Gus G.’s Firewind, one of the like three power metal(ish) bands that I actually like, are gonna release a new album later this year, Few Against Many. Which means they’ve now performed some new tracks live. Which means the performances of those tracks have been filmed on someone’s cell phone. Which means you can check them out right now.

I’ve heard some good early buzz about the currently-being-completed Few Against Many, and these songs certainly pique my interest. Check ‘em out and see what you think:

“Wall of Sound”

Click to read more…

I knew I got out of bed this morning for a reason!!!

Not only have Cannibal Corpse unveiled the typically-gross cover art for their new offering, Torture (by longtime Cannibal Collaborator Vincent Locke), but, more importantly, they’ve officially released the first single from the album, “Demented Aggression.” And, yes, it is fucking awesome, and a glorious illustration of why this band is still worth caring about: they’ve struck that perfect balance between the whole Slayer “Let’s never stray too far from our sound!” thing and the Metallica “But artistic evolution is important!” thing. They continue to improve as musicians and songwriters (seriously, I can’t believe I constantly have to stress this, but songwriting is so goddamn imporant!!!), but at no point does it seem to have occurred to them to, say, write a bunch of Godhead songs. Why can’t other bands pull this off?

Enjoy “Demented Aggression” below:

Cannibal Corpse “Demented Aggression” by Metal Blade Records

Torture was produced by Erik “I Am Incapable of Being Involved with Something Shitty” Rutan, and comes out March 13 via Metal Blade; there’s already a wide variety of attractive pre-order packages available here.

-AR

Nails and Skin Like Iron are releasing a split 7″ at the end of the month. Our resident hardcore expert, Gary Suarez, is reviewing the split for a future installment of the new “Inch Scraper” column, and while I haven’t read that review yet, I’m gonna predict that it’s most likely positive, since a) Skin Like Iron’s Arrival was one of Gary’s favorite hardcore releases of 2011, and b) I just listened to it and it’s freakin’ awesome.

So while you await that review, you can listen to it for your damn self, so you already know whether or not you’re going to leave Gary mean comments beneath his column. Our brahs at Decibel are streaming the split right now. The Skin Like Iron stuff is really straightforward, punky, high-energy, get-your-circle-pit-goin’ hardcore, while the Nails stuff is a little grittier and more metallic — but it’s all fantastic.

Mosh here, then let us know what you think in the comments section. The bands are self-releasing the 7″ in a limited run of 1,000 copies on January 31; you can pre-order one right here.

-AR

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…

Metal Hammer has debuted not one but TWO new Corrosion of Conformity songs, which you can check out via the below video. The songs, of course, will appear on the band’s new, self-titled album, which comes out next month, and is their first full-length with  Animosity line-up since, well, Animosity. In other words, expectations are pretty high.

So how’d the band do? I don’t find these tracks to be especially mind-blowing, but they are pretty good. In other words, C.O.C. have by no means embarrassed themselves, which is terrific!

Corrosion of Conformity comes out February 28 on Candlelight. Needless to say, the band is going to tour behind the release; get the dates here.

-AR

Sorry. There’s no pun to be made with the title of Beneath the Massacre’s new song, “Symptoms,” that isn’t dumb even by my standards. So I went with “search-engine friendly” instead.

ANYWAY, Beneath the Massacre are one of the rarities in the metal world — a good tech-deathcore band. And I know this song is cool, because I am really, really over it with tech-deathcore right now, and yet “Symptoms” still got my foot tappin’. Like, really tap-tap-tappin’. Like, I am now 100% more stoked to hear the rest of the band’s new EP, Incongruous, now. So crank this shit:

Incongruous comes out February 14 on Prosthetic.

-AR

[via Terrorizer]

Here’s a question some of you have probably asked yourselves: what would modern-day Intronaut sound like if they’d kept on steamrolling forward with the unabashed heaviness of their earliest material? The answer, which will make fans of Null/Void-era Intronaut happy, is “just like Loincloth.” Don’t get me wrong — I happen to love the ethereal, post rock-y turn that Intronaut have taken of late (in fact it’s my favorite Intronaut of all) — but Loincloth happen to scratch a certain itch that’s been festering for a while, even going the extra mile by baking their stoner-death pie with a heaping tablespoon of Gorguts-style tight, churning rhythms. All this from an album stream on Pitchfork, of all places; let’s get another “amen” for Brandon Stosuy for ballsily showing hipsters whose only definition of metal is post-ironic-blackened-experimental-whatever that highly technical metal can be cool, too.

Stream Loincloth’s appropriately named Iron Balls of Steel below. The album comes out on January 17th via Southern Lord.

-VN

Loincloth-IronBallsOfSteel by EARSPLIT

Speaking of hopefully-future Killswitch Engage vocalist Ben Robson: Indigestion Collaboration, his project with guitarists Luka Žnideršič and Matthijs van den Hoven (who, Robson tells me, “do most of the work”), have released a new song and video, “Constipated” (I guess they really like writing songs about poo.). It’s typically awesome, especially when you keep in mind that the trio collaborates despite the fact that they all live in different countries! Modern technology, man. Crazy shit.

Here’s the video for the song; you can also stream it or download it here.

-AR

The lo-fi, tasteless, silly, gross, adolescent fantasy that is the cover art for Terrorizer’s upcoming release, Hordes of Zombies, should make you feel all tingly in your no-no spots. It’s exactly the kind of cover art that would make me check out an album regardless of whether or not I already knew who the band were, just because oh fuck yes. It’s a reminder that death metal and grind are the genres that came along and looked at Derek Riggs’ work and said “Neat idea, but the execution is too pretty.” It’s just so… fucking… rad.

Better news still: the isn’t an album by some band I’ve never heard of! It’s an album by Terrorizer! And it is also fucking rad! It’s uncompromisingly ugly and blissfully unaware of any current metal trends. It’s not revolutionary, but it is DTRAP — down to rape and pillage*. It’s like Pete Sandoval’s giant flip of the bird of his sort-of-former bandmates in Morbid Angel, like he’s screaming at them, “How have you forgotten how to do this?!?” 

And now you can hear some of it! ‘Cause Decibel is streaming the track ”Subterfuge.”  If you don’t have fun listening to it, go find an open elevator shaft and fall down it.

Hordes of Zombies comes out February 28 via Season of Mist.

-AR

*Thanks to my friend Jon for teaching me this new variation of “DTF.” I think that it’s much funnier than “DTF,” especially when you actually spell out the last three letters, pronouncing it “D-T-Rap.” Tell your friends!

The wait is over: the new Van Halen single, “Tattoo,” is here, and it even has a music video. This is exciting, of course, because the new Van Halen album on which “Tattoo” will appear, A Different Kind of Truth, is the band’s first effort with David Lee Roth in twenty-eight years, so… yeah, there’s a lot of expectations to live up to.

And the band has acquitted themselves admirably — as a song, “Tattoo” might not blow your mind and make you jump up and down and squeal with joy, but it’s still really good, and does no shame to DLR-era VH’s legacy. Diamond Dave’s voice is in great shape, and that Eddie solo is top notch. I certainly dig “Tattoo” way more than I did either of the songs DLR recorded with the band back in ’96 (although Vince really likes those songs, so fuck do I know anyway?).

The video, on the other hand, is pretty lame. But I don’t think it really matters, given these specific circumstances.

A Different Kind of Truth comes out February 7 via Interscope; the band hits the road for a North American tour that same month. Get dates here.

-AR

The Devil’s Blood frontman Selim Lemouchi is making the most captivating music in the world right now, and accordingly, it was easy for he and I to talk about a million things in a phone interview earlier this month (coming soon to MetalSucks oh baby). But one topic that must wait til our next gab is how a Devil’s Blood record like The Thousandfold Epicentre is best experienced via totally focused listening — y’know, lock your doors and turn the lights down low, smoke one, fold hands over belt, and be carried away by ace music-makers. That kind of thing.

But if this is so it creates a clash with “marketing,” in which songs might debut around the “internet” in advance of the album’s release. For a discovery artist like The Devil’s Blood, it’s great business; but could this practice sap The Thousandfold Epicentre‘s songs of their massive cumulative and contextual impact? Or is it just whatever, we’re smart people who can process all this information out of sequence no biggie. Hmm.

While I wrangle with this riveting issue, you can rock Decibel Magazine’s stream of “Die The Death” from Epicentre really super loud and then pre-order the jam here.

-ADF

The Devil’s Blood’s sophomore album The Thousandfold Epicentre is out January 17 on Metal Blade.

I love Goatwhore because a) I love telling squares I make my living writing about bands with names like “Goatwhore,” and b) more importantly, they never seem to let us fans down. And their latest, Blood for the Master, is no exception — the Nawlins quartet has, once again, delivered a capital-”E” Evil album that is sure to fuel many a night of anti-social behavior and scare the living shit out of your neighbors.

The band has unveiled a new song from the album, “Collapse in Eternal Worth,” which you can stream below. I’m not even sure I understand what it means to collapse in eternal worth, but when the song is this good I don’t really care.

Goatwhore are going on tour with Hate Eternal — whose mastermind, Erik Rutan, produced Blood for the Master – starting next month. Get dates here.

Meanwhile, Blood for the Master comes out — when else? — on fucking VALENTINE’S DAY via Metal Blade. Buy it for someone you love.

-AR

When compelling hardcore act Ceremony left Bridge Nine for mega-indie Matador, many people wondered if that move signaled further changes in the band’s sound. (Upon their signing to the label, I pondered right here on this blog if hardcore wasn’t on destined to be the indie trend of 2012.) After all, 2010′s critically-acclaimed Rohnert Park didn’t adhere to any rigid genre templates and introduced the Californians to a whole new listenership. Last year, Matador labelmates Fucked Up–the imprint’s other hardcore act–put out a record that was nothing short of a rock opera, so clearly Ceremony had an opportunity to take their sound someplace very different.

Click to read more…

I haven’t spent as much time with Napalm Death’s latest, Utilitarian, as I need to in order to really discuss it intelligently, but I can say this — but the standards of one of grindcore’s oldest and most revered bands, it is downright melodic. That’s not to say it’s not a grind album or that everyone should shit their pants that ND are about to release their answer to Load or whatever, ’cause I don’t think they even have it in them to take such a colossal misstep. But, as Brooklyn Vegan puts it, the album has a lot of “odd twists and turns.” It’s a really interesting effort on Napalm Death’s part.

You can get something of a feel for what I mean by heading over to the aforementioned Brooklyn Vegan, who have just debuted a new song off of Utilitarian, “Leper Colony.” For the most part, it’s a pretty furious grind ditty, but the chorus has some kind of heave-ho-we’re-rowing-a-giant-viking-ship chanting thing going on that is… well, it’s different, that’s for sure.

Headbang here, then let us know what you think in the comments section below. Utilitarian comes out February 28 via Century.

-AR

Alcest’s new album, Les Voyages de L’Âme, comes out later this week — which, of course, means it is now streaming in full. And, better yet, it’s streaming via YouTube — which might seem like an odd concept, except it’s actually kinda brilliant, ’cause it means that pretty much any website anywhere (like this one you’re reading now) can embed it, and the stream can spread like a virus. A gorgeous, soothing, French virus, sure, but a virus nonetheless.

So stream Les Voyages de L’Âme below (first track is directly beneath this text, and the rest is after the jump). It comes out January 6 via Prophecy productions.

Click to read more…

There’s no sense in attempting to intellectualize why I like Shinedown so much. I just do, ya hear? I don’t know if there’s anything inherently better or smatter about Shinedown as compared to contemporaries Theory of a Deadsuck, Nickelsuck, Suckd and Suckturbed (even though I like to think there is), but Shinedown’s songs have just always had their way with me. They’re, like, really catchy and stuff. So there’s nothing guilty about my pleasure of reveling in the new song “Bully” by the best radio hard rock band in existence. Sure, the lyrics (as highlighted in the lyric video above) seem a bit juvenile coming from dudes well into their 30s, but at the least the message is positive instead of the endless whining and self-hatred peddled by other bands, and at least it doesn’t lean on a religious crutch for support.

“Bully” is available from iTunes and comes from the new album Amaryllis, out March 27th on Atlantic Records. Hopefully it’s as good all the way through as The Sound of Madness.

Eluveitie have released a new song, “A Rose for Epona,” which you can check out below. I usually like Eluveitie, but this lil’ ditty ain’t doing much for me — I feel weird saying this, and I’m sure the band’s most hardcore supporters will all have fucking aneurysm for me daring to suggest such a thing, but between the drum loops and the guitar tone and the fact that Chrigel Glanzmann’s vocals are almost entirely absent from the song in favor of Anna Murphy taking the lead, the first band the tune reminded me of was Evanescence. And then every now and then there’s some flute to remind you that, oh yeah, this is a pagan metal band. It just seems, I dunno, weird.

But maybe you’ll like it more?

“A Rose for Epona” comes off of Eluveitie’s new album, Helvetios, which Nuclear Blast will release on February 10 in Europe and February 28 in North America.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

We expected a lot from the various members of SiKth after they split up for good in 2008. All we’ve really gotten to date was a decent but ultimately “wow factor”-lacking record from Pin’s Aliases last year, a project that kinda sounded like SiKth gone djent (ironic given the fact that SiKth unwittingly played a hand in inspiring the entire djent movement). We’ve been hearing reports that ex-SiKth vocalist Mikee Goodman had been working with Iron Maiden guitar vet Adrian Smith since August of 2010 with nothing to show for it… until now. And, kinda surprisingly, the first song they’ve released is absolutely GREAT. And it sounds nothing like SikTh whatsoever. Here’s “I See Lights” from the new project, whose moniker — Primal Rock Rebellion — is so unfortunate I almost considered not mentioning it at all:

I See Lights by PrimalRockRebellion

Sweet, right? Totally different than what you were expecting, right?

Add it to the list of potentially exciting albums on the block for release in early 2012. Primal Rock Rebellion comes out on February 27 via Spinefarm Records.

-VN

I’ve never been a Still Remains fan. I think Vince dug at least one of their albums, but I can’t seem to find a post confirming this. And while we reported on their break-up in 2008, we never reported that they were getting back together, which I guess is an indication of the level of enthusiasm the MetalSucks staff felt for the reunion.

ANYWAY, now the band has release a new song, “Reading Lips,” which, uh… yep, sure does sound like Still Remains. If you’ve been longing for early 21st century-style metalcore, you are gonna be so happy with this tune your genitals might explode.

Still Remains – Reading Lips by Still Remains

Presumably this means there’s a new Still Remains album coming out this year, but I don’t have details on that right now. If any of you do, please feel free to e-mail them to someone who is not me.

-AR

So it looks like Chimaira kept pretty busy while we were away.

First: as announced in November, last week’s twelfth annual Chimaira Christmas marked the band’s final performance with guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries. And, unfortunately, DeVries’ parting gift to vocalist Mark Hunter – who is now the band’s sole remaining original member — was to knock him over in the middle of “The Age of Hell,” resulting in Hunter taking a nasty spill and spraining his ankle. You can watch video of the incident below courtesy of The PRP (the fall comes just after the 1:18 mark), and see a photo of Hunter’s swollen ankle here.

Potentially better news is that while Hunter had thus far remained mum on his plans for Chimaira’s future, the band has since announced replacements for Arnold and DeVries.

Click to read more…