This is one of those rare cases in this day and age where I would say proponents of expensive music videos are correct: this cool video did get me to pay attention to a new band.

Widow Sunday‘s video for “Strings of Clarity” owes a huuuuuge debt to Fred Stuhr, the mastermind behind the animation in Tool’s early music videos. The characters are similar, they move in the same manner, the textures and lighting are the same, they use the same dark fades between cuts… so similar to the Tool videos. But still, credit where it’s due, and animator Ossian has done a fine job here. The video got me to pay attention to (and subsequently write about) a band I otherwise wouldn’t have. And this video wasn’t necessarily expensive to make if he/she owned certain equipment – so there!

-VN

Thanks: Timothy Scott

In May I wrote an editorial in which I wondered aloud (as I so often do) what would become of 36 Crazyfists, a band whose record label dynamics had suddenly and drastically changed after its founders jumped ship and gave up their stake in Ferret to Warner Music Group’s ILG (Independent Label Group).

Well, those questions remain; only time will answer them.* But at least on the part of the music, 36 Crazyfists have taken me by surprise by writing a pretty darn decent album.

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Allow me to preface this by saying that I really, really, really like Unearth.

But this is kinda funny.

-AR

[via SMN]

It was interesting reading through the comments of Axl’s post about Sevendust’s new song a while back; out of those of you who didn’t predictably slam Sevendust outright, most of you seemed to think that of the three Sonny Mayo-era albums 2007′s Alpha was the best. And I’d have to agree. But furthermore, if Alpha were a record or a tape Side B would be the best thing the band did in their Clint Lowery-less years. Though the proverbial Side B starts with much of the stock Sevendust songage present on the rest of this album (and Next and Chapter VII), things start to take a turn for the better with “Confessions of Hatred,” a catchy up-tempo rocker with a vintage 7D feel. “Aggression” follows in the same vein. But it’s really “Burn,” the 9-minute long epic that’s the piece de resistance.

“Burn” is easily is the best track Sevendust ever wrote without Clint Lowery in the band; it would’ve been interesting to see how the band could’ve used this track as a jumping-off point for more experimental music with their next album, but unfortunately Chapter VII just brought more of the same old same old. Now that Cold Day Memory has brought the band back from the doldrums (bless you, Clint Lowery!) it’s a moot point, but I still enjoy this song.

-VN

Do they still show old Tom and Jerry episodes anywhere? Can kids still watch ‘em? Oh man, I hope so. Tom and Jerry was a staple of my cartoon-watching diet as a young ‘un, and it would pain me to think children today aren’t still deriving pleasure from their antics.

So. The latest masterpiece from Too Much Free Time Theater is the below, which melds Tom and Jerry with Finntroll the same way previous entries have combined Job for a Cowboy with Spongebob Squarepants and Throwdown with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and yadda yadda yadda. On the one hand, I’m starting to feel like it’s time for a new joke, and on the other hand, whatever.

Thanks to Max for sending this in.

-AR

When Korn announced they would be boycotting BP on their current summer tour I laughed; Jonathan Davis’ desire to hurt the oil giant was cute but ultimately misdirected, an overly simplistic gesture for a very complex issue. But this recent interview with SuicideGirls.com [via Bmouth] just underscores the fact that Davis has no fucking idea what he’s talking about.

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Depending on things like our mood, exhaustion level, and the weather, Vince and I may or may not go see Adler’s Appetite tonight. (I’m a GN’R dork, but I didn’t exactly buy tickets in advance, y’know?) And while it might be interesting to see Mr. Adler live in the flesh up really, really close, I have little doubt that the gig itself will be ridiculous. As I understand it, Adler’s Appetite are basically a GN’R cover band, which I guess doesn’t make them that different from Axl’s Guns N’ Roses or Slash’s solo band, only those bands have the Voice of Guns N’ Roses and the Sound of Guns N’ Roses, and Adler’s Appetite has The Dude People Barely Missed When Matt Sorum Took His Place.

I’m not saying I don’t much prefer Adler’s drumming to Sorum’s — I do. I’m just saying, y’know. He may not be the strongest marketing draw.

Apparently Adler’s Appetite kid themselves by playing originals, too, ’cause they’ve released a snippet of a new single, “Alive.” You get the single as a free download when you buy a copy of Adler’s upcoming, guaranteed to be full of shit autobiography, which comes out in October. I really don’t believe that will attract a ton of extra buyers, though. I also don’t believe that this is an original song; I could have sworn I heard Beautiful Creatures, or maybe it was Brides of Destruction, or possibly one of the new L.A. Guns, yeah, maybe the new old L.A. Guns, or I guess it could have been Vains of Jenna… ANYWAY, I could have SWORN I’d heard another modern cock rock band play this song already. Could have SWORN it.

-AR

Soilwork have been taking their MetalSucks-sponsored tour across North America with Death Angel, Augury, Mutiny Within and Swashbuckle for almost two weeks now. We caught them in NYC on the 3rd day of the tour and they did not disappoint with their mix of classics from every album back to The Chainheart Machine and material from their new album The Panic Broadcast. The mix was just a little fuzzy but The Gramercy Theater is a really tough room to sound great in, and the band put out plenty of extra energy to compensate. Get remaining tour dates here.

Meanwhile The Panic Broadcast is damn good; have ya heard? Their first official music video from the album is for the track “Deliverance is Mine,” a sort of sequel to their video for “Light the Torch” from Figure Number Five. The video is done in the same animation style and features the same poor, hapless (but cute) mini-buckethead dudes trying to escape the wrath of a robotic supervillain; can’t those little dudes ever catch a break?

The new video for “Deliverance is Mine” below, and its prequel in “Light the Torch” after the jump.

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I don’t have much context for this story, but that’s okay, ’cause you won’t need much to understand it. Yesterday Kataklysm posted the following message on their Facebook page:

Which sounds about right. We don’t know which member of Megadeth it was, but I’d happily bet a great deal of money it was Dave Mustaine.

And what else is there to say? At this point, being surprised by stories of the Megadick is like being surprised that Slayer show featured no acoustic ballads. I suspect Mustaine will release some explanation of why this wasn’t Megadeth’s fault sometime soon, and it won’t make any fucking sense because a pretty picture painted in bullshit is still gonna be all brown and smelly, but a bunch of people will believe it anyway, ’cause they can’t accept that sometimes talented musicians are also shitty people. Ppppfffttt. Whatever.

-AR

Emperors Magus Caligulas is leavings Darks Funerals. Bummers. This mornings, Is burns the french toasts ins his honors. Burns it blacks. BLACKS, IS SAYS!!!

Donts looks ats me. Is nots cryings. Fucks yous ins the assholes withs the cocks froms hells.

-NC

Nocturno reluctantly welcomed us into Hair Metal Week kicking and screaming, so this sappy finale is largely for him.  And those of you who like cheese.  A lot.

There’s been a lot of talk this week about what kind of sound does or does not make a band “glam” or “hair metal” or whatever the hell else you want to call it, but it’s also important to mention that for many of us the stinky cheese factor plays a huge role as well. So many of the bands in question were SO over-the-top ridiculous in their lyrics/music/attitude/wardrobe/etc. that it’s often unpossible to think about hair metal without associating how cheesy it all is.  Granted, this trend started in the 80s, so ample fromage is to be expected, but at the end of the day, doesn’t the corniness help define the genre itself?  Unless if some of you actually think that hair metal is unironically “cool”, which is okay I guess — we’re all entitled to our opinions, even if they’re wrong.

Regardless of where your tastes lie, we should all be able to agree that nowhere does the cheese fly nearly as much as in the power ballads of yesteryear…

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Here we had this entire week devoted to hair metal, and I feel like we only scratched the surface. Let’s do this again real soon, okay?

Here’s some of the fun we had this week, be it hair-metal related or not:

• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal taught us to be mind-less, Antagonist’s Carlos Garcia taught us about the song “Sasha Grey,” and Trap Them’s Ryan McKenney taught us more about corporate-sponsored live shows.
• Anso and Allyson from Bring Back Glam! counted down the Ten Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums.
• We counted down the Top Ten Bands Most Often Miscategorized as Hair Metal.
• Vince spoke with Serj Tankian, Gary spoke with Frankie from Emmure, and Sergeant D. spoke with Samantha Maloney from Brother Clyde/Shift/Hole/Motley Crue/every band ever.
• We debuted a new track by The Binary Code!
• Leyla Ford counted down the ten worst and best hair metal band names.
• Sammy checked out the new release by Eibon.
• Dave Mustein checked out The Cool Tour.
• Someday, this little girl is going to make Sergeant D. very, very unhappy.
• I can’t tell the difference between all the members of Mushroomhead, can you?

I wanna especially thank Allyson from Bring Back Glam! for all her help this week — we love you, Allyson! Come back anytime.

Monday we return, but we’ll have a little less Aqua Net in our hair, a little less eyeliner on our lids, and a lot less skip in our step. See ya then.

-AR

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Since it’s hair metal week here at MetalSucks, it seemed only appropriate to consider a glamtastic question. So we asked our writers:

WHICH HAIR METAL BAND FROM THE ’80s BEST STANDS THE TEST OF TIME IN 2010?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Discovered by fellow not-hair-metallers Bon Jovi, Skid Row have a special place in the genre’s history. They were, as Chuck Klosterman points out in his brilliant book, Fargo Rock City, the only band of the era to make good on their continual promises that their next album would be “heavier.” Skid Row definitely had some tracks that could pass for hair metal, but their sophomore effort, Slave to the Grind, was clearly drawing on heavier influences, like Judas Priest (when the band covered “Deliverin’ the Goods” on the B-Side Ourselves EP, Halford even guested on the vocals), and by the time they made Subhuman Race, well, they were almost unrecognizable as a band. But it never felt like they were trend-chasing, the way so many of their peers were; it always seemed like they legitimately wanted to get heavier and heavier, and consequently, they did.

Let’s just listen to the progression for a few minutes, okay? Here’s “Big Guns,” one of their glammier songs from Skid Row:

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Heaven Shall Burn’s new video, for the song “Combat,” is like Slayer’s video for “World Painted Blood” in that it uses stylized animation (and lots of the color red) to convey the horrors of war, and not at all like Slayer’s video for “World Painted Blood” in that it doesn’t completely suck hairy gorilla nuts. And, once again, proves my point: that bands should stay the fuck out of their music videos.

“Combat” comes off Heaven Shall Burn’s latest, Invictus, which is out now on Century. If you haven’t done so already, check out my interview with guitarist Maik Weichert, in which we discuss, among other things, the violent nature of songs like “Combat.”

-AR

One day mankind will go extinct and the remains of our civilization will later be picked over by aliens. Though they can speedily assemble collections of most homo erectus artifacts for their alien museums, their super-brains will struggle to grasp and group the arts of Earth, y’know, for their encyclopedias and stuff. So it’s in the interest of preserving and defining Glam Metal across the cosmos that we at MetalSucks have counted down the Ten Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums. We even tapped in to the genius of Bring Back Glam‘s Allyson B. Crawford to give it that “definitive text” feel. (Read part one, part two, part three)

Thanks to Allyson and our Anso DF, Glam Metal will live on in other worlds long after our planet has become a barren hellscape. That’s comforting. Here’s the number one Best Must-Have Glam Metal Album! So, come now children of the beast, be strong and …

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Samantha Maloney is one of the unsung veterans of the music industry, having drummed for bands including Shift, Hole, Motley Crue, and now Billy Ray Cyrus’ rock band, Brother Clyde. I’ve been a big fan of hers since she was in Shift back in the 90s, so I am sincerely stoked to finally get the chance to interview her after all these years. Thanks to Carlos Ramirez of power violence legends the Black Army Jackets for hooking it up, and please check out the Brother Clyde record, it’s actually a really good rock n’ roll album and Billy Ray will cry if his daughter outsells him.

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Since we love giving you guys free stuff almost as much as you love receiving free stuff from us, we’ve teamed up with the Rockstar Mayhem Festival to offer up TWO free pairs of tickets (that’s four tickets total, for you geniuses keeping score at home) to this year’s traveling festival! Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Norma Jean, Chimaira, Shadows Fall and 3 Inches of Blood are just some of the bands on this year’s bill, and who are you to argue with the price of free?

The shows that are available for this contest are: any date starting with the July 30th show in Tinley Park, IL going all the way through to the end of the tour August 14th in Oklahoma City. Find the full list of dates here. If you win, you’ll get a pair of tickets to the show of your choice; but please, only enter if you can/will actually attend. Tickets will be for the lawn only (on the main stage… other stages are GA).

To win, simply submit a comment telling us why you deserve to win the pair of tickets. Remember, this is MetalSucks — not your 5th grade book report — so try to make your entry funny / fun / in some way interesting. Axl and Vince will pick their favorite entry on Wednesday, July 28th, and will contact the winner by email, so be sure you comment with a real email address (or include it in the comment if you’re using FB Connect). Good luck!

This is not quite what I meant when I coined the term Sumeriancore.

But Sumerian Records founder Ash Avildsen had this to say about his label’s recent signing of the iconic member of Bone Thugs N’ Harmony:

While we have been making a meaningful impact on the current state of heavy music, the true theme to Sumerian has always been about progressive music, not just metal. Bizzy Bone is one of the most progressive vocalists I have ever heard! Known in his genre for being the fastest yet the most melodic, the most technical yet the most harmonic, the marks Bizzy has left in music are something I will always love. The fact that Bizzy and Bone Thugs all booked one way Greyhound tickets to LA and lived on the streets until they were able to get discovered and signed is true artist dedication to their craft. This same spirit is something that has allowed many Sumerian bands to organically build their careers and achieve their dreams.

Well alrighty then. I don’t exactly think “progressive” or “technical” when I think of “Tha Crossroads,” but um, ya know, they were definitely very influential to a certain kind of music so there’s that.

Expect to see Bizzy Bone opening up for The Faceless any day now.

-VN

Everyone always likes to pretend that one day Motley Crue were all over MTV, and then overnight Nirvana came along and suddenly Cinderella and Enuff Z’Nuff were standing on the unemployment line. Well, I call bullshit. Nirvana may have been the final nail in the coffin for hair metal, but Guns N’ Roses were the first. GN’R had the great fortune and misfortune to be from the same scene as bands like Poison (for whom Slash had once auditioned) — fortune because it only highlighted how different they were from those groups, and misfortune because it allowed all their naysayers to go, “Oh, fuck them, they’re just a glam band.”

Not helping matters was that the members of GN’R had gotten their starts in actual glam bands, like Hollywood Rose, and that some of their former ranks went on to form other glam bands, like L.A. Guns. (In fact, as far as I can tell, Tracii Guns has been making a career reminding everybody he’s the “Guns” in “Guns N’ Roses” for close to twenty-five years. He even hired Gilby Clarke to produce some of the latter-day LAG albums. He’s like Dave Mustaine, without all that genius baggage.)

Also not helping was that in their earliest promo photos, they looked like they were going cruising:

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