Am I the only one who thinks that Exhumed really missed an opportunity by not naming their new album No Guts, No Gory? I mean it’s SUCH AN AMAZING PUN and no death metal band has ever used it for some reason, right? They totally should have gotten on top of that shit, don’t you agree?

[crickets]

ANYWAY, the band is now streaming a new track from their forthcoming release. It’s called “As Hammer to Anvil,” and you can check it out here. It fucking rocks. This is the band’s first album in eight years, and this track certainly suggests that the wait will have been worth it. I’m stoked to hear the rest of this beast now.

No Guts, No Gory All Guts, No Glory comes out July 5 on Relapse. Seems like a good way to celebrate Independence Day to me! It’s already available for pre-order (CD, deluxe CD, digital), and the band is touring Europe with Atheist right now, and then they tour the States this summer with some other killer groups, like Cephalic Carnage, Withered, and Macabre. Here are dates for those shows:

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A brief period in the late ’80s and early ’90s yielded a fantastical number of cutting-edge metal bands. Today, fans of this pre-internet groundswell of proggy, arty, and otherwise undefinable bands can rejoice at the reactivation of Coroner, Anacrusis, and the great Atheist. But conspicuously absent is Milwaukee’s Realm, once most likely to succeed among their high-brow ilk. Realm is also noteworthy as Roadrunner A&R giant Monte Conner’s very first signing, one that preceded Sepultura, Obituary, and fellow Wisconsinites Last Crack. Aside from some classy but low-profile reissues of Realm’s dual masterpieces Endless War and Suiciety, Realm buzz has remained low — especially for a band who left fans hanging without completing their sure-to-be awesome third album. I tracked down founding guitarist Takis Kinis (also ex-Beatallica) to get answers to largely unasked questions, and his insights go beyond Realm minutiae to form a sort of Do’s and Don’ts manual for budding young bands. Incredibly, Conner himself took time to stroll down Realm’s memory lane and provide even more invaluable peeks behind the music business curtain (look for his comments in gray). Don’t understand how a brilliant band doesn’t “make it”? Want to avoid the pitfalls of youthful bravado? Thinking of covering a famous Beatles song? Just want to get hip to two of metal’s most overlooked masterpieces? Read on.

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“We aim to please, so please aim.” So read the sign above the urinals at the long-shuttered NYC restaurant institution Ed Debevic’s. And while we certainly don’t have a need to ask you to aim your urine, kindly stop emailing us about sweet tours just because we haven”t publicly commented on them yet. We know! We’re just, like, ya know… busy and stuff.

But there’s a pretty sweet tour storming the U.S. this Spring that you’ll definitely want to know about if you haven’t already heard. Atheist, whose new album Jupiter delighted old-school prog metalheads at the end of last year, are embarking on a brief 7-day North American jaunt. Atheist will have the incredible support cast of A Life Once Lost, Revocation and Last Chance to Reason in tow — definitely a prog tour for the books, but with only 7 dates we wish it were longer.

Dates after the jump.

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In any band, there’s usually one member who’s the driving force behind the group, and carries the other guys: Greg Ginn, Les Claypool, Justin Timberlake… you get the idea. Such is the case with death metal legends Morbid Angel — the whole band essentially stands on the shoulders of one member, but it’s not the one most of you dorks are thinking of. Lettuce be reality, brahs: Pete Sandoval’s drumming is the definition of mediocre (and before you start arguing, remember that trusted, mainstream news outlets such as NPR have recognized me as an authority on metal drumming).

File this under “sacred cow barbecue” if you want, but I’ve finally come to terms with the truth about Morbid Angel: they have their moments, but are held back by Pete Sandoval’s dull, unimaginative playing (and consistently bad drum sounds). I’m not saying Pete is a bad drummer, because he certainly isn’t, but I am saying that his playing is several orders of magnitude behind Trey Azagthoth’s, and that the bad would be approximately 1 zillion times better if they had someone else on drums.

U MAD?? See if you don’t change your mind after the break…

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Word of who was gonna be on the bill for this year’s Scion Rock Fest, the totally free annual metal super-show, got out yesterday — hell, Wormrot even decided to just go ahead and confirm their presence at the festival. So in that regard, the official announcement of this year’s fest is a little anti-climactic.

Until you realize, holy shit — there really is gonna be a free festival with Morbid Angel, Obituary, Death Angel, Municipal Waste, Agalloch, Wormrot, Kvelertak, Atheist, Black Breath, Nails, Fuck the Facts, and tons more awesome bands. That is a fact about which one ought never to complain.

You can RSVP for the event here starting tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the finalized poster:

-AR

Last week we offered up one MetalSucks hoodie to whoever could come up with the funniest caption for the photo you see at right. Don’t worry; if you didn’t win you can still buy a MetalSucks hoodie here. And the winner issssss…

• AetherJake: “The unmasking of Portal was even more surprising than we originally expected.”

Well played, sir. This week we’re giving away a signed, limited edition digipak copy of Atheist’s latest progsterpiece Jupiter, along with a prize pack from their record label Season of Mist. Alls ya gotta do is come up with the funniest caption to the below photo, and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)!

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which means we’re taking off early today and won’t be back ’til Monday. We’re sorry to leave non-American readers high n’ dry, but PLUS ONE FOR FREEDOM, MOTHERFUCKERS.

ANYWAY, in honor of the holiday, we decided to do a special Turkey Day-themed QOTW designed to make you feel all warm and cuddly inside:

WHAT (IN METAL) ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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The Deciblog scores again! This is one of those ideas that’s so awesome, I wish we’d thought of it. They actually got Kelly Shaefer to pick the five worst Atheist songs. Amazing.

Gotta give credit to Shaefer, too, ’cause not every artist would have a sense of humor about that kinda thing. But he handles it like a real mensch. Only once does he make an excuse for a song’s crappiness (“…wrote this when I was like 17. And it shows.”); most of the time he’s incredibly critical of the band’s work in a way I think few musicians are (“…these guitar doodlings are depressing, lifeless, and boring.”) So killer.

I’m honestly not a big enough Atheist fan to know if I agree or disagree with Shaefer’s assesment, so just check out the list here and make up your own mind. Also, if you haven’t done so already, you should read our own Anso DF’s epic two-part interview with Shaefer: part une, part deux.

UPDATE: The Deciblog now has drummer Steve Flynn’s picks for the worst Atheist songs, too. Check that list out here.

-AR

While these days metal fandom is basically just a contest to see who can fap harder and faster to obscure technical death metal, it wasn’t always that way. In fact, many of the bands that internet metal nerds regard as legendary icons today were either hated or ignored when they were at their peak — fellow oldz will know exactly what I’m talking about. In this post, I will remind us all what fickle, trendy conformists metal fans can be by taking a stroll down memory lane and recalling vintage popular opinion of a few of your pet bands (hint: it wasn’t good!).

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In the early moments of our conversation, I confirmed with busy Atheist frontman Kelly Shaefer that we would limit our interview time to the industry-standard 15 minutes. Shaefer responded amiably, “As much time as you need, man.” To this, I replied jokingly, “Gosh, how much time have you got?” And though we shared a chuckle at this, neither of us could’ve expected our little phone chat to stretch to 2.5 hours over two days. (Of course, it eventually became clear that nothing less should’ve been expected from two lefty pothead metal guitarists who drink a shitload of Mountain Dew and love talking metal.)

Last week, part one found Shaefer and I delving into big, brainy, conceptual stuff, like his approaches to songwriting and singing, the birth of his genre, and the right-on-time return to awesomeness by his classic band (the new record is called Jupiter, but duh you know that).

Today, MetalSucks unsheathes partie deux, in which the tirelessly gracious, funny, and plainspoken Shaeffer (above, right) indulges my questions about more tangible Atheist business, like record label politics, the importance of good packaging, former Atheist guitarist Rand Burkey, current Atheist guitarist Kelly Shaefer (he and his “guitar still are very best friends”), the squashing of inter-band beefs, America’s shameful marijuana policies (I started it, sorry), and so very, very much more. (Spoiler: We do eventually stop talking on the phone.)

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Seriously, if you haven’t read Vince’s epic story about how MetalSucks Maniac “whiskey” won last week’s last week’s photo caption contest, you need to go read it now. It’s pretty amazing. Whiskey’s mom even left a comment! We like to think of MetalSucks as something the whole fucking family can enjoy together, so that warmed the cockles of our collective heart.

Here’s some other fun stuff that happened this week:

• We debuted a performance clip from the new Shadows Fall live DVD, the new Intronaut album, and a new Madball song. PHEW!
• We spoke to Jeremy Creamer from Daath, Johnny Plague from Winds of Plague, Adam Warren from Oceano, and Ashmedi from Melechesh. Oh, and Anso unveiled part one of his massive two-part interview with Atheist’s Kelly Shaefer.
• We checked out new releases by Salome, Madball, Woe, and Arson Anthem and Ender. And a DWARR reissue!
• Greg Weeks from The Red Chord said good-bye to Randy Moss and hello to men wearing pink tights, Sacha Dunable from Intronaut contemplated the legalization of recreational marijuana use in California, and Eyal Levi from Daath discovered DestinAsian.
• Sergeant D. celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell. Wait, what?
• We couldn’t figure out why everyone was so surprised that ICP are evangelical Christians.
• We found out the hard way that Attack Attack!’s music could be even worse than it already is.
• We took a slow ride on Metallica’s Lightning.
• We laughed at one shit stain calling another shit stain “a shit stain.”
• And, oh yeah! Gary Suarez took over the site for a day.

Next week is CMJ here in New York! If you’re in the area and looking for some awesome metal, check out our handy guide to all the festivities — including not one but TWO showcases sponsored by MetalSucks. We’re not gonna lie — we are going to be very hungover and tired next week. But that just means we’ll be crankier than usual. We’ll still be here with lots of debuts, interviews, and other assorted nonsense. Bring your mom! It’ll be fun.

-AR

The return of Atheist was destined. After all, it comes in conjunction with a burgeoning movement of religious skeptics (see Hitchens, Dawkins, Darski) and serves as a timely arm-shot for an unmoored technical metal scene. And they don’t disappoint: With Jupiter (out Nov. 9 via Season of Mist), Atheist finally delivers the overdue sequel to their 1991 masterpiece Unquestionable Presence. (Though contractual obligations required a version of Atheist — essentially Shaefer and friends — to release the nebulous Elements in 1993). Similarly deft and lean, Jupiter recalls the hairpin turns, jolting heaviness, and how-many-great-riffs-can-one-song-have? approach of Unquestionable Presence, this time captured by a slick, bright mix. Plus, I doubt it’s a cake walk to follow a 17-year hiatus (though Atheist has been doing shows since 2005) with  a follow-up to their genre’s Ride The Lightning or Reign In Blood. Yes, Atheist’s parallels to Metallica aren’t limited to each band’s loss of a commanding bass player to auto accidents; in one possible future, Atheist will enjoy Metallica-sized renown, command, and sales as a genre’s capo famiglia. They just own like that.

Atheist’s don is guitarist/vocalist Kelly Shaefer (also of Neurotica, Velvet Revolver auditions), one of metal’s tightest, sneeringest voices. Meanwhile, Shaefer the guitar player locks neatly into the chain of pioneering lefty axemen who forever impacted modern music: Paul McCartney (pop), Jimi Hendrix (rock), Tony Iommi (duh), Shaefer (duh), Kurt Cobain (grunge), Davey VonBohlen (emo), and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (jamternative). For one last bit of context, I direct you to the fact that Atheist is an essential among the smart, underachieving metal acts now reactivated amid a thrash- and prog-hungry listernership: Cynic, Forbidden, Believer, Anacrusis, Watchtower, and Coroner (whom Atheist joins at Hellfest 2011, according to Shaefer).

Shaefer phoned last week to answer all the questions I’ve been sitting on since the ’90s, and some new ones. It was a gigglefest on my end as a hilariously honest Shaefer talked about Jupiter‘s songs, Jupiter‘s lyrics, locking horns with Chuck Schuldiner, smokin’ doobs, the genius of James Hetfield, and Atheist’s “different kind of technical metal.”

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It bugs the shit out of me when sly show-off dudes all, like, casually mention that they’ve already heard a big album that everybody is waiting for even though its release date is months away and the shit hasn’t been leaked on the interslice or anything. That annoys everybody, yes indeed. It’s like, wow man, how did you pull that off? Fuckin’ phonies. But in other news, I’ve heard the new Atheist record Jupiter like 500 times! Bam!! It’s partly cuz I’m a high-powered Metalucks columnist with a crazy awesome bod (the “I’ve heard it” part); and partly cuz I’m undergoing some post-trauma SAF (Stoned As Fuck) therapy all holed up in my friend’s pad whilst he’s on tour with the Milwaukee Gay Men’s Chorus (the “500 times” part).

So I have free time and when not catching up on premium television, I’m balls deep in Atheist’s first record since 17 eternities ago. I even paused Bored to Death to peep Atheist drummer Steve Flynn break down his drum parts on Jupiter’s second track, “Fictitious Glide” (above). Flynn rips, the track slays, the record jams, but gosh I do not know what my man is wearing. He and ex-Obituary guitarist/DUI machine Allen West dress like they should be putting up volleyball nets or pointing at something with a clipboard. Okay, that was a cheap shot considering that my outfit for today is a towel stapled to a sofa cushion. The important thing is that Atheist rules! Still! AGAIN!!

-ADF

Atheist’s face-bangingly awesome Jupiter comes out November 9 on Season of Mist.

Eliran Kantor is on quite a roll this year: The cover art for Sigh’s Scenes from Hell, Atheist’s Jupiter, and now Sodom’s In War and Pieces have all kicked ass so hard that there’s now a spot on my butt that reads “Reserved for Eliran Kantor’s Boot.” And that’s to say nothing of the amazing work the artist has done in the past for bands like Testament and Gwar.

Check out more of Eliran Kantor’s work here. In War and Pieces drops November 23 on SPV.

-AR

I’m not even an Atheist fan and I think this album art, by Eliran Kantor, is the tits:

That is going to make an awesome tattoo for someone to regret in ten years.

Jupiter comes out November 9 on Season of Mist.

-AR

Atheist 2010 (minus hoodie guy)

For fans, it’s been one awesome development after another in the tale of Atheist’s rebirth. What began in 2006 as a few live dates turned into a few summers of Euro festivals, and in 2010 the Atheist machine has pooled enough juice to justify a new album! Just what the often tight-assed prog-metal genre needs: doob-smokin’ jazz-heshers from Florida! Dreams really can come true.

I imagine the dudes of Atheist themselves are similarly psyched about demand for precious Atheist tours and records. It’s a lesson to far-out young bands: Sure, Atheist got to the party at an unfashionably early hour, way before Dillinger and other smug calculator metal bands could sexy up the prog-jazz-soft interlude metal genre (with their fancy haircuts and muscles and shit). And now Atheist is popping back in after midnight as the party has gathered steam and some chicks have arrived and, okay, you get the metaphor already: Atheist has a chance to record a big modern classic and absolutely school some ignorant nerds! Um, again!! And this time, people are paying attention!!!

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In 1985 the Texas quartet WatchTower released Energetic Disassembly and in 1989 they released Control and Resistance, inspiring hundreds of bands to follow their blueprint for technical metal. Twenty one years after the release of the latter, WatchTower have returned with new music and they sound just as vital as ever.

I was too young to appreciate or even know about WatchTower during their first go-round, but listening to new track “The Size of Matter” as well as some of the band’s older material on their MySpace page it’s immediately obvious how directly influential this band was on so many of the great prog metal bands of the last two decades. I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say that without WatchTower bands like Cynic, Atheist, Dream Theater and Meshuggah would be very different from the bands they are today. They might not even exist.

“The Size of Matter” comes from Mathematics, an in-progress album still without a label or release date.

-VN

Thanks: Christopher P.

All this talk of the Faceless touring with Atheist (are they literally the luckiest band ever or what?) inspired me to trawl YouTube for anything Atheist-related to share with ya’ll. In a moment of naivete I simply typed “atheist” into the search field and ended up with a bunch of religious propaganda videos. I even watched a few of them, and let me tell you, people on the Internet are fucking nuts. But you’re reading this here webernet site, so you knew that already.

Once I’d scratched my morning itch for hard-line right-wing religious propaganda I wised up and typed “Atheist band,” ending up on the following live clip of the band Atheist performing “Piece of Time” at Wacken in 2006. Considerably less crazy than the shit I’d watched earlier, but still pretty fuckin’ gonzo.

-VN

Those uproarious chaps over at Metal Inquisition have compiled what they claim to be the Ultimate Florida Death Metal Mix (and, really, it’s tough to argue with them). The maverick known only as “Gene Hoglan’s Balls” writes:

“I love all kinds of death metal, but if I had to pick just one to listen to for the rest of my life it would be Florida Death Metal. And if I could only listen to one song from each of my favorite Florida Death Metal bands for the rest of my life I would come up with Metal Inquisition’s Ultimate Florida Death Metal Mix. If you’re a fan of Florida Death Metal, then you will love this. If you don’t know anything about Florida Death Metal, then prepare to be schooled.”

Fair enough. Lucky for all of you mavericks, copyright laws mean little to nothing these days, so the mix is avail as a free download. Get the full track listing and links to the download after the jump.

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