FEATURING MEMBERS OF ARCH ENEMY, SUNN O))), MADBALL, FUCK THE FACTS, DOMMIN, DARK CASTLE, IMBROGLIO, EXHUMED, AND THAT METAL SHOW

For 2010, we decided to do something special as part of our regular end-of-year festivities here at MetalSucks — namely, ask musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year were. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of ten to eleven musicians at a time twice a day for the rest of the week.

After the jump, check out the first group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

(And please note that these are musicians and that they, um, have a lot on their minds. So some of ‘em named albums that actually came out last year. Please don’t freak out.)

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Winds of Plague have released the below Christmas video, which includes a too-brief sample of a new song, “Refining the Fire.” The band is scheduled to release a new album on Century next year.

It will be interesting to see how the Decibel Hall of Famers and New York Times profilees fare with new keyboardist Alana Potocnik stepping in for the departed Kristen Randall, who was, as we all know, a cornerstone of WOP’s sound and songwriting process. A little birdie tells me that this album will be a return to the band’s tr00 thugcore roots a la Decimate the Weak, and the music below would certainly seem to confirm that. But however it sounds, here’s hoping that these critics’ darlings can finally find the mass audience their reviews suggest they so richly deserve.

-AR

Longtime reader Brian Bode pointed out that we haven’t yet opined about After the Burial’s new album In Dreams, a complaint that a number of readers have also expressed. Brian was even so kind as to take matters into his own hands by starting to write a post for us:

IN DREAMS AND OUT OF A NIGHTMARE

We certainly have been waiting a while to speak of After The Burial’s new release on Sumerian, titled In Dreams. After predicting ATB to be one of the 10 Bands to Fuck Your Face Off in 2010 [and] premiering their song ‘Bread Crumbs & White Stones’, we finally had a chance to give this album a few listens.  What do we think of the album? Find out after the jump…

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Revocation have promised a new album in 2011, a follow-up to the most excellent Existence is Futile which itself only gets better and better with time. In interviews the band has said that the album is already written, and now that the Legacy Tour is over I’d think they get down to business recording it pretty soon. When The Legacy Tour hit NYC drummer Phil Dubois-Coyne told me the new album was ambitious in scope, an expansion of their sound that would even feature a full horn section. That’s Dave Davidson’s Extreme fetish rearing its beautiful head in full force, and I can’t wait to hear it. Definitely a big one to look forward to in 2011.

We won’t have to wait to hear new Revocation music, though (sorta); the band have a cover of Exhorder’s “Death in Vain” posted on their Facebook page right now. Apparently it was a bonus track on the Japanese version of Existence, although this is my first time hearing it. Covers provide a glance into a band’s arsenal of influences, but in this case I don’t think anyone should be surprised to discover that Exhorder’s thrashy grooves had a big impact on Revocation.

Check out “Death in Vain” on Revocation’s Facebook.

-VN

One of these men will not be on the new Kyuss album. Guess which one?

Kyuss Lives!, the ridiculously monikered Kyuss non-reunion which replaces Josh Homme with some dude no one has ever heard of, are apparently “thinking of doing another record,” according to this interview with vocalist John Garcia. I object to the use of the word “another” because in case these dudes haven’t noticed, they’ve never made a record before, but I’d like to think that the phrase “thinking of”* means “it’s not written in stone yet,” “there’s still time to stop the madness,” and “we said this to gauge the reaction of fans, possibly as represented by an incredibly smart, exceedingly handsome Jewish blogger from New York.”

So, assuming that Garcia was, indeed, trying to get a message to me to see what my thoughts were, I’d like to now respond by saying: I don’t think this is a good idea.

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The Golden Globes, in case you don’t know, are the film awards handed out each year by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is exactly what it sounds like. They’re considered to be second only to the Oscars in terms of prestige, which is wholly ridiculous, since a) as opposed to the awards handed out by the various unions (e.g., the Director’s Guild, the Screen Actor’s Guild, etc.), they are almost never a good indication of who will win an Oscar, and b) there’s only like eighty-something people on the HFPA and you’re allowed to throw them parties and buy them things, a.k.a. bribe them to vote for you.

Still, it’s hard to be mad that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have received a nomination for “Best Original Score” for their work on The Social Network. I thought the movie was pretty disappointing overall (this was the most accurate review I read of the movie), but I think Reznor and Ross’ score is pretty brilliant.

Their fellow nominees include Hans Zimmer for Inception (the score for which is going to show up multiple times on musician’s year-end “best of lists” here on MetalSucks, believe it or not), Danny Elfman for Alice in Wonderland, Alexandre Desplat for The King’s Speech, A.R. Rahman for 127 Hours. I have no idea what their chances of winning are, and, again, these awards are pretty meaningless… but it would be pretty funny if they ended up at the Oscars eventually.

You can see the full list of nominees here if you’re interested.

-AR

King Diamond is on the short list of legends whom it is almost impossible to imagine the metal world without; like Ronnie James Dio, I think we all imagine, on some level, that the King (who is currently 54 years old) will live forever, and while that might be true in the metaphorical sense, yesterday the world got a stark reminder that the man is very much flesh and blood like the rest of us: his wife, Livia, revealed that last month he underwent triple bypass open heart surgery, which is, as you can imagine, a very, very serious thing. The good news is, he seems to have come through it okay.

Here’s Livia’s statement in full, which she originally posted on King Diamond’s official website:

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So, I know I’m not supposed to be biased about my favorite team in this blog thing, but c’mon, did you see last Monday’s game? Holy shit! It wasn’t even a real game. Someone should tell Sanchez to relieve his evil twin that has been playing in his place the last two weeks.

On that topic, the Pats faced the mighty Bears yesterday in a brutal snow storm bringing back New England memories of snowbowls, field goals, and ex-cons riding snowblowers. I think the main reason NE buried the Bears, clinching the playoff berth, is that Tom Brady officially changed the team’s footwear from cleats to Uggs. They’re just so warm. A couple weeks ago, the Australian boot company signed Tom Brady to be their spokesperson, claiming that he could get men, a demographic that has shied away from Uggs, to wear their silly boots. Good luck with that.

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Souvenir ticket thinger that was handed out for free at the show. Beats paying sixty bucks for a t-shirt!

I’m not sure if Rammstein played the best show of the year at Madison Square Garden this past Saturday night — but if they didn’t, they certainly came close.

It was the band’s first and only show in America in ten years, and had sold out in thirty minutes, so expectations were understandably pretty high. Personally, I’d never seen the band before — I can’t even claim to be that big a Rammstein fan, in all honesty — but I’d heard so many amazing things about their live performances that I was dying to check ‘em out.

And they delivered in every way. In fact, they more than delivered. I am now a Rammstein fan.

I’m not gonna talk about the music too much. I know that probably seems weird since the music is more important (in theory at least) than the band’s theatrics, but, really, by this point, you know Rammstein, you know their music, and you know how you feel about it. They’re (obviously) not a jam band, so there were no real surprises in that regard — Rammstein lives sounds more or less like Rammstein in the studio.

But the performance… oh, the performance… it’s full of stars!

Here’s some of the shit the crowd was treated to during the course of the band’s nearly two-hour performance:

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[Valient Thorr's eccentric mainman Valient Himself back atcha with another MetalSucks guest blog! In case you missed it, check his prior guest column, a wrap-up of his experience as a fan at the annual Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, TX.]

Alahoyus!

Hope everyone is having great holidays.  We are relaxing a bit after a loooong year, but we wanted to drop a little early present in your lap so you didn’t feel left out this season.  Back in October “we dropped the video for Double Crossed” a month after Stranger was released.  We were looking through all the footage and laughing at the great time we had making it.  We decided to show you a little bit of the “behind the scenes” that goes into making a video like that, and we put this together.  Truth be told, it came out every bit as entertaining as the video itself.

Here’s a few tidbits of info:

1- When the outtakes vid starts, you can see me freaking out after kicking a hole through the wall.  I had been waiting to do that for fucking HOURS.  And I only had one shot, so the pressure was on, if I fucked it up, everyone was going to be pissed.  And, whatever, it worked, so I was psyched.  Plus, we had been there drinking beers since 8am, and this was like 10pm.

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Stephen Kasner, the extremely gifted artist who has done work for, amongst others, Justin Broadrick, Isis, Sunn O))), and integrity, has fallen on hard times, and needs your help. He’s apparently a very private guy, so the particulars of his medical condition are not being publicly disclosed, but he has released the following statement, which our friend Rich Hall brought to our attention via Invisible Oranges:

“Stephen Kasner has recently been diagnosed with some serious medical issues. Like many artists who lack the benefit of medical insurance, he pushed the situation aside until it became unavoidable. Emergency care has been initiated, but he is not out of the woods yet, and his continued care is extremely necessary – hence this call for aid to friends, admirers of his art, and comrades alike.”

Now here’s how you can help:

• You can make a PayPal donation to kasner@stephenkasner.com. If you take a screenshot of your donation and e-mail to Invisible Oranges’ Cosmo Lee at invisibleoranges at gmail dot com, Cosmo will enter you in a drawing to win a hardcover edition of Kasner’s book Works: 1993 — 2006, which you can also check out here.
• You can purchase some Kasner’s work — Lee says that Kasner “has two stores, a main one and one for his Blood Fountains musical project.”  So there are albums and album art and posters and silk screens and books… you get the idea.

Obviously this is a very worthy cause… we’re sending out good thoughts to Kasner, his friends, and his family, and strongly encourage you to donate today, if it’s just a few bucks.

-AR

Last week Dave Mustaine dropped a not-so-subtle hint that there were more Big Four shows coming this summer, and now the first one has been announced: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax will headline the U.K. edition of Sonisphere on July 8, 2011. Biffy Clyro and Slipknot will headline the other two nights of the fest, July 9 and July 10.

This is obviously swell news for British fans, but what about the rest of us? Should we be purchasing plane tickets? I don’t think so. It’s hard for me to imagine that more shows won’t follow. These bands have a good thing going with this Big Four stuff, and they know it. So let’s just sit tight and see what happens next.

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Maybe this has been around for awhile and it’s just now coming to my attention, but I saw the below on Zena Metal Wants to Conquer the World last week, and it elicited one long, giant head scratch from me:

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So Max Cavalera has been running around saying he wants to do the Sepultura reunion, but it ain’t gonna happen because Andreas Kisser is a dick, or, no, wait, Paulo is a dick, or, really, your mom is a dick and it’s all her fault that the reunion isn’t happening. And up ’til now, to the best of my knowledge at least, the remaining Sepulturians have kept their mouths shut about all of Max’s smack-talking.

Well, no more:

Now, of course, you should never say never, but that seems to be pretty definitive, at least for the moment. Maybe if Max points the finger at Igor next, though, he can really make this happen.

-AR

The Internet is a treasure trove of data just waiting to be spliced and re-assembled in new and interesting ways.

A recent feature added to Got-Djent.com gave users the ability to indicate their favorite bands on their own personal profiles, so the keepers of that site have taken that information and produced a map “where the proximity of two bands on the map indicates how much their respective fanbases overlap.” Fascinating. Check it out: (click to enlarge)

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The results are fascinating.

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I really never know what to say at times like this, other than that the world is a poorer place for Chuck not being in it. We miss ya, dude, and we’ll be cranking Death and Control Denied all day.

Share all your best memories and thoughts about the legend in the comments.

-AR

Our “Top 15″ lists will be released on Thursday, but let’s face it, you all barely read the descriptions we write about each album; it’s way more fun to just look at the albums, scroll to the bottom to see what we ranked #1, then fire off a hasty and ill-informed barb in the comments section. So I’d like to take a few minutes to tell you about Mantric’s awesome album The Descent, released earlier this year on Prosthetic, in greater detail; it’s a phenomenal debut that hasn’t turned nearly as many heads as it should have.

Some bands are content to rehash and follow what their peers are doing; others are content to rehash and follow what their peers are doing while changing the equation up just a little bit; still others are willing to completely think outside the box and create something truly new and original. Mantric are in the latter category, and The Descent is a stellar debut record that’s one of the freshest sounding of 2010.

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Kudos are in order for our friends at Decibel — they’ve been named one of The Twenty Best Magazines of 2010 by Paste Magazine. Yep, apparently there’s a magazine that ranks the quality of other magazines. What a world.

ANYWAY, Decibel actually came in twentieth, which still puts them ahead of every other metal magazine in the world — although Paste describes them as covering “heavy rock ‘n’ roll,” I guess so as not to scare away the norms who read Paste and might potentially check out Decibel. Which is silly, ’cause it’s not like they wouldn’t figure out that “heavy rock n’ roll” is just a euphemism for “heavy metal” within ten seconds of picking up an issue od Decibel, but whatever.

I’m not familiar with all of the magazines ranked ahead of Decibel — I’m sad to say I’ve never read an issue of Texas Monthly, for example — but of the ones I am familiar with, some of them are actually quite good (The New Yorker, Wired), and some of them, uh, not so much (New York, which is just a tabloid for Upper East Side rich people who don’t like to admit that they read tabloids.). But the Decidudes definitely deserve all the recognition they can get. I look forward to them now being purchased by a giant multinational publishing conglomerate who will promise not to change anything, and then promptly stick Hinder on the cover.

So if you’re still not getting what is now not only the best metal magazine out there, but one of the twenty best magazine OF ALL SPACE AND TIME IN THE CHARTED GALAXY IN 2010, now would be a good time to get off your ass and order a subscription. And if you use the code “garden&gunpwns” at checkout, you will get a -20% discount!

-AR

Whether you love Kylesa or hate Kylesa, there’s no denying this indisputable fact: they are a band, and they make music.

Also an indisputable fact: the band has announced a headlining tour to kick off next month. Fight Amp will play support on the entire tour, while Zoroaster will also join the tour for six dates, and Rosetta for nine. Honestly, at this point I’d be more excited to see Fight Amp and/or Rosetta than I would Kylesa and/or Zoroaster. But even if I don’t think that Kylesa are the second coming, I have seen them live three or four times, and they’re always pretty good.

And really if you don’t know Fight Amp and Rosetta, fuck yourself. Those bands are awesome, and will crush your reproductive organs into dust.

Here are dates, via Lambgoat:

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So Mercenary shed 50% of their line-up last year, losing vocalist Mikkel Sandager, drummer Mike Park Nielsen, and keyboardist Morten Sandager because they “no longer share the same vision” for the group as their bandmates; remaining members Martin Buus, Jakob Mølbjerg, and René Pedersen apparently “wanted to play faster, heavier and more modern (yet old school) material.” And that sounds encouraging, but anytime a great band suddenly loses a substantial amount of its line-up, fans will inevitably be on pins and needles waiting to hear new material to see how everything pans out.

And if you’re a Mercenary fan, those pins and needles just drove themselves right up into your feet, causing you to fall to the ground screaming in agony while you roll around in a puddle of your own blood.

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