Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
Okay so I know we’ve just about run this Big 4 shit into the ground this week, but this is so priceless I just had to share it.
My friend, who we will refer to here only as M.A., lives in Los Angeles, and is not a metalhead. But her boyfriend is — or, at least, he’s a fan of certain bands from a certain era — and so it was with some curiosity that she accompanied him this past weekend to the Big 4 show in California.
So I shot her an e-mail this morning to see how she liked the show. What follows is her response. As metal fan, you will most certainly appreciate all her observations about the show:
If you thought the trailer Dream Theater released last week teasing their new drummer announcement was corny… boy, have we got something for you today. Dream Theater are going all out with their drummer search and milking it for all it’s worth with a full-fledged documentary about the process of selecting Mike Portnoy’s replacement, complete with reality TV-style cutaways, staged shots, and one-on-one alone time interviews with the camera. Love ‘em or hate ‘em (I love ‘em), Dream Theater’s never shied away from the cheese so we should’ve expected something like this… but still, I wonder what Mike Portnoy thinks of this? You can be damn certain he’s following along.
If one of Mike Portnoy’s many trademarks was a dogged devotion to [and connection with] the fans, then post-MP Dream Theater are kicking the new era off with a decidedly more at-arms’-length approach with regards to their fans: “We will create this documentary to string you along, and you will follow us.” It’s hard to imagine the band putting this kind of reality-type series together with Portnoy still in the creative cockpit.
That said, I definitely enjoyed watching this. Here’s part 1 of the documentary; it features an intro that sets the stage for the auditions and shows footage of candidate Mike Mangini jamming with the band. And holy fuckticles, John Myung actually talks; never saw that coming! Embedding is disabled because the folks at WMG (Roadrunner’s parent company) are still completely retarded with regards to how the Internet works, so watch at the below link:
Lettuce be reality: the hardcore scene of the last ten years or so was pretty much bullshit, at least compared to the 80s and 90s. The whole “tortured artist” scene (American Nightmare, The Hope Conspiracy, Panic, Converge, etc) was way too much like emo for me to respect it, and all those dumb revival bands like Have Heart, Trash Talk, and Defeater are the most annoying thing since the swing dancing craze of the late 90s. Sure, there were a few decent bands like First Blood, Death Threat, and Wrong Side, but for the most part it was either whiny pussies in tight pants or annoying, overly-sincere little kids playing boring, generic bullshit with no balls.
Thank God those days are apparently behind us, because I haven’t been this stoked on current hardcore in a decade, thanks to a crop of awesome new bands that are bringing back heavy, ignorant hardcore that’s all about bringing the mosh, getting the party started and being alpha as fuck. If you miss bands like Merauder, Fury Of V, Cold As Life, and Crown Of Thornz, GTFIH and check out some of my favorite newish bands. Everybody else, GTFO and go watch a Fugazi documentary! Click to read more…
A couple of weeks back we told you about a tribute compilation to Peter Steele being released through MetalUndeground. That compilation, which features 12 covers of Pete’s work in Type O Negative and Carnivore, is out now and available for download here; the $3 it costs will all go towards recoup the costs of securing the licenses for the songs. Check out the tracklisting below.
In case you missed it, our own Anso DF produced a stellar writeup that looks back at Pete’s life and features interviews with his former band members, family, and friends: Part 1, Part 2.
All For None, None For All, A Tribute to Peter Steele tracklisting after the jump:
What do Smaragos and Immersed have in common? Well, I’ve written about both them before (Smaragos here, Immersed here), and they’re both death metal bands, and they both have new albums, and, uh, that’s about it. But I’m lumping them together to make two news items into one. My apologies to all parties involved.
But, for reals, check this shit out:
Smaragos’ self-titled EP is now available for purchase on both CD Baby and iTunes! This is an awesome, spastic-y tech band features Son of Aurelius’ Max Zigman, and the EP has a guest guitar solo by Ivan Munguia of Brain Drill and Arkaik fame. I’ve posted one song, “Scaphist,” above, but you can — and should — also check out more music here or here.
Immersed have just moved from the “Awesome Unsigned Bands” category to the “Awesome Signed Bands” category — Unique Leader has scooped ‘em up for a multi-album deal, and will reissue last year’s In the Ire of Creation on August 2. You can check out some tunes here. It’s almost impossible for me to imagine that there could be death metal fans who wouldn’t enjoy this — it’s no-bullshit, totally bludgeoning DM. Hopefully the band will go on tour soon so we can finally check ‘em out live.
Hey what’s up y’all?! Blake from Between the Buried and Me here. I’m taking time out of my super mega busy schedule to give you guys a little info on the gear that I am currently using. Now, for some of you extreme lurkers, you may have noticed that I change parts of my set up from time to time. I enjoy doing this because it not only gives my job a little spontaneity, but it also gives me a newfound inspiration in my playing. Anyways, here is a little breakdown of my current set up.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed contributed seven songs to And On and On…, their new split with Despise You. The shortest of these songs is “Miscommunication,” which has a running time of just twenty-four seconds. So, of course, that’s the one for which the band chose to produce a video.
Said video, which just debuted on Metal Injection, is over a minute long, although I won’t spoil the content of the additional thirty-eight seconds, because… well, you just need to watch. Everything about this video is totally fuck nuts. And I mean that as a compliment.
Alright, so Sepultura pretty much lost me after Chaos A.D. I am not a fan of Roots, nor of any of the Derrick Green-era albums that have been released thus far. And I don’t think I’m alone in having written the band off. Even if you like Roots, fifteen years is a long time for a group to release no albums of any real note. So I was pretty comfortable with the notion that Sepultura were just one of the many bands I love that had their moment in the sun and then more or less completely lost their way.
But then last week we were lucky enough to get hear a little bit of the unmastered version of the new album, Kairos, and you know what? It was pretty good! I obviously need to hear the entire thing in finished form before I can really pass judgment, but just based on the little we heard, I’d wager that this is easily going to be the best album the band has recorded with Green, and will almost certainly be superior to any Soulfly albums, as well as Cavalera Conspiracy’s Blunt Force Trauma (although CC’s Inflikted may still win the “Best Sepultura Album That’s Not Really a Sepultura Album” award). Some of it was downright Chaos A.D.-esque, which is, of course, terrific news.
I have no idea what the titles were the for the songs we heard, but the band has already performed one called “Seethe” live, and have now debuted the title track in concert, too. You can check out the latter below. I don’t think the crappy quality of either this nor the “Seethe” footage is demonstrative of what we heard last week, but hopefully it will at least whet your appetite for more.
Kairos comes out later this year on Nuclear Blast.
In the context of a 2011 live event the “Big Four” grouping of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax may seem lame, but I don’t think there’s any denying how important those bands were to thrash metal history and still are to today’s young headbangers. Twenty years from now when we look back at the ’00s, which four bands will we look at in awe of all they accomplished for heavy music?
We’re only one and a half years into the ’10s, but that’s not stopping No Clean Singing’s Brutalitopia Jack from compiling a “Big Four of the ’10s” list; his picks are the Faceless, Kylesa, Revocation and Ulcerate. Good picks indeed, but I think it’s way too early to even start thinking about the 2010s.
Instead I’d like to hear your opinions on the Big Four of the ’00s (2000-2009), since that decade is done and gone. I think I’d go with Mastodon, Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage and Opeth, though I reserve the right to change my mind once I see your picks and accompanying arguments. Go!
As regular readers are already aware, we do not always agree with one another here at MetalSucks. To that end, we now present not one but two reviews of the new Goes Cube album, In Tides and Drifts, which is out now on The End Records — one from Ben Shanbrom, who loved the album, and another from Gary Suarez, who, uh, didn’t. We hope you find our staff arguing in public as entertaining as we do.
Monday, April 25th, 2011 at 12:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
You guys dig Bloodbath, right? Of course you do. Everyone does. I literally do not know any metal fans that claim not to appreciate their brand of old-school death metal. They’re the kind of band it just feels too goddamn good to listen to not to love.
So. Tomorrow sees the release of Bloodbath Over Bloodstock, a live DVD of the band’s performance at — duh — the Bloodstock Open Air Festival last summer in Bloodstock, England. (Okay that might not actually be the name of the place where the festival is staged. I’ll have my researchers check on that.) And in case the mere fact that a Bloodbath DVD exists isn’t enough to make you wanna buy it, the helpful folks over at Noisecreep have debuted a video from the performance, of the song “Eaten.” Which just might be the best song ever written about wanting to be a meal for a cannibal. It really captures the desire and longing of the would-be human snack so well, y’know?
It’s kinda awkward to watch Mikael Åkerfeldt rock the mic sans guitar (and to do vocals for a song originally performed by Peter Tägtgren), but this still looks pretty promising. Check it out below and then sound off with your opinions, which we all care ssssssoooo much about, in our comments section below.
Monday, April 25th, 2011 at 11:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Because Vince and I are lazy asses, we did not do any interviews on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week. In fact, I think we were both already kinda drunk by the time the whole thing started. So, yeah, Joan Rivers we ain’t.
But don’t be sad, ’cause our bro-bros at Metal Injection did rock the Black Carpet — in fact, on-camera personality Rob Pasbani even wore a shiny silver coat, which, I shit you not, was the hit of the party. (The amount of compliments he got on the thing was absurd.) And, as usual, the video report they’ve filed from the event is super-lulzy. Highlights include learning the hard way that Volbeat are good at sarcasm (Rob: “What kind of performance can we expect from you guys?” Volbeat: “A musical performance.”), Sebastian Bach practicing his future routine for stand-up in the Catskills (Baz, upon being asked to do a bumper for MI: “I don’t do bumps anymore.”), and Vince Neil proving that he is still the greatest interview subject in all of metaldom (Rob: “I feel like you guys are the definitive L.A. band.” Vince Neil: “Well, we’re from L.A.”).
Monday, April 25th, 2011 at 11:00am by Axl Rosenberg
Usually I really hate “trailers” for new albums, ’cause, uh, like, what? A trailer for an album? No no no no no. You make trailers for movies, not albums. It makes sense to show an audience only a snippet of footage ’cause you’re really selling a story and you need to see a whole story for it to make sense and that story will be best enjoyed if you know as little as possible going into it. But with an album, the teaser should just be the single. Just play me a song. It won’t ruin the rest of the album to hear one complete song, and if I like it, I will want to hear the rest of said album. So, yeah, album trailers are dumb.
All of that being said, there is an exception for almost every rule… and so I’m posting this Trivium teaser, ’cause it’s pretty awesome. For one thing, I dunno if the footage is for a behind-the-scenes DVD or what, but holy shit, it’s not ugly. For another thing, the bluesy acoustic guitar stuff that serves as the soundtrack is killer. Obviously the whole album won’t sound like this, but I hope this track appears on the record in some form or another, be it as an intro or an interlude or whatever.
By the way, in case you’re scratching your head going “Why the heck are Trivium recording on some weird ass farm?”, that’s the (in)famous Audiohammer Studios in Florida. It just looks like a weird ass farm.
Trivum’s new album will be out later this year on Roadrunner.
Monday, April 25th, 2011 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
In case you somehow missed it, earlier this month, MetalSucks’ own Anso DF conducted the first interview with Nergal since the Behemoth front man was diagnosed with leukemia last year. In that interview, Nergal announced that the band would be doing a tour of Poland this October. And as it turns out, that wasn’t just optimism — Behemoth really are returning to the road in the fall, and have now announced dates for those shows in their native country.
And while you might thinking “OMG MAJOR BUMMER! I don’t live in Poland!”, you should still feel really, really happy about this news, ’cause a) it means BEHEMOTH IS BACK, MOTHERFUCKERS, and b) Nergal said in that same interview that the band would tour the rest of Europe in 2012 and America that same spring, and now it seems that we can accept that declaration as gospel (no Bible joke intended). And while, yes, that’s like a year away, there was a time not-so-long-ago when it seemed as though there never ever being another Behemoth tour could have been a stark reality. So there is really no bad news here, other than that you have to be a little patient. Which beats living in a Behemoth-less world, if you ask me. (Plus, let’s not dick around here — these shows are gonna be fucking sick.)
If you are lucky enough to live in Poland, tour dates are after the jump. The rest of us eagerly await YouTube cell phone videos.
Someone has to say it: of all the hype, real or imagined, surrounding the first U.S. Big Four show in California this weekend and I, for one, am not buying it. Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax playing together at one show? Yawn.
Dave Mustaine can’t sing / is a boring performer. Even when they aren’t down a member, Slayer are stiff as boards and one show isn’t distinguishable from any other. Anthrax are playing with Joey Suckadonna, which could nevertheless be mildly interesting. Metallica are always great live, even if their new material isn’t. So I’d basically be going to see a Metallica show with tepid warm-up act Belladonna Anthrax and two sets of statues in between.
The specter of such a show during the bands’ primes — or even close to their primes, between 25 and 15 years ago — would’ve been incredibly exciting. Now it just feels like a cash grab for the bands, duping fans looking to relive their glory years by paying insane ticket prices on top of whatever they’ve got to pay the babysitter and spend on $4.50/gallon gas to get out to Indio. To me it all seems like a waste. If I wanted to see Metallica I had nearly half a dozen chances in the past few years and will surely have more; if I want to see Belladonna butcher Bush-era Anthrax songs I will no doubt have the chance to see that in the near future. So what’s the point?
On the other hand, you would’ve gotten to see this: [from Invisible Oranges]
Weigh in with your thoughts on the Big Four below. Did any of you go out to Indio this weekend?
No, seriously — COREY AND ANSO FUCKING KILLED IT THIS WEEK while we were at the Golden Gods, didn’t they? I’m still catching up, but I’ve been getting a serious boner from reading all the shit I didn’t write this week. Some of my favorite pieces that neither Vince nor myself had anything to do with:
Phil Anselmo’s thoughts on weed, and, oh yeah, Corey’s update on the progress of Mr. Anselmo’s book.
Touring is inherently not eco-friendly. Buses and trucks that burn through gas like Brent Hinds burns through beer, a rabid audience that produces several tons of waste in the form of bottles, cups, etc, bands that use materials that aren’t biodegradable simply because they’re the cheapest available… these are just some of the challenges of keeping things green on the road.
Kevin Lyman, the creator of Warped Tour and The Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, has been aboard the green train for years: Warped and Mayhem feature 100% solar powered stages, volunteers from community recycling programs to sort through waste in each city the tour plays, biodegradable kitchen utensils for catering, and more. Read my chat with Kevin about Rockstar Mayhem’s industry-leading green initiatives after the jump.
Touring = environmentally problematic. It’s just a fact. Logging all those miles on the road, whether it’s a DIY van-and-trailer run or a 20-truck stadium tour, is not good for the environment. The conundrum bands often find themselves in is that touring in an environmentally conscious manner is, to put it simply, really fucking expensive.
The Musicians Energy Conservation Alliance seeks to solve that very problem by grouping together musicians and environmentally friendly organizations that wish to support sustainable touring. And their ideas are way more realistic and achievable than the usual “buy carbon offsets” and “use veggie oil fuel” mantras. From their website:
The Musician’s Energy Conservation Alliance (MECA) is a network of musicians, restaurants, farms, and markets collaborating on a new model for sustainable touring. MECA bands plan their tours with local food in mind and restaurants, farms, and markets offer members discounts with the goal of getting a locally grown meal on the road as easily and affordably as stopping at McDonald’s.
MECA facilitates band carpooling, much the way multiple artists traveled on one bus in the 1960s on the classic Motown Revue tours. By sharing a MECA veggie-powered bus and equipment, bands can greatly reduce their oil consumption and carbon footprint. We help plan veggie fuel stops and also encourage camping when weather permits.
So I was hanging out on the smoking balcony at the Revolver Golden Gods on Wednesday night when I spotted a few of the below promotional cards scattered on a nearby table.
