If not, you’re seriously missing out.

After is easily my favorite thing released so far in 2010, up there with Shining’s Blackjazz… with whom Ihsahn shares a saxaphone player, interestingly enough. Those expecting black metal akin to Ihsahn’s Emperor alma mater should look elsewhere, because you definitely won’t find that here. I find the music on After to be uncategorizeable other than just “metal” and [perhaps] distinctly Scandinavian. It’s avant garde, it’s experimental, it’s deep and it’s complex yet catchy and accessible, but it doesn’t come close to fitting into any pre-defined niche. It’s just really, really fucking good music, the kind you just know is the result of intense scrutiny of every single sound and note.

Check Sammy O’ Hagar’s glowing review of After as well as his fascinating interview with the man himself.

Ihsahn’s only got one song from the new album up on his MySpace page (“The Barren Lands,” all the way at the bottom of the player), but even this one song gives a good taste of what After is about (though by no means summarizes it).

-VN

I’d like to argue that basement black metal gets a bad rap, but, really, it doesn’t. Though the “genre“ – mostly consisting of one-man bands of wildly varying musical ability recording almost painfully lo-fi, Burzum-inspired black metal – has its share of visionaries too brilliant/socially retarded to work with others, it is, as you would expect, by and large full of dudes who desperately need an editor and/or collaborator to hone/help shape their raw talent (or to tell them to cut it the fuck out and try something else/get a job). In the end, just because you’re one dude that likes black metal, it doesn’t mean you can in-and-of-yourself be a worthwhile band. But of course, in the MySpace era, any dude can lay down something he thinks is brilliant, upload it, get himself a Metal Archives page, and become a contemporary instead of an awkward admirer. No “band” has better typified, for better or worse, basement black metal than Xasthur, a horrifying, dissonant, almost comically bleak collective that provide the prolific soundtrack to sole member Malefic’s personal hell. At best, it’s brutally unflinching, disturbing, surprisingly well-crafted, and FASCINATING; at worst, it meanders endlessly, borders on unlistenable, and is painfully dull. And Xasthur’s latest, 2005 Demo, sheds light on the best and worst Malefic has to offer.

Click to read more…

A website whose sole purpose is to compare the brutality of moshpits, one on one, seems like a pretty good idea. And it is!

The only problem with the appropriately named CompareTheMoshpit.com is that the comparing never actually amounts to anything; you choose one photo over the other, the page refreshes with two new moshpit photos, repeat. You can view how many “wins” each photo has by looking at the “Mosh Pits of the Day” section, but it’d be way cooler if there were a ranking system similar to the one on the old HotOrNot.com. And then there’s the fact that at its core this website is just a front for GigJunkie.com, designed to get you to “get off your arse and find a real moshpit” and search for shows in your area.

But beggars can’t be choosers… looking at pictures of brutal moshpits all day is still pretty fucking fun. Head on over to CompareTheMoshpit.com and get you some.

-VN

You guys know about Tiger Flowers already, right?

The good gents in one of NYC’s best, noisiest and most esoteric up and coming metal bands have offered us an exclusive stream of their brand new track “The Last Horse.” Check it out in all its cacophonous glory below, then check out some of the band’s other material on their MySpace page. Tiger Flowers go on a mini-tour of the Northeast starting on February 17th; their raucous live show is not to be missed.

-VN

[this promotion has ended]

A couple weeks ago, those fine young fellas over at Crustcake recently invited me to talk about metal for their hour-long podcast–aptly titled “The Crustcast.” Hosted by The WZAd, the interviewees for this virtual roundtable included Fred “Black Bubblegum” Pessaro from BrooklynVegan and Crustcaker Sean Walsh. Topics included the lineup of the Scion Rock Fest, the Southern Lord vinyl subscription series, and why Mastodon sucks. The sound quality is a bit odd, and the voices sound a bit robotic, but it’s easy to follow along.

Click here to download the link and listen!

-GS

I once declared the acepella metal group Van Canto to be the worst band in metal today, and while I suppose there might be some hyperbole in that statement, I stand by my assertion that they lick dog shit and like it. Why? Because they just take themselves so seriously, and are trying so hard, and seem so lame… like the nerdy kids in high school just trying so very hard to make the jocks think that acapella is cool. And believe you me, I’m not jock, but I know that acapella isn’t cool – and becomes even less so when you start making “metal” and/or American Idol contestant-esque hand movements, or make the decision that, say, rather than just sing the riff from “Battery,” you’re actually gonna sing the word “Battery” to the melody of the riff. Ugh.

But reader Chris Catharsis (which I suspect is not his real name) sent us a link to the below video of some dude named Dan-Elias Brevig doing an acapella version of Mesuggah’s “Bleed,” and while it ain’t goin’ on my iPod anytime soon, I still think it’s pretty sweet. For one thing, it’s just one dude who did all the parts by himself, which obviously takes a lot of talent. For another thing, there’s zero cheese factor or affectation here, and this guy gets that singing “Bleed-bl-bleed-bl-bleed-bl-bleed-bl-bleed-bl-bleed-bl-bleed-bl-bleed-bleed-bleed” would be terrible idea.

Watch the clip below and then feel free to try and defend Van Canto in the comments section – although you should be forewarned, I really can’t take any defense of Van Canto too seriously. ‘Cause they’re awful.

-AR

-AR

[Sent in by Nathan Werp via TotallyLooksLike.com]

We all hear how the metal was murdered by grunge, with the newly grave listening public as its willing accomplice. A competing theory is that metal essentially committed suicide, or at any rate fell into disrepair, enabling a transfer of power to guys who moan about their unyielding feelings of injustice and unhappiness. Either way, it’s sad, especially for people who think rock radio should like be fun and shit, instead of being packed with nominally tuneful inventories of jock neuroses.

Click to read more…

I don’t mind telling you I’m not in a great mood this morning. Luckily for everyone who comes into contact with me, Blabbermouth posted footage last night of Cephalic Carnage doing an instrumental version of a new song, so I might actually make it until at least lunch before I arbitrarily execute a MetalSucks Mansion Monkey to burn off some steam.

But the song. Well, it sounds pretty sweet, even if I never would have guessed it was Cephalic Carnage – the beginning section, especially, sounds kinda different to these weary ears. I’ll be stoked to see how it sounds with vocals.

Fingers crossed, we’re getting a new Cephalic Carnage album later this year…

-AR

An impassioned email from a reader reacting to my post about Shadows Fall covering “Bark at the Moon” the other day got me thinking that this would be a fun poll to conduct. The reader, David H., vehemently believes that Jake E. Lee was Ozzy’s best guitarist and thinks everything Zakk Wylde has done has been mediocre at best. If you’re a regular reader of this site you should know how we feel on the matter, but we want to know what YOU feel! So tell us.

For the sake of this poll, only guitarists who actually appeared on Ozzy recordings count. So no Joe Holmes, and sorry, no Gus G. (yet) either.

n

Want.

-VN

Thanks: Aaron Surber

Not that this really has anything to do with anything, but Blabbermouth reported over the weekend that Max Cavalera and his wife/manager Gloria are selling their Phoenix home (above) – which is 2,794-square-feet and has five bedrooms and three and half baths – for a list price of $1.475 million.

Now, Max’s musical output over the past ten years has been really solid, so he’s obviously not one of these rich dudes who has fallen out of touch and now makes art that is wholly irrelevant. And I know that taxes n’ shit will take a large chunk of whatever he and his wife end up making from the sale. Still, I no longer feel guilty about the fact that I never bought any Cavalera Conspiracy merch.

Also, the value of this home is still only, like, 1/100th of that of the MetalSucks Mansion. I actually tracked Vince down in Egypt and suggested we buy this home under the condition that Max be at the closing so we could meet him, but Vince, ever frugal, told me I should place an interview request through his publicist instead. What a party pooper.

If you’re wealthy and want to capitalize on Vince’s mistake, you can get more info on buying this luscious pad here.

-AR

So I woke up Saturday morning and went to Metal Hammer to download my free mp3 of Trivium’s cover of Sepultura’s “Slave New World,” only to find that the song was only avail to U.K. readers. Bollocks! Luckily it was all over the net within hours, and for once I felt no Jewish guilt about downloading it, since the band was giving it away for free anyways.

And now, of course, the track is on YouTube. You can check it out below. I’m not a huge fan of covers in general but Trivium certainly didn’t fuck it up; it sounds exactly like Trivium covering Sepultura. Check it out below. And if you don’t know the original, well, what the fucking fuck is wrong with you?

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

Some thoughts:

1. Suffocation is far too legendary a band for anyone to use any variation on the word “suffocate” ever again. I don’t care how you spell it. Not helping: that Suffocation are still active, still awesome, and probably more talented than 99% of their death metal peers from any generation, ever.
2. Why the fuck would you ever spell it “Suffokate?”
3. Having the singer rise out of the water at the beginning of the video doesn’t look cool when you can blatantly see that he was never even fully underwater.
4. If your ear gauges are so big I can stick my fist through them, they’re too big.
5. If the most distinctive thing about your band is that I can stick my first through your singer’s ear gauges, you’re in trouble.

-AR

I’m sorry to say it because I love the band so much, but Killswitch Engage should get the blame for spawning a generation — nay, now TWO generations — of shitty, terrible, god awful bands like A Late Night Serenade. Much like the case of Faith No More and rap-metal it’s an unfortunate byproduct of something that at least in theory was really cool. Maybe some day someone should make a list like that, of good bands who unwittingly spawned terrible sub-genres. Hmmm…

-VN

Thanks: Bryan

Both Vince and myself were stoked to see Eluveitie bring back the heavy when they posted “Kingdom Come Undone,” a new track from their forthcoming album Everything Remains (As it Never Was) last month. Now the entire album is streaming, and as Vince put it, “Eluveitie are letting the metal world know loud and clear that their 2009 all-acoustic record was just an experiment and that the band we heard on Slania is the real Eluveitie.”

Everything Remains (As it Never Was) comes out February 19 on Nuclear Blast. You can stream it here.

-AR

As I’ve stated many times in the past, I’m a huge fan of Guy Kozowyk’s lyrics. So I know the words to The Red Chord’s “Demoralizer” pretty well, and I think I have a pretty good understanding of the meaning – or at least a meaning – of the song. And I think I understand the meaning – or at least a meaning – of the new video for the song, which recently debuted on Bloody Disgusting.

What I don’t entirely understand is how the meaning of the song, at least as I understand it, and the meaning of the video, at least as I understand it, intersect. And I’m not sure that they intersect in an obvious, linear way – I know that Kozowyk is a big fan of double and triple meanings.

But I’m willing to watch this video dozens of more times to try and figure it out. Director David Brodsky found a pretty awesome way to ensure that the performance footage wouldn’t just be the same old same old, and artist Tim Kellen – who has previously collaborated with Brodsky on the videos for Suffocation’s “Cataclysmic Purification” and Born of Osiris’ “Now Arise” – created animation (which serves as narrative aspect of the clip) that is grimey and gritty and unique and distinctly “home made,” for lack of a better term. And Bloody Disgusting says that Kellen “used charcoal, meat, grape jelly, and chicken-guts in his illustrations,” which is metal as fuck.

So even if the exact “meaning” of the video isn’t of importance to you… well, you’ll probably still enjoy this video, because a) the song is great and b) visually it’s incredibly stimulating, and puts 99% of other recent metal videos to shame.

The Red Chord are currently headlining the MetalSucks co-sponsored Burgers & Bowling Tour with My Children My Bride, Chelsea Grin and Those Who Lie Beneath. Get the remaining dates after the jump!

Click to read more…

Cannibal Corpse are one of death metal’s founding fathers and the most br00tal band in the history of br00tality. And they just keep getting better with age: their latest album, Evisceration Plague, may be their best yet.

MetalSucks is proud to be teaming up with Decibel to present The Evisceration Plague Tour, Cannibal Corpse’s first headlining run since they destroyed the Hot Topic stage on 2009’s Rockstar Mayhem Festival. And with support coming from 1349, Skeletonwitch, and Lecherous Nocturne, these shows are guaranteed to fuck crowds all over North America with a knife, making them suffer and cum blood, leaving them stripped, raped and strangled, disfigured with hammer smashed faces, a skull full of maggots and their decency defiled. PHEW!

Seriously, these shows are gonna kill. (SHIT, I DID IT AGAIN!) Pre-sale tickets and VIP Premium Packages will be available through Artist Arena starting this Wednesday, Feb. 17th at 3 PM local time, while supplies last. Get complete dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

I had no idea that this was even an option.

-AS

I’m a Paul Baloff guy myself, but Steve “Zetro” Souza is still a legend – with all due respect to Rob Dukes, Souza is really the only guy besides Paul Baloff who could ever be thought of as the singer Exodus. I don’t know much about the circumstances surrounding his departure from the band (either time), but I guess it was amicable, ’cause he jumped on stage to do “Toxic Waltz” with the band last week in San Francisco. Check it out:

Souza’s last album with the band was 2004′s Tempo of the Damned. I’m sure this will start rumors that he’s about to come back again (again), but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

-AR

Thanks to all the old men who figured out how to use their grandson’s e-mail just so they could tell me about this.