Even if you're not a red-hot Cancer Bats fan you've got to admire a spectacular set-piece like this. In part to launch new album Dead Set on Living but totally to rise to a challenge from their booking agent, the Toronto punk-metal road hounds scheduled a one-day tour of London, with six shows routed in the shape of a pentagram. All shows were sold out within a week. It's such a gnarly idea; how ...

OK, we've just unveiled our first ever Paradise Lost cover story [Decibel #92] and exclusive Paradise Lost B-side flexi disc---which we're super-chuffed about---but to say that we've been sleeping on one of the UK's most important heavy acts of all time is all kinds of hyperbole. See, at Camp Decibel, Paradise Lost is given "special status." Sure, they've had sophomore full-length, Gothic, ...

Cough, cough, happy 4/20. Hopefully you’re not smoking seeds like I am. Let’s get into it so you can get into other “recreational activities.” TORCHE release Harmonicraft, and this thing pecking kicks ass! Heavy rock riffage, with (gasp) a healthy dose of melody. This record should beaking turn the rock world on its boring tin ear. Gone mostly are the sludgy/doom passages, replaced ...

Beelzebub's Cave Miami, FL DIY Space (all ages) Having just wrapped up recording for our new record and with less then two weeks before the start of our run opening for Revocation and Cannabis Corpse (Dates here: http://www.metalsucks.net/2012/04/10/less-than-ten-days-til-the-awesome-revocationcannabis-corpseramming-speed-tour-begins/) I figured it was as ...

Witchsorrow's sophomore album will be ripe for picking come the end of May. This is exciting news for doom heads. But what's that you say, the timing could be better? The British trio's Sabbath/Vitus morbido-doom doesn't really make for a summer record, right? Those who think that crestfallen pessimism and slo-mo riff 'n' dirge was not written for June/July has never experienced the aching ...

The last time we had direct contact with Brazilian death metallers Krisiun was way back in October 2011, where the terrible trio blogged a killer (literally!) Top 5 for us. Not that we don't like a daily dose of Krisiun -- new album The Great Execution is quality when not compared to, say, Apocalyptic Revelation -- but long-term exposure has, in the past, caused all kinds of weirdness with our ...

British legends Paradise Lost will release their thirteenth album on Tuesday, the latest entry in a discography that is quickly approaching a quarter-century worth of releases. To celebrate this achievement, we asked guitarist Greg Mackintosh to a pick a non-PL record that related in some way to each of the thirteen full-length PL records that he’s played on since 1990 (i.e., all of them). ...

Justin Bartlett, eternal metal art badass, is going through some trying times. His 28-year-old sister Ashley was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer on March 3rd and: On March 5th, she underwent emergency grueling surgery which seemed to last a day. Not only did the surgeons remove a 6" and an 8" tumor removed, they unfortunately had to perform a full hysterectomy. As bad as things ended up ...

Last week, I interviewed one half of Calgary's Mares of Thrace - the singing/guitar playing half, Therese Lanz - about a bunch of stuff that didn't really have anything to do with the band or their upcoming release (next week!) on Sonic Unyon Metal, The Pilgrimage. This week, I offer this chat with drummer Stefani MacKichan about a bunch of stuff that interests here but has nothing to do with her ...

The same folks, Handshake, Inc., who had the good sense to bring you Managing Editor Andrew Bonazelli's latest mixed-media masterpiece, DTV, have provided us with two exclusive like Rwake tracks from a very special upcoming 7". The two savage tunes, "Forge" and "Imbedded"—both from If You Walk Before You Crawl You Crawl Before You Die—were recorded in 2004 in Bozeman, MT. More recently, ...