If bands like Carnage, Entombed, Gehenna, and Integrity give you a nerd-boner, Orange County’s own NAILS will make you blow your load faster than Michael Jackson at a Build-A-Bear store. I think many MetalSucks readers will agree that their raw, filthy, vintage thrash/death metal sound is a refreshing departure from the zillions of faceless tech-death and metalcore bands who are way too perfect for their own good, so don’t miss out on their latest record, “Unsilent Death.”

This interview is with guitarist/singer Todd Jones, who you may also know from some of the last decade’s best hardcore bands like Carry On, Terror, and Betrayed. I don’t know him, but I am a big fan of his work, and he seems like someone I would get along with — my friend is in a band with Todd and described him as “genuinely disturbed,” which is about the strongest endorsement you can get in my book!

Click to read more…

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.

In 1998, there was Lords of Chaos. In 2008, there was Until the Light Takes Us. Somewhere between that, aired amongst a bunch of shitty Victory ads on Headbangers Ball, there was this. One might logically conclude that, between this biography, documentary and $100-budget commercial, the history of black metal has been comprehensively documented.

Not so! With this much personality, talent, vision, rampant egotism and disdain for non-Aryans, the genre remains entertainingly unstable — the more you talk to its original practitioners, the more weird new anecdotes bubble up to augment a perpetually-contested whole. That — along with the need to finance multiple third-term back-alley abortions for the staff’s favorite strippers — is why we’ve concocted our second exclusive Decibel one-off, the Black Metal Hall of Fame issue.

Our staffers busted ass to bring you eight tales from black metal’s vast crypt. Three of them you’ve never seen before — touchstones from Burzum, Satyricon and Rotting Christ — and the Darkthrone feature was only previously available in our HOF anthology, Precious Metal. This monster’s not included with subscriptions and is only available online and at select indie record retailers starting around November 8.

The final roster is, as you can see above, Immortal, Burzum, Venom, Darkthrone, Emperor, Satyricon, Enslaved and Rotting Christ. I’m too lazy to copy and paste the album titles, but are there any bands you’d prefer for a prospective round two? (Bear in mind that everyone’s gotta be alive to do these things, so no dice on Bathory and Mayhem.)

-AB

Please help the staff of Decibel finance all the necessary third-term back-alley abortions for their favorite strippers by purchasing the special Black Metal Hall of Fame issue here. You can also help contribute to this tremendous cause by buying yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel or, better still, buying yourself a full subscription.

We didn’t cover Dimebash 2010, a simultaneous tribute to Dimebag and benefit for the Ronnie James Dio Stand up and Shout Cancer Fund. Why, you ask? I don’t have a good answer. It was on literally every other metal site in the world, we don’t flatter ourselves that you read MetalSucks exclusively, and while I can’t speak for Vince or any of my other peers here at MS, I personally didn’t have anything even remotely interesting to say about it. A bunch of really cool people got up and jammed on some classics. It was for a great cause. It looks like it was a lot of fun. Go to Metal Insider if you still haven’t seen any footage from the event.

One thing which really might have pushed the event over the top from really cool to HOLY SHIT AWESOME, though, would have been an appearance by Phil Anselmo. Of course, Anselmo and Dime were on bad terms when Dime was murdered, and Dime’s family — specifically, Vinnie Paul and Rita Haney — have not made amends with Anselmo since, and have even speculated that some violent statements Anselmo made in the press prior to Dime’s shooting may have inspired the murderer. So when rumors started circulating that Anselmo was actually gonna be at Dimebash, well, that was a pretty big deal.

Anselmo didn’t appear at the event, though — but he was, Haney has now revealed, supposed to. You can watch the below video interview to get the full scoop, but the gist of it is that she no longer feels that Anselmo bears any responsibility for Dime’s murder, and while the situation is still sensitive, she seems to have finally come to peace with Anselmo. Perhaps more interesting — and sadder — still: Vinnie Paul still hasn’t.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

A day after Cosmo Lee slammed The Faceless for not writing actual songs he’s redeemed himself with an ace interview with Yngwie Malmsteen… another guy whose detractors argue doesn’t write actual songs, but I digress. When it comes to shred there’s no one better or more outrageous than Yngwie — or as his new album title would suggest, more Relentless — and as such I’d expect any interview with Malmsteen to be suitably ridiculous. I confess, I got the same PR interview pitch about Yngwie that Cosmo did, but I was too chicken-shit to do the interview; what would I ask? “Tell me about the fur coat you wore for your Japanese Philharmonic performance”? “Tell me about your Ferrari collection.” Turns out I didn’t have to ask the latter, ’cause Cosmo got Yng-Yng to talk about Ferraris anyway:

If one day you suddenly went deaf, what would you do?

Well, that would be a terrible thing. I would spend my time driving around Ferraris, I guess.

Perfect answer. A+++ would do business with again! Head on over to Invisible Oranges to read the full interview and watch a few videos of endless neo-classical shred, natch. The new album Relentless is out now; I haven’t heard it, but I’ll bet it sounds a lot like Yngwie.

-VN

Metal bands without a bassist are nothing new (Pig Destroyer, Salome, etc.), and we’ve all seen metal bands without a drummer (Genghis Tron immediately comes to mind), but I honestly can’t think of a metal band that has no guitar player. The guitar is such an obvious cornerstone of metal that it’s as though the community made an unspoken pact to let any number of other instruments get left out in the cold, so long as there’s plenty of six-string action going on.

I don’t know if Canada’s Greber are actively standing up for the bass and drums, though, or if they just turned out to be sans guitar because their members aren’t guitar players, but whatever — they make it work, even without its most basic of instruments. A new project from Fuck the Facts bassist Marc Bourgon and The Great Sabatini drummer Steve Vargas, Greber describe themselves as “honest, losing man’s music,” which is actually a really good description — the music feels raw and barebones, and the emphasis on Bourgon’s Mo’nique-thick bass gives the band’s sound a sense of downtrodden defeat that is unparalleled in grind music.

Click to read more…

A hearty golf-clap is in order for the Swedish group Hellsongs, responsible for the above indie/soft rock cover of Pantera’s “Walk” as posted on Metal Insider. I love this; a lot of effort clearly went into the arrangement, and the song is practically musically indistinguishable unrecognizable from the original. This is a cover done right, a completely new take on a classic instead of just a plain ol’ cover version that the band wearing backwards hats at the local bar plays at their weekly Saturday night gig.

The female fronted trio specializes in poppy, soft covers of metal classics, and they’ve already released two EPs and two full length albums since forming in 2004. Listen to more tunes here. The “Youth Gone Wild” cover is total aces!

-VN

For whatever reason, I just haven’t gotten that excited about the Soundgarden reunion yet. Maybe it’s not “real” enough for me at this point; maybe when the band finally does a proper tour and I’m holding the ticket in my hand, I’ll suddenly be really, really stoked. Or maybe Chris Cornell has just pissed away all my good will towards him, and I’ll never care.

Whatever. Point being, I had no intention of checking out the band’s performance on Conan earlier this week, until I read Shane Mehling’s assertion on The Deciblog that guitarist Kim Thayil is so “fucking old” that “looks like Kim Thayil’s dad.” Say no more, Mr. Mehling. I love a good laugh at other people’s expense. Curiosity piqued!

Click to read more…

Scottish rockers Mogwai are another one of those non-metal bands that a lot of metalheads seem to like a whole lot. And it’s not just metalheads; Mogwai seem to have a fanatical following amongst general fans of good music all over the world. Either you don’t really know anything about this band / don’t care or you fucking LOVE them (I’ve never heard anyone say “Mogwai sucks.”) I’m in the former category, but I’ve heard enough good things about them over the years to spark my interest. When I interviewed The Ocean mastermind Robin Staps during their U.S. tour two years ago he mentioned that after the tour he’d be going to some festival in [I think] Sweden to see Mogwai, and he was extremely excited about it. Just yesterday the trustable lads over at Crustcake expressed a similar excitement about the band’s upcoming album. If Robin Staps and Crustcake are into any one band, color me interested!

So what Mogwai albums should I check out? Do you like Mogwai? Mogwai is one of those words that sounds funny when you say it too many times. Mogwai mogwai mogwai.

-VN

Full Blown Chaos have been away a long time, but they finally threw their fans a bone in August when they announced that they’d signed with Ironclad Recordings and would be releasing a new album in 2011. Now the band has unveiled the cover art for that self-titled offering (above), a release date (February 1, 2011), and, perhaps best of all, our first taste of new FBC music since 2007 — a song called “The Walking Dead.” (And, no, I don’t think it has anything to do with AMC’s new zombie series.) You can check that out here.

The verdict? It sounds like Full Blown Chaos, with an extra dose of chaos. Turns out that front man Ray Mazzola wasn’t dicking around when he promised that FBC would be “capable of doing so much more” now that they’re a quintet — this might be the most aggressive track from the band yet. And it’s not like they were in the power ballad business before, y’know?

Give the track a listen here, then come back and let us know what you think. And don’t forget that FBC are on tour right now; get remaining dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

It takes condor egg-sized balls to name your band Masters of Reality and not be a bitchin’ stoner doom band. But uber-producer/desert rock (or stoner rock or whatever) pioneer Chris Goss has the figurative stones to do so, as MoR are anything but metal. What they are, however, is a top-goddamn-notch rock band, managing to simultaneously paint in broad strokes while writing incredibly compact-yet-effective songs. Masters of Reality is Goss’ baby, and the amount of care and precision that apparently when into their latest, the excellent Pine/Cross Dover, is apparent. Music this complex but inviting is clearly catered by a guy who knows his shit. The album seems to travel all over the place– from sugary garage pop to bizarre dark alleys– while sounding consistent. It’s a weird but ultimately pleasing place to visit.

Click to read more…

On Tuesday night we got an e-mail from reader Taylor Carik, letting us know that he and a friend had gone to see Danzig at the Cabooze in Minneapolis earlier in the evening — only for Danzig to cancel the show at the last minute, “saying he didn’t like the venue.” Apparently the other bands on the tour played anyway, though — Taylor also told us that “Moduk was alright, too, for corpse paint.” And I know I should have immediately done some research to see if Danzig had, indeed, cancelled a gig because he didn’t like a venue, but I didn’t. I was far too interested in finding out who Moduk were. Corpse paint that can actually play music? That’s amazing! It takes the musicians who usually wear the corpse paint right out of the equation! IT COULD BE A REVOLUTION IN BLACK METAL!!! No longer would corpse paint be beholden to some asshole to make its art.

But while I was busy trying to track down this magical corpse paint, we got another e-mail, from a reader calling himself “Why Hate Abigail Williams?” (to which I can only reply, “Because they blow goats and like it?”), pointing us towards this report regarding the Danzig cancellation in question:

Click to read more…

In early 2007 Warner Music Group acquired a majority stake in Roadrunner Records. Since then, staff in various Warner divisions and departments have been performing services for Roadrunner artists, and Roadrunner’s A&R team seemed to shift their emphasis towards signing more mainstream acts that would benefit from big label machinery. Now the changeover is complete, and one of the world’s first and biggest metal labels is 100% owned by one of the “big four” major labels. Roadrunner founder and CEO Cees Wessels distributed the following internal memo, which Lambgoat picked up from Billboard:

Click to read more…

Well, this is some happy-making news.

Magrudergrind, who are surely one of the best grind bands out there right now, have recorded a new EP, entitled Crusher — and are giving it away for free.

It’s being released through Scion A/V, apparently as part of Scion’s ongoing quest to be known as the least-douchiest corporate entity ever.

There are two formats for the six-song EP — CD and 10″ purple vinyl — and if you’re willing to pay six bucks for shipping, you can order your free copy right now, right here. (To Live a Lie Records will also be free copies of the CD version with any order.) But hurry, ’cause this is a “while supplies last” type deal, and I have to imagine supplies won’t last long. So go get it.

-AR

Major thanks to Seven Caso for the tip!!!

Many of you already know and love Cloudkicker, a one-man instrumentalist whose amazing free ambient metal releases have taken the Internet by storm in 2010… the rest of you are really missing out. But do you know anything about Ben Sharp, the man behind the curtain? Precious little information about Sharp is easily discoverable online. Until now; while you’re used to seeing the zany antics of Rob Pasbani as Metal Injection’s on-camera personality, Frank Godla, usually the man behind the camera, tracked down Sharp for a rare on-camera appearance after seriously dorking out to Cloudkicker. And I mean seriously dorking out; I haven’t seen Frank rave about a new band so passionately, well… ever.

The interview is really interesting, too. Sharp is thoughtful and articulate and has a lot of interesting viewpoints on music as a professional vs. as a hobby, giving away his music for free online, his creative process, the possibility of assembling a live band, and how the title of the ]]][[[ EP is pronounced. Check it above, then check out Cloudkicker’s most recent full-length Beacons at Bandcamp, streaming for free or downloadable for however much you’d like to pay for it.

Enslaved are in that rare category of bands: You can safely get excited every time they announce the release of a new album, because they’ll never let you down. Their latest offering, Axioma Ethica Odini, only proves this point — eleven albums and nearly twenty years into the career, Enslaved are at past the point where even the most-revered metal bands often seem to lose creative steam. But Axioma feels just as unique, challenging, forward-thinking, and just plain rockin’ as anything the band has ever done.

This past Friday, just hours before taking the stage for the kick-off of Enslaved’s North American tour as direct support for Dimmu Borgir, guitarist and co-founder Ivar Bjørnson spoke to MetalSucks about the concepts behind Axioma Ethica Odini, the value of albums having a “side A” and a “side B” (remember those?), American beer, and more. Read the full transcript of our chat after the jump.

Click to read more…

Since the dawn of time over 9,000 years ago, man has achieved progress only by questioning himself, putting even his most basic assumptions to the test of rigorous, unforgiving critical analysis. Once upon a time, we believed that the sun revolved around the earth, all matter was made of four basic elements, and that Brujeria really were Mexican drug traffickers, but thanks to the tireless efforts of great thinkers like Galileo, Hobbes, and Hume, now we know better. In the same spirit of fearless intellectual honesty, I ask the readers of MetalSucks the following: which is the best, BLACK METAL or DEATH METAL???

Click to read more…

I’ve been reviewing pretty much any and every band that’s sent me entries for Unsigned and Unholy over the past week or so, and the conclusion I’ve come to is this: very few bands are terrible, and very few bands are good. Most of them are mediocre bands that have decent chops and decent production value but not much in the way of originality. I’m kinda tired of saying the same thing over and over again with regards to mediocrity, so I think from now on — after this post — I’m gonna go back to the way it originally was, writing about bands that are either really good or really bad. If you send us an email about your band and you aren’t featured here, just assume you’re mediocre! Easy.

Today’s batch of bands:

Click to read more…

It’s only November 10th and Thanksgiving is still two full weeks away, yet I’m already starting to see ads for holiday sales and gifts cropping into my TV regimen of football (University of Michigan and NY Jets!), Mantracker and Survivorman. Just as “the holiday season” seems to start earlier and earlier every year, so too does it seem like journalists begin talking about their year-end “best of” lists earlier and earlier with each passing year. But hey, I suppose that by mid-November just about everything that’s gonna come out in a given year already has, and since us webmasters aren’t dealing with print deadlines we can always sneak a release in last-minute if needed.

So, what are the best metal records of 2010?

Click to read more…

When I first highlighted The Secret in September based on their ripping new track “Double Slaughter” I described them as “dirty as fuck black metal-meets-hardcore,” and now that I’ve heard their new album Solve Et Coagula in its entirety, I really can’t think of a description that’s any better. The body and soul of The Secret’s fast-paced, fuzzed out, frenetic attack lies in the hardcore bands I’m betting these guys listened to growing up, but they’re clearly metalheads too that pride themselves on incorporating elements from all over the metal spectrum; a tinge of black metal melodies and chord voicings, a blast beat here, a doomy slow-down there. It’s a mix that’s sure to punish, decimate, destroy, and <insert superlative here>.

Check out the 1:47 banger “Antitalian” below. Solve Et Coagula is out now on Southern Lord, and you can order it here. More Secret available at TheirSpace.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Welcome to the latest edition of “Freeloader” in which we review albums that you don’t have to feel like a douche for downloading for free. Today Satan Rosenbloom checks out the latest from Colombian Necktie.

Canyon-carving guitar trowels. Spittle-flying throatscrapes. Thwack-a-doodle-doo drum kit. Bang, zoom, bristle. Swinging elephant nutsack bass bombs. Bash! Pow! Gag! Colombian Necktie’s first demo flies by in ten minutes of action verbs and comic book interjections. You’d think music this visceral would be the most common thing around. It ain’t. Only folks like Trap Them and Converge make metallic hardcore as raw and cathartic; you only get the kind of electricity that courses through “Morse Code” when Kurt Ballou is behind the boards. And these five dudes from Los Angeles did it all themselves.

Click to read more…