The Black and White Years were the highlight at 2009's South by Southwest with four showcases including a performance with Devo, Tricky and Datarock; and were the recipients of five awards at the 27th Annual Austin Music Awards, the ceremony that kicked off the SXSW Music Festival.

Guitarist Mike Schleibaum commented on the new song: "We're really stoked to release another track from The Eternal Return, 'Devolution of the Flesh.' We plan on playing this new song and 'No God,' as well as everyone's favorite DH songs on the Summer Slaughter Tour. We're really excited to tour the US, as it's been almost an entire year since our last tour around the country. This whole tour is a celebration of our new record for us, so if you see us BBQing out back, feel free to stop by for the party!"

The Minneapolis band made up of Irish ex-pats and Midwest natives have written an impressive record filled with songs about lust and longing, sordid affairs, brutal regrets, and the after parties that fuel them. Without even so much as trying their engaging first single "Loaded" managed to find itself on local radio, touted as "Song Of The Day" and entered into heavy rotation on the Twin Cities indie/alt leaning NPR station The Current.

Marking a foray into new territory for ESL, 'We Are To Answer' drifts back to an epic era of experimentation within the world of hip-hop production.

In the spirit of hip-hop mixtapes, it's a mishmash of Slim messing with samples from tracks he likes (old Wu Tang, etc), tracks remixed from the album, with Slim singing other lyrics over instrumentals, etc. He's printed up physical copies to give out at shows and has it up on his MySpace. Slim and his Mercy Mercenaries have a series of US dates in June (below) with Japandroids, and will be doing another run in August.

'Spit It Twig! (Vol. 1)' was conceived as a literal version of my Contempt! album. I thought it would be fun to take the initial concept of making a sample-based album ala Wu-Tang Clan combined with my own style of vocalizing to its most obvious conclusion: a mixtape of original lyrics over Wu-Tang (and similarly inspired) beats. In this way, it should play as a skeletal blueprint of the actual album. The idea of contributing my own take on mixtape culture at large in this instance was a great fit, since it shares an exuberance for re-appropriation that I hoped to achieve with Contempt!" -Slim Twig

Ignominious Incarceration drummer Sam Bailey comments on the tour: "Masters of Metal tour is a combination of our favourite UK metal bands. Not to mention touring with amazing dudes, we are hitting some of our favourite venues in the country, which means the antics that will take place over this 7 day UK tour will be legendary.