Six Feet Under’s 18 Nights Of Blood Tour to commence this Friday! The run will begin in Atlanta, Georgia and come to a close on the band’s home turf of Tampa, Florida. Six Feet Under will be joined by newly recruited rhythm guitarist Ola Englund who takes the place of Rob Arnold. Support will be provided by Dying Fetus and Revocation.

The band will be touring in support of their recently released album, Undead.

Undead was unleashed to North American ears via Metal Blade on May 22 and offers an updated lineup of Barnes alongside guitarist Rob Arnold (ex- Chimaira), longtime guitarist Steve Swanson (ex-Massacre), bassist Jeff Hughell (ex-Brain Drill, ex-Vile), and drummer Kevin Talley (Dying Fetus, Misery Index, Chimaira).

Six Feet Under 18 Nights Of Blood Tour 2012
w/ Dying Fetus, Revocation
6/08/2012 The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA [TICKETS]
6/09/2012 Empire – Springfield, VA [TICKETS]
6/10/2012 Palladium – Worcester, MA [TICKETS]
6/11/2012 Music Hall of Williamsburg – Brooklyn, NY [TICKETS]
6/12/2012 Alrosa Villa – Columbus, OH [TICKETS]
6/13/2012 Reggie’s – Chicago, IL [TICKETS]
6/14/2012 Peabody’s – Cleveland, OH [TICKETS]
6/15/2012 Harpo’s – Detroit, MI [TICKETS]
6/16/2012 People’s Court – Des Moines, IA [TICKETS]
6/18/2012 The Gothic Theater – Denver, CO [TICKETS]
6/20/2012 Studio Seven – Seattle, WA [TICKETS]
6/21/2012 Hawthorne Theater – Portland, OR [TICKETS]
6/23/2012 The Metro – Oakland, CA [TICKETS]
6/24/2012 The Whisky – Los Angeles, CA [TICKETS]
6/25/2012 Rocky Point Cantina – Tempe, AZ
6/26/2012 House Of Rock – El Paso, TX [TICKETS]
6/27/2012 Scout Bar – Houston, TX [TICKETS]
6/29/2012 Crowbar – Tampa, FL*
* – No Dying Fetus

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http://metalblade.com/sixfeetunder

On April 30th in Toronto, ON at Hard Luck Bar (812 Dundas Street W), six bands from Vancouver, Toronto & Ottawa will come together for a “rip your face off” destruction for the masses!

Before these guys hit the stage they’re giving ya’ll a sneak preview of what’s to come in a free download of the DMD compilation!

Free Download @ http://deathmetaldecapitation.bandcamp.com/

1. Accursed Spawn – Date Rape Psycosis – 2:38
2. Archspire – Deathless Ringing – 4:44
3. Insurrection – Fracture – 5:39
4. Wretchedpain – The Dawn of Ambition – 4:12
5. Xyphos – What Comes Next – 4:11
6. Strings of Ares – 3 Seeds of Hate – 6:37

Saturday April 30th 2011 @ The Hard Luck Bar
812 Dundas Street W, Toronto ON
http://hardluckbar.com/
6:30 – 19+ – $10

Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136333006437096

ARCHSPIRE
http://www.myspace.com/archspire
Intense touring tech/death band from Vancouver, BC that is currently on their “All Shall Align” cross Canada Tour.

“…sweep-picking, hyper-blasting juggernaut [that] destroyed with speed and precision…” – Diffmusic.blogspot.com

“They play progressive, rhythm-switching death metal like seasoned veterans of the industry…” – Noisecreep.com

INSURRECTION
http://www.myspace.com/insurrectionmetal
Ottawa / Hull area death metal veterans INSURRECTION will be returning to Toronto for this great show! “Insurrection brings you the complexity of the human condition wrapped in the fires of intensity and brute force. Pushing the limits set by the previous outing, Insurrection becomes more than the sum of its parts, every track contributing to this merciless new abomination”

WRETCHEDPAIN
http://www.myspace.com/wretchedpain
Initially conceived nearly a decade ago, Wretchedpain pools its heavy talent from lead guitarist Sam Bean of Mithras, The Senseless, and formerly The Berzerker, drummer Kevin Talley of Daath, and formerly Chimaira, Misery Index and Dying Fetus, and bass player Dan Mackie of MDM and Defense Mechanism to fuse elements of death / tech metal, and grind with a heavy groove. Their debut album “Congregation” was mixed and mastered by veteran Chris “Zeuss” Harris, producer of Hatebreed, Chimaira, Whitechapel, and Shadows Fall.

STRINGS OF ARES
http://www.myspace.com/stringsofares

Toronto’s own progressive death metal! String of Ares bring forth thier “Temple to Mars” album released on (Archaic North) as a gateway to the Gods, the cosmos and beyond. A dedication to the ancient Roman god of war, Mars. The album is inspired by the history and myths of ancient Rome and Greece; empires that were bound by their universal worship of the earth, the sky, the stars, the planets, and war.

XYPHOS

http://www.myspace.com/xyphosmetal

Intense death metal up-and-comers from Toronto. With members of Serene Molestation and Astral Enslavement these guys are guaranteed to bring some serious brutality to the Hard Luck Bar!

ACCURSED SPAWN
http://www.myspace.com/accursedspawn
More brutal death metal from Ottawa! Featuring Adam Pell (Aggressor) and Jeremy Harley who hosts every Tuesday night Hammer Smashed Radio on CKCU 93.1FM

Chimaira Guitarist Joins SFU!

Tampa, FL Death metallers, SIX FEET UNDER, has delivered the following update regarding the bands line up:

We would like to announce and welcome the addition of guitarist Rob Arnold (Chimaira) to the SIX FEET UNDER family! Just wanted to give you a SIX FEET UNDER band update and let you all know that we would like to announce our good friend Rob Arnold will be joining SFU as 2nd rhythm guitarist for upcoming touring duties, as well as collaborating on the new CD.

Chris Barnes comments; “I couldn’t be happier about the new songs and line up! Rob and myself have been collaborating on new songs along with the bands new drummer, Kevin Talley (www.drummerkevintalley.com) for the past few months. We are all feeling really excited about the bands future, and the raw intensity of the songs that we have created together so far. THIS IS THE HEAVIEST MOST EXCITING MATERIAL THAT IVE WORKED ON SINCE THE BLEEDING, AND IM STOKED THAT ROB WILL BE HELPING OUT CREATING THIS CD WITH US! We’ve all known each other for a while and we’re really looking forward to continue writing the new CD and future tours. We are committed to taking SIX FEET UNDER to the next level of brutality!!!”

Rob Arnold comments; “It’s been an amazing honor and opportunity to have been called upon by one of my biggest idols, Chris Barnes!! SIX FEET UNDER and the Barnes era Cannibal stuff had enormous effects on me as a young musician, and still do to this day. In 1996, I was a kid in the front row screaming my head off to ‘Lycanthropy’ and ‘Torn to the Bone’…and now here I am, being asked to play the songs on stage with the band! Dreams do come true!!! And the stuff we’ve been writing absolutely RIPS! Watch out!!”

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Asylum, the Illinois-based project featuring Markus Johansson (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Johnny Rox (bass), has changed its name to Sylencer. The band’s debut album, “A Lethal Dose Of Truth”, has been completely self-produced by Johansson and Rox and is nearing completion. The CD will contain 15 tracks with guest appearances by some of hard rock/heavy metal’s brightest stars, including Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), Rob Caggiano (Anthrax, The Damned Things), Steve Smyth (Forbidden, Testament, Nevermore) and Christian Lasegue (Jag Panzer).

SYLENCER is:

* Markus Johansson – Lead Guitar/Lead Vocals
* Johnny Rox – Bass

Featuring:

* Kevin Talley (DAATH, CHIMAIRA, DYING FETUS) – Drums
* Larry Tarnowski (ICED EARTH) – Lead Guitar

Guest Appearances:

* Gene Hoglan – Drums (SYL, DETHKLOK, ZIMMERS HOLE, DEATH, DARK ANGEL)
* Brendon Small (DETHKLOK/METALOCALYPSE) – Lead Guitar
* Andy La Rocque (KING DIAMOND, DEATH) – Lead Guitar
* Michael Angelo Batio (NITRO) – Lead Guitar
* Roland Grapow (HELLOWEEN, MASTERPLAN) – Lead Guitar
* The Heathen (ZIMMERS HOLE) – Vocals
* Bill Hudson (CELLADOR, POWER QUEST) – Lead Guitar
* Emil Werstler (DAATH) – Lead Guitar
* Rob Caggiano (ANTHRAX) – Lead Guitar
* “Metal” Mike Chlasciak (ROB HALFORD, SEBASTIAN BACH, PAINMUSEUM) – Lead Guitar
* Steve DiGiorgio (SADUS, DEATH, TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH) – Bass
* Alexei Rodriguez (PRONG, 3 INCHES OF BLOOD, WALLS OF JERICHO) – Drums
* Eyal Levi (DAATH) – Lead Guitar
* Sean Reinert (CYNIC, AEON SPOKE, DEATH) – Drums
* Jordan Rudess (DREAM THEATER, LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT) – Keyboards
* Steve Smyth (FORBIDDEN, TESTAMENT, NEVERMORE) – Lead Guitar
* Christian Lasegue (JAG PANZER) – Lead Guitar

Production:

* Christian Olde Wolbers (FEAR FACTORY) – Vocal Engineering
* Wes ‘Waxley’ Seidman (GREEN DAY) – Engineering
* Ulrich Wild (WHITE ZOMBIE, PANTERA, DETHKLOK) – Mixing
* Maor Appelbaum (HALFORD, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN) – Mastering

SYLENCER is currently unsigned and looking for a suitable record label to release “A Lethal Dose Of Truth”.

For more information, visit www.sylencermusic.com.

I apologize in advance if this seems quite a bit condensed for my usual rants about shows, but due to being that damned tired, there’s not a lot of gas left in the tank.  After getting off of work and going straight to Tampa (which is on the other side of the state for me) and then making it home by 5 in the morning to go to work two hours later with a busted open head courtesy of a drunk asshole trying to get payback on me for making him eat concrete earlier in the night, I’m amazed I even wanted to use the computer.  The Decibel Defiance tour features death metal/deathcore pioneers Suffocation and technical extreme metal wizards The Faceless with Through The Eyes Of The Dead, Decrepit Birth and Fleshgod Apocalypse.  The setting was The Brass Mug bar in Tampa, Florida, and the outcome was just as brutal as expected.  If there was one good metaphor for this show, the bands were the meat processor to the usual death metal sausagefest.

The night started off with Italy’s Fleshgod Apocalypse making their first trek to the United States in their black face paint and their matching getups of what appears to be quite the massacre at a formal gathering.  It became obvious by the first song that these outfits weren’t just for show and tell, this band means business and they are out nightly to slaughter.  They were hands down the treat of the night for me because I wasn’t sure what to expect from the first three bands.  Up next was Decrepit Birth who were no slouches either bringing a heavy dose of California death metal to an abnormally chilly Florida night.  Bill Robinson is a hyperactive maniac vocalist which makes for a great time and amusing photos if you can get him to stand still for a split second.  Of course the rest of the band keeps up nicely and makes for a brutally enjoyable set.  This is the same band that has had Suffocation’s Derek Boyer as well as Tim Yeung and Kevin Talley on the skins in the past.  Through The Eyes Of The Dead is a good, solid death metal band but a little bit too generic since nothing really set their set apart as memorable to me.  Actually, lead singer Danny Rodriguez’s hand cast was pretty fucking metal.  Maybe it’s just me and I’ve just seen too many openers over the past decade to differentiate them all sometimes but I have nothing bad to say about any of the bands.

The Faceless took the stage for their clinic of metal mastery.  Musically they are a band that deserves to be on the same plane as bands like Suffocation and Nile.  The biggest thing holding them back is a lack of material.  The band is a tight knit group that effortlessly blew through too short of a set for my liking.  They also played a new song which is on par for their previous work and definitely excites me for something new in the near future.  Suffocation took the stage right before midnight to the better part of a full house for the Brass Mug.  Suffocation is one of the most intense bands in the business who gives 110% nightly.  Guy Marchais and Terrance Hobbs each hold their own very nicely on the six strings while Derek Boyer holds down the low end.  Mike Smith is an absolute machine on the drums and doesn’t get nearly the credit that he deserves in the metal world for his talent.  Vocalist Frank Mullen goes from soft spoken and calm off stage to a crazed beast on stage.  His love song for the ladies, ‘Entrails of You’ always puts a smile on my face and makes me wish I could have been that romantic with one or two of my ex’s.  Aside from Frank’s occasional rant, Suffocation ran off an hour worth of songs both new and old flawlessly.  It was quite a treat for me to finally see a band of their caliber headlining a show and getting a full set since I had only seen them playing second fiddle to Fear Factory, Carcass and Devildriver in the past.  Speaking of treats, Guy also gave me a bottle of Duck Butter Hot Pepper Sauce which could possibly be the perfect Louisiana hot sauce, but the fat kid will save the food talk for another day.  Even without the hot sauce to spice up the night, from top to bottom the show was scorching to warm up the few hundred that turned out on a Monday night for a real metal show.

My first reaction to hearing this album in its entirety was simple: holy shit!  What’s scary is this album doesn’t reach its full potential until the third or fourth complete listen.  This is an album you put in your headphones for and turn it two pegs louder than you’re supposed to and you experience the journey.  The journey just happens to be a brutally heavy and dark 45 minute thorough ass kicking.  This is hands down Daath’s heaviest, darkest and most intricate work to date and I cannot put this release down.

The opening track, ‘Genocidal Maniac’, lures you in with guitarists Emil Werstler and Eyal Levi dueling each other and Kevin Talley doing a damned fine job of keeping up on drums for two minutes before Sean comes in to wreck your eardrums with his screams.  It quickly sets the pace and puts you in the same state of mind as five minutes into a horror flick when they find the first mutilated dead body and you just have to see more.  The album flows seamlessly to ‘Destruction/Restoration’ which is pretty much a clinic in how to kick your ass with brilliant guitars and breakneck drums.  ‘Indestructible Overdose’ opens with a quick, somber ten second intro that reminds you of walking into a funeral procession and then rest of the song is breaking everything and kicking everyone’s ass, living or dead, at that funeral.  ‘Double Tap Suicide’ is an almost five minute aural assault which displays some of the fanciest guitar work on the album.  ‘The Decider’ is heavy and catchy as fuck.  It’s amongst my favorite tracks on the album.  It gets hard to explain the intensity of every track on this album without sounding monotonous until you’ve given it about five listens yourself.  ‘Exit Plan’ is a song that Sean dominates on vocals until the guitars in the middle remind you that you’re listening to two six stringed monsters.  As you listen to the album you realize that what sets Daath apart from all of the other bands in the genre is that they are an insanely talented group.  This isn’t a band you listen to and say “I like the vocals but I don’t care about the music” or “I love the guitars and the insane drumming but I don’t like the singer.”  They are a very tight knitted group that all appear to be exactly on the same page musically and they all seem to have a lot of demons to expel on this album.  ‘Oxygen Burn’ slowly builds up to a pretty strange yet cool piece that is more like prepping you for surgery before ‘Accelerant’ dismembers you.  These two songs are the soundtrack for when the killer blows up the building from his cell phone on the other side of town and is out looking for his next victims.  ‘Arch (Enemy) Misanthrope’ and the following track, ‘Manufactured Insomnia’, showcase exactly what this band is capable of.  Between the two tracks it is eight minutes of fine musicianship that is a little more progressive and a little less in your face than the rest of the album.  Don’t think for a second though am I calling these songs slow or out of place because they will still kick your ass harder than most bands are capable of.  ‘A Cold Devotion’ gets right back in your face and is probably the most addictive song on the album.  ‘N.A.T.G.O.D.’ picks right up at the end of ‘A Cold Devotion’ for one more solid punch in the face and one more ball of treats on the fret board.  ‘Terminal Now’ winds the album down in instrumental fashion as if the horror movie we were sucked into is about to shoot the ending credits and the killer is on his boat to Mexico laughing at the trail of destruction he left behind.

Enough can’t be said for this album and how great the musicianship on it is.  The album will appeal to a lot of people from Lamb of God fans to fans of The Faceless.  It is definitely an album that took me a handful of listens to completely appreciate and that will be the only downfall of this album.  People without an appreciation for the finer things in music will listen to it once and not understand what I’m raving about because the album lacks fist pumping singles and was obviously made to be enjoyed as a whole experience and not a random song here and there.  I am a huge fan of albums like Mastodon’s Crack The Skye that are better on the fifteenth listen from start to finish and this is one of those albums to me.  It is safe to say that Daath lived up to all of the hype and anticipation that I had for this release and then some.  I will put this in the must own category and put it in my top five releases this year to accompany The Deftones’ Diamond Eyes, Soilwork’s The Panic Broadcast, Poisonblack’s Of Rust and Bones, and Fear Factory’s Mechanize.

Australian extreme thrash metal band TRUTH CORRODED are currently recording the band’s latest album titled Worship The Bled. The album will feature two special guest musicians — Kevin Talley from DAATH and Jonas Kjellgren from SCAR SYMMETRY. Jonas will also be mixing and mastering the album at Black Lounge Studio in Sweden in August.

The band is now planning their return to Japan and touring Europe early in 2011. Check the band’s website www.truthcorroded.com for updates on the release of Worship The Bled and upcoming tour.

Go to SMNnews

Renowned drummer Kevin Talley and CREATIVE WASTE drummer Talal Al-Shawaf have finished laying tracks for the upcoming full-length debut by the Saudi Arabian grindcore outfit, CREATIVE WASTE. The album is slated for a late 2010 release and will include two songs featuring Kevin Talley on drums. CREATIVE WASTE is also in talks to play a few shows in the US this summer. More details to follow.

You can hear the bands last record in it’s entirety at http://creativewaste.bandcamp.com.

Go to SMNnews

The UK’s thrash metallers WARPATH have been voted “The Best Unsigned Band of the Year” in 2008, and now once again in 2009 by the Terrorizer Magazine Reader’s Polls, ahead of hundreds of other metal bands.

WARPATH’s‘Damnation’ Music Video

WARPATH’s debut album Damnation was mixed at Kevin Talley’s studio (Chimaira, Daath) by producer Orlando Villasenor and mastered by James Murphy (Testament).

WARPATH is also confirmed for the UK’s HAMMERFEST II and Japan’s TRUE THRASH FEST II in March 2010.

• www.warpath-online.com
• www.myspace.com/warpathuk