It’s time: MetalSucks, in association with Chuck E. Cheese, needs to sponsor a symposium of metal’s greatest up-and-coming critical thinkers — the Albert Mudrians and Cosmo Lees of the future, if you will. Obviously, The Crud Wizard should be right at the top of the speaker’s list; and, Kevin Stewart-Panko’s son, Sam, has been doing some brilliant work over at The Deciblog, so he should obviously get an invite, too. But this is metal, so the event shouldn’t be allowed to get too stodgy; there needs to be, like, a Minister of Partying or something, someone to really get the booties shack-a-lack-a-lackin’ in the ball pit.

Enter the young men in the below video, sent to us by a reader calling himself simply “Scott.” Scott is not the father of these five- and three-year-old grind freaks — he’s not even a blood relative, apparently — but surely, he is the boys’ favorite “uncle” nonetheless.

Part of me thinks these little dudes are too young to be listening to Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, the same way they’re too young to see A Clockwork Orange and Silence of the Lambs — I mean, they’re great works of art, but not intended for people who don’t yet know what the phrase “tuck it back” means.

But the other part of me just now wants a son really, really bad.

-AR

This year’s edition of the Scion Rock Fest is shaping up to be way better than last year’s… and only a few bands have been announced so far.

Last year’s event wasn’t slouchy; with appearances by Cannibal Corpse, Shrinebuilder, Yob, Voivod, Hate Eternal, Magrudergrind, Ludicra and a number of others, the lineup was pretty sweet. But the layout — four venues, two of them about a mile away from the other two — and the locale — freakin’ cold-ass, drab Columbus, OH — were major downers, especially compared to the free festival’s inaugural year at the Masquerade in Atlana (which hosted four stages in the same venue).

The festival’s organizers seem to have taken note, opting to move the festival to the West Coast for the first time ever in its third year. According to The PRP, the event will take place on March 5th in Pomona, CA (about 30 miles due east of Los Angeles — view a map here) at the Fox Theater and the Glass House, each of which will host two stages.

Oh, you want to know about the lineup instead of my overly verbose introduction??? Read on:

Click to read more…

Fuck. Yes. Though it’s not even a minute long, the above sample from Emmure’s forthcoming Speaker Of The Dead LP enhances my excitement for one of the most anticipated hardcore albums of 2011. Due out February 15, it promises to be the opposite of a Valentine’s Day present: a shiner instead of a bouquet. A digital single entitled “Demons With Ryu” will be out next week via iTunes. If you’re as stoked as me, you can pre-order the album here. The following month, Emmure will support this new record on the road with Asking Alexandria, Chiodos, and Miss May I, though given their propensity for touring I suspect these are just the first of several dates the band will play this year.

In related news, frontman Frankie Palmeri, whom I interviewed this past summer, has just dropped the debut full-length from like-minded deathcore act Monsters on his own label False Prophet Records. Tour dates for Emmure and Monsters, respectively, are below the cut.

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In 2009, MetalSucks did a digital-only release for The Binary Code’s Suspension of Disbelief. We did this because the band was unsigned, the album was awesome, and we thought it would be fun to actually help some great music find its way out into the world for once, instead of just bemoaning the state of metal from our armchairs.

And it was fun! We had a blast, and have wanted to do it again ever since. But it’s hard to find good bands period, let alone good bands that meet our particular set of criteria.

But one such band is Meek is Murder, the brainchild of guitarist/vocalist Mike Keller (ex-The Red Chord), who we’ve been raving about for some time now. So when Mike and his fellow Meek Men Frank Godla (drums, also of Empyreon fame) and Sam Brodsky (bass) told us they were entering the studio this month to record a new album with producer Kurt Ballou — yep, that Kurt Ballou — and that the record did not yet have a home, well, we jumped at the chance to partner with them to help get their message to the masses.

The result will be Algorithms, which we’ll be releasing on March 22. You can check out the awesome cover art by Mr. Keller himself above, and there will be a demo of one of the new songs appearing on the album, “Sundowners,” on our upcoming NYC Sucks comp.

We’ll give you lots more details about Algorithms in the coming weeks, but for now, we just wanted to put it on your radar and let you know to get excited about it — ’cause we sure as hell are!

-Axl & Vince

Congrats to reader Alice Guspie! She correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Goat Ass Trumpet. For her troubles, Alice wins three CDs and/or DVDs of her choice from the current MetalSucks Mansion Shit We Have Lying Around Pile. Congrats, Alice!

This week I am once again giving away some extra goodies we have laying around the Mansion, because holy shit do we not need fifteen copies of Sanctity’s first and final album (don’t worry, we have some good stuff here, too). So, once again, I’ll e-mail the winner and give him or her a list of whatever CDs and/or DVDs we happen to have here at the Mansion, and said winner can take his or her pick of any THREE items.

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 one winner and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was sent in by The Grand Poobah of Unreadable Band Logo Suggesters, David Foust…

-AR

One-man instrumentalist Tre Watson is becoming something of a household (err… bedroom) name in metal circles. Like many of his brethren (Cloudkicker, Keith Merrow, Chimp Spanner, Bulb, etc) he’s proven incredibly prolific; he released his first solo effort just this past April and he’s already back with his second full album just 9 months later.

Death of a Monarch has all the heaviness, melody, shreddery and nut-busting rhythms you’d expect from Tre, and as always seems to be the case in this corner of the metalsphere the album is available for a price of “pay what you want” in multiple high-quality download formats via Tre’s Bandcamp page (where you can stream the entire thing free of charge). You can also stream the entire thing via the widget below, so what’ve you got to lose? Jam out with your clam out to Tre’s new record right now if you know what’s good for ya.

Tre promises a version with vocals at a later date, but I honestly don’t see the point in sullying perfectly great instrumental tracks with boring, generic metal vocals that no one pays attention to.

-VN

Vicious Rumors
Razorback Killers
Label – SPV/Steamhammer
Release Date – April 5, 2011

Sometimes, I judge bands by their names. To be perfectly honest, I always judge bands by their names. Which is why I had successfully avoided ever listening to Bullet for My Valentine. But then they had to go and open for Maiden. So — I first stumbled across Vicious Rumors because I saw their name somewhere and was intrigued. I thought they were hair metal.

I was mistaken.

Click to read more…

Though the year has only just begun, it’s never too early to start speculating about and dissecting this year’s hardcore festivals. The organizers behind the Black N Blue Bowl have already announced a date–May 28th–and are boasting of a lineup worthy of pants-shitting. Given last year’s Supertouch and Yuppicide reunions as well as co-headliners Cro-Mags and Madball, that’s a mighty boast. (Agnostic Front has a new album coming out this year–just saying!)

United Blood, the two-day Richmond Virginia fest, has not only revealed its 2011 dates and location, but a chunk of the roster of artists scheduled to play. And while the initial band list is certainly representative of hardcore today, as it lacks the punch of a cult reunion or surprise headliner. By contrast, last summer’s This Is Hardcore fest included sets from the rebooted Kid Dynamite, Ink and Dagger, and Sheer Terror–and it sold out in less than two days. Furthermore, an overwhelming majority of these bands lready performed at last year’s United Blood, begging the question as to why others aren’t being subbed in. I’d love to see bands with profiles like First Blood and Most Precious Blood on the bill, or artists like Hivemind or Incendiary that could surely benefit from the exposure given by a prominent fest like this.

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As 2009 morphed into 2010 morphs into 2011, the djent scene is more than just a small uprising of guitar message board dorks gone ambitious; it’s now a movement to be reckoned with. But with the explosion of bands within the djent scene we’re now faced with the usual paradox that befalls newly popular genres: scores and scores of imitators with nary an original idea.

Uneven Structure are the exception to the 2nd gen rule. I don’t know much about them, but I must learn more.

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You would have to be going out of your way to be ignorant not to have heard about 22 year old Jared Lee Loughner’s assassination attempt on Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon this past weekend, but in case you really don’t ever read anything besides MetalSucks — this dick wad left six people dead, including a nine year old girl and a district judge, and wounded twelve other people (as of this writing, Giffords herself is still in critical condition).

Once I got over the shock of the news on Saturday, my first thought was, “Well, someone’s gonna try and blame this on metal.” ‘Cause in the words of Chris Rock, “That train is never late.” Hell, less than four years ago, after the Virginia Tech shootings, Vince made the same prediction — and he was right. And that was, obviously, not the first instance of scapegoating metal. There’s about as much connection between listening to metal and trying to kill someone as there is between listening to country and discovering a cure for cancer, but it’s loud, angry, rebellious music that often deals in violent imagery, so it makes it easy for people to point the finger at the music we love.

Enter Rush Limbaugh, a political mind adored by millions of free-thinking, well-informed, and perfectly reasonable people around the world.

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Oakhelm
Echtra
Label – Forest Moon Special Products
Release Date – Late Summer 2011

Oakhelm’s debut full-length, Betwixt aAnd Between, came busting out of the Northwest back in 2007 (already!). To black folk metal devotees, it was an awesome amalgamation of the experienced, genre-crossing members of Assück, Fall Of The Bastards, L’Acephale and Wormwood (among others); for the uninformed, it was just a great fucking album. And even though the follow-up was on my list of most anticipated records of 2010, Forest Moon Special Products‘ John Strachan assures me it’s coming out later this year.

Click to read more…

New Zealand death metallers Ulcerate couldn’t have thought up a better title for their third full-length studio album, The Destroyers of All. Put quite simply, The Destroyers of All impales aardvark babies.

Never before have blast beats been played so viciously behind a band that’s playing so slow — in death metal no less, where speed is usually the name of the game — but Ulcerate skinsman Jamie Saint Merat does just that to set the backbone for the woeful yet delicate crushing which the rest of the band bestows upon the world. Atmospherics and dissonance are the strongest tools in the arsenal of guitarist Michael Hoggard instead of speed and agility. The result is a unique brand of death metal that’s creepy, doomy and jarring instead of groovy and energetic. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter, but the former are what make Ulcerate worthy of your attention; no one else sounds like them, and they’re heavy in a truly new way.

The Destroyers of All comes out on January 25th via Willowtip Records. Pre-order the album here for a measly 10 bones. Find out more on Ulcerate’s Official Website.

[this exclusive promotion has ended]

The sooner you just start thinking of these “Cinemetal Round-Up” columns as Headbanger’s Ball that you can watch anytime without commercials, and as hosted by someone who tells you when he thinks the videos actually gobble blowfish cocks, the better.

And so…

First up today we have a video for the title track from Terror’s latest album, Keepers of the Faith. It’s a pretty average video, but I like Terror and the song is catchy, so I’m willing to cut it some slack. Just this one time, though. After this I expect nothing but Avatardian levels of cinematic innovation… do you hear me, Scott Vogel?

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Not that this should be surprising, but the numbers are in for the calendar year 2010 and album sales are still continuing their woeful decline.

Album sales peaked in the year 2000 when 942.5 million CDs flew off the shelves in a pre-digital marketplace. According to Metal Insider [via Billboard], album sales in 2010 — including all physical and digital formats — dropped to 326.2 million, a 12.8% drop from 2009 and a 65% drop from 2000. Sales of the CD format of albums fell by nearly 20% for the fourth year in a row. Wow!

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Watch out! These young bucks are taking over the world.

Yep yep, it’s my birthday. I’m using my “Get Out of Jail Free” card to steal a Mike Portnoy story away from Vince (who usually covers all things Dream Theater-releated), ’cause I know how to party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard, party hard… [fade out]

ANYWAY, from the perspective of someone who is not as obsessed with Dream Theater as my cohort, this whole Mike Portnoy thing is getting to be pretty pathetic — like, characters from a Woody Allen movie pathetic. Portnoy is like the dude who left his wife of however many years for a younger, hotter, albeit much stupider, woman, and when that woman inevitably got bored by his old saggy balls and inability to shtup ten times a day without the aid of a little blue pill, he begged his wife to take him back. And his wife, to her credit, has been in therapy since he left, and has a new sense of self-worth — so she told him to go suck an egg. And now he’s stuck with this goddamn motherfucking ridiculous Porsche that doesn’t even run right half the time and a big house with no one to fill it.

Mike Portnoy is understandably lonely.

So how he’s dealing with his loneliness? Is he getting some alone time to, y’know, really get to work on Mike Portnoy? Did he join JDate to try and meet someone new? Is he taking that Porsche around to all the hottest clubs in town in an effort to snag another youthful bippy?

Well, kind of — what he’s actually doing is going to the Senior Center for Singles Bingo Night. Which is to say, he’s reuniting Yellow Matter Custard, his Beatles cover band, for the first time in eight years. Gee, I wonder what the occasion is?

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Mid ’00s Las Vegas hard rock outfit Magna-Fi were pretty much doomed from the start. Too smart for hard rock radio and too light for acceptance in fickle metal crowds, Magna-Fi were yet another example of a band who learned the hard way that there’s no money to be made or career to be had in smart, well-written hard rock; there simply isn’t a place for it in the modern heavy music landscape.

But Magna-Fi were a fucking fantastic band and Burn Out the Stars is their magnificent hour. Smart hard rock isn’t easy to come by; all too often hard rock is dominated by lowest common denominator mooks writing lowest common denominator riffs for lowest common denominator, knuckle-dragging fans. Magna-Fi took a different approach with songs that had musical substance and merit and had hooks for the ages. Mike Szuter’s less-than-perfect, slightly gravelly voice was the perfect match for the band’s saturated, crunchy double mid-range guitar attack and powerful, hard-hitting, snugly in-the-pocket drums. Listening back to Burn Out the Stars some years later, I’m still impressed; every single fucking song is a winner.

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[Welcome to our new column, Shit That Comes Out Today. If you need any further explanation as to what this column is about and when it will be published, please consult the Yellow Pages for your nearest neurosurgeon. -Ed.]

With the holiday doldrums of Christmas music and “Best Of”s behind us, 2011 is off to a roaring start in this first official week of album releases. Check out the list of new releases on shelves and e-shelves everywhere starting today from Engel, Sodom and more after the jump.

Click to read more…

On Saturday we celebrated Axl’s birthday with our good friend Tommy Wee. We drank a little drank, smoked a little smoke, had delicious and juicy burgers at the Corner Bistro followed by blowfish fin sake (!) at Sake Bar Decibel on E. 9th St., and then headed over to Idle Hands Bar, NYC’s newest metal drinking hole, where we proceeded to drink ourselves into oblivion.

But before all of that, in our pre-show ritual, we cranked a playlist of classic tunes from our youth to set the tone. I’m pretty sure if Axl had one song to listen to on repeat for the rest of his life — his Desert Island One, as it were — this song would be it. Happy Birthday Axl!

In case you haven’t heard, we’re having a fun little contest: grow out your beard in time for the March 29th release of Amon Amarth’s new album Surtur Rising, and you could win a bunch of cool shit including a lock of vocalist Johan Hegg’s beard, a super-deluxe limited edition copy of the album, a signed drum head and a bunch of swag from Metal Blade Records and MetalSucks. Ladies are encouraged to enter as well by growing out their armpit and/or leg hair; one winner will be chosen from the men, and one from the women, selected by Johan Hegg himself!

Instructions for how to enter are posted here! The deadline is 11:59pm EST tomorrow night, Tuesday, January 11th. So send those entries in! Let the hair-growing commence.

Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to get your face fucked right the fuck off.

Even though Owen Hart had two of the best songs on the second edition of Scott Hull’s This Comp Kills Fascists last year, I did not immediately rush to listen to my promo copy of Earth Control when it arrived. Never again will I make this mistake. Earth Control announces Owen Hart an unstoppable force of FUCK YOU in metal. Pay attention.

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