Nobody should have been surprised. Varg Vikernes’ odious, conspiratorial, anti-Semitic commentary on the Norway tragedy is just the latest statement of ignorance from the man behind black metal’s most infamous project, Burzum. You’re welcome to read it if you’re into swastikas or crackpot theories for the tinfoil hat set. Your time would be better spent watching dubstep remixes of Charlie Sheen interviews on YouTube.

Interest in Vikernes’ music appears to have spiked in the wake of his 2009 release from prison, having served twenty-one years for arson and murder. A new Burzum record emerged in 2010, and another one followed just this past March. Music journalists have leapt at the opportunity to interview Vikernes, with print venues like Decibel giving the man the cover treatment and inducting his Filosofem LP into its “Hall Of Fame.” I’ve sat dumbstruck at the fawning softball questions posed to him by writers for outlets like Guitar World, Invisible Oranges, and, much to my chagrin, this very site. (Full disclosure: The interviewer on that last one is a personal friend.)

Why do metalheads choose to support Vikernes?

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Raise your invisible oranges to the sky for readers Chris McClain, Wendy Chung, Joe Heredia, Jamie Cluchey, and Kelsey Matson. They all correctly identified last week’s logo as beloning to the band Nidrike, and for their troubles, they each win a copy Ringworm’s latest, Scars, which is out now on Victory. Turn that shit up and MOSH you guys!

This week we’re back to emptying our coffers, so to speak. The winner will get five CDs from the MetalSucks Mansion Archives. The winner will be happy.

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 one winner and announce his or her name a week from today.

Thanks to John Villegas for suggesting this week’s logo…

-AR

Let us not speak too poorly of the legandary: Axl and Vince saw Motley Crue in Long Island the other night and had a helluva time. The Crue still know how to put on a highly entertaining live show, even if Tommy Lee’s ridiculously awesome drum rollercoaster was punctuated by cringe-inducing shouts of “yeeeeahh, bitch!” And there’s no denying the staying power of Motley Crue’s immense catalog.

But when it comes to actual new music, there’s no question that Sixx A.M.’s recent output easily bests that of the Crue. Debut album The Heroin Diaries was a rock-opera-ish affair that was one of the best hard rock albums of 2007, if not the decade; while this year’s follow-up This Is Gonna Hurt doesn’t pack quite the same punch it’s still a really good listen that’s several orders of magnitude better than the Crue-trying-to-sound-like-Crue attempt of “Saints of Los Angeles.” Anything Nikki Sixx writes with his Sixx A.M. partners James Michael and DJ Ashba these days is heads and shoulders above what he writes with Neil, Mars and Lee, whatever the reason may be.

Sixx A.M.’s collective songwriting is so solid that even the acoustic version of “Lies of the Beautiful People” rocks hard. Check out the world premiere below.

And I don’t mean that it’s environmentally conscious. I mean, it’s like, really green, dude.

[NOTE: The version yesterday wasn't the final version; the new one is somewhat less green. But still.]

ANYWAY, it’s still pretty, so whatever. Green is a color often associated with sickness, and it’s also the color my beautiful eyes, so I can get behind this.

Absu’s new album is called Abzu, which seems kinda silly but, hey, it’s not my record. It comes out October 4 on Candelight.

-AR

Landmine Marathon have unveiled the cover art for their latest offering, Gallows, and… holy shit, do I ever love it. It’s by Rob “Mid “ Middleton, and it immediately made me think of Peter Shaffer’s play, Equus, although in that story, the horses are blinded, not… uh… whatever the hell is going on here. But for whatever reason, I get that same kind of fucked up psychosexual vibe from this art.

Gallowscomes out September 27 on Prosthetic Records. Our pals at Metal Injection have a video in which guitarist/producer Ryan Butler discusses the above album cover; you can and should check that out here. And, finally, don’t forget that Landmine Marathon are touring this October with Warbringer, Lazarus A.D., and Diamond Plate. Get dates here.

-AR

Well, this is a strange week. On the one hand, we have some great stuff coming out, including new music from Big Business and Iwrestledabearonce, as well as World Under Blood’s first record, All Shall Perish’s new one and the solo effort from Jamey Jasta. We also have some complete garbage piles from faceless, nameless bands such as As Hell Retreats. Enjoy!

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Portnoy (left) with Tom Morello, John goddamn Sykes, That Metal Show host Eddie Trunk, and Doug Pinnick of King’s X

There are days when it seems like ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy is underachieving (cough Adrenaline Mob), but the wider view reveals a hard-working guy who cares greatly about quality music. His mistakes are mistakes (singing on DT records, 12-stepper lyrics, AX7), and his post-DT career so far is basically frantic, low-confidence base-covering, but hey that’s the reality of a messy break-up. You get a little crazy and scared. But with time and patience, Portnoy will land another Images And Words-sized creative success. This is my belief.

So imagine how smugly right I feel about that belief when it was announced Monday that Portnoy is pairing with hungry, mega-talented ace John fucking Sykes (Blue Murder, Whitesnake). Bonerz!
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If you were looking for something melodious and pretty to listen to, you would probably never choose a song called “Rust Worms & The Noxious Fevers They Bring” by a band called Goreaphobia, unless, perhaps, you were a real dummy. Which is why we’re happy to report that the song is neither melodious nor pretty. It is, in fact, ugly. Incredibly ugly. Like, it fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, landed on a trampoline, and then hit every branch AGAIN on the way back up. That kind of ugly.

In other words, it’s fucking great.

So check out Goreaphobia’s ”Rust Worms & The Noxious Fevers They Bring” below — you will be incredibly happy that you did. It comes off of the band’s new effort, Apocalyptic Necormancy, which comes out August 9 on Dark Descent Records. You can pre-order it here.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

With oddball bands like Exivious and T.R.A.M. turning heads in the metal scene over the past couple of years, is experimental jazz becoming the new “it” direction for talenthead metal musicians to move?

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There’s been question on the mind of every metal fan since Blotted Science released their debut album, The Machinations of Dementia, in 2007: WHEN IS THE NEXT BLOTTED SCIENCE RECORD COMING OUT?!?!

Last September, the group FINALLY announced that they working on a new EP, and had added drummer Hannes Grossmann to their ranks; now that EP has a title, The Animation Of Entomology, and, oh yeah, a two-minute teaser. Which you can check out below.

Sounds pretty friggin’ awesome to these old ears.

No word yet on a release date, but obviously, we’re all hoping it’s SOON.

-AR

In case that new Mastodon tune that debuted yesterday wasn’t enough to make your panties wet, now we have new Opeth, too — the song is called “The Devil’s Orchard,” and you can check it out below.

As we’ve been hearing, it’s not quite as metal as Opeth’s most famous material, which is to say, there’s no screaming, and the music, while still proggy as hell, is not especially aggro. That being said, I happen to think it’s swell, metal or not.

Opeth’s new album, Heritage, comes out September 16 on Roadrunner.

-AR

[via HBIH]

I honestly had a do a search to see if we’ve ever written about Samothrace before, and we have — all of three times, all in pieces penned neither by Vince nor myself. There are two conclusions one can draw from this fact:

• We’ve just never been motivated to write about Samothrace and/or do not know much about Samothrace.
• We’re just not huge Samothrace fans. I think this is an accurate statement, although I’m always hesitant to speak on Vince’s behalf.

Magrudergrind and Despise You are teaming for a too-brief tour this September, and while I know that a very small amount of you live in locations that will allow you to attend, I wanna make sure that those of you who can go to one of these shows do go. Because these bands are awesome, and doubly so live. Hopefully you already know that, or are open to learning it, ’cause it’s undeniable truth.

So, to review: Magrudespiseyou tour, MetalSucks readers who live in the area attend. Simple simple simple.

Here’s a great promo video for the tour made by Sean “Spleen Latifah” Gresens from Metal Injection…

…and tour dates are after the jump! As a bonus, some of these shows include other amazing bands, too, like Cannabis Corpse and Defeatist. So, really, just go. Did I mention that you should go? ‘Cause you should.

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This story is the kind that hurts just to type; Danny Bobis, a member of the Long Island band Cipher and a beloved figure in the New York / New Jersey metal community, went missing this weekend while surfing in Indonesia. Danny lived in Long Beach, NY where he is a math teacher in the local high school and also coaches their surf team.

According to a story at CNN.com, Danny’s friend and surfing partner Brian Lonergan saw Danny’s surfboard wash up on shore: “Danny had just taken a wave before me. I couldn’t see him, and a few minutes later, his board washed up on the shore.”

Regardless, the search grinds on. The local government in the remote part of Indonesia in which Bobis went missing doesn’t have the resources for a full-on rescue search, so all money for the effort has come out of the family’s pocket. Danny’s family is asking for help from the metal community to help raise awareness of Danny’s case, and if it all possible, to donate money to the search effort. Funds will be allocated to any resources that will support the search including helicopter rental, local manpower, travel expenses, etc. All donations will be given directly to the family. Time is of the essence. To donate, log in to Paypal and send funds to dannybobisfund@gmail.com.

- VN, AR and the MetalSucks staff

If anyone remembers the Completely Unreadable Logo of the Week for July 6, 2007, then you’ll actually know who Misericordiam already. I hadn’t started writing for MS at that point, but I was thrilled to see the band represented on the site when I later went looking through the archives. Unfortunately, the group then proceeded to break up; fortunately, they’ve been back together for a while now (albeit with a completely different lineup). So I thought it would be prudent to rewind back to their most recent EP, 2007′s Unanimity and the Cessation of Hostility.

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Francesco Artusato is a busy dude: since attending the Berklee College of Music and graduating in 2005, an impressive feat in and of itself, the Italian-born shredder was tapped to fill the vacant guitarist spot in All Shall Perish and hasn’t looked back since. Despite touring the world several times over with ASP and writing and recording their new album This Is Where It Ends, Artusato somehow found time to write and record a record of his own, Chaos and the Primordial, released June 28th on Sumerian Records (order here). The record is exactly what you’d expect from a guy who grew up worshipping Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Allan Holdsworth; a searing blend of metal and fusion played at breakneck speed that doesn’t compromise good songwriting for technical showmanship.

I caught up with Artusato on the phone recently to chat about his new solo record, his influences, the role of “shred” guitar in 2011 and how he balances his solo work with his day job in All Shall Perish. Our chat, after the jump.

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I’ll keep this brief, ’cause we’ve written about all of these releases at length before. But in case you’re interested (and you probably should be):

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The Atlas Moth just keep getting better and better; their 2009 debut album A Glorified Piece of Blue Sky was impressive enough, but it’s the myriad opportunities I’ve had to see this band relentlessly pound the eastern U.S. with their enveloping live assault that’s really turned me into a fan.

Having now graduated from the the minor leagues of Candlelight to big-boy label Profound Lore for their sophomore album, The Atlas Moth have released the first preview of what’s in store on An Ache For The Distance, out September 20th, in the form of the new song “Coffin Varnish,” streaming at Stereogum. The new song isn’t doing anything to dissuade me from that feeling bubbling inside me that The Atlas Moth are one of the most exciting up-and-coming bands in all of metal; their blend of sludge, atmospherics and melody hit a certain sweet spot that’s sure to appeal to all sorts of metalheads (including this one). Expect to see positive press oozing out of all corners of the metalsphere in the coming months, and look for An Ache For the Distance to make a few appearances on notable year-end lists. Calling it now!

All the accolades The Atlas Moth will receive are probably deserved, of course. Find out for yourself what all the fuss is about by listening to “Coffin Varnish” at Stereogum.

-VN

Last week Vince and I saw Devin Townsend open for Children of Bodom. And at the end of the show, Devy was like “We’ll be back in a few months!” And we could have done some investigating and tried to find out all about his new tour, but we were all, “Nah, MetalSucks readers won’t care. They HATE Devin Townsend.”

And now the tour has actually been announced, and I don’t even know why I’m telling you guys. ‘Cause every time we write about Devin Townsend, the comments section sounds like this. I mean, I don’t think there is a single artist MetalSucks readers are LESS interested in than Devin Townsend. We’d get more traffic writing about Ian & Sylvia.

But whatevs. Here are the dates for the two of you who care. Support acts should be announced shortly.

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Warbringer are streaming a new song, “Living Weapon,” on Hails and Horns, and I gotta say, literally within seconds of it beginning, I liked it a million times better than anything from Waking Into Nightmares. In fact, I think I liked it better than anything I’ve heard the band do since One by One, The Wicked Fall, their free EP that we were giving away back in the early days of MetalSucks.

Now, is the song ACTUALLY better than anything the band has recorded in several years, or am I just over  being over  the whole rethrash thing? It seems like the band was playing here in New York once a month for awhile there, and, honestly, it started to feel like overkill after awhile — so maybe the fact that I haven’t actually seen them in at least a year is helping my opinion of the music. But both the riffs and John Kevill’s vocal performance sound a lot more vicious to me than the material on their last couple of albums. But I dunno, maybe this is just the cloud of jadedness lifting.

ANYWAY, check out the track here, then debate its quality in our comments section. Warbringer’s latest offering, Worlds Torn Asunder, comes out September 27 on Century Media. The band will follow its release with a North American headlining run, natch; Lazarus A.D., Landmine Marathon, and Diamond Plate are playing support. Get dates here.

-AR