1) Throne of Katarsis Helvete - Det Iskalde Morket

2) Torgeist Devoted To Satan

3) Vlad Tepes Black Legions Metal

4) Vietus Mortuus These Haunted Lands

5) Root Hell Symphony

This list of five popular Metal/Black Metal full length albums can be found under the expansive "new releases" CD section of heavy metal, located on the right hand side of the back wall of the Haight Street Amoeba Music store in the vast metal section. These are just a sampling of the countless wonderful metal (including lots of black metal) albums on CD found in this section of the store. More metal releases popular at Amoeba's three stores will be featured in future Metal Monday Amoeblogs. Note that this "new releases" section is technically not all brand new releases, but most are new to many US metal fans. There are also many black metal imports in the section which were previously often difficult to find.

Included is Throne of Katarsis -- the Norwegian self-described "masters of unholy black metal," who in the six years since forming have achieved their goal of trying to keep the spirit of dark atmospheric occult Black Metal of the early ninties Norwegian Black Metal alive and well. According to the band's website, "Sanrabb of Gehenna joined forces with Throne of Katarsis on bass and will appear at upcoming shows and on tour with the band. Current bass player Lord Imalas will still be a part of the live line-up, as they will do separate rituals in the future." 

This past Friday, August 22, while the rest of the civilized world was watching the Olympics, shredders from around the world had their head bangin’ attention fixed on the 13th annual Air Guitar World Championships Grand Final held in Oulu, Finland.

After a two year Air Guitar reign, Ochi "Dainoji" Yosuke of Japan was overwhelmingly crushed by Craig "Hot Lixx Hulahan" Billmeier, who hails from Alameda, California.

Hot Lixx scored highest on the First and Second Rounds, defeating his strongest opponent, Andel "John Sniffler" Soreen of the Netherlands, who took second place. Canadian Cole "Johnny Utah" Manson came in third.

In addition to the instant international recognition and the fame and glory, Hot Lixx Hulahan was awarded a Finnish hand-made Flying Finn electric guitar. He also received a laptop backpack by Golla.

For the 13th time the jury was chaired by Juha Torvinen, the Finnish guitar legend. Also on the panel were the 2005 Air Guitar World Champion, Michael "The Destroyer" Heffels; Amanda Griffiths, who is doing her PhD on the air guitar culture; and the Air Guitar contest organizers, Rita Cadillac and Mark DiPietro.

Of course, after the competition the night doesn’t end until, as tradition goes, Air Guitarists summon the whole world to go forth and play Air Guitar to “Rockin' in the Free World." According to Air Guitar Ideology, all evil, bad and unspeakable things on this planet will vanish if everybody, even for a moment, plays the Air Guitar.