For metal fans over the age of 30, there’s little fresh news to be found on VH1′s That Metal Show; the weekly show functions mostly as a clubhouse for “remember when?” type gab with flabby old-timers. (For metal fans under 30, TMS provides a peek back in time to when the term “metal” meant “heavier than Paul McCartney & Wings.”) So I was one of tens of viewers of the TMS season seven finale, in which former Ozzy drummer Carmine Appice (above, big brother of Heaven & Hell skinsman Vinny Appice) shot ropey jets of great and hilarious news all over the sweaty boobs of the dinosaur metal world.

Wow, that’s a clusterfucked metaphor, but ahem the important thing is that the unconvincingly bewigged Appice addressed the status of Blue Murder to TMS host Eddie Trunk, who along with me makes up about half of the post-Whitesnake John Sykes supergroup’s restless, rabid fanbase. But that was only the happiest news, not the weirdest. According to Appice:

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Anaal Nathrakh’s seemingly permanent problem — that it will never top it’s brilliant debut, the filthy The Codex Necro – isn’t unique to them, nor even unique to metal. Like Nas — who arrived with Illmatic, one of the hip-hop’s most influential albums, and has subsequently tried to top it for almost two decades, at best coming somewhat close and at worst falling embarrassingly short — their first official effort set an impossibly high watermark. But unlike Nas, the band have never given the impression that they’re trying to recapture lightening in a bottle, which could be why The Codex Necro feels less like a fluke and more like a sturdy foundation for the band’s career. After introducing clean singing on their next album (Domine Non Es Dignus), it was clear if they couldn’t shoot past their debut’s excellence, they could fire to the left of it. So while Anaal Nathrakh have never been as good as they were on Codex Necro – and arguably never will be — their catalog has been remarkably consistent in its wake. Nas positioned himself to have to compete with hip-hop’s brightest stars while his was on the wane; Anaal Nathrakh have only had to compete with themselves. Even in a relatively diminished capacity, there are few that are more fierce and eviscerating as them.

So while the band have been wobbling back and forth between great albums (Eschanton, The Constellation of the Black Widow) and spotty ones (Dignus, Hell is Empty and All the Devils are Here), they haven’t come as close to the viciousness of their debut as they do on Passion (oddly enough, their most subdued album title yet). Though it lacks Codex’s red-eyed anger and grime-caked production, it tweaks the band’s post-Necro additions — big choruses and tempos below that of “ridiculously fast” — to seeming perfection. Perhaps it’s unfair to hold them to an impossible standard, but if one must, Passion is as good as the band can get. “All killer, no filler” feels literal in its context.

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Our number one homie Justin Foley is currently doing a mini-tour with his band, The Austerity Program, and graciously offered to do a tour blog for us. We can never say “no” to Justin and wouldn’t much want to anyway, so we agreed! Below please find his musings on the first two days of the mini-trek…

Monday, May 16, 7:43 AM
New York City

It’s early.  It always takes me a few hours to get to bed after playing, as the electricity of it needs a bit of time to bleed from my system ,at least enough for sleep to take hold.  Since we got back to the house pretty quick last night I just stayed up until 3 or so doing dumb shit like paying my bills.  Then, when my daughter was up at 7 I leapt up to get her.  So, yeah, now she’s watching the end of Elmo’s World and I have hit that “whut the fuuuuck” thing that happens when you’ve gotten 3 and a half hours of sleep and got the whooole day ahead of you.

Last night was us playing our New York residency, a little music box venue called Union Pool.  I like the place a lot – it’s a small enough venue with a bit of a weird theatrical feel to it: little light bulbs frame the stage for black-t-shirted bands like us.  We always have to play Tetris with our amp setup and barely manage to figure it out each time.

The load-in for an event like this is always some low level of absurd.  Four sets of guys, all dressed pretty much the same way, all wheeling and carrying amp after amp after amp into a not-so-big room, all to be stacked on top of/behind/in front of one another and quickly rearranged when it’s some band’s 26 minutes to play their music.  Certainly some rational observer would look at it all and say “why don’t you all just take the best collection of those boxes and just all play through that?”  For some reason, rational observer, it just doesn’t work like that – and I say this as the band that is about the worst offender of the “lbs of heavy shit per band member” rule.  And so we all politely and determinedly got our piles of gear in and sort of settled.  The sound guy bit his lip as it all unflolded.

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Leyla got to go the recent “An Evening with Amon Amarth” North American headlining tour, in which the band played two sets — their entire new (awesome awesome awesome) album, Surtur Rising, and a set of classics — and it sounds like she had a great time. But due to a scheduling conflict, Vince and I missed it. And we were really, really sad about that. I’m not being facetious in the slightest — we were totally bummed out.

Lucky for us, and any other poor bastards who didn’t get to go, the band is coming back for a second round in August! So… thank Odin for second chances. I’m so happy we’ll get to see one of these shows after all.

(And on a semi-related note, I know some people have been asking when we’re gonna announce winners for the beard growing contest. Well, believe it or not, some of the winners don’t seem to be responding to their e-mails! So check your inboxes and spam folders, people! And hopefully we can finally announce the winners really, really soon.)

Here are dates… I’m gonna start growing my beard now in preparation. I think I can have a pretty gnarly one goin’ by August…

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MS contributor Corey Mitchell, ever the deal-hunter, emailed me yesterday about this free sampler that Metal Blade posted on Amazon featuring new music by great bands such as Between the Buried and Me, Primordial, In Solitude, Hate Eternal and more. I went through the whole process of downloading a new Amazon app (despite already having it), installing it, going back to the download page… only to be told the sampler wasn’t available in my territory. Zuh?

Then I realized I was on Amazon.co.uk, so I signed on to regular Amazon.com, searched for and successfully downloaded the sampler. It’s right here for those Americans who want it. But all Brits have to click the other link, above; Japanese folk can probably find it here, French people can presumably click here, Germans can download it here, and Chinese people… fucked if I know. Never mind if you’re Japanese, French, German or any other nationality but you speak English; no, no, no, Amazon will not allow you to download from the U.S. site! Never! Heresy! If you’re Metal Blade, this is a real concern since readers of MetalSucks come from all over the world.

And therein lies the problem; I bring this issue up not to pick on Metal Blade, of course (the same could be said of any release on any label), but to underscore the completely backwards state of our current digital distribution system.

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*shels is a band we haven’t written much about here at MetalSucks, mostly because… I honestly don’t have a good explanation. We’re just dopes I guess.

But Heavy Blog is Heavy has alerted me to the fact that the band has a new album coming out this summer called Plains of the Purple Buffalo (see how the above cover art makes sense now?). They’ve already released the first single, “Vision Quest,” which you can stream below.

Like the headline says, it ain’t metal — but it’s still extreme. HBiH compares it to “Clint Mansell’s epic film scores” (Requiem for a Dream, Moon, etc.), but it actually reminds me more of This Will Destroy You and Sleepmakeswaves, two other extreme-if-not-metal bands we love. Seriously, if you need a little chill time, you’re not gonna do much better than this.

Plains of the Purple Buffalo comes out June 27 via shelsmusic.

-AR

Foo Fighters fans fretting that Wasting Light would relinquish its hold on the meaningless Soundscan charts after dropping to #2 last week after three debut weeks at #1… fret not, as Dave Grohl and co. are back up top! This week’s #2 comes in the form of a big surprise, as Zack Wylde’s Black Label Society sold a ton of copies of the acoustic equivalent of a remixes album.

Lots of interesting action elsewhere, too, with new records by Anvil and Hate Eternal making the charts, and a bunch of other strong sellers. Also: a case study in Sixx A.M. / Motley Crue chart history, another one on the myriad Aerosmith greatest hits collections selling gangbusters, and on Metallica’s Master of Puppets‘ chart legacy finally coming to an end.

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Roy Mayorga, former drummer for Soulfly and current drummer for Amebix and Stone Sour, apparently suffered a minor stroke following the latter band’s show in Des Moines, IA this past Sunday night. (See? Nothing good ever comes from Des Moines.) Here’s a statement the band released on their official website:

“It is with regret that we have decided to cancel the remaining dates on our current headline tour. Our friend and drummer, Roy Mayorga suffered a minor stroke a couple of nights ago after our show in Des Moines. He’s doing great and is expected to make a 100% recovery. We apologize to all the fans and look forward to getting back out on the road with Roy in the coming months.”

So, look… we’re obviously not huge fans of Stone Sour around here, but we don’t wish Mayorga any ill will. We wish Mayorga a speedy recovery so he can get back out on the road and make music for the fans who appreciate it more than we do ASAP.

-AR

One of the best parts of my job is reading Sergeant D. posts in advance of their being published and just knowing how upset people are gonna get; and then, of course, there’s the satisfaction of actually reading the comments once the posts are published and seeing that, yep, people are really not happy.

And one of the best recent complaints I’ve seen about Sergeant D.’s work is that he keeps misspelling Suicide Silence as “Suiside Silence.”

Boy. I think a lot of you guys are alright, but there are some of  you who are just not too quick, y’know?

ANYWAY, Suiside Silence have now unveiled the cover art for their new album, The Black Crown. I think it’s pretty badass (that looks like the skeleton of a facehugger to me, and I’m never opposed to facehuggers in metal album cover art). But I also know that 99% of you have already made up your mind about this band, and if you think they suck you’ll complain that it looks too much like an Affliction shirt, and if you think they rule you’ll praise the profundity of its play on imagery from the American dollar bill, and really why am I still typing this when I could just post the album cover and sit back and watch you all engage in what is sure to be intelligent and polite debate?

The Black Crown comes out July 12 on Century Media. If you like this band in real life you should go like them on Facebook, because they’ve promised to release a new song as soon as they hit a million followers, and they’re getting pretty close.

-AR

So yesterday we learned that vocalist Derek Rydquist is not currently touring Europe with The Faceless, who seem to have recruited a replacement. What’s not clear is who that replacement is, and whether or not he’s a permanent addition to the group’s ranks, or is just filling in while Rydquist deals with visa issues, or family issues, or whatever other issues sometimes prevent musicians from flying overseas with their band. And while it looks like fans are asking “What the dilly, yo?” on The Faceless’ Facelessbook page, answers have yet to be forthcoming.

But the Bob Woodward to my Carl Bernstein, Metal Injection‘s Rob Pasbani, took the baton of great metal journalism and e-mailed Mr. Rydquist directly to get an update. Rydquist’s response?

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The other day I was bellyachin’ that while this awesome tour with Animals as Leaders, Intronaut, Dead Letter Circus, Last Chance to Reason, and Evan Brewer had been announced, there were no dates available; well, now Intronaut have posted the “first half of the dates” on their Facebook page. So that’s a start!

Anyway, what else is there to say? If you can go to one of these shows, you obviously should — the only artist I can’t really vouch for is Dead Letter Circus, just because I don’t really know them well enough to have an opinion one way or the other. But even if they turn out to be terrible (and given the rest of this bill, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were actually really fantastic), the other peeps playing this show are so killer that you should really go anyway.

And here are those initial dates:

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Emil Werstler from Dååth and Levi/Werstler…

Once upon a time, Emil Werstler made a “Betcha Can’t Play This” instructional video for Guitar World, and that video showed him playing so fast that he had to make a second video, this one in front of a live audience, just to disprove some naysayers who accused him of speeding up his performance in the original clip. I love that story, because if you knew nothing else about Werstler or his work, you’d still know that this is a guy who play with such speed and technical skill that other guitar professionals literally can’t believe his abilities are real.

Of course, if speed were Werstler’s only virtue, there’d be no place for him on his list. But he also happens to be a musician of incredible inventiveness who is able to play an intimidatingly wide array of styles — the true reason we’re so head over in heels in love with his playing.

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New releases from A Storm of Light, Anaal Nathrakh, Arsonsists Get All the Girls, Nader Sadek, Scar Symmetry and more; a good day for metal! Check out Vic Vaughn’s thoughts on today’s new albums after the break.

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Regular MetalSucks readers already know that we think the world of Emmure, the finest band in metal or hardcore today. And so we’re only too happy to see that another band we love, Kvelertak, also thinks that Emmure are the greatest thing since the electric guitar. Just check out this recent exchange with a fan on their Facebook page:

So, clearly, these two bands are now the best of friends, and we should expect Kvelertak to be added to The Farm League Tour any second now. Maybe they can even collaborate on a new song about Street Fighter together? They have Street Fighter in Norway, right?

-AR

Thanks to Morrizz for the tip!

It’s a death metal kind of day. Come with me and listen to new music by unsigned standouts Murder Therapy, Bloodsoaked and Priapus after the jump.

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A rip-roaring good time was had at our inaugural South by South Death show in Austin, TX this past March; Kvelertak, Havok, Red Fang, Wormot and Meek is Murder packed Headhunters on Red River St. and kept the energy level high throughout the afternoon. We posted Roxwel.com-filmed video footage of Red Fang, Havok and Wormrot’s sets here, and now, for your viewing pleasure, we give you Kvelertak and Meek is Murder. You can also check out an interview segment with all five bands here.

Meek Is Murder at South By South Death 2011
Watch Music Videos at www.roxwel.com

Kvelertak, after the jump. And HOLY SHIT did they kill it, getting that entire room into a frenzied mosh:

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Max Cavalera is a name you’ve probably heard recently. His band, Cavalera Conspiracy, has been making waves in the metal world with their latest release, Blunt Force Trauma, and are currently on tour in the U.S. But here’s something you might not have known: he’s been at this for decades.

Max, along with his esteemed colleague and brother, Igor, made some of the most beastly and innovative thrash in the mid 80’s and 90’s in the highly influential, underground metal outlet, Sepultura (Portuguese for “grave”). Unfortunately personal differences in ’96 drew him away from the band. Upon relocating to the States, he focused his talents on a new project, the still-running Soulfly (English for “Mighty-Spirit-Mosquito”).

For years Max worked tirelessly with the group, releasing seven studio album’s and gradually building a cult following in the process. Now with a new band and his brother back at his side, the world is finally taking notice.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with the bearded bellower to get the skinny on the new album and see what he makes of his recent success.

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One of our most favoritest drummers, Ryan Parrish, from one of our most favoritest bands, Darkest Hour, has launched a new column at one of our most favoritest websites, Metal Injection. It’s called “A View from Behind the Drumkit” (‘Cause he’s a drummer. Get it?), and for the inaugural edition of his column, he’s chosen to tackle one of the most pressing topics for any touring musician: “When do we eat?”

Here’s a sample:

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The answers you guys have sent in for last week’s Completely Unreadable Band Logo contest have been hilarious, and not just because some of you thought the answer was Warg, War, or Swarm. Here are a few sample responses I’d like to share with you:

“Okay so this looks like IWABO. Alternative logo? Completely wrong answer? WTF?”
-Andrew Hardman

“Iwrestledabearonce went black metal? WTF.”
-Jonathan Voynar

“It’s I Wrestled a Bear Once’s new black metal logo.”
-Andrew Robbins

“BLACK METAL JUST GOT GAY.”
-Kuranes

Well, guess what? The answer WAS Iwrestledabearonce. And they are, in fact, a black metal band now.

Yep. IWABO are completely changing their sound.

Don’t believe me? Check out this new band pic by Jeremy Saffer:

Here’s a statement from guitarist Steven Bradley regarding the decision to abandon the band’s old sound:

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I’m not going to do a full, detailed show review of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s headlining gig at at The Music Hall of Williamsburg this past Sunday night because at this point I don’t really know what else to say about the band’s performance that I haven’t already said. They put on one of the most fun live shows of any band out there right now, and they never disappoint — especially at a smallish venue like this one, where security is more likely to let them truly embody the spirit of punk, as they were born to do.

Case in point: for the last two songs of the pre-encore set, “Sunshine the Werewolf” and, of course, “43% Burnt,” Greg Puciato demanded that everyone on the floor get up on the stage… and everyone was only too-happy to oblige him. (And keep in mind that, on top of this, Puciato and Weinman were both already bleeding from their respective heads by this point.) Now, I know this isn’t exactly a new idea — Iggy and The Stooges do it at the end of every show — but that doesn’t make it any less fun/crazy.

Check out video below, courtesy The PRP:

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