Download: Here

Here’s the list!

• 09/28 Columbus, OH Skully’s
• 09/29 Buffalo, NY Mohawk Place
• 09/30 Brooklyn, NY Europa
• 10/01 Hartford, CT Webster Underground
• 10/02 Bucksport, ME The Kave
• 10/03 Quebec, QC Imperial de Quebec
• 10/04 Montreal, QC Petit Café
• 10/05 Ottawa, ON Ritual
• 10/06 Toronto, ON The Wreck Room
• 10/07 Lemoyne, PA Championship
• 10/08 Richmond, VA Canal Club
• 10/09 Wilmington, NC The Soapbox Laundrolounge
• 10/10 Charlotte, NC The Casbah
• 10/12 East St. Louis, MO Pop’s
• 10/13 Des Moines, IA The Vaudeville Mews
• 10/14 DeKalb, IL House Café
• 10/15 Grand Rapids, MI Mixtape Café
• 10/16 Toledo, OH Headliners

9. Destroyer 666 – Defiance

This is about as close to black metal as I can get without feeling uncomfortable. You know, that same feeling you get around somebody who’s holding scissors that shouldn’t be allowed to hold scissors. I can’t remember exactly why I decided to give it a listen in the first place, but it had something to do with a description I read somewhere that it was “Blackened Thrash Metal”…and some doobed out reasoning along the lines of “I like chicken, and I really like blackened chicken, so let’s see how it goes.” My favorite track is definitely “Weapons of Conquest”.

8. Goatwhore – Carving Out the Eyes of God

I had never listened to Goatwhore before listening to this album, but I’m sure glad as hell I decided to check them out…this is fucking demolition derby metal, my friends. The opening track is enough to make me want to strap knives onto my Mazda and enter the ring. “Who needs a god, when you’ve got SATAN!” Fucking aye!

7. Lay Down Rotten – Gospel of the Wretched

If you haven’t heard this album (and you probably haven’t), you’re missing out, plain and simple. If you like Amon Amarth, but you’re looking for something with a little more depth and complexity, look no further. These tracks are juicy, the rhythms will pound you, and you will feel the glory of battle.

6. Jungle Rot – What Horrors Await

There’s something just unbelievably fun about this album. It’s muddy. It’s ballsy. It’s simple. It hits hard. Love it. Who can say no to a track entitled “Exit Wounds”? Yeah, nobody.

5. Revocation – Existence is Futile

Thrashy, beautiful, original. Retro, experimental, solo-tastic. Why haven’t I heard of these guys before? There’s something nostalgic, something familiar about the guitar work here that just feels right, and their performance is tight as hell. Forests and Fjords forever.

4. The Black Dahlia Murder – Deflorate

Yeah, I pretty much love these guys. You can’t watch Majesty and not, really. They love what they do, they’re serious about it, and it fucking shows. I am looking forward to hearing more, especially with a well-acclimated Ryan Knight on the roster.

3. Slayer – World Painted Blood

Now this is an evolution I can get behind. I love the album enough by itself, but, in addition to it being awesome, it gave me a new appreciation for like…every Slayer album ever. When I heard World Painted Blood in its entirety for the first time, it rekindled something inside me that…fucking loves Slayer.

2. Job for a Cowboy – Ruination

Funny how a release I initially cringed at gradually made it damn near to the fucking top-of-my-top-of-the-year, right? Yeah, you heard me: I didn’t even like it when it came out. I soon discovered that my problem was a combination of me being so in love with the quirky, sporadic sound of Doom and the fact that Ruination… sounds nothing like Doom. I just didn’t see eye to eye with the people who praised the departure as an evolution to “real death metal” or whatever the fuck; I like my metal WEIRD, and I think their first two albums are nothing short of genius. I took a step back, looked at all of their releases, and saw the beautiful evolution that has taken place. If you give this album a serious listen, you’re sure to see they haven’t lost those bizarre twisting, jutting foundations that lie at the heart of every track.

1. Gorod – Process of a New Decline

What can I say about this album I haven’t already? Technically impressive, groovin’, quirky, ethereal, brutal…they manage to be tight as fuck and all over the goddamn place all at once. Death metal with a swing beat? Jesus. With my attention span what it is, it takes mad skills to put together an entire collection of tracks I don’t skip to the ends of “after the cool part’s over”. This album gets 8 gold stars and a banana sticker.

Listen to the magic that begins at 2:50 !!!!!

Honorable Mentions (whatever the fuck that means):

Lamb of God – Wrath

Behemoth – Evangelion

Darkest Hour – The Eternal Return

Daath – The Concealers

I really, really like some of the songs on these CDs, I just didn’t like enough of them enough to feel comfortable saying they were among my favorites of the year. They’re definitely good albums, though. After about an hour of trying to decide between the three of them which one got the #10 spot, I says, “Buh, honorable mentions.” I’d venture to guess Wrath is closest to making #10. The album was great, but in its entirety just wasn’t interesting enough for me.

Other than these, of course we got Crack the Skye…I wudn’t really feelin’ that one. Skeletonwitch is awesome, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to enjoy their CDs nearly as much as their live shows. Baroness is good, but I can’t help but feel like they’re overrated. “A Horse Called Golgotha” from Blue Record is definitely awesome, but I didn’t enjoy the rest of the tracks as much. Who knows, as with any metal albums, any one of these CDs could end up being my favorite in a month or two, heh.

Happy New Year – Spread the Love.

The sweet, dying sigh of the guitar line in “Ingest The Ash” is refreshing, while I don’t understand the use of Vari-Fi in the middle (aren’t we done with that plug-in yet?) I adore the screaming that tears out of it. “Embarrassment Legacy” is really smooth (the beginning tones somehow remind me of “11th Hour-”ish Lamb Of God.) That track is topped off by a very precisely played blast section towards the end, mostly due to the punishing assault of drums – this may be Brad Fickeisen’s best recorded-performance to date.

I like that their tracks average a little over 2 minutes, that they’re in and out, point made, no need to rehash… other than the repeated lyrical lines which have their individual impact on your soul… some of them angst-fueling.

“While I was counting hours, you were counting fists.”

“My life’s work, forgotten.”

The longest musical journey on the album is the final track, “Sleepless Nights In The Compound.” Feel free to get lost in it and let it drag you around. Once you finish, you could just kick it back to the second track “Hour of Rats” and unleash.

The new effort from The Red Chord, out on Metal Blade Records now, will sit strongly in their own album repertoire and is better than their oft-coupled tourmates’ “Deflorate.” If I had my way, I’d say next time Black Dahlia Murder and The Red Chord go out together, The Red Chord headlines.

Knuckles First: I saw you guys are headlining The Bonecrusher Fest with 3 Inches of Blood in the UK?
Ryan Knight: All of Europe, the UK is in there too.

KF: Is this your first time in the UK?
RK: This is my second time with them going to the UK. But they’ve been over there a lot of time since 2003, 2004.

KF: Do you like it?
RK: Oh Yeah, I like the UK.

KF: Crowds Different than here?
RK: Uh, you know what, the UK is a lot like the US. The UK is kind of like the US, the take everything that they think is in the US, and just glorify it. The rest of Europe is, uh they still have their own lines. But not too different.

KF: Have you been acquainted with the illadelph gift?
RK:Oh the Bong! The black bong. Yeah yeah. We don’t bring it on tour. But uh, yeah I’ve definitely seen it. I can’t say that I’ve smoked out of it yet.

KF: So obviously, Deflorate was the beginning of your interaction with the band.  After the CD release, tour, Mayhem Fest…How do you feel like your role has changed or grown?
RK: I don’t feel weird being in the band. I’ve played well over 100 shows with them so far — It’s been a pretty rigorous tour. I don’t know, I just feel like with the album out now, I definitely feel more apart of the band.

KF: What’s your position in the band? Is it similar to the shoes that you had in Arsis?
RK: In Arsis, we split the leads. Because you know James did leads. I guess in BD I’m the lead player. Just help contribution the writing. Brian is really cool. I think John didn’t contribute too much. I know they said towards the end John wasn’t even writing solos.

KF: As a band how do you guys feel being in the Billboard top 200 for 3 weeks?
RK: We are pretty stoked. I mean we’re out here doing the thing. Luckily it’s going pretty well. But yeah, good times.

KF: Black Dahlia Murder seeing amazing growth and success, do you get to play a lot of smaller shows like here at the Basement?
RK: We still do the major market shows, and, normally when we do a tour like this, we make a bunch of stops at smaller venues. I think we will always play plenty of smaller venues. The band came from playing in VFW halls, and places like that…I personally like playing the smaller venues, when it gets packed out. It’s a big part of the bands fan base.

KF: I saw a video on YouTube with you teaching how to play an Arsis song. Are you going to more stuff like that in the future?
RK: Yeah, Probably, in the future. I like doing stuff that, ya know. I mean, people seem to appreciate it. I don’t know when, but I’ll get around to it.

(photo credit: supercharger5150)

Jason Suecof is back at the board: he covered mixing responsibilities and co-produced the effort with the Black Dahlia and Mark Lewis (who has done work with Deicide.) One of the first things I noticed (other than the superb playing and song structure) is how clean the production is. I must admit, I feel completely torn by this due to the fact that engineers (of which I am one) should ALWAYS be improving their sound and the sound of their bands so I WANT this album to sound amazing…but I think some of the brutality may be lost in the splendor of the sound – I’d love for the album to have a bit of the grit, the dirty, the raw, perhaps on the level of Unhallowed (which is ranked right up there with some of my favourite metal albums of all time.) I have no doubt that some of that grit will be experienced during their live shows. I promise not to miss them next time…

Although the title of the album Deflorate, by definition, means the point past the flowering state, post-pollen shedding, The Black Dahlia Murder is in no way past their prime bloom. Deflorate delves even deeper lyrically than Nocturnal, and with the addition of Ryan Knight of Arsis, we find BDM expanding musically as well. Shannon Lucas’s drumming is exceptionally brutal and supports the rest of the instrumentation without fail, while Trevor’s vocals, sitting nicely in the mix, scream and shriek and command our attention to his message. I know I find myself enraptured…

Standout tracks for me are “Throne of Lunacy” and “Necropolis,” which is the first single off the new record (check out Revolver.com for the video if you’d like…) “That Which Erodes The Most Tender” sounds the most like what I’d like to hear from BDM and the only truly odd spot on the record is “I Will Return.”  As though Black Dahlia Murder wanted to dip a toe into the frigid waters of Viking Metal, the song reminds me of Amon Amarth’s “Twilight of The Thunder Gods.” A-B it yourself, I’m sure you’ll hear it too…

Don’t be afraid to budget in Deflorate from your next paycheck, the album drops September 15th and should become a part of your regular Ipod playlists as the seasons change and all the living green things start to wilt and die. A perfect soundtrack.

A note from Butters: Unlike Katie, I was able to see BDM’s performance at Mayhem Fest (Blossom – Cleveland), this was my first time witnessing their brutalness live (I changed my pants after). They did play Necropolis for us, because, we are awesome. Unlike Katie and her awesome BBQ outing, I had to wait in line to see them. Enough of my jealous rants, back to Deflorate! First round of this I immediately realized that this was going to an epic ablum. The new solos from Ryan Knight has taken this band to a new level. I believe I read somewhere that Shannon mentioned that this was his “Most Technical Album”. I couldn’t agree with him more. But yet again, they still are the fun boys that we’ve all grown to love (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d recommend watching Majesty DVD) in the new music video for Necropolis (check it out here).

My two favorite tracks are going to be, Necropolis and That Which Erodes The Most Tender. I’m going to agree with Katie, this album is amazing, go buy this. Place it on your iPod and let your Mom listen. She’ll love it. If she doesn’t have her call me. Because, Black Dahlia Murder has yet again, amazed me. The new line up, is amazing, technical, and brutal.  I’m highly looking forward to a possible interview, and face melting here in Columbus Ohio, on “Rocktober” 25th.

The Black Dahlia Murder Myspace

Buy Deflorate on 9/15 Here, and Here, and Here

Buy Majesty DVD Here!