Chances are if you haven’t heard Wolvhammer, you may’ve read some of drummer Heath Rave’s Deciblog rants on the virtues of Pantera’s Power Metal opus, peeped his Varg “visionary” tattoo primers, or checked out members of Wolvhammer in mid-tour exploit.

“I definitely think this is a well thought out lineup for a tour,” beams Rave on the opportunity. “Although the four bands make sense together, at the same time, their styles are really quite unique between them and their legitimacy can’t be denied. We’re definitely honored and privileged to be asked to open up the Chicago show, and my mom and step dad will be there that night. I hope they stay for Watain.”

In any case, we really want you to hear Wolvhammer before they hit the lights in Chicago, so we’ve embedded the track “Writhe” for pre-ticket buy perusal. “Write”, a lava-flow black track with Northern traits, appears on the group’s 2011 LP, The Obsidian Plains. Now, we don’t hear the “concrete, sewer and human skewers” influences, as cited on Wolvhammer’s Facebook page, but art is always open to interpretation and our interpretations are: Wolvhammer is harder than J. Bennett’s tits on a February night in The Gopher State and blacker than the ex-ashes of the Fantoft stavechurch.

Wolvhammer will exclusively play the songs of black and night at:
April 14 – Chicago, IL – BUY TICKETS

** For the complete Decibel Magazine Tour dates, please visit the Decibel Magazine Tour WEBSITE.

** Visit and like Wolvhammer on Facebook.

Two of our most memorable live concert experiences ever happened at Unsane shows in Seattle. This NYC trio originated from the same scene that spawned Helmet, Pussy Galore, Boss Hog and a bunch of other earhole-scraping noise mongers in the early 1990s. Between their Am Rep/Sub Pop label connections and the general loud/heavy/distorted aesthetic, they shared something of a bond with a lot of the early grunge bands of the era. Thus they found their way out to Seattle with some frequency and were (usually) greeted quite warmly. Witness two of our personal highlights:

1) Our first Unsane show set the bar high. Already floored by the sheer relentless force of the horrific sound coming from the stage, it almost seemed normal when lead vocalist/guitarist Chris Spencer turned his head mid-song, projectile vomited off the side of the stage and then continued to sing/play. We’re not sure if he’d gotten some bad clams from Ivar’s, had a bit too much to drink or, like us, was simply nauseated and queasy by the rotten sound emanating from his band.

2) The next time we saw Unsane, they were opening for Entombed on the Wolverine Blues tour. This was, unfortunately, not Unsane’s crowd. People are considerably more open-minded these days when it comes to mixing and matching extreme bands. But back in ’93 or ’94, the death metal scene in Seattle didn’t want to know about Unsane. When the band wasn’t experiencing total apathy, it was being heckled. They handled it like champs for the most part, but something caused original bassist Pete Shore to fucking snap mid-set. He threw down his bass, raced into the admittedly thin crowd and got right in the face of his antagonist who (figuratively) rolled over like a submissive puppy afraid to be roughed up by a bigger dog. Mr. All-Talk wanted nothing to do with Shore and the set resumed with no more incidents. Classic.

It is with great excitement, then, that we premiere a new track, “Ghost,” from Unsane’s upcoming Alternative Tentacles album, Wreck (out on March 20). We’ve been listening to this bruiser nonstop and can assure you that it perfectly captures the tension, brutality and nervy edge we witnessed in those early live experiences. It’s not raw like sushi, it’s raw like a skidding-twenty-feet-on-rough-pavement road rash. The kind where you gotta pick rocks out of the bloody mess that was your skin. So, without further ado:

We cannot with any certainty assure you that any of the above sorts of incidents will occur when Unsane are on tour with the Melvins this spring (see dates below), but the band’s live sound will not fail to leave an impression. Nor will Wreck. You have been warned.

UNSANE tour dates with the MELVINS

04/11/2012 The Blank Club San Jose, CA
04/12/2012 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA
04/13/2012 The Troubadour Los Angeles, CA
04/14/2012 Casbah San Diego, CA
04/17/2012 House of Rock El Paso, TX
04/19/2012 Mohawk Austin, TX
04/20/2012 Warehouse Live Houston, TX
04/21/2012 One Eyed Jack’s New Orleans, La
04/23/2012 The Social Orlando, FL
04/24/2012 Double Down Live Gainesville, FL
04/25/2012 The Loft at Center Stage Atlanta, GA
04/26/2012 Amos’ Southend Charlotte, NC
04/28/2012 The Note West Chester, PA
04/29/2012 Webster Hall New York, NY
05/01/2012 Turner Hall Ballroom Milwaukee, WI
05/02/2012 Otto’s Nightclub DeKalb, IL
05/03/2012 The Firebird St. Louis, MO
05/04/2012 Exit In Nashville, TN
05/07/2012 Trees Dallas, TX
05/08/2012 Santa Fe Brewing Company Santa Fe, NM
05/09/2012 Galaxy Concert Theatre Santa Ana, CA

Ever wondered what a You Can’t Do That On Television skit full of jokes about black metal would look like?

Well, so has alt-country crooner/Mandy Moore arm candy Ryan Adams, apparently: His new internet show “Night Sweats” marries over the top disheveled chic and a dash of self-deprecation with Fenriz jokes, corpsepaint, a synthpop loving slice of talking pizza, and a playlist that features Burzum, Satyricon, and Emperor.

Would the show be better if Alanis Morrisette played Balphazar? Probably. But it is still an odd enough duck to warrant embedding the Halloween episode below.

Also, while Shane Mehling ably took the piss out of Adams’ metal release Orion a couple years back, the dude’s cover of Maiden’s “Wasted Years” is pretty fucking flawless by my lights.

Adams’ latest record is Ashes & Fire. On tour for it, he’s covering Dio…

Yeah, the real world sure does suck. The bottom line is forever letting the wolves off the leash and if they don’t end up clawing at your door they’ll sure as hell shit on your lawn. The only way out is money. And in this business, the uncomfortable truth is that, ultimately, in a roundabout way, it is the advertising dollar that puts the food on the table.

But so what? It’s no so degrading. We’ve done worse, probably, and no one at the Deciblog has gone moonlighting to sell sunflower spread to housewives, or dressed up as Tony the Tiger and gone pushing Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes store-to-store—at least, not yet. There’s gotta be a reason for this, and it sure isn’t integrity [if any breakfast cereal manufacturers wanna hit me up, be advised that I’ll wear that suit for 50 bucks per day but insist on daily allowance of one family sized box of the sponsor’s product].

Perhaps it’s ‘cos the advertisers prefer a face, someone to pin their brand to, celebrity kudos…. All that shit, and who’d want a deciblogger for that? With that in mind, why don’t metal bands start pitching themselves for TV ad spots? They have done it before; the business model for music is famously fucked anyhow, and to be honest, gurning with a can of soda isn’t as bad as selling out the jams (if selling-out was even possible or worth it in this everything-for-free age).

Setting aside the fact that companies such as Scion A/V are giving the underground scene a shot in the arm by at least throwing some money into it, a short trawl YouTube reminds us that metal guys can do commerce. Yeah, Gene Simmons, CEO of multinational rock conglomerate and occasional bassist, might have taken the commercialization of music making to a degree level but surely some alpha hesher like Matt Pike could be the new face of Heineken with few objections from the Hall. So long as the casting’s tight and there’s no repeat of Ozzy taking Corpsegrinder’s rightful place as the face of World of Warcraft, what’s the worst that could happen? Anyway, here are just a few examples of the potential escape route from skid row for all bands slumming it on macaroni and no cheese.

We’d post the awful KISS Wal-Mart commercial but that’s a step too far. That silly ol’ goat Gene Simmons supping on Dr Pepper though, we can just about live with that.

Giving credence to the argument that says that prolonged use of corpsepaint can finetune your commercial sence, is ad-slut and self-decapitator Alice Cooper, pushing a neat line in stationery and hotel rooms.

Iron Maiden’s “Phantom of the Opera” sold Lucozade but their road safety campaign was more on the money, and proved what most of us suspected all along: only crash test dummies could get down to No Prayer for the Dying

Mastodon maverick Brent Hinds selling pharmaceuticalsand doing yoga was pretty funny and all, so too Suffocation’s spot for the History Channel but if you’re looking for someone to take the lead in the balancing act of artistic integrity and hawking shit to the masses, let Judas Priest be thy guide.
Sparkomatic car stereos:

Plus the hugely underrated Turbo (for which our very own Adrien Begrand batted for when justifying our shitty taste was all the rage) brought out the best in self-promotion from the Metal Gods.

“Stop on the red, cross on the green, never take a ride in a stranger’s machine” … Now that’s wisdom you can’t buy.

Each Gehenna album had different sonic attributes. From the eerie black metal of The First Spell through the death metal disposition of Murder and then back to brutal black hybrid on WW. Do you recall wanting each album to be singular, regardless of genre?
Dolgar: We always try not to make the same album twice of course, but still, I do not recall being as conscious about it on the first three albums as we became later on. After Malice, we felt we could not push the music any further in the melodic direction without losing the aggression or the darkness we wanted to convey with our music, so that was our first major deliberate change (for Adimiron Black). Then we pushed it to the max in that direction for Murder, so another change was natural for WW, which is very stripped down, back to the roots of early black metal. The next one will probably be in the direction we set with WW, but a bit more diverse. It is not done yet though, things can change.

Gehenna was very active throughout the ’90s. Then, the aughts hit, and your album work slowed down significantly. What was happening in Gehenna between ’99 and ’05?
Dolgar: More or less nothing, Gehenna was not even a band per se during all those years. Sanrabb was the only one still actively working on anything Gehenna until ’03, and he was not even sure if the music he was working on would be recorded/released under the Gehenna name. It eventually was of course, and when WW was done, we got a full band back together again. The last 12 years have been a slow ride though. [Laughs] Perhaps that will change, perhaps not.

I’ve always felt Adimiron Black was an unsung gem. It didn’t get the same attention, I think at least, as releases by Emperor, Satyricon, and Dimmu Borgir. Was Gehenna ahead of its time with Adimiron Black?
Dolgar: Yes, I think we were. When Adimiron Black was released, I think everyone expected it to be Malice part 2, and when it was not, nobody knew what to think. I hear a lot of praise for it today, but back when it was first released it was more like WTF, you know. And then we did not get any proper touring done to support it either, which did not help much of course.

What’s your favorite track from Adimiron Black? “Deadlights” was the single, but I’ve always felt “Devil’s Work” was the album’s highlight. Few bands then or now are able to give that gears-of-Hell feel that remains central to “Devil’s Work”’s aesthetic. The vocals on that track are particularly intense.
Dolgar: Yeah, we do not even play “Deadlights” live anymore, but we still do “Devil’s Work”, so I guess that answers a bit of it there. But I also like “Eaters of the Dead” a lot, and hope to play that one live again some day. Need keyboards to make it work though.

What about WW? Where were you at musically and personally? I gather a lot of folk were surprised of the return to black metal.
Dolgar: Sanrabb has been into the history of the world wars since his young days in school, and I guess with WW (which he wrote almost all by himself, remember) he saw an opportunity to merge this interest with the music. And I was not hard to convince when I got back in the band either. We just wanted to keep it simple and to the point. There was not really a lot of interesting stuff going on in the scene during those years, at least not compared to the ‘90s. Extreme music had lost some of its focus. I guess some were surprised, but it had been five years since Murder, without the band doing anything at all, so I guess a certain degree of change was expected.

Was Stavanger any different from Bergen and Oslo, as far as black metal was concerned? Any regional differences come to mind, whether it was approach or musical/environmental influences?
Dolgar: Yes, there were never as many bands in Stavanger as in Oslo or Bergen, and we kept more to ourselves as well. But back in the day, all the relevant bands had their own sound/style anyway, it was not like the ‘Tampa sound’ or anything like that to pinpoint where the bands originated from (in my opinion anyway). All the early Emperor, Burzum, Immortal, Gorgoroth, Enslaved, Mayhem stuff all recorded in the same studio (Grieghallen), but sounding very individual still. I think personal approach/individualism was way more important (then as now) than anything else.

OK, missed opportunity time. If Gehenna could’ve recorded a cover song—any cover song, really—during its heyday, which song would it be? Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil”?
Dolgar: [Laughs] Great song, but I think I am the only Crüe-fan in Gehenna. There was a time, in ‘93 I think, when we actually considered recording Venom’s “Welcome to Hell”, but with the lyrics translated and sung in Norwegian (“Velkommen til Helvete”). Somewhat glad we never did that though… I have always wanted to do Bathory’s “Massacre”, but it is hard making songs like that sound like your own, and because the original is so great as it is, how to improve it? I like the covers we did of Darkthrone and Mayhem, but they still stick out as Darkhrone and Mayhem songs, you know. They do not really sound like Gehenna. They work, because they are meant as tributes, but preferably one should try making a cover sound like your own song. Might include a cover song on our next album though, but it will be a less obvious choice of song.

Peaceville has re-issued both Adimiron Black and WW. What do you think of the records getting fresh exposure, even if the exposure’s nominal?
Dolgar: That is great, of course. With each re-issue we have also tried as best we could to document the relevant parts of the bands history, with liner notes and bonus material. Moonfog was slowly dying anyway, and all these releases (not only Gehenna) could easily have remained in limbo if Peaceville had not picked them up.

Will Murder also get a reissue?
Dolgar: Yes, just finished my end of it a few weeks ago, so it should not be to far away.

OK, what are Gehenna’s plans for 2012 and beyond? A new album, maybe in the vein of Maroon 5? Yeah, bad joke, but the question stands.
[Laughs] We wrote a new album, but it was shit, so we sold it to Maroon 5. Apparently they recorded and released it?! No, jokes aside, we have put all gigs on hold (except Wacken 2012) to fully concentrate on getting a new album done. It is way overdue!

** Peaceville Records has re-issued Gehenna’s Adimiron Black and WW in super-jewel case form, complete with liner notes and extra tracks. Click on this LINK to hear the track “Devil’s Work”, download rare promo photos, and order both full-lengths. But if you loathe Flash players and want to get right into Gehenna’s audial hell, well, Peaceville Records has a quick-shipping STORE, where Gehenna’s saturnine work is available for about $12.

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love; stuff that’s essential listening that you’ve probably never heard of; stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, we go back to Japan, by way of New Orleans, for Greenmachine’s D.A.M.N.  (Man’s Ruin).

Last time I tackled sludge in this column, it was Grief’s Come to Grief, a slow, turgid, unpleasant mess of an album.  Greenmachine don’t produce that kind of sludge.  It’s undeniable goop, heavy and nasty like Black Sabbath on acid, but these Japanese psychos kick like a mule (do they have mules in Japan?  I mean, I assume they do, but hell if I know).  Over the course of D.A.M.N.‘s 22 minutes (an additional 14 with the bonus tracks on the Man’s Ruin edition), they lay waste to everyone and everything, from their instruments to their throats, attacking with a zest usually reserved for death metal dudes.

Monzawa, their enigmatic vocalist, probably has no voice left by now – or at least, he wouldn’t if their existence hadn’t been so relatively brief.  I suspect that, even if you can understand Japanese, you’d still have trouble understanding what the hell he’s screaming.  I mean, he gets distortion off of his howls – and considering how much distortion is going on elsewhere, that’s pretty impressive.  It seems unlikely that amplifiers were meant to be abused in this fashion, and while Greenmachine maybe weren’t blowing more speakers than Buzzov*en, it’s probably neck and neck.

Hell, it’s hard to tell when one song ends and the other begins, even more so because the Man’s Ruin edition puts all six songs on one CD track.  So I’m not sure which section of the assault is “Red Eye” and which section is “Cunt Maniac,” but both of them slam pretty hard.  There are some pretty rad grooves and solos buried under all the feedback, so if you don’t mind animalistic shrieks, there’s plenty to get into over the brief runtime.  Apparently it took them three days to record the main body of the album, but it feels like a one-and-done job.  The bonus tracks took only one day to record, and that I do believe.

After this 1997 effort, Greenmachine knocked out a sequel, then broke up for a few years, reconvened for a reunion record in 2003, and then broke up again.  Even the most successful sludge acts don’t get to do that there deserved, so it’s not really surprising that a Japanese purveyor of the sound, on a label that infamously imploded, would be so unsung.  Hell, they don’t even have a website as far as I can find.  So if you can grab a copy of this, do so, especially if you’re interested in hearing 22 minutes that make Boris look tame by comparison.

Buy it here!

Promoters worldwide would be doing us all a favor if they were to roll out five-band death metal mini-fests every Wednesday. Given that the middle of the working week is the calendar equivalent of dead air, a tour toploaded with a bill that has Krisiun, Malevolent Creation and Vital Remains as a headlining trifecta is an act of mercy. Fuck it’s almost worth a guaranteed Thursday hangover on the boss’ dime.

Sure there’s an absence of the smell of fried onions and beef fat, watery beer is served up in plastic not cardboard, the ambient temperature’s Arctic—but tonight is still kinda like a festival. Besides, getting to the Underworld for 6pm, then crossing a two-week-old river that runs south from a busted water main, and then having to survive five hours in a venue that’s scented with a complex potpourri of Watain, garbage pails and yesteryear’s urine requires all of the physical and mental endurance that you’d pack going to any of Europe’s weekend festivals.

Those shackled to the nine-to-five will arrived too late to receive English tech-death crew SEPTIC TRAUMA (no one can actually vouch for their set actually happening, not even the all-seeing Sauran’s eye of YouTube). But they might have caught the end of TRUTH CORRODED’s thrash/death/shred rageaholics anonymous meeting, touting characterless hate and widdle, honest chug and toil like it’s going out of fashion. The Australians are nothing if not pathologically generic, but no one really cares, ‘cos no one’s really here yet. On a human level, that’s a shame but, hey, at least during a European winter they might experience snowfall for the first time, and when you’re from Down Under, that’s an experience.

There’s still no one here when Italy’s KARNAK come on, except for maybe a scattering of drunken Polish and Brazilian dudes, but at least the headbang is debuted among the audience. Hey, that’s a start. And whether Karnak are any good or not is utterly dependent on how highly you rate sort of “God of Emptiness”-style slo-riffs knocking into the shapeless noise and blasts. Yeah, yeah, it’s the sound and it’s not their fault, but if you can’t hear the fast riffs at a death metal show it’s like going to a great chowder restaurant and finding they’re all out of clams.

Now, everyone knows who VITAL REMAINS are but even then it’s weird New England’s ye olde enemies of Jehova are playing tonight. Since the departure of guitarist and surely shredder-in-chief Dave Suzuki, not much has happened. Four years have passed since they were last here, touring 2007’s overly long but still underrated Icons of Evil LP. And, fuck, like then, only the super-deluded could expect Glen Benton to exhume his passport, rejoin the band for an off-album tour. Scot Wiley has always been fit for purpose though. And while he’s not blessed in the throat like John Tardy or even Benton himself, this new Chance Garnette stage presence he’s rocking seems to do the super-evil mega-jams justice.
Vital Remains throwing the guantlets around/Drunks yelling between songs | [No Christians were harmed in the filming of this video... probably]

The antichristian vigor of Vital Remains’ set has voided the kids from venue’s bowel. When MALEVOLENT CREATION heave into a set featuring new bassist John Cooke (Danny Herrera’s flatmate, no less), and minus guitarist Gio Geraca due to some personal troubles, it’s just kinda weird. But Brett Hoffman is great, and he’s always great. He always looks kinda shifty, like a paroled hesher mechanic who’s either ripped the beard hair off his chin resulting in an accidental Hetfield/Lemmy, or he’s growled it off. Maybe both. As he would have it, we’re all “sick fucks” don’t you know? Shit like this is timeless. Even the stagediving is classically patchy, with the odd starfish and belly-flop for variation. It’s a pity Hoffman didn’t pull some of his air machinegun moves when the blasts were kicking in, but the air-knifing for “Multiple Stab Wounds” was a nice touch. Bravo, brother.

Malevolent Creation keeping it strictly early ’90s

Hey, we’re all brothers here. Well, the three brothers KRISIUN are. The Brazilians have always been consistently sound on record and perennially stoned in person, but it’s all too anticlimactic when they come on. Sure, unlike Malevolent, they don’t have a blue-chip classic like Ten Commandments to draw upon, but ordinarily there’s enough fuel to get some proper atom-smashing in the pit. Inaudible kick-drums might be the crux of the problem but maybe it’s just another cold start.

Krisiun bro-ing down the house

The momentum builds, though; that’s inevitable, dependable. Besides, tracks like “Combustion Inferno” and “Sentenced Morning” are always way cooler live than on record, and when Moyses Kolesne kicks on his flanger it feels like your having a stroke. But despite the fact we’ll never be shortchanged on effort or vibe from Krisiun, tonight there’s not enough adrenaline to replace alcohol as the most profound influence on audience behavior. Hey, maybe that’s why the stagediving has not passed Olympian muster. As judgement calls go, we’re going with Florida-by-way-of-Buffalo death veterans as the strongest band of the night, maybe by dint of history but definitely for the that lived-in but much loved groove. And the air-knife stabbing actions too; there’s not enough of that sort of thing.

Decibel‘s NYC bureau had a tough decision to make last Thursday. Should we head on up to the west side for a classy evening amongst Lincoln Center elite to catch a special performance by This Will Destroy You? Or leave Manhattan (perish the thought!) for a night of PBRs amongst our metal brethren to get aurally obliterated by The Body & Braveyoung? A tough choice in theory, but one in the end that was pretty easy given that we’re suckers for strings and two-off performances.

The show at Merkin Concert Hall was part of the second annual Ecstatic Music Festival, whose self-proclaimed mission is to “put its finger on the pulse of contemporary ‘post-classical’ music” by curating 11 collaborative concerts. About the only thing we’re qualified to add to that is a reminder that the classical and extreme worlds collide more often than you’d think. For starters, check out Kevin Stewart-Panko’s in-depth look at the intricacies involved when bands like The Ocean, Dimmu Borgir and Therion work with orchestras as well as Chris Dick and Jeff Treppel’s blog posts on related on subjects. At its core, however, the show’s premise was straightforward and promising: pair one of our favorite instrumental rock bands (that has grown to eschew much of the obvious trappings of the loud/soft dynamic that have pigeonholed many of its contemporaries) with A Far Cry, a self-conducted, 15-member string orchestra.

Before we get to the guts of the performance, one last note on the show itself. Given the crowd—which, if we may stereotype for a second, seemed to include a fair number of symphony season-ticket holder types—we were hoping to see someone pull a Francis Ford Coppola and walk out once things got heavy. While that never happened, the mix of venue and crowd contributed to a bizarre, but refreshing, atmosphere. Put simply, the seated show was packed with the most polite concertgoers we’ve ever seen: no cat calls, no cell phones and (obviously) no mosh pits. In fact, if it wasn’t for the one dude who led the charge for each round of applause, we’re convinced no one would have moved.

It may not have been the ideal setting for a rock concert, but at least for one night, it was just right. Although TWDY sacrificed some of its heaviness in the name of bow-to-string bliss, more often than not, AFC served as its perfect counterpart, particularly on “Little Smoke”. There, driving strings replaced the searing effects-laden screams that punctuated the climax of the album version and took the lead track from 2011’s Tunnel Blanket in a different direction—no longer dirge-like but rather uplifting. It was also the first tune to see guitarist Jeremy Galindo fidget in his chair as if he was having a violent seizure. After a five-song, career-spanning set, the band returned for an encore. After all, as Galindo explained right before he and his nineteen counterparts closed out the night with a rousing rendition of “Threads”, “it’s only so often that you get to perform your songs with an orchestra.” If this performance was any indication, they should think about doing it more often (the NYC show actually followed a Boston performance – Boston can’t come second to NY in everything – at which some kind soul shot the video below).

A Far Cry began the night by performing Steve Reich’s “Triple Quartet” and Christopher Tignor’s “Thunder Lay Down in the Heart” (big props to Tignor, who did ALL of the following: (a) led AFC’s performance of his piece, (b) performed with both his band Slow Six and TWDY and, most impressively, (c) composed all of the arrangements for AFC’s accompaniments). Beyond their powerful “solo” performance, the men and women of AFC were clearly the night’s MVPs given that they were on stage for every note. Best of all, they didn’t seem the least intimidated by the massive walls of sound that TWDY can conjure, at some junctures even nodding along to show that they were picking up what TWDY was putting down (not just keeping time!).

We were so intrigued by the show’s concept that we decided to ask the dudes in TWDY some questions about the whole experience. While you’re reading Jeremy Galindo’s answers, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist that features the artists from this show as well as others who have a classical connection of their own. We’re hoping to do some more playlist-related things in the coming weeks, so be on the lookout.

How did the idea for these two shows with A Far Cry first come about and how did you end up working with Christopher Tignor?
We’ve known Chris for a while, and he actually put this all together. When he first brought it up to us, we knew that we couldn’t pass on an opportunity like this. Chris also did all the string work on Tunnel Blanket.

What was the process like in terms of song selection for these shows – was that something you worked on with Christopher? Does something like this lend itself to picking songs that may already have orchestration of some sort or did you want to choose ones for which strings provided a new element (or both)?
We wanted to represent all the albums as best we could with the time we had. Everyone in the band threw out some ideas for a setlist, and Tignor definitely had some input. I’d say we’re all happy with the songs we decided on.

How much time (if any at all) did you get to spend rehearsing together with A Far Cry and Christopher before you played these two shows? No matter what, I’d imagine that it’s quite an adjustment to have an entirely new group of people on stage playing your songs with you.
We had two days (about two hours each day) of rehearsal with A Far Cry before the shows. It was pretty intense, and we were all very nervous with how it’d turn out on stage. They nailed the arrangements at both shows, and we were able to breathe again.

Now that both shows are over and done, how do you think they went and would you do something like this again?
It was an entirely different way of hearing our music. I’m sure at some point all of us thought, “this is what James Hetfield felt like.” That being said, it might happen again.

**This Will Destroy You’s second full-length, Tunnel Blanket, is available at Suicide Squeeze Records.

**Our own John Darnielle will also be taking part in the Ecstatic Music Festival when The Mountain Goats team up with vocal quartet Anonymous 4 on March 24th. While interesting in its own right, we’d be remiss if we neglected to point out John’s shirt in the festival’s print brochure. No wonder they relegated him to the back cover.

If you didn’t know it by now, Coliseum’s Ryan Patterson is an inhuman machine that runs solely on guitar riffs and beard hair.

His newish project is a throwback to the 90s hardcore scene of Louisville where sweat flowed like beer and beer pretty much stayed in the fridges at the convenience store.

Joined by members of Black Cross, Young Widows, Endpoint and the inimitable By The Grace of God, Black God has debuted their track “Everyone’s a Friend,” a hyper-manic, noisy post-punk affair from their follow-up EP II, which will be out on No Idea March 20th.

There are enough people out there who know that the pedigree of this band can likely do no wrong, so you’ll need little convincing. Just hear what’s in store for you, and rub your hands together for the next month.

PS: Tour dates

Sa 03/23/12 – Louisville, KY @ Cahoots – BGII Release Show
Th 04/19/12 – Louisville, KY @ Chestnut House w/ Shivs
Fr 04/20/12 – Chicago, IL @ TBA
Sa 04/21/12 – Toronto, ON @ Parts & Labour
Su 04/22/12 – Columbus, OH @ Carabar

It ain’t often the Deciblog gets its dirty paws on black metal. It’s even rarer that when we do get black metal to unfurl to the masses like some plague-wielding flag of hate and disgust, it’s of the weird, wait-is-this-real variety. Well, folks, today is your lucky day if you A) worship Varg’s made-in-Norway booties and B) surrealist painters who happen to call the tippie tips of mountains home. Not that we’ve met or seen the work of the latter, but Formloff, a homegrown duo in the form of Bernt Karsatan Sannerud and Marius Blekspetl Sjøli, remind of the nascent stages of Norwegian oddballness, when bands like Solefald, Ved Buens Ende, Fleurety, and Beyond Dawn helped occupy the nether regions of acceptable-practice black metal.

But for you newbs, well, the track definitely sounds refreshing, as if gulping down fresh glacial streams after a half-decade of parched post-whatever, atavistic too true for school black, or the floating-on-toilet bowl-water bullshit employed by the high-lo mind/musically daft of Liturgy, et al.

So, it is with great pleasure to be able to present Formloff’s “Spyhorelandet”. The duo aren’t the most prolific set of Norges — debut album Adjø Silo was punted into obscurity by obscurity in 2006 — but what we get out of the track is something that, well, hasn’t been heard since The Linear Scaffold was Solefald’s first and only tolerable record.

** Check out Formloff’s Spyhorelandet full-length on Germany’s Eisenwald Records. Their Teutonic shop is HERE, with all kinds of monochromatic goodies on labels small and smaller.