MetalSucks

Hats off to Karina Rucinque. She correctly identified last week’s logo as that of the band Nasty Pig Dick. For her troubles, Karina wins a copy of Arsis’ new album, Starve for the Devil, signed by the band, and an Arsis poster that is also signed by the band. Congrats, Karina!

March is Metal Month continues now with another awesome prize: an autographed copy of Shovel Headed Tour Machine, the excellent new two DVD/CD set from legendary thrashers, Exodus. It’s Exodus! It’s autographed! You want it! Enter the contest!

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was once again suggested by read Isaac Schwarz. You rule, Isaac!

-AR

First of all, congrats to Norman Schrader, Ryan Torchia, and a reader who asked that she be identified only as “Barbara” – they each correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Thyrfing, and they each win an autographed 7-inch from Goes Cube! Good for you, kids.

Now that we have that out of the way: did you know that MARCH IS METAL MONTH?!?! It’s true! And there’s gonna be all sorts of kick-assery to celebrate. You can go here for all the latest details; in the meantime, “Completely Unreadable…” is going to be partnering with MARCH IS METAL MONTH (gggggrrrr) for, well, the entire month of March to give away super-duper awesome prizes. First up: a copy of Arsis’ new album, Starve for the Devil, signed by the band, and an Arsis poster that is also signed by the band. Starve is a really fantastic record that you should own anyway, but you throw in the autographs, and, well, if I was you I’d get crackin’ on this here logo.

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name next week.

This week’s logo was suggested by read Isaac Schwarz. Thanks, Isaac!

-AR

WOW. In the “I did not see that coming category” is Arsis mainman James Malone’s list of “The Top Five Records that Influenced Starve for the Devil,” which was published last week on The Deciblog. I would have expected to see some thrash, some death metal, and some hair metal, but really never would have guessed at least three and possibly four of the albums Malone selected. And if you’re one of those nitwits who was so offended that Malone plays a pink guitar in the “Forced to Rock” video, than you should call 911 right now and make sure the ambulance has already arrived before you start reading the list, because you’re definitely gonna choke on your own tongue.

Go to The Deciblog to read Malone’s entire list. I don’t wanna give too much away, but I will say one of the more surprising releases on the list was Walking with Strangers by The Birthday Party Massacre, who Malone calls “One of the better bands to come out in the last seven years or so.”

Arsis Starve for the Devil is awesome, by the way, and is out now on Nuclear Blast!

-AR

Thursday’s big announcement of Aerosmith’s reconciliation (and tour!) kinda ensured that I’d spend all afternoon hiding a conspicuous boner. Even so, it was nice to exhale after months spent watching helplessly as Steven Tyler threatened to diva his way out of earth’s last rock ‘n roll band and into the world of tragically misguided solo careers. But perhaps Tyler’s new representation successfully conveyed to him the probable result of such a move: Either he could bank on big tours as Aerosmith frontman with, say, Motley Crue, or risk co-headlining casinos with Vince Neil. Scary! Tyler’s personal “brand” goes unmentioned in the band’s, uh, statement, so the Tyler/Neil Sadness + Shame Tour might happen someday for all we know. For now, Tyler and the ancient men of Aerosmith are now girding up their loins for a few more awesome gigs. And I say, Hell yes. Hell yes, I say.

My slavish hanging on the balls of Aerosmith is embarrassing, but I can’t help it that my ears are gay.  Also, I follow an example set by James Malone of Arsis, whose love of silly bands is expressed without hesitation. It’s shameful to forever drag the poor guy down with me whenever I feel insecure about my, uh, proclivities, and shit, actually, the whole point of mentioning Aerosmith was to hurry along* my drooling praise of the new fucking Arsis record, Starve For The Devil, which is a pure white beam of awesomeness. So it’s all connected, friends. Plus, Malone and Tyler each have some totally understandable rehab time in their recent past. Actually, if some jerk writer wanted to recklessly jump to pat conclusions, he’d assert that S4tD seems to reflect a victory in Malone’s personal battles; it’s still Arsis, but bigger, better, and way more fun! To get the idea, imagine 2008’s We Are The Nightmare but expand it sonically and rhythmically tenfold in every direction. Then imagine snappy lyrics, riffs that aren’t so needlessly busy, and grooves that jam. Then imagine your last $15 angrily demanding to be spent on a crisp new copy of Starve For The Devil.

- ADF

*That is, I wanted to be brief about Arsis to allow for about three hours of Aerosmith karaoke tonight.

If you’re a regular reader of this site by now you should know all about Mutiny Within, Roadrunner’s latest metal young guns. Their debut self-titled album comes out next Tuesday, February 23rd… and we’ll be streaming the whole thing here on Monday. In the meantime you’ll just have to take my word for it that the album is great, the perfect mix of pure American metal and Euro power written by guys with an amazing sense of songwriting for such a young set of dudes.

Mutiny Within just finished up their opening stint on the MetalSucks-sponsored Tyrants of Evil tour with Arch Enemy, Exodus and Arsis. During the tour’s final week I caught up with bassist Andrew “AJ” Jacobs to chat about the tour, the new album, the support Roadrunner has offered and what it’s like being a new band on the road.

Click to read more…

The MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil Tour, featuring Arch Enemy, Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within, is currently winding its way out west through Canada en route to its final stop in Hollywood on February 9th. MetalSucks photographer Jacqueline Cheng was on hand to catch the madness at the new York City stop on January 22nd — as was Axl — and her stunning photographs of all four bands are posted after the jump.

Click to read more…

So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

Click to read more…

Blabbermouth posted the below footage of Arch Enemy nailing the crowd’s nuts to the wall in New York last week as headliners of the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 with Exodus, Arsis, and Mutiny Within. It only captures a teensy-weensy little bit of the amount of energy coursing through the air during this performance, but it will at least give you some sense of how great the show was.

It’s not too late to check out this awesome tour! Remaining dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

Marquee at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square, January 22, 2010. Photo courtesy Ken Pierce of Piercing Metal.

Although I’m not entirely sure how old the dudes in Mutiny Within are, if you told me that they weren’t even born yet when Exodus released Bonded by Blood, I wouldn’t be surprised. But that’s cool, ’cause I also wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that they were cranking Arsis in high school, the way James Malone was almost certainly cranking Amott’s recordings with Carcass when he was in high school and early A.E. a little later, and Amott was almost certainly cranking vintage Exodus when he was in high school.

My point is this: this Tyrants of Evil tour has four generations of bands. It’s like a living, breathing codification of the history and ideals of this particular sect of the metal world. None of the two bands sound the same, exactly, but there’s a clear through-line to be drawn from the oldest to the youngest. There’s something incredibly cool about that.

Which must be why the Nokia in Times Square was packed with a wide spectrum of fans when the tour rolled into Times Square this past Friday night, and why those fans seemed to arrive early and stay late.

Click to read more…

Speaking of Exodus: Metal Underground reports that the band’s heavily anticipated follow-up to 2007’s The Atrocity Exhibition – Exhibit A will be released on April 23 on Nuclear Blast. The album is entitled Exhibit B: The Human Condition. Lookit Exodus, gettin’ all philosophical on our asses.

In all seriousness: Exodus, like their peers in Slayer, Megadeth, Testament, and, depending on who you ask, possibly Metallica, have been experiencing a renaissance with their last few albums, and I have no reason to believe that this record won’t be the rock. These guys have just been on top of their game lately. I’m really stoked to hear this one.

Here’s a not-great but not-awful quality rip of a new song, “Good Riddance,” which I’m assuming will appear on the new offering.

And as if I needed to remind you (for the second time today), Exodus are currently on the MetalSucks-sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 with Arch Enemy, Arsis, and Mutiny Within. Get dates here.

-AR

The MetalSucks-sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 featuring Arch Enemy, Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within kicked off last night in Maryland! And just in time for the tour launch, Arsis have released their new video, “Forced to Rock.” Maybe I’m reading into this too much, but it seems to me that the David Brodsky directed clip was at least partially inspired by Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” video – I mean, I know there’s no direct corollary between the two beyond a classroom setting, but I know for a fact that Arsis’ James Malone is a Van Halen fan. Plus, I’m still convinced that there’s a bigger hair metal influence on Malone than some death metal fans would like to admit.

But who knows? Maybe Malone just really, really likes My First Sex Teacher.

By the way, the role of “Miss Rock” is played by Kym Dylla, vocalist for Virginia’s Thismeansyou. I’m not familiar with that band, but if they’ve got Arsis’ seal of approval…

If anyone was at last night’s Tyrants of Evil show in Maryland, drop me line and let me know how it was. For everyone else: get tour dates here. It’s gonna be such a killer show.

-AR

Just in time for their stint on the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010, Exodus have unveiled their new DVD/CD, Shovel Headed Tour Machine: Live At Wacken & Other Assorted Atrocities. I haven’t gotten to check out the video portion of this multidisc set yet, but the live album is killer, a terrific snapshot of a legendary band who are now firmly back at the top of their game.

Last Friday in Los Angeles, Metalocalpyse’s Brendon Small hosted an advanced screening of the concert film and documentary that are included in the set, and then moderated an q&a with the band. If you couldn’t make it, you can – and should – check out video of the event below:

Shovel Headed Tour Machine: Live At Wacken & Other Assorted Atrocities is out now on Nuclear Blast – and it should whet your appetite for the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 with Arch Enemy, Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within. It starts next week! Get dates here.

-AR

Apparently I’ve listened to Mutiny Within’s Roadrunner Records self-titled debut a whole lot because I’m already at that point where I hear the opening notes of the next song in my head the moment the prior song ends. iTunes tells me I’ve listened to the record’s second track “Images” 16 times already… yikers! I’m like a heart-broken high schooler (minus the heartbreak, minus the high school, plus a few gray hairs and a little bit of agita) listening to that song over and over again in my bedroom (minus the bedroom, plus the dilapidated MetalSucks Mansion flophouse).

So when Roadrunner sent us the final cut of the band’s very-first-ever music video this morning — for the album’s opening track “Awake” — after I watched I just had to follow it up with the rest of the record (hello listen #17 for “Images”). There really haven’t been very many metal records with mainstream appeal that I’ve really gotten into over the past couple of years, but Mutiny Within was an easy early favorite of mine for 2010 the first time I heard it a few months back. These fine New Jersey gentlemen (and a Brit who hilariously announces “We’re from New Jersey” at their live shows) are one of the best new bands being catapulted into the scene today, America’s non-cheesy answer to so much Euro power metal gruyere.

About that video, it’s posted below. Listen to “Awake” and two other songs from the album at Mutiny Within’s MySpace page, and make sure you pick it up when it comes out on February 23rd. The band is virgin-tight live, led by the super-talented Chris Clancy’s soaring vocals, as you’ll find out when they open for the MetalSucks-sponsored Arch Enemy tour (with Exodus and Arsis).

-VN

This winter is shaping up to a great incredible one for U.S. metal tours.The European Summer festivals ain’t got nothin’ on us… ok, well yeah they do, but this winter’s U.S. metal tour slate is still most excellent.

There’s the much ballyhooed Between the Buried and Me / Cynic / The Devin Townsend Project / Scale the Summit North American Orgasm Tour, about which Axl shared his man-juice excitement yesterday. On January 15th death metal Egyptologists Nile kick off their mammoth Those Whom the Gods Detest Tour with Immolation, Krisiun, Abigail Williams and Dreaming Dead. Only five days later Arch Enemy embark on the MetalSucks-sponsored Tyrants of Evil Tour with Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within. The Pagan/Folk metal tour du jour this Winter is headlined by Korpiklaani with Tyr, Swashbuckle and White Wizzard in tow (the latter of whom are certainly not pagan or folk). And tomorrow The Metal As Art Tour featuring Hypno5e, Revocation and The Binary Code kicks off in Brooklyn and traverses the country for 31 days. Yowza!

Full lists of dates and venues for all four tours are posted after the jump. There’ve been a few venue changes so make sure you double-check… then feel free to bitch about how none of these tours are coming to your city and proceed to blame us.

Click to read more…

Or, rather, be forced to rock.

For “Forced to Rock” is the name of the new song that Arsis posted on their MySpace page while we were chillin’ during the holidays. And it probably won’t have to force you to rock. It will most likely just induce rocking that is completely consensual.

Arsis mastermind James Malone says that he ” came to the conclusion that the death metal world needed an anthem,” and that the need for said anthem was the impetus for this song. And it’s certainly anthemic. In fact, I’d like to once again point out Malone’s self-professed love of hair metal, and posit that there’s a distinct hair metal influence on this song. I mean, there’s definitely a thrash/death element, too (duh), but c’mon. The death metal world needed an anthem, so he wrote “Forced to Rock,” not “Fuck Her with a Knife.” That says something. Or, at least, I think it says something.

ANYWAY, it’s a killer song, and it’ll be on Arsis’ new album, Shout at Starve for the Devil, which drops February 5 in Europe and February 9 in America on Nuclear Blast. By which point Arsis will already have started the MetalSucks-sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour with Arch Enemy, Exodus, and Mutiny Within! HEY-O!!! Get tour dates here.

-AR

For some reason I thought John Kempainen was one of those “I hate touring” dudes, and that said hatred of fart boxes and no pay was one of the key reasons behind his split with The Black Dahlia Murder. But I guess I thought wrong, because Metal Injection tells us that Kempainen is teaming with original BDM drummer Cory Grady to form a new band, Graves Ablaze. They don’t have a vocalist yet (or a bassist or rhythm guitarist), but there’s an instrumental demo streaming here.

Kempainen is obviously a really talented guy and I was sad to see him leave BDM – his solos were one of my favorite parts of that band. That being said, Ryan Knight (ex-Arsis) has obviously turned out to be a more than able replacement, and I think Deflorate is probably BDM’s best album yet. And this Graves Ablaze demo doesn’t knock my socks off. It’s not bad – it’s just not jizz-inducing or whatever.

What does that say about their future? Very little. Maybe the time just wasn’t right yet for them to post a demo – maybe they need to wait ’til they’re further along in their evolutionary process. For now, I’m just glad that Kempainen is out there trying to make new metal…

-AR

Lookit, lookit! It’s an awesome commercial for the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 featuring Arch Enemy, Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within!!! Man, if only all commercials were this not-annoying (or however you’d say that). Most commercials are like “Do you need shit? Well here’s some shit that will help you with that shit you need!” and then there’s some lame jingle that makes you wanna kill a child in front of its parents. But not this commercial – no, this one is just selling you an AWESOME FUCKING METAL SHOW. And no lame jingle. Just so much awesome riffage in just sixty seconds. I cannot fucking wait for these shows.

Check out the commercial first, then get dates after the jump!

Click to read more…

Arsis have given us our first taste of their new album, Starve for the Devil, in the form of “Beyond Forlorn,” which is streaming here. And it. Is. AWESOME.

It’s an epic, melodic, death metal song that makes me wanna fuck and kill and then fuck what I’ve just killed, which I mean as a compliment. But it doesn’t sound quite like anything Arsis have ever done before. I actually kinda wonder if some fans are gonna bitch that it’s too straight-forward… but I guess some fans are gonna bitch pretty much no matter what.

Check it out and let us know what you think. Starve for the Devil comes out February 9 on Nuclear Blast. And don’t forget that Arsis are part of the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010, alongside Exodus, Mutiny Within, and headliners Arch Enemy. Get dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

So far, this is in line to be the second most metal cover art of 2010 (here’s the first)…

Starve for the Devil drops February 9 on Nuclear Blast. Arsis will also be on the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010, alongside Exodus, Mutiny Within, and headliners Arch Enemy. Get dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

Hey, lookit! We just debuted a new Arch Enemy video, “Beast of Man,” earlier this month, and the band already has another one. Sweeeeet.

So here’s “Dark Insanity.” The track comes off the band’s recent Century Media release The Root of All Evil, and the footage is taken from their killer DVD, Tyrants Of The Rising Sun – Live In Japan.

Also: a friendly reminder (as though you’d forgotten!) that Arch Enemy will headline the MetalSucks sponsored Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 with Exodus, Arsis and Mutiny Within starting in January. Get dates here.

-AR