You know I’ve always been really grateful to Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Neilstein for taking me under their wing and letting me write about the music I live for while never making a big deal about my disability. That’s right, everyone, I’m Canadian. Now I know a lot you free and brave folks might not understand my condition but let me just say that I’m not that different from you. Sure, I might talk a bit funny and worship a giant red leaf (oh and that green one, too), but MetalSucks has always been a tolerant organization that understands that Metal is for everybody. Whether you’re chugging Bud Lights (yuck) or Molsons, they both look the same on the way out in the alleyway after the show.

However, counteracting this side of me is my Norwegian heritage, which undoubtedly sourced my genetic predisposition to abrasive guitar noise played by pasty white dudes. Ahhh, it all makes sense now.

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I reviewed The Acacia Strain’s latest album, Continent, a couple months back and I remember being suitably impressed by its seamless integration of death metal intensity and hardcore attitude (both flavors of breakdowns, too). It might still be the only record I’ve heard that really makes sense to be called “deathcore” in a descriptive, non-pejorative way. After having said that, however, I am just glad that vocalist Vincent Bennett was on a different continent (hah) at the time of our interview, or he might have just terminated me. Read more from Vincent’s emailed responses about the dirty d-word and touring in Oz after the jump.

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Being blessed by a slew of Vancouver metal shows recently, I set off last week to see a spectacular example at the conspicuously indie venue Richards on Richards. Black Dahlia Murder managed to attract the biggest mosh and gave an energetic performance even sans their lead guitarist and his parts. Soilent Green might have stolen the show managing to sound tight as bike shorts while playing their complex arrangements and with studly beast Ben Falgoust delivering his vicious stage presence with the occasional slice of Louisiana charm. However, I had already picked favorites before I even got in the door that night and I was more than excited to be able to see Misery Index dish it out in the opening slot and let me assure you that they fucking slayed. It all has to do with a little album called Traitors that turned me into an instant fan this year, front to back, riff to riff. After introducing myself to this brutal Baltimore quintet around their self-operated merch table, I stole away bassist/vocalist Jason Netherton backstage to the door of the venue’s massive walk-in beer fridge for a few questions about the making of the new album, being a political band and more.

Above, check out the band’s new, David Brodsky-directed video for the title track from Traitors; then, after the jump, read the complete transcript of our interview.

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Some people might laugh at the lyrics of songs about destroying both orcs and the enemies of metal. Others might not appreciate the sounds of the 80’s as much as the amply bearded Canadians in 3 Inches of Blood do, and anyone who’s heard them know that they piss guitar harmonies and spit falsetto like they were nursed at the teat of METAL ITSELF!

Either way, if you were once like me, then chances are you are criminally underrating them. Watching the powder-keg ignite as they took the stage at a sold out home show with Bison B.C. was a site to behold and only increased my esteem for these classic metal warriors. Just before hitting the stage in his distinctive denim vest, vocalist Cam Pipes was able to offer a few words to MetalSucks. For extra fun imagine this gentle beast falsetto singing every response!

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1. Nachtmystium – Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1

This was a masterpiece from the very first time it came out of the shrink-wrap and spun in my buddy’s car to right now when I can’t go a week without listening to the “Seasick” trilogy. From a combination of the growing maturity of the band and zealous label support this is an innovative piece of music that will stand as the new watermark for the possibilities of black metal. Assassins was an honest, organic approach at musical experimentation that became both a loving tribute to the heroic Pink Floyd and a ballsy transcendence of closed-minded scene thinking. The wide accessibility of the new Nachtmystium sound shows that they can only increase in popularity and esteem in the metal community and beyond it. My prediction is that by the time they’re ready to meddle again, everyone will know who the true kings of American black metal are.

Best Tracks: “Ghosts of Grace,” “Seasick” Parts 1 – 3

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The rest of the world might know them as Bison B.C., but here in British Columbia, we just call them “Bison.” After ceaseless touring and breaking through into new territory, Vancouver’s favorite stoner sons made a prodigal return to home turf delivering a spectacular live show as direct support to Priestess and 3 Inches of Blood at a sold out Commodore Ballroom last Saturday night. Just before this live trampling, I was able to corner guitarist/vocalist Dan And in the bathroom outside the Bison dressing room where he told me about being signed to a label, life on the road, and how real dog barks made it onto their sophomore release, Quiet Earth.

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I remember when Lordi first rose to prominence outside of their native Finland, by winning the Eurovision song contest way back two years ago. I remember, because I was there! Well, I wasn’t actually in Athens for the contest, but I was in Europe, and I did have a front row seat on a big leather couch. I had never watched the contest before and if it wasn’t for the urging of my friends, I would have just gotten drunk on a different leather couch in another room by myself.

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It’s should be no secret that this year has been jam packed with great extreme metal records, but what has really stood out for me in my recent listening is that for one reason or another the stars have aligned over the label Prosthetic Records. 2008 has seen their output of three new releases from recently signed, young bands. Besides having a label in common and touring together, all three of them have put out highly accomplished albums which we can only hope they’ll build a career on.

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You’ve got to hand it to Behemoth and their management. After last year’s impressive The Apostasy, which saw these armored, Polish juggernauts continue their ascent to international popularity and critical recognition, I’ll bet nobody was expecting to hear much from them this year. In their own restless way, however, Behemoth have done more than expected to ensure that they’ll continue to be on lips of metal heads or at least bubbling in the back of their minds; this year has seen the release of both the first Behemoth live album, At the Arena ov Aion – Live Apostasy, as well as a video for “At the Left Hand ov God”. The latter has the honor of being the most ridiculously expensive-looking and just plain ridiculous music video in the history of extreme metal (ousting previous champion Dimmu Borgir). Now as 2008 recedes into wintry cold, Behemoth have graced us with one last reminder: the Ezkaton EP.

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Most of you have probably never heard of Brother Von Doom. I know this because there is absolutely no way a band with such a sweet ass name could have escaped your recognition, and, furthermore, anyone who has heard Relentless would have had to be flapping their mouth to everyone about it. They’re straight outta Dayton, OH, and ready to drive a ten-inch carpentry nail into your earlobe and make you say their name, so you’d best smarten up to this damn fine debut.

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I recently had the chance to sit down with not one but four members of Woodstock, NY’s prog-rock breakthrough act, 3. From inside their seventh floor hotel room dubbed “The Ivory Tower,” the band revealed the state of their current tour, their thoughts on last year’s album The End is Begun, and touring with bigger bands. Of course, in true MetalSucks style, their answers have a healthy helping of goofiness to them. Read the full transcript after the jump.

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These Arms are Snakes are a band that I only became conscious of in one of those classic concert-going situations: “Hey, who’s opening for [headlining band]? Who the fuck is that?” These situations are always filled with potential goodness, because ultimately an opening band that you’ve never heard of simply cannot ruin the concert for you short of lighting the venue on fire or boob-slapping your girlfriend; you’re there to see the headliner, and no matter how crappy the support is, there’s usually a bar that’s more deserving of your 45 minutes of attention. On the other hand, if the band is respectable, it’s a bonus to what was hopefully going to be a sweet show anyway.

Luckily for me, TAAS was in the latter category and put on a spectacular live show.

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The Haunted have always offered us, the discerning metal listener, the most reliable fallback we could have hoped for in a post-Slaughter of the Soul world. While some members of that recently reunited band have put their various talents to the fulfillment of crusty grindcore (Skitsystem) or eyeliner goth jams (Dani F.’s Tap-dancing Cadaveret), the Bjorler brothers and co. succeeded in a pedal to the floor, no bullshit approach to heavy metal. They created a group that could both distinguish itself from their previous legacy and still maintain a presence around the world. Twelve years and five albums later, The Haunted have shown beyond any doubt the consistency of their output, both in quality and release schedule.

Now, however, with Versus we, the discerning metal critic, are offered a quake and a fracture in the rock solid foundation that previously seemed unmovable. This autumn offering is unfortunately inconsistent, which is frustrating because it has a lot going for it.

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Two years have passed and just like clockwork another Cradle of Filth album has been shat out of hell into our apprehensive laps. Fuck! I just got these pants dry-cleaned from Thornography.

Thankfully breaking the cycle of less-than-clever album title puns, Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder is Dani Filth and the gang’s attempt at making yet another concept album about a medieval noble serial killer a decade after the release of their Elizabeth Bathory story, Cruelty and the Beast. With the subtitle The Life and Crimes of Gilles de Rais (guess I spoke to soon about the punning), the band crudely attempts to provide the biography for a nobleman turned sexual deviant turned Satanist turned blah blah blah. While de Rais sounds like he was a real piece of work, this album is pretty scary, too: Godspeed is a frighteningly long album that sounds disturbingly outdated with a shocking absence of dynamics in the concept.

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It has been 15 years since Cynic released their first and only full length, Focus, and it seems almost impossible that they could have known what a legend this debut would become. Though I was much too young to have had any awareness of it, I can only imagine what kind of heads were turned when this dropped onto the scene; here a group of Florida death metal youngsters had released a dazzlingly progressive and exploratory work that transcended genres and made every shredhead and blastbeater return to their bedrooms in shame to run more polyrhythm drills and practice those scales a few more times. Focus cemented their place in the heavy metal timeline. After blazing the trail for bands like Between the Buried and Me and Alarum to follow, they’ve finally returned with the long awaited follow-up that they always deserved to make: Traced in Air.

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Last week, a bunch of self-satisfied millionaires released an album called Dead Magnets or something, and in all the name-calling and fan-rage that ensued, I became so emotionally shattered after being called a “talentless hack” who should “go play Guitar Hero” that I was forced to delay a review for a release that was actually worth listening to. My only hope is that we can all put this behind us and mend the chords of metal brotherhood with reinforced steel so that we might be united once more in our elitist musical sausage fest.

Arriving just in time for the peace offering is Into Eternity’s The Incurable Tragedy, an album that manages to be so credibly metal, yet so vastly accessible, that there’s something for everyone. If you’re like me, you most likely began to hear the buzz about them around the release of their 2006 breakthrough, The Scattering of Ashes. If you liked that album, then I can only tell you to run out and get this one now, as there’s no chance you’ll be disappointed. Into Eternity have not skipped a beat since 2006, and you’ll be waltzing into capable but familiar territory.

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It’s bad. The new Metallica album is bad. Let me explain why this shouldn’t be surprising.

This is the album that Metallica thought you wanted. This is the throwback to that classic era of the late eighties and early nineties that everyone was begging them to create. This is the album that everyone in that battered-wife fan base was hoping would come out even as the band was raking in millions while the music kept getting worse. We all sat and watched as they stumbled from failure to failure, transforming into a mainstream rock act before our eyes, holding expensive and tasteless concerts with an orchestra backing, and releasing a largely useless collection of covers before finally delivering the audio coup de grace that was St. Anger. It was the final line they had to cross. It was an output without a single redeeming factor that was only defended by the most unreasonable apologists; the sort of people who lack the ability to criticize their heroes no matter what their transgressions – and l doubt any of them have listened all the way through St. Anger in the year 2008.

So here we are at the eve of a new Metallica release and everyone’s talking about it. I bet everyone knows at least a few people who are really excited, and maybe it’s even you. It’s a false alarm though, I assure you, as this only furthers the mountain of evidence that Metallica no longer deserve an instant of our attention, appreciation or excitement outside of a live venue. Death Magnetic is more embarrassing even than their previous documentary that revealed to the world how detached and conceited they’d grown from their own creative process as well as each other. In fact, Death Magnetic is the affirmation of just that. Correction, it is the second affirmation, after St. Anger.

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I will be the first to admit that Underoath are a band that were judged by closed-minded, ultra-critical, pretentious metal heads like myself long before I even heard one note being played. Instead I heard “Christian” and “emo” and got a brief glimpse of their fan base. That was all I needed to declare “I probably wouldn’t like them” and move on, sifting through the heavy music morass for something else, never to give them a second thought until my very recent exposure to their newest record Lost in the Sound of Separation.

Surprise! Being instantly judgmental of a band’s hair style and personal beliefs has once again set me up to be disappointed when I can’t spend a whole page lampooning their art. Instead I am forced to begrudgingly admit that this is something of quality.

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Never in my life have I encountered a signed band that is so obnoxiously awful at choosing names. If one of your friends came up to you and asked you if you’d heard the new Heavy Heavy Low Low album, Turtle Nipple and the Toxic Shock, what would your reaction be? Now, I’m sure these boys are hoping that you’re the curious sort and will tell your friend “Wow, that’s so wacky, I’m gonna check them out,” but I’m hoping that I’m not the only incredulous asshole who will simply answer “That’s retarded, why are we even friends?”

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It seems only about a year ago when I first started hearing the word “deathcore.” I remember immediately thinking that although this seemed like one of those sub-genres that everyone knew some teenagers in New England or the Midwest were eventually going to slap it together one summer to take their youth-center scene by storm, it still didn’t make a lick of sense to me. Even though musically the line between hardcore and metal had been nothing but a thin chalk scraping for years, I still wasn’t able to put together in my head how this combination was supposed to work. Were the long-hairs suddenly going to wear hoodies and Fidel hats on-stage? What were the lyrics going to be like? “Standing together united, brothers and sisters, to regurgitate the festering unborn?” In my head this was not an easy gap to bridge but when I was finally confronted with some actual musical output it just sounded like shitty death metal.

The Acacia Strain’s Continent is perhaps one of the first records to really bring to my mind an even fusion of hardcore and death metal and it’s an aggressive, engaging album – period.

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