MetalSucks

This coming Monday the entire MetalSucks staff will each release Top 10 lists for the entire year in metal of 2008. Get psyched! Things have been slowing down here at the MS Mansion as the holidays approach, but we still found ways to keep it fun this week:

• Axl Rose finally did some press to support Chinese Democracy… but as usual, there’s an asterisk.
• We debuted a new, exclusive Daath track — a medley of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Dying Fetus covers.
• We interviewed members of Clutch, Bison B.C., Dir En Grey, and Fear Factory / Arkaea.
• Job For a Cowboy’s Jonny Davy blogged about urination and hotel trashing, while Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum’s guest blog claimed that Entombed’s Uprising and Morning Star are two of the most underrated albums of all time. Oh, and The Haunted’s Peter Dolving blogged about sleep.
• Gojira’s Joe Duplantier orders you to stop the killing of baby seals but apparently has no problem with ripping New York City a new arsehole.
• Meshuggah + Cynic + The Faceless = The Erection Tour of 2009.
• The metal industry lost a kindred soul. R.I.P. Adrian Bromley.

Not to sound like one of those lame Victory Records album stickers… but, to sound like one of those lame Victory Records album stickers, if you enjoy any of the above bands there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Scale the Summit, a group of Houston progressive metal youngins whose Prosthetic Records’ debut Carving Desert Canyons drops on February 17th. The album is easily one of my most anticipated releases of 2009 — from a new band, that is — and it’ll be certain to get the prog masturbaters amongst you in a tizzy.

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Mesuggah and Cynic are teaming up for a North American tour. I’m not even gonna try and be witty or clever or tell you how awesome this is; you either get it, or you don’t, and if you don’t, well, more tickets for the rest of us. I had to read the press release like three times before I was able to convince myself that this is really happening, but, yes, it’s really happening.

Only a handful of dates have been announced so far, which you can get after the jump. While we’re waiting for the rest of the itinerary to be released, try to keep your blood pressure down.

UPDATE: We were just told that The Faceless are doing this tour as well. HOLY SHIT, this just keeps getting better and better!!!

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2008 has been a fucking great year for metal, and in due time — Monday, Dec. 15, to be exact — Axl, myself and the rest of the writers of MetalSucks will all release our Top 10 year-end lists so you can incessantly argue over which great album was left off or tell us we’re assholes for ranking a certain album higher than it should’ve been.

But for now, ya’ll can argue about something else: here’s my personal short/working list for said year-end list containing all of my favorite metal releases from this year as well as a few that aren’t likely to make my own list but will surely be appearing on others’. Feel free to pipe in with your thoughts or to notify us of any egregious omissions before we put together our final, ordered lists. Regardless, it is going to be really fucking hard to pick just 10 of these and put them in order of awesomeness.

And, my favorite metal records of 2008 in no particular order are…

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So I finally got through this pile of CDs on my desk from French metal label Season of Mist. Other than being the label who released Cynic’s fantastic reunion album Traced In Air, turns out they’ve got a diverse roster of oddball metal bands. Rather than do you all a disservice by failing to accurately describe these truly unique bands, just check ‘em out for yourself. In a nutshell: Esoteric (stony, drony UK experimentation) and Psykup (SYL and Alice in Chains via Mr. Bungle) are the two I’ve been jamming lately. Check em out at the MySpace links above, but avoid the label’s dreadful website at all costs.

-VN

The Phillies won the World Series, it’s Halloween, and we have a U.S. presidential election coming up in less than a week. But what’s happening in metal is obviously way more important:

• Living Colour ruled. As always.
• Mastodon announced the title and tracklisting of their new album.
• We spoke with Cynic’s Paul Masvidal and Today Is the Day’s Steve Austin, the latter of whom practically gave us his life story.
• Gaahl publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. Black metal bigots everywhere cried outrage, but we thought it was pretty cool (kvlt/br00tal/tr00/etc).
• Slayer released a new song which sounds just like the old song(s). And that’s a good thing.
• Someone with way too much time made an AC/DC music video in an Excel spreadsheet

Happy Halloween, mofos.

Cynic guitarist/vocalist Paul Masvidal was one of the chillest metal dudes I’ve ever met. When I sat down with him at a busy New York City diner as one of many journalists cycling through his busy day of press, he was completely calm, cool, collected and unphased by the relative pandemonium surrounding him. He was also well-spoken and articulate, and most of all very humble, willing to answer my questions about the band’s now-storied legacy, getting back together, writing and recording for Cynic’s new record Traced in Air [read our review], and what fuels him as a musician. Our conversation, after the fold.

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Those uproarious chaps over at Metal Inquisition have compiled what they claim to be the Ultimate Florida Death Metal Mix (and, really, it’s tough to argue with them). The maverick known only as “Gene Hoglan’s Balls” writes:

“I love all kinds of death metal, but if I had to pick just one to listen to for the rest of my life it would be Florida Death Metal. And if I could only listen to one song from each of my favorite Florida Death Metal bands for the rest of my life I would come up with Metal Inquisition’s Ultimate Florida Death Metal Mix. If you’re a fan of Florida Death Metal, then you will love this. If you don’t know anything about Florida Death Metal, then prepare to be schooled.”

Fair enough. Lucky for all of you mavericks, copyright laws mean little to nothing these days, so the mix is avail as a free download. Get the full track listing and links to the download after the jump.

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It has been 15 years since Cynic released their first and only full length, Focus, and it seems almost impossible that they could have known what a legend this debut would become. Though I was much too young to have had any awareness of it, I can only imagine what kind of heads were turned when this dropped onto the scene; here a group of Florida death metal youngsters had released a dazzlingly progressive and exploratory work that transcended genres and made every shredhead and blastbeater return to their bedrooms in shame to run more polyrhythm drills and practice those scales a few more times. Focus cemented their place in the heavy metal timeline. After blazing the trail for bands like Between the Buried and Me and Alarum to follow, they’ve finally returned with the long awaited follow-up that they always deserved to make: Traced in Air.

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With a groundswell of jazzy technical metal bands such as Intronaut and Scale the Summit, Cynic just might be the At the Gates of progressive metal. Their only album Focus was released with little to-do by Roadrunner Records in 1993, and shortly thereafter the band split up. But their legacy lived on, and much like At the Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul (which wasn’t their only album but certainly their most significant and refined) the band has gone on to inspire legions of other musicians and cull a cult-like following.

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