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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired by the ongoing disaster that is Lou Reed & Metallica’s Lulu, this week we asked our writers:

BESIDES METALLICA AND LOU REED, WHAT IS THE WORST COLLABORATION BETWEEN A METAL BAND/ARTIST AND A NON-METAL BAND/ARTIST? AND WHAT IS THE WORST ONE YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE IN YOUR WILDEST NIGHTMARES?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump!

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“Yep, that’s what Dying Fetus covering Bolt Thrower would sound like.”

That was the thought that ran through my mind as I listened to Dying Fetus’ new cover of Bolt Thrower’s “Unleashed Upon Mankind,” which is now streaming here.

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As regular readers are aware, I’m usually dead-set against cover albums, which tend to feature meaningless, generally inferior versions of great songs the listener already owns in their original, classic forms.

But I’m willing to give Dying Fetus the benefit of the doubt that if they’ve made a covers album, it’s worth listening to. They’ve earned that much. Why? BECAUSE THEY’RE DYING FUCKING FETUS, that’s why. Duh.

So. In celebration of both their twentieth anniversary and their stint on the year’s edition of the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour, this July the  band will release History Repeats…, which will not only feature the band re-imaging tracks from some of death n’ grinds finest (Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, Bolt Thrower, etc.), but will also feature “Rohypnol,” a brand new song. You might know rohypnol as “roofies,” or “the date rape drug.” So this tune is probably a charming power ballad in the vein of Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses.”

History Repeats… comes out July 19 on Relapse, and is limited to 5,000 copies. You can get it a f.y.e. stores, or just pre-order it directly from Relapse.

The full track list for this bad mother is after the jump, along with those Summer Slaughter dates. Other bands on the bill are The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Six Feet Under, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse, As Blood Runs Black, Powerglove, and Within the Ruins.

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When I look back at the last twenty years, there is perhaps no more important musical entity in my life than England’s EARACHE RECORDS (srs). Back when I was a little kid on a quest to find the fastest, most cock-smashingly brutal music I could get my hands on, I stumbled across a copy of the legendary Grindcrusher compilation, and I’ve been hooked on death metal ever since. As my gateway to metal, Earache will always have a special place in my heart– and when you care for someone as I do for Earache, it hurts to see them lose their way, stumble, and fall as Earache did in the 90s and 00s. I had written them off as yet another band/label/artist who has a brief moment of brilliance, burns brightly, then fizzles out before dying in undignified circumstances [via Vincent Van Gogh]. But I am happy to report that I couldn’t be more wrong! Earach is back on the horse, stronger than ever, and signing more relevant, exciting bands than ever (srs).

In this post, I will briefly recap the label’s history in three sections to bring newer readers up to speed on Nottingham’s finest export. I will then share my thoughts on their current signings and solicit suggestions on which bands the label should sign next– hopefully Dig is reading!

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Ever since the dawn of the nuclear age, mankind has been fascinated with The Bomb and its terrifying capabilities. Even before The Manhattan Project bore fruit, countless nuke-themed songs, movies, books, and of course, good ol’ propaganda flooded the American consciousness and captivated our over-reactive imaginations. Some truly masterful books (Level 7, Alas, Babylon, A Canticle for Liebowitz) and truly abominable pulp fiction novels were written, the government cheerfully advised its citizens to build bomb shelters out back and stockpile creamed corn “just in case!” (better an oblivious populace then a nation of protestors, right?), and Bert the talking turtle advised kiddies on the best way to protect themselves during an atomic blast (hide under your desk and cover your head, and everything will be swell!).

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Sean Yseult, bassist for the defunct White Zombie, has just released a memoir through well respected independent publisher Soft Skull Press. Yet my mild interest in this title hit a pretty severe low after reading some shoddy and downright untruthful marketing copy. I’ve bolded the offending passage below, which inflates her role in metal to comic proportions and completely discounts reality.

I’m in the Band charts White Zombie’s rise from the gritty music scene of New York’s Lower East Side in the eighties to arena headliners during the nineties alternative-explosion that followed in Nirvana’s wake, while sharing the unlikely story of a female musician who won the respect and adoration of male metal musicians and fans. From 1985 to 1996, Sean Yseult was the sole woman not only in White Zombie, but in the entire metal scene: bands, roadies, managers, you name it—with the exception of girlfriends and groupies, Yseult was in a world by herself.

Of course, the preposterous statement emphasized above is easily disproved within seconds, as any way you slice it it’s patently false. Not only were there female metal musicians before, during, and after Yseult’s tenure in White Zombie, but there were other female bassists in metal too, including Jo Bench (Bolt Thrower) and Lori Black (Melvins). I’m not even going to comment further on it; rather, I’ll let one of Yseult’s contemporaries reminder her that she wasn’t alone. Jucifer frontwoman Amber Valentine, take it away!

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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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We’re just one week away from Maryland Deathfest 2010, which will take place from May 28-30 in (duh) Baltimore, Maryland. This year’s edition of the annual fest promises to be the best one yet, with a line-up that includes Gorguts, Autopsy, Obituary, Entombed, Sodom, Repulsion, D.R.I., and a ton of other kick-ass bands. In anticipation of the event, we thought it would be fun to get some recollections of past MDFs from artists who were there. So we’re teaming up with Relapse Records to do just that! Read the raucous inaugural entry by Matt from Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, memories of a jam-packed day from Tomas Lindberg of Disfear (and At the Gates), how Pete Benumb of Agenda of Swine got swindled, and the latest entry from John of Weekend Nachos, below.

Least memorable thing about MDF 2009:

I saw Bolt Thrower play and not one single person moshed. This, to me, was a travesty. The fact that some of the hardest music of all time is being played and metalheads are too boring to even move their dirty feet is beyond insane to me.

I doubt it mattered either way to Bolt Thrower, considering they were up there doing their thing and being evil as fuck no matter what and totally blowing everybody away, but still… if this were a room full of hardcore kids you would’ve seen some serious blood in the pit. Major letdown. I expect violence during a band like Bolt Thrower. Even some old man push-mosh would’ve been better than nothing! Pantera and Slayer shows at least have old dudes being ignorant and beating each others’ brains out.

- John, Weekend Nachos

In 1992 or so, someone who must have inherited a few oil wells figured that it’d be a good idea to give some of that scratch to the Beastie Boys so that they could publish their own magazine. I don’t think you have to like them as a band or even as a cultural force to appreciate what it must have been like for these guys to get that first check. “You wrote a date rape anthem called ‘Fight for Your Right to Party’ and then proceeded to ignite doctoral dissertations with your next record. Here’s a shitload of cash so that you can indulge the spohomoric writing whims of you and your friends.” Even after the beepers of every weed dealer south of 34th Street finally stopped buzzing, there was plenty of moolah left over to stage photo shoots, subsidize starving indie writers, and pay for a die cut to assemble your own bootie bass jeep from the back cover.

Of course it all went bust, but the most lasting cultural impression of that cash vacuum were the metal record reviews that happened in the third or fourth issue, where the guy correctly identified records by Eyehategod, Today is the Day, 16, and one other band I don’t remember as being the shit we all had to go buy. I knew enough about TDID to take the cue, and so went out and bought the other three. And the most important thing in this review was the guy talking about was “Taco Riffs.”  When you heard those records, you knew exactly – EXCATLY – what he was talking about.

My noble band-mate Thad Calabrese and I have never had any confusion or even any discussion about what a Taco Riff is. It’s just the two of us, and so some late nights driving back from an ill-conceived show we’ll be playing “Strap It On” just to stay awake. Side 2 kicks in, the band clears away “FBLA” and then they rip it with “Blacktop.” And that “chorus” riff, accented the second time through with the vocals – “Walk on top. And you run beneath…” – we’ll just look at each other and won’t even have to say. Fucking Taco Riff. YES.

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The Austerity Program play this Sunday January 31, in Brooklyn at Public Assembly (70 N 6th St) with White Suns, Immanent Voiceless, Daniel Malinsky. You should go, goddammit!!!

I did not get into metal until relatively late in life. My teenage years were spent buying everything that came out on Touch & Go and Amphetamine Reptile. I’d see long-haired wasteoids hanging out in suburban playgrounds and think “Look at those chumps who’ve got it so bad for Reign in Blood while I know that Atomizer is really where it’s at. (Actually, I still pretty much feel this way.) At that point, MetalSucks was not a website, it was a personal belief.

Still, I was not unaware of what the metal kids were up to, even around fourth grade. A few of them that I invited to my birthday that year party chipped in and bought “Shout at the Devil;” since I only had about twelve records at that point, I figured that I’d listen to the record once a day because what else are you going to do? And it kind of freaked my parents out, and that was cool. And it had a pentagram on the cover which I spent a lot of time trying not to look at because I was worried something might happen to me.

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I’m hungover. Here’s a Bolt Thrower video. That’s all I got.

-VN

Honestly, I’m not a huge Bolt Thrower fan. I don’t hate ‘em or nuthin’, I just never got into them, even though a lot of intelligent people whose opinions I respect have told me they’re swell.

So, this one’s for you, intelligent people whose opinions I respect that have told me they’re swell: Bolt Thrower are gonna play Maryland Deathfest 2009, and it’ll be their first (and, at least as of right now, only) U.S. appearance in fourteen years. Tickets go on sale a week from today, and I imagine they just became that much more coveted (bands such as Enslaved, Keep of Kalessin, and The Red Chord were already on the bill), so don’t fuck around when it comes to purchasing them.

Here’s Bolt Thrower’s video for “Cenotaph”…

Maryland Deathfest will take place from May 22 to May 24, 2009 in Baltimore. If you’ve never been to Baltimore, well, you should know that it’s not as boring a town as you’d imagine.

-AR

Bolt Thrower have announced plans for a new album in 2008. Sweet. Here’s the band performing live at the Rock Hard festival in Germany in 2006.

-VN

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