[via Badass]

So the three-day weekend kinda threw our schedule out of whack; you may have noticed that we still haven’t finished announcing the line-up for our Magical Mystery Tour, and we didn’t get to finish our list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, either. Both of those blessed events will go down next week, though, when we’re back for a full five days! So get stoked.

In the meantime, let’s review all the fun we managed to pack into this week’s abbreviated set:

• We debuted new music from four bands signed to Black Market Activities — Ed Gein, Engineer, Fit For An Autopsy, and Khann — as well as new music from Bloodlights.
• We spoke to some guy named Devin Townsend.
• Woods of Ypres’ Shane Madden continued his exclusive tour blog for us.
• We checked out the latest release from Autopsy.
• We celebrated the amazing amazingness that is the album art for Opeth’s Heritage.
• We were not surprised to learn that Emmure’s Frankie Palmeri is completely lacking in originality.
• We wondered if metal is a movement of the youth, inapplicable in its rebellion and ferocity to us olds.
• We made the case for the movie Jennifer’s Body as an underrated cinemetal masterpiece.
• We actually had something nice to say about Limp Bizkit (sort of).
• We introduced you to the future of appliancecore.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. You will always be at the forefront of our thoughts, dreams, and prayers.

-AR

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 Animals as Leaders’ Tosin Abasi…

It’s only been two years since Abasi released his debut solo effort under the Animals as Leaders moniker, but, oh, how times have since changed. When Prosthetic Records took a risk by releasing an ambient, shreddy metal album with no vocals by a relatively obscure, young guitarist, there’s no way they could’ve known the sea change it would inspire, and that there’d be dozens, if not hundreds, of imitators the world over. To say that Abasi has been a total game-changer for metal would be an understatement, and to say that he’s an immensely talented player deserving of every single accolade he receives doesn’t even really come close to capturing just how good he really is.

Click to read more…

If there’s one band who is almost universally hyped, it’s Black Sabbath. But the honest-to-god truth is that I’ve never heard an entire Sabbath album, and most of the songs I know are from other bands who covered them. In case you think I’m trolling, check my Last.fm profile. It has every song I’ve listened to since 2006, and you won’t find a single Black Sabbath song in all 45,000+ tracks.

When I was a kid, I never liked them because they looked like my parents, but I figured I should give them another chance now that I am an adult. Maybe there’s something I missed, right?? I mean, I didn’t appreciate bands like Boston and Steely Dan until my late 20s, so who knows? Well, I checked out a few of their songs the other day, and I guess I still don’t get it.

For all the the talk of how “they invented metal,” I am not hearing a lot of metal here. To me it just sounds like all the other British people in the late 60s who tried to play blues. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, I’m just saying that there is nothing metal about harmonica solos and bluegrass outros. I guess you could call the later stuff “metal,” but I definitely wouldn’t say that it’s stood the test of time– sounds more like a lulzy SNL sketch than anything resembling good metal if you ask me.

In this post, I will listen to a few Sabbath songs for the first time and share my reaction. Check it out and let me know what you think. Am I missing something?? Why do people jock these guys so hard???

Click to read more…

Reader David Fetterley suggested we check out Sweden’s Plector, and while I find the music to be serviceable-if-not-great, I did enjoy their video for the track “Alcoholic Refuge.” It’s yet another example of what can be achieved when someone just puts some thought and effort into the creation of the clip, as opposed to just releasing another boring performance video, or completely failing to find an interesting way to shoot or edit the footage. Check it out:

Plector’s self-released Dark & Spiteful is available now on Amazon.

-AR

Earlier this week we got to hear a little sample of a potentially-quite-good cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” by Academy Award© Winner Trent Reznor and Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs when it showed up in a trailer for the new movie version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; now Metal Injection have posted a video of Enslaved covering that very same song during a recent performance at the Henie Onstad Cultural Center in Oslo. You can check out video below; the audio quality isn’t great, but it’s good enough!

If you wanna see Enslaved do another cover — this one of King Crimson’s “Red” — head over to Metal Injection. And, lest ye forget, Enslaved’s own Ivar Bjørnson was named #22 on our list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists; you can read all the nice things Sammy O’Hagar wrote abotu him here.

-AR

So I just read about this movie Heavy Metal Strawberry Pickers over at Bring Back Glam; the always-wonderful Allyson B. Crawford writes that the flick “focuses on the fictional Glam band Kitty Kitty Bang Bang [How was there never a real glam band by this name?!? -AR] after grunge took over the metal scene,” which, I have to say, sounds like a fantastic idea for a really interesting movie. I’m not even kidding around here — it must have really sucked to be Warrant or Pretty Boy Floyd in 1993, and the story of a band suddenly falling out of public favor due to a shift in trends could be fraught with drama. (And by “drama,” I don’t mean the movie should be tonally similar to Schindler’s List. I guess I really mean “conflict,” a.k.a. “the material from which good stories are made.”)

Unfortunately, Allyson’s description of the movie is more interesting than the movie itself — ’cause in case you’re wondering why the words “strawberry pickers” appear in the film’s title, it’s due to the fact that the band in the movie ends up picking strawberries. Seriously.

Click to read more…

Here at MS we like to use the Reviews section to highlight smaller bands that we don’t otherwise talk about much throughout the regular course of our blogging. Said “regular course of our blogging” includes tons of articles about bigger bands’ albums, usually before release: song premieres (here or elsewhere), music videos, in-studio vids, album artwork, and so on and so forth. But when those albums do finally come out, well, a lot of the time they kind of fall off our radar. So what of those albums that we spend lots of time hyping? Full-on reviews are a royal pain in the ass to write, so today I’ll take a quick look at a few releases from the first half of 2011 and give them the proper review treatment in abbreviated form.

Click to read more…

Why, it was just yesterday that we got wind of Origin releasing samples of every song on their new album, Entity, and now the band is already streaming another one of those songs, “Saligia,” in its entirety over at Guitar World. And I am only too happy to write about the band two days in a row, because, well, Origin rule.

So headbang here… actually, it’s kinda hard to headbang to Origin without getting whiplash, so be careful! The post also includes an interview with Paul Ryan (the twenty-fifth top modern metal guitarist today, say we) in which he not only discussed Entity, but talks about his gear, too, which I know is always a popular topic amongst metalheads.

Entity comes out this Tuesday, June 7, on Nuclear Blast. Then, a week later, the the band begins a co-headlining tour with Hate Eternal and support acts Abysmal Dawn and Vital Remains, which is a bill that makes me hard just typing about it. Here are dates for that tour…

Click to read more…

Total bummer news of the day: Converge have been forced to cancel the remainder of their current tour due to a health scare involving bassist Nate Newton (also of Old Man Gloom and Doomriders fame, in case you somehow didn’t know that). A statement from the band tells fans…

“Unfortunately on our day drive from St. Louis to Austin, one of our members had a serious health scare. We rushed him to the nearest ER were he was looked at by some fine Oklahoma doctors. After a night’s stay in the hospital and a battery of tests we were able to have him discharged earlier today. We are now racing (quite literally) to make it to our show at Chaos In Tejas, albeit extremely late, to play an abbreviated set. Wish us luck.

“Because of this health issue, we are canceling the remaining few shows of this current U.S. tour so he can get home and get some medical attention asap. To those in Little Rock, Nashville, and Raleigh, we will add you to our list of places for make up shows later down the road.

“Thanks to all of you for your continued support, it is appreciated by all of us.”

So’s that’s obviously scary and upsetting, but hopefully everything will work out okay. Like the headline says, we’re sending out good thoughts to Mr. Newton… feel free to do the same in the comments section!

-AR

The number of talented and original unsigned bands who hawk their wares to Axl and myself via the MS Mansion Monkeys continues to amaze. After the jump, a look at three of my recent favorites: The Osedax, The Odious, and Alkahest.

Click to read more…

And you thought Devin Townsend selling his old spatula on eBay was weird.

Perhaps inspired by the popularity of our recent Amon Amarth Viking Beard contest, in which we actually gave away some of AA vocalist Johan Hegg’s beard, Tim Millar, guitarist for perennial MetalSucks faves Protest the Hero, is selling his nineteen-month old beard on eBay to help raise money for the Walk for MS (that’s Multiple Sclerosis, not MetalSucks, in case you’re a little slow). That’s a pretty funny/awesome idea to help a good cause, and just as funny are the details of the selling page — Millar’s eBay handle makes reference to another MetalSucks favorite, Sikth, and then there’s this…

…which is also obviously hilarious.

ANYWAY you can bid on the beard hair here — as of this writing, there haven’t been any bids yet, but I imagine that will soon change. You can also visit the homepage of the Walk for MS team Millar founded, Beard Team Canada, to make donations, check out photos, and, according to a press release, get “the play-by-play of the delicate procedure to remove his beard and, of course, a final glimpse of his newly-shaven visage.”

-AR

Thanks: Carlos B.

Gotta hand it to Megadeth — they really seem to have connected with the video game market. A few years ago, they unveiled their single, “Gears of War,” as part of the launch for the game of the same name; then last year they recorded a new song, “Sudden Death,” exclusively for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock; and now they’ve got ANOTHER new song in ANOTHER video game. The game is called Never Dead, and the song appears in the trailer, which you can watch below — the trailer begins at the 22:22 mark, but the song doesn’t kick in ’til the 24 minute mark.

And I gotta say, I think exploiting video games as a promotional outlet is a really smart move (and Dave Mustaine must feel the same way, or he wouldn’t keep doing it over and over again). I have no idea how these songs do as singles (or, in the case of “Gears of War,” as parts of a larger album) sales-wise, but presumably the band gets a nice paycheck just for including the tune in the game. And if it attracts a new generation of fans, well, all the better.

ANYWAY, it’s a little hard to really listen to the song with all the audio from the trailer laid over it, but, uh… it basically sounds okay to me. Check it out, then weight in with your thoughts in the comments section.

-AR

Thanks to the anonymous reader who sent this in!

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 Mastodon’s Brent Hinds…

Everyone knows Brent Hinds is a good guitar player; as the main writer of Mastodon and as the band’s outsize stage presence, the man’s guitar skills need no introduction. But, oddly, it wasn’t until I saw him play with rockabilly side-project Fiend Without a Face in Brooklyn last year, up close and personal in a venue that holds not more than a hundred people, that I was completely bowled over by the man’s guitar prowess.

You know when a couple of dudes are battle-rapping and every time one flings an especially impressive or cleverly worded diss at the other, all the spectators standing around watching erupt in delighted cries of, “Ohhhhh! Ohhh shit!!!”? That’s what it was like watching Brent Hinds slay the living shit out of rockabilly riff after rockabilly lead after rockabilly riff after snaky, wiry, buttery rockabilly lead, except that the delighted onlookers were just one person (me) and instead of saying “Ohhhh shit!” I did so inside my own head. But yeah, that. The dude was on fire. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing not ten feet in front of my eyes, fingers moving like masterfully guided buttons on a player piano, dancing and darting across the fretboard in ways I’d never before imagined. And with so much feeling, this man not impressing with metronome-breaking speed or nut-crushing brutality, but pure guile. He could do no wrong.

Click to read more…

The prize for last week’s photo caption contest was a doozy; an Ozzy boxset including reissues of Diary of a Madman and Blizzard of Ozz on both CD and vinyl, plus a full-color book and other goodies. Too bad most of the comment submissions weren’t funny at all. Here’s the best I could find:

• Steve Flynn: “Apparently there was a misunderstanding after a group of ‘extreme metal extremists’ suggested avenging Dimebag’s death by shooting Eminem.”

Congrats, Steve, for excelling at being almost funny.

I’ve had this signed picture-disc vinyl of Cradle of Filth’s Thornographic sitting around the Vince Division of the Mansion for some time, and it’s just begging to be given away! So you know how we do: leave a comment with the funniest caption to the photo below (sent in by loyal MS reader Century Media). Remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect).

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Last weekend was, of course, Maryland Deathfest, which Decibel attended, as usual; “Decibel” meaning the editor-in-chief and marketing director, as the eminently false managing editor opted for air-conditioned comfort over concentrated mass-ballsweat, dumbly watching the Mets continue to suck (much like, we presume, one half of your MetalSucks duumvirate). One of the many great bands we passed on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see live was Swiss misters Coroner. Yes, the usage of “Swiss misters” in the extreme lexicon should really only be applied to Celtic Frost, but Coroner roadied for Tom G. back in the day, industriously parlaying his interviews into demo-pimping opportunities. This is one of the first memories the trio reminisces on in our latest Hall of Fame, honoring their 1989 prog-thrash crusher No More Color.

Was No More Color the correct Coroner slab to serenade? Honestly, it was a toss-up between NMC and predecessor Punishment for Decadence (featuring a cover of “Purple Haze” that, uh, compares favorably to the one on Winger’s self-titled debut). Our gut instinct may have been a bit controversial, but it fits the band’s M.O.: after all, their MDF set was largely comprised of tuneage from post-Color jams Mental Vortex and Grin (Tommy T. Baron’s favorite). These crazy prog dudes have a way of marching to their own, uh, guitarist, huh?

-AB

Decibel’s July 2011 issue also features Baroness, Autopsy, Revocation, Wormrot, an incredible article about album packaging, and an awesome flexi disc of The Black Dahlia Murder covering Carcass’ “This Mortal Coil” with Jeff fucking Walker. That issue is available here, but why not get a full subscription to ensure you never miss one?

Devin Townsend has so much explaining to do. As a tireless songwriter and producer, he’s set to release two albums on June 21, Ghost and Deconstruction, to complete the Devin Townsend Project cycle that he started with 2009′s Ki and Addicted. That’s four full-length records, 43 songs, and 260 minutes of music unleashed over about two years. But for Townsend, discussion goes beyond song ideas and his exhaustive studio work required to bring them to life; he could talk all day and yet only touch on the subjects of touring, sales, and modern music industry calamity; and, shit, his back catalogue is too huge and varied to even approach in a Q&A of any reasonable length.

You see, being a modern musician and being Devin Townsend are not the same thing. Sure, he grinds out records and then tours like everybody. However, our latest MetalSucks interview with Townsend reveals an artist unbound by the limits of imagination, but pretty aware of averse reactions to his art; his self-expression is total and unapologetic — until fans and media misinterpret him or disapprove of his humor. He’s confident as a person, but shakeable as a virtuosic guitar player, a theater and puppet enthusiast, and a production wiz. He lets no truth about his world go unexpressed, beit via the hair-raising cacophony of Deconstruction (think Strapping Young Lad’s Alien: The Ride) or Ghost‘s murmuring calm. He puts himself out there all the way; now, let him explain why.

Click to read more…

I finally had to make myself stop listening to The Black Dahlia Murder’s new album, Ritual, on such a regular basis (e.g., twice a day for however many days since I’ve had it), because as a blogger I have a responsibility (or something) to listen to a wide variety of metal releases in order to discuss them on the site (or so I’m told).

My point being simply that the album is good to the point of total fucking distraction, and you should be prepared to be totally fucking distracted upon its release. And one such way to prepare yourself is to watch the twelve-minute-plus “making of” video the band has released to Bloody Disgusting. There’s some cool shit in there — Shannon Lucas being the sick drummer we all know him to be, Ryan Knight putting half the other guitar players in modern metal to shame, a live, real, flesh and blood violinist recording the album intro, and, of course, no small amount of BDM tomfoolery.

The video isn’t embeddable, but you can watch it by clicking on the below screen cap of guitarist Brian Eschbach’s ass forever traumatizing Jason Suecof’s dog, Stinky.

Ritual comes out June 21 on Metal Blade, and then TBDM hit the road to headline the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour along with Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Six Feet Under, Dying Fetus, As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Powerglove, and Within the Ruins. Get dates after the jump!

Click to read more…

Opeth (featuring Mikael Åkerfeldt, the eleventh top modern metal guitarist in the world today, according to us) have a new album, Heritage, tentatively scheduled to come out in September, which means — but of course — touring!!! And now the reader known as “Deth” has noticed that the first six dates of the band’s North American fall headlining tour are up on Ticketmaster, even though there’s been no official press release as of yet. THREE CHEERS FOR DETH!!!

ANYWAY, here are those dates… presumably there will be more very soon. I’m assuming that most of the MS faithful don’t really need to be told to go see this band live, but, seriously, GO SEE THIS BAND LIVE.

Click to read more…

What’s the point in resurrecting your band if the resulting reunion album is going to be a flaccid state of affairs? To make a few more dollars so you can better pay for your kids’ school clothes and cover your rent/mortgage? Of course, and that’s a damn fine reason.

Alright, so, to REPHRASE the question, what’s the point in fans paying attention to a reunion album if it’s just a weak rehash of a band’s glory days? The answer, of course, is that there isn’t one. Decidedly non-metal band The Pixies have it right: an extended reunion tour with absolutely no new material, keeping whatever legacy they already had mostly intact (Judas Priest have it backward: no more touring but more new music no one will care about). Because for every new Suffocation album, albums that stand up to their iconic predecessors, there’s a dozen similar to new Sepultura records, albums that fully exhibit the leathery skin, newly-formed jowls, formidable beer guts, gray hair, and phlegmy wheezing of the band at the helm (or whatever’s left of the band in Sepultura’s case).

So for Autopsy to return in 2011, one would hope that they wouldn’t be doing it for the money, but instead because the band have more to say. Having watched the genre they helped refine go from lanky, unwashed social outcasts to kids in cargo shorts, flat brim caps, and 8-string guitars (as well as socially awkward weirdos indulging in guitar wankery on YouTube), a new Autopsy album better mean something. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Macabre Eternal, the band’s first album since their rightfully-maligned swansong Shitfun, means quite a bit. It’s not a winded Autopsy stumbling through slightly-rearranged classics; this is new Autopsy in earnest, familiar-yet-uncharted. It’s also top-fucking-notch death metal, grimy in all the right places and nimble in the others. It goes toe-to-toe with most other death metal kicking around right now, and there’d be no purpose to a new Autopsy album otherwise.

Click to read more…

The new Origin album, Entity, comes out this Tuesday, which you already knew, because you know how awesome Origin (and their guitarist, Paul Ryan) are and you’re super excited for the record. But I’m telling you anyway on the off chance it slipped your mind.

I don’t know if the band plans to do a full album stream in advance of Entity‘s release or not, but it doesn’t really matter, because the below video, which features clips from every song on the album, should really be enough to sell you (although you didn’t need to be sold because, again, you already know that Origin rule). It even features my favorite section from my favorite song on the release, “Choosing Death.” That part of the tune has a real sense of, like, derring-do, y’know?

Entity comes out June 7 on Nuclear Blast. Possibly even more exciting is that a week later, the band begins a co-headlining tour with Hate Eternal and support acts Abysmal Dawn and Vital Remains, which is a really, really, REALLY good line-up. Dates after el jumperooni…

Click to read more…