MetalSucks

Though we may question his fashion choices and dubious association with Danzig historicists Born of Osiris we do actually really like guitar wunderkind Tosin Abasi, especially his solo “band” Animals as Leaders. In case you’re averse to good music or just plain ig’nant, Animals as Leaders released their (his?) debut album this past Spring and like yo, that shit is mad good. Check out “On Impulse” from that record above.

SMNnews.com tells me that those of you in Dallas get to see the band perform a headline set in between dates of their limited Fall run with Between the Buried and Me and Veil of Maya. That’s pretty cool and all but can’t the band do a real tour? Come onnnnnnn!

BTBAM tour dates listed after the jump.

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It’s been a doozy of a year for metal releases already, hasn’t it?

After the jump, the records I’ve been jamming the most so far that might or might not end up on my year-end Top 10.

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Born of Osiris are making it very hard for those of us who like their music to defend them against the tr00est of the tr00. Next week we’re going to run an interview in which many members of the band admit to some pretty serious lapses in basical Metal 101 knowledge; now New York Magazine, of all fucking publications, has a video of guitarist Tosin Abasi (also of Animals as Leaders), well… just read for yourself:

Tosin Abasi is on tour with the heavy metal band he plays in, Born of Osiris. On stage he wears all-black, but when he’s not working, he likes classic men’s formalwear. The day our Video Look Book cameras caught him he wore a fitted vest from a thrift store and carried a camel leather bag he bought for half-price at Marshall’s. He also wore women’s shorts from Banana Republic and a vintage Schiaparelli hat his girlfriend gave him. “Actually I had dreadlocks and I cut them and I was like, ‘What the fuck do I do with my hair now?’ And she was like, ‘You should have this hat.’ So I’ve been wearing it every day.” Watch the Video Look Book to find out where he got his pink paisley scarf.

I really, really don’t like to judge people solely for what they wear, but… what the fucking fuck dude. Women’s shorts? I’m at a loss for words. Truly.

Click on the screencap below to watch the video. It’s supposed to be embeddable, but New York Magazine is essentially a douchie tabloid for rich people who like to pretend they’re above reading tabloids, and whomever runs their website obviously has no fucking clue what he or she is doing.

-AR

Actually, we don’t have to pirate our own articles. Plenty of other websites do that for us, often without giving us credit or linking back to us. Once upon a time someone even accidentally included one of our bylines in their cut and paste job. Said “writer” apologized but then went on to shamelessly rip us off many more times, which was nice, because it shows his apology was sincere. You know who else tried to pass off someone else’s work as their own? The guy who went on to shoot Dimebag. So good company you keep, fellas.

Here are other ethically questionable decisions people made in the metal world this week:

• Hasidim moshed, we made punny jokes.
• Matt Heafy and Paolo Gregoletto of Trivium asked fans to illegally burn and share the band’s music.
• We’re streaming God Dethroned’s entire new album until Tuesday; listen now! We also debuted new tracks from Animals as Leaders and Burning Human.
• Arch Enemy choose to re-record old material; we choose to stop talking about this project from hereon out (starting… now!).
• Tyson vs. Holyfield 3 Underoath vs. Avenged Sevenfold! We love this kind of shit.
• Some Russian high school black metallers headbanged for show and tell, and we pondered how to improve our corpsepaint skillz.
• The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato sounded off against President Barack Obama. You sounded off against each other.
• We looked at new releases from Chimaira, God Dethroned and Goes Cube.

Next week brings more contests, more interviews, more new music streams you won’t be able to hear anywhere else, and at least one confrontation with a singer Axl once gave a terrible review. Come back and read more. You know you want to.

-Vince and Axl

When we introduced you to Sikth, you thanked us. When we introduced you to Textures, you thanked us again.

So, when we say you absolutely need to hear something… you fucking need to hear it. And why not: it’s free!

LISTEN TO ANIMALS AS LEADERS!!!

The fine folks at the unfuckwithable metal label Prosthetic Records have hooked us up with a free track for you from the brand new Animals as Leaders album, out next Tuesday. This is intricate instru-metal of the highest caliber for the kind of metal fan who’s more concerned with musicianship, arrangement and composition than with “being fucking br00tal dudez!!” (though it certainly is heavy). It’s the brainchild of guitar wunkerkind Tosin Abasi, who is pretty much the Trent Reznor of this micro-genre of metal in that the band is basically just his project. Stream and download below. Enjoy.

Animals as Leaders – “Tempting Time”

-VN