Axe to Fall is not better than Jane Doe. Sorry. It is, however, easily one of the best albums of the year, and very possibly Converge’s most “metal” (as opposed to hardcore) offering to date (Except the last couple of songs… which are doozies. I won’t spoil the surprise.). The album Slays with a capital “S.”

The title track is now avail as a free download from Spin, of all places. You’ve actually heard a rough version of this song before – remember that album teaser video the band released way back in March? – but it’ll rip you an even bigger bunghole with the vocals in place.

Go here to download the song.

-AR

I’m usually anti-cover album – what’s the point, really? – but I have to admit that I’m more than a little curious to hear Children of Bodom’s Skeletons in the Closet… but mostly for non-metal or not-really-metal reasons. I mean, I’m sure that COB can pull off Slayer and Sepultura songs without breaking a sweat, but what’s it gonna sound like when Alexi and company do Creedence? Kenny Rogers? Pat Benatar? Their Brit-Brit cover (which will be on the new disc) sounded surprisingly Bodom-like, as though the Reigning White Trash Queen of Pop had never even existed. And can you think of another melodeathrash band more suited to do hair metal covers of Poison and W.A.S.P.?

So. Skeletons in the Closet comes out September 23 on Spinefarm. The band is now streaming two new re-makes, of Suicidal Tendencies’ “War Inside My Head” and Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell,” on their MySpace page. Throw back a few shots and play ‘em loud. That’s how COB would want it, motherfuckers.

-AR

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: horror and metal go together like PB&J, like Jager and puking, like Kerry King and talkin’ smack. They are the most natural of pairings.

And so it is with great pleasure that we premiere this exclusive footage from The Thaw, the latest installment of Lionsgate’s Pictures’ “Ghost House Underground” series – a line of horror DVDs created in cooperation with writer/director Sam Raimi and producer Rob Tapert, the team behind the classic Evil Dead series and this summer’s Drag Me to Hell, which was easily one of the most fun movies of 2009.

The Thaw stars Val Kilmer stars as a renowned environmental advocate, Dr. David Kruipen. When Dr. Kruipen discovers the carcass of a woolly mammoth in a polar ice cap, he helms a team of four bright ecology students and leads them in a research mission at a remote Arctic station. When a pre-historic parasite shows up searching for a new warm-blooded host, the unsuspecting students are forced to choose between a quarantine that will result in their burial ground or a global epidemic.

The Thaw hits DVD on October 6. You can get more info on Ghost House Underground here. Bonus: the clip features music by Winds of Plague. (See, we told you metal and horror go together!) We hope you enjoy the footage…

[This exclusive has now ended.]

Like our friend Eyal Levi, I am still amazed that the words “Happy Birthday Dimebag” set off a debate of Ziltoidian proportions. I just don’t see how the impact of Pantera on modern metal is open to discussion; even if you hate them, to say that they weren’t hugely popular and influential even before Dime’s death just strikes me as… wrong. Just wrong.

And, come to think of it, I don’t really understand hating Pantera, either. Even if you think they’re just dumb rednecks. ‘Cause if we’re not gonna listen to the music of every musician we perceive as an idiot anymore, we’re gonna need to throw out, at minimum, 80% of our respective music libraries. And not just the metal shit, either.

Of course, this video probably won’t convince anyone that Pantera were awesome, and will, I imagine, lead to cries of “See they sold out,” “they were just chasing trends,” etc. And even if that’s true, it doesn’t really make Cowboys from Hell or Vulgar Display of Power or whatever your favorite Pantera album is any less awesome. Kinda like Machine Head.

MS Maniac Fabio Sanchez gets a gold star for sending us this video. Thanks dude!

-AR

Way back in March, I expressed my sheer delight at the promise of Celan, a new group that unites Unsane frontman Chris Spencer with Oxbow guitarist Niko Wenner. The other week, the formidable noise rock combo quietly released its debut Halo (buy it buy it buy it) on Exile On Mainstream Records (whose site was recently hacked) during a month that yielded far more publicized metal albums from dinosaurs like Megadeth and Europe, as well as an embarrassingly over-promoted record from (ugh) Shadows Fall. Of course, my role on this website (other than indulging my love for 90s grunge acts) is to expose you to the kind of awesome stuff you probably missed or haven’t even heard of. Celan is one such example.

Europeans who read this site should be forewarned that Celan is about to begin a three-week tour of the continent that hits cities in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. No word yet on U.S. dates, but perhaps if some of you go out and buy the album, we may have a chance.

-GS

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

Wow. For some reason I didn’t think we’d be getting a new Nile album ’til 2010, but their latest offering, Those Whom the Gods Detest, will be out November 3 on Nuclear Blast. Sweeeeet.

Here’s the cover art, which, natch, sticks to the whole Egyptian theme, but I think is still pretty cool:

And here’s what Karl Sanders told me about the new album a few months back:

Click to read more…

Athens, GA/Brooklyn, NY instrumental psych-dance-post-rock-metal-whatever band Maserati are one of those bands that are extremely difficult to pigeonhole beyond simply saying “awesome.” Three separate people told me that I had to see this band at this past year’s SXSW, and on the festival’s final day I had an opportunity in a packed backyard patio at twilight. Shit totally blew my mind! The sound completely surrounded me, the sun was going down, it was 80 degrees with a light breeze, everyone was feelin’ it… it was just one of those great moments. Guitarists’ Coley Dennis and Matt Cherry’s delay-infused leads snake their way into and around each other, creating the perfect psychedelic soundscape for metronomic, finesse drummer Jerry Fuchs’ (also of Turing Machine and !!!) and groove-heavy bassist Steve Scarborough.

Maserati have something like 10 different releases under their belts, many of them limited edition split vinyls that have long since been out of print, so before the band releases their next proper full-length in 2010 they’ve decided to issue Passages, a collection of many of these out-of-print tracks (and two unreleased numbers) that will now be on CD for the first time. I’m listening to Passages right now, and I’m seriously considering sparking up a bowl before I’m done. The record came out on September 8th, so it’s available everywhere now including at the website of the band’s label, Temporary Residence.

Here’s a free download/stream of the track “Monoliths” from Passages; it’s one of my favoritest songs on the record.

Maserati – “Monoliths”

The band goes on a long tour this week supporting Mono. I’ll be at the Brooklyn show rockin’ out. Full list of tour dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

It was a mere two weeks ago that I was feeling pretty cynical about the prospects of a rumored Big Four tour becoming a reality. It just seems like there’s too much bad blood between too many of the bands for everyone to hit the road together.

But there’s also a lot of money to be made there, and in 2009 money wins every fight, even in the world of metal.

So here comes Robert Trujillo to get the rumor pot a-stirrin’ again. In a recent interview, the man/crab hybrid had this to say:

Click to read more…

Pure comedic gold. The pacing is a bit off and the video way long (it could’ve been just as funny at half the length), but the guy’s heart is completely, 100% in the right place. Also, the faux-NY accent is a bit bizarre… but whatevs. Anything that makes fun of Fred Durst is aight in our book.

-VN

[Thanks: Jeffrey Grasske]

Congratulations to MetalSucks Maniacs Nick Hochmuth and Alexander Holmes. They correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Crimson Massacre, and each win a copy of Black Stone Cherry’s Folklore and Superstition for their trouble. Rock out with your cocks out, bruthas!

Don’t cry if you didn’t win – I still have one more copy of the CD to give away, courtesy the cool cats at Roadrunner Records. 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 a winner from everyone who gets it right, and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was suggested by Ryan Benjamin. Thank you, Ryan Benjamin!

-AR

First of all, I have to say, if you’re into Muse then check out their new album, The Resistance, which comes out today. It’s fucking brilliant. They always manage to take a different approach from album to album, and this one continues on that path. Anyways, its great stuff and I recommend it highly.

I’ve had music writing on my mind a lot these days. Maybe its because I have a lot on my plate. The record I’m doing with Emil from DAATH and Cynic’s Sean Reinert needs to be delivered by the first of the year. It’s going to be released in the spring of 2010. My side project wants to record an EP of still to be written material this December. And last but not least, DAATH is looking to go into the studio in April to record our next one. We’d like for it to be out by the end of Summer 2010.

That’s a shit load of music to write in a very short period of time if you consider that we’re still touring. Some advice I get from people is “Don’t rush.” That’s good advice. None of this is going to be rushed and it will all get what it needs and wants so that it can grow into the work of art it deserves to become. I think I’ve figured out how to write on the road and this next tour will be the perfect situation for that. We are sharing the bus with a straightedge band. Can’t be partying like usual because my health could relapse. Instead of staring into space and wishing I could party, I’ll occupy my time with creative things. So I’ll be writing music on the road. And a lot of it!

Click to read more…

I love YouTube vocal covers. LOVE THEM! There’s something about teenagers bearing their souls (awfully) for all the world to see that just hits me in that special place.

So today we take a look at the very best YouTube has to offer of Limp Bizkit vocal covers. Let’s go!

The best part of this one is definitely this dude’s atrocious facial hair styling, but almost as astounding is how accurately he imitates Fred Durst’s whiny interpretation of this George Michael classic:

After the jump… more Limp Bizkit vocal covers. Click! You know you wanna. The best is yet to come.

Click to read more…

Five Finger Death Punch is still one of the worst fucking bands ever to have existed in this genre or any other form of music. Or just sound in general.

-AR

The fine metal journalism institution Metal Inquisition has done it again with an in-depth look at the union of our two favorite pastimes: metal and weed. We like to think that these two pleasures go together like two nuts in a sack, but Metal Inquisition proves otherwise; Six Feet Under, Black Label Society, Dope and others illustrate that when bands mix weed into their metal, the results aren’t always as desired. Read the two posts here and here.

We’ll still be the two dudes getting high at the back of the metal show.

-VN

Those that felt underwhelmed by Every Time I Die’s The Big Dirty (a company of which this writer is a part) need not worry – New Junk Aesthetic, their new album, has the energy, texture, and savagery the prior record lacked. And this isn’t to say The Big Dirty was a massive, St. Anger-style failure; it was just an alright album in the company of the splendid Southern-fried rock of Gutter Phenomenon or their debut, the up-there-with-Jane Doe lost metalcore classic Last Night in Town. And when viewed in retrospect, Big Dirty appears to be the band’s “growth” record: where they fumbled around, sounding somewhat bored and uninspired (though admittedly still pretty entertaining), perhaps even unsure of what to do next. New Junk Aesthetic is a band completely comfortable with itself, and pushing different boundaries because of that. Vocalist Keith Buckley belts out ridiculously catchy vocals hooks with his same refreshingly smarmy lyrical approach, while guitarists Andy Williams and Jordan Buckley tone down their Southern riff attack to eschew the risk of sounding like a novelty. The album finds the band at its most likable while occasionally incorporating a riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on their debut. If you liked Every Time I Die before, you’ll probably find reasons on this record to like them more. Click to read more…

The always-brilliant Rob Pasbani of Metal Injection was going through his usual daily routine – wake up late, wander over to computer, get high, play on computer, remain in boxers, fail to bathe… y’know, the life of your average blogger – when he made an amazing discovery: Google’s suggestions for popular searches related to metal are actually pretty dead-on. To wit, this non-altered, completely, 100% real screenshot:

AMAZING, right? Now if only iTunes and Netflix could actually make some decent recommendations based on my previous purchases and rentals.

Head over to Metal Injection for more incredible screenshots of metal-related Google search suggestions.

-AR

Living Colour performing their new single,”Behind the Sun,” on WYNC’s Soundcheck this past Friday.

Getting to spend nearly an hour on the phone with Vernon Reid was another huge fanboy moment in my life. The band’s debut album, Vivid, was one the first cassettes (!) I ever purchased on my own, making Living Colour one of the first bands I ever listened to that weren’t introduced to me by my parents. Today, more than twenty years later, the band is releasing their fifth studio album, The Chair in the Doorway (Megaforce). The fact that it’s no less powerful or brilliant than Vivid made talking to Reid even more exciting, because my love of the music he and his band make isn’t at all rooted in nostalgia (read my review of the record here).

As you’ll see from the following transcript of our chat, Reid doesn’t exactly think in linear terms. There were definitely moments when I had thoughts such as “Why is he talking about Pokemon?”, for example. But he always comes back around to his original point, leading to many “Oooooohhhhh! I get it now!” moments in the conversation. And given the dude’s music, that makes perfect sense: while Living Colour is ostensibly a traditionalist hard rock band, they’re still constantly and thinking outside the box and trying to navigate unexplored terrain.

After the jump, check out Reid’s thoughts on the writing and recording of The Chair in the Doorway, the meaning of that album’s title, the joys of interacting with fans through the net, and more.

Click to read more…

Our friends over at Noisecreep have an interesting new interview with former Killswitch Engage front dude Jesse Leach. The gist of the interview is that he doesn’t regret quitting the band seven years ago, just before they were launched into the metal stratosphere, and much prefers making less money and being in bands no one seems to care about. (Okay, I made that last part up. But still.) Here’s the quote I found really interesting:

“I look at the band now, and I don’t even think twice. There’s no way in my brain I could fathom being on stage, doing what they’re doing. Maybe if it were on my own terms, but from what I’ve seen them do, they’ve kind of taken a goofier route with Adam D… I love it, I get it, I respect it … it’s very punk rock and tongue-in-cheek, but that’s not who I am.”

Of course I love Alive or Just Breathing, but really did not enjoy Leach’s Seemless project. Not even a little bit, not even when I was stoned. So, whatever.

He  is now apparently fronting a band called Empire Shall Fall, which is literally a one-word change from one of Leach’s lyrics for “Numbered Days.” Maybe Leach can recruit Kerry King to play guitar for that band, and they can be happily un-goofy together.

-AR

The Destro fucking rule. If you read our site regularly, you should already know this. That’s why we’re very excited to be exclusively streaming “Persistence of Ignorance,” one of the heaviest tracks on their ripping, old-school-brutal-style new effort Harmony of Discord out October 13th through Ironclad / Metal Blade. Trust us, the rest of the album is more of the same: unrelenting, punishing, fuck-you-up groove after groove after groove. Check out The Destro’s MySpace page for another new track, “Justifiers of Malice.”

[this promotion has ended. - Ed.]

The dudes at Metal Insider (via tipster/friend of MetalSucks Stabitha C) have come across what might the find of the year: this video of featuring the single “An Angel is Missing” by Ronnie and the Red Caps… “Ronnie” in this case being Ronnie James Dio (or just “Ronnie Dio,” as he’s called here), who not only sings, but plays the bass and trumpet as well. The single was recording in 1959, a good ten years before the formation of Elf (which also featured Ronnie and the Red Caps guitarist Nick Pantas!) and a decade and a half prior to the first Rainbow album.

I don’t think it’s any secret that Dio had a non-metal musical career earlier in his life, but I’ve never actually heard any of the music he made during that period before. Plus, check out that photo of the young Mr. Dio! WEIRD!!!

-AR