(Wolves in the Throne Room. Photo by Alison Scarpulla)

I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that NPR is now endorsing metal, despite the fact that it’s been going on for months already. I love NPR and all they offer (especially for news), but this is the chosen music medium of my 65 year-old parents, not exactly a hotbed of youth culture. What’s even more puzzling is the particular aesthetic of metal that NPR has given their blessing; I don’t know how to say this without sounding condescending (and I really don’t mean it that way), but you’d be way more likely to hear the metal bands NPR gives their seal of approval emanating from a Bushwick loft than you would a suburban bedroom in Ohio, or even a basement World of Warcraft mancave. I guess what I’m saying is, with the gigantic mainstream reach NPR has, I wish they would widen the range of metal bands they’re covering; the whole doom/black/crust/stoner/Scion axis is just one small piece of the overall puzzle. But so it goes.

One thing is for certain, though: at least the NPR Metal Czar has good taste. When you’re streaming the first new track from Wolves In The Throne Room’s upcoming album Celestial Lounge and the entirety of Yob’s new doom-tastic opus Atma at the very same time, it’s hard to generate any ill-will at all, even in the way of missed opportunities (like, for example, the new Revocation and Fleshgod Apocalypse albums). If you like good metal and know what’s good for ya, head on over to NPR at the above links to check out new Wolves In the Throne Room and Yob. And be glad that metal is getting a national stage at all.

Yob just wrapped up a run with Dark Castle, but Wolves In the Throne Room go on tour all over North American starting later this month. Last time I saw WITTR was at SXSW 2009; “epic” would be an understatement. Dates after the jump:

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Jerry Garcia during a recent live performance.

Jerry Garcia died sixteen years ago today from being an overweight drug addict, and the anniversary interests me mostly because I remember exactly where I was when I heard that Garcia was dead, and, holy shit, I can’t believe it was sixteen years ago.

But Shadows Fall front man Brian Fair is an actual Grateful Dead fan. And so he has commemorated Garcia’s death not by pining for his youth (and possibly scarfing down a tub of Cherry Garcia, Cathy-style), but, rather, by writing a guest blog for our friends over at Metal Insider, in which he basically seeks to answer this question: “Why should metal fans give a poo about Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead?”

Here’s a sample:

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Congrats to reader Peter Eisenberg. He correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Aposepsy, and for his troubles, he wins five CDs from the MetalSucks Mansion archives. Enjoy ‘em, Pete!

This week we have a really super awesome prize: a copy of the CD booklet for Opeth’s Watershed that has been signed by the entire band, courtesy of the nice people at Roadrunner Records. I only have one of these, and, obviously, it’s pretty bad-ass. So you best be enterin’ this weeks contest, ya heard?

All you gotta 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 select one winner and announce his or her name a week from today.

This week’s logo was suggested by the reader known as “Black Shuck.” Thanks, brutha!

-AR

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 ”Digging The Grave”

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 know you have a reason why/That knot is better left untied/I just went and undid mine/It takes some time.”

Single? Yes, King‘s first and a thematic continuation of “Midlife Crisis” and “A Small Victory.”

The climate Released four weeks ahead of its host album, “Digging” ended what seemed like ages of tense anticipation for FNM’s follow-up to Angel Dust. What better way to enter a new music era than with lotsa screaming, a drum solo, and no trace of FNM’s trademark keyboards?

Awesome song elevated to supra-awesomeness by chemistry shared by Mike Patton and his Mr. Bungle bandmate Trey Spruance. Where Patton shouts pitchlessly [sic], Spruance unfurls big, yawning broken chords; alternately, Patton’s measure-long tones often sit atop slamming Spruance downstrokes. Tasty.

Didja know? There’s a third harmony part down low in the second and third choruses’ ”comf-ter-bulllllllllllll”. I didn’t detect it until like 1999.

-ADF

***

METALSUCKS’ 31 DAYS OF FAITH NO MORE

9 “Digging The Grave”

8 “From Out Of Nowhere” (read)

7 “Last Cup Of Sorrow” (read)

6 “The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies” (read)

5 “Caffeine” (read)

4 “Falling To Pieces” (read)

3 “Stripsearch” (read)

2 ”Ricochet” (read)

1 ”Land Of Sunshine” (read)

Take this with a salt factory’s worth of grains of salt, because there are probably about fifty albums I have stored on my hard drive, waiting to evaluate, and there are many dozens of worthy contenders that I may never hear until it’s too late. But here are 40 albums from the first half of 2011 that’ve knocked my moocow slippers off so far:

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The bad news is that The PreZcotts, a group I have never heard of before and hope to forget within fifteen minutes of publishing this post, have not only recorded a truly horrendous cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters,” but they’ve made a video for it, too, and someone thought it was a good idea for that video to be partially in black and white and partially in exaggerated pastel colors. Because that aesthetic certainly cemented Color Me Badd’s place in music history.

The good news — besides the fact that at least they didn’t cover “Unforgiven II” or “Unforgiven III,” I mean — is that Yuto Miyazawa, the adorable Japanese tyke who has already made a name for himself playing with Ozzy Osbourne, plays the guitar solo on the cover, and he didn’t just do a note-for-note impersonation of Kirk Hammett. So that’s neat.

Either Metallica or one of their handlers liked this enough to post it on the band’s YouTube channel, which just goes to prove what I’ve always said: Metallica loves little girls.

And here’s a lil’ bonus for ya:

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Skin Like Iron, Arrival (React!)
Descent Into Light, this band’s 2010 record for Six Feet Under, didn’t get the coverage it deserved on this site–and that’s my fault. Like so many good albums that come my way, it didn’t make an immediate impact. I’m making a conscious effort not to do the same thing with Arrival, an even-better follow-up that showcases Skin Like Iron’s coloring-outside-the-lines hardcore. The diversity offered on this short album acts like a headbutt to the ridiculous argument that hardcore is out of ideas. Melodic meets menace in ways far more inventive than what emo, screamo, or metalcore so predictably deliver. Skin Like Iron aren’t operating in some sort of scene bubble; “Consequences” even takes some cues from blackened death metal, from its post-apocalyptic lyrics to its breakneck tempo. After a grim intro, “Dim Horizon” punks the fuck out in a way that would turn a moshpit into a veritable piranha pit. This is a glorious, dark, and stunning release.

(4 out of 5 horns)

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Yesterday’s post decrying Century Media’s decision to pull out of Spotify seemed to ruffle a few feathers at Century, so much so that today they’ve decided not only to issue an official response but to write me a personal email! Since this is MetalSucks and we delight in this sort of back-and-forth (and we always like to give the targets of our ire an open forum to respond), I’m going to go through Century’s email and dismantle their arguments one-by-one. Here we go:
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Remember like just a couple of posts ago, when I said that you needed to “like” Nightrage on Facebook if you wanted to hear their new song?

Well, yeah, reader Tim Bartolini tells me that’s not true. Not that I should be shocked or anything. But you can stream it below.

It’s called “Insidious,” by the way, and features guest vocals from the great Tomas Lindberg. And it’s pretty good! As Mr. Bartolini points out, it gets better as it goes along (I also enjoyed it more after a couple of repeat listens), so don’t give up if the beginning doesn’t immediately knock your socks off.

“Insidious” is the title track from Nightrage’s new album, which comes out September 27 via Lifeforce.

-AR

Nathan Ells is a great singer, and I will always love the work he did with The Human Abstract, especially on Nocturne. So I was actually pretty stoked when a reader (who, given the tone and style of her e-mail, I think was actually either a poorly-disguised publicist or manager, but whatever) sent us an e-mail last night tipping us off to existence of Sunlit Ether, Ells’ new project with “former members of October Burning.” I’d never even heard of October Burning before, but it didn’t matter — ya pretty much had me at “Nathan Ells.”

And then I listened to the band.

Right now they have three songs available. They alternately sound like bad 90s alt metal or nu-core, neither of which is a style of music that would be my first, second, or tenth choice to listen to.

Click to read more…

If you’ve been pining for music that sounds like old Gloria Estefan only with guitars being played by a retard as part of some “music therapy” program in place of Casio keyboards, boy oh boy, do we have a treat for you: “What You Want,” a new song by Evanescence.

The song has been taken down by Wind-Up Records. If you didn’t get to hear it, consider yourself truly blessed.

I mean, I could be writing about the new Nightrage song that just came out, but I’d have to “like” them on Facebook to do so. So I am just so very, very grateful that Amy Lee and whomever is taking money from Amy Lee right now have come to my rescue and provided me with something of SUBSTANCE to listen to instead, y’know?

-AR

If you’ve been pining for music that sounds like old Korn only with the dude from Nickelsuck singing the clean vocals instead of Mike Patton on barbiturates, boy oh boy, do we have a treat for you: “Paper Wings,” a new song by Staind.

I remember the first time I heard this band — I think it was around the time they did that power ballad with Fred Durst acting as hype man — I thought, “Man, it is going to be SO GRATIFYING when these dudes still have a career in ten years.” And I was right. It is. It is so very gratifying to know that there are enough people in the world who love this band for them to be able to continue making their wholly unique brand of rawk.

And the fact that they’ve made zero adjustments to their sound since first breaking onto the scene… this is why they have so much street cred. Because they never, ever strayed from their roots, no matter how close to a septic tank those roots have been planted.

So let’s have a hearty golf clap for Staind, the best band of this, or any, generation. Not only am I going to purchase their new, self-titled album when it comes out on September 13, but I am personally going to deliver a truck full of edible bouquets to each and every Atlantic Records employee who worked on the album.

-AR

Guys, I am plum out of nice things to say about Revocation’s Chaos of Forms. We’ve been telling you how great it is for some time now. It’s an amazing album and you’re gonna love it. End of story.

So now it’s streaming in full. Go listen. Seriously. Do it do it do it do it.

Chaos of Forms comes out a week from today, Tuesday, August 16, via Relapse.

-AR

[UPDATE, 11:15am EDT: An official statement by Basick sent exclusively to MetalSucks follows.]

As far as I know Basick has some of its international stock housed there but at the moment we’re trying to find out what the extent of the damage is from the distributors. What we do know is that a MASSIVE amount of UK independent music labels are affected by this.

The hope is that the distro have shipped most of the stock out of the country already but again, at the moment we’re still trying to find out exactly what the situation is. Sorry we have no more details at this time.

Original post:

The riots that have been blazing on in London since Saturday night following the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by police have suddenly hit a lot closer to home for metalheads worldwide: the Sony DADC warehouse that served as an international distribution center for PIAS, including Basick Records and a number of other independent record labels, has been completely burned to the ground and all their physical stock been destroyed. Basick Records is the home of Aliases, The Arusha Accord, Chimp Spanner, Circles, Monuments and several other metal bands. The devastating blaze has been confirmed on Basick’s Facebook page.

Click to read more…

We both really, really like blunts.

In all honesty, this is probably about as good as a music video shot entirely on a band’s tour bus was ever gonna get. I mean, it’s just like Jay-Z’s video for “Big Pimpin’,” only it’s more accurate to the metal lifestyle, because they don’t have a yacht, and there isn’t a woman in sight.

Also, the lyrics to the song, which “ is dedicated to all the diehard Emmure fans” (Frankie Palmeri’s words), are fucking brilliant. Remember when Slipknot did something similar with “Pulse of the Maggots?” But stupid Corey Taylor bothered to write, like, more than seven lines. What a dope! He could have been smoking weed and playing Street Fighter the whole time it took him to come up with that nonsense. Chump.

-AR

[via Artist Direct]

New albums from Trivium, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ceremony and thrash upstarts Diamond Plate get the Tuesday Treatment today. Let’s take a look at those and more after the jump:

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I’m proud to call myself a working-class American. There might not be anything glamorous about my job (I drive a high-end limousine), but it’s an honest living, and although I have my occasional bouts with depression and self-hatred, when it comes down to it I am happy with who I am! And I’m not the only one: much to the surprise and chagrin of all you privileged, liberal elites with your fancy state-school degrees, there are millions of us in the so-called “flyover states” who love our proud, blue-collar lives and the music that gets us through the day.

Djentstep, post-blackened tech death and progressive funeral grind might be trendy in the coffee shops, boutiques and exclusive nightclubs of Manhattan, San Francisco and London, but here in the heartland of the United States, we stick to the music that made this country what it is: unpretentious, no-frills nu-metal. Or more specifically, the new breed of bands who are bringing back the spirit of 1998 and spearheading the NEO-NU-METAL MOVEMENT. That’s right, motherfuckers, nu-metal ain’t dead! It might not be dominating the playlists of tastemaking metal bloggers, but it’s alive and well in the hearts and minds of people who just want to rock out after they get home from a 12-hour shift at the cardboard box factory in Youngstown, Ohio.

After the break, some of the best bands from the NEO-NU-METAL scene!

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Perhaps right before the deluge of fall releases hammers us with “PUT ME ON YOUR YEAR END LIST!” demands, it’d be a good idea to take stock of what’s come out thus far. It’s been a good year for metal– as, admittedly, are most years — despite the absences of new Neurosis or Pig Destroyer albums (which, once again, could apply to any year). And even though there are a few albums I haven’t gotten around to hearing just yet (Altar of Plagues, Vastum, Disma, Origin, Shining), haven’t been lucky enough to hear (Revocation) and haven’t spent nearly enough time with yet (Wolves in the Throne Room), there’s been quite a bit to marinate on thus far. So allow me to jump on the ship Axl, Vince, Corey, Gary, Anso, and Leyla are already on and name a few I deem noteworthy. In no particular order, of course.

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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 “From Out Of Nowhere”

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

Released 1989

Appears on The Real Thing album

Produced by Matt Wallace

Guitars by Jim Martin

Key lyric ”Don’t know if I’ll laugh or cry.”

Single? Yes, The Real Thing’s first. And so life began.

Click to read more…

Reader Steve Bergquist has been bugging us about And So I Watch You From Afar for a couple months, and now I understand why: they rule. Don’t let the awkward band name fool you.

And So I Watch You From Afar are tough to classify, so I’ll roll with Steve’s description: “heavy instrumental rock with proggy shred riffs, punk balls, and post-rock atmosphere.” There’s also an ambient/atmospheric quality to the guitars that puts these guys in the same head-trippy category as bands like Russian Circles, Constants and Junius. They know when to be heavy and they know when to lay back and sit deep in the pocket; best of all they just know how to write good tunes.

Their new album Gangs is posted on Bandcamp; it’s free to stream (which you can also do using the widget below) and only €4.00 (about $6.00) to download. Get on it.

-VN