The metal community’s current Gallophilia should only be reinforced by Le vide est forme, the self-released, two-song, twenty-one minute instrumental EP by Abysse.(The album’s title literally means “The vacuum is form,” although I’m sure there’s something lost in my French Level-Three translation.) Even if the words “instrumental,” “proggy,” and “spacey” — all adjectives which could accurately describe Le vide est forme – scream “boring, self-indulgent naval gazing” to you, you should STILL at least give Abysse a shot, because they’re not just the same-old same-old post-whatever band.

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Oh, hey, lookit! Our friends at Brooklyn Vegan are giving away a free mp3 of a new Withered track, “The Progenitor’s Grasp.” (They also have an mp3 of the new song “Extinguished with the Weary,” in case you somehow still don’t have that one.) Go here to download that shit.

I’m really, really digging this song — especially the elephants marching section that kicks in around 2:10, and the spacey section it leads into at 3:20. Does that make me a pussy?

Whatever. Between this track and the rave review that Withered’s latest, Dualitas, got from Rod Smith in the November 2010 issue of Decibel, I am now even more stoked to hear this album than I was before.

Dualitas via Prosthetic on October 26.

-AR

In 1997 there was this girl that I was really into. I don’t even remember what her name was now, but I remember being very excited when I finally found myself at her place with just the two of us for company.

“Hey, wanna hear something awesome?” she asked me. The correct answer in that situation is obviously “Yes,” and so she walked over to her stereo and hit “play.” And this is what came out of the speakers:

The song ended and I figured out some excuse to leave and I left. Later I wondered if the girl really liked the song (she certainly seemed to) or if she played it knowing it was awful because she couldn’t think of a polite way to reject me, but it’s a moot point: I will never know how my relationship with that girl might have played out, all because she had to go and be the first person ever to introduce me to Limp Bizkit, and, more specifically, Limp Bizkit’s terrible covers.

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In other news the sky is blue, the grass is always greener on the other side, men like sticking their dicks in things and Axl is in a grumpy mood.

The band is called Diamond Plate, they’re from Chicago, look to be all of about 18 years old and are managed by a good dude that I used to book shows with back in my agency days. Axl actually previewed these guys back in January of this year (he should be an A&R man!); he noted being especially impressed with the song “Relativity” on their MySpace page but had a hard time getting used to Jon Macak’s vocals, and on both points I concur.

Look, I hate to be a pre-emptive hater, but enough with the re-thrash already. It’s peaked; no one in the U.S. cares, and there’s so much music out there that’s new and way more interesting that I don’t understand why labels are wasting their time on bands like this, especially when none of them sell any records. That said, these guys certainly do seem to have plenty of musical talent so I hope they can harness it and transmogrify their thrash into something fresh the way, say, Revocation have. For now, I’ll wait to hear their Earache debut to pass final judgment. Bring it on, dudes!

-VN

Photo credit: Stephen Jensen

In my 20+ years of listening to metal/hardcore/etc, there are few records that have made a bigger impact on me than the “Cry Now, Cry Later” compilations. For those who aren’t familiar, this series of four double-7″ compilations collected some of the mid ’90s most brutal and important grindcore/power violence bands, and I still listen to it on the regular (although nowadays that’s usually on my iPod while I’m at the gym).

Before I dig into the tracks themselves, a little background: You may know Pessimiser as the label who put out some great records from bands like 16, Despise You, Excruciating Terror, Grief and Phobia, but it was originally a zine. The brains behind the zine, label and Despise You is Chris Elder, who is not only hilarious, but among the world’s most cynical human beings (as you might be able to tell from the name of his band and label). Chris is born and raised in the sketchy town of Inglewood, which has its fair share of cholos (Mexican gangsters), and the name of the record is a parody of the famous cholo saying “Smile Now, Cry Later.”

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The reason all the hair-metal autobiographies have been disappointing is because the best hair metal band, Motley Crue, did it first, and did a really killer job (treating it like an oral history told from lots of different  perspectives = master stroke), and so there was really no place to go but down. Bret Michaels’ autobiography never actually materialized, Slash’s was good but not great, Steven Adler’s sucked, I only know one person who read Bobby Blotzer’s,  and now all the Motley Crue guys are dipping back into that pool for a second or even third time, only without each other because after thirty fucking years they still haven’t figured out that the unit is stronger than each individual. At this point I think it would take everyone who ever worked on Chinese Democracy, including Axl Rose, all banding together to make a The Dirt-style Roshomon piece if anything is even gonna BEGIN to compete with The Crue’s initial tome.

Now glam’s ugly twin, thrash, has started to catch on that there’s an interest in these books. And they don’t seem to be following the same pattern as cock rock. Sure, Dave Mustaine went first, but no one seems to really believe a word of his book, and it’s certainly not a definitive snap-shot of the time and place the way The Dirt is for the Strip in the 80′s. And I obviously have a lot of faith in Phil Anselmo’s upcoming collaboration with MetalSucks’ own Corey Mitchell, but Pantera weren’t purely thrash, and weren’t around for the Big Four’s heyday.

So. Now Noise Creep says that Kirk Hammett is doing his autobiography. (The news actually originated in an interview with Ultimate-Guitar, but I can’t find it. If anybody does, drop me a line.) There’s no word on which lucky writer will score that coveted “with” credit, but here’s a choice quote from Kirk:

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You’ve waited patiently to hear music from Anthropocentric, the second and supposedly heavier of the two Ocean albums released this year. Wait no longer; Metal Blade has posted the full track “She Was the Universe” for you to listen to right here.

My first thoughts; it’s Oceany. What else would true fans and admirers of this amazing band really need to know? Is it heavier than the majority of the tunes on Heliocentric? Maybe a tad bit, but “lack of heavy” wasn’t really an issue for me with that album anyway. Most importantly “She Was the Universe” is a solid song that’s got all the elements you want from an Ocean song — heaviness, lightness; progressiveness, straight-forwardness; cerebralness, simplicity. Simply put, it’s really good.

So check it out already and let us know what you think. Anthropocentric comes out November 9th in the U.S., November 5th in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and November 8th in the rest of Europe. Pre-orders are available now and they’ve got the typically awesome packaging you’ve come to expect from this band.

ALSO: The Ocean are currently touring Europe with The Dillinger Escape Plan and Cancer Bats. We have it on good word that they’ve got an awesome tour booked for the U.S. in early 2011; hooray!

ALSO ALSO: You better believe MetalSucks will have the full album stream of Anthropocentric in advance of its release date. Holler!

-VN

Thanks: Ashley Lee

If you do a shot every time Daath vocalist Sean Z. uses the phrase “more real” during the course of this interview, you will definitely be good and drunk by its conclusion. But it’s hard to blame him for recycling those words again and again: While a former member of the band’s pre-occupation with mysticism cast a pall over the group’s lyrical content in the past, their new, self-titled album, which Century Media will release on October 25 (pre-order it here), does away with all that in favor of dealing with issues that listeners can actually relate to. And it’s all the stronger for it.

For a dude with such a ferocious vocal attack and intense stage presence, I found Sean Z. to actually be incredibly laid back, easy going, and just plain fun to hang out with. After the jump, read our chat about his lyric writing process, why Daath is actually the band’s first album, hallucinogenics as a creative tool, plane crashes, and more real shit.

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Major, major, MAJOR kudos to MetalSucks Maniac Nick Pitingolo, one of only six people to correctly identify last week’s logo, which was easily our hardest ever. So what was the name of the band?

Intracerebrally Consuming Cephalalgia Through The Cranium Macerating Debrisfucked Manure Ingested Remains Of The Mindfucked Cataplexic Wicked Mankind Whom Fistfucked The Progenies From The Deepest Depths Of The Analmaggot Raped Human Pieces Of Erotic Shitmasses Which Gave Birth To Worthless Eunuchs As Travesty For Cumstained Whorefaced Sluts Enslaved By This Stupid Society Full Of Fetal Garbages

Apparently they’re also sometimes called just “55,” on account of how many words are in their name. Congrats, Nick! You win your choice of any three CDs and/or DVDs from the MetalSucks Mansion Archives. Check your e-mail for a list of available prizes.

This week we have some more real cool shit to give away: namely, one copy each of two projects from Pyramids’ R. Loren — Sailors with Wax Wings‘ self-titled CD (which you can also order here) and White Moth‘s self-titled CD (which can be purchased here). Pretty sweet, right?

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. 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 Jason Solomon. Thanks, Jason!

-AR

Now, here’s a candid look into the decadent and debaucherous life of a working musician: it’s 10pm on Friday night and I’m sitting in my stepdad’s home office, getting all the business-y crap out of the way for our tour that starts in six days. I always come here to print out everything we’ll need for the trip (hey, free paper and toner) like itineraries, immigration stuff, and the bane of my entire fucking existence, roadscans. For all you normal people out there who are lucky enough to never have to deal with these things, they are these sheets you have to fill out at each show on tour to track how many CD’s and LP’s you’re selling so they can count toward Soundscan, which dictates how big and bad you are in the eyes of people who care how many records you sell. Anyway, you have to fill out all this crap and have a venue representative sign it, and then fax them all in by 9am each Thursday morning or else you get guilt tripped by the label (fuck you, Jon Hughes!!!!). I know it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of work, but getting someone to sign something and looking for a fax machine totally sucks when it’s 1 a.m. and you’d rather just be hanging out or whatever.

Anyway, I just discovered and downloaded this app for my phone that takes a photo of a document, turns it into a PDF, and either emails or faxes it to wherever you want it to go. This will put an end to so much of my stress on tour. I haven’t felt affected by any technological breakthroughs this greatly since Intronaut started touring in 2006. At this point, touring in the pre-cell phone and email age seems so impossible to me even though I did live through some of that.

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You kids sure are having fun with last week’s completely unreadable band logo, which is our hardest one ever. A very small group of you have actually gotten the correct answer, but some of the more fun entries include “It’s a sailboat,” “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-,” and, uh, I Declare War. (It’s definitely not I Declare War. Does that look like I Declare War’s logo to you, numb skull? Just guess Slipknot, why doncha?) Some of you also seem to think it’s Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis, although if you’d get off your lazy ass and use our “search” function, you’d realize that we’ve already used that band’s logo, and this ain’t it.

And a lot (and I mean a LOT) of you also seem to think that it’s this band with a really, really long name:

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To celebrate the release of Madball’s latest aggro masterpiece, Empire, we asked vocalist Freddy “Madball” Cricien to compile a list of his favorite non-hardcore (but still heavy!) bands. Luckily for us and all of you, he agreed! So we’ll be running two entries a day from Freddy’s list every day for the next five days, leading up to Empire‘s October 12 release. To follow, pelase find the first installment. We hope you enjoy…

10) LED ZEPPELIN

I wasn’t sure at first if I should put them on this list. They could be considered more rock than anything, and that would open up a whole other door of bands I love. But you know what? They’re heavy, so I’m going to throw them on my list. I grew up listening to my older brother Rudy’s Led Zeppelin records… along with a bunch of other eclectic stuff. I always loved Zeppelin. Great songs, unique sounding band, and the heavy-ness and groove of John Bonham’s drums was just amazing.

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OMFGz!!!! Members of Anthrax and Every Time I Die are sullying their cred by palling around with dudes from Fall Out Boy!!! What ever will we do?!?!

Listen to the new track “We’ve Got a Situation Here,” of course, which is not nearly the catastrophe all the readers who sent us outraged emails when The Damned Things supergroup was announced seemed to think it would be. Seeing as the band’s two guitarist are Anthrax’s two guitarists, it sounds plenty metal. Seeing as Keith Buckley is the singer, it’s got plenty of rock n’ roll swagger. And seeing as dudes from Fall Out Boy are in the band, yeah, it’s catchy. Shocking, I know, that a band actually equals the sum of its parts. But this is not a bad thing. If this song appeared on a new Anthrax album and had John Bush’s vocals (not Belladonna’s… yuck) I’d probably love it. And so would you. What’s not to like? It’s a good song.

There goes my cred… oh well! I never had any cred anyway; I’ve been raving about “shitty” bands you all hate since we started this site back in December of 2006, only back then no one seemed to care.

Stream “We’ve Got a Situation Here” at Metal Insider, then come back here and tell us what you think.

-VN

A tried-and-true route to musical innovation is to combine two genres which had never previously come into contact. While we’ve yet to find anybody with the balls to create sub-genres like rapabilly or industrial funeral ska, there’s a burgeoning crop of bands playing something almost as funny and great: TRANCECORE. Put simply, trancecore is Rise Records-style metalcore (e.g., The Devil Wears Prada) with the addition of trancey synth elements (like you’d hear on a Cascada record).

Enter Shikari “Mothership”– this is the first example of trancecore that I’ve been able to find. It’s not bad, but newer bands have done a better job with the genre IMO

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I just had my first gander at Powerglove‘s recently released album Saturday Morning Apocalypse, and I gotta say that I’m suitably impressed. SMA holds power metally covers of themes from X-Men, Batman, The Simpsons, The Flintstones and Transformers, among others, and they’re all well-executed; most notably, the higher budget afforded by being on a real record label (E1) has allowed the band to execute the spiffed-up production this kind of music needs to come across well. Of course, as I’ve stated before, I believe that a band that exclusively covers videogame and TV music can only be interesting for so long, but it sure is fun for a little while.

My favorite track on the record is easily a cover of the Inspector Gadget theme song. The TV show itself was always entertaining — did any kid growing up in the ’80s watching this show not wish he had bionic appendages? — and of all of those shows, this theme song was always one of the most memorable. Hey, guy in the above video singing “improvised” vocals over it; can we be friends?

Reminder: Powerglove are headlining one of two MetalSucks CMJ Music Marathon showcases on the afternoon of Saturday, October 23rd at Fontana’s in NYC, along with Wetnurse, The Binary Code, Pack of Wolves, Meek is Murder and Batillus. Sailor Jerry Rum will be providing rum mixed drinks for only $3. Come and get drunk and headbang with us!

-VN

DUDE. I didn’t even know that the Mastodudes had side projects. Did you know? How come no one ever told me? I thought we were friends!

Fine. Whatever. As it turns out, there are not one but two Mastodon side projects, called West End Motel (pic above) and Fiend Without a Face. According to Metal Insider, Brent Hinds plays in both bands, while Brann Dailor is in Fiend Without a Face. And according to The PRP, the two groups are doing a short tour together later this month.

For Mastodon fanatics, it’s a chance to see both musicians play venues far, far smaller than Mastodon have played in years. And while neither band is especially metallic in sound — West End Motel has a country/bluegrass vibe and sometimes even dip into ragtime territory, while Fiend Without a Face, despite their name sounding pretty evil, actually play surf rock — Crack the Skye was by and large not really metal, either, and we all still loved that, because Mastodon rule. So you should still try and show some love, even if these shows will probably be mosh-less.

Here are the dates…

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At the Accept show I went to last week, I had a pretty funny moment with the boy when I said that it sounded like they were singing “We are nice” instead of “Neon nights.” Which got me thinking: I mishear lyrics a lot. It could be because I’m deaf, or people just don’t enunciate, or that most of the bands I listen to don’t really know English that well so they probably are singing stupid shit. Or it could be that I’d rather hear something than what I actually do — I mean, Bob Ezrin wanted a new, edgy song to appeal to those hip youngsters and thought Alice Cooper was singing “I’m edgy,” instead of “I’m eighteen.” Personally, I’m way more entertained with what my brain, or other people’s brains (as I got some volunteers for this task), comes up with. So here are a few songs that made it to my Misheard Lyrics Hall of Fame.

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Few bands in metal have as singular a vision as Chicago’s Tub Ring. Tub Ring just sound like Tub Ring… and no on else even approximates their sound. It takes perseverance and artistic dedication to play the kind of music Tub Ring do to a limited niche following, but persevered Tub Ring have for the likes of a nearly 20-year career. These days Tub Ring are so experimental and unique that it’d be hard to even classify them as “metal” but there’s no denying where their roots are, and the heavy influence does still peek through from time to time.

“Touching the Enemy” is perhaps one of the least metal songs on their new album Secret Handshakes, but it’s one of the weirdest and most interesting. So is the video, a one-take affair that’s a tad bit nauseating but quite engaging nonetheless. Unsurprising that a band this unique would come up with a video idea this cool.

Secret Handshakes is out now via The End Records. Order it here.

-VN

Thanks: TNOTB

Sometime real soon Andy Rehfeldt, the guy who keeps turning metal songs into non-metal songs (see: the jazzercised Lamb of God and the Disneyfied Cannibal Corpse) and non-metal songs into metal songs (see:  metallicized Louis Armstrong and Conway Twitty and whatever you call this) is gonna hafta get a new schtick… I mean, it’s hard not to admire the amount of work he must put into these viral videos, but I think it’s time for him to take ‘em someplace new and show us something we feel like we’ve never seen before.

That being said… I love the doppler-effect riff of Meshuggah’s “Bleed” so much that it’s hard for me not to enjoy this smooth jazz version of the song. So we’ll let Rehfeldt’s return to the scene of the crime slide… for now. But I sincerely hope that Rehfeldt doesn’t turn into the Killswitch Engage of YouTubers.

-AR

If you’ve been enjoying Son of Aurelius’s The Farthest Reaches as much as I have this year, than you’ll wanna know about Smaragos, a new project from SOA bassist Max Zigman.

Smaragos share some common traits with SOA — namely, an emphasis on musicianship and a willingness to try all sorts of wacky things (e.g., a two-minute long sitar section!) — but it’s mostly it’s own animal. Whereas SOA’s influences are more noticeably melodeath, Smaragos are more interested in administering blunt force trauma and whiplash-inducing schizo-shifts; if the easy comparison for Son of Aurelius is The Black Dahlia Murder, than the east comparison for Smaragos might be Cattle Decapitation (funnily enough, SOA are actually on tour with Cattle Decap right now — get dates here). Some of the synth-y stuff makes me think of Faith No More at their heaviest (e.g., “Jizzlobber”), but the Satan’s-Taking-a-Dump vocals are pure Glenn Benton and his ilk.

This project is still in the early stages, but demos of two songs, “Furnace” and “Primordial,” are definitely promising (if kinda bass-heavy — not shocking given Zigman’s presence, but still…). There are streams of said demos after the jump; check them out, visit Smaragos on MySpace, and then let us know what you think in the comments section.

Here are the demos…

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