What I’m digging about this new Psycroptic song, “Carriers of the Plague,” is that it’s technical, but it’s still, like, y’know, a song. I never feel too lost in all of the deedily-doodily; in fact, there’s one section which is just like straight-up hardcore, and it’s my least favorite part of the song because it’s almost too simple. But that’s a problem most of Psycroptic’s peers will never know, because it’s hard to know things when you’re lost up your asshole.

So I tip my hat to Psycroptic, for proving that writing memorable music and showing some chops on your instrument don’t have to be mutually exclusive skills. High fives all around, dudes.

You can check out the song here, then weigh in with your thoughts in the comments section below. The song will appear on the band’s new album, The Inherited Repression, which comes out February 7 in North America and February 10 in Europe via Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Woodstock, NY isn’t just the hometown of hippies, MetalGF, and 3; Sarah Fimm, who recently released her seventh album Near Infinite Possibility, hails from the Hudson Valley’s musical locus as well. I’d never heard of Fimm before I received an email touting her new video “Everything Becomes Whole” earlier this week, but I decided to give it a shot and found myself wanting more the second it ended. Sarah’s brand of hard rock would sound perfectly at home on modern rock radio but doesn’t come off as sounding trite or angsty like so many of today’s female-fronted rock acts. It just so happens that A Perfect Circle’s Josh Freese plays on the track too, and you can definitely hear the influence.

Near Infinite Possibility is out now, and I’m hooked. Order the CD here or download the MP3 version from Amazon.

Check out Sarah Fimm’s official website for more info.

-VN

The new Lacuna Coil song, “Kill the Light,” is like 95% the excellent, infectious pop metal I love from these Eye-talians — but man, it really doesn’t go anywhere, does it? The energy level of the chorus isn’t noticeably higher than that of the verse, and Andrea Ferro’s phrasing just seems… I dunno, off, to me. Even the bridge seems more exciting to me than the chorus. It’s weird.

And kind of a bummer, ’cause like I said, for the most part, I think the song is great. And I’m still really stoked to hear the rest of LC’s new album, Dark Adrenaline.

Check out “Kill the Light” below and see if you think I’m nutty or what. Dark Adrenaline comes out January 24 via Century.

LACUNA COIL – Kill The Light by Crabby Medea Records

-AR

After the West Memphis Three were finally freed this summer, it was announced that filmmaker Atom Egoyan was making The Devil’s Knot, a non-documentary feature-length biopic about the trio. Now the movie has added its first star to the cast: Reese Witherspoon, who won an Oscar for playing June Carter in Walk the Line.

Deadline reports that ”Witherspoon will play Pam Hobbs, the mother of one of the murder victims, who initially believes the trio murdered her son, but is eventually persuaded the three suspects are innocent and wrongly accused.”

Click to read more…

If you don’t know Ramming Speed yet, get with it. Not only did they play Day 1 of our inaugural Metal Suckfest (pics here), but they’re one of the most fun, heabangable, party hardy thrash bands in existence today. Here’s drummer Jonah Livingston on his drum setup, piece by piece, for our latest edition of Rigged:

My sound starts with my skins. If I play the same heads slightly longer than I should my drums begin to sound like they’re gasping for air, but with fresh skins and a little love they can produce a nice, heavy, buckety sound. The kick (22”) and rack tom (13”) are “Blue Diamond” wrapped Premiers from the only full kit I’ve ever owned. They must be around 15 years old at this point; when the hardware on my floor tom fell apart this year, I replaced it with a 16″ Slingerland which Scott from Saviours told me is probably from the ’70s. The kit is like an old house; it’s kind of falling apart, but it feels like home.

Click to read more…

The winner of last week’s Photo Caption Contest will get to enjoy a CD case pop-up flap of all the Rammstein dudes in their bathing trunks for all of eternity. Hooray! Put that on your cubicle desk and see what your co-workers think. He’ll also get a 7″ of the “Mein Land” single, previously available only in Europe. Here’s the winner:

• Phil Anshlomo: “This is what happens when you forget to change the pump filter on the gene pool.”

This week we’re giving away bunch of signed CD booklets from our friends at Roadrunner Records:

• Grand Prize: Opeth’s Watershed, Soulfly’s Conquer, Times of Grace’s The Hymn of Broken Man, and Stone Sour’s Audio Secrecy. We’ll also throw in one Richard Christy-signed signed booklet of Charred Walls of the Damned’s new one on Metal Blade Records, Cold Winds on Timeless Days, left over from his Comic Con / MetalSucks signing session.
• Runner-up: Times of Grace’s The Hymn of Broken Man and Stone Sour’s Audio Secrecy.

You know what comes next: leave a comment with the funniest caption to the photo below (sent in by regular Photo Caption Contest tipman Jason Solomon). Remember to use a real email address (or post it along with your comment if you’re using FB Connect / Twitter etc).

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…

Everybody loves a comeback. It’s why we still pay attention to Metallica (that’s why we still pay attention to Metallica, right?), why we were so psyched when Celtic Frost (almost) erased Cold Lake with Monotheist and the ensuing Triptykon action, and why there’s just a sliver of hope in your rotted heart that maybe Morbid Angel, Cryptopsy and the Haunted find the strength to stop fucking around sometime next year.

Autopsy’s Shitfun maybe wasn’t that egregious an offender compared to the above. Well, the cover was, although I enjoy imagining that thing as a Halloween-size Butterfinger. Anyway, after the death metal hall of famers dropped their 1995, um, turd, and transmogrified into Abscess, they were neatly filed in the “unlikely comeback” department. Then Macabre Eternal placed high on our ever-unfuckwithable Top 40 Extreme Albums of 2011 list, and We All Good Again.

We so good, in fact, that Autopsy are graciously keeping the hot streak ablaze on the latest installment of the Decibel Flexi Series, a special rerecording of “Mauled to Death,” which super-fans might remember from their ’87 demo. It’s raw, unmastered, polished only by sweet metallic purple on blue vinyl, and only for subscribers. Give it a test drive below, and since I won’t be annoying you next week, happy (barf) hellidays.

Autopsy “Mauled To Death” (2012 unmastered version) (dB014) by Decibel Magazine

-AB

The February 2012 issue of Decibel, which also features Goatwhore, The Black Dahlia Murder, Black Tusk, a preview of 2012′s most anticipated new releases, and a King Diamond/Abigail Hall of Fame, can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one an issue?

Actually I really couldn’t give you a summary of Flourishing’s new video, which, hey, just so happens to be called “Summary.” ‘Cause it’s really fucking bizarre — like a death metal version of the movie π or something. But that’s not a bad thing — it’s certainly intriguing — and besides, Flourishing are fucking awesome. One of my great regrets this year is that I didn’t spend more time singing the praises of the band’s latest release, The Sum of All Fossils.

So please watch this video and then check out The Sum of All Fossils (it’s on Spotify, or you can just legally download a copy for all of eight bucks) to assuage my guilt. ‘Cause, like I was saying, Flourishing rule.

Here’s the clip, which debuted today on Metal Injection:

-AR

One album coming out next year which we’ve already heard and can assure you is worth getting excited about: Asphyx’s latest, Deathhammer. If you’re already an Asphyx fan, you pretty much know what to expect — they ain’t pullin’ no Morbid Angel on you or anything like that — but whatever. It’s awesome. I’ve listened to it a few times already and it’s absolutely killed my ears each and every time.

And now the title track is streaming right here. So you can crank that shit and hear for yourself why I’m so stoked on this album. Or decide that I’m an idiot. Y’know. Like you guys do sometimes.

ANYWAY, Deathhammer comes out February 28.

-AR

Boy oh boy, do we have a real treat for you today, kids: a video interview with legendary death-grind pioneers Repulsion, which was conducted by the metal community’s current number one patron, Scion A/V. Members Matt Olivo, Scott Carlson, and Marissa Martinez walk you through the band’s history, which if you’re not familiar with it… well, it has to be one extreme music’s most fascinating stories pretty much ever. The band only has ONE album, 1986′s legendary Horrified, and yet they’ve managed to be one of the most influential acts in the history of the genre. And here they pledge not to ruin that legacy with a reunion album, which oughta make you breathe a sigh of relief.

Check out the interview below, and then sing Repulsion’s praises in our comments section.

Death/doom crew Novembers Doom released their new record Aphotic via The End Records earlier this year, and the album finds the Chicago-based metal vets doing more of what they do best, the sound they helped pioneer over 20 years ago: artful yet punishing death grooves laden with doomy, morose undertones. “Harvest Scythe” is one of the album’s stand-out tracks so we’re pleased to be able to exclusively premiere the song’s official music video.

Vocalist and sole remaining founding member Paul Kuhr had this to say about the song and video: “The song is about internal conflict in one’s mind, somewhat multiple personalities. The video shows her going through different personalties, and not being able to escape from them. The different clothes she wears, the chalk outlines on the floor… The house represents her mind where she’s “trapped” and it’s supposed to play like a loop, where if you watch the video a second time, it almost seems like it’s supposed to start over.”

And so we come to the last of our four consecutive posts about fantastic early-2012 tours that have been announced in the past few days. Are you guys a little sad? I’m a little sad.

ANYWAY, Scale the Summit! Another band that is just great live. And this is gonna be their first headlining tour, which means they’ll probably play for longer than the thirty-or-so minutes we’ve always seen them do thus far. Which is in no way bad news. And support will come from Elitist, if that does anything for you. But missing StS would be a real crime, so, y’know. Don’t do that.

Here are the dates:

Click to read more…

Have you guys all seen Junius live yet? Holy shit, they are SO GOOD. I’m not nearly as enamored of their recordings as a lot of other people seem to be, but I’ll happily go see them live anytime. Their energy is just so righteous.

And now they’ve announced a co-headlining tour with O’Brother, who are really not a metal band, but whatever. JUNIUS LIVE! This is gonna be fun.

Here’s the tour itinerary, which I stole from Lambgoat:

Click to read more…

So it seems like potentially-excellent 2012 tours are now being announced left and right — no joke, this is the second of four consecutive posts about tour itineraries you’ll see on MetalSucks this morning. Of course, this is a terrific problem to have; no one ever laid on their death bed and thought, “I saw too many awesome rock concerts,” y’know?

So… Every Time I Die! They’ve announced a headlining trek which will feature Terror, Stray from the Path, and Former Thieves. ETID and Terror are both terrific, in my estimation; I’m not really a Stray from the Path fan, but I’ve also never seen them live, and Vince says they’re great; and I don’t know Former Thieves. I guess my point is, all in all, this seems like it could be a really fun night at the opera. And now that ETID is breaking out new songs live (like the one above, “Underwater Bimbos from Outer Space”), you’ve got some extra incentive to check this tour out.

Here are dates, via Metal Underground:

Click to read more…

Hey, so remember last week when we told you this year’s Metal Alliance Tour* featuring DevilDriver, The Faceless, Dying Fetus, Job For A Cowboy, 3 Inches of Blood, and Impending Doom? Well, the full tour itinerary has been released, so now you can, like, go n’ shit. I don’t really know what else there is to say about this tour… it’s such a killer line-up, I’m just stoked to go.

Here are the dates, courtesy of Lambgoat:

Click to read more…

Thanks for bearing with us yesterday. We know the censored posts were annoying. The goal was to raise awareness for the issue and spark discussion; judging by the comments, we were at least somewhat successful in that regard. To all of you who signed the petition or contacted your congresspeople, thank you. Actually, thank yourself… it’s your Internet, too.

All of yesterday’s posts have been updated with the original, un-censored text. Feel free to go back and catch-up if you like.

Now, to be clear, MetalSucks does not support piracy in any way, shape or form. Piracy is stealing. There are really no two ways about it.

But the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, the House version) and the Protect IP Act (the Senate’s version) will fail miserably, in two major regards:

1) They will not stop piracy. The ongoing game of “whack-a-mole” will continue as piraters find new outlets and new networks, whether those be through torrents (which these bills don’t address), hard-drive swapping, email, FTP, off-shore servers, or some other technology that exists now or will exist in the future.

2) They will sweep up innocent bystanders in the process and threaten free speech. Sites like this one — as well as giants like Facebook, YouTube and Google — face having to drastically re-work their architecture to avoid being shut-down, as well as steep legal fees that could put the smaller sites out of business and stifle innovation at the bigger ones. Due process goes out the window and sites that rely on user-generated content will have their lifeblood sucked away … all for a bill that won’t be effective anyway.

We’re all for supporting artists, labels, and everyone else in the industry that keeps the lifeblood flowing, but SOPA is not the answer. The bill faces a crucial vote in the House Judiciary Committee today, after which the House as a whole can vote on it at any time. The Senate has yet to vote on their version of the bill so there’s still some time, but we need to act now to stem the tide.

-AR & VN

UPDATED:

████ ███████████ ████████████ ██ █ █████. ███████ ███ ██████ ███████ ███ █████ ████ ██ ████ ████ ███. ████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ████, ████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ██ ██████.

███ ██████, ██████████ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ████████ ████████ ██ █████-███ ██████ ███ ███ █ ██ ██-█████, █████ ████ ████ █████ ███████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ███ ██ █ ████ ████.

Click to read more…

UPDATED:

And the Awesomest Idea of the Week award goes to Metal Injection, who have now created the Tom Araya Scream button. It’s a relatively simple concept, sure — you click a button like the one pictured below, and Tom Araya’s legendary scream from “Angel of Death” blasts at full volume — but isn’t genius the obvious idea that somehow no one has ever thought of before?

Click here to check out the Tom Araya Scream. It feels great if you have some aggression to burn.

ORIGINAL POST:

Click to read more…

UPDATED:

Hey, so you what did you guys think of the idea I posited last week for a new band ranking system? Thanks to Jason from IKILLYA for pointing out the existence of NextBigSound.com, a cool site that aggregates a lot of the data I suggested be included in the ranking, namely social network stats and other Internet metrics. While NextBigSound allows account holders to enter their own Soundscan data, I’d love to see all those things — along with torrents, merch sales, etc — combined into a single chart that’s published once a week and accessible to the industry, much like Soundscan is now. The grand picture is so much bigger than album sales now more than ever, and I think that needs to be reflected in the main chart people analyze. For the most part, it seemed like you guys were into the idea even if you questioned its feasibility.

Anyway, this week is pretty depressing sales-wise. One look at the top six records on this week’s Current Hard Music chart should make any metalhead cry. Since there weren’t many notable new albums released last week and you surely don’t wanna just read about Nickelsuck, I also included numbers of some older albums from earlier in 2011 that are experiencing holiday sales bumps.

Click to read more…

UPDATED:

Volture have released a new video for their song “Rulebreaker,” and holy shit, is it ever awesome. Clearly it didn’t cost much — if it looks like it was filmed on that massive video camera your dad used to make home movies in the 80s, that’s because it was, indeed, shot on VHS… and FUCKING BETA, which holy shit I don’t even know what to say about that. But that’s all part of its charm. And I don’t know how anyone could hate anything this unabashedly and metallically cheesy. If West Side Story was a metal musical, it would be this video.

“Rulebreaker” is available as part of a digital EP via Tankcrimes, which you can download here. A 7″ vinyl edition will be out early next year.

ORIGINAL POST:

Click to read more…