Reign in Blonde’s Elise reminded me of my love of heavy space rock pioneers Failure with a post this morning about the vinyl re-release of their album Fantastic Planet. Never heard of Failure? If you’re a fan of Jupiter-era Cave In and, by extension, the whole Caspian/Constants/Junius axis of spaced-out heavy rock, then you definitely owe Failure a listen at the very least. And if you also dig the Quicksand/Helmet/[early]Deftones axis of heavy pseudo post-hardcore, this’ll be right up your alley.

Does the re-release of Fantastic Planet mean Failure will reunite? Who knows, but it’s certainly a possibility. Ken Andrews is doing quite fine for himself as a successful producer and mixer, so if a Failure reunion happens it’ll presumably be for the fun of it… which is a good thing.

Magnified is actually the Failure album with which I’m most familiar. I dig the title track, which Cave In actually covered at some point.

-VN

I really have nothing to say about this. But it made me giggle.

-AR

Thanks to Cody Barrick for the link.

As I got to the end of Axl’s piece yesterday about the latest Ozzy/Zakk shenanigans, I was fully expecting him to post the new Black Label Society song “Parade of the Dead” and proclaim it a respectable return to form for the Zakkman. I was right that he posted the song, but I was wrong about his thoughts on it: “it sounds exactly like every fucking BLS song you’ve ever heard.”

I politely disagree with my fellow MS Mansion inhabitant, and I was happy to see that the majority of commenters disagreed too. Axl’s not wrong that the song isn’t a major departure for Black Label Society; but I think he is wrong for calling Zakk “crazy” for sticking to his sound — I mean, Zakk’s always gonna sound like Zakk fucking Wylde and that’s why we love the guy.

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An actual screen-cap.

The Big Four Comedy Tour rolls on!

Scott Ian gave a video interview to zee German edition of Metal Hammer earlier this month, and when pressed about Joey Belladonna’s status in the band, he was, well… let’s just say “non-committal.” I can’t embed the video, but here are some choice quotes…

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These come from the Facebook page of Joel McIver, author of The Bloody Reign of Slayer, Justice for All: The Truth about Metallica, the upcoming Glenn Hughes autobiography, and a whole mess of other metal books.

First up: Apparently Dave Mustaine is a genius. He has invented a machine which turns sweaty gross old metal dudes into hot chicks in uniform!

This next one is even better, if only because of the caption McIver included: “A sweet little old lady I met backstage.”

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I’ve gotta admit… although I gave Iron Maiden some flack last week for compiling a U.S. Tour setlist consisting of mostly new(ish) material, I’m still pretty excited to see them live in NYC next month. This live footage of the band performing new song “El Dorado” in Dallas is just so much fun, mostly because the band members look like they’re having fun playing it:

And as I’ve already said, I’m completely tickled pink that they’ll be playing four songs from 2000′s masterpiece Brave New World. I think the problem with the Maiden tour on which they played all of A Matter of Life and Death is that a lot of that album’s songs are slow clunkers; if Maiden can stick to high-energy material, which their setlist would indicate they mostly are, then we should be in for a fun show.

Side note: Steve Harris is the man. Look at him in the above vid! Dude just rules.

-VN

Metal Injection has posted live footage of three songs from Revocation’s performance this past weekend at Ottobar in Baltimore, and as should be expected from this now-quartet of young death-thrash stallions, the footage rips. What, you still haven’t seen them live? Damn, you’re missing out. This is the first footage I’ve seen of Revocation playing live since I saw them in person on the Metal As Art Tour with Hypno5e and The Binary Code back in January, and I’m really glad to see that second guitarist Dan Gargiulo is still with the band; that kid can really play and fits the bill perfectly.

Here’s the MI-filmed clip of them playing “Pestilence Reigns.” The section of this song that starts with -1:50 left in the video — the pre-solo, solo, and instrumental passage that follows — are some of my favorite moments of music released in all of 2009. I’ve seen these dudes 6 times in the past year and I can’t wait for them to come back to NYC again. Get on that shit, dudes.

Check out more MI footage of Revocation playing “Dismantle the Dictator” and “Age of Iniquity.”

-VN

I’ve said before that Muderdolls were a guilty pleasure of mine. My entire interest in the band lay in the fact that they were basically a modern hair metal band who actually wrote catchy tunes that were mostly ridiculous instead of entirely ridiculous.

But now the band – which is really just Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 – has released a new song, “My Dark Place Alone,” and it sounds nothing like old Murderdolls. Which might be good news, if you hated old Murderdolls and love generic Godsmackian rawk, but I do not fit into that particular demographic. I mean, I appreciate the over-use of the cowbell, but that’s about all I appreciate about this crap.

Mick Mars is supposed to be on this album in some form another; hopefully the tracks he plays on will be more vintage Motley Crue-ish.

-AR

[via Bloody Disgusting]

Last week we offered up two copies of Misery Index’s latest DM slammer Heirs to Thievery. A lot of you entered the contest which is great because the album rules, so theoretically this would mean you’ve all got great taste… but let’s not kid ourselves, you just like free shit. Here are the winning captions to the photo at right:

• Kelly: “Biebercore.”
• Joe: “…and that is how the CEO of rise records found himself on the sex offender registry.”

Well played, kiddos. This week we’re giving away a copy of The Haunted’s brand new live DVD Road Kill, an exclusive clip of which can be viewed here. To win, just post a funny caption for the photo below. (Remember, if you’re using FB Connect to login, include an email address with your comment so we can contact the winner).

Earlier this week, we got some live footage of a kinda-but-not-really new song by The Acacia Strain; now the band has actually released a new song, “Jonestown.” I haven’t really given the lyrics a good listen, but I imagine the next word in that phrase might be “Massacre.”

In any case, the song certainly makes me wanna massacre someone. And I mean that as a compliment.

“Jonestown” is available on iTunes now. It will appear on The Acacia Strain’s new album, Wormwood, which comes out July 20 on Prosthetic.

-AR

Thanks for all the e-mails!

Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer is an interesting dude. As a founding member of Iced Earth he helped create one of the most enduring power-ish metal bands of the past 20 years. But that hasn’t stopped him from exploring other avenues, as his new solo project Sons of Liberty proves. Schaffer has devoted this project entirely to one cause: raising awareness about and rebelling against the Federal Reserve system that controls our world’s economy.

From what I can gather, Schaffer is trying to keep politics out of his argument. I have to admit, I know very little about the Federal Reserve system, its roots, its effects, its strengths and its weaknesses. But watching videos like the above has caused me to dive deeper into this issue — which undoubtedly affects every single one of us — and I think that’s Schaffer’s goal. I’m still not sure what I think; it’s a very complex issue with hundreds of years of back-story. But I’m enjoying learning about it. Musically speaking, Sons of Liberty are a bit heavier and more straight-forward than Iced Earth; if you’re perpetually turned off by IE’s power leanings, don’t dismiss this music without first giving it a shot.

Sons of Liberty, which sees Schaffer handling all guitar and vocal duties, self-released their debut album Brush-Fires of the Mind in late 2009. That album has subsequently been picked up by Century Media who will re-release the album worldwide on July 13th. You can download the opening track “Jeckyll Island” for free below.

Sons of Liberty – “Jeckyll Island”

-VN

In my very limited experience with Airbourne’s Joel O’Keefe, he’s a super-nice dude – but Airbourne’s music doesn’t do a whole lot for me. I still have all my old AC/DC albums, so I’m covered, y’know? Vince digs them, though, and I don’t really have anything against them. And it’s hard to argue with O’Keefe’s reasoning for the band sounding so much like their Aussie forefathers, which ostensibly boils down to: “Why wouldn’t you wanna sound just like AC/DC and Rose Tattoo?”

But regardless of what you think of their music, you have to admit that this is pretty cool.

At the Download Festival this past weekend, O’Keefe climbed the (second, “Ronnie James Dio”) stage’s rigging (In the rain! That shit must have been slippery, man!) and played his solo from up on high… until the stage manager pulled the power until O’Keefe came back down. I guess he was all concerned about safety and shit, which wasn’t very rock n’ roll of him.

What is that we so love about musicians climbing on shit? The best Living Colour show I ever saw featured a moment when Corey Glover climbed almost all the way up to Irving Plaza’s balcony and looked, for a hot minute, like he was gonna jump; and when I go see The Dillinger Escape Plan, I’m honestly bummed if there isn’t at least one point during the show when I think Greg Puciato might fall and kill himself. Do we find this cool because of the danger? Is it just wish fulfillment – do we secretly wanna climb shit? I’ll have to bring it up in therapy next week.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

The video. Not really the song so much. I mean, it’s another David Brodsky/Tim Kellen joint – how can you really go wrong?

Whitechapel’s A New Era of Corruption is out now on Metal Blade. It sold a helluva a lot of copies last week.

-AR

Being a metal blogger makes me some sort of music journalist, apparently, and membership in this club has its privileges. Perhaps the coolest of these is the tendency to hear new albums weeks or even months before the general public. Unlike you, I don’t have to speculate on whether or not the forthcoming Danzig album will sound good–because I’ve already fucking heard it (and it’s a serious letdown, my friends.) But I don’t want to talk about Danzig right now. I want to talk about Mose Giganticus, a recent Relapse Records signing that I’ve expressed my distaste for before.

Why do I take issue with this band? Well, “The Left Path”, the first track the band released, essentially took unique elements from the Melvins’ “A Talking Horse” and regurgitated it. The similarities are pretty much undeniable by anyone familiar with the (A) Senile Animal, and were enough for me to publicly call Mose Giganticus out on it. Today, given the opportunity and audience afforded to me as a MetalSucks writer, I can reveal that, having received an advance promotional copy of their upcoming album, that there’s at least one other obvious instance of Melvins-snatching on the record. Out of professional courtesy for the label, I wont post the track in advance of the album’s release, but the opening track “Last Resort” seemingly co-opts quite a few elements from the Melvins’ “The Bit”–from riffs to vocals. It’s not as blatant as in the previously cited case, but it’s assuredly there and I know at least one other Melvins freak who concurs with me on this. This is more than a coincidence and even Mose Giganticus unapologetically concede this.

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People are complex and multi-guised, and tend to believe their own bullshit, so it’s getting hard to identify the few remaining cool people afloat in the sad oceans of douche. But a bit of serendipity on Wednesday night has yielded one good way to find out if someone rocks or sucks in three easy steps: First, dial up the Coroner at HellFest 2011? story on Blabbermouth; next, shove the person’s face directly into it (or maybe just into the pic above). If, once read, this rumorish announcement of the first Coroner show in seventeen years causes the person to scream ‘Holy christfucking shit! Coroner! Fuckin’ finally! To France and step on it!’, then relax and rejoice — you’ve got a keeper!

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So we had a lot of fun laughing about that Big Four photo yesterday, and then last night on the Metal Injection Livecast (download it here), we had a good chuckle over this second picture, in which Dave Mustaine makes his feelings about James Hetfield perfectly clear:

But I guess some clever publicist or manager was on-hand for this shoot, and saw this picture being taken and was all, “Fuck, this could be a real problem, we better make sure that we get another one where it doesn’t look like these two hate each other.” And that publicist or manager was correct. If Mustaine can play nice with Kerry King, he should be able to suck it up and play nice with Hetfield, too. (And let’s not forget that Scott Ian is no Mustaine fan, either.)

Thus, we also get this picture, which is better insofar as Hetfield is not standing so far away from the rest of the group, but is not better insofar as it is still hilariously awkward:

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As part of our sponsorship of the No Mercy Metal showcases here in NYC — the inaugural show of which was held May 27th at Crash Mansion — we’ll be highlighting one band from each show here on MetalSucks in an effort to bring the best of the piping hot NYC metal scene to the rest of the world. Though I wasn’t able to attend the May 27th show I’ve had the good fortune of catching one of the showcasing bands before, Queens experimental metallers Resolution15, who as Metal Injection‘s Frank Godla puts it are “a unique and equally dynamic band that is sure to raise your brow.”

Resolution15 substitute two guitar players for two violin players, but unlike most metal bands who employ the services of instruments played with bows Resolution15 aren’t folk metal, they aren’t overtly classical sounding, and they most certainly don’t use their chosen instruments as a cheap gimmick. Instead the two violinists bring a constant barrage of heavy riffs that would give most guitar-driven bands a run for their money in the brutal department, and when combined with a touch of technicality from the rest of the band, Resolution15 bring something truly riveting to the table. They’re the kind of band that instantly turns the heads of the old, jaded metalheads hanging back at the bar… what… is…. this?… wow!

-VN

Jonah Hex opens tomorrow, and word on the street is that it’s 85 minutes of hot garbage. This isn’t really a surprise, although it might give Mastodon fans looking to hear the band’s contributions to the flick pause about paying thirteen bucks to see it.

Luckily, if they just wait another eleven days, they can save themselves the trouble. I think. Honestly, this is one of the worst press releases I’ve ever seen, and I can’t quite figure out what the fuck it’s trying to tell us:

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After this opening stint with Iron Fucking Maiden you’re presumably going to write a new album. Please, please, please: make it awesome!

Octavarium, Systematic Chaos and Black Clouds and Silver Linings have all been kinda… well, good, because everything you do is good, but ultimately meh. All three are kinda samey sounding, and none of them really pushed the envelope in terms of what Dream Theater are capable of doing or have already done.

It’s time to really focus, really work, put the proper time and energy into writing instead of cranking out a bunch of stock Dream Theater tunes in the studio. It’s time to write an awesome fucking album from start to finish, an epic journey. A concept album would be nice; recapture the magic that made Metropolis Part 2 and Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence so magical. Time for Metropolis Part 3, perhaps? All the fans (including this one) would bust a nut.

Black Clouds wasn’t without its moments; Mike Portnoy’s tribute to his father, his conclusion of the thrilling 12 Steps series, the epic “The Count of Tuscany.” But you can do better! So c’mon guys, get it together and make it happen. Your fans are anxiously awaiting.

Sincerely,
Dream Theater superfan Vince Neilstein

Ozzy’s injustices against Zakk Wylde are getting to be so heinous that I hear Mel Gibson is planning a revenge movie with himself starring as Zakk. Last July, Ozzy fired Zakk after twenty-one years of loyal service (not counting that brief period of time when Joe Holmes was in the band). And that’s Ozzy prerogative, of course – hell, it might have even been a good idea – except that Ozzy told the press Zakk was done before he told Zakk, and even after Zakk got the news secondhand, Ozzy was too pussy to call him.

Now Ozzy is trying to re-write history. Here’s a recent Ozzy Osbourne quote from an interview with Goldmine (via Blabbermouth):

“I don’t want anyone to think for one minute that I fired [Zakk Wylde]. I never fired him. He never left. There was nothing to leave. Because all he was doing was his gig and mine. It kind of got to us crashing into each other. But I had to let go, because it’s me rather than him.”

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