When we saw In Flames tour with Gojira last year, there ended up being a kind of major problem: the Frogs blew the Swedes off the stage. See, as much as I love In Flames, their set was kind of A Sense of Purpose-heavy, and, well, they just couldn’t match Gojira for sheer goose-bump-inducingness.

Now the melodeath stars have announced a trek with Between the Buried and Me, The Faceless and 3 Inches of Blood. Holy crap, that’s a great bill – there isn’t a weak band on the tour.  Hopefully BTBAM get a long enough set time to play more than just two or three songs, The Faceless are just a goddamn sight to behold live, and y’know 3IOB will slay. If In Flames don’t bring their A-game, they’re gonna get upstaged by their support bands again.

Announced tour dates can be found here.

-AR

So this is pretty fuckin’ metal:

Here Waits Thy Doom comes out September 8 on Century.

-AR

It’s Monday, it’s purty outside, and there’s a new Lacuna Coil video. I like it!

No no, the video is actually for the track “I Like It” from Lacuna Coil’s pretty good April release Shallow Life (read our own Anso DF’s review). The plotline of the video is pretty much retarded but I guess provides a good way for the director to involve everyone in the band who isn’t Cristina Scabbia. But let’s face it, we’re all really watching to see Scabbia anyway, aren’t we? Thankfully she gets plenty of face-time in this clip too.

Read Anso’s fun recent interview with Scabbia here.

-VN

For those of you not from the U.S. and somehow completely unaware of this, the Fourth of July is a pretty big deal here in America. On that day, we celebrate winning our freedom by kicking the British’s ass. Of course, they later gave us Hugh Grant, so I guess they had their revenge in the end.

So there won’t be any posts tomorrow; on Monday, we’ll unveil the last albums on the list. In the meantime, here’s some things that happened this week in the world of MetalSucks:

• We continued to countdown the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century… So Far. You continued to engage in, um, intelligent debate. Yeah, let’s call it intelligent debate.
• We spoke with Goatwhore’s Ben Falgoust and Black Math Horseman’s Sera Timms.
• We checked out new releases from Killswitch Engage and Havok.
• Daath’s Eyal Levi took a break from worrying about dying in fiery plane or car crash to worry about getting shot.
• We debated the merits of the new Alice in Chains song.
• We laughed at high school year book photos of past and present members of Metallica.

I plan to not be sober for the next 72 hours. See ya Monday!

-AR

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 #3 album, coming in with a total of 237 points…

Opeth, Blackwater Park (Music for Nations, 2001)
Mikael Åkerfeldt – Vocals/Guitars
Peter Lindgren – Guitars
Martin Mendez – Bass
Martin Lopez – Drums
Produced by Steven Wilson and Mikael Åkerfeldt

There is no metal band that traverses the chasm between beauty and brutality as confidently as Sweden’s Opeth. From their first album Orchid on through last year’s Watershed, Mikael Åkerfeldt and his bandmates have embraced the complexity and romanticism of 70s progressive rock, rejecting two of metal’s central tenets: it’s gotta be simple, and it’s gotta be ugly.
Click to read more…

For a change there were actually a ton of funny entries for last week’s funny photo caption contest, but alas, there can only be one winner. Congrats to Veteran MS Maniac “bucketochicken” for this snappy zinger as a caption to the photo at right:

As the band tears into their opening number, Ziltoid lowers his “horns” and cries to heaven in jaw-clenched anger, “THIS IS NOT METAL!”

Hooray for insider jokes! This week we’re giving away FIVE PRIZE PACKAGES! Each winner gets a copy of The Agonist‘s new CD Lullabies For the Dormant Mind and an autographed poster of the band. We also have a very special photo for ya’ll to comment on; we’re not going to say where we got it or what it is, but… wow, just wow. Beyond words. Come up with the funniest caption (shouldn’t be too difficult) and the prize shall be yours.

I will never get tired of streaming new music. I remember when I used to have to go to a listening station (they didn’t even have full booths) at Tower or Sam Goody (SAM FUCKING GOODY!!!) if I wanted to hear new music that wasn’t on the radio, and even then, the pickings were fairly slim, metal-wise. So to be able to listen to shit for free while high in my favorite chair is really just magnificent. Just superb.

And away we go:

• Dysrhythmia’s entire new album, Psychic Maps, is streaming here. This is instrumental prog metal at its finest, boys and girls. You need to show it some love. The album comes out on Relapse this Tuesday, July 7 here in the States, and then July 13 in Europe. And I guess Asia can just suck it. Suck it, Asia.
• Job for a Cowboy’s entire new album, Ruination, is streaming here. It comes out on Metal Blade, also this Tuesday. And I think it’s safe to say that, yes, JFAC are officially no longer deathcore. In case y’all had any doubts.
• Sumeriancore favorites Born of Osiris have yet another song from their forthcoming We Smoke Weed A Higher Place, entitled “Live Like I’m Real,” streaming here. I have a feeling BOO have gone the down same “we got just melodic enough to really piss off a portion of our fan base” path as All Shall Perish. I guess we’ll see come Tuesday.

-AR

I am increasingly convinced that the new Anthrax album, Worship Music, is going to suck. It’s just a weird gut feeling I get… like I’m gearing up for disappointment. Everyone knows the record is coming out, but no one really seems to care. Like that G.I. Joe movie or some shit.

Here’s the band covering Refused’s “New Noise,” and, uhhh, it doesn’t do anything to squash that icky feeling I have. I want so badly to be wrong, but fear so very much that I am right.

By the way, I love that Rob Caggiano now has more hair than Robin Williams, and yet still refuses to headbang. Super.

-AR

[via The Deciblog]

Metal Hammer reports that Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones (those are the dudes from Queens of the Stone Age / Kyuss, Foo FIghters / Nirvana and Led fucking Zeppelin respectively, for the uninitiated or just plain retarded), in what would be the second extremely boner-worthy collaboration involving Josh Homme to surface in the past month.

Grohl is kinda-sorta getting his childhood/ongoing wet-dream of playing drums for Zep, kinda sorta. The man can pretty much do no wrong in my book, whatwith Probot, playing with Mastodon, a million other side projects, and of course the continued quality output of Foo Fighters. A collabo with Josh Homme makes perfect sense given his stoner/metal background, and JPJ is just the icing on the cake! Gonna be some deep, stoney shit.

-VN

This Dave Mustaine talking about Megadeth’s recent tour with Slayer. I’ve added some emphasis:

“I’ve gotta tell you, the tour with Slayer was really, really cool. I saw Kerry [King]. Kerry was out watching us last night on two separate occasions, and although I didn’t get a chance to see [Slayer], it was really good to know that the ice is melting. I sent them over a couple of peace offerings on the way from Edmonton to Calgary and those guys had a nice trip on the way down in the bus — we flew.“

Click to read more…

I know I’m probably not supposed to say this, given that we co-sponsored the tour and all, but Moonsorrow blew every other band off the stage at this year’s Paganfest. And they had the best merch. Did anyone else get one of those shirts with the viking ship sailing away from a burning Statue of Liberty? One day I will wear that shirt around Corpus Christi, Texas. Fuck yes.

Metal Injection, with whom we frequently spoon, have done what they always do, which is captured some sick video footage of the band in question raping and pillaging at Paganfest earlier this year. I’ve posted one clip below; you can check out another here.

Also worth checking out: Metal Injection Israeli Station Chief Noa’s interview with Moonsorrow’s Ville Sorvali, where he does, in fact, answer the question set forth in my headline.

-AR

[Reverend David J. Ciancio, owner of Yeah! Management (Shadows Fall, Cancer Bats, Poison the Well, many more), likes his meat as much as he likes his metal; the man has two meat-themed websites, Steak Club 7 and Burger Conquest, the latter of which is devoted to seeking out and reviewing the burgers of the world, an ambitious and worthy mission if ever there was one. Anytime I'm in a random city I'll text The Rev to ask him where the best burger is, and he inevitably comes through (aside: if you're ever in San Diego hit up Neighborhood). The Rev was recently on tour with Shadows Fall in Alaska and took them on a Burger Conquest, the writeup of which is below, exclusive to MetalSucks. Enjoy!]

Arctic Roadrunner Local Burgerman
http://www.lastfrontier.org/morsel_apr_2008.htm
5300 Old Seward Hwy
Anchorage, AK 99518

THE STORY
Before I go anywhere, I Google “best hamburger (insert city name)” and results for Anchorage seemed unanimous, Arctic Roadrunner Local Burgerman is reported to have the #1 burger in town. Located just South of the city center next to Campbell Creek, the Arctic Roadrunner has been slingin’ up burgers since 1964. It’s short-order counter service and cash only but it’s an award winning institution. Sparing no details in decorating the log cabin, you’ll find a tusk of a woolly mammoth, antlers, a fire place, pictures of famous patrons and all sorts of local oddities.

I was up here on tour with Shadows Fall who played 2 shows while in town with Family Tree Presents. We played a 21+ gig at the world famous Chilkoot Charlie’s and an all-ages show at Club Millenium. Both shows were fantastic and the fans were insane. Metal is alive and well in Alaska!

Click to read more…

I am SO FUCKING HAPPY to let you all know that there’s a new Insomnium album, Across the Dark, coming out on Candlelight on September 7. If you like things that are a) epic, b) melodic, c) heavy, and/or d) just plain old fucking awesome, then you need to be listening to Insomnium. ‘Cause they rule. They rule all that they see and all that they don’t. And someday, if I ever have a daughter, I hope a member of Insomnium deflowers her.

You can listen to some samples from Across the Dark here. It sounds like an Insomnium album, which is to say, it sounds friggin’ sweet.

-AR

Thanks to reader Ex.Nihilo for the tip!

Early Man front dude and friend of MetalSucks Mike Conte posted the below on his site, Whiplash, and it’s just too good not to post. The specifics, of course, need no explanation.

For more fun with Sesame Street and metal, check this out.

-AR

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 #4 album, coming in with a total of 204 points…

Killswitch Engage, Alive or Just Breathing (Roadrunner, 2002)
Jesse Leach – Vocals
Adam Dutkiewicz – Drums/Guitars/Piano
Mike D’Antonio – Bass
Joel Stroetzel – Guitars
Tom Gomes – Drums
Produced by Adam Dutkiewicz

“THE TIME APPROACHES!!!” Jesse Leach howls in the first seconds of Alive or Just Breathing. “Kingdoms will rise to power/but kingdoms fall to dust.”

It’s as though he were talking about nu-metal.

Click to read more…

I bet this dude was excited about that heavy metal pizza party.

Thanks to MetalSucks Maniac Voltron Futura for the link!

-AR

I first wrote about Greymachine last September, when I foolishly thought the band was called Grey Machine; then Gary Suarez wrote about them again back in May. There wasn’t a lot of actual news to report, though; the supergroup – which includes amongst it ranks Justin Broadrick, Isis’ Aaron Turner, Diarmuid Dalton of Godflesh and Jesu and Dave Cochrane of Head of David – had a free single avail for download or purchase on vinyl, but no release date for their full-length.

Well, now they have a release date. August 4 on Hydra Head. Mark it in your calendars.

That free single, “Vultures Descend,” is trippy as fuck, and if the thought of a Broadrick/Turner team-up doesn’t make your dick hard, you must need viagra. Or, y’know, be a lady.

Here’s “Vultures Descend.” We’ll give you more news on the album as we get it.

Grey Machine, “Vultures Descend” – from Disconnected (out August 4 on Hydra Head) [Download]

-AR

Last week was a ginormous week for new metal releases, and with new ones from Killswitch and Suicide Silence this week promises to be the same. Topping last week’s crop was Dream Theater’s Black Clouds & Silver Linings which debuted at #6 on the Soundscan Charts. Wait a minute… Dream Theater debuted at #6?? Holy fuckity-fuck. Darkest Hour, The Mars Volta, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster and Goatwhore also had strong debuts. Click through for chart positions and sales numbers.

Click to read more…

The whole retro-thrash thing has already pretty much worn itself out, and, generally speaking, if you’re not Municipal Waste, Warbringer or maybe maybe maybe Merciless Death, I just don’t really give a shit these days. I’m over it.

Or at least I thought I was… until I heard Havok’s Burn.

Click to read more…

From MS Maniac VillanJ via Twitpic:

“Maybe the Grim (kvlt, tr00) Reaper will think he didn’t finish the job on Michael Jackson and axe this doofus.”

-VN