The answers you guys have sent in for last week’s Completely Unreadable Band Logo contest have been hilarious, and not just because some of you thought the answer was Warg, War, or Swarm. Here are a few sample responses I’d like to share with you:

“Okay so this looks like IWABO. Alternative logo? Completely wrong answer? WTF?”

-Andrew Hardman “Iwrestledabearonce went black metal? WTF.”

-Jonathan Voynar “It’s I Wrestled a Bear Once’s new black metal logo.”

-Andrew Robbins “BLACK METAL JUST GOT GAY.”

-Kuranes

Well, guess what? The answer WAS Iwrestledabearonce. And they are, in fact, a black metal band now.

Yep. IWABO are completely changing their sound.

Don’t believe me? Check out this new band pic by Jeremy Saffer:

Here’s a statement from guitarist Steven Bradley regarding the decision to abandon the band’s old sound:

“We were sick of getting lumped in with ‘scene’ and ‘whatever-core’ bands, so we decided to embrace our roots and just go straight black metal on the new album. I’d say 90% of the new record is straight-up black metal, so we had to change our image to match… Because of course that’s just as important, if not more so, than the music.”

Now, I haven’t spoken to Bradley about this decision, but I think he’s being mostly ironic in this statement. The truth is, IWABO have been known up until now for a brand of schizophrenic metal that encompasses all genres — in fact, black metal may be the only style of extreme music that wasn’t accounted for on their Century Media debut, It’s All Happening — and having pretty demonstrated that there’s very little they can’t do, I think the band basically got bored, and has consequently now turned their attention towards a new challenge.

Either or that, or he’s being honest, and IWABO just got sick of you all making fun of them.

In any case, we’ve heard one of the band’s new black metal songs, because we’re debuting it this Thursday — and it’s fucking great. It is as grim and frosty as anything you’ve ever heard. It isn’t black metal in the Cradle of Filth sense, where it’s been watered down and made more easily digestible for the masses; it sounds like fucking Mayhem in their prime. It is troo kvlt shit. And it rocks.

So even if this decision seems kinda weird — which it is — well… I’m not complaining.

IWABO’s inaugural offering as a black metal band will be out later this year on Century Media. In the meantime, like I said, we’re debuting a new song from the album on Thursday — so make sure you get your ass back here to give it a listen.

And we’ll announce the winners for the Unreadable Band Logo competition later this afternoon.

-AR