March Is Metal Month Is Here

Ugh. I've been so busy with various things that I kept forgetting to post about this. Yes it is the third annual March is Metal Month sponsored by EMI Distributions and Century Media. This is where you can go to your favorite blogsites(we're not cool enough yet) or local participating record stores and enter contests or buy discounted music. Locally I know Rasputins records is participating so I need to get down there at some point. After the jump is the full details on what this is about.

Lords of the Trident are a Giant Ball of Nerdy Metal Fun.

Every so often a band comes along that is so ridiculous looking that you can't help but shake your head and go what the fuck are these guys doing? Lords of the Trident are such a band. But if you listen to the music you know exactly what they're doing. This is an extremely fun band. They have costumes, sure, and their bio is hilarious in the vein of Manowar or more aptly Gwar, but what these guys do is bring back hard rock and metal to what it used to be in the 80's which is fun.

LotT are a Wisconsin band that comes highly recommended by your favorite shred contributor, Sawyer, who is good friends of them. I had heard one track from them on Sawyer's weekly radio show,Night of the Living Shred but after hearing the album and seeing the imagery I was not prepared for what was in store. They have an second album out now called 'Chains on Fire' and it is an eclectic blend of influences from all over the place.From melodic rock in the vein of Journey or Loverboy, to pirate metal in the vein of Running Wild, to hard rock like Dokken. While Fang VonKillenstein(Yes that is his stage name)is not the most powerful of vocalists he does put on a good show across all of those influences. Musically the band as a whole did their homework and put together pieces that are highly reminiscent of the early to mid eighties.

Keep in mind these are kids having a good time and an old dog like me is having fun listening to them. Go to their website and check out all the goofy fun for yourself and if you like it support them by buying their albums.After the jump is some videos from their release party for 'Chains on Fire'.

Atheist Doing a Mini Tour with Revocation

Death metal pioneers are still on the road supporting last years comeback release 'Jupiter'. Catch them when they come to any of the locations on that poster that's near you.

Want to Get Your Unsigned Band on a Compilation? Of Course You Do.

I received a message from David Spaur who is also the publicist for Legacy of Disorder and he is booking acts to appear on the latest edition of Loud Music Compilation. This will be the 17th edition of this series that will include Nonpoint as a confirmed artist. After the jump is all of the details if you want to get your band included on this cd for 10,000 lucky people to hear.

From David:

I just started booking Loud Music Compilation Volume 17 and wanted to put it out there for you to inform any and all unsigned metal/alternative rock bands about. Just received confirmation major artists Nonpoint will be involved. Fee for bands inclusion is $500 USD and they receive 25 copies for themselves as well.

Some well-known artists that have participated in past volumes are Mushroomhead, Otep, Snot, Kittie, Leaves Eyes, Sebastian Bach,Kingdom of Sorrow, Fear Factory & Megaherz.

- 10,000 copies pressed and printed with a multimedia enhancement bringing fans directly to bands website/myspace(distributed at events and concerts which will provide results for bands included). Recently distributed at shows from Metallica,AC/DC,Seether,Atreyu,Disturbed,Panic! At The Disco, Slipknot, Killswitch Engage(and that is just a few of the major concerts we have been hitting). These are distributed for free to ensure that each of the 10,000 copies reaches the hands of a potentially new fan.

- These compilations are solicited to magazines,radio stations(whom run the bands in rotation provided requests are being made) as well as numerous other industry contacts(list available upon request).

- Compilations are toned by Eclipse Records owner/c.e.o. Chris Poland meaning that the music will be brought to the highest quality sound possible and being marketed by the very same man who launched the career for Mushroomhead.

- A band profile will be created throughout distribution of Volume 17 for each band joining through our domain www. streetteam. com including band bio,pics,music video, and link to the website(s) along with direct link to purchase bands album. Hits generated go above 50,000 unique visits per month along with over 700,000 hits. Our Streetteam.com domain is the #2 result when searching for streetteam.

- Our company will act as bands U.S. streetteam distributing any materials they have available(i.e. stickers, banners, fliers, etc...)

You can visit www.streetteam.com to find out more about us, however to summarize - we produce 10,000 copies of each volume, which are sent to street team members nationwide. The members in turn distribute these CDs for free at targeted concerts around the USA. In addition, we do an industry mailing to select record companies, radio stations, managers, and journalists.

Streetcult Marketing (Corporate HQ)
PO Box 215
Butler, NJ 07405 - U.S.A.
Phone: 973-492-1976

Streetcult Marketing (MN Office)
David Spaur
1015 4th St SE
Roseau, MN 56751
E-mail: david@streetteam.com
Phone: 218-242-1352

So there you have it. 10,000 people can get a chance to hear your stuff that may otherwise have not. Some pretty heavy hitters have gotten their start with this. the next could be you.

Zombie Holocaust Among Others Scheduled for Slaughter By the Water Festival

The Second Annual Slaughter By the Water is set to kick off June 4th of this year and headlining so far that I can tell is Whiplash. The full roster of bands isn't set yet but here is what is on tap so far courtesy of Brave Words.

Whiplash
Zombie Holocaust
Dead
Vindicator

Funny how some outlets get this information and it's not yet posted on the actual website. Such is the case here. What is known is the event will be held at The Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, Ca. I might have to hit this thing up then if I can make there alive(those that live out here know what I'm talking about).

Giant of the Mountain Wants You To Listen. Or Be Destroyed.

Well not really but if any of you are frequent readers to Metalsucks or The Number of the Blog you may recognize the name Lord Assenfroth. He is mostly responsible for the series of Trainwreck Tuesdays that forced Grover to listen to country and ultimately demoralized Grover to the point that I filled in on Shitty Music Saturday covering the Backstreet Boys.


Well Lord Assenfroth a.k.a Cody Daniels has a band of his own. A three piece from Plano,Texas called Giant of the Mountain. If you're a fan of stoner or sludge metal or any of their hybrids you need to check out GoTM. Currently they have a three song self titled E.P. that was released on December,31st 2010. You can check it out here and if you like it throw some funds their way at this location.



Lord Assenfroth thanks you for your patronage.

Tre Watson leaks his own Song!

I don't know. The title sounded more controversial in my head. But regardless, Tre Watson's new project is set to be released on 1-11-11. Because that's a cool day to release stuff for obvious reasons other then binary. And to give a taste of what's to come on this album here is the track 'Downfall of the Stars'. Expect this album to be full of diverse prog masterpieces like this. I know because I'm cool and heard it already.



I'd give more promo stuff but it'd be redundant considering the video has everything I would already have said in it's ads already. Pick up Death of A Monarch next week at this location!

Legacy of Disorder will kick you in the Kiwis

I received an e-mail from David Spaur who is the promoter for New Zealand based band Legacy of Disorder. He put together a pretty decent package of promotional items including the self titled debut by the band. I'm currently listening to it at as I write and I have to say this is a fantastic slab of groove thrash. I'm actually surprised this was released way back in 2008 and no one has talked about this yet. Every track is a punishing 3 to 6 minute set of riffs that give a nod to Devildriver and Pantera. And it's no wonder since they tapped Sterling Winfield to produce it who also produced Reinventing the Steel and Damageplan's debut.But a nod is all it is because these guys have their own sound.

Vocalist James Robinson has a power to his voice that rivals such vocalist as Phil Anselmo( in his prime) and Chuck Billy in that he can go from raspy singing to roaring thrash vocals. Rana Freilich can lay down some pretty good riffs in the vein of Exodus and this is actually his strong suit.Matt Thompson is the lone American in the group and his drumming does remind me of Vinnie Paul with his liberal use of snares and double bass.And bassist Jason Keill is pretty good at laying the lines down in a consistent manner.

The songs themselves tend to lean towards the brotastic tough guy area but it's not nearly as annoying as it could be. They have so much going on in each that you don't have time to fixate on if they're good lyrically but they are considering the nature of the source. 'Pay the Price' even flirts with a clean chorus which is average at best but it provides a nice change of pace to the other songs. Final thoughts and more materials after the jump.



So yes. I thoroughly enjoyed this album and recommend it to anybody that loves thrash or maybe even hardcore. There is something here for everybody and is exactly what metal should be. It's not heavy and br00tal for the sake of being heavy and br00tal. These guys have crafted songs that are not boring or fall into a repetitive trap.Here is the video for Facade to get a taste of what these guys are about.



Check them out in these locations to find out more.

Homepage

Myspace

Youtube

Crikey! The Fevered Wants You to Check out their debut EP.

We got an e-mail this morning from Nick McKeon of Australia's The Fevered informing us of....well I'll let him speak.

Hi TDM dudes,

We're an Australian melodic death metal band called The Fevered.

We have just released our debut EP, titled Vestige. We're distributing it free, or for an optional donation through bandcamp, and we'd love it if you guys could have a listen, and if you like what we are doing, share our music on the blog.

The EP with art/tracklisting etc is available here: http://thefevered.bandcamp.com/

To download it for free, just click "Buy It Now" and enter in $0.00.

Thanks for your time, and thanks for providing us with sweet music over the years.

Nick McKeon
The Fevered

So there you have it. After the jump is the player if you want a quick listen.




It's pretty decent for a debut. There are definately elements of Amon Amarth and maybe even some Edge of Sanity in these tunes. I wasn't to enamored with the clean vocals but that will get better with time I'm sure. Besides how many melodeath bands do you hear from Australia anyways? So give these guys a listen and if you like what you hear support them by making a purchase or two.

Brent Petrie's Album is what prog should be. And it's free.

Every once in awhile somebody cool pops into TNOTB's Skype chat. This time we had the pleasure of Brent A. Petrie's company last night and I promised to do a little promo for his one man masterpiece Vary Us, Artist(Get it?).Brent hails from Mesa, Az and his album is as the title suggests what prog music of any type should be. It offers unique sounds and fusions of different styles to be it's own entity. There are a couple of heavy tunes but mostly there is quite a bit of ambient post rock present.

You can download the album for free here and since it's the holidays if you want to donate money for the purchase of the album, half the proceeds also goes to the ASPCA because this is the time of year that stray animals need homes and love the most.Anyways check it out and leave feedback on what you think.

Wisconsin is keeping the Virtuoso alive

Do you like instrumental guitars? Do you like instrumental guitars that shred? Do you wonder what ever happened to virtuosos besides Joe Satriani? Well look no further then Friday Nights on 91.7 FM WSUM for Night of the Living Shred. Your host is Sawyer Hildebrandt and it's one hour of everybody from Soul Cycle to George Lynch to Steve Vai. You can go here for show schedule and listen live on the internets if you're not in Wisconsin.

Give it up for Points North

A friend of mine from work and sometimes comment contributor on this site named Ken has been telling me for months that his brother has a band and I'm such a goof I never asked what their name is or what type of music do they play. Well thanks to a pic Ken sent me it's time I fixed that.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you Points North. Ken's brother Kevin is on drums.



Now Ken and I have our disagreements aplenty in regards to music but we're both metalheads and we also have our agreements and one thing we both agree on is there is a huge lack these days of straight forward rock music out there. I love me some Satriani and some Vai, hell instrumental rock period. And these guys deliver. In fact they're opening up for Michael Schenker on January 3rd in Concord Ca. I really should go check them out.

If the vid intrigues you go here to see more.

At least check them out for her. Seriously...it's almost Christmas.