MetalSucks

Either something’s in the water at the Season of Mist offices or they’ve got some new personnel over there that’s movin’ and shakin’; in the past 1+ years, a label that has recently specialized in mostly European metal farther from the beaten path has signed Cynic, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and now Morbid Angel. Not that these acts are likely to headline the Rockstar Mayhem Yadda Yadda Tour anytime soon, but by most standards they’re much more “mainstream” than the label’s previous fare. All of which “previous fare” is quite good, by the way; I wrote a piece about some of Season of Mist’s lesser known bands a while back.

Check out a clip of the new song “Nevermore” filmed earlier this year below [via Blabs] for maximum ass kickage. Then, to counterbalance with a good laugh, check out Season of Mist’s laughably stuck in 1998 website, replete with bad flash, animated .gifs, cheesy imagery and pop-up windows (I recommend both the “light html” AND “heavy flash” versions for some solid lulz!).

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Ever heard that Behemoth have breaks built into their set so they can run off stage and do some corpse paint touch-ups? To be fair, I’m not sure if the person who told me that was being honest or just joshin’ me, but it makes sense – the band definitely runs off stage from time to time, leaving the crowd to listen to pre-taped orchestral apocalyptic goodness.

True or not, it doesn’t change the fact that Behemoth absolutely crushed in their too-brief set on this past summer’s Rockstar Mayhem Yadda Yadda tour, or the fact that we were looking forward to seeing them do a proper headlining set. So now they’ve finally announced a tour – with Septic fucking Flesh, no less – and it’s hitting NYC the same night as the BTBAM/Cynic/Devin Townsend/Scale the Summit Orgasm Tour. I don’t know what rocket scientists set that up, but now metal fans in our area will have a tough decision to make. We are going to the Orgasm Tour, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish there were multiple mes, like in that awful Michael Keaton movie.

ANYWAY, here are dates for the Behemoth tour. We envy those of you who can make it.

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Between the Buried and Me bassist Dan Briggs currently holds the record for MetalSucks interviews at a healthy 3… which averages out to once a year in the history of this site. It’s no coincidence that we always end up talking to Dan over the rest of his equally talented band mates; the dude’s extremely passionate about his band and has a lot to say about the intricacies of their complex music.

Shortly after the release of their latest opus The Great Misdirect, I spoke with Dan by phone about the new record, how it compares to Colors, how it was written, BTBAM’s upcoming boner-factory tour with Cynic and Devin Townsend, and the band’s pending exit from Victory Records. Our chat, after the jump.

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As promised, here are the dates for that whole Between the Buried and Me/Cynic/The Devin Townsend Project/Scale the Summit North American Orgasm Tour 2010, which I’m sure actually has a much more “professional” name, even though calling it the “Orgasm Tour” would really just be truth in advertising.

ANYWAY, the dates. Okay, here we go. Get ready to celebrate or cry, depending on where you live…

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Thanks to MetalSucks uber-Maniac (I’m giving him an upgrade since he actually came to New York and sought us out at a show) Mark Mortiz-Rabson for alerting us to the following incredibly important message on Between the Buried and Me’s MySpace page:

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If there’s any justice in the world, The Red Chord’s excellent new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine (read my four out of five horns review here), will cement Mike “Gunface” McKenzie’s status as one of his generation’s great guitar gods while introducing his truly unique playing to scores of new fans. Now The Red Chord’s sole axe slinger, Gunface really steps up his game on Teeth – the riffs and solos on this album are easily some of the year’s very best.

That being the case, I was very, very excited to have the opportunity to e-mail some questions to Gunface earlier this week. He follows bassist Greg Weeks and vocalist Guy Kozowyk as the latest member of The Red Chord to humor me by answering some truly idiotic (and hopefully a few intelligent) questions (I’m sure we’ll get to drummer Brad Fickeisen sooner or later). After the jump, get Gunface’s thoughts on the creation of Fed Through the Teeth Machine, writing solos, his various side projects, the value of the Death Star, and more.

Fed Through the Teeth Machine is out October 27 on Metal Blade.

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MetalUnderground.com is reporting that Meshuggah will release a live DVD in early 2010. This is great news for us U.S. Meshuggah fans who get to see the band live, like, never. Except when we got to see them at BonerFest 2009, aka with Cynic and The Faceless — that ruled.

No details have been released yet about when and where the footage for this new DVD was filmed. In the meantime here they are performing “Straws Pulled at Random”; this clip was included on the DVD portion of the re-release of Nothing.

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Italian experimental metallers Carnal Rapture sent us their latest 5-song EP several months ago, and though I only just got to listen to it recently… HOLY SHIT!

The first good sign was the design of the CD itself: one side is completely silver and one side is completely black (but not silkscreened — the plastic is actually black). After inserting the CD into my computer silver-side down as I would most CDs, my computer spit that shit right back out at me. Having the black side be the side with the audio on it? METAL!

But most importantly, Carnal Rapture’s style of metal is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Seriously. And you know we hear a LOT of shit (I mean that in both senses of the word “shit”) here at the MS Mansion. Carnal Rapture certainly take inlfluence from progressive extreme metal bands like Cynic and Gorguts, but theirs is a much more modern, refined, completely new, and yes, much heavier sound. And while their music is certainly “technical” to be sure, it doesn’t veer anywhere near the modern tech-death “weedily weedily” fests that newer bands like Gorod and Obscura peddle (I love these bands too, but I’m just sayin’). Carnal Rapture take things way more in a decidedly jazzy direction… heavy as fuck jazz, naturally. The only current band I’d even moderately liken them to would be Intronaut, specifically that band’s early material. This is music that’s heavy, heady, progressive, technical, jazzy, artful, concise… pretty much everything I look for in a new band.

So upon opening and listening to this stellar gem of a record, I emailed the band’s vocalist and guitarist Emilio Trillo to ask his permission to post a track. Here it is, “Precious Time,” the EP’s opening number. I hope you like it as much as I do. If you’d like to hear more, visit Carnal Rapture on MySpace.

Carnal Rapture – “Precious Time”

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First of all, I have to say, if you’re into Muse then check out their new album, The Resistance, which comes out today. It’s fucking brilliant. They always manage to take a different approach from album to album, and this one continues on that path. Anyways, its great stuff and I recommend it highly.

I’ve had music writing on my mind a lot these days. Maybe its because I have a lot on my plate. The record I’m doing with Emil from DAATH and Cynic’s Sean Reinert needs to be delivered by the first of the year. It’s going to be released in the spring of 2010. My side project wants to record an EP of still to be written material this December. And last but not least, DAATH is looking to go into the studio in April to record our next one. We’d like for it to be out by the end of Summer 2010.

That’s a shit load of music to write in a very short period of time if you consider that we’re still touring. Some advice I get from people is “Don’t rush.” That’s good advice. None of this is going to be rushed and it will all get what it needs and wants so that it can grow into the work of art it deserves to become. I think I’ve figured out how to write on the road and this next tour will be the perfect situation for that. We are sharing the bus with a straightedge band. Can’t be partying like usual because my health could relapse. Instead of staring into space and wishing I could party, I’ll occupy my time with creative things. So I’ll be writing music on the road. And a lot of it!

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Laying in a bed in Atlanta, Georgia has never felt so sweet. One week ago tonight I was laying in a hospital bed in Hartford, not sure if I was going to live out the week. One week before that, I was breaking fevers in the van once every three hours, not able to breath, and breaking down from the exhaustion of getting really fucking sick on the road.

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MetalSucks, MetalInjection and BITPOM, in conjunction with EMI (which serves such labels as Century Media, Nuclear Blast, Earache, Candlelight, Season of Mist, Willowtip and Crash Music), are bringing metal to the masses with an extensive “March is Metal Month” campaign with independent retailers across the U.S.

During the “March is Metal Month” campaign, we’ll be running a series of 3 weekly “Show Us Your Metal” contests. To enter, take a picture of yourself at a record store doing something metal; throwing up the horns, making sweet love to a David Lee Roth Crazy From the Heat EP, posing in front of a Beyonce endcap in corpsepaint, buying something that costs $6.66, etc. Be creative! Send all submissions to news AT metalsucks DOT net along with your full name and address and “MARCH IS METAL MONTH” in the email subject line.

Congrats to Jake Kobrin who won last week’s prize, a ridiculously awesome Cynic box set, for the picture at left.

This week’s prize: Signed CDs and posters from Psycroptic and All Shall Perish, courtesy of Nuclear Blast. Send in all entries by the end of Tuesday, March 31st to win!

MetalSucks, MetalInjection and BITPOM, in conjunction with EMI (which serves such labels as Century Media, Nuclear Blast, Earache, Candlelight, Season of Mist, Willowtip and Crash Music), are bringing metal to the masses with an extensive “March is Metal Month” campaign with independent retailers across the U.S.

During the “March is Metal Month” campaign, we’ll be running a series of 3 weekly “Show Us Your Metal” contests. To enter, take a picture of yourself at a record store doing something metal; throwing up the horns, making sweet love to a David Lee Roth Crazy From the Heat EP, posing in front of a Beyonce endcap in corpsepaint, buying something that costs $6.66, etc. Be creative! Send all submissions to news AT metalsucks DOT net along with your full name and address.

This week’s prize:
A sweet Cynic box set ($75 value) courtesy of Season of Mist! Awesome fucking prize. Deadline is Monday, March 23rd, so get crackin!

By all accounts, the Meshuggah / Cynic / The Faceless tour earlier year was exactly the masturbatory dude-fest it promised to be from the get-go. With a lineup like that, how could it be anything less than completely mindblowing? Before the show I had the opportunity to catch up with Meshuggah guitarist Marten Hagstrom. I asked him about the touring lifestyle, how the band’s sound has evolved and changed over the years, Meshuggah’s now near-legendary cult status, and one question that really got his goat about the hoardes of Swedish melodic death metal bands that have grown to popularity in recent years. Our chat, after the jump.

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So, as Vince mentioned, we went to see the Mesuggah/Cynic/The Faceless last night. It should go without saying that the show was killer – still, having never seen Cynic or The Faceless live before, I was somewhat unprepared for just how killer the evening turned out to be.

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Saying we’re not beyond stoked for the Meshuggah / Cynic / The Faceless pummeling we’re going to receive tonight would be like saying Wes Borland didn’t re-join Limp Bizkit for the moolah (it’s the nookie… yeah… that’s it). I mean this is pretty much the ultimate prog-metal erectionfest of 2009, whatwith the certain non-metal-itude of this year’s Prog Nation tour, amirite?

Lucky for you, Meshuggah and Cynic have been keeping their own online video channel from the tour. Check this clip of Meshuggah performing “Bleed” in Hollywood, and scroll through the arrows to watch Tomas Haake sound check footage, a Cynic performance, tour diaries and more. Listen to and download two free mp3s below while you’re at it.

Side note: certain MS staffers are still looking for tickets to this. If you got extras, email vince AT metalsucks DOT net.

Meshuggah – “Bleed”
Cynic – “Evolutionary Sleeper”

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Scale The Summit are an instrumental metal band. While that very fact might cause lots of you to excitedly skip to the next paragraph where I actually talk about the music, it will likely send just as many running to the hills. And that’s perfectly cool, because the type of heady, proggy music Scale The Summit peddle isn’t likely to appeal to a lot of folks anyway, regardless of whether or not there’s some dude screaming/growling/singing on top of it. This is the kind of band that musicians are gonna cream their pants over and most others will shrug in overwhelming “meh”-itude. But the fact of the matter is that Scale the Summit are immensely talented musicians and composers, and they just don’t feel like letting those pesky things called “lyrics” get in the way of enjoying what matters most, the music. If bands like Intronaut, Russian Circles and Cynic tickle your metal bone(r), Scale the Summit’s Prosthetic Records debut Carving Desert Canyons is likely to do the same.

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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!!

One of the many stories we didn’t actually get to discuss this week is the news that The Faceless are the latest metal act to be banned from The Disney-owned House Of Blues in Anaheim, California. Oddly enough, their tour mates in Meshuggah and Cynic were not banned; what makes The Faceless any more (or less) offensive than Meshuggah or Cynic is kinda beyond me (Also beyond me: why people keep booking metal shows at this club that has repeatedly acknowledged it wants nothing to do with metal. But I digress.).

But the dudes in The Faceless can take consolation in these two facts:

1. Walt Disney was a Nazi cock sucker.
2. Immediately following the conclusion of their jizz inducing tour with Meshuggah and Cynic, they will HEADLINE their own jizz inducing tour with Arsis, Misery Index and The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravanganza.

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Prog-metal fans ’round the world yesterday sported massive boners following the announcement of Exivious, the new jazzy-fusiony-metaly band featuring two non-Paul Masvidal members of Cynic and Textures drummer Stef Broks (sample press release copy: “With a jazz fusion backbone, Exivious uses freaky metal riffs to decorate their organic eruption of free improvisations and complex rhythms.”). Yowza!

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It’s only January 7th but already three ridiculously awesome North American tours are planned for the early part of the year:

Soilwork + Darkane + Swallow the Sun + Daylight Dies (in some markets)

Meshuggah + Cynic + The Faceless

The Haunted + Nachtmystium + Kylesa + Intronaut

Like, woah.

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