An extremely welcome surprise in 2011 was Reports From The Threshold Of Death, a throbbing, gauzy dream-rock record from Boston’s Junius (read here). One shitty major magazine described Reports as the intersection of Neurosis and The Smiths, but a sharper listen reveals Deftones-sized hooks and melancholic majesty more akin to Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and Cave-In epics like “Seafrost” and “Paranormal.” I love! U love!

Junius embarks on a busy US tour next month (with O’Brother, dates below), and then heads to Europe in April, so fans have not long to wait for a consciousness-muddying headline set. But in the meantime, Click to read more…

On Tuesday I caught the movie Titanic‘s big-money scene on TV. As the liner upends and descends into frigid waters, people are shown plummeting as from a skyscraper, doinking off the ship’s protrusions and cartwheeling into the abyss. In their place, I’d be like, “Aw man. Why ever did I board on this boner-biting boat? What a rip-off! All it took was one wrong turn and now I’m floating in my pajamas with a frozen toddler under each arm. Fuck! Room service!!”

That’s a raw deal, right? But that was 1912. Here in 2012, I could be lured onto a raft made of egg shells and spaghetti by awesome Swiss thrashers Coroner. Check out their wrap video of the recent 70,000 Tons Of Metal cruise (above); what a blast! And if disaster befell us, I’d be contentedly banging with the band til we were all gurgling and doggy-paddling for shore. For sure!

–ADF

Party with Coroner on dry land at April’s Roadburn Festival in Holland among Voivod, Killing Joke, and Hammers Of Misfortune (info here) and in August at Germany’s Wacken Open Air with Warbringer, Testament, and Sanctuary (info here).

To me, nothing is as fully sweet like pop music played heavy and with controlled virtuosity. It’s like a famous master chef whipping up simple, delicious hot dogs for my face; it seems foolish to abandon such classic fare to high-volume/low-margin assembly lines, right? Hence my devotion to the jamz of Rush, Bay Area thrash, Iron Maiden, Deftones, Devin Townsend, Love/Hate, Blessed By A Broken Heart, and tons more snappy songwriters with big boner crunch.

So I warmly welcome Look Right Penny, whose debut album Sugar Lane (out Tuesday) is a slam dunk of pop-djent metal. Click to read more…

What was once inconceivable is now a reality: A David Lee Roth-fronted Van Halen is set to release a new album! It took 28 years, a soul-crushing false start with Roth in 1996, the dumping of bassist/backing vocalist Michael Anthony, and a new label home, but A Different Kind Of Truth finally arrives today. However, a fair appraisal of Truth could be dicey: Fans might get swept up in the grand return of a pined-after loved one, while the indifferent can effortlessly cry foul at Truth‘s mining of 35 year-old material and at suspiciously deft Wolfgang Van Halen bass lines. And yet early reviews state that Truth is a remarkably authentic classic Van Halen experience.

Here’s what steps VH took to recapture that old magic:

Click to read more…

He Is Legend made two of the past decade’s awesomest, most infectious records, so I went straight to Bonersville upon their December announcement of an end to their two-year hiatus and a new album for 2012. Their first shows back were last week in North Carolina, a place I can’t locate on a map let alone visit (it’s over by Tennessee and Arizona right?), so I’m just happy as shit to enjoy some shaky, unflattering fan film of the jam (above). The clip reveals a rustless He Is Legend before a very happy crowd ripping happily — except for inscrutable guitarist/stud Adam Tanbouz, though his frownypants may relate to the usual technical wrangling during a gig’s first song. Fully mirin his Dark Funeral shirt.

-ADF

Read about He Is Legend here and here then get their stuff here.

When Filter mainman Richard Patrick went into rehab in 2002, it marked the end of the industrial-rock band’s rad second line-up. That means it’s been about a decade since the Filter that made Title Of Record (super classic!) and The Amalgamut (epic!), and since then jeez I haven’t caught sight of Patrick’s old team like at all. Which is surprising, cuz drummer Steve Gillis is a stud (here) and guitarist Geno Lenardo co-wrote this phase of Filter’s biggest (here) and biggest-selling jamz (here).

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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.

Click to read more…

It’s occasionally hard to tell whether we should cheer superstar wrestler Hulk Hogan as an unhinged eccentric or jeer him as a sideways freak who paws his own daughter on TV when not sweatily humping other half-nude guys on TV. Okay, shit, it’s not that tough to call actually — especially when the Hulkster pops round The Sun (UK) offices to cull the latest relationship gossip on Heidi Klum (silly!) and Cameron Diaz (really?).

Truly, the gentleman prefers blondes. Anyway, after casually implying his fandom of The Stone Roses — a major news item in England for their recent reunion — Hogan dropped these bombshells on The Sun:

Click to read more…

“Scheduling has been a nightmare for a long time,” says guitarist Rob Caggiano about Temple Of The Black Moon. That seems like hyperbole, but gosh maybe not: TotBM drummer John Tempesta has been dashing between The Cult and Testament tours; singer Dani Filth’s full time job is Cradle Of Filth; Caggiano is bound to Anthrax’s rigorous itinerary, and his TotBM writing partner, Tom Cato Visnes, has been involved with Sahg, I, Gorgoroth, and Ov Hell outings in just the last five years.

Click to read more…

Say what you will about its corny message and lulzy ’90s in-your-faceness, but let us all face facts about Extreme’s “Get The Funk Out”: Holy ballz this jam is the work of superstuds. For starters, drummer Paul Geary just rips on it, esp on those big entrances to the choruses (i.e. on the “If you”s); the second one (at 1:53) is what a renowned musicologist may describe as mega-bonerz awesome. With Geary in charge, the whole band locks ass-tight into the swing. I love!

Click to read more…

Last week’s most amusing news item came from Dillinger Escape Plan singer Greg Puciato (above, center), who made public his thanks and apologies to local emergency responders who helped him out during a half-day drug freakout. (Reviewing Puciato’s account of the unnamed substance’s effects, one could settle on mushrooms as the likely culprit.) As party people, we at MetalSucks giggled knowingly at his beginner’s mistakes and cheered his quick rebound to good humor and sanity. Party loud, dude!

But Puciato’s boss, DEP founding guitarist Ben Weinman (above, left), isn’t as cool with his misadventure or his urge to chronicle it for the public. Nor with the potential he created for something other than Weinman to get credit for DEP’s genius. Our awesome buds at Metal Insider got the exclusive story from Weinman:

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It’s funny. It seems like whenever I’m lukewarm on a blockbuster act, there comes along a different band that does their thing in a deeper, less entry-level way. Example: When I heard At The Drive-In’s Relationship Of Command, I felt like that energy was what Rage Against The Machine had been driving at. Same for Minus’s Jesus Christ Bobby and Converge. Or here’s an obvious one: Lacuna Coil and Evanescence.

Likewise, Blessed By A Broken Heart’s 2009 album Pedal To The Metal is what I’d hoped for from Avenged Sevenfold: A reformed metalcore band’s full-bore arena jamz no fucks given. Blessed, their name a vestige of their frowny past, still rocks the occasional breakdown, but mostly new album Feel The Power (out today) grafts high-level riffing to the sugary vibe of Journey and the pro-party platform of Andrew WK, like a perkier, shred-based Lostprophets for Christ. I phoned up singer Tony Gambino to talk all about Power, the mental stamina it takes to endure tr00 metal attitude, partying, the ’80s, and their rift with Century Media.

Click to read more…

Here’s a totally accurate chronology of my Lacuna Coil fandom: I heard a killer LC jam on the radio and was awed by singer Cristina Scabbia. Then I saw a band photo and got awestruck this time by Scabbia the woman. Then once fourth album Karmacode came out in 2007, my awe umbrella’ed out to include the songwriters of Lacuna Coil and, upon 2009’s Shallow Life, also their producer Don Gilmore.

But here’s where I’ll get all Oprah: Though a huge fan of Scabbia’s voice and a forged-by-nature respondent to her wealth of physical charms, I find the most awesome Scabbia is not the singer or the super-fox; she’s most awesome at being a bud, an honest dude, and a great chat. When we connected last week to talk about Dark Adrenaline, the once-delayed sixth Lacuna Coil album (out tomorrow), she effortlessly plowed through abstract questions and hasty analogies, and totally got the vibe of my persistent nagging about sales, producers, and artistic integrity. It was awesome!

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At my first paid gig as a music journalimalist, my editor wasn’t really hands-on with workshopping or edits or assignments. Let’s call him the Rick Rubin of print editors, as he was grotesquely overpaid, forever claiming unearned credit, and often seen shoveling bizarre food up his blabhole.

But I did get his attention once when I blew a weekend assignment: After a day spent on my front lawn all screwy on mushrooms and stuff, I’d turned up to an exciting concert I was to review. Smiling, I gave venue security my name, waited to be waved in, but was then told rudely that the show had already ended, dumbshit!

Ended!? Wha?! The show had gone off as scheduled, I was repeatedly assured, so what the fuck time was it? I had definitely left home on time — had it taken me three hours to get there? How long had I been staring at that graffiti mural? And what was I hearing that sounded like the band playing just across the entrance? What was Prince doing there holding hands with Madeline Albright? Where was that scent of garlic bread coming from? What the shit? Glirgh!

Well, it turns out Dillinger Escape Plan singer Greg Puciato lost a similar battle with mind-bottling substances this weekend! Only he freaked out his gf and required the assistance of a small army of emergency staff! Puciato explained on his website:

Click to read more…

Crazy Lixx
Riot Avenue
Label -  Frontiers
Release date – April

It’s been a million years since L.A.’s Sunset Strip hosted a massive glam metal scene. But with red hot Steel Panther and blockbuster Nickelback as testers, maybe the people have spoken, fun is fun again, and the time is right to import Sweden’s budding movement of ace hair rockers to the States. At the moment, their best is Crazy Lixx, whose big, shiny sophomore album New Religion (2009) is basically the best Def Leppard record since ripped jeans.

Click to read more…

In the scramble for stability in today’s panicky music business, one casualty is honesty. That’s totally understandable and a lot like life: Who among us has never prioritized coolness over self? In other words, always waiting patiently is the temptation to impress, not express. And that tips the first domino in a chain of intellectualization, as artists predict and reinterpret novelty, and the individual voice joins the chorus.

This is not an issue for Holland’s The Devil’s Blood, authors of recent memory’s purist, most vital album, The Thousandfold Epicentre (out today on Metal Blade). At its center lies a heedlessly honest relationship between frontman Selim Lemouchi and his sister, singer Farida. But the heart that pumps The Devil’s Blood is Selim (known simply as SL), the guitarist, composer, and visionary behind Epicentre, a masterful, vivid, and warmly fluid occult rock album that’s as commanding as the most ear-unfriendly, bombastic black metal epic.

That makes sense coming from a fervent Satanist whose Eindhoven home is decorated by inverted crosses and blood-encrusted altars (view here). And when I phoned SL at that home, our conversation began guardedly with business talk about the launch of The Devil’s Blood in America and the imminent clamor of a stateside tour. But soon we were chuckling about our sisters, about having fun, about making movies, and about a potential EP to come.

Click to read more…

Photo by Johan Lindstrand, The Crown

A few months ago, The Crown announced the return of screamer Johan Lindstrand, making theirs the first of some awesomely exciting late 2011 reunions. Soon to follow were At The Drive-In (read here), He Is Legend (here), and Refused (here), all acts sharing few aesthetics but linked by total awesomeness, undefinability, daring, and unexhausted creative potential. So it’s cosmically just that these rad, singular bands have heeded the voices ordering them back from the light at the end of the tunnel. Bonerz for all!

Back in September, MetalSucks got up in the face of Crown guitarist/producer Marko Tervonen to talk about their new album plans and stuff, and he revealed that around six songs were written. And today a pair of those songs are mentioned by Lindstrand in his report on Thursday’s rehearsal, the band’s first since his return:

Click to read more…

The fact that MetalSucks readers are awesome was proven nicely by the response to our March report on heavy rockers He Is Legend. At that point, little had been heard from the awesome North Carolina band since their euphoric third album It Hates You in 2009 and the anemic promotion cycle that followed; they were inactive and saying little. Fighting denial and dread, I phoned HiL manager Zach Neil to talk about the band’s status and about the misfortunes that lead to HiL’s horrifically lopsided ratio of success-to-radness.

Our talk ended on a note of optimism about HiL’s future, so I felt great. I felt super-great once I saw my devotion to HiL echoed up and down the comments section by frothing MS readership. I vaulted up to mega-great after arriving at the logic that, up against their passionate manager and their rabid fans and my big fat mouth, HiL couldn’t possibly stay dormant forever. So I then kinda checked my watch, started tapping my foot, and silently prepared to someday roll out the red carpet for HiL’s return to BonerTown.

Nine short months later, Christmas has come — literally and figuratively: He Is Legend is back in action and not one instant too soon! O, sweet bonerz of paradise! Here’s the deal: Click to read more…

Holy shit it is time to get super-pumped for new Van Halen music. That is for sure, fun lovers! Of course, it has been like thirteen years since their most recent album, so the music-makers of VH had some dust to shake off. No biggie. The more daunting task before Team Van Halen now is succeeding at their first album campaign since the upheaval of the record sales and of marketing practices.

Again, music is not the question, but rather how will these recording artists — once kings of presentation, promotions, and imagery during pop music’s last big shake-up, the MTV revolution — fare in the age of non-sales, lightning-fast rumors, and insidious internet marketing, and with the thud of Chinese Democracy still echoing and Aerosmith’s next winner looming ahead?

So far, the pre-natal life of A Different Kind Of Truth (out February 7 oh baby!!) is kinda wonky and marked by weird decisions and missed opportunities for coolness. Let’s take a friendly look: Click to read more…