PA black metallers Woe — who are playing the official “Pre-Game” of the Metal Suckfest on November 3rd along with Mayhem, Keep of Kalessin, Hate and Abigail Williams — released Quietly, Undramatically via Candlelight Records roughly a year ago. We like this band a lot: we premiered a track from that record and Sammy O’Hagar gave it a four-out-of-five horns rating in his official review of the record.

Now Woe have gone and released a new version of Quietly, Undramatically that’s been entirely remixed. I didn’t have any problem with the way the record sounded to begin with, but I gotta admit, this new one sounds way better.

Click to read more…

Look, let’s not kid ourselves. There is good pop music being made, and a new totally generic, soundalike metal band seems to form every hour. So we can’t really sit atop our high horse and scream “METAL IS SUPERIOR TO POP MUSIC!” because while we may ultimately enjoy metal more than pop, there is an undeniable amount of garbage being produced by both genres.

That being said…

This video, by The Axis of Awesome, is, indeed, awesome. It explains, in a very plain and easy to understand way,why so much pop music seems generic. And even though, as I was saying, the same rule applies to plenty of metal, well… you can still probably use it as a retort the next time your idiot friend/parent/teacher/whatever smack talks metal while extolling the virtues of total crap.

-AR

Thanks: Jonathan Votypka

I realize that videos like this do nothing but give more ammo to those who say shredders are a dime a dozen, but still, I can’t help but be ridiculously impressed by this kid’s skills. Maybe one day he’ll put them to greater use by writing his own compositions and changing metal for the better like Tosin Abasi has done. You gotta start somewhere.

-VN

Thanks: Matias 

MetalSucks Maniac King Cheezit sent us the below video of the EOL Robot Band (whomever/whatever that is) covering Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People,” and while I’m aware that this is not the hardest song to play (King Cheezit takes the video as “proof that nu metal bands aren’t good enough to play their own instruments”), this still makes me anxious. I mean, it really is only a matter of time until my computer is blogging on me.

-AR

When Axl and I were kids we would get together with our friends for WWF slumber parties in which the main event was Wrestlemania or Summer Slam on Pay-Per-View, and damn, do you remember how EXPENSIVE those things seemed when you had to pool together months’ worth of allowance for just one broadcast?? Highway robbery. Several pillow fights in which we dressed up as our favorite wrestlers (no homo) and a few bowls of popcorn later we’d always tape the event as we watched it, and in the ensuing weeks one of our favorite things to do was re-watch body slams, pile drivers and various wrestlers’ signature moves using the groundbreaking Slo-Mo technology on our brand new VCR. Watching those brutal combos in choppy frame-by-frame slow motion provided endless hours of entertaintment!

Slo-Mo has sure come a long way since then; HD broadcasts of sports events regularly show crystal clear slow motion replays, and now a company called Ultraslo has a “high-speed” / slo-mo camera that can shoot at a whopping 3,000 frames for second. To demo their new product, Ultraslo put together a video of a snare hit in ultra-slo-mo (3,000 fps) and another of a cymbal hit at almost-ultra-slo-mo (1,000 fps) and, uh… WOW. That’s all I can muster. The snare hit is cool and all, but the cymbal hit might be more impressive despite being shot at slower rate.

Be sure to thank Metal Injection for digging these clips up.

-VN

No disrespect to our pal Anso DF — I mean the guy’s a ridiculously studly writer and has darn near impeccable music taste, amirite? — but a new Van Halen album is hardly worth getting excited about. I mean, ok, maybe I’ll pop a little semi-stiffy, but if the facts that Fatty Ding Dongs Van Halen is friends with a member of Creed and David Lee Roth hasn’t even stepped foot in the studio doesn’t have “trouble” written all over it, then EVH also isn’t completely delusional and oh yeah, that tongue cancer was definitely caused by that metal guitar pick you use and had nothing whatsoever to do with smoking more cigarettes in an hour than a casino full of raggedy old ladies at slot machines smokes in a day. Still, ya know, I’m curiously optimistic; maybe there’ll be some sick solos.

Even if Van Halen’s 2k11 record does blow donkey balls, thankfully we’ve got Dann Halen to rock us into 2k12. The Texas-based VH cover band features Mike “Lonestar” Carrigan (Darkest Hour) on guitar, James Love (ex-Dillinger Escape Plan) on drums, Dann Miller (The Jonbenet) on screeches and leg kids, “and a couple other buddies doin it hard,” according to Sir Lonestar himself, who sent us the above video. What I love about this video — aside from the EVH-model guitar, Jack Daniels bass and HOLY SHIT NICE STARS AND STRIPES LEOTARD, DUDE! — is that Lonestar clearly did not have to learn much, if any of the guitar parts specifically for this gig; it’s clear he grew up on the stuff and knows it front to back. Because fuckin’ EDDIE VAN HALEN, mannnnnn! He’s the best metal guitar player of all time that no one ever talks about anymore.

-VN

[UPDATE: Apparently Axl already posted the shred vid while I was away. Oops! Still, check out the new studio video after the jump (and watch the shred vid again if you so please). -Ed.]

In case you still think we’re loony for choosing Revocation’s Dave Davidson as #1 on our Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists list, this video of Davidson and fellow Revocation axe-slinger Dan Gargiulo shredding it up in the Jackson Guitars showroom in California should do wonders to help the cause. The MS reader whose sexy initials are actually J.A.M. also points out that it’s a great compliment to the Rigged features both Davidson and Gargiulo wrote for MetalSucks, as both dudes are playing the gear they highlighted here.

Dudes can play, amirite? It’s interesting to see that Gargiulo and Davidson split up the solo in “Cradle Robber;” watch out Dave, maybe next year Dan’ll steal your coveted #1 MS throne.

Meanwhile Revocation have released the third studio video from the sessions of their new record Chaos of Forms, which comes out August 16th on Relapse (pre-order here). Having finally gotten a chance to listen to that record in full upon returning from my trip to Alaska… HO. LEE. SHIT! Stream the tracks “Cradle Robber” and “No Funeral” at Revocation’s Facebook page to see what I’m talking about.

Watch that third studio vid after the jump. In one final dose of Revocation-related news, check out three new demo tracks by experimental metallers Artificial Brain, featuring Dan Gargiulo, at their Bandcamp page. Good stuff, if not all that Revocation-y.

Click to read more…

A few weeks ago, Vince wrote about iCloud, Apple’s new cloud stream platform that will allow email, contacts, calendars and, of course, music to be synched wirelessly and effortlessly across up to ten different devices. Shortly thereafter, we got the following e-mail from reader Carlos B.:

“The iCloud article comments made me wonder, how much music (legal, illegal, etc) do people own?
Like, how many songs do people (specific: metalheads) have on their computers/mp3/ipod?
I thought a reader poll would be interesting about this.
I have friends that have ONLY 99 songs on their iTunes (Slayer, Atreyu, A7x, SOAD and nothing more. Not even their complete discographies or whatever).
But I have some friends that have around 10K songs on their iTunes.”

Which is a good question!

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A reader calling himself “J.A.M.” sent us the below video, the #1 Top Modern Metal Guitarist, Revocation’s Dave Davidson, and the not-rated-but-still-totally-wicked Dan Gargiulo, also of Revocation, stopping by the Jackson Showroom recently. And… they basically just play some Revocation tunes and discuss their guitars, but a) it makes a nice companion piece to the “Rigged” gear columns they recently wrote for us (read Dave’s here and Dan’s here), and b) that’s like saying “I hung out with Michelangelo today, he basically just painted and told me about the brushes he uses.”

In other words, this is worth watching.

Revocation are currently wrapping-up their MetalSucks-sponsored tour with Forbidden, Havok, and White Wizzard, but if you live in Denver, Albuquerque, Tempe, or Escondido, you haven’t missed out on this great bill yet! Get remaining dates after the jump. And don’t forget that Revocation’s incredible new album, Chaos of Forms, comes out August 16 on Relapse.

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Anyone who plays an instrument has moments of thanking Jeebus for all of his/her appendages & extremities.  So often we take for granted the simple inherent nature of having all (or most) of our natural human body parts and functions, and it can be rather inspiring to witness someone overcoming the odds and making good out of an undeniably tough situation.

Enter John Denner, who was born without a right hand but designed a makeshift picking device that enabled him to learn how to play the guitar.  And dude didn’t just simply learn how to play — he legitimately shreds!  Case in point:

I mean…….WTF???  Hats off to Denner.

Visit his website here.

TV news story and clips from Denner’s instructional DVD after the jomp…

Click to read more…

Having some kind of string section cover Guns N’ Roses isn’t exactly a new idea, but I don’t believe it’s ever been done with this much geek love before. The group 2Cellos — which, in case the name somehow didn’t make it obvious, consists of two cellists, Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser — have not only did created their own interpretation of GN’R's classic anthem, “Welcome to the Jungle,” but they’ve made a video for that interpretation as well. And that video not only features headbanging, and not only features a section where one of the musicians uses his cello as a percussion instrument, but it also features what I believe is the first-ever mid-song cello swap. Of course, it’s totally fake, but, hey, I appreciate a little theatricality sometimes.

If This or the Apocalypse could figure out a way to have their two guitar players throw one another their instruments mid-song and then immediately continue to playing, I would never make fun of their choreographed stage moves ever again.

-AR

Additional reporting by Corey Mitchell

The demos for Metallica’s …And Justice for All have found their way online. I can’t imagine they have done so legally, so you best go download them right quick, before the Metallawyers have them yanked down.

I first discovered these demos via Invisible Oranges, where, as is so often the case, Cosmo Lee has made some pretty interesting observations. For example:

“What fascinates me the most about these demos is Hetfield’s incomplete lyrics. We get a peek at his work process: he comes up with vocal patterns before lyrics…. ‘Harvester of Sorrow’ has basically just its title words. But even though Hetfield hasn’t found ‘Harvester’’s words yet, he sings their placeholders with utter conviction. His language is literally infantile – ‘Wa-na-na-na-na-na’ – which, in a way, sounds even more enraged.”

Click to read more…

Metal drummers put off by our current Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists countdown, don’t be distraught; today we’ve got something just for you.

Just in time for the MS-sponsored 2011 version of Summer Slaughter, our hip-bro-potami over at Sick Drummer [via Got-Djent.com] have unveiled some multi-angle drum-cam footage from last year’s festival that will either inspire young metal drummers to better their craft through endless practice or immediately discourage them from ever picking up their sticks again. Don’t be discouraged, though; Navene Koperweis and Sam Applebaum are two of the best in the biz and got to where they are through years of hard work. Just because I can’t throw a knuckleball like R.A. Dickey doesn’t mean I’m gonna quit trying. OK, so maybe it does.

The clips feature a couple of songs each of Animals as Leaders’ and Veil of Maya’s sets. Watch AAL’s Koperweis below, and Veil of Maya’s Sam Applebaum after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDn7TnBqXhE

Click to read more…

I’m sure I don’t have to explain what a vocal exercise is to you fine folks, because while some of you are really dumb, I don’t think any of you are that dumb.

Okay, some of you might be that dumb. But I’m still not going to explain it. If you don’t know what vocal exercises are, stop reading this site immediately and go lie down in traffic. Or at least just Google it.

ANYWAY, I’m sure there are death metal vocalists who do warm-ups before performing and/or recording, but I would imagine they’re not like the ones that Deals Death vocalist Olle Ekman is doing in the video below. Although it would pretty funny to watch, say, Corpsegrinder do this before every Cannibal Corpse show.

I wish I enjoyed Deals Death’s music as much as I enjoyed this video.

-AR

Thanks to Charlie for the tip!

Not much else to say, other than that this rules and that I particularly dig their outside-the-box interpretation of the verses.

-VN

Thanks: Amelia Rupp

Yep: the awesome Last Chance to Reason, in keeping up with both the title of their Prosthetic debut, Level 2, and their general geekiness (“geekiness” in this instance intended as a constant), are releasing a video game in conjunction with the album — and are now giving away the first level of that game for free. Go here to download it.

I haven’t personally played yet, but based on the below video showing some game footage, this thing looks awesome as hell. It’s probably a little too sophisticated to be one of the old NES games we grew up and loved, but it does look like a classic Sega title, which is a close second.

Level 2 is out now on Prosthetic. You can stream the track “Programmed for Battle” right here on MetalSucks.

-AR

I love interviews with producers and mixers. They’re the dudes behind the scenes who are rarely talked about or given much credit but whose skills and personality are SO important to the sound of the records we love… and those we hate too. In January we got a “behind the scenes” video with Colin Marston, in February we got a Q&A session with Sanford Parker and today we get a Metal Injection interview with Jason Suecof, the man behind albums by Atheist, Death Angel, Born of Osiris, Chimaira, Trivium and 10 gajillion other bands whose records you own. Lucky for me, and for you, too, if you’re a production nerd like I am.

Suecof is a character, as anyone who’s watched behind-the-scenes bonus footage connected to records he’s worked on surely knows. In the above interview he talks about his differing approaches to producing and mixing, how he got his start, his dog “Stinky” (yes, really), the possibility of doing a new Crotchduster record, and more. This one’s for Dime, bra.

-VN

No guitar pedal is more well-known and widely used (or over-used if you’re Kirk Hammett) than the Cry Baby wah-wah. If you’ve got some time, dig into this new hour-long documentary on the Wah that started it all and its lasting effect on music, which our Brohemoths at Metal Injection posted over the weekend. Interviews with Eddie Van Halen, Jerry Cantrell, Slash, Kirk Hammett and Zakk Wylde should make it interesting for staunch metalheads while interviews with dozens of other guitar luminaries will delight your inner guitar-nerd.

Oh, what’s that? You’re not made of time? Make sure you at least watch the 2-minute intro sequence in which grown men do their best to vocally imitate the sound of the pedal. Because nothing says “metal” like a 65 year-old dude making funny noises with his mouth. Also, Eddie Van Halen officially sounds like he’s 153 years old.

After the jump, the official description of the documentary:

Click to read more…

Either you can be sour about the fact that this guy is a better musician than you by insisting that no one cares about some dude wanking on two basses at once, or you can just admit that this is awesome and enjoy it. I choose the later, because seriously… look at him go! That the resulting music is beautiful and actually appears to be a coherent song is the best part, though; I’d totally listen to a whole record of this. Metal Injection tells me I’ll get that chance when ex-Animosity / ex-Reflux bassist Evan Brewer, the man with two basses, releases his solo album -Alone- later this year. If it’s anything like what we hear above, I look forward to it.

-VN

You’ll probably never convince me that marching bands are cool, but I guess if you gotta be in one, you might as well play something awesome (as opposed to, like, Sousa or whatever). So I found this video of The George Mason University band, The Green Machine, rehearsing Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” to be pretty entertaining — not least of all because of how into it all the musicians seem to be. I mean, just keep watching that chick in the red shirt near the front — she is rocking out, yo!

I do have to wonder at what event the band is gonna play this though; would the rest of the student body be pissed if they sang “Those who died are justified/ For wearing the badge” at, like, homecoming or whatever?

-AR

[via Badass Digest]