So this morning I saw the headline Vaginal Penetration Of An Amelus With A Musty Carrot Posts Teaser For New EP “In Involuntary Abortion We Trust”  on Metal Underground, and once I Googled the band to make sure I wasn’t just being trolled, I had to look up the word “amelus.” It means “a limbless fetus.” Which means there have been enough limb-free feti during the course of history that they had to create a word for them. Fucking amazing.

Oh, right, but the band Vaginal Penetration Of An Amelus With A Musty Carrot. Yeah, it’s silly goregrind. I haven’t done much research besides watching the below EP teaser (which contains an NSFW image, although I can’t tell if it’s real or fake or what), but I’m pretty sure they’re no Lake Bukkake. Still, check it out if you want. And if not, well… shit, did you know the definition of the word word “amelus” when you woke up this morning? No? See. Go call your mom and tell her you can learn stuff from metal.

-AR

For my eleventh birthday, my very supportive, liberal parents bought me an electric guitar. I was so excited that I immediately began to rock out, despite the fact that I had no clue what the hell I was doing. I even recorded my jam session on cassette, because I’d heard somewhere that Joe Perry always recorded himself when futzing around, lest he have a genius idea which he’d later forget.

I can’t seem to find that cassette anywhere, but lucky for you, Trivium’s Matt Heafy has now re-created it in the form of a track called “Future Blues,” which he posted on his Kiichi Chaos blog.

Remember how (rightfully) pissed Heafy was about all those Roadrunner layoffs last month? Well, if he really wants to put RR’s new corporate overlords in his place, he should see to it that the next Trivium record sounds entirely like this. It would make St. Anger look like friggin’ Master of Puppets.

-AR

DAVE HILL STRIKES AGAIN!

In his latest video for Metal Injection, The King of Metal — easily one of the funniest dudes in extreme music — gives an in-depth analysis of the album art of Cannibal Corpse. And, as always when Mr. Hill is involved, the results are absolutely priceless. Watch:

Dave Hill just released a new book called Tasteful Nudes. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m willing to bet it’s fucking great. Get it here.

-AR

If you’re a Chuck Schuldinerfanatic — in other words, if you’re a death metal fan, or really just a metal fan at all — you’ll probably be more than a little curious to hear the demos of Mantas, which was Schuldiner’s band before the legendary Death. Lucky for you, then, that Relapse is going to release those demos next month in the form of a compilation entitled Death by Metal (see what they did there?) – and have now unveiled a track called “Evil Dead” for your listening pleasure. Although the audio quality of the track is pretty sucky (which is to be expected, given that it’s a demo recorded in 198whatever), it should go without saying that it’s fun to hear this step in the evolution of one of metal’s most important musicians. Check it out:

Death by Metal comes out June 19.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

-AR

[via Ultimate-Guitar.com and The PRP]

Gojira have debuted the video for the title track to their new album, L’Enfant Sauvage, over at Brooklyn Vegan, and in typical Gojira fashion, it does not disappoint. Partially animated in a moody, stop-motion style reminiscent of a Tool clip, I’m not entirely sure I understand what the hell is going on in the damn thing, but I’m also not sure I need to understand it on an intellectual level — viscerally, it all makes sense.

Click the screen cap below to check it out!

Gojira’s L’Enfant Sauvage comes out June 26 via Roadrunner. The band will spend the summer touring with Lamb of God and Dethklok; get dates here.

-AR

Gaza have unveiled the album art for their new, y’know, album, No Absolutes in Human Suffering, via their Facebook page, and man oh man, is it ever awesome. I mean, I might be a little biased, ’cause we’re friends with the artist, Mike Wohlberg – he did this for us and this for us — but no I’m not, Mike’s work is awesome and we have impeccable taste and that’s why we like working with him to begin with. In this day and age of cheap, shitty, lazy-ass Photoshopped cover art, your appreciation level for Wohlberg’s work should really just be through the roof. It also seems especially relevant in these Occupied times through which we are currently living. Check it out:

No Absolutes in Human Suffering come out July 31 via Black Market Activities. The band starts touring behind it in two days! You can get dates here. You should also check out more of Mike Wohlberg’s here.

-AR

I just saw (well, heard, really) this orchestral cover of Converge’s Axe to Fall track “Dark Horse” over at Metal Injection, and on the whole, I love it — I mean, it sounds like it could be the score for some kinda-zany gothic pseudo-horror movie, like maybe something Tim Burton would have made before he gave up on life. The only real problem with it is that it was clearly done on some shitty synths so it sounds kinda cheap and crappy. But that hasn’t stopped Cradle of Filth from having a career so whatever I guess. Enjoy:

-AR

Good morning! Did you sleep well? Yeah I don’t really care I was just askin’ to ask.

Anyways, remember that new Municipal Waste/Toxic Holocaust split we told you about a few weeks ago? The one with the totally clever name, Toxic Waste? Well, Decibel is now streaming two of the four tracks on the split — one by The Waste, and one by The Holocaust. No wait we probably shouldn’t refer to them as the “The Holocaust.” But you know who I mean.

To listen to the whole thing will take you three minutes and twenty seconds, and those three minutes and twenty seconds will be really catchy and really rockin’, and who knows what today holds in store, but it could very well be, like, a new Dirge Within video or something totally awful like that, so you’d better take advantage of this opportunity to hear some actually decent music while you can.

Headbang here. The split comes out June 12 on Tank Crimes.

-AR

Hip-hip hooray for reader Dakota Sharer! Dakota correctly identified last week’s logoas belonging to the band Coprobaptized Cunthunter, and consequently wins a 7″ single of Van Halen’s “She’s the Woman.” Go go Dakota!

This week we have another sexcellent prize for you, courtesy of Roadrunner Records: not one but two copies of The Power Within, the latest released from everyone’s favorite trampoline-hoppin’ power metal band, Dragonforce.

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 two winners, and announce their names next week.

I can’t tell you the name of the reader who suggested this week’s logo because it’s a member of the band… but it’s a toughie…

-AR

So you think your favorite underground bands are the only ones suffering from the current shitty state of the music industry? Not so! Even fancy rockstars like the dudes in Metallica can’t live off of record royalty checks alone these days. As Kirk Hammett recently told Rolling Stone:

“The cycles of taking two years off don’t exist anymore. We were able to do that because we had record royalties coming in consistently. Now you put out an album, and you have a windfall maybe once or twice but not the way it used to be — a check every three months.”

Of course, it’s a little hard to feel sorry for Hammett when –

Click to read more…

photo by Scott Ferrara

Well, this is certainly a surprise: Six Feet Under’s new album, Undead, comes out today (read our review here) — and now the band has announced that guitarist Rob Arnold, who only just joined the band in early 2011, is retiring from touring, and will therefore, naturally, not be participating in any of the band’s upcoming live shows. He’ll be replaced by Ola Englund, who… yeah, I’ve never heard of him, either.

Click to read more…

Has anyone else been watching Veep, the new HBO series? I think it’s hilarious, which isn’t surprising given that it was created by Armando Iannucci, the brilliant satiric mind behind 2009′s In the Loop. In any case, I was watching the latest episode of Veep this past Sunday night when, much to my surprise, Magrudergrind made a cameo.

The bummer is that their backs are basically to the camera the entire time (I didn’t even recognize them at first), for some reason one of the characters says they have no name, and another character claims they’re not on iTunes, when they very much are. It’s also kinda sucky that they’re endorsed by the character of “Jonah” (Timothy Simons) who is, simply put, an idiot and a tool. So, once again, the mass media is equating love of extreme music with a lack of intelligence.

The good news is that there’s really no such thing as bad press, and, presumably, the band was paid for their appearance on the show. As far as I’m concerned, whatever keeps Magrudergrind grindin’ is a good thing.

Watch video of the band’s cameo below, courtesy of Metal Injection:

-AR

I know it’s a cliché, but the guitar solo from the end of The Eagles’ “Hotel California” has to be one of the greatest of all time, right? Even if you hate it, you can’t deny it’s one of the most easily recognizable. I don’t hate it, though — really, it’s so epic, I don’t see how you can hate it.

ANYWAY, I mention it because God Forbid’s Doc Coyle recently posted a video of himself playing said solo, and it’s pretty cool — he stays loyal to the original, but adds just enough metallic edge to it to make it, well, Doc Coyle-esque. Check it out:

God Forbid’s excellent new album, Equilibrium, is out now on Victory. The band will be on the Trespass America Tour along with Killswitch Engage, Five Finger Death Punch, Trivium, Emmure, Pop Evil, and Battlecross starting in July; get dates here. And if you haven’t been reading Doc’s excellent “Hoop Logic” NBA column for MetalSucks, well, get on that!

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

Needless to say, some fans are really, really pissed that the Black Sabbath reunion is moving forward without Bill Ward. Like an eBay seller going by the name bryan.johnson970, who is currently auctioning off Black Sabbath’s integrity… in the form of  a plastic dog turd. Sounds about right.

click to enlarge

Rest assured, though, this isn’t some jokester trying to profit from Black Sabbath’s inner-band business failings — this is some jokester trying to raise money for charity. Here’s the product description from the auction:

Click to read more…

Like Cannabis Corpse, Poland’s Belzebong have a hilarious name that’s almost too-clever for its own good, and while that might be enough to initially grab your attention, you would never, of course, actually listen to them unless the music were good. So, terrific news: Bezelbong make really, really fun music, on top of having a too-clever name.

As the title of their EP, Sonic Scapes & Weedy Grooves, would suggest, Belzebong’s vocal-free sound is powered by massive, fuzzy riffs, full of swing and groove, the kind of stuff that’s heavy enough to piss off your neighbors, tasty enough to get your head bobbing uncontrollably, and slow enough not to harsh your buzz. The riffs are always catchy, always draw you in, and spacey sound effects add just enough texture to differentiate Belzebong from a thousand other bands all try to do something similar. Like a lot of stoner metal, it can get a little redundant at times — I’m not sure the track “Acid Funeral” needs to be almost twelve minutes long, for example — but like a lot of stoner metal, you’re likely not to even notice assuming you’re listening under the right, uh, conditions.

You can stream and/or download Sonic Scapes & Weedy Grooves right here. But like I said… make sure you get right first!

-AR

Thanks to Tim for the tip!

Every now and then, Maria Brink will really throw her detractors who accuse her of just doing the same ol’ same ol’ for a loop by doing something totally outrageous, like getting a new dress. But when In This Moment (Still a thing!) performed at Rock on the Range this past weekend, Brink got REALLY crazy by not only wearing a new dress, but also a (bedazzled) military cap! And she stood at a creepy-looking podium, generally giving herself the appearance of being a dictator, while White Dude with Dreads and the rest of the band wore masks and dirt and other stuff to make themselves look creepy. Sure, sure, it’s what Marilyn Manson was doing fifteen years ago, but, really, why, come up with new ideas when you can just steal someone else’s?

Here’s video of Maria and her new hat performing a new ITM song called “Whore.”

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No further comment.

-AR

[via The PRP]

Last year, Rob Zombie directed a Woolite commercial, and having now staked out a spot for himself as the premiere go-to auteur of ads for household products, he’s helmed a spot for Amdro, which is a bug killer. And I’m not opposed to directors taking commercial work on the side to make a little extra dough — some really great modern filmmakers, from Ridley Scott to David Fincher to Spike Jonze, actually got their start in that world. But this is a weird commercial, and not really in a good way; clearly, whomever hired Zombie wanted him to make something appropriate to his particular skill set, but the results aren’t funny or clever, just odd — like, the tonal clash between the dude acting like crazy rapist in his dark room at the beginning and the fairly typical commercial voice-over and ensuing “happy” imagery just does not work. It almost seems like two different ads edited together for the sake “humor.”

Then again, hiring Zombie was kind of a brilliant move, ’cause, y’know, I just posted an ad for this product on our website. So fuck me in the ear, I guess.

-AR

[via The PRP]

The below photo of Doro Pesch, who will turn forty-eight in June, was taken at the Echo Awards in Berlin on March 22 of this year — in other words, just about two months ago:

And this is the cover of Doro’s new album, Raise Your Fist:

Click to read more…

Last week, Van Halen postponed thirty-one summer shows without explanation, leading to speculation — “confirmed” by at least one anonymous source — that the band’s members were, once again, at each other’s throats. And as much as I love to watch rich musicians make themselves miserable in the name of satisfying their egos, that theory really didn’t hold water to me — ’cause the band didn’t postpone thirteen shows prior to those thirty-ones now-to-be-missed gigs, and if they hated each other that much… well… you see what I’m saying.

Now they’ve released a video in which David Lee Roth basically dismisses the rumors of in-fighting and chalks the postponement up to simple exhaustion. Which seems plausible, since DLR and the Van Halen Brothers’ combined ages are something like a billion. Watch:

Of course, this video might have been that much more convincing if Diamond Dave appeared in it with Eddie Van Halen instead of, y’know, his dog. But while I do absolutely find it plausible that these fellas still hate one another, I really don’t think that that’s why the tour has been postponed. These guys have worked long and hard to get along just well enough to rake in millions of dollars. I don’t think they’re gonna blow it now.

Holy shit, was I just almost kinda optimistic? What the fuck is going on here?

-AR

[via Metal Insider]