Avenged Sevenfold and Vinnie Paul, “Mouth For War”

Matt Cerone over at MetsBlog.com does these daily “the least you should know” wrap-ups after every game, which this season have essentially all boiled down to “they sucked.” In that spirit, here’s an abbreviated report from the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in L.A., which Axl and I had the privilege of attending and which, unlike the Mets, most definitely did not suck. We had a rip-roaring good time and got rip-roaringly drunk before realizing that oh yeah, this is L.A. and you have to fucking drive home. What a nightly buzzkill, literally! Thanks, Axl, for driving my drunk ass home.

The least you should know about the 2011 Revolver Golden Gods Awards before we have time to properly recap the event:

• Avenged Sevenfold were easily the most popular band there; most kids at the show were wearing their shirts. Their performance was fantastic and even converted a few industry non-believers I spoke with; in addition to a “hit and run” set of the band’s most popular songs, they played “It’s So Easy” with Duff McKagan and “Mouth For War” with Vinnie Paul (video above).
• Alice Cooper played very early in the night but rocked nonetheless. (video after the jump)
• Vince Neil: not sober.
• Asking Alexandria frontman: definitely not sober yet. Lost his mic under the drum riser 10 seconds into “Youth Gone Wild” with Sebastian Bach (video after the jump).
• Sebastian Bach: still awesome.
• Sebatian Bach to Dave Grohl, upon running into him backstage: “Hey! Dave Grohl!” [hugs]
• Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann was hilariously hitting on every woman in sight, including L.A. metal sorta-celeb Metal Sanaz.
• Other backstage celeb sightings: Dino Cazares (who Tweeted “where’s the baby?” at us), Dave Navarro (who still looks 20 years old), Rob Zombie, Alan Robert of Life of Agony (mega-cool dude), Taylor Momsen, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze, Steven Adler, dude from Puddle of Mudd, William fucking Shatner, the ghost of Dime.
• Black Veil Brides winning “Best New Band.” Lulz!

Fun videos after the jump! More extensive coverage coming soon.

Click to read more…



Photos by Robert Bejil

It’s weird. Mention Periphery to any person on the street and they’ll think nothing of it. But speak their name to those who know, and it’s like you just dropped “Jeezy” at an As I Lay Dying concert. Periphery have become a huge band in the warped little snow globe of the metal landscape.

As a person who’s listened as the sextet has grown and evolved, and go through singers like cheez balls, seeing them live was an experience that I was far overdue to have. I had my chance about a week ago when the group ventured over to Hartford Connecticut’s Webster Theater supporting Fair to Midland along with Scale the Summit [Alas, they have since dropped off the tour. -Ed.]. The evening turned out to be a proggy feast I won’t soon forget.

Click to read more…

In case it isn’t readily apparent from the giant logo in the lower right hand corner, we “borrowed” this photo of the gig from Prefix.

I’ve never met anyone that outright hated Motorhead. There are people who are indifferent or don’t really like them, but full-on vitriol-spewing hate? Nuh-uh. Motorhead are amazing and wonderful and remind me why I love metal. I’m sure nay-sayers exist, and I pity them, for they have no joy in their cold, hard hearts. I, however, delight in gruff dirty rock n’ roll played really, really fast, and so I was psyched to see them live.

Click to read more…

Hardcore has been through a considerable evolution since the emblematic 1980s, with most of the contemporary acts operating under that banner sounding poles apart from progenitors like Black Flag or Minor Threat. So it’s a testament to the state of this music that Queens, New York natives Sick Of It All has managed to stay together–recording and touring–for twenty-five long years without stagnating. Though considered part of a “second wave” of NYHC that followed Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags, the quartet’s discography touches on punky, metallic, and even poppy iterations of hardcore, which has lent to their continued appeal to an inter-generational fanbase, visible and vocal at this hometown 25th anniversary celebration, held at a predictably sold-out Webster Hall.

Click to read more…

I never used to “get” Volbeat. I’d tried listening to their albums after multiple friends had recommended them and I’d been pounded in the head with their music by constant spins on WSOU… but nothing registered, like an old man trying to pop a woody in the sack despite the presence of the hottest young piece of ass you ever did see. “I used to be like you,” someone recently told me. “Until I saw them live.” She then proceded to make a pretty impassioned plea, the kind I’ve occasionally found myself making when I’m trying to convince a friend of something I just know they’ll like.

So I gave her the benefit of the doubt and went to see Volbeat live in NYC last week on the first date of their U.S. tour. And now totally I get it.

Click to read more…

[Read my recaps of Day One, Day Two and Day Three. -Ed.]

No Austin excursion for me and Kip is complete without another round of savory, tasty meat courtesy the Salt Lick, but due to our inability to find a ride out to Driftwood we had to get our BBQ on elsewhere. Rudy’s just outside of town came highly recommended by this trusted guy, so we piled into two cabs and headed out to… a gas station.

Click to read more…

[Read my recaps of Day One and Day Two. -Ed.]

The always-wise Antonin Skullia Esq. said to me on Friday that there’s no such thing as a “first annual,” just a “first ever.” Indeed. So please don’t think I’m gloating when I say that the first ever MetalSucks SXSW event South by South Death was a big success and surely worthy of creating a “second annual.” Meek is Murder, Wormrot, Red Fang, Havok and Kvelertak teamed up for for an excellent day of headbanging, beer-swilling, and sweaty, dirty metal in the cramped punk-rock confines of Headhunters.

And for the night-cap, the definitive most metal of non-metal bands: Chrome-E-Oh. Ohhhhh ohhh!

Click to read more…

[Read my Day One recap here. -Ed.]

If Kvelertak aren’t rich men by the time they release their next album they’ll have seriously blown it. Based solely on the power of their incredible live performances at SXSW, the first of which took place Thursday afternoon inside Emo’s at the annual MS-sponsored Full Metal Texas event, these six Norwegians had major U.S. record labels drooling, kissing the ground they walk on, drinking their piss, shoveling poop down their own throats and throwing gobs of money at them. Expect a major bidding war to erupt over Kvelertak; it’ll be interesting to see where their next album lands. But the truth is, it’s all deserved; Kvelertak RIPPED. Video after the jump!

Day 2 of SXSW also featured the live debut of T.R.A.M., an improvizational jazz/metal supergroup featuring Animals as Leaders’ Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes, Suicidal Tendencies drummer Eric Moore, and former Mars Volta saxophone player Adrian Terrazas at the WSOU showcase (along with Ultrageist and Meek is Murder). We also caught performances by Goes Cube, Yob and The Red Chord at Full Metal Texas.

Click to read more…

Kip W. and I arrived in Austin, TX the night of Tuesday, March 15th. We’ve never flown in before Wednesday, the official start of the music portion of the festival, but that we felt compelled to be there for all of Wednesday’s day-time activities speaks to the volume of metal at this year’s festival. It was amazing and even overwhelming at times, but too much metal is never a bad problem to have. After a tasty burger at the Jackalope and some delicious but incredibly spicy chicken-wings that would leave our arseholes tingling the following morning, we headed to bed to rest up for the madness to follow. Sleeping is metal. Kip’s righteous snore is definitely not metal, but thank Odin for earplugs.

There was a lot of action on the first day of SXSW: face-punching hardcore via the Brooklyn Vegan day party, a ripping set by recent Ironclad signees Turbid North, and of course the MetalSucks-sponsored Sumerian Records showcase featuring Animals as Leaders, Veil of Maya, The Faceless and more. There was even the somewhat odd but nonetheless fun sight of watching Phil Anselmo play a guitar in his old-school hardcore project Arson Anthem. Deetz and videos after the jump.

Click to read more…

Melvins’ January 28 show in Los Angeles was a victory lap within a victory lap. It was Stoner Witch night, the final installment of a month-long residency that found the still-relevant, still mindfucking metal crew play a different Melvins album in its entirety each night. It was also a high-profile sendoff to the outgoing Spaceland Productions, which announced they would cede the venue to new management and a new name (The Satellite) not long after King Buzzo and bassist Jared Warren banged their respective ‘fros for the last time.

The short first set was business as usual, including a helping of tunes from their 2010 chart-bottoming album The Bride Screamed Murder, and a killer sludgification of Flipper’s “Sacrifice,” committed to tape on Melvins’ 1992 platter Lysol. The place was packed and sweaty long before intermission hit, and it only got more so once Warren re-entered to begin the bassline to “Lividity,” Stoner Witch’s final track. My girlfriend opted to avoid heat exhaustion and moved upstairs to watch the festivities from behind a glass wall.

Click to read more…

The change was imperceptible to those not paying attention. The rugged MF Doom-dominated hip-hop soundtrack that had prevailed in-between opening sets shifted abruptly as the opening squall of The Afghan Whigs’ “Honky’s Ladder” unexpectedly burst from above, signaling the imminent onstage arrival of Baltimore’s Trapped Under Ice. Members milled about onstage giving the gear last minute strums and bangs as Greg Dulli’s menacing lyrics poured from Santos Party House’s booming PA system. The crowd, most of whom in 1996 would have been watching Barney And Friends rather than appreciating the raucous yet soulful sounds of the Whigs, hardly seemed to notice. During the final minute of the song, frontman Justice Tripp emerged, goading audience to move up and fill the wide-open space near the front of the stage.

Click to read more…

You know how sometimes you will get completely obsessed with a band, and you’re all “ZOMG CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO THEM!!!”? That is how I am right now with THE ACACIA STRAIN — I probably listen to Wormwood at least three times a day, and when I’m not listening to it, I am singing it in my head.

It’s always awesome to get the chance to see a band when you are at the peak of being into them, so I was very stoked to check out the DEATHCORE ACROSS AMERICA tour when it rolled through my town the other day: I Declare War, Whitechapel, Veil of Maya and The Acacia Strain = YOU’RE FUCKING MOSHING! I also got a chance to chat with TAS bassist Jack Strong [mirin that name, sounds alpha as fuck].

In this post I will share the three reasons why TAS is my favorite band at the moment, as well as a few words from Jack to support my points: 1. Their diverse fanbase 2. They are punk 3. Last but not least, TAS are fucking heavy as fuck.

Click to read more…

Earlier this month I caught Eluveitie, Holy Grail and System Divide at NYC’s Gramercy Theater at the beginning of their month-long North American trek [check Eluveitie's tour blogs]. Unfortunately 3 Inches of Blood were trapped in Cleveland (the horror!) due to van problems, so I was bummed to learn I wouldn’t be catching them on this day… but no matter, I’ve seen their rockage before and I’m sure they’ll be back again. Eluveitie reminded me of what folk metal is like when it’s done exceedingly well, Holy Grail lived up to my expectations of having lots of shred and lots of hair, and System Divide… well, uh, they were there too.

After the jump, further thoughts on all three bands, and plenty of photos from the show.

Click to read more…

The unbearable brutality of winter (and the company of a damn good woman) drove me indoors for much of these past couple of months. Having not seen a single band live since December, I grew restless and twitchy on my Egyptian cotton sheets. I was born to rock, and with the snow finally melting, I seized the oh-so-golden opportunity to catch the Jägermeister Music Tour, which featured Buckcherry in the headlining slot with support from Hellyeah, All That Remains, and The Damned Things.

For some people, this might seem like a fun night out. But not for me. I was desperate.

Click to read more…

By some incredible combination of having my head up my ass and just being too busy, until this past Saturday I’d never witnessed NYC’s Castevet play live (though I’d enjoyed their wares online). But the minute they started playing I immediately knew why Decibel Magazine, our own Kip Wingerschmidt and countless friends had been so excited about them… they’re an astonishingly tight live band.

Please believe me when I say “astonishingly tight” — that’s probably even an understatement. More like 3-year-old’s-asshole / hipster-jeans / Riker’s Island security tight — so, so, so tight.

Click to read more…

Souvenir ticket thinger that was handed out for free at the show. Beats paying sixty bucks for a t-shirt!

I’m not sure if Rammstein played the best show of the year at Madison Square Garden this past Saturday night — but if they didn’t, they certainly came close.

It was the band’s first and only show in America in ten years, and had sold out in thirty minutes, so expectations were understandably pretty high. Personally, I’d never seen the band before — I can’t even claim to be that big a Rammstein fan, in all honesty — but I’d heard so many amazing things about their live performances that I was dying to check ‘em out.

And they delivered in every way. In fact, they more than delivered. I am now a Rammstein fan.

I’m not gonna talk about the music too much. I know that probably seems weird since the music is more important (in theory at least) than the band’s theatrics, but, really, by this point, you know Rammstein, you know their music, and you know how you feel about it. They’re (obviously) not a jam band, so there were no real surprises in that regard — Rammstein lives sounds more or less like Rammstein in the studio.

But the performance… oh, the performance… it’s full of stars!

Here’s some of the shit the crowd was treated to during the course of the band’s nearly two-hour performance:

Click to read more…

Have you ever wanted something so badly that your whole body aches, even down to your taint??? That’s how much I’ve wanted to see Devourment, but I guess they all have “real jobs,” so they don’t tour much, and I would rather smash my penis into paste with a filthy cinder block than attend one of the festivals they played at, so I never got a chance to see them until now.  Thanks to the good people at leading beard-metal label RELAPSE RECORDS, I finally got to check out Devourment after over a decade of fandom — and let me tell you, it was worth the wait!

Click to read more…

As part of our sponsorship of the No Mercy Metal showcases here in NYC — the most recent of which was held the night before Halloween, October 30th (hence the above photo) — we’ll be highlighting one band from each show here on MetalSucks in an effort to bring the best of the piping hot NYC metal scene to the rest of the world.

This edition’s featured band is Slam One Down, whose deathy-thrash attack reminds me at times of Revocation by way of Machine Head. Though Slam One Down aren’t quite as refined as either, they sound like what I might imagine Revocation’s very earliest demos sounding like; there’s plenty of promise here and skill equally divided amongst all the band members. Peep the track “To Live Forever” on their MySpace page, my personal favorite.

-VN

There is something both inspiring and kitschy about the melding of unexpected musical genres.  Rockabilly, surfpunk, jazzcore, deathpolka…..it’s rather hard to smush two (or more) wildly different sounds together and have it flow seamlessly (unless if you’re Fishbone).

But Brooklyn’s own Dub Trio have been succeeding at such a feat since 2004.  The group has taken instrumental heavy progressive riffage and the almighty dub, and is able to flip on a dime between the two genres without it seeming abrupt in the least.  How do they do it, you ask?  Well obviously exceptional musicianship, for starters.  And the most interesting factor comes from the rhythmic shifts, which in and of themselves could be called unusual or daring, but the drastic style-flip always feels original, even when one might be expecting it.

And fear not, my br00tals…..over the years, the sound has evolved into something quite aggressive.  At least until the dub pedal activates.

Click to read more…

Photo credit: Taija Lynn for Brooklyn Vegan.

Last Saturday I attended the California Blood Tour in San Francisco, featuring Son of Aurelius, Burning the Masses, Knights of the Abyss, Devourment, and Cattle Decapitation. I had mixed expectations of almost all the bands on the tour, but many of them ended up being proven wrong.

First up were Son of Aurelius (most of you probably know them by now, since we’ve done quite a few articles on them). They opened with a shreddy, breakdowny intro song that even incorporated power metal vocals, so I think a lot of the crowd were a little confused. But once the band started playing songs like “Myocardial Infarction” and “A Good Death”, the crowd warmed up to them, spawning some of the biggest pits of the first three bands. They definitely wowed me. Even though they had a different vocalist for this tour, he still performed admirably, and their mix was fantastic; both shredding solos and brutal breakdowns were perfectly audible. Great opening band for this tour.

Click to read more…