…here’s a clip of the band playing… actually, you know what? I’m not gonna tell you what fucking song this is. You should know, or you should probably be visiting some other website until your pubes come in.
In any case, this footage looks gorgeous:
Iron Maiden: Flight 666 will get a full-on theatrical release (fuck yeah!) on April 21.
-AR
(via Metal Injection)
One of the bands I’m most bummed about not getting to see at Scion is Coalesce; I have no friggin’ idea which rocket scientist decided to stick one of the day’s most anticipated bands on the shitty Purgatory stage, but at the end of the day it didn’t seem worth it to listen to the band whilst staring at the backs of heads. C’est la vie.
I imagine I’ll get my chance to see them live soon enough, though, as Relapse will release their new album, Ox, June 9 in the U.S. and June 15 everywhere else. Swell news, and here’s news that’s even more swollen: two tracks from the album, “Wild Ox Moan” and “Questions To Root Out Fools,” are now streaming on the band’s MySpace page.
In case you haven’t heard, Shadows Fall are playing Bonnaroo. No no no, fuck that – they are going to decimate Bonnaroo. All those filthy hippies won’t know what the fuck the hit ‘em. They’ll see Brian Fair take the stage with his awesome, long-ass dreads, and they’ll be all “Cool, he likes patculli, I like patculli!” and then WHAM! The band’ll play “The Light that Blinds” or “Destroyer of Senses” or whatever and it’ll make the Great Quake of 1906 look like a Pixar movie.
To celebrate our favorite Massholes’ contribution to the decimation of these wretched fiends, we’re teaming up with the band to give away ten (10) awesome Shadows Fall t-shirts.
All you need to do to win is leave a comment below telling us the best way to stop a hippy using metal (consult the episode of South Park where Cartman drives the hippies mad by blasting Slayer for an excellent example). Remember that this is MetalSucks, not the New England Journal of Medicine, so you’d better make us laugh if you want a shot at winning.
And PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU REGISTER FOR THE COMMENTS SECTION USING A REAL E-MAIL ADDRESS AS ALL WINNERS WILL BE CONTACTED BY E-MAIL. We’ll also have various shirt sizes so don’t worry about that for now.
And don’t forget to check out Shadows Fall’s website and Shadows Fall’s MySpace page for all the latest updates on the band! They’re working on a new album! HORNS!
-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks
I was kinda wondering whatever happened to Uranium, Fuse’s answer to Headbanger’s Ball. As it turns out, it’s still around – it just airs on Fuse on Demand. Which is good to know, especially since throughout April they have a special on the making of Chimaira’s The Infection, which is one of the 2009 releases that I am personally most excited about it. In case you couldn’t tell by my constant posting about the record.
ANYWAY, here’s a clip to get you all hot n’ bothered. Don’t you just wanna pinch Jim LaMarca’s cheeks?
Like I said, you can watch the entire thing on Fuse on Demand all month.
-AR
A press release tells us that this band has sold 100,000 digital tracks. I’m speechless. Just speechless.
-VN
Much like my aforementioned broken shoulder, the story of the band Test Icicles is quite a tragedy. Super young “it” kids from the UK, barely in their 20s, on the verge of indie-cred super-stardom, playing wirey, aggressive melodic Anglo punk, akin to a Bloc Party with balls…it had a catchy sound, it was angry as fuck, and you could dance to it…and then it was over before it ever even really started
A few of you have e-mailed me these past couple of weeks to ask what it means that Dååth’s new album, The Concealers, will be released on Century via a “partnership” with Roadrunner. After interviewing a member of the band recently (look for that interview next week!) and speaking to reps at both labels, not only do I still have no idea what it means, but I’m not convinced that anybody knows exactly what it means.
But who gives a flying fucking? The Concealers is in my constant rotation right now. It’s a seriously kick-ass metal albums that’s heavy and catchier than herpes, as well as a testament to the magical powers of ATL purp. And as long as it gets to your ears, do you really care what label released it? Thought not.
So. The band now has another new song, “Day of Endless Night,” streaming on their MySpace page. It’s the third, after “The Worthless” and “Silenced,” and the band has shot a video to go with it (which will be released in the near future I imagine), and guess what? As awesome as all three songs are, I still don’t think you’ve heard the best this album has to offer.
The Concealers will be out on 4/20 (how appropriate!) in Europe and a day later here in the States. Like I said, check back here next week for an intimate, moon-lit interview with a member of the band.
-AR
Nerf Herder has nothing to do with metal, but their song “Pantera Fans In Love” is nothing if not entertaining. Thanks to MS Maniac / Roadrunner New Media Czar Jeremy Rosen for sending this one in.
-VN
If you haven’t yet seen The Human Abstract you’re missing out on one of the finest progressive metal bands in today’s scene. And if you haven’t seen Iwrestledabearonce you’re missing out on one of the most mindfuckingly awesome experiences short of watching Fred Durst punch himself in the nuts repeatedly. Fitting, then, that MetalSucks is sponsoring a Spring tour featuring these two awesome bands as well as metalcorers Oh, Sleeper and Vanna! The tour kicks off April 30th in Anaheim, CA and winds its way east before returning to the left coast and wrapping up on May 28th in Hollywood. Expect more good things related to this tour from MetalSucks in the near future, including exclusive tour blogs and the latest updates. Be there!
Ice cream sandwiches… mmmmm.
-VN
Dallas Coyle has spoken to MetalSucks exclusively about his split from God Forbid earlier this week. Dallas would like the metal community to know that his split from the band has nothing to do with any familial issues with his brother, but that he has decided to leave the band for personal reasons. Beyond that, he wishes to remain quiet at the time and asks that his privacy be respected.
Congrats to Exor666t for coming up with the winning caption to last week’s our most recent funny photo caption contest. For his troubles, Exor666t will get a trifecta of classic In Flames CD reissues, each “Reloaded” with bonus content: Whoracle, Colony and Clayman. The winning entry to the photo at right:
Global recession forces Somali pirates to downsize operations.
This week we’re giving away a vinyl copy of Betrayer, the debut full-length from Austin, TX’s Pack of Wolves (featuring Trey Ramirez, ex-At All Cost). Watch Pack of Wolves’ latest video here. Just come up with a caption to the below photo that tickles our funny bones, and the record is all yours.
Not just because of the unfortunate strangehold that reality TV has taken on my life, but also because alterna-grunge popsters Ned’s Atomic Dustbin had two bass players, and that’s sheer craziness!
What does that factoid have to do with television, you ask?
FUCK YOU, BUDDY.
-KW
Our bro-bros at Metal Injection continue to post, piece by piece, Converge’s entire set live set from Brooklyn’s Club Europa show last week. Now they have the epic “The Saddest Day,” one of my favorite cuts from 1998′s Petitioning the Empty Sky, an excellent record that I think too many people forget about ’cause it’s from the pre-Jane Doe era (and, let’s face it, there are differences between Converge B.J.D. and A.J.D.).
You will enjoy this…
Don’t forget that you can watch, in their entirety, two new, still-untitled Converge songs here, and that Metal Injection will continue to post footage from this concert, so check back there frequently!
-AR
I noticed yesterday in the Village Voice that the former Soundgarden/Audioslave frontman turned top-40 hip-hop beat crooner (whose real name is Christopher John Boyle, btw) will be playing a show tomorrow night at Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino & Resort, but before I could even come up with a snappy headline mentioning Cornell’s show as a “bad gamble” or some such other terrible pun, I noticed just a few scant pages away that the once-grunge superstar wailer has two sold-out shows scheduled for next week at New York’s own Webster Hall, which is a huge general admission venue. (hmm…for some reason it says sold out in the Voice but it seems there may be some tix still available online — dunno)
And I immediately had to ask myself, who the hell is comprising that massive audience?
Dallas may be laying off the haterade as of late, but thankfully Peter Dolving is always there in a pinch to take a big, giant swig of the Internet’s favorite, venomous beverage. In his latest rant sent to us in a press release, The Haunted frontman tells you why you should come see his band on their MetalSucks-sponsored North American tour (also featuring Merauder and The Agonist), and takes a swipe at Lamb of God as being part of the big, bad, generic, corporate metal machine:
Seriously folks. You could go out and see any of a number of bands in the next four weeks. What you’ll receive will of course be generic deliverance of generic metalcore by the numbers and certainly you won’t be more than slightly disappointed. The big one this time around out there being the Lamb Of God tour. Which will according to business-planned management crawl itself around the North Americas for the next year and a half or so like a big snake. You could dig that shit and think ‘Holy mutherfucking hell! That shit rocks!’ or you could go and see the Haunted once and for all prove what metal is all about. But only if you want to have a good time. Only if you want to feel alive. Only if you like that feeling of actually realizing everything is not fucked utterly and beyond belief. But I guess if you are a sad, self-pitying son of a bitch you won’t go. Oh what the hell, really, don’t go. Most of those who read this don’t really give a shit anyway do you? You’d rather stay in a saline filled tank fed intravenously with a constant intake of whatever, whoever carries the biggest gun and wad of dollars has to say wants to feed you.
The stuttering riff that opens both “Hall of the Dead” and Isis’ new album Wavering Radiant recalls the openers of the band’s two best tracks: Celestial’s title track and Oceanic’s “The Beginning and The End.” And yet, in true Isis fashion, once the riff and song itself slowly unravel, “Hall of the Dead” establishes a personality of its own, somehow both a return to form after the misstep of 2006’s In the Absence of Truth and a unique statement in itself. It has the Isis hallmarks – Aaron Turner’s gruff bark (and droning clean vocals), Aaron Harris’ sturdy yet subtly inventive drumming, reverb-drenched guitars either filling up the room with expansive post-rock riffs or obliterating it with a battering ram of down tuned sludge, busy bass lines crab-walking underneath it all, and a buildup that brilliantly segues into a beautiful wave of guitars – but has new elements as well: the keyboards have never been this present (usually used for just a blanket of ambience, they’re a central instrument all over Wavering Radiant), and there’s a new sense of focus that holds the song together.
First of all, props to our boy Anso DF for successfully making it through his interview with Lacuna Coil’s Christina Scabbia without embarrassing himself or in any way giving Ms. Scabbia cause to get a restraining order (of course that’s part of the reason we had him do a phoner and not an in-person – but still). I’m fairly certain if Vince or I had conducted the interview, we’d be in prison right now.
Second of all, we’ve now heard LC’s new album, Shallow Life, and, hey!, guess what? It’s pretty darn good.
So. The band has made a new song, “Not Enough,” available for free download. So, y’know, enjoy that shit.
Lacuna Coil, “Not Enough” – Shallow Life (Century)
Shallow Life comes out April 20 in Europe and April 21 in the States on Century.
-AR
Round about the time this site was jocking the wares of avant-garde prog metallers Sikth and Textures, several of you emailed us about the French band Hacride. And as usual, you were right on the money. While Hacride don’t have the frenetic nature of Sikth nor the epic sense of melody of Textures, they do have the technicality and the brutal grooves of both, which naturally just means they all have a common influence in Meshuggah. But theirs is a slower, more raw version of any of the above; in fact, the band I’d most liken Hacride to is Norway’s Benea Reach — punishing, grooving, articulate, deliberate and beautiful all the same. This is Meshuggah strung out on heroin, lounging back in a dirty old armchair with a cigarette burnt to the filter in one hand and the TV remote control in the other.
The band’s got a new album Lazarus coming out on April 20th, and they’ve posted the song “My Enemy” (all 10 minutes of it!) on their MySpace page. Go listen to that shit! It’s some of the best material Hacride have written to date. And if you like it, pre-order the record with a limited edition Hacride t-shirt on Listenable Records’ MySpace.
-VN
Can’t be sure if this is real or not, but if it is… awesome. Possibly even more metal than the 80+ year old woman we saw rocking out at the Goes Cube show in Austin.
-VN
[Thanks: Mike H.]
Been a while since we’ve done one of these. But an astute Noisecreep commenter named “Trav” pointed out that as he ages, Queensryche crooner Geoff Tate is starting to bear a striking resemblance to everyone’s favorite cowbell-player / all around creepy dude Christopher Walken. Don’t front.
-VN
Psychostick
