When Axl and I were in our formative years of MTV watching, Tool were the absolute undisputed kings of bad-ass music videos. Guitarist Adam Jones — a pro animator in his pre-Tool life — worked on the videos for “Sober” and “Prison Sex” with director Fred Stuhr (who also did Green Jelly’s “Three Little Pigs”), and Jones carried the torch on his own from thereon out with eye-pleasing, head-trippy gem after eye-pleasing, head-trippy gem.

In 2009 music videos certainly don’t carry the weight they used to, but whereas Tool have all but stopped releasing videos, a record deal with Warner Bros. has left the lads of Mastodon as the beneficiary of some pretty hefty video budgets, allowing the band the creative freedom to take drummer Brann Dailor’s hair-brained conceptual album schemes to their full-blown visual realizations. We had the eery, sci-fi social commentary of Blood Mountain‘s “Sleeping Giant,” the epic cave man shreddery of this year’s “Divinations,” and now this, a trippy, space-age freakout adventure for “Oblivion,” the first track from this year’s spectacular masterpiece Crack the Skye. What’s great is that — like Tool — Mastodon’s videos all share a common look and feel and all seem to tie together in some loose way. This is more than just random eye candy; it actually means something. As to whether you can or think you can parse Dailor’s actual intended meaning is another question, but again, like Tool… Mastodon keep you guessing.

-VN

After the jump, check out those “Sleeping Giant” and “Divinations” videos.

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Fact: this band is from Japan.

Fact: they all wear identical, grinning kabuki masks.

Fact: they autotune as a weapon.

Fact: I have not done any cocaine in some time.

Fact: this band blows goats.

Fact.

-AR

This is too well-done for words. So… just watch.

Between this and yesterday’s Black Metal Skateboarding video, Protest the Hero are gonna have some serious competition if they can’t get a follow-up to their Van Breakdown Dance video together by year’s end.

Thanks to MS Maniac Steve S. — he of the infamous Reb Beach fail — for sending this in.

-VN

Daath just completed our first tour for The Concealers album cycle. The tour was with Dragonforce and our personal heroes, Cynic. It was a US Secondary Markets tour. For those of you who sent us angry messages about why we didn’t play your city…. We appreciate that you care and we promise we’ll be there are soon as we can.

Anyways, after our portion of the tour was over Dragonforce was scheduled to play some South American dates on their own before returning to France. Their last dates were in Brazil I believe and they would have been flying the same, if not similar route as Air France flight 447 which peaced out mid flight over the Atlantic Ocean last week.

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Obviously Gojira won us over big time last year — their amazing album The Way of all Flesh topped Vince’s, Axl’s, and my top ten lists for 2008…..but here at MetalBlech, we are always looking for the next proverbial wet dream (in musical form a la progressive metal) — and this time I may have found em.

After our past fanboy-discovery glee in reporting on these guys, these guys, and these guys…..I am proud to offer to the jazzy instrumetal-hungry maniacs among you:

THESE GUYS.

Enjoy!

-KW

MSNBC.com [via Idolator] is reporting that KI$$ frontman Gene Simmons sold a kidney stone that he passed on eBay for $15,000. Our bullshit radars are going off the charts; Gene is just the type of guy who’d claim something this crazy just to generate publicity, and hey, wouldn’t you know it, Gene just launched Season 4 of his TV show Family Jewels! Our pals at Idolator have done some kidney stone sleuthing of their own, but you can watch Gene’s claim on MSNBC below and judge for yourself.

Who wants to take bets that Simmons eventually tries to sell his own poop?

-VN

Hi everybody! I’m back from my two week vacation! Did you miss me? What, you didn’t know I was gone? Fuck you in the face!

Well anyway, I missed some of you, mainly the hideously unattractive and socially awkward noise rock aficionados that read my stupid column for jerks. So it gives me great pleasure to report that Pissed Jeans will released its third album on August 18. King Of Jeans, the group’s second full-length for Sub Pop, is the follow-up to 2007′s Hope For Men, a damned modern classic of sleazy gutter-level rock inspired and emboldened by the tradition of David Yow and The Jesus Lizard. Though I have yet to hear any of this new material, I anticipate nothing short of fucking awesomeness from tracks with lascivious titles like “Human Upskirt” and “Request for Masseuse”.

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I’ve had the misfortune of witnessing the debacle that is Attack! Attack!’s new video, “Stick Stickly,” on Headbangers Ball the past two weekends. The only thing that comes to mind is D.R.I.’s “Slit My Wrist” with these thought-provoking lyrics:

Every day I get more pissed
Slit my wrist, slit my wrist

Here is the Satanforsaken video for your edification:

[Corey Mitchell writes books about serial killers, mass murderers, and the evil that men do. He is also the founder of the #1 true crime blog, In Cold Blog, and does not care about your "status" today.]

I don’t usually like to post these so-called “trailers” for upcoming metal videos because I just find the idea of a 30 second trailer for a three or four minute video just too silly for words. But I just saw this “trailer” for the new Mastodon video for the totally awesome song “Oblivion,” and I’m already more excited for this than I am for most of the big summer movies that still have yet to be released.

Holy shit, this just looks like it’s gonna be so much fun. I can’t wait.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

We recently polled a wide array of musicians, managers, publicists, label reps, and writers from within the world of metal to find out what they thought the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century So Far have been. Eligible albums were released between January 1, 2000 and  April 1, 2009. Each panelist turned in a ballot, with their #1 album worth 21 points, their #2 album worth 20 points, and so on and so forth. The ballots are now in and we’ll be counting down one album a day until we reach #1. We begin today with the #21 album, coming in with a total of 104 points…

Slipknot, Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses (Roadrunner, 2004)
Corey Taylor – Vocals
Mick Thomson – Guitars
Jim Root – Guitars
Paul Gray – Bass
Joey Jordison – Drums
Shawn Crahan – Percussions
Chris Fehn – Percussions
Sid Wilson – Turntables
Craig Jones – Samples, Media
Produced by Rick Rubin

It’s always good when you stir shit up right out of the gates, y’know?

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Iron Maiden’s Flight 666: The Film — the documentary about the reigning kings of metal’s globe-spanning, Bruce Dickinson-piloted, massive world tour — comes out today on DVD, and guess what? We’ve got 5 copies to give away. I actually missed this when it was out in theaters but everyone I know who’s seen it tells me it’s great, and I mean, come on: Iron Maiden, live footage, airplanes, Bruce-Bruce, Eddie… what the fuck else do you need in life?

Here’s what you have to do to win: tell us a funny or otherwise interesting personal story related to Iron Maiden. Could be the first time you saw the band live, could be the time you waited in line for 5 hours to meet them at a signing, could be the time “Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter” was blasting in your car as you lost your virginity in the backseat of your Chevy Nova. You may either post a comment here or send an email to news [at] metalsucks.net with “IRON MAIDEN 666″ as the subject line. We’ll pick our five favorite entries and notify the winners next Monday, June 15th.

Our bros at MetalInjection.net, MetalInsider.net and SMNnews.com are all giving away copies too, so be sure to visit them for more chances to win. U.S. residents only please, and be sure to use a valid email address.

The arrival of June means that all the big metal bands are over in Europe playing the festival circuit, but this isn’t all a bad thing. For one, it means some much-needed R and R (that’s rest and relaxation, fuckos) after a hectic Spring show season. It also means more time to go to smaller shows; ya know, ones that aren’t in huge concert halls where beer costs $7, and ones that are in real places where actual real / non scene-kid people hang out. The DIY (by comparison) shows of late Spring and early Summer offer a welcome respite from the big headline tours of early Spring and the packaged, brand-sponsored traveling festivals of Summer. This weekend I went to see the debut of NYC’s Motheater — a wicked brew of southern soul and northern fury — and a four-headed best of underground metal at Pitchfork’s “Show No Mercy” show serie, featuring Salome, Woe, Black Anvil, and Snake Sustaine.

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Now here’s a list for ya:

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Well, it’s, like, totally summer now. The girls here in New York are dressed like whores, regardless of whether or not they have the bodies for it. It smells like dog shit and hot garbage everywhere you go, unless you go to New Jersey, where the air will just kill you anyway. The bars are unnecessarily crowded, so everyone with rooftop access and half a brain is just getting drunk someplace real fuckin’ dangerous to be drunk at. There’s a lot of total shit at the cinemas (X-Men Origins: Fuck You, Terminator Rape Your Face, Night at the Shit in Your Dead Mother’s Mouth 2) and some fun shit, too (Drag Me to Hell, The Hangover, Up. Yeah, Pixar, bitches.). There won’t be any new L O S T until like 2072 or some shit. And Summer Slaughter is in full effect, muthafuckas.

We are, of course, proudly co-sponsoring this tour, and our fellow co-sponsors at Metal Injection just happened to capture some footage of two new Dying Fetus songs at the Summer Slaughter tour stop in Richmond last night. The one below is called “Your Treachery Will Die With You,” and I’d like to dedicate it to Mr. Dick Cheney. I’ve really enjoyed this most recent press tour, Dick.

Go to Metal Injection to check out another new Dying Fetus song, “Shepard’s Command.” And go here to get all remaining dates for Summer Slaughter. If you don’t go, we’re sending the dudes from Dying Fetus over to your mom’s house to serenade her with these songs.

-AR

I don’t know why a video of a dude in corpsepaint on a skateboard is so fucking funny. But it is. Truly fucking hilarious. Axl’s out of the Mansion today (though not without prepping a few choice posts for ya’ll), so it’s just me and good ol’ Higgins — MS Mansion Monkey extraordinaire — hangin’ and doing bong rips whilst trawling YouTube. And we cannot get enough of this video. Just classic. So well done.

-VN

[Thanks: Skapegoat]

So as I was perusing a downtown HMV last week, I rolled to the end of the aisle labeled “metal” with my nose held high in complete conviction of my superior taste over all this mainstream piss. While asking a bored wage-jockey for an impossible request (“Oh you don’t have any Ecstatic Flagocephalation? Figures, this place is a dump.”) my snobbery was brought to a sudden halt as my slack jaw knocked over a whole pile of records under the label XASTHUR (black/ambient – USA). Wide distribution is totally not tr00.

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As many of you alerted us over the weekend in comments of completely unrelated posts, Killswitch Engage have a new video for the previously unreleased song “Starting Over.” The video was directed by Lex Halaby, who for better or worse seems to be obsessed with slow motion / stop motion / time-lapse photography; compared with the 2006 video for “My Curse” which he also directed, the new video looks kinda the same. I guess it’s his stylistic trademark, the visual equivalent of a mixer or producer’s trademark “sound” (think: the Adam D. sound, for a poignant example).

There’s no arguing that Halaby is a damn talented guy though, and the visuals are striking. The song? It sounds like Killswitch Engage. So there you have it, the MetalSucks synopsis in a nutshell: the new KsE video looks like the old KsE video and the new KsE song sounds like the old KsE song. Some of you will think this is a great thing and some of you will think this is a terrible thing. What else is new? Go argue about it in the comments.

Here’s the new video for “Starting Over,” and, for reference, the video for “My Curse” (and “Rose of Sharyn,” which Halaby also directed) after the jump.

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When everyone in the band is a total moron who can’t keep his directions straight, you could, say, forget your cue and then have to race your backdrop to the platform you’re supposed to be standing on, and you could lose that race, and you could get hit on the head at a big awards show while millions of people are watching (Okay, it’s probably more like thousands of people. It is just the Tonys, after all. But still. Pretty embarrassing.).

By the way, LOVED Blabbermouth’s headline on this one:

POISON Singer Gets Laid Out By Stage Backdrop At TONY AWARDS; Video Available

Classic.

-AR

I can’t find any info online about the untitled EP from Baltimore’s instrumental post-metalists …soihadto… that mysteriously lives in my iTunes library. I’m pretty sure an old friend (the inimitable Dr. Guzaro Zahmeugua, who also introduced me to this amazing band) gave it to me some time back, and I definitely enjoy its raw, stony stylings each time it blasts through my speakers.

The band seems to have taken a more proggy, atmospheric direction, and recently signed to Chicago’s Grape Juice Records, with a full-length to be released in the near future.

You can peruse upcoming tour dates on the band’s MySpace page, including a July 3rd Atlantic City House of Blues show with Clutch, Monster Magnet, and Wino — holy moly!! And you can get more info on the band/download a few more tracks here.

Check these guys out — you just have to…

…SOIHADTO… — “Urotsukidoji”

…SOIHADTO… — “Come And Get Me In My Sleep”

…SOIHADTO… — “Searching For The Cure”

-KW

Enough with the teases. Here’s the real deal.

Back in April, we polled 57 musicians, managers, label reps, publicists, and writers from within the world of metal (including the staff of MetalSucks) for the 21 Best Albums of the 21st Century… So Far. Eligible albums were released between January 1, 2000 and April 1, 2009 (Yes, we’re aware that technically the century didn’t start ’til 2001. But we decided not to be dicks about it.). Each panelist turned in a ballot, with their #1 album pick being awarded 21 points, their #2 album being awarded 20 points, their #3 album being awarded 19 points, and so on and so forth. Then, once all the ballots were in, we tallied ‘em all up and compiled the final list based entirely on which albums had scored the most amount of points.

Starting Monday, we’ll be counting down the list one album a day, starting at #21 until we reach the #1 album in July. In addition to the MetalSucks staff, we’ve recruited some cool guest writers – including contributors to Decibel, Revolver, Metal Injection, NoiseCreep, and many others – to blog about each album.

Of course, the list is sure to incite a great deal of heated debate amongst you MetalSucks Maniacs. If nothing else, the results are fascinating – a look at the best records of the past nine years, as democratically selected by the people intimately involved with the creation of the music we all love.

All the ballots will remain under lock and key, to be viewed only by Axl and Vince, to ensure that everyone voted honestly, without fear of being judged or alienating friends or business associates – so while we can tell you who got to vote in the poll, we can’t tell you who each individual voted for.

After the jump, check out the complete list of the panel of voters.  Keep in mind that these are just the people who responded to the poll in time for our deadline – in fact we probably invited twice as many people to participate – but we still think it’s a pretty fantastic gathering of metal insiders.

And starting Monday, we’ll let you see which albums they voted for…

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