We’ve gotten as many emails about French post-hardcore/metal outfit As We Draw over the past month as we received about Journal, so it’s about time I showed them a little love. I haven’t been into post-hardcore lately as much as I was a few years ago, but this trio of 21-year olds shows a helluva lot of promise.

They’re At The Drive In for the ’10s but without the emo-y vocals, alternately crushing and artsy with both fits of hardcore rage and post-metal soundscapery. Their songs are just straight-forward enough to follow but just technical enough to keep things from sounding stale, a tough balance to strike. They’ve got a really good mix of sounds that seems suited to please most metal fans, and what’s more their new album is completely self-recorded.

Their debut album Lines Breaking Circles just came out via Throatruiner Records; you can listen to two songs on their MySpace to see what I’m talking about, and then since I’m pretty sure you’ll be impressed you can go on and download the entire album for free right here.

-VN

The appeal of the Danish hard rock band Volbeat is almost completely lost on me. They’re certainly not the worst band out there, but their popularity seems to be ever-growing, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. The music is pretty simple stuff, and, sure, it’s kinda catchy, but it’s not super-catchy. The vocals are just this side of moose rock. If their music played over the opening credits of an American Pie movie, no one would bat an eye.

I just don’t get it.

And now the band has released a boring-as-fuck video for the song “Heaven Nor Hell,” just to make extra-sure that I’m not convinced. So, uh, they’re performing in front of some upside down cars, and then the cars blow up, and then it rains tires, and…? What? What the fuck is happening? Is there a metaphor I’m missing? Did someone seriously think that raining tires would be cool? Was the lumber yard already booked that day? What’s going on here???

“Heaven Nor Hell” comes off of Volbeat’s latest, Beyond Hell/Above Heaven. The album is being released digitally this coming Tuesday, but not physically until December 15, I guess because the label wanted to ensure that no one would purchase a physical copy.

-AR

While I think of their later albums as he absolute epitome of dull, redundant, riff salad that puts me to sleep faster than an Ambien and a gin & tonic, Deeds’ 1996 LP Trading Pieces is one of the finest technical, brutal death metal albums ever recorded.The drummer for the excellent Cleveland death metal band Odious Sanction gave me a cassette dub of this at a show back in 1997 or so, and I’ve listened to it on the regular ever since.

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Because porn star Neesa’s vocal cover of Megadeth’s “Holy Wars” was such a smash hit yesterday, I thought that today we’d wind down with her rendition of Overkill’s “Years of Decay.” She comes across as even more fucknuts than she did in the last video… I don’t really wanna spoil any surprises, but do yourself a favor and watch the entire thing from start to finish.

I will tell you this much: She doesn’t just sing in this clip!

Pretty great, right? Well, I guess she thought she could do better, ’cause then she gave it another try! In her defense, she sounds better in this one; not in her defense, she didn’t give the mannequin’s head a cameo this time out. Bummer.

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Iron Maiden have announced another world tour –”playing 29 shows and visiting 26 cities in thirteen countries across 5 continents” with, natch, Bruce Dickinson piloting the Ed Force One again. And the tour isn’t coming to North America, so on a purely selfish level, this has no bearing on my life whatsoever — but the question on everyone’s mind, I imagine, is “What songs will they play?”

Dickinson gives hint in a statement about the trek:

“The set list will be different to this year’s tour. Of course we will play more songs from the new album and some other recent material, but we will include a healthy dose of older fan favourites as we will be playing to so many new faces who we know will want to hear those songs live for the first time.”

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Did you know that today is National Sandwich Day?

Today is a celebration of one of America’s favorite foods: the sandwich. It is no coincidence that November 3 is also the birthday of John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. This 18th-century English noble wanted to eat his meal with one hand during a 24-hour gambling event, so he instructed his servants to serve him his lunch meat between two slices of bread. In celebration of this occasion, November 3 is now celebrated as National Sandwich Day!

What’s the most popular sandwich in America? Why, the hamburger, of course! Chicken sandwiches are a close second. Whether you make yours at home or at a restaurant, sandwiches are great because you can make them as healthy or unhealthy as you want! Celebrate National Sandwich Day by enjoying your favorite type of sandwich.

So celebrate by eating a sandwich! If it’s already past your lunchtime, eat one for dinner!

-VN

It used to be that if you wanted to know what you should buy, you would see what famous people liked, and buy whatever they said was cool — like how I originally got into Suicide Silence after I heard Demi Lovato talking about them. But now there is another way to find out what you should buy: shopping haul videos. A haul video is where someone goes shopping, then makes a YouTube video where they tell you about all the stuff that they bought. Usually they are really long, and made by young girls who like to talk about themselves. I don’t have a video camera, so I can’t make a video, but I thought it might be cool for you to see some of the stuff I bought at Hot Topic the other day in case you are thinking about doing any shopping and and wondering what is cool right now.

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Crustcake posted this incredible video of Slayer performing “Hell Awaits” in 1985 at Studio 54. This is both weird and notable, and not just because it serves as a reminder that once upon a time, Kerry King had hair and Tom Araya could move his neck.

No, it’s weird ’cause Studio 54 — in case you’re young and don’t know — was a disco. A very famous disco, where lots of celebrities hung out — folks like Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, etc. Y’know, the Hiltons and Kardashians of their day. (That was a joke.) The club closed in 1980 after a couple of its owners were caught embezzling profits, and today, it’s used as a Broadway theater.

Yep. Bernadette Peters and Jeff Hanneman have played the same venue. Amazing.

This clip apparently comes from an old VHS collection, Ultimate Revenge for Disco, and Exodus and Venom were also on the bill. But it’s new to me, and hopefully, to you as well.

-AR

The Deciblog scores again! This is one of those ideas that’s so awesome, I wish we’d thought of it. They actually got Kelly Shaefer to pick the five worst Atheist songs. Amazing.

Gotta give credit to Shaefer, too, ’cause not every artist would have a sense of humor about that kinda thing. But he handles it like a real mensch. Only once does he make an excuse for a song’s crappiness (“…wrote this when I was like 17. And it shows.”); most of the time he’s incredibly critical of the band’s work in a way I think few musicians are (“…these guitar doodlings are depressing, lifeless, and boring.”) So killer.

I’m honestly not a big enough Atheist fan to know if I agree or disagree with Shaefer’s assesment, so just check out the list here and make up your own mind. Also, if you haven’t done so already, you should read our own Anso DF’s epic two-part interview with Shaefer: part une, part deux.

UPDATE: The Deciblog now has drummer Steve Flynn’s picks for the worst Atheist songs, too. Check that list out here.

-AR

So The End Records very generously donated five prize packs for last week’s entry into our “Completely Unreadable Band Logo” contest series, and only one reader, Ben Moreau, got the right answer. That means we still have four prize packs to give away! In case you can’t remember what was in ‘em, each prize pack includes 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.

So here’s how we’re gonna unload these bad boys:

• Between now and midnight EST next Tuesday, November 9, answer the following question in the comments section below: “What is the worst possible way you could imagine to meet your end, and why?” Remember that this is MetalSucks, not Home & Garden, so the more entertaining your answer, the better your chances of winning.
• I’ll pick my four favorite answers, and those people will get the prize packs.
• Remember that you need to register for the comments section with a real e-mail address, as all winners will be contacted via e-mail. If you’re a Facebook user or whatever, you need to leave your e-mail address in the comment, ’cause I can’t contact you via a social network.
• All winners must live in the U.S. Sorry.

And that’s it! Good luck. I look forward to reading these.

-AR

Alright. So all of yesterday’s entries from Vegas pretty much blew goats, and not only did the Peoria-area reader known as “chainchomp” leave a comment reassuring me that I was being punished, but he also admitted that not every band listed in his e-mail recommendation was good — but they all “get alot of hype here in good ol’ Pee-Town.” So today I’m rewarding his kindness and honestly but taking a stroll down to this so-called “Pee-Town.”

If I ever live somewhere named after urine, please end me.

Anyways, we’re off to the races. Yay.

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How about another pointless exercise in trumpeting sales figures that aren’t going to matter in a couple years time when no one will be paying for music ownership because music ownership will be irrelevant? Who’s in? Me! New releases this week included (Hed)p.e., Ill Niño, Monster Magnet, Forbidden,  and Kylesa.

OK, let’s go.

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Okay! Time to check out some more new videos from various metal outfits. Ready? Let’s do this thing.

First up we have “In Division” by Underoath. Have Underoath’s Spencer Chamberlain and Norma Jean’s Cory Brandan always sounded like the exact same person and I just never noticed? In any case, this video is actually kinda cool; I don’t know if there’s a thematic connection between the lyrics and the upending of gravity or if they just did it because it worked for Inception, but at least the clip ain’t boring. Almost makes me wish I enjoyed the music.

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After a long week of CMJ shenanigans, High on Fire rolled through New York City with Kylesa and Torche to rock Webster Hall’s cavernous main room on the night of Sunday, October 24th. Most of the MS crew was exhausted/hungover/sick/dead by the time Sunday rolled around, but not MS photographic squad queenpin Diana Lee Zadlo; she was there bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to capture all the action with her lens. And hey, wouldn’t you know it, Matt Pike was wearing his favorite t-shirt!

See all the action after the stage dive.

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And you thought Steven Tyler becoming a judge on American Idol was bad.

As part of his ongoing quest to determine just how low a former rock god can sink, Vince Neil has now signed on to Skating with the Stars, a spinoff of — duh — Dancing with the Stars, in which “stars” will — double duh — skate. Joining him on the show will be one of the women from those Real Housewives shows everyone is so stoked about these days, Olympic gold medal skier Jonny Moseley, the only black actor on The Disney Channel, soap opera actress Rebecca Budig (with whom I actually used to work in a former life), and Sean Young, who was a respectable actress once upon a time (see: Blade Runner, Wall Street, the original Ace Ventura, etc.), but has since gone crazy (she once showed up at Tim Burton’s office in a homemade Catwoman outfit and demanded the role in Batman Returns) and now also makes her living on soaps. So it’s good company for Mr. Neil.

Seriously, this dude can’t drive a car, and some reports tell us that he can barely stand upright on stage. How the hell is he gonna skate? Can the ice even support his weight? Does he really need money this badly? I know that booze and sports cars and porn stars don’t come cheap, but maybe switch from champagne to rye and you should be saving a few hundred thousand dollars a year right there. For reals.

-AR

[via Deadline]

What does Dream Theater inspire you to do? Some of you would probably answer “stick screwdrivers in my ears” and some of you would probably answer “masturbate furiously in the corner.” A few level-headed folks might even answer “nothing at all… I appreciate their technicality but they aren’t for me.”

In the case of the Venezuelan YouTube user known as cebra4444, Dream Theater inspire martial arts; I know what you’re thinking, and no, not the moshpit variety. What’s more, cebra444′s version of Dream Theater’s now-classic “Home” (11 years ago already!! crikey, I’m getting old) is his own acoustic arrangement, multi-tracked to the 9′s complete with several rhythm and lead tracks all executed extremely admirably. The guy can sing too, and does a damn fine job of imitating James LaBrie’s timbre and matching his range. In fact, I like this acoustic rendition of “Home” so much that I’ve already listened to it three times. So what’s with the random footage added in of this dude performing some kind of martial art? Beats me, but this version of “Home” definitely gets the Neilstein stamp of approval.

-VN

P.S.: I had a dream last night where the new Portnoy-less Dream Theater album came out and it totally smoked. Yes, I dream about Dream Theater. Seriously.

Thanks: Guido Perdomo

I’ve never heard of a band willingly changing their album cover post-release. I’ve heard of bands being forced to change their cover after large retailers reject the original for being too risqué (e.g., Appetite for Destruction), and, obviously, bands doing reissues/re-releases change their original cover art all the time. But I’ve never heard of a band just going, “Oh, hey, that’s not the cover art anymore.”

But that’s exactly what Dimmu Borgir are doing. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the original cover art, which appears on all original pressings of Dimmu’s latest, Abrahadabra…

…and here’s the new cover art, which will appear on all future pressings of the record:

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For my opening salvo, I suppose I should mention that it has been a long break between blogs. I’ve been meaning to get back to it, but this summer has been a very busy one filled with the musical composition of the new God Forbid album as well as a new project I’ve been working on, in addition to the daily pursuit of living life and getting by. I hope to contribute more frequently in the near future.

If you’ve followed my articles in the past, you may notice that I often address music history, and pertaining to this site, heavy music specifically. I have a great respect for artistic pioneers and the roots of where the most admirable and brilliant music stems from. I was the type of kid who would read liner notes and interviews by my favorite bands to find out who influenced them. I would always want to climb that musical family tree to see where it lead.

In my process of discovery, there was a common thread that jumped out at me that has been consistent through metal and rock history.  There seemed to be an intercontinental ping-pong match between the USA and Europe in terms of trailblazing the cutting edge of whatever musical genre was the dominant force of the time. This goes way back before metal existed — and yet, it has helped shape the musical landscape that exists today. The torch keeps being symbolically passed from one shore to the other.

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Congrats to reader Ben Moreau! He is the only one who correctly identified last week’s logo, which belongs the band Clit Cannibal. (Amazingly enough, that was my last girlfriend’s pet name for me. Go figure.) Ben wins an awesome prize pack from The End Records, which will include a copy of These Are They‘s new album, Disposing of Betrayers, signed by vocalist Paul Kuhr, a copy of Lordi‘s new album, Babez For Breakfast, and a copy of Tarja Turunen‘s new solo album, What Lies Beneath.

Since you all suck so bad (and one of you guessed that the logo was for friggin’ Evile!), we still have four more of these prize packs to give away, and we’ll do so as part of a special contest tomorrow. In the meantime, for this week’s “Unreadable” prize, the great folks at The End have donated another awesome package, this one to celebrate next week’s release of 7 Sinners, the latest offering from the mighty Helloween: One grand prize winner will get a Helloween 7 Sinners denim jacket, PLUS a 12 x 12 7 Sinners poster signed by all the members of Helloween, PLUS a copy of the album; and a runner-up will get the same, minus the coat. Which is too bad, ’cause the coat is pretty much guaranteed to get you laid, but still! It’s an awesome prize. (And don’t forget that The End will release 7 Sinners next week, and you can still pre-order it right here.)

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 grand prize winner and one runner-up and announce their names next week.

This week’s logo was suggested by Ross Gnarly…

-AR