Tour blogs are generally boring affairs, but this new video tour blog from Death Angel is a must-watch. In case you didn’t know: not only is Gene Hoglan filling in for Charlie Benante on the current Anthrax/Testament/Death Angel tour, but right before Benante was forced to leave the tour, Scott Ian was hospitalized due to a severe viral infection, and members of the other bands stepped in to temporarily replace him.

Which brings us to the excellence of this video: it’s a first hand account of the behind-the-scenes scramble to make sure that Anthrax didn’t hafta cancel any shows, courtesy of Death Angel guitarists Rob Cavestany and Ted Aguilar. And not only does the video feature those dudes recounting the tale for you, but there’s some fun footage of them rehearsing with Gene Hoglan and ‘Thrax, and performing with the latter (including clip sof Cavestany getting REALLY into playing the Worship Music tracks “In The End” and “The Devil You Know”). So it’s basically the closest you’ll ever get to actually being there for an event like this.

Enjoy:

You can get remaining dates for the in-progress Anthrax/Testament/Death Angel tour right here (bottom of the post).

-AR

Thanks to Ryan Badami for the tip!

Charlie Benante’s mother is terminally ill. Although I know I’ve busted Anthrax’s collective chops over the years, this is obviously terrible news. We are deeply sympathetic, and our hearts go out to the guy. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that there really isn’t anything anyone can say to make you feel better in a situation like this one. But, hopefully, the old cliché is true — time heals all wounds.

Understandably, Benante has opted to leave Anthrax’s currently-in-progress tour with Testament and Death Angel to go be with his mother — but the silver lining, if there is one, is that current Testament drummer/all-around legend Gene Hoglan will be filling in for Benante on the remainder of the tour.

Here’s a statement from Hoglan:

Click to read more…

“Scheduling has been a nightmare for a long time,” says guitarist Rob Caggiano about Temple Of The Black Moon. That seems like hyperbole, but gosh maybe not: TotBM drummer John Tempesta has been dashing between The Cult and Testament tours; singer Dani Filth’s full time job is Cradle Of Filth; Caggiano is bound to Anthrax’s rigorous itinerary, and his TotBM writing partner, Tom Cato Visnes, has been involved with Sahg, I, Gorgoroth, and Ov Hell outings in just the last five years.

Click to read more…

If you thought that release of Worship Music meant that Anthrax could finally put all the Dan Nelson drama behind them, well, you thought wrong. The New York Post reports that the former ‘Thrax vocalist is suing the band for a whopping $2.65 million:

Dan Nelson says drummer Charlie Benante, bassist Frank Bello and guitarist Scott Ian falsely stated in “numerous interviews” that he had “abruptly resigned” after getting sick, forcing a cancelation of a tour.

The $2.65 million suit also alleges that Benante last month told the rock-news site Blabbermouth.net that Nelson “was a bully.”

The Long Island native says his ex-bandmates’ “intentional defamation” has caused him a loss of income and damaged his reputation.

The Manhattan federal court filing further charges that Nelson co-wrote the tunes on the band’s latest album, “Worship Music,” but hasn’t gotten his fair share of the profits.

Click to read more…

Just one week after playing in Yankee Stadium with Anthrax as part of the “Big 4″ show, drummer Charlie Benante has shocked both the metal and baseball worlds by announcing his decision to ditch metal and throw away his long-time allegiance to the New York Yankees; Benante is now a New York Met.

“It was the show in Yankee Stadium that did it to me. I was disgusted by the attitude and hubris of that organization and their fans. What a bunch of pompous lunks,” said Benante when asked about signing with the cross-town rivals of his childhood favorite team. “I like being the underdog. Let’s be honest, the Mets stink right now and could use my help.” Indeed, with Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz in deep financial trouble due to the pending lawsuit from Bernie Madoff recovery fund trustee Irving Picard, Benante provides an affordable option for the Mets moving forward.

Click to read more…

We have successfully arrived at Yankee Stadium and are sitting in the press box. We feel so professional!

We’re gonna put the live blog after the jump so it doesn’t eat up the entire page. You’ll hafta refresh to get updates. Sorry.

And now, enjoy the snark…

Click to read more…

If you’re not a musician, last night’s Metal Masters Clinic 2 — held prior to Anthrax’s so-secret-everyone-knew-about-it show at the Best Buy Theater in NYC — was probably a massive bore. But to everyone else (like me!) it was a wet dream come true; Mike Portnoy having a drum-off with Charlie Benante, Ellefson talking about famous Megadeth bass riffs, Frankie Bello talking about watching porn and playing bass at the same time, all of them jamming on some classic tunes together, and, most notably, this:

Ian, Bello, Benante, Ellefson, Portnoy, Kerry King and Phil Anselmo performing two Pantera cuts. It’s the kind of staged event that might otherwise be cringe-worthy in its attempt at spontaneity, but who gives a shit? As a fan it was really cool to see all those guys jamming up there at once. It was also my first time seeing Anselmo perform Pantera songs live.

Click to read more…

Few records could be as intrinsically polarizing as Anthrax’s Worship Music, the thirteen-song set whose release tomorrow ends a maddening period of band tumult while launching a new era with singer Joey Belladonna. It’s an album with history, having been completed with a new vocalist, imperiled by the new vocalist, shelved, shuffled, completed again by Belladonna and producer Jay Ruston, and now, at least, unveiled for the world to hear. In other words, Worship Music has arrived with baggage; how much of it will fit in your trunk?

Representing at least two attitudes toward Anthrax 2011, our MetalSucks official roundtable review of Worship Music is co-authored by a John Bush era devotee (MS Co-Editor-In-Chief Axl Rosenberg) and a long-suffering Belladonna booster (MS Senior Editor Anso DF). On the fence about Worship Music? Sick of one-sided, insight-free criticism? Bemused by the way MetalSucks disagrees with itself? Then join Axl and Anso as they grapple with the meaning of this year’s most dangerous album.

Click to read more…

I meant to remind you guys yesterday but I’m a dick so I forgot — Arch Enemy’s North American Khaos Tour, which we here at MetalSucks are very proudly co-presenting, is now underway! I’ve been trying to find fan-filmed footage from last night’s kickoff show in Baltimore to no avail, but I hear the concert was great… which is really no shock. Especially given that the three support bands — DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch, and Chthonic — are all as much fun as Arch Enemy! You can get dates here. If anyone is gonna be at the NYC show tonight, come find us. I’ll be the really, really not-sober guy in the back screaming for them to play “Savage Messiah” over and over again.

Now, here’s some stuff we did this week:

• We debuted new music from Black Cobra.
• We also debuted an outtake from the movie Hesher and a clip from Fantomas’ new live DVD.
• We spoke to Charlie Benante from Anthrax and Avi Kulawy from Magrudergrind.
• We checked out the latest releases from Brutal Truth, Wolves in the Throne Room,and Bloodsoaked.
• We debated the merits of new songs from Mastodon, Opeth, and Megadeth.
• We launched The Third Annual “Run MetalSucks for a Day” contest.
• Vince listed “The Top Fifteen Reasons Metallica are the Yankees of Metal,” and then The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley offered a retort.
• We fucked Bret Michaels in the motherfucking eye.
• We voted for Sergeant D.’s acoustic cover of The Acacia Strain.
• We almost had to kill a puppy.

And, oh hey, did we mention that tickets for The Metal Suckfest are on sale now? We did? Okay, swell!

Have a good weekend, y’all. See ya Monday.

-AR

To be in Anthrax today, it must feel like standing at the mouth of a transcontinental pipeline, squinting, feet poised to step out of dank darkness and into light. Cuz that tunnel reaches all the way back to 2003′s We’ve Come For You All and through a reunion tour with singer Joey Belladonna in 2005, a second parting with Belladonna and an attempt at redrafting singer John Bush in 2007, the late 2007 arrival of new singer Dan Nelson, the completion of Worship Music mark I, Nelson’s abrupt flake-out in July 2009, a few shows with Bush that Fall, the plan to re-enlist Bush full time (he declined), the second return of Joey Belladonna, and the second completion of Worship Music with Belladonna and producer Jay Ruston (Steel Panther, The Donnas). Got all that?

But after that stressfest — one nearly the duration of two presidential terms — Anthrax now emerges from the tunnel of stink into fresh air and sunny skies: The completed Worship Music rips. You love it. On it, drummer Charlie Benante and crew fold Joey into the modern Anthrax heavy rock sound (e.g. “Crawl” “The Devil You Know”) and roll out big, punishing waves on which Joey surfs, a melodic power-voice plowing forth atop a Thrash Metal rip curl (“Judas Priest” “Fight ‘Em ‘Til You Can’t”). It’s crazy that there’s an album at all; Worship Music might’ve never survived its parents’ nutty divorce. But Worship Music lives and lives loud as the long-awaited modern Joe-thrax album, the never attempted sequel to 1990′s Persistence Of Time, as Anthrax’s challenge to Big 4 snorers who coast on fumes as relevance laps them, and as a modern metal instant classic.

About the whole ordeal and its happy ending, MetalSucks talked with an affably frank Charlie Benante, who betrayed no fatigue from answering a billion picky questions about the fans’ perspectives, the band’s stiff upper lip, their stone-faced guitarist, Persistence‘s status as a dark classic and harbinger of ’90s frown metal, Joey’s solo career, double albums, Jody Watley, and a prompt follow-up to Worship Music.

Click to read more…

I thought it was pretty clear that our “review” of Anthrax’s yet-to-be-released Worship Music was an April Fools’ prank — I mean, I know I give Anthrax a lot of shit, but “Bring the 21st Century Noize?” Seriously? Even I don’t think they’d pull that shit.

But I guess we fooled Metal Injection’s Rob Pasbani, ’cause he asked Anthrax about it when he interviewed them on the Black Carpet at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards last week. And I guess they didn’t think it was funny. Actually, Frankie Bello seems to have a pretty good sense of humor about it, and Scott Ian seems mildly entertained (and I stress the word “mildly”), but Charlie Benante does not seem amused. Rob Caggiano ain’t smiling, either, but he never smiles and I’m not even sure if the band lets him talk, so that’s just par for the course. Joey Belladonna apparently wasn’t even invited to the show or something so who knows what he thought of it.

ANYWAY, here’s the interview, where the band also reveals that Worship Music will FINALLY come out in September. At which point I’ll do a real review, which may amuse the band even less.

You can, and should, check out all of Metal Injection’s interviews from the Black Carpet here — they spoke to anyone and everyone who was there (except Wayne Static ’cause fuck that guy) and got lots of excellent stuff!

-AR

The possibly-not-final cover art for Anthrax’s Worship Music

So I have a friend who works closely with Camp Anthrax. I obviously can’t tell you the friend’s name, but I can tell you that he once told me that the Dan Nelson version of Worship Music was awesome, and that I’ve been begging him to let me hear it ever since. Thing is, he doesn’t actually own a copy, and has never been able to get his hands on one. Security around the album was tight before the Nelson debacle, but after, he told me, “It was like Scott and Charlie were going door-to-door personally checking people’s hard drives to make sure everyone had deleted it.”

And so last night I got a text from this friend, I guess trying to make amends for the fact that he never did come through with that Dan Nelson record: “Just got the Belladonna version of Worship Music. U wanna hear it?”

I responded simply, “Be there in 20.” And I got my ass on the subway and I went over to his place.

And I gotta tell you, guys… it’s a weird record, and there are two MASSIVE, and massively tragic, missteps… but it’s pretty great overrall. It’s not really like any metal record I’ve ever heard before. Whatever else you wanna say about Anthrax, you can’t accuse them of refusing to experiment — this album is a huge, huge risk, often welding together vastly different styles and textures of not just metal but often other genres of music, too. I don’t know if people will go for this record or not, but I think it’s kinda brilliant.

(By the way, the above album cover is a carry-over from the Dan Nelson version of the record; apparently it may be scrapped in favor of something that “feels more like the album cover of one of the old Belladonna albums.” Which would be a weird decision, because, a few songs aside, this record doesn’t sound anything like any other Anthrax album.)

And so here it is — my track-by-track breakdown of what I heard.

You guys aren’t gonna believe this shit.

Click to read more…

Tonight is the first of the European Big Four shows, and sixteen of the seventeen musicians that now comprise those bands all gathered in one room and put their differences aside long enough to snap this picture (click on it to make it enlarge… heh heh, he said “enlarge”):

Should we over-analyze the reasons why certain people are standing near one another, or far apart, or how they’re standing? Well, this is MetalSucks, ain’t it?

Click to read more…

Through amazing mind-reading technology created by the MetalSucks Mansion Monkey affectionately known as “You Worthless Retard,” MetalSucks was exclusively able to listen-in on Joey Belladonna’s most private thoughts while he contemplated whether or not to return to Anthrax.* What follows is a transcript of those thoughts…

Okay, Joey. Now, let’s be rational. Let’s think this all the way through. Let’s not make any brash decisions this time.

I mean, these dudes have not been cool to me. Remember when they fired me in 1992 for no apparent reason? And they hired me back to do that reunion tour. And then they, uh, y’know. Fired me again. And this time, I found out about it over the internet. They weren’t even good enough to give me a phone call! And then Scott and Charlie talked an awful lot of shit about me in the press, and said that I should “Grow up and be a man. Take responsibility for your life.” And I had, like, no idea what they were talking about. Just a couple of months ago, Scott made fun of me on television! I kinda think it might be because the reunion was less financially successful than we’d hoped. But I don’t really know, ’cause I never actually spoke to them about it.

And now they wanna hire me back! Again! And they want me to sing some other dude’s parts on a new album, without actually contributing anything myself! And the guy is some kid they hired because when John Bush showed a little backbone and refused to come back to the band after I was re-fired, they decided they’d rather work with pretty much anyone but me. Actually, they decided they’d rather work with Corey Taylor than me. But Corey’s business manager had more sense than that, and then they decided they’d rather work with pretty much anyone but me. The nerve!

Click to read more…

Well, this was some shitty news to get first thing in the morning.

Just last week we heard rumors that Anthrax was swapping out John Bush for Joey Belladonna again – and now those rumors are fact. Belladonna will play the “Big Four” shows Sonisphere Festival shows and a handful of other gigs with the band starting next month; immediately thereafter, according to the official press release, “the band will fly back to the U.S. and begin writing and rehearsing for a new album that’s expected to be out in early 2011.”

(And in case you’re wondering, Dan Spitz isn’t returning to the fold, because I guess he’s too busy changing the face of music forever with his revolutionary new project, DeuxMonkey. So, at least for now, Rob Caggiano’s job is safe.)

I hate just cutting and pasting press releases, but for the sake of us all having the same amount of information before I start my little rant, I’m going to re-print a portion of said release after the jump. My holier-than-thou ramblings will follow.

Click to read more…

So we had a lot of fun hanging out Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis last night – definitely a very laid back and humble dude, considering that he could probably kill us all with his guitar playing. Attendees included MetalSucks’ own Anton OyVey and Antonin Skullia, Esq., as well as Empyreon drummer Frank Godla (who, despite one of my poorly phrased tweets, has not replaced Van Williams in Nevermore.). When we weren’t passing my iPhone around, enjoying the entries for the Nevermore/MetalSucks “Create Your Own Conspiracy” contest (it ends Friday and there is definitely a front runner already – so enter now if you’re gonna!!!), it should surprise no one to learn that significant portion of the evening was devoted to music dorkery; so while I can’t remember exactly how it came up, at some point Mr. Loomis recommended we all check out MasterTracks18, a YouTube user who has uploaded literally hundreds of individual tracks from various well-known songs spanning different genres – metal and hard rock being primary amongst them.

Of course, it’s all pretty fascinating; you could lose hours of your day listening to all of these. I’ve only listened to a handful myself so far, and I already feel like I’m about to lose hours of my day listening to these. I’m sure all you instrument nerds can are gonna love really getting into the nitty gritty of the various tracks, but even if you’re not an instrument nerd… it’s just a really, really awesome look behind the curtain, so to speak.

You can check them all out at MasterTracks18′s YouTube page, which now, for legal reasons, is segueing to page for MasterTracks19. But in the meantime, here are just a few of my favorites…

“Crazy Train,” Guitar Track

Some more after the jump.

Click to read more…

Like a lot of people, I first became familiar with Brian Posehn because of his time on David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s brilliant HBO sketch comedy series, Mr. Show, for which he was also a writer. A few years after that show went off the air, my then-roommate and I went to see Posehn do some stand-up at a comedy club here in New York. I don’t think we were even there to see Posehn specifically – if memory serves, David Cross was the actual draw for us – but he was so funny that I actually laughed so hard I became winded and fell out of my chair. Since then, he’s been on a very, very short list of stand-ups that I never miss the chance to check out when they come through town. Mr. Show sketches about a fictional band called “Titannica” led me to believe that someone on the series’ writing staff was a metal fan, but I didn’t know that it was Posehn until later – and the revelation that he was just as obsessed with metal as I was only made him that much cooler.

Fart and Wiener Jokes, Posehn’s second album for Relapse, comes out today (and you can order a copy here). Like its predecessor, Live: In Nerd Rage, it features not only recordings of his brilliant stand-up, but also an original song he co-wrote with Anthrax’s Scott Ian (“More Metal Than You”) to poke fun at some of metal’s more regrettable foibles. It also has a metal cover of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” and between the two music tracks, Posehn has managed to rope in guest appearances by such all-stars as Jamey Jasta, Mark Morton, Mark Oseguenda, John Tempesta, and Russ Parrish. Assuming you love great comedy and great metal, there’s no way you’re not gonna dig Fart and Wiener Jokes.

A few weeks ago I got to talk to Posehn about putting comedy albums out on a metal label, what it’s like to be friends with some of his boyhood heroes, the state of metal today, his take on the Anthrax vocalist situation, and more. He even turned the tables at the end and asked me a question! Read the complete transcript of our chat after the jump.

Click to read more…

So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

Click to read more…

Obviously, my headline is a little sensationalistic. We waited a decade and a half for Chinese Democracy; it’s only been six (almost seven) years since the last Anthrax studio album, We’ve Come for You All. And wile CD apparently cost somewhere in neighborhood of $13 million dollars… well, I don’t know what the budget was/is on Worship Music, but I’m guessing Anthrax wouldn’t know $13 million dollars if it pooped in their eye.

Still, Chinese Democracy – which was finally released almost exactly one year ago – is the closest corollary I can think of to Worship Music, which is starting to reach mythological status.

Click to read more…

Thanks to Saul Hudson, who sent us the below screen grab from Charlie Benantie’s MySpace page:

Now, here’s my personal experience with regards to buying new metal CDs at Best Buy – which I actually do from time to time, seeing as Charlie is more or less right, and there’s no place left to buy physical copies of music anymore*.

Click to read more…