Today really IS the day! After four long years, Today is the Day having an awesome new album, Pain is Warning, is out as of right now via Black Market Activities (read our own glowing review here). And we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to debut one more song from the album. And so we proudly bring you “Death Curse,” a kick-ass metal anthem that could only have come from the twisted, brilliant mind of Steve Austin.

Stream the track below, then buy the album on iTunes for just eight bucks!!! It may be the best money you spend all week.

The week before last, we hinted it at. Today, we are elated to tell you that the dream is real.

The Metal Suckfest.

Twenty incredible bands in two mosh-filled, headbang-fueled days.

NOT just a bunch of tours already-in-progress, routed so that they all converge for one event.

NOT just bands that all sound alike and one would normally expect to find on the same bill.

A wholly unique concert in which some truly incredible artists are coming together JUST to play THIS ONE SINGLE EVENT.

This is gonna be the best hang of the year.

It’s happening November 4 and November 5 at The Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan. We are ELATED to announce that Municipal Waste are headlining the first night, while Cynic will close the festival the following evening.

The other eighteen bands that fill out the lineup will be announced in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!!!

-Vince, Axl, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Ask 100 people their definition of deathcore, and you’ll get 101 answers, each different than the last. But the truth is that deathcore is actually really easy to define: it’s mallcore kids trying to play death metal, and try as they might, they will never quite get it right. Although that sounds like a criticism, it isn’t — the same raw, amateurish charm that made 80s hardcore like DRI and MDC great is the same reason why deathcore bands are awesome, even if they fail at their original goal of playing “sweet metal.”

Sure, their ham-fisted, clumsy attempts at playing “real metal” might be a little facepalm-worthy and/or lulzy at times, but on the other hand, they are a lot more interesting than the same old generic bullshit the br00tal death metal scene has churned out for years. Moreover, hardcore as a whole is just kids who try to play whatever kind of metal was cool 10 years earlier, so if you hate on deathcore you’re hating on the last three decades of hardcore!

In this article, I will present both a framework for assessing the history of deathcore, and my hypothesis about the future of the genre. Specifically, that deathcore has three, clearly-defined phases in its short history: Deathcore 1.0 (ripping off Gothenburgcore/melodeath), Deathcore 2.0 (ripping off br00tal death) and Deathcore 3.0 (ripping off djent/prog/wank/etc).

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Let it be said that metalheads cannot thrive on metal alone.

As avid fans of all things chunky and technical we need a break every now and then, you know, just to keep us sharp. A demand for intelligent, intense music that isn’t necessarily “heavy” has surfaced in the metal community, and even readers on this site have come to embrace a number of acts that are hardly BR00TAL. Porcupine Tree, Karnivool, Fair to Midland, and Dredg have all shared the stage with heavier acts and received acclaim from even the most opinionated and stubborn metal snobs. This year Sumerian Records have apparently taken notice, adding Brisbane’s Dead Letter Circus to their once very homogenous roster.

The signing of these left-of-center alt rockers and the recent American release of their debut album This is the Warning marks the label’s first true departure from their infamous Sumeriancore stigma. Stirring a lively dose of surround-sound ambience and percussive programming into their quality brand of Aussie alternative, Dead Letter Circus has continually won favor in progressive and extreme metal circles (the group is currently touring with Animals as Leaders, Intronaut, and Last Chance to Reason).

Playing no small role in the group’s universal appeal is Kim Benzie’s powerhouse tenor that drives the group’s music through numerous emotional twists and turns. I recently had the opportunity to speak with him on the road about how a rock band attracts a metal label, why the Australian music scene differs from our own, and, you guessed it, NICKELBACK!

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Spurred by a lazy crossword clue in The Onion (36 down, four letters: “Faith No More’s only hit”), MetalSucks contributor Anso DF dedicates every single day in August to celebration and exploration of the San Francisco alt-metal greats. Here we prove that history’s greatest band landed more than one commercial hit (crossword answer: “Epic” natch), we revel in FNM’s embarrassing wealth of winning album tracks (themselves often fit for chart topping), and we dip into the staggering best of the b-sides (ditto). Along the way, we survey the context of FNM’s big break (amid similarly seminal acts Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, and Ween) to the post-Nevermind, panic-based recording industry in which the brilliantly versatile, fearless powerhouse band operated until their 1998 demise. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Song “The Real Thing”

Written by Patton (L); Gould, Bottum (M)

Released 1989

Appears on The Real Thing album duh

Produced by Matt Wallace

Guitars by Jim Martin

Key lyric ”It’s right there all by itself/And what you are, there is nothing else.”

Single? No.

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To truly get a sense of what hardcore looks, sounds, and smells like today, one could hardly do better than to have attended this past weekend’s aptly-named This Is Hardcore festival, a four day extravaganza and endurance test of one’s devotion to the subgenre. Scores of fans, dozens of bands, and a representative sample of scene vendors descended upon Philadelphia to represent and revel in a robust lineup with acts as disparate as Bitter End, H2O, and Touché Amore. At no point did the diversity of acts seem more apparent than on Friday, when metallic misanthropes Ringworm essentially opened for the melodic likes of Mouthpiece and Title Fight.

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You thought that Sergeant D.’s line of Burzum clothing was all some bullshit joke? Well think again: the Sarge himself e-mailed us this photo he found on Tumblr of a nice young lady making her daddy proud by modeling this Burzum skirt. And the pic is already a million times better than any Burzum album (although we hear that the skirt, too, hates Jews).

Hopefully her next pics will feature her modeling the Burzum yoga pants or, better still, the Burzum thong.

-AR

Every year seems to either be hailed as the “best year for metal in ever” or discarded as “the year Morbid Angel and everyone else sucked really badly,” and this year has been no different. I’ve heard everything across the board from praise to condemnation, but I think that so far, 2011′s been pretty good — we got long-awaited albums from old favorites, surprising returns, and some awesome breakout albums. I admit I haven’t heard everything I should’ve yet, but I have managed to plow through a significant stack of music, and found the following to be really standout releases so far:

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Here’s all that MetalSucks readers really need to know about singer/songwriter Christina Perri: she’s the sister of ex(?)-Silvertide / ex-Shinedown guitarist Nick Perri, and she ain’t half bad. More to the point, she’s released a death metal version of her acoustic ballad “Tragedy,” a somewhat pedestrian concept that ends up being absolutely hilarious in execution. I don’t know for certain how the idea for this came about, but I’d imagine it had something to do with her live drummer Elmo Lovano, who, according to his Pearl Drums artist page, has played with The Faceless’ Michael Keene and Skrillex. That’s Elmo performing the vocals in this video; dude sounds better without any amplification than lots of pro metal vocalists do with tons of studio effects beefing up their puny voices.

I’ve posted the original version of “Tragedy” after the jump; it’s basically the same… but with pretty girl vocals instead of dirty boy screams.

Thanks: Max Dohmeyer

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Back in March, I showed Venia some love in my Bleeder’s Digest 7″ review. The Minneapolis metallic “Spirit-filled” hardcore act crammed some tough-as-nails tunes onto that little black circle, and it pleases me to be able to present this music video for opening cut “Crux” (one of that release’s most moshable tracks) exclusively via MetalSucks.

The clip shows the band members at work and at play, from an intimate performance to a micro-pit in their van. There’s even a cameo from Chipotle, the fast food venue of choice by 9-out-of-10 hardcore acts! The director’s no slouch either, Michael Dalton, having worked on videos for acts including Living Sacrifice, The Showdown and Onward To Olympas. Check it out and, if you dig what you see and hear, make sure to pick up I’ve Lost All Faith In Myself via Blood & Ink Records. And here are upcoming tour dates for the band…

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I don’t normally think of Adam Jones(#18 on our list of the Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists) or Tool as being the kinds of artists who appeal to the Hellyeah/Five Finger Death Punch crowd, but I guess that’s just me being an uptight elitist. Because Jones played “The Star-Spangled Banner” at WWE’s SummerSlam over the weekend, which, let’s be real, is about as white trash as you can get without making an appearance at The Gathering of the Juggalos (and before you get your panties in a knot over that statement, you should know that I once proudly attended SummerSlam, and, yes, I had a blast).

ANYWAY, here’s video of Jones’ performance… needless to say, he did a fantastic job, and if nothing else, it’s always good to hear him playing music, not doing whatever he does while Maynard goes off and makes wine and Puscifer albums.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

The headline tells you pretty much everything you need to know, but in case your mom dropped you on your head as a baby: Chimaira’s excellent new album, The Age of Hell, is now streaming in-full right here.

And it’s got everything that makes Chimaira albums so great. There’s a really diverse range of styles on here, from the straight-up thrash of the title track to the more Infectious grooves of “Powerless” (possibly my favorite song on Hell), as well as some serious creative risks and surprises… but I kinda don’t wanna ruin those for anyone, ’cause they certainly caught me off-guard (in a good way) the first time I listened to the record. So I’ll just re-emphasize that you should check this shit out, and then weigh in with your opinions in our comments section below.

The Age of Hell comes out tomorrow, August 16, via eOne. The band will be on tour this October with Revocation, Impending Doom, and Rise to Remain; dates should be announced soon. And I’ll have an interview with vocalist Mark Hunter for you as soon as the MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys finish transcribing it.

-AR

Before we get started here, let’s set the record straight: MetalSucks is not receiving any compensation — advertising or otherwise — from Spotify or any affiliated third parties hired by Spotify (marketers, publicists, etc). I, Vince Neilstein, independent of any other writers for MetalSucks, have been writing about Spotify over the past few months — and especially the past week — for the same reason I write multiple posts about a new band I really like, namely that I think it’s awesome and I want to spread the word.

Now that the dust has settled from Century Media’s decision to withdraw from Spotify, we’re starting to hear a few artists voice their opinions on the metal label’s decision to abstain from the future. Last week Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick revealed he accepts that record sales won’t be a major money-maker for him and supports Spotify as a tool for spreading awareness about his band’s music. Today it’s Jens Ryland of Borknagar, a band on Century Media, sounding off in his own blog (actually published last week).

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Last week, a shitty translation of a news story from a French website told us that Gojira told them that Rick Rubin was producing the band’s new album. We’ve been trying to get confirmation to no avail, but now another shitty translation of another news story from another French website tells us that Gojira told them that Rubin isn’t the producer — Greg Fidelman is.

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Hey, remember last month, when Nick Oliveri held his girlfriend hostage and got into a four-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team? Well, guess what? The cops found coke and meth in Oliveri’s home. Shocking, I know.

So while we may never know the cause of Oliveri’s inappropriate behavior, we do know he may be going to prison for a long, long time.

From TMZ:

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“Curl of the Burl,” the new single from Mastodon’s upcoming The Hunter, is now available for streaming (below). When combined with “Black Tongue,” the first song the band released from the album, one starts to get a real sense of what this Mastoffering is gonna sound like — a natural extension of Crack the Skye’s classic prog-rock goodness.

That’s not surprising, and neither is this — both songs are really good, and suggest that Mastodon have stuck the landing yet again.

The Hunter will be out September 27 via Reprise. “Curl of the Burl” will be available for digital purchase tomorrow.

-AR

Thanks: Joe Caperon

Spurred by a lazy crossword clue in The Onion (36 down, four letters: “Faith No More’s only hit”), MetalSucks contributor Anso DF dedicates every single day in August to celebration and exploration of the San Francisco alt-metal greats. Here we prove that history’s greatest band landed more than one commercial hit (crossword answer: “Epic” natch), we revel in FNM’s embarrassing wealth of winning album tracks (themselves often fit for chart topping), and we dip into the staggering best of the b-sides (ditto). Along the way, we survey the context of FNM’s big break (amid similarly seminal acts Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, and Ween) to the post-Nevermind, panic-based music commerce in which the brilliantly versatile, fearless powerhouse band operated until their 1998 demise. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Song ”Malpractice”

Written by Patton (L); Patton (M).

Released 1992

Appears on Angel Dust album

Produced by Matt Wallace

Guitars by Jim Martin

Key lyric ”The crowd roars/The pulling and the probing/The rest you know/Ten lovers violating.”

Single? No. “Malpractice” closes the whirlwind side A of Angel Dust.

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Spurred by a lazy crossword clue in The Onion (36 down, four letters: “Faith No More’s only hit”), MetalSucks contributor Anso DF dedicates every single day in August to celebration and exploration of the San Francisco alt-metal greats. Here we prove that history’s greatest band landed more than one commercial hit (crossword answer: “Epic” natch), we revel in FNM’s embarrassing wealth of winning album tracks (themselves often fit for chart topping), and we dip into the staggering best of the b-sides (ditto). Along the way, we survey the context of FNM’s big break (amid similarly seminal acts Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, and Ween) to the post-Nevermind, panic-based music commerce in which the brilliantly versatile, fearless powerhouse band operated until their 1998 demise. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Song ”Ugly In The Morning”

Written by Patton (L); Patton, Spruance, Gould (M)

Released 1995

Appears on King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime album

Produced by Andy Wallace

Guitars by Trey Spruance (Secret Chiefs 3, Mr. Bungle)

Key lyric ”I did it to myself again!”

Single? No. Super no.

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Yes, we know we didn’t get to make our big announcement this week. Don’t worry — we’re just ironing out a few final details. It’s still happening. And we’re confident we’ll get to tell you next week.

In the meantime, here’s how we occupied ourselves these past five days:

• We debuted new music by Ghost Brigade.
• We spoke to Chris Reifert from Autopsy and producer Jay Ruston.
• We checked out the latest releases from Harm’s Way and Skin Like Iron.
• Vince went several rounds with Century Media over their decision to drop out of Spotify.
• We made fun of Dream Theater’s use of clip art on their new album cover.
• Sammy O’Hagar, Satan Rosenbloom, and Grim Kim counted down their favorite releases of the year thus far.
• Sergeant D. searched for the best neo-nu-metal band.
• We asked what you think of Maylene and the Sons of Disaster.
• We continued to celebrate 31 Days of Faith No More.
• ‘Merica.

I am old, married to a kindergarten teacher, and play Mr. Mom nine months out of the year. As a result, I can only go to concerts on weekends or during the sweltering months of summer.

This is my summer vacation (Part III).

WHO: RUSH
WHERE: Frank Erwin Center — Austin, Texas
WHEN: June 12, 2011

It’s been 28 years since I last saw Rush live in concert. I became a convert right around the time Moving Pictures came out, loved Signals, but moved on to heavier music (ie. Metallica/Slayer/Megadeth/Exodus/English Dogs) by my first year of college. Over the years I became less enthralled with Rush, but always respected their commitment to excellence in rock music. When I heard they were coming back through Texas this summer on their seemingly never-ending “Time Machine Tour” and would be playing Moving Pictures, front to back, in its entirety, I decided a nostalgia trip was in order.

My Old Fart bones were already exhausted from catching Mötley Crüe on Thursday and KEN mode on Friday, but the Saturday respite seemed to re-energize me. Besides, the guys in Rush are a collective 172-years old and choose to travel tens of thousands of miles to entertain poor sods like me. How hard could it be to drive one hour to Austin and stand on my feet for a few hours to catch one of the greatest bands on the planet? Not hard at all.

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