I’m sick. Not in a scary way; more in a “Went to the doctor yesterday and got on antibiotics and didn’t do any posting or checking of e-mail” kinda way. Consequently, the limited amount of posting I’m going to do today will probably be even more ineloquent and vitriolic than usual. (I’ve already responded to several e-mails this morning with the rudest possible reply I could concoct.) My apologies in advance.

Some e-mails that won’t be getting any misplaced rage caused by my current condition: the approximately 18,000 messages alerting us to the fact that Nergal has, at last, found an appropriate bone marrow donor. This is great news for a guy who really is sick in a scary way, and I couldn’t be happier. Here’s an official statement from the man himself:

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“Bye Weeks”

Here we go! Thanks for all the entries and thanks for those who’ve stopped by the merch table and talked football.

-GW

#1:

Hey guys, Double D here to round up the football action from yesterday. We don’t have a lot of time so let’s get to it. The Raiders moved a half game back of the AFC West lead by giving it to the Chiefs in the Black Hole (heh). With that, the Raiders are 5-4 and are 3-0 in the aforementioned (awful) division. Philly pulled one out against Indy 26-24 in a great afternoon game and Cleveland whupped up on the Pats in a game in which nothing went the Pats’ way.

Oh, Buffalo and Detroit, they are trying to play football, aren’t they? Be that as it may, neither could hold on for a victory after getting ahead against the Bears and Jets, respectively. Atlanta flexed their muscles in the NFC South by beating a Tampa Bay team that had quite a few come-from-behind victories but couldn’t manage one on Sunday.

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Ulcerate are another one of those bands that we haven’t given enough attention to in the past but who certainly, absolutely, positively crush faces. Their music is heavy in all the right ways and it’s mercifully free of cliche. These guys are definitely deserving of more than the one previous post we’ve devoted to them on MetalSucks, but there’s only so much time in the day and sometimes we just get sidetracked talking about what stupid thing Dave Mustaine said this time or which under-appreciated Slayer album is the best. Sorry, folks!

In case it wasn’t clear from the above, I do happen to think Ulcerate are great from what I’ve heard (which admittedly isn’t a whole lot) so from now on I’m gonna try harder to give this band the attention they deserve. Looks like I’ll have a reason to do so in the near future; readers Chris Vigilante and Suraj Patra tipped us off to a new Ulcerate song that hit the Webernets after the MS Mansion gates had already shuttered Friday evening, and presumably said new song doesn’t exist in a vacuum meaning there’s a new album on the way. A little good old fashioned research tells me that Willowtip will indeed release The Destroyers of All on January 25th, 2011, so there’s already reason to be excited for 2011. New Ulcerate!

Stream the new track “Dead Oceans” above or on their MySpace page and tell us if you agree with Chris, Suraj and me about the face-crushing qualities of Ulcerate. Also, the album art (top of their MySpace) is quite interesting; dying dolphins or something? Fucking brutal.

-VN

Shortly after 8 p.m., Ms. Love burst into the room with the Marchesa dress slung on one arm and the noted German Neo-Expressionist artist Anselm Kiefer on the other. She was entirely naked and leaning on Mr. Kiefer for support. She made one lap around the room, walking in front of a photographer, an assistant, a hairstylist and me. She pulled over her head a transparent lace dress that covered up nothing, and demanded my assistance — “Not you,” she said to Mr. Kiefer, who was bent over trying to help her — to stuff her feet into a pair of black Givenchy heels that were zipped up the back and tied with delicate laces in the front. Then she applied a slash of red lipstick in the vicinity of her mouth.

“I really must get out of here,” Mr. Kiefer said.

This excerpt comes from the New York Times‘ second profile of Courtney Love this year, the first of which was done by Anthony Bozza, co-author of autobiographies from Slash and Tommy Lee, in the lead-up to Nobody’s Daughter, the album Love released under the Hole moniker without any former members. The latest piece comes from Eric Wilson in the Fashion pages, as she has become a fixture of the scene in New York as well as worldwide. While much of what he writes about is her stunning acceptance into that community, Wilson was obviously unable to resist describing how Love sabotaged her own puff piece with what have become anticipated antics.

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How about some reader-submitted photos for some mid-day chuckles?

First up we have a photo submitted by Samuel Wilson, pictured inside this tank flipping the bird, taken during his tour of duty in Iraq. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of the enemy [or innocent Iraqi civilians] quite like Slayer!

After the jump, let’s see who Crowbar’s #1 fan is, spotted front and center at a recent live gig:

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As part of our sponsorship of The Legacy Tour, featuring Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation, one member from each band will be penning an exclusive blog entry for MetalSucks to run during the tour. The tour kicks off this Friday, November 12th in Worcester, MA and runs through the U.S. and Canada for a full month before wrapping on December 12th in Richmond, VA. Get a full list of dates here. Our first entry comes from Veil of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo:

What’s going on guys!? My name is Marc Okubo with Veil of Maya, and today I’m going to give you guys a run down of my live gear list, and let you know what’s “under my hood” if you will. I’m pretty picky about the gear I use simply because it’s part of my job to make sure VOM sounds 100% on stage and to make sure every single note cuts though live… being the only guitar player I must re-create live all the sounds that I used on the record. The gear that I’m currently using has been my personal selection of choice for quite a while now.

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I could of course be talking about any one of a thousand or so bands, so the one in question today happens to be Gwen Stacy, who happened to be signed to Ferret and Solid State Records for what I presume was their ability to get kids karate-choppin their way through the pit (’cause it certainly wasn’t because of their originality) and the obvious cash-cow that is Christian metal. Why news of this particular band’s breakup would be any more upsetting than the breakup of any other band who happens to fit their description would be especially upsetting to anyone is beyond me, but who knows… I guess young kids get attached to shit without really knowing full well that there’s other, better shit out there. Like, I really loved Cheerios when I was a kid until my mom allowed Kix onto the breakfast table — holy shit, my mind was blown! — but I still really like Cheerios, in part probably because they’re familiar.

So, there you have it: Gwen Stacy, the Cheerios of Christian metalcore, have broken up. Thankfully there are a few dozen more generic metalcore bands that wear all black and use auto-tune that can fill the void… and today’s up-and-coming genero-metalcore youngins are even better at the choreographed stage moves! Just sayin’.

-VN

There’s nothing I love more than the cock-smashing brutality of a good death metal song, but variety is the spice of life. Sometimes you are not looking for slamming pitt riffment, you just want to get in your Ford F-150, roll down the windows, and blast some tunes that you can sing along to on the way to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch UFC with your bros — you just want some HARD ROCK! I’m not talking about the bluesy “dad’s barbecue soundtrack” of Aerosmith, Deep Purple, or Blue Cheer, but the kind of stuff you’d hear playing on the battered boombox towards the back of a basement print shop, coming from the radio of the truck that delivers some gravel for your new driveway, or pumping in the background of a National Guard recruitment ad.

Snobs turn up their collective nose at this highly-maligned genre, but it’s their loss. In my opinion, these bands have some of the best songwriting you’ll find, and the shows are always a blast. Sure, most of the fans are ignorant white trash, but they come to party and I can’t hate on that. The truth is that radio-friendly hard rock is ‘effing sweet,’ and I can’t get enough of it. In this post, I will share some of my favorite songs of the last decade or so– please post yours in the comments!

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Since getting cable for the first time in five years this past September I’ve been fascinated with TV, can’t stop watching it whenever I have the chance; Hulu, torrents and the like are great, but sometimes you don’t know what you want to watch and prefer the glorious ADHD-riddled game known as channel surfing. Other than the occasional sports broadcast, my cable box stays parked between the channel range of 270-290 on Direct TV, aka all the dork channels: Discovery, History, A&E, etc. But one channel really takes the cake; The Science Channel! Anyone who has a cable provider that doesn’t broadcast this channel is missing out on some of the best shows to grace television’s black screen in ages such as MANTRACKER, HOW IT’S MADE and SURVIVORMAN. A++++ would do business with again fast shipping programming! For the most part I really don’t need to change the channel; I could watch endless repeats of those three shows (with a little Mythbusters thrown in) and be perfectly happy.

So it’s no surprise then that I had no idea ex-Skid Row and ex-Saigon Kick drummer Phil Varone is now a C-list celebrity because of an appearance on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2009.

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The Forrest Gump Mile-High Marathon sound exactly like what you’d expect from a band with that name who describe themselves as “gumpcore.” Brutal slams, bree-bree, the occasional death metal riff and Forrest Gump samples. They’re actually not from the mile-high city of Denver but the Land of the Dudebro, aka Long Island, not surprising at all for a group of flat-brim hat-wearing goons wearing camo gear non-ironically.

Sergeant D might like this band, or he might hate them. Or he might really like but pretend to hate them, or really hate them but pretend to like them. So in that spirit:

What do you think of The Forrest Gump Mile-High Marathon?? Is “gumpcore” just a cheap gimmick or are these guys a musical force to be reckoned with?? Which is worse, Lawn Guyland or the Jer-Z Shore???

-VN

Photo credit: Taija Lynn for Brooklyn Vegan.

Last Saturday I attended the California Blood Tour in San Francisco, featuring Son of Aurelius, Burning the Masses, Knights of the Abyss, Devourment, and Cattle Decapitation. I had mixed expectations of almost all the bands on the tour, but many of them ended up being proven wrong.

First up were Son of Aurelius (most of you probably know them by now, since we’ve done quite a few articles on them). They opened with a shreddy, breakdowny intro song that even incorporated power metal vocals, so I think a lot of the crowd were a little confused. But once the band started playing songs like “Myocardial Infarction” and “A Good Death”, the crowd warmed up to them, spawning some of the biggest pits of the first three bands. They definitely wowed me. Even though they had a different vocalist for this tour, he still performed admirably, and their mix was fantastic; both shredding solos and brutal breakdowns were perfectly audible. Great opening band for this tour.

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Yes, I went to the Dimmu show. Mostly because I’ve never seen Enslaved and I like them but I guess a small part of me wanted to see the spectacle that is our good old Demi Moore Burger (new entry for Kuma’s? Decide what’s on it the day it comes out and change it, the very next day?). But before I get to that, I have an open letter for someone very special.

Dear Asshole Tapout-shirt Guy,

First of all, I’m sure the band thanks you for your participation, but what are you doing here? Why are you standing there in your goddamn shirt, your shaved head, stupid backwards baseball cap, and shorts? Sir, you do not fit in, and though I’m a firm believer that nobody should be excluded from anything, you do not belong here. You barrel by me, bouncing me off your gut, without even saying an “excuse me” or a simple “Get out of my way.” You are not a good audience member. I’m standing to the side, not in the walk way, not in the pit, I’m in virtually no one’s way and yet, you, yes only you, still manage to knock me over. I know it’s loud in there. It’s supposed to be. Did I not hear you? Then tap me on the shoulder and gesture curtly. I don’t care how you do it. There is no reason for you to leave a bunch of fallen bodies in your wake. Metal audiences are not small people. But somehow they manage not to take over everyone else’s personal space. You do.

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I can honestly say that the “Create Your Own Conspiracy” Contest we hosted with Nevermore earlier this year — in which we invited anyone with a microphone and the means to record it to write their own lyrics to the instrumental version of the as-yet-unreleased “The Obsidian Conspiracy” — was one of the most fun, if not the most fun contest we’ve held in the nearly four years we’ve been running this site. Watching all the entries come in was a blast — some of them good, some of them not so good — but what really made it special was that the winner, Ben Robson, really deserved it. His prize: the opportunity to perform his version of the song on-stage with Nevermore when they next came through his hometown of Pittsburgh.

That opportunity finally came a couple of weeks ago, and Ben’s friends Kyle Heider, Steph Malesic and a whole posse of friends were there with him to film the proceedings! Kyle put together a mini-documentary featuring some of Ben’s contest-winning submission, a pre-show meet-and-greet with Warrel Dane, and what you’ve all been waiting for — multi-camera footage of Ben’s legendary performance — and he’s released it exclusively to MetalSucks to share with you all today. Ben’s performance is epic in all its Penguins-jerseyed glory; it makes me smile even more than his wildly entertaining contest entry did, and that’s saying a lot. Put simply, Ben fucking killed it!

Ben came out again for the band’s encore of “Enemies of Reality” and performed it as a duet with Warrel Dane; that footage, as well as a video with just the “Obsidian Conspiracy” performance, is posted after the jump. Ben also wrote up a blog about the entire experience, and we’ve posted that after the jump too. Thanks to Nevermore, Century Media and Ben and everyone else who entered the contest!

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On the recommendation of a couple of my best enemies, I finally listened to Nine Inch Nails‘ The Fragile from start to finish.

If you’re a somewhat regular reader of this god-awful website, you surely know the respect and man-love both Axl & Vince seem to share for one Trent Reznor, and in absorbing their consistently laudatory analyses of Reznor’s music and savvy business decisions, I will admit I’ve been repeatedly intrigued along the way.  But until now my experience with the Nails was pretty much limited to a couple of their singles, most notably this (which I was always a huge fan of).

And now, having heard what many repute as the best NIN album, I can safely hypothesize that Reznor is a severely masochistic, battle-scarred, honest artist who isn’t afraid to let the pain come through.  The industrialicious musical style is not always my cup of Twinings tea, but there are certainly several solid grooves throughout, and the raw, candid nature of the lyrics offers a precious look inside a tortured soul who’s doing good with his suffering.  I’m not surprised one bit that so many people have connected so deeply with homeboy’s cannon (even though Pitchfork inevitably ripped The Fragile a new one way back when).

A couple of my fave lines from the (Right) album:

“I tried to save myself, but my self keeps slipping away…”

“All I do….I can still feel you.”

No doubt many of us can relate.

Say hello again to a couple of old-school NIN videos after the jump…

Happy Saturday!!

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Why am I writing this week’s “Worst Week” entirely in questions? Could it be to irritate you? Or am I just trying to keep myself amused at the end of the week?

Did you know we asked some other questions this week?

• Was Sergeant D. kidding when he said that there are only two good songs in Reign in Blood?
• Why did Dimmu Borgir change their album art post-release?
• What’s the big deal about Volbeat?
• Is Glenn Danzig actually perfectly reasonable?
• Is there anything better than a Devin Townsend show?
• Can Ozzy restore your sanity?

And have you asked yourself these questions as well?

• Did you know that we debuted new music by The Ocean, Dukatalon, and Gozu?
• Did you read Anso’s chat with Dave Wyndorf from Monster Magnet?
• Is Oderus’ advice column worse than Vinnie Paul’s? Do you agree with Doc Coyle’s assessments on the issue of European metal versus American metal? Do you find, as Eyal Levi does, that creative prison is for pussies? Is Greg Weeks imagining it, or does it smell like poop and onions right now?
• Did you buy the new album from Dallas Coyle’s Genetic? You know the money goes to cancer research, right?

Are you worried that I’ll still be doing this on Monday? Do you think I care?

-AR

I’ll admit, I had some writer’s block coming into this blog. Sometimes it’s hard to think of what to write. I’ve been racking my brain for a few days now with the burning question… “What will I write about next time?” Good fucking question, and I really don’t have an answer in sight. So I’ve decided that I’m just going to write about not knowing what to write.

Writer’s block is an interesting thing. It’s kinda like having mental constipation. You know the ideas are in there. You know the ideas want to come out. But something is just clogging the passageway. I guess the only way to get the ideas to bubble forward is to move some shit around. So I’m doing that by exploring this topic, which by the way, is one that many people write to me about.

I think my strongest suite as a musician is in composition. I’m a much better writer than I am a player. To me, that’s where it’s at. Sit me down for a year and I’ll write you a few records. It’s what I do. and I’m used to getting questions like, “How do you come up with ideas like…?” or “How did you learn how to write so much?”, etc. Well, I guess my overarching answer to all “how to” writing questions is this — “JUST FUCKING DO IT!”

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First of all, congrats to MetalSucks Maniac Mykee Shaffer for winning our first (possibly annual?) Heavy Metal Halloween contest! Mykee got some help from his girlfriend, who does special effects make-up (you can check out her work here), and the amount of effort he put into both his costume and the photos of said costume really blew us away. Mykee wins a special prize pack, courtesy SPV. Gggggoooo Mykee!!!

Now, as proud as we are of Mykee, the truth is we got a LOT of great entries. So even though we had no plans to have a runner-up to this contest, we are, in fact, going to have one, who will win another prize pack, contents TBD. The catch is, we’re having a such a hard time deciding who the runner-up should be, that we’re leaving it up to you, our beloved readers. So after the jump, check out some of the best entries we received from readers who ain’t Mykee, and then vote on who YOU think should win!

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

As regular MetalSucks readers are no doubt aware, our own Vince Neilstein doesn’t really see what the big deal is about Kylesa, while our own Sammy O’Hagar thinks they’re the cat’s pajamas, and actually started his recent review of Kylesa’s Spiral Shadow with the phrase “Vince, you ignorant slut.” Looking through the comments section of the various pieces we’ve run on Kylesa, it seems readily apparent that you readers are divided on this issue as well. So this seemed like a good time to ask the rest of our writers:

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KYLESA?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Longtime metallers will remember a time in which it was very hard to find information about metal on the internet. I know it’s hard to believe, because these days you can’t go five seconds without someone blogging, tweeting, or YouTubing a mountain of trivial details about some band I have never heard of and don’t want to hear, but back in the late 90s, you took whatever scarce metal info you could find. And forget about actually HEARING the music. Bandwidth was still in short supply, so the best you could hope for was a written description of the Demilich album — a far cry from today’s broadband-laden world in which nobody actually reads anything, they just listen to the first three seconds of a song they pirated before eagerly mashing the keyboard with their sausage-like fingers to type some subhumanly-stupid comment ["ONLY TRENDY HOT TOPPIC FAGGORTS LIKE THIS BAND I ONLY LISTEN TO VINYL BOOTLEGS OF THE 1ST BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME CD"] and hitting the “submit” button.

One of the lone outposts of metal in those bad old days of the internet was a sad little site called ANUS.COM. It was at the top of the Yahoo/Altavista search results for most death metal bands, but the content left a bit to be desired. I never really bothered to look at the non-metal stuff for more than a second, but I think the site is mostly about some kind of Nietzche-inspired, vaguely-NS, pseudo-intellectual ramblings about philosophy or something. However, I did read every single one of their metal pages, which were pretty much along the same lines: short reviews of early/mid-90s death metal bands that were written in an incredibly affected, pseudo-intellectual tone (most likely in an attempt to sound smart, which failed hard). They were so over the top as to be barely intelligible, but hey, it was 1998, so you’d take whatever info you could get on Disharmonic Orchestra or Von!

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I’d never heard of Silenzium before today, and there’s nothing I can really tell you about them that you won’t learn from the headline. In 1996, Apocalyptica did a full album of Metallica covers, and two years later, the writer/director Neil LaBute used those covers as the primary score his film Your Friends & Neighbors — so this idea is really nothing new. And I wish the Silenzium girls didn’t feel as though they had to dance to get people’s attention.

On the other hand: DANCING GIRLS PLAYING METALLICA!

And in case you’ve never heard it before, here’s some Apocalyptica cover Metallica. I gotta say, I think they sound way cooler than Silenzium — I’m not at all surprised that someone wanted to use this as a film score — with or without the gyrating.

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