I’ve written before about my affinity for the music of Melissa Auf der Maur, and I know that some people were all,”Hey, this chick ain’t metal.” To which I say: au contraire. Even if her music isn’t always as heavy as a really heavy thing, she’s certainly got the metal in her blood n’ spirit. She fronted Hand of Doom, a (totally killer) Black Sabbath tribute band, and her latest solo album, Out of Our Minds, has a duet with Glenn Danzig, fer Chrissakes!

But in case you’re somehow still too metalier than thou to show Ms. Auf der Maur some love, maybe this will change your mind: She recently hit up the Heavy MTL festival in her hometown of Montreal, and filed a four-part video report from said festival. I’m skipping right to part three below, not because the first two parts aren’t great (Cute Canadian girls with funny accents! WHOO-HOO!), but because I find this interview with Mastodon’s Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor to be really, really entertaining.

Check out the other three video reports here. Melissa Auf der Maur’s latest, Out of our Minds, is out now. And after the jump, in an effort to get you all on board with the program, I’ve posted some more Auf der Maurian goodness…

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East of the Wall’s Ressentiment is one of my favorite metal records of 2010 and you haven’t listened to it yet.

Why not? It’s full of expansive, progressive post-hardcore soundscapes and it’s intelligent beyond belief; it’s like if Walter Schreifels, Page Hamilton and Ben Weinman all went to art school together and put together a master thesis on how to best make awesome metal. Swirling, angular, delay-soaked guitars full of melody and dissonance in equal measures, weaving and winding basslines and propulsive, driving, yet tastefully intricate drums set the backdrop for explosive songs that take you on a journey and don’t get lost in themselves. It’s a challenging record, sure, but that’s the beauty of it: each listen to this album unfolds new layers of awesomeness that make you go “Ah! I get it now.”

We premiered the album-opening track “The Ladder” back in July. Two more songs from Ressentiment are available on EOTW’s MySpace. I can’t recommend listening enough. You will not be disappointed!

-VN

Remember SmooneGrri, that Dutch, female aspiring death metal vocalist for whom I declared my love back in April? Well, I’m very pleased to report that she seems to have found a band: Scotland’s Cerebral Bore. And while they’re not the most revolutionary death metal band I’ve ever heard, they’re actually not at all terrible.

Here’s their video for the song “The Bald Cadaver.” They actually have some songs on their MySpace page that I like better, such as “Maniacal Miscreation,” which starts with an excellent elephants-marching riff.

Cerebral Bore apparently self-released a full-length, also called Maniacal Miscreation, on August 12, and are spending the rest of the month with the Sergeant D.-beloved Devourment. Get more details here.

-AR

Thanks to Mark Beavers for the tip. And for being named “Beavers.” I bet that was rough in high school.

Like Porcupine Tree’s clip for “Bonnie the Cat,” Serj Tankian’s new video, for the song “Left of Center,” is clearly inspired by Tool’s classic “Sober” video, and as was the case with said Porcupine Tree clip, I’m totally fine with that. ‘Cause the director (I’m not sure who that is, unfortunately) has put enough of his own spin on it for the video not to seem like a total rip-off, and ’cause, as regular readers know, I’m all for awesome animation in music videos.

Of course, this is Serj Tankian, so there’s a lot of not-at-all-thinly-veiled political imagery in the clip (e.g., an eyeball made from jewels, an over-stimulated, texting teenage gamer being swallowed whole by a snake made from the very technology he utilizes, etc.). But at least I can tell what the hell Serj is getting at, which is more than I can say for the lyrics to some System of a Down songs (What the fuck does leaving my keys on the table have to do with anything again?).

“Left of Center” comes off of Tankian’s latest solo offering, Imperfect Harmonies, which comes out September 21 on Serjical Strike/Reprise. If you haven’t already done so, you should check out Vince’s excellent interview with Serj here.

-AR

Congrats to Crack Hitler, who overwhelmingly won this year’s contest with a whopping 34% of the vote.

He’ll take over the site this Friday, August 27. We look forward to seeing what he comes up with!

-Axl & Vince

I think all this Maiden talk has given me Maiden fatigue. Which kinda sucks, ’cause I love Maiden, but is kinda awesome, ’cause after said fatigue wears off, I’ll pop in The Number of the Beast and rock like a motherfucker. There’s nothing better than re-discovering an old favorite, y’know?

Speaking of Maiden fatigue:

• Vince, Anso, Sammy, Leyla, Bob, and yours truly all reviewed The Final Frontier.
• The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley spoke to legendary Maiden illustrator Derek Riggs.
• Decibel‘s Adrien Begrand interrogated Iron Maiden’s unfortunately named manager, Rod Smallwood.

Also:

• We debuted a new track from Within the Ruins.
• I chatted with Cephalic Carnage’s Len Leal, Gary Suarez chatted with Suicide Silence’s Mark Heylmun, and Sergeant D. chatted with Bleeding Through’s Brandan Schieppati and All Out War’s Mike Score.
• Satan Rosenbloom checked out the latest release from Knights of the Abyss, and Urbandale Grimes checked out the latest release from Valient Thorr.
• We considered the world’s youngest deathcore band.
• We laughed at Tila Tequila and Tom Green’s unfortunate run-ins with Juggalos.
• We actually almost dug the new All that Remains song.
• You’ve got ’til Sunday at midnight to vote for which reader should get to take over MetalSucks next Friday!!!

Alright, now who wants to come see Pirhana 3D with me???

-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.

There weren’t any real hot button topics this week, so we decided to just play a fun game that used to keep Vince and Axl occupied for many a lunch period when they were kids:

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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In all the excitement of The Crown’s reactivation, I’ve only recently stopped to wonder about their forthcoming seventh album’s title, Doomsday King. That is, I’m pretty sure about its meaning (this, right?), but can’t quite see the wisdom of a title so similar to 2000′s Deathrace King. Why court buyer confusion? Of course, there may be a thematic link or insider connection between the two albums. But if so, such a salient marketing point would certainly pop up in the press release. Hmm, I’m not seeing anything, although guitarist Marko Tervonen told me in December that Doomsday King “sounds like the bastard son of Deathrace King and Possessed 13.” Huh. Does that explain it?

For now, one thing we can clear up now is another Crown catalogue question: Which is the superior version of The Crown’s fifth record? Is it Crowned In Terror (1999) featuring then ex-At The Gates screamer Tomas Lindberg or its 2004 remake, Crowned Unholy, with longtime Crown frontman Jonas Lindstrand on the mic? For the intense Crown fan, each is required listening; everybody else shouldn’t be caught without at least one of the collection of these fucking brilliant Crown songs. So which is for you? Read on:

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As long as you all keep sending in bands to check out I’ll keep writing about ‘em. This edition of Readers’ Choice focuses on bands who combine influences from all over the metal micro-genre map. Incidentally, all these entries also came from the band members themselves (or an associated friend/helper). Check it:

• Dystrophy: Tech-thrash? Thrashified tech-death? Deathified tech-thrash? I don’t know… but you get the point. If Machine Head made love to Atheist and popped out a Dying Fetus, it might sound like these Dirty Jer-Z-ers. For this type of music, though, the performance needs to be tighter and the mix cleaner than it is on their new album Chains of Hypocrisy — there’s lots of cool stuff happening that’s getting buried and lost.
• Arkhum: The band emailed us a couple of times, but I’m thick-headed and it took writeups on No Clean Singing and Reign in Blonde to get me to really pay attention. Arkhum just signed with Vendlus Records, who’ve put out releases by Agalloch and Wolves in the Throne Room, and fittingly their new album Anno Universum was mixed by Agalloch’s own Jason Walton. I’d describe their sound as some kind of blackened version of progressive death metal with just the right touch of technicality. Take a listen here.
• Pestifer: For people who like proggy, kinda death-y metal bands with good bassists and bouts of dissonance. Think: Dysrythmia, Intronaut, Cynic, Obscura, etc. Really, really good stuff from these Belgians!

-VN

It might be hard for all you self-righteous, 22 year-old turds and haters to believe, but back in the early 90s, it wasn’t at all cool to be into metal and hardcore. If you never got mocked by your HC/punk friends for listening to Immolation, Obituary and Morbid Angel like I did (let alone Gut, Excruciating Terror or The Meatshits), you probably don’t remember a time when metal and hardcore weren’t virtually synonymous. The fact that the twos genres now go hand-in-hand is thanks to bands like All Out War, who paved the way for the new breed of bad seeds who fill the pages of MetalSucks these days (did you see what I did there?).

It’s hard to believe AOW has been a band for nearly twenty years now — partly because they’ve largely flown under the radar — but they’ve been going strong since 1991. Along with contemporaries like Merauder, Overcast, Starkweather, Candiria, and Mayday, they were one of the very first bands to combine NY-style hardcore with death metal, creating the blueprint for legions of riff-salad deathcore bands today.

I hadn’t talked to AOW singer Mike Score in about ten years, but I was really happy to catch up with him. Aside from being a really nice, smart guy, he’s also one of the few people our age who is able to both fondly remember the old days and respect what the current generation of kids are creating — something that MS readers who can’t read the words “Suicide Silence” without getting worked up into a frothy rage might want to learn from.

Anyway, AOW has a new album, Into the Killing Fields, out now on Victory. You should check it out (buy it on iTunes here). And thanks to Mike for taking the time to talk with me!

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Amongst the older musicians on Warped Tour, dissing the traveling festival’s main constituency of tight-pants-wearing, hair-swooping, girly-man emo kids has kind of become like going fishing in a stocked kiddie pond; super easy but still lots of fun and irresistible. Every Time I Die’s Andy Williams and Dillinger Escape Plan’s Liam Wilson had plenty to say on the matter when I chatted with them about beards last month, and the latest rock vet — who makes those two look like kids themselves — to chime in is Tom Morello, whose band Street Sweeper Social Club played a couple of the tour’s California dates.

Elise at Reign in Blonde, who brought this video to my attention, makes a good point that most kids at Warped probably have no idea that the guy up on stage making funky sounds with his guitar has another, more popular band that’s sold tens of millions of records worldwide. But Morello seems to take it in stride, and though he fires a few shots at Warped’s primary attendees he recognizes the value of playing to a new crowd. Skip to the 1:00 mark for the Morello clip.

-VN

I’d like to take you to a place. A place where trends might come a few years late, but are wholeheartedly embraced when they hit (Children of Bodom, Dimmu Borgir, and the WWE are recent arrivals). A place where metal is cool and metal fans are the cool kids (even if it’s just in their own heads). A place bands tend to skip in favor of clearly inferior countries, like Bulgaria. (No offesne to Bulgaria, but who really wants to play to goats?)

I’d like to take you to Turkey. Or Türkiye for those better informed.

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So in case you haven’t been following the madness, late last year it looked like Steven Tyler was leaving Aerosmith, and then he came back and things were s’posed to be all hunky-dory in the Aerocamp, and the band has even been touring again. And then suddenly it was announced that Tyler is gonna be one of the new judges on American Idol, and, that news seemed to divide the Aerofamily yet again.

Then, earlier this week, things took another interesting turn when Joe Perry ass-bumped Steven Tyler right the fuck off the stage during a show. We got a lot of e-mails about it, but didn’t write anything because it appeared to be a perfectly harmless accident with absolutely no deeper meaning:

But Napoleon once said “There is no such thing as an accident,” and I think Freud probably would have agreed with him. And so the above incident might reasonably be considered the physical answer to a Freudian slip.

And now Tyler has slipped Perry right back, bopping him on the head with mic stand — again, “by accident” — at a recent gig (go to the :32 second mark):

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Remember when Scott Weiland’s drug use forced the ever-talented DeLeo brothers out of the spotlight during their prime years and they hired a guy that sounded just like Weiland to record under the moniker Talk Show? Me too. That was almost 14 (!!) years ago, and whilst going through my CD collection I took a little stroll down memory lane.

The whole Talk Show fiasco — which also included STP drummer Eric Kretz — happened a year after STP released Tiny Music… Song From the Vatican Gift Shop. If that album isn’t a favorite of yours (as it is mine, but, ya know, I get why if it’s not) it’s certainly the weirdest album of their catalogue… we can only speculate as to what would’ve happened if the DeLeos had been able to follow Tiny Music with another STP album right away instead of taking a break.

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The buzz in our comments section earlier this year was that some folks were a little disappointed by The Ocean’s Heliocentric, the first of the German progressive metal band’s two-pronged 2010 album attack. Most sane folks though Heliocentric was perfectly brilliant — this writer among them — but haters are always gonna be haters and I’m just reporting it like I saw it. While frontman/genius Robin Staps always maintained that Heliocentric was the proggier, more experimental record and that its cousin, Anthropocentric, would be the heavier record fans are more accustomed to from The Ocean, we’re finally about to find out.

A press release from the band and from their U.S. label Metal Blade sent out last night is the first we’ve heard about Anthropocentric in detail. For those who thought Heliocentric wasn’t heavy enough, you’re in luck:

Musically, the album feels somehow heavier than Heliocentric. “The sound is more dense and maybe a tad more raw, which suits the songs perfectly”, comments guitar player Jonathan Nido. The album covers a similar sonic and dynamic range as Heliocentric, also including a number of calm, acoustic moments – but these are for the most part orchestrated with guitars, and not so much with piano and string section. The focus is on the heavy songs: “The album is a pretty big production, and still has a very earthy, organic feel to it”, comments Staps. “We have spent a great deal of time on the basic sound this time around, drums, bass, guitars and vocals… and at this stage I am pretty confident that this will pay off in the end!”

Anthropocentric is currently being mixed and a mastering date is set for August 25th… which means a release date can’t be far off, although none is mentioned specifically other than “November.” European Ocean fans can catch the band on tour with The Dillinger Escape Plan in October.

Now… regular readers of MS know we usually don’t do this, but the rest of the press release is so chock full of info that I’m going to post it after the jump. Lyrical themes of Anthropocentric, tracklisting, guest musicians, tour dates, oh my! Super-stoked for this album.

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In September it will have been three years since A Life Once Lost released their last album, Iron Gag, and although it’s entirely possible that I’m just neurotic, when a band doesn’t put out an album for three years I begin to worry that they might never put out an album again, even if, as is the case with ALOL, they have a sizable following. Because let’s be real — there are very, very few rockstars in metal, and these dudes gotta eat. So unless you’re talking about a Machine Head/The Blackening-type situation — where the band did some headlining tours and Mayhem and the European festivals (twice I think) and opened for Metallica and basically not only toured relentlessly but toured in a very visible manner — three years can feel like an eternity. There are kids who weren’t even listening to metal three years ago and have no idea who the hell A Life Once Lost are, y’know?

But hopefully that will change — for A Life Once Lost have not broken up, and they are working on a new album, which their MySpace page says is coming out this year. Which would be swell! There’s even a demo for a new song, “Expression of Hate,” posted there, which is much more in the vein of A Great Artist than Iron Gag. Check it out.

This was all brought to my attention via a studio update from ALOL guitarists Doug “Snake Sustaine” Sabolick and Robert Carpenter, which was posted by our friends at Metal Injection. Watch it below. It was filmed and edited by Troy Coffee and features artwork by Mike Wohlberg.

-AR

We might not be getting a full-on sequel to D.X. Ferris’ amazing book (which now has a Facebook page!!!) about both the making and meaning of Slayer’s Reign in Blood, but writing for Cleveland Scene, he did recently get to sit down with one Mr. Tom Araya and get a track-by-track breakdown of Seasons in the Abyss, the album that I know many consider to be superior to Reign, and which Slayer is now performing in its entirety as part of the American Carnage tour they’re doing with Megadeth and Testament. (I don’t mind telling you that Seasons was actually the first Slayer album I ever owned; an older kid lent it to me by way of saying “This is the first Slayer album you should check out, noob,” and I never returned it.)

Here’s an excerpt… this is Araya discussing “Hallowed Point,” a song that still demands I stop and headbang every time I hear it:

“That’s a kind of bullet — hollow points. It’s about a gun and what guns do to a body. It can turn flesh into confetti. It’s about the motivations to use a gun. People ask, ‘Is it an anti-gun song?’ No. ‘Is it a pro-gun song?’ No. Guns are dangerous. But I’m not an anti-gun [advocate]. I’m a gun owner.”

If you love Seasons in the Abyss as much as any carbon-based lifeform ought to, you need to read the rest of this interview. Check it out here.

-AR

Last week we offered up a four-pack of Metal Blade CDs including the latest from Woe of Tyrants, As I Lay Dying, Arma Gathas and Impious. In a bit of an unorthodox move, here is the winner I’ve chosen:

• Trux: “This is the first caption contest that I remember whose entries are all weak.”

Because seriously, every entry was weak. I barely mustered a chuckle while scrolling through them. So, for his candor and for calling a spade a spade, Trux wins the prize!

Earlier this year our own Anso DF reviewed the excellent guitar tab book of Protest the Hero’s latest opus Fortress, but now these fine Canadians have decided they’d like to allow you to play along to their first album Kezia as well. And they’ve bestowed upon us FIVE copies to give away. Just come up with a funny caption to the below photo [sent in by longtime MS patriot and Mansion neighbor Metal Mykee] 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).

Congrats to MetalSucks Maniac wtfhax, who correctly identified Amorphis’ Tales from the Thousand Lakes as the latest Decibel Hall of Fame inductee. He wins a free six-month subscription to Decibel! Now here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli to tickle n’ tease your naughty bits with a preview of the October issue of the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month…

Greetings from your new corporate overlords at Decibel. Just for commenter “mo biscuits”’ edification, I’m writing to you from the 38^th floor of downtown Philadelphia’s posh 2 Liberty Place, which definitely does not revert to Cole Hamels’ Pert Plus™ Puppy Rape Dungeon at midnight. I’m currently enjoying a testicular belt sander massage from an intern in a Five Finger Death Punch thong, but that shouldn’t dissuade you from taking what I have to say about Iron Maiden seriously — namely that they’re on our October cover and you should buy it so the new MetalSucks/Decibel empire can collectively pool our coffers for, um, a sixer of Corona instead of PBR? (No, fucking seriously, pre-order it now.)

So, anyway, yeah, Maiden cover. That’s three times for these guys. Well, the first time was just Eddie, and there’s a joke about animated walking corpses vs. the real-life equivalent that I’ll leave it to someone in the comments to make. Even though I just made it. Whatever. (Imagine when we run our third Varg cover.) The basic premise of this article, courtesy of Adrien “Dubious Taste in Power Metal, but That’s Okay Because He Lives in an Igloo” Begrand, is that Maiden are still relevant, driven and occasionally brilliant, but they’re also collectively 5,234 years old and, well, if Tom Araya can barely nod onstage now, the days of flying feathered pantaloon leaps are coming to a close. Getting old blows, but if anyone did it gracefully, it was Metallica Ozzy these guys!

And now, in the spirit of the completely superfluous just-released Return of the Jedi deleted scene, here’s a totally not-superfluous-at-all interview with Maiden’s iconic-in-his-own-right pitbull manager Rod Smallwood. That’s a name you don’t have to change when you’re touring with a universally adored metal band. “Is it rilly so small then, guv’nor?” “Come o’er and take a peek, lassie.”

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Opinions are divided on Massachusetts melodic technical death metallers Within the Ruins. Our own Dave Mustein is a big fan and he recently interviewed vocalist Tim Goergen and lead guitarist Joe Cocchi. I, for one, happen to think they’ve got pretty decent songwriting chops and a good sense of melody, and they don’t get weighed down by a lot of the plights that befall a million tech metal bands even if they’re not necessarily exploring new musical territory. So we’ve decided to premiere the song “Versus” from their brand new album Invade, out August 31st. Let us know what you guys think of it in the comments, as if you needed an invitation.

[this promotion has ended]