Ion Dissonance are cursed, both figuratively and literally. Says vocalist Kevin McCaughey on the matter: “Anytime we try to get ahead in anything, there is always someone or something there to slow us down or get in our way.” Fittingly, then, their new album — which comes out today on Century Media — is called Cursed to reflect the band’s never-ending bad fortune. And also fittingly, the album leaked 40 days in advance of its release which created all sorts of problems for the band and their record label. Which is really too bad, because the album is excellent.

After the jump, check out my chat with Ion D vocalist Kevin McCaughey. We talked about the band’s bad fortune, the leak of Cursed, where they fit into today’s metal scene, and how the band’s approach to their craft has changed now that they’re all mostly in their 30′s and have wives/girlfriends, houses, and those most un-metal of daily chores: regular jobs.

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Congrats to MetalSucks Maniac Devin Garvin, who not only correctly identified last week’s logo as beloning to the band Gutted with Broken Glass, but, per my weekly instructions, included his mailing address with his entry, because he’s not a total ree-ree who either doesn’t know how to read, or who thinks that I can somehow intuit his address, or who thinks that I’ll e-mail him to get his address even though plenty of other entrants were smart enough to follow the rules and include their address with their entry. For getting the answer right AND not being an idiot, Devin wins any two CDs and/or DVDs from whatever the hell we have lying around the mansion this week. Devin, please check your e-mail for your list of choices!

This week we have a really, really awesome prize, courtesy the nice folks at Earache Records: a prize pack featuring every Earache artist currently on tour in North America! That’s includes a two CD import copy of Wormrot‘s Abuse, a copy of Order of Ennead‘s An Examination of Being WITH a t-shirt, a copy of Bonded by Blood‘s Exiled to Earth, a copy of Oceano‘s Depths, and a copy of And Hell Followed With‘s Proprioception. That’s a whole lotta free shit!

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, your name, and your address. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was suggested by reader Steve Wigmore…

-AR

So the whole internet was abuzz about that Justin Bieber track that sounded aw’ight when someone slowed it down 800% — I guess if anything will make J-Beeb OK, that’s what it takes.

I tried to ignore that shit… until the kickass sci-fi/fantasy website i09 linked to a bunch of sci-fi themes slowed down 800%.

The idea still sounded stupid, but I decided to check out the version of the Brad Fiedel’s classic Terminator theme. And damned if it didn’t sound pretty fargin’ good. I’m on a big kick of listening to music you can ignore. And the slow jams are great, atmospheric background white noise. Slowed down 800%, pretty much all sci-fi themes sound like the Vangelis’ score for Blade Runner. (Did I just reference Vangelis? I meant “FUCKIN’ SLAYER!!!” Anyway…)

So I started wondering what extreme music might sound like when slowed down to 12.5 percent of its regular velocity. In honor of my recent MetalSucks interviews with D.R.I. and C.O.C., I tried a couple tracks by those bands.

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Life is tough for the modern touring metal band, ’cause when you gotta put gas in the van and the 4-6 members of the group are splitting twenty bucks a night, paying for, say, food can become a real problem-o. So even though I’ll only eat at Taco Bell late at night, after a show, when friends (like, say, Metal Injection‘s Rob Pasbani and awesome metal photographer Justina “English Waffle” Villanueva) drag me, I fully endorse Taco Bell’s annual “Feed the Beat” program, which offers bands free diarrhea via Taco Bell Bucks, which can be redeemed at any one of the chain’s eight gajillion locations.

The fifth annual installment of the program is now accepting applications here, and while you might think Taco Bell would only wanna support wholesome, all-American artists who fit in with their image, filthy, stinky metal bands such as Shadows Fall, Atreyu, Municipal Waste and Iwrestledabearonce have all benefitted in the past. So if you’re in a poor touring group and you’ve got a strong stomach, go apply now.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

How awesome is Chris Pennie? If the answer is not “very, very awesome,” then the question’s rhetorical. His spazzy, ADD drumming constructed the perfect backbone to one of the best heavy music albums ever made (Dillinger Escape Plan’s Calculating Infinity), as well as his subsequent work with DEP up until he joined Coheed and Cambria (some would say confusingly, others would point out that the dude, like most of us, has rent to pay, and Coheed certainly aren’t the worst band in the world). He shines at the sort of all-over-the-kit fills Mastodon’s Brann Dailor is also known for, but is keen as to when to dial it back. His talent, like performance-enhancing drugs, hypothetically has the ability to vault a good band into being a great band. However, it doesn’t necessarily do the same in making a mediocre band into a good one. The latter is best illustrated on Automata, the new album by his rock/industrial/metal/whatever collective, Return to Earth. The band’s biggest issue — the fact that it isn’t necessarily sure what it wants to be — is ultimately what keeps it from being anything great. Which is a shame, considering that there are moments when they appear to really be on to something.

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So there’s a new Cradle of Filth song, “Lilith Immaculate,”and we got a bunch of reader e-mails about it hours (and in one case days) BEFORE we got a press release. So three cheers for COF’s fanatical followers knowing about it every time Dani Filth farts, regardless of whether or not the media tells them how it smelled.

ANYWAY, the song. You can download it by signing up for the COF mailing list, or you can just listen below. It sounds like Cradle of Filth to me. I’m not a huge fan, and the one time I saw the band live, it was pretty much the most awful thing ever… but every now and then they churns out a pop-black metal tune that gets stuck in my noggin. (Like that song “Nymphetamine.” That’s a guilty pleasure if ever there was one.) And I do think that Dani Filth is a really, really smart guy with a vision who has worked very hard for his success. One might not like that vision, which is fine… but the dude has gotten as far as he has for a reason, y’know?

Cradle of Filth’s new album, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa, comes out November 9 on Nuclear Blast. Everyone who didn’t e-mail us should talk about how much they hate this band in the comments section, and then everyone who did e-mail us should defend them.

-AR

So, here we are in late 2010, two years after Sumeriancore first gnashed its’ gnarly teeth into the world’s Internet metal undercurrent and one year after it exploded up above it. We’re now firmly in the 2nd generation of the burgeoning sub-genre, meaning that today’s up and coming Sumeriancore bands have the first generation’s music to draw upon as direct influence instead of just combining the influences that spawned it in the first place. And of course, with any growing musical movement comes a ton of new bands. For 2nd gen Sumeriancore (let’s call it 2GSC for the sake of coining a completely ridiculous and unnecessary acronym), which bands will rise above and which will blend into the pack?

Of all the 2GCS bands coming into the spotlight of late, Indiana’s The Contortionist certainly have a shot at sticking around. Their sound incorporates the Meshuggah-style down-tuned riffing that’s a trademark of the genre but doesn’t take the melody over the top the way a band like Periphery does. They’ve also got plenty of lead chops but don’t take those over the top either, like, say Animals as Leaders do. Theirs is a brand that shows some restraint, ala The Binary Code, but their songs, shorter, catchier and seemingly willing to indulge in certain genre cliches (heyo tritone breakdown!), seem to go for the jugular.

Take a gander at their new track “Advent” below, and also at “Flourish” posted on their MySpace page. Both songs come from Exoplanet, out next Tuesday, August 31st, on Good Fight Entertainment. Pre-order it here. Let us know what you think.

[this promotion has ended]

In the second AC/DC bit of news not directly related to the band in as many days — see also this video of a sign language interpreter’s “performance” of “Big Balls” — neo-Bodom metallers Mutiny Within have posted a cover of “Highway to Hell” available exclusively at SMNnews. I like how they start it off as a straight cover then kick it into Mutinized overdrive starting with the second verse. That’s how covers should be done; a good mix of the original and a new take on it. British singer Chris “We’re from New Jersey” Clancy totally nails Brian Johnson’s high-pitched wail.

Going against popular metal critic / tr00 / br00talz grain, I’m still a fan of Mutiny Within’s self-titled debut released earlier this year on Roadrunner. No, it’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s all about the songs, man! Dig a few of the band’s original tracks on MySpace, and check out the interview with bassist AJ Jacobs I conducted earlier this year.

-VN

When I saw Megadeth a few weeks ago, the band sounded great — but Dave Mustaine’s vocals sounded about as appealing as the idea of watching a porno flick starring Billy Milano and Snooki.

So now Noisecreep has debuted the below clip from the band’s forthcoming DVD, Rust in Peace Live, and… Dave’s vocals sound just peachy.

So what happened? Video footage I’ve seen of Megadeth from this entire American Carnage tour suggest that Dave wasn’t just having an off-night when I saw him. Is he having an off-entire tour? Or did he pull a Kiss and go back and clean up these live recordings after the fact? Hm…

Here’s the clip of “Holy Wars” from Rust in Peace Live…

…and here’s the band doing the same song as part of the Big Four mini-tour in late June. Note that Dave’s voice sounds, uh, different than it does in the above clip.

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It’s only been a week since The Ocean announced details about Anthropocentric, the follow-up and conclusion to the two-parter started by Heliocentric earlier this year, and already we’ve got a sample of new music; The Ocean are good at using the Interwebs in that way. Reader Ashley Lee sent in the above studio video of drummer Luc Hess laying down some tracks to a metronome and you can kinda hear some guitar scratch tracks in the background. It’s hard to really hear what’s going on, but like I said… a sample! About all I can tell from it is that it sounds very Oceany.

A quick note about the firestorm over Heliocentric that erupted in the comments of last week’s post. The general consensus seems to be that Heliocentric didn’t live up to some of the Ocean’s past work, and I agree; it’s not that it was too soft, or too proggy, or had too many clean vocal passages, or too much / too little of anything… it’s just that as a whole, it was missing a little something. Still, some of the songs are instant classics, as good as anything the band’s written to date, and I enjoyed the album overall. A sub-par Ocean album is still miles beyond what most other bands can do. And with the promises that Anthropocentric will be more “straight forward” and “heavy,” I can’t wait to find out what’s in store.

-VN

Earlier this month, Behemoth announced that Nergal is “seriously ill and waiting for [his] multi-stage treatment,” and that the band consequently had to cancel all their upcoming tour dates. Although the band didn’t specify what sickness was afflicting Nergal, the “multi-stage treatment” part of the statement caused many to speculate that it was cancer.

And, unfortunately, that speculation was correct: According to Metal Underground, a Polish celebrity news site, TVP, has revealed that the Behemoth mastermind has leukemia.

That news would be terrible enough, but, unfortunately, it gets worse. From Metal Underground:

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Disappointed that Devin Townsend’s previously announced fall tour would only play a handful of West Coast dates? Fret no more; Heavy Devy has finally delivered on his promise to take his first ever U.S. solo headlining tour to other parts of the country, and he’ll be bringing longtime Internet darlings and recent Century Media signees Tesseract along with him as support.

Devin performed like a headliner when we saw him open for Cynic and BTBAM earlier this year, but his performance was way too short for us to get our fix; to say his show was powerful and incredibly captivating would be a gross understatement. Now we’ll finally have the opportunity to see him play an extended set of material from his many excellent solo albums live and in the flesh, along with a few hundred other equally stoned and equally nerdy metalheads. Yee gads!

As for Tesseract, it looks like they’ll actually be delivering on that promise for an official release in 2010, even if it’s an EP. According to a source at Century Media, Concealing Fate will come out October 12th online, and there will be a limited edition pressing of it available at shows, at CM Distro and at the band’s webstore. Djent fans everywhere have gotta be muy excited.

You’ll find that complete list of confirmed Devin Towsend / Tesseract dates after el jumpo.

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I interviewed Gus G. this past Friday. He’s such an incredibly nice and talented dude, and the new Firewind album, Days of Defiance, is so friggin’ rockin’, that mid-interview I started to feel really, really guilty that I don’t like Mr. G’s Ozzy debut, Scream. Then again, it’s not really Gus’ fault that the album is perfectly serviceable but totally generic, since he didn’t write any of the material — take one listen to Days of Defiance, and you’ll know that if Gus G. had written the album, it would be 1,000% better.

So. Here’s the new video for Scream’s second single, the de rigeur power ballad, “Life Won’t Wait.” It’s indicative of all of Scream in that it’s a totally fine, and completely unspectacular, song. And, duh, my favorite part is the Gus G. guitar solo. But, really, I wanted to post it to make sure you know that Firewind’s Days of Defiance comes out October 26 on Century, and that the first single from that album, “World on Fire,” is available for download on iTunes right now. And it’s way better than this:

-AR

It used to be so simple. Bands would approach a music writer, give him a copy of their album, and hope that he’d like it enough to convince readers to buy it. With the advent of file sharing, the equation has changed. The journalist’s role is still to introduce you to great music, and your role is still to acquire that music if you like it. But these days, you can instantaneously get an illegal copy on your computer for free, with no negative ramifications other than a droplet of guilt, easily dismissable.

We could bemoan how the ease of acquiring recorded music for free has made it no more than a loss leader for a band’s merch or live show. But that would be ignoring the fact that illegal downloading is here to stay. Besides, there’s so much goddamn music to listen to than an underground metal band is far more likely to achieve obscurity than commercial success.

As a result, we’re seeing more and more bands giving away full-length albums like they used to give away stickers or demos. And if bands have accepted the album as a promotional calling card, and quality metal labels like Works of Ein have done the same, who are we at MetalSucks to stand in their way? It’s a promotional concept as extreme as the music it involves.

That’s why we’re launching “Freeloader.” Each installment, we’ll review a metal album that the band has opted to let you download both cost and guilt free. If you dig it, return the gift by sharing it widely and often. Deal? Deal.

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Where to begin with this woefully disappointing Mets season? It all fell apart on that disastrous 2-9 West Coast road trip in July. Sure, the problems started before then with two weeks of .500 ball prior to and immediately after the All Star break… but what team doesn’t have a string of mediocrity? After they returned from out west it seemed like they’d given up — everyone excerpt for R.A. Dickey, of course, by far the most Metal Met. Well, that’s not quite true… our starting pitching has been phenomenal. Excellent. Whoda thunk it going into this season?

While the season’s been disappointing to be sure, it’s been a helluva lot more satisfying than last year’s. We’ve seen the emergence of some genuine, quality homegrown talent in the likes of Ike Davis, Jon Niese, Ruben Tejada and Josh Thole. A really, really solid core of youngsters to build upon. I like that. Let’s dump K-Rod and Beltran in trades for prospects this off-season and move on, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD just cut Oliver Fucking Perez from the roster and take the salary hit. What an asshole, that guy; what a baby. Ugh… it makes my blood boil. What a fucking baby.

Oh and one more thing: Angel Pagan. Gotta love that guy. I’m perfectly fine with having him as our starting center fielder in 2011.

Anywho, I’m ranting. Randy Johnson, one of the most metal baseball players to ever hover on a pitcher’s mound (look at that scowl!!!), apparently fancies himself a metal photographer these days and shot some photos at Ozzfest for Noisecreep. I’m wondering if Johnson couldn’t secure a photo pass or just didn’t want to be seen in the photo pit, because there aren’t actually very many pictures of bands playing. But I like that Johnson is doing something interesting with his retirement. Check out the pics at Noisecreep.

-VN

I was totally skeptical about Mose Giganticus — until I saw them live. They put on a really, really fun show. And in that regard, their new video, for “The Left Path,” is a smashing success: It portrays the band gradually winning over a room of jaded hipsters, which is exactly what I saw them do in Brooklyn earlier this summer.

But a big part of what won me over about Mose Giganticus was the use of the keytar by MG mastermind Matt Garfield (who is actually the only “real” member of the band — he writes and records everything, and guitarist Joe Smiley and drummer Dan Eppihimer are just live/touring members). ‘Cause the keytar rules, and more bands that aren’t Dream Theater or DragonForce (e.g., more bands that probably didn’t spend much of high school in a locker) need to use them. And, yes, Garfield does use a regular keyboard as well as the keytar, and maybe he even uses a regular keyboard for this song (I honestly can’t remember), which would make the use the keytar in the clip “dishonest.” But whatever… sometimes you gotta take dramatic license for the sake of awesomeness, dude!!!

In any case, I still dig this song a whole bunch.

Mose Giganticus’ Relapse debut, Gift Horse, is out now. The band is touring right now, and you should totally check ‘em out, and throw your panties at the stage when Garfield whips out his mighty keytar. Get tour dates here.

-AR

[via Popmatters.com]

Some things never change: The sky is blue, water is wet, and girls only like a band if they want to eff one or more members. I’m a realist: I know there’s probably nothing I can do to change that, but as a responsible adult, I feel like it’s my duty to speak out on this sad state of affairs, and say what nobody else will: LADIES, QUIT EFFING BAND DUDES!!!

Entry-levelers and haters will think this is sour grapes, but it’s not like that at all — as someone with some serious, wizard-level game, I had my “effing a ridiculous/shameful number of random young, stupid, hot girls” phase, but I am now using my powers for good. If I can save just one young girl from blowing some filthy loser, or one young man from making the biggest mistake of his life (joining a band), then all my hard work is worth it!

Click to read more…

Reader LETTHEDEATHMETALFLOW sent in a bunch of excellent footage he (or she… but let’s not kid ourselves… he) shot of The Black Dahlia Murder playing at Baroeg in Rotterdam, Holland last week. If you’re disappointed by Trevor Strnad’s lack of shirtlessness in the first clip, don’t worry… the shirt comes off soon enough and Trevor’s beauteous man-gut gets its time under the lights.

Believe it or not I’ve never seen a proper BDM headline set, so this footage is pretty exciting for me. The video and sound quality are great, too.

-VN

Parts 3 and 4 after the jump…

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Metal fans have been buzzing for months about Until The Light Takes Us, but official screenings have been few and far between. Consequently, 99% of the film’s core audience hasn’t seen the saga of the Norwegian black metal scene as told by filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. That’s all going to change on September 28th, when Until The Light Takes Us finally gets DVD treatment. Luckily for me, my hookup Terrill, whose inventory is usually comprised of amateur porn, videocam bootlegs of current blockbusters and unreleased Tyler Perry films, somehow got his grubbies on an advance screener.

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This video of a sign language interpreter at the San Bernadino, CA stop of Ozzfest last week [sent in by Joey Ladiv] begs the question: why would any deaf people be at a concert in the first place? He’s clearly officially sanctioned by the venue / concert seeing as he’s behind the barrier and there are security guards right in front of him; maybe there’s some “equal oppotrunity” measure in California that mandates his presence? I don’t know… it strikes me as pretty fucking stupid and a waste of money. Pardon me for being un-PC / insensitive, but this seems about as unnecessary — even insulting — as a wheelchair ramp to a game of Dance Dance Revolution. If I’m way off-base here and there’s a big contingent of deaf metalheads… well then, color me corrected.

Anyway, this guy’s act makes for some unexpected entertainment when AC/DC’s ode to manliness “Big Balls” comes on over the PA between bands. It’s good to know that the sign for Invisible Oranges is universal.

-VN