One of the many members of the metal elite that our pals at Metal Injection got to interview on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week was Dj Ashba, current guitar player for both Guns N’ Roses and Sixx A.M. (He’s like the most in-demand musician of 1989!) Ashba was accompanied by actress Nicky Whelan, who, box office receipts tell me, probably none of you remember from her recent role as a bippy who gets naked in the movie Hall Pass (very NSFW video here). Ashba spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and Whelan spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and then Ashba says that GN’R might tour the U.S. this year. But this is the same dude who thinks there’s actually gonna be a new Guns N’ Roses record soon, and that he’ll still be in the band by the time that record gets done, so, y’know, it must be nice to be so blindly optimistic.

Metal Injection gots some other good gossip on the Black Carpet, too, including:

• Sebastian Bach told one of the dudes from Asking Alexandria that he’s going to die soon.
• Taylor Momsen’s parents are very supportive of her decision to exploit her barely-legal body in the name of making money for them.
• William Shatner doesn’t know who the band Shat.

Check out all of their coverage here.

-AR

I think it was divine intervention that made me idly wonder what Wolf was up to a few days ago. Lazily I clicked on their website, chuckling as I always do at their enthusiastic proclamations of how great they are, and was driven to fangirl shrieks when I realized they have a new album, Legions of Bastards, coming out not only this year, but this very month. And guess what? It’s pretty great.

Click to read more…

Something I need to keep reminding myself: every generic shit band that sells a fuckton of records enables their record label to take risks on way more creative, fulfilling, interesting and inevitably far less commercially successful artists. It’s a sad fact, but thems the breaks: shitty commercially successful metal bands for teeny boppers generate tons of money, and without that money we’d see a lot less of the good stuff coming down the pike. For every Vampires Everywhere there’s a Nachtmystium, for every System Divide there’s The Ocean, for every Nickelback there’s an Opeth, for every <insert Victory band here> there’s a Jungle Rot… and for every Asking Alexandria there’s a Francesco Artusato and Evan Brewer.

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“We’re captive on the carousel of time.” Jonathan Davis said that, and I believe it. The seasons, they go ’round and ’round, like Ratt, and people change, things change, and so sometimes bands we like have shifts in their line-up. For example:

• Melechesh have split ways with their bass player, Rahm Emanuel, who apparently wants to run for Mayor of Chicago. But I’m operating under the impression that guitarist/vocalist Ashmedi is the driving creative force behind this band, so I suspect that this will have roughly as much of an effect on the quality of their music as someone sneezing in Jakarta might.
• A Life Once Lost has hired Jordan Crouse to replace their recently departed (as in he left the band — he’s not dead) drummer, Justin Graves. In an interview with Metal Insider, ALOL guitarist Doug Sabolick says, “It’s good because with Justin, with the gap between where we live, it was hard to rehearse as much as we wanted to. Now with Jordan, we all live in the same town and we can practice as much as we want to.” So that’s an enthuastic endorsement.

-AR

Getting into the studio to record an album should be a pretty exciting time for any young band. However, this process is replete with numerous pitfalls, challenges, and — as demonstrated in the video above — options. The subject, Former Thieves, play hardcore in an angular and perpetually irate manner, leveraging hooks and shouts in relatively equal parts. Yet choosing which gear to record with can be an torturous choice — even if you do so in a tongue-in-cheek manner. But really, why are you wasting time watching me describe a video you can click on and watch yourself?

The studio sessions above produced The Language That We Speak, their full length debut for No Sleep Records that just dropped last week. Fans of groups like The Carrier or Defeater best not snooze (get it?) on this one, especially since Former Thieves are hitting the road with both of those artists (albeit at different times) in May and June. Check out the tour dates below the cut.

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Three cheers for the reader who is known only as “Greg.” For he sent us the video for Bad Habits’ “Thor,” which is not only the single best metal song I’ve heard all year, but is, without a doubt or any exaggeration, the best music video I have ever seen. In fact, it’s so good that movie theaters considering showing Marvel’s Thor in 3-D should just pull it and show this instead, because it’s so fantastic that it will fucking embarrass the makers of that flick.

Fucking AWESOME, right? And it turns out the band has made some other killer clips, too. Check it (I guess some of these are technically NSFW):

Click to read more…

Earlier this month Scott Ian uploaded some videos of him recording the new, seemingly forever-in-the-making Anthrax album, Worship Music. I didn’t write anything about it at the time ’cause in the videos he was working on the song “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t,” which we’ve already heard live seemingly a gajillion times, and with two different singers at that (Dan Nelson, Joey Belladonna). So the clips didn’t seem like news, ’cause the band didn’t prove that Worship Music really exists so much as they proved that that one song really exists.

But now Ian has uploaded another video — and this one has a riff we haven’t heard before! And it’s a good riff, too. I know it’s not the most innovative thing ever written, but it’s heavy, it’s catchy, it’s fun… it makes me wanna hear the rest of the song ASAP. It would be really really awesome if Worship Music turned out to be really really awesome.

Worship Music is allegedly FINALLY coming out in September via Megaforce.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

From the Brisbane Times:

“A Sunshine Coast man was bashed to death, put in a shopping trolley and dumped in a creek following a drunken fight over music selection, a court has heard.

“The court was told Emmanuel McPherson, 48, objected when his flatmate, James Albert Madden, played a Limp Bizkit album on Mr McPherson’s stereo.

“A fight then broke out, in which Mr Madden allegedly beat Mr McPherson to death.”

Holy shit, dude. I agree that it’s obnoxious to make someone listen to music they don’t wanna listen to, and I agree that Limp Bizkit is pretty much the worst sound in the history of hearing, and I know we all do dumb shit when we’re fucked-up, but, whoa, too far, man! There’s lots of better ways to handle a situation like this. For example, you could, I dunno, start a blog to provide you with an outlet to vent your vitriol in a manner that will hurt people’s feelings but leave their bodies unharmed. (They can’t send you to jail for hurting people’s feelings, although they can threaten to sue you.) That’s just a random idea I came up with off the top of my head, too. There’s probably also other, simpler ways to calm yourself, like pop in a set of ear plugs, or, better yet, a valium.

-AR

Thanks to twisted-freak for tip!

When is something metal and when is it not? What’s if it’s got metal riffs, metal melody and metal composition but is played entirely on acoustic guitars? What if it’s got none of those elements but has screamed vocals? You be the judge but try not to let genre classification get in the way of your enjoyment of these two excellent bands.

• What Hands Are For: Neatly between the post-punk aggression of At The Drive In and the atmospheric melodies of Dredg. Stream their entire new album …Please Believe Me at their Bandcamp page where you can also buy it for just five bucks.
• Mark Hawkins: What you’d expect of an album called Grandpas Guitars is exactly what you get: expertly crafted metal compositions played and arranged exquisitely with multiple layers of rhythm and lead acoustic guitars (and the occasional light electric). Excellent, excellent, excellent, from the delay-laden atmospherics to the EVH “Spanish Fly” cover (!). If you start listening to the album — streamable on Bandcamp and purchasable for name your price — I dare you to turn it off before it ends.

Holy shit you guys, do you realize we’re less than two weeks away from the release of Hate Eternal’s Phoenix Amongst the Ashes? And you’re all either gonna pre-order it right now or run out and buy it the day it comes out so that it can top the ridiculous (and I mean “ridiculous” in the most literal sense of the word, not in a good way) first week sales for the new Winds of Beige album and we can show the world the power of the dark side/real death metal/not total drek, right?

Okay so I might be fantasizing there, and there’s really no reason to get competitive about art, but OH MY SATAN PHOENIX IS SO FUCKING GOOD I’m really running out of ways to implore to please please please at least check it out. Just give it a shot, that’s all I’m asking. If you hate it (eternally), you hate it (eternally), but at least you tried.

To help continue to get you stoked, here are the second and third in-studio webisodes about the making of the album, both of which debuted exclusively on Metal Injection. Doing so will only kinda-sorta explain the meaning of my headline, but it should definitely help sell you on this record’s sheer, unmatched excellence.

The third vid is after the jump. Phoenix Amongst the Ashes comes out May 10 on Metal Blade. And if you haven’t done so already, you should this interview that Anso and myself conducted with Mr. Hate Eternal himself, Erik Rutan.

Click to read more…

Of all the great injustices in the world (oppressive leaders in the Middle East, the war in Darfur, Eastern European sex slave trafficking, the Yankees, etc), one stands gravely ignored: that Agalloch are more popular than Insomnium. To be clear I love Agalloch, but the deafening stranglehold of hype surrounding their really good but not OH MY GOD 2010 album Marrow of the Spirit was just too much to stand given it seemed to be based on more than just the music itself. Why don’t Insomnium inspire such fervor in metal fans? They’ve been a band for just about as long, traffic in essentially the same brand of melancholy doom-death and are, uh, better. Are they too awesome for their own good, soaring above the minds of whimsical hype-susceptible metalheads? Too slickly produced? Should they issue more limited edition vinyls that go for $300 on eBay? Are they too European???

No matter: as all Insomnium fans like reader Geoff Hansen know, Insomnium are “champions of excellence.” Axl told you on Tuesday about the new video and digital single for the song “Weather the Storm” featuring Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne on vocals; turns out that digital single has a B-side called “Beyond the Horizon.” It’s creepy and dark, and it’s entirely instrumental. Very Agalloch-y, I must say. Thanks to Mr. Hansen for sending it in.

-VN

Well, it’s made.

We’re going to begin unveiling it on Monday.

Want some hints as to the topic of debate?

Okay, here ya go:

• It’s not about specific albums.
• It’s not about specific bands.
• It’s not about specific genres.
• It’s not about producers.
• It’s not about record labels.

So start your guessing as to what the list is all about… and we’ll tease you some more tomorrow before announcing the actual discussion at hand on Friday.

In the meantime, get excited. This is gonna be fun…

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

As you might guess from the header image, I am anything but a Christian. That said, I’ve always been a huge fan of both Christians and their music — the vast majority of them are genuinely nice, thoughtful, considerate people who are great to be around and a positive influence on everybody. I love them! And when it comes to music, for whatever reason, they’ve always been a little ahead of the curve — I can only assume it’s because they had wealthy, supportive parents, unlike those of us who were raised by broke, alcoholic losers who ‘didn’t believe in organized religion.’ Thanks, mom :/ #losing

Anyhow, the truth is that many of the best metal and hardcore bands of the last 10-15 years are Christian, and I think it’s time we gave them the credit they deserve. Let’s put aside the dull, redundant debate over whether Christianity has a place in music or not (hint: the correct answer is “who gives a fuck”) and focus on what is important: these bands rly know how to MOSH 4 CHRIST!

In this post, I will list a few of my favorite Christian bands. I will skip many of the obvious, big names that all of us know about and focus on the older, smaller bands that haven’t gotten enough props- and as always, there will be a few bands who probably should be on here, but couldn’t be included because I ran out of space and/or my memory failed me.  Thanks to Christian Hardcore Records blog for refreshing my memory on a lot of this stuff– check it out if you are into any of these bands!

Click to read more…

Vince and Axl double-teamed Periphery guitarist Alex Bois and bassist Tom Murphy prior to their show with Scale the Summit and Fair to Midland in New York City on April 6th. A special guest interviewer joined in at the end for some added lulz. The Periphery boys told us about the success of their current tour (this was before they mysteriously dropped off the final week), their new Icarus EP, the progress of the next full album, and user feedback about MetalSucks (thanks guys!). Our fun-time chat after the break.

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Swedish reader Tom Lindén (who has made some cool artwork, which you can check out here) e-mailed us to recommend that we check out Yersinia, who he described as “a quite unknown Swedish band” that are “beyond awesome and definitely my favorite upcoming Swedish band.”

Now, it’s no secret that I’ve felt pretty let down by Sweden as of late. I mean, some of the already-established bands are still doing cool stuff, but I haven’t heard a new Swedish band I’ve enjoyed in what seems like forever. Why, just this morning, I was reading about this melodeath band from Gothenburg (They have melodeath bands in Gothenburg?!?!) called Deals Death on No Clean Singing, and since I like NCS, I was  really optimistic that they had found something to restore my faith in that once-great metallic nation. But, no, Deals Death is just another re-Swede band — basically Omnium Gatherum with a singer who looks like he belongs in Manowar. Just what the world needed.

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Nevermind stopping the rampant torrenting of music and movies, visiting .rar blogs or uploading copyrighted content to YouTube… guitar tabs are obviously a scourge on the world and need to be eliminated immediately! So sayeth the Music Publishers Association who have now made it impossible for those based outside the U.S. to shred along with their favorite song on a number of sites.

Yeah, this makes sense. Let’s stop kids from learning to play guitar and let’s actively discourage them from becoming active music consumers. Brilliant idea, guys. Typical of the short-sighted approach the industry is taking these days… never mind the future, let’s just worry about making money RIGHT NOW!

Admittedly, I know very little about the publishing industry and how it works. Why would an Internet user’s location matter for viewing a guitar tab online; do the artists get paid a small royalty when a U.S. citizen views their tab but not when a person based somewhere else does? Perhaps a savvy MS commenter can fill us all in.

-VN

Thanks: Patton

IN CASE Y’ALL SOMEHOW FORGOT!!!

The ninth annual installement of Maryland Deathfest, arguably America’s best extreme music festival, will take place from May 26 – 29, and will feature performances from Neurosis, Coroner, Voivod, Nuclear Assault, Corrosion of Conformity, Cathedral, Exhorder, Ghost, Kylesa, Exhumed, and tons more! You can get more details and tickets here.

To celebrate this stupendous occasion, MetalSucks is teaming up with Relapse Records for an incredibly cool contest: THE MDF MVP. Here’s how it’s gonna work:

Click to read more…

The Foo Fighters are #1 for the 2nd week in a row; I have yet to hear Wasting Light but everything Dave Grohl puts out is quality and the two songs I’ve heard so far are both slam dunks. Conversely, Hollywood Undead are #2 for the second week in a row; can’t win ‘em all, I guess, but at least they’re not #1.

Elsewhere Winds of Plague, Periphery and Loaded had solid debuts, while pretty much any band that was on Revolver’s Golden Gods Awards show experienced a nice little sales bump. Numbers after the fold.

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Am I the only one who thinks that Exhumed really missed an opportunity by not naming their new album No Guts, No Gory? I mean it’s SUCH AN AMAZING PUN and no death metal band has ever used it for some reason, right? They totally should have gotten on top of that shit, don’t you agree?

[crickets]

ANYWAY, the band is now streaming a new track from their forthcoming release. It’s called “As Hammer to Anvil,” and you can check it out here. It fucking rocks. This is the band’s first album in eight years, and this track certainly suggests that the wait will have been worth it. I’m stoked to hear the rest of this beast now.

No Guts, No Gory All Guts, No Glory comes out July 5 on Relapse. Seems like a good way to celebrate Independence Day to me! It’s already available for pre-order (CD, deluxe CD, digital), and the band is touring Europe with Atheist right now, and then they tour the States this summer with some other killer groups, like Cephalic Carnage, Withered, and Macabre. Here are dates for those shows:

Click to read more…

Actually, I don’t know the folks in Turisas, so maybe they are batshit crazy. I mean you probably do hafta to be a little wonky in the brain to say “Okay, let’s dress like that.” But I’ve never heard them say anything about Jews being responsible for all the wars of the world, or women being raped by packs of, uh, people with high levels of melanin content, or that What Women Want was a good idea for a movie, so for now, I’ll assume they’re relatively sane.

So what’s the real Mel Gibson connection here? Well, Turisas’ new video, “Stand Up and Fight,” is more-than-paying homage to the Mad Max films, which, in case you somehow don’t know, were directed by George Miller and starred Gibson. (The franchise is getting rebooted with Inception‘s Tom Hardy in the title role next year, because now everything gets rebooted.) In fact, it’s the Mad Max parts of the video that really work — the performance footage stuff is pretty standard. I’m sure budget was an issue, but it’s hard not to wish that this entire video was nothing but post-apocalyptic mayhem.

“Stand Up and Fight” is the title track from Turisas’ latest release, which is now on Century Media.

-AR

[via Bloody Disgusting]