Subject: Metal Fashion
Date: January 28, 2011 1:28:31 PM EST
From: KornFedGurrrl
To: MetalSucks

Dear Axl and/or Vince,

Hai! I’m an English Major at NYU and I just transferred from Dubuque Community College.  (I’m a real corn-fed girl LOL)  Anyway, being from Iowa and all of course I grew up listening to Korn and heavy stuff and I really love your site a lot.

Anyway we’ve got to do this assignment for my Media Studies class (YUK) where we get a piece published on a website.  Like I said I totally love your site (except Gary Suarez)(YUK) and also I write a LOT about metal bands and metal and some stuff about fashion, too.  (Mostly metal fashion).  N. E. WAY!  I’d totally like to meet up with you to talk about how having a Metal part on your site about Metal Fashion would be something that would get a lot of new people reading it.  Fashion is a HUGE part of metal and I know a lot about it and I notice no one ever writes about that on your site!

Click to read more…

Why is the name of the new DevilDriver song “Coldblooded” and not “Cold Blooded” or even “Cold-Blooded?” I dunno, why are they called “DevilDriver” and not “Devil Driver?” I guess they like smashing words together. As one of the proprietors of a website called MetalSucks, I can totally appreciate that.

ANYWAY, the song. “Coldblooded.” You can listen here. It’s not my favorite DevilDriver song, but it’s not bad or anything — it’s just missing that certain special oomph! of a track like “Grinfucked” (There’s that word mashing again!) or “These Fighting Words.” But maybe you’ll disagree. Give it a listen and let me know.

“Coldblooded” comes off of DevilDriver’s latest, Beast, which Roadrunner will release on Feburary 22.

-AR

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 latest from Hesper Payne.

There’s more to proper doom metal than guitars tuned down to Z and anaesthetized wooly mammoth paces. You gotta have feel if you’re gonna rise from the muck. Actually, that’s a bad metaphor. Doom metal belongs in the muck. But the best doom is more than just a bummer. It’s an air-sucking slowing down of the world to its own pace, a convincing that there is no point in moving any quicker – the blackness is coming to get you, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it, so you better just revel in it. Burning Witch got that. Winter got that. Corrupted and Electric Wizard and Samothrace get that. And Coventry, England’s Hesper Payne sure as fuck get that.

Click to read more…

Thanks: metalgf

I like it very much when bands don’t sound like any other band. So while I’m sure Årabrot’s influences lie somewhere and that their wonky, visceral, dirty brand of metal wasn’t created in a vacuum, their sound sure is new to me. I especially dig the Mustaine-meets-poisonous-rat snarl of vocalist Kjetil Nernes, the perfect complement to the sewer-infested sounds of Årabrot’s music. The band’s name comes from the city garbage disposal in their home town of Haugesund, Norway, at which local authorities found it appropriate to place a school for troubled youths; only fitting.

Revenge was released by Norwegian label Fysisk Format in November but is out for the first time on physical formats in the U.S. this week. Dig the opening track “The Most Sophisticated Form of Revenge” below, and check out another Årabrot track at Stereogum if you like what you hear. More on Årabrot at their MySpace page.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Pantera performing the title track from Power Metal with Kerry King on May 20, 1989

So is this regular “Justify Your Shitty Taste” column on The Deciblog turning out to be the greatest thing ever or what? Up ’til now, they’ve had some Decibel‘s best writers defending craptastic releases ranging from Metallica’s St. Anger to Cryptopsy’s The Unspoken King to Helmet’s Size Matters to Ministry’s Filth Pig. But now they have their (I believe) first guest columnist declaring his love for the unlovable — namely, Wolvhammer’s  Heath Rave, giving a shout-out to Pantera’s Power Metal.

Click to read more…

Between being announced as one of the participants of this summer’s Mayhem Festival, releasing video of guitarist Ben Orum doing pre-production for a new song, and now the below in-studio behind-the-scenes video, I’d say, yeah, the dudes in All Shall Perish have been nothing if not busy this week. And as an ASP fan, I ain’t compainin’.

Of course, the best part of any behind-the-scenes studio video is usually hearing at least a little bit of new music, and there’s no music to be heard here. But that doesn’t really bother me ’cause a) like I said, they just released a video with some new music earlier this week, and b) they actually took the time to make this clip entertaining, and not just the talking head “This album is gonna be so br00tal!” bullshit we so often see in these kinds of things. Check it out:

All Shall Perish’s latest, which still has yet to be named, should be out later this year on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Of all the issues we’re forced to think about on a daily basis in this ever-turbulent world — the shaky world economy, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, political unrest in Tunisia and Egypt, illegal immigration, climate change, Rodney King — surely one of the most burning questions on the forefront of your mind is “What is like to be Maynard James Keenan preparing for a show and walking out onto the stage?” Thankfully the frontman of the best band in the world knows our pain and decided to take matters into his own hands by filming a video that answers this very question.

And uh, the answer to the question is, “It’s pretty fucking awesome.” You start by doing some kind of pow-wow with your bandmates before warming up like a boxer. Then you walk out onto a platform in front of thousands of adoringAustralians, and you’re standing next to one of the best drummers in the world. And then, presumably, you rock.

Will 2011 be the year we finally get new Tool? It’s been 5 years since 10,000 Days, and 5 years is usually how long Tool take between albums. A man can hope.

-VN

Didja know that The Haunted have a new album coming out? Didja, didja? Well, they do. It’s called Unseen, and it’s supposed to be out sometime in March on Century. Now, that news alone should be enough to get you all hot n’ bothered, but in case it isn’t, the band performed a new song, “No Ghost,” at some Swedish radio thinger this weekend, and you can watch pro-shot footage of the performance below. I’m really, really digging the song — it’s catchy as the plague, and sounds very much in the vein of the material from 2007′s The Dead Eye, which is fine by me. Also, Peter Dolving is rocking an epic beard now, which makes him 100% cooler than he already was.

Good stuff, right? And after the jump, you can check out the album art for Unseen. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but as long as the music on the album is good, I guess we can let that slide…

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Remember that “Best of 2010″ sale at Amazon we told you about earlier this month? The one in which Amazon is offering the latest releases by Intronaut, Kylesa, Accept, Holy Grail, Nevermore, Daath, Nachtmystium, The Acacia Strain, Son of Aurelius, Howl, Mantric and a slew of others for the measly sum of $5 each?? With a few “new classics” such as Between the Buried and Me’s Colors, Animals as Leaders’ 2009 self-titled album and Skeletonwitch’s Breathing the Fire included in the sale for good measure??? You don’t remember?!?!?!

Well that sale ends as soon as January ends, so now’s your chance to snatch up some top-shelf metal at a bargain-bin price. There are plenty of non-metal releases for sale too — 1,305 total albums are for sale, to be exact — but I’m guessing none of you enjoyed Sara Bareilles’ Kaleidoscope Heart as much as I did. So get to buyin‘, because this is your last chance to get so much awesome music for such a small amount of money. Go!

-VN

So Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber apparently have shot a Super Bowl commercial for Best Buy together, because Bieber’s fans are eleven years old and don’t care about artistic credibility, and Ozzy’s fans are, emotionally speaking, roughly the same age, and also don’t care about street cred at this point. Most, if not all, of you will probably see the ad when it airs next weekend, and even if you don’t, I’m sure it will pop up online shortly thereafter. But in the meantime, the UK’s Daily Mail has some behind-the-scenes pics, like this nightmare inducer:

Remember the good ol’ days, when Ozzy literally would have bitten this little fucker’s head off for fun? Now it’s like he and Sharon are competing to see who can wear the most eye make-up. Someday some nitwit will probably get Kelly Osbourne knocked up, and the kid won’t be able to tell which one is its grandmother and which one is its grandfather, and they’ll have to show it this picture and be like, “Your grandmother is the one not wearing matching Tron suits with the kid who grew up to become a massive drug addict.”

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

Last week we offered up two Primordial prize packs; the grand prize winner gets the All Empires Fall DVD and a CD reissue of their 2000 release Spirit the Earth Aflame while the runner-up gets just the CD. And the winners are…

• Dingas McCloud: “Anyone else sick of shoegaze vocals?”
• Fish: “NY Jets coach Rex Ryan’s younger days hanging in the hardcore clubs.”

This week we’ve got a very, very special prize for you. The Chariot are putting out a 7″ record called The Music of a Greatful Heart limited to only 1,000 copies — 250 each of four different colors, all hand-numbered. The band will be taking their own color set of 250 on the road with them. Hot Topic will have their own color set of 250 available at select locations. One color set of 250 will be made available at varying local indie music retailers while the fourth and final color set is now available for pre-order with special bundle packages at Good Fight’s online store. Needless to say, if you want to get your hands on all four colors you’re really gonna have to hustle!

The copy we’re giving away is copy #1 of 250 of the set available for order in Good Fight’s store; it’s neon green and looks gnarly as hell. There will be two tracks on Side A and an etching of The Chariot’s infamous “Skull Logo” on Side B.  Track 1 is titled “Music of a Grateful Heart” and is a never before released song from the Long Live recording sessions.  Track 2, also from the Long Live recording sessions, is titled “Graciously” and is an extended and alternate version of the original track “The Audience.”

As per usual, alls ya gotta do to win is come up with the funniest caption to the below photo (which was posted on Metal Injection) and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)!

Last Tuesday we released Volume 1 of NYC Sucks, our completely FREE digital compilation featuring the best of NYC’s metal bands. Shockingly, you all seem to have pretty good things to say about it as opposed to the overwhelming negativity usually seen in our comments:

• Curmudgeon: “….. I love you.”
• Mordecai 9000: “I just came.”
• matty2fatty: “wow, not a shitty song in the bunch. Thanks!”
• Shitz Nolte: “Awesome comp, with an excellent line up. Good lookin’ out, boys.”

So take it from your fellow Suckalos and download Volume 1! The download features 320kbps MP3s by all of the bands listed below and includes PDF liner notes with info about all of said bands. It’s also streaming here if you’d prefer that instead of the download. Enjoy.

—> DOWNLOAD NYC SUCKS VOLUME 1 HERE <—
(includes 320kbps MP3 files, Album Cover, PDF Liner Notes)

1. East of the Wall, “The Ladder”
2. Made out of Babies, “Invisible Ink”
3. Tiger Flowers, “Cuts”
4. Black Anvil, “The Evil of All Roots”
5. Naam, “Frosted Tread”
6. Batillus, “The Children of the Night Make Their Music”
7. Meek is Murder, “Sundowners” (demo)
8. The Binary Code, “Encircled”
9. Castevet, “Stones”
10. Hung, “Desert of Sad”
11. Wizardry, “The Falconer”
12. Pyrrhon, “King of All Tears”
13. Mutant Supremacy, “Epitaph”
14. Incendiary, “Victory in Defeat”

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

I know, I know — we’ve (ab)used this space in past weeks to toot our own devil horns, re: the Decibel Flexi Series. (And frankly, we’ll probably continue to, at least until ESPN The Magazine trumps us by including monthly dong shot Polaroids, or until Revolver… uh, forget it.) That said, we have something pretty inarguably special in line for the March issue: not only a sprawling oral history on Death, but the mighty Revocation taking to plastic to cover “Pull the Plug” from Chuck and company’s 1988 classic Leprosy. This is the first instance—hopefully far from the last—of a band recording a track specifically to coincide with a Decibel cover, and as you can hear here, the Boston-based death-thrashers knocked it out of the park.

Revocation “Pull The Plug” by Decibel Magazine

Hopefully it’s a harbinger of more brutality to come, as their third LP will be out on Relapse this summer. Anyway, a super-limited number of advance copies have just been made available; it’s the easiest way to secure a flexi unless you’re already a Decibel subscriber. If you want to check out what you’ve been missing, all the flexi tracks are streaming right here.

-AB

You can buy the March 2011 issue of Decibel here, but the only way to ensure that you get these awesome flexi discs is to subscribe to Decibel, so get off your tuchus and do that.

The less introduction I give you, the better. Props to the great Gary Suarez for sending us the link…

-AR

Disclaimer: I do not care about football at all. I only know when the Superbowl is because my birthday lands right around that time and I remember hearing stories of how my dad had to be dragged away from the TV in the hospital waiting room to witness my glorious exit from my mother’s womb. And while I’ve played sports my entire life, I regard televised games with roughly the same amount of interest I devote to a Suicide Silence press release.

However, I DO care about Midnight, and Midnight apparently care a lot about the Pittsburgh Steelers. They care enough to re-record one of their best-loved metalpunk anthems, “Black Rock’n’Roll,” to reflect that love. Ladies and gentleman, I give you “Black and the Gold”:

Click to read more…

So last month Judas Priest announced a farewell tour, and everyone assumed that the band were going to subsequently break-up, ’cause the word “farewell” means good-bye, so, y’know.

Apparently that’s not the case, though — Priest are just going all Beatles n’ shit. From guitarist Glenn Tipton’s official website:

Click to read more…

Wow, what a bummer. Just yesterday we were talking about how A Life Once Lost just signed a new deal with Season of Mist, and how we’ll be getting a (hopefully excellent) new album from them this year, and sunshines and rainbows and bunnies and butterflies.

And now they’re down a member.

A statement from the band, via Lambgoat:

Click to read more…

Spotify, the “in the cloud” all-you-can-eat streaming music service that’s wildly popular in Europe, has once again been thwarted in its attempt to break into the U.S. market. The issue, once again, is an inability to get the stubborn “Big Four” record label groups (other than Sony) to get their heads out of their collective asses and realize the power and reach of these services.

But with all the coverage Spotify continues to get in the mainstream media, how come no one is talking about MOG?? MOG’s service is competitive with Spotify’s. It offers unlimited streaming of an insanely wide variety of music (yes, plenty of metal, even the obscure stuff). No ownership of files on your hard drive is required; everything is streaming, and yes, the sound quality is good. The service also works on many mobile phone platforms and allows for a certain number of temporary downloads to those devices so you can listen even if you don’t have an Internet connection. MOG even one-ups Spotify by offering a variety of other features such as a recommendation engine similar to Pandora’s that allows users to create custom “radio stations” based on artists. Better yet, MOG is still offering a free 15-day trial of their service so you’ve got nothing to lose by trying it out. You’ll be happy you did — trust me, it’s that good. And get used to this, because it WILL be the way we all consume music in the not-too-distant future.

-VN

Full disclosure: MOG’s advertising arm sometimes purchases ads on MetalSucks. The ads are in no way related to this article.

I was gearing up to do another Album of the Day, but it gets trying having to express just how much some album is making me figuratively shit myself. Saying I love it over and over like a broken record (har har) isn’t all that much fun to write, let alone read, so I was going to let The Wildhearts’ The Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed fall by the wayside. I just got a little lazy.

But Wildhearts front man Ginger has been anything but these past few months. From joining The Michael Monroe Band to supporting Motorhead on tour to recording a new solo album, he’s quite the manic musician. So instead of waffling for now and then eventually raving about some of his past work, I decided to see what the future holds for Devin Townsend’s British BFF. (Seriously, follow them both on Twitter. It kind of makes you go, “Awww.”) I shot him an email with a few questions and he, on top of business as usual, responded back in less than an hour.

He warned me to keep it interesting. Well, I tried.

Click to read more…