Photo by Tom Medvedich

HEY-OOOO!!! Earlier this week, Darkest Hour unveiled the cover art for their new album, The Human Romance — and now they’ve debuted a new song from that forthcoming offering as well. In case you’re slow and didn’t get it from the headline, it’s called “Savor the Kill,” and you can check it out over at Noisecreep.

I’ve only had a chance to listen to it once and I’m still digesting it, but it definitely rocks… I would almost call this Darkest Hour’s more melodic side, except I don’t wanna scare away the tr00s too bad, ’cause it’s not like the band suddenly added good cop/bad cop vocals or anything.

In any case, check it out here, and then come back and let us know whatcha think. The Human Romance was produced by the one n’ only Peter Wichers, and comes out February 22 on eOne.

-AR

Reviewing Owen Hart’s Earth Control earlier this week, Axl wrote that “If there is a formula for kicking ass, Owen Hart seem to have discovered it.” Well, now’s your chance to experience that formula for yourself: MetalSucks is proud to debut Owen Hart’s track “44 Black” in advance of Earth Control‘s Vitriol Records release this coming Tuesday, January 18. It is going to rip you a new asshole, 110% guaranteed, so crank that shit LOUD and make sure there are no small children in the vicinity before you hit “play.”

And once you realize that Owen Hart are one of your new favorite bands, you can pre-order Earth Control on both CD and vinyl here.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Scorched-Earth Policy
TBA
Label – Self-release
Release date – Spring 2011

Back in 2001, my first taste of Slipknot’s then-forthcoming sophomore album, Iowa, was a two-minute piece of “The Heretic Anthem.” The snippet was found on a wee little mini-CD from Roadrunner Japan alongside similarly abridged jams by Fear Factory, Ill Nino, Bat Cave, Sepultura, and, uh, Cairo, among others. The weird thing is that this CD5-shaped Reader’s Digest of macho gruntcore — clearly designed for overhead play at Japan’s CD superstores — stayed in heavy rotation at my place for months. Crazy, right? But you can see how, once distilled to its 120-second essence, no song could overstay its welcome or commit an unforgivable gaffe — even Ill Nino’s! And listening to them all was like taking a healthy bite of twelve different pizza slices, some undercooked, most boldly similar, and totally fun! Even Ill Nino’s!

Click to read more…

Once again the MetalSucks readership has proven that it knows what’s up with another great band recommendation. The latest reader-suggested band to impress the hell outta me is Italy’s Amia Venera Landscape. Since the two MS readers that suggested this band did such a fine job describing their sound (and I’m feeling lazy at the moment), I’m gonna let them try and sell you on this band just like they sold me. First, reader Filip Johannesson:

I suppose you at Metalsucks all approve of bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan, Cult of Luna and The Ocean? Well, how about a mixture of those three?

Click to read more…

That’s right: MetalSucks photog Alyssa Lorenzon once again braved the smelly, pushy crowds at The Electric Factory in Philly, all in the name of snapping some awesome shots for you to lunkheads to enjoy. This time, she got some ridiculously cool pics of Dimmu Borgir, Enslaved, and Blood Red Throne when they stopped at said venue last month. And, once again, the results are awesome!  Check out Alyssa’s pics after the jump!!!

Click to read more…

Well, the poster above pretty much says it all: I’M HOSTING A 90S ALT. ROCK NIGHT HERE IN NYC!

It all starts at 9:00PM tonight at Idle Hands Bar (25 Avenue B b/w 2nd & 3rd St, downstairs). I’ll be DJing four hours, there’s no cover, and we’re doing this every 2nd and 4th Thursday. There are some pretty good drink specials too, so come out!

RSVP here if you’re that sorta person.

2011 marks the 10th anniversary of metallic hardcore band Ringworm‘s Birth Is Pain LP. Their first for Victory Records, the album remains a essential entry in the Clevo hardcore discography, and a decade later it still retains its ferocity. So it seems only appropriate that Ringworm would celebrate this auspicious occasion with a series of tour dates during which the band plays the entire record live. (There was a rumor that Ringworm would be playing this year’s United Blood fest in Virginia, but the organizers put that one to rest on the B9 board.)

Before this tour goes down, you’re going to want to re-familiarize yourself with the record, so check out live footage of album track “Amputee” from 2006 and peep the announced Birth Is Pain dates below. These are only a handful of the anticipated gigs, so don’t get too upset if you don’t see your city just yet!

Click to read more…

Wormrot aren’t messing about — 2010 saw them rise to prominence in the metal community, and they’re taking full advantage of all the momentum they built up in 2011. They’ve already got a new album, Dirge, scheduled for a May 3 release date via Earache. And even though that date is still almost four months away, they’ve already debuted a new track, “Manipulation,” online. (It’s okay for them to release music that far in advance, see, ’cause the song is only like a minute long, and if Dirge is anything like the band’s last album, Abuse, it’s gonna have 18,000 songs on it anyway.) You can, and should, check it out below. That graphic is the cover art for Dirge, by the way, and it was created by Andrei Bouzikov, who has also done work for Skeletonwitch, Municipal Waste, and Cannabis Corpse.

By the way, the press release announcing the arrival of the above track also confirms the rumor that Wormrot will be playing this year’s Scion Rock Fest in Pomona, CA on March 5; it also says that the band will be doing a full U.S. tour through April, including a stop at SXSW. If you missed the Greatest Band from Singapore Ever Ever Ever on their first U.S. tour last year, you should absolutely not, under any circumstances, miss them again. Abuse is a great record and I’m sure Dirge will be excellent, too, but this band’s full power really becomes apparent in a live setting.

-AR

It goes without saying that an attractive women at a metal show is about as common as a MetalSucks reader who’s seen a vagina somewhere other than the internet. That’s why things like Revolver‘s “12 Hottest Chicks In Metal” calendar are little more than a cheap lie: a more honest title would be “Complete List of Hot Chicks in Metal.”

With such a shortage of ass, metal hotties are in high demand, and men are forced to make tough choices — and what tougher choice is there to make than the classic game of FUCK, MARRY, OR KILL? If you aren’t familiar, FMK is a game in which you are given a list of three names and must choose which one you would fuck, marry and kill. I figured it would be good practice for readers to choose which metal hotties they would eff, marry and kill — check out the menu after the break!

Click to read more…

Altar of Plagues
Mammal
Label – Profound Lore, Candlelight
Release date – April 2011

There was a time when black metal was a small ball-type game: bands focused on making claustrophobic, personal albums to score more in the short term instead of overextending themselves. Of course, now that “black metal” is either too limiting or too broad a genre-defining term depending on who you talk to, gigantic is the rule of the day, from ambition (Nachtmystium) to sound (Deathspell Omega) to extremity to the point of ridiculousness (Waitain, Behemoth). So now couldn’t be a better time for a band like Ireland’s Altar of Plagues to rise to prominence. Through walls of luscious guitars and post-metal length tracks that actually hint at things like “forethought” and “songwriting,” the band swing for the fences, forcefully shirking off the genre’s self-conscious streak and sounding righteously experimental as well as confident. A band like this is destined for things as big as their reverb-soaked albums, sure to be nestled in the arms of critics sympathetic to forward-thinking metal (so, you know, most of them) as well as people that don’t view black metal as a rigid set of ridiculous rules or just generally ridiculous.

Click to read more…

Let the rumor mill for SXSW begin churning!

MS tipster Fredrik Staavi Ekern has it on good faith that Norwegian black-punksters Kvelertak will be appearing at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, TX (March 16-20) along “with 18 other Norwegian bands,” of which Benea Reach is one. Kip and I have been raving about Benea Reach for years so it’s only fitting that this year’s MS contingent at the festival will get to experience the band together (whilst masturbating in the corner) during their first ever U.S. tour. And Kvelertak… well, you all know how we feel about Kvelvertak, having included their 2010 self-titled opus on a number of our year-end lists and having been chosen by you, our faithful readers, as your #2 favorite album of the year.  Though our tipster claims to be in the know, these rumors should still be treated as just those — rumors — until we have some sort of official confirmation.

With a few metal events already announced (C.O.C., Dredg, Coliseum, Dawn of Ashes, Horse the Band, Novembers Doom and many others, as highlighted by our own Corey Mitchell), another Full Metal Texas event in the works and a super-duper top-secret MetalSucks showcase also in the works, 2011 is shaping up to be a mighty fine year for metal at SXSW. Here’s what we can look forward to:

-VN

Havok have released the cover art for their new album, Time is Up, and it definitely impales aardvark babies. Check it out:

I dig this cover so much that I decided to Google the artist, Halsey Swain. (I didn’t realize at first that she also did the art for Havok’s first album, Burn — I liked that album cover, but this one blows it out of the water, I think.) It seems that Ms. Swain’s day job is as a sushi chef in Portland, which just goes to show that my mother was right all along when she told me, “Sushi chefs from Portland are almost always great heavy metal album cover artists, too.”

Here’s another Halsey Swain piece that I want on my wall:

Click to read more…

While MetalSucks shut down for the holidays and New York City braved one of the biggest blizzards it’s seen in years, metalgf and I headed overseas to get our adventure on in Amsterdam and Paris.

Behold, the pictorial story of our epic 10-day journey.

Be forewarned:  traveling whilst looking like a terrorist is most likely a bad idea, so I decided to shave my epic beard (pictured here) before our trip. So pardon the clean-faced gentleman in these photos and let us never speak of this again. Onwards!

Click to read more…

They’re both gonna have members on tonight’s extra-special 100th episode of the Metal Injection Livecast, that’s what!!!

From a press release (What, you think we actually like the Metal Injection dudes? We only communicate via press releases!):

“The Metal Injection Livecast will be celebrating a milestone tonight, 100 first run editions of the live podcast. To celebrate this momentous occasion, the crew will be joined by some great guests. In the first hour of the show, Ben Weinman and Greg Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan will call into the show, and in the second hour, Mike ‘Gunface’ McKenzie and Greg Weeks of The Red Chord will join the show. Fans will be able to listen live starting at 8pm Eastern Time, and interact with the guests via a live chatroom as well as by calling into the show directly, via our fan line at 646-929-1357. An archived version of the episode will be posted shortly after the conclusion of the show.”

So if you’ve ever wanted to talk to these dudes without threat of one of them killing you (Puciato is a short guy, but not a small guy), here’s your chance!  Call in, talk to Greg Weeks about football… I’m sure he’s not sick of that. But above all else, just make sure you listen.

-AR

Y’all remember Ben Robson, right? He’s the very lucky and talented dude who won our totally amazing Nevermore “Create Your Own Conspiracy” contest last year, and consequently got to perform his own version of the title track from The Obsidian Conspiracy with the band, live in concert.

Well, hey, last night, Ben e-mailed us the below music video he made for his song (apparently under the moniker “Robot Zombie Army”) “Faith,” which, before you even ask, I can tell you has nothing to do with either George Michael or Limp Bizkit. And since Ben’s dance moves are just so sexy, I’m only too happy to post said video here.

Ben tells he’s currently recording an album, and hopes to complete it by mid-March, so he can self-release it. There will be a better-produced version of this song on the album, but in the meantime, you can download the current recording here.

We hope you have enjoyed this latest update from the only man ever to threaten Warrel Dane’s job!

-AR

Let’s pretend I wrote an intro and put it here and now you’ve read it and we can move on.

First up we this snow filled day we have Mychildren Mybride’s video for “Jonathan Davis” — err, sorry, “King of the Hopeless” — which debuted on Metal Injection.

At first I was like, “Wait, haven’t I seen this video before?” And then I was like, “Wait, I HAVE seen this video before!”

Click to read more…

Roger Miret, best known as the provocative frontman for the seminal NYHC act Agnostic Front, brandished his punk rock credentials back in 2002 with a backing band dubbed The Disasters. With a street punk sneer, the group produced two albums for raspy Rancid vocalist Tim Amstrong’s Hellcat imprint and, later, a third for indie Sailor’s Grave Records. In contrast with Agnostic Front’s offerings this past decade, The Disasters showcase Miret’s matured bark with a less metallic — though no less enjoyable — sound.

Gotta Get Up Now, the fourth full-length from the band, comes out January 25 on People Like You Records, but you don’t have to wait until then to hear some of it. Check out album highlight “Outcast Youth” streaming below exclusively here at MetalSucks. If you like that, then go ahead and pre-order the album on CD or limited colored vinyl.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

-GS

Fuck Van Halen. Fuck Faith No More. Fuck At the Gates. Fuck Carcass. And fuck Soundgarden, too.

Guys, I’m not dicking around. Think about it for one second — whose reunion could possibly be so momentous that it would make all those other re-alliances look like just another tour? What band has continued for years now without that one key member that really MAKES the band, that we’ve all been DYING to return?

Have you guessed yet?

Yep. That’s EXACTLY who I’m talking about.

Don’t pinch yourself. It’s really happening.

In 2011…

Click to read more…

Necros Christos
Doom of the Occult
Label – Ván, Sepulchral Voice, The Ajna Offensive
Release date – Early 2011

Discovering that there will be a new full-length from Necros Christos in 2011 was one of the best Christmas presents I got this year. While, given my Catholic grandmother’s penchant for gifting me gaudy earrings and gold crucifix necklaces, that isn’t exactly saying much, trust me, it’s a big fucking deal.

Those who are familiar with the Necros Christos cult should be creaming themselves about now. Those who aren’t should remedy that real fucking quick, because this German quartet are due to release the heaviest album of 2011. This is not mere death metal. It sure as hell isn’t overly technical, or overly melodic, and whatever “djent” is, this ain’t it. This is occult metal ov death, and fans of Incantation, Mortuary Drape, Cruciamentum, Hooded Menace, Archgoat, Portal, Black Witchery, Mystifier, Order From Chaos, and all things dark and hateful should take note.

Click to read more…

I just learned that “El Guapo” from The Three Amigos has the same birthday as me, and that he also directed Like Water for Chocolate. My mind is blown.

Also mind-blowing: Cracked‘s revelation that if you play three songs from Tool’s 10,000 Days simultaneously in a certain order, you get a whole new song –

“By themselves, the songs seem completely different: ‘10,000 Days‘ (11:13) is a long prog-rock number, ‘Wings for Marie‘ (6:11) is a quiet song that builds up into a crescendo, and ‘Viginti Tres‘ (5:02) is just a bunch of weird noises. 6:11 plus 5:02 adds up to 11:13 — that’s because you’re supposed to put “Viginti Tres” and “Wings for Marie” together (in that order) and play them at the same time as ’10,000 Days.’”

And once you actually listen to the three tracks this way, it becomes readily apparent that this is no mere coincidence, but, rather, that Tool are pretty much the most brilliant band ever to rock the earth. Check it out:

Cracked even notes that this new song features completely different lyrics from the three tunes from which it is amalgamated. FUCKING AMAZING, right?

This comes from Cracked’s list of “10 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Albums,” by the way. If your brain is still functioning well enough to type, check out the rest of the list here.

-AR

Two readers sent this in. I can’t find the e-mail from the first, and the second did not include his or her name with the message. So, thanks to both of you, whomever you are.