Someone sent us the above via Twitter, but I already forget the guy’s handle. Sorry, dude!

In October, Axl Rose added “Estranged” back into Guns N’ Roses’ regular setlist for the first time since 1993. Even though everyone makes fun of that song’s ridiculous music video, it was a smart move — at the GN’R show in New Jersey I attended last month, the song got a roar of approval from the crowd the moment the band played it. Axl’s Nu-GN’R has mostly ignored the Use Your Illusion era for the past decade, which is foolish, because while the critics may not love those albums, they sold seven million copies each. People wanna hear those songs.

And Rose must get it; that same night I saw him Jersey, he also performed “Don’t Cry,” which he hasn’t done in awhile, and now, this past weekend, he suddenly broke out “Civil War,” too. You can check out video below; the band actually sounds pretty good, even if, Jesus H. Christ, something really does need to be done about Dj Slashba (note the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips).

Interestingly enough, Slash has been doing “Civil War” with his solo band (Myles Kennedy + a bunch of random dudes) since last year. By way of comparison, you can check out his Gun Without Rose version after the jump.

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Van Halen, featuring the young squire Van Halen (left); Mark Tremonti (inset)

The reason that Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti is the world’s luckiest guy is not cuz he gets to party with amazing singer Scott Stapp 24/7. Nay, Tremonti is Lord Luckynuts cuz he’s buds with Wolfgang Van Halen, who is the bassist of Van Halen. Which somehow means that Eddie Van Halen, also of Van Halen, trusts Tremonti enough to allow him a live preview of new Van Halen jamz.

Tremonti described Thursday his visit to 5150 (via Van Halen News Desk):

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So Alter Bridge have debuted their new video, “Isolation” (above), over at Noisecreep , and, put simply, it makes no fucking sense. The band apparently made the conscious decision not to turn “the video for ‘Isolation’ into a narrative matching the album’s theme,” and instead decided to produce what guitarist/war criminal Mark Tremonti calls “a tribute to the fans.” That’s really just rockstar-speak for “a clichéd life-on-the-road video,” which is fine, whatever. It seems like every arena rock band makes one of those sooner or later, so I guess it was just AB’s turn.

But I looked up the lyrics to the song because taking a track called “Isolation” and re-fashioning it as “a tribute to the fans” struck me being kinda funny. And, sure enough, the words to this particular song are so incredibly ill-suited for this purpose that we can only assume that no one involved in the making of this video thought that those very same fans would ever pay attention to those words. And that just makes the whole thing even funnier, because it means that Alter Bridge have paid tribute to their fans by assuming that their fans are all idiots.

In case you’re curious, here’s a sampling of those lyrics:

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With the holidays right around the corner — and all the best of, greatest hits and holiday comps that come therewith — this past Tuesday was the last big date for new album releases in 2010, though there are still a few stragglers coming down the pipe. The world of hard rock and metal made a big showing last week, with new releases from Underoath, Dio, Cradle of Filth, Oceano, Gwar, Helloween, Volbeat and a smattering of others making the Soundscan charts. Rankings, sales figures and commentary after the jump.

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Speaking of Slash: Vince and I caught his solo tour last month, and, for me at least, the big surprise of the evening — besides Vince’s brilliant revelation that Slash should start transitioning from rock and metal into blues as he gets older — is that Myles Kennedy is actually pretty awesome. He’s got a terrific set of pipes and a really incredible amount of range, and he’s a great front man. I think I read somewhere that he turned down the chance to be the new singer for Velvet Revolver, which is a bummer, ’cause he’d clearly do a great job (to say nothing of the fact that he’d be able to help them play old GN’R tunes that require a higher vocal register than that of Mr. Scott Weiland, which is all I really care about at this point anyway).

So for now, we have to settle for Kennedy being the frontman for Creed without Wife Beater instead of Guns without Rose. And Alter Bridge’s latest, the cleverly titled AB III, is now streaming here.

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There are now six songs* available online from Slash’s Slash, his forthcoming sort-of-but-not-really solo debut (as though Slash’s Snakepit wasn’t a solo band) that I care far too much about. If you include bonus tracks, that’s actually more than a full third of the album; if you don’t include bonus track, it’s (obviously) even more.

So I now feel pretty confident in saying this album won’t be horrible, even if it’s obviously never going to live up to GN’R, and features appearances by Kid Rock, Fergie, and the girl from Maroon 5.

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So the Australian branch of iTunes has apparently uploaded thirty-second clips of all the songs from Slash’s forthcoming, self-titled solo album, and, of course, someone has uploaded all of those clips to YouTube. Gotta love the internet! So I thought we’d play one of our favorite games here at MetalSucks. It’s called “Let’s make premature judgments based on not very much actual music at all.” Listen to the clips in the video below, and then get my thoughts after the jump.

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With his virtually-guaranteed-to-suck new solo album coming out this spring, Slash now has to start thinking about putting a band together for a support tour. Since each song on the album features guest vocals by a different all-star singer, and Slash was never gonna be able to get ‘em all to do a whole tour with him, the logical solution was to hire a singer for his touring band.

And that singer is Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy.

This comes as a disappointment to me only because I hate Alter Bridge. As far as I can tell, Kennedy is actually a very talented singer. And he does vox on one of Slash’s solo tracks, “Starlight,” so I guess his presence makes sense; Lord knows Alter Bridge ain’t doin’ squat right now, so he might as well get paid.

Is Kennedy an electrifying live presence? I dunno, I ain’t done never seen him live. But I can tell you that this cover he does of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” isn’t as awful as I would have guessed it would be. It’s definitely a little touchy feely, but like I said, the dude can sing.

Slash promises to “announce the other band members shortly.”

-AR

Today was Friday the 13th, but absolutely nothing bad happened to me. I mean, the night is young so shit could still go horribly awry I suppose, but all in all, I had a pretty good day – nay, I had a pretty good week. If only the same could be said for the world of metal. Here’s some disasters the plagued various musicians this week:

• Slash completed his decade-long indoctrination into the Metallica “Fuck Our Fans” Club.
• We’re not sure if Steven Tyler is still in Aerosmith or not, but we are sure that we don’t give a fuck either way.
• There was a lot of controversy over a really, really ugly painting.
• No can explain to me why I should care about Alter Bridge.
• Fear Faction ate s’more babies, released a new song.
• R.I.P. Jerry Fuchs.

And, oh yeah, some good news: MetalSucks is going to do a digital release of The Binary Code’s Suspension of Disbelief on December 15 for just five bucks! Get stoked.

Alright. I’m off to go hear Vince spin. Have a nice weekend everyone. Next week we have another extra, super-duper special surprise for you…

-AR

Seriously. Because every time Vince or I make a snarky comment about the band or vocalist Myles Kennedy, one of you gets your panties in a twist. And while one of you gets your panties in a twist pretty much no matter what anyone at MetalSucks says about any given band, for some reason the outcry of support for Alter Bridge particularly irks me.

Yes, this band is better than Creed, but so is shingles. And Kennedy is a better singer than Wife Beater McGee, so but so was the dude singing on the subway this morning. Neither of these assertions negates the fact that Alter Bridge is boring, paint-by-numbers corporate rock. I just cannot take this shit seriously.

So if one of you Alter Bridge apologists has a legitimately good argument as to why I’m not giving this band a fair a shake, I’d love to hear it. Is there something really sophisticated about the music that I’m just not hearing? Are Kennedy’s lyrics, like, overwhelmingly moving or something? The whole thing is just way over my head, I guess.

I solicited suggestions for good Alter Bridge songs over Twitter, and longtime reader Richaod recommended this track “Blackbird.” I admit that it’s far better than I was expecting, but I also wanna be upfront: there is nothing about this song that makes me think I will ever feel any desire to listen to it again.

-AR

The Starbucks Incident

Yes, I am going to continue to bitch about Slash. I understand that Slash is not Jimi Hendrix but this might be the single biggest betrayal to my formative years since Metallica released everything they’ve released from Load on, and I need to mourn.

So. Some lady says that the following singers are all on Slash’s new solo album, How Could Taking My Cues from Carlos Santana Possibly Go Wrong? I have added my own thoughts because that’s what we do around here. Click to read more…

Fresh off the heels of the announcement that Creed will be reuniting this Summer (sigh…), Myles Kennedy — aka the actually-quite-talented singer 3/4ths of Creed hired to replace Scott Stapp in their new band Alter Bridge — issued a press release clarifying the future of that band. Thankfully MetalSucks is here to cut through the bullshit and give you the real skinny; we sent the offending press release over to the gifted MS Mansion Monkeys to parse, and the following is what we got back (our snarky commentary in bold:

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The Webernet rumor mill has been aflutter in recent weeks with the news that two of the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin — Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones — would like to take the band out on the road following their massively successful 2007 reunion concert. The late John Bonham’s son Jason, who participated in the reunion show, would likely sit on the drummer’s throne, but singer Robert Plant has publicly stated he isn’t interested, instead opting to continue making bland alt-country music for the NPR / Starbcuks set with crooner Allison Krause.

All this begs the question: if Plant does indeed decline, who would take his place? Various names have been bandied about — Steven Tyler and Chris Cornell among them, and the latest, petrifying, scary and frightening choice: Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge.

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Gilby Clarke is in the new Fall Out Boy video. I have no fucking idea why. I’ve posted it below in case you care, although if you choose to watch, I’d recommend turning the sound off as soon as Gilby’s speaking part is over. Pretty funny to hear Clarke condemning the use of eyeliner on male rockstars, considering he was part of the glam scene and spent 2006 touring with Lukas Skunkhair or whatever his name was.

That would be random enough, but footage of Steven Adler (and other washed-up celebs) on VH1′s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew has been included in the new Alter Bridge video. I wouldn’t turn the sound on at all for this one, because the song if so fucking awful I’d really expect to hear it in the trailer for the next feel-good woman’s movie starring Diane Lane and whichever post-menopausal closet case was available to film this week. Clip after the jump.

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Sevendust’s seventh album — Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow — due for release April 1, has hit the leak wire. Down Mining has the album available for download; it features three guest appearances on three different songs — Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti of Alter Bridge, and Chris Daughtry of American Idol fame. This is the band who dropped off the mega-lineup of Rockstar Mayhem Energy Tour and joined forces with… wait for it… Saliva. Yes, the band who brought us such brain cell-killing duds greats as “Click, Click, Boom.” A little part of me just died inside.

It pains me to say these harsh words. This band has so much potential. Sigh.

-VN

After years of mis-management, losing a key songwriter / founding member, and a string of mediocre but decent enough albums, things were looking up for Sevendust. They weathered the storm of the nu-metal fallout to emerge unscathed by the critical backlash to beset pretty much every other band to whom that term ever applied. They’re set with their own label imprint through WMG’s Independent Label Group, they have a new album coming out a mere year after the last one, and they signed on to headline one of the side-stages at this Summer’s Rockstar Energy Mayhem Tour. Yes, Sevendust were poised for a new start; and now they go and fuck it it all up.

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