Swedish Doom types Kongh have been offically picked up by Chicaco based Label Seventhrule

Official press release:

Seventh Rule Recordings proudly welcomes Scandinavian doom lords Kongh to its eccentric family. Hailing from Sweden, Kongh brings doom metal with a progressive melting pot of ideas whose origins stem from the spirit of their godfathers — Melvins, Yob, and Candlemass.

The follow-up to their critically acclaimed “Counting Heartbeats” debut, “Shadows of the Shapeless” will be released by Seventh Rule to the North American region in early-2010. “Shadows of the Shapeless” was recorded and mixed in Sweden by Peter Lundin and mastered by Peter In de Betou (Entombed, Meshuggah).

You heard it right here folks.

In addition, Kongh will be touring throughout 2010, including dates in Europe and the United States.

Always sad, but we regret to inform you that the guitarist for Chicago metal band Sweetcobra Matt Arluck, has passed away after a 3 year long battle with cancer our thoughts are with his friends & family R. I. P

A new label has cropped up in the Scottish Highlands.  They will be releasing Thrash / Death / Black / Speed / Heavy metal, and they seem to have a real old school vibe about them (which, I have to be honest, is bloody refreshing!)

Here are some planned releases for 2010

Skull Fist (CAN) “Heavier than Metal” CD
DungeönHammer (FRA) / Rust (SWE) split 7″EP
Demonic Cremator (SCO) “My Dying Breath…” 7”EP
Riotor (CAN) Gatefold LP

You can check out their site here – Bestial Invasion.

Belgium progressive death metal merchants emailed me a while ago with a bit of a press release, which I thought I would share with you guys.

Hi folk,
Here’s another update from planet TEOAR:

We’ll start off by telling our bassplayer Thomas Swalens called it quits a few weeks ago.
Thomas was one of the founding members of this band and we had an awesome run together. So it’s really sad to see him go but we respect his decision.
He will play the remaining shows till January. Here’s his statement:
“After 4 years I have decided to leave the band.
I want to thank everybody involved with teoar and espacially the bandmembers for all the opportunities and chances they gave me!
I also want to thank them for supporting the decision I made.
It have been 4 amazing years that I will never forget, but it’s time to move on now.”
Needless to say we wish him all the best for his future endeavours. Thanks for everything bro!
Thomas is still playing in One Ethic, so make sure to check them out at www.myspace.com/oneethic.

So with that being said and done, we’re proud to welcome Sven ‘Bassturbator/Svenchi’ Janssens (ex-Aborted) as our new bassplayer. We’re all extremely excited to have him in the band. He’s an amazing musician and such an overall nice guy… Welcome dude!
Here’s a couple of words from his side: “The first time I recorded these guys (Fragmented EP 2008), they blew me away. After hearing the preproductions of the new songs I was so impressed, that they blew me away even more… So it’s needless to say that I’m very pleased to follow in Thomas’ footsteps!”
Sven uses Ibanez guitars and Elixir strings exclusively.

In other news, we’re excited to finally tell you that we’ll be recording our new album, ARTIFACTS in December!
It has been over a year now since we released our EP and we’re confident that this one will top it in every way.
We’ll be recording guitars, bass and vocals at Sven’s RED LEFT HAND STUDIO during the whole month.
Drums are being recorded as we speak by Dave Haley (Psycroptic).
Here’s what he has to say about our collaboration:
“I’m very happy and excited to be working with TEOAR as they are an extremely talented group of young musicians who have written very original and exciting music.”

So basically we’re stoked to get into fifth gear for this one!!
We’re also gonna be putting up studio reports along the way, so you can follow the progress…

Finally here’s the tracklist for ARTIFACTS:

01. PARADIGMA SHIFT
02. I, CELESTIAL
03. THE ALIGNMENT
04. A FORLORN WORLD
05. THE OUTBREAK
06. TIME ODYSSEY
07. TRESPASSING THE SPHERES OVER THE SAND GRAIN TOMBS OF SUMERIA
08. UNIVERSE CHRONICLES pt.1
09. UNIVERSE CHRONICLES pt.2
10. THE RETURN
11. ARTIFACTS

You can check them out at the official The End of all Reason Myspace page, anbd don’t be put off by the term progressive death metal, this is good stuff!

Baltimore Death/Grinders Misery index have written roughly nine tracks for their fourth full-length. On January 2nd the band will enter Wrightway Studios in Baltimore, Maryland to begin tracking. According to the group, “These are the guys that mixed and mastered ‘Traitors,’ so we are excited to do the entire project there this time around.”

And if that isn’t enough, we’ve got more. Misery Index has issued an update regarding their forthcoming discography release:

“We are pleased to announce, at long last, our discography collection of splits and EPS, entitled ‘Pulling Out The Nails’ (after the first song the band wrote). It will feature 30 tracks, and include ALL non-album material from 2001-2008, including the Overthrow and Dissent EPs, as well as the splits with Structure of Lies, Commit Suicide, Mumakil, and Bathtub Shitter, the Hang em’ High 7″, live tracks, bonus covers etc. The compilation was remastered by Scott Hull this year, and will be available in January on CD through our own Anarchos Records imprint, and on double vinyl through Power It Up (Germany) soon after. This CD will also include an extensive 24 page booklet of details, notes, pictures, and an all-time list of all the shows we have performed. We hope its the final representation of the various incarnations of the band in the past 8 years.”

Looks like a busy 2010.