I haven’t listened too intently to the lyrics for “Leather Lord,” the brand new song by 3 Inches of Blood, but based on the words in the chorus, historical inference and good old fashioned intuition it’s not too hard to guess what this song is about: PURE HEAVY FUCKING METAL. I’m imagining a masked avenger clad in full-body leather armor spiked to the nines whose sole duty in life it is to seek out those not headbanging furiously enough and whip them into submission. I wouldn’t wanna fuck with that guy, would you??

Avoid the wrath of the Leather Lord by listening to the new 3 Inches of Blood song over at RockHard.de. Long Live Heavy Metal comes out on March27th.

-VN

In the absence of actual new music or substantial information of some kind, I find it kinda hard to get psyched up about the announcement of an album release date in all but a few special cases. But there have been a number of big release date announcements and rumors in the past few days, so I figured I’d lump ‘em all together and, as if you expected anything else, share my thoughts, hopes and dreams for each. Here we go:

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Hey, so remember last week when we told you this year’s Metal Alliance Tour* featuring DevilDriver, The Faceless, Dying Fetus, Job For A Cowboy, 3 Inches of Blood, and Impending Doom? Well, the full tour itinerary has been released, so now you can, like, go n’ shit. I don’t really know what else there is to say about this tour… it’s such a killer line-up, I’m just stoked to go.

Here are the dates, courtesy of Lambgoat:

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Last year’s first annual Metalliance Tour had a sweet line-up — Helmet, St. Vitus, Crowbar, Kylesa, Red Fang, Howl, and The Atlas Moth — and it’s looking like this year’s edition will as well… although, holy tonal shift Batman, y’know? According to Lambgoat, the bill this year will consist of Devildriver, The Faceless, Dying Fetus, Job For A Cowboy, 3 Inches of Blood, and Impending Doom, six bands who are obviously way, way different from the groups that played last year.

But who cares? There’s literally only bad band on the bill — Impending Doom — and if they play first, they’ll be easy to miss anyway. The rest of this bill is a total beast.

Only a few dates have gotten out so far, but more are sure to follow. So, for now:

Click to read more…

I am very excited to take over the controls of the mighty MetalSucks Mansion today and Wednesday from my Texas-based satellite office!

Up first, an incredible, ass-kicking new video from the mighty Canadian metal purists 3 Inches of Blood that’s full of…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!

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And here I didn’t even know that 3 Inches of Blood have a new 7″ coming out. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.

But they do! It’s got a title – Anthems for the Victorious — but no release date just yet. You can, however, stream a new track, “Lords of Change,” by going to Facebook and telling everyone how much you like 3IOB.

As for the song, well… seriously, do any of you not know what 3IOB sound like at this point? I mean they’re not gonna put out a techno record. Get with the fucking program, slackers.

Headbang here. We’ll let you know when Century is releasing the 7″ as soon as we know ourselves.

-AR

The bad news is that drummer Derrick Nau has left the band, although apparently under amicable circumstances — in a statement, the group says that Nau ”is returning to art school and does not wish to be a musician anymore.” C’est la vie.

The great news is that the band has already named a replacement for Nau, and that replacement is Tony Laureano, who, the statement says, “will be playing drums on our April tour, new album, and for the foreseeable future.”

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[To chronicle their current tour -- the U.S. portion of which features 3 Inches of Blood, Holy Grail and System Divide in support -- Swiss folk metallers Eluveitie will be writing an exclusive tour blog for MetalSucks. Read about the Brazilian tour in the Week 1 Tour Blog, and arriving in America and Canada in Week 2. Week 3 follows, in which Eluveitie learn to enjoy the old American West and encounter zombies in Vancouver. -Ed.]

Chicago. We had more than enough rest and we can’t wait to actually DO something again. Offdays are useless crap. After the traditional morning excursion to Starbucks we can face the day!

Nice location, good sound, great restaurant and a reasonable amount of fans making it to the show, so nothing to complain about at all. Jenna is the lucky contest winner (over a couple of weeks fans could record videos of them covering “Thousandfold” and we chose the winners), so she will be on stage with us tonight to play her “Flying V” violin (with fuckin frets, how weird is that?!).

And FINALLY we get our after-show party!

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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.

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[To chronicle their current tour -- the U.S. portion of which features 3 Inches of Blood, Holy Grail and System Divide in support -- Swiss folk metallers Eluveitie will be writing an exclusive tour blog for MetalSucks. Week one of the tour took them through Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Curitiba, Brazil; read about the Brazilian tour in the Week 1 Tour Blog. Week 2 follows, in which we learn that Eluveitie hate touring with other folk/pagan metal bands but absolutely love Walmart. -Ed.]

Sleep for 10 hours straight on the plane and wake up in the freezing cold. Awesome. Temperature shock FTW part II! BUT there’s a Starbucks at the airport which gets us all excited and stuff.

First stop, Philly! Apart from the bad news of people not making it to the show because roads are blocked and shit like that we’re stoked to see our good friends from Holy Grail. 3 Inches of Blood unfortunately can’t make it to the show because their van broke down… System Divide sound really good, great to be on a tour with bands that are worth listening to. Side note: We fucking hate touring with folk/pagan metal bands (apart from Finntroll). Isn’t it ironic ;-)

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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:

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Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

Click to read more…

Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

Click to read more…

FEATURING MEMBERS OF KYLESA, DARKTHRONE, BRUTAL TRUTH, KATAKLYSM, 3 INCHES OF BLOOD, TEXTURES, SWASHBUCKLE, THIS OR THE APOCALYPSE, DISFIGURING THE GODDESS, BURNING THE MASSES, CHRISTIAN MISTRESS, MISERY, AND GRIFTEGARD

For 2010, we decided to do something special as part of our regular end-of-year festivities here at MetalSucks — namely, ask musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year were. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of ten to twelve musicians at a time twice a day for the rest of the week.

After the jump, check out the seventh group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

(And please note that these are musicians and that they, um, have a lot on their minds. So some of ‘em named albums that actually came out last year. Please don’t freak out.)

Click to read more…

Man, Eluveitie are a fun live band. “How fun are they?” Why, I’m glad you asked, oh beloved readers. They’re so much fun that, as Vince would say, if you don’t like fun, you shouldn’t go see them live.

Of course, you do like fun, and you will go see them live. And if you live in North America, you’ll go see them live in February, when they’re doing a headlining trek. And they’re taking some great bands on the road with them for support, too — namely, 3 Inches of Blood and Holy Grail. System Divide will also be on the tour.

Get dates after the jumper-ator-ator-ator.

Click to read more…

Earlier this week I had a dream that I was working with Atreyu. I don’t know in what capacity I could possibly find myself “working with” Atreyu, since I’m not a manager, nor a publicist, nor a label rep, and they’re about as likely to end up doing a guest column here as I am to give the new In This Moment album a perfect 5-horn review, but, hey, the subconscious works in mysterious ways. Why did I have Atreyu on the brain? Was my mind trying to tell me “The glass is half-full?” Do I have  a hankering to re-watch The Neverending Story? Did I just ingest too many different substances that night? I’ll have to bring it up in therapy next week.

Here’s other shit that happened this week, some of which, believe it or not, is even more terrifying than the thought of working with Atreyu:

• Freddy Madball is counting down his favorite hard and heavy non-hardcore bands of all time, TesseracT’s Acle walked us through the history of djent, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley spoke to Converge’s Kurt Ballou about Taco Riffs, The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks made some suggestions for losing NFL teams, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable contemplated the ways in which technology has changed touring, Daath’s Eyal Levi wondered, “Is this it?”, and a wide array of metal stars previewed the just-begun NHL season.
• We spoke to Kirk Windstein from Crowbar/Down/Kingdom of Sorrow, Sean Z. from Daath, Daddy X and Dirtball from Kottonmouth Kings, and Yoshiki Hayashi from X Japan.
• We checked out the latest releases from Abysse and Deafheaven.
• We contemplated trancecore.
• As the headline says, we heard the worst thing ever.
• We reviewed the history of terrible Limp Bizkit cover songs.
• We had fun with misheard song lyrics.
• We bemoaned the signing of another re-thrash band.
• We applauded Slayer fans’ desire to help the physically disabled.
• We had yet another laugh at Winds of Plague’s expense.

We have a special surprise for you next week. I can’t promise you’re going to like it, but I can promise you’re going to have a strong reaction to it. See ya then.

-AR

So right now you’re probably thinking 1) “Hey, assholes, the NHL season actually started last night so this can’t really be a ‘preview’ in the traditional sense of the word,” and 2) “Hey, assholes, at least one of these artists isn’t actually signed to Relapse Records.” And, yes, we know we’re a little late, but this is metal, so who the fuck is ever on time? And, yes, we know that at least one of these artists isn’t actually signed to Relapse Records, but most of them are, and the fine people at Relapse really did all the work in putting this together, so ppppfffffttttt.

So. After the jump, you can find previews of how the freshly-begun NHL season is looking for the favorite teams of members of 3 Inches of Blood, -(16)-, Buried Inside, Cephalic Carnage, Cretin, Dekapitator, Exhumed, Fuck the Facts, Gravehill, Hero Destroyed, Indian, Misery Index, Mortuous, Repulsion, and Toxic Holocaust. Enjoy!!!

Click to read more…

Bloody Disgusting has unveiled 3 Inches of Blood’s new video, for “Silent Killer,” and while I do think it would be awesome if the entire thing were about some dude ripping SBDs that make people pass right the fuck out from the putrid stench, I also like the video the band actually made. Why? What it lacks in sophistication, it makes up for with violence. And vomiting. Don’t forget the vomiting.

In fact, you may not wanna watch this at work. Or while eating.

“Silent Killer” comes off of 3IOB’s latest, Here Waits Thy Doom, which is out now on Century.

-AR

Maiden and Slayer have been putting their names on custom-designed shoes for years. Mastodon Vans and 3 Inches of Blood Nikes were the most recent entries into the metal sneaker trend until Valient Thorr crashed their party earlier this year. Now King Diamond is along for the ride too.

So what do we all think of this recent band-endorsed sneaker fad in metal? Would you spend your hard-earned bones on a sneaker adorned in your favorite band’s logo? For the sake of this poll, let’s assume that any band sneakers we’re talking about are well-designed and look really cool.

Valient Thorr are one of the most entertaining live metal bands on the planet. Valient Himself is one of the most ragingly funny frontmen in existence; Devin Townsend, Frank Mullen, Valient Himself. Dude just has me in fucking stitches before he even opens his mouth. He also sweats more in a 40 minute set than any normal human being does in a lifetime which in and of itself is pretty funny.

But a Valient Thorr shoe? Metal bands partnering with shoe companies to release custom models seems kind of in vogue lately, whatwith the widespread popularity of  Iron Maiden Powerslave Vans and Mastodon Vans. Shit, even not-all-that-popular bands like 3 Inches of Blood have joined the party with an admittedly damn cool line of Nike kicks. But all these shoes are just so fucking flashy, and honestly if I hadn’t been sent a pair of those 3 Inches of Blood hi-tops because I write for a hack metal blog I never would have bought them. Metalheads are plain folk and don’t really strike me as the shoe-collecting crowd, which begs the question: who exactly are these shoes being made for?

In contrast to the flashiness of the above-mentioned metal band sneakers, the new Valient Thorr shoe is plain and simple. It’s being made by Globe Shoes and was designed by Chris Haslam. And crucially: IT’S ALL BLACK! How much more metal than that can you get? Here’s a band that knows their fanbase well. At $70 they might be a little more than some metalheads are looking to spend, but $70 for a well-made pair of sneaks that’ll stand the test of time the mosh-pit is money well spent.

-VN