I’m at the point where I pretty much prefer animated movies to live-action ones. I passed up some big deal, hotshot movie that came out recently, whose name I don’t even remember, to see Rango. I’m usually a pretty good judge, too, because I knew Rango was going to be awesome ,and it was. It looks absolutely amazing, and if you’re a nerd for animation detail, the gross, crusty animals will thrill you. Not to mention the classic movie references from Chinatown to Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s also damn violent for a “kids movie.” And well, I’m a movie nerd with a deep love for filmic violence. My dad didn’t have any sons, ok? He raised me to love his Fab Four; Arnold, Bruce, Sylvester, and Jean-Claude. And Dolph, on days he felt generous.

This might be odd, but I always liked to think about what various characters’ personalities would be like. Down to their music and movie taste. I especially try to pick out the metalheads, because I want to find my animated brothers and sisters in arms. It was while musing on the subject on Twitter that I found out the talented Ms. Elise over at Reign in Blonde kind of does the same thing. Apparently, all my acquaintances are online these days. She actually compiled a list of the most metal Disney characters, and with her help, I’ve expanded the list. Here are the Ten Most Likely Metalheads in Animated Movies (excluding anime and other international releases, as the author has not done enough research on the subject.)

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Reader Sam Britch wrote us a very nice e-mail asking us to give some exposure to some Alaskan bands. I only know two Alaskan metal bands off the top of my very pot-filled head, Turbid North and 36 Crazyfists, but those bands are both okay by me, so… yeah, let’s do this thing.

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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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Cephalic Carnage’s new ripper Misled by Certainty is now the rightful property of the two lucky winners of last week’s Photo Caption Contest. The two lucky winners are:

• Brock Stearns: “Mario learned the hard way that theres a difference between the “Mushroom of Immortality” and the “Mushroom [that] Makes you Immortal.”"
• Dingas McCloud: “Hellhammer Brothers.”

Good work, guys. This week we’re giving away limited edition, colored vinyl copies of 36 Crazyfists’ latest album Collisions & Castaways (read my thoughts on the album here) courtesy Ferret Records. These special vinyl editions don’t come out until October 5th so this is the only place you can get ‘em. We have two copies of the orange vinyl and two copies of the clear blue vinyl, so that means there will be four winners total (math!). To win, just come up with the funniest caption to the below photo, and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)! Check 36CF’s MySpace page for their current tour dates.

Oh, and in case you guys didn’t get the memo yet, “Fuckin ____, how do they work?” jokes are not funny anymore.

In May I wrote an editorial in which I wondered aloud (as I so often do) what would become of 36 Crazyfists, a band whose record label dynamics had suddenly and drastically changed after its founders jumped ship and gave up their stake in Ferret to Warner Music Group’s ILG (Independent Label Group).

Well, those questions remain; only time will answer them.* But at least on the part of the music, 36 Crazyfists have taken me by surprise by writing a pretty darn decent album.

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“But then our A&R guy got canned and no one at the label cared about us anymore,” goes the old tried-and-true saying about great bands being lost in the record label shuffle.

But what about when the A&R guy, marketing guy, label founder and owner are all the same dude? And what happens when he leaves voluntarily? And your band isn’t even “great” to begin with?

What happens is that you’re staring a giant shitstorm in the face and your band is called 36 Crazyfists.

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In honor of Alaskan metalcore band 36 Crazyfists’ new DVD, Under a Northern Sky (in stores October 27), a list of 35 other famous, metal, heavy, and/or crazy fists:

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As I mentioned earlier today, we saw Gojira live Sunday night, and they decimated Terminal 5 here in Manhattan. But seeing as they were sandwiched in between Alaskan metalcore masters 36 Crazyfists and Gothenburg gods In Flames, I thought I should share some not particularly well organized thoughts on those bands’ sets as well.

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It was a mostly Metallica week here at the MS Mansion, but it turns out that some other stuff happened too. In summary:

• We re-christened the site MetallicaSucks.net for a day — all of our writers each reviewed Death Magnetic to varying praise (or lack thereof).
• God Forbid debuted a new song. We likee. You likee.
• Lars Ulrich gave us tips for appearing taller than you really are, and Ronnie James Dio gave us hair care pointers.
• We spoke with Suicide Silence, Walls of Jericho and 36 Crazyfists.
• Saigon Kick will kick again in ’09.

Also, we wrote a whole lot of other shit about Metallica or something. Next week we’ll be back to our usual shenanigans. Enjoy your weekend!

And so it is with great sadness that we come to the last of our Rockstar Mayhem Festival interviews. Sigh.

At the tour’s stop at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, we got the chance to sit down with the improbably named Brock Lindow, front man for metalcore stalwarts 36 Crazyfists. Lindow is an incredibly nice dude who had some really interesting things to say about doing a big travelling festival tour, how band members that live so far away from one another maintain a long-distance working relationship, and, of course, his beloved home state of Alaska. Check out out the full transcript after the jump.

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Even though I’m not such a fan of In Flames’ latest album A Sense of Purpose, I will always love this band to death. The album wasn’t bad by any means, but it definitely falls well below the level of metal the band are capable of making, and ultimately when I’m fixin’ for the kings of Swedish melodeath I’m gonna grab Clayman, Colony or even Come Clarity before I grab this one.

But anyway, the band just released a video for the song “Alias” from that album; like the song itself, the video gets a solid “meh” from me. But like I said, I love this band, and I’ll listen to/watch anything they do. Including going to see them live; for my money they’re one of the best live bands of the past 15 years, hands down. You can bet your ass I’ll be rockin’ out hard fan-boy style when they tour the U.S. with All That Remains, Gojira, and 36 Crazyfists this winter (full list of tour dates after the jump).

-VN

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MetalSucks recently had the opportunity to have an all-too-brief chat with Underoath bassist Grant Brandell at the Rockstar Mayhem Festival’s stop at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Brandell had some interesting things to say about the tour, hanging out with other bands at the fest, and the band’s plans for the future. Check out the full transcript after the jump, then read David Bee Roth’s review of Underoath’s new album, Lost in the Sound of Separation, which was released earlier this week!

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A very, very, VERY special thanks to Rosa Henriquez for the awesome photos. Now we’re that much closer to being like a real big kids’ website!

I think one of the things Slipknot’s fans love most about them is one of the very same qualities that their detractors so violently hold against them: their theatricality. I mean, these are nine dudes who dress up in matching outfits and wear “spooky” masks. The band’s members talk about death metal an awful lot, and, musically speaking, that influence is certainly present. But aesthetically, they belong to a line of bands like Kiss and Motley Crue. They’re showmen.

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So, 36 Crazyfists released a new video for “We Gave it Hell,” from their forthcoming May 27th release The Tide and Its Takers (Ferret). I’m neither here nor there about this band — they’re not really all that good, but they certainly aren’t bad either, and I can’t quite fathom the hype that seems to exist around them. Is there actually hype, or is it just publicist-created goulash?

Whatever the case, as I’ve written about before, every single press release or article I read about 36 Crazyfists seems to harp on the fact that they’re from Alaska (even though they live in Portland, OR now) and this video is no different. “SNOWMOBILES!! WE’RE FROM ALASKA!! THAT GIVES US CRED, RIGHT?? SNOWMOBILES ARE METAL!!”

Sigh.

Watch the video below.

-VN

[Apologies to our International readers who will not be able to view the above MTV-ized video.]

Alaska (now Portland, OR) metalcore band 36 Crazyfists have certainly had a rough go of it. Their last three albums (including the soon-to-be-released The Tide and Its Takers) have all been released on different record labels — Roadrunner, DRT and now Ferret. Their last album Rest Inside the Flames was released by Roadrunner in Europe but the label declined to release it stateside. Makeshift label DRT swooped in and picked it up for release in the U.S. a few months later, not a fate I’d wish on any band, and the results were disappointing. Though the album achieved moderate success in the UK, it shifted only 1,858 copies in the U.S. during its first week of sales.

So the band has just posted a new song “Absent Are the Saints” on their MySpace page. As far as metalcore goes it certainly isn’t bad and it’s miles above retreads like all the bands on Tooth & Nail, Solid State, etc. But there’s nothing about 36 Crazyfists that has ever really stood out to me. At Download Festival 2006 they were one of the bands that Kerrang declared a “must see,” so see we did, and “must” is certainly not how we felt.

The new song is… OK. I feel like 9 out of 10 pieces I read about 36 Crazyfists mention that the band is from Alaska. Part of me feels like no one would be nearly as interested in this band if they were from somewhere more plebian like, say, Columbus, Ohio. Will Ferret be able to resurrect the career of 36 Crazyfists they way they did with In Flames? The Tide And Its Takers comes out May 18th.

-VN

[Photo credit: Brian Lee]