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I’m an unlikely fan of Dunderbeist’s Black Hearts & Crooked Tails for two reasons: Bands whose members dress up exactly alike can be great, but the whole thing embarrasses me lol. It just feels weird. Of course, it makes sense for a crappy band to go strong on the visuals, but Dunderbeist’s jamz don’t need help. They rage hard.
Okay but the other thing that Dunderbeist must overcome: Click to read more…
I’ll kinda stick to facts here: It was Tuesday that I first heard the full Look Right Penny debut album, Sugar Lane. On Wednesday, I wrote here on MetalSucks that I was totally loving the poppy, proggy LRP vibe (I want a tour with Atheist and Paramore now!) and that I super-love when great players pump up pop music with artful, forceful chops. But that praise started to seem way faint on Thursday when I really got into the album: the super hooks, the huge bombast, the ace riffage, the bass drops, the skillz of singer Mariel Diaz-Carrion. Instant classic. Awesome.
So I spent about 12% of the next three days cranking Sugar Lane #truefact. At some point, I emailed Sergeant D. about it. I resisted it all Sunday just to see if I could. And I remained Sugar Lane-free on Monday until word reached me that MS had nabbed this very exclusive stream of the complete album (below). Now I’m ballz-excited to unveil this gem to beloved MS readers. Good times! And to celebrate, I think I’ll treat myself to a few consecutive listens to, say, Sugar Lane by Look Right Penny (out today). We click play now!
[this streaming promotion has now ended]
-ADF
Florida’s Look Right Penny releases Sugar Lane today via Bieler Bros. Order it here and here. Internet me @AnsoDF to gab about it!
Kittie (L-R Trish Doan. Not pictured: Mercedes Lander, Morgan Lander, Tara McLeod)
Kittie is a hard-working metal band, so they seem omnipresent in support slots on a million tours. I’ve seen them 670 times, a meaningful number for a dude whose life of drugz + rollerskates means low concert attendance. But I’ve always applauded Kittie for their solid-ish chops and for the aesthetic vacation they provide to concertgoers tasked with staring at heinous, sweaty metal bros for three hours. Thanks Kittie!
And as of today, the next 63-band package tour stop in your hometown just got hotter ‘cuz… Click to read more…
The most brilliant aspect of the movie Revenge Of The Nerds is the name of the enemy frat house: Alpha Beta. What better term to describe those nerd-persecuting sports tryhards lol! Sure, Stan Gable’s football posse seems studly — what with all the weight-lifting, stunning looks, and privilege – but only a team of mega-betas would feel impelled to terrorize the totally groovy nerds (the movie’s true alphas). And such they are.
If Gable really wished to stay atop the Adams College hierarchy, he would’ve correctly identified the Nerds as winners — an easy conclusion once they found and restored that house — and then marched right over, extended a warm welcome, and initiated a gab session to identify how the Nerds’ many powers could enhance his stranglehold on local pussy and beer. In Gable’s shoes, I’d be like, “Come over and bang cheerleaders at our house tomorrow, dudes! Then build me a robot that writes Astronomy term papers! Ha ha! No but srs.”
But instead, the Alpha Beta team locks horns with the Nerds and gets dismantled: Gable’s gf with the luscious titties dumps him for the top nerd, her rapist; Gable and cronies are swept out of their legislative positions; and finally, his buds must trudge back to live in the school gym presumably after a boner-breaking beatdown from like a dozen mean ex-linebacker types (delicious irony alert). Oh and then a lifetime of resentful servitude to a world of Nerd overlords and of lamenting the phonetic misfortune of the name Gable (“gay bull”)!! What a waste!!!
It’s in this spirit that I offer my hand to Kunvuk, a quartet of metal nerds from Australia (above). Let’s join powers, you guys! You all can help me decipher the Outback Steakhouse menu and stalk reconnect with this juicy girl I know who moved to Sydney; I can offer a helpful breakdown of your vibe:
An extremely welcome surprise in 2011 was Reports From The Threshold Of Death, a throbbing, gauzy dream-rock record from Boston’s Junius (read here). One shitty major magazine described Reports as the intersection of Neurosis and The Smiths, but a sharper listen reveals Deftones-sized hooks and melancholic majesty more akin to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and Cave-In epics like “Seafrost” and “Paranormal.” I love! U love!
Junius embarks on a busy US tour next month (with O’Brother, dates below), and then heads to Europe in April, so fans have not long to wait for a consciousness-muddying headline set. But in the meantime, Click to read more…
On Tuesday I caught the movie Titanic‘s big-money scene on TV. As the liner upends and descends into frigid waters, people are shown plummeting as from a skyscraper, doinking off the ship’s protrusions and cartwheeling into the abyss. In their place, I’d be like, “Aw man. Why ever did I board on this boner-biting boat? What a rip-off! All it took was one wrong turn and now I’m floating in my pajamas with a frozen toddler under each arm. Fuck! Room service!!”
That’s a raw deal, right? But that was 1912. Here in 2012, I could be lured onto a raft made of egg shells and spaghetti by awesome Swiss thrashers Coroner. Check out their wrap video of the recent 70,000 Tons Of Metal cruise (above); what a blast! And if disaster befell us, I’d be contentedly banging with the band til we were all gurgling and doggy-paddling for shore. For sure!
–ADF
Party with Coroner on dry land at April’s Roadburn Festival in Holland among Voivod, Killing Joke, and Hammers Of Misfortune (info here) and in August at Germany’s Wacken Open Air with Warbringer, Testament, and Sanctuary (info here).
To me, nothing is as fully sweet like pop music played heavy and with controlled virtuosity. It’s like a famous master chef whipping up simple, delicious hot dogs for my face; it seems foolish to abandon such classic fare to high-volume/low-margin assembly lines, right? Hence my devotion to the jamz of Rush, Bay Area thrash, Iron Maiden, Deftones, Devin Townsend, Love/Hate, Blessed By A Broken Heart, and tons more snappy songwriters with big boner crunch.
So I warmly welcome Look Right Penny, whose debut album Sugar Lane (out Tuesday) is a slam dunk of pop-djent metal. Click to read more…
What was once inconceivable is now a reality: A David Lee Roth-fronted Van Halen is set to release a new album! It took 28 years, a soul-crushing false start with Roth in 1996, the dumping of bassist/backing vocalist Michael Anthony, and a new label home, but A Different Kind Of Truth finally arrives today. However, a fair appraisal of Truth could be dicey: Fans might get swept up in the grand return of a pined-after loved one, while the indifferent can effortlessly cry foul at Truth‘s mining of 35 year-old material and at suspiciously deft Wolfgang Van Halen bass lines. And yet early reviews state that Truth is a remarkably authentic classic Van Halen experience.
Here’s what steps VH took to recapture that old magic:
He Is Legend made two of the past decade’s awesomest, most infectious records, so I went straight to Bonersville upon their December announcement of an end to their two-year hiatus and a new album for 2012. Their first shows back were last week in North Carolina, a place I can’t locate on a map let alone visit (it’s over by Tennessee and Arizona right?), so I’m just happy as shit to enjoy some shaky, unflattering fan film of the jam (above). The clip reveals a rustless He Is Legend before a very happy crowd ripping happily — except for inscrutable guitarist/stud Adam Tanbouz, though his frownypants may relate to the usual technical wrangling during a gig’s first song. Fully mirin his Dark Funeral shirt.
-ADF
Read about He Is Legend here and here then get their stuff here.
When Filter mainman Richard Patrick went into rehab in 2002, it marked the end of the industrial-rock band’s rad second line-up. That means it’s been about a decade since the Filter that made Title Of Record (super classic!) and The Amalgamut (epic!), and since then jeez I haven’t caught sight of Patrick’s old team like at all. Which is surprising, cuz drummer Steve Gillis is a stud (here) and guitarist Geno Lenardo co-wrote this phase of Filter’s biggest (here) and biggest-selling jamz (here).
When ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy announced an unlikely collaboration with John Sykes (above left, the guy who wrote Whitesnake’s huge album), it was easy to be of two minds: On the one hand, Portnoy had reactivated the long-dormant Sykes, which is awesome; but, jeez, the Portnoy-Sykes affair also set a roadblock before any potential reunion of Blue Murder, Sykes’ awesomely awesome supergroup with drummer Carmine Appice and farty Tony Franklin. That’s a bummer.
This is just me, but I attend Darkest Hour shows mostly to make goo-goo eyes at guitarist Mike Schleibaum, fellow devotée of my boner band The Crown (and The Cars). That’s my M.O. no judgements please. Still I was bummed when sweet drummer Ryan Parrish announced his departure from DH late last year. But dude is already in A Cancerous Affair, the project started by his former DH bandmate and guitar freak Kris Norris. And which now welcomes its newest member, keyboardist Knockerz Randall.
It’s occasionally hard to tell whether we should cheer superstar wrestler Hulk Hogan as an unhinged eccentric or jeer him as a sideways freak who paws his own daughter on TV when not sweatily humping other half-nude guys on TV. Okay, shit, it’s not that tough to call actually — especially when the Hulkster pops round The Sun (UK) offices to cull the latest relationship gossip on Heidi Klum (silly!) and Cameron Diaz (really?).
Truly, the gentleman prefers blondes. Anyway, after casually implying his fandom of The Stone Roses — a major news item in England for their recent reunion — Hogan dropped these bombshells on The Sun:
“Scheduling has been a nightmare for a long time,” says guitarist Rob Caggiano about Temple Of The Black Moon. That seems like hyperbole, but gosh maybe not: TotBM drummer John Tempesta has been dashing between The Cult and Testament tours; singer Dani Filth’s full time job is Cradle Of Filth; Caggiano is bound to Anthrax’s rigorous itinerary, and his TotBM writing partner, Tom Cato Visnes, has been involved with Sahg, I, Gorgoroth, and Ov Hell outings in just the last five years.
Say what you will about its corny message and lulzy ’90s in-your-faceness, but let us all face facts about Extreme’s “Get The Funk Out”: Holy ballz this jam is the work of superstuds. For starters, drummer Paul Geary just rips on it, esp on those big entrances to the choruses (i.e. on the “If you”s); the second one (at 1:53) is what a renowned musicologist may describe as mega-bonerz awesome. With Geary in charge, the whole band locks ass-tight into the swing. I love!
Last week’s most amusing news item came from Dillinger Escape Plan singer Greg Puciato (above, center), who made public his thanks and apologies to local emergency responders who helped him out during a half-day drug freakout. (Reviewing Puciato’s account of the unnamed substance’s effects, one could settle on mushrooms as the likely culprit.) As party people, we at MetalSucks giggled knowingly at his beginner’s mistakes and cheered his quick rebound to good humor and sanity. Party loud, dude!
But Puciato’s boss, DEP founding guitarist Ben Weinman (above, left), isn’t as cool with his misadventure or his urge to chronicle it for the public. Nor with the potential he created for something other than Weinman to get credit for DEP’s genius. Our awesome buds at Metal Insider got the exclusive story from Weinman:
It’s funny. It seems like whenever I’m lukewarm on a blockbuster act, there comes along a different band that does their thing in a deeper, less entry-level way. Example: When I heard At The Drive-In’s Relationship Of Command, I felt like that energy was what Rage Against The Machine had been driving at. Same for Minus’s Jesus Christ Bobby and Converge. Or here’s an obvious one: Lacuna Coil and Evanescence.
Likewise, Blessed By A Broken Heart’s 2009 album Pedal To The Metal is what I’d hoped for from Avenged Sevenfold: A reformed metalcore band’s full-bore arena jamz no fucks given. Blessed, their name a vestige of their frowny past, still rocks the occasional breakdown, but mostly new album Feel The Power (out today) grafts high-level riffing to the sugary vibe of Journey and the pro-party platform of Andrew WK, like a perkier, shred-based Lostprophets for Christ. I phoned up singer Tony Gambino to talk all about Power, the mental stamina it takes to endure tr00 metal attitude, partying, the ’80s, and their rift with Century Media.
Here’s a totally accurate chronology of my Lacuna Coil fandom: I heard a killer LC jam on the radio and was awed by singer Cristina Scabbia. Then I saw a band photo and got awestruck this time by Scabbia the woman. Then once fourth album Karmacode came out in 2007, my awe umbrella’ed out to include the songwriters of Lacuna Coil and, upon 2009’s Shallow Life, also their producer Don Gilmore.
But here’s where I’ll get all Oprah: Though a huge fan of Scabbia’s voice and a forged-by-nature respondent to her wealth of physical charms, I find the most awesome Scabbia is not the singer or the super-fox; she’s most awesome at being a bud, an honest dude, and a great chat. When we connected last week to talk about Dark Adrenaline, the once-delayed sixth Lacuna Coil album (out tomorrow), she effortlessly plowed through abstract questions and hasty analogies, and totally got the vibe of my persistent nagging about sales, producers, and artistic integrity. It was awesome!
At my first paid gig as a music journalimalist, my editor wasn’t really hands-on with workshopping or edits or assignments. Let’s call him the Rick Rubin of print editors, as he was grotesquely overpaid, forever claiming unearned credit, and often seen shoveling bizarre food up his blabhole.
But I did get his attention once when I blew a weekend assignment: After a day spent on my front lawn all screwy on mushrooms and stuff, I’d turned up to an exciting concert I was to review. Smiling, I gave venue security my name, waited to be waved in, but was then told rudely that the show had already ended, dumbshit!
Ended!? Wha?! The show had gone off as scheduled, I was repeatedly assured, so what the fuck time was it? I had definitely left home on time — had it taken me three hours to get there? How long had I been staring at that graffiti mural? And what was I hearing that sounded like the band playing just across the entrance? What was Prince doing there holding hands with Madeline Albright? Where was that scent of garlic bread coming from? What the shit? Glirgh!
Well, it turns out Dillinger Escape Plan singer Greg Puciato lost a similar battle with mind-bottling substances this weekend! Only he freaked out his gf and required the assistance of a small army of emergency staff! Puciato explained on his website:
Crazy Lixx
Riot Avenue
Label - Frontiers
Release date – April
It’s been a million years since L.A.’s Sunset Strip hosted a massive glam metal scene. But with red hot Steel Panther and blockbuster Nickelback as testers, maybe the people have spoken, fun is fun again, and the time is right to import Sweden’s budding movement of ace hair rockers to the States. At the moment, their best is Crazy Lixx, whose big, shiny sophomore album New Religion (2009) is basically the best Def Leppard record since ripped jeans.
