Neurosis are one of the best metal bands around much in the same way David Lynch is one of the best directors in American cinema: the vast, vast majority of people who encounter his movies, at best, don’t get the big deal. Neurosis aren’t a band that are easy to get into: they don’t have brews-and-BBQ-ready riffs, they’re steeped in noise and occasionally apocalyptic folk, and their M.O. for song lengths is looong. But like all difficult art, if they get their hooks in you, you’re a fan for life. Neurosis are known for harnessing soul-shaking power and crafting it into near-perfect (or, in some case, plain ol’ perfect) albums and increasingly rare-yet-transformative live appearances; their slavishly devoted fan base (which, if you’re remarkably simple and haven’t noticed, this writer is certainly among them) will tell you we’re lucky to exist in a time in which they’re still active and present. Neurot Records (helmed by the band themselves) have two new releases that further illustrate that point: yet another reissue of their classic Enemy of the Sun album and Live at Roadburn 2007, a solid capturing of their headlining set at their curated edition of the eponymous festival. Though neither are particularly essential (unless you haven’t heard Enemy of the Sun yet), they’re still a meaty bone thrown to fans waiting three years for a follow-up to Given to the Rising, surely enough to gnaw on in the meantime.

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So now TMZ has spoken to a rep for the hotel in Vegas where Vince Neil allegedly assaulted some woman (I guess her name is Jessica Radovicz) in an elevator ’cause she didn’t recognize him, and said hotel rep claims that security camera footage and eye-witness accounts demonstrates “that her allegations against Vince Neil are completely unfounded.” Which may be true. I completely buy that some money grubbing twit would accuse Vince Neil of hitting her so she could sue.

But it’s not hard to understand why the money grubbing twit in question would choose Neil as her target — ’cause the story seems completely plausible. It’s not like someone accused Paul Masvidal of setting a room full of adorable puppies on fire or something else that sounds completely out of the ordinary; someone accused a degenerate scumbag with a history of behaving as such of doing something very degenerate scumbaggy.

If Vince Neil doesn’t wanna get allegations like this tossed at him, he needs to stop doing things like, say, getting arrested for DUI and then laughing about it. Otherwise, this whole thing is like the equivalent of Hannibal Lecter going “See? I TOLD you I didn’t eat those people!”

-AR

I detest the Saw franchise. Not because of the deplorable violence; on the contrary, I don’t know what cinema is for if not showing people getting slaughtered in horrific and nightmarish ways. Just because I think they’re retarded, and not fun. When I was a young ‘un, slasher films were things like the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies — sure, they were idiotic and not at all scary, but the best ones (Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors, etc.) had a real sense of wit about them that made for an awesome communal experience at the movies. The Saw series is humorless and bad, which is not a winning combination. (Piranha 3D reminds me much more of the splatter flicks of yore.)

But for whatever reason I just watched this new trailer for the upcoming Saw 3D — which is allegedly going to be the last in the franchise, at least until next year’s inevitable “reboot” — and I couldn’t help but notice a gentlemen who looks an awful lot like Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, a.k.a. “The Motherfucking Anti-Christ,” stuck in one of Jigsaw’s traps. So I looked on IMDB, and, sho’ ’nuff, Bennington is in the movie. Of course, I have no way of knowing if he survives the trap or not, but I’m hopeful he suffers some kind of gory end that I can watch on a loop and pretend is real while laughing my ass off.

Bennington also had cameos in the Crank movies, which I enjoyed quite a bit. So I guess not everything he touches turns to shit.

-AR

Since Children of Bodom are going on the road with Black Label Society, Clutch & more this fall as part of the Black Label Berzerkus, we’ve teamed up with them to offer you a chance to win some of Alexi Laiho’s favorite gear! One grand prize winner will receive:

• 1 ESP LTD Alexi Scythe 600 Guitar
• 1 Rock House Metal Pack of 24 Instructional DVDs
• 1 year’s supply of Alexi Signature DR Strings (24 sets)
• 1 “Coffin Case” for the ESP guitar
• 1 Autographed Alexi EMG set
• 1 Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Guitar Bundle (Winner’s choice on the console)

To enter, and all you need to do is leave a comment (with a valid email address as the winner will be contacted by email) telling us which Children of Bodom guitar solo is your favorite and why. Remember, this is MetalSucks, so a funny story or anecdote has a much better chance of winning than an entry that tells us why Alexi is a genius for using a certain type of scale. You have until midnight EDT on Monday, October 4th to enter.

Legal mumbo jumbo / obligatory sponsor text after the jump. And don’t forget to check out Children of Bodom live at a Berzerkus date near you (TOUR DATES).

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I usually can’t make it through any video that’s more than 5 minutes, but when it comes to Animals as Leaders my attention span is suddenly infinitely long. Which is a topic that Rob from Metal Injection touches on in his 9-minute interview with all three members of Animals as Leaders: what is it about the band’s music that makes their followers so fanatical? There’s really no in-between; you either looooooove AAL or you don’t care at all about them. In the interview Tosin Abasi also reveals how he found the other two members of the band and how they plan to work as a unit on the next record, the possibility of an AAL headline tour, what music they listen to in the van (it ain’t metal) and more. Watch it below.

-VN

Alright, I’m gonna be straight with you: I partied way too hard last night and have not been to bed yet. I’m running purely on fumes and caffeine right now. I think if somebody put on something really fast and crazy right now, like, say, Necrophagist, my head would probably explode. I just could not handle it.

Hoo-ray for Salome, then, who made my night-turned-into-morning by not only announcing that their Profound Lore debut and first full-length, the seven-song, seventy minute long Terminal, is coming out on November 9 — but for also giving away a free mp3 of a song from said album. It’s called “Master Failure,” and you can check it out below.

It’s typically awesome, and, mercifully for my current condition, not fast (although definitely crazy). Salome really might be my favorite doom band out there right now — they just crush live — and I’m so freakin’ excited that they have an album coming out this year. And I’ll demonstrate even more enthusiasm when I don’t feel like I’ve got bricks attached to my eyelids.

SALOME, “MASTER FAILURE”

here.

-AR

Reader Mike McGurney sent us a link to the below video, in which Mike Portnoy plays Avenged Sevenfold’s “Nightmare” with his eleven year-old son, Max, awhile back… and we never ran it. But now certainly seems like an appropriate time, eh?

I know some of you sourpusses will get your panties in a twist that they’re playing “Nightmare” and not “Pull Me Under” or whatever, but did you do anything this cool with your dad when you were eleven?

-AR

I got into Black Sabbath — and subsequently metal — through Paranoid. This is to be expected: I was thirteen and Paranoid is the album with all the “hits” (the title track, “War Pigs,” “Fairies Wear Boots,” and that song that has criminally only been in one of the Iron Man movies). It’s generally considered by the fairweather metal enthusiast crowd (or n00bs, if you will) as the gateway Black Sabbath album, and thus gets most of the critical love thrown its way. Among actual, flesh-and-blood metalheads, their debut gets the OG respect (seeing as it kind of kickstarted the whole metal thing almost singlehandedly), Masters of Reality gets the stoner metal cred, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath has “bloody” in the title, so right there, that’s like sixty points. Sadly and seemingly most often left out of this equation is Vol. 4 (or Snowblind, for you rock history nerds), an album that stands shoulder-to-goddamn shoulder with the rest of Sabbath’s early triumphs. And my question is: why is it so often snubbed?

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Now that I’ve had a good 24 hours to process the news that Mike Portnoy has quit Dream Theater, I’m ready to opine on it. And my opinion can be summed up thusly:

RUFKM????

No, no… obviously it’s way more complex than that. Allow me to elaborate.

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The winner of last week’s Labor Day-themed Photo Caption Contest is the appropriately named “Metalmeathammer666,” no doubt inspired by Sergeant D’s controversial interview the day prior. I’m insanely jealous of Mr. Meathammer because he gets this awesome Iron Maiden picture-disc vinyl and I don’t… but as MS Haterade King “Biff Tannen” pointed out I could just go buy one. Guess I’ll hafta do that. Meathammer’s winning entry:

• “New all douche band: Guys Set to Grill.”

This week we’re giving away two CD copies of Cephalic Carnage’s weedtastic new album Misled by Certainty which is out now on Relapse and can be streamed in full here. If you’re a Cephalic Carnage fan and you haven’t read Axl’s interview with frontman Len Leal yet, well, you better do so right quick. To win a copy just come up with the funniest caption to the below photo, sent in by reader David Foust, and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)!

Dear Metalsucks Readers,

It’s been a while. I would have liked to write some blogs recently, but, quite honestly, making the new DAATH record took every ounce of creative and physical energy I had available to me. I tried writing a few and I’d be embarrassed to put my name on what was coming out. So rather than give you guys inferior reading material, I decided to wait until I had more mental energy to devote to “JDP.”

Good news is that there’s lot’s of pent up shit in my head, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you guys. Then arguing about it, or not. Anyhow, hope you’ve all been as well as possible, and we’ll be sparring again soon!

-Eyal

Daath’s new, self-titled album comes out October 25 on Century Media. While you’re waiting patiently, why not visit Daath on MySpace?

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

Most metalheads with half a cerebrum know that Golgotha — translated awesomely as “the place of the skull” — is the site where Jesus was crucified. There are two kinds of music appropriate for contemplating this seismic historical happening: this and this. While both have their merits, we at Decibel happen to be a little tighter with Incantation than “Yakety Sax” composer “Spider” Rich, so only the former will be ripping through their undisputed masterpiece on a New York stage in late November.

But you know all that already. What you don’t know is that a) the mighty Mortician (!!!) will be opening the New York date on November 20 at Rebel, and b) Incantation have added two more super-exclusive Hall of Fame dates: November 19 at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago and November 21 at Peabody’s in Cleveland. Fatalist and Funerus will open all three dates to whet your appetite for Christ-crushing chaos, and, of course, Relapse will have a limited-edition HOF version of Golgotha on vinyl for y’all -shuns of bitches. Christen the afterbirth and start spreading the news.

-AB

Buy yourself a copy of the October 2010 issue of Decibel here, or just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription here. It comes down to about two bucks an issue for a one-year subscription, which is roughly thirty-six dollars more a year you could be spending on your Church group’s trip to “the place of the skull.”

Old-school thrashers Accept are back with new album Blood of the Nations and U.S. tour with King’s X, and that’s pretty much what they want you to know. Just listen to guitarist Wolf Hoffmann’s enthusiastic refrain of, “We’re back!”

After the jump, Leyla Ford talks with the legendary Accept axeman about getting the band back together, how they hooked up with new lead singer [and TT Quick frontman] Mark Tornillo, the band’s new album, their upcoming U.S. tour and more.

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For those who aren’t familiar, Impending Doom is a Christian deathcore band from the mean streets of Riverside (side note: why are 90% of deathcore bands from the Inland Empire??). From their BMTH-style logo to JFAC-clone riffs, nobody ever accused them of being original, but I always thought they were pretty damn good at what they did. Their first two albums, hilariously self-righteous, bible-thumping lyrics and all, were about as good as the genre gets, and I jammed them on the regular when I was fiending for some deathcore.

As a longtime fan, I excitedly pirated their new album this morning, eager to hear what new ways these 909 bros would mosh 4 christ. Sadly, much like Decrepit Birth, Impending Doom apparently got bit by the Gothenburg bug, and turned into yet another dull, cookie-cutter melodeath-inspired band.

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Don’t ask me how I did it. But I managed to snag an in-person interview with Sebastian Bach. I was only given five minutes with him, but, hey, I was willing to take whatever I could get.

I was actually kinda surprised by how friendly he was to me, considering all the terrible things we’ve written about him over the years. But there ya have it.

I can’t believe that this really happened. Read the short but telling transcript of our conversation after the jump.

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We don’t know the name of the band performing the song in the mp3 below. Seriously. Their publicist — who does not work exclusively for any one label — sent it to us, but he didn’t tell us who it is. All we know is that the band is already signed, and is already well-established within the metal scene.

So, we’re asking you to give it listen and guess. Yes, it’s like that thing The Deciblog did with Mose Giganticus in April, only, again, this isn’t a new band. Also: whatever label that this band is signed to is giving away a random mystery prize pack containing CDs, stickers, posters and random mystery “label swag,” to five people who can correctly identify the band in question. Which is pretty awesome, right? So, here’s how you win:

• Listen to the song below.
• E-mail news [at] metalsucks [dot] net with the phrase “NAME THAT BAND” in the subject line and your name, address, and your guess as to the identity of the band in the body of the e-mail.
• From all the people who correctly identify the band, we’ll randomly select five people to get a prize pack.
• As per usual, this contest is only open to U.S. residents, ’cause shipping money doesn’t grow on trees.

And that’s it! Good luck figuring out who this is, ’cause we weren’t able to!!!

MYSTERY SONG BY MYSTERY BAND

MYSTERY SONG BY MYSTERY BAND

You’ve been buzzing about it on the Interwebs for days, but now we can make it official: MetalSucks is proud to bring you Darkest Hour’s The Legacy Tour, a fall trek with Veil of Maya and Periphery that celebrates DH’s 15 years as a band. Though we can’t reveal who the “special guest opener” is for another few days due to said band’s contractual obligations, we promise that the band is one of our most favoritest young bands in all of metal (and a quick Google search should tell you what’s what). This will truly be a special experience for Darkest Hour fans; the band will be performing select tracks from their entire discography in chronological order, including “Veritas, Aequitas,” the legendary instrumental from The Sadist Nation.

What I like about tour lineups like this is that they bridge generations of metalheads. Sure, Darkest Hour have been doing this for 15 (!) years while Veil of Maya and Periphery (and special guest band) got their starts within the past five (or less) — and sure, they may play a different style of metal — but there’s no reason any metal fan should like one band and not the others. It’s not like Cannibal Corpse are touring with Torche or something; although I’d enjoy the hell out of that bill I’d imagine the audiences would be quite divided. But nope, instead we’ve got four kick-ass bands each doing their own thing that somehow work well on a bill together. It’ll be a fun night of good metal, and DH guitarist / founding member Mike Schleibaum agrees:

“We’re excited to have some great younger bands on tour with us for this run. All of the support bands are very impressive metal hybrids with their own distinct sound, which will make for many nights of sick metal riffage.”

Early sale tickets are available now through Artist Arena (VIP packages are available as well). Dates after the jump!

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Metal Review’s Jeremy Witt has written one of the best, and most creative, pieces of metal criticism I’ve read all year. I don’t really wanna tell you too much else about it, ’cause it’s fucking brilliant and I really just want you to see it. So go read it right now. Then come back and share in the laughter with us.

-AR

Thanks to DaMo for passing this along.

I’m not sure who this Stevie Peavey guy is; is he a known Internet personality I’m not hip to yet? Sure, this faux Judas Priest and Lady GaGa instructional video is silly, but truth be told metal could always use a little more humor, and for that I salute Mr. Peavey.

-VN

I have a friend who’s starting a new metal band, and he asked me if I had any ideas for a name. Now, I have plenty of ideas for names of metal bands, but they’re all kind of ridiculous, and I can completely understand why my friend wasn’t too keen on calling his band “Baby Rape,” “Puppy Rape,” “Retard Rape,” or, my personal favorite, “Rape Rape.” (If you put an accent aigu over the “e”s of that last one, it sounds like a classy French coffee drink.)

The bottom line is, thinking of a good band name is actually pretty hard, and even if you think you’ve come up with one, a quick Google search will usually demonstrate that, no, you’re not the imaginative genius you thought you were.

So thank God for the Ebay merchant known as “cjh257723,” who is selling the best band in the world:

The current bid is a whopping £0.01 and there’s only eight days left in the auction, so if you have a band that needs a name, you best get your ass over to Ebay and bid on this sucker ASAP. Unless you’re from Israel, Somalia, or Liverpool. In which case, fuck yourself.

-AR

Thanks to Rob for the tip!