When I think of what I want heavy music to sound like, Indian are pretty much it. Don’t let the kinda trippy (but awesome) album art fool you; this ain’t no boring psychedelic droney shit with recycled Mastodon riffs. “The End of Truth,” from Indian’s new album Guiltless (April 12, Relapse), is everything modern heavy music should be; creative, challenging, hooky in its own unique way (despite constant dissonance), and it’s overwhelmingly, monolithically crushing. Better yet, it does all of this at the [somewhat] relaxed pace of doom; it’s like Morbid Angel went and smoked an ounce of weed and came back just… a little… slower.

Have a listen to the aardvark baby impalingness of “The End of Truth” below. Pre-order Guiltless here.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Some day I would like to try banging to Zombi. Their music is just so… zexy!

I’ve always had a passing interest in Zombi but really took a liking to them when I learned that drummer Anthony Paterra would fill the drum shoes of tragically deceased Maserati skinsman Jerry Fuchs on the latter’s Fall 2010 tour. Kinda morbid, but… sometimes you need a little push to get really into a band, you know? Like Maserati, I’d hesitate to call Zombi metal, but who really gives a fuck? Replace the keyboards with distorted guitars and the drum loops with blast beats and bam, metal! Do it in your mind. Or not — ’cause the music is just fine as it is.

Groove to the new Zombi track “Shrunken Heads,” from the forthcoming album Escape Velocity (May 10th, Relapse), over at Stereogum. Do it because it’s good stuff, because the album cover has naked chicks and a Delorean on it, or because you could imagine shtupping your old lady to it…. just do it, one way or the other.

Also, this:

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Been a while since I partied down with my uber-nerdy side at the Power Metal Party, but I guess there just hasn’t been anything to come around lately that’s made me feel like dusting off my World of Warcraft peripheral setup. But lo and behold; Pagan’s Mind are here to the rescue with new music and a serious case of awesome nerd-itis!

An anonymous MS reader who literally instructed us “please don’t mention me in the news” sent in the latest Pagan’s Mind jam “Intermission,” posted above. Don’t feel guilty, dude, it’s ok to like this band! The track comes from the Norwegian power metallers’ fifth album Heavenly Ecstasy, which will presumably come out at some point this Spring.

Has anyone ever told Pagan’s Mind vocalist Nils K. Rue that he kinda sounds like Saigon Kick’s Matt Kramer? ‘Cause he really does.

-VN

So I’m not a Kittie fan, and I’m especially not a fan of Kittie’s song “My Plague,” because it seems like a pretty blatant rip-off of Lamb of God’s “Laid to Rest,” which itself owes something pretty substantial to Testament’s “Into the Pit.” But whether or not you’re a Kittie fan, if you have functioning eyeballs, you can only ask one question after watching the band’s new video — “Is this real?”

So first of all, the video looks like it was shot on a cell phone. Not a good cell phone, either. Like, my iPhone takes way prettier movies than this. Maybe it was like a Flip cam or something? Those don’t always react so good to low-light situations. In any case, it might have been worth it for whomever was making this video to get his or her hands on a decent camera.

For another thing, there’s a piece of live footage at roughly the sixteen second mark that gets reused around the 1:12 mark. It’s not even subtle — the guitarist (no I do no know what her name is and no I will not look it up) stops playing, looks out at the crowd, and throws her arm up.

That’s when I stopped watching the clip. Because it means that not only does this video look like poo, but that there was so little actual usable footage that barely more than a minute into the video, they had to start recycling what they had. I don’t even understand. It’s not like they were using film and it was costing them money. Just take, like, ten seconds more crappy cell phone footage and you’re all set. Heck, I bet you can find some on YouTube. But no, that would require maybe an entire minute’s worth of extra work, so fuck that, right? TO THE BAR!

-AR

Terror have a new video, “Return to Strength,” and if you ask me — and you’re reading this, so you did ask me — it’s a great example of how a tried n’ true formula, the concert video, can be made to feel exciting again.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the song is good, but beyond that — the video actually feels authentic and chaotic, like being at a Terror show. I don’t know who directed this, but he or she was smart enough to get in there with the crowd and make the footage gritty, not just invite a bunch of fans to stand around while capturing phony-looking vanity close-ups of the band (ahem), who were probably actually performing for an audience of no one. The editing is rhythmic, too, an easy enough trick that not enough directors and editors of modern metal videos utilize.

“Return to Strength” comes off of Terror’s latest, Keepers of the Faith, which is out now on Century.

-AR

“How do you feel about joining Origin, Jason?”

Well, hey now!, it was just last month that we were wondering, “Whatever happened to Skinless?” We weren’t really able to get a satisfactory answer, other than that the band was hoping to finally make a follow-up to 2006′s Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead this year.

Well, I’m thinking it might be another hot minute before that actually happens, because Skinless front man Jason Keyser has just been announced as the new vocalist for Origin.

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Fans who read the headline might be hoping that this is another Elseworlds-style temporary supergroup-thing, like Gary Holt touring with Slayer or Doc Coyle touring with Lamb of God, but, alas, the above photo — taken at the 2005 Roadrunner United concert — is not to be re-created live anytime soon.

Nope. See, Scott Ian got his wife, Meat Loaf’s Daughter, preggers, and he’s staying home for a bit in order to be present for the birth of the baby. So the Sepultura guitarist will be filling in for him for eight ‘Thrax shows in July (including at least one Big 4 show), according to this tweet from Kisser, which an anonymous Portugese-speaking reader assures me says what I just told you it said.

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The question-answer-question-answer format of interviews can get kind of boring after awhile, but if you try to keep it conversational rather than interrogational, it’s surprising how easy and comfortable they can be. Geoff Thorpe of Vicious Rumors was pretty game for a nice afternoon chat, and covered everything the band is up to these days and the year ahead.

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We North American metallers are used to getting boned when it comes to metal festivals. Yeah, we’ve got a handful of great fests, but the events are almost always pretty small and localized (barring the mighty Maryland Death Fest, which routinely attracts diehards from all over the world). The North American idea of a “metal fest” has, on a mainstream level at least, devolved into lumbering advertisements for metalcore albums and hoary old dinosaurs’ reunion tours. Wacken has rapidly become something similar, but this year’s edition still has Morbid Angel, Sodom, and Tsjuder on the bill. What do we get? Vince and Axl will scold me if I name any names, but there are a staggering array of shitty mega-shows coming up this summer – and they sure as hell won’t be booking Mayhem. We don’t have a Wacken, a Hellfest, a Roadburn; hell, we can barely manage one killer large-scale multi-day fest a year, but as always, the devil’s in the details, and what we lack in quantity, we’re rapidly starting to atone for in quality.

Case in point: this year’s Rites of Darkness III fest. Past years have welcomed the likes of Impiety, Diocletian, Blasphemophagher Cruciamentum, and Morbosidad to our cursed shores, and this year’s lineup is shaping up to be an absolute massacre of a weekend.

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Remember when I referred to Destrage as “Post-Swede“? Check out Deadlock; they offer a little more of what I was talking about. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before… it’s definitely in the Gothenburg vein, but it’s done with a bit more gusto, a bit more speed, and a bit more creativity than most “Re-Swede” metalcore that bands these days (ergo all modern metalcore bands) are pumping out. It’s the next generation of Swedish-inspired metal, if you will.

Of course, Deadlock are actually German, not Swedish, which might explain why “Falling Skywards,” Virus Jones” (in the video Axl ripped apart) and every other song I’ve ever heard by this band have incredibly cheesy choruses with clean singing [by an angelic-sounding female vocalist, no less]. This is the textbook definition of good cop / bad cop… heavy [and decent] riffs like hey this is metal!, then BAM, cheesy alt-metal central. But at least “Falling Skywards” has a good, catchy chorus as far as these things go; really there’s nothing you can hate on too much. I guess you could view Deadlock as an easy stepping stone for those just getting into metal, which I suppose is a good thing.

Check out “Falling Skywards” at Noisecreep.

-VN

When I look back at the last twenty years, there is perhaps no more important musical entity in my life than England’s EARACHE RECORDS (srs). Back when I was a little kid on a quest to find the fastest, most cock-smashingly brutal music I could get my hands on, I stumbled across a copy of the legendary Grindcrusher compilation, and I’ve been hooked on death metal ever since. As my gateway to metal, Earache will always have a special place in my heart– and when you care for someone as I do for Earache, it hurts to see them lose their way, stumble, and fall as Earache did in the 90s and 00s. I had written them off as yet another band/label/artist who has a brief moment of brilliance, burns brightly, then fizzles out before dying in undignified circumstances [via Vincent Van Gogh]. But I am happy to report that I couldn’t be more wrong! Earach is back on the horse, stronger than ever, and signing more relevant, exciting bands than ever (srs).

In this post, I will briefly recap the label’s history in three sections to bring newer readers up to speed on Nottingham’s finest export. I will then share my thoughts on their current signings and solicit suggestions on which bands the label should sign next– hopefully Dig is reading!

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MetalSucks loses another intern to the sound of Joey Belladonna’s voice

There are myriad differences between formerly-two-time-former Anthrax vocalist Joey Belladonna and Devin Townsend. For example:

• Townsend is a gifted multi-instrumentalist and a brilliant songwriter, and Scott Ian doesn’t even trust Belladonna to write his own lyrics or melodies.
• Townsend recognized when the time had come for him to just shave his head, whereas Belladonna seems content to continue to look like a Mafia grandma.
• Townsend’s brilliant cover of “New York, New York” completely disproved my theory that SIN-atra, a new, metal tribute to Ol’ Blue Eyes, would suck, while Belladonna’s version of “Strangers in the Night” goes out of its way to be the worst thing ever.

And I seriously have to keep asserting that this dude is inferior to John Bush? You heard last year’s Armored Saint album, right? Now go listen to this, and tell me: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH JOEY BELLADONNA’S VOICE? I’ve heard drunken friends do a better job with this song at karaoke. This is just embarrassing. It’s the rare performance that makes me wish they’d hire Adam D. to come in and autoLaBonte it.

This.

Is.

AWFUL.

How awful? When I sent Vince the link to get his thoughts, his only response was to send me the below photo:

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If you are heading down to Austin for SXSW, be sure to head out to some of the metal-leaning movies on tap as part of the SXSW Film Festival. In addition to the first round of films I recently spotlighted here, even more titles have been unleashed on the unsuspecting public.

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At this point making fun of White Wizzard lineup changes seems kinda like making fun of kids on the short bus; downright mean since they’re completely defenseless. But man, just once more for old times’ sake… how can I not? This after original second vocalist Wyatt Anderson returned to the fold a couple of months ago. How long before he quits again, Matt Barlow style? Jon Leon’s farts must be growing ever-stinkier by the day.

-VN

From Craigslist, via reader Keith Brown

Ah, Spring! That magical time of year when the sun gets brighter, the days get longer, the birds start tweeting, the flowers start springing forth from the earth and even fans of much-maligned teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates have cause for optimism. Bernie Madoff be damned, there’s 162 games of baseball left to be played ON THE FIELD and I’m gonna be optimistic if I want to, dammit. So eat it.

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Best Show Us Your MetalSucks entry yet? That’s Binary Code guitarist Jesse Zuretti hanging at the brand new MS Mansion. That’s right, folks, we’re moving up in the world. Obama, Biden and co. had to high-tail it out of there when Axl, Vince and crew rolled into town with A/V whiz Jesse and a trailer full of gear in preparation for our metal takeover of the United States’ most famous residence. Read it and weep, bitches. Move over Gawker, move over Huffington Post, move over TMZ… MetalSucks is #1!

So yeah yeah yeah, Victory is releasing a greatest hits package for Between the Buried and Me on March 29. We have avoided writing about it up ’til now because it’s one of those things where a label goes “We just lost one of our big bands, but we have the contractual right to try and milk some more money from ‘em, so let’s slap something together and get it out there.” (BTBAM recently ankled Victory for Metal Blade.) Sad, but this kind of thing happens all the time — hell, Victory did the same thing when they lost Atreyu a few years back. These collections usually aren’t even approved by the band, who legally have no say in the matter.

But so many of you have e-mailed us about the below video, which shows off the packaging for this compilation, and… yeah, it looks killer. Like, Tool-album-packaging-killer. Even though there’s absolutely no new material on this album (there are two CDs and one DVD, the latter showcasing all the band’s music videos), this is an increasingly-rare instance of a label actually giving fans a good reason to purchase a physical copy of an album. Whether or not you think that makes it worth it to pay for music you already own, well… that’s up to every BTBAM fan to decide for him or herself.

Meanwhile, BTBAM will release a NEW (not just recycled material!) three-song, thirty minute EP, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues, on April 12 via Metal Blade. Then they’ll headline a MetalSucks-sponsored tour with The Ocean, Job for a Cowboy, and, on select dates, Cephalic Carnage. Get dates for that trek after the jump.

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UPDATE: Whoops. Pic is apparently photoshopped. Thanks to our readers for catching what I missed. Oh well. It was a funny story in theory at least!

It was just in January that Corey Taylor refused to deny that he’s the new singer for Velvet Revolver, which he really should not have done unless he IS the new singer for Velvet Revolver. And then it was just in February that Duff McKagan publicly sucked Taylor off, which he really should have done unless Taylor is the new singer for Velvet Revolver. I guess what I’m saying is, all signs point to Corey Taylor being the new singer for Velvet Revolver. Right?

Wrong. Check out this shirt Taylor was sporting at a recent performance:

So I guess that’s the closest thing to a public statement we’ll get from Taylor. Maybe his next shirt will tell us whether or not there’s gonna be a new Slipknot album.

-AR

[via 94 WYSP... thanks to Saul Hudson for the tip]

Swedish crushers Bult are without a doubt one of my most anticipated bands to see at this year’s SXSW festival, not because I’ve seen them before and can speak for their live show, but because the tunes available on their MySpace page have been completely mutilating my nuts for weeks now. Resident SXSW Metal Correspondent Corey Mitchell has mentioned Bult in his advance coverage of the festival, but I’m guessing not many Americans are familiar with this band — I wasn’t — so they could use a little extra plug.

Their press pack quotes some un-named jouralist thusly: “hard, angular and crushing music with a peculiar back-and-forth groove with a constant movement forward.” I think that’s right on the mark. “Peculiar,” yes, “groove,” yes, “constant movement forward,” well I’m not sure exactly what that means, but sure, why not? I’d also add: fierce, nasty, chaotic.

Enough describing; just listen. Naturally, let us know what you think. SXSW appearances listed after the jump.

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As longtime MS commenters fritz pointed out in Monday’s post about Beardfish, it’s been a while since we regularly covered music on the fringes of metal. I’m talking about music that certainly has metallic elements but wouldn’t be considered true metal buy pretty much anyone (not just purists), though would appeal to a certain segment of metal fans. Music that  we’ve chosen to categorize as “Not Quite Metal?“, emphasis on the question mark… because who really knows what’s what in the age of micro-micro-micro-genres?

Today’s example: atmospheric space-rock outfit Moving Mountains.

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