I didn’t think A Perfect Circle could get more irritating than when they released (e)Motive, but they’re going out of their way to prove me wrong. First they split up, and then they got back together, and then, just two months and four shows into their reunion run, they seemed to split up again. And now there’s this tweet, which more than implies that, no, all is well and good in APC land:
Bassist Terry Butler and drummer Greg Gall have both quit Six Feet Under. Butler told Blabbermouth that he’s off to join Obituary full-time (he’s been playing with them since last year), but no word on where Gall will seek employment. Butler makes it sound like everything ended in a happy place, but I’m always suspicious when multiple band members split at once.
Whatever. Butler and Gall were, along with Chris Barnes, both original members of the band (guitarist Steve Swanson joined in ’98, replacing, coincidentally, ex-Obitchuarian Allen West), but I feel like it really shouldn’t be that hard to fill their shoes; Six Feet Under’s brand of death n’ roll is so easy to write that, once upon a time, a tribute band was able to imitate their sound with enough skill to get Barnes to actually join the group. And Barnes has already revealed that he and Swanson have been working with a new writing partner for the past four months. I dunno who it is (it would be awesome if it was Chimaira’s Rob Arnold, who I think is a big Six Feet Under fan, but that seems unlikely given his commitments to both Cleveland’s Finest and The Elite), but I’m of the opinion that Barnes should just make nice with those Torture Killer dudes now and get them to be the new guys in Six Feet Under.
ANYWAY, here’s a fittingly romantic song by which to remember Butler and Gall — “Remains of You.” True story: for a long time, I thought Barnes was singing “I took my nuts to your head,” not “I took an axe to your head.” I still think my lyric is superior.
-AR
Today sees the release of Abysmal Dawn’s first new album in more than two years, and Full Blown Chaos’ first new album in more than three; that alone would be cause for celebration, but there’s plenty of other good shit coming out today, too! Our previews of this week’s new releases after the jump.
Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:
Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.
Anyway, here’s the full bill:
You love Ihsahn; you named his 2010 album After as the MS readers’ collective favorite album of the year, and with great reason. You love Devin Townsend; no qualifier needed, because obviously you do unless you’re a complete ninny. So how do you feel about Ihsahn and Devin Townsend together… on one recording??
From Ihsahn’s official Facebook page, via MS reader (and fellow Ihsahn and Devin Townsend lover) “Deeds”:
“I have been a long time fan of Devin and his work, and when he asked me to do some vocals for his upcoming Deconstruction album, I said yes right away. Devin is one of those few uncompromising artists who goes anywhere with their music, wherever that takes them. Nothing but respect!”
Hats off to reader Michael Teague, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Decrepit Depravity. Michael wins an awesome Lamb of God/Splatterhouse prize pack, which includes a copy of the Splatterhouse game, a Splatterhouse t-shirt, a Splatterhouse set of iPod Speakers, and a Splatterhouse logo statue. Michael, don’t forget to play that game as loud as possible, ’cause not only is it fun to kill digital pixels, but the soundtrack features not just Lamb of God, but also Mastodon, Goatwhore, The Haunted, Municipal Waste, High on Fire, and Cavalera Conspiracy. Niiiiiice.
This week we have another awesome prize for you: five bottles of Metalliance Hot Sauce, the new sauce from GiddyUp! Sauces created to celebrate the Metalliance Tour, an KICK-MOTHERFUCKING-ASS new package trek featuring Helmet, Saint Vitus, Crowbar, Kylesa, Red Fang, Howl, and The Atlast Moth. Holy shit, that’s a great line-up. And since GiddyUp! Sauces is the brain child of Steve “Buckshot” Seabury, author of Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes, and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal and bassist for Moth Eater, you know this sauce is gonna be all kinds of delicious.
Below is the super-evil-looking poster for the Metalliance Tour; you can get dates after the jump, and tickets, including special VIP packages, here.
So how do you get the sauce? 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 up to five winners (less, if fewer of you get the right answer!) and announce their names next week. Please note that the sauce has not yet entered production, and will therefore take 2-3 weeks to ship.
Thanks to Dillon Lyons for this week’s logo…
And here are those Metalliance Tour dates…
The above quote appears right at the start of the new trailer for Mercenary’s forthcoming offering, Metamorphosis. And I guess if we’re talking about 11 Dreams or The Hours That Remain versus A Sense of Purpose or Soundtrack to Your Escape, well, uh, I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment. I think the quote is kinda confusing, though, both because I don’t know why Mercenary would want to lob at bomb at In Flames, and because I have no idea if it comes from a review of Metamorphosis or one of the band’s other albums. And if it refers to one of the band’s other albums, well, this version of the band has a 50% different line-up, so it doesn’t necessarily apply anymore.
I haven’t felt encouraged by what we’ve heard of Metamorphosis so far, and this trailer doesn’t do much to make me feel any more optimistic. But I’m super-curious to hear it. I don’t want Mercenary to fail; I just know how bad metal sucks.
Here’s the trailer…
The once-great Zakk Wylde and has recorded a new version of “Iron Man” with William Shatner, the Canadian sex symbol and star of National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1. Wylde had nothing to do with the creation of the original “Iron Man,” of course, but he does know Ozzy Osbourne, so it’s appropriate. It’s a real thing.
ANYWAY, in-the-studio footage of this blessed event has now surfaced (above). You get to hear Wylde do lots of guitar squeals, but that’s about as uncommon as taking a breath, so it’s not really the good part of this video. No no no no no no no. The good part of this video comes around the :58 second mark, when Shatner tries to direct Wylde’s performance thusly:
I’m in love with Cut Your Teeth‘s blend of straight-up hardcore and ’80s glam blues riffing/shred. Axl pointed out to me that at times throughout the course of their new album CYTII (out later this month) the two styles seem abruptly stitched together, and it’s hard to argue with that. But there’s something that I nevertheless find endearing about the combo of seemingly disparate genres; it’s obvious these dudes love them both and are making music that’s an honest expression of where their musical brains are. Just listen to those super-tasty riffs that open the song and the even tastier guitar solo that starts around 1:30… unfuckwithable!
I love this video for their new track “Stallion,” too. It shows the band doing what they do best, which is to FUCKING ROCK, and it’s unpretentious and genuine in its approach. No bullshit CGI, no storyline that doesn’t make sense, no crazy lighting effects… just pure rock and great closeups of the dudes playing in a room so cramped that it looks like it could actually be (and probably is) their own rehearsal space.
-VN
We still haven’t gotten to hear the new Darkest Hour album, The Human Romance, in its entirety — but Chris Dick gives it an 8 outta 10 score in the March 2011 issue of Decibel, the first new song from the record that the band released, “Savor the Kill,” was awesome, and now the second new song from the record the band has released, “Your Everyday Disaster,” has also proven to be pretty wicked. So it’s looking like Darkest Hour have, once again, delivered the goods.
Which is no shock… they’re Darkest Hour! And the great Peter Wichers produced this record! So the odds were pretty much always in DH’s favor.
And “Disaster” sounds like classic Darkest Hour in pretty much every way imaginable. So check that shit out here.
The Human Romance comes out February 22 on eOne. Get stoked.
-AR
For all the friendly ribbing we gave the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, seems like it was actually quite the event that was boat loads (!) of fun. Get those pre-conceived images of sweaty, fat, balding 45+ year-old metalheads out of your mind… because the actual scene was a whole lot younger, cooler, and, uh, basically normal (by metal standards, anyway).
Metal Injection just posted 500 photos from the cruise, conveniently sorted by band performances, including shots of Testament, Amon Amarth, Iced Earth, Finntroll, Marduk, Sanctuary, Fear Factory, Nevermore, Arsis, Voivod and more. There are also some choice pics of the boat’s temporary metalhead residents, and, of course, a few of Rob, Frank and Noa raging it up.
Expect Metal Injection videos to surface shortly… but in the meantime, enjoy this clip of Testament’s Alex Skolnick, Exodus’ Tom Hunting, and Death Angel’s Rob Cavestany doing a karaoke version of The Eagles’ “Lying Eyes” onboard the ship.
-VN
Our friends over at Brooklyn Vegan are giving away a new Weedeater song! It’s called “Mancoon.” I have no idea what that word means. I Googled it and what came up was “Maine Coon,” which is apparently a huge fucking cat. I don’t think that’s what the song is about, though.
ANYWAY, “Mancoon” will appear on Weedeater’s new EP, Jason… The Dragon, which comes out March 15 on Southern Lord. I believe this is the band’s first release since vocalist/bassist “Dixie” Dave Collins accidentally shot off his big toe just about a year ago. It seems to me that the band is missing a real opportunity to make a unique concept album about a stoner who simultaneously proves that drugs and guns don’t mix and gives other stoners a bad name when he quite literally shoots himself in the foot, but whatever. It’s not my band.
Download “Mancoon” here.
-AR
King Lizard are a modern British band attempting to be an 80′s Hollywood band, and like almost all bands attempting to be 80′s Hollywood bands that a) did not make their debut in the 80′s and b) were not actually part of the Hollywood scene, they’re pretty terrible. I mean, guitarist Nitro Knox does a good enough job with the whole Jeff LaBar thing that I think he can reasonably expect to someday get a chance to audition for Guns N’ Roses, but Vince Neil’s love child with Alexi Laiho is a horrible, horrible singer and lyricist.
To wit, the chorus, in which he attempts to rhyme the words/phrases “viva,” “decadence,” and “want ya.” I mean, there’s gotta be like seven million phrases which would have fit into the song all while appropriately conveying the band’s faux sleazy image, but no, this idiot has to go and get stuck on the phrase “Viva La Decadence” and try to make that shit work.
This is the title track for an album coming out March 28 in the UK, “later on in France,” and, mercifully, apparently no time soon in the U.S. The cover has some boobies with a snake crawling in-between ‘em just for good measure, so if you’re thirteen and horny, definitely Google image search that shit.
-AR
I remember a time when if a singer couldn’t sing, they either a) did not get to have a career, or b) fronted a really dirty-sounding band so that it didn’t matter that they sounded kinda, uh, off. I mean, Tom Araya was never exactly Ronnie James Dio, and no one gave a shit. It’s rock n’ roll, man! It’s not s’posed to sound perfect!
This tradition of “Fuck it if the singer doesn’t sound amazing” barely seems to exist anymore. And for that reason alone, I have to tip my hat to Duff McKagan. His band Loaded have a new album, The Taking, coming out in the spring, and they’ve released a bunch of new songs from that album. None of them are great songs by any stretch of the imagination, but I kind of admire the fact that McKagan’s vocals more or less sound like crap. I mean, they’re not modern-day Dave Mustaine bad, but they’re still really bad. He could have auto-tuned the fuck out’ve ‘em, but, no, the guy comes from a punk rock tradition, and clearly just does not give a shit about trying to convince the world that he’s any better than he is.
Check out some new tracks from The Taking after the jump to get a sense of what I mean…
I’m not a Rush fan; I think that the music is swell, but I can’t stand Geddy Lee’s stupid eunuch vocals. Sorry.
Still, this Funny or Die Sketch, in which Jason Segel and Paul Rudd reprise their Rush-obsessed characters from the movie I Love You, Man, is so great I just had to post it. All you really need to know going into it is that they get to meet Rush. And that Neil Peart, as it turns out, is a comic genius.
Enjoy.
I didn’t think A Perfect Circle could get more irritating than when they released (e)Motive, but they’re going out of their way to prove me wrong. First they split up, and then they got back together, and then, just two months and four shows into their reunion run, they seemed to split up again. And now there’s this tweet, which more than implies that, no, all is well and good in APC land:
Bassist Terry Butler and drummer Greg Gall have both quit Six Feet Under. Butler told Blabbermouth that he’s off to join Obituary full-time (he’s been playing with them since last year), but no word on where Gall will seek employment. Butler makes it sound like everything ended in a happy place, but I’m always suspicious when multiple band members split at once.
Whatever. Butler and Gall were, along with Chris Barnes, both original members of the band (guitarist Steve Swanson joined in ’98, replacing, coincidentally, ex-Obitchuarian Allen West), but I feel like it really shouldn’t be that hard to fill their shoes; Six Feet Under’s brand of death n’ roll is so easy to write that, once upon a time, a tribute band was able to imitate their sound with enough skill to get Barnes to actually join the group. And Barnes has already revealed that he and Swanson have been working with a new writing partner for the past four months. I dunno who it is (it would be awesome if it was Chimaira’s Rob Arnold, who I think is a big Six Feet Under fan, but that seems unlikely given his commitments to both Cleveland’s Finest and The Elite), but I’m of the opinion that Barnes should just make nice with those Torture Killer dudes now and get them to be the new guys in Six Feet Under.
ANYWAY, here’s a fittingly romantic song by which to remember Butler and Gall — “Remains of You.” True story: for a long time, I thought Barnes was singing “I took my nuts to your head,” not “I took an axe to your head.” I still think my lyric is superior.
-AR
Today sees the release of Abysmal Dawn’s first new album in more than two years, and Full Blown Chaos’ first new album in more than three; that alone would be cause for celebration, but there’s plenty of other good shit coming out today, too! Our previews of this week’s new releases after the jump.
Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:
Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.
Anyway, here’s the full bill:
You love Ihsahn; you named his 2010 album After as the MS readers’ collective favorite album of the year, and with great reason. You love Devin Townsend; no qualifier needed, because obviously you do unless you’re a complete ninny. So how do you feel about Ihsahn and Devin Townsend together… on one recording??
From Ihsahn’s official Facebook page, via MS reader (and fellow Ihsahn and Devin Townsend lover) “Deeds”:
“I have been a long time fan of Devin and his work, and when he asked me to do some vocals for his upcoming Deconstruction album, I said yes right away. Devin is one of those few uncompromising artists who goes anywhere with their music, wherever that takes them. Nothing but respect!”
