SLAYER Announces Release Date for World Painted Blood

The official release day for "World Painted Blood" has been announced at SLAYER's redesigned website SLAYER.NET.

SLAYER will be releasing "World Painted Blood" on Tuesday, November 3rd in North American and on Monday, November 2 to the rest of the world.

There will be three different editions of the album: Limited edition CD with multiple CD covers, Deluxe edition CD/DVD, and a high-quality, 180-gram vinyl edition.

Official Track Listing:
1. World Painted Blood
2. Unit 731
3. Snuff
4. Beauty Through Order
5. Hate Worldwide
6. Public Display Of Dismemberment
7. Human Strain
8. Americon
9. Psychopathy Red
10. Playing With Dolls
11. Not Of This God

THE GATES OF SLUMBER Debut New Track "The Bringer of War"

A new track from THE GATES OF SLUMBER has been posted to Decibel Magazine's Deciblog. The track is called The Bringer of War, and it's from their forthcoming album Hymns of Blood and Thunder. The posting shows the album being available September 29th via Rise Above Records.

Hymns of Blood & Thunder track listing:

01. Chaos Calling

02. Death Dealer

03. Beneath the Eyes of Mars

04. The Doom of Aceldama

05. Age of Sorrow

06. The Bringer of War

07. Descent Into Madness

08. Iron Hammer

09. The Mist in the Mourning

10. Blood and Thunder

Karl Simon (Vocals/ Guitar), posted this thought about Hymns of Blood and Thunder:

For my part I started working on Hymns of Blood and Thunder, almost immediately after the Conqueror sessions. It's an odd part of my personality that I tend to hate what I've just created and always look back at previous works longingly... strange, maybe but that's just how I am. Well, Conqueror was no exception to this rule, part of me hated it until we were out on the road in support and then on the stage the songs started to make sense and take on lives of their own... that's how it's always been. Writing and recording are a fucking chore... but the chaos of the live setting makes the songs jump to life.

The odd thing here is that from the first moment I sat down to work on music for this record I knew that it was going to surpass everything on Conqueror; and in a sense it has. Even up through the challenging sessions, and they were a bitch, I knew that this material was in many ways stronger. Conqueror took some very interesting and for us, progressive turns. But for me it often seemed to get lost in a shuffle of not knowing who or what it was. The songs on Hymns know themselves and they know each other, if you follow. Chaos Calling's barking guitar is a cousin to Death Dealer's snarly chords, and in turn Death Dealer is a brother to Beneath the Eye of Mars... in the same sense that the songs on South of Heaven or Sad Wings of Destiny are related. Each of the songs goes through it's own movement. In place of "the epic song" or "the fast song" each of these takes it's turn being that: Chaos Calling is fast, but in the bridging mid-section you will be surprised by the feel change. Beneath the Eye of Mars is a grinding death march, until we invoke the deep influence of classic 70's metal in the songs pause before the final fall. Descent Into Madness invokes the crawling doom that we made on The Awakening and Suffer no Guilt... but it's got it's lush surprises as well, we've grown and being true to that we haven't forgotten all we learned. Ha, I guess you can tell that I'm excited, and I am. We took so many chances and got to do so many different things in the studio this time! Sanford was so much help and so much a part of the creative process; his production was inspired and spontaneous. There were so many times we just created an idea on the fly and walked away from it buzzing. But then there were also so many times that I was left clawing at my head with frustration... . But that's the process: you can't make a record like this without a few fits, it's just not possible... ego's have to be bashed in and invariably you have to take a shit ton of drugs.

I can tell you, I'm more in love with this right out of the box than with anything in the history of this band; I'm so into it that I've already started work on my stuff for the next record, heh... .

Well, anyway... again I can't shut up. Our grizzly snarling child: Hymns of Blood and Thunder, straight up the middle barking and bashing like a deranged Pit Bull who didn't get it's happy pill. Get ready to fail your saving throw v. shitting your pants.

--Karl

New Slayer Song Posted - "Hate Worldwide"

ShockHound posted a new track by SLAYER – Hate Worldwide. The track is the second to be released for public consumption from Slayer’s forthcoming album World Painted Blood.

The first track Psychopathy Red was leaked online last October, and Slayer.net reports it has been streamed more than a half-million times since. The song was composed by guitarist Kerry King, and will be available as a CD-single at Hot Topic stores beginning Tuesday July 28. Preview it NOW at ShockHound.


"It's a really cool track, and Tom's voice sounds incredible on it," said King (pictured far left). "The last line in the song's chorus is '..spread a little hate worldwide,' and that's what we've been doing for 25 years." Other song titles include Beauty Through Order, Unit 731, Playing With Dolls, Public Display of Dismemberment, and Americon.

As World Painted Blood is a SLAYER album, it deals with topics such as death and destruction, war, serial killers, and the Apocalypse. The album was recorded in Los Angeles over two time periods, during October 2008 and then between late January and March 2009. World Painted Blood was produced by Greg Fidelman, who's spent time in the studio with METALLICA and a bunch of other bands, and executive produced by long-time Slayer colleague, Rick Rubin, who suggested Fidelman for the project. He also mixed the live tracks on SLAYER'S Soundtrack to the Apocalypse.

It appears that SLAYER is hard at work on a site redesign, which they promise will be launched soon.

SLAYER talks about their upcoming album, World Painted Blood HERE

SLAYER talks about co-headlining this summer's Mayhem Festival tour HERE

SLAYER - bassist/vocalist Tom Araya, guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, and drummer Dave Lombardo - is currently co-headlining the Mayhem Festival with Marilyn Manson, Killswitch Engage, and Bullet for My Valentine, among others.

Remaining dates are as follows:

July
29 Toyota Pavilion, Scranton, PA
31 Blossom Music Center, Cleveland, OH

August
1 Post Gazette Pavilion, Pittsburgh, PA
2 DTE Energy Music Theatre, Detroit, MI
4 Comcast Center, Boston, MA
6 Virginia Beach Amphitheatre, Virginia Beach, VA
7 Susquehanna Bank Center, Camden, NJ
8 Comcast Theatre, Hartford, CT
9 Nissan Pavilion, Washington, D.C.
11 Ford Amphitheatre, Tampa, FL
12 Cruzan Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, FL
14 AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX
15 Superpages.com Center, Dallas, TX

Interview with Steve Hammond from Leeches of Lore

You ever hear something that really defies a label, you dig it, but it's so completely different, there is truly no way to classify it? Well if you haven't heard of Leeches of Lore before, we kindly introduce you to something completely different.

With a number of influences that clearly come through on the bands self-titled debut album, Steve Hammond, lead singer, guitarist and bass player took some time out of his busy schedule to speak with Neutronium Core about the debut album, what inspires the band and what is coming up.

The Core: Let's start from the beginning, who inspired you to pick up a guitar and start playing?

Steve Hammond: Well, I don't think it was any one person or band. I have two older brothers who I discovered a lot of classic rock through when I was a kid, but I think the big thing was when I started skateboarding at about 10 or 11.

This was the late 80's and thrash was huge, I had a subscription to Thrasher Magazine and they had a music section in the back. This got me into a lot of thrash and punk bands, as well as underground stuff like Sonic Youth and Melvins.

Then I would seek out tapes of the bands I thought sounded cool, although I'd have to either steal or buy them in secret because there was no way my fundamentalist Christian parents would let me have most of that stuff. In fact, they went through a tape burning phase.

I grew up on a farm in Kansas and would stash shoe boxes of tapes in various barns, grain bins, wood piles, etc. in an attempt to hide my growing collection from my folks. Inevitably, they would find them, and I'd have to watch them burn my precious collection in front of me. I think that just fueled it for me though.

I talked my folks into getting me a guitar and amp at 12, and immediately started recording albums that I wrote myself. I have a musical record of myself from that point on. I still have the first album I conceived and recorded, very badly performed thrash and punk. It just went downhill from there.

The Core: Given that you are a multi-instrumentalist, what was the first instrument you learned how to play?

Steve Hammond: Guitar. Anything else I play I wouldn't really say I have a good handle on. I picked up steel guitar when we needed one for the traditional Honky Tonk band I was in. I love playing steel guitar, but I wouldn't say I'm good at it. I am very talented at the Kazoo, though.

The Core: Where does the name Leeches of Lore come from? Any insight on its meaning?

Steve Hammond: It's really just some silly sci-fi shit I made up. I wrote the song "Leeches of Lore" first, and thought it would make a decent band name. Most band names are stupid, "Leeches of Lore" is no different.

The Core: Leeches of Lore really has a unique take on music, how would you describe the band to someone who hasn't heard you before?

Steve Hammond: That's a hard one. We always get comparisons from people who review us, and I would say most of that isn't too far off. Things like "The Ween of Metal", or "Country Western Thrash" or what have you, touch on a part of what we are.

We started this band with the idea of doing whatever we wanted. We listen to a lot of different stuff, so that comes out in what we do. But we aren't in this to be just a novelty, and we try to do something that's a little more timeless than just the current metal scene or whatever. If you look at two of the most popular bands ever, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, these were bands that had all kinds of influences and were experimenting all the time.

Now I'm not going make the mistake of comparing us to these timeless bands, but I think our approach is similar. I feel like we could release anything and it would still be Leeches of Lore. So I guess the answer to the question is: "I don't know".


The Core: How did you get hooked up with Andy Lutz (drummer) and start playing together?

Steve Hammond: Andy and I worked at a coffee shop together. He heard me listening to the Melvins one day, and told me he loved them. I asked him if he played drums, he said he used to, but it had been about eight years. We borrowed some drums, we "jammed" and that's about it. He really gets better all the time, even though he's kind of a dick.

The Core: Who do you see as your target audience?

Steve Hammond: I think everyone should like us, but it seems like the heavier, stoner, weird, whatever crowd likes us the most. If we are targeting someone, I don't think there should be any limits.


The Core: Where do you find inspiration from for creating songs? Any specific songs you would like to call out and give some background on?

Steve Hammond: I spent a lot of time in bands writing songs about getting fucked up, getting laid, the usual rock and roll topics. I also have written a substantial amount of country love songs. I find all of this very boring.

There is a huge untapped reservoir of subject matter, whether it be biology, physics, history, or the massive amount of projected fiction that goes along with these kind of subjects. The song "Macrochelys Temminckii" for example is about the alligator snapping turtle, one of the largest freshwater turtles in the world. "Why, Toe-Bot?" on the other hand is about a robot toe killing people.


The Core: Any plans on playing outside of New Mexico in the near future? You know we have Tiki Lounges in California that would welcome you too...

Steve Hammond: We've been together for about a year and a half and in that time have had two tours, mostly in the Midwest. We will be hitting the West Coast this fall, probably October, for an extensive tour. We can always use help, so if you are reading this and can hook us up with a show, please contact me flyingmidgetrecords@yahoo.com

The Core: Anything else?

There is recent live video of Leeches of Lore and even more recent audio, which can be found here

We are recording the second album this summer, and will probably shop it around for awhile.

You can download free tracks from our now out of print EP and a couple of my solo albums, and also buy albums of previous bands I've been in at www.flyingmidgetrecords.com

"Leeches of Lore" (the album) is available at All That is Heavy

Thank you very much for having me.


Thank you Steve, we really appreciate your time in responding. We are hoping to catch you live when you make it out to California.

We hope to have our review of the Leeches of Lore self-titled album up shortly!

Ola Lindgren Releases Three Songs From GREY HEAVENS Solo Project

Ola Lindgren, the vocalist/guitarist of Swedish death metal pioneers GRAVE, released three songs from his GREY HEAVENS solo project. The three songs are "Primitvs", "Abandoned Quest" and "Grey Heavens".

A project years in the making, GREY HEAVENS explores other sides of extreme music that Lindgren says would not fit into the GRAVE catalog. "This is a more dark and experimental side of my musicality and shows a different approach to metal than just the straight forward death metal that has been my main inspiration and which has resulted in the eight GRAVE albums in the past 21 years."

In a new posting about the new songs, Lindgren said, "Finally I got everything together and mixed:) The drums for this promo are programmed, everything else is played/screamed and recorded/mixed by me during the past months."

You can listen to the new songs here.

If you've never heard GRAVE'S debut album Into the Grave, we encourage you to check it out. Into the Grave perfectly exemplified the Swedish death metal sound of the early 90's by offering a thick production with the vintage Sunlight Studio guitar sound. That album was voiced by Jorgen Sandstrom, who was later replaced on vocals by guitarist Ola Lindgren. It is a death metal classic!

Interview with Dave Sherman from EARTHRIDE

Dave Sherman is essentially royalty in the Doom capital of the world, Maryland. He is the former bass player for Spirit Caravan where he also shared vocal duties with Wino. Sherman started EARTHRIDE as a side project but it quickly blossomed into a full time gig once Spirit Caravan split.

We took a few moments with Sherman to find out what he and the band have been up to, what’s going on with the new album and where we can catch EARTHRIDE live next.

The Core: What is EARTHRIDE up to these days?

Dave Sherman: We’ve been trying to write new material for our brand new record, titled Something Wicked. We’ve got seven songs down and we’d like to write three or four more. I think we have Chris Kozlowski to engineer it. (Editors note: Chris Kozlowski was the producer on the legendary EARTHRIDE album Taming of the Demons).


The Core: I see you have some dates in Ohio, Indiana and D.C., do you have any other dates planned?

Sherman: We’re playing Stoner Hands Of Doom and in Baltimore on June 5th at the Sidebar. We’re trying to lay low to focus on writing new songs.

The Core: It’s been a couple of years since Vampire Circus came out, do you have any plans for a new album? Care to provide any insight on what fans can expect?

Sherman: Something Wicked is like a mixture of Taming of the Demons and Vampire Circus, we might even add a couple of special guests.


The Core: How does your music affect you and the world around you?

Sherman: Music is my life’s blood.

The Core: Any plans to have Land-o-Smiles do anymore repressings of your classic albums?

Sherman: I don’t think so, but we might put it on iTunes.


The Core: What do you think of all these new metal bands emerging from Maryland, do they pay you proper respect?

Sherman: Yeah, everybody’s big time friends in Maryland. We all get along. We borrowed Admiral Browning’s bass player to play at Templars of Doom when our bass player Rob Hampshire wasn’t able to go due to a previous commitment.


The Core: Any last words?

Sherman: Take care of yourself and everybody else.



Thanks Sherman! We really look forward to the new album!

Just a reminder to help these bands out by attending gigs, buying their records and merchandise...spread the word!

You can pick up EARTHRIDE T-shirt from Real Deal Merchandise here

All That Is Heavy also has a couple CDs and a picture disc in stock that you can buy here

Video: Black Pyramid - And The Gods Made War/Visions of Gehenna

Watch it here: