Well well well, isn’t Matt DeVries suddenly the belle of the ball?

Last week, DeVries, who only just recently quit Chimaira, announced that he was quitting Six Feet Under, too. And we were all like, “Hm, I wonder what he’s gonna do now?” ‘Cause quitting two bands of note in just a few months doesn’t necessarily seem like the best career move, y’know?

But now we know the answer to that question! And that answer is: join Fear Factory as their new bass player.

Holy shit. I did NOT see that coming. Great plot twist, dude!

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Kittie (L-R Trish Doan. Not pictured: Mercedes Lander, Morgan Lander, Tara McLeod)

Kittie is a hard-working metal band, so they seem omnipresent in support slots on a million tours. I’ve seen them 670 times, a meaningful number for a dude whose life of drugz + rollerskates means low concert attendance. But I’ve always applauded Kittie for their solid-ish chops and for the aesthetic vacation they provide to concertgoers tasked with staring at heinous, sweaty metal bros for three hours. Thanks Kittie!

And as of today, the next 63-band package tour stop in your hometown just got hotter ‘cuz… Click to read more…

Yeah I really don’t have any information that isn’t in my headline. Ex-Chimaira guitarist Matt DeVries joined his also-former-Chimaira guitarist Rob Arnold in Six Feet Under less than a year ago as the band’s new bassist. He did a few tours with them (including the 2011 edition of Summer Slaughter — pic above), and may or may not have laid down bass tracks for the band’s upcoming, still-to-be-titled new album… and now Lambgoat tells me DeVries “has decided to depart the brutality laden death metal act to pursue other musical endeavors.” There’s no word yet on what those other musical endeavors might be, or who is going to replace DeVries in SFU.

So, this isn’t the end of the world or anything — word around the campfire is that the new Six Feet Under album restores glory to the band’s name, and that DeVries didn’t write any of it, so finding someone to fill his shoes shouldn’t be that hard. I did enjoy seeing DeVries on-stage with Arnold and their other former Chimaira bandmate, Kevin Talley, who is now playing drums for SFU. But from a creative standpoint, this is not going to slow Six Feet Under down.

So, uh… anyone know what Jim LaMarca is up to these days?

-AR

Before reading any further, please note well: the following is a rumor only, and MetalSucks has not been able to substantiate it.

A site called MetalTalk.net is saying that they “have just been informed by a reliable source that Sharon Osbourne has fired Bill Ward.” They’re also claiming that this same source informs them that Tommy Clufetos from Ozzy’s solo band will be Ward’s replacement on Black Sabbath’s forthcoming summer shows.

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Have you checked out KillswitchEngage.com today? We’re not sure how long it’s been there, but as of the time this article is being published there’s a splash screen up with a photo of the band — including original lead singer Jesse Leach. While the band has yet to release a statement via their website, Facebook page, press release or any other medium, a photo is worth 1,000 words and we can’t think of any other possible way this could be construed.

After Howard Jones’ departure on January 4th, asking Leach back into the band seemed like only logical course of action; 3rd vocalists never work out, and duh, it just makes sense given all the history and Leach’s recent relationship with the other band members. Welcome back, Jesse!

Thanks: Corey B.

Just yesterday, Bill Ward released a statement in which he threatened to bow out of the recently announced new Black Sabbath album and world tour unless he was given “a ‘signable’ contract.” Now Black Sabbath have announced via their Facebook page that they are, indeed, proceeding without their now-once-again-former drummer:

We were saddened to hear yesterday via Facebook that Bill declined publicly to participate in our current Black Sabbath plans…we have no choice but to continue recording without him although our door is always open… We are still in the UK with Tony. Writing and recording the new album and on a roll… See you at Download!!!

- Tony, Ozzy and Geezer

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…Joe Nurre (Shaded Enmity) on guitar, Gregory Macklin (System Divide, Ordinance) on bass, and Anup Sastry (Intervals, Skyharbor) on drums. None of those dudes appear on Loomis’ forthcoming album, Plains of Oblivion, but it was never very likely that the guitarist was gonna be able to get, for example, Dirk Verbeuren to do a tour, so whatever. I would be kinda curious to know why Shane Lentz, the bass player who Loomis recruited for Plains after discovering him via YouTube, isn’t joining the band — it could be any number of reasons, including Lentz just not wanting to tour — but that’s really just my gossipy side getting the best of me. The dudes Loomis landed are all talented musicians, and will surely do him proud, or else be condemned to a lifetime as Warrel Dane’s designated driver.

Here’s a statement from Loomis about how he put this band together:

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Charlie Benante’s mother is terminally ill. Although I know I’ve busted Anthrax’s collective chops over the years, this is obviously terrible news. We are deeply sympathetic, and our hearts go out to the guy. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that there really isn’t anything anyone can say to make you feel better in a situation like this one. But, hopefully, the old cliché is true — time heals all wounds.

Understandably, Benante has opted to leave Anthrax’s currently-in-progress tour with Testament and Death Angel to go be with his mother — but the silver lining, if there is one, is that current Testament drummer/all-around legend Gene Hoglan will be filling in for Benante on the remainder of the tour.

Here’s a statement from Hoglan:

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It’s hard to keep a secret in these Internet-crazy times. If I were Jesse Leach and I had a really big secret to keep — like whether or not I was about to re-join Killswitch Engage after Howard Jones’ departure — I’d probably just avoid giving interviews to the press altogether to make sure what I say couldn’t be mis-interpreted, or I couldn’t slip up and let fly a small nugget that gives the whole thing away. But Jesse Leach is apparently still doing interviews despite rampant speculation that he’ll rejoin the band, and he had some interesting things to say in a recent interview with Australia’s Loud Magazine:

My viewpoint is to respectfully step back from the situation and support them. Whatever decision they make will be the right one for them and I look forward to what it is.

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When ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy announced an unlikely collaboration with John Sykes (above left, the guy who wrote Whitesnake’s huge album), it was easy to be of two minds: On the one hand, Portnoy had reactivated the long-dormant Sykes, which is awesome; but, jeez, the Portnoy-Sykes affair also set a roadblock before any potential reunion of Blue Murder, Sykes’ awesomely awesome supergroup with drummer Carmine Appice and farty Tony Franklin. That’s a bummer.

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This is just me, but I attend Darkest Hour shows mostly to make goo-goo eyes at guitarist Mike Schleibaum, fellow devotée of my boner band The Crown (and The Cars). That’s my M.O. no judgements please. Still I was bummed when sweet drummer Ryan Parrish announced his departure from DH late last year. But dude is already in A Cancerous Affair, the project started by his former DH bandmate and guitar freak Kris Norris. And which now welcomes its newest member, keyboardist Knockerz Randall.

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Yesterday, the MetalSucks reader known as “Ibo” e-mailed us to say that he attended a Black Dahlia Murder concert in Glasgow, Scotland on January 22 — and that bassist Ryan “Bart” Williams “wasn’t on bass. It was some guy I’d never seen before.” A quick YouTube search turned up fan-filmed footage from the show which confirms that, yes, indeed, Mr. Williams was not the bass player at this show — and, we can therefore presume, the band’s entire European tour:

So is Williams out of the band?

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Last year Into Eternity announced that they were looking for a touring vocalist since their own singer, Stu Block, is gonna be busy with Iced Earth for awhile. And now Metal Injection tells me that they’ve found their touring vocalist, and it’s not at all the kind of person you’d expect. By which I mean, you’d probably expect them to hire a dude, since Stu Block is a dude. And yet, they have hired a lady: Amanda Kiernan, from a band called The Order of Chaos (see what they did there?).

So, yeah, that’s kind of unusual.

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Photo by Jeff Chan

Those poor metalcore Massholes in Unearth have been without a drummer since parting ways with Derek Kerswill back in 2010 — although, to their credit, they did make the best of a bad situation, recruiting Killswitch Engage/Blood Has Been Shed skinsman Justin Foley to sit in on last year’s Darkness in the Light. But now a press release tells us they’ve finally found their man to take the gig full-time:

“Nick Pierce is a self taught drummer who’s been playing since age 10. He grew up playing for local bands in the Seattle/Tacoma area (Culling the Weak, Eterna Nocturna, Embalmed) as well as LA based band The Faceless. Nick first sat in behind the kit for Unearth in May of 2011 during their two show trip to Alaska. Unearth discovered Pierce on YouTube where he had been covering Unearth songs, among many other bands, on a series of videos on his YouTube channel.”

Man, I do love that musicians can legitimately find one another through the internet. Seriously, I think it’s great that internet can make us one big community, able to communicate across vast spaces in miniscule amounts of time with people who share common interests and life philosophies. It’s a really beautiful thing. In fact, besides the endless sea of free porn, it’s my second favorite thing about the internet.

But I digress.

After the jump, check out two videos of Pierce in action: one of him performing “Watch it Burn” with his new band, and an eight-minute solo for all you drum nerds out there. Enjoy…

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Internet Metal Nerds and real-life metal fans alike have been pretty bonered about Argonauts, the new band featuring vocalist Dimitri Minakakis (ex-The Dillinger Escape Plan), guitarist John Adubato (Burnt by the Sun), bassist Brett Bamberger (East of the Wall, The Binary Code’s old touring line-up), and drummer Dave Witte (Municipal Waste + every band ever). Axl saw them live in October and was still raving about it weeks after. Matter of fact, Axl’s sitting on the MS Mansion Porcelain Throne right now and keeps yelling out “Argonauts!” at random intervals.

But it looks as if Minakakis is an Argonaut no longer, according to a post earlier today on Argonauts Facebook page:

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So yesterday afternoon, Born of Osiris announced that guitarist Jason Richardson was no longer in the band. In an official statement, BOO called the split “something that just needed to happen” and promised that the group “will be a more creative, energized, and focused unit as a result.” And even though the subtext of that assertion isn’t so nice to Richardson (’cause it implies that he was in some way impeding the band’s creativity, energy, and focus), the actual text of the statement was completely cordial, advising fans that there is “No reason to tear Jason down for this” and declaring that “We still love Jason.”

Alas, when Richardson later released his own statement, he wasn’t so kind to his now-former bandmates, basically saying that he was let go for confronting the other members about what he perceived to be their substance abuse issues:

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Yesterday we ran a very silly post in which we hypothesized about possible new vocalists for Killswitch Engage, except that the majority of candidates we named are not realistic possibilites (more on that in a second). I know that there are people who were bummed that we didn’t consider more realistic potentialities, but there was a reason we didn’t do that — it seems to us that Jesse Leach is really the only man for this job. (And, yes, we know that Leach just told fans via Facebook that “If I have something to say, I WILL say it. For the moment I have no comments on KSE.” But what do you expect him to say?)

Leach isn’t just the obvious choice — he’s really the best choice. Because his voice is still in great shape; because he’s a great performer; and because in 2012, we’d like to think that bands have learned from the Gary Cherones, Blaze Bayleys, and Dan Nelsons of the world. Being the third singer for a really famous band is a thankless task, even if you’re really talented. Tommy Vext, for example, is a great vocalist — but if he really did join KsE, he would face a momentous uphill battle to be accepted by fans and come out from under the shadow of Leach and Jones. And history teaches us that he — or any other singer, for that matter — probably would not win that battle.

So. This message on Killswitch’s official website certainly caught me by surprise…

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With Howard Jones now available for a White Lion reunion, who will be the new vocalist for Killswitch Engage? The obvious answer, of course, would be for the band’s original frontman, Jesse Leach, to return to the fold — although there’s been no word on such a possibility yet, save for some cryptic comments from Leach himself. The second most obvious answer would be Phil Labonte, but (mercifully), he’s already said “I’m not gonna be singing for KsE.”

So if we take Labonte at his word and imagine, for the sake of discussion, that Leach is not returning to the band… who else might get the gig? After the jump, we weigh a few possible options.

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As soon as it was announced this week that Howard Jones was splitting with Killswitch Engage after nine years, everyone asked the same obvious-but-important question: Why? Was it because of the rumors  Jones impregnated porn star Allie Foster a few years back? Rehab? “Creative differences?”

Now Jones has finally spoken out via a posting on KsE’s Facebook page, and the answer, it turns out, is simply “musical fatigue.” Here’s the full statement:

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UPDATE, 1:22 PM: Now the band has confirmed that they are, indeed, breaking-up. Thanks to The PRP for catching the story. Original post follows…

I don’t know how we missed this, but shortly before MetalSucks went on hiatus last month, Lambgoat reported a rumor that Oceano were breaking up — which is great news if, say, you’re a petty little fuck like me, who wishes ill will on people whose greatest crime is making music that you don’t personally enjoy. And then yesterday those rumors picked up some steam when Oceano vocalist Adam Warren — who has apparently parted ways with his deathcore cohorts — made the following statement, which a) strongly implies that Ocean are indeed calling it quits, and b) makes reference to Howard Jones’ just-announced split with Killswitch Engage:

“I’m shocked, but well… If Killswitch can go on after 9 years and 3 albums without Mr. Jones on vox…. Why couldn’t a certain band with out me? (2 albums and a mere 3 years) Just sayin.”

So that sounds promising, right?

Alas, it ain’t so.

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