In all fairness, we didn’t warn Extreme that we were going to name them #5 on our list of The Top Ten Bands Most Often Miscategorized as Hair Metal.

ANYWAY, back in April, Extreme released a video for the song “King of the Ladies,” and I really dug the song, and I was all, “Hey, how come I never listened to Saudades de Rock? We ran a positive review of the album, and I was really excited when Extreme reunited!”

Well, guess what? Here we are, three months later, and Extreme have debuted another video via Noisecreep, “Run.” And, once again, I really dig the song (especially Nuno’s drunk-sounding, warbly solo), and once again, I still haven’t listened to the fucking record. What is wrong with me?

So I’m gonna listen to Saudades de Rock. I’m totally serious this time. I’m gonna listen to it right now.

Vince, if you’re reading this and you have a copy in your wing, please dispatch it to me via MetalSucks Mansion Monkey. Thanks, dude.

This video is actually to promote a new Extreme live DVD/CD set, Take Us Alive, which is out now. I guess after I finally listen to Saudades de Rock, I should check that out, too.

-AR

The Absence debuted the title track from their forthcoming new album, Enemy Unbound, during a gig earlier this year; then, last week, it became available as part of a free Metal Blade sampler; and now, in case you were too stupid to download that free sampler, it’s streaming right here. It’s an awesome song, and hit yourself in the face if you haven’t listened to it.

Now Metal Blade has announced a release date for the album: September 14. Write that down in your calendar, or put in your computer calendar, or your smart phone calendar, or just tie a string around your finger  – whatever you gots to do to remember. ‘Cause, mark my words, this record is gonna be a scorcher.

Here’s the cover art. I don’t know if the spiky bones are a deliberate reference to Carcass’ Heartwork or that’s just where my brain goes, but I’d wager that The Absence are Heartwork fans.

-AR

Mind-Less

“When you really understand that you are what you see and know, you don’t run around the countryside thinking, ‘I am all this!’ There is simply all this.” —Alan Watts

The end is near; the end of a cycle. We just rehearsed today for the first time since our last European tour that ended in mid-June. It was like putting on an old pair of jeans. We slipped right in and felt comfortable; relaxed enough to loosen up completely and just have fun. It was the kind of rehearsal I enjoy the most, if I had to rate them.

Today was hot and muggy in Los Angeles. Our rehearsal room was even hotter and muggier than outside — and it worked. The clam factor forced us to give in to the discomfort… and rollick. We said, “Fuck it,” and the music flowed out of our biology like tadpoles consuming life. A raw, uninhibited quality took shape and found a way to be heard. It was pure instinct alongside a carefree sense of humor. We detached and let the music do the work.

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Going into my chat with Serj Tankian I already had a high opinion of the man as a singer, a musician, and as a member of System of a Down, a band whose body of work I hold in high regard. But through the course of the interview, the picture of the man behind the music only became more clear: Tankian is a true artist, a man who considers himself extremely lucky to be able to do what he does for a living and, as such, feels continually inspired to constantly push himself and his art forward.

Our talk touched on obvious subjects such as Serj’s forthcoming new solo record Imperfect Harmonies and the differences between his solo projects and his work with System of a Down, but we also spent a lot of time talking about ways in which he’s constantly striving to push his art forward by trying new things: recording the new record with an orchestra and bringing its 25 extra musicians out on the road with him, what it means to him to let politics and music intermingle, and some non-traditional projects he’s working on such as his new poetry book, a musical that’s opening next year, a symphony he’s writing, a museum project he’s putting together and much much more.

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Since its inception by the typings of some clever music journalist in the 80s, the categorization “hair metal” (or “glam metal”) has been as amorphous and, consequently, as misused as “metalcore” has been in the aughties. And since it’s hair metal week here on MetalSucks, we thought we’d try to address this issue by pointing the spotlight on ten bands that are often, and incorrectly, deemed “hair metal.” And to that end…

If Van Halen set the standard for the flashy guitar techniques and outrageous frontman theatrics that would later come to define hair metal, then it’s only fair to call Extreme their proverbial nephews and similarly disrobe them of the “hair metal” tag. At their peak more than a full decade after EVH and DLR changed the face of heavy music forever, the Boston duo of Gary Cherone on vocals and wunkerkind Nuno Bettencourt on guitar channeled the vintage feel-good VH vibes into three killer albums that still stand up today. Nuno’s unabashed EVH worship was on display at all times both in his supersonic leads and intricately voiced, highly rhythmic rhythms — I suppose one could argue that he stylistically one-upped EVH and took everything he’d done to the next level, but I don’t think I’m gonna go there — and Cherone, though not as outrageous as David Lee Roth, certainly summoned his whacky / feel good on-stage personality, and not for nothin’ was definitely a better vocalist. And of course there’s that little thing where Cherone sang for Van Halen for a minute… but we don’t talk about that.

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MetalSucks Uber-Tipster Hetal Bhatt sent us a link to this  article from Rolling Stone:

It’s been six years since the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster hit theaters, but the band is still sharing its reactions to the movie, which chronicled the band’s bitter in-fighting and visits to a therapist while working on St. Anger. Their impressions? Not good. “Every time I see Noel Gallagher he quotes lines from that movie back to me,” Ulrich told Australia’s Herald Sun. “That thing has taken on a life of its own. I had to live that shit for three fucking years! The whole thing was a mindfuck. I am aware a lot of other musicians seem to have lived a lot of those moments. They weren’t necessarily stupid enough to film them like we were and share them with the rest of the world.”

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We now rejoin Allyson B. Crawford (Bring Back Glam!) and Anso DF (MetalSucks) and their riveting analysis of Glam Metal’s Ten Best Must-Have Records.

Get caught up on yesterday’s action here.

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7. TRASH - Alice Cooper

July 25, 1989 // Epic Records // p: Desmond Child

The hits: “Poison” “Bed of Nails” “House of Fire” “Only My Heart Talkin’”

The heart: “Hell Is Living Without You” “Spark In The Dark” “I’m Your Gun”

Anso: So by 1989′s Trash, Coop had been in a booze stupor for like seven straight albums. The good news was that his successful comeback tour inspired some check-writing at Epic Records. But that support came with strict control, or at least that’s what the presence of Bon Jovi/Kiss/Aerosmith/Ratt hit-maker Desmond Child implies. So Allyson, what’s your stance on Desmond Child?

Allyson: I got to interview Alice Cooper once. One of the highlights of my life, I swear. The man rules. He was all about sobriety when we spoke and I think that’s awesome. Now, Desmond Child. Oh my. I’ve written about him before on Bring Back Glam!. I suppose he is — no, he is a genius, but damn. Aerosmith is my favorite band of all time and Child sort of took away their grit. So that hurt. But for some people he really, really helped and that’s Alice Cooper. Alice needed a hit for a new generation and Trash came along at the right time, didn’t it? Oh and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to meet and interview Desmond Child, so there you go.

Anso: Hey, same here! His stuff is mega-cheesy, but so are delicious Cheetos. Plus, Detonator rules, so it’s easy to forgive misfires like “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” Oh and of course I warmed to him after VH1 aired that hilarious footage of his collaboration with (and antagonism of) Vince Neil. You saw that right? “Hello-o! Successs!”

Allyson: Yeah, I’ve seen that. Oh, I’ve seen it.

Anso: Okay, Trash was buffed up by a full whack of celebrity guests: Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi, Kip Winger, Guy Mann-Dude, Steve Lukather, and 80% of Aerosmith. I suppose they helped pull chicks and young people to this old man record. Did these guys make Trash more attractive to you in any way?

Allyson: Because I’m a chick? Well, here’s the thing about me. I’ll agree there are some hot guys in rock, but that doesn’t mean much to me when it comes to music I like. If the song rocks, awesome. If not, okay. I like tons of music that is mocked — often right here on MetalSucks, ha! — and I always “go my own way if you will.” Trash is awesome to me because I love the songs. “Only My Heart Talkin’” is a great love song, a completely different type of power ballad. But, back to guests. I usually don’t care about guest stars on albums. I buy records because I want to hear the real band — not a slew of guests, you know?

Anso: Yeah. I’m not an Alice Cooper scholar, but I’ll wager that Trash is his sexiest record. It’s a bit uncomfortable to hear a 41-year old Coop describe passionate banging.

Allyson: As you know, my dear Anso, sexy is in the eyes of the beholder.

Anso: Hey, let’s talk about Trash‘s super-hit, “Poison.” Can you think of any single in history with such a memorably quirky riff? It’s awesome on its own and I love how they set it against different chords in the intro.

Allyson: So I’ve talked to Alice guitarist Keri Kelli a few times. Once I said I was frustrated trying to learn bass and guitar parts for some Alice songs. And Keri said something like, “Look, if you want to learn ‘Poison’ it’s just going to take awhile.” This frustrated me because I have little patience. I think I got off the phone with Keri, looked at the guitar and then sat down with a bag of chips or something. Anyway, yes, “Poison” is freaking epic. One of the best songs of the ’80s. Then again, Alice is a master. I love when the band performs “Poison” live. The crowd always goes batshit crazy.

Anso: What else makes you love this record?

Allyson: Hmm. It’s the sum of its parts I guess. I think all the songs fit well together, there’s not really a dud and the album helped push Alice to the top again. The cover photo is iconic. It was in magazines first and then Alice chose it as his cover — so I remember seeing the image of Alice everywhere as a kid. I had this instant connection to the record I suppose.

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I can’t quite pin it down, but I’d like to posit that surf guitar has some bearing and influence on modern metal. Perhaps it’s the fast tremolo picking, in which case every frost-bitten Norwegian church-burner owes something to Hurtigruten, “the very first surf band in all of Norway.”

There’s a whole lotta tremolo-picking here and this shit was recorded back in 1964, way before Varg Vikernes was even a twinkle in his mama’s eye. Some of the scales they’re using even remind me of black metal a little bit, picking style aside. Dark.

-VN

Thanks: Tero Rinne

Read Leyla’s list of The Top Ten Worst Hair Metal Band Names here.

All right, this was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and for a while I considered just doing a part two of bad names. But, like hair metal itself, there are always some gems floating amidst the crap, and with a little borrowing from other overlapping genres, ten candidates were found for the best of hair band names. So you’re safe for now, Trixter, Tora, Tora, Kix, and Stryper…

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Man, you just gotta love Dream Evil. The band has gone to painstaking measures to make sure the “show” in this video looks as bad-ass as possible by creating a giant “Dream Evil” backdrop light sign, dropping in a ludicrously huge wall of amp cabinets, inviting a CGI audience to attend (!) and dubbing in fake crowd noises. One guitarist (not Fredrik Nordstron) is wearing fur. The song is about banging your fucking head, a tried and true metal topic that will never be overdone. These guys are complete and total dorks and not ashamed of it at all. This isn’t quite what I had in mind when I advocated keeping metal videos inexpensive, but this video couldn’t have cost that much to make and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t do the trick.

In short, this video is fucking fantastic. There is nothing not to love about it. Long live Dream Evil!

-VN

Since its inception by the typings of some clever music journalist in the 80s, the categorization “hair metal” (or “glam metal”) has been as amorphous and, consequently, as misused as “metalcore” has been in the aughties. And since it’s hair metal week here on MetalSucks, we thought we’d try to address this issue by pointing the spotlight on ten bands that are often, and incorrectly, deemed “hair metal.” And to that end…

I know what you’re thinking: “How the hell is Vince going to argue that Bon Jovi weren’t a hair metal band? Look at those guys! They’re the biggest poofty poofters of all time.” And you’d be right about all of things excepts for one: in order to be classified as hair metal, Bon Jovi would have to have been — or even aspired to be — a heavy metal band, when in fact they were just ordinary New Jersey dudebros playing pop. Pop in rock form with distorted guitars. Let’s call it hair pop.

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So yesterday we got a bunch of e-mails from people regarding this story going around about Brokencyde. This yarn went that the band’s tour bus was pulled over for speeding in New Mexico, and that when 5-0 inspected the bus, they found an assload of drugs, a fourteen year old girl, and a laptop full of photos of the band fucking other underage chicks.

And even though the story meant that any number of young girls were forever going to have to live with the memory of having one of these pop their cherry…

…these reader e-mails suggested nothing short of elation. For surely, it meant that Brokencyde were going bye-bye.

Just one thing. The story’s not true.

So I’m sorry to disappoint you all — Brokencyde’s fifteen minutes are not yet over.

But at least we know no little girls got fucked, right?

-AR

I’m having a lot of fun making this mix. I’m stoked to give it to one of you guys or girls. And while I don’t wanna give away the entire mix just yet, seeing as it’s a work-in-progress, I did wanna give you a little taste. And so, without further adieu, some songs which are most certainly going to find their way onto the final draft.

Cats in Boots, “Her Monkey”

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Via Metal Injection, a great way to spend 9 minutes of your day. Great video quality, great sound quality, great band.

Remember when that guy at Anus.com said Meshuggah were for people who like to pretend they’re smart? Lulz.

First troll to say Meshuggah sucks will be a) banned, b) wrong.

-VN

I don’t think you can actually be a transvestite if you’re an Amazonian, but I don’t know how else to describe Helen L. Simmons, the incredibly tall, incredibly unattractive woman who married Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen this past Friday.

Here’s a photo that will haunt your nightmares forever:

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It’d be easy to categorize the rant Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley wrote for Alternative Press as “old guy sour about kids these days” if everything he’s saying about the current young crop of bands on the Warped Tour wasn’t so damn on-point. At a relatively ripe 30-ish years old (I think) compared to the haircutcore multitudes, the lads in Every Time I Die, Dillinger Escape Plan and a small handful of other bands on Warped have earned the right to be crotchety old men; their music has stood the test of time in this crazy, ever-changing scene and has proven itself to be more than just a passing fad. And while Buckley lays it straight in his vitriolic rant and it’d be easy to say “he just doesn’t get it” with regards to today’s youth’s music choices, it’d be hard for any self-respecting music fan to argue with his points. Sample:

The problem is that kids here at the Warped Tour don’t know that half of these “bands” play to an iPod track or that most “artists” don’t even write their own songs. They don’t realize that the singer of Never Shout Never is just a poor man’s Justin Bieber or that most of these “moshcore” bands that use 808’s to really BEEF UP their bass tone are the most recent manifestation of nu metal. Really guys? The dude from Milli Vanilli KILLED HIMSELF because he was so ashamed at being outed as a phony and yet on a daily basis I walk out into the crowd and hear autotuned vocals in a live setting. What the fuck has happened to us? Don’t we want more than this? Music once made me want to play music. Now there are days that it makes me want to never listen to it again.

Buckley’s rant is really something you’ve got to read; it’s the kind of article that’ll have you pumping your fist and yelling “yes!” to yourself constantly. The final blow:

Put your ear to the ground, take off your stupid fucking neon shirt and get a haircut. Oh, and what happened to throwing tomatoes at people onstage that just plain sucked? I say we bring that back. As a matter of fact, I think Breathe Carolina are playing soon…

Zing! We wait for Never Shout Never and Breathe Carolina’s responses with baited breath. It’s been a while since we had a good feud ’round these parts…

-VN

Thanks: Brent Hicks

I woke up this morning to see a post on Crustcake celebrating the news that Triptykon will tour with 1349 and Yakuza later this year — and that said tour will include a handful of U.S. dates. This would obviously be a terrific tour — Eparistera Daimones is still one of the best albums of 2010.

The only thing is — and I don’t mean to cast dispersions on Crustcake, a site I love — I’m not sure where the heck this info is coming from. As I write this, we haven’t received any press release here at the MetalSucks Mansion, I haven’t seen the news reported anywhere else, and the MySpace pages for Triptykon, 1349, and Yakuza all lack the American tour dates in question.

So did Crustcake get an inside scoop? It’s entirely possible. We’ll wait (and pray!) for official confirmation from the band before we get too excited… but in the meantime, here are the dates Crustcake is reporting:

Click to read more…

First of all, congrats to readers Aimee Duke, Clare Pluckhorn, and Max Zelenevich — they each identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Acabó el Silencio, and they each win a copy of Cruel Hand’s Lock & Key for their troubles. Play that shit loud n’ proud, kids.

Since it’s hair metal week here on MetalSucks, I thought we’d do something a little different. So this week, I am personally making a mix of old, obscure (by glam standards at least) hair metal songs for the winner. And, I promise you, I put way, way, WAY too much thought into my mixes.  So if you think that might be fun/interesting, by all means, enter the contest. And, if not, well, guess what? This is pretty much the easiest logo contest ever, so don’t get your panties in a twist.

All you gots 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. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name next week.

If you can’t read this, congratulations, you’re a retard.

-AR

With a provocative song title like “Deathbed Atheist,” there ought to be no doubt that Norma Jean have zero intention of abandoning their religious beliefs as their popularity surges. Taken from their phenomenal new record Meridional, the track churns with the darkness of Undertow-era Tool and confrontational yet personal lyrics like “Bury your hands in the sand / You’ll never use them on me again.” The title is an obvious reference to the Christian notion that, at the end of their lives, many atheists convert and accept God. Critics such as Richard Dawkins have had harsh and dismissive words for that idea, and substantiation of so-called deathbed conversions is admittedly hard to come by.

So taking all that into account you’d think that the new Norma Jean video would at least attempt to dramatize or allude to the idea. And you’d be wrong. Instead, we get another minimal, stylized, CGI-lite video with some bizarre symbols (bugs, nails, mirrors) that don’t exactly make sense. Perhaps my lack of familiarity with scripture is keeping me from “getting it,” but until I learn otherwise I’m just going to assume this is another ordinary promo video. Still, it’s one hell of a track.

-GS

Since its inception by the typings of some clever music journalist in the 80s, the categorization “hair metal” (or “glam metal”) has been as amorphous and, consequently, as misused as “metalcore” has been in the aughties. And since it’s hair metal week here on MetalSucks, we thought we’d try to address this issue by pointing the spotlight on ten bands that are often, and incorrectly, deemed “hair metal.” And to that end…

Like Van Halen, entry #9 on this most dubious of lists, it’s easy to see why so many people call Quiet Riot hair metal. The Los Angeles quartet displayed so many of the trapping of the hair metal era — namely lotsa hair (though Dubrow’s wig could call this into question in the later years), a bulge-in-the-pants sense of machismo and giant-sized rock anthems about sex, booze and bangin’ your head — but how can any band be part of a trend they pre-dated by so many years? Quiet Riot got together in 1973 — 1973!! — and released their first album in 1975, long before the Poisons and Cinderellas and even the Motley Crues and Ratts started patrolling the Sunset Strip.

Click to read more…