I’m not suggesting you’re asleep. That post title is the message I gave to myself, over and over again, this morning. It’s the middle of the damned week, and somehow I found myself over-doing it with old friends way past my usual bed-time, and I’m moving reeeeeally slowly this morning.

What I needed was a good jolt, a nasty steel-toed kick in the ass, a bucket of cold water over the head, a brisk slap in the face. But I contented myself instead with the music we’ve got for you this morning. It certainly woke me the fuck up.

We’ve got four offerings of jolting, ass-kicking, bracing, face-slapping music, including two new videos and some free download options, from Pain (Sweden), Wormrot (Singapore), Malfeitor (Sweden), and Kataklysm (Canada). Let’s get to it:

PAIN

Peter Tägtgren is best known for his work as a music producer and as the vocalist and guitarist for long-running Swedish luminaries Hypocrisy. But he’s had many other projects as well, and one of them is an outfit called Pain. That band has been around a long time, too, though I don’t think I’ve ever listened to the music. That’s now changed. Their 7th album is scheduled for release on June 3, and there’s now a new song available for free download.  (more after the jump . . .)

Here we have the next two entries on our list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs.  For a full explanation of what we mean by “most infectious”, read this.

In a nutshell, we compiled a list, in no particular order, of the catchiest songs from a wide range of extreme metal sub-genres — not necessarily the best metal of the year (though lots of these songs would qualify for that kind of list), but the ones that most effectively got our heads and other parts of our bodies moving, and then continued to ring in our tiny brains even after they ended.

Our fifth and sixth additions to the list are songs from albums we reviewed earlier in the year, one by Canada’s Kataklysm and one by Finland’s Kalmah.

KATAKLYSM

In our review of this band’s 2010 release, we called Heaven’s Venom “an irresistible onslaught of powerful grooves and dark melody, fist-pumping anthems and mosh-pit missiles.” (more after the jump . . .)

Anyone who’s listened to metal for very long has a mental list of bands whose new albums they’ll buy sound unheard. For us, Montreal’s Kataklysm is one of those bands. They’ve also been putting out albums for almost 20 years, which means that most diehard metalheads already know whether Kataklysm is their thing or not. But honestly, it’s hard for us to imagine any fan of extreme metal not liking the band’s latest release, Heaven’s Venom. It’s a fucking barn-burner.

It doesn’t represent any kind of seismic shift in Kataklysm’s brand of death metal, but that’s part of the band’s appeal. They have a distinct sound that they’ve stuck with and honed over time like the veteran pro’s they are, and their albums also reliably include a few songs that step outside the band’s dominant territory to keep things interesting. In other words, you know what you’re going to get, and when it’s as good as the franchise Kataklysm has built, that’s just fine.

Everything on Heaven’s Venom is big and powerful: Big-assed, sawing riffs that generate industrial-strength, nail-driving rhythms; those “northern hyperblasts” shot from the drumkit like a cloud of angry hornets; dramatic melodies; and Maurizio Iacono‘s distinctive, passionate, grizzly-bear roars giving voice to powerful lyrics that you can actually hear.

Once again, Kataklysm has produced an irresistible onslaught of powerful grooves and dark melody, fist-pumping anthems and mosh-pit missiles, and enough variability in the pacing and instrumentation to make Heaven’s Venom an album worth hearing from start to finish.  (more after the jump, including a track to hear . . .)

We’re now five months into 2010, and it’s time for another monthly update to 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.)  Below is a list of still more projected new releases we didn’t know about at the time of our previous updates, or updated info about some of the previously noted releases.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site.

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Look for the bands you like and put reminders on your calendar. Or if you’re old school like us, just get ‘em tattooed someplace you can see without a mirror (because reading stuff backwards is hard).

THE ACACIA STRAIN: “Western Massachusetts’ chuggernauts The Acacia Strain, have completed work on their new album, which will be released July 20th in North American and August 2nd in Europe via Prosthetic Records.”

ATHEIST: “Reactivated seminal technical metal pioneers ATHEIST will enter LedBelly studios in Atlanta, Georgia on July 5 to begin recording their long-awaited, as-yet-untitled fourth album. Engineering the session will be Matt Washburn. Additionally, the band has secured the services of one of metal’s most significant talents of the past decade, Jason Suecof (TRIVIUM, CHIMAIRA, DEVILDRIVER), to handle the mixing of what promises to be a modern classic from the pioneers of technical metal. . . . ATHEIST‘s forthcoming album is tentatively scheduled for a late 2010 release and will be followed by a world tour in 2011.”   (more after the jump . . .)

The line-up, dates, and venues for the 2010 edition of Ozzfest have now been released. I don’t really know why I’m giving space to this announcement, which is still fairly hot off the presses. Maybe because some of you will care about it more than I do. Maybe because it’s nice to anticipate that Goatwhore and Skeletonwitch will pick up some new fans (which they certainly deserve). Other than that, I’m afraid it’s a big yawn for me, tinged with a little nausea.  First, the line-up (as recited in the official press release):

The main stage will feature full sets from Ozzy, Motley Crue and Rob Halford (who last appeared on Ozzfest in 2004 with Judas Priest), performing songs from his solo career along with material from Judas Priest and Fight. DevilDriver and Nonpoint will round out the main stage line-up.

Second stage headliners and six-time Ozzfest veterans Black Label Society will be joined by Drowning Pool, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch, Saviours, Kataklysm.

The second stage is far stronger than the first, that’s for sure. DevilDriver puts on a kick-ass live set, but the rest of the performers on Stage 1 look like nothing more than half-baked nostalgia. No question, Ozzy and Priest were hugely influential once upon a time, but Ozzy and Halford aren’t pushing metal in any new directions today, and they certainly don’t have the stage chops they used to have. Nonpoint is completely meh, and Motley Crue? Give me a fucking. Break.

Of course, feel free to telepathically tell me to fuck off if this news makes your day.  Ticket info and the predictably small list of dates and places follow after the jump . . .

No, we’re not talking about the swine flu, or the avian flu, or the next animal virus that decides humans would be a nice host environment upgrade. We’re talking about new metal that has the potential to be sick.

On the first day of the New Year, we posted a round-up of new extreme metal albums forecast for release 2010, along with our list of the 21 we most wanted to hear.

One month has now passed, and we’ve discovered some forthcoming releases we didn’t know about on January 1. Seems like a good time for an update! So, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about forthcoming albums from bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that fit the profile of music we cover on this site (with a couple of Exceptions to the Rule).

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources over the last 31 days about forthcoming releases we missed in our January 1 list:

AGALLOCH: “So what can we expect from the band’s long-awaited follow-up to Ashes Against the Grain? According to an interview songwriter John Haughm gave to German TV last May, ‘expect the unexpected.’ Haughm says that the next release will be ‘completely different’ from its predecessors — ‘a bit darker,’ closer to black metal, but with the same kind of dynamics that Agalloch is known for.  As for when we can expect the new album, Haughm said that he hoped it would be out by May 2010.”

APOCALYPTICA:  ”Finnish rock cello quartet APOCALYPTICA has entered Sonic Pump studios in Helsinki to begin recording its new album for a spring/summer release.” [This is one of those Exceptions to the Rule.]

APOSTASY: “Four new songs from the Swedish black metal act APOSTASY are available for streaming on the band’s MySpace page. The tracks will appear on the group’s forthcoming third full-length album, Nuclear Messiah, which will be released later in the year.”  (more after the jump . . .)