Well, after the official Coachella announcement, we’ve all been impatiently waiting for the reunited Faith No More to announce some more U.S dates. Sure enough, keyboardist and active Twitterer Roddy Bottum revealed this week that a New York show would take place on Monday July 5th. Unfortunately, it’s happening at the Williamsburg Waterfront. Yes, friends, it appears that if you want to hear the band run through hits like “Epic” and “Falling To Pieces,” you’ll have to venture into the stank humid heart of hipsterdom. Tickets go on “special presale” on March 16, with a password to be provided by Mr. Bottum. So you might wanna start following him on Twitter.

Maybe it’s just me — but I suspect not — but outdoor metal shows in the summer in cities with high humidity are about as much fun as gluing your testicles to your anus. Essentially, that’s what it feels like when you’re pressed in with sweating fans of varying grasps of the benefits of personal hygiene. Combine that with obnoxious hipsters and limited access to (filthy) portable bathrooms, and you’ve got the least satisfying concert experience ever.

My only hope is that Old Spice will sponsor. Then I’ll consider going.

-GS

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Metallica played a show in Bogota, Colombia, on Wednesday night, and I guess everyone in the crowd was all hopped up on some fine Colombian cocaine, because the place went apeshit. There was a riot; three people were stabbed; a police officer was seriously injured; and at least 160 people were arrested.

There’s no word yet on whether or not there’s any truth to the rumors that the riots started after the 30,000 fans in attendance were all forced to listen to the band play post-Justice era material, but there is video of the ensuing chaos:

So it’s good to know that Lars has been trading industry secrets with his pal Axl Rose.

-AR

So the other day I was walking down 34th Street, and who did I see, Torah in hand, davening outside of a DMV Express but MetalSucks’ own esteemed Rebbe Anton Mofo’n Oyvey! Now obviously I didn’t want to disturb the man during his holy time, so I figured I’d catch up with him at the synagogue in the East Wing of the MetalSucks Mansion for our regular Shabbat dinner.

But then I realized that both Scion Rock Fest AND South by Southwest are coming up this week, and……could it be that Metal’s Most Brutal Rabbi will be hitting the road and rocking out with Vince & I for one or both of these adventures?!?

Come to think of it — Vince did tell me to buy a plane ticket to Columbus, Ohio for Scion and another ticket BACK from Austin, Texas 10 daze later without making mention of how we would be getting from one to the other. “We’ll figure it out”, he said, in typical Vinzian fashion.

Hmmm, I wonder…

Jews in Space? Nah — Heebz on the HIGHway!!

-KW

As I delve head-first into my recent exploration of the modern power epic metal scene what I’m learning is this: there’s a LOT of perfectly competent but ultimately mediocre bands in this genre but few very good ones. Thanks to Suckalo Max Dohmeyer I’ve found a new favorite in Kiuas, “an awesome thrashy, power-esque, melodic metal band from Finland” as he describes it. This is definitely the best power-ish band I’ve heard since Mercenary, who appear likely to jump the shark.

A day after Max’s email we got an official press release about their new album Lustdriven (coming March 31st), so presumably something good’s percolating around Kiuas. What’s interesting is that this band really isn’t all that cheesy; they’re just good. It’s like the best parts of In Flames, Children of Bodom, Mercenary and Firewind — from their respective best albums — all rolled into one with some other kind of thrashy element that I can’t put a finger on. They’re all great musicians, natch. Kiuas have a new song called “The Visionary” posted today, but I don’t like it as much as I do the older new song “Aftermath.”

Furthermore, I’m done using the word “power” to describe this kind of music because it’s truly so different from Rhapsody, DragonForce or even Manowar or Iron Maiden. From this point forward this kind of metal shall be called Epic Metal. Copyright Vince Neilstein 2010.

-VN

So last night I went to the kick-off date for The Dillinger Escape Plan’s headlining tour with Darkest Hour, Iwrestledabearonce, and Animals as Leaders. All of the bands were pretty great, but after the show, it was really hard to talk about any of them but DEP; their live act is just some other-level shit. They might be one of the last bands on the planet where their live show feels legitimately spontaneous and dangerous; there always comes at least one moment during their show when I become concerned that we might be watching the process of Greg Puciato killing himself. Even if you think you hate this band, you should go check them out, just to see how absolutely nuts it can get.

So. Rob from Metal Injection has a nifty new toy, called the Samson Zoom Q3, and he filmed the band doing their new song “Chinese Whispers” (we debuted the studio version earlier this week). You can view the footage below. The audio quality is actually better than the video quality, but it’s still pretty good. It was not one of the songs where I feared for Mr. Puciato’s life, but it still kicks major ass.

Get Dillinger tour dates here.

-AR

Call me crazy, but new Exodus music always interests me ten-thousand-fold more than new Slayer music. It’s like, with new Exodus there is at least the chance that you’ll hear something a little different instead of the same old (not that there’s anything wrong with the same old… but still). Maybe it’s because of all the line-up changes through the years. I mean ok fine on this last Slayer record we actually got a slow Kerry King solo which was at least something of a departure.

So Exodus have a new record on the way, Exhibit B: The Human Condition, the artwork for which Axl posted the other day. They’ve just posted a demo of track from that record called “Hammer and Life” on their MySpace page. I know it’s just a demo, but I really dig the dry (yet clear) mixing job. Musically speaking it seems a little thrashier in the vintage sense than anything on Exhibit A, but it’s definitely too soon to make any sort of sweeping judgment. Either way, I likee very much. More please.

Exhibit B: The Human Condition comes out on May 18th.

-VN

Sometimes you have no idea what the hell a song title means, but it just sounds right, y’know?

Case in point: “Stressed Elephant,” the absolutely EPIC new Bison B.C. song, which is currently streaming here. It’s over eight minutes long, and every last second of it rocks. What the fuck does it have to do with elephants under pressure? I dunno, but it sure does sound the way I imagine a stressed elephant might.

“Stressed Elephant” will be on Bison B.C.’s new album, Dark Ages, which comes out April 13 on Metal Blade. Now that I’ve gotten this little taste, I am definitely hungry for more.

-AR

Hello MetalSucks readers! I realize that most of you don’t know who I am, so I figured I’d take some time to tell you and maybe shed some light on the subject of why I’ve been asked to write a few fun pieces for all of your enjoyment.

My name is Bobbi Starr and I am a girl who over the past three and a half years has made a living off of all of you who buy pornography and blow your loads to the site of my asshole being impaled by the giant members of pornography legends such as Lexington Steele, and I thank you for that.

Now, those who steal porn off of bit torrent and tube sites: shame on you, and I just might hunt you down, cut your wiener off, put it on a post and do a little, non-sexual, dance, ridding you of all porno-steeling-desires. Granted, at this point you would be without a penis, but you should of thought of that before you stole my porno.

I’m just kidding. In reality, I’d probably tell you that you are a very bad boy, and then suck you off.

Anyway, back to metal. Some of you may know, I’ve pretty much always been a music nerd, and therefore a fan of the ye ol’ metal. I think those important people at MetalSucks picked up on this and thought, “We should get this chick to write nasty things for our website! That would be awesome!” I love delving into the dark, slimy depths of the music world, and sinking my teeth into some crunchy metal bands.  It may be an acquired taste for many, but I must admit that I constantly find myself craving more of those down-tuned riffs and growling vocals.

Not only is it my desire to explore the music of each band, but also my primal urge to become intimately acquainted with the nether regions of all of the band members as a whole. So, I figured, what the hell, why not make a list of the top ten metal bands that I’d like to get gangbanged by? Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of them will come through for me.

And so, in no particular order…

Click to read more…

Last week’s photo was pretty gross so naturally the captions you all submitted were equally as disgusting. Congrats to Rodney Wilder and Caption Contest veteran Sacajawea for each bringing home the prize of an Obscura Retribution reissue CD and download card for Cosmogenesis. Their winning captions:

• Rodney Wilder: “Now you’ve got something to squint for…”
• Sacajawea: “Fiber One has decided to target the metal demographic in recent months. All Sony records metal cds will come with a free fiber bar in order to make the new material a little easier to digest.”

This week we’ve got an awesome prize pack from trad-metal revivalists White Wizzard, whose debut full-length Over the Top just came out on Tuesday! Two lucky winners will get the following: 1) a stylish jean-jacket adorned with a White Wizzard back patch (!), 2) a White Wizzard t-shirt, 3) A CD copy of Over the Top, 4) a White Wizzard poster. Crikey, that’s a lot of swag! Two runners-up will each also win a t-shirt. Now, we’ve only got the jackets and shirts in sizes L and XL, so please enter which size you’d prefer in your comment along with your email address. Thanks to Hayden Nease for the photo. Ready, set, go!

Oh boy oh boy! It’s almost time for us to unveil the next list which will give many of you a coronary. The last time we did a list, we got Zilty out of it; who knows what evils this one will summon forth from the shadows? Here are some more teases…

• It is not, as one reader suggested, a “cutest boys” list… although maybe we’ll do that in the spring.
• It is a list of bands, not albums.
• The subject matter is MetalSucksian in nature; which is to say, if you’re hoping for a Plain Jane list in the vein of “Best Live Bands” or “Worst Bands” or whatever, it ain’t gonna happen.
• The bands on the list could very well be both flattered and offended to have been selected.
• Only one of the bands on this list was also on our “21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century So Far” list. And like we said, it isn’t Mastodon.
• Heaven & Hell aren’t on the list, although their name might suggest that they would be.

Alright, keep on guessin’. We’ll let you know what this puppy is all about real soon…

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Yesterday I interviewed Greg Puciato, Liam Wilson, and Billy Rymer from The Dillinger Escape Plan (transcript coming soon); because Rymer is the band’s new drummer and this is his first album with DEP, it should go without saying that a portion of the conversation was devoted to how he joined the band, his experience as “the new guy,” and his predecessors – namely Gil Sharone and, of course, Chris Pennie. Unless you live under a Dino Cazares, you already know that Pennie is now the drummer for Coheed and Cambria; since I’m a wwwwaaaaayyyyy bigger fan of DEP than I am of C&C, I don’t spend much time thinking about Pennie these days. Which isn’t to take away from his incredible talent; I’m just saying, it’s unusual for me to have Pennie on the brain at this particular moment in time.

But now here we are, I was just thinking about him yesterday, and he’s already back in the headlines! It turns out that Pennie is in the whole other band I didn’t even know about, Return to Earth, who released an album called Captains of Industry in 2007; now they’ve signed with Metal Blade, who will release their sophomore effort, Automata, sometime this summer.

Click to read more…

We’re a little late on reporting this, but there’s a sample of another new Levi/Werstler track, “Obsidian Fissures,” now streaming on their merch page. It’s maybe twenty seconds of the song, which is to say it’ll pretty much give you sonic blue balls. But that’s only because it’s so awesome.

Levi/Werstler’s debut album, Avalanche of Worms, comes out April 20 on Magna Carta, and features drums by the great Sean Reinert, of Cynic fame. While you wait (and pine for a longer taste of “Obsidian Fissures”), you can watch another clip of Emil playing some of “Dura Mater” below. You can also download some free guitar tabs here, so that all of you shred nerds can start trying to learn some of this shit.

And, finally, it’s worth noting that Eyal and Emil are currently accepting questions via their MySpace, Facebook and Twitter pages; they’ll answer the best ones in an upcoming video.

-AR

While it might be a bit of a leap to imagine a stretchy-eared, sleeve-tattooed, puffy-bearded metal dude teaching music to school kids, I’ve definitely heard of metal musicians funding their art with stranger pursuits. For a regular salary, healthcare and a chance to impart your musical knowledge onto today’s youth, why not? The Music National Service, a non-profit, is offering musicians exactly that opportunity through a new initiative called MusicianCorps.

A week ago I highlighted the struggle all musicians face in finding affordable healthcare, and the MusicianCorps program ties nicely into this ongoing discussion. MusicianCorps, is a “domestic musical peace corps” that provides musicians with a living stipend, healthcare and professional development while they teach for a year in under-resourced public schools. The program is running in four cities – SF/Oakland Bay Area, Chicago, New Orleans and Seattle – where twenty MusicianCorps Fellows are serving full-time in public schools, parks and recreation centers, children’s and veteran’s hospitals, public housing communities and elsewhere.

Check out the above MSNBC feature on MusicianCorps, and read more about the program at the MusicianCorps website. It’s not like you’d have the school marching band play “Fucked with a Knife” at the football game half-time show, but I can think of few things more potentially exhilarating than passing the knowledge and joy of music onto a new generation.

-VN

I got a very flattering e-mail from French reader Vincent Roquefort yesterday. And since I have a particular affinity for France and French culture (Don’t hang me as a traitor, Republicans!), I took Monsieur Roquefort’s claim that “Civilisation Perdue” (that’s “Lost Civilization” to you English speakers) by Sortilège is “the greatest French heavy metal song of all times.”

I’m not really familiar with Sortilège (“Magic Spell”), nor the 1984 album on which this song appears, Métamorphose. But it’s a pretty good song. The greatest French heavy metal song song of all time(s), though? Yeah, I’m not sure… but check it out and let us know what you think. If there’s a French heavy metal song you like better, feel free to suggest it. I know we’re gonna get a million votes for Gojira, and I love that band, too (duh), but let’s try to think outside la boîte a little bit, m’kay?

-AR

It’s shaping up to be a slow news day, so I thought I’d post this video interview that Total Rock recently conducted with Marta from Bleeding Through. We’re all so used to looking at pictures of her, but I don’t know that I’ve ever actually heard the sound of her voice before. For some reason I always assumed she’d sound a little bit more like Joan Rivers, but this works, too.

Bleeding Through have a new album coming out on some release date on some label. Hoo-ray.

-AR

Hemoptysis, the Nocturno Cultowitz-endorsed finalists for the Scion No Label Needed Contest, have released a video for their song “Shadow of Death,” and while the clip isn’t exactly original or anything, it’s kind of amazing how this unsigned band have made something that is so much better than the crap plenty of signed bands are turning out. Seriously: this video is just better photographed, better edited, and more coherent than anything I’ve seen in the past month that didn’t feature High on Fire. Nonpoint should be fucking ashamed.

The Scion No Label Needed Contest’s voting is now over, with the winner to be announced this coming Monday, March 15. Nocturo Cultowitz has his fingers crossed for these cats, I’m sure.

-AR

It would appear as if Sergeant D’s days at Metal Inquisition are over. His last post on Metal Inquisition was dated February 23rd while contributions to crunkcore powerhouse blog Stuff You Will Hate are ongoing.

Sad face.

But at least Sergeant D went out on a high note (ha) with the above fantastic photoshop job. There is so much going on in this collage that I don’t even know where to start. Are the events of September 11, 2001 being glorified by insinuating Dimebag was somehow involved? Is the eagle sad about Dimebag’s death? Is everyone just really fucking stoned?? WTF??? I want answers.

-VN

I’ve known for some time that Marty Friedman’s career primarily revolves around Japan these days, but I figured that’s because Japan is like Las Vegas or a VH1 reality show, where anyone who was ever even kind of a celebrity will continue to be famous forever and ever and ever, and can therefore still have a career. It’s only recently come to my attention that Friedman actually lives in Japan, like, all the time now. Jews are, stereotypically speaking, pretty short, so maybe Friedman just wanted to live somewhere he could actually be considered of above-average height.

ANYWAY, Metal Injection posted the below video of Friedman doing a commercial for the soft drink Fanta. I’ve had Fanta on two continents, and it definitely tastes better in Europe, where they don’t use corn syrup (’cause there’s no corn!), than it does here in the States – but I have no idea how Japanese Fanta tastes. In other words, I can’t quite endorse Friedman’s endorsement right now, but I can laugh at him for this:

-AR

I dunno if this old news and I’m just somehow learning about it now, but: Cynic have released the cover art for their new EP, Re-Traced, and as it turns out, it will be made up predominantly of “reinterpretations” of songs from 2008′s orgasm-inducing Traced in Air. Of course, this isn’t a total shock – the word “traced” appears in both album titles, and the teaser video for the release tipped us off that there would be some kind of remix/reinterpretation situation here (“Evolutionary Sleeper” has become “Evolutionary,” “Integral Birth” has become simply “Integral,” etc.). I guess I was hoping that the new song we’ve already kinda sorta heard, “Wheels Within Wheels,” wouldn’t be the only debut track here. Not that “Wheels” isn’t awesome, but… I WANT NEW CYNIC! I’m greedy like that, I suppose.

Still, I’m curious to see what the band has done, exactly, to “reinterpret” these tracks. Presumably this will be well above and beyond your average rehash/remix record…

Re-Traced comes out May 17 on Season of Mist.

-AR

Did you know that resident MetalSucks L O S T columnist Nick Hipa is also one of the guitar players for As I Lay Dying? It’s true, we swear! He doesn’t just sit around watching TV for us all day – he has actual shit to do! It’s why we credit him as “Nick Hipa of As I Lay Dying.” Weird, right?

In point of fact, it’s a minor miracle that Nick has been able to write such great columns for us week after week, as AILD have been working on a new album, The Powerless Rise. That album now has a May 11 release date via Metal Blade, and some sweet cover art. Check it out:

This is the band’s second album with producer Adam Dutkiewicz and master mixer Colin Richardson is handling the, y’know, mixing. In other words: if you’re fan of NWOAHM, you should be really, really stoked for this…

-AR