Periphery were the undeniable highlight of this year’s Thrash & Burn tour, and now that they’ve signed with Sumerian, we should finally be getting an awesome full-length sometime in 2010. That’s not as far away as it seems (!), but still, we wanna hear this fucker already. So we’re happy to post this video of drummer Matt Halpern that MS Maniac Chris Carter sent us. ‘Cause this dude can play.

We’ll have an interview with Periphery sometime in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, make sure you hit up their MySpace page…

-AR

There’s a sad, interesting desperation to a lot of new metalcore, especially the material released by bands that were doing it before it got over-saturated. A sense of eleventh hour panic has set in, and the guys who once had it made on Victory, Prosthetic, Metal Blade, and the like now have to fight for their place, pulling out all the stops to do so. This has resulted in surprisingly effective and revelatory shifts in approach (Poison the Well, to a much lesser extent As I Lay Dying), somewhat endearing adherences to a tried-and-true formula (Killswitch Engage), and the kind of crap that reminds you as to why metalcore stopped being interesting to begin with (almost literally every other metalcore band I didn’t mention). Evergreen Terrace, in terms of that scale, fall a little into all three categories, releasing a craptastic new album full of familiar-but-fun breakdowns and the occasional flourish of melody or jangling post-hardcore guitar to keep things from tasting stale and same-y. But the craptastic element casts a long shadow over the good parts, and leaves one wondering whether a band like Evergreen Terrace can ever truly make it out of the mall and into maturity. Almost Home, their new album, tries to reach the latter, but just winds up next to Banana Republic in the former.

Click to read more…

The most interesting headline to come across my RSS reader this morning was this one from SMNnews.com: “Fozzy Song ‘Martyr No More’ Streaming.” Fozzy is still around? Fozzy of wrestler Chris Jericho fame? No shit.

A side project for Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich Ward at best and a musical outlet for Jericho at worst, apparently Fozzy have a new album coming out called Chasing the Grail. I’m not sure I’d ever listened to a Fozzy song before today, but you know what? “Martyr No More” ain’t bad at all for what it is. Rich Ward is a great songwriter and a surprisingly tasty guitar player, and though his sound hasn’t changed much, or really at all in 20 years, you have to give the guy credit for being several years ahead of the rap-metal curve (for better or worse). Take latter-day Stuck Mojo and remove some of the cringe-worthy rapping (not for nothin’ I’ve actually dug some of Mojo’s later material) and you’ve got Fozzy, which is actually kind of an upgrade. If you can just ignore all the auto-tune on Jericho’s voice, you’ve actually got a pretty decent song here. Certainly not gonna reinvent the wheel, but a good song.

-VN

Wouldn’t it be awesome if that was an actual product? I know that the conceit is a little bad 80s movie, but, seriously, if you could just send someone a box full of evil-pronounced-with-an-Alan-Rickman-accent, wouldn’t you? They’d be all, “Oh, someone sent me a gift, I wonder what it is,” and then they’d open it and SURPRISE! They’re fucked.

I suppose we can settle for this new Evile video, “Infected Nations.”

Evile’s Infected Nations comes out on Earache on September 21 in Europe and September 22 here in the U.S.

-AR

It’s past normal posting hours here at the MS Mansion, but as we were shuttering the gates for the day the Monkeys were going absolutely batshit so we went to go see what all the fuss was about… and apparently there’s a new Dethklok video that’s hit the web! The song is “Bloodlines,” and it’s on Dethklok’s new album Dethalbum II, available September 29th. Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

-VN

You fail me again.

No one correctly identified last week’s logo, which belongs to the charmingly monikered band Female Nose Breaker (How would you guys feel about a band called Male Nut Buster? Recockulous.). Mercifully, none of you guessed Slipknot, Korn, or Atreyu, either, so I guess we’re making progress.

Still, I’ve got these two copies of Black Stone Cherry’s Folklore and Superstition to give away, courtesy the very nice people at Roadrunner, and I’d love if a couple of you would please take them off my hands. All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail with your answer, your name and address at axl AT metalsucks DOT net. We’ll randomly select two winners from everyone who gets it right, and announce his or her names next week.

This week’s logo was suggested by the reader known as “bear wizard.” Thank you, almighty hybrid of powerful things.

-AR

We’ve all fucked up. Some worse than others, but we have all fucked up. And if you haven’t fucked up, it’s because you haven’t had the chance. It’s hard to fuck up if all you ever do is go back and forth between this website and World Of Warcraft. Unless you fucked up at that. But that doesn’t count because it’s not real life.

I’m talking about real life. We’ve all fucked up. And most of us have gotten away with some shit we shouldn’t have gotten away with. GUILTY. I have done so many idiotic things that sometimes I wonder why I’m not dead or have a record (Criminal, not musical.). I could write a leaflet entitled, “The Joys of Driving Drunk,” but I won’t. I’m just gonna tell you guys here about some stupid shit I’ve done. I learned my lesson. You guys shouldn’t do this, but those of you who will aren’t gonna listen to me anyways so whatever… have fun!

Click to read more…

I dunno, but we did. Thanks to longtime MetalSucks Maniac Mark Mortiz-Rabson for setting us straight.

The song is called “A Body Farm,” in case ya didn’t know.

-AR

I’m not actually anti-Guitar Hero/rhythm games the way some people are, and this is only sorta kinda related to metal, but this satirical look into the making of Guitar Hero: The Beatles (not a real game, obviously) is too funny not to share.

-AR

[via CHUD]

If you’ve ever wondered what goes into tracking and recording a metal record, take a look at this in-depth, behind-the-scenes studio footage of producer Jochem Jacobs walking the viewer through the Textures song “Awake,” track by track. Even the most bare-bones recordings these days tend to have multiple layers of guitar and vocal tracks, but if you’ve heard Textures’ sonically dense album Silhouettes then you already know the next level to which these Dutchmen take their recording technique. The production on Silhouettes is positively stellar, far and away one of the best recorded and produced records of 2008.

In the below video, Jacobs walks the viewer through the different sections of the song, then through the multiple layers of tracks in each, isolating a number of different parts individually and together in different combinations so you can hear precisely what was recorded. It’s a fascinating look into production and recording technique; watch the clip below, then watch the rest at FaceCulture.com. Thanks to Jesse Z. for sending this in.

-VN

This is completely fucking offensive. More crabcore / flat-iron haircut / disco-dance garbage. Fuck this band. Fuck them in the ears.

-VN

I like Ensiferum. Seriously, I do. But what the fuck is going on in their new video, “From Afar?” No one wanted to play their instrument? Or at least hold their instrument? Or even, y’know, move?

Maybe they just asked a former member of Dimmu Borgir to please pack their gear for them, and then he forgot. I bet that’s it. That has to be it. Right?

-AR

Rwake is a band we don’t write about as much as we should because, honestly, they don’t generate as much news as we’d like. They only tour occasionally and haven’t released an album since 2007′s nut-bustingly awesome Voices of Omens. I’m hoping they’ll get a new album out in 2010, but haven’t really heard anything. The band announced that they were “writing some more tunes” on their MySpace page, but that was back in March already.

At least we know that vocalist CT has been keeping busy: according to Invisible Oranges, he’s co-directing the documentary Slow Southern Steel, about, uh, well, it should seem obvious. The film is apparently still a work-in-progress, but since that never stops Hollywood from releasing a trailer, why should it stop CT and co-director David Lipke?

You can get more info on Slow Southern Steel here. It seems to have a tentative release date of May 2010.

-AR

If you enjoy melodic death-tinged power metal – and really, who doesn’t? – then it’s hard to imagine that you won’t enjoy Luna Mortis’ Century debut, The Absence. This shit is heavy, infectious, and epic as all get-out.

A big part of the reason why the album works is vocalist Mary Zimmer. A classically trained singer who once had aspirations of doing opera, Zimmer put to shame all the over-processed, auto-tuned vocalists that will inevitably let their fans down in a live setting. Her voice isn’t only powerful – it’s undeniably real.

Luna Mortis have just released a new, David Brodsky-directed video for the song “Forever More,” which you can watch above. They’ve also just hit the road with Edguy and Epicurean. You can get a complete tour itinerary here; then, after the jump, read my chat with Zimmer regarding all things metal. Raaaaar.

Click to read more…

This morning, I received the following e-mail from reader Parker Werley:

“How does a band get to earn the proud badge of having -core in their genre?”

That’s a pretty simple question, but it’s also kind of thought provoking. So I thought maybe we could explore it here a little bit. Because, honestly, I’m not sure that I know what the answer is.

Click to read more…

Dear Makers of Black Toilet Paper,

You are welcome for the hundreds of dollars in sales I just generated for your product.

Sincerely
Vince Neilstein

[Thanks: Jesse Z.]

This image came from a Rammstein fan e-mailer that MS Maniac Anthony Read forwarded to us. It’s an announcement of the song “Pussy” as Rammstein’s new single.

Now, some of the more dim-witted amongst you will undoubtedly have reactions akin to those of a second grader. Personally, I think the photo is awesome. It’s freaky as fuck, but in the best possible way – in fact, one of the best things about is that it’s sure to give homophobic metalheads the heebie jeebies. Sure, it’s Aphex Twin already did something really similar, but our freunde in Rammstein take it that much further than Richard D. James did.

I’m not really a big Rammstein fan, but this actually makes me wanna hear “Pussy.”

-AR

We haven’t spent nearly enough time here talking about Paradise Lost’s excellent new album Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us; actually, we haven’t spent any time talking about it here. And none of you have emailed or commented to excoriate us for this glaring omission. Shame on all of us.

Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us was recorded in Sweden with producer Jens Bogren, so you know it’s gonna sound delicious and luscious; the album drops on September 28 in Europe and October 6 in the States. The new video for the album’s title track is a weird / cool idea for a music video and it doesn’t feature the band playing in an abandoned warehouse, or playing anywhere for that matter — the band members don’t even appear in the video. Instead, there’s some creepy girl mouthing all the words of the song to the camera and some creepy guy cutting off her hair bit by bit. I was hoping for some kind of climax at the end, but perhaps the video is all the more unique for the lack of a cliched video ending. Watch it below.

-VN

You know how your parents always used to tell you to do things against your will “because I said so!”? And how you refused, but you realized years later that they were right? Listen to Revocation, NOW. Because I said so.

We likee Boston young guns Revocation ’round these parts. So much so that I actually just pre-ordered their new album Existence is Futile (out Sept 29) with a sweet t-shirt. Guys, I can’t even remember the last time I bought a CD. I think it was the time I went to buy Chinese Democracy on release day just to satisfy the itch for the nostalgiac ritual of doing so. That purchase didn’t pan out quite as I’d hoped, but I have no doubt that this one will because I’ve already heard the album, and the t-shirt is just the icing on the cake.

Revocation have a 3rd new track called “Anthem of the Betrayed” posted on their MySpace page; of the tracks posted so far, it’s by far the most representative of what Existence is Futile as a whole is all about, and it’s also the best yet. Listen to that track, watch the new studio webisode posted below (I always find vocal tracking fascinating), then pre-order the record. Because I said so.

Be on the lookout for a sweet MetalSucks-sponsored Revocation tour this fall.

-VN

I started learning to play guitar when I was eleven. That was also the year I had my first guitar recital (which I realized even then wasn’t cool, but what was I gonna do, tell my parents to take the lessons I’d asked for and blow ‘em out their collective ass?). I probably sounded like I was playing with broken fingers, but everyone applauded when I was done because, well, I was eleven years old and it was my first time playing in front of people and that’s what you do when an eleven year old kid is showing some effort.

But why the fuck anyone would applaud for this is just way, way beyond me.

Actually, I think he’d sound better if someone broke his fingers. Certainly couldn’t hurt.

-AR

Thanks to twisted_freak for the tip.