SECOND ANNUAL METAL INSIDER SUMMIT ANNOUNCED

Panel series added as part of the
11th Annual New England Metal and Hardcore Festival

New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, Crimson Management and The Syndicate are proud to announce the Second Annual Metal Insider Summit on April 17, 2009. The Metal Insider Summit is an interactive, educational conference consisting of two panels where fans and the metal music industry can engage, share ideas and help further the scene. The Metal Insider Summit will give fans an opportunity to meet key members in the business and gain valuable insight on how to start their own careers. It will also give labels, managers, agents, endorsers, publishers, media promoters, bands and more the chance to interact with the people who buy their albums, tickets and merchandise.

Admission is free with an RSVP at MetalInsider.net and a ticket to New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, or appropriate proof of purchase. Those unable to attend will be able to partake and contribute with exclusive coverage at MetalInsider.net, MetalSucks.net and MetalInjection.net in the days following the event.

Panel details and more, after the jump.
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Something is brewing in the IWRESTLEDABEARONCE camp. My once-favorite unsigned band (can’t call ‘em that anymore ’cause now they’re signed!) has now launched a website where you can currently hear a clip from a radio show where – no shit – they play IWABO’s “Tastes Like Kevin Bacon” for… KEVIN FUCKING BACON. Man, I would have loved to be in the room when that happened. “Swell,” Bacon thinks to himself. “First Bernie Madoff, now this.”

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Twitter is the new Facebook is the new MySpace is the new black. At least in this nascent state of the Twitter explosion, we can be fairly certain the actual band members are behind their Twitter walls, happily tweeting away as they see fit and ignoring the rest. Take The Dillinger Escape Plan’s (@dillingerescpln) latest update:

Collins Pub in Morris plains, every Monday night Lobster for $11.95. Be there if you want to eat giant sea creatures with me and Billy.

Sounds fun. Gotta be Ben Weinman, right? Every good Jew loves lobster. If I lived in Jersey I’d totally hit that shit up! Mmmm, lobster. Interesting fact: the lobster pictured at left is 50 pounds and was named “Lemmy” by the man who caught it.

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Here’s a statement from Doc Coyle:

“There have been a barrage of rumors and questions on whether or not Dallas has left God Forbid. It’s true that Dallas has left the band. It’s taken us a few days to confirm this definitely, and figure out what we were going to do considering the fact that we are starting a very important tour with Lamb of God this week.

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Just as Vince was surprised to find himself enjoying Isis last week, I am now more than a little shocked that I enjoy the new Zao song, “What Will You Find?”, which is now streaming on the band’s MySpace page. Granted, prior to this my only real experience with Zao is 2004′s The Funeral of God, but that album struck me as being so very meh (and before all the Zao fans start flipping their shit, by “meh” I mean it wasn’t great and it wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t for me).

But this track is pretty kick-ass – it’s angry, dirty, and vicious. I especially dig the mid-section when all the crazy guitar shit starts happening. And the best part? No more shitty clean vocals! Hoo-ray!

The song comes from the band’s new album, Awake?, which will be released by Ferret on May 5. I may actually have to listen to this thing!

-AR

When you talk about Cristina Scabbia, bewitching singer of Italy’s Lacuna Coil, it’s tempting to devote poetic volumes to descriptions of her melodic acumen, intoxicating voice, and oppressive physical beauty. Even knowing all this, I was still able to be surprised by Scabbia’s effortless coolness: the reader has to imagine her expressing polite disagreement by gently raising the pitch of her voice, dismissing haters with venomless derision, and discoursing like someone casually thinking aloud. Conversely, picture the interviewer perplexed by feelings of sexual longing for his phone, from which Scabbia’s oddly musical speaking voice emanated. (It didn’t help that Scabbia thoughtlessly spoke of wanting more and more, improving your stuff, and getting squeezed in the studio.)

After some shared confusion regarding the difference between Arizona and New Mexico, Scabbia spoke with MetalSucks about her band’s new record Shallow Life (out April 21), boisterous busmates, touring with the melodic dudes of Disturbed, and why Lacuna Coil is a happy band. Check out their new video, “Spellbound,” above; then the full interview is after the jump.

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I love the webernets. Our friends at The End Records put together a quick promo vid for Karl Sanders‘ (of Nile) new solo album using the nifty website Xtra Normal. My curiosity was peaked, so I tried my hand at making my very own Xtra Normal video, and this is what came out:

Make your own at Xtra Normal! It’s free and easy! Even your grandmother could do it! No, Xtra Normal aren’t paying us to say this! I just think they’re cool! Exclamation points!

-VN

Since last week’s teaser for the new Converge album, I’ve had kind of a hard time thinking about anything but Converge. Why? Well, ’cause it’s always good to know that there’s at least one band which will pretty much never, ever, under any circumstances, let you down.

So. Because he’s cooler than we are, Metal Injection‘s Sean Gresens attended this past Saturday night’s Converge show in Brooklyn, where he captured some absolutely awesome footage of two new, apparently still untitled songs. Metal Injection will actually be posting the band’s entire set piece by piece over the coming days, so make sure you check back there frequently – but in the meantime, here’s NEW FUCKING COVERGE!!!

New Converge Song #1

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You’ve got big balls!

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MetalSucks and Fuse are teaming up to offer you one of our coolest contests to date; one lucky winner will take home the entirety of Metallica’s discography on CD! Whether you rag on Death Magnetic or think it’s Metallica’s best album to date, this contest is for you. We’ve all got holes in our CD collections, so this is your chance to kill fill ‘em all.

To enter: tell us what your favorite Metallica song of all time is, and tell us why. Remember, this is MetalSucks, not your 5th grade essay test, so make ‘em funny/interesting/good. Email all entries to news [at] metalsucks [dot] net with “METALLICA CONTEST” in the subject line.

Fuse is generously donating this prize package to us as part of their month long celebration of Metallica’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, culminating in the April 4th ceremony to be conducted by Flea (yep, really). Also be sure to vote for Metallica as “the ultimate artist of all time” in Fuse’s “Rock Madness” bracket. Good luck!

Back in December we reported that Mike Patton would be scoring Crank 2: High Voltage, which, if the original Crank is any indication, is going to be more retarded fun than GI Joe, Transformers 2, and every other stupid summer action movie combined.

The Playlist is now streaming a track from Patton’s score, “The Hammer Drops.” It is in no way, shape or form metal, but it does sound like it will be the perfect soundtrack to watch Jason Statham kill people in ridiculously violent ways and/or fuck Amy Smart in public.

Patton’s full Crank 2 score will be released on April 7; the film itself hits theaters April 21. Check out the trailer after the jump if you haven’t seen it already. Unfortunately, that is a Chester Bennington cameo you see – but fucker’s presence didn’t ruin the first film, so I don’t think it’ll matter much here.

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Have you heard the good news, brother? The New England Metal and Hardcore Fest has added a third stage for younger bands with whom concert goers might be less familiar.

Looking over the list, I already know  one terrible band that will be on this stage (Oceano) and two excellent bands that will be on this stage (Brother Von Doom and The Destro), but there are a lot of names here I’m not familiar with. Thus, I am now going to listen to some of those bands via various channels (really just one channel – MySpace) and make some snap judgements. So, in no particular order:

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A lot of you have been e-mailing us about the rumors that Dallas Coyle has quit God Forbid.

As huge God Forbid fans ourselves, we understand your desire to know what the situation is ASAP. At this time, we do not know any more than you do. We trust that there will be a statement clarifying the situation in good time. In any case, when we know more, you will.

Thanks,

Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Here’s something pretty cool, funny and educational: over at Invisible Oranges, Cosmo Lee has created a chart (above) tracking Napalm Death’s average song length by album. Lee explains:

Originally I made this chart to test a theory that the shorter the Napalm Death song, the better the album. (Also, I wanted to learn how to make bar graphs in Excel.) The theory doesn’t hold true.

Even so, Lee made some pretty interesting discoveries. Read all about his findings here.

-AR

Is “Andrew W.K.” a sham, a carefully constructed record label concoction played by several different actors? Was the hard-partying, bloody-nosed screamer a faceless ploy to sell records? According to a fascinating piece sent in by long-time MS Maniac Elijah T., there is indisputable evidence supporting this claim.

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Got this email from MetalSucks Maniac Andrew Doty over the weekend:

I was reading through the MS archives earlier today, as I completely lack a real
life, and was browsing through the “Fuck you, too,” blog series. So, I came upon the
response to Kristen Randall naked picture thing, wherein something about a naked
picture of Lars Ulrich was mentioned, as though it did not exist. So, I thought I
would alert you that it totally does.

I found it when I was looking for Lars being a dick, to illustrate the point that
Lars Ulrich is a dick. Google wasn’t about to take that shit lying down, however,
and let me search for the word “dick” without giving me porn as a result.

Well, fair is fair, and I did say if there was a photo of Lars Ulrich naked, we’d post it, so… after the jump, Lars’ penis. Needless to say, this is NSFW.

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Holy shit, is this a hardcore band from fucking Japan? Far out, man! They’re not even that good, and they’re already my favorite new discovery since Crystal Viper.

Check out their MySpace page. Apparently they’ll be at NEMHF, too.

-AR

MetalSucks Maniac Gaston Ayala sent us the below clip of Suicide Silence performing a new song, “Wake Up,” this past Friday night (March 27) at the Marquee in Phoenix, where they were opening up for Carcass. It’s obviously not a high quality clip, but as far as I can tell, it pretty much sounds like Suicide Silence – depending on your viewpoint, that might be a good thing or a bad thing.

The song comes off the band’s new album, No Time to Bleed, which will be out later this year on Century. You can check out another lo-fi clip of a new song, “Vile Creation,” here.

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Vinnie Vincent is something of our patron saint here at the MS Mansion. If ever there was a shredder this side of Kerry King whose solos went absolutely nowhere but GODDAMN did they do it fast, that man was Vinnie Vincent. Matter of fact, there’s a life-size bronze bust of the one-time Kiss axe-slinger that greets Mansion visitors as they step into our front yard foyer bathroom urinal closet. 

You shoulda seen the look on Axl’s face when MS Maniac Steve S. sent in this video of Vinnie, well, being Vinnie. Last time I saw Axl get this excited was when MS Mansion Monkey extraordinaire Higgins stumbled upon a website specializing in midget torture porn. True story. But let’s save that one for a different time.

I love how this video is titled “Speed, style & phrasing,” as if there’s one iota of phrasing involved anywhere in this entire clip. After the jump, check out another clip of Vincent doing some intense guitar canoodling live; like everything else the man ever did, it’s completely over the top.

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I’ve been trying to download the new Marilyn Manson mp3, “We’re From America,” but navigating that guy’s website is more difficult than getting Rob Halford hard with a naked photo of Christina Scabbia . So, whomever designed that site… fuck you, and fuck your mother.

In other news, here’s what happened in the world of metal this week:

• We spoke to Believer’s Kurt Bachman and Nashville Pussy’s Blaine Cartwright.
• We listened to new releases from Malefice, Millions, I Killed the Prom Queen and Corpus Christi.
• Is this the worst music video of 2009 so far?
• We really like the new Isis song! Seriously!
• The screamo-crunk explosion has begun… and now we wish it would end.

Alright everyone. I know we’re all excited for the weekend, but try not to die of alcohol poisoning. See ya Monday.

-AR