Like, Evile, Toxic Holocaust and Early Man, Warbringer is one of those neo-thrash bands that still believes it's 1988, Anthrax has just released Among the Living, Metallica are writing ...And Justice For All and grunge and nu-metal never happened.

Now, let's take a look inside Warbringer guitarist John Laux's iPod and see if he's really living in the past.... Well, yes and no. Some of the artists on his Random Shuffle -- including Angel Witch, Coroner and Rigor Mortis -- exist solely in another place on the space/time continuum, but Laux also seems to enjoy newer acts like Circa Survive and Ensiferum, and there's a lot of stuff here that's not even loud, such as Jeff Buckley, Slowdive and Cocteau Twins. We can hardly argue with his inclusion of Thin Lizzy and he earns an extra star for having Sigh on here, but the omission of anything by Exodus, let along the big thrash four makes us wonder if he has lapsed on this year's dues to the Metal Militia. On a scale of 100 we give Laux's iPod list an 80 for listenability. Click "more" to see the full list and watch a video by one of the bands. Read more...

photo by Jon Wiederhorn

Less than three days after Metallica exited the Grammy Awards with a handful of trophies, the thrash metal veterans have added another feather to their collective cap by winning this week's "Your Vote Counts."

HeadbangersBlog.com readers chose Metallica over Machine Head, Judas Priest, Opeth and Slayer to clinch an encore spot for "All Nightmare Long" on the next "Headbangers Ball," which airs Saturday night between 2. a.m. and 3 a.m. on MTV2. Read more...

Firebrand Super Rock superhot vocalist Laura Donnelly, who's surely stolen some hearts, photo by Wasted UK, courtesy of Flickr.com

To celebrate the announcement of this year's Bloodstock Festival, which takes place in Derby, England October 14 to 16, Britain's Metal Hammer magazine have posted interview snippets on their Web site in which they ask numerous musicians, "What's the worst thing you've ever stolen" and "What's the worst lie you've ever told."

Almost as interesting as the answers themselves are the numerous names of the bands interviewed that seem to be huge in England but remain unknown in the U.S. For example, how many of you out there know who Ted Maul, The Defiled, Firebrand Super Rock (hot blond chick, though, and love that Scottish accent), Devil's Gift and Praying Mantis and Alestorm (ugly dude, nice band name) are?

Fortunately, Metal Hammer also got some good soundbites from members of Opeth, Akercocke, Soulfly, Overkill, Dimmu Borgir, Evile, Soilwork, As I Lay Dying and Napalm Death. Click "more" to roll tape. Read more...

The second album by Clutch side project The Bakerton Group, El Rojo!, will be released on February 17, the band announced to HeadbangersBlog.com. The outfit, which also features Opeth keyboardist Per Wiberg, plays psychedelic, jazz-influenced instrumentals with heavy grooves. Read more...

Metallica's Death Magnetic might well be the heavy metal success story of 2008, but in our book, one of the best metal albums released this year is Opeth's epic Watershed. our friends at MetalInjection.com recently sat down with frontman Åkerfeldt Mikael and Frederick Akesson to talk about why Watershed is mellower than their last disc Ghost Reveries, how to use female vocals without sounding like sissy boys and their secret love for David Coverdale. Read more...

From yesterday's Indecipherable Logo of the Day:

The correct answer is: b) Borknagar.

These Norwegians conceived their confusing logo in time for their 1995 debut, Malicious. Since then, they've been through numerous lineup changes; only guitarist Ostein G. Brun remains. However, their exalted logo has remained practically the same for each of their seven releases.

The band's latest disc (from which the above image was extracted), Origin, came out in 2006. But if you're looking for blinding, orchestral swells of demonic metal, you'd be far better off checking out one of Borknagar's earlier releases. You can't go wrong with 2004's Epic or 2001's Empiricism. Not that Origin isn't good, it's just not exactly loud. Perhaps following in the Swedish boots of Opeth, who conjured the melancholy acoustic album Damnation in 2003, Borknagar have recorded a mostly acoustic disc steeped in folk and classical music.

Just don't call them sissies. These guys know a thing or two about the dark arts and can construct voodoo dolls that'll have you in pain, clutching your privates for weeks.