Although at first glance at this photo makes it appear as though Ol Drake is stroking a massive hard-on, that’s actually a garbage bin just behind him. Alas, he was not that excited to be speaking with Axl Rosenberg.

Whatever the hell it is we’re calling Evile’s particular metallica subgenre these days – retro thrash, rethrash, nu thrash, or just plain old motherfucking thrash – they’re one of the better bands playing it right now. Like only a handful of their peers, they really seem to “get” the music – and so while their roots as a Metallica cover band might show, it doesn’t really matter ’cause, well, who can think about that shit while headbanging so damn hard?

It’s been a tumultuous time for the band as of late – founding bassist Mike Alexander passed away in October of last year – but they’ve managed to persevere, and now find themselves doing pretty much the best first North American tour any non-American (in this case, British) band could hope for: playing support for Kreator along with Voivod, Nachtmystium, and Lazarus A.D. And as if that wasn’t enough, almost immediately thereafter they hit the road with Overkill. Sheesh.

Following the band’s gig here in New York last weekend, I got to speak with guitarist Ol Drake, who, despite his almost Heavy Metal Muppet-ish appearance, is a very cordial, soft-spoken gentleman. After the jump, get Ol’s thoughts on playing the States for the first time, why it’s taken them so damn long to get here, new bassist Joel Graham, the status of the next Evile record, and more.

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The contest portion of the Scion No Label Needed Contest and Series is over! Earlier today our friends over at Metal Insider announced Iron Thrones as the winners. The band will now be mentored by Shadows Fall, record an EP that will be produced by The Machine Shop’s Will Putney and Machine, have new merch and website designs created for them, and much more. The band’s ongoing journey will be documented in both videos and (web) print, so hopefully all you other would-be metal stars can continue to learn a little sumpin’ sumpin’ for this whole shebang. So congrats to the dudes in Iron Thrones! Their victory is well-earned, and we’re sure a certain MetalSucks instigator is very pleased.

And on somewhat of a side note, we’d like to remind you that many other excellent bands participated in this contest. Each MetalSucks staff writer selected one to endorse; you can read those blogs here. There’s always more great unsigned bands out in the world…

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Whoops, wrong kind of wasp.

W.A.S.P. are on tour right now. W.A.S.P. were supposed to play here in NYC last Thursday night. Even though DEP and Shrinebuilder were playing that very same evening, W.A.S.P. somehow managed to wrangle in five-hundred fans for their gig. So what did W.A.S.P. do? W.A.S.P. canceled their show at the very last second, when most concert goers were apparently already at the venue. Nice going, W.A.S.P.

But now W.A.S.P. have released a statement regarding W.A.S.P.’s cancellation. And W.A.S.P. apparently like to see W.A.S.P.’s own band name written out a lot. Take a look for yourself:

Click to read more…

Not that I trust the opinion of Ben Ratliff more than I do my main man Vince – but while he’s still doing this whole Heavy Metal Road Trip thang, we probably ain’t gonna get a proper review of the show.

So it’s Mr. Ratliff at the New York Times to the rescue! This being the Paper of Record, a lot of the prose is pretty flowery (and by “flowery,” I mean “bordering on pretentious and meaningless”), but it still gives you some sense of how the show went down. Here’s an excerpt:

“What a generation ago would be called hardcore punk is now routinely a part of metal festivals, slotted in as grindcore. Magrudergrind, a trio from Washington, brought a fantastic standard of it: speeding, screaming bullets of songs, squalid and economical two-beat frenzies with quick turns and no bass player. (They don’t need one.) This was at Circus, a smaller club. But over in the smallest of the four — the tiny, dingy basement club Bernie’s Distillery — the Texas black-metal band Absu was going at it with dark eye makeup, horror-house gothic vocals and no letup in its music’s clattery, narrow, obsessive drive. Metal is deep and wide. Between this and Yob lay two miles of college-town strip and an aesthetic galaxy.”

Read the rest here.

-AR

Let’s work out a deal.

We’re ’bout to hit up Pancake Pantry for breakfast in Nashvegas. Today we make a pit stop in Memphis then roll down to Little Rock.

Here’s how it’ll go down.

Us:
- lots of beer and bourbon
- an awesome METAL tour bus
- a grill, food
- cool dudes, smiles

you:
- in or around little rock, Arkansas
- a spot for us to park our bus
- a desire to party
- optional: herbal accoutrements, ladies, dignity, local treats

Interested? Email vince at metalsucks dot net.

-VN

Readers Matthew Mitchell and DruM both sent me a link to this Fox News interview with Ben Weinman, Greg Puciato, and Liam Wilson from The Dillinger Escape Plan. Needless to say, the joksters in DEP keep it entertaining – and bonus points to Puciato for his explanation of why Bill O’Reilly is a great inspiration to his vocals. (And if you don’t know what incident Puciato is referring to here, watch this.)

The video isn’t embeddable, but you can watch it by clicking on the screen cap below!

And by the way, in case you’re the only person in the world who doesn’t know this, DEP’s new album, Option Paralysis, is March 23. That’s just out one week from tomorrow!

-AR

I wish I could find video of this somewhere, but I seem to recall a red carpet interview with Robert Downey, Jr. at last week’s Oscars, where the interviewer told him there was a rumor that Ozzy Osbourne wanted Downey to play him in a movie. The reviewer asked if Downey would ever consider such a role; Downey deferred to his wife, producer Susan Downey, who replied “It all depends on the script,” which is Hollywood-speak for “It all depends on how much money they offer us.”

At the time this all struck me as “What if?” talk – but now Metal Underground is reporting a rumor that Ozzy is “in talks with several studios” about turning his recent (and, much to my disbelief, apparently quite good) autobiography, I Am Ozzy, into a feature film.

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In a way, you’re jealous of ME…..because not only did I attend this past weekend’s Scion Rock Fest in Columbus, Ohio (where a 98-lb girl almost entered comasville under our watch…..you know who you are!) and am currently in a frickin tour bus on a Heavy Metal Road Trip to clusterfuck extraordinaire South by Southwest in “weird” Austin, Texas.

BUT in another way I am most definitely jealous of YOU (assuming you live in the New York area), because this very week in your otherwise meaningless amazing life you my friend have a rare (and hopefully getting less rare) chance to see the suuuuper-sweet progressive post-hardcore band of misfit musical marauders GOSPEL.

And this is not to be taken lightly.

So swagger (don’t saunter) to Chipsterville this Friday the 19th and check these bros out at Death by Audio in Brooklyn, USA — you shan’t be disappointed.

Visit Gospel on OurSpace.

-KW

I’ve been skeptical of Vince’s recent enthusiasm for the new Ratt record, Infestation; unlike my very good friend, I wasn’t knocked out by the first single, “Best of Me,” and, well, let’s be real. Old hair metal bands don’t suddenly release awesome records in the 21st century. Just ask Motley Crue, Poison, or Warrant. It’s like these dudes all forgot how to write a catchy hard rock anthem once they turned 40.

But now that I’m actually sitting here listening to Infestation, I gotta say: wow, these dudes really did pull it off! This album sounds like it came out circa 1987 without sounding like it’s trying to sound like it came out circa 1987 (the mistake so many of these bands make). If you never liked Ratt, Infestation probably won’t do much to change your mind – but if you were a fan back in the day, this album kicks serious ass.

The question is, how the heck do you promote an album like this in 2010? Ratt have virtually no peers with which to tour – I mean, they could do a nostalgia tour with one of their peers, but seeing as L.A. Guns are only gonna bring in like ten people, why bother?

And so, like a voice drifting through the night, the answer comes: “Do a U.S. tour with Scorpions.”

Brilliant. BRILLIANT, I say!!!

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‘Cause the doctors says Is needs to gos ons a diets. Nos mores chocolates chip pancakes for mes! EBIL!!!

-NC

I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but here in New York, it’s “Time to build an ark”-type rain. I don’t think I’ll be venturing outside much. Which means lots and lots of time to smoke.

So what song better to smoke to than “Dopesmoker,” which a) has the activity right there in the title, b) is the greatest middle finger ever held up by an artist to a major record label,  and c) is over an hour long and will therefore still be playing by the time I need a refresher? Sure, it’s a little cliché, but some things are clichés for a reason, y’know?

Here’s part one. Parts two through seven are after the jump.

-AR

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So Vince is now out of town. Again. Luckily, we really do take after our namesakes; he loves to be out there among the people, partying like he might die tomorrow, and I am a grumpy, mean-spirited recluse. So expect lots of Axl crankiness next week.

In the meantime, here are some things that happened this week:

• Genetic’s Dallas Coyle discussed the importance of positive thinking, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa pondered the various timelines on L O S T, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable listed the five raddest sets of teeth in metal, Eyal Levi from Daath and Levi/Werstler wondered if anyone cares about guitar solos, and adult film actress Bobbi Starr told us the ten metal bands she wishes would gangbang her.
• We debuted new music by The Dillinger Escape Plan, Landmine Marathon, and Jucifer.
• MetalSucks readers interviewed Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne and Vince interviewed Sevendust’s Clint Lowery.
• Sammy O’Hagar reviewed Ov Hell’s The Underworld Regime.
• Is Nergal from Behemoth going to jail for destroying a Bible?
• The singer from DragonForce is available for a White Lion reunion.
• We raged against “Rage.”

And that’s it! Next week will see the debut of our irritating new list, as well as some other fun shit. Have a nice weekend…

-AR

How many of you actually listen to guitar solos? How many of you actually pay attention to the musicianship involved in a project? How important is that for you? I’m curious to hear about this from musicians’ and non-musicians’ perspectives.  I know that for me, as a listener, amazing technicality alone is only interesting for about two minutes, and then my mind wanders.

Actually, it’s more like ten seconds now. When I was a teenager learning to play guitar (still learning, by the way), I could stomach shred records in doses. Usually, there would be that one cool track where it was obvious that some feeling and time went into the composition. The rest of the album would be wank filler. There’s some exceptions, like the first Yngwie record or Jason Becker’s Perpetual Burn, but by and large that is a boring-ass genre. I can’t geek out to that stuff. I don’t care about the Olympics, let alone the Guitar Olympics. Boring!

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That’s what it says on the MySpace page of Denver grindcore outfit Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire. Vince dispatched a MetalSucks Mansion Monkey to the Axl Annex this morning to tell me to check these dudes out, and, y’know… good call, Vince! I’m really digging this band. And between the above quote and the fact that they list “Walking away from the human race” as their primary influence, it’s obvious that they share a life philosophy with a certain cranky metal blogger.

Clinging to the Tress of a Forest Fire just signed to Prosthetic, and will be playing the MetalSucks co-sponsored Prosthetic Records Showcase at SXSW next week. Hopefully Vince will return with reports of a killer live show that matches the energy of their recorded music. While we wait to find out, you can give Clinging to the Tress of a Forest Fire here.

-AR

I think I’ve mentioned like a bajillion times already that my favorite song on my favorite album of 2009, The Red Chord’s Fed Through the Teeth Machine, is “Hour of Rats.” And because sometimes life is a bitch, I haven’t gotten to see the band since that album was released, and, consequently, have yet to see a live performance of the song. But those hep cats at Metal Injection got some live footage of the band during a recent stop on the MetalSucks sponsored Burgers & Bowling Tour, and so now at least I can live vicariously through a camera.

This is also the first live footage we’ve seen of the band since original drummer Mike Justian returned to the fold. Needless to say, it sounds like he’s doing a pretty good job.

You can watch more footage from this show at Metal Injection.

And there are still three dates left on the Burgers & Bowling tour! Get ‘em after the jump! If you have a chance to go see these guys live, you definitely need to!

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Coheed and Cambria have released a video for the song “The Broken,” and all I can say is, WOW. It’s awesome! Bram Teitelman at Metal Insider really hits the nail on the head when he says that the video “looks like Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Matrix had a baby with a video game.” Yes, Bram. A video game I want to play very, very badly.

“The Broken” comes off of C&C’s new album, Year of the Black Rainbow, which is out April 13 on Columbia.

-AR

Reader Kenny Smith sent us the below Metallica/50 Cent mash-up, opining “If only rap metal had been like this!” Kenny thinks “It’s all in the timing. 50′s delivery matches up so well with the accented downbeats.”

Aaaaannnndddd… I hate this. Sorry, Kenny. Maybe I’m just an old man who doesn’t wanna hear anything over the “Master” riff besides, well, “Master,” but this just makes my skin itch.

I am impressed with Fiddy’s use of the phrase “savoir faire,” though.

-AR

Oh man. This is gonna be such a complete shitshow. Earlier today Kip posted about our pending Midwest / Southern adventure… and yeah, shit’s gonna be nuts. Here’s how it’s gonna go down! (Kip… you taking notes?)

This afternoon, Kip Wingerschmidt and I will fly to Columbus, OH. We’ll have one night of relative calm before the shitstorm really hits at tomorrow’s Scion Rock Fest (download a nifty one-page printable schedule here), featuring Cannibal Corpse, Shrinebuilder, Voivod, Absu, Brutal Truth and a ton more brutality. Sometime tomorrow Anton Oyvey, Rich Hallford and friend O’ MetalSucks Mark Lafayowitz will arrive from Indianapolis, where they’ll have just stopped in to pick up The Beast (pictured), a truck that’s been retrofitted as a tour bus. On Sunday morning we’ll start our road trip down to Austin, TX for SXSW. On the way we’ll be stopping/drinking/bourboning/steaking/grilling/partying in the following cities:

Sunday: Bardstown, KY + Nashville, TN
Monday: Memphis, TN, Little Rock, AR
Tuesday: Dallas, TX
Wednesday-Sunday: Austin, TX (SXSW)

We’ll be Twittering, Flipcamming and updating from the road. Be sure to holler at us if you have any recommendations for places to eat, beverages to drink, herbal supplements to supply or sites to see. Kip & I will be holding it down for MetalSucks in SXSW at both MetalSucks-sponsored events — Full Metal Texas and the Prosthetic Records Showcase — so look for us there and, of course, at tons of other shows as well (MetalSucks-approved SXSW schedule here!).

After the jump…. the tour bus’s fortress of solitude…

-VN

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Earlier this week, MS reader “seasonswithered” e-mailed us about a story Nightline recently did about Insane Clown Posse, and, specifically, if they’re responsible for Juggalos who have committed violent crimes over the course of the past few years. seasonswithered promised that if we watched the video, “For the first time, you’ll be on [ICP's] side,” and now that I finally have gotten around to watching it, I can say that seasonswithered is right.

Don’t get me wrong: this music is terrible, and ridiculous, and the dudes in ICP are clearly only slightly smarter than an amoeba. But blaming them because some of their (even) less intelligent fans may have taken their lyrics too seriously is on par with blaming Ozzy Osbourne ’cause some kid shot himself, or Marilyn Manson for Columbine, or take your pick of times metal has been unfairly held responsible for some heinous act. If it turned out that there was a serial killer who turned out to be a huge fan of Cannibal Corpse, would you wanna see George Fisher and Alex Webster strung up by their toes? Of course not.

In other words: I may not respect what ICP does, but I respect their right to do it.

Check out the Nightline report below and see what you think.

-AR

Back in October, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Amber Valentine, the formidable vocalist and guitarist behind the nomadic metal duo Jucifer. Towards the end of the exchange, she mentioned that the band was due to go into the studio in December to follow-up 2008′s crushing concept album L’Autrichienne. Well, Jucifer did just that, and I’m psyched to say that we’re offering the exclusive debut of a track from this new record Throned In Blood.

Exemplary of the sanguinary severity of the forthcoming album, “Contempt” thrashes and grinds with crushing guitars, desperately rasped vocals, and Edgar Livengood’s pounding drums. As usual, the style is difficult to define, with elements of sludge metal, noise rock, and even black metal all swirling in a thick pool of crimson sound. It’s pretty incredible, if you ask me. But don’t just take my word for it; TAKE A LEAK!

DOWNLOAD: JUCIFER – “CONTEMPT”

Throned In Blood will be out April 6th on Jucifer’s own new label Nomadic Fortress, and you can get the CD from their former label Relapse. Vinyl junkies will be able to snag this one on wax from Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles (which gave L’autrichienne the vinyl treatment), though pre-orders are not being taken just yet.

-GS