Slayer

These groups have all been active for over 40 years.

Viking-metal mainstays Amon Amarth have entered their unplugged stage. Today (July 8th), and for the first time ever, the Swedish quintet delivered a rustic and entirely acoustically-strummed anthem that they call “Upphaf.” The song chimes into focus with acoustic strums and propulsive, elemental percussion. Above all that, frontman Johan Hegg unearths a craggy, legend-casting croak about “old tales of men I recall from long ago,” including “giants of yore who gave me bread in the days gone by.” A press release further explains that “Upphaf” acts as “an oral history whispered under the shadow of the Allfather, proving [Amon Amarth’s] interest in Oden cuts just as deep by firelight as it does on epic global stages.” You can check out the aesthetically softer but no less epic addition to Amon Amarth’s Norse myth-borne songbook via the music video up above, which finds the band intoning their tale around a campfire. Amon Amarth’s “Upphaf” follows last year’s bombastic, battle-driven and decidedly more electrified “We Rule the Waves” single. Proper details have not yet been shed behind Amon Amarth’s full-length follow-up to 2022’s The Great Heathen Army, but a studio album is in the works. In the meantime, Amon Amarth have a number of upcoming shows on the horizon across Europe. You’ll find the full details on their live schedule here.

The United States of America just celebrated its 250th birthday. A major milestone, for sure, but what’s even wilder to consider is that just over a fifth of the country’s history has been defined, in part, by the sound of metal. From sea-to-shining-sea, the U.S. has produced innumerable artists that have thrown heavy-music fans into a headbanging frenzy for decades. From the thrash trailblazers, to the original gods of hardcore, to the grunge-era greats, to the New Wave of American Heavy Metal and beyond, plenty of iconic stars have shot out of the Land of the Free. But who is the greatest single U.S. metal act of all time? We asked our readers to weigh in on their favorites, and they saluted the top five accordingly. Type O Negative Banded out of the borough of Brooklyn, the Drab Four melded metal gloom, gothic romance and a bit of shock humor into a sound entirely of their own. The unique blend as preserved on classic albums like Bloody Kisses and October Rust transfixed countless listeners around the globe, cementing Type O as one of the premiere U.S. metal acts of their generation. TOOL While TOOL’s mind-boggling progressive complexity seems to exist out of time and space, it’s true that the group got their start in the early Nineties while performing around Los Angeles, California. They quickly astral-projected themselves off the Sunset Strip and into the third eyes of a legion of fans, moving from the moody, synapse-firing explorations of Undertow and Ænima all the way up to 2019’s Fear Inoculum — and hopefully beyond. Slayer Slayer’s music has shown no mercy since the dawn of the Eighties. And the all-out-menacing aesthetic of their catalog — coalescing around thrash-blitzed beats, defiantly off-the-hilt guitar soloing and the incensed, vein-popping scream of bassist Tom Araya — elevated the genre into a new level of extremity. Though their themes could sometimes be Satanic, Slayer also took a tough look at the world around them, casting a critical gaze towards the plight of soldiers out on the battlefield (“Mandatory Suicide”) and the PTSD many have suffered in the aftermath (“Eyes of the Insane”). No matter what topics they took on, the music always hit hard. Pantera For many, the Cowboys of Hell are not just the official soundtrack of Texas — as our readers voted in another recent poll — but one of the biggest pillars of U.S. metal, period. For proof, check the war chest full of all-timers like “Walk,” “Primal Concrete Sledge,” “5 Minutes Alone,” “Cemetery Gates,” “I’m Broken” and so many more. Indeed, once the Lonestate legends pushed past their Power Metal period, they delivered a intensely grooving and exquisitely vulgar series of full-length statements that remain beloved to this day. Replete with Dimebag Darrell’s super-scooped guitar wizardry, Vinnie Paul’s cannon-fire double-kickin’, Rex Brown’s bonesaw bass grooves and Philip Anselmo’s take-no-prisoners bark, the classic lineup was a gamechanger. Truly, an American band like no other. Metallica Give me fuel. Give me fire. Give me liberty or give me death. ‘Tallica are the world’s biggest metal band and have been for decades. Despite having formed in Los Angeles, California, they’ve also been brand ambassadors for the Bay Area thrash uprising of the Eighties, exemplifying the greatest feats of the then-trailblazing sound through a series of classic albums. Metallica have sung of the horrors of war (“One,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls”) and the fight for American liberty (“Don’t Tread on Me”). While U.S. by nature, they continue to rally metalheads around the globe to unite under the borderless banner of heavy metal.

Kerry King's solo band played for the first time in nine months with a headlining slot at Wisconsin's Summerfest this past weekend.

In a new interview with Finland's Chaoszine, former DEICIDE and current SIX FEET UNDER guitarist Jack Owen spoke about the differences between writing music for each of the two bands. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, it kind of went from 0% [when I was in DEICIDE] to 100% [now th...

In a new interview with Tomasz Michalski of Poland's MetalSide, DEVILDRIVER frontman and mastermind Dez Fafara weighed in on a debate about people using an A.I. (artificial intelligence) music generator as a tool to create melodies, harmonies and rhymes based on artificial intelligence (A.I.) algori...

SLAYER guitarist Kerry King and his solo band performed live for the first time in nine months Saturday night (July 4) at the Summerfest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. King headlined the Miller Lite Oasis stage at the event as the replacement headliner for MEGADETH, which dropped out of Summerfest in Apri...

The grunge icons’ best songs, chosen by 22 of today‘s biggest musicians

A world-first photography exhibition has opened in Birmingham celebrating the final live solo performance of Ozzy Osbourne and BLACK SABBATH's original lineup alongside a host of metal artists. Spanning 60 meters at Grand Central, above New Street Station, "Back To The Beginning - The Exhibition" fe...

"The amount of hate and disbelief around me from strangers on the internet or bitter musicians really weighs on my heart..."

EXODUS's song "Blacklist", from the band's sixth studio album, 2004's "Tempo Of The Damned", is featured in a bar scene in episode two of season two of the spy drama "The Agency". Commented EXODUS guitarist Gary Holt: "About a year ago I got an email about a show wanting some EXODUS music for an epi...

"People’s obsessive compulsion to follow other people’s lives that they’ll never once meet. It’s almost as sad as it is maddening."

"I'm proud of the whole entire record. I'm proud of every single song. I really mean it. I can't wait to play every single song."

Having assembled one of the most ambitious gatherings of heavy metal royalty ever gathered for a single recording project, William Shatner is now exploring the possibility of taking his heavy metal album to the stage for a live event unlike anything audiences have seen before. Part concert, part the...

When the beat drops, these songs by Metallica, Slayer and more hit like a freight train

IRON MAIDEN's June 22 concert at La Défense Arena in Paris, France will be professionally filmed and recorded for the British heavy metal legends' upcoming "Run For Your Lives" tour concert film. For this special gig, MAIDEN will enforce a phone-free standing area using Yondr pouches — the lockable...

The MrTime2Travel channel on YouTube has uploaded video of DOWN's June 5 performance at the Mystic Festival in Gdańsk, Poland. Check it out below. DOWN, the long-running heavy metal supergroup featuring vocalist Philip H. Anselmo, guitarists Pepper Keenan and Kirk Windstein, drummer Jimmy Bower and...

In a new interview with Jonathan of Are You Ready, founding JUDAS PRIEST guitarist Kenneth "K.K." Downing once again spoke about what it was like to be honored, along with other members of his former band, at the 2022 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony. Asked if the accolade meant somethi...

SLAYER guitarist Kerry King has just released an extended deluxe edition of his acclaimed debut solo album, "From Hell I Rise" via Reigning Phoenix Music, expanding the record with five previously unheard demos and new visual elements, including cover artwork by James Bousema and a revamped layout w...

First released two years ago, Kerry King's debut solo album arguably deserved more attention than it received. Vicious, aggressive and fully in keeping with the music that SLAYER made on their final few albums, it was exactly what most of us expected: in the best possible way. King's refusal to sit...