This is The Year of Jazz-Fusion Metal, and though we’re only five months deep into 2012 things show no signs of slowing down. First T.R.A.M., then Trioscapes, and now Felix Martin — I’d say we have a legit rising trend on our hands.

This is Felix Martin, a Venezuelan guitarist who uses a custom lefty guitar containing two adjacent 7-string necks. Yup, you read that right. Check it out:

Things start off pretty chill but take a turn for the heavier around the 0:55 mark. The tune is impressive all the way through, though, and like his Fusion Metal contemporaries in T.R.A.M. and Trioscapes, Martin shows a keen ear for a catchy guitar hook. Vocals in metal are so 2011; who needs ‘em?

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There weren’t a whole lot of metal debuts last week, but the few new records that did come out all landed with a splash. After the jump, sales numbers from Tenacious D, Godsmack, Hot Water Music and Shadows Fall. As always, the rankings are from the “Current Hard Music” chart.

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If you were a teenager during pretty much any part of the ’90s and you were into heavy music, Rage Against the Machine were at some point really important to you. I realize this is lost on today’s younger generation, maybe because RATM haven’t released any new music in forever or maybe simply because the music had a place and a time. I guess you had to be there to experience the power, the importance, and the rage. So let’s just agree to disagree, like we do when kids say they don’t “get” Pantera or they don’t see what’s so great about Faith No More.

“Bleh!”-kings Stray From the Path know what’s up, though. Their new cover of RATM’s “Vietnow” does the original justice while exuding enough of Stray’s own imprint to make it fresh (i.e. those guitar chord bends in the choruses are pure Stray touches). And holy shit, are these lyrics more relevant now than they were 15 years ago or what? Televangelism -> Fear -> Votes… same old story.

-VN

[via The PRP]

This video is actually a really real thing. Some highlights:

• nice gigantic mound of sand in front of the band in the warehouse
• random chick dancing next to said mound of sand (probably the singer’s GF)
• lol @ at all the babes lined up at the bar to greet these lulu lemons
• the singer taking a pull from his cigarette, singing a line, then sipping a beer @ 1:40
• the guitarists leopard-print guitar and leather pants
• said guitarist’s incredible dance moves at 2:07!!!
• sweet finger-tapping guitar solo, brah!
• sloppy key modulation at 3:37

Enjoy.

-VN

Are you stoked for the new Dying Fetus album Reign Supreme? I suppose the better question would be “HOW stoked are you for the new Dying Fetus album Reign Supreme?” because if you’re not stoked for it then I seriously might need to reconsider our friendship.

Now that that’s out of the way…  you can continue your stokedness for new Dying Fetus with a fresh song called “Subjected to a Beating,” currently up for streaming and free download via Dying Fetus’ Bandcamp and the widget below. In case you missed your last opportunity to be stoked on new Dying Fetus, check out “Second Skin,” which the band released last month. Stoked? Stoked.

Reign Supreme comes out on June 19th and can be pre-ordered here. Get stoked.

Stoked.

-VN

What you are about to see is a 100% real advertisement that is airing regularly on television here in NYC (and who knows where else):

Snider is apparently now attending the Gene Simmons School of Cashgrabs, seeing as his stint on Celebrity Apprentice didn’t exactly work out for him. But I really can’t really fault the guy; stupid as this commercial is, Stanley Steemer are a giant national chain and he probably got compensated well for it. And at his age, you gotta keep dough rolling in from somewhere, ya know?

Am I the only one who thinks 2012 Dee Snider in makeup is even more scary than 1982 Dee Snider in makeup?

-VN

Thanks: SchenkelTown

Imagine being 5 years old and playing in front of 10,000 screaming Rammstein fans at a gigantic arena.

That’s exactly what the Children Medieval Band — who you might remember from last month performing an adorable cover of Rammstein’s “Sonne” — did this past Sunday night at the Denver Coliseum. The YouTube video released by the three children — ages 5, 8 and 10 — was such a viral hit that the Rammstein men themselves caught wind of it and asked the kids to open up for them in their home town of Denver. Incredible. Even at age 10 I would’ve been absolutely mortified to get up on a giant stage like that and perform, but these kids seem cool as cucumbers and they absolutely nail it.

Thank to reader Gmchale for sending in the above video.

-VN

Ghostlimb and Deathspell Omega couldn’t be farther away from each other on the metal style spectrum, but they’ve both got new tracks out, they both rule, and you need to pay attention to both bands.

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Ranker.com, a site that compiles lists (duh) and let’s the audience choose the ranking by vote, has put together a list of “The Worst Bands of All Time” as crowd-sourced by the public. What an incredible idea for a website; any time we run a list on MetalSucks we get a traffic surge, and that’s all these guys do! Plus they’re probably raking it in on those Amazon affiliate links. Brilliant.

For the most part the list of “Worst” bands — which actually seems more like “Most Hated” bands — is pretty solid; like with any list, the order is pretty arbitrary, but I don’t find myself thinking any of the bands included don’t deserve to be on here. Bands that’ll be of interest to metalheads who make an appearance: Creed, ICP, Limp Bizkit, Good Charlotte, Crazy Town, BrokeNCYDE, Winger (ok, I disagree with that one… Winger had some siqq moments!!), Papa Roach and Hoobastank all place in the Top 50, with tons more, including “New Metallica,” appearing in the rest of the 258 total entries.

I call on MetalSucks readers to get “New Metallica” pushed into the Top 50 from its current rank at #68 — come on guys, you can do it! Check out the list here and begin voting.

-VN

Ghost have hit the big-time: after a fierce bidding war, the mysterious Swedish occult rockers have signed to Seven Four Ent., the new label formed by ex-Warner Bros. exec Tom Whalley that’s launching under the Universal Republic umbrella.

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Devin Townsend fans in London will have a special opportunity to see By A Thread: Live in London 2011 from the forthcoming box set on the big screen on June 5th. Watch the trailer below. It looks pretty sweet, but I honestly don’t see a need to watch this on the big screen… if I’d seen the show live and in person, great, but if not I’d settle for watching it at home. Devin himself will be there, though, so there’s that, and if Devin’s fans are anything it’s insanely rabid. More info here. The trailer:

The PRP is reporting that two dates have leaked out for a fall tour featuring Devin, Katatonia and Paradise Lost, although no source is cited. Here are the alleged dates:

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Randy Blythe has left the building. The Twitter building, that is. Although we surely haven’t heard the last of the Lamb of God frontman’s opinionated rants.

Here’s Blythe’s final tweet, as re-posted by @LambofGodNews, posted minutes before he deleted his infamous @LambVox account:

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Despite objections from the members of All Shall Perish, their management and their lawyer, Panama-based company World Digital will continue with a lawsuit against 80 illegal downloaders of the band’s most recent release, last year’s This is Where it Ends. The identities of the 80 U.S. downloaders being sued will soon be turned over to World Digital, and notification emails will be sent out to each of them, according to a report this weekend from TorrentFreak.

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Ulcerate KICKED SO MUCH ASS in Brooklyn on Saturday night. So much. I’m sorry for you if you weren’t one of the 150 or so fans packed into the back room of the Public Assembly (except the dude who puked in the middle of the pit — fuck you!). More on this later.

Unfortunately the night wasn’t all kisses and roses for Ulcerate, whose van was robbed after the show in the wee hours of the morning while they slept. According to a Facebook post, the band lost all their guitar gear (preamps, effects units), some drum equipment, their stage banner (??) and all of Svart Crown’s merch (?!?!). Those last two are really head-scratchers, but I guess if you see a bunch of Svart Crown shirts show up at your thrift store maybe you can trace them back to the criminal.

Being robbed sucks for any band, but it sucks even more for bands from overseas who had considerable travel and gear rental/shipping expenses, and it sucks triply so for Ulcerate because this was basically their welcome gift for their first time in America. Fortunately, they’ve been able to make arrangements to borrow gear for the rest of the shows and their appearance at Maryland Deathfest, so the tour will soldier on.

Ulcerate are hesitant to accept any money in this manner, but dire times call for dire needs: those wishing to help can send money via PayPal to ulcerate [at] gmail.com.

-VN

When I saw Enabler play at SXSW this past March on the same bill as Vestiges, Nachtmystium, Andrew WK and others, I had no idea the kind of metal royalty I was watching (although I do vaguely remember really liking the band through my beer and weed-induced haze). Here’s a brief history of the band via a post this morning on No Clean Singing:

They were founded by guitarist/vocalist Jeff Lohrber, who has also spent time in bands such as Harlots, Trap Them, Today Is the Day, and Shai Hulud. The line-up also includes guitarist Greg Thomas (Misery Signals, Shai Hulud, The Risk Taken), bassist Amanda Daniels, and drummer Andy Hurley (Fallout Boy, The Damned Things, Earth Crisis).

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I’ve seen some brutal shit happen in moshpits at metal shows. Bloody noses, broken bones, cracked skulls… you name it. But what you’re about to watch takes the cake even though there was no moshpit to be seen, no bleeding or bone breakage (as far as we know), and the bands playing aren’t even really metal.

We don’t know what inspired this burly inbred fucker to dropkick an innocent woman bystander at the Kansas City Rockfest last weekend, but it looks as if there’s some kind of argument already in progress when the cell-phone video starts. We can only assume that the girl in the pink hat (who is maybe at the show with one of the dudes in the center?) utters something from the sidelines that pisses burlyman off… and BOOM, dropkick to the chest. Thankfully a horde of similarly burly dudes bumrush the dropkicker, wrestle him to the ground, and proceed to beat the living shit out of him. Watch the video from TMZ [via Loudwire] below:

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My first introduction to Nashville’s Jeff The Brotherhood came at the Mercury Lounge a couple of years back when the venue sound guy was playing an album of theirs between bands. The churning grooves, stoney mentality and catchy melodies reminded me of early QOTSA and grabbed my attention, so much so that I actually went up to the sound guy and asked him what was playing. When I went home I looked them up, listened to a few tracks, and then later got 2011′s We Are the Champions when it came out, and although I liked it, it didn’t give me that same feeling of excitement I got that night at the Merc; maybe I didn’t have the right combination of booze and weed in my system.

Now big things are afoot for Jeff the Brotherhood; they’ve gone and signed with Warner Bros. Records!

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I write you today from the MS Mansion North Outpost in Woodstock, NY where I’m camped out with my laptop, coffee, and a kitty. Here’s my POV from my workstation:

Kitties are BRUTAL!!!

Something else that’s brutal: the “Occupation Domination” Tour. I had a prior engagement the night of April 24 when this bill rolled through NYC, so I didn’t get to see Origin, Cattle Decapitation, Aborted, Rings of Saturn, and Battlecross. Sad face :( First world problem, I know; metal fans in third world places like Nebraska, Montana and Southern Florida should be so lucky to have such excellent tours on such a consistent basis. But now that Capital Chaos has posted live footage of Origin from the Stockton, CA tour stop, my envy is all that much worse. Watch:

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For last week’s Photo Caption Contest we gave away a couple copies of Deep Cuts and Dark Clouds, the new sludgefest from Los Angeles metal vets -16- (order here). Here are the winners:

• Beowulf13: “Marilyn’s Man-Son.”
• Bearbomb: “Ab-su.”

This week we’ve got a massive prize package from NY hardcore crew This Is Hell, who are about to kick off a mammoth summer tour in support of their latest release, Black Mass (tour dates below). One lucky grand prize winner will receive 3 spots on the guestlist to a show of their choice on the upcoming tour (them +2 friends), two This Is Hell t-shirts, a Think Fast! Records t-shirt, and a copy each of This Is Hell’s Black Mass CD, Weight Of The World LP picture disc vinyl, Weight Of The World LP Blue/Yellow Splatter vinyl and Warbirds 7″ black vinyl. You know how we do it: leave a comment with the funniest caption to the photo below (sent in by reader Daniel G.). Remember to use a real email address (or post it along with your comment if you’re logged in with your Facebook or Twitter account).

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A day late, but never a dollar short: let’s look at the debut numbers for new albums by Storm Corrosion, Off!, Cattle Decapitation, John 5, Allegaeon, Huntress, Horseback and more.

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