It hasn’t been confirmed, but a recent article published at Rock-a-Rolla.com [sent in by uber-commenter groverXIII] hints at the possibility of a Josh Homme / Mike Patton collaboration in the not-too-distant future:

Queens Of The Stone Age, Eagles Of Death Metal and Desert Sessions man Josh Homme is currently working on a “top secret” project according to Ipecac Recordings boss Greg Werckman. “Josh has got a new top secret project that he’s working on right now” Greg tells us. “He’s trying to get a lot of people involved in it, too, as a matter of fact he’s trying to convince Mike Patton to go out to the desert but Mike hates the desert.”

Seeing as the source of the rumor is a higher-up at Ipecac — the label Patton himself co-owns — the likelihood of this tantalizing collaboration coming to fruition seems pretty high. Homme + Patton? Color us interested. As long as it doesn’t prevent that Faith No More reunion tour from hitting the U.S. first (AHEM!).

No word yet on whether Homme plans on insulting and throwing bottles at his audience if the duo ever performs live.

-VN

Sweden’s Bergraven fit under the black metal umbrella just at the edge, enough to keep part of its shoulder dry while the rest is soaked with outside influence. And while 2007’s Dödsvisioner fooled around with the genre enough to warrant attention (and not to mention make a great, complex, dense metal record), the band’s followup – Till Makabert Väsen – features only fragments of black metal, and even those are diluted by mainmanonlyman Pär Gustavsson bottomless pot of strangeness. But while Väsen is even more dense and bizarre than Dödsvisioner, it pays off just as big when given the time, because much like its predecessor, it’s a record that requires your time and attention. It’s not an album about beauty or Vikings, but instead obsessed with its own ugliness, dropping a major chord or big chorus in just when things are on the verge of being too displeasing for too long. This is hardly a conventional metal record, and you’ll be hard pressed to find another one that sounds like it; with Till Makabert Väsen, Bergraven continue their journey to the strange, unexplored parts of the psyche.

Click to read more…

“Will someone please tell Dino that his lunch has arrived?”

Holy shit. This is officially my favorite feud of the year.

Click to read more…

• Suffocation’s new album, Blood Oath, is streaming here. Our own David Bee Roth called it “the best death metal record released this year,” so ya best check it out. Nuclear Blast will release the album July 7. And don’t forget that Suffocation are one of the headliners on this year’s edition of Summer Slaughter, which we are co-sponsoring. Get tour dates here.
• Infini, the final album from Voivod, is streaming here. It is also, of course, the last recording made by the late Denis “Piggy” D’Amour. Relapse actually released the record yesterday, but if you feel the need to sample before you buy, here’s your shot.

-AR

Back in March I bitched that this year’s Progressive Nation lineup — featuring Pain of Salvation, Beardfish, and Zappa Plays Zappa supporting Dream Theater — was decidedly less metal than last year’s lineup (which featured 3, BTBAM, and Opeth supporting DT — killer show) and wasn’t worth the price of admission to anyone under 50. A press release delivered good news to the MS Mansion earlier this week, announcing that Bigelf and Scale the Summit have replaced Pain of Salvation and Beardfish. Suh-weet!

Click to read more…

SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER FREDDY CAI OF PAINKILLER MAGAZINE

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. Today we present the #10 album, coming in with a total of 163 points…

Opeth, Ghost Reveries (Roadrunner, 2005)
Mikael Åkerfeldt – Vocals/Guitars
Peter Lindgren – Guitars
Per Wiberg – Keys
Martin Mendez – Bass
Martin Lopez – Drums
Produced by Jens Bogren

To Opeth, Ghost Reveries might have just been another album, an opportunity to take its forcecful sound one step further. To me, it’s more like a full-length spell that has been put upon my head. This is one of those very rare albums of which I just can’t easily rid myself, like an ex you just can’t get out of your head.

Click to read more…

In the classic comic book tradition, “What If…” stories were ones that existed outside of the Marvel Universe. Consider this then: WHAT IF… THE MISFITS HAD BEEN A FOLK BAND?

Here’s your answer:

If you like what you hear, you can buy Scream With Me, Pajo’s LP+CD of Misfits covers, via Black Tent Press.

-GS

I wouldn’t be shocked if Soundgarden reunited. Everyone else is doing it; Chris Cornell needs to try and get his street cred back; I’m sure Kim Thayil could use a paycheck; and then there was that whole Tadgarden thing. In fact, I’d imagine that, at this point, the biggest impediment to a Soundgarden reunion is the fact that Cornell’s ex-wife, Susan Silver, set up the Tadgarden show, which, presumably, means she’s still involved in the band’s business dealings despite what was reportedly a nasty split with the singer.

Now, all of that being the case… in the words of my associate Gary Suarez, I’ll believe the reunion is happening when “I hear it from Kim Thayil’s hairy lips.”

And Shinedown singer Brent Smith, whom Blabbermouth tells me claims he heard from “someone… specifically in their organization” that the reunion is happening, ain’t no Kim Thayil. His lips aren’t even hairy.

Click to read more…

Also quickly:

-AR

I fucking hate, hate, hate, loathe, despise, cannot stand, am sickened by, hate Five Finger Death Punch. Hate ‘em. The best description I ever heard of their “music” came from Dallas Coyle, who called them “nu-metalcore.” Except I’m not sure if that’s fair to either nu-metal or metalcore.

Anyway, our friends at Metal Insider have an exclusive stream of FFDP’s new song, “Burn it Down,” and I know enough people bought the group’s first album that some of you probably care. I’m sure it will be on an upcoming album or something, but I really don’t care. Listen to it here, if for no other reason than to know thy enemy.

Personally, I listened to about ten or fifteen seconds of the song before I turned it off. It sounds at least ten years too late to me.

-AR

The Ghostbusters video game is just meh, and the dudes who are writing Ghostbusters 3 also wrote Year One, which means – no shock here – Ghostbusters 3 will probably suck.

But at least we have ridiculous mash-ups like this to keep our love of Dr. Peter Venkman and company alive!

-AR

[via Topless Robot]

As one of the founding members of arguably one of the most important metal bands, Scott Kelly helped navigate Neurosis from a crust punk genesis to the lords of abstract doom they’ve become. Despite going on to semi-normal adult lives not built around touring, they’ve still managed to put out some of the most challenging and, ultimately, best music of the decade. Kelly himself splits his non-Neurosis time among Tribes of Neurot (the band’s ambient side project), an acoustic solo career, the post-apocalyptic folk of Blood & Time, and, most recently, stoner metal wet dream Shrinebuilder, featuring Melvins drummer Dale Crover, Sleep/Om bassist Al Cisneros, and doom icon Wino. In an interview Scott was kind enough to grant MetalSucks – conducted during his trip to the airport on his way to some European Neurosis shows, stopping once to get through airport security and ending when the plane was ready to take off – he discussed his collaboration with the gentlemen in Shrinebuilder, his history with Neurosis and long-time collaborator Steve von Till, and punk’s limiting ethos vs. metal’s acceptance.

Click to read more…

Here’s a pretty cool story for you.

The above video for the song “Duststorm,” off Daath’s truly excellent recent release The Concealers, was fan-made. But the band loved it so much that… well, best to just let guitarist/MetalSucks blogger Eyal Levi explain:

Click to read more…

Quickly:

-AR

There is no news this year I have been as happy to report as this.

All of the bands on this summer’s Conquer & Curse tour – Goatwhore, Abysmal Dawn, Daath, Abigail Williams and SWWAATS (I’m way too lazy to type out their full name, even if I could have totally typed out their full name in the time it took me to write about how I’m too lazy to type out their full name) – are having a pizza party at Criminal Records in Atlanta this Wednesday, June 24, at 6 p.m.

And Goatwhore’s Ben Falgoust is the DJ.

Click to read more…

SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER CARLOS RAMIREZ OF NOISECREEP AND UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP

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. Today we present the #11 album, coming in with a total of 162 points…

Deftones, White Pony (Maverick, 2000)

Chino Moreno — Vocals, Guitars
Stephen Carpenter — Guitars
Chi Cheng — Bass
Abe Cunningham — Drums
Frank Delgado — Sampling, Electronics
Produced by Terry Date and Deftones

1999 was the year that the Deftones truly created their own little universe. Their first two albums, Adrenaline (1995) and Around the Fur (1997), were both chock full of bombastic guitars, new wave kissed vocal lines, and post-hardcore informed arrangements and their wide-scoped sound helped the Sacramento, CA band find audiences in various facets of the underground music scene. After taking a break from a tour supporting the gold-selling Around the Fur, the group got into their rehearsal space to work on the material which would become their third album.

Click to read more…

As I’ve said before, I usually steer clear of posting “trailers” for upcoming music videos, but the below, for a new Alice in Chains song called “A Looking In View,” obviously deserves to be an exception. Besides the fact that the imagery is pretty kooky, it gives us our first taste, however brief, of the first new AIC music in fourteen (!!!) years. The full song will appear on the band’s forthcoming album, Black Gives Way to Blue, which Virgin will release September 29.

Of course, I can’t make any judgements based on what in this teeny tiny little clip, but if you’re an AIC nerd like me, you crave a listen to this new album like Layne Staley craved smack.

[crickets]

What? Too soon?

Alice in Chains – A Looking In View (Trailer)

-AR

Sebastian Bach sent out this tweet a little earlier today:

working on full demo cd to send to @john5guitarist 2 c where we’re @, then write more tunes till we r ready to enter studio 4 new CD! #fb21 minutes ago from txt

Alright, so Baz’s new record will have John 5 playing songs written by Jamey Jasta? Is it possible Sebastian is working on the single fucking weirdest metal record ever made?

-AR

Family might be forever, but luckily the movie is only ninety minutes.

Check out the latest trailer at after the jump, if you feel so inclined.

Click to read more…

I guess having successfully attained “Redemption,” Shadows Fall are just gonna kick ass and take names with their latest album: they’ve chosen the title Retribution, according to Blabbermouth. The album will drop September 15, which is now shaping up to be a truly righteous day for new records.

Here’s some lo-fi footage of the band playing a new song, “A Public Execution.” And Matt Bachand is wearing a God Forbid tee. Nice.

-AR