April 20th was circled in my calendar well in advance, and not just because it’s holiday we at the MS Mansion take very seriously — April 20th marked the biggest release date of the year thus far for metal releases with new offerings from Periphery, Ratt, Sevendust, another greatest hits repacking from AC/DC, Circa Survive, Airbourne and more. Let’s see how those releases fared in their first week out, as well as how other metal and hard rock records are performing after the jump.

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I don’t even feel the need to write anything about this; you just need to see this Ad Age headline and know that this is a really real thing:

Go here to read the actual story. Unfortunately, none of it is as funny as that headline.

-AR

Thanks to Mick Stingley for the tip. Looks like you don’t have to stop reading MS now, Mick.

Gwar and The Red Chord have teamed up with PETA2 in a campaign against dog-fighting, and since both bands have some of the best senses of humor in all of metal they’re having a little fun with it. Whether or not you agree with the politics and actions of PETA, I think we can all agree that dog fighting is terribly inhumane and needs to stop, and Gwar’s Oderus Urungus and The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk think so too. Metal Injection thinks that “there should be a back alley wrestling league comprised of metal musicians”; I’d totally pay to see that. Check out the PSA below.

-VN

The walls of Duff’s in Brooklyn are literally covered from floor to ceiling in various metal memorabilia and not-necessarily-metal-per-se-but-still-awesome artwork; there’s everything from signed Slayer shit to a vintage Alien poster to pictures of titties to tons of H.R. Giger art. (Including an incredible table made by Giger, which was so beautiful that I was kind of horrified that we were all putting our drinks on it. I mean, I know that’s what it’s there for, but come ON – it’s Giger, people!) And at least one of the prints we were all admiring last night was by the New York artist Vincent Castiglia, who has become a protégé of Giger’s (the two worked on the incredible art for Triptykon’s Epsasjsdf Daimonosasjkasd or whatever it’s called together) and who – get this – paints with his own blood. Which immediately qualifies him as one of the most metal artists ever.

Now our bro-bros at Metal Injection have launched a new series, entitled “Spotlight,” which intends to “put the focus on some our favorite people within the scene that aren’t necessarily in a band, but contribute to other aspects of the scene.” The inaugural episode is about Castiglia, who’s as interesting a character as you’d expect. Check it out below.

-AR

It was just a few months ago that Trent Reznor announced that not only was he working on some new material for Nine Inch Nails, but also some new material for “something else that isn’t Nine Inch Nails.” Of course that got us all foaming at the mouth – What non-NIN project could Trent be working on? WHAT NON-NIN PROJECT COULD TRENT BE WORKING ON???

The answer, it would seem, is How To Destroy Angels (a process that is apparently quite different from training your dragon), a new outfit he’s starting up with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig. There’s already an official website for the group, which is very NIN in design, and word of an EP to be released this summer.

I wasn’t really a fan of Maandig’s last band, West Indian Girl, although my problem with them wasn’t her vocals – it was just that the music wasn’t my pace. But the below teaser video for the group would suggest that HTDA is going to sound more or less like late-era NIN, presumably with some combination of Maandig and Reznor on vocals – which is fine with me. The last time I can recall hearing Reznor doing vocals with a woman was when he did some backing stuff for Tori Amos on her song “Past the Mission,” which I thought was pretty swell… so I’m game for whatever.

-AR

We at MetalSucks shed a collective tear when Devin Townsend announced he’d shaved his trademark skullet a couple of years back, but rejoiced when he announced this past Fall that he’d soon be working on a new Ziltoid album and that the next generation Ziltoid puppet would inherit Devy’s locks of nasty grease love.

In a video posted over the weekend by the aptly named “poopynuggeteer” (aka Devy himself) Devin unveils the skullet from the box in which it had been resting in peace, and affixes it to Ziltoid’s putrid skull; and I gotta say, it suits Zilty extremely well! He looks ravishing. We also get a sample of what we can assume is new music from Z2; and it sounds likes it’s going to be as cooky and brutal as the original.

-VN

Thanks: Pink-croc fashion model Metal Mykee

We’ve already heard a bootleg live recording of the title track from Misery Index’s new album, Heirs to Thievery; now the actual studio recording is streaming on the band’s MySpace page. And – no shocks here – it’s a scorcher. Alongside “Carrion Call,” the other new song from the album the band has released (and which has an opening riff that increasingly kind of reminds me of The Red Chord’s “Lay the Trap” – anyone else get that feeling?), it’s starting to become pretty clear that Misery Index have done it again. If this don’t scratch Vince’s DM itch, ain’t nuthin’ gunna.

Heirs to Thievery comes out via Relapse on May 11. And don’t forget that the band are on the MetalSucks-sponsored Facemelter Tour with Dying Fetus, Arsis, Annotations of an Autopsy and Conducting from the Grave. Get dates here.

-AR

So we had a lot of fun hanging out Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis last night – definitely a very laid back and humble dude, considering that he could probably kill us all with his guitar playing. Attendees included MetalSucks’ own Anton OyVey and Antonin Skullia, Esq., as well as Empyreon drummer Frank Godla (who, despite one of my poorly phrased tweets, has not replaced Van Williams in Nevermore.). When we weren’t passing my iPhone around, enjoying the entries for the Nevermore/MetalSucks “Create Your Own Conspiracy” contest (it ends Friday and there is definitely a front runner already – so enter now if you’re gonna!!!), it should surprise no one to learn that significant portion of the evening was devoted to music dorkery; so while I can’t remember exactly how it came up, at some point Mr. Loomis recommended we all check out MasterTracks18, a YouTube user who has uploaded literally hundreds of individual tracks from various well-known songs spanning different genres – metal and hard rock being primary amongst them.

Of course, it’s all pretty fascinating; you could lose hours of your day listening to all of these. I’ve only listened to a handful myself so far, and I already feel like I’m about to lose hours of my day listening to these. I’m sure all you instrument nerds can are gonna love really getting into the nitty gritty of the various tracks, but even if you’re not an instrument nerd… it’s just a really, really awesome look behind the curtain, so to speak.

You can check them all out at MasterTracks18′s YouTube page, which now, for legal reasons, is segueing to page for MasterTracks19. But in the meantime, here are just a few of my favorites…

“Crazy Train,” Guitar Track

Some more after the jump.

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Hey MetalSucks Maniacs,

We know this is crazy last-minute, but guess who just arrived in NYC? None other than Nevermore guitar god JEFF FUCKING LOOMIS! And because Vince and I have a ridiculously surreal life, we’ve been tasked with taking him out and showing him a good time.

So we’re hitting up New York’s last great metal bar, Duff’s, tonight around 9 pm. The address is 168 Marcy Avenue; here’s a map, and the J/M/Z trains stop right nearby. If you’re around and you have nothing better to do (and fuck work/studying/etc.; IT’S JEFF FUCKING LOOMIS, people), come out and get drunk with us! As it turns out the dudes from Hellyeah are in town and are gonna be partying there, too. How often do you get a chance to stand in a room with JEFF FUCKING LOOMIS and VINNIE FUCKING PAUL?!?! Not very often.

See ya there…

-AR

Mazel tov to Elaine Carranza. She correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Eighty Thousand Dead. For her troubles, Elaine wins a copy of At the Gates’ new three-disc DVD, The Flames of the End. That should provide you with many hours of good fun, Elaine!

Now let’s change the subject to Poland’s Hate. The band is about to embark on the MetalSucks/Metal Injection co-sponsored A Taste of Extreme Divinity North American Tour 2010, which will be their first U.S. trek! To celebrate,  the fine folks at Listenable Records have given us six – yes, I said SIX – t-shirt/CD combos to give away for this week’s contest! Each package comes with a copy of Hate’s latest album, Morphosis, as well as either a sweet Morphosis or Anclasis shirt. Check it out:

Pretty sweet, right? 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 six winners and announce their names next week. And don’t forget to visit Hate on MySpace to get all the dates for the Taste of Extreme Divinity North American Tour 2010!!!

This week’s logo was suggested by read Dylan Annette. Thanks a bunch, Dylan!

Good luck everyone…

-AR

I’ve always been a crappy band namer. I’m crappy at naming anything, really. I come from a long line of people who were bad namers as well. My parents named me Sacha for fuck’s sake. We have absolutely no Russian in our gene pool. My mom already had a cat named Sacha when I was born. She either really liked the name, or just wasn’t creative enough to think of something else to call her first-born child. Thanks to her, I was constantly asked by my peers if I knew that “Sacha is a girl’s name,” which probably led to me getting into heavy metal, which most definitely led to me eventually writing this blog entry for MetalSucks. So yeah, thanks Mom.

Back to the band name thing. Yeah, I suck at it. I’ve never named a single band I’ve ever been in. God damn it if I haven’t tried, though. And god damn it if it isn’t the most pathetic, embarrassing, and unnecessarily vulnerable experience a group of musicians will ever put themselves through. You spend all week thinking of a name you believe to be unique, and to have meaning, then present it at rehearsal the next day only to have it written off after 15 seconds of consideration with a “nah, man…” while everyone stares away at the ground and/or quickly changes the subject.

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No mandatory extended vacation in Amsterdam would be complete without smoking a cartel-load of sensational ganja & hashish……and believe you me, I certainly did my part last week.

My personal favorite coffee shop I patronized along my stony travels was most definitely the mighty Dampkring, where the vibe is just right, the staff is ultra-friendly, and the selection is aces.

I highly recommend this spot.

-KW

Krallice blew my mind when I first saw them at the 2009 incarnation of Scion Rock Fest in Atlanta, and since then I’ve been fighting to re-live that very special performance. When they played Union Pool in Brooklyn a couple of months ago the venue was so packed that I was essentially just listening to them play from outside; not a good experience. And though I missed their recent April 18th performance with Ludicra at Club Europa in Brooklyn, I’ll have a chance to see them again with Gorguts and Portal when they come back to Brooklyn in May. If it’s even close to as epic as the April 18th video below, I can’t wait.

-VN

Krallice | NYC @ Europa | 18 Apr 2010 from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins once said in order to make a perfect song, “you have to… be able to hide what you’re stealing from really well.” Evidently, new Relapse Records signing Mose Giganticus haven’t quite figured that out just yet, because the verse to their song “The Left Path” seems like a seriously obvious rip off of “The Talking Horse,” the lead track off the Melvins’ 2006 LP A Senile Animal. Visit Mose Giganticus’ MySpace page and give that track a listen. Then check out the (quite bizarre) Melvins video below the cut.

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Animals as Leaders were so fucking good when I saw them play the small room at Emo’s during SXSW that still, over a month later, I can’t stop thinking about that performance. For me and most people in the room it was the first time seeing the band live, and whenever you see a band you’ve really been digging live for the first time there’s a certain special energy and uncontainable excitement. That everyone in the room was in the exact same boat made it even bigger. Like the first time (and shit, even the second time) we saw Gojira headline… it was all just pure excitement and unadulterated happiness. OK, maybe Animals as Leaders weren’t Gojira great, but they still killed it and I can’t wait to see them again when they come through with the Summer Slaughter tour.

Here’s a live video I found of Animals as Leaders playing “Tempting Time” live in St. Louis this past Fall. The room is bigger, and as such the excitement level lower, than when I saw them… but it’s still a great taste of what these guys do live.

-VN

Well, this is interesting.

Rather than unveil the cover art that Jason Oda of Starvingeyes.com has created for their new album, Meridional, the traditional way – e.g., with a still photo – Norma Jean have actually made a teaser video featuring said cover art. The clip debuted on Noisecreep earlier today.

The pro of this approach is that we get to hear a snippet of a new song from the album, “The Anthem of the Angry Brides.” And while it’s less than forty seconds of actual music, I gotta say, it already sounds better to my ears than anything they’ve done since O God, The Aftermath - it really sounds like they brought the heavy/crazy back, and heavy/crazy is what this band has been missing on their last couple of albums.

The con of this approach is that there isn’t a single shot in the video of the entire cover at once, which means that even strategic hitting of the “pause” button won’t allow you to really study and appreciate the art. That might not be a big deal to the young ‘uns who don’t really care about album art, but to old fogies like me who are still really into cover art, it’s a bummer – not least of all because what we do get to see looks pretty cool. But hopefully an actual picture of the cover will be released soon.

Watch the vid below and see what you think. I had to sit through a commercial about how my dog needs to brush his teeth or some shit first, but dem’s da breaks.

-AR

Like a lot of people, I first became familiar with Brian Posehn because of his time on David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s brilliant HBO sketch comedy series, Mr. Show, for which he was also a writer. A few years after that show went off the air, my then-roommate and I went to see Posehn do some stand-up at a comedy club here in New York. I don’t think we were even there to see Posehn specifically – if memory serves, David Cross was the actual draw for us – but he was so funny that I actually laughed so hard I became winded and fell out of my chair. Since then, he’s been on a very, very short list of stand-ups that I never miss the chance to check out when they come through town. Mr. Show sketches about a fictional band called “Titannica” led me to believe that someone on the series’ writing staff was a metal fan, but I didn’t know that it was Posehn until later – and the revelation that he was just as obsessed with metal as I was only made him that much cooler.

Fart and Wiener Jokes, Posehn’s second album for Relapse, comes out today (and you can order a copy here). Like its predecessor, Live: In Nerd Rage, it features not only recordings of his brilliant stand-up, but also an original song he co-wrote with Anthrax’s Scott Ian (“More Metal Than You”) to poke fun at some of metal’s more regrettable foibles. It also has a metal cover of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” and between the two music tracks, Posehn has managed to rope in guest appearances by such all-stars as Jamey Jasta, Mark Morton, Mark Oseguenda, John Tempesta, and Russ Parrish. Assuming you love great comedy and great metal, there’s no way you’re not gonna dig Fart and Wiener Jokes.

A few weeks ago I got to talk to Posehn about putting comedy albums out on a metal label, what it’s like to be friends with some of his boyhood heroes, the state of metal today, his take on the Anthrax vocalist situation, and more. He even turned the tables at the end and asked me a question! Read the complete transcript of our chat after the jump.

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I’m really curious to know what the situation here actually was; is this a parody of something in particular? a joke? for real? a KKK rally? why are there so many people watching (relatively)?

So many questions, so much suckage.

-VN

It’s funny how things work out sometimes; no sooner did I publish a post at noon proclaiming my desire to hear the entire new Mantric record (out today!) than I got an email from the band saying “Hey, here’s the record. Wanna stream it?” But of course we do.

So while this is most likely your first time listening to Mantric’s The Descent, it’s mine too; and so far I really, really like what I’m hearing. Turns out the record is a whole lot more diverse than the “Neurisis meets Opeth via Converge production” description I gave it earlier based on the tracks posted on MySpace; this record is really all over the metal map, and in a great way. Mantric inflict their progressive take on everything and the results are amazing. The band I’d actually liken them to most is The Ocean, if not quite in sound then definitely in concept.

Listen to The Descent and let us know what you think. If you like it, considering ordering a copy for just $10 or with a t-shirt for $20.

-VN

[this promotion has ended]

The May 6th deadline for our Revocation Shredathon contest is drawing ever closer!

In honor of Revocation’s devastating new video for “Dismantle The Dictator”, MetalSucks is teaming up with Metal Injection to offer one aspiring shredder the chance to win an autographed Jackson guitar, Revocation prize pack, and all the other swag that’s listed in the above graphic. Just film yourself playing along to Revocation’s “Dismantle the Dictator” (as if that were an easy task) and upload your video to Metal Injection.

If you need a little help, there are two videos of Dave Davidson teaching fans how to play “Dismantle the Dictator” uploaded on FPE TV.  Check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Official rules can be found here.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER AND UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO!