MetalSucks

MetalSucks recently had the opportunity to have a quick chat with Origin guitarist Paul Ryan on the set of the band’s shoot for their new video, “Finite.” Ryan had some interesting things to say about life on the road, the band’s new album, Antithesis (read Axl’s review here), and what lies ahead for these death metal masters. Above, watch the David Brodsky-directed video for “Finite;” after the jump, read the full transcript of our chat with Paul.

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We are pleased to exclusively (well, until you hit “Embed”) premier “Tranquilized,” the new video from hard rockers EkoTren. The video was directed by the one and only David Brodsky (the upcoming God Forbid DVD, Arsis, Hate Eternal, and a million others), a man whose skills as a director and editor speak for themselves. Let this video be proof once and for all that metal dudes can do handstands.

Here’s the thing about Ray Mazzola, vocalist for New York’s own Full Blown Chaos: the guy has a natural born gift for storytelling. I learned this back in February, when I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner with the members of Soilent Green, music video auteur extraordinaire David Brodsky, and Allie Woest, Brodsky’s partner/producer/sometimes editor/general right hand. Full Blown Chaos were on a temporary hiatus from touring at the time (a hiatus which, their fans will be pleased to know, is now over), and so Ray joined us, and within seconds of sitting at the table, he was trading war stories from the road with Soilent Green/Crowbar drummer Tommy Buckley. And, as nice a guy as Buckley is and as many good stories as he had to tell, he just couldn’t keep up with Ray; I won’t repeat any of Ray’s stories second hand ’cause I could never do them justice, so I’ll just say that I can never again hear Napalm Death’s “The Code is Red” without bursting into hysterical laughter.

So after dinner I interviewed Soilent Green guitarist Brian Patton (and some of the dudes from Car Bomb, who also showed up at some point), and then Ray was cool enough to sit down and let me pick his brain for a little while – and to share one of his special stories with our readers. To say that the story is a doozy would be to put it mildly. Little wonder this dude is such a charismatic front man.

Above, watch the David Brodsky-directed video for Full Blown Chaos’ “Halos for Heroes,” from their album Heavy Lies the Crown; after the jump, read the full transcript of my conversation with Ray.

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Am I the only one whose favorite Kataklysm songs are the slow ones? I mean, don’t get me wrong, these Canadian deathrashers can do the speed metal thing as well as anyone, but there’s just something about those chunky, churning, elephants-marching rhythms on songs like “Slither,” “Crippled and Broken,” and “The Road to Devastation” that’s so… brutal. Like, the band doesn’t wanna pummel you to death; they want to skin you alive. Slowly.

“Taking the World by Storm,” the first single off the band’s forthcoming Prevail, is one of those songs, and I loved it the second I heard that colossal riff. The video was helmed by MetalSucks fave David Brodsky, who does his usual top notch work here (the colors, dude, the colors!), and I don’t care what those “Videos are Dead” naysayers think – the clip is as effective a marketing tool as any metal band could wish for.

Prevail drops May 23 in Europe and May 27 here in the States on Nuclear Blast.

Kataklysm – Taking The World By Storm

-AR

Naysayers take note: God Forbid’s long-in-the-works DVD, Beneath the Scars of Glory and Progression, really is going to be released on June 10. In addition to a David Brodsky-directed concert film of last February’s headlining performance at the Starland Ballroom in New Jersey (read our review of that show here), the DVD will also feature a documentary about the band that was directed by Denise Korycki.

Check out the badassed cover art for the DVD below. And if you enjoy “The Hard R,” God Forbid guitarist Dallas Coyle’s weekly column here at MetalSucks – and I know you do – head over to the band’s MySpace page and check out live recordings of the songs “Broken Promise” and “End of the World” from the DVD. They slay.

-AR

So a couple of weeks back I posted the new Arsis video, “We Are the Nightmare,” without animation. I’m not even gonna link to it, ’cause even though I thought that video was awesome, this new, definitive version, complete with animation by director David Brodsky, is even awesomer.

Seriously: I have been listening to almost nothing but Arsis for about a week. This band rules. This album rules. This video fuckin’ rules.

ARSIS – We Are The Nightmare (Version Two)

After the jump, read what director David Brodsky had to say on Arsis’ MySpace blog about working with the band and the story behind the video!

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So I jumped the gun a little bit and posted that awesome new David Brodsky-directed Arsis video for “We Are the Nightmare”   before it was supposed to be out in the world… so we had to take it down (I’d make one of those frowny faces the kids are so fond of these days, but I’m not retarded). So in its place, here is the considerably less cool video for the new Motley Crue song, “Saints of Los Angeles.”

Don’t ask… just watch the fuckin’ Motley Crue video below.

But, hey, at least it has some cleavage in it. And now, I’m talking about Vince Neil’s.

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-AR

The below David Brodsky-directed clip for the title track from Arsis’ just released We Are the Nightmare owns your ass because:

A) The song is awesome.

B) The location is awesome.

C) The lighting is awesome.

D) All of the above.

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If you didn’t select “D,” please let us know so we can come to your house and cock punch you.

THIS IS THE VERSION OF THE VIDEO WITHOUT BRODSKY’S SUPER DUPER AWESOME ANIMATION. PLEASE KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR THE VERSION WITH ANIMATION IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE.

-AR

[via The Deciblog]

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“Man, do I feel sorry for you,” Brian Patton tells me as he chain smokes his way through what must be at least his seventh cigarette in the last hour. “You gotta transcribe this with my accent!” He’s referring to the Nawlins drawl which gives Patton and his Soilent Green bandmates – vocalist Ben Falgoust (also of Goatwhore), drummer Tommy Buckley (also of Crowbar), and bassist Scott Crochet (also of Hostile Apostle) – the easygoing air of southern gentlemen. It’s a little off putting, actually, considering that a) these dudes make some fucking furious death/grind/sludge and b) have endured about as much hardship as a band possibly could, including line-up changes, label changes, murder/suicides, and, of course, the wretched effects of Hurrican Katrina on their native turf.

But the band seems unphased, and with good reason: they have an awesome new album, Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction, coming out on their new label, Metal Blade, on April 15; and just twenty four hours prior, they completed shooting performance footage for the video of their new single, “Antioxidant,” with director David Brodsky (it’s that clip above, and you should definitely watch it at least twice – it’s arguably Brodsky’s best work to date).

I was lucky enough to fulfill every fan’s wet dream of having dinner with the band the night after the shoot; afterwards, Patton let me grab a few minutes to pick his brain about the new album, producer Erik Rutan, the state of metal today, the influence of non-metal music on Soilent Green’s work, and more. Read the full transcript after the jump.

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In case Dalls Coyle’s “The Hard R” column here at MetalSucks doesn’t give you the weekly fix of God Forbid-related blogging that you crave, the band has launched a studio diary to keep you up-to-date on the progress of their new album, which should be out later this year. Here’s an excerpt from the initial entry, by Dallas’ brother/co-guitarist Doc Coyle:

“Later that day, I received an email that our DVD test copy was complete, so I decided to leave to studio to take a trip to Brooklyn to [director] Dave Brodsky’s place to pick up a few copies for the band to check out and critique. I left everyone else to work on the drum tones. This is unlike me. Usually I am involved in every aspect of the recording, and my control freak tendencies can get the best of me. I’ve been trying to give everyone more freedom, and not try to sway every note. It can be hard for me sometimes, but trusting your team is important. I came back the next day, and the drums sounded great. I wasn’t totally sold on the snare drum sound, but that always changes with sampling.”

Read the entire entry here.

-AR

Chinese Democracy may never see the light of day, but Beneath the Scars of Glory and Progression, the long-awaited new DVD from God Forbid, will FINALLY get a release on June 10.

In addition to a David Brodsky-directed concert film of last February’s headlining performance at the Starland Ballroom in New Jersey (read our review of that show here), the DVD will also feature a documentary about the band that was directed by Denise Korycki.

Speaking to MetalSucks back in December, Doc Coyle told us that “A lot of bands put out some shitty DVDs. I’m not gonna name any names. But ones where you they shot it with their momma’s 1984 VHS, them hangin’ out back stage, them prankin’ each other and throwin’ up on each other and downing beers. It’s like… that shit’s cool, but we wanted to have a great concert… And also the story of our band.. it’s a very interesting story. It’s not like a typical success story… ours is just so much edgier. We talk about the race thing, and just the struggles of our band. The shit is the REAL shit.”

Holy crap. I’m so excited. I can’t believe the show that was filmed for this thing was so long ago. I’d say something sarcastic and mean, but really, God Forbid have never let me down before; I’ve literally never heard them make a bad album, never seen them do a bad show. I have a feeling this bad boy will be worth the wait.

-AR

Headbanger’s Blog debuted Sworn Enemy’s new video for “A Place of Solace” earlier today, and director/animator/special effects dude/general madman David Brodsky was cool enough to send us his original treatment for the clip, giving us a glimpse not only into the video’s meaning, but the thought process that goes on behind-the-scenes for a project such as this one. Excerpts from the treatment appear below:

“The entire narrative aspect of the video takes place in the ‘minds’ of ‘narrators’… the ‘narrators’ being the Father and the Son. All of the images shown are either ‘recollection’ or ‘metaphorical fantasy’…

“Who is being ‘wronged’ is indicated by B/W slow-mo faces or graphic in the extreme foreground while the ‘action’ is happening in the background ‘projected on a wall.’ The projection helps to indicate ‘recollection’…

“…For instance, when the kid is stealing money, the DAD is the ‘graphic’ because the Dad recalls the kid as being a thief… when the Dad is digging through the drawer, the KID is the ‘graphic’ because the kid is recalling the Dad being a snoop… and when they are BOTH being assholes they are BOTH the graphic…

“We show the family was ‘happy,’ then the dad disrespects the kid, the kid then disrespects the dad, so on and so forth in slightly escalating ways until they come to blows internally – sort of a way to show that both of them feel the same way BUT for two different reasons… and both ‘dream’ of the other one being dominated in order to achieve their personal ‘place of solace’…

“Both of them have legitimate points and both of them react in escalating ways because THEY PERCEIVE that the other one is being the asshole…

“I want to stay away from the terribly obvious and make something that, let’s say, a son could watch and agree with AND a father could watch and agree with… instead of making it clear-cut who was really the asshole, we wanted to make it easy to sympathize with either character…

“It’s a very real possibility that both of these characters are overreacting to small matters, but then again, it’s a very real possibility that we ALL overreact to small matters depending on the context in which we see them.”

Here’s the vid; like the Brodsky-directed video for Suicide Silence’s “Bludgeoned to Death,” it was edited by Allison Woest. After you’ve watched it, don’t forget to visit David Brodsky/MyGoodEye on MySpace.

-AR

MTV banned Suicide Silence’s video for “The Price of Beauty,” so they had to go make another one. The result, “Blugeoned to Death” – geez, that title certainly sounds more violent than “The Price of Beauty” – is pretty sweet… just as epic, energetic, and disturbing as you’d expect from a band called Suicide Silence. In fact, I’d argue that the suggestive nature of this video – particularly the atmospheric animation – makes this video ten times spookier than the last one, which did not acknowledge the “less is more” principle.

So here’s the video. It was directed by David Brodsky (who also did the animation!) and edited by Allison Woest…

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-AR

I’m not the biggest Full Blown Chaos fan in the world, but this is a pretty slice of post-hardcore, and I find the slightly off-key vocals during the chorus kind of oddly endearing. Plus, this clip comes from the fucked-up mind of director David Brodsky, which is always a good thing.

ANYWAY, if you’re interested, the track comes off the band’s latest album, Heavy Lies the Crown (Ferret).

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-AR

Well, not really. Chino, CA’s David Cazares – who, as far as we are aware, is not actually of any relation to Dino – has been announced as the winner of the contest to name God Forbid’s new DVD. The winning title is Beneath the Scars of Glory and Progression, which, admittedly, is not the catchiest title in the world, but based on what Doc Coyle told us about the DVD when we interviewed him last month, it’s a dead-on in terms of thematic content:

“…the story of our band… it’s a very interesting story. It’s not like a typical success story – like, if you watch the Killswitch [Engage] DVD it’s like, ‘We did this, and it was amazing. And then we did this, and it was more amazing. And then we got big, and then we got rich!’ …it’s all great stuff, and with us it’s like yin and yang – it’ll be good, we’ve had good stuff happen to us and we’ve had bad stuff. This is the tale of a struggling, working band, in the fight, but not where they wanna be.”

I hope this DVD is as cool as Coyle says it is; I’m pretty confident that, at the very least, the concert film portion will be, since a) we were there and it fucking rocked and b) it was directed by David Brodsky. And in any case, I think we can all feel grateful that the runner-up for the contest, the entirely too cutesy Constitution of Touring, wasn’t selected.

Amazingly, there’s still no official release date for this thing. We’ll keep you updated.

-AR

Through the Eyes of the Dead’s Malice was one of my favorite albums of 2007 – so I’m more than a little bummed to find out that two of the band’s five members have quit just this month alone. First Carnage Inc. reported on January 7 that drummer Josh Kulick has quit the band, and now Blabbermouth tells us that vocalist Nate Johnson – who had only joined the band in the middle of the Malice recording sessions – has split to join metalcore act Since the Flood. Johnson said of his quitting “it was not because I thought anyone in the band was an asshole, or I had suspicions of anyone stealing money. It just wasn’t my thing. Yes, I am a big fan of death metal… Fast forward 6-7 months later, and I just basically lost interest. I didn’t really enjoy being a death metal vocalist as much as I thought I would.”

This is a real shame, because a) Johnson’s awesome vocals were part of what made Malice so enjoyable, and b) Since the Flood suck (check out their MySpace page if you don’t believe me.) Still, Johnson didn’t even really know TTEOTD when he joined – the story goes that producer Erik Rutan recommended him after the band showed up for the Malice sessions without a vocalist – so I guess the lesson here is that it’s probably best to actually audition and hang out with any potential band members before recording with them.

Mostly, though I hope that TTEOTD can find a new singer and drummer and persevere. It would suck to see a young up and coming band like this torn apart so suddenly and early in their career.

Here’s the band’s David Brodsky-directed, heavily George Romero-influenced video for “Failure in the Flesh” from Malice.

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-AR

Hard to believe it’s been almost a year since God Forbid slaughtered Sayreville at the concert filmed for their upcoming DVD; when we spoke to Doc Coyle last month, he made it sound like the DVD was finally done, with a just a few finishing touches to be completed on the documentary that would accompany the David Brodsky-directed concert film. I guess the release must finally be imminent, because now Coyle and his band mates are asking fans to give the thing a name:

“This contest will only be running for a week, and the grand prize winner will get their name listed in the DVD’s credits, receive an autographed copy of the DVD, an ESP/Cocaine Energy drink guitar and a case of cocaine energy drinks. The two runner ups will also receive a bunch of other awesome stuff. We’re going to pick the top three and have everyone vote on the best title from there. We will announce the winner on January 28. Good luck and let the games begin!”

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1. “Is the red chord like the brown note?”
2. “Why does that dude keep screaming ‘Save the Death Star?” (About the song “Send the Death Storm”)
3. “How the fuck do you pronounce ‘Kozowyk?’”

Here’s the David Brodsky directed video for “Black Santa.”

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-AR

I’ve never been that into Threat Signal – I don’t know why; I guess they just don’t, as the cliché goes, “hit me on a gut level.” But we got an e-mail from a reader last night bitch slapping us for having never talked about the band, ever. So here’s their video for “Rational Eyes,” which was directed by David Brodsky, one of the better music video directors out there these days (he also directed God Forbid’s forthcoming concert DVD, which still doesn’t have a release date!). So, Threat Signal fans, this one’s for you…

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-AR