MetalSucks

Chicago’s Weekend Nachos play furious, grimy, fuck-you Hardcore with a capital “H,” and they ended up being one of the stand-out bands on last year’s Scott Hull compiled This Comp Kills Fascists. Now the band has a jugular-ripping good new album, Unforgivable, dropping September 1 on Relapse, and your Uncles Axl and Vince have your first taste: a free mp3 of the track “Nights.” Is it pretty? Hell no. Does it absolutely kill? Hell yes.

You can pre-order Unforgivable here. Weekend Nachos head out on tour at the end of August; check out their MySpace page for a complete list of dates.

Weekend Nachos – “Nights”

-Axl & Vince

Black Anvil’s much anticipated record Time Insults the Mind doesn’t come out until September 1st, but we’ve got a brand new track available for free download today, right here. Black Anvil are from right here in NYC and recently signed with Philly-based Relapse Records. Their brand of blackened, crusty, punk-influenced metal is captured perfectly in the new recording; it’s raw, dingy and full of unbridled energy, but with enough clarity to allow a bit of breathing room between instruments.

The band has a string of dates this weekend with Marduk and Withered, starting today in Baltimore, hitting Philly tomorrow and NYC on Saturday. Details and more music on Black Anvil’s MySpace page.

Enjoy.

Black Anvil – “Margin For Terror”

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! How ya doin’? Good, good.

You know what’s better than coffee? Another bootleg of a new song by The Red Chord! This one was filmed in Budapest. I have no idea what the song is called, but it will be on the band’s new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, which Metal Blade will release later this year.

And even if you don’t dig The Red Chord for some reason, you should watch the beginning of this clip just for Guy Kozowyk’s on-stage musings. The dude might be second only to Frank Mullen and Mikael Åkerfeldt for stage banter.

You can watch a clip of another new song by The Red Chord, “Floating Through the Vein,” here.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

Arsonists Get All the Girls have been through a lot since the release of their last album, 2007’s The Game of Life. From various line-up changes to the tragic death of a bandmate, the last two years have most certainly been a struggle for the Santa Cruz outfit.

The sheer force of those travails – as well as the newfound maturity the band has achieved because of them – shine through on their third full-length, Portals. This album is a major evolution for Arsonists Get All the Girls – the band has created a record that’s angry, experimental, challenging, and, of course, heavy as a motherfucker.

Portals comes out July 14 on Century Media. In the meantime, you can stream the entire album right here! And if ya dig it, pre-order Portals, along with a groovy AGATG t-shirt, here.

[UPDATE: This exclusive promotion has now ended.]

There’s plenty of room to argue about the Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century. But then there’s Judas Fucking Priest.

As undoubtedly one of the best metal bands… well, EVER, we are beyond thrilled to offer you the exclusive world premier, full album stream of the brand new Judas Priest live record A Touch of Evil – Live. Recorded during the band’s 2005 and 2008 world tours, A Touch of Evil – Live focuses primarily on fan-revered album cuts (all previously unreleased in live form on CD) as well as two tracks from the band’s 2008 concept opus Nostradamus.

Stream it right here until 11:59pm EDT on the night before the album’s official release date of July 14th! If ya like, pre-order A Touch of Evil – Live here.

[UPDATE: This promotion has now ended. Sorry.]

Hardcore often gets a bad rap from the aggressive music community. It’s usually screechier, more grating and abrasive than metal, which can require quite a bit of commitment to get into. However, thanks to countless regional bands and farther-reaching outfits such as Converge and Botch, the genre has become both a lasting movement and an art form.

It took me quite a while to get down with the frenetic off-kilter riffs and bloodcurling high-pitched screams that I consider to be “hardcore-styles” (who fucking knows anymore), but the more I came to understand that this type of music is all about taking those ugly risks and not concerning oneself with the oft-ultimate priority for metallers, almighty technique, the more I could appreciate. And clearly hardcore players almost always have more chops than the punk rockers ever did (at least most of them).

The innovative band Ink and Dagger is straight from the heyday of the gay 90s, starting in 1996 in Philadelphia as a face-painted Vampire-themed punk band (!) and quickly transitioning into what many would call one of the shining kernels of post-hardcore. They only lasted for a few years, announcing their impending break-up in ‘99, and shortly after the group recorded their last album (which became self-titled), 27 year-old singer Patrick McCabe was found dead in a motel room in Indiana.

Who knows where McCabe would’ve taken aggressive music in his next band…

INK AND DAGGER — The Fine Art of Original Sin (1998)
1 — “The Fine Art Of Original Sin”
2 — “Philapsychosis”
3 — “We Live Despite Their Schemes”
4 — “Cut Throat Tactics”
5 — The Six Feet Under Swindle”
6 — “The History In E”
7 — “Vampire Fastcode Ver. 1.5″

[entire album downloadable here]

….but rest assured I did not put this link up, so if the litigious remaining members of the band wish to pursue legal actions, get yr e-tectiving on (i.e., don’t look at me!!)

-KW

Southern hard-rock/metallers Maylene and the Sons of Disaster are back with their latest concoction of swampy, humongous grooves, their third album aptly titled III. This is just straight up, metal-influenced southern hard rock — no gimmicks, no shenanigans, just maximum rockage. The first single, “Just a Shock,” is currently streaming on their MySpace page and we’ve got an exclusive stream of the track “Step Up (I’m On It)” for you right here.

III comes out next Tuesday, June 23rd on Ferret Music, and the band will be on tour for 2 months starting in July with Emery.

-VN

A whole butt load of you have e-mailed us in the past twenty-four hours to alert us to the fact that Suicide Silence’s new album, No Time to Bleed, has leaked.

Now, normally, we don’t acknowledge leaks. In fact, we usually remove any links to leaks you folks post in our comments section. We’re not dumb; we know shit leaks all the time, and we know that if you’re motivated enough and not a complete ree-ree, you will find the leak you’re looking for fairly quickly. You really don’t need our help to steal music.

That being said, we’re gonna make an exception this one time, ’cause, uhhh… well, we found this amongst the various links y’all sent us to download the record, and it’s pretty fucking funny. Download the leak from this link to hear what we’re talking about (You can also give a listen above). You gotta wonder why more bands don’t do shit like this.

For those of you who will do the menschy thing and actually purchase No Time to Bleed the old-fashioned way (and I happen to think the record is worth the coin), the album drops June 30. You can pre-order it (with a t-shirt!) here.

-AR

Sounds pretty good despite the shitty audio quality, no? It’ll be interesting to see how the loss of Kris Norris and the addition of Mike “Lonestar” Carrigan affects the Darkest Hour sound. So far I’m liking what I’m hearing. LOVE the Lonestar solo around the 3:00 mark!

-VN

[Thanks: Zackage]

We gots the goods. And so do Clutch; like a fine wine, these Marylanders just get better and better with age. We’ve got their brand new track “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” –  from their forthcoming new album Strange Cousins From the West (out July 7th) — streaming for free. Produced by Clutch and the legendary J. Robbins, the effort is the first Clutch original to be released on the band’s own Weathermaker Music. Clutch, the road dogs that they are, already have a 7 month worldwide headlining tour planned, taking flight in the US on May 6th with support from Wino and Maylene & the Sons of Disaster, followed by a July US tour with the wicked, wicked Baroness as main support. Full list of confirmed dates after the jump and the brand new track streaming below — enjoy!

- The MS Dudes

[This promotion has ended. -Ed.]

Click to read more…

It’s really sad to watch an amazing band cut its career short when there is SO much f’n promise. Gospel were definitely one of those bands — really diverse progressive hardcore sound, with one of the most impressive young drummers I’d seen in ages. Thankfully I had the pleasure of seeing these guys rockit live when they were, well, rockin it live, but jeez I really could’ve used a hell of a lot more.

Why, oh why did this group have to fall? One can only wonder if the band drama that was catalyst for their demise was worth it…

After you get your Saturday lift on, go ahead and check out a couple tracks from their only stunning full-length The Moon Is A Dead World (produced by Kurt Ballou from Converge), and then go buy it — just cause the band is done, doesn’t mean somebody ain’t collecting residuals in order to pay their rent, nawmean?

SUPPORT DEAD BANDS!!!!

(or if you’re a thief, I guess you can go download the album here)

GOSPEL — “Yr Electric Surge is Sweet”

GOSPEL — “A Golden Dawn”

(both from The Moon Is A Dead World (2005))

-KW

As I mentioned earlier this week, a little while back I got an e-mail from The Autumn Offering vocalist Matt McChesney to discuss an extremely negative review I’d given the band’s last album, Fear Will Cast No Shadow. McChesney could have been a total dick about the whole thing, but as it turns out, he’s a very even headed, intelligent, and cool dude. So what else was there to do but interview him about the band’s new album, Requiem, which will come out June 9 on Victory. McChesney was even good enough to let us debut the first single off of that album, “The Curtain Hits The Cast,” for which the band will shoot a video in the coming weeks.

I still haven’t heard the new album, but I do already like this song way, way more than anything from Fear Will Cast No Shadow; it’s catchy and it doesn’t sound overly processed, which, I think, is what The Autumn Offering were striving for. Check out the song below, and then my conversation with Matt McChesney after the jump! (FYI – for fear that this was all a set-up for Matt to have me murdered, the interview was conducted by e-mail.)

Click to read more…

Did you catch Sammy O’Hagar’s 4 out of 5-horns review of God Dethroned’s excellent new album Passiondale? If you missed it, here’s the gist:

Passiondale is a compact, precise, and immensely rewarding listen, essentially a barbed collection of riffs that you’ll most likely find yourself humming afterward… The melodic tinges are very Heartwork, while the black metal elements are nail bombs occasionally thrown in to put a part or riff over the top (the fierce opening “Under a Darkening Sky” bobs and weaves between the two seamlessly, while the title track swells with an almost In Flames sort of bigness)… Passiondale is a precise yet affecting record that’s not afraid of beauty or sadness, but certainly isn’t preoccupied with it.

Lucky for you, you don’t have to take our word for it; listen to the entire new record below, for free, until its Metal Blade release on Tuesday, April 28th, and let us know what you think. If you like what you hear, you can pre-order the CD here or pre-order a special CD/t-shirt combo here.

- The MS Dudes

[This streaming audio promotion has ended. Sorry!]

Here at the MS Mansion we get packages from unsigned bands from all over the world; Hungary, Australia, and Poland are just a few places from which we’ve received CDs in the past few weeks. These demos range in quality from extremely sucky to extremely good (see? we do listen to everything), and they’re all over the map (haha, see what I did there?) in terms of subgenres of metal. But one thing I’ve found about “international” bands (in quotes because really, we’re all international in the true sense of the word) as opposed to their American counterparts is that metal bands in the rest of the world are not nearly as concerned with what’s cool or what appears credible in the slightest, nor do they feel compelled to stay within one genre of metal. And they’re not nearly as concerned with image; most of them are old dorks. International bands, moreso than their American brethren, just play whatever the fuck they want to play. They just don’t give a fuck.

Take Brazil’s Dynahead, who sent us their new album Antigen last month. This shit is all over the place from power metal to groove, to prog, to death, to thrash, and yes, even nu… but it’s all executed well and it all sounds like the same band playing it. That is the definition of a good band right there, not the next _____-core band from Orange County. Dynahead certainly aren’t about to change the face of metal for years to come — or even for a day — but they’re a damn good band and that seems to be all that matters to them.

So hopefully Dynahead won’t mind that I’m giving away a track of theirs; this here is some damn fine press, so they better not bitch. Check out “Join and Surrender” from Antigen below, then check out more on the band’s MySpace page.

Dynahead – “Join and Surrender”

-VN

When we introduced you to Sikth, you thanked us. When we introduced you to Textures, you thanked us again.

So, when we say you absolutely need to hear something… you fucking need to hear it. And why not: it’s free!

LISTEN TO ANIMALS AS LEADERS!!!

The fine folks at the unfuckwithable metal label Prosthetic Records have hooked us up with a free track for you from the brand new Animals as Leaders album, out next Tuesday. This is intricate instru-metal of the highest caliber for the kind of metal fan who’s more concerned with musicianship, arrangement and composition than with “being fucking br00tal dudez!!” (though it certainly is heavy). It’s the brainchild of guitar wunkerkind Tosin Abasi, who is pretty much the Trent Reznor of this micro-genre of metal in that the band is basically just his project. Stream and download below. Enjoy.

Animals as Leaders – “Tempting Time”

-VN

So this Burning Human record ended up being really fucking cool. Any time early press about a band loudly touts the fact that the band features a member of another more famous band (in this case drum-guru Jason Bittner of Shadows Fall) I’m naturally skeptical; but about 5 seconds of the new song “Tormented Mind” was really all I needed to convince me that Burning Human is completely capable of standing on their own as a brutal, crushing death metal band. Honestly, this is some of the finest straight up death metal I’ve heard since Bloodbath’s The Fathomless Mastery decimated my brain last year. “Tormented Mind” comes from their new album Ressurection Through Fire, produced by the legendary James Murphy (Death) and out on Koch/E1 tomorrow. Download it for no charge, guilt-free, below! Check out Burning Human’s MySpace page for an extra streaming track. Enjoy. [Click the below link to stream and download]

Burning Human – “Tormented Mind”

-VN

In honor of As I Lay Dying’s upcoming DVD release This is Who We Are (out tomorrow, 4/14/09!), Metal Blade Records has given MetalSucks an exclusive clip to offer fans a sneak peak. This Is Who We Are includes both a telling, behind-the-scenes documentary of the band’s life (produced by Denise Korycki of Killswitch Engage and God Forbid documentary-making fame) and a full set of the band performing live. There’s also a third disc included that features music videos and other bonus content. The special pre-order is all sold out, but starting tomorrow you’ll be able to order the DVD set at the Metal Blade Records online store. Enjoy the preview below.

There’s an incomplete version of Mastodon’s Crack the Skye that hit the webernets last Friday; we’re told it’s missing one track and one is named incorrectly. The bit rate is also low (128kbps). But yo, NEW MASTO-FUCKING-DON!

As previously reported, with all the big releases slated for the early part of ‘09 Mastodon kinda got lost in the shuffle for me; but boy was I wrong to underestimate the ‘Don.

Click to read more…

Preface: this is purely speculation and we do not have confirmation that the music below is, in fact, a new Mastodon track!

That said, it would certainly appear that the background music in the trailer for the forthcoming video game Splatterhouse is new Mastodon music. Let’s look at the evidence:

1) In a preview piece about the game, IGN reports that “The soundtrack is all Mastodon all the time. In fact, Rick will be wearing a Mastodon t-shirt before hulking up and going all crazy-like.” Furthermore, Gamespot.com confirms that “US heavy metal band Mastodon has also been brought in to provide audio work for Splatterhouse.”

2) Members of Mastodon were signing autographs at the Splatterhouse booth at the New York Comic-Con last week.

3) It sounds like Mastodon.

Take a look at the video game trailer, featuring at least a good solid minute of audio, after the jump:

Click to read more…

What with forthcoming albums from Necrophagist, Baroness and Obscura hogging most of the spotlight reserved for Relapse’s 2009 release schedule, and the nation’s attention focused elsewhere on their January 20th release date, it’d be easy to overlook these two solid Relapse contenders. We at MetalSucks couldn’t let that happen, could we?

Click to read more…