Monday Metal Update 6/30

Metal Injection is reporting that Opeth has announced the first two dates of their planned fall North American tour with High On Fire and Baroness. The House of Blues website, however, lists the Chicago support as High On Fire and Nachtmystium. This is going to be one of the best tours of the fall, and as soon as all the details are sorted out we'll let you know.

Opeth - Fall 2008 Dates (so far):

September 24 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
October 6 - San Francisco, CA @ The Grand Ballroom at the Regency Center

[Carcass]

In other awesome tour news, reunited death metal legends Carcass have announced several dates with more to follow. Confirmed dates and the rest of Monday Metal Update after the jump.

Carcass - 2008 Dates:

June 27 - Tuska Open Air (Finland)
June 28 - Gods Of Metal Festival (Italy)
July 4 - Metal Camp 08 (Slovenia)
July 9 - Rockwave (Greece)
August 2 - Wacken Open Air (Germany)
August 16 - Brutal Assault Festival (Czech Republic)
August 17 - Sziget Festival (Hungary)
August 29 - Hole In The Sky (Norway)
August 30 - Loud From The South Festival (Holland)
September 6 - Nokia Theater (New York, NY)
September 27 - Witchfest (South Africa)
October 9 - Capitol, Perth (Australia)
October 10 - HQ Complex, Adelaide (Australia)
October 11 - The Arena, Brisbane (Australia)
October 12 - The Metro Theatre, Sydney (Australia)
October 13 - Billboard, Melbourne (Australia)
October 18 - Loud Park @ Saitama Super Arena (Japan)
November 15 - Danish Metal Awards (Denmark)

Dates for the so-called 'Blackest of the Black' tour have been confirmed. The tour features an old love, Danzig, and a new one, Skeletonwitch, along with Dimmu Borgir, whose polished epic 'commercial' Black Metal we find thoroughly entertaining. Also along for the ride, Moonspell and Winds of Plague.

Blackest of the Black 2008:

Oct. 09 - Ft. Laudersale, FL @ Revolution
Oct. 10 - Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
Oct. 11 - Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
Oct. 13 - Richmond, VA @ Toads Place
Oct. 14 - Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
Oct. 15 - New York, NY @ Roseland
Oct. 17 - Worcester, MA @ Palladium
Oct. 18 - Montreal, QC @ Metropolis
Oct. 19 - Toronto, ONT @ Sound Academy
Oct. 21 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
Oct. 22 - Minneapolis, MN @ Myth
Oct. 24 - Detroit, MI @ Fillmore Theater
Oct. 25 - Chicago, IL @ Congress Theater
Oct. 26 - St. Louis, MO @ Pageant
Oct. 28 - Houston, TX @ House Of Blues
Oct. 30 - Dallas, TX @ Palladium
Oct. 31 - Kansas City, KS @ Uptown
Nov. 01 - Denver, CO @ Fillmore Theater
Nov. 03 - Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint
Nov. 04 - [to be announced]
Nov. 05 - Los Angeles, CA @ Gibson Amphitheater
Nov. 07 - Portland, OR @ Roseland
Nov. 08 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox At Market
Nov. 10 - San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield

Down will be heading down under for a handful of dates in October. The band will be touring Europe soon, including some dates with Metallica and The Sword. Visit Down's site for ticket info.

Down - 2008 Dates:

Jul 10 Markthalle Hamburg
Jul 12 Live Music Hall Koln
Jul 13 KB Malmo
Jul 14 Tradgarn Gothenburg
Jul 16 Bergenhus castle Bergen *
Jul 18 SKK Hall St Petersburg *
Jul 20 Skonto Stadium Riga *
Jul 22 Parco Nord Bologna *
Jul 23 Ptofi Nord Budapest %
Jul 25 Levski Stadium Sofia *
Jul 27 Ali Sami Yen Stadium Istanbul *
Jul 29 Barby Club Tel Aviv
Oct 10 Brisbane, The Arena (18+)
Oct 11 Sydney, UNSW Roundhouse (Licensed All Ages)
Oct 12 Melbourne, Palace Theatre (18+)

* w/ Metallica, The Sword
% w/ The Sword

Nwsbyts:

• Revival thrashers Warbringer have lost their drummer and are currently seeking a replacement.

• A Swedish school teacher has been fired before ever setting foot in a classroom due to his participation in a Black Metal band.

• Metal Kult has an interview with Kurt Ballou and Jacob Bannon from Converge.

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Flick Friday - Judas Priest, Metallica, Whitechapel

This new Judas Priest video is a hack job of what looks like cut scenes from a B-level 1999 computer game. And it doesn't help that the song is a total snoozathon.

Sorry again about the North America-only embed, but rest assured fellow multinationals-- you aren't missing much. Does it piss anyone else off that HBB gets so many video premieres?

Judas Priest - "War":



Watch Metallica play "Creeping Death" at the 2008 Rock Am Ring Festival in Nürburgring, Germany, if you want to. We don't really care whether you watch or not. Pffft.

Metallica - "Creeping Death":

Watch more here, if you want to.

Whitechapel is the latest band copping the Red Chord / Despised Icon (pig squeals and all) deathcore sound. Like Despised Icon, this Tennessee-based band is a sextet, but in this case, rather than two vocalists, they've opted for three guitarists. Can you say 'superfluous'?

Whitechapel - "This Is Exile":



And now, we're gonna pass the mic to Rufus:

Hi, I'm Rufus. If you want to induce vomiting (say, to lose weight... or because you like the taste of puke... or just for dramatic effect), watch this: Apparently Avenged Sevenfold were as embarrassed by their new video for their shitty 'country' song as Rufus was, so they decided to pull it from YouTube. If you didn't get a chance to witness the train wreck, we will repost it here when it's available.



That may have been the worst Flick Friday we've ever had. Sorry about that.

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Crustcake Picks - LA Shows 5/15 - 5/21

by beatmasterspeech (LA)

If I wasn't feeling like a plugged-up piece of shit right now, I'd be preparing for the Abysmal Dawn CD release show tonight at the Knitting Factory. Their new album Programmed To Consume is out now and is one fine example of modern death metal.

Supporting them tonight is another personal fave, Dreaming Dead (formerly known as Manslaughter). This amazing blackened thrash band features Elizabeth Schall (Winterthrall, The Iron Maidens) and Mike Caffell (drums, Exhausted Prayer). You definitely do not want to miss the best of LA's local brutality. And look out for our upcoming interview with Abysmal Charles (vocals/guitar, Abysmal Dawn).

Now, if you've got the coin for it, some of the old school heavy hitters are in town, Megadeth and Metallica.



Metallica is coming down from the bay to take part in KROQ's annual "Weenie Roast y Fiesta." Tickets are sold out by now but you can always try eBay or Craigslist. But honestly, check out the line up first... you have to sit through some serious top 40 modern 'rock' until Metallica takes the stage and even then you don't know if it's gonna be a St. Anger set with one oldie or a completely killer set from the Black Album and before... It may be too pricey and risky (lawn tickets start at $55!).

Gigantour makes its LA area stop this year at the Long Beach Arena (featured in the classic Live After Death Iron Maiden DVD). This year's Gigantour features High On Fire, Job For A Cowboy, Children of Bodom, In Flames, and of course tour organizers Megadeth. I'm on the fence with this one. I love High On Fire but in an arena it might not be as awesome... The others I'm just meh about... I mean Megadeth is awesome but it depends on how Dave is feeling that night, you know?

LA show picks 5/15 - 5/21:

Thursday 5/15 - Abysmal Dawn, Letum Ascensus, The Cauterized, Dreaming Dead, Isolation Infamy @ The Knitting Factory [tix]

Saturday 5/17 - Metallica (KROQ's Weenie Roast) @ The Verizon Wireless Ampitheater (Irvine,CA) [tix]

Wednesday 5/21 - Gigantour @ Long Beach Arena [tix]

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Metal Inquisition Sentences You to Death by Guillotine

When the evil geniuses over at Metal Inquisition do something, they do it all the way. Last week, they posted thorough results of what must have been hours upon hours of strenuous research: they hypothesized that by searching a generic but brutal word such as 'guillotine,' scores of bands could be found on the internet. And they were right. In all, eleven different 'Guillotines' (or minor variations thereof) were discovered and examined in detail. Here's a sample:

Like I needed any more reasons to think Sacramento is the worst city in America (second would have to be Greensboro, NC), here come these assbags. Is the bass player wearing a trench coat or was he getting a hair cut right before practice? "Thanks for the haircut, Kayleen. Sorry, I don't have time to take off the faux-silk robe, I gotta get to practice! ... Oh, no we're still practicing at grannie's. She hates that Exploited poster I put up in the living room every time we practice. Her maid is Mexican, so, yeah, I use her flag to cover my 4x12." They have a song up on their myspace page (they got 75 fans, mostly grannie's friends, I'm sure). I'll save you the pain, it's as bad as the band looks. They recorded it using gramma's tape recorder. Hey, they need a drummer, so if you wanna relocate to Sac, go for it. Judging by what I heard, knowing how to play drums is optional.

Read the whole post here. Our only complaint? No links. Not that a quick search or two wouldn't turn up most of these glorious Guillotines.

Oh and while you're over there, be sure to stop by their post on MetallicArt. It's delightful.

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Metallica - Is There Hope?

by beatmasterspeech (LA)

As you may have noticed, there has been a steady resurgence of thrash lately. There's a whole new crop of young thrash bands creeping their way into the metal mainstream and I f’n support that. At the same time, we have veterans like Testament, Exodus (who killed it in NYC earlier this week), and the mighty Slayer 'keeping it real', as Chappelle would say. But I wonder where, oh where has Metallica been?

I don’t know who the hell showed up in 2003 to record St. Anger, but it sure wasn’t the riff masters that once created Master of Puppets. So, a couple years after fighting off an ulcer that St. Anger helped to create, I get word that Metallica is set to deliver their ninth studio album, per the DeciRunes, sometime "between groundhog day and midsummer night."

Since the days of Load and Reload, I’ve been hurting for the Four Horsemen to return to form and take me back to the darker days of Ride The Lightning. Hell, give me anything sounding remotely similar to any record pre-Black Album and I will be complete. I mean, I’m glad that James and the dudes could work out their problems, but shit, I didn’t expect to see it on an f’n movie screen.

After the drastic genre shift of Load and Reload, I pretty much figured Metallica had lost their penchant for metal and were basically sick of it. Load and Reload represent such a different ethos from the Metallica of the '80s that the band should have went with a different name or something; you just can't put those songs up against anything from Master of Puppets. Once I had heard St. Anger-- and believe me I stuck it out with a glimmer of hope all the way through the album-- I knew my chances of ever hearing a proper Metallica record again were slim to none.

Well, fellow metalheads, a small glimmer of hope has returned in the form of a genius man with a massive beard, Rick Rubin! How can someone tied to the Beastie Boys and Slayer in the same sentence not breathe life into the sleeping machine of thrash legend that is Metallica? But then again, it is 2008... Metallica may very well be a lost cause at this point-- only time will tell.

[MP3] Metallica - "Death is Not the End"

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