High on Fire to release new album De Vermis Mysteriis on April 3rd

In the "Holy Shitterific Surprise on a Saturday Dept!"  An announcement of earth shattering epic-ness....

Press Release February 23, 2012 For Immediate Release HIGH ON FIRE To Release New Album "De Vermis Mysteriis" on April 3, 2012 Award-Winning Oakland Trio Announces Multiple Appearances at 2012 SXSW Festival       HIGH ON FIRE De Vermis Mysteriis          World renowned hard rock band HIGH ON FIRE will release its new studio album De Vermis Mysteriis on April 3 via eOne Music. Recorded in Salem, Massachusetts' GodCity Studios with producer and Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou, the 10 song effort -- touted as "direct, eye-opening and powerfully supernatural" -- is the band's sixth studio recording and the follow up to 2010's Snakes for the Divine which debuted at #62 on the Billboard Top 200 and has been called "wonderful" by The New York Times and "an exhilarating rush" by The Chicago Tribune.       De Vermis Mysteriis (or "Mysteries of the Worm") takes its title from a fictional grimoire created by Psycho author Robert Bloch and incorporated by H. P. Lovecraft into the lore of the Cthulhu Mythos (Lovecraft mentioned De Vermis Mysteriis as one of the books that "repeat the most hellish secrets learnt by early man"). The album carries a deeply mystical undercurrent, incorporating fantastical themes and lyrics detailing, among other things, time travel, a serum called liao that is made out of a black lotus and "a Jesus twin who can see the past through his ancestors' eyes."  And that's just scratching the surface!       Musically, De Vermis Mysteriis is absolutely explosive, showcasing the California power trio's thundering roar and expanded harmonic and rhythmic palettes while the songs move confidently through multiple riffs and movements. HIGH ON FIRE construct tough, burly stoner metal that is at once devastatingly epic and mercilessly metallic as superstar guitarist Matt Pike's sizzling ax and avenging-angel riffs fuse with Des Kensel's double-kick-drum onslaught and Jeff Matz's concrete crushing, Burton-esque bass guitar. Over the course of forty-five minutes, HIGH ON FIRE have created an amalgamation of fantastical lyrical ideas and brute force musicianship anchored in an endlessly captivating, punkishly frantic sound. Simply put, the band generates awesome on demand and has a virtual chokehold on monolithic-sounding, masterfully crafted epic music. HIGH ON FIRE is a savage bull in the china shop of modern metal.      When asked for comment on De Vermis Mysteriis, Pike somewhat cryptically replied, "Prepare for your dark journey."                                                                           HIGH ON FIRE (photo: Tom Couture)      The track listing for HIGH ON FIRE's De Vermis Mysteriis is as follows:      1.) Serums of Liao      2.) Bloody Knuckles      3.) Fertile Green      4.) Madness of an Architect      5.) Interlude      6.) Spiritual Rites      7.) King of Days      8.) De Vermis Mysteriis      9.) Romulus and Remus     10.) Warhorn      In advance of the new album's release, HIGH ON FIRE will perform a number of live dates as part of the 2012 SXSW Music and Media Festival in Austin, TX. The band is expected to preview new material at the SX shows. The just-announced dates are as follows:      March 13    Austin, TX      Emo's East (Non-SXSW headline show)      March 14    Austin, TX      SXSW (MetalSucks day party)      March 15    Houston, TX   Fitzgerald's      March 16    Austin, TX      SXSW (Brooklyn Vegan day party)      March 17    Austin, TX      SXSW TBA      March 18    Austin, TX      SXSW (High Times day party)      Finally, on June 30, HIGH ON FIRE will join Slayer, Slipknot, Anthrax and more as part of the 2012 Rockstar Energy Mayhem Tour.  The 26 city jaunt will kick off in San Bernardino, CA and run through August 5 in Hartford, CT.  The itinerary for the monster trek is as follows:      June 30      San Bernardino, CA                 San Manuel Amphitheater             July 1          Mountain View, CA                   Shoreline Amphitheatre      July 3          Auburn, WA                                White River Amphitheatre      July 4          Nampa, ID                                   Idaho Center Amphitheatre      July 6          Phoenix, AZ                               Ashley Furniture HomeStore Pavilion      July 7          Albuquerque, NM                      Hard Rock Casino      July 8          Greenwood Village, CO            Comfort Dental Amphitheatre      July 10        Dallas, TX                                   Gexa Energy Pavilion      July 11        The Woodlands, TX                  Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion      July 13        Tampa, FL                                   1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheatre      July 14        Atlanta, GA                                  Aaron's Amphitheatre at Lakewood      July 15        Noblesville, IN                             Klipsch Music Center      July 18        Oklahoma City, OK                    Zoo Amphitheatre      July 20        Maryland Heights, MO              Verizon Wireless Amphitheater      July 21        Tinley Park, IL                             First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre      July 22        Clarkston, MI                               DTE Energy Music Theatre      July 24        Cincinnati, OH                             Riverbend Music Center      July 25        Cuyahoga Falls, OH                   Blossom Music Center      July 27        Camden, NJ                                Susquehanna Bank Center      July 28        Burgettstown, PA                      First Niagara Pavilion      July 29        Bristow, Virginia                        Jiffy Lube Live      July 31        Saratoga Springs, NY               Saratoga Performing Arts Center      August 1     Corfu, NY                                     Darien Lake Performing Arts Center      August 3     Mansfield, MA                            Comcast Center      August 4     Scranton, PA                              Toyota Pavilion      August 5     Hartford, CT                                Comcast Theatre     HIGH ON FIRE's work on De Vermis Mysteriis follows more than a year and a half of world touring in support of Snakes for the Divine which included multiple North American headlining jaunts and international festival appearances as well as tours alongside friends and peers in Metallica, Slayer, Mastodon and The Melvins, the latter of which saw the trio caught in both the February 22, 2011 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand and the powerful earthquake and resulting tsunami in Tokyo, Japan on March 11, 2011. The popular U.S. group was unharmed, but shaken after surviving its second natural disaster in sixteen days and was able to return to its native Oakland a few days later.  NBC Bay Area spoke with Matt Pike following the Christchurch earthquake; that interview can be seen at this location.     About HIGH ON FIRE: Universally recognized as one of the most potent acts in music today, HIGH ON FIRE creates modern heavy metal that merges primal fury and aggression, hesher bombast and hall of fame heaviness.  Described as "a supersonic exercise in conquest by volume," HIGH ON FIRE has rewritten the hard rock rulebook since its formation in 1998, forging a style and sound that is both critically celebrated and absolutely unique.  The group features vocalist and cult guitar hero Matt Pike, a founding member of the famed underground band SLEEP.  Pike was named as one of Rolling Stone magazine's "New Guitar Gods" and is one of rock's most charismatic figures. HIGH ON FIRE will release its new album De Vermis Mysteriis this April.            HIGH ON FIRE is available to speak with interested media now. To chat with the band, simply contact Carl Schultz @ ACTION! PR via any of the means listed below. Updated news and tour information will be made available via HIGH ON FIRE online (website / facebook / twitter) and ACTION! PR online (website / facebook / twitter).       "a beautiful, untamable kind of band" - THE NEW YORK TIMES      "These Bay Area lifers have so fully internalized metal's sweep that the genre's catalog could go up in flames, and as long as the transcendentally intense "Snakes" survived, we'd be able to reverse-engineer the music's history." - SPIN      "music heavy enough to unbalance the Earth's rotation...Pike is one of the best guitarists you will ever hear...one the best live bands you will ever see." - CHICAGO TRIBUNE      "High on Fire are the sort of band who put devils or skulls or snake-demon ladies on their album covers just because those things are awesome, not because they illustrate any larger cultural point.  And five albums in, they're very, very good at generating awesome on demand...High on Fire do it right." - PITCHFORK           "it's not often something rocks this hard...stadium-sized" - STEREOGUM     "magnificent...one of the best bands in the business." - THE ONION      "a band that eats Motorhead, drinks Sabbath, and bleeds Slayer...at the absolute pinnacle of their game" - SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN      "High on Fire are the new Mötörhead. The trio never falter" - ALTERNATIVE PRESS       "majestic...monolithic-sounding...on the cusp of attracting a much larger audience than ever before." - POPMATTERS      "Oakland's (and possibly Earth's) heaviest band, High on Fire, is ready for its close-up." - SF WEEKLY  Carl Schultz ACTION! Public Relations / Media & Marketing  P.O. Box 302709 Austin, TX  78703  (512) 926-4511 carl@action-pr.com  www.action-pr.com

Got a call from my pulmonologist out of the blue yesterday.

"How's your asthma doing.? " Uhh. Good I guess.  "Good."  Listen I was taking a closer look at your most recent chest x ray, and i took it to a radiologist. Looks like there's something small and smooth in your right lung. About 2 cm."

"I'm 98% sure its not something bad. Cancer isn't usually round." But knowing your concerns about what happened to your sister, I think we should do a CT scan next week."


So that's how I started my weekend.

Isn't this life just a dark comedy?

How much can a man take? Am I the Americanized version of a litmus test for humans who haven't been through war, plague,rape,murder or terrorism, but want to experience everything else that could possibly drive them completely insane?

Well it sure feels that way.

My playlist:

Lullaby-Sia
How to Disappear Completely-Radiohead
Cafe-Tim Buckley
Changes-Black Sabbath
2:45 am-Elliott Smith
Unfinished Plan- Alain Johannes
Evening Kitchen-Band of Horses
Borrowed Tune-Neil Young
Blindsided-Bon Iver
I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry-Cowboy Junkies

Baard Kolstad :Drummer

Get this kid a band. Stat.  He's got almost every percussion style covered.

Conductor Dave and the Brown M&Ms Story

A semi- weird video of David Lee Roth whom had just gotten through with his late afternoon shift at the Reading Railroad and returned to his NY Penthouse just in time to find a camera crew there. With the help of city as his backlight, night shades and some stains on his Carhardtt overalls,  he finally sets the record straight on the Van Halen "Brown M&M story" that's been part of rock folklore for almost as long as the Zeppelin "Mudshark Incident" rumor.....some of you have actually heard this, then again, no.


Brown M&Ms from Van Halen on Vimeo.

Bonnaroo 2012 Line- up

•  Radiohead
• • Red Hot Chili Peppers
• • Phish
• The Beach Boys (Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks)
• Bon Iver
• • The Avett Brothers
• • The Shins
• • Foster The People
• • Skrillex
• • Aziz Ansari
• Dispatch
• • Feist
• • The Roots
• • Alice Cooper
• • Superjam
• • Black Star
• The Word (John Medeski, Robert Randolph and North Mississippi Allstars)
• • Ludacris
• Ben Folds Five
• • Flogging Molly
• Spectrum Road (Cindy Blackman Santana, Jack Bruce, John Medeski, and Vernon Reid)
• Mac Miller
• • Childish Gambino
• • Major Lazer
• • Tune-Yards
• • AfroCubism
• • Flying Lotus
• Umphrey’s McGee
• • Little Dragon
• • St. Vincent
• • City and Colour
• • The Civil Wars
• Young The Giant
• • Two Door Cinema Club
• • Punch Brothers
• • Needtobreathe
• Fitz & The Tantrums
• • Bad Brains
• • YelaWolf
• • Dawes
• • Battles
• • Danny Brown
• The Black Lips
• • SBTRKT
• • Phantogram
• • Kendrick Lamar
• Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires
• • The Kooks
• • The Joy Formidable
• • The Antlers
• Kathleen Edwards
• • MiMosa
• • KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS
• • Alabama Shakes
• • Das Racist
• Delta Spirit
• • Gary Clark Jr.
• • Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk
• • Laura Marling
• Trampled by Turtles
• • Mogwai
• • The War on Drugs
• • Ben Howard
• • GROUPLOVE
• • Blind Pilot
• ALO
• • The Devil Makes Three
• • White Denim
• • EMA
• • Here We Go Magic
• • K-Flay
• The Lonely Forest
• • MARIACHI EL BRONX
• • Big Freedia
• • DALE EARNHARDT JR. JR.
• • The Soul Rebels
• Kvelertak
• • Soja
• • Steven Bernstein's MTO Plays SLY
• • Big Gigantic
• • Sarah Jarosz
• • Orgone
• Darondo
• • Fruit Bats
• • Moon Taxi

To be held June 7-10 in Manchester, Tennessee. Tickets go on sale in 4 days on Feb 18, 2012. 260 bucks for the whole weekend.. A payment plan is available if you buy early.    

Mark Lanegan Live on KCRW

A rare live performance by Mark Lanegan on the Radio KCRW in LA: (and now everywhere), doing Gravedigger's Song. I posted this because he did two US shows, NY/LA and then he's off to Europe( as usual). I got shut out of those and I wanted to see he and his band in real light. Now I'll research who the players are....

from Pod : A review of Van Halen- A Different Kind of Truth

I was going to sit down and review this massive surprise of an album, a throwback, mind you..all that's missing is Michael Anthony (physically). After seeing and hearing the new/old track Tattoo and tearing it a new asshole on C of F, I was worried. I put on my pinstriped spandex, and chaps and pressed on. I acquired, I listened, I allowed for marination.....  But then, my friend Sean Coleman over at Pod nailed it, nailed my sentiment and addressed all of the worries of the Diamond Dave Army, better than I could, and for your pleasure. So, without further adieu....

Here is a link to his excellent review of Van Halen -A Different Kind of Truth

http://finnbros.blogspot.com/2012/02/van-halen.html

A Review: Mark Lanegan- Blues Funeral

A fuzzed hypnotic bass jackhammers recklessly through subterranean waves of gray. A gravelly dull roar rumbles through the speakers, confidently freezing the marrow of the lazy listener.  The voice of Mark Lanegan and his smoky purr blurts the words "with piranha teeth, Ive been dreaming of you"..and we're leveled. Flatlined in attentive bliss. It's the start of Gravedigger's Song, the first track from Blues Funeral, Mr. Lanegans's first solo effort since 2004's Bubblegum.

There is a familiarity to the presentation. The basement window view of a day's weary underside in the hue of the melody and lyrics..".The magnolia blooms so sweet and it fades just the same"... Onto lines like "Muddy water, celestial flood, you know I feel ya, in my iron lung" from Bleeding Muddy Water...These cold panoramas jumpstart this album. It feels like comfort, a musty tattered sweater of protection reminiscent of his earlier work..Whiskey For the Holy Ghost, I'll Take Care of You...whisps of that era are evident here... A guide to many a broken overcast afternoon...We drift through the icy still of St. Louis Elegy, with its organ laden chorus ringing like a spaghetti western hymnal, .."Down here the winter, will cut you quick, these tears are liquor and I've drunk myself sick.".... it rings with comatose sadness, humming dreary and dried eyed with memory lapses.

And then, a blind spot right turn into a thick thud and screamy riff as "burnouts by the score, strung out in metal cages" line the hazy halls and pollute the ash dust couches of  Riot in My House, a stand out track with a Josh Homme tone and migraine like solo that rips through the before during and aftermath of a seven day stretch in a Yakima high desert drug den. Is Lanegan behind this blurry camera, or a bit player in this meth-merizing scene?

We now come to the curveball and concrete cornerstone of the album, Ode to Sad Disco. Mark finds his faith among the lost mass of revelers dancing in half speed comas while powder driven rhythm makes a phoenix-ful rise from an Erasure- like synth and Linn drum bed . His uncharacteristic break from baritone to an almost falsetto preach is a revelation, soaring sleepily over lines like " A mountain of dust, burns in your mouth, here there's no north or south".

The help is legendary. From Eleven, the Queens and more, Alain Johannes appears as jack and master of all studio trades, Jack Irons(RHCP, Pearl Jam, Eleven) is on drums, Greg Dulli (the other gutter twin) and Masters of Reality king Chris Goss contribute vocals, and the aforementioned QOTSA mastermind and former Screaming Trees touring guitarist Josh Homme brings the thrift shop guitars. Within this collective, the vision and depth of these songs radiate with an ease of effort, allowing Lanegan's vastly under rated lyrical output, to finally stand on its own.

In Phantasmagoria Blues, a hushed clock tick drum and bobbing guitar brushes behind the exhausted introspect and dark shock of lines like "if you found a razor blade and took it to your wrist, then I'd be here in my electric chair because of this" Heavy load. Hardly lifted, emblazoned with an empty beauty.

Next, Quiver Syndrome, an alluring, overdriven dope sickened, allegoric anthem acts as a raced pulse Pt.2 to the fabulously frantic track  Hit the City, from the Bubblegum album.

The muted thump of  80's drums and The Edge- like guitars lift the sigh and sag of Harborview Hospital, a wandering ode to outpatients, basking in the synth sirens, like ghosts of remorse.

Deep Black Vanishing Train veers into Lanegan and Mike Johnson timestamped acoustic guitar category from the Whiskey for the Holy Ghost era, a old man's requiem to the tracks of time, peppered with piccolo.

The electronic drums and three- tiered  Rolands hum behind the dry ice haze and stage fog of Tiny Grain of Truth. This, the final track could be a travel log to the many lanes and collapsed veins of a city in afterglow, with nary a guitar to be found anywhere within its meandering 7 minutes. Neon blurs of endless expressways are connected by an almost Kraftwerk feel as we are led away. It is a jarring, cosmic end to this journey

 The husky narration, breathtaking back line and sheer scope of sound presented this time out should shove Lanegan to an unseen level of respect and infamy with Blues Funeral, a purely massive achievement of an album full of bleak pastiches and beautiful burdens, all transported by a myriad of throwback rhythms and memories.

Shake Up, Spit Out

Circle of Fits in its shape and substance has been levitating on the bland side of a plateau for a while now. Our sweaty night visions of a makeover have been manifesting for some time, so over the next few weeks(months?) we will shed our skin template and run naked with dick swinging through the fields of re- invention.

We are looking for writers, of all shapes and sizes, whip smart and venomous, opinionated and hungry, to contribute to the style and flow of the site. Please look back on some posts, and if you can see anything that rings your writing bell, contact us @ circleoffits@gmail.com.

We will keep you posted with any new URL that may or may not take the place of the current one.

Thank you,

C of F