This week sees new releases by Graveyard, Periphery, Blut Aus Nord, Septicflesh, Winds of Plague, and tons more. MS new release expert Vic Vaughn takes a looksee at each after the jump!

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It’s no secret that Sammy Hagar is no super-brain, but I read his interviews lest they include some sort of hint to his achievement of mega-wealth. How, I ask myself every payday, does a bimbo like Hagar fall assbackwards into riches so throughly and regularly? He sold 40 million albums with Van Halen alone; his tequila and cantina ventures regularly reroute cash from dummies into the Hagar coffers; he’s in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and one of his jamz reached American Idol last week; even his garage door opener business is a winner. What is his secret? It’s love! Hagar told The Onion:

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The great people I know who listen to egghead American black metal bands like Krallice work in the kitchens and behind the bars of our great country’s hipster eateries. It’s logical, therefore, that I haven’t been reminded a million times by email of NPR’s stream of Krallice’s forthcoming record, Dio Time. I mean, the new jamz have been up since Sunday, since which time those dudes are in bed, nursing a Fat Tire hangover, memorizing Tosh.0 jokes to use on that hottie server in the ironic Stryper tee, and combing their complicated facial hair. I totally understand. One has to prioritize and there isn’t always time for “unrelenting but defiantly rhapsodic” blur metal noodling for yawners. Ah, life!

–ADF

Krallice’s new album (already?) Diotima is out Tuesday on (surprise!) Profound Lore. Order it here.

Typical Tumblr user: airheaded teenage girl who listens to metalcore bands that have cute singers.

When it comes to music, teenage girls make the world go ’round. It’s a fact: they are the ones who obsessively fawn over every word out of a band’s mouth, go to every show within a 200 mile radius of their parents’ house, and most importantly, they actually buy stuff (whether CDs or merch). Before you rage, I’m not trolling– this is how it’s worked for as long as pop music has been around (and explains why D.R.U.G.S. sold three times more records than Darkest Hour last week). Basically, any band who ignores the social currency and purchasing power of teenage girls is a bunch of dumb-dumbs.

While Facebook and Bandcamp are great tools for streaming your music and communicating with your fans, I think Tumblr is the most interesting social media platform right now. It’s the closest thing we have to a magical window into the minds of the consumers who drive the music industry (teenage girls), but I haven’t really seen many bands/labels take full advantage of it.

In this post, I will discuss the dynamics of Tumblr culture, share some examples of typical content and draw a few conclusions about what it means for bands and labels who want to market their product to not only Tumblr users, but the lucrative market of teenage girls in general. Also, please follow my Tumblr to keep your finger on the pulse of contemporary youth culture!

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I regularly lord it over everybody that I attended the final Pantera show ever! It 2001 at the inaugural Beast Feast two-day jam in Yokohama, Japan, also headlined by Slayer, Sepultura, and Machine Head. But by Pantera’s fest-closing set on day two, I was hardly in command of my senses because A.) drugs; and B.) late-night Skinless. See, for the truly metal and/or too high to find the train station, Beast Feast had an overnight gig nearby that bridged days one and two. And Skinless, taking the stage after the great Taiho, absolutely owned that show! They ripped! They raged! They rippaged! Memories.

So it sucks baboon balls to hear this bunch of boner-breaking jive from Skinless honcho Noah Carpenter:

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Last week, MetalSucks mega-hunk Axl Rosenberg and I spoke to producer and Hate Eternal frontman Erik Rutan (interview coming soon!). He gabbed at length with us, and I was super-pumped when he stated that his goal was to eschew uber-precise metal production and embrace the human vibe of older records. I love that! Perfect is perfectly boring. Rutan is the ru-Man! See what I did there?

In this spirit, we take hats off to Hypocrisy’s Peter Tägtgren, also a producer and frontman, whose stomping new Pain jam “Dirty Woman” instigates another nascent extreme metal movement: Rock! Yes let us all rock, even the most grizzled, frowny underground metal purists (cough Axl) alongside party-hardy crotch boys (like me)! And let us pack videos with writhing underwear chicks (knockerz!), a misbehaving and ignored drummer (funny cuz it’s true!), fire (hot!), and a suspiciously chummy pair of man-sized animals (fuck it, sure!). You might be rolling your tr00 eyes at me right now, but I’ll laugh last when a few months from now Nergal from Behemoth returns to the stage with a flying splits off of a fiery drum riser. Suck it!

–ADF

Peter Tagtgren and Pain release You Only Live Twice via Nuclear Blast on June 21.

It’s only a matter of time until fancy tech-death metallists Origin release an album of equal awesomeness to their hole-stretching live shows. I mean, my first Origin show took place in a room that could be generously described as decrepit on one of that year’s hottest, stankiest days; further, that tour saw the band taking on the dicey task of seeming cool while right next to Cephalic Carnage, the cuddliest, stoniest, joint-sharingest dudes in extreme metal. But it didn’t matter cuz that night Origin slammed.

But like a hot girl who parties hot but can’t hang in conversation, Origin has yet to deliver the balls-scorching record of which they are surely capable. Origin was embryonic; frustrating were the frantic blasts of sophomore outing Ignominious Intestinal Intricacies (or watevr) and its follow-up, Arpeggios of Decimation. 2009′s Antithesis, too, played like a roller-coaster ride: thrilling while in progress, impossible to recall once concluded. But now is a big time for Origin; fifth album Entity is out in June and then commences a bonery tour with Hate Eternal. So will Paul Ryan and crew put substance and composition before tweedly tech-wanking? Maybe there’s a clue in the band’s new video check-in from the studio (above).

–ADF

Origin’s Entity is out June 7 on Nuclear Blast. A couple weeks after that, Origin joins Hate Eternal, Vital Remains, and Abysmal Dawn on tour (dates here).

When word reached Lady Gaga last year that she’d been described by Ozzy Osbourne as ”very clever, very interesting,” “wacky,” and in possession of a likable zaniness, the pop singer expressed her joy by calling herself Black Sabbath’s biggest fan “in the world.” Um, yeah that’s a patent and insulting falsehood, but shit, no worries cuz flattery from an icon like Ozzy might lead to excited overstatement in response. Shit, I’d be fuckin’ pumped if Bill Ward and I liked the same cereal. So yeah.

And really it’d even be spazworthy for most if similar praise came from somebody like Monster Magnet maestro Dave Wyndorf, as it did for Lady Gaga on MetalSucks back in November. Though hmm I doubt she was similarly flattered by an aged metal drummer fop’s invite to a groping, which occured this weekend when the Iron Maiden tour shared a venue with Lady Gaga’s in Tampa, Florida. A few days before that, McBrain told an about-to-be totally nauseated interviewer:

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Whether you’re a tri-corner hat wearing Teabagger who thinks taxes are the work of the devil, a bleeding heart tree-hugging Lefty who believes The Man will take care of everything, or a corporate cocksucking conservative who believes GE deserves a $3.2 billion tax refund despite raking in more than $14 million in profit, today is inevitable.

Death (metal) and taxes.

Yes, normally in America, we must file our taxes by April 15. That was last Friday. Fortunately, for many of you slackers out there, Friday was also a Washington holiday to celebrate Emancipation Day; the day President Abraham Lincoln freed nearly 3,100 slaves in Washington D.C. in 1862, nine months before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Normally, this momentous occasion is observed on April 16 in D.C.; however, since that date fell on a Saturday this year, taxes get pushed back until today.

So, if you are reeling from your continuing procrastination, maybe you can find a few songs here to get you through the tedium (AKA the final hours before tonight’s filing deadline). Or, maybe you are already done with your paperwork and want to stroll down the aisle of taxing tunes and moneyed music.

Some of it is from metalheads, but most comes from the world of rock.

Figures, that’s where the real money is (was) made.

The Beatles – “Taxman” (Cartoon)

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Remember that Number of the Blog digital compilation we told you about? It’s here, it’s awesome, and it’s completely free. Our brothers in blog have great taste, and the proof is that 10 of the 18 bands on The Sampler of the Blog Volume 1 have received prior coverage on MetalSucks (which is the very validation of “great,” naturally). So what are you waiting for? Download that bitch for free in a variety of formats from the links found here.

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Arch Enemy’s newest album, Khaos Legions, isn’t scheduled to hit stores until June 7 (…fuck, summer’s almost here). Lucky for us, GuitarWorld.com is premiering the band’s video for the song “Yesterday is Dead and Gone.”

I have watched the video twice and now consider myself an expert on it. I kid — there are no such things as experts — on anything.

I do, however, have a few random, from-the-hip observations about the video I’d like to share with you.

Feel free to head on over to GuitarWorld.com now to watch the video first, if you want to avoid any spoilers.

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“It smells like B.O. and shame…”

As is par for the course these days, Korn has received a shit-ton of grief for their recent collaboration with dubstep producer (and former lead singer of screamo act from First To Last) Skrillex, AKA Sonny Moore, for the song “Get Up.”

Regardless of what you all think of Korn circa 2011, video footage from this past weekend’s Coachella Festival (Korn is introduced at the 1:05 mark) appears to be evidence they’ve accomplished exactly what it is they set out to do – latch onto a new, somewhat hip musical trend; lure even more new listeners into their world; and hopefully, remind their former fans that they still exist.

You know, a blatant money grab.

I say, more power to ‘em.

-CM

Corey Mitchell is a best-selling author of several true crime books. I plan on listening to the new Explosions in the Sky extensively while working on my next one.

Join Corey at Facebook and Twitter.

Cool things about this live footage of Voivod trying out a new song called “Kaleidos” — (Thanks to MS reader Leslie for the correct song title) — at the Roadburn Festival this past Friday, April 15, in Tillburg, Holland:

• Snake reads from his lyric tablet;
• Dan Mongrain sounds so much like Piggy it’s almost supernatural;
• Away makes more sounds come out of his tiny drumkit than most so-called technical drummers these days can conjure up out of their 57-piece monstrosities;
• Snake prowls the stage like a starving feral dog;
• Blacky is back!;
• It reminds me of Dimension Hatröss-era Voivod;
• These guys pour out more energy than most bands half their age;
• The crowd seems rather complacent — until they unleash a collective roar of approval at the end;
• The awesome Away-illustrated hellscape backdrop;
• I’m flashing back to 1990 when I caught Voivod headline over Soundgarden and Faith No More (and blew them both away — no pun intended) at The Backroom in Austin, Texas.

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I’ve been lucky enough to know Jason McMaster for nearly a quarter century. For those of you not in the know, McMaster was the seminal progressive thrash frontman for the legendary Austin, Texas band Watchtower. While respected worldwide, Watchtower was, nonetheless, waaaaayyyyyy before its time. Think Dream Theater, Symphony X, Between the Buried and Me, Obscura, et al, and you might start to get an inkling of what these precursory tech-metal masters were all about.

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I’m sure this is the exact scenario Axl and Vince dreaded when they left me in charge of the MetalSucks Mansion today. While they’re out plotting world domination, a press release came flying into my overly stuffed inbox from our good friend, Amy Sciarretto, PR goddess of Roadrunner Records.

The subject matter in question? The naming of the new drummer for “prog-rock” (their words) band, and perennial Vince Neilstein favorite, Dream Theater.

The Roadrunner press release states:

“Go to Dream Theater’s Facebook page on Thursday, April 21st at 11 AM to sign up for the mailing list and to receive more details about an exclusive and intimate look at the auditions, and to find out exactly when and how the momentous announcement about the band’s new lineup will be made.  Fans will be able to find out information about the band’s upcoming 2011 World Tour via Facebook, as well.”

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There’s less than one week left! Through April 20th, the Blast Beat Network — the company that handles online ad sales for MetalSucks, Metal Injection, Decibel, MetalUnderground.com, MetalInsider.net and a bunch of other awesome metal sites — is offering a special banner advertising package discount available only to unsigned bands.

We know it’s tough as an unsigned band, which is why we continue to bring you our Unsigned and Unholy and Readers’ Choice columns. So we thought we’d throw the smaller guys another bone by making banner ads on MS and the other Blast Beat sites affordable to anyone.

For $100, your 728×90 leaderboard ad (up top of the site) will be shown 50,000 times across the network. That’s less than what the record labels pay. To take advantage of this special deal, follow the instructions listed here. But act fast, because this deal is only good through this Friday.

Now that Axl and Vince have vacated the premises, they made the mistake of giving me the keys to their e-mail lockbox. I do not pity these young men. The amount of crap that infiltrates their system is outrageous. But every now and then, there’s a kernel of goodness just waiting to be extracted, processed, and sent back out to the unsuspecting masses.

Case in point – this here free download of the so-called Death Metal Decapitation (DMD) concert, even though the particular sojourn is officially titled the All Shall Align tour. The DMD is the rather predictably named showcase of six Canadian death metal/grindcore bands featured on one bill, April 30, at the Hard Luck Bar in Toronto, Canada. The proprietors of said bar have used their skullets to brilliantly market this show with a six-song sampler from, what I assume, are some of the top names in the world of Canadian extreme metal. The bands featured are Accursed Spawn, Archspire (pictured above), Insurrection, Wretchedpain, Xyphos, and Strings of-Ares.

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I was bummed last month when I heard that FUBAR‘s Dean “Deaner” Murdoch (Paul J. Spence) was detained at the Canadian border and would not grace the SXSW Film Festival with his presence. So, I took matter into my own hands and tracked the one-balled mustachioed metalhead down and asked him for some sticky pearls of wisdom. Instead, he gave me a Top 10 list. – CM

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Long-time readers of MetalSucks are fully aware of my lifelong obsession with Mötley Crüe. Okay, it was more like a two-year love affair, at least until I discovered Terry Glaze-fronted Pantera, Metallica, and the English Dogs.

I have ruined any chances of running for public office by openly displaying my dress-up capabilities as both Vince Neil and Nikki Sixx on this wonderful publication. I have reviewed the band’s concerts here, as well as their books (and books, and books).

My pathetic one-sided man crush was shattered on December 8, 1984, when lead singer Vince Neil vehicularly manslaughtered 24-year-old Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley, while driving his Pantera to a liquor store in Redondo Beach, California, to pick up some booze. Interestingly enough, that was the same exact moment the band’s music began to completely suck. Hard.

That brings us to modern day Mötley Crüe and their upcoming co-headlining summer tour with metal stalwarts Poison **hack** and glam rock pioneers the New York Dolls. According to Blabbermouth, Crüe bassist and de facto leader Nikki Sixx claims that the band’s fans “demanded” that they take Poison out on the road. MetalSucks co-head honcho Axl Rosenberg, of course, is much wiser than Sixx gives him credit.

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I am very excited to take over the controls of the mighty MetalSucks Mansion today and Wednesday from my Texas-based satellite office!

Up first, an incredible, ass-kicking new video from the mighty Canadian metal purists 3 Inches of Blood that’s full of…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

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