Last week we told you about the awesome Burgers & Bowling tour, which will be headlined by The Red Chord with support to be provided by Mychildren Mybride, Those Who Lie Beneath, and Chelsea Grin. Well, today we’re proud to announce that we’re sponsoring the tour, which means we can personally guarantee it’s going to be kick-ass. But, then, The Red Chord have the Midas touch – everything they come into contact with turns to kick-ass.

Get a complete list of dates after the jump. We’re so excited for this thing we can’t even tell you.

Click to read more…

We had quite the debate about Christian metal and being pro-life versus pro-choice yesterday, and just in time to keep the vitriol flowing comes yet another list from our pal Carlos “I Must Really Enjoy Pissing People Off” Ramirez. He’s posted his picks for the top ten Christian metal bands of all time over at Noisecreep.

I wish I could get the ball rolling on this little argument y’all are surely about to have, but I literally have never heard of at least half the bands on this list. But there are at least three (As I Lay Dying, Zao and Believer) that I think are really good bands, so maybe I should check out some of these others.

Read the list here, then bitch and moan in our comments section below.

-AR

We’re less than halfway through the first month of 2010, but already we’re beginning to see the rumblings of quality hardcore to come in 2010. Case in point: First Blood. An unmastered version of “Enemy” was added to the San Francisco based band’s MySpace page today. This is the first track revealed from Silence Is Betrayal, the follow-up to the band’s Trustkill Records debut Killafornia. Though not leaps and bounds above the metallic sound mined on that aforementioned release, “Enemy” is reliably true to First Blood’s sound and assuredly characteristic of what to expect when the new record drops this Spring.

Currently on tour in Southeast Asia with fellow Bay Area denizens Alcatraz, First Blood will team up later this month with former Victory Records’ act Earth Crisis, whose first album in eight years To The Death inexplicably didn’t get much love on people’s year-end lists. (On a tangential topic, both First Blood and Earth Crisis are staunch vegans, a topic which EC’s frontman Karl Buechner discussed in a brief recent interview with Noisecreep.) All dates below:

Jan 15 2010 Hong Kong @ Warehouse*
Jan 17 2010 Philippines @ Ten O2 Manila*
Jan 18 2010 Thailand @ Overtone Bangkok*
Jan 20 2010 Indonesia @ Kanjuruhan Univercity Hall Malang*
Jan 21 2010 Indonesia @ Famestation Bandung*
Jan 22 2010 Indonesia @ Viky Sianipar Music Center Jakarta*
Jan 23 2010 Malaysia @ Number One Cafe Kuala Lumpur*
Jan 24 2010 Singapore @ Scape Lab*
Jan 27 2010 King Cobra Osaka**
Jan 28 2010 Huck Finn Nagoya**
Jan 29 2010 Drunkard’s Stadium Kashiwa**
Jan 30 2010 Citta’ Kawasaki Kanagawa**
Jan 31 2010 Shinjuku ACB hall Tokyo**

* w/ Alcatraz
* w/ Earth Crisis & Alcatraz

-GS

[Gary Suarez helps manage the Shadows FAIL blog. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

Cosmo Lee at the indomitable blog Invisible Oranges is having a little fun today. The Osbournes ain’t got nothin’ on some of Cosmo’s proposed metal reality shows:

Rock Star: Anthrax: 15 contestants compete to become the next singer of Anthrax. There is no band more appropriate for this show.

Man vs. Shitty Deathcore: Adam Richman attempts to digest the entire discographies of Emmure, The Acacia Strain, Rose Funeral, and Whitechapel. Who will win, Richman or breakdowns?

So You Think You Can Mosh

But wait… it’s actually a contest! Chime in with your own idea for a metal reality show in the comments section on Invisible Oranges by this Friday the 15th at midnight EST and Cosmo’s favorite entry will win a copy of the Pure Fucking Mayhem DVD. Of course we encourage such happy fun time activities in our own comments section too, but all we can offer is an e-pat on the back.

-VN

Yesterday I wrote a piece chastising Ozzy Osbourne for canceling a lot of shows on his recent tours. I guess I was misinformed; I was definitely at an Ozzfest date that Ozzy missed, but that was back in 2003. Around that time I seem to recall a lot of people bitching about him missing dates, but maybe there were mitigating circumstances that year. I’ve since been told that on his last tour, The Ozzman only canceled two shows, and that he made up both gigs at a later date.

So… I fucked up, and inadvertently sacrificed the truth in favor of a funny headline. My apologies to Ozzy and everyone in his camp. Y’know I’d like nothing more than for Mr. Osbourne to be killin’ it again like he did in the old days…

-AR

Damn, that sounds sexual.

ANYWAY, “Frost Hammer” is actually the name of a new High on Fire track – the first we’ve heard from the band’s forthcoming album, Snakes for the Divine, and like pretty much everything High on Fire do, it’s metal as fuck. I mean, the song includes such lyrics as “Winters in veins/Hammers aris /to melt through the ice… Frost Hammer!”, so you know that HOF aren’t dicking around.

Stereogum is debuting this track; you can give it a listen here. Snakes for the Divine comes out February 23 on E1.

-AR

The band is called Next Stop Mars, and the track is entitled “Hx Porn.” That should tip you off right away as to how awful this is going to be.

Still, if you’re morbidly curious:

MS Maniac Name Not Applicable tipped us off to the existence of this band, although he rightfully recognized how awful they are…

-AR

Our commenters seemed equally split as to whether they’d look forward to new System of a Down music or not… but it all seems for naught, as SOAD bassist Shavo Odajian — who started the fracas yesterday with a Tweet — kind of sort of but not really retracted his statement. Shavo’s original Tweet:

“Are you guys ready for System???”

And another Tweet posted early this morning, once again courtesy of Metal Insider:

About my “are u guys ready for System?”. I’m not sayin we are back but, if so? U guys ready? SoRry for gettin u guys amped. I’m just seeing

So in other words, either a) Shavo was bored and his original Tweet was, in fact, misinterpreted, or b) Someone spilled the beans when he wasn’t supposed to. I’m going to side with “b.” And Shavo, if this mess proved anything it’s that the answer is quite obviously, “Yes, people are fucking ready!” Myself included.

-VN

I wouldn’t exactly expect Misery Index and Magrudergrind to tour together – MI is a straight-up, no bullshit death metal band, and Magrudergrind, well, isn’t. I don’t see the two bands as having much in common besides that facts that both their monikers start with a letter “m,” and they both rip off faces, eat those faces, shit out those faces, reattach those faces, and repeat.

But, hey, that’s good enough for me! Lambgoat says the two bands will be hitting the road together starting in February. A simple, two-band bill, where the bands don’t sound at all alike and are both awesome? What’s not to love?

Get a complete list of dates after the jump…

Click to read more…

Just got this e-mail from reader: C.J. Altman:

Just discovered I Don’t Want To Die In Texas. They’re deathcore, but they’re good deathcore. A lot better than Suicide Silence or Winds of Plague if you ask me.

I’m gonna hafta go ahead and disagree with you there, C.J. I’m not sure what differentiates IDWTDIT from any number of other deathcore outfits, and I’ll take Suicide Silence or WOP over them any day.

Check out I Don’t Want To Die In Texas and let C.J. know what you think in the comments section below.

-AR

At The Gates were a great band and undeniably influenced hordes upon hordes of melodic death metal and metalcore followers. The band’s legacy has been celebrated at length in recent years culminating with their 2008 reunion tour. But at what point does celebrating this band just get to be too much?

In what Earache promises to be *the definitive* At the Gates collection, a press release from the label (also posted by Blabbermouth) tells us that the band will be releasing a 3-disc DVD set called The Flames of the End on February 22nd. The Flames of the End will feature:

Disc 1 ‘Under A Serpent Sun – The Story of At The Gates’ – a brand new documentary with a running time of over 2 hours, detailing the band’s entire career with exclusive interviews and footage, filmed and directed by guitarist Anders Bjorler.

Disc 2 ‘Purgatory Unleashed – Live at Wacken’ – a 75-minute live set from the band’s reunion set at the Wacken festival in 2008 in front of 100,000 people.

Disc 3 ‘Only the Dead Are Smiling’ – 26 rare and archive live performances of the band playing in locations around the globe from 1991 – 2008.

So while this DVD set will have very limited appeal to anyone other than At the Gates die-hards, at least it’s not just another remaster, “special edition” or compilation… in other words, there’s actually a whole lot of new stuff here that should be quite interesting, even if it isn’t new music.

-VN

The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato is ripped. But it would never even occur to me to accuse the dude of taking steroids, for the following reasons:

1. He might kick my ass.
2. To make an accusation like that requires something known as “evidence,” and I have none. In fact, I’ve never even heard a rumor about the guy taking ‘roids.
3. He might kick my ass.
4. It seems perfectly feasible to me that Puciato spends the hours and hours of downtime that come with touring working out.
5. He might kick my ass really, really bad.

None of these issues gave pause to James Montgomery, though. I have no idea who Montgomery is, but in what has to be the stupidest act of 2010 so far, he’s written a piece for MTV in which he accuses ten musicians – including Puciato, Trent Reznor, and Glenn Danzig – of taking steroids. “Proof?” Montgomery actually bothers to raise the issue in his intro. “Who needs it when you’ve got pure suspicion?”

As far as I know, Reznor and Danzig haven’t weighed-in (no pun intended) yet about this absolutely moronic article – but Puciato has, and he ain’t happy about. He tells our friends at Noisecreep:

Click to read more…

Back in August I lamented the fact that The Bled signed with haircut-core label Rise Records, home to such “artists” as Attack Attack!, Breathe Carolina, Dance Gavin Dance a whole slew of other bands sure to make you cringe. The move didn’t make sense for a band like The Bled with hardcore roots and actual real, live aggression… a band that’s actually, ya know, good.

But now the band has released the first two songs from their forthcoming record Heat Fetish (out March 2nd) and they’ve completely made me eat my words. The two new songs, “Smoke Breaks” and “Moutheater” — both now streaming on The Bled’s MySpace page — are easily the two heaviest songs the band has ever written. And we’re not just talking in relative terms here… these two songs are heavy as fuck compared to anything by any band. We’re talking Converge and Dillinger territory here. Seriously. If you’ve never listened to The Bled because you thought they were part of a certain scene, now is the time to throw all of your preconceptions out the window and give them a shot.

Heat Fetish is suddenly one of my most anticipated record of 2010. With two tracks like these new ones, how can it not be?

-VN

A little over a year ago I was invited to go see The Acacia Strain play a sold-out show at the Palladium in Worcester. I wasn’t able to make it, but everyone I spoke to who did said it was INSANE. All caps like that, dude: INSANE.

Luckily, David Brodsky and his crack team of metal video makin’ nutjobs were there to capture the action, and the concert flick will be included on The Acacia Strain’s new DVD, The Most Known Unknown, which now has February 16 release date via Prosthetic.

Click to read more…

Congrats to Suckalo LeAnna Quartuccio, who correctly identified last week’s logo as that of the band Colonize the Rotting. LeAnna wins a copy of Dark Tranquillity’s Where Death is Most Alive DVD. Enjoy, LeAnna!

This week we’re giving away a copy of Nevermore’s DVD, The Year of the Voyager.  This two-disc set includes an entire live performance filmed in Germany in 2006, plus footage from Wacken ’06, Metal Mania ’06, and Gigantour ’05, plus music videos AND an interview with Warrel Dane. This is a must own for all your Nevermore fans out there.

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 your address. 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 by Jake Haras. It’s not super-hard, but it should do…

-AR

I was in sunny Los Angeles a few weeks ago. There, nestled among the palm-lined streets, gleeful roller-skating commuters and destroyed real estate market, is a dank little office building where a personal injury lawyer shares space with a bunch of bearded fellows in their 20s. This is our record label (the beards, not the lawyers). So let’s say you were to go inside this cave of workplace: past the boxes and boxes of a particular 10-inch that someone had waaay over estimated the demand for; past the energetic bull terrier sniffing crotches of employees, owners, visitors and interns alike without discrimination; past even my 3 year old son, patiently watching Wonder Pets on a portable DVD player beneath the looming poster of impending rape happily portrayed in The Evil Dead. There, on a water-stained fourth-hand couch, you would have found me sitting as I talked one of the chaps who runs the whole affair. Let’s listen.

Click to read more…

Here’s kind of an interesting story from Vice:

Last night some idiot went round bombing “SLAYER” all over shops, pubs, offices and, most dramatically, bins near our offices in Old Street. You’ve got to hope that the guy who did it isn’t over 16, because if they’re some 20-something Hoxton-metal dude, it’s tragic. The local shop owners are getting in a right tizz about it, and have been scrubbing their walls all morning.

Click to read more…

So Tracii Guns told Metal Underground who told me that Gilby Clarke is in the hospital. Oh noes! Tracii sez:

“Gilby got nailed on his motorcycle last night. His leg is broken in three places. It was a hit and run. I am gonna try to go see him tonight – he will be ok.”

For those of you who don’t know, Gilby Clarke was Izzy Stradlin’s original replacement in Guns N’ Roses back in ’91. Unfortunately, the poor bastard only got to record one album with them, and that album was The Spaghetti Incident?, which was a) a covers record so Gilby didn’t get no publishin’ and b) Gilby only played on GN’R's least-famous, lowest-selling album ever*. After he was fired from the band basically because Axl Rose didn’t like the way he wrote songs, he had a solo career that didn’t really go anywhere, produced some stuff (including a really good record by The Bronx), and finally ended up on/in Rockstar Supernova as the dude no one remembered being in Guns N’ Roses even though he kept saying he was.

All of which is to say that Gilby was never really a rock star even though he was kind of a rock star, which must be why he was actually nice to me when I met him as a young ‘un. Little did he know that being nice to that young dorky kid would someday buy him a nice “FEEL BETTER SOON!” post on a blog, published many hours after plenty of other media outlets had already decided to suddenly remember who he is, because putting the words “Guns N’ Roses” in any headline is still good for search engine traffic.

Here’s a Gilby solo song, “Cure Me or Kill Me,” written and recorded while he still kinda-sorta in the band. Slash plays the guitar solo.

FEEL BETTER SOON GILBY!

-AR

*Actually it may have outsold Chinese Democracy, but it’s definitely less famous than CD.

Ohmylordee, have you heard of Bay Area noise-prog-metallers Name? Most likely you have, as they’ve been around for a few years and are signed to Lifeforce Records. Whether you have or haven’t isn’t the issue… it’s that they’ve got a new album coming out in about a month and you ought to pay attention.

The cover art and track listing for Name’s new album Internet Killed The Audio Star have surfaced, along with a tracklisting and two brand new songs on Name’s MySpace. Name are cut from the same sonic cloth as Converge and The Dillinger Escape Plan but I’d say they verge a bit closer to traditional metal and more wholly endorse Prog with a capital “P.” There’s plenty of raw motherfucking aggression but no tough-guy hardcore posing and no spazz-outs that are basically un-followable. I’d wager that a whole lot more folks would know about this excellent band if not for their awkward and un-Google-able band name moniker.

Internet Killed the Audio Star will be released on February 16th in the US and April 19th in Europe. Listen to two tracks from that album pronto, then come back here and let us know what you think.

-VN

…..how else can you explain the fact that less than one week after I urged Castrato Cornell to reunite the almighty Soundgarden it totally happened??

You’re welcome, Kim Thayil!

To celebrate, here’s a nice solo acoustic ditty from CC before he pissed all over himself with Scream:

CHRIS CORNELL — “Seasons”, from the Singles Soundtrack (1992):

-KW