The headline pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

Thanks to reader Skyler Diotte for sending this in…

-AR

I swear to you on my very life, I was watching Christopher Nolan’s Memento at 3 a.m. this morning. There must have been, as the David Bowie song that plays over the closing credits proclaims, something in the air; ’cause I had no idea that today The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza would be debuting a new song called “I Am Sammy Jankis.”

“Sammy Jankis,” in case you haven’t put this all together by now, is a character in Memento, played (mostly without dialogue) by Stephen Tobolowsky, a.k.a. “Oh, that guy.” In case you somehow have never seen the movie: Sammy is man who, like the protagonist, Leonard Shelby, has suffered a terrible accident and consequently lost the ability to make new memories (basically short-term amnesia); Leonard tries to use Sammy’s story as a cautionary tale for how not to lead your life even when you can never recall what happened five minutes ago, and… well, again, for the five of you who have never seen it, I don’t wanna give anything away.

What the fucking fuck does ANY of this have to do with TTDTDE track? I dunno, I can’t understand the words. But it still rocks pretty hard.

Download “I Am Sammy Jankis” for FREE at Metal Injection. TTDTDE’s new album, Danza III: The Series of Unfortunate Events, comes out July 7 on Black Market Activities; in the meantime, the band kicks off the MetalSucks-sponsored Road to Metalfest tour with Through the Eyes of the Dead and Impending Doom tonight. Get dates here.

-AR

As I already said, I’m completely over following the Coheed & Cambria saga; I’m just in it for the tunes, man. So while I’m sure that “Year of the Black Rainbow” means something, like, ya know, totally profound to die-hard Coheed fans I don’t really care to dive back down that rabbit hole. On its own, though, a black rainbow would be pretty fucking cool… and metal.

Coheed are presently streaming their entire new album Year of the Black Rainbow on their MySpace page. I’m digging it about as much as I dug their last album, which is to say it’s pretty decent but nothing that’s blowing me away (yet). Coheed are one of those bands who put a lot of effort into giving their music added dimension for increased repeat-listening value, though, so I look forward to really sinking my teeth into this one and getting to know its ins and outs. I’m especially digging the song “Guns of Summer,” which is really different for the band. I wonder how much influence, if any, former Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie had in writing this album and in particular songs like “Guns of Summer”?

Check out Year of the Black Rainbow on Coheed & Cambria’s MySpace. The album comes out officially next Tuesday, April 13th.

-VN

Two observations about “The Right to Go Insane,” the new Megadeth video that debuted on Noisecreep earlier today:

1. The title card at the beginning, which announces that “THIS VIDEO IS A FICTIONAL DRAMATIZATION BASED ON A TRUE STORY AND REAL EVENTS,” was clearly written by a retard for the benefit of other retards. Was anyone seriously concerned that people might think the video is based on a true story and fake events? Or a fake story and real events? It didn’t occur to anyone involved in the making of this thing that the card’s explanation was the very definition of “redundant?”
2. Although I think the Dave Mustaine footage is kinda hokey, I do love this song, and think the tank footage looks pretty good. I’m assuming that at least some of it – the helicopter footage, to be more specific – is actual news footage from the actual true story and real events this video is based on, but maybe they just Cloverfielded it and I’m easily fooled. In any case, I wonder why Dave Ellefson is the video (unless that’s him playing Dave’s wife and I just didn’t recognize him); I’d guess the clip was actually filmed before he returned to the band, but James LoMenzo isn’t in the video, either, even though Chris Broderick and Shawn Drover both get their cameos. Hm.

Check out the video at Noisecreep.

-AR

When I awoke this morning, my Twitter friends list featured a whole lot of 140-characters-or-less commentary from last night’s unintentionally hilarious Finntroll show at New York’s Gramercy Theatre. Yet tucked away between the twitticisms (see what I did there?) was an outraged comment from a friend over the gossip that Robert fucking Pattinson has landed the role of Kurt Cobain in a planned Nirvana biopic. Yes, I’m talking about the same Robert Pattinson who used the worst terrorist attack on American soil as a fucking plot device and who terrorizes us all with his continued involvement in those fucking awful vampire flicks.

I know many of you are still totally butthurt than grunge supplanted hair metal in the early 90s, forever relegating your favorite bands (which sucked) to play Indian casinos and shitty nightclubs for the rest of their “careers,” but Nirvana was one of the most important bands of my adolescence. So yeah, I’m pissed that an actor that hasn’t played a decent role in his entire life was tapped to play one of my musical heroes.

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I can’t say I’m a huge Yakuza fan, but I’ve always admired the band from a distance. It also turns out that their band name is crucial to remember if you ever get stuck with the letter “Y” when playing “the band name game.”

So when Stereogum’s Brandon Stosuy says that Yakuza’s new album Of Seismic Consequence is a big step forward for the band, I’ll have to take his word for it. Stereogum is premiering a new track called “Stones and Bones” from that album and I’m really digging it; it’s spacey and expansive, stonery, jazzy and proggy. It’s got the added and unexpected bonus of a saxophone solo at the end by frontman Bruce Lamont, who lent his sax skills to Nachtmystium’s Assassins: Black Meddle Part I album-closer “Seasick.” I’m not a huge fan of Lamont’s vocal style (too whiny) and the drums on this track are sloppy at times, but I like the overall feel and attitude of it. Definitely makes me curious to hear the new album when it comes out.

Of Seismic Consequence comes out on June 8th via Profound Lore. Stream “Stones and Bones” at Stereogum.

-VN

Sick Of It All have been representing New York Hardcore since the mid-eighties, years before some of you little metal manics were even conceived in the back of a station wagon by your drunken, blood-related parents. Over the years, their sound has always stayed grounded in this great city’s streetwise tradition even as the band achieved international success as one of the most known and respected NYHC bands of all time. Based On A True Story, the band’s first album in four years, continues in the metallic vein of Death To Tyrants but is considerably tighter and even more amped up. “Bent Outta Shape”, one of the album’s highlights, charges hard and never lets up, with an emboldened Lou Koller raising the bar for the countless hardcore frontmen that ride Sick of It All’s coattails. But don’t just take my word for it; TAKE A LEAK!

DOWNLOAD: SICK OF IT ALL – “BENT OUTTA SHAPE”

Based On A True Story is out April 20th via Century Media. Pre-order your copy here or wherever fucking awesome music is sold. The label is offering a bunch of package deals that mix and match CD and vinyl versions with exclusive t-shirts, FYI.

-GS

Well, here’s a story that caught me pretty off-guard. From The PRP:

“Los Angeles based NINTENDOCORE pioneers HORSE the band have decided to change their name a decade into their career.

Singer Nathan Winneke says, ‘After touring Africa for the last two weeks we have had some profound experiences and decided we wanted a name that better expressed how we feel inside. We felt that it was time for our name to start expressing genuine emotion. We felt for too long we have let people criticize us for our name alone and its abstraction. It has become clear to us after 10 years. Our new name is Wicked Decision. We want people to know we are serious about our music.’”

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Wait until you guys see the lineup for this year’s Summer Slaughter tour. It absolutely SMOKES the Rockstar Mayhem Festival and rumored Ozzfest lineups… no competition. To say that the lineup is super-sexy would be an understatement.

You’re going to have to wait to find out who’s on the bill, but lucky for you Veil of Maya revealed in the above Metal Injection interview that they’re one of the bands. And while some of you will probably think Veil of Maya are too “scene”… just you wait until you see who else is on the bill. And for what it’s worth, I hold Veil of Maya in high regard as the sort of kings of that scene (in a good way) and some of the very best the genre has to offer.

Veil of Maya’s new record [id] just came out this past Tuesday on Sumerian Records. Check out a few of its songs on their MySpace page.

-VN

MetalSucks Maniac Alexander S. wrote in about Black Sun Aeon last year, and the Vince wrote about Black Sun Aeon, and then I, being an asshole, still did not check them out. But now I just watched their video for the song “Frozen,” and all I can say is, “Whoops.” I’m really digging this band; I mean, I could live without the clean vocals, and the video itself is about as exciting as a slide show of Aunt Sadie’s trip to the Grand Canyon, but everything else about this, I like. Really. I’m not being a jerk.

“Frozen” comes of an album called Routa, which is out now. I’ll have to check that out.

-AR

I can’t wait to see a larger picture of the cover for Watain’s new album, Lawless Darkness; it looks like it might be all manner of awesome, but as it stands, all we have is the itty bitty picher below, which, um… well I can kinda make out some broken scrolls with Hebrew writing on them, and something is flying out of them – demons? Souls? Whatever comes out of the ark at the end of Raiders?

What’s that you say? Oh, it’s just Erik “E” Danielsson’s asshole after a night of too much Taco Bell? Ohhhh. Okay. Never-mind.

Lawless Darkness comes out June 7 on Season of Mist.

-AR

The winners of last week’s funny photo caption contest each receive a shirt by Rodney Githens of Vertebrae 33. All for the price of typing something stupid into a web browser. Sweet deal if you ask me. The winners:

• coop: “Varg Vikernes acting like the ‘stereotypical negro’.”
• Stephen H. Martin: “After hearing the team captain make reference to ‘posting up in the paint’, Tim was sure to make varsity this year.”

Yes, you read the headline to this post correctly; we’re giving away a chainsaw signed by Jackyl‘s Jesse James Dupree. If you’re wondering what the fuck a chainsaw’s got to do with this site and why on earth anyone would be signing it, congrats, you’ve made me feel old. This here chainsaw is made by Jonsered and it looks pretty sweet to me, though admittedly I have no fucking clue; it’s pictured here. Be sure to pick up a copy of Jackyl’s new CD, When Moonshine and Dynamite Collide, when it comes out on May 4th. To win just come up with a funny caption to the below photo [sent to us by Voltron Futura], and be sure to register with or include a real email address. ‘Cause this baby’s heavy and therefore expensive to ship, this week’s contest is open to U.S. residents only — and because it’s a friggin’ chainsaw, you gotta be 21 to win it. Read all of the official contest rules here.

UPDATE: Since this contest is also posted on other sites, new rules for selecting winners are as follows: one MS winner will be chosen at random and thrown into the finalist batch from which one entry will be chosen by the band.

I’ve often been asked, “What is your favorite music to fuck to?” Well, as a certified professional, it’s probably safe to assume that I can make the magic happen to pretty much anything from Stravinsky to Marvin Gaye, but I must admit that the appropriate soundtrack can make a difference, and nothing gets the juices flowing quite like heavy metal.

“Hold on,” you might think, “heavy metal is a broad category that encompasses numerous sub-genres.” Well, that is certainly true, so let me narrow it down a bit for you. Let’s say you had the opportunity to shoot your own porno co-starring me, Bobbi Starr, and we have decided to use one entire metal album as the soundtrack for your scene.

As the hypothetical director and producer of this fine film, I have decided, based on extensive research, that our talents as fornicators would be best complemented by Metallica’s Ride the Lightning. This hard-hitting second album still embodies Metallica’s raw, thrash roots, while giving you a little taste of their transition to the more polished, melodic sound of Master of Puppets. Here’s a quick run-down of what a story board for this scene might look like (wait… porn scenes have story boards?):

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Anybody who’s been to a Rush live event can tell you that it’s totally magical, like some kind of parallel dimension of contentment. I suspect it has something to do with the men of Rush themselves: three virtuosos who share a incredibly deep understanding of what comprises transcendent, affecting music. So that means concertgoers step through the gates with firm confidence in place of the usual crossed-arm expectations. Each Rush show is like its own holiday, where the stresses of reality are replaced with rock music at its fullest, Kobe-level potential. Sigh.

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TheMetalDen.com has unearthed what is supposedly the earliest known live video of Slayer, embedded below, performing the classic track “Black Magic” at Anaheim, California’s The Woodstock club on March 28, 1983.

I’m not enough of a Slayer fanboy to know whether this is in fact the oldest known video of the band playing live, but regardless of whether it is or isn’t it’s still pretty damn old and it’s really cool. How ’bout those synchronized stage moves? The band caught the attention of Metal Blade Records head honcho Brian Slagel in the very same club only a few months later, and we all know how that worked out for both parties.

-VN

MS reader Viking_xxx sent in photos of himself wearing our super-sweet “Jew Skull” MetalSucks t-shirt on stage with his band during their last performance ever. Mr. Viking_xxx didn’t want us to plug the band nor did he tell us their name — as what good would a plug for a broken-up band do? — but judging by their choice of stage apparel they can’t be half-bad.

For his excellent wardrobe choice Viking_xxx will receive a package of metal goodies in the mail. You can get the same by sending in pictures of yourself wearing your MetalSucks gear. What’s that, you don’t have any yet? Better fix that right quick. Check out the photos that other Suckalos have already sent in, including a trip to India, the Hollywood hills, and the snowy shores of Chicago.

One more pic after the jump…

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Deathcore doesn’t get much more generic than Beneath the Sky. I’ve never gotten an e-mail about this band from a reader, never met anyone who’s into them, and generally find no reason to care about them. But it’s a slow news day and they have a new song, “Terror Starts at Home,” streaming here, so, y’know. I thought I’d mention it.

If you like this band, please tell me why in the comments section. Otherwise, please feel free to make fun of them, the way you guys make fun of even more shit than we do.

“Terror Starts at Home” will appear on BTS’ new album, In Loving Memory, which comes out via Victory on May 11. Hopefully the rest of the spring will be filled with interesting developments so that I never have to write about this album again. (Although I do kinda like that cover art.)

-AR

High on Fire took their U.S. tour with Priestess, Bison B.C. and Black Cobra in tow to Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church this past Tuesday. MS photographer Diana Lee Zadlo was on hand to capture the action with her usual flare. Her photos, after the jump.

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In case you missed my review, I am really, really into The Farthest Reaches, the debut album from Santa Cruz quintet Son of Aurelius. Proggy, techy, brutal and infectious in equal measures, The Farthest Reaches is the most assured debut by a metal band I’ve heard in some time – and SOA only just formed last year. Imagine what the future holds for them!

The Farthest Reaches will be the inaugural release from the newly-formed Good Fight Entertainment next Tuesday, April 13. On the eve of the album’s release, SOA co-guitarist Cary Geare took some time to get on the phone and tell me all about these incredibly promising young upstarts. Read the full transcript of our chat after the jump.

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Exodus have unveiled another new song from their forthcoming Exhibit B: The Human Condition, this one entitled “Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer).” It seems to be about school shootings, from the point of view of the shooter. That’s a dicey experiment, given that a) non-metalheads are idiots and may very well think that Exodus are endorsing school shootings, and b) metalheads are idiots and may very well think that Exodus are endorsing school shootings.

Luckily, the mass media doesn’t know who the fuck Exodus are, so the chances that the band are actually accused of being responsible for a future school shooting seem pretty slim. Still, if ever these legendary thrashers were gonna be involved in their own “Angel of Death”-style controversy, well, this would be the song to put them there.

Check out “Class Dismissed” here. Exhibit B: The Human Condition comes out May 18 on Nuclear Blast.

-AR