Todays Is am havings nots yours traditional brunches, but Frühstück and Kaffeehäuser. I am tolds theres is goings to bes lotses and lotses of breads. Mmm. Breades fores breakfasts! You sees whats Is dids there?
-AR
I’m not puffing today, but this band makes me feel like I’m high anyway. Check em out on MySpace, with or without ganja…
-KW
I haven’t been able to shake this cold, and so I’ve actually been playing a lot of on-line Scrabble with a friend this week (because I’m just that cool). It would be really hard to play Scrabble at a metal show, though, not least of all because so many metal d00dz can’t spell.
When we weren’t beating this whole Uno debacle to death like it had just heckled us, here’s what was happening in the world of metal:
Okay. Back to Scrabble! See ya Monday. Stay warm.
-AR
Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a peaceful guy. I have no violent tendencies and avoid fights at almost any cost. I know plenty of people who would be happy to hospitalize someone for me, and that helps me rest easy. Violence is not really something I concern myself with. That said, it is certainly a reality of life. Turn on the news, read the newspapers, or live in a poor neighborhood and you’ll see just how much a reality of life violence is. Understanding that human on human violence is a fact of life brings up the subject of categorization. These categories are simple. Are you justified to beat the fuck out of someone? Well, it depends. Right? Sometimes it’s all right. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do. And sometime it’s not the right thing to do. How do you decipher?
Although the editors of MetalSucks get a vote in the Scion No Label Needed Contest, the staff of MetalSucks, alas, does not. Thus, over the course of the next few days, each MetalSucks writer will post an endorsement for his favorite finalist for the contest. You can check out all the finalists, and vote for your personal favorite, here.
There’s nos black metals ins this stupids contest! The judgeses are prejudiceds against BMs likes sanes peoples are againsts Michelle Bachmann, onlys with nos reals reasons.
But, fines, this Hemoptysis bands is prettys evil. Theys plays deathrash and theys does its pretty goods. You likes Skeletonwitch, don’ts yous? Hemoptysis sounds like Skeletonwitch! Also, their names means “coughings ups the blood,” which is disgustings. I likes disgustings.
Bonus: pictures of nakeds Asian girl covered only bys a cymbal. Now I’m going to gos plays with my penis.
-NC
Listen to and vote for Hemoptysis here. You can also visit them on MySpace.
Thursday’s big announcement of Aerosmith’s reconciliation (and tour!) kinda ensured that I’d spend all afternoon hiding a conspicuous boner. Even so, it was nice to exhale after months spent watching helplessly as Steven Tyler threatened to diva his way out of earth’s last rock ‘n roll band and into the world of tragically misguided solo careers. But perhaps Tyler’s new representation successfully conveyed to him the probable result of such a move: Either he could bank on big tours as Aerosmith frontman with, say, Motley Crue, or risk co-headlining casinos with Vince Neil. Scary! Tyler’s personal “brand” goes unmentioned in the band’s, uh, statement, so the Tyler/Neil Sadness + Shame Tour might happen someday for all we know. For now, Tyler and the ancient men of Aerosmith are now girding up their loins for a few more awesome gigs. And I say, Hell yes. Hell yes, I say.
My slavish hanging on the balls of Aerosmith is embarrassing, but I can’t help it that my ears are gay. Also, I follow an example set by James Malone of Arsis, whose love of silly bands is expressed without hesitation. It’s shameful to forever drag the poor guy down with me whenever I feel insecure about my, uh, proclivities, and shit, actually, the whole point of mentioning Aerosmith was to hurry along* my drooling praise of the new fucking Arsis record, Starve For The Devil, which is a pure white beam of awesomeness. So it’s all connected, friends. Plus, Malone and Tyler each have some totally understandable rehab time in their recent past. Actually, if some jerk writer wanted to recklessly jump to pat conclusions, he’d assert that S4tD seems to reflect a victory in Malone’s personal battles; it’s still Arsis, but bigger, better, and way more fun! To get the idea, imagine 2008′s We Are The Nightmare but expand it sonically and rhythmically tenfold in every direction. Then imagine snappy lyrics, riffs that aren’t so needlessly busy, and grooves that jam. Then imagine your last $15 angrily demanding to be spent on a crisp new copy of Starve For The Devil.
- ADF
*That is, I wanted to be brief about Arsis to allow for about three hours of Aerosmith karaoke tonight.
The REAL Ziltoid has arrived on earth from Ziltoidia IX and left a message with us in the form a video on Devin Townsend’s YouTube account!
Devin told us there’d be a new Ziltoid album on the way when he took over MetalSucks for a day last Fall, so we can only assume work on Z2 has begun… or at the very least is on Devy’s brain. I’d imagine (and hope) that he’ll finish up Parts 3 and 4 of the Devin Townsend Project suite before moving on to the next Ziltoid record, but who knows; Devy’s mind works in mysterious (and brilliant) ways. Said Devy about Z2 back in November:
In the new record, it’s real drums, orchestra, choirs etc… a REAL doozy…
And the hair I used to have? The skullet?
It’s in a box and Ziltoid, the next generation puppet, gets it.
Watch him rock folks, there’s nothing he won’t do.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Devin records these things. Think there’s any kind of loose script or he just completely wings it?
“I hate your balls! They swing pendulously like two ostrich eggs in a turkey skin!”
-VN
For those who may’ve missed the constant plugs in our comments section over the past few weeks, everyone’s favorite hater-for-the-sake-of-hating Ziltoid is now lending his scribbling skills to the MS Maniac GroverXIII-helmed metal blog The Number of the Blog.
Let me repeat that: Ziltoid is blogging. Get your haterade out, Suckalos and Suckalettes.
Apparently the day we let Ziltoid run MetalSucks was just the tip of the iceberg as far as learning about ridiculous bands he thinks are cool such as \\\Maytag. Since it’s a slow news day today, I decided to mosey on over to Number of the Blog to see what old Zilty is up to. The very first Ziltoid-penned post I stumbled upon is about how the Pokemon video games are metal.
Let me repeat that: Ziltoid thinks Pokemon is metal. Pokemon is the tr00est of the tr00, the kvltest of the kvlt, the ultimate standard of metal superiority (because Zilty only listens to the very best music) to which we should all aspire.
Lap it up, kids.
-VN
Y’know, I’ve interviewed Lazarus A.D., I’ve killed small animals to the a soundtrack of their album The Onslaught, but I’ve never actually gotten to see them live (Although Corey has, and says they kick all kinds of ass.). That’ll change next week when the Kreator/Voivod/Nachtmystium/Evile/Lazarus A.D. tour rolls through NYC – and now, as if to get me even more excited than I already was, they’ve released a new video, for the song “Absolute Power.” The “story line” is pretty silly, but the song is a rager, so check it out:
The Onslaught is out now on Metal Blade.
-AR
Although the editors of MetalSucks get a vote in the Scion No Label Needed Contest, the staff of MetalSucks, alas, does not. Thus, over the course of the next few days, each MetalSucks writer will post an endorsement for his favorite finalist for the contest. You can check out all the finalists, and vote for your personal favorite, here.
I like Iris Divine less because of the music they’re writing right now — which on its own is really fucking good, yes — but more because of the music they can and will write given the opportunity. Iris Divine are a band with an immense amount of raw musical and songwriting talent, and given the proper resources, attention and room to develop, this band can grow into something truly special and unique that transcends anything we know today. Think a career arc like genre-busting bands such as Between the Buried and Me, Tool or Radiohead. Too often in the A&R process these days the concept of artist development is pushed aside in favor of what’s trendy and ready to go right now – but Iris Divine are the kind of band that two or three albums down the road are going to be leaps and bounds better than any of today’s scene bands can ever be.
Vote for Iris Divine because you believe in pushing our genre forward instead of rewarding the status quo.
Listen to more ID tunes on MySpace.
-DG
Here’s the cover art for Exodus’ upcoming Exhibit B: The Human Condition. On the one hand, it’s a pretty heavy-handed play on a certain famous Da Vinci drawing; on the other hand, I still think it looks pretty cool.
Exhibit B: The Human Condition will be out this spring on Nuclear Blast.
-AR
Back when I was a young ‘un and took guitar lessons, my teacher used to gather me and two other students once a week for some jam sessions (that’s not code for “molestion,” you wise guys), which were basically extended rehearsals for “concerts” (e.g., recitals). Each student would pick one song for the band to learn; the student who selected said song had to sing lead vocals and got to take the guitar solo for that song, while someone else played second guitar, someone else played bass, and the instructor played drums.
And it should go without saying that we never, ever sounded as good as this:
The Bled are streaming their entire new album Heat Fetish on their MySpace page and it’s everything I’d hoped it would be. Most importantly it’s fucking heavy, by far the heaviest thing this band has ever done. It’s a lot of other things as well, but you’ll have to check it out for yourself to find out.
This record’s got equal heaping of early Thrice and modern Dillinger Escape Plan, and because The Bled are above just ripping off their heroes there’s plenty of their own flavor on The Heat too. I’m especially digging the tracks that we’re just now hearing for the first time. “Need New Conspirators” and “Shouting Fire in a Crowded Room” are rocking my speakers at the moment, but nearly every song so far’s got something to offer. I can’t wait to get my hands on this record and really learn it. Definitely one of my favorite records so far released in this young year of 2010.
-VN
It’s beens exactlys four years and ones week since Watains releaseds Sworn to the Dark. That makes my souls colds and darks, likes the insides of Kirstie Alley’s beastlys anus. Buts finallys, now, we sees the lights at the ends of the beastlys anus: Watains is gonnas release a news albums on 7 June ons Season of Mist.
Thats alls I knows right nows. Erik Danielsson froms Watains says “May the gods unto which it is written be pleased!”, buts I bets godses gots nothings to dos with its.
-NC
Bret Michaels recently recorded two duets with tween sensation Miley Cyrus (who actually looks like more of a dude than he does): one was a cover of Poison’s “Every Rose Has its Thorn” (which I haven’t heard yet), and one was this song, “Nothing to Lose,” which The Huffington Post points out includes the lyrics “Tonight in the darkness there’s nothing to lose/We both know better than this, still we can’t resist/Slowly get undressed.”
And for the record, Michaels is 46, and Cyrus is 17.
So the next seasons of Rock of Love may very well involve Michaels choosing from a batch of large men named “Bubba” in a prison shower.
Thanks to Val for the tip!
-AR
SHOCKER! Gene Simmons’ son, Nick, is a total prick! I can’t believe it. I have no idea how that ever could have happened. I mean, he had such a good role model growing up.
From some dork website I’m not familiar with (via SMN):
“The American company Radical Publishing has announced that it halted the production and distribution of Nick Simmons’ Incarnate comic book series on Wednesday evening, amid allegations that the comic plagiarized Tite Kubo’s Bleach manga. According to Radical, ‘We are taking this matter seriously and making efforts now to contact the publishers of the works in question in an effort to resolve this matter.’”
What Would Tyler Durden Do (don’t ask) reports that Nicky-boy has gone on Facebook [Just some dude pretending to be Nick Simmons... oh, well. -Ed.] and demanded an apology. And side-by-side comparisons of his comic with the one he’s accused of ripping-off show that he deserves one. I mean, they’re clearly totally different (Simmons’ is the one in color, the original in b&w):
On Wednesday we got a thirty-second cock tease of the new Opeth song that will be on the God of War: Blood & Metal EP compilation; we’ve already heard Trivium’s contribution to that collection; and now Noisecreep has debuted “My Obsession,” the Killswitch Engage song which will be on the album.
I’m really running out of things to say about Killswitch Engage. I mean, I don’t know how I’d describe this song as anything other than “a Killswitch Engage song.” They made two brilliant records that I love to death with every ounce of myself, and then two records that I thought were fine but I don’t really listen to. I really think that they need to figure out some way to mix it up a little bit in the near future.
Then again, Slayer has made a career out of just repeating themselves and I love Slayer more than I love some members of my family, so what do I know?
Listen to “My Obsession” here. God of War: Blood & Metal will be out on Roadrunner on March 2, but I’ll try to have a review up on March 1.
-AR
Just wanted to give you guys the first official heads-up that I just signed a contract with former Pantera lead singer Phil Anselmo to help him pen his autobiography. Be on the lookout for an official press release next week.
This one has the MetalSucks handprints all over it, as MS co-head cheese Vince Neilstein hooked me up with Anselmo through the most unlikely of sources — Vince’s dad’s girlfriend and Phil’s aunt and uncle.
Rest assured, MS Maniacs will be privy to many exclusives as I help Phil tackle his incredible story. I will do my best to take you behind the scenes of the making of the book, post advance chapters before the book hits the stores, and post deleted material that won’t make the final cut but will be worth reading nonetheless.
Stay tuned to MetalSucks for more details.
-CM
Corey Mitchell is a best-selling author of true crime books and founder of In Cold Blog. Join him on Facebook and Twitter. His next book, SAVAGE SON, can be pre-ordered now.
It was way back in May that we first told you that Ozzy Osbourne was suing Tony Iommi over use of the Black Sabbath band name, accusing Iommi of illegally claiming sole ownership of the group’s moniker in a filing with the US Patent and Trademark Office. Well, unfortunately, The New York Post reports that yesterday Manhattan federal judge John Koeltl can proceed with his lawsuit:
“Lawyer Andrew DeVore argued yesterday that Osbourne signed away all his rights to the Black Sabbath trademark after he quit the band in 1979.
“Osbourne’s lawyer, Howard Shire, called that agreement a ‘red herring’ that was ‘repudiated’ when the singer rejoined in 1997 and took over ‘quality control’ of the band’s merchandise, tours and recordings.”
Pure fucking gold. I need one immediately. 
