The good thing about being Rolling Stone is that even though you haven’t been relevant in twenty years, there’s some prestige attached to your name, so you can get famous people whose publicists don’t know any better to do shit for you. The glorified glossy toilet paper’s latest coup is getting a bunch of celebs to list their favorite albums and songs of the decade.

I imagine this will cause a million times more arguing than the lists published by any magazine or website staff, because if frail egos collapse under the weight of differing opinions from writers and other “experts,” than I can only imagine how people will react to finding out that Kirk Hammett likes Sinéad O’Connor more than Meshuggah.

Check out some of the lists from Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Tom Morello after the jump.

Click to read more…

Journalists have short memories. I posit that the reason Converge are showing up on so many decade-end lists is because they have an album out right now and are therefore fresh on the minds of the listmakers. Not to belittle that band’s influence; but having an album currently on the market definitely keeps a band’s name on the forefront of peoples’ minds and gives past albums of theirs an advantage for being included in any such list.

So. People seem to have forgotten that System of a Down made THREE incredibly influential albums this decade. Metal / not metal blah blah blah FUCK, I don’t wanna hear it. Toxicity ranked #14 on our own 21st Century “best of” list (F those puny “decade” lists!), and deservedly so. There are plenty of bands way more brutal than SoaD  but there’s no denying the band’s metallic influence and their reign over the scene in general; from 2001-2007 (roughly), especially towards the end of that period, there was no bigger metal band in the world than System of a Down. If System of a Down weren’t taking a break right now (people, they’re NOT broken up… get over it… they’ll be back) and had an album out on the scene that people were talking about I’m 100% certain Toxicity and Mezmerize/Hypnotize would see a lot more inclusion in all of these decade-end lists.

Metal Injection posted a photo remix video montage of SoaD’s last performance (until the next one, that is), which is what got me thinking about all of this. The video — titled “The Forest Project,” utilizes some cool visual editing techniques to make the show appear “live” through photos by Greg Watermann, and lays them underneath remixes and mash-ups by DJ LethalRush of SoaD songs from the band’s full discography. A really cool tribute to a really cool band. When these guys come back, it’s going to be a HUGE event, mark my words.

-VN

A favorite topic of mine when discussing metal with non-metalheads is that I love to harp on the myriad similarities between metal and classical music (“Metal is SMART music for SMART people.”). I’ve written about it before in this space, and now The Deciblog has joined in on the debate with a guest entry from Rachel Barton Pine. Pine can now add “violinist of Earthen Grave” to her already impressive musical resume, and as a self-professed metalhead despite having been classically trained, she’s got some very strong opinions on the metal / classical music correlation.

In her guest blog for Decibel, Ms. Pine chooses her Top 5 Most Metal Pieces of Classical Music, describes why she believes they’re metal, and even includes sound samples in the form of mp3 and YouTube clips. Beethoven = doom metal? Fascinating. Check it out at Decibel’s website.

-VN

A member of the Finnish deathgrind band Blastanus sent us an email asking us to check out their band. The band is solid but unspectactular save for their totally A+ band name. Explains their MySpace page:

The concept of Blastanus was derived from the sick minds of two friends who at a young age decided to stop trivializing their existence and concentrate on the things that matter the most in life: Blastbeats and, well, you know, assholes!

Hooray for gimmicky bandnames! Don’t get me wrong… Blastanus are actually quite good at their own blend of death metal and grind. But dudes… your band logo is WAY too readable. Get on that.

Since their MySpace page is at myspace.com/blastanus1, I naturally wondered what lives at myspace.com/blastanus. Sadly, the answer is “Invalid Friend ID.” Boo.

-VNN

Yesterday we posted live footage of Periphery tearing up the New York City crowd at their headline show at Santo’s Party House last month… and today we’ve got footage of The Binary Code from that very same show thanks to our brostophers at Metal Injection. The live setting is really where these guys shine. Despite the iffy sound quality in this video of the band playing the title track from Suspension of Disbelief segueing into “The Story,” the video does a good job of conveying the intensity that is The Binary Code live…. and believe us, it’s really fucking intense.

Suspension of Disbelief drops December 15th, which is next Tuesday! Buy the full album for only $5, or buy the album and one of four t-shirt designs for only $15 (with free U.S. shipping); pre-order it here. Check out their MySpace for some tuneage.

-VN

The Latin phrase Humanae Vitae means “of human life,” and Wikipedia tells me it’s the title of “an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and promulgated on July 25, 1968.” So does “humanae” just mean “human?” My sixth grade Latin fails me, but that seems like a reasonable assumption.

In any case, “Humanae” is the title of a new song by Swedish death supergroup Laethora, and can be streamed here. It comes off the band’s new album, The Light In Which We All Burn.

I really dug Laethora’s last outing, 2007′s March of the Parasites, so I have high hopes for this one. Laethora shares a member with Dark Tranquility (guitarist Niklas Sundin), but don’t sound nearly as melodic or polished as that band; Jonatan Nordenstam’s vocals always make me think of that scene in the John Carpenter version of Village of the Damned where the dude passes out on top of his grill and and they find his charred body cooking. I don’t wanna say the band is “blackened” because that word has connotations of its own, but I do think “charred” works. Everything about this music just feels bleak and cancerous.

Check out the song here. The Light In Which We All Burn comes out April 27 on The End.

-AR

[A series of absolutely dreadful demos to grace the doorstep of the MS Mansion of late has inspired me to resurrect The Dreadful Demo Files, in which we take a look at some of the face-palm-inducingly bad packages we receive. For the sake of these poor bands' egos we've disguised their identities. I'll be highlighting 3 bands this week (view Part I here)... the last of which is so absolutely righteous I'm not sure it can ever possibly be topped. -.Ed.]

This one had “suck” written all over it right from the generic logo at the top. But it didn’t end there. I’ve added in the little red numbers above to make it easier to refer to specific parts of this dreadful letter. OK, let’s go!

1. OK, that’s good… we’re off to a good start! First of two pieces of info in this whole letter that are actually useful.
2. This is by far my favorite part of this letter. “The band developed their sound and started making more brutal songs.” CLASSIC! What did they sound like before they started making more brutal songs? Why include this at all? Why not just skip to 2008? For that matter, why this specific timeline format? Why not just explain it all in a paragraph? The mind boggles.
3. Adam… you don’t say… THE infamous Adam??? No way!!! Good thing they got THIS guy into the fold.
4. They won a battle of the bands. Great.
5. Tan joined the band… phew! I was nervous for a minute there that Adam couldn’t hold it down on his own.
6. Why in the fucking fuck would I care?
7. The second useful piece of information. A new demo! OK, but… what does it sound like? Why do you think we’d like your band?
8. I care what the dudes’ names are… why?

That’s it for this edition. Wait until you see what I have in store for ya’ll on Friday… it is seriously going to blow your mind. I promise.

-VN

I’ll keep this short and sweet: Devin Townsend’s genius knows no limits, and as part of an ongoing effort to promote his awesome new album, Addicted, he’s launching a series of short videos, “Deep Thoughts with Devin Townsend.” Which are very much like “Deep Thoughts with George Handy,” only way, way more METAL!!!

Here’s the first one, “Hot Sex.”

You can watch future installments by visiting Dev’s Addicted e-card. I bet they’re only gonna get funnier from here.

Addicted is out now on InsideOut Music.

-AR

Nile, the reigning kings of extreme, technical, historically-themed brutality — and Immolation, New York based disharmonic-blackened-death-metal legends — are about to embark on the “Those Whom The Gods Detest” Tour in the new year! Joining them on the Decibel and MetalSucks-sponsored trek will be Brazilian death metal kings Krisiun, Abigail Williams, and Dreaming Dead.  The 32-date tour commences on January 15th, 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Full list of dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

Nonpoint won’t be on Metal Hammer’s Dimebag tribute album, but they have recorded a cover of one of my favorite Pantera songs of all time, “5 Minutes Alone.” Back when I had this real dickhead boss, I had to listen to this song pretty much every morning right before I walked into the office just to burn off enough aggression so that I wouldn’t actually attack the douche.

But Nonpoint’s version is frickin’ weak, dude. Musically, it’s pretty much a perfect replica of Pantera’s original – guitarist Zach Broderick didn’t even take a stab at putting his own unique spin on the solo – but holy crap, do Elias Soriano’s vocals just sound way, way off. I don’t mean off-key – I mean they just sound completely wrong for the tone of the track. This is a song about wanting to be left alone for five minutes in a room with someone you hate so you can beat his ass – a fantasy I’m sure we’ve all had at one point or another – but Soriano’s vocals are so melodic you’d think he was bummed ’cause his baby just left him. Where’s the aggression, the rage, the burning desire to introduce a man’s brains to the wall? This is just a case of the wrong artist being matched with the wrong material.

Also, Nonpoint were never really that great to begin with.

You can listen to the song here.

-AR

-LK III

Metal fans, let’s take a collective moment to consider ourselves blessed with some big Peters. Peters who will take you firmly from both sides of the mixing board with confidence and expertise. Sweaty, bulging-veined Peters whose live shows leave willing multitudes spent, sated, slack – and more than a bit bruised. These Peters, thanks to generous endowments of talent, stand fully erect as superstars in real metal. Each of metal’s hugest Peters share a rock hard work ethic, hardly pausing for rest between releases captured on tape and performances in the flesh, after which they simply move on to violate again in another city.

For the second installment of MetalSucks’ Metal’s Biggest Peters, I phoned Testament’s Eric Peterson, for whom I had no fewer than ten-thousand questions. But Peterson is busy building the next classic Testament record and preparing for the Slayer/Megadeth-headlined American Carnage tour – or, simply, the Slaygadethstament Tour – so I’d have to wait for another day to press him about producers Tony Platt and GGGarth Richardson; nor would we discuss Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo’s career performance on The Gathering, the record that re-launched Testament as a metal juggernaut; neither was there an opportunity to probe Peterson’s feelings on the infiltration of Testament by an unapologetic jazz devotee in godly guitarist Alex Skolnick; and I’d have to refrain from following-up on his passing mentions of good new music and jerkface Dave Mustaine. Still, the genial and passionate Peterson opened up about the diplomacy required to lead a metal band, Testament’s surprising new setlist, the potential for blastbeats on the follow-up to 2008’s triumphant The Formation of Damnation, and his surefire plan to improve the disaster movie 2012.

Click to read more…

Jumping on stage at a metal show is a risky proposition. Some bands are totally cool with it, some bands aren’t. There’s also probably a right way and wrong way to do it; grabbing one of the musicians is probably not the best idea, although I certainly understand the desire to high five your favorite band member or whatever. But you have to know going into it that the band might not be as chill with the concept as you were hoping.

That being said… the below video showed up on Blabbermouth this morning, and, really, it’s not cool, or even especially funny. Basically this poor kid – who looks like he’s probably not sober but whatever – gets up on stage, tries to hug Marduk front dude Mortuus, and for his troubles… Mortuus flips him. Doesn’t just push him away, doesn’t just call for security or whatever, but full-on Mr. Miyagis the poor guy. It just strikes me as a gross overreaction. And we’re actually one of the sponsors of this tour… but I just can’t see my way to condoning the way Mortuus handled the situation.

Skip to the 1:16 mark of the below video to watch the incident, then weigh in and tell me why I’m right or wrong about Mortuus being really uncool about this.

-AR

Yesterday God Forbid announced that they’ll be playing a very special show on January 9 at Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ. Now, Dingbatz only holds about two-hundred people and advance tickets to the show are a whopping twelve bucks, so this is pretty cool in and of itself. But even cooler for those of us who can’t attend the show is the opening sentence from the announcement:

Click to read more…

That was pretty anti-climactic, wasn’t it?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Killswitch Engage’s self-titled record isn’t showing up on any year-end lists for 2009… I literally haven’t seen it appear on one list yet. And there’s a reason for that; this record simply isn’t as good as any of the prior ones. Despite the production work of Brendan O’Brien, the record ended up a disorganized assemblage of stock KsE songs. The record has its moments (most notably album-opener “Never Again” which is a ripper), but on the whole the album just isn’t that memorable and doesn’t offer much re-listening value. Even 2006′s As Daylight Dies, which many panned at the time, is much better — I listened to it the other day for the first time in at least a year and I was actually surprised at how well the album holds up.

For me, nothing will ever match The End of Heartache, but this year’s self-titled affair didn’t even come close. Surely there are some people who love the new record, as KsE still pack their shows and still sold a respectable number of records (if not close to the totals their two prior releases amassed). Perhaps it’s the younger generation, a fact that Howard Jones and Justin Foley seem all too aware of in the Canadian AUX.tv interview posted below. Has KsE lost their older fan-base for good?

-VN

Do these three words inspire you with shock, awe and amazement? They sure do for me!

Meshugga Beach Party — sent in by of all people Vince Neilstein Sr., who I doubt is even aware of the existence of a metal band named Meshuggah — isn’t a beach party with our favorite poly-rhythmic Swedish headbangers, but is in fact a California-based band that dresses as hasids and boasts “Traditional Jewish folk songs… Instrumental Surf Music… WHO KNEW?”

Meshuggah Beach Party might not possess the same windmilling finesse as their Swedish counterparts, but they do have some pretty sweet choreographed stage moves (fast-forward to the 0:55 mark)… for a bunch of shlemiels, anyway:

I wish I would’ve known about these guys last year so I could’ve hired them to play my 2nd Bar-Mitzvah.

-VN

Congratulations to Katie Rose, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to Disfiguring the Goddess. For her troubles, Katie wins a free MetalSucks t-shirt of her choosing. Wear that shit with pride, Katie!

But don’t you cry tonight if you lost, ’cause there’s a heaven above you, bay-bee, and we’re giving away another shirt this week (you can see all the designs here).

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name and address, and the style of shirt you want and your shirt size. We’ll randomly select a winner from everyone who gets it right, and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was suggested to me by Dan Spiteri from Bay Area Metal Scene. Thanks a bunch, Dan!!! A lot of you complained that last week’s logo was too easy, so hopefully you’ll find this a bit more challenging…

-AR

For some reason I thought John Kempainen was one of those “I hate touring” dudes, and that said hatred of fart boxes and no pay was one of the key reasons behind his split with The Black Dahlia Murder. But I guess I thought wrong, because Metal Injection tells us that Kempainen is teaming with original BDM drummer Cory Grady to form a new band, Graves Ablaze. They don’t have a vocalist yet (or a bassist or rhythm guitarist), but there’s an instrumental demo streaming here.

Kempainen is obviously a really talented guy and I was sad to see him leave BDM – his solos were one of my favorite parts of that band. That being said, Ryan Knight (ex-Arsis) has obviously turned out to be a more than able replacement, and I think Deflorate is probably BDM’s best album yet. And this Graves Ablaze demo doesn’t knock my socks off. It’s not bad – it’s just not jizz-inducing or whatever.

What does that say about their future? Very little. Maybe the time just wasn’t right yet for them to post a demo – maybe they need to wait ’til they’re further along in their evolutionary process. For now, I’m just glad that Kempainen is out there trying to make new metal…

-AR

…reader Mark VanDeusen just tipped us off that Crack the Skye has been named number three on Time Magazine’s The Top 10 Everything of 2009 list. Which I imagine will be read by slightly more non-metal fans than, say, Decibel’s year-end list. Just a guess, though.

Unfortunately, the author of the accompanying blurb, Josh Tyrangiel, comes across as kind of a tool. For example:

The band name doesn’t inspire confidence. Nor does the warlock-strewn album cover. Nor the fact that Crack the Skye is the last of a four-album cycle about the Earth’s elements.

He sounds like my mom: Ewwww, warlocks! And, by the way, dipshit, I don’t see a single warlock on that cover. Also, “Mastodon” is a great name for a band. Sorry if it’s no “Air Supply,” you putz.

That being said, if a tool speaks the language of other tools, perhaps that’s the best emissary to send to convince people that Crack the Skye is really worth their time.

Read the complete entry here.

-AR

Our friends at Noisecreep must really enjoy getting yelled at by internet trolls, because now they’ve gone and published a list of the Best Metal Bands of the Decade. Like the other lists they’ve published as of late, this one was compiled by polling “a panel of music insiders,” which included yours truly. Look, ma! I’m an “insider!” You’re gonna make it after alllllll…

Anyways, I voted for four of the ten bands that made the final list, and I realize now that there’s one I didn’t vote for that was a major oversight on my part, so I’m glad they made it on there even without my help. And I think it’s a pretty solid line-up overrall. I suspect that more than a few of you will shit your pants over the inclusion of Slipknot, but I think Slipknot might be one of the most famous metal band of the past ten years that wasn’t already firmly established prior to 2000 (e.g., Slayer, Tool, etc.) and didn’t spend the decade sucking down goat semen (e.g., Metallica, Korn, etc.). By the way, I didn’t vote for Slipknot, I’m just saying I don’t think they deserve all the shit they take. Just some of the shit they take.

But I digress. Read the list here, and then come back and bitch and moan because Yog Sogolgoth (or the so-underground-no-one-knows-who-the-fuck-they-are tr00 kvlt band of your choice) didn’t make the cut.

-AR