We’re guessing any new Mutiny Within music isn’t gonna sound much like Percy Sledge… but however it turns out, this kid’s got pipes, right?

-VN

Thanks: Hetal Bhatt

Because I’m not. Well, I guess that’s not fair. I’m not not a fan, I’ve just somehow never seen it. Hey, look, like I’ve said before, there are only so many hours in the day, and snarky metal blogs don’t just write themselves. I’m sure it’s great, though. Everyone says it is, anyway. I had never seen It’s Always Sunny in Phildelphia for THE LONGEST TIME , and then someone finally showed me an episode, and I was like, “Oh, this is fucking amazing!”, and then I watched the entire series-up-to-that-point in a weekend. I’m sure someday I’ll feel just as dumb for not having seen Tim and Eric sooner.

Why am I babbling on about my television watching habits? Because MetalSucks Maniac/super-talented dude Ben Robson sent us the below video, which is “a medley of songs from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, redone into rock/metal styles” that he himself made. Again, having never seen the show, my appreciation for this is limited mostly to admiring Robson’s skills as a musician, but I imagine some of you will find it much lulzier.

You can check out more of Ben’s work here or here.

-AR

The below video collects the entirety of Napalm Death’s seminal debut, Scum, and plays all the songs at once, right on top of one another. I saw it first at Invisible Oranges, where Cosmo Lee asserts that Napalm Death are now “semi-polished,” but that “the mashup has a strange beauty.” I don’t mind telling, you, that the beauty of it is basically lost on me; I think Cosmo’s admittance that “maybe it’s all just a pile of noise” is much more accurate. But give it a listen and feel free to disagree with me.

One way or the other, it’s pretty funny that somebody did this; pretty funny that that person apparently may or may not be Merzbow; and pretty funny that the whole thing lasts less than four minutes.

-AR

I haven’t been watching the HBO series adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, but I hear it’s awesome, and I suspect I’ll watch the whole thing in one big clump at the conclusion of the season.

But those of you who have been watching it — and the ratings tell me that it’s quite a few of you! — may enjoy Roger Lima’s metal cover of the theme music, which was originally composed by Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man, Clash of the Titans). It really does sound like it could be a Turisas song or something. This shit is definitely epic.

Lima is giving away a free mp3 of his recording here, if you wanna rock this shit properly.

And here’s the music in its original form, in case, like me, you weren’t previously familiar with it:

Click to read more…

-VN

Thanks: Tim Bartolini

But only so you all stop e-mailing us about it. Sheesh. It’s not even that funny. It sounds way, way too real to be funny — like, it could seriously be a Dr. Acula song or something.

Keyboard flip.

-AR

Brian Haner, a.k.a. “Guitar Guy” or “Papa Gates,” is the father of Brian Haner, Jr., a.k.a. “Synyster Gates,” of Avenged Sevenfold fame. Like his son, the elder Haner is a guitar player — currently, I’m told, he’s rocking out with… Jeff Dunham. Yep. The dude with the puppet. Awesome, I know.

ANYWAY, Mr. Haner has now made “Saturday,” the one-bajillionth viral response to Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” It really is amazing how quickly this shit happens today; “viral” almost doesn’t do it justice. And all this “Friday” nonsense has happened so very fast that I’m afraid I’m already over it.

So while I appreciate, in theory at least, Papa Gates’ dark sense of humor, and the fact that he’s probably cooler than most dads (or more pathetic, maybe, depending on how you look at it I guess)… well, frankly, this is about as funny as you’d expect from a dude who spends his time working with Jeff Dunham.

-AR

Thanks to Carlos B. for the tip.

I am a strong believer in the healing and soothing effects of tea. I drink it all the time. So I was tickled by this “commercial,” which praises tea while deftly lampooning both pro-wrestling and metal culture.

I have no idea who actually did the V.O., but doncha think he sounds exactly like The Ultimate Warrior?

Hopefully the creators of this sketch are now hard at work on Fuckin’ Chicken Soup!!!

-AR

[UCB by way of The Deciblog]

Okay, so I had no fucking clue about this whole Rebecca Black/”Friday” phenomenon until a reader left a comment about it under one of our stories last week; then another reader sent us an e-mail bemoaning the fact that Black was so successful while brilliant metal musicians everywhere are struggling to make ends meet. And suddenly even Bob Lefsetz is talking about her.

So, yeah. Rebecca Black is hilariously untalented in every conceivable way — the amount of autoLaBonte she uses suggests that even her speaking voice is probably off-key, and she has the lyric writing prowess of an aborted retard fetus — and I imagine that that’s why she’s become such a sensation. I do not think there’s any reason to get upset about her “success” in the sense that even if right now she’s outselling everyone in the world at a ratio of a gajillion to one, her fifteen minutes are probably almost up. This is not a situation like the one we’ve run into with Britney Spears, where twelve years later it’s like “Holy crap I can’t believe this girl is still famous.” Unless Black and whomever is aiding her can write several more albums’ worth of stuff as hilariously idiotic as “Friday,” only VH1′s I Love the 10′s or whatever the fuck it will be called will remember this girl in twelve years. And if I’m wrong, well, I’ll just kill myself, because it will mean that Idiocracy was not fiction.

But let’s hope I’m not wrong. And while we ride out the wave of this nonsense, here’s the inevitable “clever” deathcore version of Black’s mega-hit, which was sent to us by our own Dave Mustein. I actually think this sounds even worse than Black’s original, but maybe it will give you a giggle.

-AR

Girls like Meytal Cohen should not have to wear corsets and other ridiculous outfits to get attention for their skills as a musician.

Yeah, dude, but corsets are hot!

Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing you rally against when you speak out about bullshit like Revolver‘s “Hottest Jail Bait Girls in Metal” issue?

Dude, a cute Jewish girl playing Pantera? It’s like the Inception people extracted one of your wet dreams and made it a reality.

Well, do we even know for sure that she’s Jewish?

Uh, are you fucking kidding me?

Why does she keep turning to the camera and smiling?

Shhh, don’t ask so many questions. Just go with it.

I think I need to call my shrink…

Or, at the very least, your rabbi.

-AR

Thanks: Justin.X.XIII

Guys, I honestly do not give a fuck if you wear your pants or not. But don’t make me feel like a dick for wanting to discuss relevant metal bands, as opposed to, say, sit around and wonder when Queensryche are get their shit together. (Short answer: Never. Long anser: Abso-fuckin’-lutley never ever never never.)

So. We might have to spend a portion of today catching up on shit that happened last week. For example…

As you know from reading my recent interview with Chimaira guitarist Rob Arnold, the band are currently in the studio recording a new album. And apparently they’ve been swept up in all the Charlie Sheen hysteria that’s been going on as of late (seriously, motherfucker hasn’t been on so many people’s minds since Platoon came out), so they decided to record a cover of The Troggs’ classic anthem, “Wild Thing” (below). For the youngsters out there: the song choice isn’t just a reference to Sheen’s recent behavior, but also to… well, just get your ass to Netflix.

UPDATE: Metal Insider tells me that this cover is now available for purchase on iTunes.

Chimaira’s new album should be out later this year on eOne.

-AR

Thanks: Ryan Badami

We’ve all seen a movie in which a monster or alien or alien monster or monstlien spends 90 minutes terrorizing people with its brute strength and supernatural firepower, right? But at the end, some hunky guy who uses tons of hair product fells the beast with some hokey, implausible trick-move like turning on a microwave near it or mounting and riding it while attaching an IED to its nads. It’s a fundamental flaw in this type of movie; comparatively speaking, do filmmakers mean to impy that if a particularly motivated ant so desired, he or she could take me out with a wee little poison dart-shooting taser or something? Fuck that.

Well, that’s what I used to think until I saw a clip (above) of feeble Kiss frontman Paul Stanley heroically toppling the unstoppable party beast called Steel Panther. It’s incredible! That band is all-powerful and merciless — I’ve never seen even a ho-hum Steel Panther performance, in person or otherwise — yet it took Stanley about two seconds to explode a shittiness bomb in their midst and reduce their jam to rubble. Now, Kiss apologists will rush to point out that the clip’s audio quality is unkind to Stanley and suggests a toy microphone inputted direct to a 1989 camcorder. And Stanley is cold and old and just walked onstage to belt “Lick It Up.” And Panther guitarist Satchel kinda jukes Stanley with a premature move to the bridge. Sure, I guess that would justify a C+ performance. This shit is F. F for fffffail.

–ADF

Steel Panther plays Mondays at House of Blues Sunset Strip and weekends in Vegas. Dates here.

Alright, seriously, I am over it with Andy Rehfeldt. His schtick of turning metal songs into non-metal songs and non-metal songs into metal songs was funny for awhile, but the joke is getting pretty old now. I appreciate how much work must go into making these things, but it’s time for him to find a new gimmick.

For better or worse, though, you guys seem to continue to dig Rehfeldt’s work, as evidenced by the e-mail we received from the reader known as Pahkmycah, which included a link to Rehfeldt’s latest: a Radio Disney version of Bloodbath’s “Eaten.” So I’m gonna post this, and you cats can all enjoy it, while I continue to serve my role as The Last Angry Man.

-AR

OF COURSE YA DO! So thank the anonymous reader who sent us a link to the below vid. Yes, it would be way cooler if this were being played by an actual orchestra and wasn’t just a synth-simulation, but it’s still pretty frickin’ amazing that someone took the time to do this… and he did such a good job, too! Whenever my non-metal friends express disbelief that I “can listen to this stuff,” I try to tell them about the kinship between extreme music and classical music, and assert that if you took out all the screaming and had an orchestra play the same music, they would all “get” the skill involved in these compositions. But they usually just look at me like I’m crazy. Hopefully, this will do a little more to prove my point in the future…

And just for kicks, here’s an 8-bit version of the same song… sounds kinda like a Genghis Tron demo…

Click to read more…

Alright, so our friend Allie first showed this to us way back in December, and it’s pretty much the greatest thing in the history of ever. And yet, we somehow never got around to posting it. But we’re correcting that error right now!

So: MetalSucks Maniacs, meet Wild Steve. Please give him a warm welcome, and show him some respect. No, seriously: He is the heavyweight mosh skills mosh, so GET IT IN YOUR FUCKING SKULLS — YOU’LL GET FUCKING MOOSHED IF YOU FUCK WITH HIM.

Alright, so anyone wanna take any guesses as to what made him so angry before he made this video? Who fucked with Wild Steve? Who fucked with Wild Steve?!?

Here’s another clip from Wild Steve, which he apparently modeled on those videos terrorists send out. Choice moments include:

Click to read more…

Short n’ sweet: there’s this young lady named Alexandra Nicoletti who has been posting videos of herself on YouTube in which she plays piano versions of Amon Amarth songs (and some non-metal stuff, too, like a number from Beauty and the Beast), and she’s really good. Here she is doing the band’s new song, “War of the Gods”:

You can check out more at her YouTube channel. She also has a Facebook fan page if you wanna show your support that way.

The actual studio version of “War of the Gods” will appear on Amon Amarth’s new album, Surtur Rising, which comes out March 29 on Metal Blade.

-AR

Thanks to Mike Manzo for the tip.

Any metalhead who owns a small dog — or has a friend who owns a small dog — has definitely done this, and is lying if they say otherwise. I’m just shocked this pooch puts up with it for 4:08; if I ever tried to do this with Axl’s bichon, Sacha the Death Metal Nightmare Puppy, I’d probably have teeth marks on my arm before the first chorus. But man, this little guy is cute… even when he’s baring his teeth, just completely adorable.

-VN

I can’t describe this video in any way which would be more fun than just watching, soooo… just watch it.

Awesome. Totally awesome.

-AR

Forget all labels of dorkiness / loserness / awesomeness you’ve previously bestowed upon yourself. World of Warcraft all-nighters? No biggee. Masturbating 5 times in a day? Child’s play. Practicing guitar scales in your bedroom for hours? That ain’t got nothing on this 11 year-old girl who taught herself to play Rush’s already insane “YYZ” on piano, by herself, USING HER FEET TO PLAY GEDDY’S BASS LINES. I’ll let MS Maniac Steve Stamopolous take it from here:

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

Is Steve right, or what? This is so nerdy / awesome that I don’t know what else to say, so I’ll let the video do the talking:

I’m not sure which is more mind-blowing: this performance, or the fact that the audience could barely muster a few claps afterwards.

Speaking of Rush, here’s 3 Inches of Blood covering Rush’s “Anthem” on their current tour with Eluveitie, Holy Grail and System Divide:

Click to read more…

Behold, regular Happiness:

Now… add some death metal:

Voila.

-VN

Thanks: Ace Rimmer