Artist

We Came As Romans released their new live DVD, 'Present, Future, and Past'–which was filmed live at the House of Blues in Chicago. Here, the band blogs about their co-headlining sprint with Chiodos across the U.S. For more on We Came as Romans, follow them on Facebook and Twitter. 

Photos by Natalie Bisignano

December 11
Kicking this tour off in Detroit was a perfect way to start what will be an eventful and exciting week. Hometown shows are some of my favorite shows we play! On that note, they're also the most stressful. Nothing in the world makes me more nervous than performing for loved ones, family members, old friends, best friends, and any guests they bring along. I typically spend most of the day hiding in the bus or dressing room watching my phone receive endless phone calls and texts. It's nothing against anyone there, I just get so nervous I can't concentrate on entertaining or holding a normal conversation.

Even though I'm a bundle or nerves all day, it helps with my performance. I escaped the 30 something people we guest-listed for another hour while warming up and stretching out. We took the stage all feeling the same nerves and excitement. However, once that first note rang out, all our nerves turned into energy and we were able to play our hearts out to our amazing Detroit fanbase. I don't know what it is, but the energy our fans at home bring to our shows is unlike any other place in the world. They never disappoint and I'm beyond proud to say I'm from the same place as all of them.

Feeling much more like myself, my roommate and bandmate, Andy, and I decided to throw an afterparty at our house. It was great to be able to make up for my nervous anti-social pre-show self and spend time with the people I love. As much fun as the party was, our drive to Baltimore today is a little painful and my head is asking me why I was so friendly with Mr. Jack Daniels last night.

December 18
Today in Cleveland is the last show of this incredibly short run. I wish Christmas wasn't right around the corner because I would love to keep this tour going. Beyond the success of the shows in the last week, the guys in the other bands and crews are really great people and I wish I had more time with each of them.

A few days ago we were in Baltimore and that was great as always. Our manager is awesome and made us a super nice breakfast and delicious coffee, which I NEED in the morning. Seriously, don't talk to me until I've had at least a cup… I'm not the nice guy I normally am until that point. We played in the Inner Harbor and that area is so much fun. My cousins came out and took me out to dinner. I'm glad I got to eat some famous Baltimore "crab goes on everything" food with them. Following what was already a great day, we got to play in front of an electrifying crowd.

We traveled on to play Worcester and Poughkeepsie. These are two cities we haven't played in way too long! We got to catch up with old friends and play in front of very appreciative fans (who seemed to have missed us equally as much as we've missed them). The shows were great and we went to bed early knowing how crazy NYC was going to be the next couple days.

NYC was great to us. I had no idea we had so many friends near the city. It was a similar vibe to a hometown show with a massive guest list, tons of friends, everyone partying and having a great time. The show kept up the pace with the other shows of this tour with sing a longs, chants, massive pits, and more crowd surfers than I could count. Knowing we had a day off the next day, we went to the bar with the Sleepwave dudes and had some adult beverages.

With a busy day of press under our belts in NYC we carried on to Lancaster, PA. Saw a lot of great friends in August Burns Red, This or the Apocalypse, as well as other friends we've made over the years. In case you haven't noticed, we're very social guys and love to catch up with our friends everywhere we go. We played a very fun show in front of an always supportive Lancaster fan base. After the show, we relaxed with the August Burns Red guys and caught up.

Tonight is the last show of 2014 for us. Its been an awesome year and we've accomplished so much. I'm proud of my band mates, crew, and the whole WCAR team for their hard work. I can't wait for a busy 2015. Lets end this year right, Cleveland!

Dublin, Ireland rock act Wounds recently released their full-length debut album, 'Die Young,' on November 24 via Razor & Tie. Here, the band blogs about their mini tour with HIM across the U.S. To get 'Die Young,' visit iTunes. For more on Wounds, follow them on Facebook and Twitter. 

Entry by guitarist James Coogan and photos by the band and Matt Oberman

So we've just finished the first week of the HIM tour with Motionless In White and it's been fucking incredible so far. Both bands have killed it each night and we're having a blast opening for 'em too. The only strange part about the East Coast is the amount of snow this time of year—which very nearly resulted in me turning into Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining' at numerous different points, but I'll let y'all away with it….
The first date of the tour was in Webster Hall in New York. It was pretty amazing playing in such a legendary venue and meant so much to us that the audience were so into our performance. We finished with our debut single "Dead Dead Fucking Dead" and had the whole crowd chanting the words back to us so that was fucking nuts! We always hang around at our merch table after shows so it was really cool to chat to people who've just discovered the band and to see how committed the headliner's fans are. I was ridiculously jealous of the amount of Heartagram tattoos I saw. Definitely need to get my own before the tour ends! Roll on to the next city…

Hello, Boston! I absolutely love this place. It reminds me of home such a crazy amount because of the fact that every second person I spoke to was Irish in some way, shape or form. Cool that people have looked into their family heritage so much because all I know is that I'm 100% leprechaun. We had some free time before the show so got to check out Fenway Park which was fucking awesome. Red Sox all the way! Show time! The House of Blues was a killer venue. The crowd lost their shit to our set as we played out some songs from our debut 'Die Young' and we all lost our minds on stage. Our bassist Steve managed to bust his fingers open while playing onstage, but that shit is all part of the fun! A bit of blood 'n' guts never killed anyone. It's exciting as fuck making new fans in places we've never been before. Cannot wait to get back to that place!

We moved on to New Jersey for the next show at the Starland Ballroom. It was snowing like hell outside, so we just flaked out and watched HIM soundcheck, which was fucking awesome. I've been a huge fan since I was a kid so playing on this tour has meant a lot to me. To go from having my mom bringing me to see the band play in Dublin 10 years ago to doing a Stateside tour with them in 2014 is just insane! The show was sick and I got to speak to a lot of really nice people at the merch stand afterwards. A mom who had brought her daughter to the show told me they were in the queue from 9 A.M. in the freezing cold. That's dedication right there! We got to chill with the MIW guys backstage for a while before hitting the road again. They're great guys and put on an incredible live show. If you haven't seen them play yet then get it sorted right away!

This week's run of shows wrapped up in Silver Spring at the Fillmore. We played what has to be one of my favorite shows in recent memory that night. It's an amazing feeling playing in a place we've never been before and seeing a crowd get so loose so quickly. This tour has been amazing so far and is only going to get better next week on the West Coast. We're currently working through a 39 hour drive in cramped up tiny van in the freezing cold to the next date of the tour. Fuck it. I wouldn't give this up for the world so trips like this don't mean anything! We had the chance to stop off in Nashville & Memphis, Tennessee for a day mid-journey before moving on. Jack White's record store is fucking awesome. It's like a White Stripes-based shrine. We also hit Graceland to go hassle Elvis super fans and to find out if he's still living there. He's not. Shit…. The guys then went to a bonfire party that night and I flaked out in a friend's place and watched horror films instead. Standard! The next four shows are in Los Angeles, Tempe, San Diego and Las Vegas. Time to get festive, boys!

L.A., you're next. See you on the road!

Winners of the 2014 Revolver Golden God award for Best New Talent, Twelve Foot Ninja are out on the road with In This Moment and Starset. As the band continues to tour in support of their latest album, 'Silent Machine,' they will be blogging about their experiences for Revolver. Watch their video for "Ain't That a Bitch" at the bottom of the post.

Entry by guitarist Stevic MacKay and photos by Ben Davies.

Day 17: Chicago Promo Day
Woke up en route to a radio performance at Fearless Radio in Chicago. Saw a bloke walk out of Burger King and drop his gargantuan soft drink all over the pavement. He let out a genuine "FAAAAAAARK!" I didn't know what would happen next. Neither will you. We met a funny little PUG with long legs at the studio sporting an impressive under bite that gave his Steve Buscemi glare even more of a disconcerting appearance. Our friend Ben Davies appeared to have no identifiable hangover, which may have been because he was still drunk from the night before. He was covered in a significant amount of sharpie graffiti including some gangsta knuckles reading, "POOP." We did our second radio performance at Chicago Sounds Underground, which I hope was a radio station otherwise it was just some dudes' house. We dropped Ben Davies off at the airport and waved goodbye to an imaginary soundtrack that would accommodate a slow walk away followed by a turn around, thumbs up, pause, iris shot effect, then upbeat Huey Lewis tune. The evening ended with a massive dinner at The Cheese Cake Factory, which included a 10th month early celebration of my birthday and a lovely song by all of the staff.

Day 18: Lacrosse Center Arena
Woke up to snow outside and the gigantic, Doctor Manhattan-esque ghost of Bing Crosby singing "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" except his mouth wasn't moving. It was all telepathic and threatening. Nah, that didn't really occur. I'm just trying to spice up your pumpkin lattes. One thing I failed to mention post Ben Davies departure is a new set of rules we introduced to the bus—basically if you leave ANY of your shit ANY WHERE on the bus that isn't either your junk bunk or sleeping bunk, it gets photographed, uploaded to our facebook group chat and you either have to do 30 burpees in 2 minutes or pay $10 into the PENALTY CUP (all within 24 hours). We assigned our TM and driver Adam as the adjudicator. I was largely responsible for instigating this and ironically was first to pay the price: I left my phone on the bench during load in. I did my 30 burpees. Show was good. Somehow we ended up with a massive bag of popcorn.

Day 19: Milwaukee "The Rave"
Did another radio performance this morning, this time at WJJO-FM with a fella named Ozz, Jen from our publicity company and two competition winners. We all ate Subway together, Sometimes making eye contact, sometimes not. We left. I ran back in and handed Ozz the overwhelming bag of popcorn from the night before. We arrived at The Rave. Third time we've played this venue. Some say it's haunted. Some say it's where Jeffrey Dahmer picked his first victim. Some say potahto. Some say potato. Some say tomahto. Some say tomato. What I can say is I absolutely mutilated our song "Shuriken" tonight and possibly took the whole band into another dimension. By "mutilated" I don't mean, "I cut off the gig's head and started kissing it while I made lego trainsets" kind of mutilated it...I mean I FUCKED IT completely. I started playing a guitar part that Ro actually plays in a section of the song that it doesn't exist. Tonight's final track had every band member literally playing a different section of the song. I started laughing but I knew if the dudes could have disintegrated into dust and blown out the open window, they probably would have. Weird thing is, not many people seemed to notice! "Progressive" music HA HA! I also freaked out some fans trying to teach them the 'hypothetical game' (would you rather) by placing them in an impossibly homosexual situation with two U.S. politicians...Definitely on tiger blood tonight. WINNING!

Day 20: Day Off in Madison
Today started innocently enough. Our TM took us to a restaurant called Flat Top where you assemble your own ingredients and the chef guy cooks it on an extremely hot grill. Good to eat some healthy tasting food. We all had a Sapporo. I'm pretty sure those cans are made out of fucking space ship or something. Then we went next door to a brewery and drank some expensive and shit wine because that is what you do when you are in a place that brews beer—you order wine. It was only a few hours in that we looked directly above our heads and saw a gigantic sign advertising $2 pints of beer. This is when the record skips and Ferris Bueller looks at the camera. There was a pool table and a weird sandy air hockey type lawn bowls game with pucks. We started betting drinks. Long island ice teas to be specific. I punched an icey sign on the way back to the bus for no reason and we decided after a very mature and well thought out conversation that we should probably open the bottle of caffeinated beer that we were given. The night ended with me getting a fist full of sardine oil and painting Ro's face with it.

Day 21: Rockford Illinois
Not much stinks more than sardines when you feel hung over. Especially in a bus, which can resemble a large sardine can at times. Damon's jacket needs dry cleaning. So does the carpet in the bus. Sardines were a bad idea. In other news, the venue is awesome. I redeemed my previous show malfunction and we celebrated with something called deep dish pizza. Imagine a bunch of pizzas ate a bunch of pizzas, folded over and died in their own vomit. We also did another radio performance.

Day 22: Worcester Palladium Headline Show
Our manager Dave joined us today and we swapped merch guys from our buddy Ryan to our other buddy Dylan. Dylan plays that card game called Magic, where people sit down and dish up cards like Pokemon fighters or some shit. I asked him who makes the cards and he said "wizards."I was like, "What? Wizards make the cards?" He was like, "The company is called Wizards"…YEH WOTEVA M8! YOU BUY FUCKING MAGIC CARDS FROM WIZARDS! Anyway...third time we've played here also. Crowd was awesome. Great to see so many familiar faces. Russ and I did some boxing in the big empty theatre adjacent to the venue. All of our words were visible it was that cold. Anthony our sound guy started teaching Ro some sweet fight moves, hahaha, I love it when blokes get together and teach each other fight moves. "Now, you put your hand on my arm like this, no not like that, like this, but less rigid, yep, nup, yeah...now, I'll do this and you act natural, No! No! You'd move that way if I did this...yeah! Now I'll go heerpp, deeerp...BANG! BOOM! See!? Fucking boom! I totally would have fucking just broke your arm off just then!" HA HA!

Winners of the 2014 Revolver Golden God award for Best New Talent, Twelve Foot Ninja are out on the road with In This Moment and Starset. As the band continues to tour in support of their latest album, 'Silent Machine,' they will be blogging about their experiences for Revolver. Watch their video for "Ain't That a Bitch" at the bottom of the post.

Entry by guitarist Stevic MacKay.

Day 1: Travel Day
All of us (excluding Kin) had weird premonitions of dying on this tour. We thought this was coming to fruition when the plane got struck by lightening and dropped enough to extract that involuntary noise usually reserved for theme park rides or getting kicked in the wedding vegetables. Obviously we survived and it wasn't long before we found ourselves in Whole Foods on American soil. With the surplus of attractive healthy people, creative salads, fresh produce and an organic juice bar—we momentarily considered we were actually dead and landed in some sort of inter-dimensional supermarket. A reggae band started playing out the front of Whole Foods, which gave more fuel to the "we could be dead" theory. It wasn't long before we realized we were alive and in a sports bar that had warnings on the wall that the food may kill you. You can't kill what is already dead, so by pure logical deduction it became clear we were in fact alive.

Day 2: Reno
I've seen 'Reno 911'! So I didn't know what to expect of the real thing. As it turns out, Reno is some sort of Casino epicenter full of hyper-carpeted purgatories inhabited by zombie faced button pushers. Trying to buy a sandwich was like entering an 8-bit video game full of old people. The first show is like most firsts—lots of aimless groping in the dark, insecurity and the persistent need for cornflakes. We came out all right in the end.

Day 3: Travel Day
I slept for 14 hours that was fairly non-eventful. I'm pretty certain I just lay there with my eyes shut in a standard sleeping configuration. We returned to our unofficial HQ (Walmart) and spent $450 on food. We were not there to fuck spiders this time. A lady with some kind of horrible degenerative brain damage greeted us at the door, which admittedly caught me off guard but you know, fuckin' good on her! Walmart wouldn't sell us alcohol without an American ID citing an invisible policy that existed in theory. Ro offered to get his passport from the coach to prove his age. The manager got involved because Russ was about to have a conniption. She asked, "Is your passport in Australian or English?" I exploded into a cloud of confetti. Damon bought a ripper BBQ and we did a cook up in the Walmart carpark. Fuckin sweet! Our friend Ben Davies passed out and Kin artfully upgraded his facial hair.

Day 4: Day Off
Tonight's show was moved forward a day because In This Moment's trailer got clipped by a semi-truck, so we found ourselves with another day off. On this particular occasion it was also Ro's 15th birthday! Russ asked him what he wanted and he said, "I would like a burger Shane."Russ consulted 'Urban Spoon' which is 90% accurate and demonstrates 73.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot. The oracle instructed us to seek Dick's Burgers which was a 20-minute walk in the rain. We made the pilgrimage in search for Dick's but when we arrived, Dick's was shit. I also really needed to honk out a dirt snake as they say, so I went out the back of Dick's where the toilets where and there was some kind of bum convention being held, so I aborted the bathroom mission until we went next door to Doodles. I'm pretty sure whoever hung the toilet door had Apert Syndrome or encouraged poo-eye contact. When I ventured back out into Doodles'everyone had decided we could do better. I was surprised considering how charming everything had been so far. Eventually we arrived at an upmarket steakhouse called Churchill's equipped with a piano man and functional toilets. We were drinking beers with weird names like "Arrogant Bastard" and "The Dead Guy." Hopefully they were actually the names of the beers and not our waitress's appraisal of us as people. She was actually lovely, but didn't understand the Australian accent talking about what had transpired. I imagine it may have sounded like, "Alalalalalalala fuckin dicks! Bums! Alalalalala doodles mate!" We had some cognac and left.

Day 5: Spokane
We had an awesome lunch with some radio folks from Hardrive and Contraband that have been supporting us. One of the dudes, Steve told us he high-fived Michael Jordan and got covered in his sweat. That was awesome. We played the Spokane Knitting Factory and everything started to lock in. Playing gigs is fun. I had a cold and flu tablet that had pseudoephedrine in it. Kept me up all night. At lunch we were talking about animals eating people so I started looking it up online. Bears, lions and crocs absolutely demolishing people in the most brutal ways imaginable. Wasn't long before I was watching 'Faces of Death IV.' Also saw a lioness get it's jaw kicked off by a hippopotamus–was quite disturbing. Not conducive to sleep.

Day 6: Seattle
We loaded into Moore Theatre, which was the venue Pearl Jam recorded their official video for "Even Flow" where Eddie Vedder climbed up on some high shit and jumped off. I must have watched that hundred of times when I was a kid. Pretty awesome to have played there.

Day 7: Idaho
Today we had our first live acoustic radio performance on KQXR, which was broadcast to about 60,000 people. We played Ro's arrangement of "Coming For You," which features a guitar solo each. My solo is in G demolished minor and there are two notes you just can't hit: B and E. I hit both of them but no one seemed to notice. Jazz mate. It's called fucking Jazz! It's Halloween tonight and I was surprised how many girls seized the opportunity to wear skimpy shit under the guise of being a cop, nurse, devil or vampire. Remembering the dead is obviously pretty sexy business! Russ and Damon bought some kind of BBQ'd membrane that had Russ yelling "FAAARK!"

Day 8: Salt Lake City
Woke up to a BANG and our tour manager and driver Adam saying, "SHIT!" I gripped the bed and braced for impact. I think Damon did his old man yell and said "FUUCK!" (Old man yell = cross between a whisper and scream). Turns out we just blew a tire. It was just on sunrise and the landscape was pretty spectacular. Even the roadkill Coyote that was smashed to pieces looked pretty peaceful. No ACME packaging to be seen. We took a bunch of photos and ate peanut butter filled pretzel bites. The whole thing looked like a level out of 'Halo' or something. When we rocked up, The Venue became very familiar. We'd played there with Periphery on our first U.S tour and met a lot of Mormons. All the toilets were fucked and there was a faux leopard skin room that would have made a black light commit suicide.

Day 9: Denver
Biggest indoor venue we've played to date with a cap of 3,600. Was sick! We caught up with our new friend Nils who bequeathed us a quality bottle of Colorado whiskey. I think it was brewed by bears or some shit! Expert whiskey making bears. Ryan bought some Vodoo Donuts. We hung out with Maria from In This Moment in a little tent for while and had a good chat about our good mate Jose Mangin. Nice woman!

Day 10: Colorado Springs
Colorado mountain ranges provide the backdrop to Walmart this morning. I purchased some toothpaste and we made our way to our second acoustic performance, this time at Kilo 94.3. We met some radio competition winners who got to hang with us and eat carrots. Well, there were carrots there, I had two. Then we headed to our friend Nil's ranch in Wild Basin including a brief stop at the Stanely Hote' in Estes Park where 'The Shining' was filmed…REDRUM! Love that film. Nil runs a wedding venue in the mountains that is fucking unreal. We had a few choice beers and then headed off to his house where his wife and friends had prepared us a feast of epic proportions. Two gigantic beef wellingtons, wild boar, bison, you name it, mate! Nil's brought out some high quality tequila and cognac and we met his three wolves. Nik even got licked by one! Thinking of calling the next album, 'Licked by a Wolf.' On the way back to the bus, Ro smashed Ben Davies in the face with a cup full of snow. He nearly cried.
 

Fresh off the road from this summer's Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, Suicide Silence recently kicked off their co-headlining tour with The Black Dahlia Murder, Chelsea Grin, and AlterBeast. As the band continues to tour in support of their latest album, 'You Can't Stop Me,' which was released via Nuclear Blast, they will be blogging about their experiences for Revolver. Watch their video for "You Can't Stop Me" at the bottom of the post.

Entry by Mark Heylmun and photos by Jeremy Schott.

Alright, so I'm home and ready for the next tour, (headlining across Europe with Thy Art is Murder, Fit for an Autopsy and Black Tongue) which starts in about a week or so. I can't even begin to tell you how fuckin' badass this last run was, but I will try. Really, this tour just felt good—everybody was into the shows and we all had good times and made new friends as well as rekindled old friendships with bands and our friends across the U.S.

Last time I checked in with all y'all I told you about how all the bands are doin'... Well AlterBeast's guitar player came back and I'm happy that happened because he's a badass. Chelsea Grin for all I know still hasn't ran outta weed. And Black Dahlia Murder, well I think they are already in Europe on another tour grinding away because they know how to grind. As far as the Suicide camp goes, we really had a blast this whole last tour. We all got along great and nothing happened extreme enough to harsh the good vibes the tour brought us. All the crowds I think fed off the good energy all of the bands brought and that made for ALL good shows! Not one show wasn't a GOOD show! What more can you ask for?

So since I'm at home and this is a tour blog, I'm gonna run you through some highlights from the road. First of all my favorite day off this tour was in NOLA—red beans, and rice, gator, turtle soup, mushroom tea, coffee in a live jazz spot, and strip club? Man you name it you cannot go wrong with a day off in New Orleans!! Favorite show of the tour? Montreal!!! But all of the other dates were a close second place haha! But really, I'm not just saying that this last tour was my favorite tour I've ever done. A lot has changed for me and the guys this past few years and this tour has got me cheezin' again. I can't thank everyone enough for coming out.

But I guess since all of you are reading this, you are looking for exclusive dirt on us or a band we were just with. Well you are in luck 'cuz I got the dirt on everyone in our band. Eddie is secretly a women, Garza works at Dominos when he's home for free pizza, Alex is actually Garza and vice versa, and Dan Kenny has skid marks, awe yes and me? I'm actually Gumby from Battlecross. See you guys around! Peace and love, peace and love!

You can check out Suicide Silence's tour dates here and get 'You Can't Stop Me' on iTunes.
 

Chris Krovatin is the author of multiple young adult novels, including Heavy Metal & You, Venomous, and Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones. He also fronts the New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a contributing writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone's collective ass. This column represents his opinions–and probably only his opinions.

King Diamond with Jess & The Ancient Ones

October 24 at The Paramount, Denver, CO

• My hometown: New York.
• Reason I'm seeing the King in Denver: The New York show sold out in two hours, and anyway, my girlfriend lives here.
• Reason I'm OK with seeing King Diamond in Denver: It is really fucking cool that King Diamond can sell out the Best Buy Theater in New York City in two hours in 2014. Who knew?
• Types of local Colorado specialties enjoyed before the show: Blue Dream, Dopium.
• Where these specialties were bought: At a store, where one should be able to obtain them in a civilized nation.
• Number of fans in King Diamond makeup seen upon arrival: Eight.
• Number of fans seen dressed in full King Diamond regalia: Two.
• Number of badass Mercyful Fate backpatches witnessed: Approximately 25.
• Most readily available beer at the Paramount: Coors.
• Surprising fact about Denver: You think all that Coors Rocky Mountian bullshit is totally corporate. Not true. They fucking love Coors in Denver.
• Best modern metal band from Denver: Speedwolf.
• Reason why Speedwolf aren't opening for King Diamond tonight: Your guess is as good as mine, dude.
• Sad realization of the night: This is a seated venue.
• But let's be honest here: A Colorado King Diamond crowd is old and husky enough that seating might be preferable.
• Tour openers: Jess & the Ancient Ones.
• Contemporaries: The Devil's Blood, Mount Salem.
• Why they're on this tour: Much like King Diamond, Jess & the Ancient Ones have kind of a groovy '70s-style approach to metal mixed with a very operatic lead singer.
• Why they shouldn't be: This band is boring. They're operatic in vocal quality only—there's none of the weird, swooping, melodramatic umph that King Diamond's music possesses.
• Bands better suited as modern-day King Diamond openers: Skull Fist, Electric Wizard, High Spirits, Tombs, Triptykon.
• Cheapest King Diamond shirt available: $25.
• Merch totally unavailable: King Diamond patches.
• Possible explanations for this: They must have sold out earlier in the tour. Or maybe the box filled with the sweet, sweet King Diamond patches got shipped somewhere else accidentally. Maybe they're sewing them onto battle jackets in Fiji right now.
• Random baked thought: Must be weird being a Fijian metalhead.
• Stage pieces erected: Two staircases, two huge glowing inverted crosses, a gothic castle gate backdrop, and a wrought-iron gate at the front of the stage.
• Coolest surprise set piece: The giant light-up Sigil of Baphomet that rises behind the whole thing—HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING!
• And now: King Diamond.
• Equals: None.
• The King's pipes: Fucking incredible, to this day. He can still hit those massive high falsettos like it was nothing.
• Why King Diamond is cool to this day: He never, ever did anything to try and be cool.
• Phrases that only King Diamond sounds metal saying: "I wanna show you my GRANDMA!" and "I'm thirsty—for TEA!"
• Things seen during King's set: The bone-cross mic-holder, a horrible old Grandma, a woman losing her child, a woman becoming a living marionette, a 20-foot-tall backdrop of the King himself, and Grandma being burned alive in a Satanic coffin.
• Ways in which this could get any better: I really can't see how this act could HOLY CRAP, THEY'RE PLAYING "EVIL!" KING DIAMOND IS SINGING "EVIL" ONSTAGE!
• Mercyful Fate songs performed: "Evil" and "Come to the Sabbath."
• King Diamond song I didn't know before this show and now adore: "Shapes of Black" off of Give Me Your Soul…Please.
• Lesson learned from seeing King Diamond live: There is a way to be theatrical, gothic, somewhat ridiculous, entertaining, and at the same time totally metal. You just have to completely believe it.
• Number of words in this review: Including the title and information, 666.
• In closing: Hail to the King, baby.

Finch recently kicked off their tour with Maps & Atlases, Wounds and Helen Earth Band. As the band continues to tour in support of their latest album, 'Back to Oblivion,' which was released via Razor & Tie, they will be blogging about their experiences for Revolver. Watch their video for "Two Guns to the Temple" at the bottom of the post.

Entry by guitarist Alex Linares and photos by Deanna Wallach, Travis McGee, and Jake "The Snake" Wallace.

All right, all right, all right! We're in Florida! Hello, Jacksonville. This week we've made our way from Boston, all the way down the coast to the sunshine state. And we've had a few good shows along the way.

Boston may have been the best show this week. The band was on point. And the crowd was full of rowdy fuckers up for a good time. I tip my cap to all the Bostonites that came out. Thank you for the fun night. Cheers!

Pittsburg, Philly, NYC, Baltimore, and Raleigh were all great shows as well. NYC brought out loads of old friends, and all of our new friends from Razor & Tie. I went on a few culinary adventures during my two days in the city. Anyone living in, or visiting New York should try April Bloomfield's restaurant the Spotted Pig in the West Village. The best Cuban sandwich in the galaxy, and from an English chef at that! Crazy. Try David Chang's Momofuku noodle bar in Lower Manhattan. The pork buns are pretty stellar, and the ramen is delicious! Finally, head to Doughnut Plant for tres leches cake donuts. Mind = blown!!

Randy is pretty much back to full health. Well, as close as he ever gets to it anyway. He might be the first half human in history to simultaneously have the Avian flu, SARS, and the Ebola virus and live to tell the tale. Or at least slur something nonsensical about it. Caution to anyone meeting him at any of the shows. If you happen to come into direct contact with him. Please immediately burn your clothing, and wash your entire body with WD40 and Ajax! You've been warned.

I hope to see you all on the last leg of this tour. And if I don't, you can read about it here. Party on, Wayne!

You can check out Finch's tour dates on their website and get 'Back to Oblivion' on iTunes.

Fresh off the road from this summer's Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, Suicide Silence recently kicked off their co-headlining tour with The Black Dahlia Murder, Chelsea Grin, and AlterBeast. As the band continues to tour in support of their latest album, 'You Can't Stop Me,' which was released via Nuclear Blast, they will be blogging about their experiences for Revolver. Watch their video for "You Can't Stop Me" at the bottom of the post.

Entry by Mark Heylmun and photos by Jeremy Schott.

The first half of this co-headliner rig with Black Dahlia has come and gone. It's crazy how fast a tour like this goes—you are anticipating and preparing so much that before you know it, you're already halfway done. It also helps that we are all pretty damn stoked to be out here playing these shows for everyone who has been coming out. I'm pretty sure that goes for every band on the tour.

Since I last checked in with you a lot has gone down in all camps on this trip. AlterBeast had a guitar player up and bail on them, literally fly home, and they are holding strong with one guitar player. That band is fucking awesome. Chelsea Grin I don't think has been weedless once this whole tour and that's impressive. And Black Dahlia had a talented glass blower gift them a custom made spider/tarantula dab rig which has been getting used and abused by everybody. As far as what's goin' on in our camp... Well you can't script this kinda nonsense but I could guarantee you'd laugh your asses off if you could watch what happens on this bus.

Lemme present you with some scenarios on what kind of hangs you could get into on this tour. Front lounge is bumping some shit, I don't even know what most of the time? Alex is cranking the sound system to its fullest potential. Garza might be on his first glass of wine or he's on his 3rd—either way he's in a good mood just living in the moment. Eddie is laughing and having a good time just smoking some trees and stoked the Giants are doin' so damn good again this year. Dan Kenny at this point in the evening could either be fully clothed or in his boxers trying to find his cell phone...well, currently his cell phone is in taxi cab in NOLA and probably won't be coming back to him, so as of late he's been a new man. Take a cell phone away from a person on tour and see what happens. They gotta get outta there bunk to see what time it is, or they have to ask for directions to get food. Pretty crazy. Oh, and me? I'm in the back lounge in the zen den post-show pretty much 100% of the time listening to rainforest sounds, talking about the day with the crew or the band, or just getting the vibe and chilling. Either way this bus is home at this point and we are all having a good ass time.

That is just the nighttime party sessions, the "work" day is a different story. Mornings are their own animal, soundchecks, meet and greets, contest winning meet n greets, interviews, etc... I'm sure you've heard tour is like 'Groundhogs Day'? Well, we are full on in it right now—same shit, different toilet. But we love this shit. We meet diehard fans every day and then get to play our instruments for them and they freak the fuck out. We have the best most appreciative fans in the world and we are forever in debt to you guys for making us so fuckin stoked to be on the road. This life isn't for everyone and it shows when people are flying home mid-tour, but at the end of the day we do this just as much for all of you as we do for ourselves. I'll say it again—this is the best tour we have ever done and we are blown away by every single shows turn out and response.

I'm writing this on Mitch's 30th birthday my emotions are pretty high, I miss him so much. This tour makes me feel happy to be back and that's been a hard thing for me to feel. Happy... What the fuck is happy? I'm happy to be back playing music, I'm happy with my home life, I'm happy to have a new record, I'm happy to be playing shows—but I'm still gonna miss my friend Mitch forever. Mitch loved the fans so much, if it's possible he's on the otherside missing each and everyone of you just as much as you miss him. He used to say, "Without the fans, we aren't shit." The fans are still here with us and so is Mitch. This whole return of Suicide Silence is a trip and we can't thank you enough for being here with us. Happy Birthday Mitch!

You can check out Suicide Silence's tour dates here and get 'You Can't Stop Me' on iTunes.

Finch recently kicked off their tour with Maps & Atlases, Wounds and Helen Earth Band. As the band continues to tour in support of their latest album, 'Back to Oblivion,' which was released via Razor & Tie, they will be blogging about their experiences for Revolver. Watch their video for "Two Guns to the Temple" at the bottom of the post.

Entry by guitarist Alex Linares and photos by Adam Amar.

Wow, what a whirlwind week. We started in Las Vegas just a few days ago—but we've dashed across the country and are now enjoying some drinks and watching the Jets/Pats game at a Chili's in Ross Township, Pennsylvania. Somewhere between those two, we played some great shows in Vegas, SLC, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit. Randy somehow managed to get married in the middle of it all. Sumbitch didn't even invite any of his bandmates/best friends to witness the event. He has been officially excommunicated!!!

The Minneapolis show has been the best of the bunch. To say it was an intimate event is an understatement. The first three rows of people in front of me were definitely in the soak zone. I felt like I should have handed out mini bottles of Purell, or small hand towels so people could dry off. Poor bastards—ha!

After the Vegas wedding, Randy's turn of luck soured a bit. He's been super sick and was laid out in his bunk 98% of the time. So if he hasn't been his usual self on stage, you'll have to forgive him for it. He's really doing the best he can to not shit his pants every night (he only has one pair). We should all be thankful for that.

In the last few days I've spied Nate working on something pretty cool for anyone interested in some of the deeper meanings of his lyrics on 'Back to Oblivion.' I'm not sure when he's going to be finished with it, or what he'll do with it when he is. But I'm crossing my fingers we'll all get to see it soon. What the heck is an 'Inferium'??

I'm excited to be back on the East Coast. This next week of shows should be great. Pittsburgh, NYC, Philly, Boston, LET'S DO THIS!!

You can check out Finch's tour dates on their website and get 'Back to Oblivion' on iTunes.