Who says puppies aren't metal?

Deicide frontman Glen Benton may have a history of spreading cow, pig and sheep organs across the stage, but we're willing to bet that if you put a cute puppy doberman in front of him, he'd melt like a stick of butter in the hot Florida sun.

When envelopes containing the Anthrax virus were being sent to media outlets across America, Anthrax guitarist announced the band was considering changing its name to Basketful of Puppies. Sure, Ian was just joking, but we're guessing he's still filled with puppy love -- and not just for his wife/Meatloaf's daughter Pearl Aday.

And finally, no one would accuse The Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman of being a wuss, yet the dude loves his pet pug, Blixa, probably more than his own family. And he's so enamored of puppies and the adult canines they grow into that he's launched the Web site Garmutt.com to sell rock apparel to dog owners. Logos on t-shirts and sweatshirts include "Black Labbath" and "Petallica Master of Puppies."

So, with all the puppy appreciation going around in the metal kingdom, we feel no shame in saying that after a full day of listening to death metal, black metal, thrash, power metal, prog-metal, experi-metal, ambient metal, deathcore, metalcore and straight ol' heavy metal, we like to put on a Neil Young CD, crack open a Bud Light and check out the basketful of puppies URL "Shiba Inu Puppy Cam," which has been all the rage for the past five weeks. Thanks to our comrades over at MetalSucks.net who introduced us to it. Click "more" to revel in the violence and death -- errr, cuteness. Read more...

photo by Jon Wiederhorn

Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher was hospitalized in London on November 3 with an undetermined ailment, confirmed the group's label. He is undergoing a battery of tests, but doctors have not yet been able to make a diagnosis.
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What is it about grindcore and vegetarians? It's not like there's a connection between insanely fast riffs, blinding blastbeats, indecipherable vocals and healthy eating. Yet Carcass, members of Napalm Death and Cattle Decapitation forgo the consumption of meat -- despite having canine teeth suited for meat-eating mammals -- in favor of green, leafy vegetables.

Then again, if we were musicians and had to subsist strictly on diets of soy products and green vegetables, we'd be pretty angry, too, and, if we didn't wind up writing hateful songs that sounded like the Jonas Brothers of Pink, we might make music in the vein of Cattle Decapitation.

The San Diego grinders recently finished their new album, The Harvest Floor, which will come out January 20. "Sonically, the band has managed to finally capture and accentuate its live intensity that we've become known for and has created one hell of an album from start to epic finish! Conceptually, its misanthropy shall go unmatched. This is it, humans... ferocity at its finest," writes the band on its MySpace.

Click "more" to read more from the band and check out a widget that features an MP3 of the new track "A Body Farm." Read more...

Look for Lamb of God's 2009 album, Wrath, to mark a return to the political firestorms of 2004's Ashes of the Wake. While the band strayed from such subject matter on 2006's deeply personal Sacrament, the worsening economic crisis, never-ending war in Iraq and continual controversies from the Bush administration are things the band can ignore no longer. Still, there will be differences between the tones of Ashes and Wrath.

"It's not as soapbox-y, and not as rant-y about the government — it's more about personal experiences," guitarist Mark Morton told Chris Harris of MTVnews.com. "We've met a lot of people and fans who've served in these wars that are going on around the world, so it's a little more personal, tying the worldview into how it affects individuals. And then there's stuff that has nothing to do with CNN at all. There are songs on this record that talk about our experiences, and are aimed at certain people we've met along the way, who, through jealousy or whatever, found some reason to betray us or turn their back on us or try to stab us in the back. As you have success, people kind of turn against you sometimes, so there are a couple of songs directed at those people. Hopefully, they'll know who they are." Read more...

We got so many responses to our request for musicians to comment about the election of Barack Obama as the next Commander-In-Chief of the United States that we've written up a second post for the latest batch. Click more to read what members of Cattle Decapitation, Born From Pain, Animosity, Armored Saint and others think about the president elect. Read more...

In one of Megadeth's best songs, "Peace Sells," Dave Mustaine defiantly sings, "What do you mean I couldn't be the president of the United States of America/ Tell me something, it's still we the people, right?" Whoever thought Mustaine and president elect Barack Obama would have a lot in common?

Just two years ago, the thought of an African American becoming president was, sadly, unimaginable. The prevailing belief was that the people of the United States would support black actors, musicians and sports heroes, and they'd accept African Americans like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as advisers to the president, but the top spot -- uh-uh, out of the question and almost as ridiculous as having a woman chosen as a party's Vice Presidential nominee. Thankfully, all of that's changed.

And "change" was the centerpiece of Obama's campaign. The same can't be said for John McCain. Though he tried to escape being connected to the current administration, to the people of this country, McCain meant more of the same, and the thought of continuing on the path we've been in for the last eight years was just unacceptable. African Americans unanimously voted for Obama, as did Latinos and other minorities, but so did the white working class and intelligentsia.

Obama's victory is a historic one and a breakthrough moment in African American history, but it's equally a great moment in American history. Now, let's hope that the next president will be able to repair the damage that's been done over the last eight years, unify and protect the country, heal our international image, fix the economy, keep our taxes from going up and keep his nose out of our First Amendment rights. And now that we've had our say, here's what some heavy metal artists have commented about the election. Read more...

Our speedy recovery wishes go out to Deftones bassist Chi Cheng, who is currently in a coma at a hospital in San Jose, California following a car accident Monday evening in Santa Clara. HardDrive Radio reports that Cheng and his sister were leaving their older brother's memorial sister at the time of the crash and that his sister was behind the wheel. Read more...

Even with their lead singer Gaahl out of the closet, Gorgoroth are still a scary band. But when push comes to spiked gloved punch, they're not as frightening as Swedish hellraisers Watain.

LIke Gaahl, Watain's vocalist Erik Danielsson and his band mates bathe in blood before taking the stage, but when they ran out of the slimy stuff in Canada, they decided to buy dogs from junkies and kill the creatures to satisfy their needs. And when they couldn't find even one needle-users willing to part with his pooch, they settled for cutting open pigeons they'd slain with slingshots. Don't believe us? Click "more" to listen to the Danielsson tell MetalKult.com the sordid tale. Read more...

Art/punk/metal mavericks Every Time I Die are currently touring Canada and will launch their first U.S. headline tour for their latest album, The Big Dirty, on November 6 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Shows run through November 23 in Syracuse, New York. Frontman Keith Buckley was pleased as punch about the run -- until he discovered that it would coincide with the release of Guns N' Roses looooooooooong-delayed Chinese Democracy album. To voice his discontent, he wrote what he calls "An Open Letter to Axl Rose Ending With an Impression of Howard Dean":

Thanks a s--tload, Axl. You haven't put out a GNR record in 10 years, and the month we decide to go out on a tour cleverly named NOVEMBER REIGN, you find it prime time for Chinese Democracy to hit shelves. You couldn't have waited another three weeks? We haven't done a single headlining tour on The Big Dirty, so this was a really big deal for us. You should have seen Josh's face light up when he thought of the name. The guys in The Bronx and Stick to Your Guns were happier than pigs in s--t to be a part of this epic journey across the East Coast. But you just couldn't stand to see us happy. Read more...

More than 25 years after co-founding Death Angel with his brother Gus Pepa (guitar) and cousins Mark Osegueda (vocals), Rob Cavestany and drummer Andy Galeon, bassist Dennis Pepa has left the band.

"I've been with Death Angel since its inception in the '80s and believe it is time for me to move on," he said in a statement to Blabbermouth.net. "Throughout my career with the band, I've brought a punk-influenced edge to the Death Angel sound, and as an open-minded musician in need of change, I'd like to diversify and explore other opportunities within and beyond the genre of metal." Read more...