Anyone who has survived a live Cro-Mags show can presume that a health and nutrition book penned by front man John Joseph “Bloodclot” McGowan is not going to be a touchy-feely affair. For the uninitiated, let’s just say Joseph’s motor has but a single setting: Pulverize. And it’s safe to assume that after having this man pound sand up their collective asses for sixty minutes, the corpulent contests on The Biggest Loser would be pleading for comparative nurturing ladled out weekly by Jillian Michaels.

Whoever coined the adage that you can’t judge a book by its cover likely never saw Meat Is For Pussies:A How-To Guide For Dudes Who Want To Get Fit, Kick Ass and Take Names staring out from a shelve at their local Borders. As the title oh-so-delicately suggests, Joseph’s second foray into publishing (his first being 2007’s autobiographical The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon) finds the singer sharing his opinions and insights on a variety of health-related topics, ranging from the health and ethical advantages of a no-meat diet, to the use of unsound food additives, to his favorite legume recipes, to the shadowy role of government, corporations and special-interest groups like the American Medical Association in the existing American food complex.

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Next to the Soundgarden reunion, the most highly-anticipated show at Lollapalooza 2010 may have been the American debut of X Japan. Mega-stars in Asia (moving 30 million records and selling out the 50,000 seat Toyko Dome 18 times), the band remains largely an unknown quantity in the United States. With their debut U.S. release scheduled for early 2011, and on the eve of their first American tour, the band’s incredibly humble founding member and drummer, Yoshiki Hayashi, was good enough to take five and shoot the shit with MetalSucks.

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On Saturday night, I ventured deep into the heart of the clusterfuck known as The Minnesota State Fair to witness the monster known as Kiss. This was my first Kiss concert, and it was quite an experience to be sure, but after the smoke finally cleared and retina-frying KISS logo was finally unplugged for the night, I was left with a single nagging question: Does Kiss still matter? Not, Is Kiss viable? mind you. Hell, this band is a moneymaking machine with a screwdriver wedged in the gears to force endless cycles of rinse and repeat. You don’t sell 100 million records worldwide and continue to pack arenas by accident. Clearly, this formula works. But does Kiss still matter?

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If Horatio Alger were alive today, he’d be tempted to write about Slayer. Defying logic, popular fads and the moral majority, the band is an American thrash-to-riches story, having not just survived, but thrived on a regimen of non-compromise. Future musicologists will no doubt struggle to explain how four guys from Huntington Park forced Reign in Blood down the world’s collective throat, then went on to sell millions of records, win two Grammys, and amass a huge, rabid fanbase. And does any other band have a holiday dedicated to them?

As the curtain closes on their third decade in the music business, Slayer’s Dave Lombardo was good enough to shoot the proverbial shit with MetalSucks when the American Carnage Tour stopped in St. Paul, MN. Read the full transcript of our chat after the jump.

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Metal fans have been buzzing for months about Until The Light Takes Us, but official screenings have been few and far between. Consequently, 99% of the film’s core audience hasn’t seen the saga of the Norwegian black metal scene as told by filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. That’s all going to change on September 28th, when Until The Light Takes Us finally gets DVD treatment. Luckily for me, my hookup Terrill, whose inventory is usually comprised of amateur porn, videocam bootlegs of current blockbusters and unreleased Tyler Perry films, somehow got his grubbies on an advance screener.

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Thorriors of the world rejoice and once more cast off your deodorant. Sweaty eminence Valient Himself and his minions from Burlatia (located inside the planet Venus, in case you’re not up on your interstellar geography) have returned to get feral on the collective ass of the human race.

Not hip to Valient Thorr? Allow me to share the recipe. Start with five guys who look like they escaped the Dawn of Man exhibit at your local museum. Pulverize classic guitar rock (Ted Nugent, AC/DC, MC5), push tempos into the red and sprinkle with Anthrax-style choruses. Of course, it’s not Valient Thorr until you add the secret sauce, which is delivering this balls-out gumbo with the recklessness of genuine article punk and enough perspiration to submerge North Americans in an ocean of their malodorous secretions.

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