Still think Periphery’s Spencer Sotelo is a softee? If your gripe with him is not that his screams aren’t harsh enough but that his clean vocals are out of character for Periphery — which seemed to be the argument made by most commenters in last week’s post about his re-recorded version of “The Walk” — then the new Haunted Shores song “Passenger” featuring Sotelo on vocals probably won’t do much to change your mind.

Though I personally have no problem with Sotelo I do understand certain folks’ aversion to his particular style of cleans. Sotelo’s clean vocals on the new Haunted Shores track still sound like Sotelo’s clean vocals of yore, as likely they always will; soaring, and sure, a little emo-y in timbre. But his screams on this new track are certainly fierce, and like on the re-vocaled version of “The Walk” he definitely seems to have stepped up his growling game.

So check out the new track on Haunted Shores’ MySpace page. It comes from the band’s forthcoming album, produced by Periphery’s Misha Mansoor, which guitarist/mastermind Mark Holcomb tells us will feature a multi-singer approach with tracks performed by Jesse Leach (ex-KsE), Dan Tompkins (TesseracT), Elliot Coleman (Sky Eats Airplane), Casey Sabol (ex-Periphery), Greg Pope (Monuments) and many more. That’s quite the lineup of vocalists and I’m definitely psyched to hear it.

-VN

Earlier this month, we commemorated 9/11 the way any true patriot should — by going to the Brooklyn stop of Despised Icon’s farewell tour. Highlights of the evening included watching a bouncer threaten to beat the shit out of a 16 year old kid in a DI jersey who tried to sneak into the show, Vince and I getting drunk and doing the Panteradactyl all night, spotting the single ugliest girl we’ve ever seen in our lives (no joke, she looked kinda like this with tits), and, oh yeah, excellent sets from Despised Icon, Misery Index, and Revocation.

While we’re sad that you couldn’t all be there to share in the ridiculousness with us, we’re glad that our pals at Metal Injection were on-hand to capture some of the action. Here, for example, is an excellent video of Misery Index performing “We Never Come in Peace” and “Theocracy.”

You can also watch some killer footage of Misery Index performing “Heirs to Thievery” here. And I know that the MI dudes were filming during Despised Icon’s set, so hopefully we’ll get some footage of that soon, too.

-AR

I didn’t see The Sorcerer’s Apprentice because I love myself too much, but I did read the script (I guess I should say “script”) before it went into production. I don’t know if it made it into the final film or not, but there was a subplot in which the hero (played in the movie by Jay Baruchel) builds these conductors (“conductors” like machines, not like a dude with a baton) that can basically play music with lightning. They barely explained the science of it in the script, and I kinda assumed it was a bullshit Hollywood thing…

…but I guess I was wrong, ’cause reader Hetal Bhatt sent us the below video of a group called ArcAttack that uses similar conductors to play “Iron Man” with lightning. And they did it on America’s Got Talent, which features Mrs. Iron Man herself, Sharon Osbourne, as a judge. Sure, these dudes dress like idiots and are clearly nerds, but, I mean, come on — they play music with lightning! Of COURSE they’re nerds!!!

Note to Tool: please incorporate lightning music into your next tour. Thanks.

-AR

I’ve seen Terror live a few times, and they definitely know how to put on a fun show. I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention to front man Scott Vogel’s stage banter, though, ’cause I don’t recall hearing him say anything especially noteworthy — yet someone has started a website, called Vogelisms, that is nothing but ridiculous quotes from the hardcore superstar. Who the hell is following Terror so closely that they have an abundance of Vogel quotes? I have no idea, but the site is funny as hell. Here are some gems gleaned from just the few minutes I’ve been looking at it:

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We get a whole of spam at the MS Mansion, ranging from press pitches about pop acts to offers for cheap cialis to those bastions of Internet hilarity, the Nigerian 419 scams. You know, you’ve all gotten those emails; some Nigerian man passed away leaving an inheritance for you (you!) in the amount of millions of dollars; if only you’ll just reply with your name, address, social security number and bank account details it’ll all be yours!

From time to time I like to make a little game out of it by replying, feigning ignorance, and seeing what happens. To what end I’m not really sure, because usually after 3 or 4 replies the scammer gets hip to what I’m doing and stops writing back. I suppose the holy grail for me would be to get one of these scammers to send back a photo of himself holding up a sign that says “METAL SUCKS” on it. Think about the potential hilarity of such an image. I’ve tried a couple times but to no avail. The key is to get the scammers to go “off script” to where they can’t simply copy and paste a pre-prepared reply but instead actually have to type something in themselves. Then it gets really, really funny.

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I saw Vince Neil’s solo band live once… I think this was around 2001/2002ish, but don’t quote me on that. Anyways, the show was at B.B. King’s, a venue that holds roughly 500 people (or so I’m told — it actually looks way smaller to me), and it was reasonably crowded — tickets were like twenty bucks or something reasonable like that. Vince’s voice sounded like shit, which is nothing new, but he took advantage of the small space by playing a requests-only show. I’m totally serious: The band opened with “Kickstart My Heart,” but after that, Vince literally let people in the crowd shout out song titles, and then the band played ‘em. I think they only turned one person down ’cause they didn’t know the song; for the most part, they were like a Motley Crue jukebox, with a real-live member of Motley Crue leading the charge. So even though we were all watching a fat, winded version of an old hero, it was still pretty fun, ’cause Neil wisely made the show as fan-friendly as he possibly could.

But I guess he’s not doing that anymore, ’cause Metal Insider’s Bram Teitelman caught his gig at the 1,800 person capacity Irving Plaza last week, and does not have nice things to say. For one thing, tickets were $35, without a name opening act, and while the setlist had ten songs on it, the band only played nine. Nine songs for a $35 headlining set. Sheesh.

But wait! It gets worse. Says Teitelman:

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Axl and I grew up with ’80s (and early ’90s) hair metal, so naturally our tastes lean towards the shreddier, faster and generally more “metal” types of heavy music as opposed to those bands that came up in the hardcore scene and later crossed over into metal. Perhaps this is more true of me; Axl loves Converge, for example, but I just can’t get excited about ‘em. I’m not completely closed off to hardcore-influenced metal, though — or even just straight up hardcore — so here are some recent reader-submitted hardcore-ish bands I think are purdy good:

• Like Rats (pictured): Dirty, crusty, meaty riffs, fast and furious, with a pinch of doom and a healthy dose of rock. Self-described “primitive Celtic Forst worship” by guitarist and link-sender Todd Nief. Think Black Breath, Trap Them, Doomriders minus the Thin Lizzy influence, and of course the aforementioned Celtic Frost. Stream two tracks here. [Additional thanks: Crustcake]
• Miles Away: To these ears Miles Away play about the purest, most straight-forward version of hardcore there is. This is just hardcore — no prefixes, suffixes or micro-genre label qualifiers needed. And it’s damn good. I really like this band. [Thanks: Ethan M.]
• The Athiarchists: Kinda like the above but with more Hatebreed influence and a sense of humor. [Thanks: jeremyTron]
• Burnt Church: Grind from Halifax, Nova Scotia that skews to the hardcore edge of the grind spectrum as opposed to the death metal edge. I wouldn’t listen to these guys during my daily stroll but I would most certainly get sweaty with ‘em in the dingy basement of a burning church. [Thanks: Alex Stewart]

-VN

Oh snap!!! During Monday night football last week, down-on-his-luck Saints running back Reggie Bush snapped his fibula. After realizing he was hurt, Reggie attempted to walk on the broken leg. It reminded me of a video I once saw. In the video, a guy was on PCP and being chased by the cops. He jumped off of a second story parking garage and landed on his side. He completely shattered one of his legs, got up and attempted to run again. It was fucking gross! After falling a couple of times, due to the perp’s now-rubber leg, the cops easily apprehended him. In short, I think the NFL should have a week where every team is on PCP. Even non-football fans would tune in.

Even though it’s an exciting week for football — Texas vs. Texas (Texas won!), Drew Brees on 60 Minutes (how is Andy Rooney still alive?), and still no Roethlisberger (and the Steelers can’t lose) — I took it upon myself to mix this blog up a bit. Knowing I’d be more focused on the season premiere of Eastbound and Down than highlights, I decided to call up a fellow football fan and ask him a couple questions. His name is Charn, he has an amazing throwing arm, and he plays drums for Job For A Cowboy.

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I’m sitting here editing an interview with Eric Guenther, which we’re gonna run tomorrow afternoon. Guenther plays synths on the new Daath album, and did the same on Levi/Werstler’s Avalanche of Worms earlier this year, but his main gig is as guitarist and vocalist for Atlanta’s From Exile. And even though I’ve had From Exile’s self-released Monolith forever, and even though I love and listen to it constantly, I’ve never gotten around to writing about it. It doesn’t say anything about the music; it’s just one of those things.

But I’m gonna write about From Exile now, damn it. ‘Cause this is a damn fine band, and you should all be listening to them.

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Given how often we poke fun at Blaze Bayley ’round the Mansion I’m surprised that none of us had seen the below clip, sent in by MS Maniac Shane “My Newborn Baby Wears Iron Maiden shirts” Gillis, in which the disgraced former Iron Maiden singer absolutely loses his shit in the middle of a performance of “The Trooper.”

I’m dying know what went on up front that got him so miffed; does it have anything to do with the would-be stage-diver who security nabs at the very beginning? Seems like things are hunky dory in Blaze-land until around the 0:43 mark when he suddenly starts pointing into the crowd and puts on a perma-scowl that doesn’t leave his face for the entire song. I don’t think it’s just an instance of Axl Rose-type psychoses on Blaze’s part though, because for Steve Harris to get as pissed as he does at the end, chill guy that he usually is, something must’ve really been wrong.

Janick Gers, as always, is completely oblivious. Bless that guy!

-VN

‘Cause they just released a video for the title track from their new album, Enemy Unbound, and while it’s not the greatest video ever made, the song takes no fucking prisoners so I’m all about it. I mean, this band rocks so hard that they make me wanna go to prison just so I can shank some fool, y’know? Like, I really don’t understand how anyone could not like The Absence. They just hit my “what metal should sound like” sweet spot every time.

Enemy Unbound is out now on Metal Blade.

-AR

So reader Adam Riley sent me an e-mail with some band recommendations, and prefaced those recommendations by asserting that “You seem to like bands from Denver and the surrounding areas.” And the e-mail was just to me — not both/all of us here at MetalSucks. I have no clue what that statement is based on; off the top of my head, the only metal band from Denver that I can even think of is Cephalic Carnage. And I certainly do loves me some Cephalic Carnage, but not enough to say “I really like bands from the  Denver and the surrounding areas.” I’ve never even been to Denver!

Still, Adam is obviously from there, and takes some pride in his hometown, and I did used to date a girl from Denver, which says nothing about their music scene but whatever. So I figure I’ll give his bands a shot. Here we go:

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I guess it’s a big day for our friends over at Metal Injection: In addition to debuting a new Halford track, they’ve also got the exclusive premiere of a clip from the new Slipknot DVD, (sic)ness. Check it out here.

The clip doesn’t come from the concert portion of the DVD — or, at least, not the performance portion of the concert portion — but, rather, shows the band back-stage, right before they go on, have a ritualistic pre-game huddle. These are often my favorite parts of these DVDs, because they show me something I’d probably never see otherwise; I obviously go to concerts all the time, but it’s these behind-the-scenes affairs that really allow me to vicariously live the life of a successful metal musician.

Check out the clip here. Roadrunner will release (sic)ness tomorrow. There are special screenings of Clown’s Director’s Cut tonight in NYC and Chicago and tomorrow in LA, and Clown will be in attendance at the one here in New York. Get more details here.

-AR

Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader,” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out the latest from The Serpent & The Siren…

When Vince blurbed this Canadian band of bro-dudes about a year and a half ago, he neglected to mention vocalist Clint Homuth’s formidable burping ability. Any deathcore vocalist worth his weight in gorilla shit knows how to “bree-bree,” but on The Serpent & the Siren’s third EP, Orbital Psychosis, Homuth is in a class of his own. There’s no functional difference between his subsonic gutturals on “Vaporizing the Subspecies” and “The Xenophage” and proper, full-voiced belching. Make all the fun of him you want. Nobody is working harder to unearth the 10-year-old humor in death metal culture than The Serpent & the Siren.

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What can I tell you about a new Gwar song that you don’t already know? Unless you just started listening to metal yesterday, you know Gwar, and you know how you feel about Gwar, and you know that they’re not gonna release a calypso album anytime soon. You either like having fun and enjoy Gwar, or you’re a sourpuss and you don’t like Gwar.

If you fall into the former category, “Zombies, March” — our first taste of new music from the band’s latest, Gwar’s Bloody Pit of Horror — is now streaming at Bloody Disgusting. It’s the same Misfits-by-way-of-Motorhead kinda thing this band has always done, but that really shouldn’t bother you unless you have sand in your vagina. And if you have sand in your vagina, than you’re probably really just upset about that, and taking your frustration out on poor Gwar.

Speaking of sandy vaginas, Gwar’s Bloody Pit of Horror comes out November 9 on Metal Blade, and you can pre-order it here. The band is about to embark on the “Bloody Tour Of Horror” tour with The Casualties, Infernaeon and Mobile Deathcamp; you can can dates at Bloody Disgusting when you go check out the song. Do it.

Also, have you asked Oderus a question yet?

-AR

Eliran Kantor is on quite a roll this year: The cover art for Sigh’s Scenes from Hell, Atheist’s Jupiter, and now Sodom’s In War and Pieces have all kicked ass so hard that there’s now a spot on my butt that reads “Reserved for Eliran Kantor’s Boot.” And that’s to say nothing of the amazing work the artist has done in the past for bands like Testament and Gwar.

Check out more of Eliran Kantor’s work here. In War and Pieces drops November 23 on SPV.

-AR

Not that you care, but I have a friend named Ken Lee, and we often like to torture him with this video:

Unfortunately, that video is the only exposure I’ve ever knowingly had to Bulgarian culture. But I guess there are actually some pretty cool people there, too, ’cause the town of Kavarna is erecting (Huh-huh, he said “erecting”) a statue to Ronnie James Dio as part of their central park’s “Walk of Rock.” From Blabbermouth:

“According to Radio Bulgaria, the decision to erect the monument was taken by the municipal administration, with the most active proponents being Kavarna Mayor Tzonko Tzonev as well as leading journalists, musicians and singers.”

Holy crap. So this Mayor Tzonev just became pretty much the coolest mayor in the world, huh? Dio’s not even from Kavarna (obviously); he’s not even of Bulgarian descent, at least as far as I’m aware. The town just, like, wants to pay tribute to one of the greatest metal vocalists of all time. Awesome, right?

Here’s a pic of the mayor, one of the artist working on the statue, and the statue itself:

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So Rob Halford has a new solo album, Halford IV – Made 0f Metal, coming out September 28, and our number one homies at Metal Injection are streaming an exclusive track, “Undisputed.” Check it out here.

I’m gonna keep this one short n’ sweet, ’cause, really, what is there to say about a Halford track? The dude never sold out, never made a trendy record or attempted to “modernize” his sound… he’s made good, old fashioned HEAVY FUCKING METAL for four decades now, and I suspect he’ll keep going ’til he dies, or his vocal chords burn out… whichever comes first. So go listen to the song, then come back here and let us know what you think.

Halford will be blowing Ozzy Osbourne off the stage throughout November and December; Metal Injection also has tour dates for you.

-AR

So unless you live under a rock in a cave beneath the ocean, you’re aware that the Big Four did some shows together this past June; at the time, I suggested that it would be cool if they all came out and jammed together, and then they did all come out and jam together (video above courtesy Metal Injection), and it wasn’t really that cool. ‘Cause when I made that suggestion, I guess I forgot that this was all the Big Four bands now, not the Big Four bands in 1990.

So I was actually a little relieved — although not at all surprised — that 75% of Slayer did not participate in the jam (the exception being Dave Lombardo, natch). ‘Cause Slayer have always been and will always be “Cooler Than Thou.”

As it turns out, though, Kerry King would have liked to have participated, but had to do the work his lazy and decrepit band mates wouldn’t do. From a recent Revolver interview:

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So last week some worthless human tampon stole a couple of guitars from Kataonia. And even though we all knew that the joke was the thief or thieves, since our main man Anso made sweet, sweet love to those instruments, we were pretty peeved about it.

Luckily, the guitars were recovered last week, according to a posting on the band’s Facebook page:

As much as I’d love to know the full story behind the guitars’ return — ’cause there’s obviously way more to it than this — I’m mostly just happy that it all worked out in the end. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to the culprit, but I think we can all agree on one thing: Anso should decide the punishment.

Don’t forget that Katatonia are still doing their MetalSucks-presented headlining trek with Swallow the Sun and Orphaned Land until October 7; you can get remaining dates after the jump.

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