Back in May we got all excitebike about the new band formed by Sacha Dunable (Intronaut/Graviton/MetalSucks columnist),  Charles Elliott (Abysmal Dawn), Derek Rydquist (ex-The Faceless), and Derek Donley (National Sunday Law/Graviton), called Bewilderbiest. Then in September they announced they’d changed their name to Bereft and released their first song, causing our helpless minds to swell with heated anticipation.

Now Bereft have announced a record deal with The End Records, which is great news because it also comes with an album name and release date for that album. The debut album Leichenhaus (“Mortuary” in German) is a conceptual album thematically revolving around a waiting mortuary (!), and it’s due on April 24th. You can be SURE you’ll be hearing more about it on MetalSucks as the date draws closer.

Check out the previously released track “Withered Efflorescence” here.

-VN

OH, happy day! Seems like we’re still gonna have to wait all the way until the fall to hear Dysrhythmia’s new record, but an announcement posted on the band’s Facebook wall Tuesday tells us that Dysrhythmia are stirring from their hibernation right now:

Happy new year, all. We are excited to announce we will be working with Profound Lore Records, for the release of our next album! Recording will commence this Spring with Colin Marston, with a projected late Summer/ Fall release date. We’re gonna do our most to make this the best Dysrhythmia yet.

So that’s obviously great news. The band was previously on Relapse, and while while we’re not sure what caused the split, Profound Lore is great label too. Dysrhythmia have been performing a couple of new songs live over the past several months of which high-quality footage is available, and the band released a demo called “Running Towards the End” this fall, which you can stream below:

Pumped.

-VN

Earlier this week, Fred Durst tweeted that there would be  “huge Limp Bizkit news” in December. Well, it’s December, and here’s the huge news: Metal Insider reports that during a recent interview on  Poolside with Dean Delray (whatever the hell that is), Durst revealed that the band is no longer with their longtime label –

“One of the things with Gold Cobra was that that was a record, for us, to do for ourselves, for the core fans, for some of the people that we know in the industry — its wasn’t our step forward to make a big pop, smash radio record; we just didn’t wanna make that record at that time… We have been working for awhile now to renavigate where we are going to take Limp Bizkit, and finally we have been able to get off our label and become independent.”

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The news that New Zealand progressive death metallers Ulcerate signed with Relapse earlier this month was bittersweet. On one hand I love Willowtip Records, and the dudes who run that label are probably bummed Ulcerate have decided to leave, but on the other hand Relapse is a bigger label that will offer Ulcerate a great shot at breaking new ground. Ulcerate deserve every bit of that shot; their January 2011 album The Destroyers of All is a churning, visceral, crusher of atmospheric (!) death metal very likely to make my year-end list. Stream it in full on Spotify if you haven’t heard it yet.

But where one door closes another one opens: Willowtip have announced the signing of a death metal band perhaps even more fucked up and brutal than Ulcerate, Madrid, Spain’s Wormed. MS reader Dan Wolfson tipped us off to this band’s existence earlier this year, and I’ve been passively anticipating new Wormed music ever since. The band promises a new 2012 release which will be about the end of the world via alien invasion — apparently all of their lyrics are sci-fi themed — because, ya know, I can totally understand what this dude is saying:

01 Uncoloured Plasma Orifices Transported by phlegeton

02 Undeciphering The Inquantificability by phlegeton

Wormed. Get ready.

-VN

According to Metal Insider, there’s a rumor going around that the mostly-reunited Van Halen have signed a deal with Interscope Records to release their new album. And since Metal Insider is a great website that specializes in being on, y’know, the inside, I am leaning towards believing them that this rumor exists, and may even be not a rumor at all but the actual truth.

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[UPDATE, 9:48am EST, 11/8]: Spin Studios has removed the above post from their Facebook page, which would seem to confirm that they goofed by posting it.

Original post:

After reporting this morning that Gojira were in NYC recording a new album and then speculating about what record label was funding the effort, the same anonymous Internet sleuth that tipped us off to the location of the recording sessions (Spin Studios in Queens) noticed a post on the Spin Studios Facebook page confirming that Gojira have landed with Roadrunner. Check the screen cap above, which also tells us that Josh Wilbur (of Lamb of God’s Wrath fame) is producing, and not Greg Fidelman or Rick Rubin.

So, there you have it: Roadrunner. Gojira. Josh Wilbur. Early 2012?

-VN

[UPDATE, 11:47am EST]: An anoymous tipster tells us they’re at Spin Studios in Long Island city. Spin Studios’ Facebook page “Likes” Roadrunner Records. All signs point to Gojira signing with RR.

Original post:

The last bit of non-news we got from Gojira regarding the Sea Shepherd EP suggested the long-awaited collaboration was finally nearing release after some of the session files had been lost on a crashed hard drive. The band also let us know that they’d finished writing an entire new record… and based on today’s news, it seems like we might get that new album before we get Sea Shepherd. Not that I’m complaining — new Gojira is new Gojira, no matter the form — but the band whipped us into a frenzy regarding Sea Shepherd and it now seems possible that it may never come out. I guess we’ll see.

But anyway, new Gojira is coming! The band landed in New York on Thursday, November 3rd and got right to work in the studio. They’ve posted a few photos from this past weekend’s session on their Facebook page, including a shot of New York City that would place the recording studio somewhere near the Union Square vicinity (those are the Zeckendorf Towers on the right). Which begs the question:

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It’s been a minute since we heard from MetalSucks faves The Absence, but thanks to a new interview with Rock My Monkey we now have an update on the band: they’ve parted ways with Metal Blade, who released all three of their full-lengths (those would be 2005′s From Your Grave, 2007′s Riders of the Plague, and last year’s Enemy Unbound), apparently (or maybe I should say “presumably”) because their recording budget exceeds the amont of money to be made from their album sales. Which makes sense. ‘Cause though we all hate to admit it, there is a business to this thing we love.

Of course, splitting with a label — even a cool label like Metal Blade — is not necessarily the end of the world, and the band is persevering: they also say they’re working on a new EP “with a couple of cover songs,” although I’m not clear if that will be in addition to some new material or just covers. In either case, it sounds like they’re gonna release it DIY-style.

Check out the interview above. More updates on The Absence as we get ‘em.

-AR

Thanks: Andreas Weissenborn 

It’s all too easy for me to get a bit America-centric with hardcore, given the intense amount of activity and output from bands based on this continent. Fortunately, A389 Recordings keep an open, if depraved, mind, evidenced by their latest signing Unholy Majesty, a UK act that will surely appeal to devotees of the cult imprint. Akin to their countrymen in Rot In Hell, the band make a furious Ringworm-like noise on their 2011 demo (listen here, buddy), which A389 will release as a 7″ in December. I hope they retain the provocative cover art.

Now back to the American scene! Deathwish Inc. have announced that Loma Prieta will put out a twelve-track album with them. Previously, this Bay Area act has been doing it D.I.Y. for the most part, self-releasing a half dozen records since forming in 2005. Hooking up with Deathwish will surely raise their profile in the worldwide hardcore community, and the label’s capitalized on this with two t-shirts just in time for their October tourdates with bands like Ceremony and Griever. No word yet on I.V.‘s release date, but you can check out one of its tracks, “Fly By Night,” here.

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Two big pieces of news dropped yesterday evening after the MS Mansion Monkeys had shuttered our gates for the day. Which label a band signs to might seem insignificant to some fans, but there’s actually a lot at stake; think of the way a label treats and nurtures a band as similar to how parents raise their children… it has a profound affect upon their future!

First, the Shads: We’re getting to the point where we’re starting to see record label fallout for the bands that comprised the original New Wave of American Heavy Metal of the early-mid ’00s. Things worked out quite nicely for Mastodon and Lamb of God, the two major label metal poster boys who seem to be sitting high and dry. Not everyone else was so fortunate: Killswitch Engage’s last record tanked, although I doubt Roadrunner will drop them just yet; Chimaira have had more labels than you can shake a drumstick at; and God Forbid signed with frickin’ Victory Records! And then there’s Shadows Fall, who tried the major label route, then tried the make-your-own-imprint-under-a-major’s-umbrella route, and now have signed with… Razor & Tie.

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Expire first came to my attention this year with the Suffer The Cycle 7″ for 6131 Records. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one to notice this solid effort, as Bridge Nine has just announced that the Midwest hardcore band will release their debut full-length for the label in 2012. While we wait, B9 isn’t wasting time in merchandising the moment, and already have an Expire t-shirt for sale. I presume it will be available when they hit Europe with labelmates Foundation later this month. (Dates below.)

Still, if I may be permitted to abuse a tired phrase, when one door closes, another opens. 6131 has just announced a new signing of its own: The Beautiful Ones. No word whether or not these guys are big Prince fans, but their 2011 demo–which you can listen to for free, fool–contains no trace of Paisley Park funk. Fans of Cruel Hand and Trapped Under Ice should take notice, because this is definitely in that wheelhouse. Expect their debut EP in “early 2012″ according to the 6131 blog.

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We invited Rumpelstiltskin Grinder to play our first annual Metal Suckfest in NYC in November but unfortunately the PA criminal thrash kings had to decline because bassist/vocalist Shawn Riley had other touring commitments. Turns out those “other touring commitments” are with most excellent black metallers Woe — who are playing our official Suckfest “Pre-Game” with Mayhem on Thursday, November 3rd — so the news that RsG couldn’t make it was bittersweet. But man, Rumpelfuckingstiltskin Grinder! ‘Twould’ve been an honor to have them at our fest.

I’m cranking 2009′s Living For Death, Destroying the Rest as I write this, and this album without a doubt thrases just as furiously as it did when it came out and I named it one of my favorite records of the year. Riffs for miles and miles and miles! So it is with great excitement that I tell you this, via a press release: Rumpelstiltskin Grinder are working on a new record that will tentatively come out in Spring 2012. Comments guitarist Matt Moore (also of Absu fame):

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If there’s anything we love here at MetalSucks (in addition to weed, of course) it’s saying “I told you so.” So it’s with pure joy that our latest opportunity to gloat comes in the form of Dallas, TX prog metal outfit White Arms of Athena, who we first featured in June of 2009 (and have featured many times since): congrats to the fine dudes in White Arms of Athena for their new deal with Prosthetic Records!

The band’s first release on Prosthetic will be a re-issue of Astrodama, which the band self-released last year. MS readers who were around when we premiered one of the album’s tracks will have to wait a little longer to hear new material, but we’re guessing that for the majority of the world this will be metalheads’ first exposure to the band. Expect to hear a lot more about these guys in the coming months, first with the re-release of Astrodrama on August 16th and then in the form of the endless round of touring that is sure to follow.

Take a listen to a couple of Astrodrama’s tracks here, then let us know what you think of the proggy, spaced-out goodness below in the comments. You can pre-order Astrodrama here for only ten10 bones.

-VN

We featured Swedish djent outfit Vildhjarta in an “Unsigned and Unholy” column just this past January, but guess what? The term don’t apply to them no’ mo’, ’cause they just signed a deal with Century Media. There’s no word on when the label will release an album or anything like that, but here’s an excerpt from the press release that I found pretty amusing:

The band had this to say in regards to the singing:

“THALL”

So I guess we should all start getting ready for at least a year of jokes based around the word “THALL,” ‘ever the fuck that means.

If you’re not familiar with the band you should get familiar with them, ’cause they’re really good. You can check out the above YouTube clip, of course, or just go here and download some shit for free. (Don’t worry, it’s legal.)

-AR

I am a big fan of leading independent music retailer VICTORY RECORDS. Back in the 90s, they gave us unfuckwithable classics of hardcore from bands like Earth Crisis, Bloodlet and One Life Crew, but they didn’t stop there! These days, they conduct themselves pretty much exactly like if someone gave me unlimited funds and told me to start a record label with the express purpose of trolling the fuck out of hardcore/metal fans.

For example, their latest signing makes Emmure and These Hearts look like heroes of the underground by comparison: Corpus Christi’s own DESIGN THE SKYLINE, who are partying like it’s 2008! As someone who misses the days when MySpace was still relevant, you couldn’t wear enough neon, and it was all about being scene as fuck, I am stoked to see this band join the Victory family, although I have to admit that it’s more than a little lulzy.

Cliffs:

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Something I need to keep reminding myself: every generic shit band that sells a fuckton of records enables their record label to take risks on way more creative, fulfilling, interesting and inevitably far less commercially successful artists. It’s a sad fact, but thems the breaks: shitty commercially successful metal bands for teeny boppers generate tons of money, and without that money we’d see a lot less of the good stuff coming down the pike. For every Vampires Everywhere there’s a Nachtmystium, for every System Divide there’s The Ocean, for every Nickelback there’s an Opeth, for every <insert Victory band here> there’s a Jungle Rot… and for every Asking Alexandria there’s a Francesco Artusato and Evan Brewer.

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Despite what Sergeant D thinks, I like Jungle Rot. Standard, groove-laden old-school DM, plenty of bounce, plenty of riffs… wallowing on the verge of obscurity and in the shadow of Cannibal Corpse since their inception in 1994.

So how does a death metal band that’s been around nearly two decades, released 7 studio albums, 5 EPs and 1 DVD go from a bunch of relatively small labels — the biggest of which was Napalm Records — to signing with leading independent record label VICTORY RECORDS in 2011? I have no fucking idea.

The only explanation I can think of is that Victory is doing really well with new-death bands like Wretched and Within the Ruins and thinks they can stuff more of the same down pizza-vomit-shirt-wearing DM kids’ throats. Will they buy it? Hard to say considering Jungle Rot are a bunch of olds that have nothing to do with “scene,” but it certainly could fly. If you’re Jungle Rot, I’d hope that at the very least you’re collecting a sweet advance and that Victory paid 100% of it up front, ’cause good luck collecting on that shit if this record doesn’t recoup.

Jungle Rot’s new album Kill On Command will come out in June… on Victory. After the jump, the music video for “Worst Case Scenario” which premiered on MS in April of 2010.

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So Lambgoat tells me that Prosthetic Records’ latest sign is a band from Chicago, Black September. And trying to be a dutiful blogger, I’m listening this band for the first time now, and while their brand of black metal is nothing you haven’t heard before, it’s also pretty good stuff — nice riffage, appropriately vitriolic vocals, some songwriting chops… I could imagine this band being really fun live, too.

All of that being said, I really, really wish this band didn’t have the same moniker as the Palestinian terrorist group that kidnapped and murdered eleven Israeli athletes in addition to a West German police officer at the ’72 Munich Summer Olympics.

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Metal Blade’s latest sign is a band called Intensus, and by “band” I mean “one man project” — the man being  Eli Litwin, drummer of Knife the Glitter, Burden, Normal Love, and some other bands with whom I’m not really familiar (although I know that Gary Suarez is a KTG fan). The only piece of Intensus music I’ve been able to locate thus far is the above track, “Time Killer Shitter,” which features vocals by Jesse Korman from The Number Twelve Looks Like You — and it doesn’t really do that much for me. I mean, it’s fine, but if not for the pedigree, I don’t know that I’d ever have given it a second listen. (There are some other tracks that are allegedly available on Intensus’ MySpace page, but I can’t get the player to work!)

But I still think this album is, at the very least, going to be worth your attention, for the following reasons: a) Litwin has recruited some awesome guest vocalists, including Between the Buried and Me’s Tommy Rogers, A Life Once Lost’s Robbert Meadows, and East of the Wall’s Chris Alfano, to appear on the album, and b) even though process shouldn’t really be considered when evaluating a piece of art, the process for the creation of this particular record, as explained in the press release announcing the signing, sounds pretty cool:

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So remember last year, when I reviewed this really good album called Orogeny that this really good band from Alaska called Turbid North had released all by themselves? Well, that band won’t hafta self-release their shit no more: Unearth front man Trevor Phipps has signed the band to his Ironclad Recordings label, and Orogeny is getting a re-release “in mid to late June,” according to a press release.

Here’s Phipps on how this all came to pass:

“We got their self released disc a few months ago and it is in constant rotation here at Ironclad. With only a few copies released we wanted to broaden the exposure of the band and this phenomenal album.”

So if you had a hard time finding Orogeny before, hopefully, that’s about to change. This is a really, really aardvark-impaling record, so I’m glad these dudes will now be exposed to a wider audience.

Here’s the band’s video for the song “Between the Glacier and the Sea.” It’s not the greatest video ever made, but it will give you a sense of how hard these dudes impale aardvarks.

-AR