Heavy Metal Superfan Blog

Here are three interesting things:

Immortal has released a super-deluxe boxed set version of their excellent new album All Shall Fall. Only 1000 copies are being manufactured, and it's only available from Nuclear Blast's mail order department. The box, which is made of iron, includes the new album in a limited-edition digipak, four picture-disc 7" records, a poster flag, a patch and a button. Here's a picture of all that stuff:



Former Celtic Frost/Hellhammer leader Tom Gabriel Fischer is publishing the book Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost 1981-1985 through NY-based publisher Bazillion Points Books, run by Sound Of The Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal author Ian Christe. Fischer told the metal website Noisecreep, "All of the photos published in the book represent deeply personal and important moments in my life," Fischer tells Noisecreep. "Many of the photos capture the unique energy that characterized our group of friends and musicians at a time when metal was experiencing a major rebirth and an infusion with previously unknown power and heaviness. It is thus utterly impossible for me to single out individual photos as favorites. I sometimes wish we would have had room for the other hundreds of unpublished photos still in my archive, but I am confident we selected the very best and most significant ones for the book."

Here's what the book (out in November) will look like:



And finally, Mastodon will be recording this Saturday's live show in Chicago for later release (no details on exactly what form that will take, whether it'll be part of a Deluxe Edition of Crack The Skye or a separate live album or DVD). So if you're going to that show, make sure you yell something really boneheaded between songs, and maybe your drunken idiocy will be preserved forever. Here's the announcement as it appeared on Mastodon's Twitter account:

The Toothless Cat Gallery in Philadelphia, PA will present a solo art exhibition from Paul Romano, the artist whose work has adorned the covers of many of the best-known metal albums of recent years. Romano will be exhibiting a collection of paintings on wood, canvas, and paper. "Workhardened" will be Romano's debut solo fine art exhibition.

Romano has painted the covers for, among others:

Trivium's Ascendancy and The Crusade
Mastodon's Lifesblood, Remission, Leviathan, Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye
Hate Eternal's I, Monarch
Animosity's Empires
Earth's Legacy of Dissolution
Withered's Memento Mori

Romano is a classically trained painter whose works often pay homage to art history and literature (like the Moby Dick-derived cover to Mastodon's Leviathan). He paints in oil, acrylic, and watercolor, creating introspective and enthralling paintings. Some of the pieces included in the "Workhardened" exhibit will be never-before-seen paintings and drawings, as well as personal pieces created specifically for the show.

"Workhardened" will open on October 10 and continue through November 10. An opening reception will be held on October 10 from 2:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. A special event entitled "Collaborate With The Artist" is planned for October 24 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and will feature interactive word games (MadLibs) written, designed, and screen printed by the artist. Romano will be present at both of these events.

The Toothless Cat is located at:

1050 North Hancock Street
Suites 86/88
Philadelphia, PA 19123

Gallery hours are 12-8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 12-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

A tour that promises to be head-crushingly awesome and baffling in equal measure has just been announced...Mastodon (whose most recent album, Crack The Skye, is brilliant) will be rolling across the country with openers Converge (whose forthcoming album Axe To Fall is devastating) and High On Fire (whose next album hasn't been recorded yet, but will be out in 2010). The only problem is that Mastodon's co-headliner on this outing will be the fake metal band Dethklok, from the cartoon show Metalocalypse, which I will just come out and admit I have never found funny.

Here are the tour dates...get there early, because both High On Fire and Converge are amazing live.

10/2 Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
10/3 Seattle, WA @ WaMu Theater
10/4 Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum Theatre
10/6 Calgary, AB @ Big Four Building
10/7 Edmonton, AB @ Shaw Conference Centre
10/9 Salt Lake City, UT @ Great Saltair
10/10 Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium
10/12 Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
10/13 St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
10/14 Des Moines, IA @ Val Air Ballroom
10/16 St. Paul, MN @ Myth
10/17 Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
10/18 Milwaukee, WI @ Eagle's Auditorium
10/20 Columbus, OH @ LC Pavilion
10/21 Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit
10/23 Toronto, ON @ Sound Academy
10/24 Buffalo, NY @ The Fairgrounds
10/25 Albany, NY @ Armory
10/27 Boston, MA @ House of Blues
10/30 New York, NY @ Hammerstein Ballroom
10/31 Washington, DC @ Patriot Center
11/1 Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
11/5 Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
11/6 Myrtle Beach, SC @ House of Blues
11/7 Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
11/8 Pompano Beach, FL @ Pompano Beach Amphit
11/11 Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
11/12 Houston, TX @ Verizon Wireless Theater
11/13 Austin, TX @ Austin City Music Hall
11/14 Tulsa, OK @ Brady Theater
11/16 Las Cruces, NM @ Pan American Center
11/17 Mesa, AZ @ Mesa Amphitheater
11/18 Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
11/19 Los Angeles, CA @ Palladium

You can't have metal without screaming, overdriven electric guitars. And while some of the best metal bands around have just one guitarist, a lot of the true greats have two axes up front, ripping through the speakers in tandem. So for this weekend's poll, you decide which band has the greatest dual-guitar team in all of metal. Voting closes at 10 AM Monday, so vote early and often!

It's America's birthday, so what better time to celebrate the next generation of American metal? Here are ten highly regarded up-and-comers, some of whom have gotten major attention in the last few years, while others are still known primarily to diehards. Whatever the case, I want to know who you think is making the best metal in America in 2009. So vote for anybody on the list below, or complain in comments that I ignored your favorite band. And Happy Fourth of July Weekend...try not to blow yourselves up, 'cause there'll be more metal on Monday!