A couple of years ago we celebrated/mourned the release of Metallica’s Death Magnetic by turning ourselves into MetallicaSucks for a day, and having each member of the MS staff contribute a review, as well as other Metallica-related shenanigans.

We had a lot of fun doing that (and watching you all argue about it), and have wanted to do it again for some time… but rarely is an album as highly anticipated as Death Magnetic released.

But tomorrow, Iron Maiden’s The Final Frontier comes out in North America, and if the fifteenth (!) studio album from one of metal’s most legendary bands doesn’t qualify as “highly anticipated,” well, nothing does.

So we’re doing it again! Tomorrow will be all Maiden, all the time. We’ll have multiple reviews of The Final Frontier, so you can see that, no, we most certainly do not always agree here at MetalSucks; in addition, there will be lots of other Maiden-related goodness… including an AWESOME interview that The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley conducted with the legendary Derek Riggs!!!

So get stoked… for tomorrow, MAIDENSUCKS!!!

-Everyone at MetalSucks

After completely selling out of almost every size, our Completely Unreadable MetalSucks Hoodies are now back in stock! We’ve also re-stocked all sizes of all of our t-shirts too, so be sure to order yours today.

Of course, once you’ve gotten yours in the mail, send in a fun/funny photo of yourself donning your new MS gear and we’ll post it up on the site and send you a bunch of cool shit in the mail for free. It’s all part of our ongoing Show Us Your MetalSucks contest. Good deal!

We at MetalSucks are high-powered metal journalists, and we often use our clout to attract expert testimony on taco riffs and the 167/8 time signature. Even so, I am awed that Allyson B. Crawford from BringBackGlam.com has partnered with the MetalSucks L.A. desk on a hard-hitting exploration of the Ten Most Essential Glam Metal Records coming next week exclusively to MetalSucks. For real, me and Allyson make Frost/Nixon look like Rachtman/Bach as we demolish myths and mine truths about the poofiest, spandexest, must-havest hair rock records.

And there’s more! Yes, the DF/B. Crawford face-off is a mere spritz of the hairspray madness of the MetalSucks week-long spotlight on hair/glam/sleaze/crotch-metal. It starts next Monday and that gives you seven full days to go see your cousin’s boyfriend Troy for an eight ball to snort right off your screen. Oh, and to answer your first question: Yes there will be BulletBoys.

-ADF

Now go get drunk n’ barbecue!

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

For no good reason other than it’s a slow news week (Three day weekend comin’ up! Whoo-hoo!) and we thought it would be amusing, tomorrow we’re going to have “Be Nice Day” here at MetalSucks.

Basically, the old cliché applies: If you don’t have anything nice say, don’t say anything at all.

Don’t worry. This is a one-day event only. We’ll go right back to being assholes on Friday.

(And, of course, we have no way of making you all be nice in the comments section, so there’s sure to be plenty of dickishness to be found there.)

In the meantime, hope you enjoy us holding our tongues… Well. Basically holding our tongues.

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Tomorrow will see the release of Kingdom of Sorrow‘s sophomore album, Behind the Blackest Tears, on Relapse. And because we know how much you all have enjoyed the artist site takeovers we’ve done in the past, we thought it would be fun to let the legendary Misters Jasta and Windstein run MetalSucks for the day – so that’s exactly what we’re doing!

So come back tomorrow to read Jamey and Kirk’s thoughts on, well, pretty much whatever the hell they please. It should be a blast. And don’t forget that Behind The Blackest Tears is currently streaming on Kingdom of Sorrow’s MySpace page!

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Vince is traveling again today and I have a family emergency I have to go take care of immediately.

I’ve auto-programmed some posts Vince wrote prior to his trip to run throughout the rest of the day in an effort to make sure any of you stuck in a cubicle still have some amusement for the rest of the of the afternoon, but we won’t be able to address any breaking news until tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll find some way to survive.

-AR

Obituary coming.

We’ve come a long way since we launched in December of 2006 (with the above header), based on a stoned conversation between Axl and Vince at an Amon Amarth / Children of Bodom show in NYC.

We’re still working out a few kinks, but let us know what you think of the new layout. We hope you like it. Feel free to call us sellouts.

- VN & AR

Tomorrow, Levi/Werstler’s debut album, Avalanche of Worms - which we’re currently streaming right here – will finally be released! To celebrate, Axl and Vince and the rest of the MetalSucks staff are taking the day off to enjoy 4/20 properly – by getting really high and playing the album on repeat at eardrum-destroying volumes.

But lest we leave you in the lurch, we called up Eyal Levi and Emil Werstler and told them that since it’s their fault we can’t work on 4/20 because they made such a kick-ass record, they would have to take over MetalSucks for the day. Luckily, they agreed! And so tomorrow it’s gonna be all Levi/Werstler, all the time.

In addition to doing a whole bunch of blogging themselves, Eyal and Emil have also enlisted the help of the rest of the Avalanche of Worms posse – including Cynic drummer Sean Reinert, From Exile keyboardist Eric Guenther, bassist Kevin Scott, and AOW mixer Mark Lewis – to come up with some really, really entertaining stuff. So come back tomorrow to see what they have in store for you, oh beloved readers. It’s gonna be killer.

-Axl, Vince, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Hang tight.

The Monkeys severely botched the server migration last night. Kip’s giving Higgins a real spanking right now… shit ain’t pretty.

We’ll try again on Wednesday. The goal is for as little downtime as possible.

See our post this past Friday on the matter.

Hang tight. We’ll be back in a jiffy.

As much as the server problems we’ve experienced over the past few weeks have sucked for you guys, I assure you that they’ve sucked even more for us. Shit’s brutal, and not the good kind of brutal we usually traffic in.

The good news is that we’re moving servers (again) on Monday. This might result in down time for some of you, depending on your location. For the most part you shouldn’t notice anything other than the site running faster, but you might see a “Maintenance” splash page for a little while. Hopefully we won’t be down for too long.

And then, later in the week… a big surprise.

Hugs and kittens,
VN, AR & the rest of the MetalSucks staff

Let’s work out a deal.

We’re ’bout to hit up Pancake Pantry for breakfast in Nashvegas. Today we make a pit stop in Memphis then roll down to Little Rock.

Here’s how it’ll go down.

Us:
- lots of beer and bourbon
- an awesome METAL tour bus
- a grill, food
- cool dudes, smiles

you:
- in or around little rock, Arkansas
- a spot for us to park our bus
- a desire to party
- optional: herbal accoutrements, ladies, dignity, local treats

Interested? Email vince at metalsucks dot net.

-VN

We know we’ve said this before, but two things:

1. If you e-mail us about some band you want us to listen to, INCLUDE A LINK TO SOMEPLACE WE CAN HEAR THE BAND. Yes, we know we could just Google that shit, but we don’t think you understand how many fucking e-mails we get from you guys about bands you want us to cover. We’re happy to give them all a listen, but if there’s no link, we’re not even gonna bother, ’cause we have a hundred other reader suggestions to get through.
2. If you e-mail us about some story or band you want us to cover, go over to that little “search” tab on your right and MAKE SURE WE HAVEN’T ALREADY WRITTEN ABOUT IT. In the past twenty-four hours we’ve gotten literally dozens of e-mails asking why we haven’t written about curling and Juggalo news, when we already have (and that’s just shit we covered this week). We don’t expect you to necessarily read the site every day (although we love it when you do), but holy crap, people, that’s only all the more reason to do a quick search.

Yes, we know we’re ungrateful assholes. The things you love about us are also the things you hate about us. Oh well.

-Axl & Vince

We’re moving servers tonight. All this really means for you is that starting at 10pm EST all comments will be turned off. Comments will come back online at some point during the early morning hours.

While we’re on the subject of site functionality, notice how that refreshing problem went away? Big ups to MS reader Jon Thornton for identifying and fixing the problem which, as many of you suggested, was being caused by the Facebook Connect plugin.

See you on the other side.

In case ya forgot: Metal Insider’s Dan Rodriguez and myself will be at live blogging from Andrew W.K.’s public Q&A session at Santos Party House here in NYC tonight. This despite the fact that I’m still sick and it’s pouring fucking rain outside! The sacrifices I make for you, oh beloved readers!

The fun starts tonight at 7 pm EST. You can read all our coverage and witticisms here. Be there or be square.

-AR

THE ANDREW W.K. CONSPIRACY INVESTIGATION CONTINUES!

Following Andrew W.K.’s apparent confession that the rumors are true and that there have, indeed, been multiple men who assumed the mantle of Mr. Party Hard, and then Vince’s incredibly confusing interview with Mr. W.K., our friend Dan Rodriguez from Metal Insider (who has played his own unique role in this saga) decided he was going to live-blog from AWK’s public Q&A session at Santos Party House here in NYC tomorrow night – and he has graciously invited me to join him. So if you don’t live in the area or are just too lazy to attend, you can read all of our coverage in real time right here starting tomorrow at 7 pm EST.

My guess is that, as with all things involving this increasingly bizarre story, the event is going to be totally hilarious and incredibly confusing. Tune in to get our thoughts!

-AR

We are aware that our site often immediately refreshes after it finishes loading (thanks to all of you who let us know). We are also aware that we are code nincompoops and have no idea what is causing this problem.

If any of you Suckalos out there are code monkeys who wouldn’t mind having a gander at our code to figure out what’s causing this problem, kindly email vince [at] metalsucks [dot] net and name your price.

Thanks!

P.S.: If you are experiencing or have experienced this problem, please post your OS and Browser (with versions) in the comments.