If you told me there was a tour with Born of Osiris and As Blood Runs Black, I’d probably tell you to have a nice time and let me know how it was. And if you told me that there was a tour with Darkest Hour and The Human Abstract, I’d probably trample your grand ma to get there. I mean, I’m sure she’s a nice lady, but she ain’t no Darkest Hour and The Human Abstract live, y’know?

As it stands, though, all four of these bands will be doing one tour together:

But y’know what? I am not going to bitch about two bands I love touring with two bands I feel lukewarm on, because, hey, at least it’s not two bands I love touring with two bands I hate, y’know? I haven’t seen Born of Osiris live since, uh, I think it was 2007, right when The New Reign came out, and at the time, I was actually pretty impressed — I didn’t sour on them until later, and even then, it was for reasons really having nothing to do with their live show; and I’ve never seen ABRB live, so I can’t talk any smack there, even if I don’t quite understand all the hype that once surrounded that band. So I’ll still take this over a Mayhem Fest or whatever, where I’d have to slog through who knows how many crappy bands just to see Slayer, any day of the week.

Dates are as follows… some of ‘em even have additional bands, like This or The Apocalypse and Sleeping Giant, on the bill:

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Architects (UK) are one of those bands who have kind of snuck beneath my radar over the years; I’ve been kind of aware of them and even listened on a couple of occasions but nothing’s ever stuck with me, in small part perhaps due to the whole Architects name confusion thing. So when Heavy Blog is Heavy posted that Architects (UK)’s new album The Here and Now is streaming on full on their MySpace page I figured I owed it myself to check them out. NOTA BENE: the first song in the player is not from the new album.

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Coach Neilstein here calling a play from the sidelines and pulling star QB Greg Weeks from action for the season. Like star hair model Tom Brady, it seems that Weeks is bailing in the clutch and in need of some backup.

I’m kidding, of course; Weeks did a tremendous job writing about the NFL and making us laugh all season long, and we will be forever grateful. Hopefully we can strong-arm him into doing it again next year.

But for now, all I’ve got to say is this:

Photo by Josh Barry

Century
TBA
Label – Prosthetic Records
Release Date – TBA 2011

Century’s Black Ocean had riffs, rage, and just enough originality to give everything else out that year a run for its money as a personal favorite from 2008. And if the early — and still decidedly rough — mixes of the band’s follow-up are any indication, Century will be back at the top of the heap come the end of 2011, too. It’s not that the music is the most progressive or groundbreaking mix of hardcore and metal — it’s that the band does it so well.

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Kinda looks like his shirt says “SHEART” lol like SHART

So today I got a Twitter message from Johnny Franck, who was the guitarist in Attack Attack!, but he quit bc he was partying too much and felt like he was not being a good Christian. But he is starting a new band called The March Ahead. I guess bc they are a new band they don’t have a lot of money and they are trying to collect $4500 in donations to record their demo with Joey Sturgis and I wanted to ask u guys if you can help!!  He has a page set up where u can donate and here is what it says on there:

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I’m still catching up on my RSS feed after letting it lapse more or less into the depths of infinite oblivion over the holidays, so a million apologies for being late to report this, but — Lazarus A.D. have been doing a series of webisodes on the making of their new album, Black Rivers Flow, and you should be watching these webisodes if you have not been doing so already.

Why? Well, for one thing, Lazarus A.D. are a really good band, and you like really good bands. And also because, let’s get real here, you’re reading MetalSucks, which means you have nothing to do right now and you’re looking to be entertained, so just do what I tell you and watch the stinkin’ videos.

Here’s the first installment; you can watch the second and third over at Metal Injection – part two, part three.

Lazarus A.D.’s latest, Black Rivers Flow, comes out February 1 on pioneering record label METAL BLADE RECORDS.

-AR

2011 is going to be an awesome year to be a nerdy metal dork. BTBAM’s got a new EP in the works and frontman Tommy Rogers (aka Thomas Giles) has a solo record coming out in February, both on Metal Blade Records (though the former mysteriously hasn’t been announced as such quite yet). We’re also getting TWO new records from Devin Townsend, new Scale the Summit, and as-of-yet unannounced records from other prog masters, no doubt. Necrophagist? Meshuggah? Certainly possible. A good year is in store indeed.

Devin Townsend played a new song at this weekend’s performance at the annual NAMM show in Anaheim… and yes, this time I promise that this is actually a new track. The song is called “Fly,” and it’s slated to appear on Ghost, the mellowest of the four albums in the Devin Townsend Project suite. Fellow Hevy Devy Superfan Alkahest of Heavy Blog is Heavy picked this one up on the newswire.

As for new BTBAM, we get the following teaser:

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And so all our photographic coverage of 2010 will soon finally come to a conclusion — but we’re not done with last year yet! For example, peep these incredible shots of Skeletonwitch, witch (rimshot!) MetalSucks photographer/all-around badass Alyssa Lorenzon took at the First Unitarian Church inPhiladelphia on December 17, 2010. We weren’t able to be there with Alyssa that night, but judging by the photos, the show was a lot of fun, and a total hair tornado. Check out  all of Alyssa’s pics after the jump!!!

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One of my favorite parts about the advent of the internet and the cheapening of digital technology is that everyone has the chance to make a bold statement and get it heard. Ten years ago, a DIY band like Calgary, Canada’s The Unravelling wouldn’t have registered a blip on the collective consciousness. Now they’ve got a confident album in 13 Arcane Hymns (reviewed here), currently making the rounds for free, and a sweet video for the album’s most visceral track “Move Forward Until You Are Dead,” debuting exclusively at the tastemaking politics ‘n LOLcats site MetalSucks. All hail Lord Interwebz, may his reign be long and benevolent!

Says vocalist Steve Moore, who gets plenty of blood-soaked screen time in the video: “The song is about revival and perseverance. Like the album, it’s thematically about being buried alive, reclaiming your own existence and finding authenticity on your path.”

The video was directed by Calgarian filmmaker Doug Cook, who has also directed a couple clips for Canadian death metallers Divinity. Moore explains, “We chose Doug Cook to direct the video because of his passion and enthusiasm for the music and message. We completely trusted him to bring this to life visually.”

The Unravelling’s 13 Arcane Hymns can be downloaded for free via the band’s website.

-SR

Famed metal writer and occasional MS contributor DX Ferris recently visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for a photoshoot with Mushroomhead. We won’t question why DX was palling around with a bunch of near-Juggalos, but he redeemed himself by sending in this awesome shot of himself in his MS shirt, standing outside one of the Rock Hall’s prize exhibits, J.C. Unit One. The pic was taken by Johnny Angell of Concrete Productions.

Sez DX: “The motor carriage was Johnny Cash’s home away from home for the last two decades of his career, including his final tours. Cash, of course, worked with Slayer-Slipknot-Danzig-American Head Charge producer Rick Rubin to revive his recording career in the ’90s. During the production of Slipknot III: The Subliminal Verses, Rubin told Corey Taylor that Johnny Cash was every bit as heavy as Slayer — in psychic terms, at least. And he was not wrong.”

Thanks, DX, for sending us this awesome photo, for repping our brand in the great wide world of rock n’ roll, and for giving us another excuse to plug our line of t-shirts and hoodies! Anyone who sends in pics of themselves repping their MetalSucks gear is entitled to a box of CDs, posters and other goodies from the Mansion, so keep those photos coming in.

Rot In Hell
As Pearls Before Swine
Label – Deathwish Inc.
Release date – February 1, 2011

Thanks to artists like Integrity and Ringworm, Cleveland has a hardcore legacy that spans the globe. Indeed, Rot In Hell manage to follow that tradition an entire ocean away. Still, you’d never guess the Innsmouth, UK group’s geographic origins given their ferocious devotion to the downright devastating metallic Holy Terror sound. Their upcoming full-length As Pearls Before Swine, due out in February on Converge frontman J. Bannon’s Deathwish Inc. imprint, will make that crystal fucking clear. Two of its tracks are currently streaming at the Deathwish site. “Traitor’s Gate” is virulent, furious Clevo-core, while the blistering pit beast “Coyotenia” benefits from some beauteous metallic soloing amidst the sonic tsunami.

Given their recent Niu 12″ (recorded live in concert off the soundboard) for A389 Records, it’s only fitting that Rot In Hell are part of the label’s Seventh Annual Bash, a one-night event at Sonar in Baltimore headlined this year by Integrity, whose latest LP The Blackest Curse came out on Deathwish last year. Also on the January 22 bill are Drop Dead, Haymaker, and The Love Below, among others. The flyer is below, and you can buy tickets here.

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As first reported last week by vocalist Jesse Leach, Times of Grace’s debut album, The Hymn of a Broken Man, has leaked onto these here internets. I suspect that many of you have already illegally downloaded it, ingested it, and shat out an opinion.

But if you haven’t, well, here’s your shot — Metal Hammer is now streaming the album in full. It seems like a lot of you are excited for this album; I was saying to a friend the other night that when people say they want a GN’R reunion, they really mean they want an Axl-Slash reunion, and when people say they want an Alive or Just Breathing-era Killswitch Engage reunion, they really mean they want a Leach-Adam D. reunion. So, uh, here ya go!

I haven’t had a chance to listen to the record yet, so I can’t really get in on the debate as to whether or not these dudes have created something which lives up to their formidable-if-brief legacy. Of course, you guys are free to rip each other all the new assholes you want in the comments section. So listen here, and then get a-rippin’. Roadrunner will officially and legally release the album tomorrow.

-AR

Yep — The Social Network cleaned up at the Golden Globe Awards last night, surprising no one, and one of its shiny new statues was for the score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. You can watch a really, really shitty-quality clip of their acceptance speech below.

Even though I thought that The Social Network was overrated as a film, it’s hard for me to begrudge Reznor and Ross their success, ’cause the score is really fantastic. And it will be pretty funny if/when these guys take home the Osar next month; as Vince put it, “So many old goths will be so pissed!”

While you wait for that to happen, Amazon is selling the score for just five bucks, so you should go ahead and download that if you don’t already have it. There’s also a pretty lengthy, and totally fascinating, segment on how Reznor and Ross did the score on the DVD and Blu-ray release of the movie; basically, Reznor dicks around for an hour, and then Ross takes said dicking around and turns it into music. Kind of amazing.

-AR

I knew there was a reason that I’m friends with Elise at Reign in Blog; my Sister from another Mister shares my ambivalence about any possible Sepultura reunion. Like, if it happened, that’d be ok, but if Max and Andreas never kiss and make nice-nice that’d be just fine, too. Regardless of what happens, my life will go on pretty much unchanged.

Of way more interesting substance and immediate import is this video of one tweaked out motherfucker lip-syncing to “Amen.” This is the stuff that Internet gold is made of, folks. A+++++ WDBWA

-VN

tweakin’ ain’t easy from Steven Healy on Vimeo.

I don’t think there’s any universe in which Between the Buried and Me vocalist Tommy Rogers’ solo album, Pulse (which Rogers is actually releasing using what I believe is his middle name, Giles, and the more formal iteration of his first name), could be considered metal, but you really shouldn’t give a poop, ’cause a) Rogers definitely should have earned your respect by now, and b) it’s a wonderful album and if you don’t check it out you’re depriving no one but yourself.

Now the album closer, “Hypoxia,” is streaming here. It is an epic, achingly beautiful song, which, come to think of it, are words I could use to describe a lot of the music on Pulse. It is entirely possible that you won’t like this album, but only if you hate your ears.

So check out that track, and then come back and celebrate its excellence in our comments section. Pulse comes out February 1 on pioneering record label METAL BLADE RECORDS.

-AR

When I describe Def Leppard’s “Excitable” as a deodorant jingle with a great bridge or, say, compare an entire city to the dark lord’s soiled undergarments, it’s in good humor and with humane understanding. Hey, no offense! We all have flaws. I understand this; most people on the internet understand this. Others induge themselves in some unearned personal offense and send out a lot of negative energy in response to such colorful but justified appraisals. Don’t get mad, people.

Okay I confess. I only wrote all that cuz I’m trying to properly relax you for some more gratuitous Chicago bashing, so let’s just get to it! Check out American Heritage frontman Adam Norden detailing the inspiration for their forthcoming album, Sedentary:

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I love this band. I love this band so much. Every time I see the word “wolf” in music magazines or hear it on whatever station I’m listening to, my heart thuds until  “mother” inevitably follows suit. I don’t care for Wolfmother — they’re fine for faking music in Rockband — but if you want real metal (for “true bastards” — their words, not mine), Wolf is it.

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Last night’s stellar Lake of Blood/Castevet show has me respired to get atonal, abrasive, dissonant, and LOUD.

Here’s a couple of my favorite screechers from yesteryear:

-KW

So 2011 is officially underway! I mean, we’re two full weeks in — time to stop accidentally writing “2010″ as the date on shit, y’know? We started to preview some albums we’re stoked about, and will continue to do so next week. In the meantime, here’s some other fun crap we did this week:

• The Human Abstract’s A.J. Minette continued his discussion regarding the merits of creative limitation.
• We debuted new music by Deicide, Ulcerate, Owen Hart, and Roger Miret.
• We also reviewed the new Owen Hart album.
• We played a metal edition of “Marry, Fuck, Kill” with both chicks and d00dz.
• We checked out some awesome pictures from Vince and the metalgf’s vacation to Amsterdam and Paris.
• We joined the Scotty Griffin Fanclub.
• We confirmed that Tool are the coolest band ever.
• We felt bad for Mike Portnoy.
• We were upset by Wrest’s arrest for sexual assault and domestic battery.
• And while it was news to us until we heard it from Rush Limbaugh, we were apparently responsible for the Tucson shootings.

Next week brings more debuts, more interviews, and more general Suckitude. See ya then.

-AR

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Last week we asked you, oh beloved readers, to suggest some QOTW, and there were actually a number of good queries posited. So we kinda just picked one at random, and then we’ll do some others in the coming weeks. In the meantime, this week’s question, from Tim, is:

WHAT ALBUM ORIGINALLY GOT YOU INTO METAL?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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