FAST + FURIOUS

Cleveland metalcore pioneers RINGWORM are gearing up to record their fourth and final album for Victory this sum­mer. The as-yet-untitled disc is the follow-up to 2007 s The Venomous Grand Design.* CIRCLE JERKS are recording their first full-length since 1995 s Oddities, Abnormalities, and Curiosities with producer and BURNING BRIDES member DIMITRI COATS. The union completes, well, a circle of sorts, since Jerks frontman KEITH MORRIS-himself a former V2 Records A&R person—appears on the Brides’ 2004 album for V2, Leave No Ashes, -k Rock-apparel juggernaut SHIRT KILLER has teamed with legendary Southern California punk photographer EDWARD C0LVER for a line of tees screened with some of Colver’s most memorable images.

 

REUNITED MATHCORE DARLINGS’ OX ISN’T JUST HUGS AND KISSES

THIS RECORD WAS COMPLETED BEFORE EVERYTHING IN THE ECONOMY WENT TO CRAP,” says Coalesce vocalist Sean Ingram, referring to his band’s fourth album (and first since 1999), OX (Relapse). “But it’s interesting, because one of the themes that ended up coming out when I revisited the lyrics was that it’s OK to suffer. People have done a lot worse, so there’s no reason that shouldn’t purify us and reshape our commitment to each other as fellow human beings.”

 

AFTER A TWO-YEAR HIATUS

AFTER A TWO-YEAR HIATUS, FEAR FACTORY, the band that spearheaded a unique brand of cyber-metal with essential albums like 1995’s Demanufactured, are back—but not in it’s classic lineup of vocalist Burton C. Bell, guitarist Dino Cazares, bassist Christian Olde Wolbers, and drummer Raymond Herrera; nor in its more recent incarnation of Bell, Wolbers (on guitar), Herrera, and former Strapping Young Lad bass player Byron Stroud. Instead the group has re-formed around the core of founding members Bell and Cazares, which will shock many fans who thought the two hated each other.

 

Also in the studio

… Death-metal stalwarts DYING FETUS are working on their sixth full-length album, due out in September, at Baltimore’s Wright Way Studios with producer Steve Wright. * San Francisco Motbrhead-lovin’ metal warriors SAVIOURS are working with Joe Barresi (Tool, Clutch) on the follow-up to 2008’s Into Abaddon for an October release.

 

Georgia sludge-metal group BARONESS

The name of death/grind quartet THE RED CHORD’S forthcoming fourth album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, might sound sinister, but according to vocalist GUY KOZOWYK, the title’s origins are actually quite mundane. “It’s from the Discovery Channel show How It’s Made,” he says. “They were talking about this machine they feed zippers through, but we just thought the name was creepy.”

 

FUNGUS AMONGUS

‘ When not painting album, T-shirt, and poster designs for the likes of LAMB OF GOD, HIGH ON FIRE, and PIG DESTROYER, or contributing to the pages of Revolver, as he has many times, ARIK ROPER likes to illustrate mushrooms. Lots of mushrooms. In fact, nearly 100 different types are beautifully cataloged in the artist’s new book. Mushroom Magick.A Visionary Field Guide (Abrams). Fascinated with ’shrooms since he was young—his mom used to collect and draw them—Roper says that he wanted to “present the mushrooms in a benevolent way and get away from the stigma of it being a ‘drug.’

 

BULLETIN IN THE NEWS

They settled the lawsuit in late April of this year.

Initially, the new album was going to be called This Is War, but ever-analytical Jared is unsure now—he doesn’t want the title to come off like an allusion to the band’s legal skirmish. “It’s not like it became our entire lives,” he says of the lawsuit. “There were days where it felt like that, but this isn’t a record that’s just written in reaction to being sued or feeling that we were treated unjustly.”

was going to be called This Is War, but ever-analytical Jared is unsure now—he doesn’t want the title to come off like an allusion to the band’s legal skirmish. “It’s not like it became our entire lives,” he says of the lawsuit. “There were days where it felt like that, but this isn’t a record that’s just written in reaction to being sued or feeling that we were treated unjustly.”