The Big Four of Thrash are ready to hit the US. Today is the big day, the day we've all been waiting for here in North America... the day when the mighty 17 horsemen that comprise Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, and Slayer announce where they will plunder and pillage as they rip a swath of destruction across the land.

So, are you ready boys and girls? Here we go...

(Drumroll please!)

Saturday, April 23, The Polo Club - Indio, California.

I'll rewind in case the dates flashed by so fast you missed whether or not they were ready to come to your town on this epic tour:

Saturday, April 23, The Polo Club - Indio, California.

Ok, so you are probably so excited at this point that you need more time to go over the list to cross-reference cities nearest to you against which arenas have the best sound quality and seats...

Saturday, April 23, The Polo Club - Indio, California.

Yes, that's right. The tour a lot of you have been praying for - nay - DEMANDING is actually a pit stop. In homage to the "Big Four", I shall list the stops that this juggernaut of thrash will be making together:

Saturday, April 23, The Polo Club - Indio, California.

One stop. One. At the same venue as Coachella... only a week later. Tickets are reported to be $99. Weeee.

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Source:	thebig4festival.com
Event:	The Big Four Festival

So according to the website of Poland's pride and joy, Behemoth, front man Adam "Nergal" Darski has apparently kicked Leukemia in the crotch. He left the hospital and will be spending the next several months chilling in his cave somewhere in the area of Gdansk, continuing his recuperation process, playing guitar, and doing 5,000 piece puzzles with his main squeeze, Doda. From the band's website:

NERGAL RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL!
posted 2011-01-19 by Manticore
(Nergal's quotes in italics)

We are happy and relieved to inform you, that Nergal left the hematology division of Uniwersyteckie Centrum Kliniczne (UCK) in Gdansk on Monday, January 17th, four weeks after he underwent a bone marrow transplant procedure. Below you can find his comment:

"Hey! What's up! At last - one could say. After almost half of year of treatment in various hospitals, several cycles of chemotherapy, irradiation and bone marrow transplant I have been finally released home in a pretty fuckin' good condition. I'm feeling ok, taking the intensity of treatment under consideration. That was not an easy period of my life, but, as I envisaged, I left the hospital victorious. I never considered any other options, but anyway, there were rough moments too? At this point I must express my thanks to the people, who made all of these downs fairly bearable. My parents - thank you. You deserve a monument for all your love and patience. Dorotka, thank you for your heroic attitude, love and support. I can't forget Doda's fans, who made a gigantic effort for me and other ill people. You rule! Absolutely fantastic Behemoth fans from all over the world were organizing various events to make people aware of what leukemia is. To all of you out there- my deepest respect! Thank you - the real heroes - Prof. Hellmann, Dr Piekarska, Dr Knopinska, Doc. Giebel, Prof. Ho³owiecki and all the nurses of the hematology division of the Medical Academy in Gdansk and the Oncology Clinic in Gliwice for all the professionalism and great hearts. My band mates for all the friendship and never-ending support. All my friends for sticking to me throughout the whole period of my illness. The list is too long to mention you all, but remember, you have special place in my heart."

Nergal will now go through a recovery which will last for several months. During this time he will stay in his flat in one of the Gdansk's districts.

"Although the whole treatment went really good, as well as the bone marrow transplant and the post-transplant period, the next several months is the time when I must really take care of myself. Of course I will have plenty of time to recover, think about the strategy and my return to the stage - which approaches imminently (laughs). First of all however I must rebuild my physical condition... apart from that, I hunger for playing, I haven't been playing the guitar for a half of year now! Really much to catch up, but also a huge motivation and a desire to work again at the same time. This year will be a really important one for me and the band!"

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Source:	behemoth.pl
Band profile:	Behemoth

Metalstorm Towers received the following sad news from one of our contacts at Relapse Records:

September 22, 2010

This e-mail is to inform you that the European Relapse Records office and warehouse was destroyed last night by a fierce fire.

The fire broke out around 5AM this Wednesday morning and reduced the warehouse and office to ashes, together with several other companies and houses. No one was injured in the fire. The cause of the fire is yet unknown, and is under investigation by local authorities.

Label operations will continue, and further updates will follow.

____________________________________________

...for all my dead metal cd and vinyl homies.

Good to know label operations will continue, hopefully they won't be horribly set back by this accident.

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Source:

Relapse Records

So your regular provider of epic metal video goodness, Thryce, is a busy little bee and authorized yours truly to give it a shot with the next installment. Here goes nothing.

Earlier this month I caught the Between the Baroness and Mastodon gig, and arrived early enough to enjoy the opening act, Valient Thorr. Their energetic stage show and "P-A-R-T-Y - you ain't go no alibi, YOU PARTY!" chant, coupled with some barley sodas got me fueled up to enjoy the rest of the gig. They were rocked hard enough that I took the time to chat with them at the merch stand, buy a disk after their set, and later went to their website where I discovered this inspiration for this column.

The creative mind and ambition of director Mike Aho combines special effects that make Avatar look lame with gratuitous violence and the best car chase scene since the Blues Brothers to great effect. His artistic vision with an amazing, Oscar-worthy performance by Valient Himself results in a truly fantastic metal video for "Tomorrow Police" off of their 2008 release, Immortalizer that is worthy of much praise indeed.

Enjoy.

The band is still touring the US before hitting Hellfest and the rest of Europe this summer. Get there early and be prepared to party.

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Source:

metalstorm.net

Friday, April 30, 2010

European tour: out, North American tour: in
For reasons far outside of our control, our European tour this Summer has been canceled. We're deeply sorry to our friends in Europe that this has happened. Instead, we'll tour North America with City of Ships. Please email Emulate_Booking@hotmail.com if you can help with any of the dates.

The current routing does not have any dates in Canada, but we are very interested in setting something up north of the border. If you can help us out in Canada, please get in touch.

ROSETTA + CITY OF SHIPS
July 5th Columbus, OH
July 6th Chicago, Ill w/ BATTLEFIELDS
July 7th Minneapolis, MN w/ BATTLEFIELDS
July 8th Fargo, ND @ The Aquarium w/ BATTLEFIELDS
July 9th TBA w/ BATTLEFIELDS
July 10th Sioux Falls, SD w/ BATTLEFIELDS
July 11th Omaha, NE
July 12th Denver, CO
July 13th Salt Lake City, UT
July 14th Boise, ID
July 15th Spokane, WA
July 16th Seattle, WA
July 17th Portland, OR
July 18th Arcata, CA
July 19th Bay Area, CA
July 20th San Francisco, CA
July 21st Sacramento / Chico, CA
July 22nd Santa Cruz, CA
July 23rd Los Angeles, CA
July 24th Mesa, AZ
July 25th Tucson, AZ
July 26th Albuquerque, NM
July 27th Amarillo, TX
July 28th Austin, TX
July 29th Oklahoma City, OK
July 30th Wichita, KS @ ICT FEST
July 31st Lawrence, KS
Aug 1st Columbia, MO
Aug 2nd Louisville, KY
Aug 3rd Cincinnati, OH
Aug 4th Pittsburgh, PA

Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Rosetta

HAHAHAHAHHA HO HO HOHOHOHOHOO HEHEHHEHEHEHHEE!

(takes a deep breath)

(resumes rolling around the floor, laughing hysterically until my eyes water and my gut aches)

HEHHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHOOOHOHOOO!

So April 2nd is upon us and our annual April Fool's joke is over and done with. Kind of.

Now that much fretting has been done, threats hurled, legal battles (how Gorgoroth of Fire of us) challenged, contract killers allegedly hired and bribed, we'll help sort out what's true and what isn't from the smoking carnage of the day's fun fun fun.

Metalstorm.ee is now Metalstorm.net: This is completely true. It clearly says so right at the end of our web address in your browser. With the .net domain we hope to be viewed as more of the international website that Metal Storm is, rather than a localised Estonian site to those in the industry unfamiliar with our happy home.

Also of note, the technical issues will be dealt with. Ivor is hard at work on terminating said bugs. With extreme prejudice. Unexpected shit is cropping up, so it's a matter of uncovering it then dealing with it. If you experience any bugs, let the man know. It's a lot of work, but that's why he makes the big bucks. And by big bucks, I mean nothing but your undying gratitude for his efforts.

We sold out: Not true. The notion that anyone could believe that is laughable - whether the date is April 1st or August 49th? thanks to downloading, etc, there is no money in metal. Certainly not enough for Lucas to score some coke to snort off a stripper's backside, let alone buy a fleet of BMW's for staff members.

Mr. T is still a B.A. - Big Asshole: This is entirely true. Thryce is still a big asshole.

Ivor pulled the plug : This is also true. But not because he hadn't received payment. He just did it to fuck with you and make this whole ruse more believable. With that action, he might have passed me to be Vice-Asshole, the second in command to take the asshole reins should something happen to Thryce.

Tokio Hotel Review: is a joke. The fact it came from the guy who brought you a review referring to Britney Spears as the kvltest of the black metal kvlt in a prior year should have tripped some "bullshit!" alerts. Even if you missed out on the Spears joke, just the fact that Bas scored an album with a number higher than the value of Pi should have been a dead giveaway.

Pat Boone Review: that one is not a joke. I own the album, have for over a decade, and like it. I had actually written it a couple days ago, but as our plans started to crystallize, the notion of delaying posting as it might seem to be in-line with our new attitude made me opt to do just that.

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Well, it is one week after your winners of the 2009 Metal Storm Awards were unveiled? you know what that means. It's time that we, the Metal Storm Staff, post up our winners.

We'd like to thank all the nominated bands for their efforts last year. There was a lot of good metal that we were able to enjoy. We spent the month of February listening to the nominees again and conducting our own polls. Some were runaway favorites whereas other genres had such tight competition that we required run-offs to determine a winner.

So we cordially invite you to tell us just how little we know about metal, how much our picks suck (or don't, if your tastes are similarly aligned)? you can do so here.

Category Pick
Alternative Mastodon - Crack The Skye
Atmospheric/Symphonic Madder Mortem - Eight Ways
Black Deströyer 666 - Defiance
Death Asphyx - Death... The Brutal Way
Doom Process Of Guilt - Erosion
Extreme Doom Colosseum - Numquam
Gothic Paradise Lost - Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us
Grindcore Brutal Truth - Evolution Through Revolution
Hard Rock Hardcore Superstar - Beg For It
Heavy 3 Inches Of Blood - Here Waits Thy Doom
Melodeath/Gothenburg Insomnium - Across The Dark
Metalcore Converge - Axe To Fall
Pagan/Viking/Folk Finsterforst - ...Zum Tode Hin
Post-Metal/Avantgarde Sólstafir - Köld
Power Sonata Arctica - The Days Of Grays
Progressive Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect
Sludge Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs
Thrash Warbringer - Waking Into Nightmares
Cover song Leaves' Eyes - Scarborough Fair (Traditional English song)
Debut album Oranssi Pazuzu - Muukalainen Puhuu


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Dutch bass player Jeroen Paul Thesseling (Obscura/Ex-Pestilence) says most bassists should be more audible in death metal recordings. "In many of the death metal productions the bass guitar is simply absent or inaudible in the mix, which is a shame. Perhaps this is one of those aspects that will change as the genre evolves. We are lucky to have bassists like Steve DiGiorgio and Alex Webster, both of whom have contributed greatly to the death metal style of bass playing."

Further information can be found at www.jeroenthesseling.com and www.warwick.de

Thesseling joined the German progressive death metal band Obscura in 2007. He toured North America and recorded their second full-length album Cosmogenesis, released via Relapse Records in February 2009. This August, Obscura will embark on a European tour alongside ATHEIST. With PESTILENCE, Jeroen played on their fourth album, "Spheres" (1993).

_______________________________

Photo Jeroen Paul Thesseling


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Source:	jeroenthesseling.com
Band profile:	Obscura