southernmetalreporter

So I decided to not be lazy today and actually post something and I believe I did find something worthwhile to pass on. Just remembered  a few minutes ago that the new Lamb Of God album “Wrath” came out today and I cruised over to their Myspace page to see whats happening with them today and turns out they have the new album streaming on their page today. That’s a good bonus for everyone. I really looking forward to picking this record up when i get my ten dollars in hand but this will definitely do until i get that chance and since it sounds like it is really good it will be good encouragement for me to actually get off my duff and get it in my hands. In case you are a little slow and have trouble locating web pages HERE is their page. get on over there and take a listen, sounds great to me so far.

Any of you that have followed my stupid blog at all or have visited and scrolled through the archives will see i have several posts about a band from around my way called Romantic Destructo. I am trying to help get some eyes and ears pointed in their direction and help them out in any way i can. They recently signed up with DEKA Records and are set to start recording their first full length in March. It’s hard to make it in the music business these days and these guys are getting a nice head start from DEKA and I would like to see them get a little bit of success out of what they have in front of them so here are a few updates and a couple of reminders about them. First, please go hit their Myspace page HERE and drop a line and say hi if you have a few minutes, tell them Southern Metal Reporter sent ya. They have one recorded song (Be Real Or Be Gone) posted up that you can listen to to get a feel for them and they just added 2 rough pre-production demo recordings. These 2 last things are rough and you really have to crank the volume up but they also have a pretty decent quality live show video of one of those songs posted up HEREand i recommend checking that out. And last but not least, if you are in the Tennessee area They have a show coming up this weekend on February 13th at the Atomic Rocket Lounge in Columbia Tennessee. They will be sharing the stage with The Opposed,Manifested Demise and Seven Thunders Spoke. Should Be a good one. Starts at 7 p.m. and is all ages. Go check out something new today. You gotta remember that everyband out there that you like now was new at one time and needed all the eyes and ears they could get just like these guys. Don”t be scared. Go take a listen or watch that video.

Whats up everybody? I am back, should have been back Sunday, didn’t get to it, was just plain flat out to lazy yesterday,but today i get up and see some news I like! If any of you are familiar with the big Bonnaroo festival that has been a national music festival phenomenon the last few years here in Tennessee then you might wanna try and hit it up this year. Nice mix of good metal to go with all the other eclectic mixes of music. Last year we got Metallica and Mastodon, this year we get Nine Inch Nails and Down! i couldn’t be more excited about this. I live about 25 minutes from the concert site so its basically right in my back yard as far as concerts go. It really is a cool experience to see bands like that play in front of the large amount of people that show up at this thing. I can only imagine Nine Inch Nails will have one killer show to see up on that massive huge main stage at night out in the open air. Also, if you are open to other types of music which i hope you are we have other big acts in the way of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band and The Beastie Boys and i am sure there are some Mars Volta Fans and Phish fans out there. It’s a great festival with lots of stages and lots of things to do, they have comedy tents and all kinds of art shows and weird exhibition shows its and all around great time in a small town. This show brings more people to town that the town has residents. It was a real oddity seeing Metallica and Chris Rock in front of 70,000 people in little Manchester Tennessee last year. Anyway, check this out. It’s 4 days worth of camping and music and all kinds of different fun. Tickets are probably a lot to swallow for a lot of people in this economy but it is a great time if you can afford to get to it.The festival will be held June 11-14 this year. Check out the full lineup and tickets here. Time slots are not set yet but it wont be to much longer to find out who plays on what day.

Click here. I just check for ticket registration and the link for tickets was up. It went down for a bit but looks to be back up now. I put in for mine. Go put in for yours before they are gone. Free Mastodon and Neurosis and High On Fire and Pig Destroyer people!!! Go check and see if that link is still up and get yours now!

Ok, so the best named festival ever has been announced. The Metal Up Your Ass Festival. You read that correctly so no need to ask. Crazy names aside this thing does have a pretty nice lineup so far. A lot of the same bands from the California Metal Fest are hitting this one up as well but this time they will be doing it for all you crazy cats in Ft. Worth Texas at The Ridglea Theatre on March 21st. It will cost you $35 in advance and $40 at the door day of. These bands will be there. Carcass,Suffocation,Samael,Suicide Silence,Arsis,Whitechapel,Psycroptic,Veil of Maya and Decrepit Birth. The more I read that list, the more i realize how much metal you really will have up your ass if you attend. And something else i just noticed, the poster for California Metal Fest and the Poster for this deal both have the same picture. Must be the same people behind it as it also has the same record label sponsors. Whoever is behind it certainly knows how to put on a show. Anyway, there you have it if you want it,Metal Up Your Ass!

News always gets a little slower on the weekends so today i am going to keep national news off of here and use this opportunity to throw something new at you. Bluecollar Suicide. This is another dose of what Tennessee has to offer the world and this is a good one.Bluecollar is a good ole’ pummeling does of hard driving, southern rock tinged bluesy hard rock. It’s more on the hard rock side of metal but i don’t care because good tunes is good tunes. I am listening to their tunes on Myspace again right now and I am completely impressed not only with the songs,musicianship and overall song writing but the production on these tracks are out of this world for an un-signed local gigging band, two big thumbs up on that. These are definitely not 4 track machine and a mic garage recordings. I normally push stuff on here that is way over the top metal compared to what these guys do but if you enjoy driving grooving hard rock you will love this stuff. They have good recordings, solid powerful vocals, super strong guitar playing and a hard driving solid rhythm section with all the groove you need so I don’t see what’s not to like if you like rock music. I linked to their Myspace page up above and I really think you should go check out the tunes(i recommend starting with Dirt Inside of Me) and see if they have any shows booked up that you can make it out to. Support the un-signed guys and open your ears to something new. Hit that page up and tell them Southern Metal Reporter sent ya.

I recently reported on the free rock show coming up in Atlanta Georgia, The Scion Rock Fest. This show just got way better. The original lineup of bands has been updated and added to and this show is now officially stacked. It was already a stellar lineup but it is now officially insane and i cant believe they are giving the tickets away for free. The bands added to the show are Converge, Pig Destroyer,Septic Flesh,Coalesce,Trash Talk, Evil Army,Us Christmas,Gaylord, and Apocalyptic Visions. Again I stress to you this show is free and is being headlined by Mastodon, High On Fire and Neurosis and many other good bands. The ones i listed above are just the newly added bands. Tickets will be up for grabs starting at 9 a.m. on January 28th and the show will be taking place exactly a month later on February 28th. there will be a limited number of tickets as The Masquerade is not a huge place and this also means that if you get tickets you had better plan on getting there early well before the doors open up. You can find any additional information at the official Scion Rock Fest web site.

Some new Romantic Destructo news for today,I’m telling you people to get on board with these guys. I plan to drill them in your head. Ok, that sounds a little to pushy, but I am going to do my part in selling this band and getting you to buy in as new fans. But onto the heart of the issue. Romantic Destructoposted up the latest in whats going on with them on Myspace today. They are still getting geared up for the studio and the release of their first full length with DEKA Records, while getting things in line for that they are keeping warmed up with some live shows and they have posted a new date. They will be playing February 8th at Loudhouse Coffee in Greenbrier Tennessee. The show is listed on the Loudhouse Myspace as opening up at 6pm. The show will feature Romantic Destructo along with Precore,Sunlit Ether,The Asendicate,and Manifested Demise. There is no reason this should not be a good show and i encourage anyone within shouting distance to hit this up and enjoy some new stuff. Romantic Destructo also posted up a picture of what their first t-shirt is going to look like. That big picture at the top of this entry is said shirt. Want one? I Do. Believe i will have to pick one of those up when they get them done. Well that’s the latest from those guys. Keep posted and I will bring it to you as i get it and have you all informed and ready to go when that new album is done.

For any of you readers, if I have any, that live in California,the California Metalfest is looking strong. Looks like some pretty heavy hitters have signed up and there are supposed to be more on the way. California Metalfest will be taking place on March 28th at The Grove in Anaheim California Nuclear Blast,Century Media and Metal Blade records are all sponsors of this even so a good lineup is really to be expected. Some of the participants of this years show include Carcass,Suffocation,Samael,The Faceless,my personal favorites Whitechapel,Arsis,Decrepit Birth,Veil of Maya and Psycroptic and more to be announced sometime soon. Pretty big lineup and already worth getting tickets and they still have more to come. Makes me wish I could live in California for a few days since we don’t get much of anything like that here in good ole Tennessee. If you live in California and you like the metal, you cant get much more bang for the buck than this for a day so get on over there and hang out with your….out and rock out with your….out. You fill in the blanks

Max has been gone from the band for ages and Igor left a short time ago, so neither of the founding Cavalera brothers are left in Sepultura. It Seemed strange enough when Max was gone but Derrick Green stepped in and the band kept going. Green is not a bad vocalist by any means and is actually pretty good but i am like a lot of other fans and just went completely indifferent once Max was gone and every time they release a new album you just see it and say “hey, there’s another Sepultura album coming out, I wonder if it’s any good?” and that is the last time you think about it. I think this will be the case even more so now that Igor has also left the band and joined up with Max to do the Cavalera Conspiracy project. Regardless of all that, Andreas Kisser keeps on plugging away. He and Paulo jr. and Derrick got themselves another drummer and have another post Max and first completely Cavalera free album out entitled “A-Lex”. I’m sure there is some sort of concept idea with the title but I’m not going to dig into that right now. My job for the moment is to let you know that the whole entire album is currently posted up HERE . Andreas Kisser really is a pretty damn good guitarist and song writer so i’m sure there is some decent stuff on there, we just have to find a way to get ourselves interested. There it is. Go take a listen if you like,it don’t cost nothin’.

Romantic Destructo is a band you will be seeing on here pretty regularly if you follow this page at all. Why? I want to see them do good and make it out of town and show everyone some more of what Tennessee has to offer. They will make good representatives of the things we have going on here and they also just seem like good guys.Try and keep up with them, i will do my best to keep you updated on what they have going on. Here is their latest post from Mysapce that gives you a pretty good idea that these guys just like playing their tunes and doing their thing and are happy to be getting somewhere. Here ya go, straight from their mouth.

“well we will be headed in to the studio march and april to record the full length debut on deka records. we will most likely be touring a lil this summer in a town near u. we have a show in coulmbia tennessee tomorrow @ atomic rocket lounge we hope to see a few people there .we can not wait to embark on this great oppurnity we are really blessed that our music is about to be our liven which at first we may be broke fuck it we love life not money take care r.d”

In what will definitely be one of the bigger selling and successful tours of the year as it always is, Distrubed’s Music As A Weapon tour has been announced for 2009. I have my own personal struggles with deciding wether or not I like Disturbed on a day to day basis, but with those things aside I kinda feel bad for those guys on this tour. Disturbed need to both hug and slap the promoter that finalized this lineup. Hug the guy for putting together a tour that is going to sell a serious amount of tickets, but slap him for putting together a lineup that will kick the crap out of them every night before they even take the stage. Here is who Disturbed will follow every show for the entire tour. Lacuna Coil,Chimaira and Killswitch Engaged. Having seen Killswitch before I pitty the fools that have to follow these guys anyway but add in Lacuna Coil and Chimaira i just don’t get how this tour works for Disturbed unless the crowd that shows up is 90% Distrubed fans, which could happen but that is one serious set of bands to have to follow up on your own tour. I know Disturbed has been working a little harder the last couple of years on building their metal credibility and kudos to them for taking these bands with them, but it will be a hard night for them every night. Regardless, this should be a good show to go see, Disturbed have been pretty good about taking out good tours with pretty decent ticket prices in recent times so i recommend supporting this if for no other reason than the supporting bands. The official web site (www.musicasaweapon4.com) for the tour will be up and running on January 27th. and will have all the official dates, locations and exhibition information.

Lamb Of God have made their tour plans official and it’s a good one. Lamb of God will be joined by God Forbid,both of which have highly anticipated new albums ready to go. Also on the bill As I Lay Dying, Children Of Bodem and Municipal Waste. Thats about as metal of a tour as you can get. dates have been announced and they are as follows. if you can get to one of these shows. Do it.
April 2, 2009 - Dodge Theater - Phoenix, AZ

April 3, 2009 - Palladium - Los Angeles, CA

April 4, 2009 - Events Center - San Jose, CA

April 5, 2009 - Crest Theater - Fresno, CA

April 7, 2009 - Paramount - Seattle, WA

April 8, 2009 - UBC Thunderbird Arena - Vancouver, BC

April 10, 2009 - Shaw Conference Center - Edmonton, AB

April 11, 2009 - The Coral - Calgary, AB

April 12, 2009 - Praireeland - Saskatoon, SK

April 13, 2009 - Convention Centre - Winnipeg, MB

April 14, 2009 - City Auditorium - Thunder Bay, ON

April 16, 2009 - Ricoh Coliseum - Toronto, ON

April 17, 2009 - Cepsum - Montreal, QC

April 18, 2009 - Palladium - Worcester, MA

April 19, 2009 - Electric Factory - Philadelphia, PA

April 21, 2009 - LC Pavillion - Columbus, OH

April 22, 2009 - Tabernacle - Atlanta, GA

April 23, 2009 - Blackham Coliseum - Lafayette, LA

April 24, 2009 - Verizon Theatre - Houston, TX

April 25, 2009 - Concrete St. Ampthitheatre - Corpus Christi, TX

April 26, 2009 - Palladium Ballroom - Dallas, TX

April 28, 2009 - Fillmore - Denver, CO

April 29, 2009 - Uptown Theater - Kansas City, KS

April 30, 2009 - Myth - St. Paul, MN

May 1, 2009 - Congress Theater - Chicago, IL

May 2, 2009 - The Pageant - St. Louis, MO

May 3, 2009 - Egyptian - Indianapolis, IN

May 5, 2009 - Expo Five - Louisville, KY

May 6, 2009 - Fillmore Theater - Detroit, MI

May 8, 2009 - Roseland Ballroom - New York, NY

May 9, 2009 - Convention Center - Asbury Park, NJ

May 11, 2009 - Rams Head Live - Baltimore, MD

May 12, 2009 - House of Blues - Boston, MA

May 13, 2009 - Washington St. Armory - Albany, NY

May 14, 2009 - TBD

May 15, 2009 - House of Blues - Myrtle Beach, SC

It was all over the net today so it’s possible you already read that Metallica and rock legend/icon/one of the most influential guitarists ever, Jeff beck were announced as inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for 2009. While on the surface this seems just fine and normal, a legendary band and a legendary guitarist getting their nod for the great careers they have had and influenced. While that is partially true, the fact that it is 2009 and they are just getting in is crap and just par for the course with the great Hall of Fame. Madonna and Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five beat Metallica and Jeff Beck into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Did you hear me right? The material girl that likes to vogue and strike a pose and tell her papa not to preach and an early 80’s rapper(i will Flash credit for being a pioneer, but he stillisnt rock n roll) made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before Jeff Beck and Metallica. This should come as no surprise though, this is the same Hall of Fame that has a long list of r&b and soul acts inducted in but snubbed Black Sabbath for so many years in a row that it actually became a running joke and Ozzy started actually telling them to go screw whenever nomination time came around every year. Another notable absence is KISS. Now I am not judging that these bands should be in there simply because I want hard rock and metal represented but because these are some of the most influential and commercially successful rock acts of all time and they are either not in there, just got in or are just getting in long after the likes of Madonna. No doubt about Madonna being one of the most successful pop acts of all time but why she is not only in the R&R Hall of Fame but in there ahead ofMetallica and Jeff Beck and coming in on first try when Sabbath got passed by for years and Kiss still hangs out on the sidelines is beyond my reasoning skills. I guess everything wasn’t meant to be understood by me so I really should worry about it since it doesn’t really affect my day to day life, but non sensical stuff like that just makes by brain itch. Regardless of all that ranting, congratulations to Metallica and Jeff Beck and the other nominees for 2009. If you are interested in watching the induction ceremonies and performances they will be held live in Cleveland at the Hall of Fame on April 4th and broadcast live on FUSE T.V.

I’m just setting here cruising the net when I should be sleeping and that led me over to take a peek at Lambgoat for a minute.(great site,please don’t leave me for them and never come back!) Saw a link about Suicide Silence and clicked it to get the details. Well Lucky me. Suicide Silence is set to hit the studio to record a new album in February. Their last album “The Cleansing” has been taking up spots on my Ipod top 25 list for months so I am absolutely excited for new material. Suicide Silence is a polarizing band for a lot of metal fans and a lot of it simply has to do with the ridiculous kids these days that hang up on sub genre “core” scenes and just cant let good tunes be good tunes. Suicide Silence has been labeled into the sub genre of Death Core, at least thats what is was at one point. All of the “core” names tend to make my brain want to stab itself so I tend to just ignore most of them and just enjoy the music. This band put out one of the most brutal sounding albums i have heard in some time with “The Cleansing” and I hope they can match this sound on the next effort so i can continue to have music that makes me want to drop kick small animals at old people and knock the hats off their old heads when they glaringly look at me for doing such an awful thing. I don’t really do that, but i think about a lot when i listen to Suicide Silence. The band is set to hit the studio in February at The Machine Shop in New Jersey and the album will once again be released on Century Media .