Man, I really, really hope that some day, some Korean animators see fit to make a short about MetalSucks. And that it is one-eighth as awesome as the above video.

ANYWAY, here’s how we kept ourselves entertained this week:

• We debuted new music by Revocation, White Arms of Athena, Goreaphobia, and Sixx A.M.
• We did not debut, but got really excited about, new music from Mastodon and Opeth.
• Unearth’s Ken Susi and Dethklok’s Brendon Small told us all about their live rigs. BONUS: Brendon Small also gave us the skinny on his new solo album!
• We spoke to All Shall Perish’s Fracesco Artusato and Kaoru and Die from Dir En Grey.
• We checked out the latest releases from All Pigs Must Die and Axel Rudi Pell.
• We were easily able to come up with twenty-five things we’d rather do than listen to the new Five Finger Death Punch song.
• We tried to figure out which label will snag Gojira.
• Gary Suarez urged metalheads to cut the shit and stop supporting Burzum.
• Sergeant D. wondered if breakdowns are the new guitar solos.
• Corey Mitchell discussed his ten favorite albums of the year thus far.

As many of you know, my highly successful BURZUM clothing line is now available at Hot Topic, Spencer’s, and Zumiez. I am proud to announce that we have also signed a deal with black metal legends IMMORTAL to create another line exclusively for indie rock retailers URBAN OUTFITTERS!

Our first design is now available, featuring an illustration showcasing the whimsical side of the iconic black metallers. Designed with the the female customer in mind, this graphic shows the band with their heads replaced by those of grizzly bears- it’s our own, fractured take on the exclusive, “kvlt black metal” scene that has long relied on bands like IMMORTAL for direction. We’re excited about the potential of this brand, and hope that you are too!

CLICK HERE to buy one for yourself – act now, supplies are limited! (Sorry, the item is only available in womens’ sizes.)

-Sergeant D.

Sergeant D. is the tip of fashion’s sword every day at Stuff You Will Hate.

As part of our coverage of this year’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival – currently winding its way through North America — we’re bringing you a series of “Rigged” columns in which several of the tour’s musicians take you on piece-by-piece guides of their current live rig setups. Check out the rigs of Machine Head’s Phil Demmel, Unearth’s Buz McGrath, Hatebreed’s Wayne Lozinak, In Flames’ Peter Iwers and Dethklok’s Brendon Small (they played one Mayhem show in CA). Here’s the other half Unearth’s twin guitar attack, Ken Susi: 

Click to read more…

When Hope Can’t Save the Dead‘s Tanner Taphorn (who, based on his name, is missing a seriously righteous career as a pornstar to try and make music) e-mailed us to check out his band, my first was reaction “Oh dear God no.” Why? Tanner described the group as “progressive deathcore” with “insane breakdowns,” which is just not all that appealing to me, and even less so in 2011.

But guess what? Hope Can’t Save the Dead are actually pretty good! They sound an awful lot like The Price of Existence-era All Shall Perish, which is a-okay by me. In other words: I think that Hope Can’t Save the Dead are a deathcore band that even us metal nerds are allowed to enjoy.

Check out Hope Can’t Save the Dead below, then call me a hypocrite and a fraud in the comments section.

Click to read more…

If you’ve ever wanted to hear Dio’s “Holy Diver” transformed from one of metal’s most powerful anthems into a hair metal-style sad sack power ballad complete with Casio keyboards and a synth violin so shitty it wouldn’t have been considered fit to be the ringtone on the cell phone you owned in 1999, then you are going to fucking love, love, LOVE Axel Rudi Pell’s The Ballads IV.

On the other hand, if you actually have decent taste, you will probably think that this album, y’know, fucking blows.

Click to read more…

We’ve spent enough time talking about Revocation on this site for you to know that we think they’re the absolute bees knees and that their new album Chaos of Forms, comes out on August 16th. But since we know all of you are busy folks who don’t necessarily listen to everything we say, we figured we’d make it as easy as possible for you to see the light via a song premiere right here on this very page. All you have to do is click “play” below; if you like the new song “Dissolution Ritual” then hooray! — and if not, well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

I actually wrote about my adoration of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Danny Elfman’s score for that film, and Powerglove’s cover of the main theme from that score, last year; now the band has released a video that cover of that theme, and… yeah, they killed it. Both the members of Powerglove and director David Brodsky are video game nuts (obviously, in the case of Powerglove), and you can just feel how much fun they had with this.

Powerglove’s version of “Batman” comes off of their eOne debut, Saturday Morning Apocalypse, which is out now. MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour, along with The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Dying Fetus, Six Feet Under, Oceano, As Blood Runs Black, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Within the Ruins. Dates here.

-AR

This is the new White Wizzard song “Starchild.” According to a press release from Earache, it features “studio vocalist” Wyatt Anderson — who recently quit the band for the second time, you may recall. So, aside from drummer Giovanni Durst — who plays on this recording too — who exactly is in the touring version of White Wizzard right now with bassist/founder/songwriter Jon Leon? It’s one of those questions we may never understand but will just have to accept the answers to at face-value, like how the price of gasoline is calculated and what exactly the CIA does anyway. Yeah, I just compared Jon Leon to the CIA.

Anyway, the song is aight; the press release boasts that it’s got “a powerful arena rock sound that stands out from the band’s usual fist-pumping heavy metal anthems,” so I suppose this ballad is an outlier on Flying Tigers, the new album out September 19th, and that said album will have plenty of songs closer to the, um, over the top nature of Over the Top. And hopefully a few more kick-ass videos to go along with them too.

-VN

Our friend Bram Teitelman, a.k.a. “The Dude Who Runs Metal Insider,” deserves some kind of freakin’ award or something. Back in January, he brought this old commercial for the Warrant’s 900 number to our attention; now he’s unearthed the below video, of a not-yet-famous Cinderella for  Pat’s Chili’s Dogs in Folsom, PA. (Alas, Bram says Pat’s is no longer in business.) And if I find this commercial a little less amusing than I did the Warrant one, it’s only because at no point do Cinderella discuss fucking underage fans.

I always think of Cinderella as one of the all-around better bands of their era; their appearance aside, their music was always a notch above most of their peers, and they had the good sense to stop making records in the 90s and just live on as a legacy touring act. (In fact, they’re touring right now. You can get dates here.) So it makes sense that even the skeletons in their closet are slightly less horrid than those of the other hair metallers.

-AR

Reverend Bradlee Dean is a so-called “heavy metal preacher,” and as you can see from the above photo of him in his youth, he’s also an incredibly cool guy. (Here and here are pictures of what he looks like now. He’s living proof of the theory that men only get more handsome with age!) For an example of his incredible coolness, peep this: last year, he was allowed to give the opening prayer at the Minnesota House of Representatives — on a day when a gay marriage amendent was scheduled to be debated, no less — and he concluded said prayer by not-very-subtly implying that a) President Obama is not a Christian, and b) that is bad:

“I know this is a non-denominational prayer in this Chamber and it’s not about the Baptists and it’s not about the Catholics alone or the Lutherans or the Wesleyans. Or the Presbyterians, the evangelicals or any other denomination but rather the head of the denomination and his name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged. And we pray it. In Jesus’ name.”

So, yeah, this dude is just made of pure awesomeness.

And he just got awesomer: he’s now suing  liberal commentator Rachel Maddow and the network on which she appears, MSNBC, for fifty million bucks, because Ms. Maddow a) pointed out that he’s a bigoted piece of turd and b) made fun of the ridiculous way he spells the name “Bradley.” From New York magazine:

Click to read more…

A friend of ours recently posited that Fleshgod Apocalypse are to Death Cult Armageddon-era Dimmu Borgir as Hate Eternal are to Morbid Angel; when I asked him to clarify, he said, “Fleshgod Apocalypse is like Dimmu Borgir on good coke.”

I can get behind that description. It was certainly at the forefront of my mind while listening to the Fleshgods’ new song, “The Egoism,” which is now streaming here (player is in the upper right hand corner). I’ve yet to hear a FA song I didn’t like, but this might be my favorite yet, and its incorporation of orchestral elements does certainly blow anything Dimmu — or any other band like-minded band — have done in some time. And I have a special feeling about Agony… if the band is already on the map, I could see this recording upgrading their status from being a pin someone stuck in that map to being an actual location printed on that map. Agony could be for them what From Mars to Sirius was for Gojira.

Headbang here, then agree with me wholeheartedly in the comments section. Agony comes out August 9 on Nuclear Blast. And don’t forget that Fleshgod Apocalypse will be on the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour, along with The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Dying Fetus, Six Feet Under, Oceano, As Blood Runs Black, Powerglove, and Within the Ruins. Get dates here.

-AR

[UPDATE, 4:30pm EDT, Oct 27: Cephalic Carnage have unfortunately dropped off this tour. -Ed]

MetalSucks is proud to be teaming up with our pals at Metal Injection and Hails & Horns to bring you what we think is gonna be one of the most brutal tours of the year: the incredibly fucking awesome Exhumed are headlining, and support is coming from Goatwhore, Cephalic Carnage, and Havok. This is one of those rare package tours where there isn’t a bad band on the bill — it’s gonna be the kind of show where you’ll wanna get there early to make sure you don’t miss a minute. There’s just absolutely no way that these shows will be anything less than insane.

Seriously, do NOT miss this tour — you’re gonna feel like a damn fool if you do. Dates are after the jump!

Click to read more…

Last week we offered up two purdy lookin’ hologram flats of the artwork for the classic Megadeth album Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? signed by Dave Mustaine, to commemorate that album’s 25th anniversary. Here are the winners:

• sandblast: “When asked of this photo, John Goodman replies, “it was just a phase”.”
• Pat Arriola: “Weightain.”

This week we’re offering an assortment of random metal goodies from around the Mansion; CDs, posters, stickers, and whatever else happens to be lying around. Rest assured you’ll get good shit, not just some random junk! To win, just leave a comment with the funniest caption to the photo below (taken from DadsAreTheOriginalHipsters.com). Remember to use a real email address (or post it along with your comment if you’re using FB Connect).

Japan’s Dir En Grey is one metal’s most fearless, unpredictable acts, but they don’t make it easy for would-be fans to know that. Listeners must grapple with cryptic Japanese language lyrics, routeless song structures, and hairpin turns in tone from beauty to brutal audio gore. Their visual grotesquerie in concert and in videos hardly make them more digestible, but don’t mistake Dir En Grey art for soulless shock rock.

Sure, scary visuals and violent music are the quintet’s stock in trade, but their mission — as explained to MetalSucks by guitarists Die (above right) and Kaoru (second from left) from their Los Angeles hotel last week — is self-expression, not engagement, and their mega-talented singer Kyo is an agent of dread not via pithy, cartoonish slogans about mankind’s similarities to excrement, but with his mind-boggling range and serenely psychopathic imagery. The personal, not the communal, if you will. As you’ll read, it seems to have not occurred to them to make it easy on fans. And so fans win.

After the jump, Die and Kaoru talk (via an overtaxed interpreter to whom I owe a dinner) about their awesome guitar work on their forthcoming eighth record Dum Spiro Spero, the benefits of a language barrier, and the fear of challenging listeners too much.

Click to read more…

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…

Very few things get our bikini briefs twisted like clean vocals. Most often, because they’re in the horrific and pandering context of the “good cop/bad cop” approach. But also because our bullshit detector redlines when we perceive bands making a concentrated, contrived effort to expand their audience. (I’m sure many messageboards have thoroughly noted how you can comprehend every word in the new Mastodon single.)

Opeth—specifically mastermind Mikael Åkerfeldt—has gotten a pass for that, I presume, because over the last two decades he’s integrated a startlingly vast variety of influences into his singular progressive extremity. So, is it really a shock (or anything approaching “sellout”) when tenth record Heritage is not only entirely sung, yet is already one of the best “extreme” records of the year?

That paradox is explored in our September cover story, the first in-depth piece about Heritage—which isn’t out until September 20—anywhere in the world. Chris Dick trekked all the way to Sweden to pick Åkerfeldt’s brain about lineup turnover, a near-implosion and well-timed creative breakthrough that led to this challenging new record. It’s in our webstore now, but here’s some “bonus footage” from Mike deconstructing his evolved vocal approach:

 “I’m a rock ‘n’ roll vocalist now. I didn’t dare do that before. I was shy. Because there are no death metal vocals, I wanted to make the clean vocals more aggressive. I remember, when I was recording the vocals, they’d say to me, ‘OK, now do that line with more guts!’ I was like, ‘I don’t know how to do that!’ I’m so used to singing nice, like a minstrel. But now I’m not afraid of really going for it. I think growling for such a long time has fucked up my voice, so I can get the sounds l like without really trying. They’re just there when I want it. I think I developed my voice a little, and that excites me. Being a better vocalist is important to me. I don’t have any formal training, so I don’t know if my technique is shit, but I realized my limitations as a vocalist have been in my head. I didn’t dare think like I do now.”

-AB

Decibel’s September 2011 issue also features Toxic Holocaust, Sepultura, Cradle of Filth, All Shall Perish, Skeletonwitch, and an awesomeKrallice flexi disc. That issue is available here, but why not get a full subscription to ensure you never miss an issue?

What ever happened with that whole Howard Jones scandal? KsE, Roadrunner and Jones have done a great job of laying low while all the hubbub died down. Who knows if we’ll ever get an explanation as to what really happened… but I guess we’ll let bygones be bygones and mind our own business.

On a similar note, what ever happened to Lily Allen? I haven’t heard much from her since her smash album Alright, Still jumped across the pond and got American heads bopping (including mine) in the summer of 2006. There was a follow-up album I never checked out and then she seemed to fade into obscurity almost as fast as she appeared.

With that in mind, a mash-up of the backing track from Allen’s “Smile” and the vocals of Killswitch Engage’s “My Curse” seems pretty logical. It’s well done, too; definitely made me chuckle.

-VN

Thanks: the MS reader who sent this in whose email I cannot find

Hopefully, you Suckahs have been following my Bleeders’ Lists this year. If not, you can play catch-up here – Missed Albums Finally Listened to from the First Half of 2011, June, May, April, March, February, January.

As of the end of June, I have listened to 356 new releases this year — each one all the way through. I have listened to several live releases and re-releases but did not include most of them on my lists. Surprisingly, just under 29% are Bleeders (or the best each month). This is nearly 15% higher than I expected, so that’s the first good thing. The second is that those 103 Bleeders comprise a vast array of what we call “heavy metal” and have made for a stellar year already.

Being a lifelong metalhead, there are obviously going to be certain acts I just don’t like — number one amongst those this year is Ghost. But my Bleeders’ Lists aren’t about what I don’t like, but rather what gets me stoked. I’ve listened to, literally, more than 10,000 metal releases and been to more than a 1,000 metal concerts. In other words, I’m jaded. So, when something excites me, I want to share it with everyone. Thankfully, I’ve been able to do that 103 times this year.

Below you will find my Top 10 of those 103 Bleeders with their original mini-reviews plus updated commentary.

Of course, I just heard the new Decapitated and have a sneaking suspicion it will be be firmly entrenched on my 2011 Top 15 list come December.

Enjoy. Despise. Eviscerate.

Click to read more…

I don’t have anything particularly clever or intelligent to say about the album art for Machine Head’s Unto the Locust. I just think it looks cool, and that y’all might wanna see it. And so –

Unto the Locust comes out September 27 on Roadrunner.

-AR

When we spoke with Dethklok mastermind Brendon Small to put together the Rigged piece we published yesterday, Small gave us a little information on a new project he’s working on — a Brendon Small solo record. The existence of such a record has been known for some time — according to the omnipotent Wikipedia, anyway — but we got Brendon to tell us a little bit more about what the record has in store for us:

Click to read more…

I’m sitting here trying to think of what to write about the new Landmine Marathon song, “Cutting Flesh and Bone,” but, really, you shouldn’t even be reading whatever I have to say. You should just be listening to the song.

So go fucking listen. This is probably the best thing you’re going to hear today; it already suggests to me that Gallows, the band’s latest, is going to be superior to last year’s Sovereign Descent, and that album was really good anyway. But this new track is some vicious, vicious, vicious shit, and if, like me, you are feeling extra-cranky today, it will provide a fine outlet through which to vent.

Gallows comes out September 27 on Prosthetic Records. Landmine Marathon are touring this October with Warbringer, Lazarus A.D., and Diamond Plate. Get dates here.

-AR