The older I get the last attached I become to material possessions. It all started when I moved three years ago and had the epiphany that lugging multiple gigantic boxes of CDs around with me for life was pointless when I could enjoy all that music just the same on one device the size of a small book. Since then, getting rid of shit has become something of an obsession; it’s gotten to the point where I’m actively and constantly trying to get rid of all but the stuff I really need in my day-to-day life. Only problem is that I’m way too sentimental and can’t bare to part with certain items (like the signed Brian Schneider baseball that’s sitting on my desk! wtf do I need this thing for?). But I’m getting there, slowly and surely.

Back in my less curmudgeonly days I surely would’ve drooled all over my keyboard at the news of the above Ziltoid puppet, available through Devin Townsend’s UK webshop. I admit, it IS pretty fucking cool, so while I don’t feel like I need yet another item that’ll sit on a shelf collecting dust that won’t stop me from buying it as a gift for a fellow DT lover and item collector. If you’re a girl, maybe this would make a great holiday gift for your metalhead guy; imagine all the sexy-time role play fun you can have with this! Actually… yuck.

-VN

[via Heavy Blog]

Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From a Memory stands as Dream Theater’s best album, the crowning accomplishment of a lengthy career that itself is quite the crowning accomplishment. It’s rare that a band’s 5th album — or 4th, or 3rd, or 6th — is the one that’s almost universally considered their best (“I only ever really liked their FIRST album, brah!”), but amongst Dream Theater fans the opinion is nearly unanimous: Scenes From a Memory was (and still is) beyond incredible. I know it, you know, the band members themselves know it.

So it’s fitting that Dream Thater has decided to reissue Scenes as a 2x LP gatefold 180 gram vinyl set. Bonerz!

Click to read more…

Some will say that it’s hypocritical of me to make fun of Bret Michaels for launching Pets Rock, a line of “rock and roll pet gear” that will be sold exclusively at Pet Smart stores starting next summer, even though I love Ben Weinman’s Garmutt apparel for dogs. But I assert that there are three key differences between the two companies, besides the fact that, y’know, Weinman is brilliant and Michaels is not so much brilliant. And those differences are as follows:

1. Like I said, Michaels’ products will be sold exclusively at Pet Smart; Garmutt only sells to “independent brick-and-mortar retailers… [not] big-box pet chains.” Point: Garmutt.
2. The name “Garmutt” is witty. The name “Pets Rock” clearly took all of two seconds for some schmoe to think up. I haven’t seen the Pets Rock products yet, but I’d wager we’ll be able to say the same about those items, too; Garmutt is famous for their “Master of Puppies” dog hoodies, but I bet the best thing Michaels’ team will come up will be something about cats and pussies. Point: Garmutt.
3. Weinman is a known animal lover who has done work for PETA. Michaels, meanwhile, has been mercilessly slaughtering golden retriever puppies for years in order to continue manufacturing his wigs. Dude wasn’t even nice to the dogs he slept with on Rock of Love. Point: Garmutt.

I defy you to argue against my logic. It simply cannot be done.

-AR

[via Noisecreep]

I frequent Tumblr every once in a while for the usual dose of cute cat antics and half-naked men. Occasionally, a hot metal (female) babe pops up on my feed. This in and of itself is not so surprising, since I actually follow Metal Babes. I have a delightful friend who is often posted there. Pictures on the Internet never stay contained though, and one particular image of her got passed around and garnered many, many notes. Mostly because she’s a pretty girl wearing a Lamb of God shirt, which automatically means she doesn’t really like the band, she’s just doing it for fashion.

Well, that’s just silly. Why would a pretty girl work to impress the most socially awkward of music fans? Yeah, stereotypes work both ways. However, it is kind of apparent that metal has become a fashion statement, and according to a recent piece on Metal Army, a really popular one.

Click to read more…

I was bored and clicking around on the Internet like you do, when I discovered two things on the Crashdiet site. First of all, I realized what their merch mascot reminds me of. I love you, Crashdiet and your extremely marketable new singer, but, um, you’re sort of ripping off The Casualties.

To be fair, every other punk band has done it too (The Exploited, Bad Religion, etc.,) but to be even fairer, you’re not punk.

Click to read more…

Slayer now sell condoms in their webstore — “For when you’re going South of Heaven.” Seriously.

They come in packs of three or six; a three pack of Durex condoms with no Slayer logo on it will run you about two bucks, so, of course, a three pack of Durex condoms with a Slayer logo will cost you about thirteen bucks. Makes sense. Like charging twice as much for Monopoly because Metallica’s logo is on it.

And it’s worth noting that, unlike Kiss Kondoms, the band’s logo/likeness/whatever isn’t on the condom itself — so you’re literally paying more than six times what the things usually go for just to have the band’s emblem on the package you’re going to open (very likely in the dark, where you can’t see it too well anyway) and then discard.

So. Fucking. Lame.

-AR

[Via Metal Insider, who came up with a pretty joke about menstruation, too!]

You thought that Sergeant D.’s line of Burzum clothing was all some bullshit joke? Well think again: the Sarge himself e-mailed us this photo he found on Tumblr of a nice young lady making her daddy proud by modeling this Burzum skirt. And the pic is already a million times better than any Burzum album (although we hear that the skirt, too, hates Jews).

Hopefully her next pics will feature her modeling the Burzum yoga pants or, better still, the Burzum thong.

-AR

…there’s now a Kiss urn, too.

And I can’t decide if I think this is more or less offensive than the Kiss Koffin. On the one hand, spending any extra amount of money to have anything put on a box which is literally going to be placed in the ground never to be seen again strikes me as an incredible waste of resources. On the other hand, at least if you’re buried in a Kiss Koffin, your family won’t have to actually look at Kiss all the time. I mean, do you seriously want your loved ones forever associating your memory with Chaim Witz and Stanley Eisen? What are you, from the Bronx in 1963?

If you really, really hate poor people and starving children and cancer research, you can purchase one of these bad boys here for a mere $650. Or you can just e-mail me and I’ll draw a picture of Kiss on a shoebox and mail it to you for sixty-five cents.

-AR

AC/DC and Metallica are similar in a lot of ways: their creative heyday is behind them, for example, and they, too, have a massive fan base with enough stupid people who will buy anything with their logo on it to ensure that they will never go hungry.

But AC/DC are also different from Metallica in a lot of ways: they don’t ever come across as total dicks, for example, and their live shows are not embarrassing. In fact, AC/DC live is still an awesome experience that every man, woman, and child should experience at least once before they die.

And so: AC/DC, like Metallica, have now released their own version of the classic board game Monopoly, which, like Metallica’s version of the game, is really not at all different from the original Monopoly, save for the pieces are a little different, the names of the properties players need to collect are a little different, and the game is more expensive.

Unlike Metallica, though, AC/DC are only charging about fifty percent more than the “classic” edition’s price for their version of the game, whereas Metallica are charging roughly one-hundred percent more. Unless you want a special edition which comes with a DVD and a t-shirt, but when you toss those items in, the new price actually seems kinda reasonable.

You can order regular AC/DC Monopoly here, or the special edition here. Although, really, don’t order it. Children are starving, y’know?

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

The Metallica-themed edition of the board game Monopoly costs more than twice as much as “classic” Monopoly, but the extra cash is totes worth it, ’cause the game comes with pieces that are vaguely related to Metallica, and all the real state has now been named after the band’s songs! Still, some people were bound to purchase it, because some people will buy anything with their favorite band’s logo on it.

And, indeed, some Venezuelan guy ordered a copy, and was even so helpful as to make a video of himself opening the box for the very first time. Y’know, so the rest of us could see how he wasted his money. In fact, just to make things extra-exciting, he set the video to Death Magnetic‘s “Suicide & Redemption,” I assume because it took him ten minutes to open the toy, he needed an track of appropriate length, and he has either never heard “To Live is to Die,” or doesn’t know how to use basic video editing software.

In any case, if you’re bored, this happened. And if you’re stupid, you can order your own copy of Metopoly here.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

You guys have been e-mailing us all week about Pop Chart Labs’ “Periodic Table of Heavy Metals,” so I’m basically writing about it to make the e-mails stop. It’s a funny idea, but the execution doesn’t do much for me, and I don’t what the fuck Grand Funk Railroad are doing on here. I mean, why don’t they just give Jethro Tull a Grammy for Best Metal Performance?

Click on the image below to see it big big big, or order one here.

-AR

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

By now you know that our latest Decibel tee pays direct homage to Chuck Schuldiner’s unfuckwithable Death. Here are a few words with the shirt’s designer, gnarly underground visual artist Aye Jay .

What inspired you to pitch a Death-themed Decibel shirt?

My friend Aaron Horkey — who is much more of a metal authority and much better artist — got me reading the mag, so I was inspired to get into contact. I’ve done a series of comedy-meets-metal/punk T-shirts with Shirts and Destroy (think Larry David + Motörhead = Larrydavhead), so when I started talking to Decibel, it only seemed natural to make a shirt along those same lines, especially since the letters are so similar between the two. Also, I thought it would be funny to have the reaper reading the mag, ’cause what is he really gonna read in his downtime? Rolling Stone?

What is it about the Death logo that makes it iconic so many years after the fact?

Much like the band, the logo is timeless, raw and knocks the brain around a bit. My only regret is not getting the spider webs from the older version of the logo in there.

Click to read more…

SUP BROS! When I’m not writing for Metal Sucks, I keep busy with updating my “regular” blog Stuff You Will Hate. It’s not much, but I am stoked to announce that SYWH t-shirts are now available!!

Printed in super-soft discharge inks on a grey ringspun tee, these shirts are an all-star collaboration: art is by Michael Shantz of GRIMJOB and IT’S ALIVE, who you may also know as the former designer behind Drop Dead (the clothing branded owned by Bring Me The Horizon singer Oli Sykes), and they’re printed by our bro Sean Ingram of 90s hardcore legends COALESCE at his shop, Blue Collar Press.

CLICK HERE to order a shirt, and if you’re in a band or work for a label, make sure you hit up Shantz for art and Blue Collar Press for merch!

-Sergeant D.

What Amazon tells me is called Monopoly — The Classic Edition looks just like what we knew as plain old Monopoly when I was a kid, which makes me feel fucking old. Meanwhile, the current version of plain old Monopoly advertises the inclusion of “speed die” so you can “play faster!” Because that’s why Monopoly games always take so long to finish — the die just aren’t aerodynamic enough.

For fuck’s sake.

ANYWAY, the previously-announced edition of Monopoly centering around Metallica, the band of the proletariat, has been released. And I know it’s immodest of me to pat myself on the back, but I totally called it: Metalopy costs forty-three bucks before tax or shipping, which is more than twice as much as the nineteen bucks you’d pay for “classic” (FUCK YOU, PARKER BROS.) Monopoly. And what does one get for the privilege of shelling out that extra cash? Again, it didn’t take a psychic to see this shit coming:

Click to read more…

When I was a kid, Monopoly was always known as “That game we’ll never have time to finish.” Like, if we needed something to do, we might see what board games we had (Do kids even still play board games? I know that’s a ridiculous question, but, seriously… do they?), and someone would be like “Monopoly?”, and everyone else would be all “It takes too long, we’ll never finish it!” The result is that the game actually almost never got played. Everyone owned it, but it only got broken out like once in a blue moon. What a colossal waste of money.

And now it will be a waste of money that is even more colossalier: Metallica have announced on Facebook that they’re going to be releasing their own edition of the game next week on their webstore. Because nothing is more metal than buying and selling real estate. (Except for maybe zoning issues.)

Click to read more…

And you thought Devin Townsend selling his old spatula on eBay was weird.

Perhaps inspired by the popularity of our recent Amon Amarth Viking Beard contest, in which we actually gave away some of AA vocalist Johan Hegg’s beard, Tim Millar, guitarist for perennial MetalSucks faves Protest the Hero, is selling his nineteen-month old beard on eBay to help raise money for the Walk for MS (that’s Multiple Sclerosis, not MetalSucks, in case you’re a little slow). That’s a pretty funny/awesome idea to help a good cause, and just as funny are the details of the selling page — Millar’s eBay handle makes reference to another MetalSucks favorite, Sikth, and then there’s this…

…which is also obviously hilarious.

ANYWAY you can bid on the beard hair here — as of this writing, there haven’t been any bids yet, but I imagine that will soon change. You can also visit the homepage of the Walk for MS team Millar founded, Beard Team Canada, to make donations, check out photos, and, according to a press release, get “the play-by-play of the delicate procedure to remove his beard and, of course, a final glimpse of his newly-shaven visage.”

-AR

Thanks: Carlos B.

I was having drinks with a friend earlier this week when, during the course the conversation, we came to two particular conclusions about underwear:

• Metal fans wear an awful lot of black. Therefore, it would follow that most people at a metal show are wearing black underwear.
• Many people have underwear for special occasions. Therefore, it would follow that many people at a metal show might have special black underwear they save just for concerts.

Of course, we had no way of confirming either theory — I mean, it’s not like we can just walk into a Deicide show and start asking people to take off their pants (Well I guess we could, but it would probably be ill-advised). And we were bemoaning this inability to collect scientific data when it suddenly dawned on me — Oh, yeah! I co-own an entire blog about heavy metal. We can totally collect some scientific data on this.

So we’d like to hear from you, oh ye MetalSucks faithful. Do you actually wear black underwear to metal shows? Do you have special underwear just for metal shows? Do you really not give a shit? Can you believe this is a post on MetalSucks?

Thank you for your cooperation.

-AR

What’s up with these black metal dudes turning out to be all refined n’ shit? First Gaahl launched a high-end clothing line for women, and now Satyr (né Sigurd Wong Raven) is apparently collaborating with Italian winemaker Luca Roagna on two variets of red wine, Rosso di Alleanza Nero Wong Raven 2009 and Unione di Nero Wong Raven 2006.

Says Swedish website From Beyond (excuse Google translator’s less-than-poetic interpretation of the original text):

“Black Metal Wine, now how can such a concoction taste? Blood and sulfur with the taste of metal and may, or may simply be the taste of sickness and musty decay you get on your tongue? This seemed so obviously important to sort out so I took home and ordered a bottle of Rosso di Alleanza Nero Wongraven2009 . What I can spontaneously say is that you, hoping that the wine would taste like hell will be disappointed.”

Then the guy goes on talk about the wine in greater detail, but I don’t actually know that much about wine so whatever.

The article does not include details on where one can order Satyr’s latest offering, but I’m sure enterprising fans can figure it out.

-AR

Thanks: Mick Stingley

Metal Blade is now accepting pre-orders for the new Unearth album, Darkness in the Light. And, as is de rigeur these days, those pre-orders are available in a variety of attractive packages — although, clearly, one is more attractive than the others: the one that comes with a beer bong. That has to be the best piece of merch I’ve seen in some time… and it’s certainly band appropriate, too. I wish it said something funnier on it than just the title of the record, but I’m willing to let that slide because, well, more bands need to seriously consider making beer bongs. Beer bongs should be the new patches.

And — oh yeah, lest we forget! — the band has also released the first single from this latest offering. It’s called “Eyes of Black,” and you can stream it below. (Hmmm… “Black”… “Darkness”… I’m sensing a theme here.) The band hasn’t changed their sound very much, but when you sound like Unearth that’s really not a bad thing. I’m especially fond of the groovy, Pantera-esque section that starts around the 2:03 mark

Darkness in the Light comes out July 5 on Metal Blade.

-AR

In an apparent effort to weed out his most King of Comedy-fucknuts fan (Hey, it’s actually not me!), Devin Townsend is selling his old spatula on eBay.

As of this writing, bidding on this most prized of kitchen utensils is up to a hundred bucks. That’s a hundred bucks for a used, burned spatula. About ninety-five dollars more than anyone would ever pay for a new spatula. Just because Devin Townsend, like, touched it.

Click to read more…