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I don't think it's an accident that the acronym for Valentine's Day is V.D. Like love itself, which has a painful, poisonous, and sometimes pus-oozing dark side, so February 14—the 24-hour period designated by whatever sadistic fuckers control this sort of shit as the day we celebrate amore—has a pitch-black underbelly. Just ask anyone who's been alone on Valentine's Day, or in a shitty relationship on Valentine's Day, or, yes, contracted the V.D. on Valentine's Day. Metal has always reveled in the dark side of life, so it only makes sense that on this date when everyone else is buying each other—or, in those particularly sad cases, themselves—roses and chocolate, we should celebrate the dark side of love. And here are six kickass songs that do just that.

Pantera: "This Love"
If the song "Fucking Hostile" didn't already tip you off, ladies, the next tune on Pantera's magnum opus, Vulgar Display of Power, should make it clear that Phil Anselmo is not someone you want to be cuddling up to.
Sample lyrics: "If ever words were spoken/Painful and untrue/I said I loved you but I lied."

Type O Negative: "Unsuccessfully Coping With the Natural Beauty of Infidelity"
Before Pete Steele and his Brooklyn crew started courting the goth-chick demographic with albums like Bloody Kisses and October Rust, they were slapping the black lipstick right off unfaithful female friends with an album called Slow, Deep, Hard, on which you'll find this particularly disgruntled number.
Sample lyrics: "You went to L'amour Saturday night/Red nails and lipstick, dressed two sizes too tight/His tongue down your throat/His hand up your skirt/Yeah, I'm a man/But it still hurts/Slut!/Whore!/C*nt!/I know you're fucking someone else (He knows you're fucking someone else)."

Megadeth: "Loved to Deth"
He'd just been dumped by the ultimate mistress, Metallica, when Dave Mustaine penned this track from Megadeth's debut, Killing Is My Business…, so who could blame him for a little bitterness. Or, in the case of this song, and the case of poor Dave himself, a whole fucking lot of bitterness.
Sample lyrics: "I loved you to deth/If I can't have you/Than no one will/And since I won't/I'll have to kill/My only love."

Soilent Green: "She Cheated on You Twice"
Our soon-to-be ex-president George W. once said, "Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me…you can't get fooled again." If only that were true, Soilent Green wouldn't have had the material to write this bile-soaked anthem about gettin' two-timed two times.
Sample lyrics: "She wanted to be mine /But she lost her mind /This bitter taste of remorse /This love, a lost cause."

Guns N' Roses: "Used to Love Her"
What metal group hasn't written a song about offing a significant other? (If your band hasn't yet, get on it.) But most of those tunes have obviously been just elaborate fantasies purging feelings of rejection, betrayal, etc. Then an actually crazy dude like Axl—who beat up his onetime girlfriend, model Stephanie fucking Seymour—sings a song about it, and somehow it sounds just a little less outside of the realm of possibility.
Sample lyrics: "I used to love her, but I had to kill her/She bitched so much/She drove me nuts /And now I'm happier this way."

Cannibal Corpse: "Fucked With a Knife"
Actually, this one is a love song. My bad.
Sample lyrics: "Tied tight to the bed/Legs spread open/Bruised flesh, lacerations/Skin stained with blood/I'm the only one you love/I feel her heart beating/my knife deep inside/Her crotch is bleeding."

I'll be the first to say it: I'm old school. (I won't mention my age, but let's just say I saw Iron Maiden play Radio City Music Hall—on the Powerslave tour—and leave it at that.) So of course I grew up with Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Kiss—the granddaddies and great-granddaddies of today's hard rock. Don't get me wrong—I love the new shit, too. It's just that, for me, it doesn't get better than that classic hard-rock sound of heavy blues-based riffs, trippy solos, and stoned-out drumming.

Which is why I was ecstatic when, two years ago, a friend of mine handed me the self-titled debut by Witch, the new project by Dinosaur Jr founding guitarist J Mascis and his cronies. (Although Mascis has laid down his ax in the new band, returning with a vengeance to his first instrumental love, the drums.) With its slow and heavy sound and songs about black-magic practitioners, the disc was speaking my language, and it blew me away. But while Witch's Sabbathian riffs and fuzzed-up freakouts are clearly rooted in the blues-drenched metal I love so much, there is undeniably a contemporary edge as well. Witch is lo-fi stoner rock for the iPod era, and it gave me renewed faith that the old and the new can co-exist—good news for a geezer like myself.

So it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I received an advance copy of the follow-up, Paralyzed (Tee Pee; due March 18), here at Revolver HQ the other day. You all know the feeling: When a band has blown you away once, you hope they're going to top themselves while at the same time you have that sinking feeling that the new disc is gonna suck.

I'm happy to report that Witch continue their dark conjurations on the new disc, though their sound has definitely evolved. Overall the album is faster and more hardcore than the debut. Gone is much of the contemplative, introspective sludgery; instead we have needle-sharp solos and confident, fast-paced riffs. Still in place are Kyle Thomas' earnest, impassioned vocals, even if at times he sounds almost winded trying to keep up with Mascis' speed-demon drumwork (one track is appropriately titled "1000 MPH"). The band feels tighter and more comfortable playing to one another's strengths, and the result is a fast, frenetic, but controlled slab of madness. The second track, "Gone," in particular, highlights the band's persona after two albums together, laying down a devilishly catchy mid-tempo blues hook while Thomas, as always, sings his heart out as if urging a circle of pointy-hatted fellow worshipers to raise their brooms in tribute.

We'll be covering Witch in much greater detail in the June issue of Revolver (on sale in late April), so I won't say any more just now, but rest assured, Paralyzed is a worthy example of Witch's craft, and deserves a place on the shelf of any metalhead—old school or new.

Download "Gone" from Paralyzed here.

This year's installment of the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival will take place April 25–27 at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts.

This marks the event's 10th anniversary. This year the Festival is converging with Megadeth's Gigantour, so headliners on Friday night include Megadeth, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Job for a Cowboy, and High on Fire. Saturday will feature Dimmu Borgir, Shadows Fall, and Behemoth. Ministry, Meshuggah, and Nevermore will close the festival on Sunday night.

Other bands scheduled to perform include A Life Once Lost, the Acacia Strain, After the Burial, Animosity, As Blood Runs Black, Belay My Last, Born of Osiris, Brain Drill, Classic Struggle, Cockpunch!, Cold World, Dead to Fall, Demiricous, Dillinger Escape Plan, Disfear, Eluveitie, Elysia, Embrace the End, Emmure, the End, Ensiferum, First Blood, From a Second Story Window, Full Blown Chaos, The Ghost Inside, God Forbid, Hate Eternal, Heaven Shall Burn, Hemlock, Impending Doom, Keep of Kalessin, Kid Deposit Triumph, Ligeia, Mensrea, Monstrosity, Municipal Waste, On Broken Wings, Overkill, Recon, Red I Flight, Rhinoceros, Shai Halud, Shipwreck A.D., Since the Blood, Skeletonwitch, Sleeping Giant, Soilent Green, Sons of Azrael, Stick to Your Guns, Stray From the Path, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, Trap Them, Turisas, Tyr, Unexpect, Unholy, Vanna, Veil of Maya, Vital Remains, Waking the Cadaver, Winds of Plague, Withered, and Xtyrantx.

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 15. For more information, visit Metalandhardcorefestival.com.

Eleven metal fans were killed on Saturday when gatecrashers stampeded their way into a concert hall to see Beside, a melodic death-metal band

from Bandung, Indonesia. The concert—a record release party for the group's latest album, Against Ourselves—was doomed from the start: The promoter oversold the venue, the Asia Africa Cultural Center, by printing 4,000 tickets for the 750-person-capacity space. Three police officers are under investigation to find out if the license they issued for security at the club was suspect. Blabbermouth.net quotes West Java Police Chief Inspector General Susno Duadji as saying, "The ones who are absolutely wrong are the organizers, because they had bad intentions, such as printing a higher number of tickets. They also provided free alcoholic drinks." He added, "The guilty party is the one who issued the permit." The band has canceled all planned concerts through the end of March and updated their MySpace page to say, "Rest in peace, brothers."

Beside

Revolver-recommended metal blog Metal Sucks made the astute observation today that speed-metal guitar shredder and vocalist Alexi Laiho

of Children of Bodom looks suspiciously like that girl who's always harassing your girlfriend. Also, Trivium's Matt Heafy looks a bit like that girl in the new Terminator TV series. Hmmm…

Maryland stoner-rocker titans Clutch have lined up a crapload of U.S. tour dates, the first month with openers Murder by Death, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, and Hex Machine, followed in April by dates with Kamchatka.

02/21 - Cambridge, MA - Middle East - Downstairs
02/22 - Cambridge, MA - Middle East - Downstairs
02/23 - Burlington, VT - Higher Ground
02/24 - Toronto, ON - Phoenix
02/26 - Chicago, IL - Metro
02/27 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
02/28 - Kansas City, MO - Beaumont Club
02/29 - Springfield, MO - Remington's
03/01 - Omaha, NB - Sokol Auditorium
03/03 - Aspen, CO - Belly Up
03/04 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
03/05 - Boise, ID - The Big Easy
03/06 - Missoula, MT - Wilma Theater
03/07 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox
03/08 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater
03/10 - San Francisco, CA - Slim's
03/11 - San Francisco, CA - Slim's
03/12 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues
03/13 - Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda Theater
03/14 - Flagstaff, AZ - Orpheum Theatre
03/15 - Albuquerque, NM - Sunshine Theater
03/17 - Tulsa, OK - Cain's Ballroom
03/18 - Sayreville, NJ - Starland Ballroom
03/19 - Bogart's - Cincinnati, OH
03/20 - Millvale, PA - Mr. Small's
03/21 - Richmond, VA - The National
03/22 - Raleigh, NC - Lincoln Theater
04/09 - Cleveland, OH - Peabody's Down Under
04/10 - Flint, MI - The Machine Shop
04/12 - Grand Rapids, MI - The Orbit Room
04/14 - Madison, WI - The Majestic Theatre
04/15 - Indianapolis, IN - The Vogue
04/17 - Little Rock, AR - The Village
04/18 - Beaumont, TX - Antone's
04/19 - Houston, TX - Meridian
04/20 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues Dallas
04/22 - New Orleans, LA - House Of Blues
04/23 - Atlanta, GA - Center Stage
04/24 - St Petersburg, FL - State Theatre
04/25 - Ft Lauderdale, FL - Culture Room
04/26 - Lake Buena Vista, FL - House Of Blues
04/28 - Charleston, WV - The Sound Factory
04/29 - Nashville, TN - City Hall
04/30 - Knoxville, TN - Valarium
05/01 - Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel
05/02 - Jacksonville, NC - Hooligans
05/03 - Fayetteville, NC - Jester's Pub

All you fans of Hellhammer and Celtic Frost may want to check out the Delineation II blog by Frost's own Tom Gabriel Fischer, where the legendary extreme metal guitarist/singer checks in about his various and sundry actions.

Photo by Anders Odden.

In an interview with Sweden's Close-Up magazine, Cavalera Conspiracy and Soulfly frontman Max Cavalera (ex-Sepultura) expressed his opinion of labelmates Killswitch Engage. "I went to see Lamb of God in the States and they were all right, but Killswitch Engage opened and it was the gayest show I've ever seen," Blabbermouth.net quotes Cavalera as saying in the interview. "I was like, I'm not part of this scene. It's fucking gay. They were acting like they were U2, and I was like, Hmm…. The attitude was so ridiculous. I don't know these guys, they're on my label [Roadrunner] and all, but it was completely disappointing and gay. Like really lame, such a lame band live, everything about the whole attitude. Lamb of God came out and destroyed them and I don't even like Lamb of God that much, but they were so much better coming after Killswitch Engage. I was like, If that's what the scene is about, hey, fuck it, it ain't got nothing to do with me." Tell us how you really feel, Max.

Post-hardcore quartet Thrice will release the second installment of The Alchemy Index, this time focusing on the elements air (Vol. III) and earth (Vol. IV), on April 15. To accompany the new song "Come All You Weary," off Earth, on iTunes, the band is releasing a remix of a song from Index's first installment, "Digital Sea," as reimagined by guitarist Ben Weinman of the Dillinger Escape Plan. They will also release an acoustic version of "The Whaler" and a video for "Digital Sea."

In a press comment, Thrice drummer Riley Breckenridge says, "As far as the remix goes, we've all been fans of Dillinger Escape Plan for years, and I've kept in touch with Ben Weinman since we did a show with them in London in 2004. Once I found out he was working on remixes, I really wanted to see what he could do with some of our stuff… I'm really happy with how it came out, and honored to have had a musician I have great respect for create his take on one of our songs."

While fans flock to stores to purchase the 25th Anniversary Edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller today, astute hard-rock fans know that Sunday was the 30th anniversary of Van Halen's debut, err, Van Halen. Although the album's sales seem modest compared with Jackson's record-breaker (a little over 10 million in the U.S. to date for Van Halen, compared with 27 million in the U.S. for Thriller), its impact on music was likely just as great. Eddie Van Halen did play the solo on "Beat It," after all.

The blogs Invisible Oranges and Metal Sucks both recently posted tributes to Van Halen.