(It’s been a while since we had a post from The Artist Formerly Known As Dan, but he responded to my appeal for submissions for my vacation with this review of the latest album by Seattle’s own I Declare War.)

Isn’t that album art sick? This will be a bit of a short review (light on the words, heavy on the samples) but, first things first: Before the self-titled album came out last month, I was not an I Declare War fan. I’m somewhat particular about my deathcore (which maybe is strange in and of itself), but this band never really did it for me. Check this video out:

It might be the mixing, but I guess it just sounds underproduced and lacking some punch. Anyway, I tried to like them, but I found myself just enjoying other music more, and why force yourself to listen to stuff you don’t like? Fast-forward to October 2011 and I heard about this release.

I ignored it for a little while because I wasn’t into their previous material. The album actually leaked early, and so I figured maybe I’ll check it out on youtube – I am so glad I did. Observe and try not to headbang:

Holy shit, what a difference a few years makes, right? I understand there were some personnel changes, but I absolutely love the new sound. The guitar tone has great presence and the effects are great. Furthermore, the vocals fit excellently as well (and are mostly exhales, from what I can tell). The breakdowns are powerful, destructive, and not overly cheesy. But it’s not just the tone and the sound that makes this album awesome.

I’m now going to say something which might be interpreted as blasphemy around these parts. So here goes – this album stands out to me the most because of the relative absence of blast beats. Yes, you read that correctly. I think this album is awesome because of how few blast beats are on it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do love blast beats when used appropriately, but I sometimes find that they are overused, almost to the point where I feel like they are just the default. But perhaps that is another debate.

So, if there are no blast beats, then what is there? A whole heap of groove, that’s what. And what exactly is groove? I don’t know if I can describe it exactly, but we’ll just call it headbangability. This whole album makes me headbang the entire time, and I credit that fact mostly to the drum patterns. If you’re still unclear on groove, think about the first time you heard Pantera or Devildriver – those are probably two of the best examples of groove in metal. The songs just have that thing that makes you want to destroy shit…in rhythm of course.

Now to conclude – this is indeed a deathcore album. They are not reinventing the wheel. But they are doing what they do extraordinarily well, and if you like stuff like King Conquer, you’ll probably like the new album from I Declare War. The whole album has a great flow to it, and I highly recommend it. One more sample:

EDITOR’S NOTE:

IDW’s facebook page is here.

September is behind us. Here in Seattle, it was such a beautiful month that it seemed like nature’s compensation for how late the summer started. Unfortunately, with September’s end, we’re on a short track to the onset of winter, which means about six months of short, cold, grey, ceaselessly wet days. Ain’t that just fuckin’ great?

Well, bitchin’ about the winter ahead won’t change one fucking thing. I prefer to think instead about the deluge of new metal that’s headed our way and try (momentarily) to forget about the deluge of rain on the horizon. Which brings us to the latest monthly edition of METAL IN THE FORGE.

You know the drill:  In these posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — this isn’t a cumulative list. If we found out about a new album before August, we wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. As usual, also feel free to tell us about how we fucked up by omitting releases that you’re stoked about.

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS: “Abigail Williams will begin recording their third full-length album today. The process begins in the band’s new home of Southern California as the band enter Keene Machine Studios with The Faceless’ Michael Keene and Abigail Williams’ mainman Ken Sorceron engineering. Former Abigail Williams and Black Dahlia Murder drummer Zach Gibson will be playing on the album, as previous band mate Ken Bedene focuses on The Aborted. . . . The new album has an anticipated January release, followed by additional US tours supporting Dark Funeral and then Deicide.”

AMON: “AMON, the resurrected Florida-based death metal band featuring former DEICIDE members Eric Hoffmann (guitar) and Brian Hoffman (guitar), will film a new music video on October 22 in Clearwater, Florida with director Chris Nemzek (former CROSSBREED guitarist). AMON has set an October 31 release date for its new album, “Liar In Wait”.

ANIMALS AS LEADERS: “Progressive instrumentalists ANIMALS AS LEADERS will release their second full-length album, “Weightless”, in North America on November 8, in mainland Europe on November 4 and in the U.K. on November 7 via Prosthetic Records.”

ANAAL NATHRAKH: “U.K. extreme metallers ANAAL NATHRAKH — consisting of Mick Kenney and David Hunt — are currently working on the follow-up to “Passion”, released earlier this year via Candlelight Records. Hunt commented from the studio, “The songs we’ve recorded so far have come out very well. They are stylistically quite heterogeneous yet somehow sounding focused at the same time. And there’s one section that’s completely from left field, which we’ve included as a personal tribute. It’s all still in a raw, hardly mixed and not-yet-mastered state, but it’s all sounding quite powerful.”

A PLEA FOR PURGING: “”The Life”, a brand new song from the Nashville, Tennessee-based Christian metal/hardcore act A PLEA FOR PURGING, can be streamed in a new YouTube clip. The track comes off the band’s new album, “The Life & Death Of A Plea For Purging”, due on November 8 via Facedown Records.”

BIOHAZARD: “”Reborn In Defiance”, the long-awaited new studio album from New York hardcore metal legends BIOHAZARD, will be released on January 20, 2012. The CD will be made a vailable via Nuclear Blast outside of North America, with a U.S. label partner soon to be announced. The band will celebrate the launch with a record-release party in its hometown of Brooklyn, New York before setting off on an extensive international tour.”

BLEEDING THROUGH: “Orange County, California’s BLEEDING THROUGH is working on material for its next album, tentatively due in early 2012 via the Portland, Oregon-based independent record label Rise Records.”

CANNIBAL CORPSE: “Cannibal Corpse has begun recording their twelfth studio album at Sonic Ranch studios in Texas with producer Erik Rutan. The band has spent months writing the album and has recorded at Sonic Ranch in the past, but never with Rutan at the helm. More details on the album, including art, songs, title and more will be revealed in the months to follow. For now, the band is hard at work forging their next death metal offering.”

CARNIFEX: ““Until I Feel Nothing” will be released on October 25 via Victory Records. Produced by Tim Lambesis (AS I LAY DYING), the follow-up to 2010′s “Hell Chose Me” “captures an in-your-face extremity that drips with malice and ferocity, solidifying the effort as the most anticipated album of the year,” according to a press release. The cover artwork was created by famed comic book illustrator Menton3 (Silent Hill, Monocyte).”

CITY OF FIRE: CITY OF FIRE, the band featuring Burton C. Bell (FEAR FACTORY), bassist Byron Stroud (FEAR FACTORY, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD), guitarist Terry “Sho” Murray, and drummer Bob Wagner, will enter the studio this week to begin recording its sophomore album.”

CLOCKWORK SPIRIT: “AMARANTINE, the Helsinki, Finland-based metal band featuring members of AJATTARA, KIUAS, LIE IN RUINS and HANGING GARDEN, have changed its name to CLOCKWORK SPIRIT to coincide with the release of its self-titled debut album. Due on October 28, the CD will be distributed by the German label Dance Macabre Records and will initially be available only in Europe.”

CRADLE OF FILTH: “The UK’s premier extreme metal antagonist, Cradle Of Filth, has revealed the track list and artwork for the band’s upcoming CD/DVD mini-album entitled, Evermore Darkly…. The follow-on from last year’s, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa, will hit stores in North America on October 18 through Nuclear Blast Records. Artwork comes courtesy of Natalie Shau, whom also contributed the cover art for Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa.”

CYNIC: “Progressive rock/metal band CYNIC will release a new EP, “Carbon-Based Anatomy”, on November 11 in Europe and November 15 in North America via Season Of Mist. Unlike last year’s “Re-Traced”, this new EP consists exclusively of brand new material.”

DYING FETUS: “DYING FETUS, HAIL OF BULLETS, WACO JESUS, SUFFOCATION and LOCK UP are among the artists who are featured on the “Death Feast Open Air 2010″ DVD. The set, which has a running time of almost two hours, was filmed and recorded during last year’s edition of the Death Feast Open Air festival on June 10-12, 2010 in Hünxe, Germany. As an extra bonus, the DVD includes a 30-minute special from Death Feast Open Air 2011. You can pre-order the “Death Feast Open Air 2010″ DVD for 15 euros (plus shipping and handling) at the Death Feast Open Air shop. Delivery starts November 1.”

FINNTROLL: “Finnish metal marauders FINNTROLL will release a special tour edition of their last album, “Nifelvind”, at the end of September. The digipak tour edition comes with new artwork by the band’s guitarist, Skrymer, and an extra CD including three brand-new cover versions: “Insects” (OINGO BOINGO), “Can You Forgive Her?” (PET SHOP BOYS) and “The God That Failed” (METALLICA). The cover versions were recorded and mixed at Sonic Pump Studios between June 27 and July 4 by FINNTROLL and Nino Laurenne.”

GOATWHORE: “Video footage of New Orleans natives GOATWHORE performing a brand new song, “Beyond The Spell Of Discontent”, on September 16 in Fort Walton Beach, Florida [has been recorded]. The entire concert is available at Tyronehood.tv. GOATWHORE recently entered Mana Recording Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida with producer with Erik Rutan to begin recording the follow-up to its most successful album to date, “Carving Out The Eyes Of God”. An early 2012 release via Metal Blade Records is expected.”

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE: “With a newly rejuvenated lineup and its signature sound intact, San Francisco’s HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE has returned with “17th Street”, a brash and heartfelt song cycle, blending the best elements of NWOBHM, thrash, doom, and American folk music while somehow sounding unlike any of these. Due in Europe on October 24 (three days earlier in Germany), “17th Street” takes the band’s inimitable sound to a new level . . . . “I can see how someone could find it an upbeat record,” says John Cobbett, guitarist and producer of the band, also of underground metal legends LUDICRA and SLOUGH FEG. “There are glimmers of hope there. But if you listen carefully to each song, you’ll find that each one has its own point of view; you might find hope, or something very different, very dark.”

I DECLARE WAR: “Seattle’s I Declare War is back with their sophomore Artery Recordings album, the self-entitled “I Declare War”. The album will be released on October 11th. “I Declare War” is produced by Andreas Magnusson (The Black Dahlia Murder, Haste The Day). The album is the first the band recorded with new vocalist, Jamie Hanks.”

JOB FOR A COWBOY: “Arizona extreme metallers JOB FOR A COWBOY have entered Audiohammer Studios in Sanford, Florida to begin recording their next album for an early 2012 release via Metal Blade Records. The band is once again working with producer Jason Suecof (TRIVIUM, CHIMAIRA, DEVILDRIVER), who helmed the group’s latest EP, “Gloom”.”

KORN: “KORN will release its tenth studio album, “The Path Of Totality”, on December 6 via Roadrunner Records. But this one is unlike any KORN record. It’s even unlike any record released before. “The Path Of Totality” is an experimental album which finds KORN shifting gears and exploring new territory. For “The Path Of Totality”, the band collaborated with some of the leading dubstep and electronic producers in the world, including Skrillex, Excision, Datsik, Noisia, Kill the Noise, and 12th Planet. The result is something completely new, yet utterly and definitively KORN.”

KRISIUN: “Brazilian death metallers KRISIUN will release their new album, “The Great Execution”, on October 31 in Europe and November 1 in North America via Century Media Records. The band’s eighth studio CD “musically expands KRISIUN trademark high-speed death metal violence with a heavily increased amount of diversity ranging from extreme tempo variations over distinct rhythm patterns to clean guitars and even Flamenco parts!” according to a press release.”

LIKE MOTHS TO FLAME: “Ohio-based metalcore quintet LIKE MOTHS TO FLAMES has inked a European deal with Nuclear Blast Records. The band’s full-length debut, “When We Don’t Exist”, is scheduled for a November 11 release.”

METALLICA/LOU REED: “The musical collaboration between Lou Reed and METALLICA, “Lulu”, will be released on November 1 in North America via Warner Bros. Recordsand one day earlier (October 31) in the rest of the world through Universal Music.”

MORBUS CHRON: “The fine folks at Invisible Oranges are currently streaming MORBUS CHRON’s full-length debut “Sleepers In The Rift” in its entirety! The latest offering from the Swedish makers of audio filth is set for release in North America via Pulverised Records on September 27, 2011. A throwback to crude, early ’90s death metal, the hellions from MORBUS CHRON rekindle the vital atmosphere of this genre. “Sleepers In The Rift” was produced by Nicke Andersson (ex-Entombed), features artwork by Spanish fantasy/horror artist Raul Gonzales (Deceased, Abraxas, etc.) and will prove to be one of the finest hours in blistering, old-school death metal; the mortuary is now open and no corpse shall be spared! Prepare to be gut-fucked. Slay your ears HERE.”

MY DYING BRIDE: “Following the release of Evinta earlier this year, in which the band marked 20 years of existence with a release of symphonic compositions re-imagining past My Dying Bride themes, the UK doom legend now presents its latest chapter in the form of new EP, The Barghest O’ Whitby, to be released November 7th through Peaceville Records on CD and limited vinyl. This single track, 25-minute epic represents the epitome of poetic grace and funeral soundscapes from one of gothic doom’s most celebrated acts. With a masterful blend of pounding guitar riffs and sombre atmospheric passages, My Dying Bride embarks on a chilling journey through superstition and folklore.”

NIGHTWISH: “Finnish/Swedish symphonic metallers NIGHTWISH will release their new album, “Imaginaerum”, in Finland on Wednesday, November 30 and the rest of Europe on Friday, December 2 via Nuclear Blast Records. The CD will be made available in North America through Roadrunner Records.”

NOCTURNAL RITES: “Swedish power metallers NOCTURNAL RITES are currently rehearsing new songs and are preparing to start recording them in a few weeks or so. In the meantime, the band has released “a little trailer to let [the fans] know [the group is] still alive!”"

REDEMPTION: “REDEMPTION, the U.S. progressive metal band featuring in its ranks guitarist/songwriter Nick van Dyk and legendary FATES WARNING vocalist Ray Alder, will release its fifth studio album, “This Mortal Coil”, on September 26 in Europe and October 11 in North America via InsideOut Music.”

RUMPELSTILTSKIN GRINDER: “Candlelight Records has announced the worldwide signing of thrashers RUMPELSTILTSKIN GRINDER. The Philadelphia-based band is already working on its new album, titled “Ghostmaker”, expected for release early spring 2012.”

SHADOWS FALL: “Massachusetts metallers SHADOWS FALL will enter the studio in October to begin recording their new album for an early 2012 release.”

SHINING: “Norwegian “blackjazz” outfit SHINING (not to be confused with the Swedish extreme metal band of the same name) will release its first-ever live DVD and CD, “Live Blackjazz”, on November 11 via Indie Recordings. The effort was produced by SHINING frontman Jørgen Munkeby and was mixed by Sean Beavan (MARILYN MANSON, NINE INCH NAILS, SLAYER). The mastering duties were handled by Tom Baker (MARILYN MANSON, NINE INCH NAILS).”

SLIPKNOT: “It’s been 10 years since SLIPKNOT unleashed its second album, “Iowa”, on the world. . . . To celebrate the album’s decade of existence, the band is releasing a special, tenth-anniversary edition of this landmark release, which will drop on November 1. . . . Disc One will comprise the original “Iowa” album along with a remix of “My Plague” as an added bonus track. Disc Two will include the full live audio from the legendary “Disasterpieces” DVD, where the band’s 2002 show at the London Arena was captured by 30 cameras and released as a concert film. The DVD will include “Goat”, a new film directed by M. Shawn Crahan featuring never-before-seen interviews and footage showing the madness that surrounded the “Iowa” era, plus four music videos.”

SOULDRAINER: “Swedish death metallers SOULDRAINER will release their second full-length, “Heaven’s Gate”, on November 25 via ViciSolum Productions. The follow-up to 2007′s “Reborn” was recorded at Empire Studio in Frösön, Sweden and was produced, mixed and mastered my Marcus Edvardsson.”

STORM CORROSION: “STORM CORROSION, the much-anticipated collaboration project between OPETH’s Mikael Åkerfeldt and PORCUPINE TREE’s Steven Wilson, has completed work on its self-titled debut album for an April 2012 release through an as-yet-undicslosed record label.”

SWALLOW THE SUN: “Finnish doom metallers SWALLOW THE SUN check in with the following update: ‘During the well-deserved break we took from shows this year, we’ve been preparing new music, and now we are happy to announce that we have entered Drumforest Studios at Viitasaari to record our fifth full length album, which will be released February 1, 2012 by Spinefarm Records.’”

TAAKE: “TAAKE’s fifth full-length album, “Noregs Vaapen”, was released in Europe on September 20 via Dark Essence Records and will be made available on November 1 in the USA.”

TERROR: “On November 1, Los Angeles hardcore/metal band TERROR will release the “Defining The Faith” DVD as part of the special deluxe reissue of the group’s latest CD, “Keepers Of The Faith”. Produced, edited, and authored by Carlo Oppermann and Ambitious.Films, “Defining The Faith” features a full live set that is composed of three different TERROR shows in three distinct settings: a small club, a big hall, and a massive European festival.”

TESTAMENT: “TESTAMENT has been spending time in the studio recording its new album, “Dark Roots Of Earth”, tentatively due in February 2012 via Nuclear Blast Records.”

UFOMAMMUT: “Italian masters of thunderous psychedelic doom UFOMAMMUT have inked a deal with Neurot Recordings for the release of their next album. . . UFOMAMMUT is in the studio at this very moment working on their next epic.”

VENOM: “VENOM, the hugely influential U.K. outfit now celebrating a full 30 years since the release of its “Welcome To Hell” debut, will have a brand new studio album released on November 28 via Spinefarm Records/Universal. Titled “Fallen Angels” and featuring 13 fresh recordings produced by mainman/bassist Conrad “Cronos” Lant, this is the follow-up to 2008′s “Hell” release, and sees the trio (completed by guitarist Rage and drummer Dante) adopting a style highly redolent of classic early VENOM with modern studio technology employed only to increase the general level of nastiness.:

VOIVOD: “Canadian metal innovators VOIVOD are continuing to write and demo new material for their upcoming album, tentatively due in early 2012. The follow-up to 2009′s “Infini” will contain the band’s first music to be written with new guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain (MARTYR) following the passing of original axeman Denis “Piggy” D’Amour in 2005.”

While I was away on vacation I didn’t completely neglect what was happening in the world of metal, but I confess I didn’t spend the kind of time I usually spend keeping up on current developments. So over the weekend I did my best to catch up. It was kind of like swimming against a flood tide. It’s amazing how much happens on a daily basis. Of course, I find that a lot of the bulletins, press releases, and blurbs that fill up the likes of Blabbermouth and band pages on Facebook and MySpace are pretty uninteresting.

But even ignoring the boring and utterly useless streams of bullshit that pass for metal news much of the time, I still found all sorts of happenings over the last 12 days that were quite interesting, and even exciting — the kind of occurrences we would have written about on this site if we’d been able to stay on top of our game. The downside of writing about them now is that for many of you, it will be old news. But what the fuck. We’re going to write about some of those items anyway, stale though they may be. Some things still taste pretty good even when they’re beyond their sell-by date. And besides, maybe some of you missed them, just like I did while I was off staring at clouds.

It may take a couple or three posts to catch up, but there’s no time like the present to get started. So today we’ve got a collection of items about Animals As Leaders, From Exile, After the Burial, and I Declare War. That’s what you’ll find after the jump, along with some music videos . . .

ANIMALS AS LEADERS

We won’t slobber too much about this band today — mainly because we’ve generated enough slobber about them in the past to fill a bucket. Your three NCS collaborators have seen them twice in Seattle since this time last year, and while I was off on vacation, AAL came through town yet again, as part of an odd-ball touring line-up that included Circa Survive, Codeseven, and Dredg. The last time they passed through, they were part of the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour, with a bunch of badass metal acts. These dudes will clearly tour with anyone — and no doubt they’ve massively increased their fan base by doing that.

My co-founder Alexis and some friends went to see them as part of that Circa Survive tour while I was gone. Of course, given the rest of the line-up, she left not long after AAL played their set, and of course she reported to me that they were — yet again — awesome. I’m consoling myself with the knowledge that, come February, they’ll be passing through Seattle for a fourth time in just the last 12 months. That next tour will be with Underoath, Thursday, and A Skylit Drive. We’ll probably be leaving that show early, too.

Apart from missing AAL’s most recent Seattle stop, I also missed the band’s release — finally — of their first official music video. It’s for the most excellent song, “CAFO”. I watched the video multiple times over the weekend, and it’s almost as excellent as the song. It comes close to capturing what’s so mesmerizing about the band’s live performance, and the assorted visual effects are mostly very cool, too — though I have no idea what that creepy, pulsating, alien thing has to do with the music.

The video was directed and edited by Scott Hansen, and Jay Wynne provided the visual effects. If you haven’t seen it yet, well now you can — and you should:

FROM EXILE

From Exile is an Atlanta-based band that we discovered and praised to the skies in a post last March. A few days ago, I re-read that review of their album Monolith, and realized that we’ve rarely been that effusive about a band’s music — which is saying something, given that we generally don’t review albums we don’t like. Back then, From Exile was really just two dudes — Eric Guenther and Ben Wetzelberger (with some assists on the album from Kevin Talley, Eyal Levi, and Emil Werstler (all from Daath)). Since then, Eric and Ben have fleshed out the band, at least for live-performance purposes — because while I was on vacation, they’ve put up some videos of a show they did on October 23.

In addition to releasing those live-performance videos while I was missing in action, they also released an acoustic demo of a new tune that will later become a full-band arrangement on their next album. The new song is called ”Everyone Wants to Seem Evil”. Yes, it’s just an acoustic arrangement, and it’s fairly short, but any taste of new From Exile music is very welcome to our pointy ears. Plus, in this next video, you can see the guys tracking the music. And on top of that, they’ve made the song available as a free download on their Bandcamp site — which is here.

Here’s what Eric said about this acoustic sample: “Basically, we have a lot of musical ideas floating around since Monolith was written over 3 years ago now. The acoustic guitar has always been a central part of my writing process… I tend to write most of our music with it, at least in the first stages, and we have done an acoustic show before, which we thought went really well, so we want to do it again. The plan with this first song is to re-record it later as a full band/song arrangement for our next full-length. But since we also want to play an acoustic show occasionally as well as have an acoustic release further down the line, it made a lot of sense to give this music a middle checkpoint; something so that people can actually see a bit of how an idea progresses. The final version, both when we play this at an acoustic show, and the band version on record, will have vocals and everything else fleshed out. In fact, many of the guitar harmonies will be vocal lines.”

Here’s the video of that acoustic demo:

And now here’s one of the performance videos we mentioned earlier — with all the power turned on. It’s a song called “Exhumed”, from the Monolith album. Both the video and the audio are above-average quality, and the song is just sick — even though it features clean singing.  :)

Monolith is still available as a digital download from the From Exile Bandcamp page via the link we provided above. Soooo good.

AFTER THE BURIAL

Most metal bloggers with any sense aren’t going to finish off their “Best of 2010″ lists until they hear the new album from After the Burial. Even our very own guest contributor The Artist Formerly Known As Dan — who jumped the gun with his “Best of” list for the sake of generating discussion — put the album on his Honorable Mention list, even though he hasn’t heard it yet. He may have to revise his “Best of” list after he’s heard it.

We haven’t heard it yet either, but even though there’s a big stack of recent releases already waiting in our to-be-heard In Box, we’re going to move it up to the top. In the meantime, our taste has been whetted by a sample from a new song embedded in a short promo video that the band released while I was on vacation. It started the salivary glands working when I watched it — even more saliva than happens when I watch the lorises chow down on a big handful of grubs, if you can imagine that.

The album In Dreams, is scheduled for release on November 23. Holy shit!  That’s today! (But here’s a hint — one of our increasingly regular guest contributors has listened carefully to the new album, and he is majorly disappointed, as you’ll see when his review goes up on our site tomorrow.)

I DECLARE WAR

This is a Seattle deathcore/death-metal band we’ve been following since we saw one of their very first live performances a couple years ago. 2010 has been a break-out year for IDW. In March, they announced their signing to the Artery Recordings label, they then released their label debut Malevolence, and they’ve been touring the nation like crazy since then. Nor surprisingly to us, they’ve already built a massive nationwide following.

The only fly in the ointment was the news in July that their talented vocalist Jonathan Huber had left the band in the middle of a tour — for reasons that are still obscure. At that time, Nick Arthur of tour-mates Molotov Solution began filling in for Huber on IDW’s live shows, and after that tour finished, Jamie Hanks stepped up to do the vocal duties on subsequent tours. Jamie Hanks is also an awesome vocalist, and is (was) the frontman for Portland’s Those Who Lie Beneath.  We wrote some glowing words about that band’s debut album, An Awakening, last December.

Well, while I was away on vacation, we got an e-mail from I Declare War’s guitarist Evan Hughes telling us about a press release the band had just issued, announcing that Jamie Hanks will now be IDW’s permanent vocalist.  According to the press piece, IDW will be re-recording a track from Malevolence to feature Hanks’ vocals. They tell us that “Putrification of the Population” will be available for streaming by early next year via the band’s MySpace page.

As far as we’re concerned, and as much as we liked Huber’s vocals and stage presence, Hanks is a hot-shit addition to a band whose work-ethic and music we admire. Onward and upward!

Btw, Evan Hughes is a bright guy and a good writer (we had lots of fun reading his studio blogs while the band was recording Malevolence), and we’re hoping he’ll be convinced to send us a guest blog whenever he can catch his breath from touring.

********

That’s it for this installment of Catching Up. Hope at least some of it was news to you (albeit somewhat dated). Have a nice fucking day. (As I write this, it’s fucking snowing in Seattle. Shit.)

You learn something new every day. You may not think you do, but you do.

Like on Friday, I learned that the German word for emptiness is “leere”. On Saturday, I learned that if you live in the Pacific Northwest and forgetfully leave your car window down overnight, spiders will move in and later drop on your arm while you’re driving, causing unexpected vehicular fun ‘n games. And yesterday, I learned the secrets of how extreme metal vocalists can shriek and growl really low without requiring hospitalization.

I’ve always wondered, and finally, after years of listening to non-clean singing, it now all becomes clear to me. It’s like some trade secret that finally leaked. And it turns out to be something that is easily duplicated. It just takes the right preparation and the right record producer (like Chris “Zeuss” Harris).

I’m not making this up. I learned it from a dude who ought to know — Adam Warren, who happens to be the frontman for deathcore heavyweights Oceano. It’s all in that video at the top of this post. It just takes sleeping ’til noon, some microwaved elixir, a little Lion King chord-stretching, and someone who can tell you which buttons to push.

Go ahead, see for yourself. The secrets are out. We won’t even charge you to watch. In the video, you can also see some spirited debate over whether “Contagion” is the kind of album title people will have to look up, as compared to a common street-word like, uh, “harbinger”.

Truly, Adam Warren is an engaging dude, and we can pretty much guarantee this thing will make you smile, even if you’re not an Oceano fan.  And while we’re on the subject of deathcore, word of a Whitechapel-Impending Doom-Miss May I-Oceano-I Declare War tour has leaked out. Details about that breaking news, plus an Oceano video, follow after the jump. Wonder what I’ll learn today?

According to Lambgoat, Whitechapel will be headlining a fall tour with support from Impending Doom, Miss May I, Oceano, and our Seattle homies I Declare War. Lambgoat reported that the tour hasn’t been officially announced yet, but we did a little poking around and found a fresh Whitechapel announcement. It will be called THE CORRUPTOUR and here are the dates and places:

10/01 Macon, GA The 567
10/02 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room
10/03 St. Petersburg, FL State Theatre
10/04 Jacksonville, FL Rain
10/05 Spartanburg, SC Ground Zero
10/06 Charlotte, NC Tremont Music Hall
10/07 Raleigh, NC Volume 11 Tavern
10/08 Norfolk, VA Norva
10/09 Jermyn, PA Eleanor Rigby’s
10/10 Boston, MA Harper’s Ferry
10/12 Hartford, CT Webster Theatre
10/13 Poughkeepsie, NY The Loft
10/14 Syracuse, NY Lost Horizon
10/15 Toledo, OH Headliner’s
10/16 Grand Rapids, MI Intersection
10/17 Elgin, IL Mad Maggies
10/19 Milwaukee, WI The Rave
10/20 St. Louis, MO Pop’s
10/21 Louisville, KY Headliners Music Hall
10/22 Birmingham, AL Zydeco
10/23 Nashville, TN Rocketown

Unfortunately, unless this thing gets expanded, there are no West Coast dates, which blows, because that’s a killer line-up.

And now here’s Adam Warren’s charismatic self growling and shrieking in an official Oceano vid for “District of Misery” off their last album.  Break yourself down:

Oceano has also been participating in the OVER THE LIMIT tour with this line-up of bands:

As Blood Runs Black
Oceano
Arsonist Get All the Girls
The Tony Danza Tapdance extravaganza
Thick As Blood
Burning The Masses
Circle of Contempt
Blind Witness
Sons of Aruleus (Select dates)
This or The Apocalypse (Select dates)

The following dates remain on that tour:

8/16 Amarillo, TX @ The War Legion
8/17 Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep
8/19 El Paso, TX @ Club 101
8/20 Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre
8/21 Pomona, CA @ Glasshouse (Summerslam Fest)

Shit, we might as well just surrender the day to deathcore (not counting my goofy MYSPAZZ post). As punishing breakdowns go, that clip we put up earlier today from Thy Art Is Murder is pretty satisfying, if you can get past the foam-at-the-mouth-and-belch-blood vid accompaniment — or maybe you’ll greet that as a plus factor.

But now we’ve just stumbled across a newly minted, almost freshly unwrapped official goodie from our Seattle homeboys I Declare War performing “Federal Death Alliance” from their new album Malevolence — which my man IntoTheDarkness gushed about in our review here.

And no, we still don’t have any more light to shed on the rumored departure of IDW’s frontman Jonathan Huber, except it definitely is true that he’s not playing with the band on the current tour and Molotov Solution‘s Nick Arthur is standing in. We’re still hoping for more news.  The vid is after the jump. It’s murderous . . .

If you’re an epileptic, or easily disturbed by sudden movements, or you’re not a fan of hard riffing and harder breakdowns combined with intestinally deep gutturals, don’t watch this. Otherwise, enjoy:

I Declare War – “Federal Death Alliance”

I DECLARE WAR (NEW ALBUM OUT NOW!) | MySpace Music Videos

Our sometimes NCS collaborator IntoTheDarkness just alerted me to this piece of news on Lambgoat:

I Declare War (Artery/Razor & Tie) vocalist Jonathan Huber has reportedly left the group, though nothing official has been announced thus far. The band just kicked off a tour with For The Fallen Dreams and Legend and have been using a fill-in singer (apparently Nick Arthur of Molotov Solution).

To which all we can say is, What The Fuck?

We’ve been following these hometown deathcore favorites for a while, and no one was more stoked to learn earlier this year that they’d been signed by a label (as we reported here). We were even happier to discover that their recently released second album, Malevolent, kicked massive amounts of ass (as IntoTheDarkness reported here). And with that release and the label backing, the dudes started hitting the road and building their fanbase.

Now this? It really don’t make sense. We’ve got no explanation at the moment. Maybe it’s all just a baseless rumor. When we find out more, we’ll put it up here for you IDW fans in the audience.

If you’re a baseball fan, you’re familiar with the term “stuff.”  And if you’re not? Well, inarticulate baseball players, managers, and fans (like us) use that term to refer both to what pitchers are capable of throwing and how they actually perform in games. It can refer to the speed of the ball, the location of the pitch as it crosses the plate, the guile of the pitcher in varying the pitches from batter to batter — basically, everything that goes into keeping hitters off balance and generating outs.

When a pitcher is on his game, keeping batters off the bases and cruising through a low pitch count, the manager or some teammate will be quoted as saying, “he had good stuff tonight.”  And when a pitcher gets shelled and removed without going at least five innings, you can bet someone will say, “he didn’t have good stuff.” Hey, they don’t pay those dudes for their public speaking skills.

So, you might ask, what the fuck does that have to do with metal? And we would answer: If you’re a metal band and you pick the name “Legend,” you better have the “stuff” to back it up. And in the case of this metalicized hardcore band from Michigan and their recently released debut album Valediction, they abso-fucking-lutely do.

We’ve written before about our disappointment in Bury Your Dead‘s change in musical direction since the departure of vocalist Mat Bruso and his replacement by Myke Terry. We were further chagrined to learn that BYD bassist Aaron “Bubble” Patrick left the band last fall. And we were equally disappointed by the defection of band members from another repeat-play favorite of ours, For the Fallen Dreams.  (more after the jump, including a song and tour dates . . . )

But all these guys have found a new home in Legend. The band’s line-up includes two of the defectors from For the Fallen Dreams, frontman Chad Ruhlig and bass player Joe Ellis, as well as BYD’s Bubble Patrick on second guitar. They recorded that debut album with Zeuss (Hatebreed) at Planet Z in Hadley, MA, and it was released on May 25th by Rise Records.

In a nutshell, Valediction delivers hook-heavy hardcore with enough melodic riffing to plant the songs firmly in your memory.

Clanging guitars and bass punch hard, somewhere down in your lower GI tract. Pulsing rhythm guitars flash back and forth between your left and right ears in the mix, and surge with bursts of power and staccato hammering. Breakdowns drop like concrete blocks and trigger the headbang reflex down in the reptile stem of your brain. Sometimes, out of left field, even electro-industrial beats (as in “The Pain of Parting”) amplify the convulsive effect of the rhythms — and then streams of dissonant melody emerge to sweep you away on the cresting wave.

And throughout, Chad Ruhlig’s powerful, testosterone-injected vocals fire away like an artillery barrage.

Listening to Valediction, we can’t help but imagine what this music would produce in a sweat-drenched club, frothing with a swarm of humanity — a roiling moshpit of mind-elsewhere, pinball madness.

Everything we loved about “Changes”-era For the Fallen Dreams and Bury Your Dead before Mat Bruso’s departure has risen like a blazing phoenix and taken flight in the music of Legend. Even if you’re not by nature a slavish, two-stepping addict for metal-edged hardcore, you ought to give this album a shot, because Legend has definitely got the good stuff. Here’s a track from Valediction to whet your appetite:

Legend: The Healing

And now, some news that’s truly music to our ears: Legend is touring this summer with For the Fallen Dreams and Seattle favorites I Declare War. For the first part of the tour, through July 21, they’ll be joined by This or the Apocalypse, and then The Contortionist (whose music is also killer) will step in from that point through the end of the tour. Here are the dates and places. You absolutely oughta check out this tour if you’re within reach of these venues:

July 12     Denver, CO (Marquis Theater)
July 14     Seattle, WA (Studio Seven)
July 15     Portland, OR (Club Satyricon)
July 17     Orangevale, CA (The Boardwalk)
July 18     Amaheim, CA (Chain Reaction)
July 19     San Diego, CA (The Epicentre)
July 20     Mesa, AZ (The Undergound)
July 21     Albuquerque, NM (The Compound)
July 22     El Paso, TX (Club 101)
July 23     San Antonio, TX (White Rabbit)
July 24     Waco, TX (Art Ambush)
July 25     Metairie, LA (The Highground)
July 27     Tampa, FL (Transitions Skate Park)
July 28     West Palm Beach (Ground Control)
July 29     Orlando, FL (H2O Live)
July 30     Jacksonville, FL (The Pit)
July 31     Douglasville, GA (The 7 Venue)
Aug 1        Raleigh, NC (The Brewery)
Aug 2        Virginia Beach, VA (Skate High)
Aug 3        Vineland, NJ (Hangar 84)
Aug 4        Amityville, NY (Broadway)
Aug 6        Manchester, NH (Stadium Ten Pin)
Aug 7        Worcester, MA (The Palladium)
Aug 8        Jermyn, PA (Eleanor Rigby’s)

Whitechapel

The first new album I’m going to tell you about is one that I’ve had on my radar for a long time. Whitechapel has long been one of my favorite bands. I know there’s many a metal fan out there who despise all that is deathcore, but I think Whitechapel at least deserves some respect for their dominance in the genre and the precision with which they execute breakdowns amidst pure death metal.

A New Era of Corruption ushers in a new breed of Whitechapel’s sound. The first half of the CD is actually largely devoid of breakdowns, instead filling that space with some sick technical guitar riffs, like in the song Devolver. Songs like Breeding Violence and The Darkest Day of Man have a catchiness to them that is absent in previous Whitechapel albums.

On the other hand, starting seven songs into the album with the song Unerving, Whitechapel returns to their old sound, filled with devastatingly heavy breakdowns and crushing bass riffs. The breakdown at the end of Prayer of Mockery is the most obvious example of this and also happens to be my favorite song on the album simply because it mixes the technicality of the first half of the album with the breakdowns of the second half.

Whitechapel has clearly shown that they want to evolve their sound, but they don’t seem to know exactly what they want to be. They haven’t developed a clear identity – they are somewhere between deathcore and technical death metal. Like Job For A Cowboy before them, it seems as if they want to transition into straight, pounding death metal, and maybe we will see that with their next installment. Either way, the brutal Whitechapel still remains, and there is definitely plenty of headbanging to be done while listening to A New Era of Corruption.  Here’s an example:

Whitechapel: Prayer of Mockery

I Declare War

I Declare War has evolved. They have no problems with identity; they are perfectly content with being brutal, brain-fucking deathcore. The difference between their new album Malevolence and their previous album Amidst the Bloodshed is simply that they sound way better in every way possible.

Long gone are the guttural gargles of vocalist Jon Huber. He has evolved into a master of the low deathcore growls and he executes them with a precision that goes almost unmatched in the genre. IDW’s previous album seemed like noise with a breakdown here and there, but Malevolence brings it all together. Guitarists Chris Fugate and Evan Hughes show the technical skill that they lacked in the previous album, and drummer Ryan Cox has tightened things up nicely.

Songs like Predetermined Path and A New Age Holocaust are catchy yet heavy as fuck, and Infinite Corruption’s breakdown will implode your skull into bits and pieces — and I know you all enjoy that. Fractions shows that IDW can keep a rhythm for more then two or three minutes and its breakdowns are some of the heaviest on the album.

Above all else, I Declare War seems to know what the fuck they are doing. They have brought it all together with Malevolence, and in my opinion, these local deathcore beasts have boosted themselves to the upper echelon of the deathcore scene. Do yourselves a favor and give these guys a listen. I think you all may be pleasantly surprised.  Here’s a track you can check out:

I Declare War: Infinite Corruption

There you have it folks. If you’re bored, stop jacking off and give these two albums a listen. I know there’s a ton of deathcore haters out there, but these two bands have secured themselves as two of the best the genre has to offer. They each have distinct sounds, which is almost impossible to achieve in a genre filled with so many bands that sound exactly the same – and they will do what good, brutal metal is supposed to do: pulverize the ear drums and melt the mind.

Job For A Cowboy, Whitechapel, Cattle Decapitation, Revocation, and I Declare War hit Seattle hard on JFAC’s current Ruination tour on the night of May 18 at El Corazon. All three of your NCS collaborators turned out for the carnage and we file this somewhat incomplete report, along with a somewhat incomplete batch of our half-assed photos (be sure to scroll to the end of the review to see those).

Somewhat incomplete, because we had to leave before JFAC’s set. Maybe if we were being paid to run this site, we’d have stayed to the bitter end, but the people who actually do pay us were expecting our asses to show up on time early the next morning. Life is full of fucking compromises, isn’t it?.

I DECLARE WAR

Well, what can we say? It’s just so fucking cool to see our local boys making good. As we reported here back in March, IDW has signed with Artery Recordings and has a new album (Malevolence) due out on June 8, with two of the songs currently streaming on their MySpace page. They played some dates earlier this month in California with Whitechapel and Son of Aurelius, and next month they start a nationwide tour with Molotov Solution, Dr. Acula, and Monsters.

But this night was a show for the home folks — something of a coming-out since the news of their label-signing, and man, did the home folks turn out. El Corazon was packed to the gills in time for the first chord of IDW’s first song, and they showed these hard-working, hard-playing dudes a lotta love.  (more after the jump . . .)

IDW whipped the crowd into a moshpit frenzy with their uber-brutal brand of deathcore, featuring the super-low gutturals of Jon Huber (who has himself left bits and pieces of his body in moshpits throughout the Northwest — and did it again last night when Whitechapel took the stage). IDW’s self-confidence on stage has grown tremendously since we first saw them play more than two years ago, and they put on a killer set full of primal power and head-crushing groove. We wish them the best with the new album and the big tour about to start.

REVOCATION

We last saw these guys in Seattle on January 26 as part of the Metal As Art tour (and wrote about that experience here). They blew us away then, but that was just a warm-up for the jaw-dropping performance we saw at this show.

We’ve pretty well decided that this band is unclassifiable. They serve up a big dose of death-metal-infused thrash, but at the same time the instrumentation is so technically complex that it also appeals to died-in-the-wool math-metal nerds (like us).

All four of these guys are technically superb, and what’s amazing is to watch how flawlessly and in-sync they execute on stage while playing like super-charged bats out of hell. Think of being stuffed inside a child’s top, which is then set spinning at a zillion rpm’s and struck repeatedly by lightning bolts. That’s kind of what it was like being in the audience while Revocation tore up El Corazon on May 18.

As good as all four of these dudes are, we’ve got to say again that Dave Davidson’s shredding puts him in some very rarified air. He’s not just blazingly fast and inventive, he plays with tremendous passion and feel.  If these guys played here once a month, we’d turn out every damned time.

CATTLE DECAPITATION

We’ve admired from afar this San Diego foursome’s uncompromising dedication to their principles — and to the brutal way they convey it in their music and album art. But until last night, we’d never seen them mop up the floor with their live music. What a complete mind-fuck this set was!

Hyper-technical grind played with the speed of a whipping centrifuge. No discernible melodies. Very few rhythms or tempos that lasted for more than about 5 seconds before shifting to something else. Each instrumentalist going berserk on their instruments at a blinding pace, and yet somehow in complete sync with each other.

There’s no telling how many million hours of practice and performance enabled these dudes to pull this shit off, but it was an awesome (if bizarre) spectacle to watch.

And speaking of bizarre, vocalist Travis Ryan looked (and shrieked) like he was going through one protracted, non-stop seizure, which included him periodically sticking his fingers into his mouth, rolling his eyes, and thrashing about like he had electrodes shoved up where the sun don’t shine.  The dude’s vocals are also insane. It was riveting to see, and hear.

Cattle Decapitation drove the already frenzied crowd into an even more intense frenzy and elicited a thunderously enthusiastic reception.

WHITECHAPEL

We’ve seen these deathcore titans before, but they just keep stepping up their game. Such a huge difference between their first stop in Seattle on a national tour two years ago and the jolting performance this week. They’re in complete command now, and they put on a pummeling live show.

The band’s unusual three-guitar attack delivers serious blunt-force trauma in a live setting. It’s all about rhythm and visceral power and roof-collapsing breakdowns and Phil Bozeman’s gut-rumbling gutturals and hair-raising shrieks. Just impossible not to get into it, particularly when almost the entire, densely packed floor was in constant motion from start to finish. Somehow, there was even enough room to manage a wall of death before the set ended.

Whitechapel has a new album (A New Era of Corruption) scheduled for release on June 8 via Metal Blade, but their El Corazon set was mainly a selection of songs from their previous releases, Somatic Defilement and This Is Exile. The crowd knew those songs well, screamed along with Bozeman, and was ready for every tempo shift and breakdown with mass physical action.

After Whitechapel’s set ended, capping off the equally wild performances that preceded them, we felt like we’d been cooking all day in a Dutch oven bubbling with moshpit juices. The place was just hot as hell — and it’s not even June in Seattle.

JOB FOR A COWBOY

Massive fail by us! We had to leave before their set started. No slight intended to JFAC. Like I said at the beginning, life is just full of fucking compromises, and my cohorts and I just couldn’t make this as late a night as we would have wished in a perfect world.

********

Bottom line: this is a tour that’s definitely worth catching up to if you have the chance.  And watch out for that Molotov Solution – I Declare War tour if it comes to your neck of the woods. Those tour dates can be found here.

And now, here are some more photos from the show.  Sorry to say, they’re even more half-assed than usual because someone decided to keep the stage pretty dark for most of each set, with big white spotlights directed instead onto the crowd. For amateurs like us, that really makes it tough to get decent exposures for stage shots from a distance. Oh well, fuck our excuses, here are the pictures:

I DECLARE WAR

REVOCATION

CATTLE DECAPITATION

WHITECHAPEL

We’ve had a weakness for our local boys in I Declare War ever since we first saw em play live a couple years ago. They work their butts off and they churn out some brutal death metal. Plus, one of our favorite band shirts is theirs, with the following in big letters on the back: “IF IT AIN’T BROKE, BLAST BEAT THE FUCK OUT OF IT.”

We put up a post last November about IDW entering the studio to begin recording a new album. What we didn’t know then but have just learned today is that they had a deal in the works with The Artery Foundation. Now the news is public. Excerpts from a press release issued by the band and Artery:

“Seattle, Washington-based death metallers I DECLARE WAR have inked a deal with Artery Recordings, the new joint venture between The Artery Foundation and Razor & Tie. The band’s self-produced new album,“Malevolence”, will be released on June 1. . . .

“During I DECLARE WAR‘s first tour in 2007, the band happened to cross paths with well-known death metal band WHITECHAPEL, and played what [guitarist] Evan [Hughes] calls ‘one of the worst shows both of us ever played.’ The unfortunate concert turned into a lasting friendship and one of the best things to happen to the band. When Alex Wade from WHITECHAPEL was approached by Artery in regards to possible bands to sign, he suggested I DECLARE WAR, and so the relationship began.”

(more after the jump . . .)

And here’s a bit more info from Evan Hughes blog:

“[The band's manager] Shawn [Carrano] set us up with Chris Common at The Red Room in Seattle [for the studio work]. Shawn knows Matt Bayles, who co-owns the studio with Chris. Alex [Wade] got us hooked up with some artists to do our album art and some shirt designs. The album art was done by Colin Marks. He did the art for Whitechapel’s “This Is Exile”, Impending Doom’s “The Serpent Servant”, Suicide Silence’s “No Time To Bleed”, and a ton more. . . . After the album was done it was sent to West West Side Music in New York where Alan Douches mastered it. Alan Douches masters pretty much anything that’s metal; from Beneath The Massacre to Mastodon, The Black Dahlia Murder and Converge…this guy does it all.”

We’re so pleased for these dudes. Sometimes talent and hard work pay off, and being in the right place at the right time doesn’t hurt either.  We are super-stoked to hear the new music when it’s ready for release. Check out the album cover: