When people ask me to point to an example of a hardcore band that I really, really like (which is like totes every day!), I always point to Cancer Bats. Their post-punk/hardcore influences are salted with a dash of metal, for sure — there’s even some Kvelertakian bluesy licks here and there — but those meaty riffs are all about maximum up-tempo, let’s-fuck-shit-up hardcore MOSH at heart.

Take their new song (and video) for “Old Blood” — the bands that inspired modern hardcore heavy hitters like Stray From the Path and This is Hell are all over those riffs, although I honestly don’t know enough about hardcore to say who (maybe Refused?). The frenetic energy of Cancer Bats flows from every orifice of this track, and the jittery practice-space video perfectly fits the part. As Sergeant D would say, this = you’re moshing!

Cancer Bats’ new album Dead Set On Living will come out on April 24th via new label Metal Blade Records.

-VN

I’m going to put about as much effort into this introduction as the writers of The Artist put into that movie’s dialogue.

First up we have Anthrax’s new video, for “The Devil You Know.” The song is catchy as heckfire, but it’s really just a boring clip video, with a bunch of footage of shit the band did in the months since Worship Music has been released. The only thing even kinda interesting about it is that there’s a bunch of Yankees shit in there, which will make Vince mad. But it’s not even like he’s gonna get upset enough to burn all his ‘Thrax albums, so that’s no fun.

[UPDATE: Embeds have been disabled, so go watch the video here.]

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I’m running out of ways to praise Mastodon for the quality of their music videos. It goes beyond the fact that, since they’re on a major label, they presumably have access to larger budgets than most bands — because I don’t think their latest, ”Dry Bone Valley” (Is that a euphemism for sex? I feel like it’s a euphemism for sex.), could really have cost that much money. It’s just that someone in Camp Mastodon is keeping his or their eye or eyes on the ball and churning out awesome clips that people will actually watch and discuss.

And sure, “Bone” isn’t quite as cool as the one they released in September for “Curl of the Burl.” But it’s still a majillion-gillion times better than, say, the new Iced Earth video, which so won over my heart I didn’t even feel inspired to make fun of it.

I can’t embed the video right now, but you can see the Tim Biskup-directed ”Dry Bone Valley” by clicking on the below screen cap. The song appears on The Hunter, which is out now on Reprise/Warner Bros.

-AR

The Sundance Film Festival, probably the most famous film festival in the United States and arguably all of North America (sorry, Toronto!), is now underway, which means there’s a lot of Hollywood wheelin’ and dealin’ going on right now. And one such wheel n’ deal comes in the form of Anchor Bay Films acquiring distribution rights to Nothing to Fear, the debut from Slash’s Slasher Films imprint. The horror flick stars Oscar nominee Thomas Hayden Church as “a charismatic but unbalanced man of the cloth.”

Details of the deal haven’t been publicly released yet, but based on my knowledge of Anchor Bay’s usual work, I’d say the fact that this is goin’ down tells us two things about Nothing to Fear:

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Last month Lamb of God debuted a lyric video for their new single, “Ghost Walking” (a song which originally debuted right here on MetalSucks!), but we all know that lyric videos aren’t real videos. So now we get an actual video, which is fully animated, so you don’t have to look at the band’s ugly mugs, and they didn’t have to be on a set performing the song over and over and over and over and over… my point being, hey, this worked out for everyone!

“Ghost Walking” appears on Lamb of God’s Resolution, which comes out this Tuesday via Epic Records.

-AR

I’m going to put about as much effort into this introduction as Randy Blythe is putting into his presidential campaign. That’s actually probably not fair to Blythe, who skateboarded and had someone film him for that ad; I’m really just going to sit here on my ass and not care very much.

ANYWAY, we begin today with ”Arguing With Thermometers,” the latest clip from Enter Shikari. Now, normally, I do not think very highly of this band, and feel that entirely too many of you e-mailed us about it when they recently streamed their new album (or something… I did not read the e-mails very carefully once I saw the words “Enter Shikari”). The band has fun with it and actually seem to have some comedic chops, and the shots and editing demonstrate that the director actually put some thought into it, which, hey, really pays off sometime. I was hooked pretty much from the triple-camera-turn at the :24 second mark. Nice work, Enter Shikari.

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I’m not gonna front like I was a big Bang Tango fan in the band’s late ’80s / early ’90s heyday — I could maybe hum you a few bars of “Someone Like You” (pre-Adele) at best, but I was really too young — although I’ve enjoyed their music enough since then to loosely follow whatever Joe LeSte is doing, and I absolutely LOVED the debut Beautiful Creatures album. I have no idea how many times Bang Tango have broken up and gotten back together or who played in the band each time, but  whenever something new comes out that says “Bang Tango” on it I’m always interested in a listen.

BT’s new album Pistol Whipped In The Bible Belt came out in September of last year, and now they’ve released a music video for “I Like It,” posted below. The video isn’t nearly half as entertaining as the video of drunken Joe LeSte babbling to an audience, but the song itself is catchy and memorable and LeSte sounds really good (and, in the beginning, very zezy and un-LeSte-like). Watch it below, then get freaky with us in the comments section.

-VN

Attack Attack! became well known in the modern metal scene for one reason and one reason only: they were a special brand of atrocious. In a way, that’s an achievement, because whatever else you could say about Attack Attack!, you can’t say that they weren’t unique. Everyone will remember the stupid fucking choreographed guitar-behind-the-head thing forever and all time. That’s not true for most scene bands, who will last in the memory about as long as cotton candy does in the mouth.

But then Rosie O’Donnell quit the band and Jesus told the guitar player that he should leave, too, and, well, I guess those guys really were important to Attack Attack! Because I just watched their new video, “Wretched,” on Noisecreep, and while it’s certainly terrible, it’s not terrible in a memorable way.

First, Not Rosie O’Donnell is screaming in the room from that one cool looking Korn video — y’know, with the bullet and the Todd McFarlane animation and shit? It was like one of the only neat things Korn ever did. But right away you should know, “Oh, shit, this is gonna be derivative and therefore boring, not innovative in its quest to induce the suicide of the listener/viewer.” And then there’s military suits and gas masks and scene jail bait and a deathcore breakdown, and then I just gave up.

Like, FUCK, Attack Attack!! Why’d you hafta get so lazy??? If you’re not careful, you’re gonna make it so it’s not even a joy for us to make fun of you anymore!

-AR

Drop whatever it is you’re doing right now and watch Virgin Steele’s new video “Perfect Mansions,” a song that was a bonus track on a reissue which has just been reissued. Seriously. (Please note that I did not know that this song was a bonus track on a reissue which has just been reissued until I read about it on Metal Underground. I do not want to get a reputation for being deeply knowledgable about Virgin Steele. In fact, calling someone “a Virgin Steele fan” should be considered fighting words.) The bad news is that the clip is nine minutes long, and the good news is that those nine minutes are uproarious. Highlights include:

• Douchebag vocalist David DeFeis holding a flaming sword in the middle of his living room. (:25 seconds in)
• The band performing in that same living room (4:53)
• The worst color correction in the history of music videos (see: the transition at the 41 second mark).
• A seagull behind DeFeis dropping dead (1:12)
• Spirit fingers (1:53)
• DeFeis tugging his shirt open twice in four seconds (2:01 – 2:05)
• The best iMovie transition ever (2:55)
• The outfit Rob from Metal Injection is going to wear to the 2012 Golden Gods Awards (4:25)
• DeFeis awkwardly running down a hill for no discernible reason (6:19)
• DeFeis awkwardly running down a hill for no discernible reason again, this time ending his jog by looking straight into the camera and singing (6:45)
• The final, profound zoom-in (8:41)
• END. FUCKING. CREDITS.

-AR

If you still have any doubts that being in a band is for losers, watch Why You Do This, the documentary by Car Bomb’s Michael Dafferner. It is a cold, hard bitch slap of reality. Including interviews with Richard Christy, Randy Blythe, Joe Duplantier, Ben Falgoust, and a bunch of other cool dudes, Why You Do This premiered last year at the Queens World Film Festival, and is now streaming online in full. Check it out:

If you enjoyed that, you can order a DVD right here.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

It’s gonna be hard to top the unequivocal terribleness of Alternate Reality’s video for “The King That Never Was,” an exercise in suckitude/awesomeness that took the Internet by storm last year. But Alternate Reality’s Tits McGee has a sister, that sister has a band, that band is called Silent Opera, and Silent Opera are almost — almost! — as lulzy as Alternate Reality. Silent Opera’s music video might not have a story line as epic or CGI as cheap as Alternate Reality’s, but the wardrobe choices in this video should be enough to keep you watching.

-VN

[via Stuff You Will Hate]

Speaking of hopefully-future Killswitch Engage vocalist Ben Robson: Indigestion Collaboration, his project with guitarists Luka Žnideršič and Matthijs van den Hoven (who, Robson tells me, “do most of the work”), have released a new song and video, “Constipated” (I guess they really like writing songs about poo.). It’s typically awesome, especially when you keep in mind that the trio collaborates despite the fact that they all live in different countries! Modern technology, man. Crazy shit.

Here’s the video for the song; you can also stream it or download it here.

-AR

Jim Dirschberger directed and did the animation for the new Trash Talk clip, “Slander,” someone should definitely buy this dude a beer. The animation is crude to be sure, but that’s part of its charm. And besides — the video is metal as fuck. And relatable. I mean, radioactive ‘shrooms? Who among us has never been there?

Check it out below — and make sure you watch the whole thing. It’s short, and the payoff is great.

“Slander” appears on Trash Talk’s Awake EP, which is out now on True Panther.

-AR

[via Stereogum]

Brutal Truth’s new video, “Lottery,” has debuted on Metal Injection, and… holy crap, I wonder how long it took to edit this thing? I guess, technically speaking, it’s a performance video, but… the cuts are in perfect time with Rich Hoak’s blast beats, which is to say, the cuts are INCREDIBLY FAST. It’s yet another example of how you can make something fun and creative even if you don’t have a massive budget. Check it out:

“Lottery” appears on Brutal Truth’s latest release, End Times, which is out now on Relapse.

-AR

Terrorizer has premiered Morbid Angel’s video “Existo Vulgoré,” one of the less irritating songs off of the band’s disastrous Illud Divinum Insanus release. (I say “less irritating” because at least it doesn’t sound like a bad Marilyn Manson rip-off — it’s just not-particularly-noteworthy death metal.) The conceit is that the video is an old-timey silent film, only the conceit makes no sense, because there’s David Vincent singing along with the music — which, y’know, would never happen in a silent film.

Of course, there have been other metal videos made to look silent films, but I think those usually utilize the music only as a non-synch soundtrack, which I think is an acceptable cheat.

It’s also possible I’m just being too hard on Morbid Angel, although, in all fairness, they totally deserve it.

I keep telling myself I’m gonna do a review of Morbid Angel’s incredibly bad Illud Divinum Insanus-remix album, but the fucking thing is three hours long (!!!) and really, really hard to sit through… let alone sit through multiple times, as would be a requirement to write a proper review. I’ll keep trying, though.

-AR

There seems to be ongoing confusion about the two Scandinavian bands with the name Shining, so I’ve devised these [not at all] easy-to-remember mnemonics for recalling which one is which:

Shining (Norway): Saxaphones Harbor Inventive Noodling and Industrial Norwegian Greatness

Shining (Sweden): Sweden Has Icy Nordics If Niklas = Ghoul

There! Easy, see?

Here’s the new music video for “Fisheye” by the Norwegian Shining. The blackjazz / industrial / saxaphone Shining. That likes to noodle inventively. I think this video captures the spirit of my mnemonic perfectly!

-VN

The wait is over: the new Van Halen single, “Tattoo,” is here, and it even has a music video. This is exciting, of course, because the new Van Halen album on which “Tattoo” will appear, A Different Kind of Truth, is the band’s first effort with David Lee Roth in twenty-eight years, so… yeah, there’s a lot of expectations to live up to.

And the band has acquitted themselves admirably — as a song, “Tattoo” might not blow your mind and make you jump up and down and squeal with joy, but it’s still really good, and does no shame to DLR-era VH’s legacy. Diamond Dave’s voice is in great shape, and that Eddie solo is top notch. I certainly dig “Tattoo” way more than I did either of the songs DLR recorded with the band back in ’96 (although Vince really likes those songs, so fuck do I know anyway?).

The video, on the other hand, is pretty lame. But I don’t think it really matters, given these specific circumstances.

A Different Kind of Truth comes out February 7 via Interscope; the band hits the road for a North American tour that same month. Get dates here.

-AR

Last week, we posted video of Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe rehearsing with Cannabis Corpse, who he was going to front for the memorial show in honor of late GWAR guitarist Cory Smoot; that show took place this past Saturday, so now, of course, we have video of the actual performance. Here’s the entire set…

…and here’s some bonus footage — Blythe shaving GWAR front man/MetalSucks columnist Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie’s head on stage:

Click to read more…

I stopped watching new episodes of The Simpsons a few years ago because, well, they’re not very good anymore and in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t like to give old fogies credit for having once been cool.

That being said, Noisecreep has alerted us to the fact that last night’s episode of The Simpsons featured a pretty funny guest appearance by overrated guitarist/underrated raving lunatic Ted Nugent. Check it out below:

I CAN’T GET THE FUCKING VIDEO EMBED TO WORK. CLICK ON THE BELOW PHOTO OF TED TO WATCH IT.

-AR

A couple of years ago, Mike Patton provided the brilliant score for Crank 2: High Voltage, a film which, as you all know, went on to win 57 Oscars and break every box office record there is. Now he’s announced a new gig as a composer, for the film The Place Beyond the Pines, which will reunite Blue Valentine‘s writer/director, Derek Cianfrance, with its star, Ryan Gosling. IMDB describes the film as being about “A motorcycle stunt rider [who] considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.”

I think this is worth getting really excited about, for the following reasons:

Click to read more…