Cleveland traditional, classic metal band LICK THE BLADE will release their debut album, Graveyard Of Empires, on Auburn Records this month. The album was recorded at Noise Floor Studios in Cleveland with engineer Mark Klein (BREAKER). Cover art (pictured) was designed by German artist Frank Fiedler.

Graveyard Of Empires tracklisting:

'Prelude To War'

'Thanatos'

'Royal Blood'

'Resistance, Rebellion, And Death'

'Graveyard Of Empires'

'From Pandemonium To Chaos'

'Red Warning'

'Sea Of Apathy'

'Voyage Of The Damned'

'Rex Mundi'

'Stalker'

'Lick The Blade'

“MAIDEN, PRIEST and you could throw in RUNNING WILD and MERCYFUL FATE in there too,” says guitarist Tom Mowcomber, when asked whose fans might also get into Lick The Blade. “We don’t want anything modern in our sound. We love classic metal! Even the bands that are doing classic metal seem to throw in this modern stuff, or things from other genres. We just want to do 100% pure classic metal, for people that want to hear that”.

Lick The Blade performed this past July at the sold out 2009 Headbangers Open Air Festival in Brande-Hörnerkirchen, Germany as part of a special Auburn Records 25th Anniversary celebration. At the end of their regular set, the band was joined on stage by members of DESTRUCTOR, BREAKER and ETERNAL REIGN to perform past classic songs from the Auburn catalog.

The band appears on recent compilation CDs from Germany’s Heavy and Poland’s Hard Rocker magazines and was featured in the November 4 issue of Cleveland Scene Magazine by legendary Cleveland rock journalist Anastasia Pantsios.

Lick The Blade consists of:

Tom Mowcomber – guitar

Brian French – guitar

Ted Anderson – vocals

Mike Kurtz – bass

Greg Behnke – drums

Mowcomber recants the story on how the band came up with their rather unique and unusual name:

“Our old guitarist, and I were watching the original Halloween one night with some friends. We were partying pretty hard that night, and after watching the movie, we had the bright idea of using a butcher knife to stab the hell out of a watermelon that we had just cut open and filled with booze. At some point during all of that chaos, a friend of mine took one of his stabs at the watermelon and licked the guts off, after retracting the blade, and suggested that Lick the Blade would be a great band name. And thus, the name was born. The name referred to licking the blood off of a knife... nothing more, nothing less. I think the name really does a good job of representing the aggressive, relentless, powerful nature of heavy metal. Although, the story of its development is quite ridiculous!”

The Graveyard Of Empires album was released overseas by Auburn this summer but is making its US debut this month. In celebration of the release, Lick The Blade will be hosting their official CD release party on Sunday, November 8th at the Hi-Fi Concert Club in Cleveland. VENOMIN JAMES, SHADES OF REMEMBRANCE, THREEFOLD LAW and Chicago cellist HELEN MONEY open. The show starts at 7:00 PM. Admission is only $5. Germany’s Daniela Vogel, who is visiting Cleveland for the first time, will be the guest MC for the evening.

This will also be the first show in six months for Venomin James lead singer Jim Meadors, who has just returned home on leave from Afghanistan while serving in the US Army. Meadows was deployed early this past summer. “It is great to be back home for a few days to be with family and I'm really psyched about getting a chance to rock again”, says Meador. “The Lick The Blade show should be a blast!” Venomin James will be releasing their second album, Crowe Valley Blues, on Auburn Records early in 2010.