METAL BLADE artists crack Billboard 200

Los Angeles based metal label METAL BLADE RECORDS is currently home to two of the year's heaviest titles to break this week's Billboard Top 200 Chart. Knoxville Tennessee's WHITECHAPEL debuted this week in Billboard Magazine's Top 200 Chart at #43 with the band's highly anticipated album A New Era of Corruption and San Diego California's GrammyŽ-nominated group AS I LAY DYING is now spending their FIFTH week in the Top 200 Chart landing the #99 position. METAL BLADE RECORDS would like to congratulate both bands for this remarkable achievement and thank them for their dedication and all their hard work in creating the best albums of their careers to date.

About Metal Blade Records:
The noise began 28 years ago.

A music starved kid named Brian Slagel, killing time in suburban Los Angeles, gets sick of watching the local metal scene being ignored by the major labels. Working days at legendary metal emporium Oz Records and nights putting together one of the first metal fanzines, The New Heavy Metal Revue, Slagel asks some distributor friends if they'd be interested in circulating a compilation of unsigned bands if he put it together. The distributors said yes and Metal Blade Records was born. Of course it wasn't quite that simple. Putting in long 17-hour days between Oz and Metal Blade, Slagel pieced together the bands that would grace the label's first release – The New Heavy Metal Revue presents Metal Massacre. Metallica, Ratt and Black 'N' Blue were just a few of the willing locals. Except before Metal Massacre, Metallica didn't exist.

So now for almost 30 years, Metal Blade Records has been setting the trend in heavy metal music without compromising its underground beginnings. Brian Slagel and Metal Blade Records have without a doubt had a major role in developing the American metal scene since day one and remains one of the most essential sources of metal music today. Since its beginnings in 1982, Metal Blade Records has unleashed some of the most influential and significant metal acts like Slayer, Metallica, Cannibal Corpse, GWAR, Six Feet Under, and King Diamond while developing acts like As I Lay Dying, The Black Dahlia Murder, Amon Amarth, Unearth, Behemoth, Job For a Cowboy, Whitechapel, Goatwhore, The Ocean, Soilent Green, Lazarus AD and 3 just to name a few. There are few who can argue that Metal Blade is one of the leading independent metal labels around! Constantly growing and expanding, Metal Blade has offices in Japan, Canada, and an office in the UK. Not to mention the already significant Metal Blade Records Germany who's been a strong and major force in the European scene for over a decade.

In March 2010, Metal Blade Records pushed the boundaries of bringing metal to the masses once again with the launch of Metal Blade TV; a new site dedicated to spreading the word of Heavy Metal around the world. Metal Blade TV takes fans behind the scenes giving them a glimpse of their favorite bands behind the scenes at shows, in the studio, and at home. Metal Blade TV has become key destination for metalheads to go and see video interviews and segments from some of their favorite Metal Blade artists, in addition to other notable metal musicians and bands, as well as exclusive music video premiers. Metal Blade TV will also host rare video clips from Brian Slagel's illustrious collection that spans 30 years of Heavy Metal shows giving viewers the chance to catch of glimpse of Heavy Metal history. Metal Blade is bringing other bands into the mix because the label is not only about exposing its own bands to the metal community, but also bringing attention to the talents of all metal musicians out there on the scene working hard to give you music to bang your heads and pump your fists to.

By keeping a constant eye on the underground, adding some of the best bands out there to its roster, and sponsoring leading metal tours and festivals like the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival and New England Metal & Hardcore Festival, it is obvious that Metal Blade Records is here to stay!

http://www.metalblade.com | http://www.metalblade.tv