Modern death metal fans, rejoice! All Shall Perish’s new album, This is Where it Ends, is finally about to be unleashed upon the world, and it does not disappoint. “Divine Illusion” is one of the more vicious anti-religion creeds in recent memory, which is saying something, given that approximately one out of every five metal songs is an anti-religion creed; “Royalty Into Exile” is as catchy as melodeath comes; and “My Retaliation” just might be the anthem of the year (“I HOPE TO SEE YOU FUCKING DDDDDDIIIIEEEEE!!!!”). And that’s only three of the twelve tracks on the album!

So check out This is Where it Ends below. You can pre-order it from Nuclear Blast USA, Nuclear Blast Europe, VIP Merch, Hot Topic (CD + DVD), Newbury Comics (with autographed booklet), Amazon (jewel case, digipak),or  iTunes… or wait until its release and buy it at a Metal Club store to get a free t-shirt, or from fye and get a free signed poster. The album comes out next Tuesday, July 26, via Nuclear Blast. And don’t forget that All Shall Perish are currently on the Mayhem Festival tour, along with Megadeth, Machine Head, In Flames, Trivium, Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, and Red Fang; you can get dates here. Also, if you haven’t done so already, don’t forget to check out Axl’s interview with ASP guitarist Ben Orum here.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

So, to review the ways in bass players let us down this week:

• Coheed and Cambria’s Michael Todd robbed a pharmacy.
• Nick Oliveri from Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss held his girlfriend hostage in a four-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team.
• Jeroen Paul Thessling quit Obscura.

We first interviewed All Shall Perish guitarist Ben Orum just about a year ago, at the 2010 edition of Summer Slaughter; at the time, ASP were only just starting to write their new album, This is Where it Ends. Orum turned out to be one of those rare dudes who’s not only really talented, but is also genuinely super-nice — and now that we’ve finally gotten to hear Ends, we’re happy to report that it’s totally excellent. In other words, this seemed like a good time to pester Orum again.

Luckily, he was happy to oblige us with some silly, and not-so-silly, e-mail questions. The two interviews make interesting pre- and post- album companion pieces, I think, so if you haven’t done so already, go back and read our initial conversation with Orum; then, after the jump, get his thoughts on how Ends actually turned out, the songwriting process for various songs on the album, what fans can expect from ASP’s set at this summer’s Mayhem Festival, the futility of giving death metal fans condoms, and more.

And, oh yeah, we’ll have a special “Rigged” column penned by Orum’s co-guitarist in All Shall Perish, Francesco Artusato, sometime soon, so definitely keep your eyes peeled for that.

And now… the interview!

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A few questionable signings aside, there’s no denying that Sumerian Records is one of the few modern metal record labels with real, actual A&R and artist development, and one of the only labels that routinely takes chances on far left-of-center acts that wouldn’t stand a chance elsewhere. It’s actually pretty remarkable that wonky instrumental metal is getting such a big push in 2011, some two decades after the sub-genre’s peak. And if there’s any label that can effectively promote this kind of music to the masses it’s Sumerian, whatwith their label+agency+management all-in-one business model and an incredibly strong brand identity of what it means to be on Sumerian (ya know, Sumeriancore, more or less). The only other label with a similar forward-thinking setup is Prosthetic, and hey, lookit, they do well with lots of oddball prog acts too.

Case in point: on June 28th Sumerian released not one but two solo instru-metal records. We gave a fair amount of coverage to Evan Brewer’s solo bass album Alone — a solo bass album fer chrissakes! that such a thing even exists as a signed act is awesome — but the other release, All Shall Perish shredder Francesco Artusato’s shreddy shredsterpiece of shred, Chaos and the Primordial, went a bit overlooked. It’s a killer album, natch — All Shall Perish didn’t import this guy all the way from Italy [via Berklee College of Music] for nothing — so all you guitarists and wannabe guitarists and ex-guitarists best get to checking out the album’s title track above and at the Francesco Artusato Project’s Facebook page and ordering the album here. ‘Cause every shredder has to attach “Project” to their name when releasing a solo record, duh, this is like the #1 cardinal rule of shred records.

-VN

Pretty slow week in metal releases, seeing just some new releases from Queensryche, the bass player from The Faceless, and also some band called Limp Bizkit. Details on this week’s latest metallic offerings after the jump!

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One of the summer releases I’m most excited for is All Shall Perish’s This is Where it Ends, and thus far, the material we’ve heard leads me to believe that I won’t be disappointed.

The latest example: “Process of Ashes,” the new song the band is now streaming at Lambgoat. It sounds like a hybrid of Price of Existence-era ASP and Awaken the Dreamers-era ASP, and I mean that in the best possible way; I know there are fans who thought Dreamers wasn’t heavy enough, but I think the band actually did a fine job incorporating some more melodious elements into their work, and I’m glad to hear them building on that here. All Shall Perish are really turning out to be an fine example of artistic evolution done right.

Also: new guitarist Francesco Artusato continues to just murder it stone fucking dead, news which will surprise pretty much no one.

Headbang here, then let us know what you think in the comments section. This is Where it Ends comes out via Nuclear Blast on July 26. The band will be on this year’s Mayhem Fest, along with Megadeth, Machine Head, In Flames, Trivium, Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, Red Fang, and some other bands not worth mentioning. You can get dates here.

-AR

From what I understand, it is not okay for “real metal” fans to like any deathcore bands. For example, you are not allowed to be into both Deathspell Omega and Winds Of Plague, because WoP don’t have the right haircuts or clothes to be considered a “legit metal band.” It is also important to share your unsolicited, excessively strong opinions whenever deathcore bands come up, letting everybody know that you “are into real metal,” and that “deathcore is the worst shit ever.”

With that said, I’m confused about how there are a few deathcore bands that seem to get a pass from metal nerds: Darkest Hour, The Faceless, Between The Buried And Me, etc. The same people who get very, very angry about the popularity of bands like Suiside Silence or Miss May I love The Black Dahlia Murder, All Shall Perish, and The Red Chord, which is weird to me because they do not really sound any different.

Can anyone help me understand this??? Why are some deathcore bands considered “generic garbage for idiots who shop at Hot Topic” but other deathcore bands are “brilliant musicians who keep pushing the boundaries of the genre,” according to metal nerds???

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I couldn’t care less about MMA and couldn’t pick “superstar” Josh Barnett out of a lineup of a dozen other Affliction-wearing muscle-bound goons, but I can tell you this: the lineup of Mr. Barnett’s Japanese Benefit Fit show is completely unfuckwithable, it’s for a great cause (all proceeds will go to the Red Cross), and for that I feel compelled to stand up and offer the man a hearty clap. If I lived in the L.A. area I’d definitely be going.

The show will take place on Thursday, May 26th at the House of Blues in Hollywood and will feature All Shall Perish, Animals as Leaders, Cattle Decapitation and Abysmal Dawn, as well as local acts Internal Corrosion and Thrown Into Exile. Like I said, unfuckwithable. Even better, the show is ONLY $15; tickets are on sale now at www.hob.com and www.ticketmaster.com.

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Happy Monday. Only five days to go until the weekend!

Yeah, it sucks — I mean I actually like my job, but it probably sucks for you — but hopefully this will relieve your stress: there are clips from each and every song on Ritual, the new album from The Black Dahlia Murder, streaming here, and clips from each and every song on This is Where it Ends, the new album from All Shall Perish, in the video below. Hey, a couple of minutes of new music from these bands is better than nothing, y’know?

Ritual is really, really incredible, and I wish you guys could hear it all right now. Highlights from these clips include the intro to the opening track, “A Shrine to Madness,” and the oh-so-catchy riff from “Malenchantments of the Necrosphere,” which Vince has already proclaimed to be his favorite song on the album. It comes out June 21 on Metal Blade.

As for This is Where it Ends, we haven’t heard it yet save for a couple of songs, so at this point you guys basically have as much information as we do with which to make premature judgments. That being said, if your premature judgment isn’t “This album is gonna fuck my face off,” I don’t really understand you. I mean, this shit sounds crazy promising, doesn’t it? Alas, it’s a little further away than Ritual — it coms out July 26 on Nuclear Blast.

Now seems like a good time to remind you that The Black Dahlia Murder will spend their summer headlining the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour, which will also feature Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Dying Fetus, Six Feet Under, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse, As Blood Runs Black, Powerglove, and Within the Ruins. You can get dates here.

Meanwhile, All Shall Perish will spend their summer on the not-MetalSucks-sponsored-but-still-pretty-cool Rockstar Mayhem Festival, along with Megadeth, Machine Head, In Flames, Trivium, Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, Red Fang, and some shitty nu-metal bands you don’t have to worry about. You can get dates for that trek here.

-AR

Who else is excited to hear the new All Shall Perish album, This is Where it Ends? This band absolutely RIPS, and I have a feeling that having the ridiculously talented Francesco Artusato on lead guitar is just gonna push ‘em to that next level.

The album comes out this summer, but now the band has unveiled the cover art. It’s by Brent Elliott White, who has also done album art for Death Angel, Job for a Cowboy, Whitechapel, and Carnifex, amongst others. And it’s some pretty bad-assed shit. I can kinda forsee some people with sticks up their tushies complaining that its too glossy, but it looks to me like the exactly the kind of thing I would have deliberately left out for my parents to find when I was a kid. I was sending a message, y’know? “DO NOT ASK ME TO EAT VEGGIES. DO NOT ASK ME TO CLEAN MY ROOM. DO NOT ASK ME TO STUDY FOR MY BAR MITZVAH. I AM NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH.” I was a rebel like that.

This is Where it Ends comes out July 26 on Nuclear Blast. Hopefully the band is not trying to tell us something with the title.

-AR

Something I need to keep reminding myself: every generic shit band that sells a fuckton of records enables their record label to take risks on way more creative, fulfilling, interesting and inevitably far less commercially successful artists. It’s a sad fact, but thems the breaks: shitty commercially successful metal bands for teeny boppers generate tons of money, and without that money we’d see a lot less of the good stuff coming down the pike. For every Vampires Everywhere there’s a Nachtmystium, for every System Divide there’s The Ocean, for every Nickelback there’s an Opeth, for every <insert Victory band here> there’s a Jungle Rot… and for every Asking Alexandria there’s a Francesco Artusato and Evan Brewer.

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Hey studs and foxes, Anso here. Please accept my most gracious hugz in return for partying with me these last two days. Running this site in the absence of Axl and Vince has been so superfun thanks to you, our cherished MetalSucks readership. I learned a lot of stuff too, for example that I should hereby refrain from “ass fucking [my] boyfriends cock” [sic]. K I’ll work on that while you all re-live some hilarious, informative, and sexy moments from this week:

• We debuted new music by Maruta.
• We spoke to Rob Arnold from Chimaira/Six Feet Under/The Elite, Jack Strong from The Acacia Strain, Varg Vikernes of Burzum, and Takis Kinis from prog-thrash legends Realm.
• We checked out the latest releases from DevilDriver and Wino. Plus, hot hardcore 7″s and all the stuff that Corey Mitchell rocked in February.
• We reveled in official confirmation of the System of a Down tour story we broke ahead of everybody.
• We proffered scientific evidence that to be in a band is a poor life decision.
• We were wowed by Evan Brewer, player of two basses!
• We peeped Devin Townsend’s nod to Sinatra and incredible new jams from Scale The Summit, Between The Buried And Me, Graviton, and All Shall Perish.
• We cheered Taylor Momsen and her desire to “fuck for Satan.”
• We met the new Dragonforce singer. It’s not Corey Taylor.
• We took a stand against D.R.U.G.S.

You’ll have a couple days to de-Anso yourselves, but please do rush right back to MetalSucks on Monday for more hot action when the bosses return from muling heroin in from Ecuador their business trip and we resume our regularly-scheduled action. You may now put your pants back on!

-ADF

Thursday I wrote that MetalSucks honchos Vince Neilstein and Axl Rosenberg (pictured here) left me in charge of this site while they visit Mexico for cheap plastic surgery conduct some out-of-town business. And my first order as acting chief was the establishment of an anything-goes No-Pants Zone so we could all get loose, party naked, and forget about stern, veiny bands like Chimaira and noodlephiliacs like The Ocean for five goddamn minutes. But now, just as my nutz are finally unfurled in full, orders have come down from on high (cough Axl) that today MS will cover the unveiling of All Shall Perish’s new jam “Divine Illusion” (to play it you’ll be asked to “like” ASP on Facebook). It’s from their forthcoming fourth album which is slated for release in time for their big summer tour with Disturbed and Godsmack. So yep, pants back on everybody. Turn those smiles upside down and soften those bonerz! It’s serious metal time! I punch your head!

–ADF

All Shall Perish is on tour now with Katakylsm, Conducting From The Grave, and Abysmal Dawn. Dates here. Anso DF loves The Ocean, Chimaira, and ASP and sucks at trolling.

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.

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Of course you do! Which is why you should watch the below video — the band’s second behind-the-scenes-making-of-webisode-whatever for their new album. The content isn’t quite as entertaining as the initial clip, but, like the headline says, you get to hear a little more of what the band is working on… which, at the end of the day, is all we really care about, right?

All Shall Perish’s latest should be out later this year on Nuclear Blast. You can hear a pre-pro version of a new song in much greater detail here.

-AR

When  the line-up for this year’s Mayhem Fest was announced last week, we were told that more bands would eventually be announced. Not to sound like gloating pricks or anything, but we here at MetalSucks already knew that Trivium were gonna be on the bill, even if their involvement hadn’t been made public yet.

Well, now it’s public. Trivium are on the bill. They’ll be on the main stage along with Disturbed, Godsmack, Megadeth, Machine Head, and In Flames; the line-up is rounded out by second stage acts Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, All Shall Perish, Red Fang, and Straight Line Snooze.

When we saw the band at Mayhem in 2009, they were one of the dominant acts on the second stage; I will never forget wondering “Where the fuck is Paolo Gregoletto?” before realizing that he had jumped into the crowd and was playing amongst the thousands of rabid fans. And Trivium’s live show has increased in quality by 100% since they traded drummer Travis Smith for Nick Augusto last year. (Read Vince’s article on the matter here.) In other words: Trivium’s addition to the bill is a good thing.

Trivium are at Audiohammer Studios in Florida working on a new album with producer Colin Richardson even as I type this; I’ve heard that the goal is to get that record out in time for Mayhem. While we wait for more news of that release, here are Mayhem dates:

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I don’t think anybody ever really reads these little intros Vince or myself write every week, so I’m gonna dispense with one today, and if that makes you sad, uh, you’re weird.

Here’s how we got our pull this week:

• We debuted new music by Abysmal Dawn, Full Blown Chaos, and Årabrot.
• We spoke to Jeff Paulick from Lazarus A.D. and Ginger from The Wildhearts.
• We checked out new releases from Xasthur, haarp, and Hesper Payne.
• We watched a nerd’s video about seeing Sunn O))).
• We tried to understand why The Big Four are only doing one show in America.
• We debated the merits and demerits of this year’s Mayhem Fest line-up.
• We celebrated the way that metal makes everything better.
• We enjoyed some new All Shall Perish music (kinda).
• We prepared for Zakk Wylde to boldly go where no guitarist has gone before.
• We got even MORE excited for Meek is Murder’s Algorithms.

Next week we’re gonna, like, totally talk about metal n’ stuff. You should come back and read it, it will be fun.

-AR

Between being announced as one of the participants of this summer’s Mayhem Festival, releasing video of guitarist Ben Orum doing pre-production for a new song, and now the below in-studio behind-the-scenes video, I’d say, yeah, the dudes in All Shall Perish have been nothing if not busy this week. And as an ASP fan, I ain’t compainin’.

Of course, the best part of any behind-the-scenes studio video is usually hearing at least a little bit of new music, and there’s no music to be heard here. But that doesn’t really bother me ’cause a) like I said, they just released a video with some new music earlier this week, and b) they actually took the time to make this clip entertaining, and not just the talking head “This album is gonna be so br00tal!” bullshit we so often see in these kinds of things. Check it out:

All Shall Perish’s latest, which still has yet to be named, should be out later this year on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Speak of the devil! All Shall Perish were just announced as one of the acts on this year’s Mayhem Fest earlier today, and now they’ve posted the below video, which shows guitarist Ben Orum doing some pre-pro work in the studio. And while the track that plays in said video is unfinished (there’s no bass or vocals), it still gives you a pretty good sense of how at least one of the new ASP songs might sound.

Here’s what Orum told us about the new album when we interviewed him back in August:

“I think we’ve all come to an agreement that we want to have it more in the vein of The Price of Existence – but an updated version of it. With [then-guitarist] Chris Storey in the band, we went into this oddball shred direction that not all of us were really into. We loved the songs, don’t get me wrong, but we’d like to take it back to a heavier place.”

The tune in this video actually sounds to me like it’s a pretty fair compromise of Existence (which is a record I fucking love) and the band’s follow-up, Awaken the Dreamers (which I also really, really like, albeit not as much), but a) that’s not a bad thing and b) obviously, I’ll have to reserve final judgment for hearing the actual album.

In the meantime, check this shit out and see what you think…

-AR

[via The PRP]

The line-up for this year’s Mayhem Fest wasn’t s’posedta be announced ’til tomorrow, but Blabbermouth has posted it so I guess it’s go time. There are supposed to be more bands announced — I know of at least one group who are definitely doing this tour and aren’t on this list — but for now, here are the bands playing, and my thoughts on those bands (UPDATED with tour dates):

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