MetalSucks

Thanks to “Adam Adams” for sending the below preview footage from new Todd Bell-directed Chimaira DVD, which is set to be released in 2010. It’s the second preview we’ve gotten, after last week’s awesome footage of the band performing “The Disappearing Sun.” This time we get to see the band prepping just before they take the stage in Belgium, and then we get some “The Venom Inside” live footage. Nice.

Chimaira are on tour right now with Trivium, Whitechapel and Dirge Within; you can get dates here. Vince and I are going Thursday. It should go without saying that we’re very excited.

-AR

I’m all for heavy bands throwing ballads into the mix from time to time, but this performance of Slipknot playing “Snuff” on Jimmy Kimmel Live… bzzzzt, does not compute! I like the song, but this performance is just extremely weak. Nine dudes in scary tough guy masks playing a pretty love song causes all sorts of cognitive dissonance.

Side note: Kimmel really seems to be waving the heavy flag as of late. Of this, I approve.

-VN

[Thanks: Josh Kidd]

So of course I’m loving Slayer’s latest, World Painted Blood. But I won’t be eating a bag of crow over my prediction that the accompanying bonus DVD, “Playing with Dolls,” was going to suck. I’ve seen it now (well, some of it – I couldn’t make it all the way through out of sheer boredom), and despite the involvement of Metalocalypse director Mark Brooks, it is, indeed, lamer than Jason Suecof’s legs.

Are the people who made this aware that in 2009 we can give the illusion of actual movement through pictures that pass by at a fairly quick rate – say, twenty-four frames per second? I have to assume that this news someone never reached them – or that they thought this whole “video-graphic novel” style would somehow make the whole thing spookier. In which they were just wrong. Also, I don’t know if the music from World Painted Blood could have been any more awkwardly shoe-horned into this thing.

Watch it below, if the two previous paragraphs didn’t deter you. It was only s’posed to be on MySpace for a weekend, but of course someone got it up on YouTube – so check it out right quick, before the Slawyers get involved.

Part two is after the jump. And then tomorrow I’ll have my review of World Painted Blood.

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Even though we all own calendars and are perfectly capable of keeping track of the date ourselves, it seems like every metal website in the world has spent the past week (or month, in some cases) reminding its readers that tomorrow, October 31, is Halloween. And I understand this on some level – Halloween is probably the most metal of all holidays.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I, however, do not give two shits about Halloween (Vince is a different story). Walking around NYC on Halloween is like drowning in a sea of stupidity. Crossing sixth avenue – which usually takes ten, maybe fifteen seconds tops – will not twenty to thirty minutes, if you’re very lucky. Also, I don’t need an excuse to get dressed up in a silly costume and drink. I’m a metalhead – I do that every Saturday night.

Which is why I’ll spend tomorrow evening locked away in the Rosenberg Wing of the MS Mansion, watching horror movies. One of which will be Hardware, a cult classic from 1990 that features appearances by Iggy Pop and – yep – Lemmy! Check out Lemmy’s scene below. It’s a cool movie, if anyone shares my Halloween misanthropy and needs something to do tomorrow…

-AR

Here’s the video for DevilDriver’s “Fate Stepped In,” from Pray for Villians. It’s one of those Warrant-”Heaven” style tour montage videos, but no one is wearing white leather, Dez never sings right into the camera, and there’s no synchronized guitar moves. Oh well.

And just because I feel like it, here’s that Warrant video I was referencing…

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Mastodon were damn good last night. It was my third time seeing them this year (!) and nothing is ever going to top seeing them at a 500-cap venue this past May… but I’ll fight you if you say Mastodon aren’t one of the greatest bands of our generation.

Dethklok were actually a lot more entertaining than I was expecting. The idea of seeing a cartoon band live is off-putting at first, but the bandmembers certainly have the chops and the video screen presentation made the whole thing work. It was fun.

Anyway, here’s the official video for Mastodon’s “Oblivion”; I’d post a live video, but the vocals are always embarrassing. Love this video anyway.

Sadly no beards attacked me and took me on magical journeys at the show last night (though Kip’s man-whiskers are looking mighty tough as of late). Did you read Tres Crow’s piece of creative writing, “The Mastodon Beard“? You should.

-VN

On November 10th, Unearth will offer up a special edition of their latest album The March. The special edition will come with a bonus DVD featuring a tour documentary entitled The Three Day March, with footage shot by acclaimed director Doug Spangenberg during Unearth’s recent tour of the Northeastern US. The DVD will also feature footage from inside the studio during the band’s recording sessions for The March as well as party footage from the band’s recent tour with Testament. Anyone who’s ever met the dudes from Unearth or even seen them live should know that they’re a perpetual party machine… so this should be fun to watch. In addition to the candid behind the scenes footage, the DVD will also feature live footage of four songs from the 2008 Wacken Festival and the three music videos shot for The March.

Check out an exclusive preview clip from the DVD below, and pre-order the special edition set here. Unearth go on tour in early November with Hatebreed, Cannibal Corpse, Born of Osiris and Hate Eternal; full list of dates after the jump.

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There’s been so much awesome metal this year that even thinking about doing a 2009 “best of” list gives me so much agita that I have already devoted at least one and possibly three complete therapy sessions to the topic. But one album that I know has a reserved spot on that list: Chimaira’s The Infection. It came out in April and it’s still in my regular rotation, for crying out loud.

So. Videographer Todd Bell has been out on the road with the band this entire tour cycle working on what will be his forth totally excellent DVD for Chimaira, and now the band has decided to share a preview of what Bell has brewing. Per a statement on the band’s website:

We’re so excited about the footage we shot with Todd Bell for our new DVD release (due out in 2010) that we couldn’t wait to share it. Here is “The Disappearing Sun” live from Helsinki, Finland.

Here’s the clip. “The Disappearing Sun” is one of my favorite tracks of off The Infection, and it looks like it slays live:

The site also says that the group’s tenth annual Chimaira Christmas show, which will take place on December 27 at the Cleveland House of Blues, will be filmed for the DVD. I’ve given serious consideration to making my first visit to Cleveland for one of these shows every year for the past five years; maybe this is the year I finally get off my ass and do it.

-AR

Thanks to all my fellow infected Chimairacans who e-mailed me about this. And, yep, I just made up a word.

Elise over at Reign in Blonde found this fan-filmed footage of Weezer doing what is actually, as she notes, a pretty decent cover of Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” Which isn’t entirely shocking, given that Weezer mastermind Rivers Cuomo is a known metalhead; of course, he’s also a self-professed Limp Bizkit fan, so I guess we should just thank our lucky stars he’s not running around covering “Eat You Alive” or whatever.

Actually, scratch that. Weezer covering Limp Bizkit might be hilarious, in that ironic emo hipster douchebag kind of way. Especially if they incorporated the rapping.

-AR

Dude, I haven’t played Guitar Hero (or Rock Band, for that matter) in for-ever. But apparently their song “Graves of Opportunity” is available as part of a track pack for Guitar Hero world tour, alongside an awesome Chimaira song (”Walking On Broken Glass”) and something by a band I don’t care to mention who are named after a Meryl Streep movie, so maybe it’s time I picked up my plastic guitar and rocked out again.

The “Graves of Opportunity” certainly gives me the desire to do so – I mean, it looks like it was more fun to film than it is to watch. Phil Labonte looks like he’s having a good time, at least.

If there really were Unearth avatars for Guitar Hero, it would be awesome if when you hit “overdrive” or whatever the fuck it’s called, the digital Ken Susi would spit in the air, catch it in his hand, and then run it through his hair. Ah. I can dream, can’t I?

“Graves of Opportunity” comes off of Unearth’s excellent album The March, which is out on Metal Blade now.

-AR

I did actually buy V is for Vagina, the debut album from Maynard James Keenan’s Puscifer, but I never really got into it. Still, Maynard is the man, and this video for Puscifer’s “The Mission” is pretty cool – especially if you’re, uh, in the right state of mind.

Bonus: the female vocals are by Milla Jovovich. Jovovich seems to exclusively appear in unwatchable movies, but she’s hot, so, y’know, I’ll give her a pass. Any friend of Maynard’s is okay in my book.

The song comes from a new Puscifer EP, C is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference Here), which I didn’t even know was coming out but will apparently be released on November 10.

That video was directed by a dude named Meats Meier, by the way. I wonder if he knows Bacon Jew?

-AR

We’ve been hearing about “Until the Light Takes Us,” a documentary about the incarnation of black metal, for a long while now – but there’s finally a trailer and a theatrical release schedule.

And I gotta say, based on the trailer at least, the movie looks pretty amazing. Even if you don’t like black metal, there’s no denying that the story is fascinating; a bunch of kids basically set out to make the most extreme, theatrical music possible, and then took their little game of make-believe wwwaaaayyyy too far.

Actually, maybe you don’t find it fascinating. Maybe you just think these dudes are dicks.

ANYWAY, watch the trailer below (you can watch in high def here); there’s also a whole bunch of clips on YouTube. And if you go to the movie’s official website, you can see when/if it will be opening in your town. It looks like it starts rolling out in November.

-AR

Thanks to everyone who e-mailed us about this.

The jokey (although somewhat politically relevant, maybe?) lyrics for Valient Thorr’s “Tomorrow Police” might pull you out of the song a little bit, but there’s no denying that this is a cool video. I suspect that a lot of the credit belongs to director Mike Aho. I wasn’t familiar with his work prior to this, but looking at some other videos he’s directed, it’s clear that Aho has a distinct style.

Plus, even if you do hate the lyrics, the song is still pretty fun.

-AR

I love playing ths game. The famed Metallica + GN’R + Faith No More run would have to be close to the top of my list. Soundgarden supporting Spoonman. Motley Crue supporting Too Fast For Love. King’s X on the Dogman tour, for sure… check out this performance [sent in by Shane Gillis] of the title track from that incredible record, filmed on the short-lived Jon Stewart show no less.

If you had a time machine that could take you back to any one specific tour (but ONLY one), who would you go see?

-VN

Did anyone see Today is the Day’s Axis of Eden DVD? I only got to see some of it, but it was some pretty trippy shit, and clearly there was a mind behind it that was as willing to think outside the box as TITD main man Steve Austin.

That mind belonged to filmmaker David Hall, who now returns with Disgorge, Mexico, a film based on the album of the same name (minus the comma) by Fuck the Facts (read our review of that record here). A press release tells us the following about the flick:

Described by Hall as “a substance abuse art house riff on the destructive and volatile nature of love,” Disgorge, Mexico: The Movie is a violent, hallucinatory depiction of one woman’s strange journey, set to the soundtrack of Fuck The Facts’ Disgorge Mexico.

Costumes for the film were created by Nekro, known for her costume design work for Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow.

Plus, Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Jay Randall (who is easily one of the best tweeters in the world) says that “It’s like your eye is a cock, balls deep in a peyote button butthole.” So there’s that.

Disgorge, Mexico doesn’t have an official release date yet, but it should be out soon on DVD and as a digital download. You can check out the trailer by clicking the image below. If said image doesn’t make you extrememly curious, something is wrong with you.

-AR

Well, this makes me nervous.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Tom Ruprecht, a longtime writer on CBS’ ‘Late Show With David Letterman,’ and Craig Finn, frontman of the popular rock band the Hold Steady, are teaming to write and produce” an adaptation of Chuck Klosterman’s 2001 Fargo Rock City.

The book, a personal favorite of my Vince’s and myself, is basically, like everything Klosterman has ever written, a rambling dissection of pop culture (in this case, 80s hair metal)  interspersed with personal stories (in this case, about growing up in North Dakota).

So here’s the part that makes me nervous. The film version is described in the following manner:

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Hey, lookit! We just debuted a new Arch Enemy video, “Beast of Man,” earlier this month, and the band already has another one. Sweeeeet.

So here’s “Dark Insanity.” The track comes off the band’s recent Century Media release The Root of All Evil, and the footage is taken from their killer DVD, Tyrants Of The Rising Sun – Live In Japan.

Also: a friendly reminder (as though you’d forgotten!) that Arch Enemy will headline the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 with Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within starting in January. Get dates here.

-AR

I’ve never seen Rock of Ages, the “Broadway smash!” jukebox musical that incorporates (recycles) old hair metal and hair metal-friendly songs into what Variety tells me is the story of “two people who meet at the Sunset Strip club Rock of Ages, fall in love and try to stay together.” But I’m assuming it’s awful. I mean, on the one hand, if you’re gonna suffer through a Broadway musical, I understand the appeal of said musical at least featuring songs by Poison, Bon Jovi and Twisted Sister; but on the other hand, no I don’t.

ANYWAY, I mention all of this because Variety also tells me that Adam Shankman is going to be directing a feature film version of this show. Shankman presumably landed the job because he directed the movie of the musical of the movie Hairspray and the studio execs in charge needed 110% assurance that whomever they hired would do nothing original or creative whatsoever. He’s also directed such masterpieces as Bringing Down the House (Queen Latifah shows Steve Martin his inner brother), The Pacifier (Vin Diesel wears a tutu), and Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

Christ. They couldn’t even get the dickhead who directed the first Cheaper by the Dozen.

Rock of Ages has given the world one true gift, however – Bret Michaels getting whacked in the head at the Tony Awards:

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I just saw this “Advanced Fast Hand Finger Wizard Master Class” on Metal Injection and, well, like all things Metalocalypse, it’s definitely worth watching.

-AR

When it comes to being epic, Insomnium are second to few. We had the pleasure of catching them on one of their rare U.S. tours a couple of years back with Katatonia, Scar Symmetry and Swallow the Sun, a bill of massively epic proportions. They were indeed mighty. But the audience wasn’t nearly as psyched as they are in this video of the band performing “Down With the Sun” from their latest opus Across the Dark, sent in by MS reader Josh Kidd. This footage was filmed just a week ago in the band’s native Finland, which would explain the crowd’s level of enthusiasm. I’d love to see Insomnium in Finland… in a forest or on a boat, perhaps… that would be epic.

-VN