Dear Killswitch Engage,

I was very happy to hear that Jesse Leach has re-joined the band. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to Howard Jones. I think HJ is a great vocalist and a great performer, and I love The End of Heartache. But I don’t think it’s any secret that you fellas needed some kind of creative kick in the pants. And Leach did an amazing job when he played with you back in 2010, and Alive or Just Breathing is a bonda fide modern classic. If you weren’t going to be able to move forward with Howard Jones, then, really, getting Leach back was the only move that made any real sense. So, mazel tov! I am officially excited to hear your new album and see you dudes live again.

Now, if I may be so bold, a humble request to keep in mind while moving forward: please don’t let your reunion album sound like Times of Grace.

Click to read more…

If that combo makes you scratch your head and go “zuh?” then you certainly wouldn’t be the only one, but there you have it: three of the most vocal personalities from Cannibal Corpse, Killswitch Engage and The Black Dahlia Murder are apparently teaming up for a new project.

The news comes straight from Corpsegrinder’s mouth, as told to the Metal Injection dudes aboard the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise ship last week. Axl originally reported on a rumor about this merry group of metalmen back in August of 2011, but according to an article published by Rob Pasbani on Metal Injection yesterday it’s “DEFINITELY” (emphasis his!) happening. Here’s the juice:

We spoke with Corpsegrinder last week during our coverage of the 70,000 Tons of Metal, and even though the cameras stopped rolling, Corpsegrinder was still in a chatting mood. I just so happened to be wearing a Black Dahlia Murder shirt, and Corpsegrinder noticed it and confirmed to us that he is DEFINITELY working on a project with the Black Dahlia drummer, and Adam D. and it’s sounding killer.

Click to read more…

Last week I wrote a little bit about how a lot of modern production techniques I loathe may actually be aesthetic choices; and I tried to keep that in mind as I attempted to listen to Dead Throne, the latest offering from The Devil Wears Prada. If, for example, the band didn’t favor such excessive use of autotune and vocoder, would the songs at least be solid?

Click to read more…

Times of Grace’s new video, for the song “Live in Love,” is like an odd hybrid of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” video and Soul Asylum’s video for “Runaway Train” — it’s basically just the band walking, intercut with various facts pertaining to a particular social issue.

But I have nothing bad to say about it, ’cause the social issue is abused children, and the video is meant to support the Rise Above Foundation, “a nonprofit dedicated to providing Massachusetts children in foster care with enriching activities, opportunities and experiences.” Which is, obviously, a very, very good cause.

Check out the video below, then head over to the Rise Above Foundation to learn how you can help. Times of Grace’s The Hymn of a Fallen Man is out now on Roadrunner, and we’re giving away some autographed copies of the CD booklet for this week’s Completely Unreadable Band Logo competition.

NOPE, THEY TOOK THE VIDEO DOWN. OH WELL. GO HELP THE KIDS ANYWAY.

-AR

[via The PRP]

Horns up for reader Kimberly De Simone. She correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Introrectalgestation. For her efforts, Kimberly wins  a copy of the CD booklet for Opeth’s Watershed that has been signed by the entire band. I hope you get that framed, Kimberly!

This week, we have another awesome prize, again courtesy of the nice folks at Roadrunner Records:  a copy of the CD booklet for Times of Grace’s The Hymn of a Broken Man that has been signed by both Adam Dutkiewicz and Jesse Leach. Pretty sweet, right? And we’ve got TWO of ‘em to give away!

All you gotta do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select two winners and announce their names one week from today.

This week’s logo was suggested by the reader known as “Utmu,” and it is a fucking doozy… best of luck reading it, ’cause I sure as shit can’t!

-AR

Here’s an interesting story that The PRP picked up on: during a recent interview with Lithiummagazine.com, Killswitch Engage/Times of Grace guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz claimed to be working on  a death metal side project with the drummer from Black Dahlia Murder and the singer from Cannibal Corpse.” (That would be Shannon Lucas and  George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, respectively, in case you somehow don’t know that.)

And while it isn’t presently clear whether or not Dutkiewicz was being serious or just dicking around, I’d still like to say right now: I would check that band out.

Here’s my reasoning:

Click to read more…

Remember when Adam D.’s hair looked like this? Good times.

Times of Graces, the Alive or Just Breathing-era Killswitch Engage reunion that doesn’t play any songs from Alive or Just Breathing, will spend their summer doing support of Underoath. (I’m sure there’s a “Underoath is Not-” joke to be made, but I’m not quite sure what it is. Underoath are Not-Botch? Underoath are Not-Good? I’m open to suggestions.) Other bands on the bill will be Stray from the Path and Letlive. Or, put more simply: I’m not going to this tour.

But you can! No judgments. Okay I might judge you a little but not so much that we can’t still be friends. Jesse Leach can still sing his ass off and Adam D. is still entertaining as hell to watch. I’m just a grumpy old man who wants to hear “Life to Lifeless” more than he wants to hear “Live in Love,” and doesn’t want to hear Underoath, Stray from the Path, or Letlive at all.

But if you’re not like me — and, statistically, a lot of you are not like me — here are dates. Enjoy the show!

Click to read more…

Back in 2008, legendary metalcore pioneers Overcast — who went on to be in a couple ofsmaller bands you may have heard of, like Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage — got back together to re-record some old tunes for a collection called Reborn to Kill Again. When that album was released, I interviewed vocalist Brian Fair (also of the aforementioned Shadows Fall), and I asked him if Overcast might ever write some new music together. His answer?

“We’ve actually talked about it because Pete [Cortese, guitarist] and Mike [D'Antonio, bassist] definitely have ideas for songs. We just have to make sure that they’re Overcast songs, you know? And not just a Pete song. Like I said, it has to be tuned to E and there has to be a mosh part that goes nowhere and there has to be random time changes for no reason. All those things have to be there in order to make it an Overcast song. We’re definitely not opposed to [writing and recording new material]. It may or may not happen, it depends on if the songs are quality.”

Well, I guess somewhere along the way these dudes either decided that these songs are not “Overcast songs,” or otherwise decided that it just wasn’t Overcast without guitarist Scott McCooe and drummer Jay Fitzgerald, or, uh, something else — because the band’s three most famous alumni (In case you’re dumb: D’Antonio went on to join KsE, Cortese went on to join Seemless) are now reuniting to form a new band called Death Ray Vision.

Click to read more…

…the fuck?

So the Times of Grace tour is now underway, and I don’t think I was alone in wondering if the band would playing any vintage Killswitch Engage material out on the road. I mean, it would make sense — 3/5ths of the KsE Alive or Just Breathing line-up is Times of Grace, and, clearly, this is the big selling point for the group. I mean, you don’t just start out headlining on your first tour unless you’re a supergroup or, in this case, an unofficial reunion.

But now reader Tyler Lesniewski has e-mailed us a link to the setlist from the band’s first live performance, and guess what? There’s not a single KsE song on it.

Click to read more…

So Times of Grace, which is basically a reunion of Killswitch Engage’s Alive or Just Breathing-era line-up (seriously, they’re only missing two members), made their live debut last night when they kicked off their tour in Baltimore, and, well, wouldn’t ya know it?, someone filmed it on a cell phone. So here’s the footage. The quality is obviously not perfect, but it does look like the show was fun.

I’d be curious to know if they played any old KsE songs, but haven’t been able to find that info anywhere on the net yet… if you were there or know someone who was, please report!

More footage and remaining tour dates after the jump…

Click to read more…

As first reported last week by vocalist Jesse Leach, Times of Grace’s debut album, The Hymn of a Broken Man, has leaked onto these here internets. I suspect that many of you have already illegally downloaded it, ingested it, and shat out an opinion.

But if you haven’t, well, here’s your shot — Metal Hammer is now streaming the album in full. It seems like a lot of you are excited for this album; I was saying to a friend the other night that when people say they want a GN’R reunion, they really mean they want an Axl-Slash reunion, and when people say they want an Alive or Just Breathing-era Killswitch Engage reunion, they really mean they want a Leach-Adam D. reunion. So, uh, here ya go!

I haven’t had a chance to listen to the record yet, so I can’t really get in on the debate as to whether or not these dudes have created something which lives up to their formidable-if-brief legacy. Of course, you guys are free to rip each other all the new assholes you want in the comments section. So listen here, and then get a-rippin’. Roadrunner will officially and legally release the album tomorrow.

-AR

So The Hymn of a Broken Man, the debut album from Times of Grace, doesn’t come out until January 18, but it’s already leaked online. Now, obviously, an album leaking is nothing new in this day and age, but I had no idea about the leak — until vocalist Jesse Leach decided to vent about the leak on Facebook, at which point I read about it on Blabbermouth and Metal Underground. Over at Gun Shy Assassin, where Leach regularly contributes a column, Chris Harris has even posted a story imploring readers not to download the leak. And if you hadn’t already read about the leak from one of these, or any number of other, media sources, well, now you’re reading about it here on MetalSucks.

My point is simply this: I understand that Leach is frustrated that the album leaked. I don’t begrudge him his frustration. But all he’s done now is called attention to the leak, and made who knows how many more people aware of it.

Click to read more…

A screencap of the hard drive on which Unearth are tracking their new album. These are all working titles, natch.

Since Unearth split with drummer Derek Kerswill back in October, fans have been wondering who the metalcore pioneers would find to fill his spot. And while a full-time replacement has yet to be decided, the band has announced that Killswitch Engage (and maybe still Blood Has Been Shed?) skinsman Justin Foley (no, not the Justin Foley that sometimes graces this site with his presence) will play all the drums on their album. The band explains in a statement:

Click to read more…

Well, I didn’t see this coming: Times of Grace, a.k.a. the Alive or Just Breathing-era Killswitch almost-reunion, are gonna do a tour. And I’m not being facetious when I say I didn’t see it coming — I sincerely didn’t think they’d tour, ’cause both Adam D. and Jesse Leach have, like, a gabillion other commitments. But I guess they’ve each cleared the month of February to hit the road. Support will come from Straight Line Stitch and War of Ages.

This announcement, of course, raises a few questions, like:

Click to read more…

A still from Times of Grace’s riveting new video. Kubrick couldn’t have shot it any better.

It was less than a week ago that Times of Grace, the new project for past and present Killswitch Engage members Jesse Leach and Adam Dutkiewicz, debuted their first video, for the song “Strength in Numbers,” and now they’ve already posted a second, “Where the Spirit Leads Me.” It’s debuted exclusively via Record Store Day and Metal Club, and while it’s not embeddable yet, you can check it out here.

The video itself is honestly not that interesting; it basically combines the worst parts of The Blair Witch Project (e.g., shaky footage of the ground) with stuff that seems more interesting when I watch it on The Discovery Channel (e.g., a swarm of flies doing… something). But it’s the second song we’ve heard from Times of Grace, and so it gives us a better sense of what the project is going to sound like — and, as we suspected, it’s apparently going to sound exactly like Killswitch Engage.

Click to read more…

Times of Grace, the new project for former Killswitch Engage vocalist Jesse Leach and ongoing Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz, have debuted the video for their first single, “Strength in Numbers,” at Alt Press. We first heard this song back in October, and it still sounds more or less like Alive or Just Breathing or Maybe Just Enjoying a Quick Power Nap to me, but that’s really neither here nor there right now, as I think we need to hear more of the album before we can start making jokes about how Adam D. has apparently tapped out his massive encyclopedia of riffs.

No, instead I wanna talk about the video. It’s bizarre, isn’t it? I used to do volunteer work with schizophrenic homeless people, but I didn’t never get to go all Braveheart with ‘em or anything. Mostly, we just played Uno and other simple games in an environment specifically designed to keep them calm and away from makeshift weapons. (Although I do recall a particularly vicious spork fight one Thanksgiving.) But in hindsight, teaching them to have a crew to catch their back in case they ever need to fuck shit up would have been a much more effective lesson. If that nice Russian lady who loved to play dominoes just so she could yell “DOMINOES!” over and over again regardless of who won or if anyone at the table actually scored a point happens to be reading this, I’d just like to say: I’m sorry I failed you.

Times of Grace’s debut, The Hymn of a Broken Man, comes out January 18 on Roadrunner, and despite my snark, I am sincerely hoping that it beats my ass like I stole its locket.

-AR

Times of Grace, the project from current Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz (someday I’ll learn to spell that name without having to look it up or resort to calling him “Adam D.”) and former Killswitch Engage vocalist Jesse Leach, have released their first song unto the world. It’s called “Strength in Numbers,” and is available as a free download here, assuming you’re willing to subscribe to Times of Grace’s e-mail list. It will only be available for free for 48 hours; on October 19 it becomes available via various digital retailers.

Click to read more…

It’s been a long time since I was a college freshman, a fact which struck me this week as I engaged in my annual tradition of sitting in Washington Square Park and watching the new crop of NYU kids move into their dorms. I love the look of simultaneous excitement and complete fucking terror as a bunch of young men and women between the ages of seventeen and eighteen get away from home for the first time; for many of them, I imagine moving to the big city only adds to the sheer “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!”ness of it all. But this was really the first year when they all looked really young to me, and I suddenly felt very aware of the age gap. Kids starting college this week won’t remember rotary phones or pagers, maybe won’t remember a time without cell phones or DVDs, and only kinda faintly maybe remember the annoying sounds your AOL used to emit as it tried to make its connection. They were being born right around the time “Wherever I May Roam” was making Metallica rich, and they’ve never jerked off to the morning weather girl ’cause internet porn wasn’t readily available.

Do they remember a time without autotune? I know my kids won’t. And I hate to sound like such a grumpy old bastard, but I worry about the long-term effects of such a state of being. If bullshit is the norm, can you have any appreciation for  non-bullshit — e.g., a time when if you couldn’t sing, you either joined a cool punk band or got a job as a bank teller? Lack of skill is no longer impedes artistic success, as anyone can be made to sound as though he can sing, audiences can be distracted from terrible storytelling by an abundance of CGI spectacle, and a woman who has never read Dracula gets away with publishing the most successful vampire books in the history of ever.

This ain’t good.

Click to read more…

I feel like we’ve been hearing about Times of Grace, the new project that reunites original Killswitch Engage singer/current The Empire Shall Fall front man Jesse Leach with KSE’s guitarist/producer/all-around goofball Adam Dutkiewicz, for some time; now the duo have announced a November 9 release date for their debut album, The Hymn of a Broken Man, which will come out via — who else? — Roadrunner.

There’s no music to be heard yet, but here’s what Leach told me about the outfit when I interviewed him back in March:

“[It's] a project Adam and I have worked on and have been waiting to release for the past few years… Style wise it pulls from metal/rock/ambient shoe gaze type stuff, as well as punk and blues. It is something you just have to hear. I will go on record and say it is the most epic work of our careers in my opinion. I am certain people will react to it as lyrically it is very soulful and deep. The music (all written by Adam I might add) is just powerful stuff. Adam is an incredible writer and producer… I truly feel if given the right opportunities, he could be a full-on composer and score movies, among other things.”

So, uh, that doesn’t actually tell us that much, except that, despite what some might expect or perhaps even hope, it’s probably not going to sound very Killswitchy. Which is fine by me — the biggest complaint I (and apparently a lot of other people) have about KSE is that their albums have all started to sound the same, so it will be good to hear Mr. D. stretch his wings somewhat. And Leach’s voice is certainly sounding really good these days. So color me curious about this one.

-AR