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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.

Following the not-necessarily-logical-but-certainly-MetalSucksian conclusion that we need to counteract our recent Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012 series, in which we preview some albums coming out this year about which we are totally stoked, this week we asked our writers:

WHAT ALBUM WILL HIT YOU IN THE FACE WITH A LIMP DICK IN 2012?

Which is just a silly way of asking:

WHAT IS YOUR LEAST ANTICIPATED ALBUM OF 2012?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump!

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I don’t hate Soulfly as much as some people — in fact, I quite enjoyed 2005′s Dark Ages, and that Greg Puciato sections of that one song from the last album — but I can’t find a nice thing to say about the album art for the band’s upcoming eighth full-length, Enslaved. It looks lo-fi, but not in a cool way, like the cover Terrorizer’s Hordes of Zombies. And why are the edges blacked out? And why are the edges on the left side more blacked out than the edges on the right side? It just doesn’t seem like that much thought went into this thing.

Enslaved comes out March 13 on Roadrunner. It has some pretty cool guests on it, like Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan and Dez Fafara from DevilDriver (and, uh, Coal Chamber), so it should really go without saying, but if the music on the album is good, then it really won’t matter what the cover looks like. Although the band’s new bass player is the dude who used to be in Static-X, so that doesn’t bode well, does it?

-AR

See what I did there?

ANYWAY, I’m sitting here listening to said new DevilDriver song (which is available for download here for the low low cost of giving up your e-mail address’ cherry) for the second time now, my thought is basically this: it’s a good song, and I wonder if anyone besides the DevilDriver faithful will care.

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Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

By now, you all know that Decibel’s December Hall of Fame is Venom’s Welcome to Hell. Good shit, right? Not to mention, it’s always fun when a HOF inductee either has a) two or three killer albums, but nothing that blows the rest of the discography out of the unholy water (I’d put Isis and Ministry in this category, although they haven’t popped up in the Hall just yet), or b) two or three stone-cold face-rulers, and no matter which record we pick, somebody will be harshed that the others got left out. Venom are of the latter ilk. (I wrote “ilk.”) You could make a strong-ass argument for Black Metal, and people have, emphatically. Being the dude who makes these calls can suck. And by “the dude,” I mean editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian, who I’ve as of yet failed to convince that Coal Chamber s/t would “tie the room together.” How about honoring both, you might ask? As of today, we haven’t inducted two albums from the same band; it would be a totally different nightmare determining who should be the first to deserve that. At the end of the day, in my eyes, Welcome to Hell vs. Black Metal — it’s a toss-up, right?

Or not. Sayeth Albert: “Welcome to Hell is hands-down the superior record. A lot of folks champion Black Metal as the better LP, but they think it’s better only because the record is CALLED Black Metal and it makes for a cooler T-shirt! Don’t get me wrong — Black Metal still rules — but tracks like “Teacher’s Pet” and “To Hell and Back” can’t hold an inverted cross to anything on Welcome to Hell.”

This is the same man, mind you, who won’t honor a pointless, already-forgotten sports bet by growing a beard and dying it black. But his reasoning may be a little sounder this time. Agreed?

-AB

If you wanna read Decibel‘s complete Hall of Fame entry on Venom’s Welcome to Hell, you’re gonna need to go ahead and buy yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel. But, better yet, why don’t you just treat yourself and buy yourself a full subscription, so you can read EVERY Hall of Fame entry from now on?

Unless you count current metalcore bands with a wiggerish slant (Emmure, Winds of Plague, Acacia Strain, etc.), the genre of nu-metal is all but dead. Once a nearly-unstoppable juggernaut of Kikwear pants, eyebrow piercings, and chinstrap beards, today it is but a dessicated husk, barely clinging to life. At its peak, nu-metal filled the airwaves coast-to-coast, but these days you’re most likely to hear it on a beat up boombox in the corner of a windowless basement printshop or third-rate auto parts store on the outskirts of town.

While the tastes of fickle music consumers may have changed, nu-metal has never sounded better. Many kids these days are too young to have experienced this unique genre the first time around, so I figured I would share some of nu-metal’s best artists that fly a little under the radar of current tastemakers — I’ll skip the big names that we all know (Korn, Kid Rock, Bizkit) and focus on the unsung heroes. And mark my words, you’ll see indie rockers ironically listening to hed(pe) within the next few years!

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While we’ve been slowly unveiling a list of “Ten Great Bands that Inadvertently Ruined Metal,” Roadrunner has been counting down a little list of their own: the “Ten Greatest Album Covers” in the label’s history. As is the always the case with these silly lists, some of the choices seem dubious/random – apparently photographing lesbians and tinting that photo green is the greatest possible artistic statement a cover designer could possibly make. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s not still kinda fun to argue over.

But the best part might actually be that the list put it into the head of that wild and crazy guy, Bram Teitelman, to do his own list of “RoadRunner’s Five Worst Covers of All Time” for Metal Insider – in this case, “cover” being a cover song, not an album cover. I don’t wanna give too much away because Bram’s writing is always jaunty and entertaining, but I will say this:

Awful. Simply awful.

Read the rest of the list at Metal Insider.

-AR

A reader known only as “Jonas” sent us the below video of 55 Escape, a Norwegian band whose biggest influences seem to be Korn and Linkin Park, not Enslaved and Immortal.

Here’s why I find this band kind of interesting. (And moving forward, please be aware that “interesting” and “good” are not the same word.) When you think about it for a second, nu-metal seems to be a predominantly American phenomenon. Off the top of my head, I’m having a hard time even naming a nu-metal band from any part of Europe, never mind Norway. Jeff Killed John were British, but they didn’t get famous ’til they swapped the nu for core and rechristened themselves Bullet for My Valentine. Am I forgetting a really, really obvious band? Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Godsmack, Evanescence, Staind, Static-X, Creed, Hed P.E., Snot, P.O.D., Puddle of Mudd, Drowning Pool, Saliva, Coal Chamber, Methods of Mayhem, 40 Below Summer, Sevendust, Ill Nino, Dope, Papa Roach, Soil, The Union Undergound… ALL AMERICAN. What the hell? No wonder the terrorists hate us.

Anyway, thanks to these sperm clots for doing their part in making America look good. Hoo-rah.

-AR

When DevilDriver front man Dez Fafara called me this past Friday following a tumultuous, multi-day bus ride between stops on the band’s current tour with Suffocation, Goatwhore and Thy Will Be Done, I was expecting him to be an exhausted mess. But a decade and half of the touring life has made him a hardened veteran, and he clearly hasn’t lost any of his passion for playing live – clearly still riding high on the success of 2009′s Pray for Villains, Dez sounded like he was ready to jump on stage at any second. DevilDriver shows are a full-contact sport with Fafara presiding as the main instigator, and it’s clear that the man loves his job.

After the jump, get Dez’s thoughts on this tour, being away from his family while he’s on the road, a preview of the band’s current set list, and some news on the next DevilDriver album,which he hopes to have out by this time next year at latest. Phew!

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So the answer to the last logo was, of course, Slipknot. Some of you tried to be clever and make sarcastic comments and pretend it was another band. None of those people won, because I don’t like smart asses. One of you also criticized me for choosing a logo that was too easy; that person is obviously a) incapable of reading, and b) a total waste of sperm and egg.

ANYWAY, the winners of the CKY Carver City CDs are Arianna Askew and Jim Dahlin. I have a hard time believing that those are these readers’ real names, but whatever, not my problem.

This week I have one copy of Coal Chamber’s self-titled debut to give away, courtesy the too-kind folks at Roadrunner. In case for some reason you don’t know, Coal Chamber was Dez Fafara’s band before he started DevilDriver. Dude likes his alliterations I guess.

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail with your answer, your name and address at axl AT metalsucks DOT net. We’ll randomly select a winner from everyone who gets it right, and announce his or her name next week.

Back to the real shit this time, courtesy of MS Maniac Kirsten Hogenson. Thanks, Kirsten!

-AR

… they resort to auctioning off their used gear on eBay. Just ask former Coal Chamber bassist Nadja Peulen who is auctioning a Fernandes bass used for all Coal Chamber tours in 1999. Says the auction:

As you all know I am currently, and have been since 2001, endorsed by Schecter Guitars. Due to this I can no longer play my Fernandes (Tremor Deluxe 4) Basses live and have decided to part ways with one of them.

Hmm, is that so? Someone call the Schecter police to make sure she’s staying in check on stage! That also must be why she namedrops touring with Slipknot, Machine Head and Type O Negative, all of whom Coal Chamber isn’t worth the sweat on their balls.

With one lucky bidder chiming at $666.00, the price may be metal but sure as hell ain’t priced to move with over 6 days left. But hey, at least you can get Peulen to autograph the bass upon request!

-VN