I only heard Funeral For A Friend’s music cuz years ago some wise-guy listening station tricked me into granting an audience to their fancy debut album. I screwed up cuz my attention was devoted to picking gross hairs off these gnarly public headphones and to unkinking their fucked-up cord, and I thought I’d pressed the button to start the first album by prog-death awesomes Sikth. I stood there, FFAF started playing and I was all confused, thinking, “Wow, Sikth is way whinier than I expected.” Anyway, long story short, I discovered and corrected my error, rocked out to Sikth, and duh a week later slunk back to the record store to get the FFAF.

That was freaking 2003. I’ve stuck with them through a few years and a few albums whose target audience is way pussier than me. But this just in: This year Fh-Faff did a heavy record! Of course these are relative terms, but it’s heavy for them, and heavier than their heaviest, whose producer was Colin Richardson (Carcass). And they seem super-focused cuz for only the second time, a FFAF album has enough great songs to justify its existence; albums three through five (six?) were softer than lotion. Now the band sounds maybe like late Bad Religion via Gothenberg. Super memorable everything. There’s even a good guitar solo.

The best part is except for its pity hipster title and the song that shares it, 2011′s Welcome Home Armageddon basically represents my wish for tomorrow’s radio metal: ultra catchy but reverent and deftly heavy, not too sugary or bratty, instrumental passages/riff lengths appropriate to contemporary attention spans, crisp, and no grunting or baby screams. And absolutely, positively no sweaty muscles. Srs dear reader, go up there and click on that video, it’s slick! I mean, I get it if a metal dude wouldn’t want to support these relative cupcakes, but hey, just think if bands of this approximate style/quality got big and swept away the Nickelback-type douche stuff! I dream :)

-ADF

Funeral For A Friend’s Welcome Home Armageddon is the jam and you can buy it here. Or don’t, but for your future, click here.  

When  the line-up for this year’s Mayhem Fest was announced last week, we were told that more bands would eventually be announced. Not to sound like gloating pricks or anything, but we here at MetalSucks already knew that Trivium were gonna be on the bill, even if their involvement hadn’t been made public yet.

Well, now it’s public. Trivium are on the bill. They’ll be on the main stage along with Disturbed, Godsmack, Megadeth, Machine Head, and In Flames; the line-up is rounded out by second stage acts Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, All Shall Perish, Red Fang, and Straight Line Snooze.

When we saw the band at Mayhem in 2009, they were one of the dominant acts on the second stage; I will never forget wondering “Where the fuck is Paolo Gregoletto?” before realizing that he had jumped into the crowd and was playing amongst the thousands of rabid fans. And Trivium’s live show has increased in quality by 100% since they traded drummer Travis Smith for Nick Augusto last year. (Read Vince’s article on the matter here.) In other words: Trivium’s addition to the bill is a good thing.

Trivium are at Audiohammer Studios in Florida working on a new album with producer Colin Richardson even as I type this; I’ve heard that the goal is to get that record out in time for Mayhem. While we wait for more news of that release, here are Mayhem dates:

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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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In the first installment of “OLD BANDS U MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT“, I shared a bunch of old bands that I like. Instead of coming up with a new description, I will just reuse the old one:

When I am not trolling simple-minded, entry-level elitists, I enjoy the soothing, dulcet tones of some classic thrash or death metal. I am definitely not any kind of metal encyclopedia or authority on the subject, but I have realized that (sadly) I’m old enough to have heard a few bands that many younger metal fans have not, just because I have been exposed to a lot of bands over the years — sort of like an ancient desert tortoise who is not a historian, but has seen history unfold before his eyes simply because he is old as fuck. Because I enjoy giving back to my community, I will share some of my favorite older bands in case any of you might like them. If you want to hate on me, that’s OK, too, so feel free to tell me I’m a poser, that everybody already knows about these bands, that I got some trivial detail wrong, or whatever else you think makes you “sound like u rly know what ur talking about.”

With that out of the way, here’s volume 2!

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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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So what was your entre into the world where denim, leather n’ demonology reign supreme? Where you adore the goat and sway to the symphony of deee-struction? Every man (or woman) has a tale to tell. Here’s mine. You’re gonna hear a lot of names you might be unfamiliar with, especially if you’re a member of Attack Attack! (Or just plain anyone under 23!) You’re gonna be thinking, “Damn, this fucker is old!” Yeah, well just remember that I’ve seen seen stuff that would make you shit Perrier with jealousy. I’m definitely old enough to have seen Minor Threat, Cliff Burton-era Metallica… the list goes on… before most of you were a tadpole in yer pappy’s population paste.

Let’s start at Discharge. I could go back and trace the whole history of early 80’s hardcore for you, but neither of us have the time or attention span. Let’s just say, the minute I heard these Stroke-on-Trent monsters of the nuclear reactor riff on the monstrous Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing album, I nearly pissed my pants. It was the gateway to something far heavier than I had ever heard on a scratchy 7” from the new record store that had opened in Boston called Newbury Comics.

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You can really tell that Nergal loves his job. During our thirty minute conversation, the Behemoth frontman’s enthusiasm bordered on breathlessness when discussing Evangelion, the band’s ninth, and best, album. He was hopeful when subtly inciting wilder behavior from Behemoth audiences and deferential when praised. It would pollute the eye to indicate more than the major outbursts of laughter, but I was chuckling throughout the discussion, if only at Nergal’s undisguised joy. Needing little prompting, he oscillated between cheerful appreciation of his band’s success and mortally serious respect for good metal and its constituents. He deflated only momentarily upon mention of his political adversaries in Poland and their abuse of his rights (Nergal 1, Assholes 0). From a distance, our chat may have resembled a pitch meeting for a Curb-esque improvedy in which Nergal by day walks a puppy around the sidewalks of Santa Monica, pinching the bottoms of giggling old ladies and high-fiving homeless guys. And by night, his band is one of the best reasons to attend the Mayhem Festival and authors of this year’s heaviest, most violent record.

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I can’t speak for the other inhabitants of the MS Mansion (especially Kip, who’s been cuddled away in the Wingerschmidt Wing for weeks now), but I, for one, am very much enjoying the new Behemoth record Evangelion. This shit slays, crushes, destroys, kills, insert your choice metal cliche adjective here and that’s what it does. The songwriting is great, and ultimately that’s what makes it good; but what strikes me most is the quality of mixing compared to past Behemoth efforts (that I’ve heard, anyway. Admittedly, I’ve never much listened to this band before, as ridiculous as that seems). The tones on this record are positively crushing. So upon a little Googling I was able to determine that it was Colin Richardson who twiddled the knobs to such delicious effect this time around — duh, should’ve known.

Check out the brand new track “Shemhamforash” currently streaming on Behemoth’s MySpace page. The album drops August 11th in the U.S. (and August 7th in Europe).

-VN