SaintVitus

Getting to interview doom legends Saint Vitus was my 4th "pinch me" moment in my 8 years of being a music journalist. The scene went down at Norway's Inferno Festival a couple of weeks back. Their set at Inferno was one of the festival's best...

Wino (a.k.a. Scott Weinrich) boasts an impressive metal resume, having cut his fangs in The Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand, and Shrinebuilder over the past few decades. Essentially canonized by doom and stoner rock fans, Wino released deeply personal solo acoustic album in the form of 2010's 'Adrift...

Helmet, Crowbar and Saint Vitus recently announced that they would be teaming up for the first annual Metalliance tour and now the official dates have been revealed for this gigantic run, which is bound to melt amps from Texas to the Pacific Northwest...

Considering the tumultuous histories and chemical indulgences of your average doom metal band, it's amazing that so many of them are still alive and kicking decades after they first got together. Think Black Sabbath, Pentagram, Cathedral, Trouble and Paradise Lost, among others...

Lava-spewing volcanoes look pretty damn cool on album covers, but the past week has taught us that volcanoes and metal don't always mix so well. As anyone who doesn't live in a torch-lit cave knows by now, an Icelandic volcano erupted April 15, spreading clouds of ash across much of Europe and grounding hundreds of planes...

Now that Scion's second annual metal extravaganza has come, seen, conquered and gone, we metal folk have some time to breathe easy (until Maryland Deathfest, anyway) and reflect upon shows gone by. During the blessed downtime, this Noisecreep writer had the very special privilege to speak via email with one Scott Kelly, an extreme metal icon and musical legend in his own right...

While Scott Kelly (Neurosis), Wino (Saint Vitus), Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) and Dale Crover (Melvins) were combining their masterful minds below Bleeker Street, a line that included women in tall glittery boots, fishnets and bust-breaking corsets and men dressed just as club-ready was developing outside for a fetish party that was happening in the same venue...

This past week, metal was on the brink of clinching #1 on the charts thanks to an iconic rock band -- until some Hallmark mothers decided to purchase Michael Buble. Nevertheless as reported by our friends over at Metal Insider, the legendary rock act Kiss respectably took the #2 debut with 108,000 albums sold in its first week...

ON A BOAT: Nola sludge kings Eyehategod have a few dates scheduled in the Northeast later this month. The shows feature an impressive supporting cast, including Pig Destroyer, Goatwhore, Anal Cunt, Howl, Unearthly Trance and Tombs, and one of the shows is actually on a boat...

Massive doom supergroup Shrinebuilder -- featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis/Tribes of Neurot, Scott 'Wino' Weinrich of Saint Vitus/the Obsessed/Spirit Caravan/Hand of Doom, Al Cisneros of Sleep/Om, and Dale Crover of the Melvins -- have released a long-awaited track to their MySpace page and to Kelly's radio blog Return to Zero...