Pros and cons of streaming the new Throwdown album, Deathless:

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Vince really likes Buckcherry, but I’ve never gotten into any of their songs that aren’t the big hits – namely, “Lit Up” (a.k.a. “the one about cocaine”) and “Crazy Bitch” (a.k.a. “the one about fucking”). Like so many bands that hoped to be the Appetite-era Guns N’ Roses of the late 20th/early 21st century, Buckcherry always just felt like they were trying way too hard to prove what a bunch of bad-asses they are. GN’R never actually used the words “cocaine” or “heroin” in a song – Buckcherry’s biggest hit finds them shouting “I LOVE THE COCAINE! I LOVE THE COCAINE!” In case anyone doubted that they were the real deal. Puh-lease.

So. Former Buckcherry bassist JB Brightman has a new band, Black Robot, and – no shock here – it’s readily apparent that they want to be AC/DC. If you’re one of those people who unironically loves retro-hard rawk that has no sense of originality whatsoever, then you will probably dig this band. And whatever you do, stay away from Loudermilk and Manmade God – bands that actually make excellent, original hard rock.

And, hey, guess what? Black Robot covered Clapton’s “Cocaine!” How original! How shocking! What a bunch of bad-asses! Now I can finally burn my copy of Appetite for Destruction!

Barf.

-AR

Remember when I posted Enuff Z’Nuff’s awesomely terrible video for “Fly High Michelle” back in September? Well, in case you don’t or just need to re-live the glory, here’s the clip again:

Amazing, right? I mean “amazing” in the sense that “Holy poop I cannot believe anyone ever thought that this was an okay idea,” not in the “GOJIRA LIVE!!!” sense.

ANYWAY, I mention it because Bring Back Glam reports that fans – assuming this band still has any – can now “purchase a royalty earning share… of either ‘Baby Loves You’ [another Enuff Z'Nuff song] or ‘Fly High Michelle.’”

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There’s nothing terribly innovative or groundbreaking about Italy’s Disarmonia Mundi but sometimes a healthy dose of pop-melodeath is just what I need (and God no, I’d never listen to that Sonic Syndicate abortion). More known for often partnering up with Soilwork vocalist Bjorn “Speed” Strid than anything else, Disarmonia Mundi are actually quite good at what they do even if they are essentially to Soilwork as Soilwork are to In Flames, a slightly poppier version of their forebears. I stumbled upon Disarmonia Mundi years ago because I was totally obsessed with Soilwork — ok fine I still totally love everything Soilwork do — and uncovered their linked histories via that bastion of music minutae AllMusic.com.

So Disarmonia Mundi have a new album on the way December 9th called The Isolation Game. The new record does in fact feature guest appearances by Speed Strid, a press release tells us, but to what extent isn’t quite clear. The band has a couple of new tracks streaming up on their MySpace. If you like this sort of music I imagine you’ll eat this up. If not… sucks for you.

-VN

Vince and I finally got to see Revocation live a few weeks back, and not only are they just as good in-person as they are on record, but they just look like a bunch of normal dudes – which we love, being relatively normal-looking dudes ourselves. Seriously, just to look at this band, you’d never really know what they recently released one of the best metal albums of 2009. (That would be Existence is Futile, in case ya didn’t know.)

This weekend the band filmed a video for the track “Dismantle the Dictator” with director David Brodsky (Who had a very busy weekend – he also did the video for The Red Chord’s “Demoralizer” in the same forty-eight hour period!), and now our fellow metal connoisseurs at Metal Injection are giving away a FREE download for the mp3 of that song. It’s totally killer, so go get it, suckas!!!

Existence is Futile is out now on Relapse.

-AR

A tweet from Suicide Silence has just alerted me to the fact that the band recorded a cover of Alice in Chains’ classic “Them Bones” as an iTunes-only bonus track for their latest offering, No Time to Bleed.

Let me tell you what I like about this:

• Alice in Chains are not the band you’d guess Suicide Silence would cover.
• It forces Suicide Silence to do a real guitar solo.
• Suicide Silence truly made the song their own, and didn’t just do a version so faithful to the original as to render covering the song a pointless excercise.

Now let me tell what I don’t like about this:

• The way it actually came out.

Sorry. Maybe I’m just being a cranky old man, but holy crap, did this song not need deathcore vocals. And I say that as someone who actually likes Suicide Silence.

Anyways, here’s the song. I look forward to the bitchfest that will inevitably take place in our comments section.

-AR

Last week, The Deciblog – which I adore and respect with every ounce of my being – posted a guest blog by Leaves’ Eyes vocalist Liv Kristine. It was entitled “Top 5 Reasons Why Females in Metal Rule.” And it was total fucking bullshit.

I’m not saying that the concept is total fucking bullshit – I really have no problem whatsoever with women in metal. I’m saying this blog, in particular, was total bullshit. It in no way, shape, or form made an argument for why females in metal rule.

Elise over at Reign in Blonde – a woman herself, doncha know! – contemplated writing a response entitled “TOP 5  REASONS WHY LIV KRISTINE CAN SUCK IT,” but ultimately opted not to. So I asked her if I could write said response, and she graciously granted me permission. So here we go.

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Instru-metallers Russian Circles’ new album Geneva is out now. Even Axl, who usually doesn’t get into all of the same instrumental / trippy / wank stuff that I do, is enjoying the album and described it as “really cinematic.” If you’ve yet to experience this amazing band, be sure to listen to a few tracks on their MySpace page and catch them on their current tour with Young Widows and Coliseum.

Current These Arms Are Snakes / ex-Botch bassist Brian Cook recently became a full-time member of Russian Circles after having recorded and toured with them on their last record Station. I recently emailed Brian a batch of questions about joining the band, recording the new album, balancing the workload between all of his projects, and what the future holds for Russian Circles, to which he was more than happy to respond in detail. My questions, his answers… after the jump.

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I understand that the music industry as we’ve known it is in somewhat of a bind. The ease of “illegal” downloading coupled with a crappy economy has cut off much of the flow of income a record label is built to generate. In this position, any sensible business would find a way to adapt in order to survive.

Last week I read about a certain metal label trying out something called a 360 deal, where instead of mainly collecting revenue from record sales or other intellectual property rights (publishing, licensing, etc.), the record label takes an agreed-upon cut of merchandise, concert ticket sales, and I suppose just about anything else having to do with the band. Actually I’m sure deals like this already existed, but this label got even more “WTF” with it and announced they would be giving this new band’s album out as a free download. I honestly think this is a great idea. Giving away the music for free since it holds little value to consumers, then sending the band on tour and collecting a decent percentage off nightly guarantees and t-shirt sales since people still pay full price for those – going where the money is. Sure, it’s a business.

What confuses me is how any band would be ok with this. They signed to a record label who isn’t actually putting out or distributing a record. They’re promoting intangible recorded material so that there’s a reason for the band to tour and sell stuff for them, while the band makes even less money on the things they would have been sustaining themselves on in an old school record deal. So, why do you need a record label then?

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Former Godflesh/current Jesu mastermind Justin Broadrick has a Twitter account. Now while this could be troublesome/groanworthy news for some characters prone to oversharing (though certainly not in Metal Sucks’ case), for Broadrick, it seems fitting, given his prolific approach to music. His output is measured in months, not years, as is the case with most bands. To look at Jesu in its own timeline yields a recent string of iffy releases, like the band’s extremely boring split with Eluvium (repackaged as the Why We Are Not Perfect EP), and two so-so contributions to splits with Envy and Battle of Mice (though so-so in the most literal sense of the phrase, in that each split contained one song that was meandering and seemingly pointless, and one that stood among the best Broadrick has done under the Jesu moniker). However, to look at it in a regular spectrum, that was only 2008; one only needs to reach back to 2007 to find the magnificent full length Conqueror, still in the typical two year gap most artists have between records.

But in JB Time, this is an eternity. One may wonder if the man had knocked himself off kilter, that if Jesu’s best days were behind them. But with Justin Broadrick’s work with beard metal supergroup Greymachine and two releases with Jesu this year, he proves that at the very least has more interesting things to say, if not still capable of putting out the band’s best material in the future. Don’t call it a comeback, because, well, it isn’t. But when those slow, chunky chords first make their appearance on the Infinity full length or that Cure-on-a-7-string beauty rears its head on “Deflated” (off the Opiate Sun EP), it’s immediately clear that the Jesu magic is still there, and that while Justin is prone to get lost in the wilderness, he’s usually on his way back, often times a few months later.

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Three cheers for Coalesce: they took a decade in between 0:12 Revolution in Just Listening and this year’s killer Ox, but now they’re making up for lost time.

OXEP, a new, seven-song EP which I’m guessing consists of songs that were recorded during the Ox sessions and just didn’t make the final cut for whatever reason, comes out November 10 on Relapse, but Lambgoat is streaming it right now. So if it’s another ten years ’til the band makes another full-length, at least we got an abundance of Coalesce in ’09.

Now go give it a listen.

-AR

Since I’m not really a Dark Funeral fan, I have absolutely nothing intelligent to say about “Stigmata,” the new song that is now streaming on the band’s MySpace page, so I’ll just tell this completely inappropriate joke instead.

Jesus walks into an inn. He hands the Inn Keeper three nails and says, “Can you put me up for the night?” Rimshot!

Feel free to share your own tasteless Jesus jokes in the comments section below. Or just, y’know, talk about the actual music.

“Stigmata” comes off of Dark Funeral’s new, Peter Tägtgren-produced album, Angelus Exuro pro Eternus. It comes out November 18 on Regain.

-AR

When we interviewed Metalocalypse creator / Dethklok frontman Brendon Small on behalf of our readers last month, he told us that members of Mastodon, members of In Flames, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Slash and others would all be doing voice-over work on the coming season of Metalocalypse. This alone gives reason to be excited about the new season if for some reason you wouldn’t be psyched about it anyway. Now we’ve finally got a sneak peak of one of the episodes, sent in by MS reader Christopher Silverio… and, no surprise, it’s funny. Season 3 begins November 8th!

-VN

Yes, my fellow connoisseurs of all things heavy, today is the day you’ve been waiting for: NIRVANA DAY! As you all well know, November 3rd sees the release of several Nirvana and Nirvana-related releases. For those of you who haven’t already created your NIRVANA DAY CHECKLIST, here’s a handy cheat sheet of the day’s releases:

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It’s election day here in the States, and like many election days, I basically wasted a vote on a candidate who has no chance of winning whatsoever because his opponent had more money and therefore was able to buy more television ads. Gotta love democracy.

So. Here are some old “Rock the Vote” spots with Dave Mustaine and Megadeth. (Young ones who don’t recognize anyone in Megadeth besides Mustaine: that the old, definitive line-up of the band. Do not be frightened.) I seem to recall that Mustaine was also a correspondent for MTV at one of the conventions – Democratic or Republican, I can’t recall – but I can’t find any clips of that.

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Add “David Lee Roth on the Eat ‘Em and Smile tour” to the list of tours I’d visit if I had a time machine. The Vai / Sheehan / Bissonette lineup was definitely Diamond Dave’s best… if you disagree, I’m happy to engage in an e-fight to the death.

Here’s that lineup playing “Shyboy” in Detroit in 1986. Skip to 2:10 for the Vai/Sheehan double-shredathon if that’s what you’re in it for… but I can’t imagine why you’d possibly want to miss out on DLR’s stage antics.

-VN

The metal community has been using the phrase “It’s their best album since…” a lot as of late. As though spurred on by the nineteen year old kids who now play the music they created better than they do, the Elder Statesmen of Thrash – or EST – have been enjoying a renaissance.

But here’s what sets Slayer apart from the pack: while you could certainly say that “World Painted Blood is Slayer’s best album since Season in the Abyss” and be telling truth, you could have said “It’s their best album since Seasons in the Abyss” about any album since Diabolus in Musica and been telling the truth. Slayer didn’t only just recently get awesome again – they really never stopped being awesome, despite what the scene snobs might have you believe.

But World Painted Blood finds Slayer sounding even more like the band that created the Holy Trinity than Christ Illusion did, so people are even more excited about than they were about that last offering. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

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Why don’t I listen to Ihsahn’s angL more often? That shit is hot, yo! It’s epic and melodic and hooky… it’s just a swell record. Damn you, lack of free time! DAMN YOU!!!

In case you’re wondering “Why is Axl talking about this,” it’s because Ihsahn has a new song, “Frozen Lakes on Mars,” currently streaming here (It is not, as far as I can tell, about a Total Recall winter getaway. Bummer.). And I’m listening to it as I type this, and, jeepers, it’s just terrific. Just terrific. That Ihsahn is a helluva guy.

Anyways, I suggest you check it out. It comes off of Ihsahn’s new album, After, which comes out January 26 on Candlelight.

I’m sure we’ll discuss more as that release date grows closer…

-AR

Our own Vince Neilstein is going to be DJing next Friday, November mothafuckin’ 13th (!!), playing all the best metal of 2009 at the Arrow Bar in New York City. Why should you come? Besides the excellent selection of music, ALL drinks will be 2-for-the-price-of-1 between 6pm and 9pm. You really can’t beat that! And of course, the company of yours truly.

Come one come all, starting at 6pm (21+ please since it’s a bar). The Arrow Bar is on Ave A. just off 5th St., downstairs. F train to 2nd Ave is your best bet. Afterwards, head on up to the recently announced Krallice / Liturgy show at Union Pool in Brooklyn.

Some months back, Chris Cornell took the first step to undo the self-inflicted damage caused by his god-awful Timbaland-produced solo album Scream: he re-recorded one of its songs as a straightforward soft rock tune. Since then, the former Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman has taken some considerable steps towards restoring his rocker reputation, including performing John Lennon’s “Imagine” on the September 11th episode of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and unexpectedly reuniting grunge rock one-off Temple Of The Dog at a recent Pearl Jam concert.

Now comes news that the much maligned Scream will receive a full-blown “rework” to better reflect the rest of Cornell’s easily digested radio-friendly solo discography. Though, Cornell has yet to make any public statement about this, the existence of another re-recorded Scream cut says it all. Listen to this new version of “Never Far Away” and imagine just how positively banal Scream (Naked) will ultimately sound.

-GS

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