I was a relatively late-coming fan of Sweden’s Naglfar, discovering them through their 2007 release, Harvest, but I’m now solidly in their camp. Their skillful intertwining of melodic black metal and death metal elements creates music that is both memorable and viciously scathing.

I’m happy to report that as of today, we now have more details about their next album on Century Media, Téras. First, we have the album’s killer cover art by Niklas Sundin (Dark Tranquillity), who has previously designed artwork for bands such as In Flames, Arch Enemy, and At the Gates.

Second, we have specific release dates: March 26th in Europe and March 27th in North America. Third, we have a track list:

1. Téras
2. Pale Horse
3. III: Death Dimension Phantasma
4. The Monolith
5. An Extension Of His Arm And Will
6. Bring Out Your Dead
7. Come Perdition
8. Invoc(H)ate
9. The Dying Flame Of Existence

Since Naglfar and this album cover are on my mind, I decided to collect all of their previous album covers, which are equally eye-catching. That’s after the jump, along with a replay of the first song from Téras.

Another ugly duckling has left the nest, venturing into the cold, cruel outside world to spread its wings. An NCS reader, commenter, and e-mailer of reliable tips on metal news and new music who I’ll call Ben C. has gone off and started his own blog with the thoroughly awesome name of: CHURCH OF THE RIFF.

In Ben’s words, the musical focus of the new blog is “oriented around big manly ball-swagger riff rock”, though I’m sure Ben will be most welcoming to both non-balled and balled readers as long as they’re interested in “face melting and skin blasting” — in other words, readers with good taste in metal.

The blog went live yesterday with three posts. They’ll give you a further idea about the musical direction of the blog. Their subjects are these three bands: Whores, Barn Burner, and Graveyard. I especially liked the title of the second post: “Barn Burner: If Iron Maiden Drank More Beer, Smoked More Weed and Ate More Poutine.”

I also liked the fact that Ben created this tag for the post about Whores: motherfucking. I wish I had thought of that. He also has tags for beer and bongs. All these words will come in handy when searching Church of the Riff for music in future months.

Please show Ben some love. Go visit Church of the Riff today and leave the kind of ridiculous comments you post here at NCS.

(DemiGodRaven wants to spread the word about a free show on the other side of the continent . . .)

I’m going to be completely honest with you guys: I have never been to Baltimore. The closest I have ever gotten to the state of Maryland was when I flew to Georgia to watch my younger brother graduate from basic training. Maybe they’re on the same longitude lines, but that would literally be the only connection I have for travels on the East Coast.

So, I think it’s clear that I am not by any means a leading authority on anything having to do with Baltimore, MD. Outside of The Wire and the recent Ace Ventura-esque events with the local NFL football team (granted, it’s not like the team close to Hayward, CA, where I grew up, did any better), I have zero exposure to how the city is laid out. Thus, if this show actually is taking place in a Baltimore suburb (as when shows are announced for The Boardwalk in Sacramento, when the Boardwalk is actually in Orangevale), please do not jump my shit for it.

Misery Index announced via Facebook a few days back that they would be performing a free show with a group called Bet The Devil over at The Ottobar. The show happens on February 6, 2012, so…next Monday. If you need details there is an event page on Facebook to check out. I’m just trying to spread the word about a free show. Especially a free show where you get to see Misery Index, who put on a fucking great live show. I saw them in October 2010 and rocked out incredibly fucking hard during the whole set and in general had a blast. I have not heard Bet The Devil, so if anybody has and can put forth some impressions about them in the comments, that would be great. Really, help out any fellow East Coast folk who may make the journey to see the show.  (more after the jump . . .)

We climbed on the Oak Pantheon bandwagon last June, which I suppose was before it was a bandwagon. Since then we’ve been closely following this Minneapolis duo (a trio, if you include producer Sean Golyer). Their self-released debut in 2011, The Void, was wonderful. It appeared on many of the Best of 2011 lists we published. As I wrote in a subsequent post: “[T]he music is hugely distracting and tremendously appealing. As a gross generalization, it’s folk-influenced black metal with memorable acoustic and electric melodies, infectious rhythms, and a scarifying dose of Nordic vocals. Sweeping beauty and the beast, indeed.”

The Void is still available for download at Oak Pantheon’s Bandcamp page. But as creative musicians are wont to do, the band are working on a new album for release later this year. They’ve created a “teaser reel” of rough instrumental mixes for three songs from the album, and they’ve asked fans to listen and then vote on which song Oak Pantheon should preview in full before the album drops.

After the jump, you can stream the teaser reel and find out how to vote on the track you would most like to hear in full. Also after the jump, I’m excerpting a recent interview of the band that provides more info about the musical direction of the new album.

Well, just my luck that I put up that last post with updates about new U.S. tours and a half hour later saw the news about SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2012. Here’s the official statement:

“The rumors are true. Summer Slaughter 2012 will be the greatest bill in the history of the tour. Cannibal Corpse is confirmed to headline with special guests Between The Buried and Me. Each Sunday will see another confirmed band on the tour get announced via the SS Facebook page… It starts this weekend.”

So, the line-up will dribble out, drop by drop, like water torture, except it promises to be a good kind of torture, which happens to be the name of the new Cannibal Corpse album (Torture). Just judging from the first two bands announced, this tour is also going to include great musical diversity — a little something for everyone. I suspect that diversity is going to continue as the remainder of the line-up is announced, as has been true in past editions of this tour.

This post is really about news of new spring tours, but I couldn’t resist adding that just-released cover artwork for the next studio album by Paradise Lost, Tragic Idol, which is scheduled for release on April 23 in Europe via Century Media Records. The album’s artwork was designed by Parisian designer Valnoir (www.metastazis.com), who has also worked with other artists such as Morbid Angel, Ulver, Watain, and more than 150 others.

Now, on to the tours news:

First, Lambgoat reported this news earlier today: “Late this spring there will be a festival type tour in the U.S featuring Origin, Cattle Decapitation, Misery Index, Aborted, Vital Remains, Threat Signal, Rings Of Saturn, and Dawn Of Ashes. The trek is currently being booked, with dates expected to surface in several weeks. We’ll keep you posted.” I mean, holy shit, that’s a helluva tour right there. But there’s more:

Hails and Horns reports that Skeletonwitch and The Black Dahlia Murder will be mounting a U.S. tour this spring. The dates are after the jump.

But that’s not all: MetalSucks will be co-sponsoring a 24-city U.S. tour consisting of Protest the Hero, Periphery, Jeff Loomis, The Safety Fire, and Today I Caught the Plague. The schedule for that one is after the jump — and there’s one more tour after the jump, too.

Some news about this tour has already trickled out, but I’ve now received an official announcement:  Meshuggah will be following up on the March 27 North American release of Koloss by launching a 19-city NorthAm tour — THE OPHIDIAN TREK 2012. It will begin on April 29 in Houston and conclude on May 23 in New York City.

And as strong as a Meshuggah tour will undoubtedly be, it’s stronger still because Poland’s Decapitated will be the opening act each night, and Baroness will also be in the line-up.

My own feelings were succinctly captured by this quote from Decapitated’s guitarist and founder Vogg: “FUCK YEAH! DECAPITATED with MESHUGGAH! We’re so proud and happy to be part of this amazing tour! It will be a huge honor to share one stage with such a great fuckin’ band! Cannot wait!”

The schedule for the tour is after the jump.

Seems like I was just apologizing for the number of posts we’ve published today, but then I saw this album art for the first time and all thought of trying to be judicious with your time just evaporated like a soft shower in the Sahara.

I’m sure my enthusiasm is attributable in part to how eager I am to hear this album. Gorod is a remarkable band. Even as an inter-album EP, their 2011 release, Transcendence, blew me away. The next full-length, A Perfect Absolution, holds so much potential, and yet I have a feeling that it will unfold in multiple, unpredictable directions.

But wholly apart from anticipation for the music, this album art is bursting with visual extravagance and worthy of attention by itself. I don’t know what the bizarre imagery represents, but it’s striking. I also don’t know who created the artwork, though the style does seem familiar. I’m still searching for that info.

As for the music, the teaser video after the jump includes just a part of one song, without vocals, but it’s very sweet. Such a pity that the album won’t be released until March 12. It’s available for pre-order at Listenable Records web shop (here). I’ve put an even larger version of the album cover after the jump, too.

On January 18 we announced a contest to help celebrate the release of Dismal Hollow, the fantastic new album by Virginia’s King Giant (glowingly reviewed at NCS here). Drawing on the sense of violent historical conflict that underpins the first track released from the album — “Appomattox” — we came up with this question for our readers (actually, BadWolf came up with it): Tell us what famous battle in history deserves a metal song immortalizing it and why?

We got quite an impressive list of submissions, most of which you can read in the Comments to this post. We turned all of them over to King Giant and asked them to pick the winner, and they’ve now done that. Here’s the message we received from King Giant’s David Kowalski:

“This was really tough to pick just one winner because the majority of the responses were really good!!  But here it is: #5 - Ørsaeth - The Battle of Cameron.”

Ørsaeth will receive his choice of a CD of Dismal Hollow signed by the band or a signed copy of the colored vinyl LP of the album, plus one of the band’s shirts. After the jump, you can check out Ørsaeth’s winning entry. And if you haven’t yet picked up your own copy of Dismal Hollow, do that shit without delay. The CD is being sold by all the usual retailers, and it’s also available for download at Amazon mp3. We’re not the only people to praise this release — it’s racking up a slew of great reviews, including an 8 out of 10 in the March 2012 issue of Decibel.

(NCS guest contributor SurgicalBrute keeping it real with a collection of alerts about forthcoming releases from four underground bands — Maveth (Finland), Ketzer (Germany), Witchrist (NZ), and Anhedonist (Seattle) — plus examples of music from the featured bands.)

Another year is done, and everyone’s “best of” opinion has been given. So what’s a metalhead to do? Well, you forget about everything you got in 2011 and start looking forward to 2012.

A few big names are already being thrown around, some of whom are personal favorites (Desaster, Evoken, fucking Asphyx) and some of whom are enjoyed by the wider community (Meshuggah, Testament, Neurosis). So, with another potentially strong year ahead of us, here’s a few more bands to keep your eye on

MAVETH

Unholy blackened death, Maveth is composed of 3/5 of Finnish death metal band Cryptborn (one of my personal Best of 2011 picks). Mixing killer blast beats with some surprisingly melodic riffs, they never really let one style dominate, equally taking the best from both genres. Maveth’s first full length has yet to receive a release date.  (Maveth music right after the jump . . .)