Yo cats, I’m Devin Townsend. I’m a middle class, white Canadian male. I am bald with bad teeth and I am 37 years old. I used to front a band called Strapping Young Lad. I have put out around twenty albums between SYL and my solo records over the last eighteen or so years. I have a record label called HevyDevy Records that distributes my records to the the best of our ability. I produce and mix bands. I have done some great work and some shitty work. I don’t really care about downloading because the industry changed and I have never sold enough records for me to make more than a normal living. Please have a great day and thanks for any and all support.

I am in the middle of a four record project called “The Devin Townsend Project.” Ironically enough, and EGADS!, today I am taking over one of my favorite websites, MetalSucks.

I have a ton of things on my mind today, please enjoy… even if you hate my fucking guts, hopefully I can provide you with some cool stuff to chew on.

HOTCHA!

-Devin Townsend

We’ll keep this short and sweet.

Tomorrow, The Devin Townsend Project will release Addicted, the second part of a four album cycle.

To celebrate, Mr. Townsend is taking over MetalSucks for the day.

Seriously.

We’re not dicking around.

Devin Townsend is running MetalSucks tomorrow.

We know. We can’t fucking believe it, either.

We hope you’re as stoked as we are.

That is all.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to go splash some cold water on our faces.

-Axl & Vince

THERE’S GOING TO BE A NEW PIG DESTROYER ALBUM IN 2010.

What else do you need to know?

-AR

I don’t want traditional black metal when I listen to Sigh. I want to feel like I’ve lost my fucking mind, like I’m on a bad acid trip that will never end, like I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or awake.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “L’art de Mourir,” the new Sigh song which is streaming here. It comes off of the band’s new album, Scenes from Hell, and it is even better than I’d hoped. I have no fucking idea what drug gives this band their inspiration, but I want some, and I want some now. Smoke it, snort it, shoot it, shove it up my ass, I don’t care – I want I want I want. ‘Cause this song is just SO FUCKING COOL.

Scenes from Hell comes out January 19 on The End. I cannot fucking wait.

And if you haven’t already done so, please check out the exclusive in-studio blogs we posted from Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima.

-AR

“Make love not war sounds so absurd to me.” But not as absurd as the idea of Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt touring with Rihanna, and trying to pass it off as “a high-energy experience” that really fits “‘my’ style.” Because “Umbrella-ella-ella” really requires someone who can shred. I’d almost have more respect for him if he just said “The Extreme reunion tour didn’t pay as well as I hoped and I got rent to pay.”

The announcement follows Bettencourt’s cameo on How I Met Your Mother, which is being called “the best show on television” by people who can’t find their remote and are too lazy to change the channel manually.

Click to read more…

I think these kids are kidding. I pray to God that they’re kidding. Seeing as the first move is serious and the rest are all jokes… they’re obviously kidding, right? Right?

Pray for the children of today.

-VN

[Thanks: poopsmcgee]

Between the Buried and Me bassist Dan Briggs currently holds the record for MetalSucks interviews at a healthy 3… which averages out to once a year in the history of this site. It’s no coincidence that we always end up talking to Dan over the rest of his equally talented band mates; the dude’s extremely passionate about his band and has a lot to say about the intricacies of their complex music.

Shortly after the release of their latest opus The Great Misdirect, I spoke with Dan by phone about the new record, how it compares to Colors, how it was written, BTBAM’s upcoming boner-factory tour with Cynic and Devin Townsend, and the band’s pending exit from Victory Records. Our chat, after the jump.

Click to read more…

Okay, so I Europeanized the date abbreviation for the sake of a catchier headline. Whatevs. The point remains the same: The Dillinger Escape Plan’s new album, Option Paralysis, now has an official release date: March 23, 2010 on Season of Mist (actually the band’s own Party Smasher via Season of Mist, not that there’s any reason you should care about the distinction).

This is another one of those stories where’s there’s not much else to say other than what I’ve already said. Based on the comments I’ve read on this site in the past, most of you seem to already have fully-formed opinions on DEP. Vince and I are stoked to hear this album, especially since it follows the sheer awesomeness that was Ire Works. But we haven’t heard any new music yet, so… y’know. We have to wait and see what happens.

And on that note, I leave you with this:

-AR

In a time when being “heavy” in the world of metal all too often relies on generic chug or the most guttural vocals spewed forth, it’s always reassuring when a band can actually sing and still be “heavy.” And it’s even more reassuring when that band is Katatonia – because at this point in the game, you know what you’re going to get: an awesome record that relies more on feeling and flavor than overt technicality or balls-to-the-wall brutality.

Click to read more…

Norwegian reader Eirik Tiller (God Dag!) sent us the below video from the band ANJ. Now, I wanted to concentrate on some good Russian bands this week, but this video is too funny not to share. I mean, the band has to be in on the joke here, right? I can’t see anyone releasing this video and intending for it to be taken seriously.

Of course, even if ANJ do get how funny this is, that doesn’t change the fact that the music blows. But, hey, you can’t win ‘em all.

-AR

There are too many fucking metal tours happening in the U.S. right now. Whether this is a result of the decline of record sales is impossible to measure given the absence of a control group, but it’d be hard to argue that’s not at least a factor; lacking revenue from royalties, bands are having to go out on the road in order to make any money. The result is a complete oversaturation of the tour marketplace, and the result of that is that bands are right back where they left off, their audience spread too thin amongst too many shows.

Case in point, we’re right in the middle of 10 straight days of metal shows here in NYC. Several of these days have two or even three shows from which to choose:

• Thur, Nov. 12: Periphery, The Binary Code, Empyreon -also- Machine Head, Mutiny Within
• Fri, Nov 13: Krallice, Liturgy, etc. -also- Hung, Ikillya, Devil to Pay -also- The Austerity Program etc
• Sat, Nov 14: Skeletonwitch / Black Anvil -also- Metallica, Lamb of God
• Sun, Nov 15: Shrinebuilder / Rwake, Liturgy -also- Metallica, Lamb of God
• Mon, Nov 16: Aphonia, The Binary Code, Brock Murdock -also- The Jesus Lizard
• Tue, Nov 17: Valient Thorr, Red Fang -also- The Jesus Lizard -als0- Dark Castle, Wetnurse, The Atlas Moth
• Wed, Nov 18: Javelina, Black Tusk, Batillus
• Thur, Nov 19: Cave In, Trap Them, Narrows
• Fri, Nov 20: Baroness, Earthless

Not even halfway through this mess and I’m fucking beat.

Click to read more…

Thanks to Mike H. for sending this in.

-AR

This past weekend was “The Blackened Weekend” here in NYC, a 3-night series of metal shows put on by the same folks behind the Mastodon / Neurosis show a couple of winters back and the Pig Destroyer / Brutal Truth / Repulsion joint this past summer. Krallice headlined Friday’s show with support from Liturgy, Malkuth and Orphan, while Black Anvil teamed up with Skeletonwitch to destroy the very same venue (Brooklyn’s Union Pool) on Saturday night. Last night’s weekend-ending show was the grand poobah of The Blackened Weekend headlined by the grand poobah of doom supergroups, Shrinebuilder. The band put on an energetic show to a packed house at Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge — a curious choice of venue for a metal show but by no means a bad one — that, as expected, highlighted elements of all of the band-members’ respective “other” bands in the best possible way.

Friday night’s Krallice show was a rager — Union Pool was packed to the gills and even spawned a moshpit, a rarity for these types of shows. Though I had some difficulty with Krallice’s recent release Dimensional Bleedthrough, the band absolutely smoked live and proved that their show-stealing set at last winter’s Scion Rock Fest wasn’t an anomaly. Check out some fan-filmed footage from right up-front below; I doubt anyone’s going to sit through all 20 minutes, but at least watch a sample or let the audio play in the background while you go about your morning routine. The audio quality is even pretty decent.

-VN

Krallice | NYC @ Union Pool | Friday 13th November 2009 from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Testament are definitely doing this tour. There’s no mention of High on Fire in the press release – interpret that as you will.

Well, here it is, kiddies… the tour you’ve been waiting for… there’s not much else you need to know other than this:

1. There will be a limited amount of ten dollar tickets avail to each show.
2. Tour dates are after the jump.

Get stoked.

Click to read more…

Mayhem have perhaps one of the longest and most sordid histories in all of metal. Motley Crue may have shoved half a phone up some poor girl’s vagina and made her call her mother (at least according to The Dirt) and Marilyn Manson may have been blamed by scheming politicians for Columbine, but members of Mayhem have actually killed themselves and/or one another. Most metal bands project some kind of “scary” image, but Mayhem are one of the few bands that are actually scary.

Everyone gets older, though, and the members of Mayhem are no different. No longer the bright-eyed, bushy tailed kids who recorded De Mysteriis Dom Sathana, the members of Mayhem have now been reduced to rebelling by destroying hotel rooms the way every other band does.

Click to read more…

Did you know that only total tool bags don’t like Blood Oath? It’s a fact.

So here’s a new video for a song from that very album – “Cataclysmic Purification.” Suffocation’s one of those bands where I really like watching ‘em play ’cause they’ve got some sick talent, and David Brodsky’s performance footage certainly allows for that – but I also really dig this animation by Tim Kellan. It’s just fucking gross and wicked, both of which seem appropriate for Suffo, doncha think?

Blood Oath is out now on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

I somehow completely missed that there’s a new HIM album coming out next year; I mean, we were due, so I’m not surprised, I just never heard about it ’til just now. It’s called Screamworks: Love In Theory and Practice, which is long and silly and spooky and “deep,” y’know, in case you didn’t know they were goth.

Of course, that does negate the fact that it may very well be good, as many HIM albums are quite good. That shit is catchy as hell, and besides, Howard Jones likes it, and Howard Jones is much, much bigger than you are.

Metal Hammer already have a track-by-track guide to the album. It sounds like it’s gonna be a HIM album – either that makes you happy or it doesn’t.

Here’s one good reason I like HIM, and I don’t even care if you make fun of me, ’cause the solo makes me air guitar every time I hear it:

And this, my friends, might be the only example of a metal cover of a pop song that I’ve ever actually liked:

Click to read more…

Thanks to Saul Hudson, who sent us the below screen grab from Charlie Benantie’s MySpace page:

Now, here’s my personal experience with regards to buying new metal CDs at Best Buy – which I actually do from time to time, seeing as Charlie is more or less right, and there’s no place left to buy physical copies of music anymore*.

Click to read more…

Max Cavalera and Soulfly are back in the studio, working on their seventh (shit, time flies!) album, tentatively titled Omen, and those cool motherfuckers at Metal Injection got Mr. Cavalera himself to do an in-studio video update. Check it out:

Not to be disrespectful to Max Cavalera or nothing, but while you happen to be in a studio with Logan Mader, do you think you could give your brother a call and get crackin’ on a new Cavalera Conspiracy album, too? I’d be much obliged if ya did.

-AR

Todays I drink Minute Maid orange juices (from concentrates) with breakfasts instead of my regular Tropicana. It was good. Sometimeses the imitations is even betters than the originals. Though I very much miss the pulps.

-NC

[Thanks: d00shc00gr]