Just because some bands grind, contorting and torturing their fingers and ligaments for the sake of a tune that has an average running time of 45 seconds, it doesn’t mean they enjoy doing anything else that fast. Actually Finnish grinders Rotten Sound might try and practice the extreme opposite when it comes to daily life. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but it’s something that I learned firsthand on one frightfully cold day in March. For those of you with a short memory span—due to either being generally stupid from too many blows to the head, or from the massive amount of weed you’ve been smoking in your parents’ basement—Decibel staffer Shane Mehling debuted the latest music video from these veteran grind freaks on the Deciblog about six weeks back. Featuring some half-digested burgers competing in the Olympic Games, it was one of the most original music videos we here at dB have seen in a long time!

So when the wonderful folks over at Relapse Records informed us that the band would not only be coming through Philadelphia, but also wanted to shoot their own rendition of the now-famous music video, we almost couldn’t believe our ears. With a tinkle in my eye and a face that has been reserved for your first Christmas morning, I happily accepted and made my way down to the infamous South Street. Home to premier punk and metal bar Tattooed Mom’s, the wonderful folks down there set us up with our own private room and all the veggie burgers that one could possibly eat; in Rotten Sound’s case, it was an abysmal two, but we won’t hold that against them. What follows below is the result from that day—sped up to make it seem like the band actually moves faster than your average domesticated house plant. RS went mouth-to-mouth (preferable to ass-to-ass-Ed.)to see who really could cram those two burgers down their throats the fastest. It took the winner just under five minutes to complete, a time that could easily be broken by most anybody, but that’s not the point here. The point of this video is to show how much fun it can be to eat burgers, drink beer and listen to some good old-fashioned grind!

Make sure to check the guys out on tour whenever they come through your town, and, oh yeah, go buy their latest album, Cursed, which is available now through Relapse. It might just put that very same twinkle in your eye.

Legendary shredder Alex Skolnick may have reunited with his thrash metal brethren in Testament to form some damnation a few years back, but the guitarist’s longtime forward-thinking avant jazz group the Alex Skolnick Trio marches onward nonetheless. The band’s fourth album — the ebullient, beguiling, often-as-not mind-bending Veritas — drops today, and Skolnick was kind enough to offer Decibel an exclusive stream of the Trio’s version of the Metallica uber-classic “Fade to Black,” as well as a few thoughts on how the cover came together. “As a high school junior,” Skolnick writes in the liner notes, “['Fade to Black'] caused me to realize the melodic potential of heavier music, so much so that I decided to look for a thrash band of my own.” High praise from the man who had a hand in both The New Order and Practice What You Preach…

“The new album was going to be all original and no covers, but it seemed a shame not to at least try an arrangement of ‘Fade To Black,’ which been on the back burner for a few years now,” Skolnick tells Decibel. “As if we needed a further sign, we received thumbs up from two members of Metallica — Kirk Hammett, who spoke highly of the trio in print, and Rob Trujillo, who jumped up on stage to jam with us during our soundcheck at Radio City Music Hall. The song felt like a great choice for its use of melody, both in the vocals and the guitar, as well as a mood that is more reflective than aggressive…very bold for Metallica who was so associated with hyper speed, punk-like metal at the time.

“Coordinating with the original arrangement gave us an opportunity to experiment with some ideas that were unusual for us — a loop reinterpretation of the opening riff, the intro lead guitar licks quoted and doubled by jazz guitar and the upright bass, the main body of the song played to a pulsating, fast groove instead of a ballad and a drum solo in the middle of the tune instead of the end.”

After the jump a more expansive preview of Veritas along with a couple other relevant nuggets.

Every year — well, the last two for this writer — key parts of team Decibel travel from the City of Brotherly Death (i.e., Philadelphia) to Harm City (i.e., Baltimore) for the exalted festival extremely extreme music, Maryland Deathfest. Every year, Maryland Deathfest is an endurance test. How many kick-ass bands can one — or several in our case — ‘writer’ witness while the Memorial Day sun beams down harshly like a cruel deity with a stubbed toe? 15-20? Maybe.

Well, folks, if you’d like to catch up with MDF 2010, Handshake Inc. has the goods on DVD. They’ve already released MDF 2010, Part I (available here for $10), but have moved on to Maryland Deathfest: The Movie 2. The second iteration features sweet footage of Pentagram, Total Fucking Destruction, Pestilence, Sulaco, Jucifer, Possessed, Fuck the Facts, Magrudergrind, Repulsion, Birdflesh, Coffins, General Surgery, Sulaco, Deceased, Melechesh, Nirvana 2002, and a few more notables. There’s requisite interviews with bands, VIPs (that’d be us; maybe), and, of course, fans (that’d be you!). So, it’s really a for-the-fans, by-the-fans affair.

If doubt — and there’s probably good reason you do — check out the quick trailer below. It features Autopsy.

** Maryland Deathfest: The Movie 2, is available May 27th, 2011 on Handshake Inc. ‘Odor’ it here.