Thrash Metal
Dave Mustaine Teases New Megadeth Song “Life in Hell” from Upcoming Album: Listen
Dave Mustaine has offered up a holiday treat in the form of a snippet of the new song “Life in Hell” from Megadeth’s upcoming album. The frontman shared the brief audio clip in a Cameo video for a fan named Gabe. While Megadeth’s new album still doesn’t have a release date, Mustaine has mentioned that the LP is slated to be titled The Sick, The Dying and The Dead. While Mustaine tells Gabe he’s the first person in the “outside world” to hear music from the new album, the metal legend did share a snippet of the title track in a previous Cameo video for a fan named Joe back in July. In the new Cameo clip, Mustaine wishes Gabe a Merry Christmas before telling him, “I will play you something that’s been recorded already and is special. How would you like to hear a little bit of the new album? ...
Overkill Announce 2022 US Tour with Prong
Thrash metal cult heroes Overkill have announced a March 2022 US tour with support from Prong. The 16-show outing will hit venues across the Midwest and East Coast, kicking off March 3rd in Poughkeepsie, New York, and running through a March 19th date in Stroudsburgh, Pennsylvania. Get tickets via Ticketmaster. The New Jersey-based Overkill are still touring in support of 2019’s The Wings of War, their latest studio album. However, the veteran band is also celebrating the recent release of a 6-LP box set, The Atlantic Years 1986-1996, collecting Overkill’s major-label studio albums from that time. Related Video Overkill are also hard at work on a new album, with bassist D.D. Verni telling Misplaced Straws in September, “We’re recording it right now, a good portion of it’s done. It keeps ge...
Metallica Dig Out More Deep Cuts for Second and Final 40th Anniversary Show: Review
Setting the Stage: The first night of Metallica’s two 40th anniversary shows at in San Francisco’s Chase Center delivered a strong career-spanning set, so expectations ran high for Night 2 a couple of evenings later (Sunday, December 19th). Once more, no special guests were present for this final performance (unlike their 30th anniversary concerts), but quite a few setlist surprises occurred. Similar to the first night, the setlist was constructed in a manner that featured a tune or two from each album chronologically. But, this night, instead of starting from 1983’s Kill ‘Em All and running through 2016’s Hardwired… To Self-Destruct, it was set up in reverse order, starting with the band’s last album and finishing up with selections from their debut. Taking the Stage: As with the fi...
Metallica Rep Every Album At First of Two 40th Anniversary Shows: Concert Review + Photos
Setting the Stage: It’s hard to believe, but it has been 40 years since thrash legends Metallica first formed. And to celebrate this impressive career accomplishment, the band — frontman James Hetfield, guitarist Kirk Hammett, bassist Robert Trujillo, and drummer Lars Ulrich — booked two arena shows (December 17th and 19th) at San Francisco’s Chase Center. When those concerts quickly sold out, the metal titans announced they were making the shows available to stream for free via Prime Video and Amazon Music. Unlike their livestreams from last year, including the charity show Helping Hands Concert & Auction, Live & Acoustic from HQ, each night of the “40th Anniversary Live” performances is taking place in front of a sold-out arena, with tickets initially being made available exclusi...
Voivod Detail New Album Synchro Anarchy, Share New Song “Planet Eaters”: Stream
Legendary Canadian metal band Voivod have shared the video for “Planet Eaters,” the lead single from their just-announced 15th studio album, Synchro Anarchy, out February 11th. Voivod have kept up a prolific pace of output across nearly four decades and continue to push their brand of technical progressive thrash to the outer limits of experimentation. “Planet Eaters” picks up where the band left off with the excellent 2018 offering, The Wake. The spacey chord voicing, cosmos-obsessed lyrics, and a decidedly ambitious take on the signature Voivod sound make the track a thrilling way to introduce the new record. Advertisement Related Video As drummer Michel “Away” Langevin stated in a press release, the band felt that “Planet Eaters” had a “vintage Nothingface/Hatröss vibe” in reference to ...
Heavy Culture: Alien Weaponry on Māori Ideology, New Album Tangaroa, and Touring with Gojira
Heavy Culture is a monthly column from journalist Liz Ramanand, focusing on artists of different cultural backgrounds in heavy music, as they offer their perspectives on race, society, and more as it intersects with and affects their craft. The latest installment of this column features Lewis and Henry de Jong of Alien Weaponry. New Zealand metal act Alien Weaponry have recently released their latest album, Tangaroa, and they also wrapped up a tour supporting supporting Gojira and Knocked Loose. The band’s music is written and sung in both Māori and English, with themes that center around the ideologies and history of the culture. Heavy Consequence caught up with brothers Lewis de Jong (vocals, guitar) and Henry de Jong (drums) while they were on the road with Gojira. They spoke about tour...
In Photos: Testament, Exodus and Death Angel Play Only “Bay Strikes Back” Show of 2021
Although the official “Bay Strikes Back Tour” has been postponed until 2022, Testament, Exodus, and Death Angel brought the joint bill to the Fox Theater in Oakland on Saturday (November 27th) for a sold-out one-night gig this past weekend — giving their hometown fans a chance to celebrate the legacy of not only the music, but also the rich history of all three bands. Together, the three legendary acts combined to write yet another chapter in the ongoing story of Bay Area thrash metal. Hitting the stage with the intro to “The Ultra-Violence,” Death Angel were in top form from the word “go,” and kicked off the evening with a blistering eight song set, wasting no time pumping up the already voracious crowd. Vocalist Mark Osegueda had every person in the already packed venue in the palm of hi...
Master of Flushes: Toilet in the Likeness of Metallica’s Lars Ulrich Is Creepy as Hell
We shit you not — someone made a toilet bowl in the likeness of Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and it’s freaking us out. The man behind the creepy creation is none other than the same dude who may or may not have made a guitar out of his dead uncle’s bones. Prince Midnight, as he is known, made headlines at the beginning of this year when he seemingly created a guitar out of his dead uncle’s skeleton. He had claimed that the skeleton had been donated to a local college in Greece, where it was used for educational purposes, but was no longer needed by the institution. When a proper burial would have incurred some major expenses, he decided to turn the bones into a functional guitar. However, later reports suggested the whole thing may have been an elaborate hoax. This time there’s no denyin...
Metallica Announce San Francisco Takeover Coinciding with 40th Anniversary Shows
Metallica are turning their 40th anniversary into a complete takeover of San Francisco, unveiling a series of events coinciding with their previously announced December arena shows at the city’s Chase Center. A number of club gigs featuring bands related to Metallica (in some cases, literally related), as well as gallery shows, book signings, film screenings, and more will take place over the course of a few days next month. Of course, the main events are Metallica’s two shows at the Chase Center on December 17th and 19th. Ten years ago, the band commemorated their 30th anniversary with a series of shows at the Fillmore that featured past members of the group (including Dave Mustaine and Jason Newsted), as well as a number of metal luminaries. Hopefully, there will be lots of surprises in ...
Metallica Announce Mysterious “Black Box” Time Capsule Vault
Metallica have announced a mysterious time capsule vault dubbed the “Black Box.” The band revealed the new venture in a press release. It appears the “Black Box” will be a Metallica museum of sorts, featuring historical content from the band’s career ranging from the “virtual to the physical.” “James, Lars, Kirk and Robert will ‘unbox’ their collections, pulling their favorite, most significant, and personally meaningful artifacts out of careful storage,” the press release states. “Much more than a ‘gateway’ to all things Metallica, The Metallica Black Box, in collaboration with Inveniem and Definitive Authentic, will provide access to the memories and experiences of the band members themselves, as it transports those who enter to lvirtually every imaginable time and place along the Metall...
Testament’s Alex Skolnick Shares Video for New Song “Florida Man Blues” feat. Brian Posehn: Stream
Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick has shared the video for his new song with the Alex Skolnick Trio, “Florida Man Blues.” The clip features cameos by heavy metal comedians Brian Posehn and Dave Hill. Skolnick wrote and recorded the track with his band back in 2019. After sitting on the song for nearly two years, the guitarist finally shared the blues-based romp, which is clearly inspired by the “Florida Man” meme headlines coming out of the Sunshine State. A comedic song needed a comedic clip, so Skolnick tapped Adam Dubin for “Florida Man Blues.” Dubin co-directed the Beastie Boys’ legendary “Fight for Your Right” video, and Skolnick even smashes a TV with a sledgehammer in homage to Adam Yauch. Posehn and Hill make humorous appearances, the latter as an alligator-carrying booze enthusias...
Slayer’s 10 Best Songs
Few bands epitomize heavy metal better than Slayer. From their Satanic speed metal beginnings to the their legendary thrash masterpieces recorded with producer Rick Rubin, Slayer would come to define metal in iconography, aesthetics, and sound. For many, Slayer have proven to be a gateway band to extreme metal. More brutal, aggressive, and blasphemous than Metallica, Megadeth, or Anthrax, Slayer represent the left hand path. Adorning their albums with Satanic and darkly Biblical artwork by Larry W. Carroll, the band would influence the burgeoning black metal scene in the ’80s and ’90s, as well as achieving commercial success as part of the aforementioned Big Four of thrash metal. Slayer’s core lineup of guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King, singer-bassist Tom Araya, and drummer Dave Lom...
