All these bands decided to release new videos within the past twenty-four hours. So I’m just lumping them all together in one post, the same way my mom lumps any music with loud guitars together under the heading, “Things I assume my degenerate son must like.”

First up we have this pretty amazing video for “Tres Brujas” from The Sword. I’m not even, like, the biggest The Sword fan in the world, but I gotta hand it to them, they have definitely made the nerdiest stoner metal video I’ve ever seen by a band that isn’t Mastodon. The thirteen year-old zit faced virgin in me thinks that this video is incredible, and the eight year-old autistic kid who’s never heard of Sabbath in me thinks the music is pretty great, too.

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Here we had this entire week devoted to hair metal, and I feel like we only scratched the surface. Let’s do this again real soon, okay?

Here’s some of the fun we had this week, be it hair-metal related or not:

• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal taught us to be mind-less, Antagonist’s Carlos Garcia taught us about the song “Sasha Grey,” and Trap Them’s Ryan McKenney taught us more about corporate-sponsored live shows.
• Anso and Allyson from Bring Back Glam! counted down the Ten Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums.
• We counted down the Top Ten Bands Most Often Miscategorized as Hair Metal.
• Vince spoke with Serj Tankian, Gary spoke with Frankie from Emmure, and Sergeant D. spoke with Samantha Maloney from Brother Clyde/Shift/Hole/Motley Crue/every band ever.
• We debuted a new track by The Binary Code!
• Leyla Ford counted down the ten worst and best hair metal band names.
• Sammy checked out the new release by Eibon.
• Dave Mustein checked out The Cool Tour.
• Someday, this little girl is going to make Sergeant D. very, very unhappy.
• I can’t tell the difference between all the members of Mushroomhead, can you?

I wanna especially thank Allyson from Bring Back Glam! for all her help this week — we love you, Allyson! Come back anytime.

Monday we return, but we’ll have a little less Aqua Net in our hair, a little less eyeliner on our lids, and a lot less skip in our step. See ya then.

-AR

I was pretty skeptical when I first saw the Cool Tour lineup. Actually, I was more than skeptical: I was pretty much positive that I wasn’t going to attend. It seemed to break down as 50% Christian screamo, 25% hardcore, and 25% good bands, which meant that there would be a lot of obnoxious hardcore, scene, and straightedge kids. But when the opportunity arose to go to the tour, I just decided to do it despite the high scene-kid-to-normal-metalhead ratio, because I had never seen either BTBAM or As I Lay Dying live.

As it turned out, I made the right decision. Although I did skip the first four bands (War of Ages, Cancer Bats, Architects, and The Acacia Strain) because I’m not a fan of any of them besides Architects, I hear that all of them save for War of Ages put on a pretty solid showing. The Acacia Strain apparently managed to work the crowd into more of a frenzy than any other band, probably because it was a hometown show for them.

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The aesthetic of both the performance footage and the animation in the new David Brodsky-directed video for As I Lay Dying’s “Parallels” differs vastly from the aesthetic of the performance footage and the animation in the video he helmed for The Red Chord’s “Demoralizer” earlier this year, as is befitting cinematic representations of two bands that play such divergent forms of metal (The Red Chord will be on The Summer Slaughter tour, AILD on The Cool Tour – the very monikers of those treks demonstrates huge stylistic differences in the music) and employed different animators for each clip. (The animation in “Parallels” is by Mike Milyavsky with an assist from Brodsky; Tim Kellan and Brodsky did the animation for “Demoralizer.”)

However, it seems to me that there are some interesting thematic connections, primarily in the portrayal of Man as a cog in modern society, robbed of His individuality. The strongest example of this correlation might be the use in both videos of not-dissimilar (and strongly Freudian) images of people drinking blood from a pipe, but it is also worth nothing that the characters in both videos have been robbed of that most distinct display of an identity: a unique face.

Of course, I could just be overanalyzing all this shit.

As I Lay Dying’s The Powerless Rise and The Red Chord’s Fed Through the Teeth Machine are both out now on Metal Blade.

-AR

What’s up everyone! In celebration of the new KINGDOM OF SORROW album coming out today, MetalSucks have been nice enough to let me takeover their site! I figured I’d better make the reading interesting and at least cause some discussion, so here goes, this is probably the longest run on sentence you’ll ever read, haha, enjoy!

Since we’re well into 2010. I figured I’d start my blog with my top ten “most listened to” metal and hardcore albums of the last decade, and the top ten albums I hope to enjoy this decade!!! It’s not a top ten “best of” the decade or anything like that, it’s just what I’ve listened to the most while on the road, at home, in the gym, in the office or in my car. Keep in mind that the criteria for these albums to make this list was that they were released between 2000 and 2010, that is all.

The top 10 records I’m “most hopeful & excited for” are more like a wish list. It will be cool to see some of that stuff happen!

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First things first: screamo is literally worse than the Holocaust in my book. With a few notable exceptions, I absolutely cannot stand this shit. That said, with bands like The Devil Wears Prada and Underoath selling out huge venues, putting out platinum-selling albums, and selling truckloads of cookie-cutter merch to every angsty suburban teen within driving distance of a Hot Topic, it’s hard not to pay attention to the genre. I might not like it, but Kids These Days certainly do. My biggest question: Where the fuck did this shit come from??

As someone who saw the birth of metalcore and “true screamo”/skramz firsthand in the 90s, I am highly confused when I listen to these bands. On the one hand, they are not so different from anything that could have been on Victory or Indecision in the 90s (Earth Crisis, All Out War, Bloodlet). Obviously there are some things that have changed over time, but the fundamentals of metalcore are still there (see my post “The 5 Kinds Of Music Teens Are Into” for more details). On the other hand, the kids in Alesana, August Burns Red, and possibly even As I Lay Dying have no fucking idea who those pioneering metalcore bands are, much less that screamy vocals were born in the tiny basement shows and vegan bakesales of the 90s DIY hardcore scene.

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Throughout the course of L O S T’s sixth and final season, my guest-column writing approach has been (somewhat) consistently this:

- Step 1: Watch the episode
- Step 2: Ponder, reflect, dissect, and overanalyze everything presented in the then-current episode as much as is in my capacity to
- Step 3: Ponder, reflect, dissect, and overanalyze how the concepts presented fit in the grand scheme of the L O S T story
- Step 4: Lurk amongst my favorite L O S T-related sites to see what my fellow nerds are thinking. Filter through to find thoughts that challenge or reinforce my own, then ponder, reflect, dissect, and overanalyze as per usual.
- Step 5: Share my current understandings and questions with you here to hopefully strengthen the former and minimize the latter.

This weekly process was my best attempts at keeping myself (and hopefully a lot of you) pumped up and interested in what would happen next. The end was coming, the end was nigh, and the end has happened. The completely obvious and appropriate question now is: how do you feel about it? Personally – in a somewhat frustrating but true-to-form manner with regards to how I’ve felt about this show historically – I don’t quite know how I feel.

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Dio died. Isis broke-up. Bret Michaels is back in the hospital. And I just used Dio, Isis, and Bret Michaels in one thought-stream, which, I’m sure, offended somebody.

Luckily, we did manage to have some fun this week:

• Sick of it All’s Lou Koller is counting down his top ten hardcore albums, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa is counting down to the end of L O S T, Batillus’ Fade Kainer is counting down ’til the band can get the fuck outta the studio, Agenda of Swine’s Pete Benumb is counting down to MDF, and Cynic’s Paul Masvidal is counting down to achieving a higher level of being.
• We spoke to Steve Joh from Century Media, Tara Johnson from Disembodied, Emil Werstler from Daath and Levi/Werstler, and Travis Stever from Coheed & Cambria.
• We checked out the latest release from Rosetta.
• Sergeant D. has new slamz 4 u.
• The best music video ever of the week is by… Goldfrapp?
• There are plenty of things we’d rather do than listen to a new Attack Attack! song.
• Endorsement of the new Avenged Sevenfold single = flame war.
• You guys are still arguing about my Korn review. Seriously?
• I’m still upset about John Bush leaving Anthrax again. Seriously.
• We used to love Sweden, but we had to kill it.

And hopefully no one awesome will die or break-up next week.

-AR

Namaste L O S T enthusiasts,

How is everyone feeling about “What They Died For?”  As much as I was hoping it would melt my mind, I’m going to cast it amongst the bottom rung of “not so awesome season six episodes.”  This will be a temporary standing, though, if one of you happened to think it ruled and are persuasive in explaining why to me!  Clinging to my absolutely last hope of optimism, though, I will assume this episode’s function in the entire grand scheme of this story is to serve a preparatory purpose for the Series Finale this coming Sunday.  It wasn’t without its redeemable informative value, as it blatantly defined some extremely crucial roles and objectives:

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Yep, we talked a lot of smack on Joey Belladonna this week, much to the chagrin of, well, an awful lot of you. I think we’re done for a little while… but I can’t make any promises. Our job at MetalSucks is to amuse ourselves first and foremost, and, well, we thought it was pretty damned funny. So ppppfffftttt.

Here’s what else went down this week:

• We debuted the title track from Nachtmystium’s new album, Addicts.
• Genetic’s Dallas Coyle called us “influential,” Disfear’s Tomas Lindberg shared some Maryland Deathfest memories, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley unveiled his top four Taco Riffs, Cynic’s Paul Masvidal got burglarized, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa made some new revelations about L O S T, God Forbid’s Doc Coyle worried about turning into an old geezer, Daath’s Eyal Levi gave us a lesson in stage etiquette, and Batillus’ Geoff Summers gave us a new studio update.
• We spoke to The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne, Periphery’s Misha “Bulb” Mansoor, Testament’s Chuck Billy, and Sick of it All’s Lou Koller.
• We checked out new releases by Korn and Ufomammut and Year of No Light.
• Is Mastodon’s Brent Hinds a Mastodick?
• Sergeant D sez Cunthunt777 are your new favorite band.
• Don’t worry, baby, Dr. Danzig gonna cure what ails you.
• Hot chick loves Nergal, hates the Bible.
• Boy oh boy, do we love the new Limp Bizkit cover art!
• If you’re looking for new band members, don’t do this.

Alright. We’re gonna go get drunk and crank We’ve Come For You All in John Bush’s honor. Have a great weekend, everyone.

-AR

Good Wednesday to you all,

It was good to see a complete backstory sans flashways episode last night in “Across the Sea.” Much like Richard’s “Ab Aeterno,” the result of seeing a world that once was – as opposed to a world that could quite possibly be, is currently being, or will currently become – is that we are left more informed than questioned… well, kinda. Jacob and Nemesis’ history was finally explained, the mysterious kid we’ve been seeing around the Original Timeline has been identified as Jacob (or at least an apparition of him), and last but certainly not least: we now know who Adam and Eve are. In spite of the overly blatant use of recycled season one footage to let the most obtuse of L O S T fans know that a major question was being answered, I’m happy with who it turned out to be and how it became.

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A few hours ago authorities evacuated Times Square for the second time in a week after someone found a “suspicious cooler” on the street. Of course, everyone was just being overly cautious, but as long as it doesn’t infringe on my civil rights, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. I think Vince was in Michigan when 9/11 went down, but I was here, and if I never see another tank rolling down my street again or run all over the city because there’s no cell service and I need to make sure that all of my friends and family are still alive, well, I’ll be good.

While I nurse my PTSD, here are some happier, metalier things that happened this week:

• We’re streaming Keep of Kalessin’s new album, Reptilian. We also debuted new music by Lamb of God and The Funeral Pyre.
• We also also also debuted new videos by Soulfly and Cancer Bats.
• We also also also also debuted our new cooking show, Cooking Contaminated.
• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal discussed the shape of silence, Periphery’s Bulb taught you how to get that “big” studio tone, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa had some questions about L O S T, Matt from Rumpelstiltskin Grinder fondly recalled Maryland Deathfest, and Batillus bassist Willi Stabenau gave us a studio update.
• We talked to Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum, Reign Supreme’s Jay Pepito,  Jackyl’s Jesse James Dupree, and unveiled part one of our massive two-part interview with Buzz Osborne.
• We checked out the latest release by The Howling Wind.
• Does the fact that Mike Portnoy is touring with Avenged Sevenfold make you wanna see ‘em?
• We don’t want Joey Belladonna to return to Anthrax. Seriously.
• Sergeant D. wants to know if u mosh 4 Christ???
• Damnocracy’s Evan Seinfeld and his porno Howdy Doody also do bar mitzvahs.
• We wish there was really such a thing as a Slayer burrito.

Next week brings even more betterer br00tal goodness – interviews, debuts, guest blogs, all that shit. It’s gonna get real up in this bitch. See ya then.

-AR

It’s been almost three years since As I Lay Dying put out a new album, but their latest opus, The Powerless Rise, comes out this Tuesday, May 11. So, hey, no shocks here – it’s streaming now. I know it’s gonna sound like I’m just shilling for one of our guest bloggers, but sincerely: Nick Hipa and co-guitarist Phil Sgrosso have really outdone themselves on this record . The solos especially are EPIC. The ones on “Parallels” and “The Plague,” especially, really get me goin’.

Check it out and let us know what you think. Like I said, The Powerless Rise comes out this Tuesday on Metal Blade.

-AR

Hoooooly Shizer! “The Candidate” last night was sick! This is my personal opinion, of course, but the culmination of action and character revelation/decimation should have been more than enough to get all of you juiced up as well!

In the Original Timeline, all suspicion of Nemesis Dude’s intentions towards the remaining candidates can now be tossed aside. That electromagnetic-flurry-of-scheminess is straight up trying to kill fools. He is NOT trying to get them off the Island because (just as Jack suspected during “The Last Recruit”) he is more concerned with what would happen if they DIDN’T. Most of us accepted this already, but like the Whispers, Tawaret, and the Black Rock, we now have absolute confirmation that his objective is to eradicate all Candidates who could serve to become his proverbial cork. Regardless of him being depicted as “the bad guy,” I thought it was genius how his manipulating of the Candidates in a submerged submarine with C4 almost unfolded flawlessly. Sayid’s heroism, although uncharacteristic of his recently infected self, ended the story line of my personal favorite and debatably most metal character of the show for the sake of who he feels is the “chosen” one: Jack.

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EVERYBODY SING WITH ME NOW: “I FEEL PRETTY, OH SO PRETTY, I FEEL PRETTY, AND WITTY, AND BRIIIIIIIGHT!”

No West Side Story fans in the house? No one? Okay, fuck it. Here’s what happened in the world of FUCKING METAL this week:

• We’re streaming Mantric’s The Descent in its entirety.
• We’re giving away new tracks by Nevermore and Heaven Shall Burn.
• We debuted a new video by Karma to Burn.
• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal meditated on unexplained healings, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa gave us a refresher on L O S T, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley thinks it’s okay to enjoy music by scumbags, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable wants your help naming his new band, and Eyal from Daath and Levi/Werstler wants you to start ordering CDs online.
• We spoke to Mike Patton and Brian Posehn.
• Slayer and Megadeth are both doing full album performances on their American Carnage tour; Testament, not so much.
• Rose Funoral just can’t live down their past.

Next week brings so many interviews and exclusives it’ll make your head explode. See ya then!

-AR

Hey dudes,

As most of you know last night was a rerun of “Ab Aeterno,” the awesome-answer-filled-brilliantly-acted-question-answering-Richard-centric episode that rocked our drawers several weeks ago. I didn’t end up watching it but lurked about the internet to find out what the “Enhanced” rerun disclosed; these are some of the things that they confirmed:

- Isabella on the Black Rock was confirmed to be Nemesis (something we suspected and agreed on already)
- Nemesis’s manipulation of Richard was his first attempt at finding his crease
- Jacob’s touch to Richard while discussing the wine analogy is definitely what brought him agelessness (thereby implying that other gifts were given to our LOSTIES (i.e. Hugo talking to dead people))
- MIB is not able to leave the Island after killing Jacob because of the potential candidates
- The Doctor was conning Richard for money because Isabella had TB and antibiotics weren’t commonly used until after WWII (especially in the Canary Islands)
- Richard is another person brought to the island who has been directly or indirectly responsible for the death of someone.

A lot of this stuff we’ve already assumed but at least it was nice to have it absolutely validated. On the topic of being rewarded with answers for quite possibly hundreds of hours of our lives being invested into the shows’ many mysteries and questions; I’m sad to say that we will definitely be left hanging.

This is probably the most un-credible and illegitimate form of making such a claim, but here is my reasoning…

Click to read more…

As I Lay Dying have posted a three-and-half-minute sample of another new song from their forthcoming album, The Powerless Rise. This track is called “Parallels,” and you can stream it here.

I’m not entirely sure I understand the band/label’s strategy of only releasing samples of these new songs (they did the same thing for “Beyond Our Suffering” earlier this month). Is it to prevent bootlegging? That might work to some extent, but I can guarantee you that there are AILD fans out there who are so obsessed with the band that they’ll listen to anything they can get their hands on.

Whatever the case, “Parallels” sounds pretty good, if not as heavy as “Beyond Our Suffering.” The sample cuts out right as Nick Hipa is about to rip into what sounds like a pretty epic guitar solo. So Nick has learned at least one lesson from the show he writes about: how to give me blue balls and leave me wanting more. Thanks, Nick! Grrr…

The Powerless Rise comes out May 11 on Metal Blade. There are a variety of pre-order packages available here, including one that comes with a matted, framed and autographed full-color print of the Jacob Bannon designed artwork, which is anything but powerless.

-AR

When we announced the Summer Slaughter 2010 line-up last week, Vince wrote the following:

“Summer Slaughter is by far the best metal tour of Summer 2010. Rockstar Mayhem is lame, Ozzsharonfest is surely gonna be lame, and ‘The Cool Tour’ is, uh, not cool at all save a couple of bands.”

At least one reader asked, “What the heck is the Cool Tour?” While rumors of the package trek have been floating around the net for weeks, it was only officially announced at midnight: The Cool Tour seems to be the next of what could reasonably be called “The Ozzfest Second Stage Tours” – basically mid-sized package tours that take the best part of Ozzfest (the second stage – duh) and do away with the rest. And while any tour with that many bands on it is bound to have at least a few you don’t like (this year’s Summer Slaughter being a pretty remarkable exception to that rule), I have to agree with Vince: The Cool Tour does not really seem all that cool.

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Good afternoon dudes! Today I’m taking the “day after” approach instead of the “day of” approach for two specific reasons: yesterday was the Levi/Werstler takeover (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and also – as mentioned by some of you before – it makes more sense to talk about the latest episode sooner (one day) than later (seven days). For me, L O S T has been intensifying its degree of sickness tremendously the past two weeks, so hopefully all of you were pleasured by “Everybody Loves Hugo” and “The Last Recruit” as much as I was!

The past two L O S T’s have been a lot of killer and miniscule amounts of filler, the result is that much of what we’ve been wondering and waiting for has been fulfilled: we now have an explanation for the Whispers, We have an answer for the Christian Shephard apparitions, its was confirmed that John Locke was chosen because he was easiest to manipulate, the Kwon’s finally reunited, and last but not least… a human explosion!

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I just wanna throw my two cents in…

True story: when I was a kid, I thought the lyrics to “Black No. 1″ were “You can’t go out ’cause your boobs are showing.” I was confused about what the song’s title meant, but otherwise, the words made perfect sense to me. Oh, misheard lyrics. You never cease to amuse.

Even if you weren’t a Type O Negative fan or a Carnivore fan, you have to admit that Peter Steele had one of the most distinctive voices in the history of metal. You never heard the guy and thought, “Gee, who is that?” And because my mother used to work with Josh Silver’s (now sadly also departed) dad, Type O Negative always felt, somehow, more tangible to me; Steele was iconic and often seemed larger than life, but I knew he wasn’t superhuman.That he passed away so young was a very unfortunate reminder that he wasn’t The Man of Steele. But he made his mark and left something to appreciated behind, and in the end, that’s all any of us can really ask for.

Here are some happier things that happened in the world of metal this week:

• We unveiled the line-up for Summer Slaughter 2010.
• We debuted a new video by Jungle Rot.
• We spoke to Kerry King and Dave Lombardo from Slayer, Chino Moreno from Deftones, and Stephen Pearcy from Ratt.
• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal contemplated depression, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa contemplated L O S T, and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley contemplated the perfect Taco Riff.
• We checked out new releases by Levi/Werstler, Wormrot, and Bison B.C. and Sweet Apple.
• Ever dreamed of singing with Nevermore? We’re running pretty much the coolest contest in the history of ever.

Next week brings at least one and possibly two big surprises, plus, knock on a wood, the debut of a new column by a writer you will hate. See ya then.

-AR