Metal News.

First of all, a couple of final show reminders to get out of the way! On Thurs 7 Dec, the Gold Coast's Sunk Loto will be doing a show at the Enigma Bar with locals Diatribe and Tidal. The show will be 18+, and doors open at 8pm. On Fri 8 Dec, experimental metal band Hekyl will be doing a show with Fear in Dakota at the Jade Monkey. Doors open at 8pm for that one also.

On Sat 9 Dec, the Squatters Arms Hotel (corner of Port Rd and George St, Thebarton) features Obdurate Seduction, Quasar and Taunt. Doors open at 8pm, and entry is free!

On Sat 16 and Sun 17 Dec, Australian metal and hardcore label Resist Records will be putting on a couple of licenced all-ages shows at the Enigma Bar, both starting at 7:30pm and featuring Melbourne's Carpathian and Western Australia's Miles Away. Additional bands will be Newcastle's The Dead Walk! and Sydney's Bad Blood at Saturday's show, and locals Cry Murder and God So Loved the World at Sunday's.

On Sat 23 Dec, there'll be a big licensed all-ages show at the Bridgeway Hotel featuring Diatribe, Skintilla, A Red Dawn, Officer Down, Splyne, 12straightmonthsofwinter and Taunt. Doors open at 5pm.

On Sat 6 Jan next year, locals Mythyca (formerly Mythica) will be launching their debut full-length album, 'Ninth Of The Nine Hells', at the Lizard Lounge with support from Blood Mason, Hatred Slave and new band Treachery. The show will be for the over-18 crowd only, with doors opening at 8:30pm for a 9pm start.

On Sat 13 Jan, there'll be another local CD launch happening, this time the all-ages launch, at Fowlers Live, of Omnium's new album. More information closer to the date of the show. Also on the subject of the album and launch, the band will be discussing both things on 3d's 'Powersurge' on Sun 7 Jan.

Also next year, New York's Suffocation, one of the most influential bands in death metal, will be doing their first-ever Australian tour. Thankfully, we have not been overlooked for that; the group will play at Fowlers Live on Wed 14 Feb. (Why that's Valentine's Day! Can you think of a more romantic thing to do with your boyfriend/girlfriend than take them along to that?) Tickets for the event are now on sale. In other Suffocation news, the band have recently released a new, self-titled album.

The obscure band plug for this column is something of a "disgusting double", with a couple of nice, offensive groups getting a mention this time around. The first of these is "Colombia Gore Squad", Amputated Genitals, who hail from their country's capital, Bogota, and, in my opinion, deserve a plug simply for having the name they do! Judging from the material they provide on their myspace site (www.myspace.com/amputatedgenitals), however, they're pretty decent musicians as well. Also worth checking out are Chinese "shit noise grind" merchants, Coprolagnia, who come from Tianjin, a city near Beijing. They provide some samples of their work at www.myspace.com/coprolagnia; be sure to have a listen to Feces on Junichiro Koizumi (the former Japanese PM, in case you're wondering); it's fucking hilarious!


James Brazel (jbr09171@bigpond.net.au)