, and, of course, we plan to get pretty drunk.

Even more details coming next week!!! Get excited!!!

Wormrot have released another song (here’s the first) from their new album, Dirge. It’s called “Erased Existence,” and it’s a real cock tease, ’cause it’s so damn good, but it’s also only forty-five seconds long.

Of course, they could also just release a slowed-down version of the song to make it last longer. Sure, why not? Apparently they recently had to slow down some of their shit in order to convince event permit officers in Vietnam that they have “mellower” material, too:

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Back in January, Mayhem announced a tour with some ridiculously awesome support acts, including Ludicra, Krallice, and Tombs; then, in true Mayhem fashion, they cancelled the tour just a couple of weeks later. And I think pretty much everyone had the same reaction: “Ludicra, Krallice, and Tombs should just tour without Mayhem.” Because it was still an incredibly strong bill even without the black metal legends.

Well, hey, guess what? Ludicra are doing just that! They’ve announced the wittily monikered “De-Cancellation Tour 2010,” which will find Krallice doing even more dates than they were scheduled to play with Mayhem, and even has Tombs tagging along for a handful of shows. Various shows will also feature support from a diverse line-up of other kick-ass bands, including Lair of the Minotaur, Slough Feg, Ocean (not The Ocean, but still a great band), and Kowloon Walled City, so I’d say “To hell with Attila.”

Get dates after the jump. And it’s worth noting that Ludicra’s excellent new record, The Tenant, is available now on Profound Lore Records via the label’s website. Sooner or later I’ll try to write something a little more proper about that album, but for now I’ll just say “Buy it.” It has the MS seal of approval.

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An anonymous industry insider close to the Mayhem camp has contacted MetalSucks with the news that the Norwegian black metallers have canceled their tour with Ludicra, Krallice and Tombs. Says the MetalSucks tipster, “I can 100% guarantee that this is true.”

The tour was scheduled to start in New York City on April 7th and wrap up in Los Angeles on April 25th (dates here).

This following last year’s doomed-before-it-even started Blackenedfest Tour. That tour’s original bill featured Mayhem, Marduk, Cephalic Carnage, Cattle Decapitation and Withered. Marduk didn’t make it to the U.S. due to visa issues, and the other three bands dropped off after an all-night argument in Denver. Mayhem finished up the tour alone.

We’ll post more news as this story develops…

We loved the last tour blog that Bison B.C.’s Dan And did for us so much, we’re only all-too-happy to present another! Below, please enjoy part 1; check back tomorrow for part 2!

Sep 11 ’09 (Vancouver BC @ Commodore)

I always love kicking off a tour with a show in Vancouver. It’s great to have one last chance to get completely loser pissed with our friends before we hit the road for however long. This time we were fortunate enough to finally share the stage with local good ‘ol boys The Golers and old pals 3 Inches of Blood. The Golers have been around forever and everyone should fucking hear them. They’re basically Vancouver’s Venomous Concept: relentless, break-neck speed pummeling. Is grind-punk a genre?

Show was fucking fun as all hell. It was 3 Inches record release show for Here Waits Thy Doom (which may or may not feature all of us doing backups on the song “Preacher’s Daughter”) and the place was packed! The cap of the Commodore is somewhere between 950 and 1000 and apparently it was like 15 tickets away from being sold out. Jesse from local grinders Zuckuss pointed out how fucking crazy it is that three local bands brought that many metal heads out of the woodwork. The night was bitter sweet though because not only was our good friend Ian unable to be there because of surgery but that night would also be my last chance to ever set foot in local punk/metal institution the Cobalt. I can’t even describe how awesome that bar and the staff are. The thought that it’s getting shut down by the fucking slum lords that own the building so they can cash in on Olympic fever makes me wanna tear someone’s head off. I’m consoled by the fact that I know bar legend/honcho Wendy 13 will soon enough have a new venue I can crawl out of at 5am reeking of Jager bombs. COBALT FOREVER!
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I know I’m not alone in my excitement over the upcoming Eyehategod micro-tour, which kicks off next week in Baltimore and continues with two New York City shows (including one on a motherfucking boat!) and another one in Cambridge, MA. Openers for these dates include such fine acts as Goatwhore, Pig Destroyer, and Tombs. Peep the sludge metal legends’ MySpace page for more details on these shows.

However, I suspect those of you unable to attend may be pleased to learn that Confederacy Of Ruined Lives, the band’s release from the year 2000, is getting the vinyl reissue treatment via the aptly named I’m Better Than Everyone Records. Limited to a scarce 400 copies on “thick black vinyl,” the album has been specially remastered and packaged in a nifty gatefold, which you can see previews of at the site. An even more limited version is already sold-the-fuck-out, so make sure you preorder your copy before the October 20th release date if you don’t want to miss out.

-GS

[Gary Suarez is amazed at the range of responses to his Oceano review. He usually mismanages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

A lot of people are bummed that Burnt By The Sun are calling it quits. Thankfully, the New Jersey metallic hardcore act chose to leave us with the robust and raging Heart Of Darkness, a furious swansong released just a couple months ago on Relapse, amicably ending a seven-year recording relationship with the label. If you don’t own it yet, and you purport to enjoy heavy music, you are truly missing out. Read Sammy O’Hagar’s review if you need further convincing.

Perhaps as a nod to the band’s popularity abroad, on October 7th Burnt By The Sun kick off a series of farewell dates in Europe, beginning in The Netherlands and ending two-and-a-half weeks later in, uh, The Netherlands, with cities like Athens, Berlin, London, Prague, and Vienna in the middle. Americans, however, will get one final shot to shower the band with adulation and sweat this Friday October 2 in New York City at Cake Shop. Supporting the band on this bill are some great local bands (Bloodhorse and Torchbearer) and some Relapse labelmates, namely Tombs (whose album I revisited and now love) and MetalSucks favorites Black Anvil. There wont be advance tickets, so get there early. I’ll be there drinking profusely and waving goodbye!

-GS

[Gary Suarez is fun on a bun. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

The first time I heard Tombs‘ Relapse Records debut Winterhours was on the New York subway with iPod earbuds, which are clearly not the ideal conditions for developing an accurate initial impression of a band. I wasn’t impressed and turned it off after a few songs, likely in favor of something more familiar such as The Jonas Brothers. Recently though, I’ve given the record some undivided attention at home, where the sound is hardly state-of-the-art but at least it isn’t subject to train noises and obnoxious interruptions by my fellow passengers. Much to my surprise and delight, I fucking love Winterhours.

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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

Our hetero life partners are Metal Injection have captured some typically testicle-tickling footage of Genghis Tron, Tombs, Wetnurse and Black Anvil at a recent “Show No Mercy” gig – the concert writer Brandon Stosuy puts on in Brooklyn one Sunday out of every month.

Here’s a sample – more specifically, Genghis Tron performing one of my most favoritist songs of theirs, “Ride the Steambolt.” Go here to check out more awesome clips of GT as well as Tombs, Wetnurse and Black Anvil!

-AR

You read right, blog patron. For the mere cost of a compact disc, you can secure for yourself MILLIONS in return. But don’t thank Barack Obama for this imminent stimulus opportunity. Instead, thank the folks at Seventh Rule, the impressive indie that brought us Wetnurse, Light Yourself On Fire and now: Millions.

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The infuriating thing about Tombs’ Relapse debut, Winter Hours, at least for a man in my profession, is that it’s hard to quantify why it’s so good. The band’s solid mishmash of genres begs for praise, but as a thick, layered listen, it’s hard to do said praising. Does one touch upon the aforementioned genre-bending mishmash, Winter Hours‘ compact yet haunting presentation, or not lapsing into the masturbatory reverb and feedback drone metal exercises like their hometown (Brooklyn) may imply? Perhaps the album’s greatness lies in that it can’t be pinned down, that it survives and flourishes on its own merits as opposed to thriving within a definite category. Not that it’s bad to thrive under a particular label, but sometimes the unquestioned triumph of the gut is just as resounding as, say, Blut aus Nord making an exceptional black metal record. Though in a time when metal comment boards are reducing every band to the greatest band ever or a total “shit band,” the most important thing you need to know about Winter Hours is that it’s really, really good.

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