YouTube holds an endless treasure trove of unwittingly hilarious aspiring one-man black metallers. Either that or we’re just being wickedly trolled. This year we’ve already given you Svendorrian and Lord Never, two of the most talented one-man black metal artists to ever walk the face of the earth — seriously, take a look, you’ll be jealous — and today we present Fadades [via Metal Injection], a one-man black metal MACHINE that will make you reconsider what it means to be tr00, cvlt and br00tal… or whatever the French translations of those are.

Fadades clearly understands that the key to being a successful one-man black metal operation in 2012 is having quality green screen effects. He also understands the importance of wardrobe; he must’ve hired a pro fashion consultant for that stuff (srs those boots probably cost hundreds). His facial muscle maneuvering skills are obviously quite developed — sick moves, brah. And DON’T WORRY FOLKS, these videos were all recorded in Surround 5.1! Fire up those rears and your sub, and get ready:

First, Fadades journeys to outer space:

Egyptian pyramids ain’t got NUTHIN on the brutality of Fadades:

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A reader sent us the below video, which is by a man who calls himself Lord Never. It’s pretty amazing, guys. You can skip ahead to the :50 mark, but make sure you keep watching it after that, because this dude clearly has more talent in the dump he took this morning that Ihsahn will ever have, ever:

And if right about now you’re thinking, “Oh, FUCK, this dude is WAY TOO GOOD. I am going to quit music forever because clearly I will never be as good as Lord Never!”, well, hold on to your mittens — because it turns out that Lord Never is a talented stand-up comedian, too. For example, have you ever wondered, “What’s up with the ice cream man?” Of course you have! And these are the kinds of delicious human foibles Lord Never observes so astutely in his act:

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It’s occasionally hard to tell whether we should cheer superstar wrestler Hulk Hogan as an unhinged eccentric or jeer him as a sideways freak who paws his own daughter on TV when not sweatily humping other half-nude guys on TV. Okay, shit, it’s not that tough to call actually — especially when the Hulkster pops round The Sun (UK) offices to cull the latest relationship gossip on Heidi Klum (silly!) and Cameron Diaz (really?).

Truly, the gentleman prefers blondes. Anyway, after casually implying his fandom of The Stone Roses — a major news item in England for their recent reunion — Hogan dropped these bombshells on The Sun:

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Over the weekend, Chimaira’s Mark Hunter posted four demos from the band’s most recent release (and one of my favorite albums of 2011), The Age of Hell. Two of those demos are for songs which appeared on the finished product, “Clockwork” and the bonus track “Scum of the Earth,” and those are kinda interesting to listen to for the same reason all demos are kinda interesting to listen to — because it’s fun to compare and contrast with the finished product.

More exciting, though, are two demos for untitled tracks which, for whatever reason, did not actually make it onto Hell. And they’re both pretty good, but one of them is REALLY fucking good, hitting that sweet groove G spot the way only this band can. I’d love hear Chimaira finish this one up someday, although if now-departed guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries had a hand in writing it, that may not be possible…

Unreleased Age Of Hell Demo by MarkHunter108

Pretty sweet, no?

Check out the other demos after the jump.

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Wednesday was a big day for the Internet, as protests by Google, Wikipedia, Reddit and thousands of other websites not only raised general awareness of the dangers of the SOPA and PIPA bills working their way through Congress but also convinced a significant number of lawmakers to withdraw their support of the bills. While piracy is a big problem that needs to be addressed, SOPA and PIPA would fail to solve that problem while inadvertently trampling all over free speech rights and stifling innovation — Wednesday’s protests were a huge victory for you, MetalSucks, and everyone.

But Internet advocates took a big blow yesterday when it was announced that the U.S. government shut down the popular file-sharing site Megaupload. The timing seems apt given all the SOPA/PIPA hooplah, but that actually strikes me as a coincidence — you can’t just suddenly wrap up a long ongoing investigation in 24 hours.

Here’s something that’s probably going to surprise a lot of people who regular read my columns about the music industry, Spotify, SOPA/PIPA, etc: I actually have no problems with Megaupload being shut down. Good riddance.

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Like a lot of people, I used to feel really confused about the differences between slam metal and deathcore. Luckily, our good friend Sergeant D. enlightened me with this lesson in the difference between the two genres, and since then, I’ve actually found myself — gulp –ENJOYING some slam metal (like the most recent Pathology album). Strange, I know, but there ya have it.

Still, I’m no expert in slam. Which is why I’m looking forward to reading The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Slam 2.0, an updated and revised guide to all things slam written by DJ Two Stacks. And, yes, it’s funny that someone actually took the time to write this thing, but funnier still is that author is, according to Stuff You Will Hate, “best known for making the beat in Kreayshawn’s ‘Gucci Gucci’.” Y’know, this song:

Weird, sure, but MLK had a dream, and that dream was that one day Kreayshawn fans and Cephalotripsy fans would all get along and hold hands and sing and stuff. So, yeah, get with the program.

Download The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Slam 2.0 here.

-AR

-KW

Before we get started, I want to once again state that MetalSucks’ opposition to SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) should in no way be misconstrued to mean that we support piracy. We oppose SOPA because as written it would completely fail to stop piracy while trampling all over our first amendment rights and stifling innovation in the process.

Now that that’s out of the way: we did it! You did it, I did it, other people did it: together, we all got the message out that SOPA is a horrible idea and successfully got that message to our politicians, forcing them to take action. Either that, or the lobbyists that support the big Silicon Valley corporations got their way with Obama by threatening to withdraw support. But either way, SOPA is dead. Read all about the timeline of events leading to SOPA’s quick demise this past weekend at Washington Monthly. How come it didn’t work with NDAA? But I digress.

The first sign that SOPA was coming to an end came Friday, when the House of Representatives subcommittee researching the bill agreed to drop a very controversial provision that would’ve required Internet Service Providers to block U.S. access to international sites merely accused of piracy. Then on Saturday, the White House announced that it officially opposed SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA (Protect IP Act):

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Former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman has posted the following end-of-year message on his official web site. And even though these kinds of things are usually boring as hell, the video includes some new music he’s been working on, so it’s definitely worth a look. Check it out:

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Before proceeding any further, please enjoy the above photo of a pouty-lipped Kevin Bacon posing with Steel Panther at their NYC show at Irving Plaza last week. As far as we know, Bacon didn’t get up on stage and perform any songs with the band, as awesome as that would’ve been.

Now that the tone = set, watch this hilarious interview Rob from Metal Injection conducted with SP’s Lexxi Foxxx and Stix Zadinia at said show. Among many other fascinating topics (cocaine, bitches, STDs, bitches, lip gloss, Rob’s parents, bitches, bitches, bitches), Lexxi and Stix settle the age-old debate of whether or not modern-day Tawny Kitaen is smashable.

-VN

From Craigslist Boston:

metal band seeks manager/promoter. (Nashua NH.)

Hello and thanks for the interest. i will try to keep this brief. I currently reside in three bands at this time. all three are in need of heavy promotion. i am not paying cash to have this done. i will be paying in international award winning tattoo ink. i am a professional tattooist/illustrator of 18 years. i run a very successful tattoo shop in downtown Nashua Nh called the TaTToomB. . for every public acknowledgement of the bands material, you will receive 50 to 100 dollars in tattooing. let me break this down. if we receive a good review from a respected source, and it is due to your efforts towards the bands publicity, you will receive one half hour in my chair. a 50.00 dollar value. you would earn this by mailing our c.d.’s out and doing online promotions for us. reviews will add up quickly and you will have a lot of tattoo time acquired. interviews with the band will pay more. label interest will pay you more. mainly we seek a good promoter. visit www.thetattoomb.com for samples of my work. this is a barter/trade service. between me and you. the rest of the band owes nothing. if you are looking for top quality safe and sterile tattoo work, you cant do better then this. e-mail if interested. my efforts will meet yours. thanks.

This ad pretty much makes fun of itself, but please note well:

• thanks for doing us a favor by keeping things “brief”
• international award-winning
• 18 years experience = being in a band is for losers, scientific proof
• “downtown” Nashua! this guy’s legit.

So… someone owes me $50 of tattoo time, nahmean?

-VN

I love fun so I read Sergeant D.’s site Stuff You Will Hate and his MetalSucks column Green Eggs And Slam for the laughs (ask my 310 dudes re: my overuse of D.-isms “Please… Be Safe” and “That’s it I’m coming up there”). But the bonus has been this shocking amount of killer macho veincore jamz — by bands I’d normally ignore with a vigilance but can’t resist in the funny context of SYWH/GE+S.

Let’s review a few of my favorite finds from 2011!

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UPDATED:

And the Awesomest Idea of the Week award goes to Metal Injection, who have now created the Tom Araya Scream button. It’s a relatively simple concept, sure — you click a button like the one pictured below, and Tom Araya’s legendary scream from “Angel of Death” blasts at full volume — but isn’t genius the obvious idea that somehow no one has ever thought of before?

Click here to check out the Tom Araya Scream. It feels great if you have some aggression to burn.

ORIGINAL POST:

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The Stop Online Piracy act, or SOPA, is a scary, scary bill. It would ostensibly allow the government to shut down websites — ANY websites — at the drop of a hat due to any content which could be considered piracy. For example, MetalSucks could get shut down if a READER — not even a member of our staff — posted a link to ANY copyrighted materials, be it an illegal song download, a video, or even an album cover, in our comments section. Given how difficult it is for us to properly police the comments section, SOPA would probably mean the end of MetalSucks in no time flat.

And maybe you hate MetalSucks, and you’d be happy to see us go away. Fair enough. But SOPA could also mean the end of literally thousands and thousands of other metal and non-metal related websites. YouTube will be forced to go to unreasonably great length to police users’ contributions, and search engines like Google will have to drastically re-work their architecture to censor certain search results from appearing.

This bill pushes censorship while parading as “piracy prevention.” And the worst part is, SOPA is going to a full committee for a vote THIS THURSDAY, and will very likely pass. And if that horrifies you, well, it ought to.

Which is why we’re asking that you please, please, please call your congressperson today and let your objections be heard. It’s incredibly easy to do so, and will literally only take you a few minutes. Go here, enter your information into the form, and you’ll be connected to your congressman’s office within seconds. You can, and should, also sign this petition, although it’s for the Senate’s equivalent of the bill, which will not be voted on this Thursday.

‘Cause if you don’t, it’s not just the end of MetalSucks. It’s the end of the internet as you know it.

Back in August, I wrote about Envinity, a band whose marketing plan for their self-released album Moira’s Lake was to charge fifty bucks for a special edition — complete with such “there’s a reason no one in music has ever done this before” features as a gag reel — despite the fact that no one has ever heard of them (check out the photo above, and remember that this is an unsigned, not at all famous band). I was pretty merciless with the group, and some other websites soon followed — I even got word of a special “make fun of Moira’s Lake” listening party organized by a group of “fans.” And that may sound pretty mean, but in our defense, a) this website is called MetalSucks, and b) the web page and sales pitch for Moira’s Lake really were pretty much the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.

Well, hey, guess what? The band seems to have realized the errors of their ways, and have now posted the below apology on their website (click to enlarge):

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It’s been a long while since Roadrunner signed a reputable metal band on the up and up. Megadeth, Dream Theater, Rush and Opeth, some of their most recent signees, are all great bands to be sure, but all four were many albums into their career before moving over to Roadrunner. You’ve got to go all the way back to Trivium or possibly Killswitch Engage to find a metal band that Roadrunner scooped up from the underground and turned into a household name. Gojira are already established to some degree, sure, but while they’re loved and adored by the metal underground (relatively speaking), they’re not as well-known to mainstream metal crowds. Signing with Roadrunner signifies that both parties are ready to change that.

Can Gojira be the next household name in metal? They’re certainly good enough and have all the good-will of the metal underground backing them. Signing with a major label worked for Lamb of God and it sorta worked for Mastodon, but it was disastrous for Shadows Fall.

Anyway, Axl totally knocked it out of the park with an incredibly informative in-studio interview with Joe and Mario Duplantier last month; if you haven’t read it yet and you’re a Gojira fan, you owe it to yourself to do so right now. Decibel Magazine recently checked in with the latter, too, and got a juicy tidbit out of him about Gojira’s writing process. Unlike most bands these days who live in different cities and send files back and forth to write, Gojira actually still assemble in a room and jam everything out the old fashioned way! Quote:

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This is pretty crazy if it’s true, but I can’t say I’m surprised; Yngwie Malmsteen is using copyright infringement as an excuse to force YouTube into pulling down videos that poke fun at his weight.

From a forum thread written by YouTube user “adam02″ on Ultimate Guitar:

Yngwie malmsteen, has issued a DMCA copyright infringement takedown notice against a video I recently uploaded on youtube, as a result YouTube automatically remove the video and email you that it’s been removed: You are essentially guilty until proven innocent. Which is unfair.

Now here’s the real clincher! All the video contains is a recording I made of my right hand drawing a cartoon image of Yngwie Malmsteen in my room. No music apart from a cheesy silly intro which I made.

It doesn’t take an experienced solicitor to realise that there is no copyright infringement going on whatsoever. Here is a thumbnail from the video: you be the judge!

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Alas, this has already been taken down, but here’s a screen cap if you wanna check it out. Note Mr. Hetfield’s occupation as listed below:

Pretty brilliant, right? I can’t believe Wikipedia changed it!

-AR

[via The Metal of Honor]

Would the Protect IP Act / Stop Online Piracy Act help business or kill innovation? From Mashable, via BusinessInsurance:

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is stirring up a lot of controversy in the tech world. Companies that rely heavily on copyright protection call the bill piracy protection; those that rely on user-generated content call it censorship.The bill strengthens the U.S. Justice Department’s power to go after websites that host disputed copyright material — and could make sites such as YouTube and Tumblr that host such user-generated content liable for copyright violations.

AOL, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo and Zynga delivered a letter to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives last month that argues SOPA “pose[s] a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity.” They later ran the letter as a full-page ad in The New York Times.Meanwhile, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) support the bill.

If you’re as confused by the nitty-gritty of this act as we are — how would it help? how would it hurt? what would it actually do? — then I highly recommend you check out this very informative infographic that explains everything in a very easy-to-understand format. To be clear, sites like MetalSucks would probably cease to exist if these acts were to pass. Learn more about the bill here, including contact information for your local congresspeople.

-VN

Thanks: Muhammad Saleem

Because we have a video of a lady belly dancing to Orphaned Land.

Enjoy:

-AR

Thanks to Andrew Robbins for the clip!