So, hey, I dunno if you guys heard, but earlier this month we put on this totally rad festival, The Metal Suckfest? No big deal, it was just twenty awesome bands in two days, whatever.

So ANYWAY, our brahs over at Metal Injection were there to film another edition of their awesome “Ask the Artist” series, in which they — duhskis! – ask a variety of artists one particular question… in this case, “What sucks about metal?” Check out the answers from the bands that played The Metal Suckfest — plus a couple of incredibly handsome non-musicians (cough, Vince and I, cough, cough) below:

And don’t forget that you can check out more awesome installments of “Ask the Artist” right here. DO IT!!!

-AR

It’s been a rough year for Coheed & Cambria. In July, bassist Michael Todd was arrested for attempted armed robbery of a drugstore for opiate pills and was subsequently dismissed from the band, a “no duh!” decision that makes Joe Paterno look like a saint. Then, just a coupla weeks ago, ex-Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie announced that he was leaving the band to pursue other projects after holding down their drum throne for four years. Even though Claudio Sanchez and Travis Stever are the creative backbone of Coheed, a 50% lineup change in a four-month time frame is a pretty big deal and should’ve certainly had fans worried about the future of the band.

But worry no more! According to Noisecreep, former Coheed drummer Josh Eppard has stepped back into the Coheed fold.

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We had a blast at The Metal Suckfest in NYC last weekend, but don’t worry if you couldn’t make it; earlier this week we shared Justina Villanueva’s photos from Night 1 (featuring Municipal Waste, God Forbid, Today is the Day and more) and today we’ve got Mariel “Tormentia” Pietrykoski’s photos from Night 2. After the jump, relive all the glorious metal brought down upon us by Cynic, Obscura, The Red Chord, 3, A Life Once Lost, Scale the Summit, Last Chance to Reason, Fight Amp, Rosetta and Ultrageist on Night 2.

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The Metal Suckfest is this weekend!!! And in case you’re not familiar with, or are somehow not sold on, the twenty incredible bands we’ve booked to play THE party of the year, we have scoured YouTube for recent live footage of ALL the artists playing the fest… so you can have a little taste of the madness we have in store for ya! You can see clips from all the bands playing on Friday, November 4 here; and check out clips of all the bands playing on Saturday, November 5 below.

And don’t forget: TODAY and TODAY ONLY, ALL TICKETS TO THE METAL SUCKFEST ARE JUST $25 EACH with no added fees, regardless of whether you buy tickets online, or just walk up to the box office at the Gramercy Theatre. So if you don’t already have your tickets, make sure you take advantage!!!

And now, without further ado, enjoy concert footage of all the bands playing Day Two of The Metal Suckfest!

CYNIC

More after the jump!

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News flash: radio rock still sells. While most readers of this site will probably be disappointed to see the HUGE numbers sold by this week’s #1 and #2 Current Hard Music chart-toppers, there’s better news elsewhere in the form of debuts from Skeletonwitch, Charred Walls of the Damned and a ton of other bands you see listed down below in the “tags” field. Click through to learn more.

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The Inaugural Metal Suckfest is almost here!!!! Twenty bands will DESTROY The Gramercy Theatre on November 4 and 5, PLUS there’s an awesome, five-band pre-party at the venue the night before, making this THE can’t-miss hang of the year.

Tickets are on sale now right here, and you can hit up the fest’s official website for more info on the shows, including the complete line-up. In the meantime, we’re counting down to this weekend of chaos and debauchery by speaking to one member from each band on the bill. We continue today with legendary guitarist Billy Riker of 3, whose new album, The Ghost You Gave Me, was released on Metal Blade last week.

Read our chat after the jump. And don’t forget to check back in the coming days and weeks for interviews with more of the musicians participating in this awesome event!!!

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We have a decent amount of new stuff this week, including quality releases from Skeletonwitch, Black Cobra, Hull, Fuck The Facts and more. This writer’s opinion on all of it after the jump.

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Didja here? Just Monday we announced that Woodstock, NY progsters 3 were added to the lineup of The Metal Suckfest, playing the same night as Cynic, Obscura, The Red Chord, A Life Once Lost and a bunch of other bands. Call it smart planning, or more likely just serendipity; today sees the release of 3′s brand new album The Ghost You Gave To Me via Metal Blade, which you can now stream in full at AOL Music.

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Since we revealed the initial lineup of The inaugural Metal Suckfest roughly one month ago there’s been rampant speculation as to who the four final “TBA” bands to be added to the fest would be. Naturally, some of that speculation was correct and some of it wasn’t. But no matter; today is the day when we let the cat out of the bag.

All Pigs Must Die and This is Hell will appear on Friday, November 4th alongside Municipal Waste, while 3 and Last Chance to Reason will open for Cynic on Saturday, November 5th. Thus completes the 20-band lineup! And don’t forget about our official Suckfest “Pre-Game” event on Thursday, November 3rd. So:

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3 (PRE-GAME)
Mayhem
Keep of Kalessin
Hate
Abigail Williams
Woe

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4
Municipal Waste
God Forbid
Today is the Day
This is Hell
Howl
Black Tusk
Magrudergrind
All Pigs Must Die
Ramming Speed
Prime Evil

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Cynic
Obscura
The Red Chord
3
A Life Once Lost
Scale the Summit
Last Chance to Reason
Fight Amp
Rosetta
Ultrageist

Are you as stoked as we are? Can’t wait. Tickets are on sale now right here. Don’t forget to visit the official Metal Suckfest website for all the information you’ll need.

Clearly, MetalSucks is the best media outlet of any kind in the entire universe, but a close second would have to be High Times. The fantasy I have in my head is that the magazine’s offices are constantly shrouded in a cloud of weed smoke so thick everyone has to call out to one another and walk slowly with their hands extended to ensure they don’t crash into anything — kinda the human equivalent of gondolas turning through the canals of Venice — and then once a month someone is like, “Oh, shit, dude, we have a magazine to print!” But I’m sure it’s actually much more professional than that.

ANYWAY, the reason I mention High Times now is because they’ve done two things this week which are extremely metal. First, they debuted a new track by 3, which is called — wait for it — “High Times.” So that worked out pretty well. You know we got nuthin’ but love for 3 here at MS — in fact, we recently debuted a new 3 track ourselves, “React” — so we highly recommend that you head over to the High Times website and check that shit out. 3′s new album, The Ghost You Gave to Me, comes out October 11 via Metal Blade.

The second awesomely metalicious thing High Times did this week is get Phil Anselmo really stoned and do an epic four-part interview with him, in which he discusses, amongst other things, how he smoked herb for the first time when he was six years old. That is fucking YOUNG, dude. At least now I know what to do when I wanna ensure that my son is the next great heavy metal front man. You can check out part one of the interview below, then go here to watch the rest.

-AR

[Anselmo interview news via Metal Injection]

Few modern prog rock acts are as compelling as Woodstock’s 3. They’re top notch musicians, of course, but they’re also great songwriters who never get bogged down in showing off their skills with their instruments or naval gazing — they just make great music, period. If you already know the band, than we presume you already have October 11 marked in your calendar as the day that Metal Blade will release 3′s latest, The Ghost You Gave to Me; and if you somehow don’t know 3 yet, will, now is a great time to educate yourself!

MetalSucks is proud to premiere “React,” a new track from the aforementioned The Ghost You Gave to Me. Check it out below, celebrate its awesome awesomeness in our comments section, and then go here to pre-order the album in a variety of formats prior to the October 11 release date. We promise you will be glad ya did!

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Click to enlarge the ridiculously sweet poster art by Rodney Githens from Vertebrae 33 and Metal Band Art

When we first announced The Metal Suckfest, we promised you that it was NOT just a bunch of tours already-in-progress, routed so that they all converge for one event. That it was NOT just bands that all sound alike and one would normally expect to find on the same bill. That it would be a wholly unique concert in which some truly incredible artists are coming together JUST to play THIS ONE SINGLE EVENT.

And now you know — we weren’t lying.

We are SO PROUD to announce the line-up for the inaugural Metal Suckfest, which will take place November 4 and November 5 at The Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan. As you can see, the bands range from thrash to death to grind to prog to noise rock to NWOAHM to stoner to we don’t even know what you call it, but they all have one thing in common — they are all fucking awesome, and they are all 110% MetalSucks approved. This fest is gonna be so great, we keep having to pinch ourselves to make sure it’s real.

Tickets go on sale Friday at LiveNation.com at 10 am. 12 noon. We’ll be announcing the final four bands on the bill shortly, but trust us — you don’t wanna wait to get your ticket.

Here’s the rest of the line-up:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4
Municipal Waste
God Forbid
Today is the Day
This is Hell
Howl
Black Tusk
Magrudergrind
All Pigs Must Die
Ramming Speed
Prime Evil

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Cynic
Obscura
The Red Chord
3
A Life Once Lost
Scale the Summit
Last Chance to Reason
Fight Amp
Rosetta
Ultrageist

-Vince, Axl, and Everyone at MetalSucks

I somehow completely failed to realize that 3, one of the non-metal bands most appreciated by metal fans, were working on a new album… until I received my promo copy of that album, The Ghost You Gave to Me, last week. And, yes, that was a totally awesome, totally pleasant surprise. And, yes, the album is fantastic. These dudes do not disappoint.

Now you have your chance to get a taste of Ghost, too — the band is streaming the new song “Numbers” right here. And I know I was just saying how 3 aren’t a metal band, but it actually IS kind of a metallic song — I mean, there’s some real rockin’ sections that would not seem out of place on an album released by any number of the band’s Metal Blade label mates.

Check out the song for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments section below. The Ghost You Gave to Me comes out October 11 via the aforementioned Metal Blade.

-AR

…MS Maniac Daisy May Tinklepants just pointed out to us that the cover art for their new album, Revisions, is awfully similar to the cover art for Throwdown’s new album, Deathless. The two are being released too closely together for me to think that one is ripping off the other (also, their respective music is so dissimilar that I wouldn’t be surprised if either band didn’t care for the other’s work), so let’s just call it serendipity.

And, while we’re on the topic, here’s Slayer’s video of “Eyes of the Insane,” which the reader known only as “Jimmy” pointed out was the precursor for both of these covers.

-AR

3, one of the best not-really-a-metal-band to ever be signed to a metal label (Metal Blade) and tour with metal bands (Opeth, etc.), are going to make a video for the song “Rabid Animals” from their new album, Revisions. And that’s all well good, but here’s the really groovy part – they’re giving their fans a chance to be in the video. And you don’t have to spend any money, or win a contest, or anything like that.

Here’s a statement from the band:

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Back in March I bitched that this year’s Progressive Nation lineup — featuring Pain of Salvation, Beardfish, and Zappa Plays Zappa supporting Dream Theater — was decidedly less metal than last year’s lineup (which featured 3, BTBAM, and Opeth supporting DT — killer show) and wasn’t worth the price of admission to anyone under 50. A press release delivered good news to the MS Mansion earlier this week, announcing that Bigelf and Scale the Summit have replaced Pain of Salvation and Beardfish. Suh-weet!

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Apropos of nothing, we just wanna say: PLEASE DON’T SEE SAW V THIS WEEKEND. It’s time for that stupid fucking franchise to die already. If you’re in the mood for a horror movie because Halloween is coming up, there’s better fucking things you can rent. For fuck’s sake, just watch John Carpenter’s original Halloween again. Just don’t send the message that we want more of these inane fucking movies.

ANYWAY, here’s some shit that happened in the world of metal this week.

• Guns N’ Roses finally sent a single to radio and confirmed the release of Chinese Democracy. Enough of you cared enough to tell us you don’t care.
• We interviewed Opeth and 3. Progginess ensued.
• God Forbid’s new album got a title!
• Winds of Plague’s Kristen Randall thinks she’s Gloria Steinem. Thinking logical human beings everywhere strongly disagree.

Join us next week, same bat time, same bat channel!

I recently had the chance to sit down with not one but four members of Woodstock, NY’s prog-rock breakthrough act, 3. From inside their seventh floor hotel room dubbed “The Ivory Tower,” the band revealed the state of their current tour, their thoughts on last year’s album The End is Begun, and touring with bigger bands. Of course, in true MetalSucks style, their answers have a healthy helping of goofiness to them. Read the full transcript after the jump.

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The Progressive Nation tour hits New York City for two sold-out dates at the relatively intimate Terminal 5 next week, and we are beyond psyched. We’ve been talking about this damn tour since November for chrissakes, well before dates were announced.

A lot of folks I know that are going to Progressive Nation are least excited about the tour’s headliner, the mighty Dream Theater (the tour also features Opeth, Three, and Between the Buried and Me). To thee I say, you guys are fucking fools. Get over the need to prove yourself br00tal and enjoy one of the best, most enduring, and talented progressive metal bands of all time.

Take their cover of Pantera’s “Cemetery Gates,” featuring a battery of guest musicians and a Mega-special guest solo. What other band would choose this Pantera song as their homage? Few could even pull it off, let alone with this degree of awesomeness.

-VN

Because seriously, we were starting to think this whole thing was smoke and mirrors; but thankfully dates for the Progressive Nation tour featuring Dream Theater, Opeth, 3 and Between the Buried and Me have finally been announced. The North American trek covers 23 dates hitting mostly major markets and bookended by shows in Mexico and Puerto Rico (with Dream Theater and between the Buried and Me only). New York City and Calgary (of all places!) get two dates each. And the best part? This tour is playing intimate theaters! Terminal 5 in New York is a new venue maybe one and a half times the size of Irving Plaza — shit is not big! This is going to be awesome. Just don’t count on trying to pick up any chicks at these shows because the audience will be about 98% sausages, air-guitaring and air-drumming along wih every single note.

Tour dates after the jump.

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