The 70000 Tons of Metal Cruise. Wow. If you can afford the $915 per person (they get you by saying “it’s only $666 plus fees and taxes”) and can afford to be away for five days than you might want to go about seeing if you could be one of the lucky 2,000 that will embark in January 2011 on the cruise. 40 bands have been secured for the five-day, four-night cruise including Amon Amarth, Exodus, Testament and Sodom to name a few. The $915, which if you have cruised before you know that is not as steep as they come, will get you a room, all on-board entertainment, meals and non-alcoholic and non-carbonated drinks.

By my calculations, you’re looking at watching 8 bands, dropping $183 (plus drinks), and getting about four (if you're lucky) hours of rest a day for five days in the middle of January. Factor in the time spent chasing around Chuck Billy in there and chances are you're going to need to take another cruise right after this one just to wind down.

Tickets are on sale right now at 70000tons.com -- you can't book single cabins and all the $666 cabins are booked up so you're now looking at dropping $1,015 - $3,248 for a spot on the cruise. Not very metal-friendly if you ask me.

Date:  Thursday April 22nd, 2010

Place:  Metropolis in Montreal

Bands:  Amon Amarth + Eluveitie + Holy Grail

Tour name:  Twilight of the Thunder God Tour II

Do you ever get the feeling that some bands are just fillers for other big bands?  Well that’s what happened with Holy Grail.  If you’re looking for an original power metal band, don’t look here.  They look like a blend of Helloween, Stratovarius and Gamma Ray but are worse than all of them.  I’ll admit I don’t like power metal but they managed to give somewhat of a nice performance onstage.  The singer asked during the show if we liked fast songs and played his songs in such a manner that looked a lot like “Speed of Light” from Stratovarius.  I’m glad they didn’t play more than 25 minutes.  (A side note, Holy Grail is formed from the leftovers of White Wizzard.)

Listen to Excrecor and then Ratt’s new album (if you must).  Click here to see Katatonia tour dates and by all means, check out the new Slayer video and tell us what's up.  I'm off to play some Battlefront and relax.  Enjoy the rest of your hump day and the track ‘Twilight of the Thunder God’ from Amon Amarth's 2008 album of the same name.

 

Remember this segment?  This is where I bitch about not living close to shows I want to see.  Right now I'm bummed I cannot go to Sweden's Metaltown festival, recently confirming heavy hitters like Amon Amarth, Between the Buried and Me, In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. This year's Metaltown festival is set to take place in Gothenburg on June 18-19. The list of bands that will play is ever expanding, but you can see the names of those currently confirmed here or here.

Seawolves                               From: Switzerland   Discography: “Dragonships Set Sail” (2009)   Seawolves is a Nordic influenced death metal band. Founded is 2004, Seawolves is currently signed to Heavy Horses Records. There are only two listed members as of now:   Roman Friedrich Sebastian Jehle   Information on Seawolves is pretty scarce at the moment, what we do know is that in 2009 they put out a kick-ass record that sounds like early Amon Amarth with the added depth of a violin. We will bring you more information as we have it.   Links: www.myspace.com/seawolves793