MetalSucks

These are some of my favorite producers and mixers for heavy music… It’s a challenging genre, and these guys are great in my opinion.

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When did you guys start listening to heavy music? How many of you started listening this decade? I’m seriously curious about this. Those of you who started this decade… Are you sick of it yet? Are you starting to get sick of it? Does it excite you the way it did in 2004? For those of you who started earlier… do you remember what things were like 1990-1995? Remember when Megadeth was going multiplatinum, Pantera was flying in private jets, and Morbid Angel and Carcass were on major labels? Remember how that pretty much died off?

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I think that I (and about a hundred other people who write about metal) have extolled the virtues of Decibel editor Albert Mudrian’s Choosing Death many times in the past, but just to be sure: it’s an awesome history of death and grind, and if you’ve never read it, you really, really should. He got pretty much everybody to go on record about the early days of metal’s most extreme subgenres. If you’re new to these styles of music and need a primer, it’s a perfect place to start; if you already love these styles of music, I guarantee you you’ll still learn some shit ya didn’t know.

One of the things that Mudrian spends a good deal of time discussing is John Peel’s old national BBC radio show, which was the place to hear all the best new grind. And now Earache will commemorate Peel’s show with Grind Madness At The BBC (The Earache Peel Sessions), a three disc (!), three and a half hour set that will feature 118 recordings of sessions done on Peel’s show, including performances by Carcass, Extreme Noise Terror, Godflesh, Napalm Death, and a shitload more.

This is obviously a must-own for grind fans. Earache puts the set out on October 12. Mark it in your calendars.

-AR

Our bro-bros at Metal Insider brought up a good point yesterday; what’s the point of saying your band is breaking up or going on hiatus if it don’t mean shit in the end? Srsly wtf lolz! With the pending Faith No More and Cave In reunions this Summer literally every band to ever break up that still has enough living members to do so — and even some without — is doing a reunion in some capacity. Last summer’s roster of reunionites included Carcass and At the Gates, amongst others. And don’t front; the Soundgarden reunion will happen eventually. I’d put money on it.

So I hereby declare a moratorium on breaking up. Artistic differences? Don’t wanna hear it. Tired of touring? Tell me that again in a year when your records ain’t selling, you’re flat broke and you’re tired of flipping burgers. Fucked a band member’s girlfriend? Kiss and make up, then have a threesome. Don’t give me no “on hiatus” crap either ’cause that’s just a way of pussyfooting around the fact that you do plan on eventually playing together again. Just say nothing! Is that so hard? Quietly disappear, then come back years later and take the world by storm. Your lives, and ours, will be henceforth be much more drama-free.

-VN

So many of you have e-mailed us this week to instruct us to post news about the fact that Opeth and Enslaved are touring together that I’m fairly certain posting news about the fact that Opeth and Enslaved are touring together is a complete waste of time; I mean, clearly, everyone and their mother is already aware of this tour.

I’m not saying this isn’t an awesome package – clearly, it is – I’m just saying, you’ve all sent us the news and the tour dates, so what can we tell you that you don’t already know? How about this: we will be at the show at the Starland Ballroom in NJ, and we will be high. Actually, you probably knew that already, too.

I’m putting tour dates after the jump, although I don’t for the life of me know why.

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Finally… we have a capable, intelligent, forward-thinking new U.S. president. No, it’s not Dave Mustaine. Here’s what else happened this week:

• We wondered aloud and speculated about Slayer’s co-headline tour, New England Metal & Hardcore Fest, Scion Rock Fest (aka Atlanta Metalfest), and The Faceless’ headline tour. This spring just got awesome.
• We ran to the hills to avoid a shitty classic metal cover. Meanwhile, we found Iron Maiden in Iran and on the big screen.
• We got sexi(vious) with members of Cynic and Textures.
• We looked at new releases from Satyricon, Cattle Decapitation, 16 and Rumpelstiltskin Grinder.
• Maynard got all Jiu-Jitsu on our asses and Carcass played a wedding.

Axl, myself and our girlfriends (we have girlfriends… whowouldathunkit???) are going to see The Dark Knight on the IMAX tonight. Hopefully weed will be involved. Later, suckaz!!

Not really, of course – but these clips from old episodes of Friends, sent to us by MetalSucks maniac Daisy May Twinklepants, would suggest otherwise:

Alas, I’m not aware of any metal band called “Karcass” with a “k”…

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Mostly this week I just watched the Puppy Cam. But when I could pry myself away for a few moments, this is what I focused on:

• Proto-jazz-metallers Intronaut released an artsy new video, as did Protest the Hero and Dir En Grey.
• We interviewed Brother Von Doom.
• Ozzy may be pretty good at shilling for Samsung phones these days, but we still like him better the old way.
• Arsis did some member-swapping. Yes, again.
• We reviewed new releases from The Faceless, The Bronx, and a bunch of awesome bands on Prosthetic Records.
• We contemplated the prospect of new releases by Carcass, Napalm Death and Down.

Party it up, it’s the weekend. See you next Tuesday Monday.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to go back and re-sleep with some of my ex-girlfriends. I’ve been fortunate in that some of them were really good in bed, and sometimes I just think, “Gosh, it would be nice to have one last night with so-and-so who did that thing I really liked.” Of course, the reality is, the sex would almost certainly be anti-climactic; it’s entirely possible you’re idealizing your past, but even if you’re not, things change, and the idea of once again getting head from the girl you thought gave the best blowjobs in the world when you were nineteen is probably way sexier than the actual head would be.

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that I don’t think a new Carcass album would be a very good idea.

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Since its inception in the late ‘80s, black metal has been one of the most rigid genres in terms of evolution and change. While bands like Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, and Behemoth trumpet the genre through its larger than life, orchestral origins, black metal’s “elite” have gained their notoriety through either a) being a part of the original church-burning generation and altering their sound as little as possible or b) miming the original church-burning generation as closely as possible, right down to the tape hisses and wall of buzz saw guitars. But after nearly two decades of existence and reverence in the metal and music worlds as a whole, many bands have moved away from their restrictive lo-fi roots and come to embrace different influences, resources, and inspirations. The band that has best exemplified this move from their base to the outer limits is Enslaved, one of Norway’s longest running black metal bands. Before American upstarts Nachtmytsium made it cool to melt your Burzum and Pink Floyd records together, Enslaved were dabbling in the dark power of psychedelia on Below the Lights and ISA. Though those who take black metal seriously insist that sticking to their guns has been the key to longevity, its shifts in sounds and ideologies has been what’s kept it alive. Those shifts have been most solidly illustrated by Enslaved, and has resulted in one of the most impressively consistent discographies in metal, right up through their latest genre-bending triumph Vertebrae.

Grutle Kjellson, Enslaved’s bass player and lead vocalist, has been with the band since the beginning. In an interview he was kind enough to grant MetalSucks via phone from his home in Norway, he talks about the importance of looking forward creatively, what influenced Vertebrae, working with longtime bandmate Ivar Bjornson in Enslaved and their experimental metal side project Trinacria, the overall importance of Pink Floyd on his band’s sound, and the fans that only want to hear songs off of their early ‘90s demos at their shows.

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The great MetalSucks Mansion purge of ‘08 has commenced, and the people have spoken: you really, really, really want all of our extra shit even if you don’t know what it is. Anyhoo, five lucky winners each get an assload of CDs and random shit lying around here that we need to get rid of, so congratulations to you. Here are the winners to last week’s Funny Photo Caption Contest (right):

• PD: “You guys seen my distortion pedal? This accordion’s going to sound horrible without it.”
• Ambience23: “Vadim Pruzhanov’s Kvlt Mariachi band (pre-Dargonforce).”
• Damotello: “Everybody loved it when Varg Vikernes did his Rolf Harris covers.”
• Name Not Applicable: “Squeezebox Gutsfuck.”
• Leprosy: “I was reincarnated to prove that people would rather listen to this technical, air-driven music than listen to death magnetic.”

This week we have an awesome prize: 2 grand prize winners will get Aborted ‘Evidence’ bags, containing an autographed copy of Strychnine.213, an autographed poster and an Aborted t-shirt! Aborted is currently on tour with the reunited Carcass (we all went this past Saturday in NYC, and holy shit, it was awesome), so take a look at the tour dates (posted after the jump) and hit that tour up when it comes to your city. Come up with a funny caption to the below photo and the Aborted prize pack is all yours!

[Thanks: Ryan D.]

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I’ve been meaning to write about Germany’s Necrophagist for some time now — their last album Epitaph is fucking brutal with a capital BRU and a testament to just how expressive extremely technical extreme metal can truly be. Slays me every time; the playing, the songwriting, the punishing — it’s all here. And much like most of us here at MetalSucks will do this very weekend, you too can see these dudes play as opener along with Suffocation on the Carcass reunion tour for the next week or so on the East Coast. Check out the band’s MySpace page for tour dates.

KILL.

NECROPHAGIST - “The Stillborn One”, from Epitaph (2004)

NECROPHAGIST – “Seven”, from Epitaph (2004)

NECROPHAGIST – “Fermented Offal Discharge”, from Onset of Putrefaction (1999)

[Visit Necrophagist's website]

-KW

After fellating Protest the Hero’s incredible early-2008 release Fortress for two months solid (culminating in my first ever 5 of 5 horns review), I was immediately let down by successive announcements that the band would be touring with shit emo bands through the entire summer. Finally someone in the band’s camp has come to their senses and packaged them with a lineup that will put them in front of the metal audience that NEEDS to know about this band. And finally, I will be able to go see them live. Lambgoat is reporting a fall tour with Protest playing direct support for Unearth, with The Acacia Strain, Whitechapel and Gwen Stacy also on the bill.

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It was kind of a slow week in metal but we found useless shit to talk about anyway.

• The FBI paid the leaker of nine Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy tracks a visit at work. We got scared.
• We pondered the many incarnations of Arnold Schwarzenegger-themed metal bands.
• Graveyard BBQ debuted a hard partying new video.
• Made Out of Babies released a phenomenal new record; Motley Crue, not so much.
• The reunited Carcass finally announces U.S. dates and a controversy ensues about the opening acts.
• George Carlin died.

Have a great weekend!

-VN

Vince and I decided not to make the trek out to any European festivals this summer, based in part on the fact that most of the bands we wanted to see at any of these shows would eventually be playing a longer set at a smaller venue here in the States. Even At the Gates announced they were coming to town.

And yet, no word on the reunited Carcass crossing the pond. When the band announced Australian tour dates yesterday, I pretty much erupted into rage – why oh fucking why were the death metal heroes not coming our way?

Well, as it turns out, I had no reason to worry. Carcass will play the Nokia here in NYC on September 6 with Suffocation as support; it’s impossible for me to imagine that an announcement of more dates throughout the country won’t soon follow.

As was the case with the At the Gates reunion, this will be a hot ticket. These are pretty much the two most ripped off death metal bands of the past twenty years, so… keep yours eyes peeled for on-sale dates. Of course, we’ll try to keep you posted as best we can.

-AR

It’s time for the second installment of our Passover series relating the Ten Plagues to metal. Today we have lice, flies and cattle disease! So metal. Heathens beware… ’cause the Jews besaved.

#3 – Lice: God created a plague of lice from handfuls of dust which swarmed in the air and irritated the skin of the Egyptians and their animals.

Tool – “Sober”: I imagine this dude is so miserable because lice have eaten his skin away. he must have been Egyptian.
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#4 – Flies: God created the plague of dog flies that bit the Egyptians and attached themselves to their eyelids, but the Hebrews were unaffected by them.

The Black Dahlia Murder – “Flies” (live):
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#5: Cattle Disease: Murrain – murrain means a cattle plague. This is a virus that affects cattle and eventually kills them. Most Egyptian cattle were affected by this plague but the Hebrew cattle were not.

Carcass — duh! Sick live clip from 1992:
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-VN

American At the Gates fans who can’t afford a ticket across the pond for one of the summer festivals the reunited death legends will play this summer, you can breathe a sigh of relief: a trusted MetalSucks source tells us the band is going to announce a U.S. tour any second now. Alas, it won’t be the reunion mega-package tour with Carcass we’ve all been fantasizing about, but still…

We’re told the tour will last about two weeks. Stay tuned for more details.

-AR

Yeah yeah yeah, Evan Seinfeld has done lots of “legitimate” acting since Biohazard fell apart, like an appearance on Oz and voice work for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV video game, but let’s be real: all his post-metal fame stems from the fact that he’s married to, and is the on-screen partner for, porn star Tera Patrick. That’s right: the man now blows his load all over his wife’s face for a living. Somebody had to say it.

I guess Evan must be running dry, though, because they’ve announced that Biohazard, the Noo Yawk band that may have inadvertently paved the way for Limp Bizkit, is jumping on the Summer 2008 reunion bandwagon, where they’ll be featured alongside the already-announced kiss n’ make-up concerts by Carcass and At the Gates. Who will care about Biohazard more than Carcass or At the Gates is beyond me, but I imagine they’ll all end up on the same European summer festival circuit soon.

-AR