The good news is, the always jaw-dropping instrumental prog metal outfit Dysrhythmia (featuring bassist Colin Marston, who was named #15 on our list of theTop 25 Modern Metal Guitarists) have released a demo for a new song, entitled “Running Towards the End.” And the great news is, they are giving away that demo for free. Download it right here. Like all Dysrhythmia, it will take ten or twenty listens to full grasp every nuance of the song, and like all Dysrhythmia, those ten or twenty listens will be highly enjoyable.

Hopefully this means we’ll get a new Dysrhythmia album in the not-too-distant future, too.

Do some forward-thinking here, then partake in a group hug in our comments section below.

-AR

[via East of the Wall's tweet]

In January of this year I selected Sylosis’ Edge of the Earth as my choice for the album that would fuck your collective faces off in 2011. And I was right! In case you somehow missed all the ranting and raving I’ve already done about Sylosis this year, I present you with Edge of the Earth stand-out track “Awakening:”

Traveling overseas to tour is hella expensive, and as such the Brits in Sylosis haven’t yet made it to the States… until now. The good news is that they’re finally coming over here in November and December in support of As I Lay Dying, but the bad news is that the tour is relatively short and they’re the first of four support bands, meaning they won’t be playing a very long set. But fear not, fellow Sylosis fans: according to a post on Sylosis’ Facebook page [via MS reader Lewis Hart], the band will be flying to the U.S. early to play five special headline shows before embarking on the AILD tour. Consider me there!

Those dates, as well as their dates supporting As I Lay Dying, after the jump.

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I’m officially making the switch from the Top Hard Music chart to the Current Hard Music chart for the purposes of this column. While it’s interesting to see what classic Metallica and Aerosmith albums are charting and I still may occasionally reference the former, the latter chart paints a much clearer picture of the modern metal landscape by opening up more room for new records that sell less than classics, allowing a larger number of relevant new releases to place in the Top 100.

This chart has a slightly different way of tallying new releases, where sometimes they appear as having already been on for one week before official release — I’m still sorting through precisely what that difference is — so occasionally the chart positions are a little mixed up. But this only comes into play much farther down the list and this chart still provides a good gauge of relativity.

Now, onto the releases: as you all no doubt know, Mastodon and Machine Head were the biggies last week, and both did quite well — but the album that ended up at #1 is also a debut, and none of us saw it coming. Sebastian Bach, Warbringer and Maylene & The Sons of Disaster fared well in Week 1, while new records from Rose Funeral, Textures, Suffokate, Rwake, Brutal Truth and many, many more also appeared in the Top 100.

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So reads the description on the “About” page of Heavy Artillery Records’ official website:

“Focused on traditional sub-genres of heavy metal, Heavy Artillery is a new label dedicated to bringing out the best from this new generation of old-school headbangers. Like the 90’s never happened!”

That should set the tone for this post quite nicely.

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Immolation’s North American headlining tour kicks off tonight, and that news in and of itself should be enough to make you giddy; after all, Immolation rule, and last year’s Majesty and Decay was nothing short of spectacular. PLUS support is coming from Jungle Rot and Gigan, so whatever you pay for your ticket will most surely come back to you tenfold in joy and mosh sweat.

But now events have taken a turn for the even-more-exciting: Immolation has announced that starting this Tuesday, October 11, they’ll be giving away a new five-song EP, Providence, via Scion A/V, the entertainment division of the evil car company that keeps funding talented metal and hardcore bands in exchange for not making any money in return. WHAT A BUNCH OF FASCISTS.

And, oh yeah, to top it all off, Scion A/V is also giving away thirty-six free tickets to the aforementioned Immolation headlining tour via their Twitter feed. That giveaway will start on October 11, so you should probably start following them now.

Majesty and Decay is out now on Nuclear Blast. You can get those Immolation/Jungle Rot/Gigan tour dates here.

-AR

Meet MetalSucks reader Nick V.S., the latest entrant of our ongoing Show Us Your MetalSucks contest, in which we send you a box o’ free metal goodies in exchange for pics of yourself donning MS merch. Nick fixes and services trumpets, saxophones, violins and guitars out of his back office of a Deer Park, NY instrument dealer. When he’s not listening to some pimply-faced 12-year old with bad B.O. and greasy hair hack through the solo of Metallica’s “One” and when he’s not busy repairing someone’s neglected broken guitar, Nick whittles away the day on MetalSucks, as you can see from the fine website showing on his computer screen.

That’s the limited edition “Appetite for Deconstruction” shirt Nick is wearing, featuring animated versions of our own faces (we’re modest); there are only a few left, so get yours now. And don’t forget about our standard line of MetalSucks shirts (and hoodie!) too.

A couple more pics of Nick showing off his instruments (huh huh, huh, he said “instruments”) after the jump.

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Hop on Tumblr for a few minutes, and at least 50% of what you’ll see will be one of the following: cats, and girls in slutty poses wearing metal shirts. While I totally support girls taking slutty pics of themselves and putting them on the internet, I have to make sure we all understand what’s really happening. Brahs, don’t be fooled: GIRLS DON’T ACTUALLY LIKE METAL!

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Congrats to reader Mitch Parsons. He correctly identified last week’s logo as beloning to the band Fröstskög, and for his troubles, he wins five CDs from the MetalSucks Mansion Archives. Hoo-ray, Mitch!

And on a side note, I’d like to say it’s ADORABLE how many of you included apologies with your entries last week for not knowing how to type the umlauts in “Fröstskög.” For future reference, you don’t have to include any weird accents or symbols in your entries — if you just wrote “Frostkog,” I understood that you had the answer, and you were still eligible to win. But I appreciate you being so neurotic about it.

ANYWAY, this week I’m unloading another five CDs from MS Mansion Archives. So, yeah, enter this shit.

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

This week’s logo was suggested by reader Ian McClung… thanks, Ian!

-AR

Dutch progressive technical metallers Textures just released their new album Dualism last week; you can still stream the entire thing over at Guitar World. They’re currently touring the U.S. with Periphery, The Human Abstract and The Contortionist so we thought it’d be a good time to check in with guitarist (and producer!) Jochem Jacobs about the live rig he’s using. Turns out his fellow axeman Bart Hennephof uses the exact same rig, which not only makes setting up a breeze but gives us two Rigged features for the price of one. After the jump, we hand it over to Jochem to tell you guys about his and Bart’s rig:

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The Inaugural Metal Suckfest is almost here!!!! Twenty bands will DESTROY The Gramercy Theatre on November 4 and 5, PLUS there’s an awesome, five-band pre-party at the venue the night before, making this THE can’t-miss hang of the year.

Tickets are on sale now right here, and you can hit up the fest’s official website for more info on the shows, including the complete line-up. In the meantime, we’re counting down to this weekend of chaos and debauchery by speaking to one member from each band on the bill. We begin today with guitarist/vocalist Andrew Fidler of Black Tusk, whose new album, Set the Dial, comes out October 25 on Relapse Records.

Read our chat after the jump. And don’t forget to check back in the coming days and weeks for interviews with more of the musicians participating in this awesome event!!!

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Kenneth Thomas, in a tunnel.

If you care about heavy music and still believe that art should trump commerce every time, you owe it to yourself to check out Blood, Sweat & Vinyl: DIY in the 21st Century. I’ve written about Kenneth Thomas’s music documentary in these e-pages before. After watching the film a second time, I’m even more convinced of its importance as both a document of bands that you rarely (if ever) got to hear from outside of the concert hall, and argument for the importance of underground music makers, making music underground. Thomas chose to keep the focus tight, centering on the musicians, artists and label heads associated with three independent labels that are doing things their own way: Hydra Head, Neurot Recordings and Constellation. While there are certain characters that emerge as the spiritual ballast for the film – Aaron Turner of Isis & Hydra Head, Steve von Till of Neurosis & Neurot, and Efrim Menuck of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, in particular – the overwhelming sense is of a giant inter-connected family of passionate people, united by nothing other than a desire to pursue truth and clarity through music.

Aside from a couple off-camera giggles during an adorable scene with Justin Broadrick (Jesu/Godflesh), Thomas himself doesn’t show up in his film. So we figured we’d find out what the director had to say about his opus.

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There’s something really remarkable about following a band from inception to record. What we so often see and hear as listeners is a finished product, spontaneously available, without any history or sign of the trials and challenges the band faced while getting there. I can’t claim to be one of the group’s earliest fans, but for the last year I have had the unique opportunity to watch Fairfax, Virginia native Chris Purvis’ experimental metal project, Friend for a Foe, grow and evolve.

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Yeah my headline is a little misleading. But it got your attention I bet!

ANYWAY, last week, Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe came to the conclusion that his Twitter account just wasn’t enough to express himself fully (which is understandable — dude tweets a LOT, and he’s really funny with that shit, too). And so he started his own Tumblr blog, called Randonesia. And while the first few posts he did were, in his own words, “just me figuring this thing out,” his most recent entry, published earlier this week, is an in-depth discussion of one of those topics which is incredibly important, but somehow seems to be rarely discussed in public: album sequencing.

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So Bring Me the Horizon, a very mediocre band that a lot of you seem to love for reasons that are beyond me, played in Salt Lake City last night — home of Mormonism and, thus, sodomy — and some of the folks in the crowd started heckling the group and throwing shit at them. Needless to say, vocalist Oli Sykes did not appreciate this behavior, and said as much, which, in turn, a bunch of the hecklers used as an excuse to rush the stage and attack the singer. You can watch video of the incident below.

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Things are looking up for Early Graves, who lost vocalist Makh Daniels in a devastating auto accident in August of 2010. In March of this year reports surfaced that the remaining members were working on new material, and this past August — almost exactly a year after Daniels’ passing — the band announced that The Funeral Pyre’s John Strachan would be their new vocalist moving forward.

Strachan made his live debut with the band at the Power of the Riff festival in Los Angeles and San Francisco in mid-August. Today, MetalSucks is thrilled to premiere an exclusive pro-shot video of Early Graves and Strachan performing “Goner” on that tour. Let’s all agree that Strachan was a great choice for Early Graves; he’s got big shoes to fill, but as this video proves he’s doing quite an admirable job of it. Here’s to wishing Early Graves all the best and hoping that this is the start of something great; those guys have been through a lot.

I can’t be the only one who feels like album intro tracks are dumb in 2011. I’m no full-album hater — intro tracks were cool once upon a time when you had little choice but to sit through them, and when listening to music was an activity in and of itself (on your couch in front of your speakers with a friend and a doobie) — it’s just that they seem silly in the context of how music is consumed in modern times. This is especially true for unknown bands who send us albums for review, but even for well-established acts who’ve earned their right to be a little self-indulgent. Am I the only one who just hits “skip” right away so I don’t have to sit through a minute and a half of keyboard swells and bells that are supposed to evoke a feeling of anticipation for something epic? Apparently not; new Invisible Oranges scribe Doug Moore (also the vocalist of MS-approved NYC metallers Pyrrhon) wrote a little bit on the ridiculousness of intro tracks in the modern era in a greater piece about the advantages of digital music.

Metalheads are often first-class nerds. We enjoy sprawling, complex pieces of art. That’s probably why the album format is such a collective hobbyhorse for us.

Unfortunately, nerdy people are often self-indulgent people. It’s a rare metal album that doesn’t involve at least some unnecessary baggage. Witness intro tracks. Almost nobody likes them, but countless bands use them. Worlds Beyond the Veil by Mithras is one of the better death metal albums of the past decade. But it starts with a six-minute intro. In the vinyl days, I would’ve been stuck with that lame intro every time I wanted to listen to the album. Now I can skip it or delete it. Easy peasy.

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Mouth Taped Shut, a viral site created to promote the upcoming English-language film adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, debuted a video about the manufacturing of the movie’s posters last night, and while that’s not very interesting (at least to me), the inclusion of even more of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ film score certainly is. Check it out below.

And lemme just say that I know I’ve been babbling on and and on about this score a lot, but, uh, can ya blame me? It’s only aspect of the film that’s pretty much guaranteed to be interesting. Director David Fincher is pretty brilliant, but I haven’t been too keen on his last couple of films, and I’ve tried reading Stieg Larsson’s book multiple times now, and I keept giving up — ’cause despite selling endless amounts of copies, I’m sorry to say, the story telling is pretty poor. But at the very least, Reznor music is always provocative.

There’s still no word on the soundtrack’s release date, but presumably it will be sometime before the movie’s December 21 opening.

-AR

[via Badass]

We’re just a week away from the release of Skeletonwitch’s diabolical new offering, Forever Abomination, and now you have been blessed (cursed?) with a chance to check out yet another new song from the release: “Sink Beneath Insanity” is streaming here. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album, and the kind of tune that makes me wanna start a circle pit in my living room or, Satan help the poor people of the F train with me last weekend, on the subway. (My apologies to the pregnant lady I landed on while seat diving. I’m sure the baby will only be marginally more retarded than it would have been anyway.)

ANYWAY, headbang here, then let us know what you think of the song in our comments section below. Like I was sayin’, Forever Abomination comes out next Tuesday, October 11, on Prosthetic. The band plays at the Chicago House of Blues tonight for the final date on the MetalSucks/Full Metal Jackie-presented North American Khaos Tour with Arch Enemy, DevilDriver, and Chthonic; then, starting on October 19, they head out on their MetalSucks-presented co-headlining tour with Kvelertak (dates here, support from Zoroaster), including a stop in Brooklyn to play the 2011 MetalSucks/Metal Injection/1000 Knives CMJ showcase along with Barn Burner, Turbid North, and Battlecross (but no Zoroaster); and THEN, in case you somehow still haven’t had a chance to check them out live or just love their shows as much as we do, they’ll begin a support stint on Chimaira and Unearth’s co-headlining tour (dates here, additional support from Molotov Solution), which, hey, we actually have nothing to do with, other than being fans!

-AR

At least here in New York, we are now experiencing full-on the-sun-never-comes-out-and-it’s-cold-as-fuck weather — y’know, in case we somehow failed to realize that it’s October. Luckily, we have two terrific records with uplifting, happy-go-lucky titles to stream this morning, so that should perk you right the fuck up.

• Cold Winds on Timeless Days, the sophomore effort from all-star outfit Charred Walls of the Damned, is now streaming here. Jokes about its icy title and cover art aside, it’s actually a total scorcher, and features top-notch performances from drummer/mastermind Richard Christy, vocalist Tim “Ripper” Owens, guitarist Jason Suecof, and bassist Steve DiGiorgio. Metal Blade will release the album a week from today, October 11; that day is also the deadline to enter our totally awesome CWOTD/Richard Christy Photoshop contest, in which you can win a ridiculous amount of cool swag, including autographed symbols, drumheads, and, uh, a diaper that Mr. Christy himself wore. Enter here.
• Hull’s second full-length, Beyond the Lightless Sky, is now streaming here. Like all Hull music, it’s massive and monstrous and terrifying… like the soundtrack to every horrible feeling through your brain right before King Kong crushes you with his little toe or something. It also comes out one week from today, ‘cept via The End Records.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my apartment is freezing, so I’m gonna go kill the neighbors and use their bones to start a fire.

-AR

NOTE: When this column was first published this morning, we erroneously included the release of the new Jane’s Addiction album, The Great Escape Artist. That album does not come out until October 18. We apologize for our fuck-up. 

Compared to last week anything would be considered a small release week, but this week’s slate still has almost ten new records. Highlights include music from Danava and Absu, so you’ll have a few new things to check out if you somehow already made it through everything from last week. Enjoy.

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