Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Lamb of God and their new American goatees get the cover, and Agoraphobic Nosebleed and their frozen corpses stuffed with holiday cheer get the flexi, but the main component of Decibel’s January issue that will get the internet’s privates in a knot is the Top 40 Albums of the Year list. I’ve been at this job since 2005, and back in the day I recall reading about how “adventurous” and “fresh” the list was, but then snarkiness was invented in roughly 2009, and now it’s, at best, “polarizing.” But “polarizing” is good! Ghost are polarizing! Gnaw Their Tongues: polarizing! Nickelback playing halftime at the Lions game tomorrow: considering the intended audience and surrounding context: believe it or not, polarizing! It definitely won’t be dull, ’cause despite the fact that we’ll lovingly fellate 3-6 albums you adore, the rest will drive you fucking nuts, and you’ll hurt our feelings in comments sections across the universe. We all know the drill. Anyway, I don’t want to go on about the Top 40 much more, because Albert made me write the print edition intro again, and the requisite bitterness, arrogance and self-deprecation is already piled on there. Check the issue out in the webstore, and go Megatron!

-AB

The January 2012 issue of Decibel also features Behemoth, Opeth, Mastodon, and a Cryptopsy Hall of Fame, and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one an issue?

via Badass Digest

Dj Slashba — noun – 1. A temp. 2.  A fill-in, placeholder. 3. A pretender to the throne. 4. Someone who keeps an unlit cigarette dangling from lips. 5. A retard.

Props to our friend Nick for teaching us a new term.

Here’s some shit we did this week:

• We got a tour of the live rig used by Obscura’s Christian Muenzner.
• We debuted new music by Czar, and, thanks to our pals at Decibel, Agoraphobic Nosebleed.
• We spoke to Nader Sadek.
• We checked out the latest releases from Locrian, The Wounded Kings, and Astomatous.
• We examined Slayer’s tour rider.
• We wondered if this commercial will really help sell lingerie or not.
• We over-thought the latest ramblings of Courtney Love.
• We contemplated the most over-used words in extreme metal writing.
• We considered the music of Fallujah.
• By special request, Sergeant D. reviewed Carnifex’s Until I Feel Nothing.

Next week we have some very cool interviews, some very cool music premieres, and, oh yeah, we gorge ourselves on Turkey and celebrate ridding ourselves of that pesky little Native American nuisance. See ya then.

-AR

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

I was impressed when Wormrot crammed three songs onto our eighth Decibel flexi disc back in August. One of those also happened to run away with the coveted Best Flexi Song Title award (“Fuck… I’m Sober”). Until now. I don’t know if Wormrot’s short sharp shock treatment inspired Agoraphobic Nosebleed to one-up their international brothers in grind, but shit just got real. No matter what you think of ANb’s pathological need to provoke, you can’t say they half-assed their flexi, appearing this January in conjunction with our annual year-end festivities.

Scott Hull’s staff of elves has painstakingly assembled our first ever holiday-themed flexi, Make a Joyful Noise. If you thought Mariah and Kenny G had the market cornered on Christmas sounds the whole family can enjoy, check out this 11-song, four-minute stocking stuffer, featuring future caroling classics like “Hung Like a Stocking by the Chimney With Care,” “Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” and (…) “Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Holiday Cheer.” A limited number of copies of the issue with the flexi are now available in the Decibel webstore , so order now. In the mean time, the lyrics to this masterpiece, reprinted after the jump, should whet the shit out of your appetite.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed “Make a Joyful Noise” (dB013) by Decibel Magazine

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Okay, so I’m not a punk, and never claimed to be. My punk cred is spotty at best (though I do have sweet Amebix neck tattoos!), and my knowledge is far from encyclopedic. However, I do love the fuck out of crust punk, d-beat, fastcore, powerviolence, 80’s hardcore, and grindcore, so you’re going to have to deal with me writing about it within the context of this series, because a) there are tons and tons of badass female musicians within those scenes, and b) duh, this shit rules! Of course, lumping all those disparate genres together is a little lazy on my part, but you’ve gotta admit that punk and grind go together like peanut butter and chocolate (or whips and chains).

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I LOLd for an hour straight on Tuesday cuz my Twitter was blowing up with metal people’s reactions to the Casey Anthony verdict (announced around 4PM EDT). It’s a serious situation, so dudes are mad and lending their two cents. That’s natural. But man, some people think dumb. Actually, know what? I’m just gonna c+p some metal celebrity tweets below. Remember, most of the following mini-declarations are wrought in awful logic, but not everybody on the internet is ignorant and high-horsing this shit to death. Um yeah just go ahead and keep reading and oooh the suspense…

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I somehow missed the news that Batillus have a split 7″ with Mutilation Rites coming out next month; I thought their album Furnace, which is one my favorites of the year so far (read my review here), was all we was gettin’ from the doom crew in 2011.

But I was wrong! And gloriously so, if “Cast,” the new Batillus track streaming over at Stereogum, is any indication. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Kat Katz (ex-Salome, still Agoraphobic Nosebleed) lends some guest vocals to the song, but even if she wasn’t on it, it would still be a great example of Batillus firing on all cylinders.

Headbob here, then come back and let us know what you think. There’s also a Mutilation Rites song, “Golitath,” streaming in the same location. The split comes out July 12 on Shinebox.

-AR

Because two young upstart blogs have put together a few for your listening pleasure. I haven’t had a chance to check any of these out myself yet, but, like the headline says, they’re free, so it seems worth mentioning, because what have you got to lose, right?

Here are the deets:

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MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed…

Scott Hull might be the genre’s most verisimilitudinous exmaple of metal, for, surely, there is no one more metal than he. He has a job, so he isn’t dependent on music to make his living, so he has never had to commit that sin which most offends metal fans  – the compromise of artistic ideals. And that job just happens to be doing IT stuff for the government, which might not sound interesting, until you hear Hull use the phrase “The classified nature of my work,” at which point you realize that Holy shit Scott Hull knows where you live and what porn you download and the codes for the bombs and you had better not fuck with him.

Of course, while these two facts certainly add to Hull’s metalness, they are far too superficial to be the actual source of his metalocity. For no one would give a hoot about Scott Hull the Government IT Guy who Makes Music on the Side if not for the fact that his guitar playing has the ability to endanger entire species.

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In 2001 I went to the now-defunct NYC venue Brownie’s to catch Cave In, who I’d recently discovered, and ended up catching Old Man Gloom and Scissorfight in the process. The way I viewed heavy music was forever altered, the show a railroad switch that sent my descent into the gnarlier side of metal over the edge.

All three bands took lengthy hiatuses shortly after peaking mid-decade. Cave In, as we know, got back together in 2009 to record Planets of Old and have a new album White Silence due on May 24th. Old Man Gloom — whose members include Aaron Turner of Isis, Nate Newton of Converge, Caleb Scofield of Cave In and Jay Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed, among others — are jumping on the reunion bandwagon too (did they ever officially break up? whatever); according to Gun Shy Assassin, producer (and Converge guitarist) Kurt Ballou posted a Facebook message that his next project is a new Old Man Gloom record. Good news indeed.

So where are Scissorfight in all of this? Word on the street is that frontman Ironlung is totally over it. We beg him with all our granite hearts to reconsider. Axl and I jammed Potential New Agent for Unconventional Warfare no less than 30 times (seriously) whilst driving around in L.A. a few weeks back, in part because it was the only CD we had and in part because sick fucking riffs dude! C’mon, Scissorfight… do it, do it, do it!

-VN

The release week of April 26th doesn’t bring any big-time heavy hitters, but what it lacks in muscle it makes up for in quality and volume: new releases by Krallice, Deafheaven, Explosions in the Sky, Graviton, Primordial, Vomitory and an Agoraphobic Nosebleed / Despise You split, among many others, hit the stores and e-waves today. Vic Vaughn on each and every one of ‘em after the break.

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Agoraphobic Nosebleed contributed seven songs to And On and On…, their new split with Despise You. The shortest of these songs is “Miscommunication,” which has a running time of just twenty-four seconds. So, of course, that’s the one  for which the band chose to produce a video.

Said video, which just debuted on Metal Injection, is over a minute long, although I won’t spoil the content of the additional thirty-eight seconds, because… well, you just need to watch. Everything about this video is totally fuck nuts. And I mean that as a compliment.

And On and On… is out now on Relapse.

-AR

The release of the new Agoraphobic Nosebleed/Despise You split, And On And On…, is getting closer and closer, and now our friends at The Deciblog have two new AnB songs from said split for your listening pleasure — “Miscommunication” and “As Bad As It Is…” The first one isn’t even thirty seconds long, which is kind of a bummer, but the second is one a proper scorcher.

“Possession,” one of the first songs from the split that the band released, is still my favorite of the tracks we’ve heard — but that’s not a knock against these songs at all.

Listen here, then pre-order that shit here. Relapse will release And On And On… on April 26.

-AR

Well THIS FUCKING SUCKS THE BIG ONE.

Kat Katz, who has to be one of the best goddamn motherfucking vocalists working in metal today, has posted the following message on her Facebook page:

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I honestly should not have to sell you on listening to either of these tracks. Like a free bag of weed, shit should just sell itself. So:

• Agoraphobic Nosebleed (the four bad-ass motherfuckers in the photo above) are streaming two new songs, “Possession” and “Ungrateful,” here. The tracks come from And On And On…, their new split with Despise You, which Relapse will release on April 26. Again, I don’t think I should have to sell these songs, but OHCHRISTPLEASESAVEUSALL, “Possession” is already one of the best songs I’ve heard this year. I love it so much I want to make sweet love to it and look into its eyes and weep as I climax. And you’re not reading this anymore, because you’re pre-ordering And On And On… right now.
• Wormrot have thrown another new track, “Spot a Pathetic,” on YouTube — I’ve embedded it for you after the jump. And holy crap, now I feel torn between this and “Possession.” IT’S A GRINDCORE LOVE TRIANGLE, GUYS. OH FUCK ME NAKED WITH A SPOON, WHAT AM I GONNA DO? WHAT AM I GONNA DO?!? While I try to get my romantic life sorted out, you should know that Earache will release Wormrot’s sophomore brain-melter, Dirge, on May 3, but Wormrot will be touring the U.S. long before then — as in, right fucking now. In fact, they’re playing our ABSOLUTELY FREE South by South Death show at SXSW on March 18th along with Havok, Red Fang, Meek is Murder, and, hopefully, Kvelertak. Get tour dates after the jump, too.

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It’s time: MetalSucks, in association with Chuck E. Cheese, needs to sponsor a symposium of metal’s greatest up-and-coming critical thinkers — the Albert Mudrians and Cosmo Lees of the future, if you will. Obviously, The Crud Wizard should be right at the top of the speaker’s list; and, Kevin Stewart-Panko’s son, Sam, has been doing some brilliant work over at The Deciblog, so he should obviously get an invite, too. But this is metal, so the event shouldn’t be allowed to get too stodgy; there needs to be, like, a Minister of Partying or something, someone to really get the booties shack-a-lack-a-lackin’ in the ball pit.

Enter the young men in the below video, sent to us by a reader calling himself simply “Scott.” Scott is not the father of these five- and three-year-old grind freaks — he’s not even a blood relative, apparently — but surely, he is the boys’ favorite “uncle” nonetheless.

Part of me thinks these little dudes are too young to be listening to Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, the same way they’re too young to see A Clockwork Orange and Silence of the Lambs — I mean, they’re great works of art, but not intended for people who don’t yet know what the phrase “tuck it back” means.

But the other part of me just now wants a son really, really bad.

-AR

Just because Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s J. Randall and I don’t see eye to eye on certain issues doesn’t lessen my respect for the man as an artist — and his latest endeavor is definitely worth checking out. He’s launched his own label, Grindcore Karaoke, and is giving away the imprint’s inaugural release, Wadge’s Grindcore Lu’au, away for free download.

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In brief: Relapse is offering a free sampler for download to anyone who goes to their Facebook page and hits that little ol’ “like” button. As you can see from the track list below, there’s a ton of good shit on it, including new songs from Abysmal Dawn, Red Fang, and Noisear, plus some remastered Death, plus great stuff from Baroness, Revocation, Cephalic Carnage, Dying Fetus, Misery Index, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Brutal Truth, Murder Construct… the list goes on and on. This could very easily be the soundtrack for your New Year’s Eve partying.

Go here to download the sampler. Happy fucking new year.

-AR

Allan Horrocks and Andee Connors run Aquarius Records in San Francisco, CA. It’s the best record store in the country, especially if you don’t live right next to a record store and especially if you like metal. I interviewed them a few months back for the ongoing Taco Riff series, and figured they’d have a good take on all of your holiday shopping. I called them up to get their wrap up on their favorite metal of the year. Although they took notes on what they were going to say, they ignored them entirely almost as soon as we began.

Before we begin, you should sign up for their bi-weekly (now becoming weekly) mailing list of favorite new releases. It’s mindblowing.

We started with me trying to type what they said, but they were going way too fast.

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I’ve been listening to Graf Orlock’s Doombox EP so much these past couple of weeks that I can now recite a movie quote from a movie I’ve never seen (that would be Harsh Times). The whole thing is under twelve minutes long (read Sammy O’Hagar’s rightfully-glowing review here), so it’s easy to listen to as an aid for short bursts of disrupted internet service/”FUCK YOU TIME WARNER CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!”-inspired rage. I’m so obsessed with the EP, in fact, that I now outright hate the people of Tacoma, Vancouver, and Portland, as those are the only three towns Graf Orlock will be hitting up on their upcoming mini-tour with the also-awesomeOwen Hart (whose contributions to this year’s second edition of Scott Hull-curated This Comp Kills Fascists were two of the highlights of that collection). Hopefully these dudes make it to other parts of the country in the not-too-distant future, ’cause I’m dying to see this shit played live.

So while we usually try not to cover regional tours ’cause so few of you will ever get to go, my envy of people who can attend these shows is such that I am going to post all three dates:

Dec 17 – Tacoma, WA @ The Redroom
Dec 18 – Vancouver, BC @ Garbage Mountain
Dec 19 – Portland, OR @ Branx

Go if you’re lucky enough to live in that part of the country.

Meanwhile, The PRP tells me that Scott Kelly and Wino are gonna be doing some shows together next year. They call the itinerary after the jump the “initial dates,” so hopefully there will be more soon, ’cause that sounds like a show that many of you might enjoy.

The aforementioned “initial dates” are…

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which means we’re taking off early today and won’t be back ’til Monday. We’re sorry to leave non-American readers high n’ dry, but PLUS ONE FOR FREEDOM, MOTHERFUCKERS.

ANYWAY, in honor of the holiday, we decided to do a special Turkey Day-themed QOTW designed to make you feel all warm and cuddly inside:

WHAT (IN METAL) ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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