Blog: crustcake

Get your grills fired up! Whip out the Slip n' Slide! But leave your sunscreen at home, because this heat will roast your ass anyway. Torche and Big Business are heading out on tour this summer, and it's gonna get wild all over the nation. Wherever they play, the block is hot. Both bands lay on the hooks and humor with their heaviness, so they're the perfect Summer time combo. Helms Alee will

Vinyl vixens, your shopping list never stops growing.Hot on the heels of Horseback and Locrian's announcement that they will appear at Milwaukee's Utech Festival, the two will also grace a 7" set for release next week through the label Turgid Animal. If any two bands were destined to do a split together, it's Horseback and Locrian. Both are testing the limits of how abstract metal can be,

French black metallers Celestia are heading to North America later this month, and while they're sticking to the East Coast and Canada, it's a bountiful offering compared to 2009's sole US show in New York (which Sean reviewed). The group specializes in sorrowful, deceptively "pretty" black metal, not unlike Alcest had Neige (who also happens to be a former member of the band) stuck closer to his

Not ones to mince words, Seattle's down-n'-dirty death punks Black Breath just released the following statement regarding the new album we told you about back in February:We just finished tracking a new LP that will be released later this year on Southern Lord Records and are playing some more U.S. dates this month. Come July we will be heading overseas to do a European tour, dates of which will

Seattle black/death blasters Book of Black Earth have been laying pretty low since the release of 2008's critically-acclaimed Horoskopus. Mastermind TJ Cowgill has been busy cranking out caps for Kanye with his boutique clothing label, Actual Pain, and getting freaky with his one-man, gothic folk project, King Dude, all to much fanfare outside of the metal community. Good news, then, for you BoBE

[Photo by Samantha Marble]Well, it happened again: an injury has sidelined yet another Weedeater tour. Those North Carolina boys just can't catch a break, can they? Last year, "Dixie" Dave Collins shot his big toe off, indefinitely delaying their 2010 tour. Time passed, scabs healed, bongs were ripped and the three-piece got around to recording their latest slab of Southern discomfort, Jason ...

In our coverage of SXSW, you heard us gush about Canadian noise rockers KEN mode (pictured) and San Francisco blackened ones Deafheaven. Well, in case you don't live in Austin or didn't want to plunge into a Hipstamatic Holocaust, the two groups will be touring the States this summer. You'll be hearing from these bands a lot in the coming months, so it's imperative you make it out to at least one

Every single Wednesday without fail, your hosts post a suitably stale video clip that we think needs to be revisited. Click here for more Crusty Clips. Got a clip you think we should post? Send it to crustcake@gmail.com.By Andrew Wilhelm (TX)This week's Crusty Clip is one of example of what happens when metal seeps into other forms of music. Jason Kohnen, better known as Bong-Ra, is a Dutch

Milwaukee isn't exactly the first place you think of when you think about summer destinations. Utech Records plans to change that with their inaugural Utech Records Music Festival, which is going down June 11 at the Cactus Club. The label is known for very dark and out-there sounds, and the lineup isn't coming up short of that. Headlining are North Carolina's Horseback (pictured), who spin doom,

The stench of rotting permeates this year's Chaos in Tejas, not just with Autopsy and Hooded Menace, but also two new hordes: Denmark's Undergang and San Francisco's Acephalix. Undergang make a deadly potion that's equal parts cryptic and straight-up brutal. Imagine dISEMBOWELMENT with less doom and more of Immolation's tempo shifts, and throw in a little of Autopsy's bluntness, and you've got a

Hey heshers, hessians, and everyone in between! Still haven't gotten the latest Motorhead album, The World Is Yours (which is, sadly, not a reference to the Nas song)? We've got two copies of the album on vinyl to give away.To enter, email crustcakecontests@gmail.com with the subject line "Motorhead" and answer these couple questions for us:What is your favorite non-"Ace of Spades" Motorhead song

Our brothers in arms over at MetalSucks have put up the new EP of minor symphonies and sweeping, progressive freak-outs by Raleigh, N.C.'s Between the Buried and Me for streaming. The three songs move through BTBAM's trademark kitchen sink collection brutal death metal, melodic sweep picking, tribal beats, gorgeous clean vocals and Cynic-esque synth lines. The band is hitting the road with a few

By Andrew Wilhelm (TX)Is it possible for every bone, muscle, skin fragment, and pore to be thoroughly brutalized in less than four minutes?The Netherlands' Dead Neanderthals say "Absolutely!" and proceed to violate your well-being and sense of normalcy, and go about their business on their latest EP, The Saw. You're left with a pile of rotting bones for your closet; the band just skips off to

By Andrew Wilhelm (TX)(YO, ANYBODY GOT GAGA TIX, HOLLA AT ME)They say April showers bring May flowers, and with the lineup for shows this month, those flowers will have spiked wristbands for stems.Hometowners Mindless have two gigs of note. They'll be playing with Disciples of Christ, featuring members of Magrudergrind, at The Broken Neck on the 18th. Better yet, on the 23rd, also at The Broken

Every single Wednesday without fail (fuck it, Thursdays too), your hosts post a suitably stale video clip that we think needs to be revisited. Click here for more Crusty Clips. Got a clip you think we should post? Send it to crustcake@gmail.com.by Andrew Wilhelm (TX)Hey 'cakers, the Crusty Clip got neglected due to SXSW hoopla, but it's back! Earlier today, our bros at Invisible Oranges posted

Primitive Weapons, all photos by Carmelo EspanolaCrustcake, represented by the intrepid Andrew Wilhelm and Van Damned, spent four days in Austin, Texas, at South By Southwest, one of the world's largest, film, interactive and music festivals. Between the two, they saw 49 bands, ate 10 tacos, four slices of pizza, four gyros, three bratwurst, and drank 52 beers, five whiskey and cokes, five rum

Riffs, riffs, riffs. On the latest offerings from Hatred Surge and Mammoth Grinder -- a 12-inch split between the two bands -- riffs seem to be the focal point. Big riffs. "Meaty" riffs. Both Mammoth Grinder and Hatred Surge slow things down a little, groove a lot and play well together. Side A features three total songs, two of them new, from Mammoth Grinder. "Pulverizer" wastes no time in

Crustcake, represented by the intrepid Andrew Wilhelm and Van Damned, spent four days in Austin, Texas, at South By Southwest, one of the world's largest, film, interactive and music festivals. Between the two, they saw 49 bands, ate 10 tacos, four slices of pizza, four gyros, three bratwurst, and drank 52 beers, five whiskey and cokes, five rum and gingers and exactly one shot of tequila. They

Death metal mega-minds Morbid Angel have released the album art for their upcoming eighth studio album, Illud Divinum Insanus, out June 7 on Season of Mist. The cover, created by Brazillian illustrator Gustavo Sazes (Arch Enemy, God Forbid), is dark and oblique, in typical Morbid Angel fashion, but still lightyears ahead of the technicolor day-glo abortion that was 2003's Heretic. Illud is the

A new Tombs song, "Vermillion," is streaming online. Listen here. "Vermillion" is the first taste of Tombs' new record, Path of Totality, and it is strange taste. All the principle elements of Tombs are here: black metal, post-metal and shoegaze all shimmer through in influence, but this song sounds distinctly different from anything on 'cake favorite Winter Hours. Also noteworthy is that "