Montreal black metal duo Funeste obviously derive great pleasure from inflicting pain. The whirlwind that is “Hilkhot Avodat Kokhavim” is all the proof you need.

More bands should play in arcades. If you suck, at least I can plug 25 cents into Ms. Pac-Man and have something else to do for a half-hour. Luckily, that’s not a problem for Austin-based outfit Sweat Lodge

These metal mercenaries are coming back with new material, some of which you can hear below in the video they’ve put together, excerpting the new song “CroMagñon” from their forthcoming album Obelisk, and we wanted to hear about where this music was coming from and what the members of Black Table have been up to since we last spoke.

Seattle instru-psychers GIZA are not to be confused with GZA, although they’re probably just as qualified as the Wu-Tang veteran to give a TED Talk about the “genius of science.”

Floridian nasties Meatwound are everything that is good and right about punk, hardcore and noise squatting in the same dilapidated basement.

A Dracula
The prequel to I, Frankenstein and Eee, Wolfman!
dB Rating: 8/10

Of thrash’s three faces–sociopolitico, violent, comical–Atlanta’s Sadistic Ritual embody the aggro. They aren’t singing about saving whales and the injustice of corporate profits. Nor are they singing about keg parties and barf consistency in DayGlo Bermuda shorts. No, Sadistic Ritual, as the name implies, is about riots of violence, the realities of getting bombed–as in the thermobaric kind–and showing no mercy.

Boston-based post-metal three-piece inAeona are getting set to release full-length debut Force Rise the Sun on Prosthetic in early August, and we’re excited to premiere the album’s second single, “Sun/Moon.”

It’s now the summer season, where half of you will make some joke that wasn’t funny the last seven years you told it about being a vampire that burns in the sun. It’s also festival season, where a majority of you go out to various places in packs and get shit-house drunk while not paying attention to any of the bands you claimed you wanted to see, yet be fully prepared to complain about the bands you didn’t like.

They count James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo, Fenriz and Nergal among their fans. No pressure, right? Not for cloaked Swedish occultists Ghost, who should only expand their global dominance with third album Meliora.