Judas Priest with Dave Holland, far left.

Speaking of metal, children, and tricky issues: Tuesday will see the release of the 30th Anniversary Edition of Judas Priest’s British Steel, and Phil Freeman over at MSN has made an interesting observation about the accompanying liner notes:

[The booklet] also includes a short note from the band on the inside cover, a two-page spread of live photos, a two-page essay by some dude I’ve never heard of (Dave Shack), two more pages of live photos, and two pages of credits (band and crew). And while the essays deal with the 30th anniversary, all the photos are new-looking, presumably shot on the 2009 tour. Which means they include Scott Travis on drums. And when you look at the credits in the back of the booklet, Scott Travis is listed as Judas Priest’s drummer.

Which is fine…if you’re talking about the [accompanying] live album. Scott Travis has been Judas Priest’s drummer since 1989. He played on Painkiller, all the Ripper Owens-era material, Angel of Retribution and Nostradamus. But he did not play on the 1980 recording of British Steel. Dave Holland did.

Click to read more…

It’s good to know that Mike White’s character in School of Rock has a real-life counterpart.

There’s this 29 year-old dude in Stuggart, Germany. His name is Thomas Gurrath, and when he’s not calling himself “The Bloodbeast” and doing vocals for a death metal band called Debauchery, he’s training to be a teacher. I don’t know exactly how old the kids he’d be teaching are, but the subject is “politics, history and ethics,” so I think we can safely assume that the kids are at least at an age where they’re thinking about what it might feel like to touch naughty parts.

ANYWAY, this dude has now been told by the “regional education authorities” that unless he quits the band, his days as a teacher are numbered.

(WARNING: There are some NSFW photos after the jump. It’s a naked chickc covered in Karo syrup. So now you know exactly what you’re getting into by clicking through.)

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O, Scar Symmetry. How I love thee unconditionally, even though superman/vocalist Christian Alvestam left to pursue a million other projects that sound just like thee (such as the killer new Solution.45 record). For after all, ’tis Sire Jonas Kjellgren who is the genius of this group, thy prowess which cannot possibly be overcome by the shortcomings of one chump who plays the auto-tune machine and another who plays the cookie monster. For on video, thou dual vocal attack dost look goofy. Very goofy.

Woah, time out… is the bassist wearing a Scar Symmetry hoodie in this video? I know it had to be cold out there… but come on. Party foul.

Catch Scar Symmetry and their simultaneously genius and goofy attack on the MetalSucks co-sponsored tour with Hypocrisy, Hate, Blackguard and Swashbuckle starting next week! Thou shalt not be sorry.

-VN

I’m in the process of falling in love with Heirs to Thievery – and I think we all know that the courtship is the most exciting part of any relationship. I can’t decide which song is my favorite – I have it narrowed down to either the fifth track, “The Spectator,” or pretty much anything that comes after it – and it probably has some flaws, but I can’t really see them right now. Am I still gonna wanna hit that in six months? Only time will tell, but right now, I’m seriously considering calling Vince to be a witness and running down to city hall.

So the album comes out this Tuesday on Relapse, but you can fall in love with it right now – Heirs to Thievery is streaming right here. Don’t let your other albums see you headbanging to it or they might get jealous.

And, of course, don’t forget that Misery Index are part of the MetalSucks-presented Facemelter Tour 2010 with Dying Fetus, Arsis, Annotations of an Autopsy and Conducting from the Grave. The trek kicked off last night in Baltimore – was anyone there? Did Misery Index play much of the new album? Drop us a line and let us know how it was if you went. And the rest of you can get the ongoing dates here.

-AR

Taken from the medical files of an average Hinder fan.

We’ve made our feelings about Hinder pretty well-known around these parts, but poor Cosmo Lee has somehow just discovered the truly heinous creation that is so beloved by MENSA members the world over. But because Cosmo is apparently a much more even-keeled dude than either of us are, he hasn’t pitched a fit about the fact that this band’s popularity clearly signals the impending Apocalypse – rather, he’s having some fun at the band’s expense by running a pretty sweet contest at Invisible Oranges. Here’s the gist of it, as explained by Cosmo:

Hinder’s music is repulsive yet fascinating. It’s post-grunge like Nickelback and Creed, but with opportunistic feints at glam rock and metal: music-making by focus group. The result isn’t really music. It’s hooks, spiky haircuts, and airtight audio assemblages that embody the principle of “Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!” I am in awe of its ruthless efficiency.

Some metal bands are, too – namely Edguy and Sentenced, whose later records moved from metal to hard rock. They only wish they could write hits like Hinder. So I’ve put together 10 audio clips from Hinder, Edguy, and Sentenced. Your mission is to guess which band did which ones. DO NOT USE ANY RESOURCES OTHER THAN YOUR BRAIN. Don’t use MySpace, YouTube, Last.fm, audio recognition software, or even your own music collection. That’s no fun (not to mention needless work), and it’s cheating.

The winner gets this awesome Pushead book. But even if there weren’t a great prize involved, it is a lot of fun to listen to the samples and try and figure out the answers. To be honest, never having been a fan of any of the bands involved, it all sounds pretty much the same to me… but perhaps some of you will fare better. Give it a shot right here.

-AR

Welcome to the very first installment of Cooking Contaminated, the brand new heavy metal cooking show brought to you by MetalSucks and your host, Eli Shaika! This episode’s guests are vocalist Mike Hrubovcak of Monstrosity and his brother, bassist JJ Hrubovcak of Hate Eternal. No recipe could be more fitting for a couple of Poles than classic home-made pierogis, coupled with Eli’s own special bacon, chive and sour cream topping. Watch the video below; you’ll find a list of ingredients after the jump so you know what to buy at the supermarket.

Click to read more…

MOAR IST ALWAYS BETTER!!!!

Ok guys, so since we started off with some live tone tips last time, I figured for this column we’d talk a bit about my experience in the studio. I say “my experience” because unfortunately there are few absolute truths when it comes to anything having to do with art, as it is all painfully subjective blahblahblah… so please feel free to take all this info with a grain of salt. This is just some info that I really wish I had known about when I was just starting to record; instead I had to figure it out the hard way, so maybe this can save some time and trouble for a few of you guys!

I’m sure some of you guys already know the stuff I am about to cover in the next few paragraphs, but a select few will bother reading the whole damn thing anyway and then complain that you know it all already and that it was a waste of time reading, etc. If I am describing someone that sounds scarily similar to you, I recommend not reading this column. Just stop right here and you’ll save that many minutes of your life! You’re welcome!

The first thing I want to talk about is quad (or more) tracking and some of the misconceptions that surround it. A lot of people ask me if I quad track and if it is indeed the key to getting a “big” sound when recording guitars. The answer is tricky, as I wouldn’t say it makes recordings sound big in the traditional sense. Two important side effects (sometimes desirable, sometimes not) are 1) for lack of a better word “squishier” sounding guitars, and 2) an almost chorus-like effect on the guitar. The reasons for this are pretty simple: when you have 4 or more guitars playing the same part, because of the nature of trying to do exactly the same thing but not quite achieving it because you are a human being, the attack of the transients doesn’t always line up. This is the case with 2 guitars, but it’s exponentially harder to achieve with 4. Your attack ends up getting sort of “averaged out” between the 4 note attacks, and it makes the result not hit quite as hard. Because of the minute differences in the 4 takes, those differences really add up. Especially if you tend to pick hard, the guitars will chorus against each other because of the minute pitch differences at every spot.

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Each of the winners of last week’s photo caption contest get a nifty CD of Howl’s latest Full of Hell delivered to their mailbox free of charge. Sweet deal. The winners are:

• Schenkeltown: “Schwinn Lizzy”
• bearbomb: “Penta-gram-athlon.”

Sometimes simple does it. This week we’re giving away five more Nickels & Dimes metal t-shirts; you can check out the designs here (we’ve got M and L sizes)… they’re the shit, if we do say so ourselves. Simply comment below with a witty caption [photo courtesy of Jeremy Ruemenapp], and remember to use (or include) a real email address.

Cancer Bats are a pretty cool band, and so is their brand new album Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones, out now on Good Fight Entertainment. Frontman Liam Cormier seemed like a mighty cool cat when I spoke with him back in March, taking his band’s inability to fit into any one scene in stride. Diana Lee Zadlo’s live photos of Cancer Bats in Philly were pretty cool too, so much so that they made me wish I’d been able to see the band live. And wouldn’t you know it, Cancer Bats are one of the few bands on the ridonkulously-monikered “Cool Tour” who hold the distinction of actually living up the tour’s billing.

And here we are with a pretty cool video for their song “Dead Wrong,” which comes from the aforementioned album. Cool.

Did I mention how heavy these guys are and how much they kick ass? Yeah, that too.

-VN

[This exclusive has now ended.]

When we heard that our friends in Brooklyn doom-crew Batillus were heading into the studio to record a new album,  we were all, “Dudes, do a studio blog for us!!!” And they were all, “Okay!!!” And so here we are! Below, find the inaugural installment, which was written by bassist Willi Stabenau; more entries from the other members of the band will follow in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

Waiting eighteen months for amps is almost worth it, if your amps are two Electric Power Units. After months and months of anxiety and crappy tone from my Coliseums, my two Greens showed up here in Chicago, just in time to start recording. Probably the best-sounding amps I’ve ever heard, and hugely powerful. Not sure I would wait that long again, though. You will love this bass; I guarantee it to be all over your ears like a cheap Men’s Wearhouse suit.

Yesterday, we discovered that [guitarist Greg] Peterson looks suspiciously like Varg Vikernes:

And shortly thereafter, we realized that the dude who’s recording us looks a hell of a lot like one Sanford Parker, knob-twiddler to the metal stars:

Click to read more…

What I really liked about Norma Jean’s Bless the Martyr and O’God, the Aftermath was just how unpredictable the band sounded. I felt like I never knew where the songs were going; it was metalcore as written by a schizophrenic who just went off his meds. The more slickly-produced and highly structured Norma Jean of Redeemer and The Anti-Mother isn’t the same band (in some ways literally); and that might not be a problem if the music they produced kicked major ass, but, at least in my opinion, it did not. Norma Jean very quickly went from feeling kinda dangerous to feeling pretty predictable; the schizo went back on his meds, it seems.

The band has a new song now, “Leaders and Self Enlisted,” which they’re offering as a free download if you sign up for their mailing list (which is a bitch, I know). On the one hand, I like it way more than anything I’ve heard these dudes do in some time; on the other hand, I still don’t like it as much as anything from Martyr. The thinking behind it just seems so traditionalist compared to the crazy NJ of yore.

But this isn’t the same kinda-promising-sounding song as the one that appears in this teaser for the band’s new album, Meridional, so… I will continue to hold out hope.

Of course, this raises all the usual questions about “artistic development vs. changing your sound,” so… yeah, get the song here and then rage on, I guess. Meridional comes out July 13.

-AR

[via Noisecreep]

Earlier this year I got to attend a pretty kick-ass Orphaned Land gig here in NYC; well, Team Metal Injection was there in full-force, too, and did what they do best, which is smoke weed and get drunk. And, oh yeah, they captured some awesome performance footage of the show, too. For example, check out this clip of Israel’s premiere metal act performing their song “Barakah”:

If you head over to Metal Injection, you can also see an interview that Noa did with the band. And don’t forget that Orphaned Land, along with Swallow the Sun, will be support for Katatonia on their upcoming MetalSucks-sponsored “New Night Over North America 2010″ tour starting this fall. Get dates here.

-AR

So claims reader “46andTool,” who insists that Barcelona’s (or, more accurately, “Barthelona’s”) Vortice “fucking destroy.”

Now…  I’ve said in the past that Meshuggah are just one of those bands that cannot be cloned. I always thinks bands that sound just like Meshuggah are ridiculous; they never pull it off, or really do anything other than make me wanna listen to Meshuggah. Of course I don’t mind if Meshuggah are an influence on your music, but… as a friend of mine likes to say, you have to think of your art as a Christmas tree: your influences can be the ornaments, but they can’t be the trunk. And Meshuggah are Vortice’s trunk – in fact, they’re Vortice’s entire fucking tree. Vortice don’t bring anything new to the formula. They just sound exactly like Meshuggah, except not as good, because no Meshuggah wanna-bes ever sound as good as the real thing.

Check out Vortice here and then feel free to disagree with me in the comments section. But I’m right.

-AR

Good news, everyone; after being forced to cancel one show and skip another (possibly more?) — at which Baroness’ two guitarists filled in – hospitalized Mastodon guitarist and mustache king Bill Kelliher is back performing with the band on their current U.S. tour with Baroness, Between the Buried and Me and Valient Thorr. Reader Brett S. reported that Kelliher performed with the band Tuesday night in Tucson (though his pot-addled brain couldn’t remember Bill’s name) while uber longtime caller Ryd1ZZ reported the same in San Diego last night. So all appears to be well with Bill… or, at least he’s well enough to perform. Though my ultimate dream of watching guitarists from Baroness, Between the Buried and Me and Valient Thorr fill in for a full set of Mastodon tunes will not come to fruition, I think we can all agree that this is great news.

No official word has been released yet as to why Kelliher was hospitalized in the first place. I’ve heard rumors including conditions as severe as pancreatitis and diabetes, and of course there’s always the old “partied to hard” speculation, but the latter seems unlikely to cause a three-day hospital visit. Whatever the case, if Bill wanted to the world to know, we’d know; so I guess we gotta respect his privacy. Glad to have you healthy and back, Bill.

-VN

The MetalSucks-sponsored “Facemelter Tour 2010″ is sure to be the most bone-breakingly, ass-rippingly, and, yeah, face-meltingly br00tal tour of the season. Dying Fetus. Holy shit, do those dudes crush live. Arsis? Misery Index? If you ever wanna have childen, I hope you’ve donated sperm recently, because those bands are gonna crush your balls into dust. Sadly, I’ve never seen Annotation of an Autopsy or Conducting from the Grave live before, but given their excellence in the field of “FUCK YOU GGGRRRRR!!!” and brain-melting, it’s hard for me to imagine they’ll do anything but crack skulls and break necks.

And the tour kicks off tonight in Baltimore! Only pansies are gonna miss this thing… and you’re not a pansy, are you? So get dates here, and then get your ass out to a show. It will rule your world.

-AR

Tommy Stinsonbaum – who is one of the original MetalSucks readers (seriously, the dude was leaving comments here back when we were getting about three readers a day) – just sent me a link to this Cracked list, entitled “The 5 Most Famous Musicians Who Are Thieving Bastards.” Most of the artists listed aren’t of relevance to metal fans – the fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber sucks isn’t exactly news – but I was surprised to learn that Metallica, as it turns out, have been ripping people off for years.

And I’m not just talking about the “Gee that kinda-sorta sounds like this other song” type-deal that Anso wrote about awhile back – I mean some of this shit is just flat-out plagiarism. Check out this clip which compares “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” to Bleak House’s “Rainbow Warrior,” for example:

We knew that there would be a video for “More Metal Than You,” the song Brian Posehn co-wrote with Scott Ian for the former’s new album, Fart and Wiener Jokes, and here it is. (Also worth noting: the song features additional guest appearances by Lamb of God’s Mark Morton, Death Angel’s Mark Osegueda, Armored Saint’s Joey Vera, Dethklok’s Brendon Small, the always fashionable John Tempesta, and The Donnas’ Brett Anderson.) The animation style is fairly simple, but there are some real gems in here – including a moment when Posehn head-butts Sharon Osbourne, and then Ozzy gives him a high-five. Oh, if only Ozzy really did recognize that Sharon is a problem.

True story: when I first heard this song, I thought Posehn was saying “My cat’s name is ‘metal.’” In fact, until five minutes ago when I watched this video, I didn’t realize he was saying “Manowar.” Still really funny, though.

Fart and Wiener Jokes is out now on Relapse. I’m giving a copy away for this week’s Completely Unreadable Band Logo contest, so enter that shit now. Also, if you haven’t done so already, check out my interview with Posehn right here.

-AR

Last Thursday here in Philadelphia I had the oppurtunity to shoot Tyr and Amon Amarth for the final date of their US Tour [See that above picture? That alone makes me so sad I missed this tour in NY -Ed.]. Between rushing from school, fighting traffic and my complete inability to find a parking spot I missed opening band Holy Grail, but I arrived just in time for Tyr. Armed with some of the most awesome boots I’ve ever seen, Tyr awoke the Viking in all of us. Though I found some of the choruses pretty brutally obvious and uninspiring (the lyrics of “The Sword in My Hand” for example) they were definitely fun to watch.

Being a virgin Amon Amarth show-goer, I was a little overly excited for this show. As long as I walked away with one image of some synchronized head banging I would be satisfied. They tore through an awesome set, Johan Hegg pausing between songs to speak to all of us, or sometimes to only some of us: “I want to hear all the ladies out there. [pause for screaming women, this photographer included]. This one is for all the ladies!” As they came out for the encore, they had asked their roadie to play bass for them, and being the last date of the tour, all the members from Tyr and Holy Grail joined on stage as well. All in all an awesome night.

Oh, Did I mention all the awesome beards? Yeah, good stuff.

Photos after the jump.

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The artists formerly known as Rhapsody Rhapsody of Fire are like the Wisconsin of power metal; there’s finer, more distinguished cheese out there (maybe a nice, sharp gorgonzola for these Italians?), but sometimes you’re just in the mood for a fat old slab of regular, yellow cheddar. Nothing’s more cheddar than frontman Fabio Lione’s hand motions; this video is worth watching for those alone. If something ever happened to James Labrie, this guy would make a suitable replacement in Dream Theater; he’s even great at disappearing when the guitarist and keyboard player are busy fellating their instruments.

All joshing aside, I actually do like Rhapsody of Fire. This is great shit right here; MetalGF once called it “Broadway Metal.”  Here’s the video for “Sea of Fate,” from the recently released album The Frozen Tears of Angel.

-VN

When Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital after suffering “a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding at the base of his brain stem)” and was listed as being in critical condition, I wrote that yes, Michaels is a buffoon, but he doesn’t deserve to die and “we sincerely hope he makes it through this okay, and has many more years of buffoonery ahead of him.” And now Michaels is out of the hospital and it looks like he’s gonna make a full recovery and thus will, indeed, have many more years of buffoonery ahead of him. Starting right now, as a matter of fact.

I was surprised to see Michaels on the cover of People  - I didn’t realize that that many people still cared about him. Never underestimate the power of reality television and a potential tragic fatality, I guess. But I was even more surprised to see, on that cover, a picture of Michaels, lying in his hospital bed… with his bandana on.

Are you fucking kidding me? They not only brought a photographer to the hospital, but either Bret or someone on his team was like, “Make sure he has his bandana on?!?!”

And here I was thinking that whatever procedure they needed to do while he was in critical condition would probably be a good excuse for him to finally ditch the ridiculous wig/extensions/whatever. “They had to shave my head for medical purposes,” he could tell people, finally allowing all five of his fans who don’t realize that he’s bald to join the rest of us in Reality.

Oh, Bret. You never fail to amuse. Here’s to you and your buffoonery, dude.

-AR

[via Bring Back Glam]