HAPPY NEW YEAR!

IT’S THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW DECADE, AND A BRAVE NEW WORLD AWAITS!

So, why did you get so hammered last night? Is it really right to start off a new decade sleeping off a bender?  Well, I ain’t your mama, so my answer is:  Of course it is.

If you’re like me, today may not be the best day to pound your head with metal — unless of course you haven’t gone to sleep yet, in which case metal is exactly what you need. Because if you go to sleep now, that means you’ll wake up feeling like toad shit.  So, as your doctor, I advise you to listen to metal and don’t go to sleep.  Ever.  Be like that dude played by Christian Bale in The Machinist.  Except eat more.

Now, where was I?  Oh yeah, the new year.  As we gaze into the bright new future, we’re thinking about all the extreme music that’ll be coming our way in 2010.  We pulled together from various trade sources and internet prowling a list of extreme bands that have promised new releases in 2010, and then over the Christmas holiday your three NCS Co-Authors each picked the ones we’re most looking forward to hearing.

There were 21 bands that got at least 2 votes from the 3 of us, and that list is below.  Not that we think you really care deeply about what the three of us are stoked to hear, but our brains are too fogged today to do anything but post lists.  So here’s our list, and after the jump you can see the complete line-up we compiled of extreme bands who’ve promised new releases in 2010.  (If you know of bands we missed, let us know!)

A Life Once Lost
The Absence
Acacia Strain
All Shall Perish
Arsis
Carnifex
Dark Tranquillity
Decrepit Birth
Devin Townsend Project
Ion Dissonance
Living Sacrifice
Meshuggah
Necrophagist
Nervecell
Neuraxis
Rotting Christ
Soilwork
Through the Eyes of the Dead
Veil of Maya
Whitechapel
Wintersun

There’s one band that isn’t on this list that deserves special comment — PIG DESTROYER. They’re missing for only one reason: Although there have been widely circulated rumors (which seem to trace back to this report) that Pig Destroyer will be releasing a new album next fall, we haven’t seen any confirmation from the band or their label. But we definitely hope the reports are true.

And now, after the jump, you can see a complete list of NCS Metal bands that have announced 2010 releases.

This is turning into video day at NCS. Not like that was our purpose when we rolled out of bed this morning. Just happened. We saw the new video released yesterday by Living Sacrifice and put that up. We put up a piece on Brutal Truth and decided, what the hell, maybe some of you haven’t seen the vid of “Sugar Daddy,” so that’s up too. And then we saw that today the almighty Meshuggah had released a video trailer for their forthcoming DVD/CD combo, Live, which is set for U.S. release on February 9. And you know, as short teasers go, it does the trick — if you’re a Meshuggah fan (as we are) it will get you hot and bothered. So watch it after the jump, along with the other videos with which we’re filling up the page today, and then come back a little later and see our eighth entry on the Ten Most Infectious list.

Two weeks ago, influential death/thrash band Living Sacrifice released “Rules of Engagement,” the first song from its forthcoming new album The Infinite Order (scheduled for a January 26 release), and we slobbered over it.

One week ago, Living Sacrifice released a second song from the album, called “Nietzsche’s Madness.” More slobbering here at NCS.

This week: another new song? Not quite. But today the band premiered a video for “Rules of Engagement” at AOL’s Noisecreep site.  The video intersperses band performance with a story about a psychologically damaged young soldier dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. To read guitarist/singer Bruce Fitzhugh’s thoughts about the video and the making of it, go here.

To watch the video, simply look below:

We’ve been writing about Living Sacrifice quite a lot recently, but that’s because there’s been a lot of Living Sacrifice news recently. Oh yeah, and they’re also a killer band. And we’re writing about them again today because, why? Well, because there’s more (good) news of course.

Living Sacrifice and War of Ages will be co-headlining “The Abominable Snowtour” during the month of February, with Shai Hulud, Lionheart, and The Great Commission rounding out the line-up. There will be 21 shows in 23 days. No stops in the Pacific Northwest, or West of Texas for that matter, but we will be patient. All good things come to those who wait. On the other hand, good things sometimes also come to those who push and whine and nag the shit out of everybody.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the “Abominable Snowtour.”  You can get all the scheduled dates and places after the jump.

Tonight: Long miserable day at work ends. I trudge homeward in the dark under a leaking sky. I fire up the computer and check the news headlines, just to see if something really earthshaking has happened while I was being miserable at work — you know, like if the U.S. got into another war, or swine flu has really turned out to be the no-shit, unstoppable killer we were told it would be, or my utility rates are going up again. Fortunately, none of these things has happened. All I see on a quick look is this:

Twenty-two million missing Bush White House e-mails found (what a shock), Obama begs top banks to start lending money again (that’s probably not going to work), new computer modeling shows that Arctic ice cap may completely vanish by 2014 (we’ve got plenty of polar bears in zoos anyway, right?), Italian prime minister Berlusconi hospitalized in Milan after man hits him in the face with a souvenir statue (I was wondering when someone was going to hit that disgusting fucker in the face with a souvenir statue).

I finish reading the headlines and I breathe a big sigh of relief:  as they say in the Army, Situation Normal (All Fucked Up).

I turn to the real news of the day:  metal news! And what do I see almost immediately?  Living Sacrifice has put up yet another new song on their MySpace page.  We here at NCS had barely finished drooling over the band’s new single “Rules of Engagement” and now we’ve got yet another teaser for their forthcoming full-length, The Infinite Order (scheduled for a Jan 26 release). I check out the new song — and damn! It’s even more hot shit than “Rules”!

Resurrected death/thrash band Living Sacrifice has just released a new single, “Rules of Engagement” in advance of their forthcoming CD, The Infinite Order, due for release on January 26. It’s streaming on the band’s MySpace page, it’s available on iTunes, and it kicks ass.

This Arkansas band originally formed in 1988, broke up in 2002, and reunited in 2008 with a six-week US tour (“Stronger Than Hell”) headlined by Seattle metalcore band Demon Hunter. I had lost sight of the band during their hiatus and had not paid any serious attention to them even before the break-up — frankly, because of preconceptions based on their categorization as Christian metal. But I caught the “Stronger Than Hell” tour when it passed through Seattle, and their performance that night was one of the best I saw that year.  Hell, one of the best in many years. They totally tore up the place, and a worshipful packed crowd at El Corazon went crazy over them. So did I.