After grunge got so popular that MTV’s 120 Minutes and Headbanger’s Ball somehow became practically the same show, a lot of hair metal bands tried to harden and “modern up” their sound — usually to disastrous results. Herein, a few of my favorite examples, presented in chronological order of their release.

First up we have Warrant’s “Machine Gun,” from the 1992 album Dog Eat Dog. This actually isn’t all that ridiculous, and came so early in the “let’s change our sound” cycle that I suspect it was intended more as a response to the success of bands like Guns N’ Roses and Skid Row than Nirvana. Still, it’s hardly “Cherry Pie” or “Heaven,” y’know?

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As you all know, metalheads are a tattooed bunch. Especially since the year 2000, it seems like becoming heavily tattooed has become the norm rather than the exception. So when I saw this Sailor Jerry contest looking for aspiring female models who are tattooed, I got to thinking — has it really gotten to the point where so many folks are tattooed that it’s totally feasible to run a big contest like this? And then I got to thinking… are tattoos even considered cool anymore? If so many people have them, are they really the badge of originality they purport to be? Lord knows, all those C-tier metalcore and deathcore bands with tattoos from head to toe are gonna hella regret that shit years down the road when they’re all faded and their skin is all saggy and nasty.

So, what do you think? Are tattoos cool or are they lame?

n

The nicest compliment anyone can seem to muster about Scream is that it’s Ozzy’s best album this millenium, which is like saying that the genocide in Rwanda wasn’t the worst human rights atrocity of the twentieth century, because only a million people were massacred. Really, the best thing to come of this album is that it’s bringing Gus G. to the attention of a lot of people who might otherwise never know him. Gus is on the cover of Guitar World now, and that makes me really, really happy.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that the mediocrity of Scream will turn people off to the point where they don’t check out Firewind, or one of the other eight-hundred bands with whom Gus has played. I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen. And it wouldn’t have happened, I think, if Gus has been able to contribute to the writing of Scream. And he tells Metal Insider that, knock on wood, if there’s another Ozzy album and he’s the guitar player to be on it, Ozzy wants him — and the other members of the band — to contribute more:

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Weed: Responsible for this photo?

Do you think Bret Michaels is a nice guy in real life? He seems like he would be. But it’s been my experience that more often than not, people who achieved that level of fame and success are real douche bags. Which kinda makes sense, ’cause what kind of frail ego needs a spotlight that bright shined on it at all times?

But I know there are exceptions to this rule, and I’d like to think that Michaels is one of them. And the cops just found weed on his tour bus, so between the fact that he wrote “Unskinny Bop” and the fact that we both like to get tall, I think that Bret and I could be friends.

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Anso can have Steel Panther, Vince can have Ratt, and you, Reader, can have Quiet Riot (even though Frankie Banali played in W.A.S.P. for quite a while, Quiet Right still sucks in this guy’s book). Pretty much everyone in Mötley Crüe has proven to be a scuzzbag in one form or another aside from Mick Mars — the poor guy — but if we’re doling out Sunset Strip bands to worship (that don’t feature Axl Rose — no fair), let me get first dibs on W.A.S.P. Sure, my family looks at me a little weird and even my best friend doesn’t “get it” when I crank the iPod or put Inside The Electric Circus on the turntable, but what do they all know anyway?

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Watch as the Albuquerque police [lawfully and rightfully] remove a bunch of religious activists from the grounds of the Rockstar Mayhem Festival for protesting on private property, and eventually arrest them for refusing to leave. The best is around the 2:45 mark, after the officers have successfully started to walk the protesters off the fair grounds, when the lead officer starts going on a rant about being a non-believer then proceeds to acknowledge that the video will likely end up on YouTube by giving his mom a shout-out. And later on, by accusing the cameraman of being a “gay homosexual” with a crush on him for the constant camera attention. This Officer J. Goff may be homophobic, but I do find it hilarious that he accused a Jesus warrior of being gay!

-VN

Thanks: Brad Howarth

Last week we offered up two copies of Mose Giganticus‘ debut album Gift Horse to those of you who could come up with the funniest caption to the photo at right. Wouldn’t you know it, the dude in the Emperor shirt actually got in touch with us to let us know he miraculously walked away from the accident unscathed; check out his band Archael as a token of good faith and good taste in t-shirts! Anyway, here are the winners:

• lolsfest: “Ahh! There was that coat-hanger we needed for that abortion!”
• themutedhorn: “Playing air-drums while driving is fine until the double bass drum blast beats start.”

This week we’re giving away two copies of German progressive metallers The Ocean‘s recent release Heliocentric; these babies come in a really cool digipak with silver foil printing and 9 individual tarot cards (one for each song) in place of a traditional CD booklet. And of course the music is the shit, but you knew that already. Just come up with a funny caption to the below photo [sent in by Nick Seckler] and one copy shall be yours — remember to comment with a real email address (or include it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect).

We’ve been super-duper-uper excited for the new EP that French tech metallers Gorod have been promising would be released this year. So excited that we’ve even been posting studio vids of the guys laying down their tracks, which is something we don’t often do… but the tunes sounded so killer we couldn’t resist.

But now all that is in jeopardy. According to SMN News, Gorod posted a note (in French) on their official forum on June 25th stating that frontman Guillaume Martino and guitarist Arnaud Pontaco have left the band. Ruh roh. The timing strikes us as especially odd since we’ve already seen footage of the band recording the EP (albeit we haven’t seen vocal tracks being laid down). Far be it from us to recklessly speculate — ah, who are we kidding, of course we’re gonna recklessly speculate — but this doesn’t exactly strike me as the kind of split that was amicable. Someone wasn’t getting along with someone else and sides were taken, or someone fucked someone’s girlfriend or punched the other dude in the nuts; in other words, something very bad happened.

It’s worth noting though that the announcement actually came almost two weeks before Gorod posted their last studio video, so presumably the remaining members are still pushing ahead. I don’t know enough about the inner-workings of Gorod to say whether the two men who left were important members to the band’s sound, but we can only hope they get this situation figured out soon. We need to hear that new EP!

-VN

Call it PBS, or Power Ballad Syndrome; Queensryche are yet another band whose biggest hit was a soft acoustic number — the haunting “Silent Lucidity” — and who were subsequently written off by many MTV viewers (and any young metal fans today who happen to stumble upon the song) who didn’t care to dig into the band’s deep history. But Queensryche were anything but hair metal; instead they were arguably one of the most crucial bands in progressive metal history, most certainly of the ’80s (and ’90s). If you had to put together a simple flow chart denoting key progressive metal influence over a period of time, it’d look something like this:

Rush -> Iron Maiden -> Queensryche -> Dream Theater -> BTBAM -> ?

An extremely important cog indeed. In a time when most metal focused on sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, Queenryche made it ok to be smart and be a metalhead by writing complex musical compositions with socially conscious lyrics.

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Fuck the Facts are doing one last tour this year before they start writing their next album, and you should really go see them, ’cause Fuck the Facts are fucking awesome. Plus, it seems like, whenever possible, they’re doing these shows with other excellent bands — the NYC gig, for example, features both Magrudergrind and Defeatist, who are, respectively, totally killer in their own right. But I’d go even if they weren’t playing with other cool bands. In fact, I’m tempted to get on a plane and go to Sydney, NS, just to see a band called “Fuck the Facts” play a venue called “Christ Church Hall.” ‘Cause, Jesus, that’s kinda funny.

Here are dates:

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You guys really seem to dig East of the Wall whenever we post about them which makes me very happy, because that band is awesome. Ressentiment is quickly working its way up my list of favorite albums released so far in 2010.

So with that band in mind, I present to you two other fantastic bands cut from the same cloth that I’ve been meaning to write about for some time:

• Gifts From Enola: Atmospheric guitar soundscapes ala Moving Mountains, Constants, Junius or even Jupiter-era Cave In atop a thundering platform of fuzzed-out bass and driving drums. These Harrisonburg, VA gents play dense, complex music that’s surprisingly easy to listen to… just sit back and let the beauteous sounds wash over you. Their self-titled debut is out now.
• Nero Order: More on the weird/dissonant tip than Gifts From Enola, but definitely channeling some of the same influences for a slightly darker, doomier sound that’s just as much fun to listen to. Whereas the former’s soundscapes wash over you, Nero Order’s atmospherics pull you into the riptide and sweep you away.

-VN

You’ve been reading the MetalSucks/Bring Back Glam! countdown of the 10 Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums this week (part one here, part two here), so you’ve noticed that our Anso DF and BBG! chief Allyson B. Crawford’s Glam-crazy chemistry is like one of those Tarantino scenes where rogues trade passionate dissertations on Madonna or armed robbery. Or maybe it’s more like those Kevin Smith monologues about farting. One of those. Ahem. Oh, hey look it’s the number four album!

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4. REST IN SLEAZE - Crashdiet

May 20, 2005 // Universal Records // p: Anders Ringman, Chris Laney, Grizzly/Tysper

The hits: “Riot In Everyone” “Knokk ‘Em Down” “Breakin’ the Chainz” “It’s A Miracle”

The heart: “Queen Obscene/69 Shots” “Tikket” “Out of Line”

Anso: I’ve been dying to talk to you about this record! Its appearance on our list blows me away for the following reasons:

Reason #1 – It was not released in the ’80s. Not even the ’90s. And yet you imply that it’s more vital to a respectable glam metal library than a hundred great records from the genre’s days of glory? Even here you rank it higher than freaking Appetite! Explain yourself!

Allyson: Total mind freak, right? I’m sure the haters will be out on this one! Singer Dave Lepard was simply way ahead of his time. Then again, Sweden is the fertile crescent of Glam Metal these days. The kids over there know how to write a catchy riff. Crashdiet was the first Glam Metal band to be signed to a major label (Universal) in over a decade.

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Believe it or not, Emmure frontman Frankie Palmeri and I have something in common, at least geographically. We both grew up in Queens, a largely residential New York City borough whose diversity has yielded artists from the Ramones to 50 Cent. Beyond that however, it was clear to me how different Palmeri and I are. When I sat down to interview him at the Nassau Colosseum stop on the Vans Warped Tour this past weekend, he seemed defensive and even a bit distant. I was immediately reminded of Henry Rollins’ “Get In The Van,” the essential collection of that seminal hardcore icon’s diaries from the Black Flag days. Like Rollins, Palmeri exudes an exhaustion with the trappings of the modern world. Noticing my phone, he quickly whipped out his –replete with severely cracked screen — and declared, without so much as smirking, “Here’s mine.” I could tell from our conversation that he was absolutely living the motto he asks Emmure fans to chant at their shows: “I’m fucking over it.” Read for yourself below.

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This past Spring, The Binary Code — still pretty much our favorite unsigned metal band on the East Coast — announced that they were gonna be selling/trading a new three song EP on the road. Now that EP, Priest, is going to be made available to non-concert goers on August 10 — with a new batch of mixes and a bonus track — and guess what? We have your first taste right here: the awesome, brootaler-than-thou, microchip-in-your-brain techy title track. Turn that shit ALL THE WAY UP for maximum metaltude before you hit “play.” And make sure there are no small animals or children nearby, because you might accidentally melt their brains.

Unfortunately for all of you, the limited edition, hand-made, autographed CD copies of the EP are all sold-out already — but you can pre-order Priest here as a digital download, or as a download and t-shirt package (which is what we’re going for — the merch, designed by guitarist Jesse Zuretti, is frickin’ sweet). It’s been really amazing watching this band just get better and better over the past several months — the material on Priest already smokes last year’s Suspension of Disbelief. Go order a copy.

Catch The Binary Code at their EP release show August 2nd at the Charleston in Brooklyn with East of the Wall, Iron Thrones, Name and Meek Is Murder, and on a fall East Coast tour to be announced soon.

[this promotion has ended]

The only problem with Opeth’s awesomer-than-awesome twentieth anniversary tour — in which they played Blackwater Park in its entirety, followed by a second set of rarities from the rest of their discography — is that it only played six shows in as many cities, which meant that a lot of fans didn’t get to experience it.

The band is doing their best to remedy the situation, though, by announcing the release of In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, an audio/visual documentation of one of these six already-legendary shows.

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Yeah, sure, I could fall back on the whole Van Halen “they really pre-dated hair metal” argument and put this article to bed right now, but that would be too easy. And, besides, there are plenty of other reasons why you should cringe every time someone referes to Def Lep as “hair metal” or “glam.”

Sure, Def Lep covered some of the same thematic bases as a most hair metal bands — namely, sex (with and without love) and the awesome power of rock n’ roll. But those lyrical tropes date back as far as rock music itself, so they don’t really count. And, sure, Def Leppard had some of the slickest production out there — but they were sharing a producer with AC/DC and Foreigner (MUTT FUCKING LANGE — show some respect), not Warrant and Winger (hello, Beau Hill). And, yeah, it’s easy to find pictures of Def Lep dressed like idiots, but guess what? It was the 80s. Everyone dressed like an idiot. I literally cannot remember seeing a single person with decent fashion sense in the 1980s. It was just, like, a ten year period when everyone temporarily went retarded, attire-wise. (And, for the record, I can’t find a single photo of the band where anyone is dressed like a lady; even the amount of hair product they used seems to be fairly reasonable by the standards of the day.)

So what does that make Def Leppard? Oh yeah. Just one of the most awesome arena rock bands of all time.

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I was pretty skeptical when I first saw the Cool Tour lineup. Actually, I was more than skeptical: I was pretty much positive that I wasn’t going to attend. It seemed to break down as 50% Christian screamo, 25% hardcore, and 25% good bands, which meant that there would be a lot of obnoxious hardcore, scene, and straightedge kids. But when the opportunity arose to go to the tour, I just decided to do it despite the high scene-kid-to-normal-metalhead ratio, because I had never seen either BTBAM or As I Lay Dying live.

As it turned out, I made the right decision. Although I did skip the first four bands (War of Ages, Cancer Bats, Architects, and The Acacia Strain) because I’m not a fan of any of them besides Architects, I hear that all of them save for War of Ages put on a pretty solid showing. The Acacia Strain apparently managed to work the crowd into more of a frenzy than any other band, probably because it was a hometown show for them.

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Vince and I left the Mansion a little early yesterday afternoon to take a little field trip, so we missed that our very good friend, Mr. Eyal Levi of Daath, was going to be on the Metal Injection Livecast! Bummer. Hopefully you’re all faithful Metal Injection readers and knew to listen-in anyways.

And if for some reason you aren’t, well, you can download an mp3 of the Livecast right here. Eyal gives the skinny on the new Daath album, talks about the band’s possible touring plans for the future, gives some tips on guitar tone, discusses why he’d never fuck a goat, and reveals that he doesn’t date Jewish girls, much to Noa’s apparent disappointment. Go listen.

And while we’re on the topic of Daath in the studio, I know some people have asked if I’m gonna write anything about my time visiting with the band last month; and the answer is, of course I am. We’ll have a SHIT LOAD of coverage… closer to the album’s release. So sit tight!

-AR

What do dudes in bands do when they’re not out on the road and they’re still between album releases? Work on side projects of course, an endeavor I’ve previously stated to have a strong affinity for. I just love getting to hear what metal dudes write when they don’t feel confined to the specific style of their main band because the result is usually at least one pretty big step away from metal and we get a good glimpse into said metal dude’s non-metal influences.

In the case of Darkest Hour founding guitarist Mike Schleibaum, while he’s been working on writing the very first Darkest Hour record for new label E1 he’s also managed to find some time to put a punk side-project together with what he describes in a personal email to MetalSucks as “a bunch of my old friends.” If you’ve ever met Mike or even read interviews with him, you know the guy grew up on punk in addition to the Swedish and Swedish-inspired metal that’s defined the band’s sound. So in the case of his new project — Beasts of No Nation — what we’ve got is a bonafide punk band. The music is fun and up-beat… and fuckin’ punk. I’m no punk expert so I’m not gonna risk making a fool of myself by name-checking potential influences I know nothing about, so I’ll just say this: I like Beasts of No Nation, and so should you!

Check out three songs from Beasts of No Nation’s forthcoming album on MySpace (release date TBA). Beasts of No Nation will play their inaugural show on Thursday, August 26th @ DC9 in Washington DC with Domino Team and SEAS. I bet that show is gonna be a lot of fun.

-VN

I don’t wanna talk about Mushroomhead’s music. About that topic, I have nothing to say that the peanut gallery won’t say for me, and was going to say from the moment I wrote the word “Mushroomhead,” regardless of the other words by which it was surrounded.

Instead, I want to think like a Hollywood Marketing Douche and say that as much success as Mushroomhead have enjoyed, I think they would have been even bigger if a casual observer, such as, let’s say, myself, could actually tell these dudes apart.

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