Props to Heavy Blog is Heavy for catching this interesting update from Sumerian Records’ official Facebook page:

As HBiH notes, this sounds like it’s going to be a release (or releases) in the vein of Roadrunner United and Nuclear Blast All-Stars — basically a “who’s who” team-up of musicians signed to the label. Those offerings actually ended up being, by and large, pretty cool (I mean, of course there were some missteps, but I don’t look back at those albums and think, “Well, that was ill-advised”), and Sumerian’s current roster is one of the strongest in metal (The Faceless, Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Veil of Maya, After the Burial, etc., pretty much make up for their creatively vapid bands like Asking Alexandria and Upon a Burning Body), so it makes sense that they’d wanna do something like this.

Question is… what form, exactly, will it take? I almost don’t care, as long as Bizzy Bone is involved. Hey, it could happen.

-AR

How can something so melancholy make me so happy? Jesu’s music can be depressing as fuck to listen to (WHY ARE YOU SAD, JUSTIN BROADRICK?!?!), but I love it so frickin’ much. Like, this morning, I awoke to find an e-mail from reader Ashley Lee telling me that there’s a new Jesu album coming out and a new song streaming, and I was like, “YES!”, even though I knew the song wasn’t gonna be about, y’know, puppies and kittens and rainbows and hugging.

And, sure enough, that new track, “Birth Day,” is making me… feel things. That’s not unusual for a Jesu song, but, still, it has to be some kind of miracle that Broadrick can consistently thaw out the cold, dead, black lump where my heart should be. I mean, yesterday I saw a video of a baby panda cuddling with a three-year-old terminal cancer patient to a soundtrack of “Somewhere” from West Side Story, and my reaction was “What’s for lunch?” But Justin Broadrick mopes a few notes into a microphone and I turn into a menopausal woman watching Terms of Endearment. Amazing.

Get all weepy n’ shit here, then come back and let us know what you think. “Birth Day” will be on Jesu’s Ascension, which comes out May 10 on Calo Verde. And it has TEN SONGS ON IT, which, by Jesu standards, is, like, the longest thing ever… or at least since 2007′s Conqueror.

-AR

Texas-based ambient metal label Handmade Birds has announced they’ll release the long-vaulted debut album by former National League MVP / multi-instrumentalist Ken Caminiti. The existence of the album has been long rumored in underground metal circles, but following Caminiti’s untimely death in 2004 it was basically a foregone conclusion that the album, entitled Cross Country Skiing, would never see the light of day. Enter Handmade Birds owner Greg Anderson:

Everyone knows Ken’s contributions to the game of baseball, but I think people are going to be quite surprised when they hear this stuff. I got to know Ken during his days with the Rangers and was absolutely blown away by his hidden talent. I’m so glad we were finally able to work out a deal with his estate to get this record out to the masses nearly 7 years later. To say Ken was ahead of his time would be an understatement.

Caminiti did a brief Northeastern U.S. tour with Lake Bukkake and Anal Chainsaw in 2002 following his retirement from Major League Baseball a year earlier, but due to lingering health issues and ongoing legal troubles could never get another run together before his passing in ’04. No word yet on whether the album will feature disgraced former New York Met rapper L Millz.

The record will be limited to just one pressing of 500 vinyls, 100 white and 100 black, and will drop on April 12th. Check out a preview here.

-VN

No, wait, I think I typed that wrong. I mean, maybe Suicide Silence will/do have sex with everything, but they actually wrote a song called “Fuck Everything,” and I assume they mean that in a very nihilistic kinda way, not a voulez-vous coucher avec moi kinda way.

ANYWAY, “Fuck Everything.” A new Suicide Silence song that the band debuted live at some festival I’ve never heard of in Las Vegas. It sounds pretty Suicide Silence-y to me, but there’s a section right before the breakdown that could come right off of Slipknot’s first album, which makes sense, because I think in a lot of ways Suicide Silence aspire to be like Slipknot — really heavy but really, really successful. I mean, it’s telling that a lot of their deathcore peers moved closer and closer to more traditionalist DM with each release (see: Job for a Cowboy, Despised Icon, etc.), but Suicide Silence never did. They might be one “Heretic Anthem” away from making their Iowa. And this is an anthem so easy to learn that they’ve got the crowd screaming along even though it’s the first time anyone has heard the song. So, there ya go.

Check out the song below, then feel free to make snap judgments in the comments section. Suicide Silence’s new album should be out sometime this summer on Century Media.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

I know I’m not speaking singularly when I say that MetalSucks loves Karnivool. Those aussies just got it goin’ on, no doubt about it, and while we like their records Karnivool are really best experienced in the live sphere. Total pros, tight as a virgin, and they always sound spectacular.

So when reader Tom Rae recommended fellow Aussies Chaos Divine since “your site seems to be in love with karnivool,” I obviously felt compelled to give his suggestion an immediate listen. And then I proceeded to give “One Door” three more listens in a row, because that’s just how awesome the song is. Chaos Divine are a touch more traditionally metal than Karnivool, like how Karnivool might’ve turned out if those dudes had listened to a couple of Opeth records growing up. If it seems like the song starts of slow/soft, well, just give it some time…

Thoughts? Discuss.

-VN

Alright, so I have no idea if I played any part in the decision to release “Haunting Abound” as the debut track from Hate Eternal’s Phoenix Amongst the Ashes. But last week I did say it was one of the five best songs of 2011 thus far. I’m just sayin’.

And it is. It’s all kinds of awesome. I love it so much, there are no words. This is one of those oh-so-incredibly-special songs that reminds why I ever fell in love with metal in the first place. The machine-gun-fire burst section that starts at 3:53 makes me SO FUCKING HAPPY TO BE ALIVE that I can’t even put it into words. And while this is, at least for the time being, my favorite song on the record, that doesn’t mean the rest of the album isn’t awesome. Erik Rutan is a god amongst little specks of shit as far as I’m concerned.

Listen here, and, no joke, fuck you with a knife that was just held over fire if you disagree with me about the song’s power.

Phoenix Amongst the Ashes comes out May 10 on Metal Blade. Those of you who do not own a copy will find your existence poorer for it.

-AR

David Coverdale: Powerhouse rock singer. Demanding band leader. Cocksman. These are the facts once, now, and always, each evident immediately in his band Whitesnake’s shocking 11th record, Forevermore. But there is more to Coverdale. He lives in a really tall house in Lake Tahoe that, at the time of our chat, was partially snowbound. He is aggressively friendly. He swears magnificently. Oh, and the dude has paired with Blackmore, Sykes, Vandenberg, Vai, and Page. That’s an Ozzy-sized resume and David Lee Roth-league results. So you get that it’s both fun and stressful to gain entry into CoverdaleLand for a few minutes. Still, it was all laughs as Coverdale entertained my inquiries into the muscular songwriting of Forevermore, the bombast of Slip of the Tongue (as captured live in this summer’s Live At Donington 1990 DVD-CD set), his voice health, and the “snakes” of Whitesnake axemen.

Click to read more…

Those comic geniuses over at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency have done it again with the latest installment of “What Your Favorite Classic Rock Band Says About You”. (Part One is here.) In the spirit of plagiarism, I’ve decided to shamelessly co-opt the form to make fun of metal bands.

Mastodon: You’d be surprised how much you’d enjoy the music of the band Yes.

Sunn O))): You own a Philip Glass album but you’ve never listened to it.

Sleep: You’ve dated a girl who owns a dream catcher.

Click to read more…

The new Chimaira-tastic Six Feet Under rehearsing. Photo via SFU’s Twitter account.

In April, the new line-up for Six Feet Under — which includes Chimaira guitarist Rob Arnold (read my interview with him regarding the matter here) and ex-Chimaira drummer Kevin Talley — will make its live debut in Europe. Now Arnold’s co-guitarist in Chimaira, Matt DeVries, has been added into the mix, to play bass — although it sounds like he’s just stepping in for this initial tour and is not a permanent addition to the band.

Still, it’s kinda funny that past and former members of Chimaira now outnumber members of Six Feet Under in Six Feet Under. I’m sure this is just wishful thinking, but maybe they’ll throw a cover from Chimaira onto the setlist? I could hear Chris Barnes doing a pretty mean rendition of “Bloodlust”… In any case, it would seem that they’re definitely gonna do some Cannibal Corpse tunes, which should be fun.

Here are those tour dates for our European readers:

Click to read more…

When word of the Coroner’s reactivation leaked from last year’s Hellfest, I was so majorly fuckin’ pumped-psyched-juiced-horny for a new chance to see one of metal’s best and most often overlooked. I mean, one could fill a warehouse with the special acts for which you’d trade a nut/nip to see live today. So ya feel me. Anyway, there have been confirmations of four dates from some far-away place (Switzerland), so it was only this weekend that, to me, the return of Coroner was made real. Super real. See, thanks to the new video above (and here and here and here), Coroner in 2011 is no longer restricted to the realm of words, bated breath, and crossed fingers. This shit is happening, man. It is no hoax or aborted attempt at reunion or shared hallucination. Nay, these men exist! They share space and interact! And they fucking jam! Coroner boronerz 4 life!

-ADF

See Coroner this spring at Impetus Festival in Switzerland, Maryland Deathfest in USA, Hellfest in France, and Bloodstock in UK. And tattooed across my wang.

Protest the Hero. What else is there to say about them that hasn’t already been said about one of the most exciting and unique young metal bands in the world? You all know how much we loves Protest ’round these parts, so let’s cut to the chase: the band just filmed a new video for Scurrilous album-opener “C’Est La Vie” and asked us to exclusively premiere it right here on MetalSucks. We were all too happy to oblige.

Order Scurrilous on CDor digitally via the always-affordable Amazon. MS reader Enrique Hernandez informed us over the weekend that he chose to allocate his limited funds to Scurrilous instead of Kvelertak’s new jam and “doesn’t regret it at all.” (nothing against the latter… that’s just how good he thinks this record is!). Take a cue from Enrique; you won’t regret it either.

Wormrot and Nails, both awesome bands that we hold in pretty high regard around these parts, have both released new videos, for the songs “Spot a Pathetic” and “Conform/Scum Will Rise” (Nails combined two short tracks into one video), respectively. They’re both pretty standard performance vids and neither one is especially killer nor especially awful. But, like I said, the bands are great, and the songs are great, so you should still check ‘em both out, especially if, for some nutty reason, you’re not already sold on these particular musical outfits.

So here’s the Wormrot vid…

…and after the jump is the Nails clip, which debuted on Metal Injection.

Click to read more…

So Macabre Eternal, Autopsy’s first new album in sixteen years, is coming out in May, and now the album art has been released. And it’s totally bad-assed, even if it makes even less sense than most death metal album art. I mean, why are these two poor zombie dudes being made to schlep that giant skull? Who is it for? Why aren’t those other creature thingers in the background helping them? Someone obviously wants that skull badly enough that these guys are being made to/are willing to step over their own dead to get it wherever it’s going, but I still can’t help but think that it would have been easier to just FedEx the thing.

ANYWAY, Macabre Eternal comes out May 31 on Peaceville. It should be at least as heavy as a giant skull.

-AR

There was a brief moment when I was a kid first being introduced to glam during which I could not tell Vince Neil and C.C. DeVille apart for some reason. And at this point, Motley Crue and Poison are equally ridiculous — and now they’re touring together, too. So I’m just gonna put all the emerging news concerning both bands in one big heap after the jump. I’m sure of the five of you who still care won’t mind.

And so:

Click to read more…

Why are Havok so much fun? Why are various inhabitants of the MS Mansion constantly touting their awesomeness while trashing other re-thrash bands? Why did everyone love their show so much at South by South Death in Austin? Is Denver the next Bay Area? Will you just click “play” already below to listen to their new album Time Is Up in its entirety?

Did you know that Time Is Up comes out tomorrow? And that you can order it here? Are you sick of all these questions yet? Would you hate us if we did this all day?

[this streaming promotion has ended]

I guess that Slayer/Marilyn Manson team-up from a few years back (no, not the Mayhem Fest one, the one before that) was a big hit, ’cause the band are once again doing a summer co-headlining tour with an industrial shock rocker who probably holds more mainstream appeal than they do — namely, Rob Zombie. I don’t know what the overlap of Slayer/Zombie fans actually is (Do Slayer fans think Zombie is too soft and poppy? Do Zombie fans think Slayer is too fast and lacking in hooks?), but it seems to me that this is exactly the kind of show where getting the cheapest seats available and drinking an INSANE amount throughout the evening would pretty much guarantee you a fun time.

Not hurting this line-up one bit is the fact that Exodus are playing support. It’ll be interesting to see if Jeff Hanneman has recovered and re-joined Slayer by the time this trek kicks off, or if Gary Holt will be pulling double-duty. Either way, awesome sauce.

Dates are after the jump… they’re only playing twelve gigs for whatever reason, so the vast majority of you should prepare to be sad (or indifferent, I suppose, depending on your own personal views about this line-up):

Click to read more…

We kid, of course… but someone at TaxSlayer.com really oughtta start pitching their services to the metal community. They’re sitting on a gold mine!

Maybe they’ll take notice of the millions of referral hits we send their way today and reach out to us. We could like totally do a contest where metalheads have to prove their complete ineptness at math in which the prize is free tax returns for life. Great marketing, I say.

Or… I could just be a big nerd that’s stressed about tax season. Boo-urns.

-VN

Thanks: Hetal Bhatt

Lost in the fracas of new Devin and new Protest and new Scale the Summit and new this and that and the other thing is the fact that the mighty Decapitated are recording a new album with an expected release date this year. That’s pretty significant methinks, no? The MS Mansion Monkey in charge of Polish Death Metal has been promptly demoted and revoked his privilege of access to the finest Costa Rican bananas. Bad, Wilfred, bad!

It turns out that recording of the new record is just about done, according to band mastermind Vogg in a recent statement made via SickDrummer.com. Sick Drummer has also debuted footage of new drummer Krimh laying down the brootalz, which you can and should watch here:

While Rafal finishes up vocals and Vogg adds a few solos, Daniel Bergstrand has already begun mixing the record. I’d think we can expect this thing to come out sooner rather than later, then; I can haz br00tal blasts this summer plz?

-VN

So I’m listening to the stream of the new Cavalera Conspiracy album, Blunt Force Trauma, as I type this, and…some of it is  pretty good, and some of it is just fine. None of it is terrible, so that’s cool, but there’s really only one song that I love — “Torture.” It’s the second song on the album, but it should have been the first — it makes me wanna kick someone hard in the nuts, as opposed to the actual album opener, “Warlord,” which just kinda makes me wanna tap my foot while I do busy work.

What happened? I listened to Inflikted again over the weekend to make sure I wasn’t remembering the band’s debut in a sunnier light than it deserves — and I’m not. Inflikted is awesome. It’s basically everything you’d ever want from a modern day Sepultura album. It’s overflowing with piss n’ vinegar. But only occasionally do CC seem to reach the same level of I AM GOING TO BREAK YOUR FUCKING JAW-ness on BFT. It feels like too much Soulfly seeped into this one.

Headbang here, then let me know if I’m crazy or what in the comments section. Roadrunner will release the album fo’ reals tomorrow.

-AR

Stand down, posers! Our proteges over at The Number of the Blog and Heavy Blog is Heavy have teamed up to topple the mighty corporate goliath that is MetalSucks by compiling a giant list: The 100 Best Albums of the 00′s. Don’t they know that any attempt at defining the best metal in the 21st century (even if they’re only focusing on 10 mere years of it) is completely futile, rendered useless by the ultimate, definitive, end-game masterlist — The 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century So Far… — that we compiled in 2009??? Nice attempt by piddly metal bloggers at getting their audiences riled up over subjective taste, a favorite old pasttime of ours. I hope no one reads your stupid list and this thing goes belly-up.

I kid, I kid… I love both blogs dearly and I look forward to checking in on a daily basis to see who they come up and how they do so. Our list’s greatest strength was also its downfall; the industry panel that voted lended the list an air of authority but the results didn’t necessarily reflect popular opinion, and a number of bands ended up being represented multiple times. The TNOTB+HBIH list only allows one album per band, which should make things interesting. They’re also allowing reader submissions. Read their rules here.

This would probably be a good opportunity to let you all know that we’re making a new list! It has nothing to do with albums or anything that happened in an easily defined time-period. Expect it in May. That’s all we’re giving you today… any guesses? Tee-hee!

-VN