Cleveland, Ohio-based traditional metallers LICK THE BLADE have won the Best Metal Band award in Cleveland Scene Magazine's annual 2010 Cleveland Music Awards. Each year the awards honor the best and brightest musical talent Northeast Ohio has to offer. The winners were announced live on CBS Radio's 92.3 FM "Inner Sanctum" show, heard every Sunday night from 10 p.m. to Midnight, on February 21. Other bands nominated in the metal category were CHIMAIRA, ETERNAL LEGACY, CELLBOUND and AMPLEXUS.

Cleveland Scene Magazine will publish a list of all the winners in their February 24 issue both in print and online at www.clevescene.com An awards ceremony is scheduled to take place February 25 at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland. The event starts at 8 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Lick The Blade have been invited to perform 'live' at the ceremony.

"We feel incredibly honored to have received the award", says guitarist Tom Mowcomber. "There's a lot of great metal here in Cleveland. The ballot was full of really talented bands and any of those bands could have easily won. We weren't even expecting to be nominated, let alone win, so it was a great surprise for us. Thanks a lot to everyone who voted. 2009 turned out to be an important year for us, and we're very appreciative of all the support we have received."

2009 proved to be a banner year for Lick The Blade. In addition to recording and releasing its debut album Graveyard Of Empires on Auburn Records, the band performed last July at the sold-out Headbangers Open Air festival in Brande-Hörnerkirchen, Germany as part of a special Auburn Records 25th-anniversary celebration. The group also had songs appear on CD compilation releases from Germany's Heavy and Poland's Hard Rocker magazines.

Adds Mowcomber: "When we started the band, we had high hopes and expectations, but I don't think any of us foresaw things progressing the way that they have."

The band is currently hard at work writing material for their new album, to be released on Auburn Records. The as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2009's debut will contain the following 11 tracks:

'The Grand Inquisitor'

'Ashes Of The Phoenix'

'Cryptid'

'The Blessing'

'Twilight Of The Idols'

'The Mark Of Nero'

'Sobibor'

'Blood-Soaked Majesty'

'Guns, Germs, And Steel'

'The Sun And Time'

'Charon's Obul'