A couple of weeks ago, Vince told you how The Chariot’s new album, Long Live, has been blowing our collective mind grapes. He called the album “heavy as fuck,” “chaotic yet controlled,” and “bizarrely catchy in its pure post-hardcore meets grind mayhem.”

Well, now’s your chance to hear some of it for yourself.

Shockhound is giving away the song “The Audience” for free. You do hafta sign up to become a member of Shockhound, but you don’t hafta tell everyone on Facebook how much you love The Chariot or tweet on their behalf or anything else irritating like that. Which seems fair enough.

So go download the song, then let us know what you think. Long Live comes out November 23 on Good Fight.

-AR

Yes, another theft. Again. I was already fairly disturbed by the fact that both Katatonia and Periphery have had their gear stolen in recent days, especially since I love Katatonia a lot and quite enjoy Periphery. Fortunately Katatonia did get their stuff back and it’s only a matter of time before Periphery does too, since their gear was a) instruments and b) completely custom-made. So I was slightly placated. That is, until I opened my email today and read Robin Staps’ Ocean fan subscriber email, which opened with the following under the heading “THE OCEAN Robbed in Spain”:

On Wednesday October 20th, we were robbed on the highway, 30 km from Madrid. 2 guys in a black BMW pulled us over with fake police IDs. They asked for our van papers and IDs and wanted to know if we had any money to declare. We were not skeptical at this point, as it is normal in Europe that you have to declare larger amounts of money when you’re crossing borders, so we told them we had merch money with us, and the guy wanted to see it. When we showed them the merch wallet, the guy reached through the open window, seized it and ran back to the BMW in front of us, where his colleague was waiting with running engine. Unfortunately our van and trailer don’t match the speed of a BMW, but fortunately it’s not allowed to carry guns in Europe, as otherwise we would be in jail now for shooting the guy in the face.

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I guess it was inevitable that “Beautiful Dangerous,” Slash’s collaboration with Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas, would be released as a single and get a video; Fergie appeals to a large audience that isn’t necessarily Slash’s core fan base, so theoretically it could be a chance to earn some new fans, like when Santana released that song with the guy from Matchbox 20.

The video is actually pretty funny. In it, Fergie plays a woman so obsessed with Slash that she masturbates while thinking about him, then seeks him out at a strip club where he mysteriously is hanging out with no entourage or security of any kind, then drugs and kidnaps him (and no one seems to notice her dragging out one of the world’s most recognizable rock stars I guess), then takes him back to her motel, grinds up against him, and kills him.

Oh, yeah. Spoiler alert.

ANYWAY, there’s nudity and Fergie doing all kinds of suggestive things in this video, so I guess it’s “dangerous” to watch at work. On the other hand, there’s also a shot of Slash enjoying some Monster energy drink, with the carefully label turned towards the camera, so it’s not really that dangerous at all. ‘Cause remember kids: product placement ain’t rock. Sorry.

Also, Fergie’s in the video, so it’s not “beautiful,” either. Just sayin’.

-AR

While these days metal fandom is basically just a contest to see who can fap harder and faster to obscure technical death metal, it wasn’t always that way. In fact, many of the bands that internet metal nerds regard as legendary icons today were either hated or ignored when they were at their peak — fellow oldz will know exactly what I’m talking about. In this post, I will remind us all what fickle, trendy conformists metal fans can be by taking a stroll down memory lane and recalling vintage popular opinion of a few of your pet bands (hint: it wasn’t good!).

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Congrats to readers Dan Heathman, Aaron Barth, and Michael Clouse. They each correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, and for their troubles, they each win a copy of Iron Thrones’ awesome latest release, The Wretched Sun. Make sure you use those to irritate the neighbors, dudes!

This week we have a very cool prize courtesy the folks at The End Records: FIVE prize packs, each one containing the following:

• A copy of These Are They‘s new album, Disposing of Betrayers, signed by Paul Kuhr, vocalist for both These Are They and Novembers Doom.
• A copy of Lordi‘s new album, Babez For Breakfast.
• A copy of original Nightwish vocalist Tarja Turunen‘s new solo album, What Lies Beneath.

All of these albums are out now on The End and can be purchased from The Omega Order — but this is your only chance to win an excellent prize pack with all three, and your only chance to get a signed copy of the These Are They album without tracking Paul Kuhr down personally.

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 five winners and announce their names next week. And a very special thanks to longtime MetalSucks Maniac Pokesmot for setting up this week’s prize!

This week’s logo is, once again, courtesy Mr. David Foust. It’s pretty hard, but I expect five of you to get it right, so don’t disappoint me, capiche? Oh, wow, did I just say that? Sorry! Been listening to too much These Are They.

-AR

It’s another chance for me to provoke you! Yeah! Get angry! That’s it! Have an aneurysm just because I posted a video by a band you don’t like! It’s so totally worth it!!!

And just an hour before another edition of Sergeant D.’s “Green Eggs and Slam!” Yep. We are all about giving wedgies and purple nurples today.

“The Cat’s Pajamas” comes off of Iwrestledabearonce’s full-length debut, It’s All Happening, which is out now on Century Media.

-AR

The below is by some band called Acid Drinkers, and while it begins as a fairly straight-forward cover of Slayer’s “Seasons in the Abyss,” around the 1:02 mark, it pretty much turns into a hoedown fest. It’s not as terrible as you might think, because it’s rooted in what I’d call “real” country music — e.g., not the country pop-rock that is so often referred to as “country” these days. (Sorry, but Faith Hill and Garth Brooks or whomever have about as much to do with country as Kenny G. has to do with jazz.) I mean, I’m not saying I’d actively listen to this. I’m just saying, I’ve heard worse music today.

-AR

Thanks: Simon

The Philippines are much further away from New York than Kansas City is, but I don’t travel very much anymore and neither location is real high on my list of “Places to Visit Before I Die.” So since MetalSucks Suckalo “mankvill” sent us this long e-mail regarding bands from the Kansas City area that he thinks are worth checking out, and we had sooooo much fun with the Philippines “Reader’s Choice” thinger yesterday, today I thought we’d go through mankvill’s suggestions one by one and see how they are.

I’m trying to be optimistic this time.

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Remember War From A Harlot’s Mouth, the wonton soup of technical deathcore? The band’s new album MMX won’t be officially released in North America until November 9th, but they’ve made the whole thing available for streaming today on their official website. Hungry for meat-filled dumplings in soup? Order some up.

All kidding aside, I dig this band. Their mix of technical death metal, djent and spazzcore doesn’t necessarily tread new ground but it’s really well-executed metal that fans of technical music of any kind will definitely dig. “Deathcore” also really isn’t a fair genre tag; although there are a few breakdowns to be heard on MMX, they’re well placed and well spaced, and they aren’t used us a cheap gimmick or songwriting crutch.

In conclusion, today’s wonton soup is pretty fuckin’ good. Have a taste here.

-VN

The PRP has debuted a deleted scene from Chimaira’s excellent DVD/CD set, Coming Alive (read my review here), which you can watch below. You’ll understand pretty quickly why this didn’t make director Todd Bell’s final cut, and now it’s basically been turned into a commercial for the band’s upcoming “Blue Collar Brawler” tour with Impending Doom, Dååth, and This or The Apocalypse. But I’m totally okay with that, ’cause I think it’s a cool tour that you should go to.

Also, because this makes me laugh. You’re trying to tell me you’ve never done something like this when you were alone? Puh-leeze.

-AR

Weird to say about a dude whose most famous tracks are about hate, clenched fists, shotgun blasts, and burning in hell, but Robb Flynn seems like a legitimately good guy, and he’s certainly proven time and time again that he’s a man of the people. And I’m not really a very strong believer in the whole notion of “karma” — remember, Dio is dead but Durst continues to thrive — but Flynn’s life is now making a pretty strong argument that I may be wrong.

So. As you probably know, Flynn’s home was burglarized last month. Among the items stolen were a mini Flying V he had bought his son, Zander, for Christmas, and Zander was so traumatized by the break-in that he was apparently scared the thieves might return again in the middle of the night and murder him. And his younger son, Wyatt, apparently isn’t doing much better. Did you get all that? Are you now openly weeping? I wouldn’t blame you if you were. That’s the kind of lily-white-innocence-ripped-apart story that makes you wanna go all Death Wish on some people’s ass.

But Flynn’s fans are more reasonable than I am, so they didn’t Bronson anyone — instead, a bunch of them from Machine Head’s official message board, “The Frontlines,” chipped in and bought Zander Flynn a new guitar (above, in the most awesomest picture ever)! Here’s an accompanying message from a user who posts under the handle “Desmadre”:

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Well, funny you should ask that question, because Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum and Periphery’s Misha Mansoor just got together to jam and filmed it for ya’ll. This is topical, of course, because both bands are touring together as part of the MetalSucks-sponsored Legacy Tour along with Veil of Maya and Revocation.

Mike and Misha are two extremely talented writers and guitar players with distinctly different styles, so the concept of a collabo is pretty cool to me. Seeing as they’re both D.C. natives, maybe they’ll get together to record a proper shred record at some point in the future? Based on this video I certainly think that’d make for an interesting album. Make sure you sit through the intro stuff in this video to watch the jam sesh at the end… or just skip to around 1:50, you impatient prick.

Also: how stoned does Mike look in this clip?

-VN

So the DVD of the Big Four Sonisphere thing that aired in movie theaters this summer is coming out on November 2 (and possibly earlier, depending on the part of the world in which you live), and to get people pumped, the bands are giving away a FREE video of the now-infamous “Am I Evil?” mega-jam. That’s right, it’s FREE! You can download it here.

Or, you can just watch it below. ‘Cause it’s been available on the internet for free for months anyway. Every single performance clip from the DVD is online, in fact. You can watch them all at Metal Injection. Just sayin’.

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Vince, you ignorant slut.

There are tons of bands that get tons of hype that is somewhat-to-completely unwarranted, especially now, considering that the dreaded Hipster Community seems to think metal is cool (do they still, or are they back to ironically appreciating Jefferson Starship or something?). On a list of said bands, I would put Kylesa so far down near the bottom that it would be impossible to tell if they actually appeared on the list or not to anyone except the person who put them there at all. To cut to the chase, I think the band are deserving of every bit of salivating praise thrown their way by the metal community (like, um, this writer did for their last album) as well as the crossover coverage they receive. Bands not pouring themselves into a template is something to behold nowadays, and Kylesa manage to take a filthy IPA-stained piss all over genre lines while simultaneously sounding exactly like they always do, even when they’re at their most experimental. They’re the sound of a band listening to a library’s worth of albums while at the same time just making music reflexively as to what’s playing in their heads. It’s both extremely calculated and extremely human and personal, as good metal — from Sabbath to Priest to Maiden to Mayhem to Nevermore to Portal to Neurosis to Enslaved ad infinitum — should be.

But, haters gon’ hate, I suppose. And haters, subsequently, gon’ hate Kylesa’s new album, the predictably magnificent Spiral Shadow, another choice slab of massive, sludgy riffs, punk/metal and male/female interplay, and brilliantly employed non-metal elements. You’re gonna hear a lot of verbose writers once again, for lack of a more eloquent term, be all on this band’s dick, but Kylesa manage to effectively play to both a metalhead’s primal instincts — the one that clamors for heaviness and horn-raising riff violence — and the more astute listener’s sense of compositional brilliance. Most great bands don’t make new albums solely to try and amass new fans, and Kylesa are certainly no exception. If you didn’t like them before, this certainly won’t change your mind. But if you’re a Kylesa fan and/or obsessive- – hey, guess which one I am! — Spiral Shadow is yet more ammunition to shrug your shoulders at detractors and insist that the band’s encyclopedic knowledge of the past gives us great hope for metal’s future. There’s a reason guys like me are so slavishly devoted to them.

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Axl tried to explain to me the other night why so many bands moved their release date from today to yesterday, for a rare Monday U.S. release date; something about not wanting to compete with Taylor Swift? Whatever the reason, I don’t understand it and apparently after all that neither does Axl… maybe one of you can clarify.

One of said releases is King’s X’s Love Live in London DVD/CD, which you can order here. I’ve already expressed my enthusiasm for this release, but I just can’t contain my excitement for it: King’s X are just so much fun live and I cannot wait to watch this DVD at home. So while you’re mulling over purchasing the new Daath, Firewind and Kylesa releases this week — ’cause in the end they still all come out this week — add this live DVD/CD combo to the list to make your money-spending decision that much more difficult. Check out the trailer above then dare to claim you’ll be as fit at age 60 as Doug Pinnick is.

-VN

For a hot minute my friend and I contemplated inviting Karl Sanders on our big trip to Egypt this past February. It had come to our attention that Nile’s guitarist had never been to the country all of his songs are about, and wouldn’t it be badass to take him around? But then we reconsidered; assuming he would ever even accept an invitation from us buffoons, what if we ruined Egypt for him? What if the mighty Karl Sanders was underwhelmed by the knowledge and ambition of us peons? Would we be embarrassed to jam Nile songs on our headphones whilst staring at the pyramids in awe? What if he got annoyed with our constant farting? Please Mr. Sanders, spare us for we must pass peacefully to the underworld! No, better not to take the risk; Mr. Sanders, you’ll have to make it to Egypt on your own time.

Nile have a new video for “Permitting the Noble Dead to Descend to the Underworld” which we’re premiering exclusively for you all below. They are about to embark on their second MetalSucks-sponsored U.S. tour in support of their recent album Those Whom the Gods Detest — with the incredibly awesome support bands Ex Deo, Psycroptic and Keep of Kalessin in tow — starting on Halloween. Get dates here. In the meantime, watch this video and ponder how we can get Karl Sanders a plane ticket to Egypt; think of the awesome music that would follow.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Derek Kerswill, who has been the drummer in Unearth since 2007, is now out of the band. The oft-utilized “creative differences” explanation was the only one given; the band promises to that they “will be announcing a replacement drummer for our upcoming European stint” shortly, and still plan to release a new album next year.

Kerswill is a great drummer but this news doesn’t really get me down. He’s the band’s third skin beater (that means “drummer,” right?), and The March, the 2008 release on which he played, wasn’t my favorite Unearth album, but it also wasn’t my least favorite Unearth album, and I really don’t think that any of Unearth’s albums are bad. I guess what I’m saying is, Kerswill was not the driving creative force behind this band, and I somehow suspect that they’re gonna bounce back pretty quickly.

And in the meantime, Kerswill’s Tangents project released their debut album, One Little Light Year, yesterday. It’s not my thing but I know some fine people who dig it. Hopefully it will keep Kerswill busy.

-AR

This song gets stuck in my head at least twice a year. I don’t know why.

So yeterday Cradle of Filth announced a North American headlining tour in support of their new album, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa, and people seem to be put-off by the support acts — namely Nachtmystium and Turisas (Daniel Lioneye are also on the bill, but for whatever reason, no one seems to be put off by that). Longtime MetalSucks Mega-Maniac Shinaain writes, “I was little taken aback… Should I be?” Reader Stephen Parker, meanwhile, cries out “WHY!?” MS columnist Nocturno Cultowitz, after disappearing for weeks and weeks without response to any of our e-mails, actually called me to predict that either Blake Judd would murder Dani Filth by the conclusion of the tour, or otherwise Nachtmystium would be kicked-off the tour for attempting to murder Dani Filth.

But I think you guys are looking at this at all wrong. Cradle of Filth are a gateway band! And the kids at their shows are highly likely inclined to enjoy a) some form of black metal, and b) bands with a certain theatrical flair. Well, Nachtmystium meets one of those criteria, and Turisas meet the other. Will Nachtmystium go over CoF fans’ heads? I honestly don’t know. Cradlers (or whatever the fuck they call themselves) might be really open to a song like “No Funeral” in a way that some tr00 kvltists have not been. And I think they’ll eat Turisas up. So one way or the other, I imagine that opening for CoF will garner both Nachtmystium and Turisas at least some new fans. And at the end of the day, isn’t that a good thing? Don’t we want awesome music to reach as many ears as possible? It’s not like they’re opening for Limp Bizkit or ICP or whatever.

Dates after the jump, courtesy SMN.

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So. The wait is over — Dååth‘s self-titled Century Media release is out today. If you haven’t already purchased a copy, you can still order it here, or download it from iTunes or Amazon. I’ve made it clear how much I really love and admire this album, but I’ll do it one more time to emphasize to you how great I think it is: It’s dark. It’s misanthropic. It’s really raw. It’s really, really heavy. It’s dense. It’s not as “easy” as The Hinderers or The Concealers — you’re gonna need to give it multiple listens before you’ll be able to really wrap your head around it. But if you fully engage with this album, it will engage with you. It’s rewarding that way.

After the jump, check out my seventh and final behind-the-scenes report on the making of Daath: an interview with Eyal Levi. i. If you read this site regularly, hopefully you also read his column, in which case you know that the guy has really interesting things to say. I’ve referred to him as “The Godfather of Dååth” before; I don’t intend for that statement to take away from any of the contributions of the other members of the band, all of which are obviously extremely important to the music’s success. But at the end of the day, Eyal is very much the dude behind the steering wheel, the first one to arrive and the last one to leave, or whatever other cliché you’d like to use. He’s the man.

Here are his thoughts on the new record, the evolution of Dååth, being a producer versus being a performer, and more. Enjoy.

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Refs were fucking up this week, people. I know it’s part of the game, but wow! Some teams owe their wins to hard work and practice and some owe them to the zebra men looking the other way. One of these games was the Dolphins-Steelers match. Miami’s D was crushing against the Steelers who pulled out a victory by one point. I’m sure Pittsburgh is happy to have that mattress shaped man back at QB. One team that didn’t need the refs’ help was the Oakland Raiders. Zoinks. As I was watching the games shown on the east coast, the score ticker would pop up and every time it came to the Raiders game I couldn’t believe the absolute slaying that was going on. Kerry King would be proud.

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