This article’s headline speaks for itself. Watch and enjoy!

-VN

I’d never heard of Blue Felix before a couple of days ago; I’d wager almost no one had heard of ‘em. But Slipknot’s Sid Wilson appears in their new video, for the song “Middle Finger Up,” so suddenly they were on every metal site in the webernetosphere.

When the song started, I was like, “Oh, okay. So they make Misfits-tinged hard rock and wear ridiculous outfits. They’re the Murderdolls. Got it. That’s not the end of the world.”

And then the dude started singing.

And then the dude started rapping.

And then I closed my laptop and used it to beat ten MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys to death. And, no, I don’t care what Vince says, I will not clean up the carrions.

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As various Interhole metal outlets start trotting out their “best of” lists for 2010 we’re also sure to see a smattering of “under-appreciated album” posts to go with them. You’re gonna have to wait until December 16th to get trolled by Sergeant D and the rest of the MS staff’s full “best of” lists but until then I plan on giving you a sampling of what’s in store for my own list by sharing a few of what, in my opinion, are some under-appreciated gems of ought-ten.

Norway’s Keep of Kalessin created ripples with 2008′s Kolossus and with this year’s Reptilian I’d say they upgraded to waves, though their influence and stature within the worldwide metal community hasn’t quite made it to tsunami status yet as far too many people don’t know about this phenomenal band. I knew Reptilian was going to be a crusher from the very first notes of it that I heard; this is intricate, technical black metal (!) that doesn’t get bogged down by bad production or many of the genres other tropes (i.e. corpse paint). Keep of Kalessin are only too willing to push the boundaries of black metal, and with Reptilian they’ve elevated their game to a whole new level of progressive energy.

-VN

Killing The Dream, Lucky Me
Is that a violin I hear on “Blame The Architects?” I must be experiencing some sort of auditory hallucination — this is a (post-)hardcore album, right? Is that allowed? It is? Well, then it appears Blacklisted don’t have the monopoly on this sort of thing. Actually, they still do, as that’s the only adventurous track on Killing The Dream’s latest Deathwish offering. For the most part, Elijah Horner screams his resentful emo heart out over seven unabashedly Bane-ful cuts. I’m sure it’s been a rough life, but I suspect like many of his peers, Horner will persevere. Closing track “Black” fractionally salvages this otherwise rudimentary run-through of contemporary hardcore, with post-rock atmospherics that make the most of the quintet’s two guitarists. The J. Bannon artwork looks most elegant.

(2.5 out of 5 horns)

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Periphery’s mastermind and resident nerd-face Misha Mansoor wrote a killer series of columns for us earlier this year in which he geeked out about various gear that he uses; I think it’d be fair to dub him the reigning “Metal Misha” at this particular point in time. But the original Metal Misha got wind of his competition at the MetalSucks-sponsored Darkest Hour Legacy Tour stop in NYC last weekend, and apparently was none too pleased about the situation. Thankfully, the rights to the “Metal Misha” crown come cheap.

-VN

This makes me so irritated I can barely even find the will to type, and besides, I could never put it as elegantly as Shawn Macomber did for The Deciblog (where I first saw this), so I’m just quote him:

“A post-emo kid with a tragically deep v-neck t-shirt and the requisite rejected-by-Flock-of-Seagulls haircut runs to MTV for help with his deathcore band fronting tormenter via Bully Beatdown, a reality show based upon the flawed premise that if you have a professional mixed-martial artist humiliate some asshole on television, that’ll be the end of all your troubles. Because if violent assholes are known for anything, it’s responding well to public embarrassment, rationality, and ratcheting down tension, right?”

As far as I can tell, the only logical solution to this problem is to kill everyone involved.

You can see another clip, and read more of Macomber’s analysis, at The Deciblog.

-AR

I’m so fucking hungover right now that I wanna put in a gun in my mouth and blow my brains all over the wall just to make the headache stop. So you watch this latest video updated from Devin Townsend while I go try to get my shit together and write snarky metal blog posts for the rest of the day. It’s not like there’s anything I could write to really convey Devin’s Deviness anyway.

And here’s a message from Devin which goes with the video:

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If you have a little sister or tween daughter, you may be familiar with Christopher Drew’s work as acoustic pop band Nevershoutnever. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a pretty big deal, with zillions and zillions of teenage girls making up their rabid fanbase, and two albums that made Billboard’s top 20 — pretty impressive for a 19 year-old! I can’t say I listen to a lot of Nevershoutnever (mostly because I’m not a 13 year-old emo girl), so I was really surprised when I came across Chris’ semi-joke side project EATMEWHILEIMHOT, which can only be described as “party metalcore.” Basically, it is exactly like something I would have done when I was his age, only he is way more talented than I ever will be — think late 90s/early 00s CHAINREACTIONCORE ala Throwdown, Adamantium, or Fall Silent, only with super dumb-yet-awesome lyrics about pizza, getting attacked by grizzly bears, and Captain Planet. EMWIH totally takes me back to hanging out with my friends and coming up with stupid ideas for joke bands, being silly, and having fun — an awesome vibe that is way too rare in a scene full of bands who seem to be in a contest to see who can take themselves the most seriously.

Naturally, most readers of this site will ignore the music and instead rage about Chris’ haircut, the fact that their niece has a NSN poster in her bedroom, that he doesn’t know who Cynic are, and so forth, but advanced-level readers will just be stoked to see some kids having fun with heavy music. Chris seems like a super chill, fun kid from Missouri who definitely doesn’t take himself seriously — my guess is that he would probably make fun of his haircut right along with you, then throw the horns when Pantera comes on the radio. And I have to give him some serious credit for making a joke about one of my favorite topics: hardcore kids wearing mesh shorts!

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I used to have a fresh-off-the-boat Indian friend who had a somewhat tenuous grasp on English expletives and he’d always crack us up with his misuse of dirty words, kind of like a real-life version of Fes from That ’70s Show. He’d use the word “balls” as a derogatory expletive; “Balls to that!” or “That’s Balls!” if he didn’t like something. Sometimes he’d get his syntax confused and end up uttering gems like the following, intended as an insult: “I will fuck you in the ass!” We erupted in laughter before explaining the implications of what he’d actually just said. Of course this has nothing to do with last week’s Photo Caption Contest, but I thought of it because the winner calls himself “balls”:

• “After trying to remove his boots for over 3 hours, a young Devin Townsend gave up on black metal and decided to take a different musical direction.”

So, Sir Balls, congrats; you win a trio of Sepulchral Production black metal albums. This week, in celebration of Rammstein’s upcoming December 11th gig at Madison Square Garden in NYC — their only U.S. date, which sold out in like 30 seconds — we’re giving away Rammstein’s entire discography to one lucky winner! That includes the following studio albums: Herzeleid, Sehnsucht, Mutter, Reise Reise, Rosenrot, and their latest, Liebe ist für alle da (Deluxe); and the live albums Live Aus Berlin and Volkerball.

This week’s photo comes from reader Sean Page; the fine specimen pictured is his friend Ryan of Long Island band Elysian Fields who I just so happened to have shrugged off just last week [apparently it's a different band of the same name. -Ed.] . The rules as per usual: just come up with the funniest caption to the below photo, and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)!

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

Axl was rad enough to mention it on Tuesday, and many of you have probably seen our newsletter already, so we’ll just reiterate the basics super fast:

• The Decibel Flexi Series will commence unlubricated face-decimation with the January 2011 issue (out in early December).
• Flexis are clear vinyl incorporated into the actual magazine.
• Every month a new band will drop never-before-heard awesomeness on said flexi.
• “Never-before-heard” means unreleased tracks, covers, liveage, demos, alternate takes or re-recordings. Who knows, maybe even a skit like the kind Type O used to open albums with. I’m sure, like, Pig Destroyer have been dying to cover “Skip It.”
• Brutal Truth are doing the first one. Enslaved are doing the second.
• Only subscribers get to handle these super collectible, extremely limited, most brutal of truths.

That much you probably already know. As for the future, trust us, there’s no shortage of bands being considered for this series. But right now that’s mostly just in-house fantasy draft stuff. Now would be a good time to hear from you guys: Who would you like to see in this thing? Got any dream covers? Know of anything crazy-rare that would blow minds if it just finally fucking got out there? Please tell us, in the spirit of Ludacris and weak-ass gamer puns, what’s your vinyl fantasy?

P.S. A particularly badass one might be Incantation smashing through Golgotha live, which you can check out for yourself on their Decibel Hall of Fame mini-tour , which kicks off tomorrow at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago.

-AB

Like the man said, the only way to get these awesome flexi discs is to subscribe to Decibel, so get off your tuchus and do that. You can also buy the flexi-less-but-still-killer December 2010 issue here.

There is something both inspiring and kitschy about the melding of unexpected musical genres.  Rockabilly, surfpunk, jazzcore, deathpolka…..it’s rather hard to smush two (or more) wildly different sounds together and have it flow seamlessly (unless if you’re Fishbone).

But Brooklyn’s own Dub Trio have been succeeding at such a feat since 2004.  The group has taken instrumental heavy progressive riffage and the almighty dub, and is able to flip on a dime between the two genres without it seeming abrupt in the least.  How do they do it, you ask?  Well obviously exceptional musicianship, for starters.  And the most interesting factor comes from the rhythmic shifts, which in and of themselves could be called unusual or daring, but the drastic style-flip always feels original, even when one might be expecting it.

And fear not, my br00tals…..over the years, the sound has evolved into something quite aggressive.  At least until the dub pedal activates.

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Man, Eluveitie are a fun live band. “How fun are they?” Why, I’m glad you asked, oh beloved readers. They’re so much fun that, as Vince would say, if you don’t like fun, you shouldn’t go see them live.

Of course, you do like fun, and you will go see them live. And if you live in North America, you’ll go see them live in February, when they’re doing a headlining trek. And they’re taking some great bands on the road with them for support, too — namely, 3 Inches of Blood and Holy Grail. System Divide will also be on the tour.

Get dates after the jumper-ator-ator-ator.

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If you were to ditch the corpsepaint, goofy poses, and gimmicks, but keep the razor-tight riffs, uhallowed Immortalisms, and jaw-dropping musicianship, you’d have Rimfrost. Jokes about their totally homoerotic name aside, this band is beyond competent at combining black metal’s rawness with Immortal’s, well immortal ability to write almighty riffs.

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We’ve all had a good laugh at the expense of both Kirk Hammett and the child he kicked this week, but now Metallica have released a statement regarding the issue in an effort to put it to bed once and for all.

“In the whacky world of rock’n'roll, sometimes stuff happens which looks even weirder than it really is! And with context being vital in these situations, we just wanted to address something which happened on the tour the other night regarding a large beachball, a band member’s foot and a little girl. Some of you will have seen on Youtube (or read in some reports) that Kirk knocked a small child offstage by kicking a beachball at her. That little lady is the daughter of the stage manager and dressing coordinator, who are fortunate to travel as a family on this tour. She was thoroughly enjoying watching the beachballs drop from the rafters, Kirk was thoroughly enjoying kicking the beachballs off the stage and back into the crowd as has been done every night on the tour, and neither of them saw the other. The poor wee one happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wasn’t hurt. She didn’t go ‘flying several feet into the audience.’ And Kirk and she remain good buddies. It’s very cool that everyone showed concern and support though, so we just wanted to say ‘it’s all good’ and thanks for asking.”

I think everyone basically understood that already, but there, now it’s official. Kirk Hammett does not hate little girls. Great.

And look, they even included a picture of Kirk and the lil’ tyke just to make sure we know that they are, indded, still “good buddies!”

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Congrats to MetalSucks Maniac Chainsword! He’s the winner of our Heavy Metal Halloween Runner-Up Readers’ Poll, as he garnered an overwhelming 33.73% of the votes. Chainsword wins… well, we honestly don’t know yet! But we’ll try to make sure it’s some cool. Mazel tov, Chainsword.

And we’d like to thank all the other participants as well. We thought all your costumes ruled. If you’re sad that you lost, well, blame your fellow readers, those dirty bastards.

Remember to keep checking back here at MetalSucks for more awesome contests. MetalSucks… where kids can really win!

We may already be getting all hot and bothered about The Human Abstract’s early 2011 release Digital Veil based on hearing just one song, but we’re almost, maybe even as excited about another forthcoming 2011 record in the same musical vein based on hearing a few mere notes. OK, we saw Prosthetic Records’ fresh signees Last Chance to Reason live when they played our CMJ showcase in October (and we saw them in August too), and holy smokes did they knock our socks off with their unique brand of progressive metal… so we were a bit biased already. But tell me this clip of the band’s singer, Mike, going over the different parts of a vocal harmony from the record — interspersed with actual album audio and footage from the accompanying video game — doesn’t get you pretty excited about the record:

In case you missed what I wrote in the proceeding sentence: there is going to be a video game that accompanies Last Chance to Reason’s new album Level 2. Presumably the video game-like clips shown in the above video are from said game.

Everything about this band screams raging nerd = everything about this band screams raging great. Can’t wait for this one.

-VN

Thanks: MS proteges Heavy Blog is Heavy for the catch.

The cover art for the new Darkest Hour album?

On Saturday night we went to see Darkest Hour on their MetalSucks-sponsored fifteenth anniversary Legacy Tour along with Veil of Maya, Periphery, and Revocation. We had an AWESOME time, and you should definitely hit one of these shows up if you can (get dates here). Darkest Hour are playing material spanning their entire discography, including some pretty rare shit they haven’t done live in a long, long time. Vince and I both have this thing where we won’t listen to a band we’re going to see for weeks beforehand, because the delayed gratification makes the experience of seeing them that much more killer; but I know we’ve both been cranking Darkest Hour in our respective corners of the MetalSucks Mansion pretty much non-stop ever since.

And soon we’ll have another offering from the band to rock out to — they’ll be releasing a new album (their debut for E1) early next year. The Metal Injection dudes interviewed DH guitarist/MetalSucks columnist Mike Schleibaum  and drummer Ryan Parrish before the show, and got all kinds of exclusive skinny on the new record, including the album’s title and release date, plus the duo’s thoughts on working with producer (and Soilwork guitarist) Peter Wichers. Check the interview out here.

And if you’re itching for even more Darkest Hour info, check out Vince’s interview with Schleibaum about switching to E1 from Victory here.

-AR

Well a big BRA-FUCKIN’-VO to Metal Insider, who found the below clip, from a 1994 video entitled Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults,  via io9 and laughing squid. You might guess, based on the girl in the checkered bikini and what MI’s Bram Teitelman, in an insult to late night informercials, calls “production values from a late night informercial,” that this is actually some old porn. Or, maybe, because of all the lines and shit drawn on the girl’s face, you’d assume this was an instructional video for plastic surgery. But no. It’s just an incredibly silly instructional video. Oh, you kwazee coppahs.

-AR

I am a big fan of corsets. The comfort of the woman be damned, damned straight to hell! They push things up and down in just the right way to appeal to my basest instincts. My ex once surprised me after a fancy dinner party by revealing that she was wearing a corset under her dress, and if you think that’s not a memory I’ll cherish on my death bed, then you’re nuttier than the new supergroup featuring Marilyn Manson, Eddie Van Halen, Phil Fasciana, Evan Seinfeld, and my aunt Sandy.

That being said, I’m having a hard time getting behind the idea of designer Maya Hansen’s new line of metal-themed corsets, which Metal Injection’s resident Gloria Steinem, Noa Avior, brought to our attention via this piece at Metal Injection.

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MetalSucks got nothin’ but love for God Dethroned. Sammy O’Hagar gave their 2009 World War I-themed album Passiondale four-out-of-five horns, which we ended up streaming in full; Bob Cock ranked Passiondale in his top twenty albums of 2009; Axl thought a song from that record kicked ass, and though he thought its first video was suspect he was a big fan of its second; we even sponsored their fall 2009 North American tour. So why no mention of their brand new record Under the Sign of the Iron Cross, which comes out next Tuesday, November 23rd on Metal Blade? No good reason. No good reason at all.

So here’s our attempt to rectumfry the situation; Metal Underground is streaming the entire new album right now, and here we are telling you about it. Because you don’t want to let a slice of fast-paced Dutch death metal this good pass pass you by, and neither do we. Please forgive us! Here’s singer/guitarist Henri Sattler:

Musically the new album turned out to be one of the most extreme records we ever did. Nevertheless with the very recognizable God Dethroned hooks present in all the songs. Producer Joerg Uken outdid himself this time, because our new album is in my opinion the best produced album we ever had. Extremely raw, heavy, but crystal clear and super dynamic at the same time.

Right? Right. Now go listen, and if you like what you’re hearing then pre-order Under the Sign of the Iron Cross here.

-VN