MetalSucks

Rob and Frank from Metal Injection are in Amsterdam right about now, probably sitting in some cafe smoking a fucking giant spliff. But they wouldn’t leave you guys hangin… so they’ve got a bunch of content auto-programmed content to keep ya’ll entertained this week (should I have spilled the beans on that one? Ah well, whatever). As part of their programmed content, they’ve gone and hand-picked the five favorite interviews that they’ve ever done. Today’s entry is an interview they did with A Life Once Lost; part 1 is a perfectly normal, albeit hilarious band interview, and part 2 (after the jump)… takes you to a higher place.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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The arrival of June means that all the big metal bands are over in Europe playing the festival circuit, but this isn’t all a bad thing. For one, it means some much-needed R and R (that’s rest and relaxation, fuckos) after a hectic Spring show season. It also means more time to go to smaller shows; ya know, ones that aren’t in huge concert halls where beer costs $7, and ones that are in real places where actual real / non scene-kid people hang out. The DIY (by comparison) shows of late Spring and early Summer offer a welcome respite from the big headline tours of early Spring and the packaged, brand-sponsored traveling festivals of Summer. This weekend I went to see the debut of NYC’s Motheater — a wicked brew of southern soul and northern fury — and a four-headed best of underground metal at Pitchfork’s “Show No Mercy” show serie, featuring Salome, Woe, Black Anvil, and Snake Sustaine.

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Thanks to Metal Injection for pointing out that A Life Once Lost have apparently started work on the follow-up to 2007’s Sacrament, Part II Iron Gag. In a statement, the band said “Now that we’ve heard Lamb of God’s Wrath, we know what our new album should sound like!”

In all seriousness, I shouldn’t give ALOL shit for aping LoG; for one thing, I actually really, really like ALOL’s music, and for another thing, they sometimes ape Meshuggah, too. So…

While we wait for the ALOL album later this year, here’s the band’s video for “Vulture” off of 2005’s Hunter, which is a rabid dog of  a record if ever there was one. That guitar solo is suh-weet!

-AR

U.K. prog-death-thrashers (yeah, I said it) Sylosis are without a doubt one of the young bands that interest me most in 2009, thanks in no small part to the urging of several MetalSucks readers. Their Nuclear Blast debut Conclusion of an Age is a refreshing burst of modern thrash and death metal, rolled into a nicely accessible little package and sprinkled with prog influences that show the maturity and restraint of a band twice their young age. We’ll post an official MetalSucks review shortly, but in the meantime I was able to catch up with guitarist Josh Middleton to ask him a few questions about the formation of the band, the events that led to their deal with Nuclear Blast, their upcoming touring plans and their metal heroes.

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So. You may or may not recall that, a few weeks back, for the first time ever, five females won the Completely Unreadable Band Logo contest. Dubbing them “The Slipknot Five,” I wrote that “since I’ve never had a girlfriend who was actually into metal, I’m hoping at least one them e-mails me with a marriage proposal. Fingers crossed.”

Well, lo and behold, one of those ladies, Ms. Stacey Watrobski, did, in fact, e-mail me with a marriage proposal, and even included a link to her MySpace page so I could see that she didn’t, in her words, “look like one of those broads from Kittie.” Stacey then scolded me for never promoting shows outside the NYC area; I, in turn, promised to promote any show outside NYC that she asked me to, seeing as we’re now engaged n’ all.

Well, now Stacey has a show she wants to promote, so I’m here to help. But rather than try and write something about said show, I’m just going to let her tell you about it:

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Do you know how to say “brutal” in French? Brutal. True story. Six years of French. Suck it, bitches.

ANYWAY, The Way of All Flesh may not be the most br00tal album of the year, but it’s certainly the most vicious. L’album le plus méchant de l’anée. Hooky but heavy, proggy but not pretentious, and French but not froggy, The Way of All Flesh instantly jumps ahead of this year’s melodic death metal pack.

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HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. Those were the only three words I could manage to conjure immediately following the insanity that was last night’s Dillinger Escape Plan show at the Blender Theatre here in NYC. And rarely has the word “show” so readily applied to a concert. DEP live inhabit a plane somewhere between the brutal, take-no-prisoners all-out-war of Henry Rollins-era Black Flag and the pyro-laden theatricality of Kiss in their prime. Put more simply: YOU HAVE TO GO SEE THIS BAND LIVE.

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Vince and I went with the Metal Injection dudes to check out A Life Once Lost at the warm-up gig they did on Monday night at Lit Lounge. I don’t have much to say about ALOL; anyone who has heard their most recent release, Iron Gag (read our review here), or any of their other albums for that matter, knows that these dudes rock, and you should go see them when they come to your town with Walls of Jericho and Suicide Silence (get a complete list of tour dates on ALOL’s MySpace page).

But I have to say something about Bloody Panda, the band that opened the show: I’ve heard nothing but good things about this band, and maybe I just wasn’t stoned enough to appreciate them, but they sounded like some punishment sent from God – and no, I don’t mean that as a compliment.

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