I’m going to put about as much effort into this introduction as Courtney Love puts into being coherent.

We begin our cinemetallic journey today with Arch/Matheos’ new, David Brodsky-directed video, for the song “Midnight Serenade.” It’s a pretty straight-forward dudes-performing-in-a-room-to-an-audience-of-who? video, but, like I said, it was directed by David Brodsky, so it looks fucking gorgeous. And the song ain’t bad, either. The video debuted at ultimate-guitar.tv; it’s not currently embeddable, but please enjoy the screen cap below, and click here to actually watch the thing.

Click to read more…

We missed a whole lotta new videos while we were out on Friday, so I’m gonna post ‘em — and my snarky and not-so-snarky commentary, of course — now. Please excuse my lack of a traditional introduction about little effort I am going to put into this introduction.

First up, we have The Devin Townsend Project’s video for “Juular,” which was directed by David Brodsky. And holy poo, this video is GREAT. The animation is fantastic, and the way the camera moves, swooping in and out of shots… it’s just a totally epic visual expression of an awesome, awesome, awesome song. Also, anything where an old man is blowing something phallic is a-okay in my book. This is definitely a contender for Video of the Year.

Click to read more…

I actually wrote about my adoration of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, Danny Elfman’s score for that film, and Powerglove’s cover of the main theme from that score, last year; now the band has released a video that cover of that theme, and… yeah, they killed it. Both the members of Powerglove and director David Brodsky are video game nuts (obviously, in the case of Powerglove), and you can just feel how much fun they had with this.

Powerglove’s version of “Batman” comes off of their eOne debut, Saturday Morning Apocalypse, which is out now. MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour, along with The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Dying Fetus, Six Feet Under, Oceano, As Blood Runs Black, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Within the Ruins. Dates here.

-AR

Since we haven’t written about All Shall Perish in like forty-eight hours, it seems worth mentioning that the band has a new, David Brodsky-directed video, for the song “There is Nothing Left.” It’s really just a performance clip, but it’s an above-average performance clip, and Brodsky’s use of negative space is certainly a lot stronger than, say, that of whomever directed this piece of crap. Plus, the song slays, so that’s never a bad thing!

All Shall Perish’s This is Where it Ends is out now on Nuclear Blast. You can read our interview with guitarist Ben Orum here, and/or our interview with other guitarist Francesco Artusato here. We’ll also have a “Rigged” column from Francesco soon, so keep checking back for that!

-AR

Go cry in your pea soup if you missed the Hate Eternal/Origin/Vital Remains/Abysmal Dawn tour. Seriously: get a bowl of pea soup and fucking cry in it, for you are a loser. Vince and I caught the trek when it hit NYC last weekend, and holy shit, did all four bands CRUSH. I was excited about this line-up from the moment it was announced in March, and, boy oh boy, did the bands not let me down. All death metal tours should have a bill this good.

Of course, I have a special place in my heart for Hate Eternal, who I think are one of the best death metal bands of the 21st century, and whose most recent release, Phoenix Amongst the Ashes, remains pretty much unchallenged as THE death metal album of 2011, even in the face of really amazing competition from bands like Decapitated and The Black Dahlia Murder.

Now the band has re-teamed with director David Brodsky, who also helmed their clip for “Bringer of Storms”, for a video of Ashes‘ “Lake Ablaze.” The video certainly seems to be an aesthetic cousin of the “Storms” clip, which is to say, it’s another insanely intense visual experience which provides ample atmosphere for Rutan’s umpteenth lesson in how to castrate men using nothing but sound.

Phoenix Amongst the Ashes is out now on Metal Blade, and if you’re not listening to it, you are seriously depriving yourself of something special.

-AR

[via Noisecreep]

The Acacia Strain have released their latest video, for “The Impaler,” and man oh man, it is like no other video this band has ever made. Other than a brief prologue which makes the whacky implication that the entire clip is taking place in some dude’s (totally epic) beard, there’s nothing humorous about the David Brodsky-directed clip; it’s just moody and evil and much more in line with the way I feel when I listen to TAS. I’m not saying I hope they’re done with funny videos — on the contrary, I like that TAS aren’t afraid to embrace their goofy side — I’m just saying, this is not a terrible change of pace for the band.

“The Impaler” comes off of The Acacia Strain’s latest, Wormwood, which is out now on Prosthetic. The band is on the Vans Warped tour this summer; get dates here.

-AR

Holy shit, two good music videos in one day? What the crap is going on around here? Where is the shit that normally gets released? Someone send me a new Straight Line Stitch video, ASAP.

ANYWAY…

All aspiring music video directors should take note of Amon Amarth’s latest clip, the David Brodsky-helmed “Destroyer of the Universe” — because this is how you do a fucking performance video. The tight, angular close-ups with enough movement to convey the power of the music but not so much that the viewer feels nauseous, the gut-punch editing style that is absolutely in sync with the music and not just completely and idiotically random, the shots from inside the crowd that make you feel like you’re right in the middle of the pit instead of watching it from afar… this thing is bursting with so much goddamn energy, it makes me wanna see Amon Amarth right now. Seriously, right this second. I don’t give a fuck that it’s ten o’clock in the morning, get those dudes some coffee and tell them to blast my ear drums out right the fuck now.

While I obviously can’t actually just snap my fingers and make Amon Amarth play for me right now, I will have a chance to see them soon, on the second leg of their “An Evening with Amon Amarth” North American headlining tour. Get dates here.

-AR

Within the Ruins’ new video, for the track “Versus” (which we actually premiered here at MetalSucks), was directed by David Brodsky. Which means a lot of thought and care went into its creation, and its a notch or ten above the usual garbage that passes for metal videos these days (Heavy Blog is Heavy, where I first saw the clip, notes that “Surprisingly for this day and age, it’s not a bland warehouse video.”).

It also means that this is the rare instance where I like the video better than I like the song.

I know our own Dave Mustein digs Within the Ruins and I respect his opinion, but… sorry, this band just ain’t for me. I can’t tell them apart from any number of their peers. In fact, I keep getting them confused with Wretched, which isn’t a terrific sign for either band.

ANYWAY, check out the clip and then side with either Mr. Mustein or myself in the comments section below. But really I’m right and you know it.

-AR

As I Lay Dying have premiered their new video, for the song “Anodyne Sea,” on CraveOnline, and between this and their “Parallels” video, I’d say the band is two-for-two on clips to promote their latest and greatest, The Powerless Rise. Interestingly, each video was helmed by a different director — David Brodsky did “Parallels,” while the mysteriously-monikered McFarland and Pecci of Killswitch Productions did “Anodyne” — so I guess either the band or their handlers just have good taste in filmmakers/pitches.

This video takes place entirely in the first person — it actually took me a beat to realize that we’re watching from the P.O.V. of drummer Jordan Mancino — which has obviously been done before (most recently in Gaspar Noe’s trippy Enter the Void), but, uh, not in any recent metal videos that I can recall. And it’s done with a lot of panache here.

Also working in the video’s favor: the fact that the narrative is actually relevant to the lyrical content of the song. “In my convictions, I’ve found my own grave,” the chorus proclaims, and in case you’re feeling ripped-off that we never learn what, exactly, the band said to get them in such deep doo-doo, well, you weren’t paying attention to the very first line of the song: “None of this matters, none of these words.”

By the way, some of the content of this video is kinda violent/intense, so I think it’s probably fine to watch at work, but you might not wanna risk it…

The Powerless Rise is out now on Metal Blade.

-AR

Hey, it’s time for another edition of “Cinemetal Round-Up,” in which I lump a bunch of new metal videos together rather than write individual posts for each one! YYYYAAAAAYYYYY!!!!

First up today we have Triptykon’s video for “Shatter,” the title track from their new, five-song EP, which comes out next week. I don’t know what to say about about this video other than “It looks really, really cool.” Tom G. Warrior apparently came up with the concept himself, which shouldn’t surpirse anyone, and director Philipp Hirsch did an awesome job with the execution. It’s a great song, too! If you love it as much as we do, check back later today for more extra-special Triptykonian goodness, exclusively here at MetalSucks.

Click to read more…

Speaking of Stereogum: They’ve just debuted Kylesa’s new, David Brodsky-helmed video, for the song “Tired Climb,” and it’s all kinds of awesome. I’m gonna hafta smoke some drugs and watch it four or five more times before I’ll be able to to really theorize about the meaning of the clip. But for now, I can tell you that it looks really, really cool (the colors alone are frickin’ gorgeous), and totally augments the song, which is basically the music video’s primary function anyway. Check it out below.

“Tired Climb” comes off of Kylesa’s latest, Spiral Shadow, which will be released via Season of Mist on October 26.

-AR

Yesterday I praised whomever came up with the moniker for The Acacia Strain’s upcoming “To Catch a Predatour” trek with The Red Chord and The Contortionist as a genius; today I know that it was Mr. Vincent Bennett, vocalist for TAS. For the band’s new, David Brodsky-directed video for “The Hills Have Eyes” is a parody of the infamous “news program” that outs kiddie fuckers (or, at least, would-be kiddie fuckers) on camera. And so, Mr. Bennett, I say again: YOU ARE A FRIGGIN’ GENIUS.

My other not-so-deep thought about this video is that it’s a million times better than that one The Malloys made, where Metallica are performing a very poorly written and produced song about a clogged toilet for the inmates of San Quentin. Maybe it’s “cooler” to go film at a real maximum security correctional institution where the inmates might get loose and rape Kirk Hammett at any moment, but Kirk has been getting raped by Hetfield and Ulrich for three decades anyway, so who really gives a shit? I’ll take Matt Pike (not that one, this one) as a reporter over Robert Trujillo droppin’ a deuce any day.

“The Hills Have Eyes” comes offa The Acacia Strain’s latest and greatest, Wormwood, which is out now on Prosthetic.

-AR

Bad luck and terrible timing are the culprits responsible for the fact that I’ve yet to see Landmine Marathon live, but all that’s gonna change when they play Union Pool in Brooklyn with the equally-excellent Salome and Wetnurse next Tuesday. And as if I wasn’t stoked enough already, now here comes the band’s new, David Brodsky-directed video, for “Shadows Fed to Tyrants,” which portrays what appears to be pretty much the best house show ever.

Of course, Union Pool is way more chill (and possibly even smaller?) than this party; I’ve never really seen a pit there, for example. Still, I expect to have a lot of fun, or leave incredibly disappointed.

“Shadows Fed to Tyrants” comes off of Landmine Marathon’s latest, Sovereign Descent, which is out now on Prosthetic.

-AR

Empyreon is one of New York’s best unsigned acts, a band so metal that their music will make you shit nuts and bolts for a week. They haven’t necessarily gotten the amount of attention they deserve in the past, but hopefully all that’s about to change, in part thanks to this excellent, David Brodsky-directed video they just released for the title track to their 2009 album,  Beyond Perception. It’s basically just a performance clip, but it’s a really excellent performance clip, unlike some recent videos.

Empyreon’s Beyond Perception is out now; you can download it from iTunes, or you can order a copy in Empyreon’s merch store. It was produced by the great Anssi Kippo, who has also worked with everyone from Children of Bodom to Insomnium to Rotten Sound. Good shit.

On a semi-related note: Empyeron drummer Frank Godla’s other band, experimental grind freaks Meek is Murder (who sound nothing like Empyreon), are playing at the Charleston in Brooklyn tonight. And they are so much fucking fun live, I can’t begin to tell you. If you live in the NYC area, don’t miss it.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

The video. Not really the song so much. I mean, it’s another David Brodsky/Tim Kellen joint – how can you really go wrong?

Whitechapel’s A New Era of Corruption is out now on Metal Blade. It sold a helluva a lot of copies last week.

-AR

The aesthetic of both the performance footage and the animation in the new David Brodsky-directed video for As I Lay Dying’s “Parallels” differs vastly from the aesthetic of the performance footage and the animation in the video he helmed for The Red Chord’s “Demoralizer” earlier this year, as is befitting cinematic representations of two bands that play such divergent forms of metal (The Red Chord will be on The Summer Slaughter tour, AILD on The Cool Tour – the very monikers of those treks demonstrates huge stylistic differences in the music) and employed different animators for each clip. (The animation in “Parallels” is by Mike Milyavsky with an assist from Brodsky; Tim Kellan and Brodsky did the animation for “Demoralizer.”)

However, it seems to me that there are some interesting thematic connections, primarily in the portrayal of Man as a cog in modern society, robbed of His individuality. The strongest example of this correlation might be the use in both videos of not-dissimilar (and strongly Freudian) images of people drinking blood from a pipe, but it is also worth nothing that the characters in both videos have been robbed of that most distinct display of an identity: a unique face.

Of course, I could just be overanalyzing all this shit.

As I Lay Dying’s The Powerless Rise and The Red Chord’s Fed Through the Teeth Machine are both out now on Metal Blade.

-AR

As I’ve stated many times in the past, I’m a huge fan of Guy Kozowyk’s lyrics. So I know the words to The Red Chord’s “Demoralizer” pretty well, and I think I have a pretty good understanding of the meaning – or at least a meaning – of the song. And I think I understand the meaning – or at least a meaning – of the new video for the song, which recently debuted on Bloody Disgusting.

What I don’t entirely understand is how the meaning of the song, at least as I understand it, and the meaning of the video, at least as I understand it, intersect. And I’m not sure that they intersect in an obvious, linear way – I know that Kozowyk is a big fan of double and triple meanings.

But I’m willing to watch this video dozens of more times to try and figure it out. Director David Brodsky found a pretty awesome way to ensure that the performance footage wouldn’t just be the same old same old, and artist Tim Kellen – who has previously collaborated with Brodsky on the videos for Suffocation’s “Cataclysmic Purification” and Born of Osiris’ “Now Arise” – created animation (which serves as narrative aspect of the clip) that is grimey and gritty and unique and distinctly “home made,” for lack of a better term. And Bloody Disgusting says that Kellen “used charcoal, meat, grape jelly, and chicken-guts in his illustrations,” which is metal as fuck.

So even if the exact “meaning” of the video isn’t of importance to you… well, you’ll probably still enjoy this video, because a) the song is great and b) visually it’s incredibly stimulating, and puts 99% of other recent metal videos to shame.

The Red Chord are currently headlining the MetalSucks co-sponsored Burgers & Bowling Tour with My Children My Bride, Chelsea Grin and Those Who Lie Beneath. Get the remaining dates after the jump!

Click to read more…

Even if our relationship with Born of Osiris is a little, uh, strained, that doesn’t mean I can’t dig their music. So here’s their new, David Brodsky-directed video, for “Now Arise.”

My first thought when I saw this was “Oh, great performance footage” – whatever else you wanna say about BOO, you can’t accuse them of being unable to play their instruments – “but I don’t understand the concept behind the animation.” Luckily, I don’t have to, because Tim Kellen, who did the animation for the video, released a statement on the subject!

“The illustrations that materialize in the video show symbols we see everywhere; in advertising, corporate branding, and on legal tender.  Many of these are ancient, sacred symbols used to empower the individual.However, according to some scholars, these symbols have been subverted by those wishing to destroy and dominate the rest of the population.  Some would argue that the eagle is representative of Scorpio, a symbol of money and power;  that the 2 headed eagle is a popular symbol among the Bavarian Illuminati;  The many skulls are symbols revered by brotherhoods of death; and that the all seeing eye represents surveillance.”

Well, alrighty then! Keep all that mind when watching the video…

“Now Arise” comes off of BOO’s latest, A Higher Place, which is out now on Sumerian.

-AR

Hey, Scott Rives! Guess what? You correctly identified last week’s logo as that of romantic crooners Cunt Smash! You win a Lacuna Coil DVD! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Alrighty. Now that that’s out of the way…

This week the fine folks at Prosthetic Records have given us a copy of The Acacia Strain’s new DVD, The Most Known Unknown, to give away. I’m gonna have a review up for you soon, but the short version is, this DVD is killer. It has not one but two awesome concert films, both directed by David Brodsky, a documentary about the band and its history, a bunch of music videos, and more. It hits stores next Tuesday, February 16, but you can win one right here.

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

This week’s logo was suggested to us by MetalSucks Uber-Maniac Kirsten Ann Hogenson. Kirsten enters this goddamn contest every week (You think I don’t notice you crazy people who enter every week? Oh, I notice.), and clearly, she’s a connosieur, ’cause this one is pretty fucking unreadable…

-AR

I have seen The Acacia Strain’s new DVD, The Most Known Unknown, and it is good. Honestly, I’ve never been a huge TAS fan – I’ve always respected them and liked them, but I don’t spend a lot of my free time listening to them. But this DVD made me like them a whole lot more. I shouldn’t have to tell you that David Brodsky did a great job with the live footage. But the band also just sounds so good. “Whoa! Shut it Down” and “Skynet” have never sounded so heavy. Now I really wanna go to a TAS concert.

While I wait for that to happen, you can check out a clip from the DVD, of the song “Dr. Doom.” Unfortunately it’s not embeddable, but clicking on the pretty screen cap below will take you there.

The Most Known Unknown comes out February 16 on Prosthetic.

-AR