One of the godfathers of black metal's image and content (if not necessarily the sound), King Diamond chose Dimmu Borgir's "The Serpentine Offering" as his Bang of the Week. Makes sense to us. Diamond's music is theatrical, epic and rooted in darkness. The same can certainly be said for Dimmu Borgir. Now, if only the King would use more blast beats and Dimmu singer, Shagrath, would wail in a multi-octave falsetto then we'd really be styling. Oh, well. There ain't nothing wrong with dreaming. Now here's Diamond: Read more...

One of the biggest buzz bands in metal right now is Miami four-piece Black Tide, whose debut album, Light From Above, comes out March 18.

These dudes seem to have a lot going for them. First, they're all super-young (frontman Gabriel Garcia is, like, 15 years old, dude) but they're also surprisingly talented. Their songs are fast and heavy enough to fit in with the new wave of American thrash bands (Warbringer, Evile), but along with their love for Megadeth and Metallica, Black Tide have an appreciation of classic, melodic rock such as Guns N' Roses and AC/DC, which gives them more mainstream appeal than other blowtorch thrashers.

Even if you're not yet sold on Black Tide's brand of commercial thrash, it's worth keeping an eye on them to see how they're going to evolve as the years roll by. Put it this way, if they're still around in 2018, they'll have, say, four full-lengths out, and Garcia will still only be 25!

Headbangersblog.com recently cornered Black Tide to talk to them about embarrassing moments, Ozzfest, touring and the influence of '80s metal.

(click "read more") to view the other interview clips with Black Tide. Read more...

It seems like whenever you get online today and check out what is happening in the world of metal, another amazing band has either reformed with its classic lineup or is getting back together for the first time in many years to tour. Not only does this thrill the group's devout older fans, a whole new generation of people that never had the chance to see them in the glory days of the '80s and early '90s is coming along for the ride as well.

I think this a very unique time because one day you might be going to a Killswitch Engage or Machine Head show, and the next week your going down to your local arena to watch Iron Maiden play epic 13 minute songs. Some critics, for some reason or another, may not be thrilled by this, but for the vast majority of us, who appreciate music regardless of whether it was written in 1985 or 2005, it's a once in a lifetime chance to see bands from all eras of heavy metal history playing and making music. Read more...

Tony Danza Tapdance Extravanza
photo by Wazup1117, courtesy of photobucket.com

Maybe more developing bands should take public transportation to their gigs. It would surely be a lot safer than traveling city to city in a rickety trailer or van.

Of course, with all the equipment to haul and musicians to carry, that's hardly feasible, but there's gotta be a better option than the dreaded deathtraps in which bands typically travel. Hell, it's probably safer to drive a motorcycle across a sheet of ice than to place a sleep-deprived musician behind the wheel of a battered up van.

For now at least, the members of Arsis and Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza probably agree with us. Both groups experienced debilitating road accidents over the past week or so because they lacked the funds to travel like Megadeth. Read more...

This week, our resident artist, Mike Hrubovcak of visualdarkness.com checks in with a piece he's rendered for an upcoming Grave compilation that's scheduled for release in October on Century Media.

The album will unearth some of the band's most popular songs as well as a lot of the old classics from their earlier CDs. I grew up on 1991's Into the Grave and 1992's You'll Never See..., which are still some of my favorite albums, so doing this illustration was actually a huge honor for me.

I remember staring at those covers while submersing myself in the overall vibe from the music. What a great feeling that was. I hope people can pull those kinda feelings from this cover as well. Imagine yourself as the undead corpse clawing through the mud and the muck to rise and destroy once again. It's time to pull out those old Grave tapes and resurrect the brutality.

Like most of my work this was done digitally in Photoshop using mixed media / photo manipulation / airbrush with the wacom tablet.

Fans of the Gothenburg scene will surely recognize this week's logo as that of the now-defunct Ceremonial Oath, one of the leaders of the melodic death metal movement and a training camp of sorts for members of In Flames, Cemetery, Tiamat and HammerFall.

Ceremonial Oath was formed in 1989 by singer and guitarist Oscar Dronjak, under the name Desecrator. In 1989 the band released its first demo, Wake the Dead, which featured three tracks. In 1990, they released a second demo, Black Sermons. With a total of six songs desecrated, they changed their name.

Two years later, Ceremonial Oath released the seven-inch single "The Lost Name of God." Then, they started working on their first album, The Book of Truth, which came out in 1993. The lineup at the time featured Donjak, guitarist Anders Iwers, guitarist Jesper Stromblad and drummer Markus Nordberg.

After the album was released, Stromblad quit to turn In Flames from a side project into his main gig and Donjak left to focus on Crystal Age and HammerFall.

The group continued with future In Flames singer Anders Friden, bassist Mikael Andersson and bassist Tomas Johansson. But after its second album, Carpet, came out in 1995, Ceremonial Oath totally went up in flames.

We have to admit that when we were throwing together artist names for 2008 podcasts, Nile wasn't at the tippy-top of our list. Not that we don't adore them like Tutankhamun loves his mummy (sorry, couldn't resist). In fact, when it comes to original technical death metal, there's no one more inspired or talented. But we weren't sure there were enough fans out there to justify a full podcast. Then we ran a "Who Rocks Harder" between Nile and Behemoth.

Not only did Nile clean the floor with Behemoth (who we also really dig), but the responses were far more impassioned and, well, voluminous than those of any other acts we've featured in the section. That sealed the deal. And once we finished talking to Nile Frontman Karl Sanders, we realized how lunkheaded we were not to sign him up last July, when the band's newest album, Ithyphallic came out. (click read more to hear the Headbangers Blog podcast with Nile). Read more...

After more than six years apart, the members of influential metallic hardcore band Earth Crisis are back together working on a new album, reports MTVnews.com's Metal File.

So far, the group has written six songs for the disc and hopes to enter the studio later this year for a release in 2009. The yet-untitled disc will be the band's first since 2001's The Last of the Sane, but all that time apart hasn't changed Earth Crisis' motivation or approach.

"Our goals are the same as they were back in 2001," says frontman Karl Buechner. "Our goal as a band was to write songs that appeal to our taste in music, Hopefully, we can make our old fans happy and get some of the younger guys into some of these ideas too." Read more...

This one's probably not gonna stump too many people because the band that created it is pretty historically important. The logo itself is kinda ragged, but pretty cool looking in an old-school sort of way. But clearly the band members were focusing a lot harder on making meaningful music than on creating a gangbuster logo. Sadly, they're best remembered as a springboard for various players who bounded into far more popular bands.

The upcoming Kreator DVD "At the Pulse of Kapitulation - Live in East Berlin 1990" will feature sonically remixed and re-edited versions of the VHS releases "Extreme Aggression Tour 1989/'90 Live in East Berlin" and the horror-themed video "Hallucinative Comas." The former captures the the band's set from one of the first major metal shows staged in East Germany after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The concert featured 15 songs, including classics like "Pleasure to Kill," "Under the Guillotine," "Flag of Hate," "Terrible Certainty" and "Tormentor." There's also a revealing documentary, which includes interviews with musicians who played the event, audience members, radio DJs and more. The release also comes with a CD of the full concert.

"Words don't do justice to the energy that was in the air that day in East Berlin," frontman Mille Petrozza says. "The whole event can only be described as utterly unique."

As cool as the live stuff is, the gorehound in us is more excited to check out to 20-plus minute conceptual horror piece "Hallucinative Comas, which was re-edited by original directors Hainer Thimm and Andreas Marshall and features footage that was considered too graphic for the original release. The mini-film features videos for six songs from the 1990 album Coma of Souls. To get the skinny on "Hallucinative Comas," we checked in with Petrozza for the following Q&A interview:

How did you come up with the idea for doing a horror video for "Hallucinative Comas?"
The Lyrics on Coma of Souls deal with horrors that take place in the subconscious. We first asked German Director Jörg Buttgereit (Nekromantik, Schramm) to film the movie for us, but his ideas seemed too violent for our record company back then, so he recommended Andreas Marshall, who later created "Tears of Kali." (click "read more" for the rest of the interview). Read more...