I’ve never really been an Iced Earth fan. Which is why, despite a ton of e-mails from Iced fans who were sad that Matt Barlow recently announced he is leaving the band for the second time (following their European tour this summer), I did not write anything about it. I had nothing to say. Sorry.

I am, however, a huge fan of Into Eternity. So I guess now that their singer, Stu Block, is the new front man for Iced Earth, I’ll have to start paying attention to both bands. Actually, the last time I saw Into Eternity live, they were opening for Iced Earth, so, yeah, this makes sense I suppose.

While Into Eternity just announced a new drummer last week, we still have no idea when the band will release another new album — it’s been three years since 2008′s The Incurable Tragedy. But I’m glad Block found a gig to occupy his time while Into Eternity guitarist/primary songwriter Tim Roth completes filming his lead role on the Fox series Lie to Me.

In case you’re not familiar with Block’s glass-breaking vocals, after the jump is the video for Into Eternity’s “Severe Emotional Distress.” You should really just know this song anyway, ’cause it rules.

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Hard to believe, but I don’t think I’ve actually seen Children of Bodom live since they did Gigantour in 2008. I blame Alexi Laiho’s broken arm (in 2009) and choosing to tour with Black Label Society (in 2010) as the culprits.

But that’s gonna change this summer, fer sure. ‘Cause look what Heavy Devy tweeted yesterday:

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The above message was posted by Lazarus A.D. on their Facebook page last night, and… what can you say besides “This blows?” Stealing from touring musicians is fucking low; I can pretty guarantee you that the band can’t afford to lose that $1,500, and losing their personal stuff just sucks, sucks, SUCKS.

You can go here to make a donation via PayPal and help these poor dudes out.

If by some miracle someone reading this knows the culprit, I’d like to suggest that that reader turn said thief in immediately. If your friends ask you to cover for them when they behave like despicable low-lives, then they’re not your real friends anyway.

And if by some miracle someone reading this happens to be the culprit, I’d like to suggest that that reader please figure out a way to get all of Lazarus A.D.’s stuff back to them ASAP, and then go lay down in traffic.

-AR

Thanks:  Carlos B.

You are reading this on Wednesday morning (or maybe some other time, depending on various circumstances), but I am writing it on Tuesday night. And as I write it, I am about halfway through listening to Hate Eternal’s new album, Phoenix Amongst the Ashes, for the first time.

And it is glorious.

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There’s nothing I shouldn’t like about 1349′s latest album, Demonoir: it’s the band at blazing black-metal-at-grindcore-speed again, and its experimental parts feel appropriate, even necessary. But something feels about it hollow: the flesh, bones, and organs are all there, but is there any soul (even a black one) beneath them? How could an album with so much in common with one of my favorite black metal albums ever — the band’s 2005 eviscerator Hellfire – leave me cold?

Then it dawned on me: Revelations of the Black Flame, the album between the two. A dull, pointless affair with experimental black metal (and I even LIKE the genre from time to time: Wold’s Screech Owl and Leviathan’s A Silhouette in Splinters got quite a few spins back in the day), I tore it a new asshole back in ’09 and still stand by that action; after the straightforward destruction of Hellfire, it was a confoundingly sharp left turn for a band doing so much right. The parts on Demonoir that I would usually enjoy felt empty because of this, in that perhaps they were being employed to get back into the good graces of the fans they’d possibly alienated. There’s nothing tangibly wrong with Demonoir, but I can’t help but feel its revived sense of purpose is cold and calculated.

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Grayceon‘s recent Profound Lore release, All We Destroy, is an album that’s more that worthy of your attention: cellist (!!!)/vocalist Jackie Perez Gratz (who’s also a member of Giant Squid, and has played with Agalloch, Om, and a bunch of other killer bands), finger-pickin’ guitarist Max Doyle, and a drummer Zack Farwell have created an album that’s as haunting and emotional as it is heavy. The top-notch songcraft, combined with Perez Gratz’s ghostly vocals and elegiac cello playing, ensure that there is truly no other band that sounds like Grayceon in the modern metal scene. And that fact increasingly seems to be a miracle.

Grayceon are playing three shows at SXSW this week — you can get all the details here — so now seemed like an ideal time to e-mail Perez Gratz some irritating questions. Luckily for us, she seems to have a good sense of humor.

After the jump, read all of Perez Gratz’s thoughts on the cello, the songwriting process for Grayceon, the cello, the lyrical themes of All We Destroy, the cello, Revolver‘s “Hottest Chicks in Metal” issue, the cello, the ukulele, and the cello.

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Congrats to reader Steven Ming, one of the very few readers who correctly identified last week’s logo as beloning to the band Klan MuvaM. Steven wins any three CDs or DVDs of her choice from the MetalSucks Mansion Archives. Hoo-ray for Eliza!

But don’t be too sad if you didn’t win, ’cause we’re doin’ it again this week: 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 suggested by reader Jeremy Shaffer. Thanks for sending all the logos you guys! Keep ‘em comin’!!!

-AR

Sorry to harsh your afternoon mellow, but reader Andrew Jordan just noticed the following post on Unearthly Trance’s Facebook page:

That sounds pretty definitive in terms of the band doing any future shows. But does it mean that Unearthly Trance are done, or just done playing gigs? The band just released a new album, V, this past September on Relapse (it’s still streaming in full here), so it would be a bummer if they broke up a mere six months later. I have a message out to Relapse reps, but they’re en route to SXSW right now so I don’t know how quickly we’ll get an answer.

While we wait for some official word, feel free to be nervous in our comments section.

-AR

Metal Injection claims that the below video, for Christian screamo-crunk outfit Crazy Crazy Awesome Awesome’s “My Town,” is the worst of the year, and while I think it might be a little early to be giving away that title, yeah, it’s definitely awful — like, “I dare you to get through the entire thing” awful. (But you should get through the entire thing, because it somehow gets worse when the girl starts to rap. I’m not saying girls can’t rap, mind you, I’m just saying that this girl should get a job at Starbucks.)

I was intrigued, however, by the group’s pledge on their YouTube page for the video: “For each album this band sells, they donate in the amount that will feed 2 starving children for a day.” Which begs the question – to whom do they donate that money? They don’t say, and I can’t help but notice that they’re vowed to feed TWO starving kids, which seems like an arbitrary number, until you consider that there’s TWO members of the band… hmm… starving children, eh?

-AR

Melvins’ January 28 show in Los Angeles was a victory lap within a victory lap. It was Stoner Witch night, the final installment of a month-long residency that found the still-relevant, still mindfucking metal crew play a different Melvins album in its entirety each night. It was also a high-profile sendoff to the outgoing Spaceland Productions, which announced they would cede the venue to new management and a new name (The Satellite) not long after King Buzzo and bassist Jared Warren banged their respective ‘fros for the last time.

The short first set was business as usual, including a helping of tunes from their 2010 chart-bottoming album The Bride Screamed Murder, and a killer sludgification of Flipper’s “Sacrifice,” committed to tape on Melvins’ 1992 platter Lysol. The place was packed and sweaty long before intermission hit, and it only got more so once Warren re-entered to begin the bassline to “Lividity,” Stoner Witch’s final track. My girlfriend opted to avoid heat exhaustion and moved upstairs to watch the festivities from behind a glass wall.

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Fred Durst has tweeted that Limp Bizkit’s long delayed reunion album/latest attempt to make people wonder if pouring Drano in their ears will make it stop, Gold Cobra, is actually going to be TWO albums.

We don’t know if they’ll be titled Gold Cobra I and Gold Cobra II or just Gold Cobra and something else (Fuzzy Warm Wet Tunnel, perhaps?), but unless neither one of them contains any actual content besides the sounds of Durst, Wes Borland, and the rest of their crew being raked over hot coals, it’s not going to matter what they call it. It will exist. And it will be awful.

This band is going so far out of their way to give me an aneurysm, I imagine they’ll be announcing a tour with Winds of Plague and Emmure any second now. In fact, Vince recently mistook a new WoP song for Limp Bizkit, so, y’know, have all your affairs in order and the cyanide pills at hand for when that inevitably happens.

-AR

[via Metal Insider ]

Back in December East of the Wall teased on their Facebook page that they were “almost done” writing their new album and considerately informed us it would be a fine time to get “unreasonably excited.” Those guys… so humble. Naturally we did indeed get very excited at that excellent bit of non-news… but not as excited as we got when this press release landed in our inboxes:

EAST OF THE WALL Announce Recording Plans For New Album

Boi-oing-oing-oing!

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Kid Rock (his real name is fucking “Bob”) is, once again, the center of controversy — but not, as per usual, because he fucked some famous ho-bag in a public toilet, or got into a cat fight with said ho-bag’s ex, or because his music sucks. No no no: rather, the cause of Rock’s latest brouhaha is that while he is scheduled to the receive the NAACP’s Great Expectations Award on May 1, he often has a Confederate flag on-stage during his performances (pics above and here). Says Noisecreep:

“Adolph Mongo, who heads Detroiters For Progress and is a local NAACP member, told the Detroit News that the singer’s use of the flag is ‘a slap in the face of anyone who fought for civil rights in this country.’

“However, other members of the organization praised Kid Rock’s dedication to his hometown of Detroit Rock City, and defended his claim to the Great Expectations award. ‘Kid Rock has consistently lifted up the Great Expectations of many persons… concerning the future of the city,’ said Donnell R. White, interim executive director of the NAACP’s Detroit branch.”

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That’s right, friends: we’re still a week away Century Media’s release of Unseen, the latest offering from The Haunted, but you can stream the entire album right now, right here at MetalSucks. You will quickly find that while Unseen is, by and large, not a super-fast, super-crushing metal album in the vein of some of the band’s past work, it IS a catchy-as-the-plague, all-killer-no-filler hard rock album… something we have far too little of in the world today.

Check out Unseen below, and then pre-order it here. Like we said, Century will release Unseen on March 22.

[this promotion has ended]

Vic Vaughn likes it dirty! His picks of the week are new albums by Assaulter, Rotten Sound and Trap Them in a week that also includes new releases by Across the Sun, As Blood Runs Black and Mastodon’s live DVD. His take on all of those and more after the jump.

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Metal Blade’s latest sign is a band called Intensus, and by “band” I mean “one man project” — the man being  Eli Litwin, drummer of Knife the Glitter, Burden, Normal Love, and some other bands with whom I’m not really familiar (although I know that Gary Suarez is a KTG fan). The only piece of Intensus music I’ve been able to locate thus far is the above track, “Time Killer Shitter,” which features vocals by Jesse Korman from The Number Twelve Looks Like You — and it doesn’t really do that much for me. I mean, it’s fine, but if not for the pedigree, I don’t know that I’d ever have given it a second listen. (There are some other tracks that are allegedly available on Intensus’ MySpace page, but I can’t get the player to work!)

But I still think this album is, at the very least, going to be worth your attention, for the following reasons: a) Litwin has recruited some awesome guest vocalists, including Between the Buried and Me’s Tommy Rogers, A Life Once Lost’s Robbert Meadows, and East of the Wall’s Chris Alfano, to appear on the album, and b) even though process shouldn’t really be considered when evaluating a piece of art, the process for the creation of this particular record, as explained in the press release announcing the signing, sounds pretty cool:

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On Monday, I headed over to Metal Hammer’s Germany-based site where Deadlock’s new album is streaming in full. After clicking play, I had my computer translate its accompanying text into English as follows [all sic]:

Deadlock have been her fifth album finished: BIZARRO WORLD. Then they combine more subtle than before Death Metal, melodic, hardcore and pop moments. Convince yourself

Stood there were never deadlock, further development is the law with them. This is also true for the eleven new songs on Bizarro World – will be released on 2/25/2011, but are now already tested exclusively with us

I swear that is the cutest thing I’ve ever read. It’s like a band bio as penned by Charlie from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Just like how Deadlock’s music is Lacuna Coil as interpreted by slightly heavier metalists. That’s a good thing for the higher-impact guitar work and similarly epic female vox. But it seems like bands with male-female singer duos defeat themselves; in all but the most exceptional cases, from The Sugarcubes to Lacuna Coil, it ends up that I mostly tolerate the stud’s mic-time and, worse, I flinch whenever the breathtaking female harmonies are about to make way for dude’s bulging-vein growls. It’s too wide a chasm between the two, like an art museum’s placement of a darkly beautiful piece of Byzantine erotica adjacent to 3D images of a rectal prolapse. Hard to be in the mood for both. For Deadlock, t’s not ineptitude, just a nearly no-win configuration; shit, so far only Devin Townsend has pulled off dual gender duets without dips in momentum. But hey, don’t listen to me! Just click here and “convince yourself”!

-ADF

Click here to order Deadlock’s Bizarro World, out today on Lifeforce Records.

Why just yesterday I said how much I’d been digging Protest the Hero’s new jam Scurrilous and the Rody Walker-penned lyrics therein (not to mention the always superb music). And not one day later you can hear the deal for yourself, ’cause AOL is streaming the whole album. Why “mega-cool in 1996″ AOL is hosting the stream over #1 PtH dick-lickers MetalSucks is lost on me, but there you have it, AOL is streaming the full record. While you’re there be sure to tell Steve Case that Vince Neilstein sent you.

In any case I still heart Protest the Hero mega fucktons and the more I listen to Scurrilous the better it gets. Does it top 2008′s masterpiece Fortress? The jury is still deliberating on that one. You decide by listening here, then come back and tell us what you think. Buy that shit on March 22nd when it comes out.

-VN

Kvelertak have arrived in the U.S. safe and sound! Visa and passport thieves be damned, these six determined Norwegians did what they had to do to get the appropriate replacement paperwork and made it to the U.S. in time to play their scheduled gig in San Francisco this past Friday. Fan-filmed footage of that show, sent in by Tristan G., gets us super-excited… because Kvelertak are scheduled to headline our first annual South by South Death show this Friday in Austin! Three cheers for not having to cancel. Perseverance is definitely METAL. Havok, Red Fang, Wormrot and Meek is Murder are also scheduled to appear at the show, which will be MCed by Ray Mazzola of Full Blown Chaos. The madness starts at 2pm on Friday, March 18th at Headhunters. So stoked.

We’re also sponsoring two additional shows this week. We’ll be getting our full metal breakfast on at Full Metal Texas on Thursday at Emo’s starting at noon, headbanging to The Red Chord, Yob, Hull, Kvelertak, Rwake, Goes Cube and so many more. More info on that event here. And last but certainly not least, we’ll be hanging with the Sumerian Records cats while The Faceless, Veil of Maya, Animals as Leaders, Ultrageist and more fuck our faces off at the official Sumerian Records Showcase the evening of Wednesday the 16th at Habana Bar. Definitely do NOT miss that one.

Of course, there are tons of other metal happenings throughout Austin all week long, all of which have been conveniently collected and organized by our own Corey Mitchell (day parties here, official showcases here). There is so much awesome shit going on it unfortunately won’t be possible to see it all… but that won’t stop us from trying. That is when we’re not indulging in the plentiful beer, boobs and BBQ. See you there!

-VN

Any time there’s Gojira news worth paying attention to MS reader Ashley Lee is there for us. For this we’re incredibly grateful, because our jobs are like really super-difficult and our lives suck and we don’t have time to do things like periodically peruse Gojira’s Facebook page (srsly), where the band just posted an update about a live DVD, the long-awaited Sea Shepherd EP and a brand new full-length studio album, all of which they’re working on right now! Other websites take note: don’t pretend like Ashley Lee sent this to you too. Here’s Gojira:

We are currently working on a live DVD with important bonus section : “The Way Of All Flesh From The Inside”, the Sea Shepherd EP, (a non profit operation with a lot of people involved is a bit complicated to wrap, but we’re getting there and we promise to release these songs soon). We’re also composing a new album! We’ve written pretty much half of it, and we are very excited by this new material. It’s a big step for us. These songs are original and a good reflection of what we are today.

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