The rumor was that this year’s edition of Mayhem Fest would feature Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, As I Lay Dying and Whitechapel; yesterday, we got confirmation that Slipknot are indeed headlining the outing, and now all the other bands have been confirmed, too. In fact, the only band on the bill that WASN’T rumored to be in the line-up is Asking Alexandria. I’m assuming the festival’s organizers kept that one top-secret on purpose; I mean, I wouldn’t want people to know I was working with Asking Alexandria, either.

All kidding aside, the only bands here I’d consider a total miss are The Devil Wears Prada and the aforementioned Asking Alexandria, and I’m aware that, yes, while I personally may loathe those bands, they will put butts in seats. The rest of the line-up is great; this is obviously Slipknot’s big U.S. comeback tour, and the combination of them and Slayer alone should pretty much guarantee that every metal fan in the country shows up for this thing.

Dates are after the jump, courtesy of Metal Inejection.

Click to read more…

via Topless Robot

I would give anything for that to be the actual James Bond theme music from now on, wouldn’t you?

ANYWAY, here’s some shit we did this week:

• We spoke to Neige from Alcest and SL from The Devil’s Blood.
• Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick got pissed the Packers losing.
• We checked out the latest releases from Nails, Skin Like Iron, Fatal Birth, and No Tolerance.
• We previewed some more more Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012: 7 Horns 7 Eyes, Crazy Lixx, Wormed, and Imperial State Electric.
• We got excited about the rumored line-ups for both Summer Slaughter and Mayhem Fest.
• We helped Godsmack, Staind, and Halestorm name their new tour.
• We enjoyed Juliet’s video for “My First Hardcore Song.”
• We suffered through a bad trip with The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato.
• We felt bad for Trivium — poor bastards have to go tour with Asking Alexandria.
• We pondered whether the shutdown of Megaupload was good or bad.

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the most up-to-date suckitude.

See ya Monday, folks!

-AR

Last week Vince posted the above totally epic picture of Trivium playing foosball against Ghost, and while we all had a good chuckle at the time, what we didn’t realize was that the stakes of the game were actually incredibly high. See, the winners got to go open for Mastodon and Opeth, while the losers had to open for.. Asking Alexandria. Brutal, right?

A source tells us that Trivium were incredibly confident in their foosball skills, but, alas, it may have been hubris: they lost, and do, indeed, now need to go be on a tour where they are not only going to be playing support for Asking Alexandria, but will find Dir En Grey, I See Stars, The Amity Afflication, and “Shitstain on the Ass of the Universe” alums Motionless in White as their tourmates. You know things are bad when the band you’re most stoked to be on tour with are Dir En Grey, for the simple reason that at least they don’t speak English, and will therefore most likely not bother you.

I’m not going to post dates for this wretched hellspawn of a trek, but you can get ‘em here if you really need to. Meanwhile, that awesome sounding Mastodon/Opeth/Ghost tour is still technically just a rumor, but we’ll post more details as we get ‘em.

-AR

Evil Bells aka Slay Bells by guitarstevecc

I’m not one for Christmas music, but I enjoyed the above doom interpretation of an Xmas classic very much. Click “play” while you catch up on this morning’s news:

• Tool have announced the opening acts for their string of winter 2012 dates… and it’s wonky stoner-prog outfit Intronaut (as rumored) on the first half of the tour and doom metal titans Yob on the second half! It’d be easy enough for Tool to take out a commercial hard rock band because their agent or manager said so, an established act that could help put some butts in seats, or no one at all… but nope, they march to their own drum and chose Intronaut and Yob, two acts that will seem completely out of left field to most of Tool’s fanbase. That’s Tool for you; just one of 1,697 reasons I love this band so much.
• Paganfest will come back to America in spring 2012 for its third U.S. incarnation. Despite the pagan/folk metal trend being long over, Paganfest III actually features a really cool lineup: Turisas, Alestorm, and Ex Deo are the bigger bands, and they’ll take along with them Arkona and Huntress, neither of whom I know much about. Get dates here.
• Gwar’s Oderus Urungus and Balsac the Jaws of Death review the new Spielberg movie War Horse for NextMovie.com on video.
• Alternative Press readers have chosen Asking Alexandria’s Ben Bruce as “Guitarist of the Year” for 2011. MetalSucks editors have nominated Alternative Press readers as having the “Worst Taste in Metal” for eternity.
• Gory death metal vets Exhumed have posted their entire live set from Maryland Deathfest 2011 on NPR’s website. Stream it here. And oh hey look at who wrote that article! (hey hey)

So it looks like my boyhood hero, The Ultimate Warrior, is getting his own reality web series, The Warrior Show, in which he tortures various Sumerian bands because… I really have no idea why this exists, actually. It obviously has nothing to do with music. The Warrior tells the band “I want you to prove the haters wrong,” but speaking as a hater, I don’t know how this will achieve that goal; I mean, it’s not like being in tip-top physical shape will make I See Stars’ music any better — and there are plenty of talented fat dudes in extreme music. So is it is just good cross-promotion? I can’t imagine young fans of Sumerian bands care about The Ultimate Warrior, and I can’t imagine old fans of The Ultimate Warrior care about young Sumerian bands. Then again, I am writing about this now, so I guess there’s publicity to be had. Huzzah!

Click to read more…

Photo by Clay Patrick McBride

Sebastian Bach’s new record is surprising and unsurprising. That is, no one who has witnessed the former Skid Row singer’s recent playdates with members of Asking Alexandria and Black Veil Brides could be shocked by Kicking And Screaming‘s slick, modern vibe. Plus, a clue was provided by each of Bach’s personnel moves, be it a 21-year old guitar prodigy, or a producer of tight radio rockers (Shinedown, Saliva) and lovable old guys (Iommi, David Lee Roth). And duh it’s 2011: For mainstream rock, the choice is big production or small potential. And there is nothing small about Sebastian Bach.

Anyway, those were my thoughts during the opening notes of Kicking And Screaming. But the album’s surprise element mounted with each song: He pulled it off! Yes, Bach is great at bright, pop-punkish hard rock throughout the totally lovable Kicking. Eventually it dawned on me that Bach might’ve been supplementing — not discarding — his OG fans via cavorting with scenebros, dissing of today’s Skid Row, and tabloid-friendly barroom antics. Via producer, boy wonder axeman, and his own snarling edge, his aim was a collection of jamz for both sensibilities and their overlap. Via classic Bach thrust and charm, Kicking is a Skid Row fan’s newest friend.

Last week, I spoke with Baz about Kicking And Screaming‘s creative team, singing high, being high, Steven Adler, John 5, Phil Varone, and tons more in an epic MetalSucks interview that crescendos from chill (excited new album chatter) to silly (an impromptu stoner giggle party) to rampage (invective against the Skid Row he never bargained for). Read and laugh!

Click to read more…

Reader John Schwarz alerted us to the existence of the Epicenter Festival, and if you told me that the show’s bookers designed it specifically to make sure that no one from MetalSucks attended, well, I’d believe it. Look at this shitfest:

There are a handful of insanely popular, maddeningly terrible modern rock acts not on the bill — Nickelback, Korn, Linkin Park, Godsmack, Creed, and Hinder all come to mind — which is too bad, because if they were playing this fest, we’d be like one major earthquake away from being done with some of the worst bands in the history of sound. The only good news about this thing’s existence is that it has made me aware of several awful bands I didn’t previously know, so that now if anyone is ever like “Hey, wanna check out Skillet?”, I can respond, “Couldn’t you just hammer a rusty nail into my penis instead?”

-AR

Butt rock reigns yet again, with Seether nabbing the top spot for the second week in a row. Boris and Cave In cracked the Top Hard Music charts with their new albums (hooray!), while Hollywood Undead and Asking Alexandria actually experienced sales gains for the first time since their new records debuted a few weeks back (boo!). Click on through to see what else charted and how much it all sold.

Click to read more…

In 2006, Axl Rose’s Nu-GN’R played what was then their first show in almost four years at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC. Rose had recently made a surprise appearance on The Eddie Trunk Show*, dropping in after a texting session with Bach, whom he had not seen in many years. So at this first Hammerstein show, Rose brought out Bach, and they did a duet of “My Michelle,” and, of course, the crowd went totally apeshit.

Then they did it again for the next three nights the band played at the same venue. And then they did it again at almost every single Guns N’ Roses show since. And then Axl Rose made a guest appearance on Bach’s album, and then Bach made a guest appearance on Chinese Democracy. I mean, these guys sure did beat that gimmick until it was dead, and then they continued to beat it, just so its mother wouldn’t be able to give it an open casket funeral.

Click to read more…

Seether are still around? Apparently they are, and apparently they still sell buttloads of records. While Seether nabbed the top spot on the Top Hard Music chart, Scar Symmetry also had a good debut, as did, um, Vampires Everywhere. Foo Fighters, Hollywood Undead, Black Label Society and others are still selling lots of records too. Numbers after the jump.

Click to read more…

The Foo Fighters and Hollywood Undead were finally toppled from their respective #1 and #2 spots last week after holding down the fort in that order for three straight weeks prior (with Hollywood Undead at #1 the week before Foo Fighters’ debut), but rest assured, they’re still at #2 and #3 and show no signs of letting up. Nikki Sixx’s new Sixx A.M. record nabbed the top spot on the Hard Music Charts this week, undoubtedly due to this record-shifting post.

Elsewhere, Shinedown debuted their new live album, another Poison greatest hits collection flopped, and some other bands sold some records too. The numbers:

Click to read more…

In the absence of any big metal debuts, this week I decided to run with a question posed last week: how does Amon Amarth’s current chart-buster Surtur Rising stack up against their past releases? After the jump, a look at those numbers.

Foo Fighters were #1 and Hollywood Undead were #2 for the third week in a row on the Top Hard Music charts; elsewhere, Otep Shamaya had a nice debut and shitstains on the ass of the universe like Winds of Plague and Asking Alexandria also had solid weeks. Whoopie.

Click to read more…

One of the many members of the metal elite that our pals at Metal Injection got to interview on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week was Dj Ashba, current guitar player for both Guns N’ Roses and Sixx A.M. (He’s like the most in-demand musician of 1989!) Ashba was accompanied by actress Nicky Whelan, who, box office receipts tell me, probably none of you remember from her recent role as a bippy who gets naked in the movie Hall Pass (very NSFW video here). Ashba spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and Whelan spouts some nonsense about the new Sixx A.M. album, and then Ashba says that GN’R might tour the U.S. this year. But this is the same dude who thinks there’s actually gonna be a new Guns N’ Roses record soon, and that he’ll still be in the band by the time that record gets done, so, y’know, it must be nice to be so blindly optimistic.

Metal Injection gots some other good gossip on the Black Carpet, too, including:

• Sebastian Bach told one of the dudes from Asking Alexandria that he’s going to die soon.
• Taylor Momsen’s parents are very supportive of her decision to exploit her barely-legal body in the name of making money for them.
• William Shatner doesn’t know who the band Shat.

Check out all of their coverage here.

-AR

The Foo Fighters are #1 for the 2nd week in a row; I have yet to hear Wasting Light but everything Dave Grohl puts out is quality and the two songs I’ve heard so far are both slam dunks. Conversely, Hollywood Undead are #2 for the second week in a row; can’t win ‘em all, I guess, but at least they’re not #1.

Elsewhere Winds of Plague, Periphery and Loaded had solid debuts, while pretty much any band that was on Revolver’s Golden Gods Awards show experienced a nice little sales bump. Numbers after the fold.

Click to read more…

Two days late but not two dollars short, I figure ya’ll might like to know how all the albums that came out last Tuesday (April 12th) fared sales-wise, even though I think we can all agree that album sales aren’t the be-all-end-all measure of a band’s success. So without further ado, here’s how the new Between the Buried and Me, Foo Fighters and Red Fang albums sold last week.

Also, Dave Grohl is a very rich man; in addition to the ginormous debut of his new Foo Fighters album, seemingly every Foo catalog album made a return back onto the charts this past week.

Right, the numbers:

Click to read more…

Avenged Sevenfold and Vinnie Paul, “Mouth For War”

Matt Cerone over at MetsBlog.com does these daily “the least you should know” wrap-ups after every game, which this season have essentially all boiled down to “they sucked.” In that spirit, here’s an abbreviated report from the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in L.A., which Axl and I had the privilege of attending and which, unlike the Mets, most definitely did not suck. We had a rip-roaring good time and got rip-roaringly drunk before realizing that oh yeah, this is L.A. and you have to fucking drive home. What a nightly buzzkill, literally! Thanks, Axl, for driving my drunk ass home.

The least you should know about the 2011 Revolver Golden Gods Awards before we have time to properly recap the event:

• Avenged Sevenfold were easily the most popular band there; most kids at the show were wearing their shirts. Their performance was fantastic and even converted a few industry non-believers I spoke with; in addition to a “hit and run” set of the band’s most popular songs, they played “It’s So Easy” with Duff McKagan and “Mouth For War” with Vinnie Paul (video above).
• Alice Cooper played very early in the night but rocked nonetheless. (video after the jump)
• Vince Neil: not sober.
• Asking Alexandria frontman: definitely not sober yet. Lost his mic under the drum riser 10 seconds into “Youth Gone Wild” with Sebastian Bach (video after the jump).
• Sebastian Bach: still awesome.
• Sebatian Bach to Dave Grohl, upon running into him backstage: “Hey! Dave Grohl!” [hugs]
• Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann was hilariously hitting on every woman in sight, including L.A. metal sorta-celeb Metal Sanaz.
• Other backstage celeb sightings: Dino Cazares (who Tweeted “where’s the baby?” at us), Dave Navarro (who still looks 20 years old), Rob Zombie, Alan Robert of Life of Agony (mega-cool dude), Taylor Momsen, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze, Steven Adler, dude from Puddle of Mudd, William fucking Shatner, the ghost of Dime.
• Black Veil Brides winning “Best New Band.” Lulz!

Fun videos after the jump! More extensive coverage coming soon.

Click to read more…

My usual source for Soundscan info is on vacation this week (asshole!), but thankfully the always-reliable Metal Insider is there for me with their weekly Metal by Numbers column. Rather than go through the whole chart since I don’t have it at my fingertips, let’s just focus on new releases that came out last week:

Click to read more…

This video of Asking Alexandria vocalist Danny Worsnop totally fershnickered on-stage at a recent Seattle gig has been making the rounds these past few days, and I honestly don’t know quite what to say about it. I think this band is terrible, and there’s some schadenfreude to be had in watching this dude basically fuck-over a room packed full of paying fans; on the other hand, Worsnop apparently now recognizes he has a problem and is quitting drinkin’ n’ druggin’ (Asking Alexandria’s initials are “AA”… coincidence?!?), so I can’t give the guy too much shit, I guess.

Besides, the part of this video that really fascinates me — besides the fact that the fans don’t lynch Worsnop — is how mensch-y his bandmates are. They’re so calm and understand and fucking British! Bands break-up or almost break-up because of shit like this all the time, but these dudes are just so chill! If it were my band and the singer acted like this I’d probably beat him to death with my guitar. But I guess that’s why these dudes are rock stars and I’m just a blogger. Well, that and my refusal to get a ridiculous hair cut.

-AR

Props to Heavy Blog is Heavy for catching this interesting update from Sumerian Records’ official Facebook page:

As HBiH notes, this sounds like it’s going to be a release (or releases) in the vein of Roadrunner United and Nuclear Blast All-Stars — basically a “who’s who” team-up of musicians signed to the label. Those offerings actually ended up being, by and large, pretty cool (I mean, of course there were some missteps, but I don’t look back at those albums and think, “Well, that was ill-advised”), and Sumerian’s current roster is one of the strongest in metal (The Faceless, Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Veil of Maya, After the Burial, etc., pretty much make up for their creatively vapid bands like Asking Alexandria and Upon a Burning Body), so it makes sense that they’d wanna do something like this.

Question is… what form, exactly, will it take? I almost don’t care, as long as Bizzy Bone is involved. Hey, it could happen.

-AR

I somehow completely missed this until I read about it on Metal Injection, but it seems that Sebastian Bach will be performing “Youth Gone Wild” with Asking Alexandria as his backing band at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards next month. (DevilDriver and Jamey Jasta will also be doing a tribute to Black Flag, but I have nothing funny to say about that.)

Click to read more…