For this lovely Christmas Eve -- which happens to be the fourth night of Chanukkah -- Slipknot percussionist Shawn Crahan (a.k.a. Clown) provides us with a heartwarming holiday image -- a dead deer by the side of the road. Could it be Rudolph got a little too snockered on eggnog and drove Santa's sleigh into the side of a barn? If so, where are Blitzen, Donner, Wagner and all their brothers. And did someone hide Santa's mangled body? Sounds like it's time to call in the "CSI Des Moines" team.

But enough of our hypothesizing at the dead deer's expense. And by no means are we attempting to trivialize Crahan's photo, which captures the ugly death of a beautiful animal with dignity and artistry. Click "more" to see for yourself and read Clown's comments. Read more...

Our friends at Metal Injection have posted a crackpot (with an emphasis on pot) "Anti-Christmas Special" in which MI co-founder, Rob Pasbani sucks up a bit too much holiday cheer and proclaims the glory of Twisted Sister's Christmas album. The repercussions are severe and he finds out that if he can't change his ways, his review will kill off the entire underground metal community. Worse, the ghost of metal future -- played by The Red Chord's Greg Weeks -- reveals that the death of indie metal will lead to the end of civilization.

Nevermind that the acting is on par with that of a bad horror movie (or a good porno), the "Anti-Christmas Special" has heart, spirit and a timeless message. And if you don't buy that crap, at least there's a lot of swearing, some drug jokes and a funny Ozzy spoof. More "South Park" than "Dickens," the "Anti-Christmas Special" should warm the holidays to the temperature of the outer banks of hell.

Click "more" to watch. Read more...

Sicko technical death metal band Origin swung through Club Rebel in New York in October and Metal Injection were there to film three songs, "The Aftermath," "Staring From the Abyss" and "Perversion of Hate." The Kansas-based band are done touring for 2008, so if you can't wait until next year click "more" and loop the clips to play over and over and over -- preferably all at the same time. Read more...

Two dates before Gojira's final U.S. show of 2008, frontman Joe Duplantier is in high spirits. The band will be playing a major New York City gig in just about an hour, but the Frenchman shows no signs of anxiety as he chills with some friends in his dressing room at Terminal 5. 36 Crazyfists are about to take the stage and their room is buzzing live a hornet's next, which makes the low-key Duplantier smile. Soft-spoken and polite, he prefers to save his energy, anger and ferocity for the stage, where it spills out in bubbling fountains.

He'd never say as much, but the throat problems of All That Remains frontman Phil Labonte, which forced the band to drop off the bill, have been sort of a blessing in disguise for Gojira. First, having three bands play instead of four has enabled Gojira to play for almost an hour, and more significantly, it has put them in the more visible direct support slot.

Amidst drinking, talking and other voluble backstage activity, we pinned down Duplantier and talked to him for a few minutes about the In Flames tour, the importance of the French metal market, the upcoming animated video for Gojira's next single "All The Tears" and plans for the upcoming Christmas day. Click "more" to watch the interview: Read more...

Here's the latest guest blog from Demon Hunter, in which singer Ryan Clark talks about the art for the band's triple DVD "45 Days," which drops November 25.

For those of you that have been keeping up with these blogs by my brother Don and I, you already know the deal: Designers by day, Demon Hunter by night (or something like that). For this latest installment, we actually have the opportunity to show you something that combines the two.

If you’re familiar with Demon Hunter, you might already know that our fans have an incredible impact on what we do. For instance, the songs "Follow The Wolves," "The Soldier’s Song," "Thorns" and "A Thread Of Light" are all direct responses to emails we’ve received from fans. The intense, heartfelt stories that we’ve heard and read from our fans gave us the idea to do something unique when we set out to embark upon the Stronger Than Hell tour. We wanted to document some of these stories, so that we could share with the rest of the world just how inspiring Demon Hunter fans are.

As we began to flesh out this idea, we started searching out the perfect guy to shoot and edit the documentary. By random chance, I happened upon the website of a photographer/videographer named Cale Glendening. He was young and relatively new to his profession, but I could tell that he had an amazing eye for it. Cale spent the whole tour with us, filming and taking photos the entire time. When the tour was over, Cale returned home to Tulsa, Oklahoma to spend the next few months sifting through days and days of footage, and edit it all into one beautiful, cohesive piece. When Cale sent us the first edit of the full documentary, we were truly blown away. To see a trailer for the documentary, go here:

The documentary is the primary piece to a three disc set that we'll be releasing in November entitled "45 Days." In addition to the documentary, we filmed a full live show in Nashville, Tennessee and recorded an instrumental soundtrack specifically for the documentary.

This release is packaged in a three disc digi-pack full of photos from the tour. The inspiration for the artwork is taken from the classic live look of records and films like "Depeche Mode 101," U2's "Rattle And Hum," and Johnny Cash's American recordings. Photographer Anton Corbijn's beautiful monochromatic photography was also a huge inspiration. Simple and stark was the goal. Click "more" to see some photos from the package. Read more...

We can think of no better way to cap off our Halloween coverage than to slash into the latest DVD installment of "Horror Pain Gore Death." The fourth volume of the series features scenes from various gore movies, including "Opera," "Nekromantik 2" and "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers" edited to soundtracks by thrash and death metal bands including Massacre, Benediction, Forbidden, Nuclear Assault and Destruction. Click "more" to watch scenes from "Mad Butcher" atop Destruction's "Mad Butcher"; "Nightmare City" edited to "Nuclear Assault's "Radiation Sickness"; and "Deliria" alongside Num Skull's "Off With Your Head." Happy Halloween!!! Read more...

A lot of bands hate shooting videos. Here's why. Everyone in the band has to set up in some sort of soundstage or outdoor location (often in intense cold or heat) and pretend to play their instruments and sing for hours at a time while a camera shoots them from every possible angle and stuff explodes all around them.

If you think that's bad, consider what Divine Heresy underwent while they shot their "Bleed the Fifth" video. Since the song was recorded for the band's 2007 album Bleed the Fifth, singer Tommy Cummings has left the band. So, before they went in to shoot the video, Divine Heresy had to re-record the vocals for the track with their new singer Travis Neal before they could make the video.
Click "more" to read what guitarist Dino Cazares had to say about the process and to watch the video, which will debut on air on Saturday night's "Headbangers Ball" between 11 p.m. and midnight on MTV2. Read more...

Photos by Jon Wiederhorn

...And then it was Testament's turn to show the kids how it's done. The thrash metal old-timers might not look as hip or vivacious as the new blood in photos, but get them onstage and look out. This summer Testament may have opened for Motorhead, Heaven & Hell and Judas Priest, but tonight their performance suggests that they're the true metal masters. Sound farfetched? Think of how many songs you'll be rockin' from Priest's Nostradamus five years from now, and consider which of the tracks from that best of Black Sabbath with Dio record have major shelf life. It ain't the three new ones. (click "more" to read the rest of the concert report and see a bunch of Testament and Bodom photos from the gig). Read more...

Metallica performed their new single "The Day That Never Comes" last night on the BBC television talk show "Later... With Jools Holland. The track comes from the band's number one album, Death Magnetic, which sold 490,000 copies in just three days, despite being leaked on the Internet weeks ahead of release. Death Magnetic is the band's fifth album in a row to enter at #1 -- a record for the Billboard Hot 200 album chart.

Click "more" to watch the BBC performance. Read more...

We know Metallica fans can never get enough of their favorite band -- and their favorite band is even more aware of that then we are. So, less than a week after previewing the first single from their upcoming album Death Magnetic, Metallica have offered up another track, "My Apocalypse." This one's faster and more aggressive, sounding like a cross between "Blackened" and "Harvester of Sorrow" (both from ...And Justice For All. Call us crazy, but we even hear a touch of old Slayer in there -- especially on James Hetfield's barking vocals. Click "more" to listen and judge for yourself. Read more...