We sent roving reporter Justina Villanueva on the road with this summer's darkest tour, Blackenedfest. She will be checking in constantly with dispatches from the tour. Catch up with all her tour diaries, as well as a ton of photos at the Blackenedfest hub.

Day 5

After a night of heavy partying in Orlando, the support bands headed to Tallahassee for a very intimate show. Tallahassee is such the typical college town. Since school is out, there was the average local turn out. Once the show was over, the 150 capacity bar turned into a nightclub with an 80's dance party. It got really wild then. Just a bunch of smelly bearded dudes dancing in a sea of young 20-somethings.

While, Cattle Decap was packing up their trailer, their fill-in bassist Rah (pictured, above right) had a dance off with a local. I will be sure to include it in the end-of-tour video diary. Ultimately, the greatest part of the night was when these really tall, barely dressed young ladies walked by and all the guys started shouting and whistling. Josh, waited for the other guys to get exhausted before sarcastically exclaiming, "well, I WAS gay!" (more…)

An oldie, but certainly a very very goodie…

From MESHUGGAH guitarist Fredrik Thordendal's side project, Sol Niger Within

Metal Injection Livecast is back with the double ducer, episode number 22 featuring the return of Rob after a hiatus last week at the Maryland Deathfest. The things get off to a tumultuous start as everybody takes some shots at everybody else, then we move into an all new Thrash It or Trash It Segment and an all new game show from 3D: Dirty Pyramid. Here is this week's playlist:

DOWN – Ghosts Along The Mississippi
DEVIN TOWNSEND – The Greys
OBITUARY – Boiling Point
SCAR SYMMETRY – Calculate The Apocalypse
NAPALM DEATH – Plague Rages
THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER – What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse
EVERY TIME I DIE – Bored Stiff

Podcast: Download

Check out old Episode Forty-Three of ISSUE ORIENTED. Thinks he's a big shot.

First, there's Chris Wollard (Hot Water Music, The Draft) talking about his new release, & The Ship Thieves. Ronen and Chris talked about the revelation of organic creativity, making music with friends, and the future of his efforts. Not to be missed.

Then Pulin Modi from PETA2 stops by to talk about veganism and vegetarianism, the environment, and to make a compelling case against bacon. PETA2 loves metal, from The Dillinger Escape Plan to Geezer Butler. Check out the interview. 

Update your feeds or just click the snappy player – the choice is yours.

Podcast: Download

Metal Injection's arch nemesis JOB FOR A COWBOY has posted a new track called "Unfurling a Darkened Gospel" on their MySpace page. Click here to check it out and then come back here and tell us what you think. The band's new CD, Ruination comes out July 7 on Metal Blade.

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A few months ago, the hardcore community was shocked, SHOCKED when it was announced that guitarist Sean Martin is leaving HATEBREED to work on some other things. Who knew those other things would include being in a backing band for a white rapper who gets Shia LeBouf to direct their video…

It's that time again. You know the deal. Metal Injection sponsors an awesome tour, we get tickets to each stop of the tour, we pass those tickets along to our loyal junkies. This is your chance people! We are giving away a pair of tickets to each stop of the "most extreme tour of the Summer." And, look at those logos! Those are some extreme bands. How do you enter to win? It's simple. Look at the tour dates (after the jump) copy and paste the line with the date and location of the show you want to go to and then include one sentence on why you should win. The funniest responses will win! Anybody can enter. So hurry up! Contest ends before the first stop of the tour. Here are the dates: (more…)

We sent roving reporter Justina Villanueva on the road with this summer's darkest tour, Blackenedfest. She will be checking in constantly with dispatches from the tour. Catch up with all her tour diaries, as well as a ton of photos at the Blackenedfest hub.

Photo Credit: Mike Thompson (Withered)

Day 4

The Orlando show marked the last show for Withered's Chris Freeman for this tour. He's going back home to Atlanta to get certified to be a personal trainer. And because Dan Rozenblum (tour booking agent) and Cartel Brown (tour manager) live in Orlando, the night exploded into many moments of debauchery and madness. Once I found out that the bus call wasn't until 10 am, I knew it would be a good night. Especially because the bands are just starting to warm up to each other. (more…)

Introducing our brand new podcast here on Metal Injection, Heavy Metal Happy Hour. Frank steps from behind the camera and in front of the mic playing for you some of his favorite metal songs in one brootal drunken mix. Warning: Do not drink, drive and listen to the HMHH. You will get into an accident caused by excessive headbanging!

THE PLAYLIST:
Anata – Entropy Within
After The Burial – Cursing Akenaten
TYR – Olavur Riddararos
Daath – The Unbinding Truth
Arsis – The Promise of Never
As Eden Burns – Endless Rebirth
Emperor – Thus Spake the Nightspirit
Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Hung from the Rising Sun
Paria – The Wallabee Dance Machine
Beecher – Knight the Arsonist
Bed of Arms – These walls were built with 52 card studs
Grave – I need you
Samael – Mask of the Red Death
Cannibal Corpse – Hammer Smashed Face
The Advantage – Castlevania II (Woods)

Podcast: Download

When we interviewed NECROPHAGIST frontman Muhammed Suiçmez in the Fall, he told us that the plan was to release a new CD in the Summer of 2009 to coincide with their headlining run on Summer Slaughter. Well, it's almost Summer 2009 and I have yet to hear rumblings of a new record. However, a quote in press release about the tour has got me all types of excited again:

Speaking about the tour, Necrophagist's Muhammed Suicmez had this to say:

"We are looking forward to hit the road this summer with some of our friends and soon to be friends as part of 2009´s Summer Slaughter, the tour we feel at home on, and go back to all the cities we haven't been playing since 2007! We are also looking forward to play brand new material this year, world premiere so to speak … this year will definitely be something, that's for sure! See you guys out there!"

Now, it's fucking on! Before I was excited to see this tour, now words cannot express how pumped I am. If you haven't yet, make sure to enter our Summer Slaughter 2009 ticket giveaway, where we will announce a winner for each stop of the tour. The tour starts on June 5th in Baltimore and wraps up in NYC on July 20th. Full itinerary after the jump: (more…)

While doing press for his amazing new solo release, Ki, Devin Townsead was asked by Metal Hammer magazine what fans can expect from the next album in this four-album concept piece and the king of the skullet did not hold back:

“I’m from Vancouver and Nickelback are from Vancouver and he (Chad Kroeger) came up to the studio. I just look at Nickelback and I think “how are 40 million people buying this? What does it say about Canada? What does it say about all of this shit!?”

“I had a real think about this and I thought that I would go out and buy the record. Maybe it’s some sort of high-art that I’m not getting. So I got it and it sounds phenomenal! Mutt Lange did it and Randy Staub did it, it sounds incredible, but every song is about his penis!”

“Sex sells and I understand that but I started getting a real dark energy off of the record. It’s like “we’re making money and this is how you make money”, so this next record, I want to make it sound like the Nickelback record and I want to have chorus’s like the Nickelback record, but I want the lyrics to be about infinity and quantum mechanics.”

“The whole point of this is to say “sure, that sells but is it the aesthetics that sell or is it you singing about your penis because if it’s you singing about your penis, then I’m going to know right away”. If it’s about the penis then I’m not going to sell shit, but if it’s about the sound then maybe I’ll sell tons of it!”

Well, you can't really argue with his logic there. You know, I've always wondered what "How You Remind Me?" would've sounded if it was about quantum mechanics. Maybe now we can finally find out!

We sent roving reporter Justina Villanueva on the road with this summer's darkest tour, Blackenedfest. She will be checking in constantly with dispatches from the tour. Catch up with all her tour diaries, as well as a ton of photos at the Blackenedfest hub.

Day 3

Following a riot of a great time at Maryland Death Fest, the Blackened Fest tour made its stop at one of the worst venues on the east coast: Ground Zero in South Carolina.
Highlights after the jump.

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We sent roving reporter Justina Villanueva on the road with this summer's darkest tour, Blackenedfest. She will be checking in constantly with dispatches from the tour. Catch up with all her tour diaries, as well as a ton of photos at the Blackenedfest hub.

Day 2

Maryland Death Fest
It's a time to run into friends from home and friends you forgot existed. For me, there wasn't one band that disappointed. I had already seen Pigsty and Jig-ai last weekend in Brooklyn. The second dosage was even better. My favorite band on the indoor stage was Sayyadina. They are a Swedish three piece with raw aggression.

Cattle Decap Spit
Travis from Cattle is known for spitting up into the air and catching it with his mouth. But, on May 22, a giant clammy missed his mouth and landed on the side of my shirt. It was a gnarly multi-tint, phlegm colored hunk of spit. I haven't showered in a couple days, but I did go into the bathroom and wash it off with soap. I didn't mind having a half wet shirt for the rest of MDF since it was a predicable Baltimore summer day. (more…)

We sent roving reporter Justina Villanueva on the road with this summer's darkest tour, Blackenedfest. She will be checking in constantly with dispatches from the tour. Catch up with all her tour diaries, as well as a ton of photos at the Blackenedfest hub.

Day 1

First lesson of the tour: If the tour manager gives you a photo pass, don't loose it.
I got to Irving Plaza 5 hours after I said I would have. After spending hours staring at my luggage because I could not do the whole toiletry Tetris shuffle, I spent 90 minutes in traffic. By the time I got to the venue I was on another planet. Which explains why when Cartel (tour manager) handed me my photo/crew pass I put it "somewhere" and didn't see it for the rest of the night. And, because a tour laminate is not good enough for Irving Plaza crew to recognize someone as part of the tour, I had to run around during Lair of Minotaur looking for Cartel to fix my mess. But, don't worry, Lair of Minotaur will be catching up with the tour again in a couple weeks. I'll get pictures of them then.

Marduk
Everyone on the tour (bands and crew) have heard different stories and has begun to speculate their own version of what could be the issue. Including the ol' "maybe they're not even a real band" joke. All I can tell anyone is that I really don't know when/if they will join the tour. (more…)

On this sorta Robless edition of the METAL INJECTION LIVECAST we created a simulated Rob while the real Rob is covering Maryland Deathfest. Who knew that simulated Rob would be more entertaining, proving that real Rob is funnier at a distance and better looking that way too. We also learned not to let friends smoke weed and sing karaoke.  And Noa gets a pet Rabbit.

IHSAHN- Called By The Fire
PANTERA – The Sleep
ARCTURUS – Demon Painter
CHILDREN OF BODOM – Kissing The Shadows
MASTODON – Sleeping Giant

Podcast: Download

It may be Memorial Day weekend but that's no excuse to actually go outside and do stuff. Especially when some brave soul uploaded the entire 1988 documentary, The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. This was of course shot when metal was the biggest thing ever. It's awesome to see all the big hair, all the clueless fans who really went nowhere. While there may be a bit too much focus on glam for my tastes (which was reflective of the time) there are still a ton of great names that appear like OZZY OSBOURNE, KISS, LEMMY from MOTORHEAD, ALICE COOPER, MEGADETH and more. Seriously, this is a must-view for any metalhead, so grab some popcorn, smoke a j and enjoy…

We're packing our bags and heading to Maryland for the seventh annual Deathfest. We are teaming up with Handshake Inc., who will be taping all weekend for their upcoming release, Maryland Deathfest: The Movie. We will be bringing you coverage all weekend long in the form of exclusive video clips and other interesting coverage. I can't tell you exactly how everything will go down, because we haven't gotten there yet and variables such as shitty hotel internet can ruin this whole thing. But, we plan to have some kick ass coverage so keep on hitting up http://metalinjection.net/mdf for the most up-to-date info.

UPDATE: Hotel Fail. Things were way too hectic for the crew to update footage as the show was going on. We will, however, be posting clips throughout the week.