Nothing says “I love you” like lining our coffers with money for weed buying a sweet new “Appetite for Deconstruction” MetalSucks t-shirt for your loved one this holiday season. Or just for yourself — because hopefully you love yourself too; really, you’re special, just like mommy always told you, so go on and buy yourself a present.

The bad boys pictured on this shirt in classic GN’R style are Axl Rosenberg (center), Vince Neilstein (bottom), Kip Wingerschmidt (top), Anso DF (left), Sammy O’Hagar (right), and Gary Suarez (in between Axl and Vince). We’re a bit bummed that we could only fit the senior-most MS staffers on this shirt, but maybe next time we’ll go all Arcade Fire on your asses and include Sergeant D playing a hurdy gurdy. And before you all get in a tizzy trying to guess who the model pictured above is, we really don’t know; we found the dude curled up in a dark corner of the Mansion early this morning right outside Kip’s room and he agreed to model our new shirt in exchange for a McGriddles.

These shirts are part of a limited edition run of only 84 prints, so be sure to order yours now; they’re almost all gone.

Or you could just get your loved one this.

Congrats to readers Jimmy Fondren and Suraj Patra, both of whom correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Insan Iblis. (Also, congrats to all the readers who noticed I’ve used this logo before. Whoopsie.) Jimmy and Suraj each win a grind prize pack from Relapse Records, containing the latest releases from Murder Construct, Kill the Client, and Phobia. Enjoy those, fellas! And if you didn’t win, don’t forget that you can order each of the albums directly from Relapse here.

This week we have another killer prize to give away: two copies of Lamb of God‘s Hourglass box set on vinyl! The set includes all six of Lamb of God’s studio albums (Burn The Priest, New American Gospel, As The Palaces Burn, Ashes of the Wake, Sacrament, and Wrath) on 180 gram vinyl, encased in a linen-wrapped collector’s box. Pretty awesome, right? You can order one of these bad boys here, or, of course, just enter this contest.

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 two winners and announce their names next week.

This week’s logo was suggested to us one of this week’s winners, Suraj Patra. And I’m quite sure we’ve never used it before!

-AR

At the Gates were supposed to be done forever ever ever for reals yo after their reunion tour wrapped in ’08, but I guess they had too much fun/made too much money/some combination thereof to stick to that threat, ’cause they’ve posted the following on their official web page:

Click to read more…

I went and saw Watain here in LA a couple weeks ago. I’m not a fan, but my girlfriend loves them and bought the tickets like two months in advance. Even though their music doesn’t do a whole lot for me, I have to admit they put on an excellent show. The stage was all gussied up with rotting, stinky cow heads, burning crosses (I was actually surprised you can do this in a post Great White world), and like 483 lit candles. According to some others I’ve spoken with, they were all rubbed down in some kind of animal blood as well (imagine that pre-show ritual!). This certainly made for some eye candy while sitting through an hour of songs I don’t know at all. As my mind drifted off throughout the set I pondered many things in regards to this band’s appeal, or at least this kind of entertainment in general. In fact, to call it “entertainment” is probably selling some of these fans’ dedication short. There are people who are really down with this shit.

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“BIG PANTS WASTE PRECIOUS FABRIC”

Step into my Nocturnus time machine and take a magical journey with me into a time long, long ago, an excursion into a world that scarcely resembles our own. In this world — we’ll call it Moshtopia — hardcore kids are known for wearing giant, baggy pants, not skinny jeans; there are people under 30 that know who Black Flag is; and metalcore bands worship Krishna, not Christ. This is not a fanciful episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adeventure fan fiction, my friends, — it is the strange and wonderful world of mid-90s hardcore!

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Shelby Cobras of Illogical Contraption must be trying to stir up shit, or as we so fondly call it in Interhole jargon, trolling. Because some of his choices on his “Top 20 Shittiest Metal Releases of 2010” list are just downright infuriating: Tryptikon is shittier than Korn? Nachtmystium is shittier than both? REALLY?

Of course we take these things in stride here at the MS Mansion because we’re professional trollers ourselves. But some of you will most certainly take things quite seriously which always makes for interesting comment fodder. It’s like pulling puppet strings, I tells you.

Wait until you see what his #1 Shittiest Metal Album of 2010 is. Go read the list, then come back here and argue.

What’s your #1 shittiest metal record of 2010???

-VN

I sat down this morning to watch whatever music videos were released since we shut down for the night, and the first one I came across was “Stronger” by Dead by April. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t really remember the band, so I hit “play.”

And it’s fucking awful. And now I want to know if I know this band or what, and so I used our search function — yes, unlike our readers, I know how to take five seconds to search for a band and see if we’ve written about them before — and, sure enough, not only have I panned Dead by April before, but I more or less vowed never to listen to them again.

And that’s how terrible Dead by April are: I couldn’t even remember them, or how much I hated them the first time, because they’re not even bad in a memorable way. In another year they’ll probably release another video, and like a schmuck, I’ll sit down to watch it, completely forgetting that I’ve now listened to them, and hated them, twice. And five years from now, some publicist or label rep will ask me to check out their new album, and I’ll agree, having, for a third time now, completely forgotten about them. And then at some point they’ll break-up, and all the members will grow old and die, as humans are wont to do, and they will still have made absolutely no impact on me, this planet, or its other inhabitants.

But at least then, I won’t keep accidentally listening to their shitty, shitty music.

-AR

Another week, another inbox full of really good bands deserving of record deals over any given verb the noun haircutcore scenester. Sigh… the injustice of it all. First World Problems.

• Columns: Groovy deathgrind? Why not… whoever said you can’t swing and grind at the same time is no friend of mine. Columns hail from Charlotte and Winston-Salem, NC and have two 2-minute bangers posted on their Bandcamp page.
• Cloud Zone: Atmospheric instrumental post-metal with a hint — but really, just a hint — of djent. This is like what would happen if the Periphery dudes listened to way more Isis and Cult of Luna than Meshuggah.
• Lycergus: Frosty psychedelic black metal just like grandma used to make… except from the barren hot desert of Wichita Falls, TX.

-VN

Whilst trolling Facebook for hot babez last night I stumbled upon the following nugget of wondrousjoy:

Yes yes yes YES, ya’ll! One might accuse me of being one of the aforementioned unreasonably excited fellows except I’d say that my excitement is actually quite reasonable; East of the Wall’s progtastically unpretentious Ressentiment is easily one of my favorite metal record of 2010. I haven’t listened to it in a while so maybe I oughtta give it a spin right now to get in the right mind frame to write this post… ah, yes… there it is… that opening riff of “The Ladder” makes me want to punch things. Holy cow.

In any case, one might think it odd that East of the Wall are almost done writing a new record in the same year in which they released one, but there’s more to the story.

Click to read more…

A still from Times of Grace’s riveting new video. Kubrick couldn’t have shot it any better.

It was less than a week ago that Times of Grace, the new project for past and present Killswitch Engage members Jesse Leach and Adam Dutkiewicz, debuted their first video, for the song “Strength in Numbers,” and now they’ve already posted a second, “Where the Spirit Leads Me.” It’s debuted exclusively via Record Store Day and Metal Club, and while it’s not embeddable yet, you can check it out here.

The video itself is honestly not that interesting; it basically combines the worst parts of The Blair Witch Project (e.g., shaky footage of the ground) with stuff that seems more interesting when I watch it on The Discovery Channel (e.g., a swarm of flies doing… something). But it’s the second song we’ve heard from Times of Grace, and so it gives us a better sense of what the project is going to sound like — and, as we suspected, it’s apparently going to sound exactly like Killswitch Engage.

Click to read more…

So Alter Bridge have debuted their new video, “Isolation” (above), over at Noisecreep , and, put simply, it makes no fucking sense. The band apparently made the conscious decision not to turn “the video for ‘Isolation’ into a narrative matching the album’s theme,” and instead decided to produce what guitarist/war criminal Mark Tremonti calls “a tribute to the fans.” That’s really just rockstar-speak for “a clichéd life-on-the-road video,” which is fine, whatever. It seems like every arena rock band makes one of those sooner or later, so I guess it was just AB’s turn.

But I looked up the lyrics to the song because taking a track called “Isolation” and re-fashioning it as “a tribute to the fans” struck me being kinda funny. And, sure enough, the words to this particular song are so incredibly ill-suited for this purpose that we can only assume that no one involved in the making of this video thought that those very same fans would ever pay attention to those words. And that just makes the whole thing even funnier, because it means that Alter Bridge have paid tribute to their fans by assuming that their fans are all idiots.

In case you’re curious, here’s a sampling of those lyrics:

Click to read more…

Last month, we debuted the track “ZX” from Dukatalon’s Saved by Fear, and the song was immediately declared “fucken crap” by someone who doesn’t know how to spell “fucking” correctly. But luckily, you weren’t held back in the first grade because you know how to read and write, not just because your mom gives really good head and was willing to spend some alone time with the principal, so you know how to spell “fucking,” and you know good music when you hear it, and your reaction to “ZX” was a simple “More, please.”

Well, you’re in luck: our friends over at The Deciblog are now streaming Saved by Fear in full in advance of its Relapse release one week from today. They even got the band’s own Zafrir Zori to do some commentary on each song, so you have a better understanding of what the band is fucken talking about.

Go here to give Saved by Fear a listen, then come back and let us know what you think. But not if you can’t even spell swear words correctly. I know we make typos here on MetalSucks, but if there’s one thing we never fuck up, it’s the seplling of swear words.

-AR

Well here’s some surprising news to start your morning: Metal Underground is reporting that Judas Priest will do one last tour, and then retire as a band.

I kind of don’t believe it, because we hear artists announce their retirement all the time, and then it doesn’t stick, either ’cause they get bored or greedy or whatever (see: Ozzy). And yet, some part of me hopes it’s true. Even if their last couple of albums have been a little lackluster, Priest live shows are still all kinds of awesome, and the band has never done anything to embarrass themselves. It would be nice to see a revered act like JP quit while they’re ahead for a change.

I don’t really know what else to say about such bittersweet news… Weigh in with your thoughts below.

-AR

Mazel tov to reader Emily Coate, who correctly answered last night’s trivia question — yes, Periphery have at least one Jewish member. I know that drummer Matt Halpern is Jewish; a few of you said in your e-mails that Misha Mansoor is, too, which I did not know, but could very well be true. In any case, Emily wins wins a mystery prize courtesy of Century Media, and a dreidel, courtesy of us. Yyyyyyaaaayyyy Emily!

Now here’s the trivia question for night 6:

• Which metal musician comes from an Orthodox Jewish background and has some 200 relatives living in Israel, including his brother and grandmother?

E-mail your answer to axl [at] metalsucks.net with the phrase “HEAVY METAL HANNUKKAH – NIGHT 6″ in the subject line. All entries should include your name and mailing address in addition to your answer, and are due by 5 pm tomorrow (Tuesday, December 7) evening. Shortly thereafter we’ll announce the winner and post night 7’s trivia question. And while you don’t have to be Jewish to enter the contest, you do have to live in the U.S. Shrug.

-AR

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 (get a full list of tour dates here). Our first entry featured Veil of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo taking us on a run-through of his entire live rig, and the second entry was an update from Revocation’s Dave Davidson, and in the third Periphery’s Misha Mansoor talked about his new direct-to-PA live amp setup. For the fourth and final entry, here’s Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum resuscitating his “The Underrated” MetalSucks column:

LETS GET THIS BAND BACK TOGETHER: CURSED

Greetings from a rat infested parking lot in Lubbock, TX, AKA the road! While I could write about the military strategy Lonestar and Ryan used to get the Whiskey A Go Go dancers on the bus this week in LA or how the 5150 (3′s) made by Fender/EVH might just be the ultimate high gain amp, I’m not. Rather I have decided to litter the internet with yet another opinion-related piece.

Since I have written in the past of unsung heros or overlooked records, I thought I might do that once more. Living on tour every day keeps us surrounded by music and fresh sounds (good or bad) assaulting our ears every day. Still, it’s important not to forget great bands and records that for whatever reason have their little notch in time. So I’ll just plug our new record, The Human Romance, out Feb 22, 2011 on E1 and then I’ll use this space right here to tell you about a band that should not be forgotten: Canada’s Cursed.

Click to read more…

So, I’m giving you guys an open invite to my place in Quincy, MA for tonight’s matchup between the Pats and the Jets. We’re playing cards, probably the re-release of NBA Jams, getting some Lynwood’s pizza, and enjoying ourselves. Don’t worry about finding my place; if I seepeople roaming my street with wings and team jerseys, then I’ll assume it’s because of this post and invite them on up.

Steelers-Ravens battled it out for first this week. More important than seeing who was going to be king of the AFC North was to see who was a better shower product. The Ravens’ Ray Lewis and his Old Spice body wash in one corner and the Steelers’ Troy Palmolive… Paramore… Pinkerton… whatever his name is, representing Head and Shoulders in the other. Polamalu takes this one just as he took the game. His late-in-the-game sack caused QB Joe Flacco to fumble, which, in turn, led to the game-winning touchdown. No worries though, Baltimore – you may have lost, but you did break Big Ben’s nose and nearly killed TE Heath Miller. Not too shabby.

Click to read more…

Next year’s early contribution to drunk driving accidents and teen pregnancy will come in the form of a headlining tour from Buckcherry, with support in the form of All That Remains (Making their conversion from metal to radio rock official — eat that, Atreyu!), Hellyeah, and The Damned Things.

I know that Vince is a Buckcherry fan, but they always seemed like GN’R Lite to me (vocalist Josh Todd and guitarist Keith Nelson were even in Velvet Revolver for ten seconds — Nelson retains a songwriting credit on the VR track “Dirty Little Thing”). I think I’ve made my feelings about All That Remains and Hellyeah pretty clear on this site before, but in case you wandered here via a search engine, please allow me to reiterate that the facts that I’m not inbred and I expect my singers to be able to sing disqualifies me from joining these bands’ respective fan clubs. And I want to like The Damned Things because of the presence of the Every Time I Have Anthrax dudes, but I also want to understand the appeal of Glee because Jane Lynch was really funny in The 40 Year Old Virgin, and it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me.

So this isn’t as lousy as, say, a Hinder tour, but, yeah, I’m gonna pass, thanks.

If you disagree with me, you can get dates here.

-AR

This simple-yet-visceral guitar solo makes me its bitch every time I hear it.

As the end of the year draws closer and closer, we’ve been spending an increasing amount of time debating which metal albums were the best of 2010; indeed, the staff of MetalSucks will all post our “Best Of” lists next Thursday, December 16, right before we shut down for the holidays. (And don’t worry, there’ll be a reader’s poll, too.) But while that argument flames on, Listmaster General Carlos Ramirez has stirred up some shit of a whole different color over at Noisecreep, posting that site’s list of 10 best songs of 2010.

Click to read more…

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 debut album from The Unravelling.

When last we met with Calgary’s musical journeyman Steve Moore back in 2009, he was helming prog-metal band Inner Surge and goth/industrial creepsters Post Death Soundtrack. The former went tits up after releasing the respectable An Offering back in 2008; the latter continues its dark electronica unabated. Not much bound the two projects together other than Moore’s charismatic vocals, which evinced a heart-on-sleeve sincerity whether he was screaming or, more likely, crooning in his flexible baritone. His lyrics could be fiercely political or totally personal, and in either case Moore preferred ideas that were communicated straightforwardly and efficiently. Put simply, Moore is a working man’s thinking man’s metal singer.

Moore has met his aural complement in Gustavo De Beauville, the founder and main instrumentalist of The Unravelling. The Barbados expat is a fine guitarist and arranger, but his biggest talent is for synthesis. On The Unravelling’s debut album, 13 Arcane Hymns, Tool’s layered textures and Machine Head’s grooves are streamlined into free-flowing compositional nuggets. De Beauville keeps the transitions tight and the styles varied, and he and drummer Casey Lewis have the chops to handle the burbling atmosphere of “Becoming Chaos,” the straightforward aggression of “Where Will it End,” and the ethnic overtones of “In the Safe House” and “Arjuna.”

Click to read more…

Earlier this year I called Kvelertak’s self-titled release “the feel good hit of the summer,” and gave it four out of five horns up; it deserved at least one half of a horn more. I am struck again and again and again but what a FUN album this is. It has been my pre-game soundtrack of choice since I first heard it in May, and I often find myself smiling while listening to it. And you know how much I hate fucking smiling.

But I can’t help it — this one just makes me wanna party party party. And I guess Chase Macabre at Crustcake agrees, ’cause last week he posted a beautiful ode to this album as a cure for the wintertime blues:

“Feeling seasonal depression yet? Has the sun setting at 4PM these days put you in an abysmal depression you can’t shake? Do you just hate the way your family starts playing Christmas music 24/7 before Thanksgiving day is even complete? Then I may have a blaze of sunshine in the northern sky for you, let Kvelertak be your medicine.”

Chase is dead-on; in fact, I’ve been using this “medicine” recently for this very reason. The sun could die tomorrow and I’d probably still be pretty happy so long as there was Kvelertak cranking.

Read the rest of the Crustcake piece here. And, for real, friends — if you’re not listening to Kvelertak, you must hate your life.

-AR