I don’t think anyone’s ever proclaimed that Dragonforce are a bastion of creativity, but this 10-second ditty posted on Heavy Blog is Heavy drives the point home. Still, I can get down with The Force from time to time in the name of fun. What are you, some kind of fun hater??
Here’s to hoping ZP Theart’s replacement is a bit more creative in the lyrics department.
-VN
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Much has been made on this site about Trap Them, namely us not really being that into them and you all not really being that into us not really being that into them. I have nothing against this band at all, they’re just not really my thing. One time a member of the band confronted me about not liking his band, berated me for expressing my honest opinion on the Internet, and then revealed that he hates all bloggers de-facto. But from there the conversation spiraled into a spirited conversation about music criticism and the Internet that lasted close to an hour, and it was a really fun debate. We made nice, shook hands, and called it a night.
So I’m checking out this new Trap Them song “The Facts” posted over at SMN News (via Brooklyn Vegan), and I’ll say this: I’m liking it much more than I’ve liked any of the band’s prior material. Some of that might have to do with Kurt Ballou’s production, extremely tight and crisp yet somehow still incredibly aggressive and raw, and some of that’s got to do with the song itself which is pretty darn catchy. One might even say that I like the song, straight up! Imagine that. I’m not about to whip my dick out and start fapping all over my keyboard — Trap Them are way too cool, and they’ll never be nerdy, proggy or shreddy enough for me to do that — but “The Facts” is a neat little hardcore ditty that’s got me bobbing me head.
Darker Handcraft is the first record Trap Them will release via new label Prosthetic Records, and it’ll come out on March 15th. Pre-order it here.
-VN
I can’t even fucking believe this. Max Cavalera has been calling for a reunion of the classic Sepultura line-up for awhile now, first blaming Andreas Kisser and then Paulo Jr. for the fact that it hasn’t happened yet; and then the current Sepultura line-up released a video in which they just killed the idea dead, dead, dead. And that should have been the end of it.
Unfortunately, it’s not. From Blabbermouth:
Our email inboxes have been blowing up since Monday with excited pleas to check out the new track by the U.K.’s Sylosis. I loved Sylosis’ 2008 ripper of an album Conclusion of An Age, a shining example of what modern thrash (read: not re-thrash) can and should be, a healthy mix of old and new. The very young stallions of Sylosis quickly worked their way into my metal heart and Conclusion just missed being included on my 2008 year-end list; it’s that good. If you don’t own it yet, I highly recommend you buy that album now
So it wasn’t for want of trying, but I’ve just been so swamped with catch-up listening from the holidays that I didn’t get to check out the new track, “Empyreal (Part 1)” until now… and holy shit, you guys were right as usual. Of course we’re only talking about one track here, but it seems like Sylosis have matured leaps and bounds in the past 2+ years; “Empyreal” finds the band only hinting at their thrash roots, ditching the remnants of metalcore present in their sound on their first full-length, getting heavier, getting more technical, improving their songwriting… just getting better all around. I’ll reserve final judgment until I hear the full album, but I’d say these guys have found a real sound of their own. If the rest of the album is this good, Edge of the Earth is going to be an absolutely monolithic face-fucker. Stream “Empyreal (Part 1)” below:
Edge of the Earth comes out on March 11th via Nuclear Blast.
-VN
Thanks: Tom Braund, Randy Gatto, and a bunch of commenters.
Some of the members of Bloodjinn are in Vanisher now, and Vanisher is an excellent band, so I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or nuthin’, but – I am so fucking ready for Bloodjinn to get back together. I feel like I hear rumblings that it’s gonna happen at least twice a year, but so far, zip, zilch, zero. And our world is still in some dire need of Bloodjinning*.
With Southern California black metallers The Funeral Pyre making this blogger’s year-end list (again) in 2010, what better time to catch up with frontman John Strachan than on the cusp of another year, jam-packed for the band with new tour dates, new music, and new(-ish) releases? Plus, he’s got a few picks of his own from last year — and a few gripes — to boot.
On the eve of the January release of a Vultures At Dawn 180 gram LP, MetalSucks took some time to talk with Strachan about the band, the album, and Forest Moon Special Products, Strachan’s record label with more than a few admirable releases under its belt. The conversation after the fold.
Vince and I are in the process of putting the finishing touches on NYC Sucks, the two-volume, ABSOLUTELY FUCKING FREE comp we announced last month. Listening to the 27 tracks which are on the comp as we write the liner notes reminded me — as if I really needed reminding — how many incredible metal bands are currently a part of the New York scene, and how fortunate we are to live here. We’re SO STOKED to get to share these bands with you guys, I can’t even tell you. I wish we were putting this thing out today.
In case you didn’t read our initial announcement/smoked too much pot and forgot about it, here’s the rundown again: like I said, NYC Sucks will be split into two volumes, with the first one coming out on January 18 (which is less than two weeks away!), and the second coming out February 22nd.
NYC’s metal scene is literally exploding at the seams. There are so many great local bands playing shows on a regular basis that on any given night you’ve got to make some pretty hard choices about where to get your headbang on. We try and highlight some of our favorite local bands on MetalSucks from time to time, but frankly it’s just not possible to keep up; seemingly every month there’s another fantastic band that’s as good or better than any number of “signed” acts from around the U.S. or the world, only they’re not that well-known outside of our city’s borders. We’ve included a few smaller signed bands that we feel are an integral part of the scene, but for the most part all the acts on these compilations are not signed. Both compilations will be available for download right here on MetalSucks, will contain high-quality 320kbps MP3s, and will include a PDF of digital liner notes with information about all the bands. And because the whole point of this thing is to spread the word of all the great bands we have around here, both volumes will be available completely for FREE. Send ‘em to your friends, put them up on torrent sites, submit them to .rar Mediafire blogs… just spread the friggin’ music by any means necessary.
After the jump, get the full list of bands that will be appearing on each volume, plus the cover for Volume 2. The covers were designed by the very talented Jesse Zuretti.
I went to Hong Kong on my Christmas vacation. How’s that for a short, sweet introduction?
Ten days in Hong Kong with five nights on the main island and five nights on the Kowloon side (“Kowloon Bay? OH MY GOD I was born in Kowloon Bay!” Name the movie and you get a prize. I said this every time we caught sight of the bay. Which was all the time. I really don’t know how I came back not in a body bag). Let’s put it this way; If there’s ever a National Lampoon’s Chinese Vacation, I’d say my boyfriend and I would beat out the antics of Chevy Chase and Beverley D’Angelo by quite a bit.
I’ll spare you our gastronomical, dumbass foreigner, and, er, intestinal adventures for the sake of keeping this metal-related, but I will say that I’m fairly certain I ate horse without knowing it (It was in my lo mein. Fun fact: lo mein isn’t entirely an American invention! I found it in China, and it’s exactly the same as in the States. Albeit with unidentified animal parts in it. I’m not certain, but it definitely wasn’t pork. Or chicken. Or beef.), and for the entirety of the trip, I had a nasty cough that made me hack and spit mucus (and almost crack a rib) like the best of the elderly men there. China, though it may technically be Hong Kong and not China China, is not for the weak.
I admit, I wasn’t well versed, or versed at all, in the local metal scene. Hell, I can only name one band from China (Tang Dynasty), so I thought it might be cool to do a little research on the subject.
A screencap of the hard drive on which Unearth are tracking their new album. These are all working titles, natch.
Since Unearth split with drummer Derek Kerswill back in October, fans have been wondering who the metalcore pioneers would find to fill his spot. And while a full-time replacement has yet to be decided, the band has announced that Killswitch Engage (and maybe still Blood Has Been Shed?) skinsman Justin Foley (no, not the Justin Foley that sometimes graces this site with his presence) will play all the drums on their album. The band explains in a statement:
There seemed to be quite a bit of outrage in response to the Amon Amarth Viking Beard Contest we announced yesterday. In its original incarnation the contest was only going to be open to men, but in an effort to include women in the fun as well we came up with the pubic hair idea at the last minute. It was well-intentioned but wrongly received, and those of you who expressed anger that men only have to show their face while women have to show their privates are certainly justified in feeling that way. It was sexist of us to request those kinds of entries on an unequal playing field, and we apologize.
We’d still like to keep the contest open to women, though; instead of growing out the hair around your nether regions, women are encouraged to grow and/or style their armpit hair or leg hair to enter this contest! The photo submission guidelines at the beginning and end of the contest remain the same.
Additionally, there were now be two identical prize packages, thus leveling the playing field even more; one for men, one for women.
It is with extremely heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Basil, frontdog of death-grind legends Caninus. Noisecreep is reporting that Basil was put to sleep last Wednesday after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Caninus is the side-project of Most Precious Blood’s Justin Brannan and Rachel Rosen. The band was fronted by two pit bulls, Budgie and the now-deceased Basil. Charred Walls of the Damned / Howard Stern sidekick Richard Christy played drums on a few of their tracks and plans to contribute to a final Caninus record dedicated to Basil, due later this year. When asked whether he planned to continue on under the Caninus moniker after this next record without his best buddy Basil, Budgie simply said, “woof.”
No, but seriously… we know how pets can touch peoples’ lives and we’re sincerely sorry to hear about Basil’s passing. R.I.P., and our condolences to Justin and Rachel.
-VN
Last month we told you about “Justify Your Shitty Taste,” a new weekly column at The Deciblog in which one of Decibel’s writers defends a much-loathed album. Kevin Stewart-Panko wrote the inaugural edition of the column, in which he stood up for the most universally loathed metal album of the 21st century, Metallica’s St. Anger; apparently, Mr. Stewart-Panko thought he was still way too popular amongst internet dweebs, because now he’s written another edition, this time defending Cryptopsy’s The Unspoken King, which, no joke, might be the second most universally loathed metal album of the 21st century.
Stewart-Panko’s defense is typically well-written and intelligent; he asserts that Cryptopsy “didn’t allow themselves to be completely consumed by what was going on around them, but allowed themselves to be influenced just enough by the world outside of death metal,” and basically calls people who were pissed about the clean vocals elitist douche bags:
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 Mortiferous Scorn’s Masochistic Therapy.
I feel for the one-man death metal project, I really do. In addition to the logistical difficulties of touring, a one-man DM act has no bandmates with which to pound beers and nobody else to contribute sick riffs. The one-man black metal project works because the isolation of the music is often the point. Death metal, on the other hand, is a music of power and outward force. And while death metal tends to prize the power of the individual, you can’t fight the facts: more people = more force.
And so it follows that part of the work of a one-man DM band is to sound as little like a one-man DM band as possible. Such self-annihilation used to be impossible when drum machines still sounded like drum machines. Nowadays, solitary standard-bearers like Putrid Pile and Insidious Decrepancy can do a credible imitation of a full band. They work because their music is fully-formed enough, their ferocity direct enough, to overcome both the synthetic edges of their drum machines and the inherently silly image of a single guy playing four instruments simultaneously.
We’ve known for awhile now that Atlanta’s From Exile were working on a Nine Inch Nails covers EP; we’ve even gotten to hear a sample of the band’s version of “Ruiner,” which, I wrote in September, “promises that these covers will most certainly not be rote re-recordings of the original.”
Well, now the band has released a preview of another NIN cover, “The Great Below,” and this sounds so little like the original (from 1999′s The Fragile) that I’m not even sure I would have recognized it if I didn’t know what it was. Which is awesome! I’ve long said there’s no point to doing covers if you’re not gonna put your own spin on it, ’cause you’ll never be able to just top the original. And this sounds pretty killer:
There’s still no official release date for the EP, but it will be available for free download (!!!) sometime this spring right here. The band is also playing a gig at the Earl in Atlanta this Friday night; get details here and go if you can. I’ve never seen these dudes live, but I have to assume they rule.
-AR
(click to enlarge! an absolute must to fully experience this photo.)
Normally any unsolicited emails that come to my inbox with large attachments get instantly deleted (SO ANNOYING… 3MB 300dpi images are NOT NECESSARY FOR THE WEB, PEOPLE!) but now and again something so dreadful comes along that it’s worth savoring and holding onto. In case you’ve not been privy to this column before, welcome to The Dreadful Demo Files.
Today’s photo comes from a band who shall remain nameless for the sake of their integrity. But everything here is just absolutely stellar… make sure you click the above thumbnail to see this photo in all of its terrible glory. Abysmal green screen / photoshop job with visible editing scars? Check. Stormy, apocalyptic sky with obviously drawn in birds? Check. Horribly rendered flames and animal bones along with every other metal cliche in the book? Check, check and check. Nerdy old dudes trying to look badass? Ginormous check!
Absolutely amazing. A++++ WDBWA.
-VN
No longer is exposing oneself for all the Internet to see the sole domain of ex-Winds of Plague keyboardists, nor is it any longer confined to members of the female sex; while I was off galavanting in Amsterdam and Paris over the holidays and Axl was galavanting with Sacha the Death Metal Puppy in Blizzageddon NYC 2k10, we apparently missed the biggest (pun intended) penis-exposing scandal in metal since Peter Steele showed his steel peter in Playgirl all those years back (and I guess Phil Varone last year, but I haven’t seen those pics yet… and let’s face it, who cares?). So, yes, we know this is kind of old news, but how can we resist?
The photos of Dusty Boles’ blue-veined milk machine were posted by a jealous ex-girlfriend on IsAnyoneUp.com — a site which apparently specializes in penis pics from jealous ex-girlfriends (dudes, better watch out what you do with the “private” sexy-time pics!) — and were first picked up by The Gauntlet. Boles asked The Gauntlet to remove the photos (they declined), but later came to terms with his yogurt-slinger’s newfound fame and issued a statement on the matter:
Here is the deal with the pics… Say what you will, and I am sure you will, but at one point a while back I was considering posing for Playgirl Magazine. I have been told that my flaccid penis is larger than most erect penises so I figured it would be a kick to try and get into the magazine. My girlfriend at the time was all about this, but after things went south with our relationship she took some of the pics and posted them online. I only recently found out about these shots being posted for the world to see. At first I was upset but the more I thought about it I realized not only was there was nothing I could do about it, but I did have the intentions of posing for a mag so my dick would have been out there for the world to see anyway so why let it get to me. In terms of matters not having anything to do with my penis, we are currently hard at work on the new Rose Funeral record that will be out in 2011. Since my penis seems to be such a big hit we might just use it for the cover of the new album. I guess you’ll all just have to wait and see.
I gotta hand it to Dusty… that’s quite a wang you’ve got there, sir! Certainly Playgirl worthy. But dude… you shave? Come on, that’s cheating.
And now for the very-NSFW pics:
In the latter months of 2010, I got reacquainted and re-enraptured with stoner rock, as reflected by several of the selections in my hand-picked Top 15 Albums of the Year. Over the holiday break, the proverbial ‘munchies’ set in and I found myself raiding dedicated websites like The Soda Shop for more as if they were well-stocked refrigerators and cupboards. In between praise for artists like Gozu, Red Giant, and The Sword, some heretofore unknown delicacies of riffage and groove were presented to me.
Amidst all this gorging, I came across a delectable hard rock morsel imported from Norway: Honcho. Self-released, Battle Of Wits bursts with hard-charging desert blues rock that will suit the discriminating palates of those who favor Queens Of The Stone Age and Monster Magnet over Emperor and Burzum. Though the album cover features a rather unappetizing shot of a Yakuza member with a partially severed finger (story here) throwing the horns, don’t let that discourage you from sinking your teeth into this one. Buy Battle Of Wits direct from the band or from digital download emporiums like Amazon.
And with that, I declare a moratorium on food puns in metal blog posts. Someone call Jennifer Hudson!
-GS
Clever headline for a post about a viral video of penguins moshing, eh? Alas, it ain’t mine. I stole it from Metal Insider, where I first saw the video (below), and Metal Insider apparently stole it from Videogum after happily retired MI writer Dan Rodriguez brought it to their attention.
So I can’t even take credit, and, unfortunately, the pun is the best part of the joke. Yeah, the video is kinda cute, for all ten seconds, but then it goes on for another thirty-three. And it’s not even set to an awesome song. I mean, “Convicted in Life” is easily my favorite post-Max Cavalera Sepultura song, but that’s not saying much, and besides, it’s not like there aren’t approximately 8,675,439,414,173,509 other metal songs that could have been utilized.
But, yeah, enjoy it guys.
-AR
So Children of Bodom were nice enough to release a new single, “Was it Worth It?,” on the radio, and this day and age being this day and age, the song is of course now on YouTubes. You can check it out below.
My first impression of this not-exactly-great-quality bootleg? I like it. I mean, Children of Bodom don’t drastically change their formula from album to album, and so this song doesn’t offer any real surprises, but it is catchy like the plague, so I ain’t about to complain.
“Was it Worth It?” comes off of COB’s latest, Relentless Reckless Forever, which comes out March 8 on Spinefarm.
-AR
[via The PRP]
There are basically three things I care about in this world: fighting, metal, and video games. And of those three, it’s video games that I REALLY care about. I’m not talking about Halo, GTA, Call of Duty, and whatever else your little cousin plays. I’m into some really embarrassing, truly hardcore nerd shit — if names like Darius, Fire Emblem, TwinBee, Tactics Ogre, Front Mission, Parodius, Super Robot Taisen, and Famicom Disk System mean anything to you, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. 1997′s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (for Playstation) is not only one of my favorite Metroidvania games, but has an incredible soundtrack that combines the best of J-rock, cheesy gothic metal, a dash of techno, and symphonic classical/baroque. Think of it as what Type O Negative might sound like if they were all weird computer programmers from Japan instead of metalheads from Brooklyn.
