Our email boxes have been blowing up about this for the past week, but until the BBC and Billboard reported that it actually had legs I just thought it was another ridiculous Internet campaign.

The campaign is an online effort to get Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 hit “Killing in the Name” to grab the top spot on the U.K.’s Christmas Singles chart, a spot that’s been dominated by winners of the “X Factor” TV talent show (similar to American Idol) for the past four years. As of right now the RATM classic actually holds a 10% margin over Joe McElderry’s cover of Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb,” which occupies the number 2 spot at the moment.

Click to read more…

New MetalSucks photographer Jacqueline Cheng attended Rob Zombie’s headline show at The Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on December 1st and captured some killer shots of the Zombie and his band in action. Check out those photos, as well as some of opening act Nekromantix, after the jump.

Click to read more…

I knew that Shane Mehling was a great writer (he routinely contributes to Decibel, but I think that this is pretty fuckin’ hilarious – not to mention intelligent), but because I’m a stoned nimrod, I had no idea that he was also a musician.

But a musician Shane is – specifically, he’s currently the bassist and co-vocalist for the band Great Falls.

Great Falls make hideously ugly music. Gloriously, beautifully, hideously ugly music.

Click to read more…

We’re big fans of North Carolina metallers Bloodjinn around here. That band had all sorts of wicked chops and should be mentioned in the same breath as Converge, Cave In and Hatebreed in conversations surrounding the origins of metalcore. Bloodjinn did their thing for a long time but never got quite the credit they deserved, and as such they haven’t put out any new music since 2007′s excellent This Machine Runs on Empty. A new album was expected in April of this year but never seemed to materialize.

Enter Zero System, the new(-ish) band led by Bloodjinn guitarist Kyle Odell along with fellow North Carolinians Justin Reich and Adam Cody of Glass Casket. Zero System have been incredibly productive over the last several months, opting for a series of EPs and small-time releases rather than a full-length album. The basic blueprint for Zero System’s music is similar to that of Bloodjinn, but with a slightly more melodic and dynamic feel. Zero System released a self-titled EP this August and already have a new one called Meridian on the slate for January 2010. Four songs from the 6-song Meridian are currently streaming on the band’s MySpace, and they all sound fucking great; the knack for great songs that drove Bloodjinn’s music is still intact and the production and playing are tip-top.

Check out the four new Zero System songs on the band’s MySpace page and let us know what you think.

-VN

‘Cause Phil Freeman, who was the editor-in-chief of Metal Edge until that mag shuttered earlier this year, is doing his Top 100 albums of the 2000s, unveiling twenty albums a day over throughout this week.

I’m just gonna say one word to get the debate rolling:

DragonForce.

Go.

Day 1.

Day 2.

-AR

Dimebag Darrell wasn’t the only metal luminary whose life we celebrated on December 8th; one year ago on the very same day we also lost Adrian Bromley, a metal writer, publicist and dedicated fixture of the scene for many years. Ken Pierce was the first to remind us of this unfortunate anniversary via a Facebook update, but now Noisecreep has linked to a lengthy In Memoriam piece on Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles written by Marta Ustyanich. The piece focuses on Bromley’s life, his passion for metal, his hard work ethic and his undying good spirits, and it’s great read for anyone who knew or knew of Adrian.

We only knew Bromley for a brief time, but his presence in the scene is missed. R.I.P., Adrian Bromley.

-VN

While reading through the comments of my Apple / LaLa post yesterday, I was shocked. Shocked at the amount of ignorance and misinformation that’s floating around out there, and that our readership is so easily gullible by said inaccuracies. Though I never do this, today I feel inclined to directly address a number of comments and dispel some of the idiocy that took place on this site yesterday.

• builtforsin says: “Anyone with lack of internet access 100% of the time, and if you have an Iphone like me, this is already a bad start….” Presumably there’s also be a download option, where you have access to a certain number of tracks locally (on your device or hard drive) if there is no Internet available. and “I guess if you only used Apple manufactured devices that would be great, but Apple doesn’t play nice with hardware not purchased from Apple.” I can’t speak to this issue as I use a Mac, but my PC-using friends don’t complain about iTunes/iPod on their PCs. I’m sure iPhone campatibility will only get better, especially if this type of service necessitates it.
• Tim says: “Digital still doesn’t have the same fidelity as a CD, unless you use wav files, which are huge and would eat memory.” True. But as Internet connections get better so will audio quality. No one is trying to scheme you with crappy audio… it’s just a bandwidth issue. Honestly, while I was initially a skeptic too and subscribed to the “audio quality” argument, it’s really hard to notice the difference between a 192 AAC and a full WAV/AIFF rip.
• Viking-Shredder: “I don’t know man. I’m still a fan of actually owning a physical copy of the music. Just something about having the physical copy makes me feel safer than confiding in computer files.” Also, you must like riding a horse and buggy because it’s “safer.”
  

Click to read more…

After weeks of rumors to this effect, it’s official: The Number Twelve Looks Like You are dunzo. I can’t say I’m heartbroken as I was never really a fan, but some kid standing outside a Dillinger show like five hours before doors once told me they were awesome, and enough of you have e-mailed us about this that I have to assume some of you care, so… feel free to mourn or celebrate here, depending on how you feel about it.

Here’s the band’s video for the song “Grandfather.”

-AR

I barely remember the lost weekend I once spent in Baltimore. Was I bored, or just doing what I do? I dunno. I dunno.

Looks like I might be going back, though: D.R.I. have been added to the already stellar line-up of the 2010 edition of Maryland Deathfest. This is just the latest in a long line of good reasons to attend, not least of which is that it is, at least as far as I’m aware, currently the only scheduled U.S. appearance of Australia’s Portal, whose new album Swarth is currently frightening metalheads across the world. Throw in Converge, Magrudergrind, Entombed, Obituary, Watain, Melechesh, Jucifer, Gridlink, Gorod, 16, and a plethora of other awesome bands, and I think I could have a weekend in Baltimore even more lost than my last.

Get Maryland Deathfest’s complete line-up-to-date after the jump.

Click to read more…

Spoiler alert: the MetalSucks’ staff’s year-end “best of” lists are done and will be published Thursday, and Magrudergrind’s self-titled album made my list. But you can still find suspense in trying to figure out where they are on my list.

Sadly, I’ve yet to get to check these dudes out live, but here’s some pretty cool footage of the band playing three songs that was posted on Metal Injection yesterday. Lookit vocalist Avi Kulawy gettin’ all David Lee Roth n’ shit. Damn.

Magrudergrind’s Magrudergrind is out now on Willowtip.

-AR

Even though metal seems to have (re?)infiltrated the mainstream as of late, I’m still always surprised when I open my NY Times in the morning and see a feature on a metal band. When that feature includes a half a page above-the-fold photo of Immortal, I am outright shocked.

But there they, the chosen visual representation for an article on black metal and, in particular, the black metal symposium that took place at Public Assembly in Brooklyn this past weekend.

Click to read more…

If you hit up Trivium’s most recent U.S. tour with Chimaira, you may have noticed an absence of drummer Travis Smith. When the tour started, the band said that Smith “will not be joining us on this leg and is home taking care of some personal business.” Filling-in for him on the tour was his drum tech, Maruta’s Nick Augusto.

Meanwhile, we’d heard some rumors from a pretty reputable source that Smith wasn’t coming back at all. We didn’t say anything at the time ’cause sometimes someone tells you something off the record and it’s not cool to print that kinda thing (even we’re not that dickish)… but now that Metal Underground is reporting the rumor, fuck it. We don’t think Smith is coming back to Trivium.

Click to read more…

The day has finally come… The Binary Code’s debut full-length Suspension of Disbelief is out today.

Love it, hate it; pan it, praise it; steal it, buy it… just do yourself a favor and give it a chance by listening. As partners in this release, we’re pleased to bring you the full stream of the album in high-quality 320kbps MP3 files; it’ll be available for 24 hours only so make sure you listen now.

In response to some of the haters on previous posts about the band, we just have this to say: MetalSucks stands to make little to no money on this release. No, The Binary Code are not paying us for this promotion… and while we feel privileged to now call the dudes in the band friends of ours, we came to know them through being thoroughly impressed with their music, not vice versa. The goal here is to help this band gain wider exposure, and that is really all.

So, have a listen and let us know what you think. The whole album is available for digital purchase for the very fair price of only $5, or with one of four t-shirt designs for only $15 (with free U.S. shipping). All files are 320kbps MP3s. Visit The Binary Code’s webstore to order.

The Binary Code will be on tour with Revocation and Hypno5e from January 6th through February 6th, traversing most of the U.S. Get dates here.

- VN & AR

[This promotion has ended. Two full tracks are currently streaming at The Binary Code's MySpace]

Looks like we’re going to fucking Poland. From Metallica’s website:

Not quite a proper tour, but still… fuckin’ Poland…

-AR

Thanks to reader Edward Stevens for the tip!

Horns up for Tzvi Cederbaum, the quite certainly Jewish reader who correctly answered last night’s trivia question: it was The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman who gave a primer on the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur earlier this year. Tzvi wins a mystery prize courtesy the good folks at Century Media, and a dreidel courtesy the not-so-good folks here at MetalSucks. Spin both of those in good health, Tzvi.

But don’t stick those lit menorah candles into your eyes if you lost – we’re not even half done with the festivities!

Here’s tonight’s trivia question:

• Vince once wrote a post wondering if which drummer from which band is a Jew?
  

E-mail your answer along with your name and address to axl [at] metalsucks.net with the phrase “HEAVY METAL HANNUKKAH – NIGHT 4″ in the subject line. All entries are due by 5 pm tomorrow (Tuesday, December 15) evening. Shortly thereafter we’ll announce the winner and post night 5’s trivia question. And while you don’t have to be Jewish to enter the contest, you do have to live in the U.S. You have it so easy! When we were your age we had to go PICK UP our prizes! Feh!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go eat latkes like they were going out of style.

-AR

Rob “Blasko” Nicholson has quite the impressive metal resume. He’s played with Prong, Danzig and Rob Zombie, he’s played (and still plays) with Ozzy mothafuckin’ Osbourne, and he’s got his own roster of management clients. I first met Blasko at the CD release party for In This Moment in the Summer of 2008 (he was there because he manages ITM… I was there for the open bar), and despite the fact that MetalSucks had done nothing but trash the band in the weeks leading up to that album’s release, Blasko was super-cool, friendly, totally down to earth, and had nothing but praise for MetalSucks. That’s the kind of guy Blasko is… he gets it.

Blasko’s latest project is Heavy Metal Karaoke, a project with guitarist Tommy Victor (Prong, Danzig, Ministry) and drummer Tommy Clufetos (Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent) that gives the average fan a chance to go up on stage and sing metal classics with a real, live band. I caught up with Blasko just before the Thanksgiving holiday to ask him about Heavy Metal Karaoke, working with Rob Zombie and Ozzy, the Zakk Wylde / Gus G. situation (I couldn’t resist), Blasko’s work in management, and the state of the metal industry in general. Our chat, after the jump.

Click to read more…

On select dates of their latest tour, Norma Jean have been playing an older, popular album of theirs in its entirety. That album, of course, is 2002′s Bless The Martyr, Kiss the Child, a metalcore landmark that numerous fans still argue has yet to be matched by the group’s subsequent releases. With so many reunions and anniversaries emerging, the concept of revisiting an album live on tour is not uncommon for metal bands these days. The Melvins covered Houdini for a short multi-city tour, Boris took on Feedbacker at New York’s All Tomorrow’s Parties fest and stoner doom demigods Sleep performed Holy Mountain at the Minehead, UK ATP, throwing in some Dopesmoker to boot! Hell, even stadium-fillers like Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band are trying their hand at it.

However, what makes Norma Jean’s choice of Bless The Martyr, Kiss the Child somewhat unusual is that the current incarnation of the band is radically different from the lineup from 2002.

Click to read more…

MetalSucks photo guru Diana Lee Zadlo captured the madness that was the MetalSucks-sponsored Waste the World tour when it hit Philadelphia, PA’s First Unitarian Church (churches are metal) on December 10th. The pit was so brutal for Municipal Waste that Diana had a hard time getting shots of all the band members, but what she did capture is, as usual, awesome. Take a look at her photos of MW, Brutal Truth, Cauldron and Phobia after the jump.

Click to read more…

WHO’S HUNGRY?

Well, we challenged y’all to create a picture that somehow connects metal to food, and you gave us a lot of killer entries. As is so often the case, choosing just three winners turned out to be pretty hard. So we just chose the three people who did the best job of kissing our collective ass in some way or another. These smart, sexy people each win a copy of Hellbent for Cooking: The Heavy Metal Cookbook by Annick “Morbid Chef” Giroux.

Check out the winning entries after the jump. And if you didn’t win, don’t forget that you can always just order a copy of the book here.

Click to read more…

In the second tragedy to befall a Brooklyn drummer this Autumn (the other being the freak death of Maserati’s Jerry Fuchs), Spylacopa drummer Troy Young was shot and killed in his own apartment, according to the NY Daily News [via Metal Insider]. Spylacopa was (is?) an experimental project that featured members of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Candiria, Isis and Made Out of Babies. Young had also logged time in bands The Spines and State of Emergency.

“Drummer Troy Young, played on the Spylacopa EP, was shot to death in his apartment. Sad day. Talented drummer and nice person, 29yrs old,” read an update on Dillinger Escape Plan / Spylacopa frontman Greg Puciato’s Twitter page.

The Post reports that Young was shot once in the shoulder, and that the bullet pierced his heart. No suspects or motives are known at this time.

I can’t speak to Young’s talent the way I could to Fuchs’, as I’m really not too familiar with his work outside of Spylacopa… but any guy who can hang with the rest of those dudes has got to be quite talented. And any time the metal community loses a member is always a sad day. Please share your memories of Troy Young in our comments section.

-VN