You read right, blog patron. For the mere cost of a compact disc, you can secure for yourself MILLIONS in return. But don’t thank Barack Obama for this imminent stimulus opportunity. Instead, thank the folks at Seventh Rule, the impressive indie that brought us Wetnurse, Light Yourself On Fire and now: Millions.
Into the Moat’s 2005 debut The Design knocked many on their collective asses with its combination of technical metalcore riffery and rumbling-of-Zeus breakdowns. Of course, repeated listens to this record yielded only a few good songs followed by a lot of thin, droll filler (and even those good songs grew tiresome after a while), as did so many technical metalcore albums from that period. It was hard to envision the band growing into anything more than squiggly guitars and thundering breakdowns, and the four year gap between The Design and Into the Moat’s latest, The Campaign, could have been assumed to be due to the band members focusing on their day jobs and letting Into the Moat fade into obscurity. Of course, they were honing their sound, turning a few monsters into a multitheaded beast. Though the dozens-of-time-signatures thing fizzled out a few trends ago, Into the Moat still manage to sound inventive and relevant, growing without having to make friends with 4/4 time or clean singing.
The Absence guitarist/frequent MetalSucks commentor Patrick Pintavalle has announced that the writing process for a new Absence album has commenced:
“We are writing for our third full-length album. It’s been a bit of a slow going thing. We are trying to make a record that has a classic and timeless feel to it. Some of you may also know that Riders of the Plague is going to be a hard album to top. We are doing whatever it takes to do just that. We have some ideas up our sleeves to involve you fans on this next record as well. The last time, we had many of our fans put their names in our CD insert. Keep your eyes open for something a whole lot cooler than that. The music is coming along. We will be posting video footage of the pre-production and the recording in the months to come.”
I don’t have anything clever/funny to say about this, other than it makes my otherwise shitty day a little bit brighter. Thanks, Patrick!
If you don’t know The Absence, you are most likely insufferable. Check out their video for “Dead and Gone” from Riders of the Plague after the jump.
I’ve been dying to see Gojira do a full headlining set for a long time now, but said desire increased a hundred fold after I watched them pretty much blow In Flames off the stage back in December. Seriously: anyone who says the French are weaklings has never seen this band live. Because they will crush you. Crush your balls.
So. Looks like I’ll get my chance to see Gojira play for at least an hour this spring, when they’re doing a headlining trek with The Chariot and Car Bomb as support. I’m honestly not that familiar with The Chariot’s music, but I do know that Norma Jean started their descent into being the world’s most boring band after Josh Scogin left the fold; and Car Bomb are the tits. And even if you don’t like either of those bands, well, have I mention that FUCKING GOJIRA WILL CRUSH YOUR FUCKING BALLS?!?
Tour dates after the jumperooni.
Get excited. Or angry. Or whatever you get when you find out there’s a new KsE album on the way.
-AR
I’m admittedly a late bloomer when it comes to getting into Deathwish Records, but after buying Blacklisted’s Heavier Than Heaven, Lonelier Than God a couple months ago I knew I’d be back for the rest of the roster, which includes Narrows. You might have caught wind of this band on the free Deathwish Records digital compilation, and if “Chambered” is any indication of what the rest of the forthcoming New Distances album will sound like then we’re in for some of the heaviest hardcore of 2009. Then again, Narrows features Dave Verellen of the one-and-only Botch, so nobody should be surprised by just how AWESOME this shit is. If, like me, you can’t wait for the May 12 release date, be sure to pick up a copy of last year’s self-titled EP.
-GS
[Gary Suarez shouted at the devil, but the devil shouted back. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
….especially when you’re the fastest drummer in the world.
There’s gonna be an animated feature film version The Goon coming out later this year, which was produced by David Fincher (who directed Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Boring, the videos for Nine Inch Nails’ “Only” and A Perfect Circle’s “Judith,” etc.). I guess in an early bid to get some hype going, Dark Horse Comics will be publishing a series in which The Goon takes on… Dethklok. Hm.
MTV (ugh!) has the first promo video for the comic; check it out below.
-AR
[via Topless Robot]
Less than a year ago Judas Priest were threatening to pull an Iron Maiden and play their most recent, snooze-inducing album, Nostradamus, live in its entirety; either the band’s handlers told them that was really, really shitty idea, or the band just realized that they like making money, because now they’ve announced that they’ll “celebrate the 30th anniversary” of their classic release British Steel by playing it live from start to finish on their summer headlining tour.
Of course, no one seems to have told them that they’ll actually be celebrating the 29th anniversary of the release of British Steel, which came out in the Spring of 1980. But, hey, they’re old and my dad can’t remember what year it is either, so I sympathize.
ANYWAY, British Steel isn’t my favorite Priest record, but it’s obviously a damn fine one and Halford and company can still bring it live. So this should be a good time.
Here’s Priest performing “Living After Midnight” live in 1982. Announced tour dates thus far are after the jump; support will come from Whitesnake, which means I might actually be able to talk my woman into coming with. Rad.
When Billboard Magazine recently asked some metal industry insiders (including our own Vince Neilstein!) to name some bands that they thought were poised to be the next big thing in metal, only one band got multiple mentions: Lazarus A.D.
Little wonder. As evidenced by the recent release of their Metal Blade debut, The Onslaught, the band’s unique of modern thrash is a breath of fresh air in a scene increasingly dominated by kids interested in little else besides just recycling their favorite Exodus riff from twenty years ago.
As the band prepares to hit the road this May and June with Testament and Exodus, I got the chance to e-mail vocalist/bassist Jeff Paulick some questions. After the jump, get Jeff’s thoughts on the band’s new album, working with the legendary James Murphy, the pleasures of pissing off fans who claim to be “tr00,” and more.
Boris fanatics and headbanging skateboarders alike will definitely want to peep this awesome trio of customized “Feedbacker” decks. There are ones representing each member of the band and are at least semi-official. You can buy one of your very own from the Magic Bullet Records’ mailorder, and every skate deck comes with a free dropcard with which you can use to download eight Boris tracks, courtesy of Southern Lord. I doubt these will be available much longer, so you might want to hurry.
-GS
[Gary Suarez is more Queens carnivore than Brooklyn vegan. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No.]
Now I have no choice but to kill Scott Stapp’s grandma.
-AR
Myself, Corey and Kip have spent hours laboring over this document, my friends, so that all of you MetalSucks Maniacs can go forth and be fruitful at this year’s South by Southwest festival. This is what we believe to be the comprehensive guide to everything metal-worthy happening at SXSW this year.
Download the Official MetalSucks Guide to SXSW 2009 here, then print it, send it to your friends, put it on your iPhone, wipe your ass with it, whatever… and have fun!! And of course, come say hi to us at the official showcase for The End Records, of which MetalSucks is a proud sponsor.
See you in Austin.
-VN
No, not really… but you’d think so based on the Canadian pop duo’s new “metal” t-shirt design (above).
Part of me wants to like this t-shirt because it looks cool. Kudos to the designer for that. But the other part of me wants to say, “Man, fuck that.” The co-opting of metal culture, particularly the aesthetic, is not something that metalheads take lightly. I’m no member of the fashion police, but I think it’s fair to say that any Tegan & Sara fan wearing this shirt would be doing so ironically; “Haha, it’s Tegan & Sara but it *looks* metal. Get it?” That irony is a slap in the face to those of us who take metal seriously. I can’t speak for Tegan & Sara themselves — for all I know they could be cranking Gojira at 11 as I type this — but the likelihood of most of their fans being able to name one Metallica song outside of “Enter Sandman” (if that), let alone the name of one metal band new on the scene in the past 10 years that didn’t play at Bonnaroo, Coachella or <insert hipster festival here> is pretty damn unlikely. And something about that makes it seem rather unfair of them to bite off a hunk of metal culture for their own good.
Full disclosure: I loved Tegan & Sara’s 2004 mini-hit “Walking With a Ghost.” Fantastic song. But metal it is not.
So let’s keep apples to apples. Look; if one Tegan & Sara fan picks up a Carcass record because of this shirt, then mission accomplished. But it still rubs me the wrong way. What do you all think?
-VN
Thanks to MetalSucks Maniac Amanda Dobbs for pointing us towards this very unusual story on Pollstar. It seems that Dir En Grey will be playing two shows in their native Japan that are “male only,” and have posted a note on their website to this effect:
“We will confirm your sex at main entrance, therefore you will need to bring a public certificate including health insurance card, pension book, passport, resident’s card. In some cases, we will conduct careful checking. If we cannot check your sex on the day, we may have to refuse your attendance.”
We were curious as to how the band is planning to “conduct careful checking” of audience members’ sex, since we can’t imagine any world in which the ticket holders line is asked to drop trou right there in the street. So we contacted them* to get some answers. After the jump, learn six ways the band plans to make sure everyone who attends these concerts is, indeed, a dude.
Seriously, does anybody have worse luck than this poor dude? First Nachtmystium weren’t able to complete last year’s tour with Opeth, then they’re kicked off of the free Scion fest for some bullshit about Nazis (which, for the umpteenth time, is NOT TRUE), and now the band has to drop off their upcoming, MetalSucks-sponsored tour with The Haunted because Judd has broken his leg. Says the band:
“Sorry to anyone hoping to see us in April! After this whole bullshit fiasco with the Scion Rock Fest a few weeks back, and now this, it’s been one thing after the other around here. Fear not, we will be back soon enough.”
Thanks to MS tipster “Yis I” for letting us know that Mastodon have posted the entirety of Crack The Skye — whose official release isn’t until March 24th, one week from today — on their MySpace page for free streaming. We’ve had most of Crack the Skye for a little while now, but this is the first time any of us have heard the 17-minute epic album-closer “The Last Baron.”
My opinions of this album can be summed up thusly: holy fucking shit. Next level. If you can’t appreciate this band’s artistry and ambition you ought to have your ears checked. To say that I’m excited about the band’s upcoming small club tour in which they play Crack the Skye in its entirety would be an understatement on the level of saying that President Bush is a fuck-up.
There’s a really cool Crack the Skye pre-order deal running at The Omega Order, and Mastodon have unleashed a ridiculously cool website companion to the album that is highly worth taking a few minutes out of your work day to look at (as if you’re doing any work right now anyways). So what are you waiting for? You’ve heard the album now. Discuss.
-VN
The lack of new music from New York’s noise rock royals Unsane has been a source of sadness for me considering the vicious and vibrant Visqueen record on Ipecac a few years ago. Every few months, I find myself visiting their MySpace page in the hopes that we might get a news of another album or even some tour dates. Thankfully, as I learned today, its members have gone on to new and interesting projects. Vinnie Signorelli drums for the talented post-metal combo A Storm Of Light, while bassist Dave Curran is making some cool shit with his fellow Pigs. I already knew about those two, but I was especially pleased to discover that Unsane’s founder Chris Spencer has a new project called Celan, which unsurprisingly bears a sonic semblance to the project he’s been toiling in since 1988. Check out tracks like “One Minute” or “All This And Everything” from the band’s upcoming album for Germany’s Exile On Mainstream Records and tell me they wouldn’t be out of place on an Unsane album. Other members of the band include Niko Wenner from Oxbow, so needless to say, I’m pretty fucking pumped for the forthcoming debut Halo, which will hit America officially this coming September.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be watching the Lambhouse bonus DVD from Relapse and laughing my ass off at the abundance of SKATEBOARD FAIL in the classic “Scrape” video.
-GS
Between the Buried and Me are one of those kinda-polarizing metal bands; you other love ‘em or you don’t get ‘em. But judging by feedback on this site, it seems like most of you love ‘em, and I’m 100% certain that more of you would love them if not for the fact that they’re on a record label not exactly known for its quality metal output. And what’s not to like? Their 2007 opus Colors ranked on not only the year-end lists of Kip Wingerschmidt and yours truly, but sent shockwaves that emanated through musical circles not usually known for embracing heavy music in the slightest.
So: Lambgoat reports that the band is wrapping up writing for their next record which they plan to begin recording May 31st with long-time producer / genre-master Jamie King.
