On Sunday night we caught the Beard Destroyer 2009 tour with Hull and Batillus (sadly for us, Salome didn’t play that date). It crushed even harder than we thought it would, so we asked our friend, Batillus skinsman Geoff Summers, to do a tour wrap-up for us. We hope you enjoy!

So, here I sit with a mild case of PTD (post-tour depression) writing up this wrap report for the so-called Beard Destroyer tour featuring Salome, Hull, and my band, Batillus. We had some good times, and we had some bad times. It rained. A lot. Everywhere we went. Fortunately, though, the good dwarfed the bad. Let’s recap…

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When did you guys start listening to heavy music? How many of you started listening this decade? I’m seriously curious about this. Those of you who started this decade… Are you sick of it yet? Are you starting to get sick of it? Does it excite you the way it did in 2004? For those of you who started earlier… do you remember what things were like 1990-1995? Remember when Megadeth was going multiplatinum, Pantera was flying in private jets, and Morbid Angel and Carcass were on major labels? Remember how that pretty much died off?

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We are in possession of a 2-day ticket to the Loudpark festival in Japan this October 17th and 18th, graciously bestowed on us by MS Maniac Andre M. Pinheiro. Mr. Pinheiro bought the ticket himself only to realize he couldn’t go, and would like to offer it up to the MetalSucks community rather than make a quick buck on the black market. How’s that for generosity? The above image is the actual ticket, with the barcode blacked out to prevent any webernet funny business.

Check out the full festival lineup here: Judas Priest and Slayer are headlining the 1st and 2nd days, respectively; Megadeth, Children of Bodom, Arch Enemy, Anthrax and Lazarus A.D. are just some of the other great bands making an appearance.

All you need to do to win is email news [at] metalsucks.net with LOUDPARK in the subject, telling us why you deserve to win. We’ll choose our favorite entry this Friday. Ideally, whoever wins the ticket either lives in Japan, lives nearby, or has the means to travel there for this festival. Realistically, we can’t ensure the winner satisfies any of the above conditions… so before you try and win this ticket to make a quick buck on it, consider that a real, live person donated it to us, not some company gunning for publicity. It’s called kharma, people.

Alright, go!

- VN & AR

The notion of a remix album is a strange one. First of all, what purpose do they serve – to provide intriguing reinterpretations of their catalog, or to throw a bone to fans hungry for a new album? Secondly, are remixes to be judged on their own merits as songs, or do they need to be permanently attached to their point of origin? Third of all, what in the fuck IS a remix, exactly? In the hip-hop community, it’s the same backing track with a slew of different rappers of wildly varying quality contributing new verses along with the original artist. In the pop world, it’s the original song with a throbbing nightclub beat thrown underneath. In the metal world, it’s a weird prospect: it’s either a collection of ambient, noise, or ambient/noise pieces built upon the tiniest shred of the source material, or a rearranging of the original tracks into a violent, messy reimagining (For the latter, see Justin Broadrick’s take on Isis’ “Hym” for how it can be done well, and his take on Pantera’s “Fucking Hostile” to see how it can be done horribly). Needless to say, metal remix albums tend to be geared toward metalheads with noise sympathies or strictly for fans only, if not both. The Melvins’ new remix collection, Chicken Switch, appears to fall into both, but actually falls pretty hard into the latter. Those in search of a worthwhile remix album should probably ignore this one.

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Literally, inside a steel box — with no ventilation at all. That’s what French tech-death masters Gorod (over whom we’ve gushed many times on these pages) are doing at Evento 2009, a 2-day art event taking place in Bordeaux, France on October 18th and 19th. Reports Ballsinmouth:

Gorod will perform inside Portuguese artist João Onofre’s “Box Sized Die” installation, a soundproof, steel-walled cube, an homage to Tony Smith’s DIE, an icon of American sculpture dating from 1962. At the beginning of the performance, they will play with the door open (normal concert volume level). Then the door will be shut and nothing more will be heard outside. As the cube has no ventilation, the concert will last at most 14 minutes, after which the exhausted band will open the door again.

That’s pretty awesome, but also kind of petrifying. The picture you see above is of the band Darkmoon performing inside the very same box at last year’s event; I’d be scared as fuck of dying of asphyxiation inside a box that size, whatwith 4 other dudes fighting for the same oxygen as I am for 14 fucking minutes. Although, if things go awry, we’d end up with fodder for the most metal death ever; THAT would be performance art.

If you haven’t checked out Gorod‘s excellent Process of a New Decline released earlier this year, get on that shit. You’re missing out.

-VN

Evan Seinfeld and Tera Patrick have split up. Apparently it’s amicable. This means Tera will now be free to make porn with other dudes, like she did in her pre-Seinfeld days, while Evan will be free to make porn with other chicks, or medicore music with whatever band he’s doing these days. (Until I get that Biohazard/Onyx tour I’ve been begging for since ’93, I don’t give a shit.)

It’s hard to believe that this relationship didn’t last. If a metal thug and a porn star who make a great deal of money filming themselves fucking can’t be happy together these days, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

Go here to watch Evan and Tera in happier times, sharing their love. Or, at least, Evan sharing his love all over Tera’s face. Needless to say, it’s NSFW.

-AR

“Hey Beavis, this guy talks like you.”

Thanks to MS Maniac / Metal Injection contributor Ben Apatoff for reminding us of the above gem in his comment on yesterday’s Megadeth “Sweating Bullets” video post. The entire music video portion of this clip is pure comedic gold. It’s a shame that most of the music videos weren’t included in the Mike Judge Collection of Beavis & Butthead DVDs released a few years ago because they were often the best part. We got a few gems as bonus features (like the famous “Damnit Pantera, this beer is warm. Get me another one!” clip) but watching the animated shorts without the comedic genius of the music video commentary to break them up just didn’t have the same appeal.

“We were in burrito.”

This show never ceases to be funny.

-VN

I’m just sayin’. This is pretty tame for it to be “Unleashed.”

Also, new rule: videos cannot jump through time and announce said jump through time with a card that says “X amount of time later.” You’re working in a truncated format, directors. Deal with it.

Reader Nate Schwartz sent us this video, with the promise that it’s “like Nightwish, but with cooler guitar bits.” Since I don’t like Nightwish, this was maybe not Nate’s strongest sales pitch. Still, I recognize that a lot of you like this band and it’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve heard today, so here ya go.

“Unleashed” comes off of Epica’s new album, Design Your Universe, which comes out October 16 in Europe and November 3 in the U.S. on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Skinlab… in 2009? Some fifteen years after the band emerged from the Bay Area thrash scene – mostly thanks to jocking from Machine Head’s Robb Flynn when both bands were Bay Area up-and-comers – Skinlab is back with The Scars Between Us… for better or worse. The band’s fourth full-length release and seventh overall (including an EP, a double-disc album containing alternate and live versions of songs, and a full-on live album), The Scars Between Us is Skinlab’s comeback album of sorts – and first for new label Stand And Deliver Records. The question is: can they resurrect a career after seemingly treading water, like Machine Head did a few years back after the one-two punch of nu-metal disasters The Burning Red and Supercharger before returning to the metal press’ pages of high praise?

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Actually, this gets old after about fifteen seconds. But the synchronized head banging really sells those first fifteen seconds.

-AR

Thanks to Ziv Frenkel for sending this in.

Don’t you agree?

(Due out Tuesday October 6 on Merge Records, Lou Barlow’s Goodnight Unknown features drumming by Melvins’ Dale Crover. Check out more videos here.)

-GS

[Gary Suarez is a jerk. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

But they were all better screamers.

-AR

Thanks to Josh Kidd for the tip.

Sent in by MS Maniac Marco Parra Castelán, this Black Sabbath “cover” comes to us by way of the Spanish 5-piece Fecal Coproboys.

Because farting has always been, still is, and will always be fucking hilarious.

-VN

Addicted is an excellent name for the new album (and the second release this year alone!) from The Devin Townsend Project, for it is truly addictive. As Townsend himself put it, it’s a “no bullshit” heavy rock confection that’s as catchy as swine flu (and the dynamic between Townsend’s vocals and those of The Gathering’s Anneke van Giersbergen don’t hurt, either). Pussies who thought that Ki was too soft will be happy to hear Devin doing something a little more in line with SYL; real men who recognize that pretty much everything Townsend touches turns to awesome already know what they can expect.

There’s a teaser medley currently streaming on Townsend’s MySpace page; so many of you e-mailed us about it this morning that I’m not even sure why I’m telling you. I guess for the five of you are apparently unaware.

Addicted comes out November 17 on InsideOut Music.

-AR

A+ update Benjamin, A fucking plus.

For those of you goyim (that’s yiddish for “non Jews”) who aren’t familiar with the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur (which was this past Monday, hence Axl’s lack of posts that day), this video update from the Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman should serve as an excellent primer.

We also get an interview with producer Steve Evetts about new drummer Billy Rymer, and we get some footage of Weinman tracking guitars with the rest of the band’s tracks blaring behind him. Sounds like vintage Dillinger to me.

-VN

Yes, that is John Locke on that poster. No, he will not be in the remake, too. He fired his agents and now he has nothing to show for it. Sorry.

Generally speaking, I like Filter very much. And I have a lot of respect for Richard Patrick. I thought that Army of Anyone was awesome. And that dude can really belt it live.

But Filter’s cover “Happy Together” by The Turtles is so bad, only Within Temptation fans could ever possibly enjoy it. (Although, in all fairness, it’s from the soundtrack for the remake of The Stepfather. So at least its pedigree wasn’t misleading.)

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In case you’ve somehow never seen it before, watch this old PSA from the 70s:

Now watch the new Within Temptation video. It’s probably best to put your computer on mute first, though, because – and I say this as someone who is a sucker for a good power ballad – the song is aural diarrhea.

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When Susan Gerl, guitarist for Dutch melodic death metallers and MetalSucks faves God Dethroned, offered to do a tour blog for the South American leg of the band’s War Propaganda tour, we just couldn’t say no! Read Susan’s account of the highs and lows of that tour below. And don’t forget that God Dethroned start the North American, MetalSucks co-sponsored leg of the tour tomorrow. Get a complete tour itinerary here, or after the jump!

At the moment I’m sitting on the plane from Houston to Tucson, and we have nearly finished the first leg of our War Propaganda World Tour.

We started off in Brazil and had a really good time there. The atmosphere was really nice and laid back. Something we had to get used to, though, was the Brazilian sense of time. When we arranged to meet somewhere, we would be there, right on the spot – and waiting. After doing this for one day we adapted ourselves pretty quickly to the Brazilian pace of doing things and just stayed relaxed in our hotel rooms until the promoter phoned us that it was time to go to the venue, which was usually a couple of hours later than initially planned, so no rush there.

One disappointment in Brazil was the cancellation of our Sao Paulo show. To make a long story short: it all came down to money and corruption.

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If you say it three times, they will appear and wreak havoc on your life. Like Beetlejuice.

“Never Say My Name” comes off of Vader’s latest, Necropolis, which is out now.

-AR

Breathing the Fire. October 13. Get ready.

Watch the first Skeletonwitch webisode here.

-AR