I’ve been catching up on metal news today and came across news of three upcoming U.S. tours that are . . . newsworthy, to say the least.

I’m guessing this first one will be old news to many of you, since it surfaced on Friday, but it has sure produced some tumescence in your humble editor’s loins today. Behemoth, Watain, The Devil’s Blood, and In Solitude will be hitting the road for The Decibel Magazine Tour, a 26-date trail of wreckage across the U.S. starting in April. It will be the first Behemoth tour for Nergal since being diagnosed with and beating leukemia. That’s a cool tour flyer by Justin Bartlett up there, too.

More details, including tour dates, venues and ticket info, will be announced at www.decibelmagazinetour.com on January 24th.

But that’s just for starters. Mastodon’s Troy Sanders recently confirmed that his band plus Opeth and Ghost will be embarking on a North American tour of their own. During a recent interview at a Belgian radio station, Sanders stated: “We go to Australia to take part in the Soundwave Festival, which is going to be lovely, take a short break. Do a North American tour with Opeth and Ghost. And then take another break and come back over here for the European festival season.”

I have a feeling a few people will buy tickets for that tour. No further details are available at this time. (found this news via Loudwire)

And that’s not all. Would you believe a 30-date tour of the U.S. this summer by Agalloch?!?

Last night, Oregonian black-metal icons Agalloch played a special show in Tel Aviv, Israel. Through the wonders of the interhole, a high-quality video of the show’s opening has already surfaced. It depicts the usual Agalloch incense-burning ritual that takes place before the live music starts, followed by “They Escaped the Weight of Darkness” and “Into the Painted Grey”. A second video features the band performing “Odal” and “Of Stone, Wind, and Pillor”. The video quality of both clips is excellent, and the sound quality is decent. As a die-hard Agalloch acolyte, I have to feature these videos (after the jump). They’re reminders of how fucking much I’ve enjoyed the Agalloch shows I’ve seen.

And this also gives me an excuse to report other Agalloch news that I meant to say something about a while ago: Agalloch has established a Bandcamp page and are using it to distribute eight (mainly acoustic and ambient) tracks of music, available for purchase individually, that previously appeared on compilations or hard-to-find EPs and LPs. You can stream and buy them HERE, including the epic 18-minute song “Scars of the Shattered Sky”, which originally appeared as a bonus “D side” track on the Ashes Against the Grain LP. I picked one of those songs to play for you after the jump, too.

“Temples of magma stream across the grey
The arc that transcends my iconic pride . . .”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our first guest post of today is an interview conducted by Stephen Parker, the talented guitarist of Oregon’s Arkhum. I’m a big fan of Arkhum and have written about them multiple times at NCS, including this fairly recent post. The subject of Stephen’s interview is Jason William Walton. He’s probably best known as the long-running bass player for Agalloch (another big NCS favorite and still one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen) but his musical resume is a long one. In addition to playing bass for Sculptured, Nothing, and Celestial, he has also played with Self Spiller, Especially Likely Sloth, and a half-dozen other bands that I know of. He’s also the owner and operator of a recording and production studio called Audio Savant. I’m really grateful to Stephen for landing this interview for us, and of course quite grateful to Jason Walton for participating.

SP: First of all, I’d like to thank you for answering these retardedly repetetive questions. I can understand that life has you pretty busy right now, but I genuinely appreciate you taking the time for this.

JW: Of course. I enjoy doing interviews from time to time, and it has been a while.

SW: I’d just like to jump into some business. How are things going with Audio Savant Studios? I know you recently relocated, so has that played a part in a lull, or has it really mattered?

JW: I have had a lull in business over the last year, but it has nothing to do with location, and everything to do with time. I do expect a couple projects coming up this fall and winter, but I have had less work this year than usual. Plus, Agalloch touring has taken precedence over Audio Savant. It is always a balancing act. In 2012 I hope to refocus my energy on Audio Savant.

SW: From all of the reviews I’ve seen, it seems like Marrow was widely regarded as “fantastic.” I remember even seeing it on Tom Gabriel’s list of the best of 2011 in Decibel. Do you think you’ve achieved a better response to this album, compared to Ashes Against the Grain or The Mantle?

JW: I don’t think it is fair to say a better response, but it has undoubtedly been very positive. Way more positive than we had anticipated. Each of our albums receives negative and positive feedback, and for different reasons and Marrow of the Spirit has been no different. I think it may appear that we are getting a better response for this album, but I also think we are more in ‘the public eye’ this last year than we have been in quite some time. I think if you asked the average Agalloch fan what their favorite album was, most people would still say The Mantle.  (more after the jump . . .)

Over the weekend, I added a post about an article by Sasha Frere-Jones on black metal in the most recent edition of that bible of all things metal, The New Yorker magazine. The article has drawn scorn in certain quarters of the underground metal empire and provoked a nice, protracted discussion in the Comment section of that NCS post. One thing Mr. Frere-Jones did was to contrast (in a way some think was condescending) the original Norwegian BM scene and sound with American black metal bands such as Wolves in the Throne Room and Liturgy.

By sheer chance, I experienced a similar black metal contrast of my own this weekend after adding that post. On Saturday night (Oct 8 at El Corazon) I witnessed a live performance by Portland’s Agalloch. They played a show in their home town on Friday night and then made the trip north to Seattle for a second show, and that’s where I caught them. If there were a heaven as well as an earth, I would have moved both to see that, because I have such vividly awesome memories of the first (and only other) time I got swallowed up by Agalloch performing live.

In Seattle, the band closed a very long set with two songs, “In the Shadow Of Our Pale Companion” from The Mantle (2002) and an instrumental called “The Lodge (Dismantled)” from The Grey EP (2004). More about those songs, plus a live video of the latter from the Portland show after the jump.

The Norwegian half of my contrasting BM experience came via Ragnarok — not the “death of the gods” cataclysm from Norse mythology, but the cataclysmic black metal band who borrowed that name for themselves back in 1994. I’d never spent time with their music until getting an e-mail from Patricia Thomas, who seems to manage about half the black metal bands in Norway. She reported that Ragnarok was finishing a 14-date tour of Brazil and Mexico and would be returning home to continue work on their seventh full-length album. She included a link to a Soundcloud player that includes all the songs from the band’s live set list, plus another link to an official video of the band performing the title track to their 2004 album, Blackdoor Miracle, with frontman Hoest from Taake providing the vocals. (more after the jump . . .)

Here’s another daily round-up of news and new music that I noticed today. All of these items perked me right up, so I thought I’d share them.

THY CATAFALQUE

Compared to other metal blogs, we’re late to the Thy Catafalque party, but we’re making up for lost time because the unique music of this Hungarian band has been a cool discovery (you can see our first post about them here).  We knew that the band had recently signed with the dependable Season of Mist label, but this morning we got a message from Tamás Kátai with further details.

Specifically, the band seems to have finished 60 minutes worth of new music (10 songs) that will be released on November 11 in Europe and on January 10, 2012 in North America. It will be entitled Rengeteg, and you can see the cover art up above, which is the result of a collaboration between Tamás and Portuguese photographer Ruy Luz. The art seems connected to the meaning of the album’s title, which is an obsolete Hungarian word referring to a vast, trackless forest. We’ll be all ears when this album becomes available for listening.  (more after the jump . . .)

I’ve seen Oregon-based Agalloch perform live only once, but it was one of the best metal shows I’ve ever seen. I felt like the music was a living thing and it had completely swallowed me up. I was literally in a daze for a long time after the show ended at something like 1:30 am, and I hadn’t been using any intoxicants (except the music).

I’ve never seen Britain’s Anaal Nathrakh in a live show, but I hope that’s not too far off in my future. Their catastrophic, vitriolic style of black grind is another kind of all-consuming music, though quite different from Agalloch’s brand of melodic black metal.

Both bands performed at the Scion Rock Fest in Pomona, California, in March, and Scion released professionally filmed videos of the performances late last week. We’ve got a handful of them for you after the jump. Is it the next best thing to being there? No — the next best thing would be walking out of the venue having heard the whole show. But it’s pretty damned sweet.

After the jump, probably my favorite Agalloch song, “Not Unlike the Waves”, plus “Into The Painted Grey”, and then Anaal Nathrakh performing “When the Lion Devours Both Dragon and Child” and “Don Not Speak”. There’s one very weird thing about the AN videos.

Agalloch – Into The Painted Grey / In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

I finally got to see Agalloch play a live show in Seattle on the Winter Solstice last December. I was so overwhelmed by the experience that I frothed all over the place in an NCS post. Among other frothy things, I wrote: “I’ll say it briefly, but from the heart: I’ve never heard live metal better than Agalloch’s performance. A very few shows I’ve seen are in the same league, but none has been better. It was a long set — one that began at midnight and lasted almost an hour and a half, but I still wasn’t ready for it to end. I was dazed for long after the show ended.”

If you haven’t had the chance to see this band yet, you can at least watch some very high-quality footage of their show on March 22, 2011, at the Poisson Rouge in NYC. This clip includes two long jams, “Into the Painted Grey” and “In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion”. The clip is more than 20 minutes long. Worth every minute.

Last Saturday night, I saw Agalloch in concert in Seattle. I was with mi hermana in metal and one of the co-founders of this site, Alexis. The bands that preceded Agalloch — Alda, Waldteufel , and Allerseelen — were immensely interesting and completely outside my usual comfort zone. For me, it was like a door opening to another world. But as good as they were, they were really only a prelude.

I distrust hyperbole. I discount superlatives. We live in a linguistically enthusiastic time, and over-the-top words like “awesome” are used so often (including by me) that it’s become difficult to adequately express truly exceptional reactions to just about anything. But I’ll try anyway.

I’ll say it briefly, but from the heart: I’ve never heard live metal better than Agalloch’s performance. A very few shows I’ve seen are in the same league, but none has been better. It was a long set — one that began at midnight and lasted almost an hour and a half, but I still wasn’t ready for it to end. I was dazed for long after the show ended.

I feel sorta shitty saying all this, because Agalloch doesn’t tour extensively, and most of you will never see and hear them on stage. So it seems like a form of gloating to say what I said. But that’s not how I meant it. What I meant to do was express my honest feeling, as a way of encouraging you, if you do ever get the chance, to see this band live.

If I get my shit together, I will write in more detail about the bands that preceded Agalloch’s set, but for now, I have only a few words about Agalloch and a bunch of half-assed photos — after the jump.

I guess this still qualifies as catching up.  I just saw a notice on the Profound Lore web site that in tandem with the November 23 release of Marrow Of The Spirit, AGALLOCH have announced a West Coast tour with “Austrian industrial/neo-folk/martial ambient act Allerseelen.”  The tour begins on December 17 in Agalloch’s hometown of Portland, Oregon, which will also serve as their record release show.

The number of tour dates is limited, and if you don’t live on the West Coast of the U.S., this news probably won’t do you much good. For us here in Seattle, the chance to see Agalloch on the heels of this new album release is just a fucking bonanza. The dates and places for the Agalloch/Allerseelen mini-tour are as follows:

12/17 – Portland, OR @ Berbati’s Pan (w/Aerial Ruin)
12/18 – Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s (w/Waldteufel, Alda)
12/21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Proud Bird (w/Winterthrall)
12/22 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall (w/Dispirit)

Another month has passed. Another Halloween has come and gone. Here in Seattle, we are looking forward to what is supposed to be an especially wet, dark, cold, sucktastic winter — which is really saying something, given that all Seattle winters are wet, dark, cold, and sucktastic. If they weren’t, we would have the population of Los Angeles, so there’s a silver lining to that massively dark cloud.

Yes, the seasons come and they go, the great wheel of life rolls forward, and we are all one month closer to our end, whatever it may be. But as time inexorably passes, new things happen. In particular, we find out about new metal gestating in studios around the world, struggling and kicking and yearning to erupt into the air, screaming like a banshee.

And that brings us to another monthly installment of METAL IN THE FORGE, in which we cobble together a list of forthcoming new albums, cribbing like rag-gatherers and lint-pickers from PR releases and metal news sites like Blabbermouth in order to construct a line-up of new music that at least we’re interested in hearing, even if no one else is.

What we do in this series of posts is update the list of forthcoming new albums we first posted on January 1. (All the other updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages.) After the jump, in alphabetical order, is a list of still more projected new releases we didn’t know about at the time of our previous updates, or new info about some of the previously noted releases.