[It turns out our most recent guest writer, Danimal or Buffalo, is a fan GWAR. The American band is often termed "shock rock" and if you're among the few people to not know them, you'll soon find out why. Not only do they do cheesy gruesome stuff though, they also manage to play quite a piece of Metal. Let DoB take you through their most recent album, The Bloody Pit of Horror, released in 2010.]

As some of you may know already Cory Smoot a.k.a Flattus Maximus from GWAR has recently passed away in the middle of their tour. To me it only seems fitting to write this piece in honor of him. If you don’t know, Cory was a very big part of GWAR. He was a man among men.

The recent album The Bloody Pit of Horror was so quick to fly out of the studio as Cory had about four albums worth of material ready for recording, so really all they had to do was get Beefcake to slap some bass lines down and Jizmak to do some drums and they were laughing their way out of the studio. The album is definitely a different sound compared to earlier material, as Cory had recently completed his design of the Schecter, known as The Maximus guitar. It has eight strings. Yes, eight strings. A single EMG 81 pick up on the bridge and great decals / inlays on the neck. To a lot of GWAR fans this passing of Cory Smoot is a big thing. And with Casey Orr leaving recently GWAR has taken a double shot right to the heart.

A couple of months ago we published an interview with France’s Arkan, which was taken by Kilik2049. In reality Kilik2049 is called Simon and he is one of the two guitarists / vocalists in a beginning French band based out of Le Mans – yes, that’s where they do those 24-hour races. The band’s called Blind Tears and they do a grungy piece of Doom Metal. And of course we’re happy to return the favor and give them some air time.

They’ve got a collection of twelve songs out that they’ve titled First Tears. Catchy! It’s not all up to standards yet and the recording quality is poor, but it’s clear the band has some interesting ideas they’re working on. They’re mixing a very classic Metal feel with depressing darkness and doom elements. Sabbath and Iron Maiden are the most apparent influences and these then are mixed with fifty cans of bleach and fifty more of tar.

Although referred to as the Godfathers of Metal, Black Sabbath literally gave birth to Heavy Metal with their self-entitled debut Black Sabbath released in 1970. Yesterday, which was Heavy Metal Day for your information, the guys announced their reunion using a video which featured some video footage of them in their heyday.

This incarnation of the band will feature the original line-up with Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward and will involve in extensive touring all over the world. They will be among others headlining Download Festival next year June 10th. They will also release the first new album in 33 years (that is with this line-up).

Guess what, been looking about a bit and it turns out Mastodon is playing The Wiltern the day after Asking Alexandria. If you like both – and you’ve got cash – you can turn it into a nice long music-rich weekend in LA or something. In support for Mastodon are The Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang. Not the least of Metal! You can get the Mastodon tickets here.

And finally, because we never like to not give you something to listen to, here’s the track Curl of the Burl from Mastodon’s The Hunter album, a little something for those that missed the full The Hunter album stream we covered the other day. The track’s music video was recently published on YT, so this may be new to others too.

Today we’re rockin out to a new gem from the States. Darlings of the Underground (what a name) deliver us Hard Rock with a fresh sound. Their first single Panzer is catchy, solid and promising.

And from the underground they are! You’re asking for background information? Take a look on their website. Nothing. They come from Charlotte, North Carolina. No, but seriously. The Darlings are in fact a bunch of really nice guys. When I asked drummer Neel Jadeja for some information he was kind enough to provide me with some detailed information.

It may be cheating a little to include Black Thai in our Rockin’ Out series, but their style of Stoner/Doom Metal is the “boiling point” for me. The level at which Hard Rock begins to bubble with something heavier.

Black Thai formed in 2009 in the Boston area and have released an EP in 2010 and a split earlier this year. Our focus today will be on the 2010 EP Blood From on High. To give due credit, this post by GroverXIII at TNOTB brought these guys to my attention. Since then I’ve listened to this EP several times and it rocks the fuck out.

“I’m a dude who likes metal. I’m weird. You should be too.” These are the words of Ben Robson, a.k.a. Orbsonb, the sole perpetrator of Robot Zombie Army. Back on August 25^th he released his “debut(ish)” EP titled 42 EP. Five original tracks written and performed by Ben and a sixth track which is a cover of Celine Dion’s Titanic hit My Heart Will Go On. This young man is definitely a student of Metal of all types and a very skilled multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter.

The other day TNOTB had a post featuring Kittie’s new video for the song We are the Lamb from their just released album, I’ve Failed You. That song inspired me to listen to the iTunes previews of every song on the album. After two listens to each preview I bought the album. Now, I was a fan of their debut, Spit, when it came out in ’99, though partially ’cause of the novelty of a Metal band of teen girls. I don’t listen to Spit anymore but I do occasionally listen to the follow-up, Oracle. I sampled some tunes from their next three albums but didn’t find anything to convince me that Oracle wasn’t their best, until now.

From one of the world’s coolest cities, Berlin, we feature Declamatory today. They deliver a solid piece of Melodic Death Metal, with a focus on groove and punch. They term it Metal 2.0 and further describe it as ”expressive and powerful” themselves and they’ve been doing it since 2000.

The group of five claims to be working on a new record currently, but as far as I can figure out, their most recent work is from 2009. It’s an EP called Losing Patience with the World and it’s downloadable for exactly zippo currency – link at the end of this post. The EP contains five songs, one of which is included in this post.

Credits to Jonas for handing us this band on a silver platter.

© PHRENETICA Photography & Design

Ah, Soundgarden. I’m pretty sure that anyone who’s listened to any heavy music or even just Rock radio in the past sixteen or so years has heard of them, thanks to Black Hole Sun. That song alone isn’t responsible for their wide-spread success, several songs from the Superunknown and Down on the Upside albums enjoyed lots of radio play. That’s not what we’re diggin’ into today.

Many people don’t realise that the band formed waaayyyy back in 1984. Nearly a decade before the height of the Grunge movement they’re usually associated with and the release of the songs they’re best known for. So, today we’re going one album back from Superunknown to 1991′s Badmotorfinger, my personal favorite Soundgarden album.