MS Maniac Raymond Lee sent us a link to the Canadian progressive metal band Divinity with the following email subject line: “fucking, wow.”

For once, you guys got it right. Elaborates Mr. Lee:

They’ve got this weird mixture of SYL and Meshuggah.  Incredible shredding, awesome drum work, great vocals.  Fucking hell they make my balls quiver.  I think they’d be a good band to feature.
-Ray
P.S.  I’m pretty much completely baked right now.
P.S.S.  And I’m hammered.

Baked, hammered or not, Divinity definitely make my balls quiver. According to a press release we received earlier this month but skipped over (oops) the band is now without a record label following their 2008 release Allegory on Nuclear Blast. But the band is soldiering on and self-releasing their new album The Singularity on December 1st through all the usual outlets — iTunes, Amazon, Tunecore etc. How can a band this good remain unsigned? Someone get on that. Listenable Records, Relapse or Prosthetic should be all over these guys.

-VN

Nah, just kiddin’. It’s just a new Throwdown song! “This Continuum,” from the band’s forthcoming album Deathless, is streaming at Noiscecreep right now.

It’s really mean of me to keep poking this band for sounding so much like Pantera. For one thing, I’ve really enjoyed some Throwdown in the past; for another thing, I interviewed TxDx (do people really refer to them that way?) guitarist Mark Choiniere once, and he was a really, really nice dude. But, y’know. They do sound a lot like Pantera.

That being said, the chorus to this song strikes me as being kinda, well… Godsmack-y. Am I alone there?

Deathless comes out November 10 on E1.

-AR

I really never got into Savatage, and I don’t remember ever having seen this video for “Hall of the Mountain King” before. But reader Shane Gillis sent it in this morning, and anything with midgets, shredding, and Dio-esque vocals can’t be all bad.

This shit is ridiculous. It’s also metal as fuck.

-AR

Y’know how these days all these bands release special editions of shit in an effort to give their fans a lil’ sumpin’ extra so they’ll buy a physical copy of the album? Usually they come with a poster or a DVD or maybe a cool box or a USB or whatever.

Well, this is the one for Rammstein’s. It probably won’t surprise anyone who saw the “Pussy” video that’s not really safe for work.

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On the eve of the release of their latest banger Here Waits Thy Doom, I spoke with 3 Inches of Blood guitarist Shane Clark. Clark was in the middle of an intense day of interviews promoting the new album but was still sharp enough to tell us all about the writing process of said album, the band’s label jump from Roadrunner to Century Media, the effects of Jamie Hooper’s departure from the band, and where 3 Inches of Blood fit (or not, as it were) into “the scene.” Our chat after the jumper.

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MetalSucks Maniac The Ghost of D. Boon e-mailed us in response to that video we posted yesterday of Steel Panther guitarist Satchel playing drums while taking a guitar solo to make sure we knew about Gull… and we didn’t. So thanks, Ghost!

Gull is a one-man project from Richmond, VA who not only plays guitar and drums simultaneously (and wwwaaayyy better than Satchel), but also sings! Ghost says that mask he’s wearing has a mic in it, which is hooked up to reverb pedal. Check it out:

You can get more info on Gull here.

And while we’re talking about one man bands… this suddenly got me thinking about Corn Mo, this dude I used to see play local clubs and bars here in New York from time to time. He’s not really metal, but he used to host gigs for metal cover bands and obviously has some knowledge of metal, so it seemed worth posting. Plus, if you’re drunk enough, he can be fun to watch live. Check out the drum stick coming out of his pants!

Here’s Corn Mo, both doing his solo thing and playing with Gary Suarez’s hero, Andrew WK:

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Just because Metal Inquisition’s Sergeant D failed at having his own self-coined micro-genre of metal added to Wikipedia doesn’t mean we’re not gonna give it a shot; where Wigger Slam was struck down by the Wikipedia fascists, Sumeriancore shall succeed because it’s decidedly more PC.

Folks, Sumeriancore isn’t just some mistake the MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys stumbled upon whilst banging away at their typewriters; it’s a real movement, and it’s making itself felt in the scene in a serious way. Phil Freeman of the quite-reputable Allmusic.com (ex-Metal Edge) referenced the term in his review of Born of Osiris’ A Higher Place, a review which is now being syndicated by hundreds of sites including iTunes, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. Kids are debating the meaning of the term on MusicianForums.com, while over at the SMNnews.com forums a member of MetalSucks-faves The Binary Code poses this question to the masses: “Is my band ‘Sumeriancore’?” Even on Sumerian Records’ own Last.fm page, kids are e-yelling “SUMERIANCORE!” in the comments.

So let’s get this shit going. Despite what MS Maniac Caspar Colderson commented on yesterday’s Tesseract post, “Sumeriancore” isn’t yet in Wikipedia. Can someone who’s bored at work take a stab at entering it in? ‘Cause we can’t do it ourselves, lest we make the Wikipedia Gods angry. I like Freeman’s definition: “a blend of tech-death and hardcore played by preternaturally talented youngsters,” as well as “Any band that sounds like they are/could be signed to Sumerian Records (the Faceless, After the Burial, Veil of Maya)” from the aforementioned Binary Code post.

We’ll send anyone who helps out a copy of A Higher Place signed by Glen Danzig.

-VN

Man, we just have not talked about Cephalic Carnage around here enough. In fact, I don’t even listen to enough Cephalic Carnage. This band is awesome. Why don’t I listen to them more? They even call themselves “hydrodeath.” They might as well call themselves “Axl’s dream genre.” And did you know that they actually have their own vaporizer? Not like one they own, I mean, I’m sure they own at least one vaporizer each, but, like, a Cephalic Carnage vaporizer? Now THAT’S some merch. Fuck beach towels.

Man, I am so high right now. What were we talking about? Oh, right. Cephalic Carnage made a VIDEO. Video, video… stick to the topic. Video. It’s for the song “Vaporized,” from 2007′s Xenosapien. If that was a Nuclear Assault song, it would be about death and destruction, but it’s not, so it ain’t.

Knock on wood, we’re getting a new CC album in 2010. So that’s something to look forward to.

-AR

I really, really, sincerely, with all my heart and all my soul, wish that there was a version of this video with running audio commentary by the director.

My sincerest thanks to djabthrash. You changed my life… forever.

I’m having a hard time finding anything else about this band on the internet. If anyone has any leads, please let me know. I must know more. I MUST.

-AR

On Tuesday we told you that we’re sponsoring an AWESOME tour this winter with a four band bill, and while we can’t tell you all the bands on the bill just yet, we can tease that info out for you. So every day for the rest of this week, we’ll be posting an interview with a member of each band on the bill, featuring questions designed to help you guess who they are without spoiling the surprise. Then, this Monday, October 12, we’ll reveal the complete line-up for the tour!

As many of you guessed yesterday, Arsis will join Mutiny Within to be the second band on the bill. Their new album, Starve for the Devil, comes out January 15 on Nuclear Blast, and if the band’s last four albums are any indication, it’s gonna be the new year’s first contender for Best Album of 2010.

After the jump, check out the interview with a member of the third band on the bill. See if you can guess who it is just based on his or her answers!!!

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Congrats to the winners of last week’s funny photo caption contest, each of whom will receive a copy of Revolver’s all-Slayer special edition issue in the mail. The winners and their captions to the photo at right:

• LEGIONS:iron and steel: “Varg Vikernes is exonerated when Euronymous’ real killer is revealed to be Chris Benoit.”
• \m/Eluveitie\m/: “This is why Eyal doesn’t bring up his Navy days in his blog.”
• Insomnivore: “Vinnie Vincent fails to hold onto image rights during talks with Gene’s Lawyer.”
• Skanes: “Juggal’OWNED.”
• Shiggy Shack: “Amidst the raging headlock of death, a young wrestler ponders haikus, quantum physics, and why axe deodorant does not attract women.”

This week we’re giving away three copies of The Fall of Troy‘s new CD In The Unlikely Event, which just came out this week. Fall of Troy are an incredibly talented art-metal / post-hardcore band whom we don’t talk about nearly enough on this website. All you need to do to win is come up with a caption to the below photo and enter it (using a valid email address) in the comments section below.

We’ve barely covered UK prog-techsters Tesseract on MetalSucks — save for a hilarious “music video” shot by some Subway Sandwich employees rocking out to the band whilst cleaning up at night — which kinda blows my mind, because this band is freakin’ awesome and I’ve been e-following them for years now. They’re pretty much the best Sumeriancore band in existence that hasn’t yet been signed to Sumerian Records, though they definitely pre-date this now wide-spread* sub-genre name.

Tesseract haven’t even released a proper studio album yet but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that follows this band on the Internet closely; people email us about them all the time. Apparently they’re doing some dates in their UK homeland next month, and though they’ve got a new song out there’s still no word on an album. Their new song “Lament” hit the UK radio earlier this week and summarily ended up on YouTube. Have a listen below, and if you’re lucky enough to live in the UK go see them live (dates on their MySpace page) and let us know how they are.

-VN

[Thanks: Jesse Z.]

*and by wide-spread I mean “only on MetalSucks.”

Hey, lookee! Another Video Tour Blog from Misery Index! If you haven’t been watching these, you’re missing out; they’re way more interesting and funny than your usual get drunk / puke video blogs (though there’s plenty of that too. catch up: Parts 1 through 3). In this episode, we see what happens when drunken metal musicians try to throw rocks at empty beer bottles, more bird-watching with Jason Netherton, and a ton of live footage of Misery Index playing massive European Summer festivals.

[This exclusive has now ended.]

[Horse the Band are currently on tour supporting their new album Desperate Living (full stream here!). Keyboardist Lord Gold (his mommy calls him Erik) was one of the first dudes in a band to do guest blogs for us and he's fucking hilarious, so when he offered to do a tour blog again on this latest jaunt we were delighted. God willing we'll have a few more entries in the coming weeks. -Ed.]

Driving to Corpus Christi… We ate Rudy’s BBQ in San Antonio this morning. I ate half a sausage, creamed corn, and 6 baby back ribs. It made the drive go by, it put me down. 3 hours later… we are in Corpus Christi. I woke up and immediately felt crippling boredom watching the car dealership signs go by. Lots of times when you’re not on tour you feel nostalgia for a certain place and activity you did there. Feels kinda exotic and special compared to the routine of the rest of your life… Being out of town and eating something, or whatever… You think about how fun that would be and how good it will be to get on tour again and roll up there one day. I want to eat sno cones in Corpus Christi pretty often at this sno cone stand. The perfect balance of syrup and ice that held the syrup in it and didn’t freeze into big balls. When I woke up I realized the sno cone place would be closed. It’s not summer. We probably wouldn’t go to the beach either. Then I remembered the venue in the abandoned part of downtown. It put me in a mental hole that reached a low low enough to force me into writing a “tour blog”.

Last night I lay on the floor of the back room for a while in the corner. I did not know what to do. I walked out to the trailer alone and took 3 shots of vodka from my “value bottle” and came back in. Things seemed a little bit better but still not to the point where “talking to people” felt like a viable option. Then we played.

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Time for another Readers’ Choice! HOO-RAY!

So. Reader Tim-o-tato e-mailed us about this band Yyrkoon. No, I have no clue how you pronounce that, either.

ANYWAY, here’s what Tim-o-tato has to say about them:

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First of all, for our non-Chosen readers: groyse metsie is Yiddish for a bargain. Don’t say I never taught ya nuthin’.

So. For the month of October (or “Rocktober,” as some clever marketing types are dubbing it), Earache is offering a whole bunch of truly righteous albums from their catalog for download on iTunes at a retardedly low price: $5.99 in the U.S., £4.49 in the U.K., and 4,99EUR in Europe. (The press release tells me that “prices may vary in other regions.” Ha-ha.) Now, I know that most of us music snobs don’t like iTunes because the audio quality isn’t as high as it could be, and there’s a better-than-average chance that a lot of you own most of these albums anyway. But if you can get past the whole “IT’S NOT AS GOOD AS FLAC! Snort snort” thing and/or for some reason DO NOT already own most of these albums, it’s a really, really killer deal.

A complete list of available albums after the jump. At least six or seven of these are classics, and nine or so are still awesome and could be classics, so they’re totally worth the six bucks or whatever.

And then one of them is by Oceano.

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Above you’ll find the fourth in-studio webisode for The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Option Paralysis. It’s worth watching mostly for the all-too-brief taste of new music you get, which sounds, well, pretty much like vintage DEP.

Maybe just as exciting is the band’s new, limited edition t-shirt for “Mouth of Ghosts,” one of my favorite songs off of Ire Works. Vocalist Greg Puciato explains:

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Whenever people talk about modern metal production, the conversation inevitably turns to drum triggering. People always tell me that they think it’s bullshit and that they hate drum triggering, that they think it’s cheating. They’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you why.

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I saw this on Stuff You Will Hate today. I think it’s fake. I hope it’s fake. I can’t find any mention of it on the Boss website. Or anywhere else. Christ, this had better be fake.

Also:

-AR

Four words before I start this little rant:

FUCK YOU CHUCK MOSLEY.

Now that that’s outta my system…

We’ve known for awhile that Mosley, a.k.a. “The former Faith No More singer no one cares about,” had re-recorded the FNM classic “We Care A Lot” for his new solo album, Hel-lo! Does Anyone Remember Me? I mean I know I’m Not Mike Patton but I Gotta Eat, Too! And while that immediately struck me as a terrible idea, the fact that FNM keyboardist Roddy Bottum was playing on the track gave me hope that it wouldn’t be terrible.

But, hey, guess what? It’s terrible.

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