Speaking of bands that I like better than Carnifex: A Momentary Sense of the Immediate World, the debut EP from Flourishing, comes out today on The Path Less Traveled Records. I saw these dudes play last week and they kicked all kinds of ass, and this EP is really great.

But don’t take my word for it! The band is streaming the entire EP here. It’s all of seventeen minutes long, so if you don’t at least give it a try, you really are a spoiled, lazy asshole. Bonus: Crustcake is hosting FREE mp3 download of the song “Watching Sparrows!”

And if, after you’ve given this a good listen or two, you think that Carnifex are better than these dudes, well… eat me.

-AR

Judging by all the e-mails we’ve gotten, fans and industry-types alike are all hot n’ bothered for Carnifex’s new release, Hell Choose Me. And, I gotta say, the appeal of this band is way over my head. They sound like a million other death metal bands, with absolutely nothing to distinguish them from the crowd. Granted, they’re not a terrible band like, say, Abacabb, but if this is one of your favorite albums of 2010 so far, I have to imagine it’s because you haven’t heard very many other releases this year. What about Triptykon? Sigh? Dillinger? Ihsahn? Immolation? Arsis? Just wait ’til you hear the new Nachtmystium. Now that’s a fucking record.

Revolver just debuted the video for Hell Choose Me‘s title track today. You can check it out below. And then let me know why you all love this band so much. ‘Cause I just don’t hear it.

-AR

Finntroll, Moonsorrow and Swallow the Sun are coming to the U.S. and Canada. That alone gives us goosebumps. That the tour starts next week and hits NYC the day after Opeth’s Blackwater Park commemorative concert gives our collective nipples the ability to cut glass. Those two days are going to be absolutely epic… and we’re going to have wicked weed hangovers when they’re all over.

Unfortunately Survivors Zero had to drop off this tour due to visa issues. Nothing against them, but that really doesn’t affect how great this night will be; I dug what I heard of their music though, so hopefully they’ll be able to make it over here soon.

Find a full list of dates for the MetalSucks-sponsored Finnish Metal Tour 2010 after the jump.

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Taste is a subjective thing; one can’t judge another person based solely on what they like and don’t. That being said, there are certain things I can’t get past someone not liking: Ghostbusters, The Simpsons, Star Wars, and early Van Halen albums, for instance. And while I get True Norwegian Black Metal fetishism (maybe you don’t like Enslaved’s proggy inclinations, felt close to Euronymous’ guitar work and can’t get on board with Blasphemer’s arguably superior material with Mayhem, liked Immortal when they were glowering and frosty and not when they got epic, and thought Burzum jumped the shark after Varg killed a guy), I don’t trust people that love Darkthrone but won’t get into their new material. Though they essentially created and perfected the lo-fi demonry black metal has — for better or worse — been known for since the early ‘90s, from 2007’s F.O.A.D. on forward, they’ve been the finest blackened crust punk band there is, crafting magnificently simple anthems about hiking metal punks, Canadian metal, and hanging out in Haiger (on “Hiking Metal Punks,” “Canadian Metal,” and “Hanging Out in Haiger,” respectively). And their brilliant simplicity continues on their latest, Circle the Wagons. Though “true” is often applied to Darkthrone’s early work, it’s Circle the Wagons that’s probably the truest to who the band are: to the point, kind of dopey, black metal only when necessary, and fucking awesome.

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Amy Sciarretto of Noisecreep’s description of 12 Stones as “radio rockers” is perfect, given the band is best known for vocalist Paul McCoy’s rap cameo on the radio version of Evanescence’s smash hit “Bring Me Back to Life.” I haven’t heard a lick about 12 Stones since then and didn’t even realize they were still around until today when I saw that Noisecreep is premiering their new song “We Are One.”

Seems that 12 Stones have gotten hip to the times and dropped the rapping shtick, but unfortunately they haven’t dropped the yarler vocals and sucky radio alt-rock shtick too. They also don’t seem to realize that the four chord progression they use in this song is the same one that’s been recycled by NickelTheoryofaSmileEmptySaliva for the past decade. Oh well, you’re still about 10 years behind the curve, guys… maybe next time.

For a lesson in what’s wrong with today’s rock radio format, head on over to Noisecreep to listen to the completely generic and unoriginal new 12 Stones song.

-VN

I don’t know why it bothers me so much when people rip-off some bands, like Tool and Meshuggah, but not that much when they rip-off other bands, like Slayer and Pantera. I mean, every fucking band in the world steals from Slayer on a regular basis, but I’m never like “Oh, fuck these guys, they’re no Slayer.” On the other hand, some band comes along that clearly wants to be Meshuggah, and I can’t be bothered. Are Meshuggah just so inimitable that I can’t handle anyone even trying to ape them? I dunno. I’ll bring it up in therapy this week.

While we wait to see what the good doctor has to say on the matter, here’s “High Pain Threshold,” the new video from Poland’s Neurothing, who clearly want so badly to be Meshuggah you wonder why they didn’t just name their band “Meshuggoh” or some shit. I wrote very briefly about how little I like this band when their album Murder Book came out last year, and this video hasn’t changed my opinion, which basically boils down to, “YOU’RE NOT MESHUGGAH SO JUST CUT IT THE FUCK OUT.”

At least the director found a clever way around his budgetary issues: just don’t light anyone.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

These Queensryche “Cabaret” live shows sure do sound interesting but I’m not about to fly out west just to see Geoff Tate prancing around in a leotard. Maybe MS Super Stud Anso DF wants to go to the Palm Springs or San Diego date? Regardless, I can’t be bothered — Queensryche haven’t released anything good in many a year (I’d argue that 2003′s Tribe was a half-decent entry) and in the meantime we’ve got a ridiculously great new Ratt album to jam. It’s seriously all I want to listen to right now. I can’t help it — it’s so good!

One thing I keep forgetting while pumping my fist in the air to “Eat Me Up Alive” or the stupidly catchy “Lost Weekend” or “As Good As It Gets” is that Carlos Cavazo is in this band now. Allow me to repeat: Carlos Cavazo is now in Ratt. As if having Tasty Riff McTasterson himself, Warren DeMartini, weren’t enough, the Ratt pack now has two lead guitarists amongst its ranks. The results are an ’80s guitar nerd’s wet dream, and not in a “Steve Vai and Joe Satriani shredding on the same record over top of each other constantly!” kind of way… just tasty riff after tasty riff, juicy lick after finger-smacking, delicious, savory lick. Lately I’ve been playing the “Who’s playing this guitar solo?” game. It’s fun because DeMartini and Cavazo’s styles are similar enough (same tree, different branches) so that you can’t immediately tell who’s playing, but if you’re familiar with each axeman’s discography you can definitely zone in on certain stylistic subtleties and differences in the way the two string notes together.

Here’s a stream of Infestation album-opener “Eat Me Up Alive” which Axl posted a couple of weeks back but I’d like to post again because a) it rules, b) I’m fairly certain both DeMartini and Cavazo take solos in this song. (You may need to click the slider after hitting play to get it to work.). The whole album is this good… really, I swear. Infestation comes out officially on April 20th.

-VN

Dear Meek is Murder,

I am sorry it took me so long to finally see you guys live. Even though there were multiple opportunities for me to do so. Even though guitarist/vocalist Mike Keller used to be in The Red Chord. Even though drummer Frank Godla is in Empyreon, who are a totally awesome band that sounds nothing like Meek is Murder. Even though your bassist is named Sam Brodsky, and dudes with the name “Brodsky” have a good track record working in heavy music. Even though Vince has already written about how awesome you are. I have no excuse. I am a schmuck.

But if it makes you feel better, I did finally see you play last night, and it was by far the most fun I’ve had a show this year.

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It turns out that Refused are not reuniting after all, and while Rival Schools will release a new album soon there’s been no indication that Quicksand will also. Oh well; it was fun to think about.

Thankfully there’s at least one important late ’90s metal-ish band that will be releasing new music in 2010… and it’s Jonah Matringa’s Far. Far were another one of those bands who seemed to enjoy much more success in critical circles then in, ya know, reality. Their two records, 1996’s Tin Cans With Strings To You and 1998’s Water and Solutions, were way ahead of their time but never got quite the recognition they deserved. As Metal Insider‘s Bram Teitelman put it, Far were “Heavy, but not metal, emotional, but not emo” and for that reason while I’m sure many of you won’t care about Far I’m guessing that any fans of mid/late ’90s metal/post-hardcore bands like Helmet, Refused and Quicksand will care a great deal.

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Writing on the new and improved Invisible Oranges, Cosmo Lee asserts that “You may know [Ed Warby] as the drummer for Hail of Bullets, Ayreon, and Gorefest.” Well, I don’t. Okay, Cosmo? I’m not a fan of any of those bands. I mean, Ayreon are okay if you’re really drunk and have nothing to do for fourteen straight hours, but otherwise, ppppffffttt. So stop being such a bully all the time, okay? Jeez.

ANYWAY, Cosmo was writing about Ed Warby because he’s the mastermind behind The 11th Hour, whose 2009 release, The Burden of Grief, is apparently “about a man about to die from a lung disease.” What a simple and brilliant idea for a metal concept album. Not everything has to be about life and death on such an epic scale; life and death are pretty epic on their own. Especially if it’s your death you’re facing down. Kinda makes you wish more bands would shut up about vikings and Satan already and get a little more down-to-earth when considering the plight of modern man.

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This is probably old news that I completely missed by not reading a press release carefully enough, but apparently Tom G. Warrior was a producer on 1349′s new album, Demonoir. Now, you should already be stoked that 1349 have a new album coming out – even if the album somehow sucks, these guys will have to tour behind it, and 1349 put on a really fun show. (And I recognize that this very grim band probably wouldn’t want their concerts categorized as “really fun,” but, y’know, I had a good time and maybe even smiled when I saw them live. Sue me.)

But I doubt the album will suck, and the presence of Warrior (or, ahem, Fischer) is that much more reassuring. Celtic Frost’s Monotheist was the shit, and honestly, I like Triptykon’s Title I Can Never Fucking Remember How to Spell Correctly even more. I’ve been cranking it a lot. It’s heavy, it’s epic, it’s atmospheric, and the production is top-notch. In other words: Tommy Boy is really on top of his game right now, and if he brought even just a wee bit of his mojo to 1349′s table, Demonoir will be that much better for it.

Demonoir comes out April 27 on Prosthetic. And if you haven’t yet read D.X. Ferris’ interview with Tom G. Warrior, you should go do that now. You’ll, like, learn stuff n’ shit.

-AR

Dude, I dunno WHAT the fuck is going on today. I overslept, which is really unlike me; it’s, like, “Moses go build an ark!” raining; Sacha the Death Metal Puppy is going nuts, growling at something I can’t even see; and I can hear a crazy amount of sirens outside, plus some dude barking orders on a megaphone. If I was a paranoid person, I’d say that 5-0 was about to break down my door any second; instead, I’ll just chalk it up to the fact that there’s gonna be a full moon tonight.

At least when shit is going crazy, we’ll have some new Woe of Tyrants to act as the soundtrack by which we burn this fucker down. The band’s latest, Threnody, comes out two weeks from today, and the band is now streaming a new song, “Singing Surrender,” here. It would be awesome if the song were about doing Cheap Trick at the karaoke bar, but, alas, I think vocalist Chris Catanzaro probably had something else on his mind. Still a good song, though. I’m digging the “Epic”-like piano outro.

Threnody comes out April 14 on Metal Blade.

-AR

Passover starts at sundown tonight! If you’re like me and you hate your extended family, that’s terrible news. On the other hand, I get to ask the Four Questions a-fucking-gain, since my cousins and I all refuse to grow the fuck up and have babies to replenish the family, which gets a little smaller every year as another member of The Greatest Generation goes the way of Crazy Town’s career.

On the flip side, Passover is the only Jewish holiday for which there is an appropriate metal song. (Unless you include some of that NSBM stuff. But until those dudes start writing outros with titles like “But we survived! Let’s eat!”, they’ll really only be getting half the equation.) Yes, it’s “Creeping Death” by Metallica, and yes, we talk about this every fucking year. Give us a break. It makes us happy. And it’s not like having Scott Ian and Tracii Guns on our team is such great shakes.

Just to stir shit up a little, here’s a live version of the song, filmed in 1989.

Does anyone know of a power metal cover of this song? I really wanted to do “Power Metal Passover” this year but couldn’t find one.

-AR

P.S. Yes, I know that “The Passover Story” is also known as “Exodus.” Why Exodus didn’t write a song about “Exodus,” I dunno.

After the previous night’s Bourbon drinkathon, grill-out and car wash adventure — not to mention the delicious fried chicken and BBQ ribs we inhaled earlier that day — trouble was a brewin’ in the bowels of the SlayRV. One by one we systematically decimated the bathrooms of the Walmart and nearby Burger King, and once business was taken care of we hit the road for the 5+ hour trek to Dallas.

Bowels freshly purged we swore off meat for the day; I had a healthy breakfast of carrots and hummus. Of course that oath went straight out the window when we saw the following sign across the road from a truck stop in Texarkana:

I mean how the fuck can you say no to THAT??

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We haven’t written about Anata all that much because, well, they haven’t done that much in the time MS has been around. Their last album, The Conductor’s Departure, came out in 2006, before MetalSucks existed; we named that record “Album of the Day” once back when we still did “Album of the Day;” then, in July of 2008, we celebrated as the band announced that they were working on a new offering.

Of course, that album never actually materialized. In a MySpace posting from February of this year, the band promised that “we will try to make the release [of the new album] happen this year,” but that’s not very encouraging. And while drummer Conny Pettersson has started a YouTube page with some live footage from last February, the videos aren’t great quality, and are (obviously) no substitute for a real album.

So where art thou, Anata? What’s the problem? Can I get you anything? A foot rub? A glass of warm milk? A joint? Is there band drama? Money drama? Is the record even done? If so, surely someone must wanna release it, right?

Hopefully we’ll learn more sooner rather than later. While we wait, here’s some of that live footage I mentioned…

-AR

Which tour would that be? Why the MetalSucks and Decibel-sponsored Evisceration Plague Tour, of course! Featuring Cannibal Corpse (duh), 1349, Skeletonwitch and Lecherous Nocturne, this tour is guaranteed — as Axl so eloquently put it — to make audiences suffer and cum blood, leaving them stripped, raped and strangled, disfigured with hammer smashed faces, a skull full of maggots and their decency defiled. If you’re not excited about this tour then you must actually be sane and well-balanced and you’re no friend of ours.

Check out Cannibal Corpse’s new video for “Priests of Sodom” and read about why we ranked them the #10 Greatest Band to Inadvertently Ruin Metal.

Full list of tour dates after the jump. You Florida folks can finally stop bitching because you’ve got FOUR dates on the tour (new Ft. Lauderdale date just added!). And for the love of God people, we don’t book these tours… we just sponsor ‘em… so don’t blame the messenger!

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The only time I saw Zoroaster live was when they opened for Gojira and Burst in Brooklyn last fall. Honestly — and nothing against these dudes at all — I was so preoccupied with the fact that I was about to see Gojira perform the best show of 2009 and Burst perform for the first/last time ever in New York that I really wasn’t focused on Zoroaster at all. I agree with Axl’s assessment of the show; Zoroaster were pretty good. I think.

But with a brand new album on the way I’m likely to get a lot more chances to see these doomy destroyers in action in the near future. Salome road correspondent Grim Kim seems mighty fond of ‘em, so that’s gotta be worth something, and for chrissakes these guys played on a tour called The Beard Destroyer Tour. But the fact that drummer Dan Scanlan is a Mike Tyson’s Punch Out guru — as shown below in the studio video sent in by MS reader Ashley Lee — automatically predisposes me towards liking this band; I mean, it’s only the best NES game EVER made. I never could beat Mike Tyson; I can literally breeze through the rest of the game but can barely get through one round with Iron Mike. Dan, if you’re reading this… can you do it? If so, HOW??

Side note: someone oughtta do a metal rendition of the music from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. It’s probably been done already but I’m too lazy to search at the moment.

-VN

The new Korn song is called “Oildale.” Oildale is a real town in California. And it’s apparently not a very nice place, either – I think Urban Dictionary sums it up best when they say that Oildale is “a down ass town next to Bakersfield where them White Power Gangsters put in work.” The reliable experts at Wikipedia tell me Korn vocalist Jonathan “I’m Not the Star Wars Audio Book Dude” Davis was born in Bakersfield, so I guess he knows from where them White Power Gangsters put in work. (Wikipedia also tells me that Davis’ favorite band as a kid was Duran Duran, which explains a lot.) He also still knows from being a frowny teenager: “Why don’t you just leave me alone?!” he screams in the chorus. So, y’know. Thug life.

Korn debuted this new song during a recent performance in Alaska, so maybe there’s s’posed to be some kind of “oil” message in the lyrics, too. Maybe it’s the oil that wants to be left alone! That’d be deep, yo.

“Oildale” will presumably appear on Korn’s new album, Korn III - Remember When You Liked Korn? Yeah, Me Neither! It’s being released by Roadrunner, who, between Korn and Rob Zombie, seem headed down the E1 path of signing already-established artists – which isn’t the worst business plan in the world. And it’ll be fun to see who they sign next. Marilyn Manson needs a label, doesn’t he?

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Axl’s been devoting a lot of e-ink to Kalmah‘s new album 12 Gauge with good reason — because it’s fucking awesome. I’d completely forgotten how awesome Kalmah were until Axl sent me a copy of the new album. A few notes of epic, doomy melodeth later I exclaimed “ohhhh yeah! Kalmah!” then I sparked up a doob and let the music do the talking. For the unfamiliar, if you like dark, doomy Scandinavian music like Insomnium and Swallow the Sun there’s a good chance you’ll like Kalmah (who’ve been doing it for way longer) though their brand is less gloomy and more energetic than the aforementioned bands.

So over the weekend MS Maniac Mike Winston sends us an email comparing the intro of 12 Gauge‘s fifth song “Better Not to Tell” and the classic Pantera track “Hollow.” And I gotta say, he’s onto something; the two intros are eerily similar. I definitely don’t blame Kalmah for biting Pantera, though, and I’m sure all of you musicians out there can relate: how many times have you worked on writing a new song for hours and hours only to realize afterwards that the song (or parts of it) is actually already a famous song that you subconsciously copied? My guess is that the same thing happened here only Kalmah never realized it. Either way the song still kicks ass and the similarities stop after the intro so Big Vin better not sue.

Listen to the two clips below and let us know what you think.

-VN

True story: shortly after my mom joined Facebook she actually posted on my wall telling me to clean my room. My mom… on Facebook… telling me to clean my room. Oy vey.

One Sunday evening I was lounging around the Mansion bored and posted a Facebook status update to the tune of “I’m bored. What do you people do on Sunday nights?” In hindsight it was a pretty pointless post. Responses ranged from “Watch football” to “Watch football,” and since I don’t have a TV in the Vince Division I was no better off than when I’d started. My mom, ever the opportunist, took advantage of the opening by posting on my wall to say that I should come over to her apartment and clean out the one closet of stuff I still keep at her place (mostly baseball cards… what the fuck else am I supposed to do with them?). Since her post was naturally a few hours after the fact it dangled there like a fart in a shower for all to see. It was humiliating! Why at this age I should even care at all is a mystery to me, but I felt like I was in high school all over again. At the very least it provided for some LOLs later on. Needless to say, after that I had to have a talk about proper Facebook behavior with Mama Neilstein.

MS reader Anna sent us a video by a group called Blood of TigerCat that completely understand my plight. The song is fittingly called “My Mom’s on Facebook.” I’ll let them take it from here…

-VN