One of the summer releases I’m most excited for is All Shall Perish’s This is Where it Ends, and thus far, the material we’ve heard leads me to believe that I won’t be disappointed.

The latest example: “Process of Ashes,” the new song the band is now streaming at Lambgoat. It sounds like a hybrid of Price of Existence-era ASP and Awaken the Dreamers-era ASP, and I mean that in the best possible way; I know there are fans who thought Dreamers wasn’t heavy enough, but I think the band actually did a fine job incorporating some more melodious elements into their work, and I’m glad to hear them building on that here. All Shall Perish are really turning out to be an fine example of artistic evolution done right.

Also: new guitarist Francesco Artusato continues to just murder it stone fucking dead, news which will surprise pretty much no one.

Headbang here, then let us know what you think in the comments section. This is Where it Ends comes out via Nuclear Blast on July 26. The band will be on this year’s Mayhem Fest, along with Megadeth, Machine Head, In Flames, Trivium, Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, Red Fang, and some other bands not worth mentioning. You can get dates here.

-AR

Well, I didn’t see this coming: not only have Machine Head already announced a September 27 release date for their still-untitled, still-being-recorded new album, but they’ve announced that an “advance mix” (i.e., not final) of a new song, “Locust,” will be released this coming Tuesday, June 14. So that’s not bad news!

The press release states that the song “will be on sale at iTunes on June 14^th and will be included on an iTunes Mayhem digital sampler;” download cards for the latter  ”will be distributed at every date” of this summer’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival (on which MH are playing, duh), so I guess you can wait until you go to the show and get the sampler for free, or you can pay the buck (or whatever it ends up costing) and just get the song on Tuesday. I am impatient, so I will be giving Machine Head a dollar, and doing so happily.

Other bands on this year’s Mayhem Fest include Megadeth, In Flames, Trivium, Unearth, Suicide Silence, All Shall Perish, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Red Fang. You can get dates here. And we’ll have some kind of editorial/review/whatever on Tuesday, after “Locust” is released.

-AR

Is Kairos, Sepultura’s latest offering, the band’s best new album since Roots, or even — Duh-duh-DUHHHHH!!! – Chaos A.D.? New tunes like “Mask,” which, oh hey, we just happen to be streaming below, would certainly suggest this to be the case. Not only is it an must-mosh-now-worthy anthem powered by a maddeningly catchy riff, but it would absolutely not sound out of place on one of Sep’s pre-Roots classics. The band sounds absolutely unhinged — and we mean that as a compliment.

Turn up “Mask” FUCKING LOUD and decide for yourself. Kairos comes out July 12 in North America and June 24 in Europe via Nuclear Blast. You can pre-order it in a variety of attractive packages here.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Photo by Andrew Lipovsky

It will surprise no one to learn that our Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists Readers’ Poll basically came down to a race between Devin Townsend and Between the Buried and Me’s Paul Waggoner, a.k.a. “The Two Omissions About Which MS Readers Seemed the Most Distraught.” But in the end it wasn’t even close — as of this writing, Heavy Devy has an impressive 86 votes, not nearly enough to overtake Waggoner’s 116 votes.

In any case, they’re both great guitarists — as are pretty much all the candidates you folks selected — and it was a painful choice to cut them both from the list, so we’re only too pleased to see you, our beloved MetalSucks Maniacs, give them some love.

Now, to celebrate his victory, here’s a video of Waggoner tracking his solo from “Selkies”:

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Times change. When we started this site 4+ years ago there were certain labels (not these two) that were completely averse to the idea of giving anything away for free, even in the form of a track premiere. Nowadays releasing free downloadable samplers is pretty much an annual ritual for many of them. And with good reason; folks who download a sampler to own tracks by two or three bands they like undoubtedly end up getting into others by osmosis.

Prosthetic Records and Good Fight Music have both released free downloadable samplers this week, and you’d be wise to download them pronto if you dig good metal. Prosthetic’s sampler features tracks by Scale the Summit, Holy Grail, Animals as Leaders, Neuraxis, Withered, Skeletonwitch and many many more; download it from their Facebook page for the price of a “Like.” Good Fight’s sampler is available for free download from Amazon and features The Chariot, The Contortionist, Madball, S.O.S., among others.

They say nothing in life is free… or is it?

-VN

“Yep, that’s what Dying Fetus covering Bolt Thrower would sound like.”

That was the thought that ran through my mind as I listened to Dying Fetus’ new cover of Bolt Thrower’s “Unleashed Upon Mankind,” which is now streaming here.

Click to read more…

Red State Radio Rock reigned supreme once again last week on the increasingly meaningless Soundscam charts. Metal fans won’t find much to be happy about as none of the albums we highlighted last week charted, but there are some interesting stats about Ozzy Osbourne and others after the jump.

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“Hey guys, I’m just wondering why you haven’t covered the new Evile song yet? They released it yesterday on the Earache website, it’s called “Eternal Empire” and it’s pretty damn good. I’m honestly a bit surprised that you haven’t posted anything on MetalSucks yet, I’ve seen a few other new tracks posted but no Evile.”
-Reader Tyler Halcomb

Hey, did you guys know that there’s a new Evile song? They released it Monday on the Earache website (but only if you’re willing to give up your sweet, sweet-ass e-mail address), it’s called “Eternal Empire,” and it’s pretty damn good. By which I mean, if you like other Evile songs, I imagine you’ll like this, because it’s even more retro than their other material, I think, and if you don’t like other Evile songs, I doubt that this one will convert you. I mean in the scheme of rethrash bands, I don’t think Evile are nearly as good as Havok, but they’re way, way better than, say, Bonded by Blood. “Eternal Empire” is a catchy song, and I won’t fault anyone for enjoying it.

ANYWAY, headbang here, then come back and let us (and Tyler!) know what you think in the comments section. Evile’s new album, Five Serpent’s Teeth, comes out September 26 on Earache.

-AR

Pound for pound, death metal videos are always the best, slaying all other metal videos into boring, meaningless oblivion. They’re the most ridiculous, the most entertaining, and somehow often end up being the best produced despite shoe-string budgets.

I have no idea what an epidural infraction is — an epidural injection gone wrong, I suppose? — nor what any kind of epidural has to do with this music video by Canada’s Fetus Grinder, but I find myself incredibly entertained nonetheless. I’m pretty sure some of those human “guts” are actually pieces of chicken and I think one of the instruments the “surgeon” is using is actually an ordinary pair of kitchen tongs, but no matter: the improvised stage props just make this video all that much more endearing, even if the song isn’t anything you haven’t heard before.

-VN

Fetus Grinder – Acid Epidural Infraction from Patrick Caracas on Vimeo.

There’s a fascinating psychology to a true failure of an album. And I’m not talking about how The Sound of White Noise pissed off Belladonna-Anthrax fans or whatever. No, I mean your St. Angers, Cold Lakes, your Unspoken Kings: albums whose defenders are more often than not defending just to be contrary. They’re usually made by bands with some renown and a fan base that — if not sizable — is devoted enough to know a blasphemously awful album when they hear it. There are so many points where the band’s handlers and/or hangers-on could have stopped them and said, “Wait, you’re not being SERIOUS about this, are you?” But either the band were so resolute in their belief that the album was a risk worth taking or were surrounded by a bunch of wincing Yes Men that it still comes into existence anyway, completely un-self-conscious and without a shred of self-awareness. There’s a beauty to those records, albeit a beauty that exists in terrible, regrettable art.

And although Morbid Angel haven’t been immune to Trey Azagthoth’s pretentiousness over the band’s multi-decade career, personally, I didn’t see an album like Illud Divinum Insanus coming down the pipe. Like Cold Lake and The Unspoken King – creative rock-bottom moments for Celtic Frost and Cryptopsy, respectively — it’s ill-calculated to an unfathomable degree. But unlike those albums, which on top of being terrible had a whiff of being sell-out moves (hair metal for Celtic Frost, mall-grade deathcore for Cryptopsy), Illud Divinum Insanus is a passion project for Azagthoth and Dave Vincent (back in the band for the first time on record since Domination). This is an incredibly personal record that they’ve decided to hang the Morbid Angel name on– a name that’s not just sacred in death metal but among the most respected in metal as a whole- – and have subsequently turned the band from a name synonymous with greatness to a name immediately followed with the statement “Just stick with their older stuff” if mentioning them to the uninitiated. Illud Divinum Insanus isn’t just terrible: it’s magnificently dreadful. If the last Six Feet Under album is a mentally ill guy holding a cardboard “REPENT” sign on the street, the new Morbid Angel record is that guy who cashed out his pension to buy ad space for the “THE WORLD IS ENDING ON MAY 21, 2011” hysteria.

Click to read more…

Hats off to reader Sandy Dechter, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Slumber Death. For her troubles, Sandy wins five CDs from the MetalSucks Mansion Archives. Yyyyaaaayyy, Sandy!

This week, we have another super-duper-awesome prize to give away: not one, but two, count ‘em two, copies of The Oculus, the new album from Sweden’s Inevitable End. This record is fucking CRAZY, man. The A.V. Club recently called it “a spastic, intricately wiry mechanism of technical head-fuckery that rips apart any reassuring formula and leaves it oozing on the floor,” which is a glowing recommendation if I’ve ever read one. The album is out now on Relapse; you can order it here, or, of course, just enter this contest!

All you gots to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly two winners and announce their names a week from today.

As was the case last week, this week’s logo was suggested by Kraghen… thanks, again, brutha!

-AR

This morning, MetalSucks’ own Corey Mitchell made Vince and myself aware of Andrew O’Neill, who, as the headline states, is an occultist transvestite black metal stand-up comedian from New Zealand. And having now watched the below video (in which O’Neill even dons an Altar of Plagues shirt) from the BBC, I don’t actually think the dude is all that funny (Brian Posehn’s status as the premiere heavy metal comedian remains unchallenged, as does Frankie Palmeri’s runner-up status), but it is interesting that such a performer even exists and is apparently gaining some acclaim… especially in light of the fact that we were just discussing the possibility of metal becoming increasingly mainstream. Would audiences have ever even given this dude a chance in the old days? I guess, in all fairness, none of his humor is metal-specific, although he certainly does play up the whole Satan angle.

There’s probably some societal significance in the fact that he’s a transvestite, too, but Eddie Izzard was probably the real trailblazer there.

Check out the clip below and see if you find more humor in this than I did.

-AR

Welcome back to Rigged, in which your favorite metal musicians take you on a step-by-step rundown of their entire live rig. This week Forbidden will embark on a North American headline tour with Revocation, White Wizzard and Havok — brought to you by MetalSucks (dates here) — so we asked guitarist Steve Smyth to take us on a tour of his gear setup. Without further ado, here’s Steve…

What’s up MetalSucks readers! Steve Smyth here. I’m about to take you through a rundown of my live rig here with Forbidden, in advance of our upcoming headline tour through North America.

While I am a firm believer that tone is in the hands first, I am also a firm believer in finding and using the gear that you feel best expresses the style of music you’re playing.

Click to read more…

Pain — which, in case you didn’t know, is the Peter Tägtgren project that isn’t Hypocrisy — have a released a new video, for the track “The Great Pretender,” and… well, it certainly held my interest! The obvious joke would be to call it Reservoir Mascots. I think there’s probably a metaphor there about guys dressed in animals costumes, pretending, etc., but I’m not even gonna read that much into it because mostly it’s just silly and fun. My point being this isn’t the greatest video ever made, but it at least makes you wanna watch the whole thing, which is more than I can say for most metal vids!

Pain’s new album, You Only Live Twice, comes out June 21 on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Agnostic Front. Blind Approach. Madball. Guitarist Matt Henderson made his mark on all of them, and in doing so, on the still-thriving institution that is hardcore. It seems downright criminal that his name isn’t mentioned in the same sentence as Greg Ginn, given that most bands in the scene these days sound more like 90s Madball than Black Flag. Not that it matters to Matt, mind you, as I learned in my chat with this down-to-earth guy. Industry-hardened yet still affable, he’s more interested in S.O.S., the project he’s formed with members of Hatebreed, Terror, and Trapped Under Ice. The veritable supergroup’s forthcoming I Owe You Nothing EP seems like a love letter to hardcore, a respect-laden tribute to the bands that inspired and creatively challenged its membership. While we have to wait until June 21 for the Good Fight / Reaper release (pre-order here and here), Matt’s answers regarding the band as well as his place in the history of hardcore are worth reading.

Click to read more…

After months of speculation and having been beaten to the punch by both Amazon and Google, Apple has finally announced iCloud, their cloud music streaming platform. Unsurprisingly given both Apple’s leverage with the iTunes music store and their penchant for excellent technology, Apple’s cloud service promises to be better than the aforementioned two pretty much from the start.

Here’s what you need to know about iCloud:

Click to read more…

This picture: STILL FUNNY!

Evan Seinfeld and Biohazard have parted ways, and just mere months before the release of the band’s reunion album, their first release since 2005′s There Was a Biohazard Album in 2005? In a statement, guitarist Bobby Hambel explains the split simply by saying “it’s time for a change,” but doesn’t elaborate. Presumably Seinfeld will release his own statement sometime soon.

He’d better, at least! It was just this past November that Seinfeld declared the new Biohazard album to be “almost too good,” a promise that doesn’t actually mean anything. Now he’s gonna hafta explain why he would possibly abandon such a momentous project. Was he actually fired? Was his previous total overhyping complete BS? Would he rather just spend time with his ventriloquist dummy? I’m dying to know the answer.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

D’OH! Vince posted this back in 2009. Yep, we’ve now been doing this for so long that I can’t even remember what idiotic shit we’ve already posted. Oh, well. As Vince put it, “It’s still funny!”

When Rammstein play a live show, they really do include pretty everything but the kitchen sink: fire, lasers, fire, exploding babies, fire, a cock-shaped cannon that cums on the audience, fire, a blow-up raft, fire, costume changes, and fire, to give you but  few examples.

But if Rammstein start incoporating Muppets into their routine, well, then they’ll really have a great show on their hands.

-AR

Thanks to Jonathan Kienzle for the vid!

June is going to be a huge month for metal releases and it starts with a bang today, the month’s first Tuesday. New releases by Morbid Angel, Arch Enemy, Job For A Cowboy and Amorphis are the biggest hitters, while new ones from Origin, Engineer, Gigan, Khann and Tombs are sure to put some hair on your chest. And that’s just a small sampling of all that comes out today. Vic Vaughn on each and every one of ‘em after the jump.

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An actual e-mail I received from my mother this morning:

From: Rosenberg
To: Axl Rosenberg
Subject: Black metal
Date: June 7, 2011 10:17:43 AM EDT

Hi,

Yesterday’s Times Art section has another review of black metal (Liturgy). What’s happening here? Is metal going mainstream?

Yes, somebody please tell her: WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE?

-AR