Did anyone besides me even try to play the Iron Man movie tie-in video game in 2008? I got it from Game Fly and I think I returned it in record time – like, I may have stuck it back in the mail later the same day I received it. It sucked that bad, and was piece of evidence number one gazillion that 99% of the time, movie tie-in games are terrible.

If I’m not mistaken, the upcoming Iron Man 2 video game has different developers, so maybe it’ll be superior to its predecessor – it certainly couldn’t be inferior. But whether the game ends up sucking or not, at least we’re gonna get a new Lamb of God song out of the deal.

From Marvel’s official website:

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Orphaned Land’s “Sapari” might be the only song ever that makes me want to dance the horah and mosh (moshorah?) simultaneously. A portrayal, or dramatization, if you will, of such a universe-altering event is not the way the band chose to go for the video for this song, but, y’know, this works, too.

Orphaned Land’s new album, The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR, is out now on Century Media. If you haven’t already read my Jew on Jew interview with OL vocalist Kobi Farhi, do it before The Chosen People smite thee.

Wait, do Jews smite?

-AR

[via Noisecreep]

Last month we told you about the Scion No Label Needed Contest & Series, which would allow one lucky unsigned band to win, well, just about anything and everything an unsigned band could ever possibly want. Seriously, this contest is amazing.

Well, the time for submissions has past, and the judges have now selected twenty finalists for the contest. You can listen to all of these unsigned bands, and cast your vote for who you think should win, here. Two of them, Iron Thrones and Iris Divine, are even bands we’ve written about before! But all of these groups are really talented, and would make worthy winners. This is an awesome way to discover some great unsigned bands, at least one of whom could very well represent the future of metal.

All the details after the jump.

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Whilst in South Carolina on their current U.S. Tour, UK hardcore act Your Demise decided to have some fun with a taser. Guitarist Ozzy Porkchop went into battle with a taser provided by one of the band’s fans after the show, and these are the results. If I were ever to believe an argument for being straight-edge and that alcohol is the devil’s blood, this is it.

-VN

THE ANTHRAX SAGA CONTINUES!

So. If you’re just joining us, here’s the story thus far: Anthrax decided to do a reunion tour with Joey Belladonna, but when they got off the road everyone in the band came to their senses and was like, “Wait, what? We’re not making an album with Joey Belladonna!” But John Bush was all, “You can’t fuck another girl and then ask me to the prom,” so Anthrax needed to get a new singer. They hired this dude no one has ever heard of named Dan Nelson and recorded a new album, Worship Music, which they assured us was going to be the second-coming. But then all of sudden Nelson was out of the band, either because he quit or was fired, depending on who you believe. And then they got John Bush to agree to tour with them again. And now everyone is all, “Is Bush in the band or what?” and Anthrax is all “Fingers crossed!”, which isn’t very reassuring.

On top of all of this, it has now been six and half years since the release of Anthrax’s last album, We’ve Come for You All. The last time anyone waited this long for a new record by an allegedly not-defunct band, it was Chinese Democracy.

Difference is, we finally got to hear Chinese Democracy, and now it looks like we’ll probably never hear Worship Music - at least, not in any official capacity.

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The other day Reign in Blonde reported that Meshuggah’s ObZen (among other albums) was available for only $5 as part of Amazon’s 100 Albums for $5 promotion, but today we can do you one better; The LimeWire Store has an entirely free download of the song “Combustion” from Meshuggah’s new live album Alive, which came out yesterday. Take that, blonde lasses!

I know what you’re thinking; isn’t LimeWire a P2P service that’s illegal free anyway? I thought so too, but I guess they’ve moved onto bigger and better things as implied by the word “Store” in LimeWire Store.

As part of their promotion with Meshuggah, LimeWire also has an exclusive interview with guitarist Marten Hagström. That’s two goodies for the price of none.

-VN

UPDATE! From Phil LaBonte’s Twitter account:

So it sounds like Howard is just sick. Thanks to Matthew Fieger for letting us know!

Original story after the jump:

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The long-running New England Metal and Hardcore Festival in Worcester, MA has announced its 2010 lineup. If you live in or near New England it’s pretty hard to imagine skipping this event, which combines many of this Spring’s touring packages (including the bonerific Mastodon, BTBAM and Baroness run) into one giant event. According to the official NEMHF website:

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Hey, Scott Rives! Guess what? You correctly identified last week’s logo as that of romantic crooners Cunt Smash! You win a Lacuna Coil DVD! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Alrighty. Now that that’s out of the way…

This week the fine folks at Prosthetic Records have given us a copy of The Acacia Strain’s new DVD, The Most Known Unknown, to give away. I’m gonna have a review up for you soon, but the short version is, this DVD is killer. It has not one but two awesome concert films, both directed by David Brodsky, a documentary about the band and its history, a bunch of music videos, and more. It hits stores next Tuesday, February 16, but you can win one right 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 your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select a winner and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was suggested to us by MetalSucks Uber-Maniac Kirsten Ann Hogenson. Kirsten enters this goddamn contest every week (You think I don’t notice you crazy people who enter every week? Oh, I notice.), and clearly, she’s a connosieur, ’cause this one is pretty fucking unreadable…

-AR

Hello connoisseurs of heavy music and television shows,

Thank you all who thoroughly read, perused, or just kind of stared at my last blog, as well as all of you who left any form of comment. I read every single one of them and answered several of the ones that pertained to the topic. Before I start discussing the previous and upcoming episode, I would like to address just a few of the trending opinions I noticed in last week’s comments section:

Why a column on L O S T?

When the idea of doing this was presented to me, I was slightly apprehensive because it seemed a little random for a metal blog. What I’ve always like about MetalSucks, however, is that they do things differently then other metal sites (or maybe just better). While the majority of posts here are related to the current happenings in the metal community, the rest of the stuff we’re periodically subjected to appeals to our idiosyncrasies as “fans-of-heavy-music-who-probably-spend-way-too-much-time-on-the-internet.” A whole blog (or even maybe a thesis!) could be written on the social anthropology of the aforementioned group (us), but to get to my point quicker, I’m going to generalize and say that my assessment of most of you is that you’re educated, have a sense of humor, have very diverse tastes in music beyond metal, are extremely opinionated, and enjoy interacting with similar “birds of a feather.” This sites’ ability to creatively keep your interest beyond cleverly commentating on press releases, shows, albums, etc. is why I think its been doing so well, and why we all keep coming back. Simply put, its seems a lot of you can dig “off topic” stuff. With that in mind, I didn’t think it would hurt to discuss L O S T with those of you who care.

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I long ago gave up trying to keep track of the crazy batshit saga that the lyrics of Coheed & Cambria’s songs tell. I just like the music, mmmkay?

Speaking of the music, Coheed have a new song called “The Broken” currently streaming on their website (take that, MySpace!). The song comes from Coheed’s forthcoming album Year of the Black Rainbow which comes out April 13th and is the first Coheed release to feature ex-Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie.

I like the song. It’s got some pretty nifty fretwork and it’s catchy in a way that’s typical of Coheed & Cambria. I couldn’t get into 2007′s Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow as much as I did 2005′s Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (what a fuckig mouthful) but the former did have a few really solid tracks.

Don’t ask me what this new album is about and how it relates to the overall story because I don’t know and I don’t care.

-VN

Thanks: The 1 billion of you who emailed us with this news.

While White Wizzard take their show on the road all over the world and make bad-ass videos in support of their upcoming trad-metal rocker Over The Top, former members of that band are getting ready to do the same in their new project, Holy Grail. Holy Grail released the four-song Improper Burial EP this past Fall and are currently in the studio hammering out their full-length debut, Crisis in Utopia, with Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle) behind the boards. The record is due out on Prosthetic Records in late Spring.

Three tracks from the Improper Burial EP are currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page. If the full-length songs are anything like these I can’t wait to hear ‘em.

-VN

Photo credit: Alex Solca

Why would Trevor Strnad punch this kid in the face? That’s the only thing I can keep asking myself after viewing the below video, which The PRP posted last night:

I mean, it doesn’t seem like the kid did anything that warrants a punch, other than touch Strnad. But Strnad’s the lead singer of a metal band – he must be used to kids reaching out and touching him while he’s on stage all the time, right? So was Strnad just startled, and his karate action punch mechanism kicked in on instinct? When we interviewed him last year, he seemed like the most laid-back dude in the world. But that was a ten minute interview – it’s not like I know the guy. So maybe I’m just making excuses for him ’cause I wanna like him.

In any case, watch for The Black Dahlia Murder to tour with Marduk sometime soon.

-AR

Decapitated have been roaming the UK for the past week for their first tour with their newly minted lineup. Though the new members of Decapitated had some pretty big shoes to fill — not that stepping in for dead or injured band members is ever easy — I think that most Decapitated fans are pretty curious and optimistic about how this new lineup will play out.

MS reader Seb S. was at last night’s show at the O2 Academy Islington in London, the final show of their 8-date UK trek with Kataklysm (Kataklysm skipped this London show). Seb filmed the first two songs of the set and was kind enough to upload his handiwork and send us a link.

So far so good, I guess? It’s always hard to tell from these fan-filmed videos, but the band sounds tight. It looks they’re having a good time and the audience does too.

-VN

If you loved Daath’s The Concealers as much as we did – and both Vince and myself included the album fairly highly on our 2009 year-end lists – than you’ll be as excited as we are to learn that there’s a buttload of activity going on in the Daath camp right now. For one thing, guitarist/MetalSucks columnist Eyal Levi and guitarist Emil Werstler have completed a solo/side album with Cynic’s Sean Reinert playing drums, and while we haven’t heard that record yet, we know people who have, and those people have good taste, and they assure it’s awesome. As though there were any doubt that it would be.

If that wasn’t enough, Daath have no apparently begun the songwriting process for their next release. I’m so stoked to see where Daath go from here, I can’t even tell you – The Concealers was a major evolutionary leap forward from the band’s first album, The Hinderers, and I’d wager we’re gonna get something pretty different once again. In fact, the band has said as much.

But why take my word for it? Here’s a lengthy statement from the band giving you the skinny on all their various goings-on:

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Last night it was announced that drummer Brad Fickeisen is out of The Red Chord, but we had no idea why he was out of The Red Chord. Well, Brad just e-mailed us the following statement explaining the split:

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Oh, sure, we’ve done Jew on Jew with a half-Jew and a dude who has spent a lot of time in Israel and is a self-proclaimed “bad Jew,” but Orphaned Land vocalist Kobi Farhi? The dude is FROM Israel! He calls himself a “proud Jew!” With all due respect to Eyal and Mookie, on the Jew scale they can’t even touch Kobi. Hell, the guy has probably forgotten more about Judaism than Vince or myself ever even knew.

With Orphaned Land’s excellent new album, The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR, out today on Century Media, now seemed like the perfect time to pick Kobi’s brain about all things Jew-y. After the jump, get Kobi’s thoughts on everything from serving in the Israeli military to the conflict in the Middle East to frum porn. L’chaim!

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How does he do it? Between writing and recording four albums, touring, producing, taking over our site for an entire day and being a proud Canadian family man, Devin Townsend somehow still found time to do a remix of Rammstein’s track “Rammlied” from their oftentimes pornographic 2009 release Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da.

Rammstein are always good for some fun headbanging as is Mr. Townsend, and thankfully the results are as good in reality as they might seem on paper. Stream Devin’s remix, entitled “Rammlied: ‘Rammin’ The Steins’ Remix” below. The remix is actually one of four remixed tracks from Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da that are all included as “B sides” on the digital single for “Ich Tu Dir Weh,” available today on iTunes.

For more fun with Rammstein remixes check out this and this.

-VN

[this promotion has ended]

Brian Posehn is easily one of the funniest stand-up comedians alive. I have never missed a chance to go see him live, and he has – quite literally – made me fall out of my chair from laughing so hard. Add to that the fact that the dude loves metal, and, well, he’s just so damn sexy I can’t handle it.

Posehn is the only comedian I’m aware of currently signed to Relapse Records. He’s that fucking metal. And he’s going to release another album through that label, entitled Fart and Wiener Jokes, on April 27. That too-small image above is the cover art, which is absolutely fucking EPIC.

Needless to say, I am insanely excited about this album, which, in addition to some sure-to-be uproarious comedy, is going to feature two songs – “More Metal Than You” (!!!) and a cover of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) – which will feature guest spots by Posehn’s buddy Scott Ian, Jamey Jasta, Mark Morton, John Tempesta, Russ Parrish, and, according to a press release, “more.”

So clearly, this is gonna own all our asses in April. You can pre-order the album in a variety of nifty packages here.

And I think I’ve posted this before, but it never gets old so fuck it:

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