It's called The New Wave of American Heavy Metal.  The author apparently runs a website called www.rockdetector.com.  I had no idea that this was even coming out until a friend informed me that he read about it a couple of days ago.  Here's part of the description from http://www.zondabooks.com/titles/nwoahm/  (where you can purchase the book):

"Features over 600 U.S. and Canadian Alternative Metal, Emocore, Hardcore, Math Metal, Metal, Metalcore, Neo-Thrash and Screamo bands.

Heavy Metal is the ultimate survivalist, weathering every trend, every fad. In the mid 90s, in the wake of Grunge, the Metal movement underwent its most radical evolution to date, ushered in by a leaner, meaner crop of purist, aggressive acts in PANTERA, MACHINE HEAD, BIOHAZARD, LIFE OF AGONY, PRONG and SLIPKNOT as Thrash fused with Hardcore and Death Metal.

As the millennium dawned this new found power exploded not only onto the US touring circuit, but also the national album charts giving rise to a new generation of offshoots as Screamo, Emocore and Metalcore.

In traditional Rockdetector style executive editor Garry Sharpe-Young, author of 14 Rock & Metal titles to date, exhaustively documents these bands in painstaking detail with extensive historical biographies, line-ups and full discographies including track lists, labels, catalogue numbers and chart positions."

There's a complete list of featured bands there, too.  Weird, man...too weird for me. 

--Bryan

Tank is unable to continue with Oubliette at this point, so our friend Ben Sap (formerly of Black My Heart, Nientara, etc) is stepping in to drum for us on our summer tour.  A big thanks to both Tank and Ben! 

The tour is getting close, and more dates/information get posted all the time.  Keep checking in; the list will be finalized in about a week. 

We'll be embarking on a 2 month tour this summer (June 19 - August 20). We're covering the entire continental U.S. with a couple of dates in Mexico and Canada. Booking is coming along nicely, but we could still use quite a bit of help. So, if you or someone you know books shows and would like to see us play near you, please contact us. We'll reveal the details and the exact dates in a month or two!

Hi everyone! Well, our CD, "Cries of the Peaceful," is officially out now on New Eden Records! It is available for online purchase through Revelation Records, VeryDistribution, and Rebuilding Communications (or New Eden Records)! Here are a couple direct links: http://www.revhq.com/store.revhq?Page=search&Keywords=oubliette&Category=Search All http://www.thehardcorestore.com/moreinfo.asp?id=12736 Please pick up a copy and let us know what you think; that would mean a lot to us. Tell others about it too! It's really cheap. Thanks, Oubliette P.S. - The Naj One CD "Foeknawledge: Destroy Babylon" just came out on New Eden too, and is available on all of of the sites listed above. Check it out! Also, the Gather 7" is now out and it's available at Rebuilding Communications! Support them.

Hi everyone, As some of you may know, Oubliette was recently picked up by New Eden Records. We’ve waited to make an “announcement” about this until everything was solid and until we had an official release date for our CD. We’re very excited to be working with them—a label that’s focused on supporting the movement for human, animal, and earth liberation, broadly, and bands with something valuable to say, specifically. We’re proud to be listed among the ranks of the bands on that label; check out Cherem, Purified In Blood, Gather, Tears of Gaia, Seven Generations, Purification, Foekus, etc if you haven’t already. Everything has been really great, and we especially want to thank Erik Vanguard for everything that he’s doing for us and, of course, for being a really awesome guy in general. Our CD/EP, “Cries of the Peaceful,” will be officially released on Tuesday, January 11th, 2005—at which point it will also be available for online purchase through Revelation, Liberation Records, and (if everything comes through) GoodLife, VeryDistribution, and perhaps some others. It has 6 songs, totaling nearly 30 minutes in length. …Many thanks to Logan Kornhauser for producing a beautiful layout for the whole thing—including a 12 page booklet for the insert! (Keep an eye on his band, Permanent: www.300miles.net). Although the “official” release date isn’t until Jan 11, we WILL have it for sale at our shows in December, so please come out to those and get one from us! We’ll also have a bunch of new merch: shirts, stickers, buttons…the usual fare. Anyway, that’s all for now…more to come later. Take care, Oubliette Label info… New Eden Records P.O. Box 11055 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 USA www.newedenrecords.com (also for Rebuilding Communications) …new site coming soon. Support them.

Hi everyone, There is a very important debate happening on the board for the myspace group "the vegan straightedge," of which we're a member. This debate is about an issue that we feel quite strongly about and that is directly relevant not only to kids who are veganedge but to our hardcore/metal/punk/independent community in general, so we encourage you all to go and have a look. Hopefully this will spark fruitful dialogue on a sorely neglected subject. Here's where you'll find it: http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupProfile&groupid=100059923&Mytoken=20041019001525 ...and the second page: http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=messageboard.viewThread&groupID=100059923&page=1&EntryID=231503&CategoryID=0&get=1&lastpagesent=0&Mytoken=20041024235227 It's under the entry "hi everyone!". Thanks, Oubliette

Hi everyone!

Sorry that our page hasn't been updated in a great long while, but things have been changing for all of us, and as a result we've been quite busy recently. Bryan will be in Chicago until June of next year; Carter is in Richmond most of the time; Christian will be in DC indefinitely; Rowan and Dustin are both in Charlottesville, where the rest of us wish we could be.

However, fear not! We will be playing shows again soon. If anyone can help us out with shows between December 13th and January 1st, we would be very appreciative. We'd love to play as much as possible, so if you can help, let us know as soon as you can so that we can start mapping out some dates and make the most economical use of what time we have then--because it'll be here and gone before you know it.

We'll also be back with a vengeance in the summer of '05. There are some crucial plans in the works, so everyone be on the lookout! ...This is kind of far in advance, but we could use some help there too. So, everyone get in touch, stay in touch, and let's make this junk happen!

Also, our CD, Cries of the Peaceful, has been done for a while now. We're currently quite broke, so we're waiting for a little while before we have it pressed and packaged. But, we're really stoked on it and can't wait for everyone to hear it.

Get in touch with us at any time for any reason!

See you all soon,
Oubliette

Our EP, Cries of the Peaceful, is finally finished! And, we're definitely pumped because it sounds pretty sick--but maybe we're biased. Thanks again to Chris Kincaid at Studio Grey. Well, the recording, mixing, and mastering are finished; the artwork/layout is still in the works. Logan Kornhauser (For All Time, Permanent) is handling that. So, definitely keep checking back for updates about when it's finally going to come out.

Below are all of the lyrics from our forthcoming EP. One of the most important aspects of the hardcore community, as we see it, is the opportunity it affords everyone involved to share ideas and learn about those of others through a sustained dialogue carried on in a spirit of camaraderie. So, let us know what you think.

The EP is tentatively entitled "Cries of the Peaceful."


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...The Time We Have...

a promise to myself, to the ones that I love:
no one can take this from me—
the time we have so little of.
embrace the pain, the beauty.
I want every moment; I refuse to forget.
Tacit or express, I stand by every act of choice

let us reclaim our self-direction,
rise to the challenge of one another
our experience needs no false enhancement
being together is enough

What I do is what I choose to be
For everyone affected by me.
a surrender to convention,
impulse to conform? No.

Our spontaneity and critical faculties
undone by the arbitrary dictates of fashion.
let us reclaim our self-direction,
rise to the challenge of one another
our experience needs no false enhancement
being together is enough

if it’s only for the taste, for custom, for friends…then…

lay it down
for those who can’t control themselves
lay it down
for those imprisoned in this hell
lay it down
for those who perish on the streets
lay it down
for the man who’s bound to beat
his wife and kids
lay it down



...In Tolerance...

This is a cause - more than a feeling I'm expressing to you.
These are our rights I'll fight to protect -
More than 'my point of view.'
Repeal the laws that subjugate -
sexuality, none shall oppress.
Stand up and fight; it's long overdue.
Gay rights - no compromising.

We're asleep on weathered fences, underwriting broken hearts
and loveless lives in isolation from those lives lost to this war's violence
who die quietly so we won't notice that it's fought and lost inside us;
inherited desolation, power's hour ends with celebrated self-expression.
I won't demonize another way of loving, won't be my father's ugly weapon.
We're our culture's working parts, by our parents' work created
To own our lives with beating hearts or die conditioned to react:
standing under history's shadow, fading fast or fighting back;
A promise walks beside a choice: embrace the other, raise her voice.

A loving way to share a life is not reserved for man and wife;
love's rare flower's growth denied the freedom needed for its life;
Hands outstretched to find each other in defiance of our law,
A fundamental right withheld from some by culture's fatal flaw.

Shame ingrained restrains their meeting, each withdraws in bitterness,
the bigot's lips are parched with envy, desiring the forbidden kiss.

As heaven showers earth with waxing light to warm our time together,
I for one renounce repression, turn away from winter weather;
Laws and hearts must be amended, attitudes and language altered
To reflect this new respect for others where our fathers faltered.

(the sanctity of the institution of marriage is duplicitous euphemistic jargon for a lot of intolerant nonsense that's incompatible with our constitutional tradition of liberty and social equality)



...Benediction...

I hate to see this
All this chauvinism reeks of a reification of received morality
A display of insecurity
A reflection of the ugliest tendencies of our society
Are we here, condemned and fated
to see around us, replicated
the shadow cast from sex and class?
when egos wear transparent masks;
new aesthetic, nothing changes;
intimidate and bully, you fucking jock -
the strength on your sleeve is only skin deep,
you've put us to sleep, you've made us these cages -
bring diversity to shows, include someone whom no one knows -
the dancing doesn't count for shit if you don't care
that someone standing there gets hit -
our empty hands are balled in fists
we swing at one another, miss
to undermine our hope and promise:
revolution - open, honest

As we turn to face each other, what will we see?
Insular and self-absorbed, a contradiction in our hardcore?
The angels of our better nature fade like portraits in the rain
Of what we might become as people holding hands in love and pain.

The free exchange of ideas among equals is a revolutionary
Foundation of decency in a culture of violence and estrangement;
What do we make with our lives and our music?
Inclusive discussion or idle amusement? Solidarity in difference?
Or indifference to solidarity, sounds to drown
American guns firing in the distance? Burial mounds -
Earth to cover our eyes and our ears, or
To stand on with courage, no longer in fear?

We stand strong with our sisters
with our brothers
with each other…

What happened to encouraging everyone's sincere participation?

We're alive inside these engines, beaten, bent and made to fit in
Roles made so that we'll forget, afraid of change
from dark to spark our brilliant light
We rearrange and learn to fight
A legitimate alternative: hierarchy crumbles and rusts away
To spend our days, a better way.

This tradition should have died with our fathers
Yet you continue it
every time you call her a whore, call him a fag, say that it's gay,
say they're just black

I refuse the long slow death
of blood exchanged for antiseptics -
of our todays and one-anothers
reduced to rusting dustbin clutter,
a soulless solace under covers with
no more sisters, no more brothers.

No fate already guides and hides us
are we lost with one another
losing time with time to suffer?
or sharing songs to light our history,
a benediction you share with me?



...A Savage Season...

Consumption levels climbing in the first world to appease our lust -
the cradle will become a tomb, infertile earth returns to dust;
ignorant of consequences, gluttony usurps our reason -
milk and gasoline to drown the onset of a savage season;
environmental degradation, butchered forests wither, die;
nature's beauty captured in the memory of a lullaby.

The stricken earth weeps bitter tears from blackened skies to disappear
As light retreats and shadows reach to suffocate us while we sleep;

… We can all do more to help reverse the damage wrought by our
civilization. Deforestation, declining biodiversity, non-renewable
resource abuse …all this forces us to think differently about our
ethics. We should learn to think and act as global citizens with
shared responsibilities and a common fate, by understanding our
everyday choices as ecologically significant acts…by being the
change we want to see in the world.

Local action, global impact
with compassion, take this world back;
in defense of our tomorrow
we exhume the seeds of sorrow

There's time enough left in the world to change it…
…but 'long and hard is the road that out of hell leads up to the light'…

Our cities bleed into the sky, a poison curtain hides the sun
What no one owns is ravaged by the ruinous excess of one;
Coastal areas submerged beneath the seas arising in their wrath,
Homes are washed away as millions perish, leaving barren sands
and nothing for the empty hands of those who tread a violent path

In the failing light we can't see the way
We grasp at shadows as we stumble to our knees
In the failing light we must find each other
Or hear the roar of the sky echoing our pleas

Take this world back
Or waste our pain in isolation, globalize abomination
Withdrawal from devotion, adrift in an ocean
Of concrete and sprawl:
United we stand, divided we fall



...To What End?...

Despotic juggernaut, loaded guns in heavy hands --
a century of unlawful intervention, sowing seeds of hate
our shadow cast across the sea destabilizes sovereign lands.
racist strawmen burn alive at home from
rampant xenophobic treason,
our allegiance to injustice, this failure of reason.

Innocents murdered for the murder of innocents:
the horrific loss of life on a global scale.
Sanctimonious chickenhawks ride the rafters; a spectator’s war;
the jingoistic hypnosis of a captive home audience
safely removed from the human costs of preemptive
violence belies false appearances of democracy.
a rhetorical tapestry of ugly prejudices,
the imperialistic will to subjugate,
indiscriminate reprisals against non-combatants
stain our hands with guiltless blood.
To what end?

An illegal war of aggression under false pretenses
against a fabricated enemy is being waged in our name;
the shrill call for vengeance drowns the cries of the peaceful.

It is the responsibility of every thinking person to
Oppose by all available means this pattern
of contempt for international law by openly
protesting the epidemic militarism of our time.

Nourish freedom’s flame—principled dissent;
Patriots rise with open eyes—for liberty, our vigilance.

(The shrill call for vengeance drowns the cries of the peaceful
inhabitants of countless decimated urban centers;
defenseless prisoners of war suffer humiliation and abuse
at the hands of corrupt politicians and military bureaucrats
whose contempt for human rights implicates
every passive observer in an escalating cycle
of barbarous retributive violence.)