An Excuse To Run This Picture

This might be the funniest headline we've ever read. Well, next to this one. Okay so this one is pretty good as well.

Fuck it, if we're gonna make you gaze at the majesty of Madame Wincent, let's go all the way!

We Wear Short Shorts

Holy shit, is that the sun? You know what that means? It's time for the Heavy Duty to break out the crusty beer soaked wife beaters, get a bucket of SPF 1000, and get around to pickin' our Band Fo Your Spring/Summer shenanigans. This is the third year we've provided the soundtrack for you backyard barbecue no-babes bonanzas, and we've decided to lay of the Kemado and bring you some 70's psych from Tee Pee records' own Graveyard!

These Swedes kinda sound like Monster Magnet with Strats instead of Les Pauls and the production is straight outta '71. But surprisingly for us guitar snobs, singer Jonathan Ramm steal the show, belting them tunes like a Sub Pop era Cornell. This is the part where we post some awesome YouTube clip of the band rockin' the fuck out, but these guys are new so yer shit out of luck, you'll just have listen to some clips here.

So when your're working on your sweet flip flop feets tan and trying to figure out how many ice cubes you can fit in your mouth, crank some Graveyard and make those long summer nights Heavy Duty!

We Can Has Visa Pages?

Holy shit, now we're really going through some of them gots ta travel jitters. Hot on the heels of the newly announced Metallica/The Sword Euro tour we find out about these Extreme the Dojo dates in Japan at the end of next month. Are you ready for this??? Are you sitting down?

At the Gates
Dillinger Escape Plan
Mayhem
Pig Destroyer
Into Eternity

We ain't familiar with Into Eternity, but with a lineup this fucking amazing we wouldn't care if Scott Stapp had the opening slot.

Whoa, what's that you say? Priest and Immortal play Norway this June?

That's it. Heavy Duty will now accept ads.

We Can Has Passport?

We know it seems like half the posts we write 'round here are 'bout 'bout them live concerts we'd need to organize a Heavy Duty Roadie in order to attend, but you got another one comin'. Looks like Metallica's upcoming European tour just got that much more awesom-o with the addition of heritage metal favorites The Sword and the Philip Anselmo fronted sludge fest Down. Jeebus fuckin' Christ, are ears are a-hurtin' just from typin' that sentence. What a lineup! Too bad this show won't be coming close to our shores, we'd sell a vat of our man-sauce in order to come up with the cash money to experience that much heavy at one time. Bring on a US tour!

The Frost Bites the Dust

In current "awww, maaan" news, Tom Gabriel Fischer announced today he has quit Celtic Frost. "Huh? Quit?!?" you say. "Didn't Tommy G, the ultimate "Warrior" hisself, start the Celty F? Ain't that him behind them chuggaling guitar riffings and song-startin' grunts?" Yup. We don't quite get it either and we think a CF without Tom GF sounds kinda like a Journey without Schon, a Maiden without Blaze, or a Mercyful Fate without the King.

All we do know is that this means Celtic Frost has broken up once again, and this time it sounds like it's for good. The Duty's dug on these guys only since we became super-scary last April, but we're misting up a bit thinking about how we'll never get to see the unbelievably heavy Frost of the mid-00's play the undergroundably classic tunes of the Frost of the early-80s. At least we still have this:



Celtic Frost, we hardly knew ye. We'll fire up some Alien in your honor.

Live It Up Before You're in the Ground

Aging rock fans of the Asian persuasion take note! Now you too can ride off into your twilight years with your very own Steven Tyler designed hog! That's right, Tyler's Red Wing motorcycles and their "Dream On"-approved sexiness, "sick, rugged, and damn cool" craftsmanship, and Harley plus one horsepower are now available in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The Duty firmly boycotts Aerosmith's ongoing campaign to erase Rocks from public consciousness, but we approve of any bad motor scooter that'll soothe our current OPEC woes. Not sure what they were thinking with the name 'cause them wings ain't the kind most dudes want to pay for. Hmmm....this is the guy behind "Rag Doll" though...do we smell a potential advertising jingle?

Crush, Kill, Enoid!

Most folks think regular ol' black metal's creepy enough, but here at the Duty we think there ain't nothing more evil than a one man black metal band. Laugh all you want, but you best toss those street busker images out of your noggin 'cause when you've got a album cover with a logo you can't read and a solitary name in the liners you're in the presence of a cat so hateful he can't even stand to share a practice space with other icy-hearted dudes.

Out of the whole crop of grim all-in-one-ers in this world, our current fave has gots ta be Switzerland's own Enoid whose face pummeling tunes make our raging Nutter Butter withdrawals look like a tiptoe through the tulips. Enoid's got so much raw Darkthrone riffin', unintelligible raspin', and hyperspeed blastbeats we want to carve out a heart and serve it up for lunch as soon as we push play. The fact this record sounds like the gnarliest full band around makes this guy even extra evil like he's got some serious multiple personality disorder or something. This type of kvltish anti-humanity ain't for the weak, but when you spent a full morning stuck behind a waddling fatso who's taking up the whole sidewalk only to get burned by a chirping barista who gives ya room when you didn't ask for it, you're only gonna be satisfied by one thing and Diamond Nights just ain't it.

Dub Deuce In The Caboose: Butters Edition

Update: Not surprisingly, this video's been taken down due to copyright infringment. Yeeesh. Here's a link to South Park Studios, where you can watch the full epidsode in question. OKAY!

10 Songs, 78 Riffs

So we might have a few tattoos and a Pig Destroyer t-shirt, but we wouldn't fall into any typical heavy metal fan archetype. We're just regular duders who like metal more than you. We guess that's why we dig Austin's Loudest Band The Sword so much. We could hang with those dudes, have some beers, and talk about Never Say Die until closin' time. But as "normal" as they are, they have climbed the metal mountain and are the best heritage metal band goin' today.

Their new album Gods Of The Earth just dropped this week, and the best part is that it sounds exactly like The Sword, which is a complement. Crafting their own distinct sound two albums in when they owe so much to their metal forefathers is awesome. The song to riff ratio is off the charts, maybe the highest of any album since And Justice For All. Of course, they had us when they named a song "The Frost-Giant's Daughter:"



Anyone who's every owned a Sabbath or Metallica record should treat themselves to some Sword. If you you don't, well you just ain't Heavy Duty. And if we see you, we will punch you in the face.