What with forthcoming albums from Necrophagist, Baroness and Obscura hogging most of the spotlight reserved for Relapse’s 2009 release schedule, and the nation’s attention focused elsewhere on their January 20th release date, it’d be easy to overlook these two solid Relapse contenders. We at MetalSucks couldn’t let that happen, could we?
File Isis under “bands I just don’t get.” I mean, I GET it… long, drony songs, heavy, fuzzed out bass, big, loopy riffs, raw production, lack of traditional song structure… but I don’t GET IT get it. As in, see what all the fuss is about. Im fully aware of the importance and influence of this band, especially to those who grew up with more of a punk background as opposed to a metal background… but man, every time I try to listen to an Isis record (a feat I’ve attempted many times) I just get bored, zone out, and forget I’m listening to it. Kinda like when you’re reading a book but your mind is elsewhere and you get to the bottom of the page only to release you can’t actually remember anything you just read… actually, listening to Isis is exactly like that for me. Consistently.
One of the many stories we didn’t actually get to discuss this week is the news that The Faceless are the latest metal act to be banned from The Disney-owned House Of Blues in Anaheim, California. Oddly enough, their tour mates in Meshuggah and Cynic were not banned; what makes The Faceless any more (or less) offensive than Meshuggah or Cynic is kinda beyond me (Also beyond me: why people keep booking metal shows at this club that has repeatedly acknowledged it wants nothing to do with metal. But I digress.).
But the dudes in The Faceless can take consolation in these two facts:
According to the website of Brooklyn’s Europa club, noisy hardcore heroes Converge will headline a show there on Friday March 27th with MetalSucks faves Genghis Tron. (Also on the bill: Ceremony, Rise and Fall, and Pulling Teeth.) Tickets are on sale right now, people!
So. Major downtime yesterday. Server problems. Deepest apologies.
But for realz… we know metal and we ain’t so good at the tech shit. If any of the MS Maniac faithful work jobs in IT / have a strong knowledge of server technology and SQL, we could use a ‘lil help. Kindly email vince [at] metalsucks.net, and we’ll go from there. We are willing to compensate any potential helper-outers with not just some $ but a real, live meet n’ greet with the MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys.
Thank ye. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…
OK, not really, but they are playing some East Coast venues much smaller than they usually would. I don’t think the word “intimate” applies to a Dillinger Escape Plan show, but these three February gigs might come close.
Prog-metal fans ’round the world yesterday sported massive boners following the announcement of Exivious, the new jazzy-fusiony-metaly band featuring two non-Paul Masvidal members of Cynic and Textures drummer Stef Broks (sample press release copy: “With a jazz fusion backbone, Exivious uses freaky metal riffs to decorate their organic eruption of free improvisations and complex rhythms.”). Yowza!
Ever since Vince jotted down some initial thoughts on Lamb of God’s new album, Wrath, there’s been a lot of belly achin’ in our comments section about wanting the damn album to leak already. Which got me thinking: remember back in the day when albums didn’t leak, and you actually did have to wait for the proper release date, at which point you actually had to go to the store and buy a copy? What pagans we all were! HOW DID WE EVER LIVE?!?!
So while you’re waiting so desperately for the album to leak, go to AltPress.com to check out a stream of another new LoG track, “Set to Fail.” I know it’s one of Vince’s favorite tracks off the album, but I think you guys have yet to hear the best Wrath has to offer.
-AR
Jersey Shores represents a new chapter in the the book of Akimbo. Using the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 as their source material they’ve managed to create a thoughtful, if unruly, thematic work that surpasses everything they’ve recorded to date. It’s not the sort of album you can recommend to just anybody, but there are some incredibly impressive moments of meditative, jammy hardcore that deserve some time in the limelight.
By now word is out that Iron Maiden have made a documentary, entitled Iron Maiden: Flight 666, which chronicles the first leg of last year’s totally bitchin’ Somewhere Back in Time tour. A press release tells us that the film will be released (allegedly theatrically!) in April.
But, hey, so long as the dude who made Bruce Dickinson’s other movie isn’t involved, I’m onboard (rimshot!). Here’s the trailer:
-AR
Not really, of course – but these clips from old episodes of Friends, sent to us by MetalSucks maniac Daisy May Twinklepants, would suggest otherwise:
Alas, I’m not aware of any metal band called “Karcass” with a “k”…
There are at least a couple reasons to watch that silly drug movie Spun, directed by Roxette video auteur Jonas Åkerlund. The first, and only defensible one, is to peep that dreamy Rob Halford in a brief role as a porn store clerk. But our panel of judges will also accept a) Mickey Rourke as a meth cook; b) the acting-challenged but bejugged Brittany Murphy; and, c) three seconds of Satyricon!
Yep, somewhere among Spun‘s 100-minutes of narcoporn, we get a glimpse of Satyricon’s “Mother North” video on a scabby Patrick Fugit’s TV (with extra-weird dialogue overdubs here). Alas, Spun didn’t make Satyr and Frost mega-stars, but shit, a year later, they did manage to snag a major label deal for 2003’s Volcano followed by the polarizing Now, Diabolical in 2006. It seems the Norwegian duo had dared to expand – and occasionally abandon – the Black Metal palette, to a measure of outrage from (yawn) kvlt types. Well, that’s what I kept reading in magazines (and was told ad nauseum at last spring’s Behemoth/Dimmu Borgir show); as always, for but a few is the issue black or not black. For the rest of us, it’s good or not good. And Satyricon’s undercooked, perfunctory seventh album, The Age Of Nero, is totally not good.
If I was a betting man, I’d wager that at some point in their lives, the members of The Acacia Strain have been stuck with that most awful of labels – “wiggers” (I betcha thought I was gonna say “deathcore,” didn’t cha?). So there’s probably a deep, sociological statement being made with their new, David Brodsky-directed video, “Skynet,” which forgoes any obvious Terminator references in lieu of imagining a world where all the members of The Acacia Strain are African-Americans.
But, of course, you can also just enjoy the clip as a funny video powered by a br00tal death metal song. Your choice.
If you haven’t done so already, check out our interview with The Acacia Strain vocalist Vincent Bennett here.
-AR
Nothing cracks me up more than finding some reference to heavy metal in movies. Usually, it’s pretty goofy or mocking of metal such as Axl’s recent post here about Metallica in The Darwin Awards with Winona Ryder or that ridiculous Steve Buscemi/Adam Sandler/Brendan Fraser turd Airheads.
Every now and then, however, you might find an extremely cool tie-in such as the use of several Metallica songs in Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills or the masterpiece known as This is Spinal Tap. (Yeah, it’s goofy and mocking of metal, but it is still a brilliant, all-too-real depiction of a washed-up ’80s hard rock/metal band.)
I recently came across another heavy metal/movie tie-in in a film where I never would have expected one.
Grind’s impenetrable wall of noise – even that of its death-infused factions – is difficult by design, most likely to keep the uninitiated away. The issue, though, is that a wall of noise is fairly easy to create: drummer that can play fast blastbeats, guitarists of varying degrees of skill playing in the upper registers, screaming or growling or gurgling singer, bass player optional. Though it’s true for any metal genre, it seems twice as true for grind: the best grind makes sense of the chaos, eschewing the paint-by-numbers quality of the (tens of?) thousands of unsuccessful blastmeisters. Though Cattle Decapitation may seem like another grindy death metal band riding a gimmick, The Harvest Floor, their latest, is a legitimate achievement, skillfully walking the razor-thin line between chaos and precision. Through 37 minutes of jumping between grind, death metal, and brief forays into black metal, the band never seem to sweat. Making sense of the ridiculous speed grind requires a level of admirable expertise; Cattle Decapitation have the sort of skills that put them squarely at the head of grind’s noisy pack.
One late night last year whilst stumbling through cyberspace, I discovered Lafayette, Louisiana’s Collapsar and honestly my ears don’t know whether to thank or curse me for it. Fans of Don Caballero, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Russian Circles, and other similar such prog-sploratory acts of musical aggression will likely be the most on board here — Collapsar’s raging instru-metal fretboard gymnastics are undoubtedly impressive, if not a leel hard to digest at times. But don’t take that to mean that this band is pushing forth with an abrasive, at-arms-length vibe (like some other alienating musicians)…Collapsar clearly respects the audience enough to challenge it, and whoever said that’s a bad thing?
Check out Collapsar on MySpace
Read scenepointblank’s review of Integers
Read HellrideMusic’s review of Integers
COLLAPSAR – “Drilling Holes Through Space”, from Integers (2007)
-KW
This video, sent in by MS Maniac Shiver and posted by YouTube user docrock80, collects and counts every instance of the word or words relating to “death” in Metallica’s self-written studio albums. Words relating to “death” – i.e. “die”, “dying”, “deathly”, “dead”, etc. – appear 81 times in 99 original Metallica songs not including times these words are repeated in the same way during the choruses or verses.
Think Jaymz and Lars have a bit of a death obsession?
-VN
When we were younger, Vince and I used to argue about whether not Billy Joel was any good. For the record: I did not like the musical stylings of Mr. Joel, and Vince did. It wasn’t until Billy boy, as drunk as any member of any metal band has ever been, challenged to me to a fight on the street because I was “lookin’ at his pizza funny” that I began to see just what a bad ass the piano man is. I’ve never thought of the song “Pressure” the same way since.
ANYWAY, Blabbermouth posted this footage of Joel (on rhythm guitar) and a roadie (on vocals) playing “Highway to Hell” this past Friday night in Hollywood, Florida, a town that has the unique distinction of being the second most famous Hollywood in America. The thought of a drunk driver playing “Highway to Hell” is just too funny not to post.
-AR
