Thanks to everyone who downloaded the package of Graphic Novel [GN] songs last week. I’m happy most of you enjoyed the tracks. It’s cool to know people will take the time to check out the music with an open mind. I never said I was the best composer or song writer out there, but I feel I do have a style. I’m always doing my best to refine it. The older you get means the more experiences you have which means your music should evolve into something you can control, as opposed to letting it control you. These particular songs were all composed in a day. Through experimentation, trial and error, and plain passion, you got that download.

I’m working on getting a more professional studio going at some point. Let’s be clear: my recording skills are not my strong side. I’m no Misha Mansoor from Periphery, so I apologize for the (lack of) recording quality.

The songs for the [GN] project are just a color of the ‘voice’ I’ve been spending my whole career trying to perfect. Don’t worry metal heads, I still play metal, just now right now. Which brings me to the subject I’ve wanted to discuss here for a while.

The Evolution Of Deathcore And Why it’s Sweet As Hell

I know the response here for deathcore is a love it or hate it sort of thing. I don’t want to get into that. I’d like to talk about my feelings towards the genre. To say it simply: I fucking LOVE deathcore. I can’t get enough of it.

Seriously.

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(special thanks to Erika for this awesome image)

Thank you for allowing me into your homes, your offices, your myriad mobile devices, and, most importantly, your hearts. This has been a truly blessed day and one that I will never forget. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!

I’m back, bitches.

-GS

[Gary Suarez thinks you're the best reader of all. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

By now, it should be crystal clear to everyone just how I feel about Oceano. Considering the response to my 5/5 review of the Chicago band’s debut Depths, it seems only fitting that the day I take over MetalSucks is the day I get to share with you my interview with guitarist Andrew Mikhail, who opens up about illegal downloading, being labeled “deathcore”, and CDs as art.

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How could I take over this stupid-website-for-jerks for an entire day without doing a Melvins post?! Well, I guess the answer is “I can’t” because this is a Melvins post.

Amphetamine Reptile doesn’t actively sign or release just about anything anymore, which is a damn shame considering the number of amazing acts it unleashed upon the music world in its heyday. Thankfully, one of the few acts still affiliated with the Minneapolis-based label is The Melvins, who discreetly release a preposterously limited 7″ through AmRep roughly once a year to satisfy fanatical completists. (One such release featured a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” on the A-side and an unflinchingly true-to-the-original cover of Kiss’ “Detroit Rock City.” Yeah.)

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A little over a week ago, I still felt so very excited about Them Crooked Vultures, the supergroup featuring such rock stars Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), Josh Homme (Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age), and John Paul Jones (some obscure 60s/70s band). With Grohl back behind the drums again and Homme as frontman, this somewhat clandestinely publicized grouping swelled with potential and promise.

Then, I saw them live.

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If you’ve made it through THIS AWESOME DAY so far, then the least I can do is share with you this super-important email message that I received from Hydra Head noise rock bluesmen Oxbow:

What you will read and how you will read it – these words off of an actual physical artifact – will be an experience shared by increasingly fewer of you given the quickly shifting relationship between art and commerce; but we are entrusting you with this dictum: explain it to the rest. That: this SONGS FOR THE FRENCH is a highly conscious effort to do things exactly as we ourselves would never do them in order to create a compelling bridgework between THE NARCOTIC STORY of yesterday and THE THIN BLACK DUKE of tomorrow. Lyrically, musically, thematically this march into intuitive mind has been Russian rouletted into existence, with OXBOW ceding control where control has never been ceded. [Song order? Chosen by Golden Mastering. Intervals? Also Golden Mastering. Some lyrics penned in an in-studio state of fugue.] All randomized and all pointing purposefully toward everywhere. Or specifically: an untoward level of clarity. Of this we are clear. Yes, of this we are clear: the ship is sailing further from land. And truer words have never been spoken.

Translation? NEW OXBOW MUSIC!

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I miss grunge, and if you read my posts with any regularity that should come as no surprise. Now far too many people dismiss the dormant genre for its commercial successes, or even because of a reviled legacy that yielded such aural abominations as Puddle Of Mudd and Staind. Yet the Pacific Northwest in the late 80s and early-mid 90s had so many exciting and delightfully disgusting artists that made truly grungy music while never selling out stadiums, artists like Green River and Tad. I would argue that we need to factor in the descendants of these artists before passing any final sweeping negative judgment of the so-called Seattle sound. Thankfully, the orallly-fixated Food and Moutheater help to counter the Seattle sound’s unwarranted bad rep.

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On paper, Washington’s Black Breath is not the sort of band one typically associates with Southern Lord. Dronesmiths Sunn O))), doomy stoners Eagle Twin, instrumental rockers Pelican, and black metalheads Wolves In The Throne Room all coexist comfortably together on the Californian label. Yet Black Breath’s hybrid of gutter-level punk and classic thrash metal somehow make sense, even if it doesn’t exactly seem appropriate for Southern Lord. Coupled with the August release of Seattle punks The Accused’s all new The Curse of Martha Splatterhead, it almost seems as though the ostentatiously hip imprint is slowly embracing a much less esoteric sound.

On November 10, Southern Lord will re-release Black Breath’s Razor To Oblivion mini-LP in CD format in advance of a proper debut album scheduled for early 2010. That forthcoming full-length was recorded earlier this year and engineered by Converge’s Kurt Ballou. Visit the band’s MySpace page to hear some tracks from Razor To Oblivion.

-GS

[Gary Suarez eats his pizza crust first. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

As a fan of Kingdom Of Sorrow, Jamey Jasta’s collaboration with the incredibly Kirk Windstein, I follow the Connecticut-based hardcore vocalist on Twitter. I’m not a huge fan of his main project Hatebreed, largely because so many of their songs, while angry and uplifting, sound so damn similar. As a result, I’ve been reluctant to pick up their recent self-titled album. I mean, if I want to be motivated by metal, I’ll pop in ANDREW W.K.’s I GET WET!!!!!!

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Wow, can this really be twentieth anniversary of Helmet? Well, yeah, the classic core of Henry Bogdan, Page Hamilton, and John Stanier disbanded in 1998. And sure, the reconstituted line-up that Hamilton unilaterally pulled together for 2004′s better-than-expected Size Matters has degenerated entirely into an unrecognizable cast of hired guns spilling in and out of a literal revolving door. But, uhhh, barring that, technically the band did form in 1989, so even though there’s only one original member and his last album Monochrome was fucking awful, I guess Hamilton is allowed to celebrate this moment.

But not like this.

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It took an entire decade for Coalesce to follow up 1999′s 012:2, yet the general consensus around here is that 2009′s OX (still streaming in its entirety here) was more than worth the wait. So imagine my surprise upon discovering that the Kansas City metallic hardcore act would be following that great record so quickly!

Straight from the ox’s mouth:

OXEP (not “ox” ep) is 5 new original coalesce songs. There are 7 tracks, but 1 and 7 are a percussive intro and outro. These songs are not cuts that didn’t make ox. We wrote and recorded these songs specifically for an ep release after ox was already done and delivered to Relapse for production. We continued our americana theme and expanded them on these songs, therefore wanted them to be considered part of the 2009 ox sessions.

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San Francisco’s Kowloon Walled City are an integral part of the short history of Scraping Genius Off The Wheel. One of the reasons why I started this here blog column at MetalSucks was to document what I recognized as a New Wave Of American Noise Rock. The band’s 2008 Turk Street EP turned me on to their sound, which was like Unsane and Zozobra locked in some sort of mutually gratifying sexual position. Since then I have spent a fair amount of virtual ink extolling the virtues of this vile bunch of sonic sludge slingers. To mark the arrival of Kowloon Walled City’s debut full-length, I managed to squeeze some answers out of guitarist Jason Pace.

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I’m planning a trip to Japan next year, and like many Americans who travel to foreign lands I’ve been reading travel guidebooks so as to prepare for what promises to be an unforgettable vacation and possibly a life-altering experience. Naturally, while reading publications like Frommer’s Japan and Time Out: Tokyo, my choice of soundtrack has invariably included Japanese artists such as Guitar Wolf, Yoko Ono, and Boris. As I’ve stated earlier, the latter of these are releasing a trio of monthly seven-inch records for Southern Lord, the first of which came out in September. H.M.A. (Heavy Metal Addict) b/w Black Original, the second installment in the series, officially goes on sale next week in both physical and digital formats.

Above you’ll find the incredibly fucking weird video for “H.M.A.” Before you even ask: YES THIS IS THE OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR THIS SONG! Boris drummer Atsuo (aka fangsanalsatan) directed this thing–seriously! I’m not sure if this is meant to be some homage to 80s Japanese metal or to a specific band that I’m unaware of, but needless to say this video should not be viewed on psychotropic drugs.

Did I mention how fucking weird it is?

-GS

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

Contrasting with the unsettling amount of mind-numbing sonic uniformity dominant in today’s American hardcore scene, San Diego’s Lewd Acts offer a much needed corrective, as made so evident with Black Eye Blues, their new album for Jacob Bannon’s Deathwish Inc. imprint. Sure, the band serve up enough uptempo cuts to fuel the savagely vibrant circle pits we’ve all come to expect at hardcore shows, be they at recreation centers, dive bars, or mid-sized general admission concert venues. Yet as with labelmates Narrows, Lewd Acts infuses creative growth and artistic progression into a genre largely categorized by its ironic stagnancy.

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Be it their embarassing foray into “edgy” promotional items or their agonizingly dated sound, German industrial schtick-peddlers Rammstein sure know how to beat (off) a dead horse. Indeed, outside of their homeland, they are about as relevant to metal as other such laughable also-rans as Green Jelly and Hellyeah. The band’s recent single, the poignantly-titled “Pussy,” demonstrates an artistic stagnancy that would shame KMFDM and has about as much charm as a half-eaten McDonalds snack wrap plucked from the filthy floor of a New York City subway car. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Rammstein are the kind of band truly deserving of your dismissive yawns.

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Hello. My name is Gary Suarez. You might remember me from my totally serious review of Oceano’s Depths or from the resulting controversy. A lot of you had something to say about all that, and I suspect you’ll have even more to say since I’M TAKING OVER METALSUCKS FOR THE DAY!

I’ve got a whole mess of stuff planned for you today including unauthorized interviews, unassigned album reviews, and unwarranted concert recaps. Get ready for the most awesomest day in the history of the Intarwebs!

Okay, honest question. How many of you are still actually buying physical CDs? If you download illegally, I don’t care. Just let me know what your preferred habit is. I’m not a tool from a major label that’s going to sue you. I don’t give a fuck. I personally think that the Compact Disc is a medium that’s in its death throes. Either that, or it died and occasionally twitches. Either way, I just wanna know…. How do you guys prefer to get your music?

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The Monkeys are cranky today so let’s make this quick. The winner of last week’s funny photo caption contest and proud new owner of 10 random CDs from Prosthetic Records:

Devin Townsend Sr.: “ALL OUR DICKS COMBINED ARE THIS BIG.”

I actually LOLed at that one. This week we’re giving away a three-pack of CDs from Metal Blade Records: Amon Amarth’s The Avenger (reissue, 2CD Digipak), Ravage’s The End of Tomorrow, and Gwar’s latest, Lust in Space. Just come up with a funny caption to the below photo [sent in by MS reader Pelin] and they’ll be yours.

This video from Funny or Die has been making the rounds today – I don’t wanna give too much away, but it’s pretty funny shit. Bonus: in addition to Lipps and Robb from Anvil, it features Human Giant’s Rob Huebel. Score!

-AR

Bummer. The Accused, who were scheduled to provide support for  some (but not all!) of the dates on the MS sponsored Municipal Waste “Waste the World” tour, have been forced to drop off due to “scheduling conflicts.” Oh well.

The good news is that Goatwhore are still doing all dates from 11/06-11/16, Brutal Truth are still doing all dates from 12/04-12/11, and Phobia, Cauldron, and, of course, The Waste themselves are still doing ALL dates. And hopefully a new support act will be named to step in for The Accused.

All of the bands remaining on the tour are killer. If you’ve never seen MW fuck shit up live, you ain’t seen shit. Get complete dates after the jump.

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