Okay, that headline's not totally accurate, though you might think it is if you're a younger person, because Eastern Europe just got through hosting the "Big Four" concerts with Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. (There'll be a DVD release later this year, showcasing the Sofia, Bulgaria show that was broadcast to movie theaters.)

But in fact, in a throwback to 1991, the same lineup of bands that performed on the Clash of the Titans tour way back when—Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer—will be co-headlining the next leg of the American Carnage tour, starting September 24. Megadeth will play Rust in Peace front to back (plus some other songs), Slayer will play Seasons in the Abyss front to back (plus some other songs), and Anthrax will play...well, no formal set list has been announced, but running through Persistence of Time would take an hour all by itself, so they probably won't be doing that.

A special pre-sale will launch this Wednesday, July 14, and fans should log on to Slayer.net, Megadeth.com or Anthrax.com to obtain the special code needed for the pre-sale, and then go to Ticketmaster.com (KnoxvilleTickets.com​ for the Knoxville date) to purchase tickets. The public on-sale will begin July 23 in most markets.

There will be special $10 tickets for some shows, and discounts for pre-sale purchase, as listed below.

Here are the confirmed dates:

Sep. 24 - Verizon Wireless Theatre, Dallas, TX*
Sep. 25 - AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX*
Sep. 26 - Verizon Wireless Theatre, Houston, TX*
Sep. 28 - Lakefront Arena, New Orleans, LA*
Sep. 30 - Civic Coliseum, Knoxville, TN
Oct. 01 - The Arena at Gwinnett Center, Atlanta, GA*
Oct. 02 - Hard Rock Live, Orlando, FL
Oct. 03 - Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami, FL*
Oct. 05 - Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA
Oct. 06 - Eagles Auditorium, Baltimore, MD*
Oct. 08 - Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, Long Island, NY*
Oct. 09 - Toyota Pavilion @ Montage Mountain, Scranton, PA*
Oct. 10 - LC Pavilion, Columbus, OH**
Oct. 12 - Freedom Hall, Louisville, KY
Oct. 14 - War Memorial Coliseum, Ft.Wayne, IN*
Oct. 15 - DeltaPlex, Grand Rapids, MI*
Oct. 16 - Eagles Ballroom, Milwaukee, WI**
Oct. 19 - E Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Oct. 20 - The Pearl, Las Vegas, NV
Oct. 21 - Gibson Amphitheatre, Hollywood, CA*

* $10 discount for tickets purchased during pre-sale (excluding the special $10 tickets)
** $5 discount for tickets purchased during pre-sale
 

Hellyeah, the supergroup featuring vocalist Chad Gray and guitarist Greg Tribbett of Mudvayne, guitarist Tom Maxwell of Nothingface, bassist Bob "Bobzilla" Kakaha of Damageplan, and drummer Vinnie Paul of Pantera and Damageplan, found a fairly shocking amount of success—given the shrunken state of the record business—with their self-titled 2007 debut CD. After a few years of hard touring (with time off for Mudvayne to release an album in between), they'r back with the follow-up, Stampede. And we've got it streaming for you here, exclusively!

Clicking on the album cover image immediately below will allow you to listen to Stampede from beginning to end, well in advance of its release on Tuesday, July 13. It's another balls-out blast of redneck metal, so if you liked the debut, you're sure to enjoy this one. Post your thoughts in comments.




 

So Shadows Fall guitarists Matt Bachand and Jon Donais, Seemless bassist Jeff Fultz and Unearth drummer Derek Kerswill have formed a new, as-yet-unnamed band, recorded a five-song demo, and are now actively seeking a vocalist.

"We are looking for one crazy bastard with the energy, the drive, and the determination to take this thing to the next level," says Bachand. According to Donais, "The vocalist we seek should be influenced by a variety of melodically based bands anywhere from Alice in Chains, Shinedown, and Aerosmith to Skid Row and Pantera."

All applicants must be serious about the position and must be able to tour extensively. Submissions should include a bio and list of past experience, photo, audio and/or video performance, and any other information you would like the band to know. (Nasty floor-length dreads not required.) Demo submissions and contact info should be sent to iamdrunk666@gmail.co​m.

 

(Eyehategod, a band that knows about heat and humidity.)

It's punishingly hot on the East Coast this week. Walk outside for more than ten minutes and you feel like your brain is sticking to the inside of your skull, like your blood is turning to hot syrup. So when does it become too hot to listen to metal?

Plenty of metal bands come from hot parts of the country—Pantera were from Texas, where it's regularly over 100 degrees. Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer are/were all from California, though Dave Mustaine lives in Arizona now. And when you're talking heat, you've also got to consider humidity, which is where Eyehategod, from the steaming swamp that is New Orleans, come in. Or Cannibal Corpse, who actually moved from the relatively temperate climate of upstate New York to the sweltering hell of Florida to join Morbid Angel, Deicide and others. But Eyehategod seem like the only one of these bands whose music is an appropriate response to heat. Who wants to run around in a moshpit when it's over 90? You want to sit down and periodically towel the sweat off yourself, and that's about it.

So is it ever too hot to listen to metal at all? Does the music's aggression elevate your body temperature to the point that in a particularly tropical mid-July, it's just too uncomfortable? I know there are days when I just want to sit in a chair with a fan blowing on me and listen to smooth, minimal techno from Germany. And even relatively slick metal (In Flames, say, who despite their heated name come from frigid Sweden) is too much.

Are there metal records that can actually cool a hot person down? Suggestions are welcome.
 

In the early '70s, America didn't have much of a hard rock scene. Most of the biggest bands were from England: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Free, Humble Pie, et al. Only a few bands were starting to make an impact Stateside—in Boston, there was a Stonesy act named Aerosmith, and in the Bay Area there was the seriously hard-rocking quartet Montrose.

Formed by former Edgar Winter Group guitarist Ronnie Montrose, who'd also worked as a session player for Van Morrison, Herbie Hancock and others, the band played a stripped-down but slick brand of hard rock that moved beyond blues jamming into something that would soon be called heavy metal. One major weapon in Montrose's arsenal was their vocalist, a frizzy-haired belter named Sammy Hagar.

The band recorded its self-titled debut in 1973 with producer Ted Templeman, who five years later would man the boards for Van Halen. Indeed, it's often been said that VH used the Montrose album as a blueprint in the studio when recording their first album. Montrose contained several songs that didn't make much impact on radio at the time, but later became hard rock anthems, like "Bad Motor Scooter," "Rock the Nation," "Space Station #5," and "Rock Candy."

The group made a follow-up album, Paper Money, in 1974; this one was more overtly commercial and less ferocious, with only "I Got the Fire" retaining the screaming force of the debut. But songs like "Spaceage Sacrifice" and the title track still struck a chord with audiences, and Montrose remained a popular touring act.

Unfortunately, Hagar left the band to pursue a solo career, and Ronnie Montrose was forced to begin a string of membership changes that ultimately harmed the group's commercial prospects. These days, they're a memory in the heads and hearts of '70s rock fanatics, but they do have one thing no one can take away from them: They were the first band in America to get worse when Sammy Hagar left instead of when he arrived.






 

This Sunday is Independence Day, so we're gonna celebrate that fact with some of the most balls-out, all-American videos around. Enjoy!

Sammy Hagar, "VOA"


Ted Nugent, "Wango Tango"


Sacred Reich, "The American Way"


Megadeth, "Symphony of Destruction"


Corrosion of Conformity, "Vote With a Bullet"


Happy Birthday, America!
 

(Bruce Dickinson, 2008.)

Next Monday (July 12), I'm going to see Iron Maiden at Madison Square Garden in NYC. This will be my fifth time seeing the band, and based on the set list that's been widely circulated online, I'm expecting to have a great time. They're concentrating on songs from their last four albums, all released in the 2000s, with just a few old ones sprinkled in.

I love seeing Maiden not only because they're such showmen—elaborate stage sets, Bruce Dickinson and the rest of them leaping and bounding around like men half their age—but because they switch it up every time they tour. When I saw them in 2004 at a small theater supporting Dance of the Dead, they played a "greatest hits" set but included a lot of songs from that album; the following year, they played a straight-up career-spanning show at the Garden, with every song you could possibly want to hear; then in 2005, on Ozzfest, they played only songs from their first four albums; and in 2008, on the Somewhere Back In Time tour, they focused on the four albums after that. (Yeah, I missed the tour where they played A Matter of Life and Death in its entirety, and although I like that record, I'm glad I did.) So every time I've seen them, it's been a very different show.

I've seen a lot of other bands three times: Amon Amarth, Motörhead, Slayer, Isis, High on Fire, Arch Enemy, Slipknot, Machine Head...Some have been memorably different from show to show. Others have not.

The first time I saw Machine Head, they were promoting The Burning Red, their worst album. Robb Flynn had Coolio-style braids. It was awful. The next two times I saw them, they had made an aesthetic and commercial comeback, and were supporting The Blackening—first at a co-headlining gig with Arch Enemy (who I'd previously seen opening for Maiden, and on Ozzfest), and then opening for Metallica. They were playing much better songs, but their essential goofy, boneheaded, happy-to-be-here demeanor had, if anything, grown even more pronounced. Flynn is up there with Phil Anselmo when it comes to not knowing when to stop bantering and play the next song.


(Arch Enemy, anytime in the last 5-7 years.)

Arch Enemy aren't very different year to year. They deliver melodic death metal with brutal efficiency. Slipknot, too, are pros. I've seen them three times, and they've always been terrific, but their rage is under exquisite control. Slayer deliver almost the same set from tour to tour. Right now they're playing Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety, but next year they'll be back to their "fan favorites and two new songs" pattern, I guarantee it. The one time they surprised me was when I saw them on their first U.S. tour with Dave Lombardo back in the drum seat—they went deep into their back catalog, pulling out songs like "Die By the Sword" and "Evil Has No Boundaries." I loved it, but I wondered if there were younger fans left baffled by these ancient metal anthems.

The thing is, I often don't go out of my way to see bands more than once. A band I want to see will be touring with a band I've seen before, or they'll all be jammed together on a festival bill, or something. So I'm curious what draws people to go see the same bands over and over again—either in multiple years, or multiple shows on the same tour, the most baffling thing of all in metal, where "jamming" and surprises are highly unlikely. If you do this, tell me why in comments. I'm genuinely curious.
 

One of the more fascinatingly weird prog/power metal bands of the '80s, Crimson Glory, will have their entire discography remastered and released as a five-CD boxed set by the Polish label Metal Mind in August. In Dark Places… 1986-2000 will contain all of Crimson Glory's studio albums: Crimson Glory, Transcendence, Strange and Beautiful and Astronomica (the latter being a two-CD set). The box, which is limited to 1000 copies, also includes bonus tracks, such as songs taken from singles, videos, live or demo tracks, and a 60-page booklet.

The group formed in 1982, sticking out because they all wore silver masks, completely covering their faces—except for vocalist Midnight, who left his mouth exposed, obviously. This might seem cheesy, the kind of thing a "sinister" heavy metal band in an episode of Columbo from the '70s might do, but for some reason they managed to pull it off...until they went on tour and realized the masks were too hot to play in, whereupon they cut them down somewhat. They weren't just about image, though—their songs were anthemic and occasionally quite beautiful, particularly on the debut. They had real talent.

The group had a moderate hit with "Lonely," from 1988's Transcendence, but never really managed to break through, and membership upheavals (particularly Midnight's departure) eventually fractured the group. They reunited in recent years, but then Midnight died in 2009 of liver and kidney failure. The band now has a new lead vocalist, but a new studio album is unlikely. In any case, the box promises to be a kick in the ass for fans of cult prog and power metal.

Here's the video for "Lonely":