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It’s a good day to be an After the Burial fan: the band has released not one but two music videos, plus additional dates for their previously-announced Crush ‘Em All trek with Veil of Maya, Misery Signals, and Within the Ruins.
So, let’s start by considering these videos, “Cinemetal Round-Up” style, shall we?
While I would generally prefer it if all of metaldom would stay as far away from the phrase “Crush ‘Em” as possible from now until the sun dies and all of humanity is forgotten forever, there’s no denying that the Crush ‘Em All Tour II has a pretty solid line-up — After the Burial, Veil of Maya, Misery Signals, and Within the Ruins is not a bad night at the opera. The support acts which will appear on select dates — I The Breather, Structures, Volumes, and Your Memorial — are bands that I’m alternately less familiar with or less excited about, but whatever, this is still a totally solid bill.
Now the initial round of dates for the tour have been announced. There are pretty large gaps in this itinerary, so don’t freak out just yet if you don’t see a show on this list that you can attend. Unless you live in Bumblefuck, where metal tours never ever stop. Then you just have shitty luck and there’s no hope for you until you get the hell outta Po’dunk. Sorry.
ANYWAY, those dates, courtesy The PRP:
ROTFLOL at the name “AllStars Tour.” HAHAHAHAA hahahaha! I mean, wow. As Metal Insider‘s Zach Shaw states, “I’d look at this tour as more of a farm league tour. It’s not like the majority of the tour is ready to be called up to the majors just yet…” Baaahahaha
Whew. Anyway.
Exactly one band on this tour is worth seeing (After the Burial, who oughtta inspire immediate ball-hair growth amongst the audience’s 12-year old boys). In the contest of any ordinary tour I wouldn’t be that interested in Born of Osiris, but surrounded by such suckitude I guess I’ll give them a mulligan here for “bands worth seeing.” I know Axl would heartily endorse Iwrestledabearonce (me, not so much, but we can still be friends), so let’s just say that together Born of Osiris + IWABO = 1 band worth seeing. But the rest of this lineup? Holy dick on a cake, I wouldn’t piss on this lineup if it was on fire. On the bright side, at least they’re all in one place; none of these bands will be polluting otherwise solid lineups between the dates of July 22nd and August 22nd.
-VN
Props to Heavy Blog is Heavy for catching this interesting update from Sumerian Records’ official Facebook page:
As HBiH notes, this sounds like it’s going to be a release (or releases) in the vein of Roadrunner United and Nuclear Blast All-Stars — basically a “who’s who” team-up of musicians signed to the label. Those offerings actually ended up being, by and large, pretty cool (I mean, of course there were some missteps, but I don’t look back at those albums and think, “Well, that was ill-advised”), and Sumerian’s current roster is one of the strongest in metal (The Faceless, Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Veil of Maya, After the Burial, etc., pretty much make up for their creatively vapid bands like Asking Alexandria and Upon a Burning Body), so it makes sense that they’d wanna do something like this.
Question is… what form, exactly, will it take? I almost don’t care, as long as Bizzy Bone is involved. Hey, it could happen.
-AR
From Beastmaster:
“Over the last week I’ve noticed on the PRP that both Chelsea Grin and Within The Ruins have been denied entry into to Canada for their separate respective tours. Now granted, I don’t necessarily love these two bands, but I’m wondering if they are possibly related in some way…. Dun dun DUNNNNNNNN.”
Yes. They are both related in that I don’t like either of them. Unfortunately, I don’t control the Canadian government, so my guess is that they actually both just have merch dudes with records for possession or something idiotic like that. In any case, yes, I agree it’s ridiculous that Canada gets to be spared Chelsea Grin while Americans have to continue to endure them.
Longtime reader Brian Bode pointed out that we haven’t yet opined about After the Burial’s new album In Dreams, a complaint that a number of readers have also expressed. Brian was even so kind as to take matters into his own hands by starting to write a post for us:
IN DREAMS AND OUT OF A NIGHTMARE
We certainly have been waiting a while to speak of After The Burial’s new release on Sumerian, titled In Dreams. After predicting ATB to be one of the 10 Bands to Fuck Your Face Off in 2010 [and] premiering their song ‘Bread Crumbs & White Stones’, we finally had a chance to give this album a few listens. What do we think of the album? Find out after the jump…
It seems like the number of “Why did you ban me from commenting?!?” e-mails from readers has increased as of late, and the gist of those e-mails is often “Whassa matter, can’t take it when someone tells you you suck?” or whatever. And we’ve never banned anyone for disagreeing with us. We don’t give a shit if you disagree with us. We don’t agree with one another half the time — that’s part of the fun of MetalSucks.
Here’s what really happens: you use a word which is on our “no-no” list, and it gets stuck in our spam filter. Some of these words we actively do not allow on MetalSucks (e.g., slurs against minorities), and some of them just get stuck because so many actual spammers use them (e.g., “rape”). We try to be diligent about checking the spam filters and making sure none of you are getting caught in there, but sometimes we miss a few. And sometimes we ultimately don’t allow the comment onto the site (e.g., “I hate this album, this band is fucking gay” will never survive). But even then, we don’t BAN people from commenting. I think I can count on one hand the number of people we’ve banned in four years, and most of them were spammers and/or former Megadeth guitarists. So if your comment isn’t going through, consider first if you used a word we don’t allow, and if you didn’t, just shoot us a POLITE e-mail and we’ll investigage the problem ASAP. M’kay?
And on that note, here’s what we did this week:
Alrighty then. Next week is our last week of regular posting before we shut down for the holidays. You know what that means – YEAR END LISTS! Get ready to argue like your entire sense of self-worth depended on everyone agreeing with you all the time with no exceptions ever.
-AR
After the Burial released their new album In Dreams on November 23rd just before heading out to California for their current tour with Winds of Plague. On the day of the album’s release I caught up with ATB guitarist Trent Hafdahl by phone; we chatted about the new album, new vocalist Anthony Notarmaso and his role in the writing process, what really went down when they dropped off the Bleeding Through tour this fall, their plans for 2011 and, of course, Sumeriancore. Our chat after the fold.
Photo by Jeremy Saffer
The latest sign for Guy Kozowyk’s Black Market Activities label is New Jersey’s Fit for an Autopsy. The band is notable for several reasons (besides the fact that they’re good, I mean), namely:
While most new releases have trailed off into Christmas Music oblivion, there were still a few notable new metal albums trickling in last week. After the jump, a look at the meaningless sales numbers generated by new ones from After the Burial, Metallica, The Chariot and Yngwie Malmsteen with a look at a few other charting releases as well (take a look at the tags below if you wanna know who). Snarky commentary included, natch.
Way back in January I named After the Burial’s as-yet-untitled album as my pick for our Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2010 series. It’s almost November now, but it’s finally time to let the face-fucking commence.
The album is called In Dreams, and Sumerian Records has announced that it’ll finally come out on November 23rd. Take an exclusive listen to the first track to be released from the album, “Bread Crumbs and White Stones,” below. For a track that clocks in at just 3 and a half minutes it displays a remarkable array of everything in After the Burial‘s sonic palette: it’s crushing, it’s melodic; there’s shred, there’s chug; it’s fast and it’s slow; it’s kinda hard to believe how short this song is given all that happens in it, and it’s a testament to why I like this band so much in the first place. And yes, it is most certainly fucking my face off. Have a listen, then tell us what you think in the comments.
[this streaming promotion has ended]
Rumors have been swirling around The Webernets all day that Sumeriancore rippers After the Burial — who I nominated as my “Band That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2010” — have dropped off their current tour with Bleeding Through. The story was first reported by Lambgoat this morning and cited a reader tip that the band had already missed a couple of shows on the tour, allegedly following an inter-band fistfight, and that the group might be on the verge of breaking up.
An official statement from the band released exclusively to MetalSucks lends some clarity to the situation:
Following our show in Buffalo NY on Sept. 22nd, there was an argument that took place that deeply affected members in the band. The argument was 100% verbal, no physical violence took place. We decided at that time it would be the best decision to leave the tour and be at home in order to regain our composure and prepare for our end of the year plans.
We’ve never dropped off a tour before EVER. With that being said, we hope that all of our fans can understand that this decision was made with the long-term in mind, and that we are genuinely sorry we had to miss the shows in their cities. We’ll be back around very soon.
That’s all we know for now. Presumably After the Burial are still on target to release a new album at some point soon as they’ve been posting pre-production videos throughout the year, although it’s almost October and if an album’s not on the calendar by now it probably won’t see the light of day until 2011. And it’s certainly not out of the question that whatever caused this fracas could also spell delays for the record. Still, I’m looking forward to the record whenever it does come out, and I hope all is well in the ATB camp.
-VN
Photo credit: William Weigel for Small Town Photography
I could be wrong about this, but by my estimation the lads in After the Burial are in their early 20s. This would mean that at the earliest they were born in 1985, the year Nintendo released the NES in America, and at the latest they were born in 1990 (!), the year the Super NES came out. Either way you cut it, the dudes in the band were either toddlers or not even born yet when the NES — and its glorious 8-bit music — was all the rage. And by extension, I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to say that most fans of the band are probably around the same age or younger.
Still, some zealous YouTuber managed to turn in a pretty decent 8-bit rendition of Rareform album opener “Berzerker.” I enjoy 8-bit remixes in large part because of the nostalgia factor, but that wouldn’t really explain why a 22 year old would long for something he never actually experienced. I guess there’s the whole mystique of longing for and glorifying an era you just missed, the way ’70s bell bottoms were all the rage when I was in high school and the way today’s Williamsburg hipster college students wear the most ridiculous ’80s clothes imaginable. Whatever the case, it’s a pretty sweet cover; check it below.
-VN
Thanks: Spencer Ward
Reader Nathan Shaw has brought it to our attention that After the Burial – whose new, still-to-be-titled album Vince suspects is gonna fuck your face off later this year – have posted a second webisode about the making of their latest release. The most exciting parts of these videos is always the too-brief snippets of new music we get to hear, and this one is no different. We’ve still only heard a bootleg of one new song, “My Frailty,” so every little note counts, y’know?
You can watch the first behind-the-scenes webisode here. ATB’s new album will be out sometime in 2010 on Sumerian.
-AR
Vince thinks that After the Burial’s new album is gonna fuck your face off when it gets released later this year. But that’s an educated guess based on enjoying the band’s past work; truth is, we haven’t heard any new material from the album… until now.
Reader Nathan Shaw sent us this footage of After the Burial performing a new song, “My Frailty,” at the London Music Hall earlier this week. The quality’s not so great, but good enough for you to get the gist of it. Check it out below, then make snap judgements in our comments section.
-AR
Sumeriancore princes After the Burial [which begs the question... who are the kings of Sumeriancore? I seek our readers' input] are working on a new album, the title and release date of which have yet to be announced. But they’ve just posted a video of the pre-production sessions on their MySpace page, and we’ve re-posted it for you below.
Sounds like the follow-up to 2008′s Rareform [a re-vocaled / re-mixed / better-sounding version of which was re-released in 2009] will be just as shreddy, groovy and technical as its predecessor. Rareform was an underrated gem of 2008, a promising label debut from a band on the rise in a scene on the rise. Here’s to hoping they can avoid the sophomore jinx (2006′s independently-released Forging a Future Self not withstanding) by one-upping Rareform and distinguishing themselves from the growing Sumeriancore pack.
-VN
[Thanks: jtquake]
After the Burial
TBD
Label – Sumerian
Release date – TBD
If 2008 marked the dawn of Sumeriancore then 2009 was the year it exploded onto the scene with a vengeance, reaching America’s youth via the Internet in a palpable and visible real-life way. 2010, then, will be the year that the budding micro-genre will be put to the test; which bands will end of being trailblazers, legitimate contenders in the metal pantheon? and which bands are generic followers, destined to be lost in the bowels of 2nd and 3rd wave micro-genre has-beens spanning the decades?
If I were a betting man I’d place my money on the former category for After the Burial, the Minnesota group whose 2008 Sumerian Records debut Rareform helped escalate the Meshuggah-inspired sub-genre from scattered local scenes to the national stage. While Born of Osiris may out-mosh and out-breakdown them, while Periphery may out melody-them and while Tessaract or Animals as Leaders may out mind-fuck and out-play them, After the Burial strike the best balance in the humble opinion of these ears. After the Burial have plenty of crazy grooves, chops up the wazoo and plenty of hooks to latch your ears onto, but it’s their ability to combine them all in just the right way that makes them stand out from the Sumeriancore pack. And they are one of the most razor fucking tight live bands I saw in all of 2009… seriously, seriously impressive for such a young group of dudes.
Watch for After the Burial’s second Sumerian Records full-length (and third overall) to drop some time in 2010, presumably (hopefully) by Summer.
-VN
Winds of Plague = really good people. Not only did they know their shit, they also had a sense of humor that wasn’t consistent with that of an inbred southern hick. Vocalist Johnny Plague can bench-press 5,000 lbs a day and keyboardist Kristen Randall may or may not be into making out with chicks – maybe I read too far into some things she said, or maybe I just automatically assume everyone is gay until proven straight, or maybe I just was hoping to make-out with Kristin because, let me tell you, she is pretty smokin’ in person. As a matter of fact, there isn’t one unattractive person in the band. That has nothing to do with their music, and everything to do with being horny. All the time.
ANYWAYS, Johnny’s idea (which may or may not have been plagiarized) for The Great Stone War is pretty nifty. Yeah, it’s yet ANOTHER concept album. But from what I have heard thus far, it’s a solid fucking record. If you weren’t a fan of Decimate The Weak, do yourself a favor and check out The Great Stone War. If for some reason you’re not into it, at least you have a bunch of sweet artwork from the album sleeve to peep at from time to time.
For the most part, these guys (and gal) are going to be pretty busy the rest of 2009. Rumor has it they will be touring with Unearth in November, so make sure to keep an eye out for an official press release. Below is my slightly awkward interview.
P.S. – Enough with the WOP basketball jerseys. Please. That shit needs to stop. Seriously, this is just silly already.
Ahh, Michigan. We have lakes. Big fucking lakes. We used to have a booming car industry, but unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months, you need not an explanation of why I won’t be speaking of that in this article. Besides, we harbor a little music festival every summer called Dirt Fest, a metal get together a few hours outside of Detroit, founded by two dudes looking to showcase their own band. Dirt Fest quickly became the summer festival for local bands looking for recognition and inspiration. It wound up becoming comparable to the one hot chick at the party which turned out to be a sausage fest – she ends up having such a good time that she lets everyone have a turn.
Anyhoo, thirteen lucky summers later and Dirt Fest is rocking a roster that has, in the past, included bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan and The Black Dahlia Murder. Obviously something is working if these bands are rolling through, so I decided to finally go check it out this year. Armed with nothing but a delicious bottle of Jagermeister and a set of tits everyone at the MetalSucks Mansion is dying to get a look at, I embarked on what turned out to be a very interesting day. My mouth already tasted like booze before noon…
Axl’s gotten his panties all up in a bunch (and justifiably so) several times in the past about bands re-recording, re-mixing and re-releasing their classic albums (see: Exodus, Arch Enemy, etc) as a gluttonous cash-grab. But After the Burial, one of my favoritest Sumeriancore bands, might be the one rare case in which I fully support their decision to re-record, re-release and re-master one of their prior albums.
