Swedish tech-metal band Meshuggah and death metal legends Deicide have recently decided to put modern technology to good use in promoting their new albums.  Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake has announced a video drum competition, while Deicide is putting the creative burden of music video direction into the hands of their most talented fans with a music video competition.

The Meshuggah contest lets aspiring drummers record themselves drumming along to the track ‘Bleed‘ from the "obZen" album, which was released earlier this year.  Haake has stated that ‘Bleed’ is by far the most complex on the album, and even he had to spent a good deal of time practicing it, so fans should have their hands full replicating the performance.  Promising entries will be uploaded Meshuggah’s MySpace blog, which also contains some very intimidating drum tabs for the song.  The winner will be announced April 6th, with prizes including a signed copy of the album, a huge signed poster, and a congratulatory phone call from Haake himself.

Deicide, meanwhile, have announced an intriguing competition to create the best music video for the track ‘In The Eyes Of God’ off their upcoming release "Till Death Do Us Part."  Awhile ago I posted about the unfortunate lack of creativity among many metal videos, so I’m quite eager to see what the metal community comes up with.  Visit the competition page to download an mp3 of the song, video clips, logos, lyrics, and anything else to get the creative spark going.  The winning video director will receive an Ibanez bass signed by the band, bragging rights, and presumably the chance to create more metal videos in the future.