At what point do we get tired of “math-y, downtuned, Meshuggah-worshipping tech metal that gives boners to dudes like this“? Soon. Very soon. But at least for the time being it seems like the saturation point for said bands hasn’t quite been reached and there’s a remarkable amount of variation between these bands that sets (most of) them apart from one another. RXYZYXR aren’t the most original band on the planet but there’s just enough uniqueness to keep their music interesting. In a micro-genre where “bass” is a four letter word, I really dig some of the stuff their bass player is doing here.

Shelby Cobras of Illogical Contraption tells us that RXYZYXR are looking for a vocalist and they’re giving away their entire demo for free to help the process. Smart! Though the band resides in Sweden they promise via a message on their MySpace page that “The most part of work is remote,” which would seem to indicate that any potential vocalist could live anywhere. A band giving away their music for free in search of a remote vocalist… this is the future, my friends.

-VN

THE ANDREW W.K. CONSPIRACY INVESTIGATION CONTINUES!

Following Andrew W.K.’s apparent confession that the rumors are true and that there have, indeed, been multiple men who assumed the mantle of Mr. Party Hard, and then Vince’s incredibly confusing interview with Mr. W.K., our friend Dan Rodriguez from Metal Insider (who has played his own unique role in this saga) decided he was going to live-blog from AWK’s public Q&A session at Santos Party House here in NYC tomorrow night – and he has graciously invited me to join him. So if you don’t live in the area or are just too lazy to attend, you can read all of our coverage in real time right here starting tomorrow at 7 pm EST.

My guess is that, as with all things involving this increasingly bizarre story, the event is going to be totally hilarious and incredibly confusing. Tune in to get our thoughts!

-AR

In a triumph of e-nerd high fivery, an Internet campaign launched earlier this month to garner a simple (but delicious) dill pickle more Facebook fans than Nickelback reached its goal last Friday and now stands at more than 1.45 million fans. Metal Insider‘s Bram Teitelman goes inside the bun for the report:

Since Roadrunner is Nickelback’s label, and fellow Roadrunner band Killswitch Engage is temporarily without frontman Howard Jones, we think the pickle should replace All That Remains’ Phil Labonte for the remainder of the tour. I for one would pay good money to see Dillswitch Engage. Seriously, who doesn’t like Vlasic rock? I mean, what’s the dill-io with Howard Jones anyway? Roadrunner is stating that the tour will continue with Labonte, but it seems like the band has gotten themselves into quite a pickle. They should totally be relishing this tour, but suddenly things aren’t kosher.

Bravo Bram and bravo Internet. What’s Nickelback got to say about all of this? Hopefully they aren’t half sour.

-VN

I actually haven’t watched a single minute of the Winter Olympics because I was in Egypt for the first week or so and I don’t have a TV anyway. But I love the Winter Olympics and greatly prefer them to the Summer ones… sports like ski jumping, ice luge and hockey are way more badass than lame-o running and swimming. During the Winter Olympics’ last go-round in 2006 I watched a whole lot of events including curling, a curious sport favored by our Canadian neighbors that I find fascinating. And I made a discovery: the Swedish women’s curling team is HOT, dude. And then I made another discover which I was reminded of yesterday via Facebook (apparently a TV announcer gave it a shout-out): Hammerfall made this awesome alternate video for “Hearts on Fire” with said smokin’ hot curling broads. Metal vs. Curling… who will win out??

-VN

Man, I love you guys sometimes.

On Friday at 4:30 pm I requested that someone to please take The Dillinger Escape Plan’s recent live cover of Tears For Fears’ “Head Over Hells” and lay it over the scene where the original plays in the movie Donnie Darko.

And a little more than two hours later, Jeremy Sanchez e-mailed the me the below clip:

For being such a cool dude, Jeremy gets a free MetalSucks t-shirt. Thanks, Jeremy! I’ve been sick all weekend (and am still frickin’ sick), but this definitely brightened these otherwise phlegm-filled last few days.

After the jump, watch the original clip from Donnie Darko, on the off-chance that you’ve never seen it before.

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Vince brought the shits back with him from Egypt and in the past twenty-four hours I’ve been hit with a cold so bad that I’m probably gonna go to sleep right around the time I hit “publish” for this post. So before I pass out, here’s a run-down of what we did while Vince was playing Camel jockey:

• We spoke to Mutiny Within’s AJ Jacobs and producer/mixer Kevin Antreassian.
• As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa discussed fate versus free will on L O S T.
• We premiered “The Last Horse” by Tiger Flowers.
• We checked out new releases by Xasthur and Borknagar and read a book by Andy McCoy, too!
• Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy is recording with Avenged Sevenfold; black is white, up is down, cats love dogs.
• The new Bullet For My Valentine song makes a lot of people angry, either ’cause you had to tweet about it just to hear it or simply because it exists.
• One thing MS Suckalos seem to agree upon: Jake E. Lee was not Ozzy’s best guitar player.

Okay, NyQuil time. See ya Monday!!!

-AR

In my last blog I talked about selling out and what I really think it means. For those of you who don’t feel like reading last week’s rant, I’ll say it again: I think it means changing your sound in an unnatural direction in order to make more money. A bunch of you had opinions on this matter. I appreciated your comments. Very well thought out, and honestly a lot less mindless trashing than I was expecting.

Sometimes I write a blog and the comments are the only response I get. Sometimes I get e-mails and text messages for days with people sharing their thoughts on something I write. Well, this was one of those blogs. Who would’ve thought that a blog about selling out would get people from the metal community to share their thoughts?

Anyways, I talked about how a great record is a moment in time for the team working on it, and it can never be recreated. A friend of mine brought up the point that a great album is also a place in time for the audience receiving it.

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Songs from the Big Chair is fucking awesome, and go blow your grandmother if you disagree with me. This isn’t open to debate; either you agree with me, or you’re a sperm fondler.

The dudes in The Dillinger Escape Plan don’t fondle sperm; they fucking agree with me, because they’re awesome and I love them. (Okay, so that may not be why they agree with me, but you get my point.) They apparently covered “Head Over Heels” at a recent show, and Noisecweep (the favored metal site of people with lisps) posted it (although I somehow missed that and actually saw it at Raging Bombs this afternoon). And it’s just so fucking awesome. I really wish the band would record this a b-side. I’m not being ironic at all; I love this. It is the antithesis of this fucking bullshit, which is made by simple minded children for simple minded children.

If any of the dudes from Dillinger happen to be reading this, please, please, please make it a regular part of your set list.

Oh, and by the way, has anyone heard that DEP have a new album coming out on March 23? Just thought I’d mention it.

-AR

P.S. If anybody younger and more tech-savvy than I takes the above audio and lays it over the scene where the original plays in Donnie Darko for me, I’ll send that person a free MetalSucks t-shirt. I’m not kidding.

MS readers seemed to really like the Karnivool track we premiered last month, but AOL’s done us one better by streaming their whole damned new album in its entirety this week. Though Sound Awake has been out in the band’s native Australia for a few months it’s just getting its due here in the States and now’s your first chance to hear it legitimately.

Karnvool plan to bring their intense and reportedly visual-heavy live show to the U.S. in March including a MetalSucks-sponsored date in Austin, TX (during a certain huge music festival whose name we aren’t supposed to publish). Check out live footage of their 2010 Big Day Out performance below and get excited!

-VN

The organizers behind New York’s annual Black N Blue Bowl / Superbowl of Hardcore have been steadfastly tight-lipped about the lineup at this year’s event. Though apparently something this big can’t stay hidden very long, as Madball frontman Freddy Cricien let a few names slip at a a recent concert in Poughkeepsie, NY–and subsequently that tasty bit of hardcore intel was confirmed.

Thanks Freddy!

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If you’re a regular reader of this site by now you should know all about Mutiny Within, Roadrunner’s latest metal young guns. Their debut self-titled album comes out next Tuesday, February 23rd… and we’ll be streaming the whole thing here on Monday. In the meantime you’ll just have to take my word for it that the album is great, the perfect mix of pure American metal and Euro power written by guys with an amazing sense of songwriting for such a young set of dudes.

Mutiny Within just finished up their opening stint on the MetalSucks-sponsored Tyrants of Evil tour with Arch Enemy, Exodus and Arsis. During the tour’s final week I caught up with bassist Andrew “AJ” Jacobs to chat about the tour, the new album, the support Roadrunner has offered and what it’s like being a new band on the road.

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Into the Storm, an experimental band from Seattle, are undoubtedly skilled. Most of the riffs are excellent, and Matt Jahn’s leads on songs like “Excalibur III” are pretty inspiring. James Reeves’s drumming, while mixed badly, is clearly solid, and Brant Kay’s bass playing provides some much-needed backing power, seeing as the band only has one guitarist.

Unfortunately, the band has two serious problems:

1. Vocalist Oliver Reeves. His pipes aren’t very powerful; most of the time he just yells in a fairly generic over-the-top manner, and he doesn’t seem to possess a sense of time or rhythm. He is the weakest link in this band.
2. They have a lot of good ideas but can’t articulate them very well.

Allow me to explain further…

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Alright, so this isn’t actually Evanescence, but, rather, some Swedish band called The Murder of My Sweet. But is there any doubt who we have to thank for this garbage? All it needs it some dude who sounds like Mike Shitnoda rapping and we’d be all set.

Of all the cheap, shitty videos I’ve posted this week, this is far and away the cheapest and shittiest. My bar mitzvah video had better production values than this.

And the song isn’t even decent. So you can’t say “Well the video sucks but the band is good.” No. Hate-fuck this all right to fucking hell.

Then again, if you can say the words “I’m a goth” with a straight face and just got your first period, you’ll probably love it.

-AR

No, we’re not giving away a chance to sleep with Cristina Scabbia. As though you could even last seven-and-a-half minutes with her, Short Round.

What I’m actually referring to is the below video, sent in by longtime reader Saul Hudson. It’s just… incredible. I don’t want to give too much away because the less you know in advance the funnier this will be, but… just watch.

If for some reason you really can’t hang in there for the duration (That’s two premature ejaculation jokes in one post!), skip ahead to roughly 3:20 and watch from there. In Saul’s words, you should really just watch the entire thing.

-AR

The mighty Howl have a new album, Full of Hell, coming out on Relapse in the spring, and while we haven’t gotten to hear any of it yet, the cover art bodes incredibly well for the music it will contain:

So three cheers for Ryan Begley, who designed this. I want it on a hoodie now, motherfucker.

Howl’s Full of Hell should be out sometime in May.

-AR

I always really dig tours that match together a bunch of bands who don’t really fit into any one scene. When these kinds of bands are awkwardly placed on bills with a bunch of bands that don’t sound like them the end result is that die-hard fans of said bands don’t bother attending and those who do attend are completely uninterested. A great example of this phenomenon is the way Protest the Hero toured with one shit band after the next in support of Fortress; it wasn’t until they capped the album cycle with a headline run that I finally got to see them live.

Check out this recently announced Spring tour that groups together a bunch of such individual-minded bands: Coheed & Cambria, Torche and Circa Survive. How cool is that? All these bands sound totally different from one another but they’re united in their unwillingness to fit into any one scene. It’s a perfect fit, and for a change anyone that goes to see one specific band will probably end up digging the others too.

Coheed & Cambria and Circa Survive will both have new albums to promote, and while Torche won’t have anything new (that I’m aware of) it’ll be a great opportunity for them to spread their wings outside of their indie-metal centric fanbase. Have a look at the full list of dates after the jump.

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Dark Tranquillity’s new album, We are the Void, doesn’t come out ’til March 9, but, of course, the band is now streaming the entire album here. Go listen to it. If you don’t like it, you don’t support metal. Or something.

And don’t forget that you can still ask DT front man Mikael Stanne a question! If it’s good, he might even answer it and give your pathetic little existence meaning! GO DO IT!!!

-AR

Last year, hardcore label Bridge Nine really stepped up to show love and respect for classic NYHC when it reissued Agnostic Front’s seminal hardcore records Victim In Pain and United Blood on CD and vinyl. So when I received the following message late last night from Bridge Nine, I couldn’t help but get excited.

[W]e are proud and excited to announce the release of NYHC legends Underdog discography titled Matchless. Set to hit stores on May 18th, 2010, this comprehensive release will include both The Vanishing Point and the Demos on CD / double LP. Bassist Russ Iglay said, “This release has been a long time coming. We’re glad that it’s going to see the light of day this Spring on Bridge Nine and we can’t wait to get out there and play more shows this year!” Buzz has been re-building around the band since their performance at last year’s Burning Fight show in Chicago – expect to see Underdog on the road this summer in support of this release.

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When I sat down to watch “Tattoos and Tequila,” the new video for the title track from Vince Neil’s forthcoming solo album, I was expecting something terrible. But I gotta hand it Vince Neil – he always finds creative ways to reach new platitudes of suck. This video is ridiculous, which is fine, but you really, really need to listen to the lyrics to get the full “What the fuck?”ness of it all.

Jeff Blando (from Slaughter) does an okay job with the generic, wah-heavy guitar solo, but really, the only cool thing about this is his awesome drummer, Zoltan Chaney (no, not that douche bag). I’m obligated to tell you that the album will be out in May, but you’ve probably already forgotten what you’re reading about right now.

-AR

Welp I’m back from Egypt, meaning any posts you see from me for the next little while are actually written in realtime as opposed to the canned tripe I wrote in advance that Axl’s been posting over the past 8 days. Egypt was amazing and absolutely fucking fucknuts. I’ll do a full blog with photos about my trip in due time, but for now let’s just say I’m glad to be home where I can easily stroll to my own toilet to suffer the wrath of Ra, who has inflicted upon me a wicked case of the shits that forced this guy to run to the airplane bathroom no less than 5 times on the brutal (in a bad way) 12-hour flight home. Some kind of revenge for my people escaping the Pharaohs a few millenia ago? Who knows.

Two quick observations about Egypt (and I promise I’ll follow with more in due time):

1. I spent a night smoking “chocolate,” drinking beer and jamming the fuck out to all sorts of metal with MS Maniac Timur Redu of the Cairo-based metal band Brutus. Timur played me some of the new Brutus recordings (not yet posted on their MySpace) and they’re really fucking good. I can’t wait for you all to hear them. Big ups to Timur for being the man.
2. Easily the best / funniest moment on the entire trip: our first full day in Cairo we rented some camels and rode them to the pyramids. Juggalo Bob spent the entire ride jamming out to Nile on his headphones while looking at these amazing five thousand year-old structures… until his camel went out of control and flipped him over onto the ground like a fucking sack of potatoes. Considering the guy had spent the past 3 months talking about nothing but listening to Nile at the pyramids it was only too fitting. He lived to tell the tale and endless laughter ensued.

In honor of Juggalo Bob, who is still in Egypt, here’s some Nile. I think they wrote this song about my bowels.

-VN