Let’s just pretend that I wrote a clever intro and move directly to the matter at hand, shall we?

So. Despite the order of the band in my headline I am actually going to start with this video Gary Suarez sent us, for “Call to the Warrior” by the band Affiance. Why? Because it’s actually NOT terrible! I mean, clearly some thought went into it, and it’s well-made. It’s actually good enough that it makes me wish I liked the song more. I guess as far as twenty-fifth generation screamo/metalcore acts go, Affiance isn’t bad, but they’re not playing anything you haven’t heard before. I do kinda wonder if the vocalist can really hit those notes or not… if anyone checks out this band live, let me know.

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Hardcore has been through a considerable evolution since the emblematic 1980s, with most of the contemporary acts operating under that banner sounding poles apart from progenitors like Black Flag or Minor Threat. So it’s a testament to the state of this music that Queens, New York natives Sick Of It All has managed to stay together–recording and touring–for twenty-five long years without stagnating. Though considered part of a “second wave” of NYHC that followed Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags, the quartet’s discography touches on punky, metallic, and even poppy iterations of hardcore, which has lent to their continued appeal to an inter-generational fanbase, visible and vocal at this hometown 25th anniversary celebration, held at a predictably sold-out Webster Hall.

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A couple of things might come to mind upon hearing a name like Nether Regions: a hot, hellish abyss, or, maybe, an area you’d be well advised not to scratch in public. Life is full of tough decisions, but fortunately, with the debut album by the Portland, Oregon foursome, you don’t have to choose — you get an even helping of both. These Northwestern shamans of sludge play a hot, sweaty, and very hairy style of stoner metal that rocks just as hard as it itches.

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The New York City metal scene has been waiting for IKILLYA’s debut album quite literally for years; after a smattering of hometown shows featuring an ever-shifting lineup, this urban groove metal quartet has finally settled on a slammin’ lineup that works. And the results are well worth the wait.

You got a taste of Recon with “Godsize,” featured on Volume 2 of our completely free compilation NYC Sucks in February, and now’s your chance to hear another track from the record (which comes out tomorrow and is available for pre-order / purchase here for only $5). Hopefully “… And Hell Followed With Him,” streaming below, will give you an idea of what we mean by “urban groove metal;” IKILLYA have the booty-shakin grooves in spades ala Pantera or Lamb of God, but their brand is much grittier, outwardly aggressive and from the streets. See what we mean below and let us know what you think. One more track called “E.H.R.” is also up at IKILLYA’s Bandcamp.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Album cover after the break:
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Fuck Nu-GN’R, and fuck Velvet Revolver, too. This band covers “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and blows of ‘em out of the water. Axl and Slash, in all their various projects, have not sounded this good in decades. If this group’s originals are even half as soulful as this cover, they could single-handedly save hard rock from the Hinders and Godsmacks of the world. SOMEONE PLEASE SIGN THESE DUDES IMMEDIATELY.

-AR

Thanks to “S.” for the tip!

Because I’m guessing — and I know I’m going way, way out on a limb here — that the song is sadder than watching child burn victims watch a puppy get run over. Just a guess. It’s not based on anything, really, other than every other Jesu song ever.

But I’m sure the song, “Small Wonder,” is terrific. I mean, I do love Jesu. I just had a nice weekend and I’m not in the mood to spoil it with, like, a black hole of depression in audio form right now.

So listen here, and if I’m wrong and Justin Broadrick has actually written a song about a kittie frolicking with the Swedish Bikini Team in a field of sunflowers, then, please, by all means, let me know, and I’ll check out the track immediately. Otherwise, I think it has to wait until I’m back to being grumpy. I’m gonna work on my taxes later this afternoon, so that should shit all over my day nice n’ proper.

Jesu’ latest, Ascension, comes out May 10 on Caldo Verde.

-AR

I seriously doubt the festival’s founders or any of the bands on this year’s bill have any serious anti-gay sentiment (the rampant homophobia in the metal scene notwithstanding), but the question is worth asking about the annual Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival as a whole by association: Rockstar Energy Drink founder Russ Weiner and his father Michael Savage have an extensive track record of public anti-gay comments. From Change.org:

Russ Weiner (the beverage company’s CEO) also has a history of anti-LGBT comments.  At a Rockstar-sponsored concert last year, Weiner warmed up the crowd by chanting: “Who’s heterosexual and proud?!  If you aren’t, hopefully you will be soon!”

And since the apple often doesn’t fall far from the tree, here’s his father Michael Savage (who Change.org points out did not found the company with his son as originally reported, but may have other interests in it):

- “You want me to tell you what makes me sick? When I see two puffy white males kissing each other, I want to puke. When I see two women kissing each other, on the lips, as lovers, I want to vomit.”

- “…children’s minds are being raped by the homosexual mafia, that’s my position. They’re raping our children’s minds.”

I know it’s a big stretch to attach an anti-gay sentiment to a festival based on its sponsor, but I have a serious problem supporting a festival that takes its name and money from a product whose owners are blatant bigots. Thankfully this year’s headliners don’t exactly necessitate travel to New Jersey to look at giant Rockstar logos all day.

-VN

The new version of Six Feet Under — which, in addition to founding and longtime members Chris Barnes and Steve Swanson, now features Chimaira’s Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries and Daath’s Kevin Talley amongst its ranks — made its live debut in Europe over the weekend. So, of course, we now have cell cam footage! Whoo-hoo!

There’s no new material here so the footage doesn’t really tell us that much about this reincarnation of the band, but… they do play killer covers of the Cannibal Corpse classics “Hammer Smashed Faced” and “Stripped, Raped, and Strangled” (which might be my personal favorite Corpse riff of all time).

Six Feet Under will be touring North America as part of the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter 2011; dates for that trek will be announced on April 20.

-AR

[via The PRP]

Friday marked the third anniversary of the release of Origin’s Anthithesis, and three years in-between albums is too long for any band this good. Lucky for all of us, then, that the band has finally announced the release of a new album. It’s called Entity, and it’s coming out on June 7 via Nuclear Blast. Check out Colin Marks’ epic album art below:

We have yet to hear any new music from the album, but I’m willing to give Origin the benefit of the doubt. Between this and the co-headlining tour they’re doing with Hate Eternal, I think this band is gonna be one of metal’s dominating creative forces this summer. June 7 can’t come soon enough.

-AR

New Boy Hits Car track!

Round about the time Boy Hits Car released their Wind-Up Records debut Boy Hits Cars in 2002 I became obsessed with that record. As GroverXIII at The Number of the Blog says, the band was “nu-metal at heart” but Boy Hits Car always felt a head above that scene which might explain why they were never fully embraced by kids who just did it for the nookie. Here’s Grover on what made BHC special (the only thing he leaves out is “tons of sick riffs” [that all sounded the same, yes, but were sick nonetheless]):

There were the vocals, which were a bit high-pitched and overwrought, and the lyrics, which were mostly about love and emotion instead of the usual nu metal toughguy cliches, to the point that they refer to their music as “lovecore”, and then there was the 12-string acoustic guitar that tended to crop up on occasion. Really, Boy Hits Car were a bit cheesy, to the outside observer, and they were certainly an acquired taste. But there was something about them that felt… I don’t know… genuine.

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No, that is not a reference to erectile dysfunction.

Remember back in the early aughts when the almighty Opeth released two albums mere months apart?  Originally intended as a double album, their record label at the time opted instead to separate the project into two releases, which in retrospect made a lot of sense, considering Deliverance is perhaps their heaviest offering ever, while Damnation is undoubtedly their softest.  This decision surely garnered more moolah for both the band and the powers that be’d (ahem…..show BUSINESS), not to mention gave the fans more to drool over, so let’s chalk this one up to win-win (win).

I wish I had gotten to see one of their legendary “heavy” and “soft” double set shows, but alas I was only just getting into these superb Swedes around that time.  Soon after I became hooked and never heard progressive music the same. The rest is history.

-KW

I know it’s arrogant for us to pat ourselves on the back, but holy shit, did we kill it this week or what?

Here’s what we did:

• We brought you the first interview with Behemoth frontman Nergal since he was diagnosed with leukemia in August.
• We got the exclusive scoop on Melissa Auf der Maur’s collaboration with Shining’s Jorgen Munkeby.
• We debuted new music by Between the Buried and Me, Last Chance to Reason, and Havok.
• We debuted new videos by Protest the Hero and Becoming the Archetype.
• We also spoke to the legendary David Coverdale from Whitesnake.
• We checked out the latest release from Anthrax and Until Your Heart Stops.
• We told you what your favorite metal band says about you… and then we told you again!
• We got excited about the line-up for Summer Slaughter 2011.
• We wondered if Winds of Plague are the new Limp Bizkit.
• We protested shitty metal vocalists.

We aspire to make next week even biggerer and betterer! Check back then to see if we succeeded or not… ’til then, have a great weekend!

-AR

Between The Buried and Me are heading out on the road on a MetalSucks-sponsored tour with Job For A Cowboy, The Ocean and, on select dates, Cephalic Carnage. We’ve teamed up with the band to give away one PRS SE Custom 24 guitar in Tobacco Sunburst and one copy of their upcoming album, The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues, due out April 12th on Metal Blade Records (which you can stream here for a limited time!).

Check out a picture of the pretty instrument up for grabs here, but please note the one you get will be in the Tobacco Sunburst color, not the orange shown.

For such a radical prize you’ve got to submit an equally radical entry, and as you know we like to keep things fun and light-hearted here at MS. So, do tell us via the comments: what is your favorite BTBAM song and why? Be creative.

Check out tour dates here, and stream the entire EP right here on MetalSucks!

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

This week’s query was suggested by reader Yevgeniy Reznichenko:

IS ELITISM IN METAL A GOOD THING OR A BAD THING?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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In preparation for Idol Remains, I usually steel myself with drugs and self-reassurance that what may seem like my senseless negativity is fair reportage. It’s not the flogging of an defenseless mental defect, it’s the passing along of facts. Right?

Not anymore. All bets are off, Idol. I must thrash you.

Why? It’s not because of the shitty singing. And it’s not revenge for the product placement and exploitative theme nights (like this week’s systematic decimation of the Elton John catalogue). And, truly, I don’t fault producers for sexualizing minors and parching an already shallow well of human drama. No sweat.

But here’s my problem: The judges are fucking liars. It’s unconscionable. They overlook gaffes; they praise the abortive. They insist to Idol’s viewership that there is validity to this parade of bad Broadway, vibrato farming, and tin-eared karaoke. They swear to the buying public that this is music. Even Steven Tyler now sports a Kool-Aid mustache that is visible from space.

That is bullshit. See for yourself in the meanest, hatefulest Idol Remains recap yet:

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I’m on tour with Saint Vitus right now and haven’t had a lot of time either listen to any new/old music or to think up something suitable to rant about/gush over, so for this entry I’m just going to do a quick news roundup of shit I (and a handful of you) might care about.

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Apparently, plagiarizing a concept executed far more effectively by an established humour site gets the LOL-age. So, in the spirit of McSweeney’s “What Your Favorite Classic Rock Band Says About You” epic parts 1 and 2, here are some more snappy answers to stupid questions. (Special preemptive thanks to John Peck for not suing me.)

Megadeth: Your political beliefs are as deep-seated as they are woefully uninformed.

Anthrax: You have a spot on your tongue where the taste buds have died.

Exodus: You’ve been wearing the same denim jacket since Clinton was President.

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Well, according The Haunted’s Facebook page, that is:

Obviously this just an April Fools’ joke… but I would actually be all-for Dolving stepping into Scott Weiland’s shoes. As The Haunted’s latest album, Unseen, proves, Dolving has a great voice for hard rock, and he’s actually got cred.

Alas, it will never happen… but a fella can dream, can’t he?

-AR

Thanks to Fantasyoosh for the tip!

Winds of Plague may be the new Limp Bizkit, they may have a rotating cast of boob-flashing keyboard players who don’t write their own keyboard parts and they might just be a constant laughing-stock of the metal community at large (unless your name is Sergeant D), but they’ve proven they have at least one shred of good taste with this latest bit of news: ’80s/’90s WWF wrestling great The Ultimate Warrior will contribute a spoken word track called “The Warrior’s Code” to Winds of Plague’s new album Against the World, due April 19th. In case you’re wondering what a spoken word track by The Ultimate Warrior might sound like, watch this:

and this:

Excited? I am! It’ll probably be the best thing on the entire album.

-VN

The possibly-not-final cover art for Anthrax’s Worship Music

So I have a friend who works closely with Camp Anthrax. I obviously can’t tell you the friend’s name, but I can tell you that he once told me that the Dan Nelson version of Worship Music was awesome, and that I’ve been begging him to let me hear it ever since. Thing is, he doesn’t actually own a copy, and has never been able to get his hands on one. Security around the album was tight before the Nelson debacle, but after, he told me, “It was like Scott and Charlie were going door-to-door personally checking people’s hard drives to make sure everyone had deleted it.”

And so last night I got a text from this friend, I guess trying to make amends for the fact that he never did come through with that Dan Nelson record: “Just got the Belladonna version of Worship Music. U wanna hear it?”

I responded simply, “Be there in 20.” And I got my ass on the subway and I went over to his place.

And I gotta tell you, guys… it’s a weird record, and there are two MASSIVE, and massively tragic, missteps… but it’s pretty great overrall. It’s not really like any metal record I’ve ever heard before. Whatever else you wanna say about Anthrax, you can’t accuse them of refusing to experiment — this album is a huge, huge risk, often welding together vastly different styles and textures of not just metal but often other genres of music, too. I don’t know if people will go for this record or not, but I think it’s kinda brilliant.

(By the way, the above album cover is a carry-over from the Dan Nelson version of the record; apparently it may be scrapped in favor of something that “feels more like the album cover of one of the old Belladonna albums.” Which would be a weird decision, because, a few songs aside, this record doesn’t sound anything like any other Anthrax album.)

And so here it is — my track-by-track breakdown of what I heard.

You guys aren’t gonna believe this shit.

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