MetalSucks

Well, I guess Alice in Chains can’t hit a home run every time.

The metal-related iPhone apps thus far – or, at least the ones I’ve seen – have, by and large, sucked. Oddly enough, Metallica, who haven’t released too many products worth owning this (or last) decade, have the best ones: their Live Metallica and Tap Tap Revenge apps are both totally solid. I didn’t get the Suffocation one, but Invisible Oranges’ review didn’t make it sound too appealing.

And now there’s the AIC “Mobile Roadie” app, which, quite frankly, is waste of 99 cents for anyone but the most die-hard (and brain dead) Alice fan. The app allows you to listen to a few songs from the album, which you probably already own; watch some videos, which you a) may have already seen or b) were capable of watching on your iPhone via YouTube anyway; read a bio of the band that is pretty much just a glorified “AIC are awesome” press release; look a discography which would suggest that Black is the band’s debut; get tour dates and news which, again, you could already do on an iPhone; post on a “fan wall;” or play with some art from the Black album booklet. And, seriously, even if you’re high, it’s fun to play with that art for precisely .02 seconds. This shit is lame, lame, lame.

Don’t believe me? Watch the video below. It pretty much demonstrates that your buck would be better spent on almost anything but this app.

If anyone knows of any metal apps that are actually worth a damn, let us know…

-AR

Nile’s Annihilation of the Wicked was a high water mark in their discography: while surgically precise and blazingly technical, it also was remarkably substantive, full of quality riffs and textures, and, ultimately, the sound of a band growing into its own and getting to the point. But, like most high water marks, it was one Nile couldn’t approach again with Ithyphallic, their (admittedly somewhat underrated) follow-up. Despite only a one album lapse, rounding out the second decade of their career, one could have assumed that Annihilation was the band’s shot wad. And even if it was, it certainly was an impressive masterpiece. However, with Those Whom the Gods Detest, Nile’s latest album, they prove to still have a considerable amount of fight in them, still equipped with almost uncomfortably blistering speed alongside brilliantly crafted slow parts. With bands like Behemoth and Melechesh making serious plays for the history metal throne, Karl Sanders proves that Nile is still the one on it, making some of the most brutal and absurdly heavy metal even when the band’s Egyptian gimmick is put aside.

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Devin Townsend has been crawling up the hill to public acceptance in a desperate and obvious manner since his dubious introduction to public conciousness on the awkward and critically ill recieved Sex And Religion by Steve Vai.

The level of insecurity laid bare by the incessant regurgitation of prior ideas and themes, increasingly more dilluted, has resulted in a four record “project” called the “dtp” (not to be confused with one of the many other rapidly cycling identities bestowed on the public with equal faux grandeur and self important themes.) The implication that we should all care now crests in the judgmental and self righteous Addicted, which seems to imply that his “newfound sobriety” is the answer to all the world’s ills, and that we should all follow suit, set to a antiquated, late 90’s “White Zombie-esque” dance metal vibe.

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In a time when being “heavy” in the world of metal all too often relies on generic chug or the most guttural vocals spewed forth, it’s always reassuring when a band can actually sing and still be “heavy.” And it’s even more reassuring when that band is Katatonia – because at this point in the game, you know what you’re going to get: an awesome record that relies more on feeling and flavor than overt technicality or balls-to-the-wall brutality.

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Dan Lilker is, to use a technical term, a badass motherfucker. As a founding member of Anthrax and un-PC crossover thrashsters S.O.D. and longtime bassist for Nuclear Assault, he had a significant hand in keeping metal filthy in a time when toy poodle hair and Day-Glo spandex were the norm. With deathgrind innovators Brutal Truth and grind supergroup Venomous Concept, he helped build upon the metal he himself innovated, synthesizing punk and hardcore in a way only someone with a true understanding of both could do. A prolific sideman in a lot of awesome/important bands (as well as a pretty decent bassist), Lilker is perhaps one of metal’s great unsung heroes. So, in theory, he’s entitled to a dud album by a lackluster band every now and again. And Crucifist, his shot at black metal, certainly tests his lifetime pass. And though its failures aren’t what plague other prominent musicians’ ill-fated black metal side projects – a lack of understanding of the genre and/or the inability to decide whether it’s paying tribute to or taking the piss out of it – that doesn’t stop Crucifist from being ultimately incredibly dull overall.

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Former Godflesh/current Jesu mastermind Justin Broadrick has a Twitter account. Now while this could be troublesome/groanworthy news for some characters prone to oversharing (though certainly not in Metal Sucks’ case), for Broadrick, it seems fitting, given his prolific approach to music. His output is measured in months, not years, as is the case with most bands. To look at Jesu in its own timeline yields a recent string of iffy releases, like the band’s extremely boring split with Eluvium (repackaged as the Why We Are Not Perfect EP), and two so-so contributions to splits with Envy and Battle of Mice (though so-so in the most literal sense of the phrase, in that each split contained one song that was meandering and seemingly pointless, and one that stood among the best Broadrick has done under the Jesu moniker). However, to look at it in a regular spectrum, that was only 2008; one only needs to reach back to 2007 to find the magnificent full length Conqueror, still in the typical two year gap most artists have between records.

But in JB Time, this is an eternity. One may wonder if the man had knocked himself off kilter, that if Jesu’s best days were behind them. But with Justin Broadrick’s work with beard metal supergroup Greymachine and two releases with Jesu this year, he proves that at the very least has more interesting things to say, if not still capable of putting out the band’s best material in the future. Don’t call it a comeback, because, well, it isn’t. But when those slow, chunky chords first make their appearance on the Infinity full length or that Cure-on-a-7-string beauty rears its head on “Deflated” (off the Opiate Sun EP), it’s immediately clear that the Jesu magic is still there, and that while Justin is prone to get lost in the wilderness, he’s usually on his way back, often times a few months later.

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The metal community has been using the phrase “It’s their best album since…” a lot as of late. As though spurred on by the nineteen year old kids who now play the music they created better than they do, the Elder Statesmen of Thrash – or EST – have been enjoying a renaissance.

But here’s what sets Slayer apart from the pack: while you could certainly say that “World Painted Blood is Slayer’s best album since Season in the Abyss” and be telling truth, you could have said “It’s their best album since Seasons in the Abyss” about any album since Diabolus in Musica and been telling the truth. Slayer didn’t only just recently get awesome again – they really never stopped being awesome, despite what the scene snobs might have you believe.

But World Painted Blood finds Slayer sounding even more like the band that created the Holy Trinity than Christ Illusion did, so people are even more excited about than they were about that last offering. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

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MS Maniac Edward Wilfred is digging the new stuff from NYC black metallers Krallice. Says he:

First I want to thank you guys for turning me on to this band in the first place.  They are definitely one of the greatest black metal bands I have ever listened to. But anyways, they have a new track up on their myspace and apparently a new album is coming out november 10!!!!!  Hurry up and post the news so the rest of the metal world can jizz over the news!!

You’re welcome for the introduction, Edward. But I’m going to have to disagree with your assertion that they are one of the greatest black metal bands ever (”that you’ve listened to”… ok, maybe).

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Pelican’s 2007 album, City of Echoes, was maligned by some upon its release, perhaps because of its penchant for shorter songs and Fugazian guitar interplay after the majesty of 2005’s The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw, an album full of epic-length tracks and panoramic sludge/doom riffs. The problem with this train of thought, of course, is that while City wasn’t as good as Beckon, it certainly wasn’t a bad album. The record, if anything, completely sidestepped Pelican’s biggest flaw: their occasional tendency to, in a longer song, circle around an interesting point without actually making it. Of course, gone were cinematic broad strokes of some of their best work. If only there were a way where they could combine reasonable song length with the evocative riff work the band are known for.

Luckily, they have found a way, and their latest album, What We All Come to Need, is nothing but that. While you won’t hear anything as heavy as “Mammoth” off their debut EP or as expansive as Beckon’s “Autumn into Winter,” their new album finds them both imaginative and self-aware. But even though they have a seemingly newfound sense of editing, WWACTN still features all the same trademarks that have made them great from the beginning: sinewy, heavy guitars; Larry Herweg’s workmanlike drumming (still a divisive part of the band); and absolutely no vocals (well, except on the last track, where there are). Whether you gave up on Pelican after City of Echoes or not, their new album features what they do best: telling stories in such a way that, after a song or two, you forget are without words.

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Dead on arrival.

(1 ½ out of 5 horns)

-GS

[Gary Suarez welcomes your constructive criticism. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

I miss grunge, and if you read my posts with any regularity that should come as no surprise. Now far too many people dismiss the dormant genre for its commercial successes, or even because of a reviled legacy that yielded such aural abominations as Puddle Of Mudd and Staind. Yet the Pacific Northwest in the late 80s and early-mid 90s had so many exciting and delightfully disgusting artists that made truly grungy music while never selling out stadiums, artists like Green River and Tad. I would argue that we need to factor in the descendants of these artists before passing any final sweeping negative judgment of the so-called Seattle sound. Thankfully, the orallly-fixated Food and Moutheater help to counter the Seattle sound’s unwarranted bad rep.

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Contrasting with the unsettling amount of mind-numbing sonic uniformity dominant in today’s American hardcore scene, San Diego’s Lewd Acts offer a much needed corrective, as made so evident with Black Eye Blues, their new album for Jacob Bannon’s Deathwish Inc. imprint. Sure, the band serve up enough uptempo cuts to fuel the savagely vibrant circle pits we’ve all come to expect at hardcore shows, be they at recreation centers, dive bars, or mid-sized general admission concert venues. Yet as with labelmates Narrows, Lewd Acts infuses creative growth and artistic progression into a genre largely categorized by its ironic stagnancy.

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In 2009, it seems the best way to make innovative death metal is to not employ slams. After the dozens of avenues the genre has gone down – melodic, brutal, blackened, thrashy, numerous combinations of those, and so on – old is new again, and after a few years of interchangeable breakdown-prone ‘core enthusiasts, death metal’s scraggly faithful are more interested in hearing the genre done well as opposed to yet another “What if we combined THIS with death metal?!” band. Of course, revisiting can lead to rehashing incredibly easily (see: thrash revival), and the best of those invested in the past know that there’s a certain energy that needs to be pumped into it in order to give it purpose. Smite the Righteous, a melodic death/thrash collective from Massachusetts, waver on the revisit-rehash line, stumbling onto either side throughout the course of their debut full length The Thirst for Violence. But in its best moments it displays a looseness and a vested interest sorely missing from death metal’s crop of regurgitaters. Though still rough around the edges, the band seem to get it a lot more than some.

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Los Angeles psychedelic-doom drivers Ancestors are already back with another new album after last year’s acclaimed two track debut Neptune With Fire, and this time around they’re  arguably even more ambitious. On the eight track Of Sound Mind, the band expands their scope and continues their doom-laden trip down nostalgia lane, with plenty of prog rock inspirations. And lots of guitars.

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An initial impression of Axe to Fall, Converge’s latest bruiser, is that it’s a little too simplistic: the vast majority of the album find the band rocking more balls out than they have since their early days. Even “Worms Will Feed” and “Damages,” two slower tracks, feel more like uneasy breathing room than the expansive, emotional dalliances of You Fail Me’s “In Her Shadow” or No Heroes’ “Grim Rose/Black Heart.” Even despite Axe to Fall’s two further-out-than-ever-before closing songs, the majority of the album feels slight, missing a key element of what had made the band as exceptional as they are up until now. With No Heroes finding the band at once at their grindiest and most experimental, something about Axe to Fall feels empty.

Of course, initial impressions don’t do a Converge album justice; if the band are known for anything, it’s marrying the deceptively simple and the brilliantly complex. Despite its tendency to be more gruff than any modern Converge release, Axe to Fall features some of the band’s tightest, most interesting songwriting, as well as providing one of the most satisfying repeat listens of any Converge album. Compact but alarmingly dense, the band have never been this comfortable putting their heads down and charging at you, with a relentlessness that’s almost militaristic in its approach. More than just a bunch of throw-aways before its wildly expansive ending, Axe to Fall stands eye level with their genre-defining full length debut (Petitioning the Empty Sky) or their genre-shattering masterpiece (Jane Doe). Though foolish and cynical to think otherwise, the band are still as good as they’ve ever been, with no signs of coasting despite having been around exponentially longer than most of the hardcore bands they came up with.

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No other black metal band better typifies the genre’s silliness than Immortal. While most of their True Norwegian ilk left their corpsepaint at home almost a decade ago, the band have stuck to their guns (and battle axes), not letting a silly thing like aging stop them from posing for promo photos and playing shows shirtless and done up like a Hungarian KISS knockoff. And while Darkthrone cornered the market on the angry-banshee/bad-production black metal market, Immortal laid claim to the running-around-the-forest-ominously brand. Though I understand the significance of black metal’s silly image (well, at least I like to think I do), I’ve always thought of it as a shame that Immortal have allowed themselves to be so governed by their absurd appearance when their music, for the most part, has been so fucking righteous. Though they’ve fumbled through some of black metal’s typical snags– vague anti-Semitism (the title of Pure Holocaust), riff salad with a side of murky production (Blizzard Beasts), and not to mention having the majority of their lyrical content be based on a mythical land called Blashyrkh– they’ve also contributed some of the most solid, riff-heavy material the genre has produced. And even despite a seven year absence between 2002’s Sons of Northern Darkness and now, the band are still top notch, schooling both their tired peers and frostbitten newbies with their massive, excellent new album All Shall Fall. Though one would be silly to deride you for thinking the band is ridiculous– the unintentionally homoerotic covers of Battles in the North and the aforementioned Blizzard Beasts were most likely made by dudes unaware of camp or kitsch– one would also be remiss not to point out that you’re missing some of the best stuff black metal has to offer.

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Only history will tell us for sure, but I suspect that The Red Chord’s 2002 debut, Fused Together in Revolving Doors, will end up being regarded as one of the most influential metal records of its time. Its title is truly appropriate; it’s not a death album, it’s not a grind album, it’s not a hardcore album, it’s basically just a “play whatever the fuck we want album.” There are now hordes of bands aping it, and most of them are doing a shit job.

Meanwhile, three albums, seven years, and a whole bunch of line-up changes later, The Red Chord are just as uncompromising and self-assured in their vision. I have no idea what a teeth machine is – apparently it has something to do with zippers – but Fed Through the Teeth Machine certainly makes me feel as though that’s exactly what I’ve experienced.

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Ever wish there was music that could duplicate the feeling of a throbbing migraine?

I hate The Reel, the new album from Vampire Mooose, so much that I actually went back and re-listened to their last album, Serenade the Samurai, just to make sure it holds up. That’s not a great album by any means, but it is a good one – thirty-five minutes of really ugly melodic death metal fueled by elephants-marching metalcore riffs at their finest. You might forget about it a couple of days after you get it, but Samurai is a totally solid album. I could see that version of Vampire Mooose playing a show with Gojira. They might get blown off the stage, but they’d be there and they wouldn’t get booed.

The Reel is just a boring as fuck, paint-by-numbers deathcore album. It’s “heavier” than Samurai, I guess, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it sucks. Every song here could be by any number of the forgettable unsigned bands that we so crudely make fun of on this very website.

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If that headline means anything to you, you’ll probably like this record.

(three out of five horns)

-AR

I’m gonna keep this short n’ sweet, because we’ve already expressed many times how much we love this album. But if a few of you need some graphics of horns to really convince you to go out and buy this thing, so be it.

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