Photo Credit: Julien Etienne Onielar (pictured far left, above) may be the most terrifying female metal frontwoman on the planet. As a member of German black metal band Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult, Onielar packs a sharp vocal style along with solid guitar work and an unnerving stage presence. Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult formed in 1997, with Yvonne ‘Onielar’ Wilczynska having fronted the band since the beginning. If you were to play the group’s music for an unknowing listener, there is no way they’d recognize Onielar as a female vocalist, but with the aid of Onielar as the face of the band, Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult has succeeded at becoming a force in the underground black metal scene. Out of the four full-length albums and various splits the band has released, their 2004 record, ‘Nocturnal March’ is arguably their most noteworthy. The self-released album contains some serious black metal gems such as ‘Chronicler of Chaos,’ ‘Scaffold Salvation’ and ‘The Dead Hate the Living.’ The velocity and precision of the band is paramount when compared to their contemporaries, stitching together elements of speed metal within their evil attack. Check out this video of Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult playing ‘The Dead Hate the Living’ live and gain an discover Onielar’s barbaric intensity for yourselves. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/cerebral-bore-simone-som-pluijmers-brutal-female-metal-vocalists/” title=”Next Female Vocalist: Far From ‘Bore’ing” align=”center”] Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult, ‘The Dead Hate the Living’ (Live)
Roadrunner This year has been phenomenal when it comes to rock and metal music tours, and with 2012 coming to an end, the year will surely be remembered as one defined by many spectacular achievements. We’re going to miss 2012, but Gojira , Devin Townsend and the Atlas Moth have just put together a must see tour set to pummel the year 2013. Beginning Jan. 14, three of modern music’s most progressive and genre-bending acts will team up for a month long North American tour. Hot off the heels of their ‘L’Enfant Sauvage’ album, Gojira are currently at the highest point of their career. Gojira’s latest record has opened their music up to a broader audience, creating one of the year’s greatest breakthrough accomplishments. Gojira frontman Joe Duplantier recently spoke with radio goddess Full Metal Jackie about touring with Devin Townsend and the Atlas Moth. “They’ve had an influence on us,” begins Duplantier, “the way we behave onstage, the way we play, they way we approach the whole thing, sometimes it’s purely technical like the way they plug in their gear. So we always learn something from touring with people that’s why I’m so happy to tour with Devin, he’s such an incredible singer – one of my influences actually and he’ll be opening for us [Laughs] how crazy is that? We’re all huge fans of Devin Townsend, Strapping Young Lad, it’s a great honor to have him on tour.” Devin Townsend released ‘Epicloud’ this year, displaying a more omniscient and comforting sound in contrast to his heavier past. After a solid run with Katatonia and Paradise Lost, Townsend and his band will hit North America again very soon. For those unfamiliar with the Atlas Moth, the Chicago-based sludge band have been trudging forward since 2007, releasing two full-length albums and two EPs since their inception. Keep these guys on your radar, because they’ve got the talent to create an incredibly accomplished future. Check out the tour dates for Gojira, Devin Townsend and the Atlas Moth’s 2013 tour below. Gojira, Devin Townsend + the Atlas Moth 2013 Tour Dates 1/14 – Minneapolis, Minn. @ Mill City Nights 1/15 – Winnipeg, Manitoba @ Garrick Centre 1/16 – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan @ Odeon Events Centre 1/17 – Calgary, Alberta @ MacEwan Hall 1/19 – Vancouver, British Columbia @ Vogue Theatre 1/20 – Seattle, Wash. @ Studio 7 1/21 – Portland, Ore. @ Hawthorne Theatre 1/23 – San Francisco, Calif. @ The Fillmore 1/24 – Sacramento, Calif. @ Ace Of Spades 1/25 – Los Angeles, Calif. @ Henry Fonda Theatre 1/28 – Tempe, Ariz. @ Marquee Theatre 1/29 – Albuquerque, N.M. @ Sunshine Theatre 1/31 – Dallas, Texas @ Granada Theatre 2/1 – San Antonio, Texas @ White Rabbit 2/3 – Houston, Texas @ Warehouse Live 2/4 – St. Petersburg, Fla. @ State Theater 2/5 – Atlanta, Ga. @ The Masquerade 2/7 – Baltimore, Md. @ Rams Head Live 2/8 – New York, N.Y. @ Irving Plaza 2/9 – Millvale, Pa. @ Mr. Smalls 2/11 – Chicago, Ill. @ House Of Blues 2/13 – Toronto, Ontario @ Phoenix Concert Theatre 2/14 – Montreal, Quebec City @ Le National 2/15 – Worcester, Mass. @ The Palladium 2/16 – Philadelphia, Pa. @ Theatre Of Living Arts [button href=”http://loudwire.com/gojira-joe-duplantier-talks-upcoming-north-american-tour-randy-blythe-explosia-video/” title=”Next: Gojira’s Joe Duplantier Talks to Full Metal Jackie” align=”center”]
Leann Mueller After five straight wins, P.O.D. , ‘Higher’ soars into the Loudwire Cage Match Hall of Fame. The song, which appears on the band’s latest album, ‘Murdered Love,’ took down some worthy opponents along the way. P.O.D. took down their fifth and final competitor, Coheed and Cambria , after beating heavy hitters Hellyeah and Kid Rock , as well as Tremonti and Hinder . Congrats to P.O.D. and their fans on this impressive achievement. Their song ‘Higher’ now joins tunes from such bands as Avenged Sevenfold, Down, Fozzy, Anthrax, Korn, Trivium and more in Loudwire’s Cage Match Hall of Fame. In addition to an upcoming tour with 3 Doors Down and Daughtry, P.O.D. will be performing on the ShipRocked cruise setting sail in late November. Listen to P.O.D., ‘Higher’ [button href=”http://loudwire.com/in-this-moment-maria-brink-p-o-d-sonny-sandoval-shiprocked-2012/” title=”Check Out P.O.D. Frontman Sonny Sandoval talking about Shiprocked 2012″ align=”center”]
Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Gojira frontman Joe Duplantier was the guest on Full Metal Jackie’s radio show this past weekend. He spoke all about the band’s upcoming North American tour with Devin Townsend and Atlas Moth. Duplantier also voiced his opinion on the situation of Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe being imprisoned in the Czech Republic. If you missed Jackie’s show, read the full interview with Joe Duplantier below: Devin Townsend and Atlas Moth, you’re going to be touring with these guys. Just out of curiosity, do the bands on a tour influence or change the way you think about music? Yes absolutely and that’s why we are who we are today is because we toured with all these bands throughout our career. They’ve had an influence on us – the way we behave onstage, the way we play, they way we approach the whole thing, sometimes it’s purely technical like the way they plug in their gear. So we always learn something from touring with people that’s why I’m so happy to tour with Devin, he’s such an incredible singer – one of my influences actually and he’ll be opening for us [Laughs] how crazy is that? We’re all huge fans of Devin Townsend, Strapping Young Lad, it’s a great honor to have him on tour. He’s such an awesome and really intelligent guy so I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of crazy late night conversations between the two of you guys. Yeah [Laughs] sometimes you get lost when you talk with him because it’s so wide – you have a wide range of subjects he can talk about. He’s an awesome guy. Devin sang on your ‘Sea Shepherd’ EP and you sang on his ‘Deconstruction’ album; any chance you’ll be joining each other onstage on this tour? We’re trained to do good, we’re trained to do our homework, we stress all day because we want to give it our best and he’s still like that. It makes it harder to jump onstage for him after he played or for me when I’m warming up. We haven’t talked about it actually but maybe by the end of the tour we will do something together – that would be awesome. We did in Australia one time – it was a disaster [Laughs]. We didn’t get the chance to rehearse the song at all so it was really weird but it was great because we were onstage with Devin and Fredrik [Thordendal] from Meshuggah so it was very exciting to be onstage with those guys – almost too exciting, we played way too fast and I was watching them onstage and made a lot of mistakes on the guitar. Originally, Gojira was on the bill of the Lamb of God tour that got canceled, France isn’t far from the Czech Republic, what surprised you most about Randy’s [Blythe] situation? What surprised me the most was that they were not aware that one of their fans died before they went there. They were so surprised when they arrived there that police came straight there in the plane and took them to jail – the whole band went to jail the first day. I talked to Chris Adler on the phone, the same day and he was so depressed and they were shocked and surprised that it happened. I don’t know something went wrong somewhere that the information didn’t go to them. I’m sure they would do something if they knew a kid died at one of their shows – at least try to reach the family, send some money – the surprise is what made it really bad for them because they’re gentlemen. Randy is such an incredible guy and I’m sure he would have done something before – I just thought about this now while you were asking me the question, for me it was a bad situation, a very sad situation. I saw Randy when he came back, he has a good, strong spirit so he knows how to react to this and he’ll go back there and finish this whole thing. I hope it will turn good for him, I hope he will not give have to give some more money or go to jail. It’s a well known band it would not have been difficult for someone to get a hold of him, for two years to pass and no one to even try – call the venue, call the agent call the manager, it would’ve taken two seconds. It still just baffles me. The Czech Republic is very, very different than France and other countries – yes you’re right it’s not far, it’s like another state for you Americans but in Europe each country is such a different world. I don’t know how it works over there, it seems like they took advantage of that – having a big American star in their jail, maybe they tried to get some money out of this probably. For me it’s just an accident, he’s not guilty of anything, he’s just a rockstar. He’s a beast onstage and you go to see him onstage, you’re not supposed to be onstage. Anybody who’s been to a Lamb of God show knows it can get violent down there and to go onto the stage while somebody’s performing, it’s not smart. Yeah absolutely, I kicked so many people off stage. Sometimes people get onstage and they dance in front of the microphone so I cannot even see the crowd with them in front of me so I just kick this person, nicely but it could turn out bad. This person could fall on their head and now everybody’s thinking about what happened and I talk to a lot of singers and they said “Never again they will touch a fan, it’s too dangerous.” The new video for ‘Explosia’ really shows the intensity of Gojira live. On tour how do you come down from so much adrenaline? I think it’s the faith that we have in what we do. We really, truly, deeply embrace our music and believe in what we do, I usually say that we’re not great musicians – Mario [Duplaniter] is a very good drummer and he’s very stable, he’s very tight and inventive and he can groove but the rest of us [Laughs] my God it’s a big mess. If you could hear the separate tracks of each show, every guitar player knows when you move your head, you dance on the stage or whatever, it’s hard to play tight so we’re also very, very focused and we try to deliver a very tight show. That show was really hard for us because it was really hot and the stage is small so at one point we said “You know what, let’s be a punk band tonight” [Laughs] because we did this tour recently in the States in small clubs and it was awesome to go back to small clubs and to feel the craziness of the crowd and the heat. I don’t know when we jam onstage we just play our music which is the thing we like the most in life and we feel inspired by this music in general. Full Metal Jackie will welcome Mark Osegueda of Death Angel on her next show. Full Metal Jackie can be heard on radio stations around the country — for a full list of stations, go to fullmetaljackieradio.com .
Liz Ramanand, Loudwire When Gwar comes to town, all of the earthlings know to break out their white t-shirts and get ready for some gore, as these talented alien warlords put on one hell of a show. Earlier this week New Yorkers got a serious treat as DevilDriver, Cancer Bats and Legacy of Disorder graced the stage with Gwar at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg. As Gwar seized the stage in front of us mere mortals, we watched the band claim their first victim of the night who was none other than presidential candidate Mitt Romney (or some guy dressed up like Romney who was later decapitated). Other casualties included Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ, just to name a few. Plus, the evening provided multiple robot/monster fights and massive amounts of (fake) blood drenching the crowd. Gwar front-thing Oderus Urungus also did not hesitate to take jabs at those humans named Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson , who were set to play New York the night after. In between the mockery and the slaughter, Gwar played favorites such as ‘Sadaam a Go-Go,’ ‘Bring Back the Bomb’ and ‘Sick Of You,’ the latter of which found new guitarist Pustulus Maximus doing some serious shredding. They also played a new tune called ‘Madness at the Core of Time,’ a cover of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and their take on Kansas ’ ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ among numerous others. Direct supporting band DevilDriver infected the venue with their venomous tracks. Frontman Dez Fafara sounded impeccable, despite troubles with the mic at the beginning of the set. The band also got some hair flying as headbangers belted out the words to anthems such as ‘Not All Who Are Lost Wander,’ ‘I Could Care Less,’ ‘Dead to Rights,’ ‘Meet the Wretched,’ ‘End of the Line,’ and more. DevilDriver’s vigor and energy was much too large for the minuscule stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Cancer Bats frontman Liam Cormier avoided the stage altogether as he spent the entire set face-to-face with the front row. These young Canadians won over a new set of East Coast fans as they pulled on the heart strings of the New York crowd, who exploded when they performed their rendition of ‘Sabotage’ by the Beastie Boys . New Zealanders Legacy of Disorder opened the night with a hard hitting set of metal madness. For a full list of remaining dates where you can have a bloody good time with these bands, check here . [button href=”http://loudwire.com/gwar-oderus-urungus-slams-rob-zombie-claims-credit-for-slipknot/” title=”Next: Gwar Slams Rob Zombie” align=”center”] Gwar: Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire DevilDriver: Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Cancer Bats: Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Legacy of Disorder: Liz Ramanand, Loudwire Liz Ramanand, Loudwire
Toby Canham, Getty Images / Relapse “Who’s more evil than Larry King?” asks Pig Destroyer vocalist J.R. Hayes before the band’s ultra-violent set in Brooklyn last night (Oct. 18). We got to speak with the entirety of Pig Destroyer for a rare interview, when the subject of discussion took an unexpected turn towards iconic broadcaster Larry King. With Pig Destroyer about to release their punishing fifth studio album, ‘Book Burner,’ we went in depth about the record during our exclusive interview and hit on one of their new tracks, ‘The Bug.’ Widely known for their use of samples within their music, a demonically-manipulated voice begins to recite a quote as ‘The Bug’ leads off: “This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty … what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse.” “That’s a pretty famous quote from Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Cancer,’” says Hayes. “It’s a book from the ’30s where he’s an ex-patriot in France. He’s very much talking about how art can be offensive but still artful at the same time. That quote always struck me as kind of resonant.” Pig Destroyer guitarist and producer Scott Hull interjected with a fascinating truth about the audio used for the quote. “It’s Larry King,” reveals Hull. “He read ‘Tropic of Cancer’ for a book on tape.” Funnily enough, Hayes was unaware that King possessed the disembodied voice within ‘The Bug,’ and acknowledged that his mind was official blown. ‘Book Burner’ won’t be available to purchase until next week, but to hear ‘The Bug’ along with the rest of the new album, NPR has got an exclusive stream of the record in full. Stay tuned for our full interview with the deathgrind innovators of Pig Destroyer. [button href=”http://www.npr.org/2012/10/14/162728112/first-listen-pig-destroyer-book-burner#playlist” title=”Listen to Pig Destroyer’s ‘Book Burner’ in Full” align=”center”]
Facebook: Finch Finch were one of the more promising bands of the early 2000s, but label and band issues eventually led to their split in 2010. However, the group members have been talking of late and decided to reunite to pay tribute to their stellar major label debut, ‘What It Is to Burn,’ which is celebrating its tenth anniversary. The disc spawned three singles, led by the outstanding title track and followed by ‘New Beginnings’ and ‘Letters to You.’ The ‘What It Is to Burn’ single recently placed at No. 47 on Loudwire’s Top 21st Century Hard Rock Songs list. However, the group had trouble maintaining that momentum after their breakout disc. In 2006 they went on hiatus so that the band members could pursue other projects, but a year later the discussion of a Finch DVD got the group talking again and they decided to reform. The band started showcasing new material and released a four-song EP with plans to follow with a full-length. Unfortunately, a period of inactivity followed and that third studio album never came to fruition. Recently, the band members have been more active in posting material on their Facebook page, leading to speculation that something was in the works. They confirmed their reunion in a posting that read: Finch will be reuniting to commemorate the 10th anniversary of ‘What It Is to Burn’ on Feb. 1, 2013 at the Glasshouse in Pomona, Calif. We are excited to play ‘What It Is to Burn’ from front to back in its entirety. Ticket information will be released soon. We’ll see you at the show! Love Finch, Nate Barcalow, Randy Strohmeyer, Alex Linares, Daniel Wonacott and Alex Pappas It is not known whether or not Finch will continue beyond the one date.