With little to do in lame-o Columbus, OH, Kip and I sat around our hotel lobby with our shvantzes in our hands until 2pm when The Beast aka The SlayRV — the piece de resistance –  arrived to pick us up… and so the party began. Anton OyVey, Rich Hallford, The Rev of Burger Conquest fame and Mark Lafay pulled that baby right into the parking lot, beers and whiskey in hand, and much rejoicing and drinking immediately ensued. The SlayRV is a classy fucking affair with enough room to sleep 8, a fridge, a front lounge, a toilet (but no pooping allowed on the bus!) and a shower. STYLE, bitches. Whichever bands end up taking this thing on tour are going to have a hell of a time.

From there it was off to the Thurman Cafe, the home of what is supposedly the best burger in Columbus.

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Virginia doom crew Salome have been busting eardrums and making waves across the Eastern half of the US on their latest tour, with stops at NYU (with Shrinebuilder/Wolves in the Throne Room) and at the SXSW madhouse, where they decimated showcases from Profound Lore/20 Buck Spin and BrooklynVegan alongside Coffinworm, Yakuza, The Atlas Moth, Zoroaster, Landmine Marathon, and tons more. The next leg of the tour is taking them through the Dirty South, and they’ve brought their buddy “Grim” Kim Kelly along for the ride to sling merch and document the whole thing, Almost Famous-style. You can read the first day’s report here and the second day’s report here… and now we re-join Kim and the band in Raleigh, NC…

Current time: 5:41pm
Current location: A Best Western in Raleigh, NC

So it’s almost 6pm, and we’ve just now woken up. Sounds like we must have been partying ridiculously hard last night, right? Not quite; after playing the show, loading out, and raging a respectable amount with Dark Castle, we decided to drive straight through the night from Atlanta to Raleigh. Aaron is a MACHINE,  and as soon as we got into the city and spotted a cheap-ish hotel, we were all down for the fucking count. With Domino’s ordered and much-needed showers showered, we’ve got a couple hours of downtime before heading down to Slim’s for the last show of the tour (with locals Gringo). Seinfeld marathon? Yes please.

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Cancer Bats are stuck between a rock and a hard(core) place. When your band is too metal for the hardcore kids and too punk for the metal kids it’s kinda difficult to find tours that really suit you. But Cancer Bats have made the best of it, touring with a wide variety of bands both punk and metal and winning over fans one at a time, the old fashioned way. They won this writer over a couple of years back with their excellent record Hail Destroyer which combined all the right elements of all the right influences into a furious stew of adrenaline-soaked OG metalcore (think Converge, Hatebreed… NOT Swedecore or haircutcore).

Cancer Bats have a new record on the way via Good Fight Entertainment on April 13th entitled Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones. A couple of weeks back I chatted with vocalist Liam Cormier about the new record, the constant struggle the band endures to fit in with any one scene and how the band has grown and matured over time. Our chat, after the jump.

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The same night that Antonin Skullia, Esq. and myself saw Hot Tub Time Machine, I scolded him for missing the incredible Unsane show at Brooklyn’s Union Pool. At which point he rightfully scolded me for having completely forgotten about Unsane’s video for “Scrape,” which is really just three minutes and twenty-one seconds of footage of dudes falling off their skateboards in ways that look incredibly painful. (There’s a little bit of performance footage, too, but it’s not why anyone cares about this video.)

So we watched the video on YouTube and we laughed. Hard. “This is the best music video ever made,” Antonin declared. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it might very well be one of the five best videos ever made.

It doesn’t hurt that song rules, either.

-AR

Wait, what? A new Agalloch album came out? Last week?? And we didn’t even know about it?? Deja vu all over again.

Only by browsing Metal-Archives.com did MS tipster Loudden Mathias realize that he, us, and seemingly the entire world had missed the boat on the latest from the Portland, Oregon doom/folk metallers. The Compendium Archive, released on the Vernal Equinox of 2010 (that’s the first day of Spring, March 20th), is a two disc set limited to 250 hand-numbered copies. Disc 1 is a “Best Of” featuring material from From Which of This Oak, Of Stone, Wind and Pillor and Promo ’98 and Disc 2 contains “assorted works & rarities.”

So with only 250 copies available you better get to ordering one right quick if you’re a fan of this excellent band, as we are. The only problem is we’re not sure where the fuck to get it. The band’s official website hasn’t been updated since 2008 and their MySpace page makes no mention of it. Google just turns up a bunch of results of people asking where they can get this release.

All this begs the question… is this compilation even legit? A blog on Agalloch’s MySpace warns of counterfeit From Which of This Oak tapes making the rounds on Ebay. I wouldn’t put something like this past an overzealous Agalloch superfan looking to cause a stir on the Internet; people are fucking weird and will do anything for attention. If anyone can shed light on this situation, kindly do let us know!

-VN

Doom metal (and its half-siblings, post-metal and sludge) suffers from the same problem its distant cousin grindcore does: it’s very easy to create (play something slow with some twinkly parts for diversity’s sake for the former, something fast and dissonant for the latter) but thusly means it’s even harder to do well. Many people seem to forget that last part, though, and will write off an ambient sludge band as a bunch of meandering beardos too wrapped up in pretentiousness to know what good music sounds like. And though stereotypes exist for a reason (owning a delay pedal and a copy of Mogwai’s Mogwai Young Team doesn’t automatically make your band awesome), it shortchanges those who don’t simply adhere to generalizations and create worthwhile music that makes apparent the reasons people are so devoted to the genre in the first place. And thus is the burden of moody, introspective Swedes Kongh, a band daring to make a sludgy doom record with post-rock influences in a time when Neur-Isis bands own a lot of real estate in the metal underground. Though a casual listen may make you want to lump them into big dynamics/plodding riffs lot and move on, the band actually have a fair bit of the nuance required to pull off good slow-burning metal on their latest, Shadows of the Shapless. Though the record does eventually wear out its welcome, it also displays that Kongh have more than a skin-deep understanding of what they’re doing, thus setting themselves apart from their meandering beardo peers.

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I get bummed out when a girl breaks up with me, but it’s kinda fun in a way, right? I just love that moment in the End of Relationship talk when the break-upper can no longer resist loudly listing my faults. Sure, most girls will attempt to execute the break-up humanely ,without telling me the reasons in explicit terms. But if needled, coerced, and (if all else fails) brow-beaten, any departing ladyfriend will be happy to smash through that veneer of kindness and read me the fucking riot act.

This is when I’m in my element, ’cause it’s hilarious to hear the exact same shit every time, like Groundhog Day or W.A.S.P. albums. The first complaint, accompanied by a chuckle, is usually a variation of “Dude, you’re quite stupid. Seriously.” The next is delivered with a bit of sensitivity, lest I lash out in denial: “Anso, you display persistent symptoms of [insert mental illness here]. Get help.” Then, in most cases, we move on to my more tangible failings: the pervasive vulgarity, the sociopath’s disregard for human life and rights of property, drugs, NBA mania, manipulation, hair rock fandom, paranoia, spitting, reckless driving, cheapness, violent sleepwalking, and everything else.

I’ve found that it makes a fun game to shout out the complaints as she’s saying them, followed by a “JINX! You owe me a Coke!” Sometimes, I can even harmonize if she and I agree in advance on a key. (Tip: Try Dm, the saddest of all keys.)

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At MetalSucks we love tours that mix the old and the new (see also: The Tyrants of Evil Tour we sponsored which featured Arch Enemy, Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within), which is why we jumped at the chance to sponsor this Spring’s Facemelter tour, guarantee to melt faces with death metal spanning two decades. Tours like this offer the older bands a chance to reach younger fans, younger bands a chance to win over hardened OG heshers and you, the fans, a chance to learn about new music you’re pre-disposed to enjoy. Everyone wins!

Though Dying Fetus are the only true old schoolers on this tour — and by the way have you seen Dying Fetus live lately?? holy fuck, they alone will make this tour live up to its name — Misery Index and Arsis both have a bit of an old-school vibe despite their music’s firm roots in the present. And for the kids we’ve got Annotations of an Autopsy and Conducting From the Grave, two excellent new school death metal-inspired bands we’ve yet to see live.

Definitely one of the most exciting touring lineups of the Spring. Full list of confirmed tour dates after the jump, with more to be added soon.

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(Read Part One here)

When Saturday Night Live recently aired a hilarious sketch where an 80s hardcore punk band reunited at their singer’s daughter’s wedding, it underscored an interesting dilemma. With many of their seminal, most urgent records released nearly three decades ago, how do hardcore acts from those bad ol’ days prevent themselves from becoming embarrassing, irrelevant caricatures of their former selves? One band that manages to rise above the fray is Killing Time, whose record release concert utilized levity and honesty to negate any charges of purely pandering to the nostalgia set. Armed with a new album’s worth of tunes, Killing Time may have grown up yet they haven’t lost their connection with the sentiments of hardcore.

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He’d have to be to sign on as the producer of the new Malevolent Creation album. After all, doing so means risking getting shot in the face.

In case you don’t recall, MC guitarist Phil Fasciana claimed last summer that he was a big hero after single-handedly stopping a convenience store robbery by shooting the perpetrator in the face. Accusations of the story being bullshit arose pretty quickly, and Fasciana responded by proving that he should never ever act as his own attorney.

Now Rutan – who has to be one of the most consistently inspiring forces in metal today – is set to start working in April on Malevolent Creation’s latest. While we pray he doesn’t piss off Fasciana and escapes with his grill intact, at least we know the new MC album will sound amazing.

No word on whether or not Rutan is being paid in chocolate milk.

-AR

I plea for the purging of my bowels right now. In a serious way I think I might be going through withdrawal from a week of non-stop meat and booze. My body needs another round of meat, pronto, but my mind is saying “no! only vegetables this week!” and I’m gonna do my best to stick to it like my balls stick to my leg after a day in the hot Texas sun.

Speaking of bowels, I find the band A Plea for Purging to be quite generic. They use way to many breakdowns, basically the musical equivalent of adding butter to any dish to make it taste better…. but I do like that little shreddy pattern that comprises the intro of the song.

MS reader Peter M. emailed us all the way from Austria to let us know that the band’s new video for “Malevolence” is seriously excellent/hilarious in contrast to the band’s music. Well done, chaps! Also, serious high fives are in order to that one dude with the monstro beard.

-VN

About a month ago, Antonin Skullia, Esq. and myself got to attend an advance screening of Hot Tub Time Machine. If you don’t know what Hot Tub Time Machine is about, congratulations, you’re retarded. It’s right there in the title, shit for brains.

Anyway, Antonin and I were pretty sure going int that the movie was gonna suck, ’cause a) we were by far the oldest people at the screening and we’re not that old, and b) the movie is called Hot Tub Time Machine. But it was actually really funny, and I’ve been meaning to write about all its various hair metal references since we saw it. But I kept forgetting until I read this article on Metal Insider about this article on Collider, which proves that the dudes from Collider are either babies or were never cool enough to know about Poison. (‘Cause knowing about Poison is cool… right?) So I’ll write about it now.

My ramblings after the jump. There are some minor spoilers, so if you’re really concerned with the plot intricacies of a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine, don’t read this and instead go the bathroom and see how far you can shove your own fist up your ass.

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What’s interesting here is not the wanky masturbation of Rico “Shred” Carlton or even his ridiculous facial expressions. No, what you need to pay attention to while you’re watching Mr. Carlton fellate his guitar are the subtitles, pure A+ material. Watch it all the way through, then thank me [or the anonymous MS reader who sent this in] later.

-VN

There are now six songs* available online from Slash’s Slash, his forthcoming sort-of-but-not-really solo debut (as though Slash’s Snakepit wasn’t a solo band) that I care far too much about. If you include bonus tracks, that’s actually more than a full third of the album; if you don’t include bonus track, it’s (obviously) even more.

So I now feel pretty confident in saying this album won’t be horrible, even if it’s obviously never going to live up to GN’R, and features appearances by Kid Rock, Fergie, and the girl from Maroon 5.

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I’m exaggerating, of course. Someone besides me will be happy to hear that Murderdolls (not The Murderdolls – get it right, dick!) are getting back together. But he or she probably doesn’t read this website.

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We accidentally published this one early a couple of weeks ago. If you’ve already read it, well, read it again. And if not, hey, great! Read it now! – Eds.

If you weren’t there, you may have only heard how Pantera was the only metal band that mattered in the new, joyless ’90s Alternative Nation. If you didn’t know better, you may discount that fact with evidence that by then every good metal band went missing or to shit, so to reign atop that turdpile is no accomplishment. In analysis, you could point out that Pantera practiced cautious image control after their laughable start, careful to resemble no thrash metal band in appearance or message. The former was grunge-acceptable (flannel alert!) and the latter alternated between vague metalisms (Cowboys), macho hardcore effrontery (Vulgar), and woe-is-me horseshit (Driven, Trendkill). All of which combined to allow Pantera to qualify on a technicality as an acceptable post-Cobain band, at least until they made a doomed return to feel-good metal (the incredible Reinventing The Steel).

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Congrats to Brian Farneth, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Obscura Monotonia Animae. Brian wins a neat neat The Dillinger Escape Plan Option Paralysis cube thingie. Nice work, Brian!

Ain’t no party like a March is Metal Month ’cause a March is Metal Month party don’t stop (’til April)! This week we’re giving away a Rotting Christ luggage tag. Yes, a Rotting Christ luggage tag. Have you ever thought, “Gee, I wish my luggage tag had a the logo for a fairly offensive band name on it?” You have?!? Then this is the prize for you!

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name next week.

Isaac Schwarz, once a-fucking-GAIN, has provided this week’s logo…

-AR

G’day L O S T aficianodos,

It was nice to see the trend of expounding upon our main character’s standout qualities continuing with last week’s “Recon.” We’ve already pointed out how violence was expected and was delivered with Sayid, information was held within and shared through Ben, and now (true to form) we got to see our resident con man Sawyer slaying all sorts of tail. When this show initially aired, Sawyer’s character was vital in that he was on the opposing end of a power struggle with Jack. As the show has progressed, however, the power struggled turned into a love triangle, and lately it seems as if a lot of his role’s relevance has been to keep the love-story aspect of the show going. This isn’t my favorite part of L O S T by any means, so I had my low expectations fulfilled. Apart from the extreme curve ball we were thrown with Sawyer being a cop who had the exact same past in the alternate timeline, I wasn’t too into this one myself. What were your thoughts/reactions on it? There were little nugs of revelation and also a definite “Hey, I’m the Smoke Monster” by Nemesis Dude, but aside from that it seemed the episode was heavier on red herrings (i.e., Charlie’s brother at the police station) than straight up information. We DID learn that Nemesis has a crazy mother, but the details are still hazy so methinks it’d be best to wait for more to begin getting way into it. Another bit of plot unfolding that we were let in on is that Widmore looks to be on Team Jacob… or at least opposed to Nemesis. This would make my most recent speculation completely wrong if absolutely true, but I’m going to be stubborn on this one and wait for it to be for reals confirmed before giving up on it. You never know with this show!

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On Friday, March 12th an epic journey of mammoth metal proportions began. The plan:

1. Fly to Columbus, Ohio for Scion Rock Fest the following day.
2. Take a 3-day road-trip in a converted tour bus down to Austin, TX, stopping along the way to visit select food locales and see the sites.
3. Four days of SXSW.
4. Fly home.

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Virginia doom crew Salome have been busting eardrums and making waves across the Eastern half of the US on their latest tour, with stops at NYU (with Shrinebuilder/Wolves in the Throne Room) and at the SXSW madhouse, where they decimated showcases from Profound Lore/20 Buck Spin and BrooklynVegan alongside Coffinworm, Yakuza, The Atlas Moth, Zoroaster, Landmine Marathon, and tons more. The next leg of the tour is taking them through the Dirty South, and they’ve brought their buddy “Grim” Kim Kelly along for the ride to sling merch and document the whole thing, Almost Famous-style. You can read the first day’s report here… and now on to Birmingham, Alabama…

Current time: 2:14am
Current location: Jamie’s house in Birmingham, Alabama

“It’s whiskey, weed, and beer night here in Birmingham,” declared our host, Jamie, his good-natured drawl rising above the crackling Zeppelin record that had replaced the free jazz Aaron keeps cranking in the van. An affable chap with a talent for vegan cooking and a good ol’ Southern boy accent, he had set up the gig, made us dinner, kept us drinking, and was putting us up for the night in the rambling, comfortably worn-in house he shared with a handful of roommates and a menagerie of pets.  He’d come out to greet us as we rolled up to Magic City Wholesale a little after seven and helped us haul the now-familiar mountain of gear up a rickety flight of stairs, then produced a pot of curry something-or-other to take the edge off before Salome’s set.  The venue doubled as an art space and community center, and besides the usual broken windows and concrete you’d expect to find, was decorated with tons of off-the-wall art and murals. It was also cold as BALLS  inside– we couldn’t get over how damp and chilly Alabama was, especially after the Texas sunshine and muggy warmth of Louisiana.

The drive up wasn’t quite as eventful as yesterday’s, although, as usual, the hunt for vegetarian-friendly restaurants proved to be an adventure. We gave the Creole Bagelry an honest shot, but after realizing that they had not only were not serving breakfast items and employed the least-friendly Southerners we’d encountered so far, but were out of coffee on top of it all, we peeled out and drowned our sorrows at some overpriced sandwich place (instead of the $18 gallons of daquiris I suggested). Louisiana melted into Mississippi, we passed through a town called Philadelphia (!!!!) and when a gas stop took us through Meridian, Mississippi, we encountered one of the most depressing sights of the tour so far. The place was a goddamn ghost town. Desperation peered out of every boarded up window and empty storefront, dripped off every misspelled sign and leered at us from every shady check cashing stand. The streets were empty, the curtains were drawn tight, and Meridian, Mississippi, was clearly struggling to draw its last labored breaths. I’m sure there are dying towns just like it scattered across the country, but I’d never driven through a place that seemed so utterly devoid of hope. We were glad to get back on the highway.

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