HOLY FUCKING SHITBALLS, how the fucking fuck did I manage to miss the news that Skunk Anansie have reunited?!?!

If you don’t know this band, fuck you. They were amazing. ARE amazing. I am now going to have pray ever night that they come tour the States. Preferably as support for Faith No More. Or Living Colour. No, not just because lead singer Skin is black. Because it would be awesome.

Now, for better or worse, I think SA’s biggest hit was “Selling Jesus,” from the soundtrack to the terrible movie, Strange Days. It’s a good song and pretty “metal” but there are a lot of awesome Skunk tunes.

Like “Cheap Honesty.” Here’s the band performing that track live. I’ll be sure to post lots and lots more Skunk Anansie videos in the coming days/weeks/months whatever as part of ongoing effort to convince you all that this band was, is, and always will be the shit.

-AR

I was surprised at how much I liked the new Rumpelstiltskin Grinder album Living for Death, Destroying the Rest, not because I have anything against the band but simply because I’d never paid much attention to them in the past. Satan Rosenbloom’s positive review of the album ultimately moved me to give them a shot, and by golly… this shit is good! It’s simple and to the point modern thrash that has just the kind of self-aware humor I love to see in metal bands; no one here is taking themselves too seriously, but the fun elements don’t detract from the kickassery. Enjoy their new video for “Nothing Defeats the Skull,” below.

-VN

We loved Neuraxis’ 2008 release, The Thin Line Between, so much that the opportunity to have the band do an exclusive tour blog for MetalSucks was too good an opportunity to pass up. Below, check out vocalist Alexandre Leblanc’s final entry; you can read guitarist Rob Milley’s intial entry here, Alexandre’s last two entries here, and Alexandre’s review of the Oscar nominated film The Wrestler here. Enjoy!

Raleigh, February 21st

A small venue packed with (more or less) 250 people. So many that I’m hoping for a good show. Which we don’t (didn’t) have. I mean we get the 10% that digs what we do but the others are just rude. I mean, it’s ok. They don’t dig us and it’s their right. I later went to a coffee place for some internet. When I come back in the venue. Apparently there had been a fight night. Scott from Carnifex told us (when) he left the people didn’t even care about music…only moshing and fighting. Apparently, a brawl erupted in front of the merch and 6 people, we’re bashing on this huge 6’5 black bouncer fit to be in professional wrestling. We were kind of glad of leaving this place….

Quote : “That bouncer is gonna kill somebody….”

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Well, the day has finally arrived. That’s right, Internets: Chris Cornell’s new solo album, the Timbaland-produced Scream, is now available wherever people buy music these days. For me, that place is Amazon, where the MP3 version is already at the super-promotional-discount-to-inflate-Soundscan-numbers-price of $2.99 USD. Now you too can empathize with Sammy O’Hagar and hear what promises to be the Now And Zen of the former Soundgarden frontman’s career – minus the hits, of course!

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1. You can stream Buried Inside’s super awesomelicious new album, The Spoils of Failure, here. I’ve been trying to get you guys excited about this record for awhile now and I don’t know how good a job I’ve done, so, for the love of all things holy: GO LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM ALL THE WAY THROUGH AT LEAST ONCE. If you don’t like it you don’t like it, but it deserves your attention, damn it.
2. If you’ve got the blues and need a good belly laugh, you can stream Dope’s new album, Antichrist Nobodies No Regrets, here. But don’t go there looking for good music; there’s none to be found.

-AR

Top ten things for Varg Vikernes to do once he’s been released from prison after sixteen years:

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Hello from the road, Metalsuckers! We’re one week into our tour with Portland rockers Red Fang. I am coming to you from a coffee shop called ‘Coffee Works’ in a strip mall in Charlotte, North Carolina. I gotta be quick because we’re about to take off for our load-in and sound check at The Milestone, one of my favorite venues in America. After starting the tour in New Jersey under about a foot of snow last week, we headed to Philly and partied like it was Tuesday night (because it was). I got to hit my favorite spot, Jim’s on South Street!

If you can’t get into one of these you are no friend of mine. I also drink the peppers like a shot. No joke:

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According to those bearded weirdos at Hydra Head, Mind The Drift, the third album from Big Business will be available for consumption this coming April. (For you depraved losers who still require turntables to maintain an erection, the vinyl will be available later this month.) If you’d talked to me a few months ago, I’d be downright thrilled for new music from these guys. But after my palpable disappointment with “Gold and Final”, I remain skeptical as to whether or not this record will even come close to the mighty metal mined on Here Come The Waterworks. Much to my surprise and, yes, dismay, the inclusion of guitarist Toshi Kasai (Dale Crover’s partner in Deaf Nephews) on the two (out of eight) new tracks streaming at the band’s MySpace page left this fan less than impressed.

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Hot on the heels of the news that Crescent Shield are getting ready to release their sophmore album, The Stars of Never Seen, comes our fist taste of new music from said offering: a song entitled “Lifespan” is streaming here.

And it ROCKS. It makes me wish I were drunk and holding both hands in the air, trying desperately to clap in time with the beat despite my intoxication, and failing miserably but not really giving a shit because I am just too preoccupied with my rocking.

I’m saying it’s a good song.

Like I said, check out the song here. Crescent Sheild’s The Stars of Never Seen will be out on May 8 in Germany and Europe, May 11 in the UK and June 2 in the USA and Canada.

-AR

Last week I did three posts about Chimaira in a single day, which I don’t think we’ve ever done here before at MetalSucks. So you know that I’m sincerely stoked about the band’s new album, The Infection.

So stoked that I just spent five minutes watching this awful-quality footage of the band performing a new song, “Destroy and Dominate,” at this past Thursday’s Dubai Desert Rock Festival in – duh – Dubai.

Seriously, though: the quality of this footage is so poor that making any judgement about the song would be beyond fucktarded. This is just for the people who, like myself, really, really need a Chimaira fix.

The band shot a video for this song in their home town of Cleveland a week or two back, so hopefully we’ll get to hear the real thing soon. And, in any case, The Infection will be released on April 21.

After the jump, you can check out 52 seconds of ever-so-slightly higher quality footage of the band playing their new single, “Secrets of the Dead,” at the same performance. I think I’ve listened to this song about one hundred times already since it’s release last Tuesday.

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Last week Vince told y’all about the 2nd annual, MetalSucks sponsored Paganfest USA, which will, once again, include the testicle-burstingly awesome Eluveitie. That Switzerland’s best pagan metal band (or possibly just band, period) is coming back to the States for another run of drunken raping and pillaging should be enough to get your blood pressure up, but in case, for some bizarre reason, it ain’t, the band has now released a new song, “Omnos,” on their MySpace page.

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There are a LOT of Meshuggah rip-off bands these days. Tons of ‘em. But accusing a band of sounding like Meshuggah is a pretty damn fine compliment, and if you asked the lads in Fellsilent what they thought of this comparison they’d likely have an answer similar to Airbourne’s Joel O’Keefe when we asked him about being constantly compared to AC/DC:

It doesn’t matter who you are, you are going to get compared to somebody. To be compared to the best rock and roll band in the business, who are still going today and are about to release another album, there is no higher compliment. I could list a thousand bands that I would not want to be compared to. There are a handful that any band does [want to be compared to]. If you get compared to a band like AC/DC or Motorhead or Rose Tattoo or Iron Maiden or Metallica, you can’t be doing anything wrong because that’s real rock and roll.

Meshuggah certainly don’t have the legacy of AC/DC but in certain circles they’re just as revered. So, that brings us to Fellsilent, the latest in a large stable of excellent new bands signed to Sumerian Records (one band excepted).

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My prediction of the apocalypse has come true and Metal Inquisition’s Sergeant D has gotten his wish; Crazytown are back together, with a new album reportedly due this year.

Well, it’s been nice knowing you all; sure was fun while it lasted. Excuse while I go cower in the cave beneath the MS Mansion. I think there’s some monkey poo that needs cleaning up down there or something.

-VN

Not to pat ourselves on the hairy back, but MetalSucks couldn’t have picked a better parting gift as our last post of 2008 than the video for Red Fang’s “Prehistoric Dog.” This insta-classic clip found the hard-drinking Portlanders fashioning armor and weapons from thousands of discarded beer cans, then waging war against a gaggle of LARP enthusiasts, with some hilarious/unexpected results. And while this probably wasn’t the intent behind the video, it’s a pretty handy metaphor for what Red Fang do on their eponymous debut fell-length: meld good old-fashioned hard rock and vintage metal, as familiar as a room temperature can of Pabst, and reconstitute them for battle.

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As a guitarist, Ross “Ross the Boss” Funicello has had a significant role in the development of much of the music we’ve come to love over the last thirty years. For New York proto-punks The Dictators, he welded bare bones rock and roll and pop hooks with sneering attitude, though never gained the godlike status of fellow metropunks The Ramones. As a founding member of muscle ‘n’ loincloth legends Manowar, he provided chest-beating, anthemic fretwork for the band’s revered first six albums. Though he hasn’t been dormant by any means since his departure from the latter band, last year’s New Metal Leader - released under his own moniker with Manowar cover band Men of War (now known as the RTB Band) filling out the rest of the lineup – is a return to the balls-out trad/power metal his most famous band was known for. The album charted in Germany, and the band are working on a followup when not touring in support of it. During a recent interview with MetalSucks, Ross the Boss – equipped with a thick New York accent and a very strong set of opinions – discussed his thoughts on his legacy, reunions (of which he’s been a part with Manowar and The Dictators), his favorite guitarists, and how the current state of the music industry is screwing over bands.

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It’s hard to believe it’s been over a year since the tragic car accident that killed 23 year old Decapitated drummer Vitek and injured vocalist Covan so badly injured that he’s still recovering; the announcement a mere week after the accident that the band was signing with Nuclear Blast was cause for optimism that once Covan had fully recovered the band would continue, but here we are after all there this time and there hasn’t been any real news.

Well, apparently the band’s sole remaining member, Waclaw “Vogg” Kieltyka, is going to continue with Decapitated come hell or high water. Lambgoat reports that he’s looking for new members to rebuild Decapitated:

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Pretty sure this is from the Used and Abused DVD filmed on the Soundtrack to Your Escape tour, a must-own if you’re a fan of In Flames / awesome concert DVDs. Great shit.

-VN

It snowed 8 inches in NYC on Monday, but we got back from the Scion Rock Fest in Atlanta just in time to deliver you our usual drudge report. Can you imagine if we’d been stranded? No MetalSucks for two days. What would you have done? Contemplate these noteworthy events of the week as you get ready to enjoy your weekend (65 degrees Sunday in NYC!):

• Mastodon release early contender for best metal video of ’09.
• Watchmen got metal… or not.
• We spoke with NEMHF founder Scott Lee.
• Lamb of God and God Forbid make strong Soundscan debuts.
• We looked at new releases from Hatesphere, Wolves in the Throne Room, Abacabb, Centaurus-A and General Surgery.
• Chimaira released a new single and a super-duper-deluxe pre-order.
• We waxed ecstatic about the weed in Atlanta… oh yeah, and some bands played at the Scion Rock Fest too.
• Doc Coyle struck back at the Internet.
• MetalSucks got nominated for a Metal Hammer “Web of Death” Award!

I found out about Alexandra, VA’s Iris Divine because they sent us a message on MySpace. As the source of many a shitstain band, normally I don’t bother checking out bands who send us messages on MySpace because, frankly, who has the time… but I guess that day “divine” inspiration struck and I was turned on to a very good band. Iris Divine aren’t nearly as heavy as most of the bands we write about here, but what they lack in brutality they make up for in creativity. In just MySpace lead-track “Unspoken Tragedy” there’s elements of Dream Theater, Pantera, Avenged Sevenfold, Porcupine Tree, and Queensryche, seemingly disparate influences, but somehow it all works. It’s un-pretentious prog-metal with a very creative edge, really unique chord progressions and arrangements, first-class musicianship and a knack for songwriting to bring it all together.

So that’s my sales pitch for Iris Divine. They’re just really good. Check ‘em out.

-VN

The Obelisk, a new metal blog run by JJ Koczan of the now defunct Metal Maniacs Magazine, recently published a fascinating interview with Roadrunner Records A&R-king Monte Conner on the subject of stoner rock. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of the most famous and influential A&Rs in the history of metal, if not just for the interesting stoner rock subject matter  then for the industry / label politics / A&R talk. Monte speaks all about his stoner rock heroes from Kyuss to Fu Manchu to Queens of the Stone Age, spends a good deal of time talking about why Roadrunner never ventured far into the stoner rock foray (Karma to Burn excepted — and he goes in depth about them, too), the current state of stoner rock, and why it’s never become a commercially viable genre. Take a quick look at some of the interview highlights after the jump.

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