The good news is, Century released a clip from the David Brodsky-directed concert film that will be on the DVD! Yippee!

-AR

If I was a betting man, I’d wager that at some point in their lives, the members of The Acacia Strain have been stuck with that most awful of labels – “wiggers” (I betcha thought I was gonna say “deathcore,” didn’t cha?). So there’s probably a deep, sociological statement being made with their new, David Brodsky-directed video, “Skynet,” which forgoes any obvious Terminator references in lieu of imagining a world where all the members of The Acacia Strain are African-Americans.

But, of course, you can also just enjoy the clip as a funny video powered by a br00tal death metal song. Your choice.

If you haven’t done so already, check out our interview with The Acacia Strain vocalist Vincent Bennett here.

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Being blessed by a slew of Vancouver metal shows recently, I set off last week to see a spectacular example at the conspicuously indie venue Richards on Richards. Black Dahlia Murder managed to attract the biggest mosh and gave an energetic performance even sans their lead guitarist and his parts. Soilent Green might have stolen the show managing to sound tight as bike shorts while playing their complex arrangements and with studly beast Ben Falgoust delivering his vicious stage presence with the occasional slice of Louisiana charm. However, I had already picked favorites before I even got in the door that night and I was more than excited to be able to see Misery Index dish it out in the opening slot and let me assure you that they fucking slayed. It all has to do with a little album called Traitors that turned me into an instant fan this year, front to back, riff to riff. After introducing myself to this brutal Baltimore quintet around their self-operated merch table, I stole away bassist/vocalist Jason Netherton backstage to the door of the venue’s massive walk-in beer fridge for a few questions about the making of the new album, being a political band and more.

Above, check out the band’s new, David Brodsky-directed video for the title track from Traitors; then, after the jump, read the complete transcript of our interview.

Click to read more…

The latest Whitechapel video, “Possession,” was filmed in front of a real, live, paying audience at Worcester Mass’s legendary Palladium, and man oh man, does it make me wanna see these dudes live. Those kids look like they’re going nucking futs, don’t they? So much fun. Why did I ever stop going into pits, anyways?

The clip was directed by David Brodsky (who also did Whitechapel’s last video, “This is Exile”), who actually killed the director of Warrant’s “Heaven” video… with his mind! Sick.

Whitechapel’s This is Exile is out now on Metal Blade.

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Ohio Deathrashers Brother Von Doom are one of our favorite new metal bands on 2008. They have an awesome new album, Relentless, out now on Deathcote (read David Bee Roth’s review here), and an insanely sweet, metal as fuck new David Brodsky-directed video – with knights!!! – for their merciless single, “Eater of Days” (above). So when the opportunity to e-mail the band some questions arose, of course, I jumped at the chance.

After the jump, find out where the name “Brother Von Doom” comes from and get the band’s thoughts on their songwriting process, working with David Brodsky and producer Andreas Magnusson, the worst trends in metal today, and a whole lot more…

Click to read more…

When you think about it, being French Canadian must be the worst of both possible worlds. You’re not really French but you are, you’re not really Canadian but you are, and if you’re like most people, you probably don’t really wanna be Canadian anyway (All due respect to Sebastian Bach, William Shatner, Michael J. Fox, and MetalSucks’ own resident canuck David Bee Roth).

So maybe that’s why Despised Icon make such furious music. It can be hard to understand what they’re actually saying amidst all the br00tality and pig squeals, but I think it’s something along the lines of “FUCK! WE’RE FRENCH CANADIANS! GRRRRRR!!!”

ANYWAY, Century will release a decidedly intense, decidedly French Canadian Despised Icon DVD, entitled Montreal Assault, on January 27, 2009. I haven’t seen it yet, but it already has a few things going for it:

Click to read more…

Headbanger’s Blog just debuted Bleeding Through’s new, David Brodsky-directed video for “Death Anxiety.” Vocalist Brandan Schieppati says, “The only thing we told Dave Brodsky, the director, is that we wanted it to feature the band playing the song and we wanted lots of pyro. And that’s exactly what we got!”

So here’s Bleeding Through, in all their pyromanic glory…

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Headbanger’s Blog just debuted Bleed the Sky’s new video for the song “Sullivan.” They also have lead singer Noah Robinson’s thoughts of the making of the video, which was directed by MetalSucks approved headbanger auteur David Brodsky. Here’s an excerpt from Robinson:

“It was great filming the video with David Brodsky. He kept it very relaxed, not to mention that because we’re seasoned drinkers, he kept us stocked with the three cases of beer and a handle of Captain Morgan. That probably helped a bit!

“A funny thing we noticed was that guitarist Justin Warrick kept ritualistically brushing his hair. All the behind-the-scenes videos we shot for ourselves always had Justin brushing his golden locks somewhere in the background. HE NEVER STOPPED. He even tried to brush his hair between takes, but Brodsky told him no, but that didn’t mean Justin didn’t keep reaching for his brush.”

Head over to Headbanger’s Blog to check out the rest.

Now here’s the video… I’ve mentioned in the past how much I dig the rhythmic editing of Allison Woest, Brodsky’s producer/partner/sometimes editor, and while I’m not 100% certain that Woest edited this clip, it certainly has her fingerprints all over it – note how many of the cuts happen right on the beat every time (the first ten or fifteen seconds of the video are the most obvious example of this technique, but it does repeat throughout).

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David Brodsky videos are usually full of the kind of fucked-up imagery we’re accustomed to in the metal world – zombies, blood-thirsty beasts, patricide, population-leveling plagues, bats flying out of people’s mouths, scary old dudes licking young women in bondage gear, Devin Townsend in a tuxedo, etc. – so the fact that the video he just directed for In This Moment, “Forever,” is so sun-shiney is, at a glance, kind of a shock.

But Brodksy has what Hollywood types call “range,” and these visuals completely fit the song. And I know for a fact that Brodsky wants nothing more than to create an honorable cinematic representation of whatever band he’s working with at the moment (pun not intended), something that will satisfy the artist and their fans alike. Also, this video really, really makes me wanna go to the beach.

Century will release In This Moment’s new album, The Dream, next week.

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Misery Signals — whose solid July release Controller completely caught me by surprise — have released a video for the album’s first single, “A Certain Death.” The David Brodsky-directed video was filmed in a truly dangerous locale. Relates vocalist Karl Schubach;

“We filmed our scenes in a burnt down hotel in a [sic] abandoned town in upstate NY. It was definitely condemned, I don’t know how they got us in there but it was dark, dirty with gutted wood beams, blackened walls and if you weren’t careful you could fall into the basement that was flooded with some kind of liquid.”

Sounds mysteriously like the MetalSucks Mansion. Hmmmm.

“A Certain Death” wouldn’t have been my choice for first single (I think “Parallels” and “Weight of the World” showcase the band’s originality more), but the video has some cool visuals intercut with the performance footage that make it a good watch, up to snuff with Brodsky’s consistently high standards.

Check out Misery Signals’ MySpace page for more tunes, and definitely check out Controller as soon as possible.

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Beneath the Scars of Glory and Progression, God Forbid’s first DVD, has been on store shelves for a few weeks now; if you still haven’t purchased a copy, well, please allow us to entice you further with the below footage of the band performing “End of the World,” taken from the David Brodsky-directed concert portion of the DVD. This song gets my blood pumping every time, and the footage might be the best ad for the DVD available.

If for some reason the clip still doesn’t convince you, you can also check out my review here. Whatever you end up paying for this thing, I promise you it’s totally worth it.

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Like a lot of people, I imagine, I discovered horror movies and metal at roughly the same age. And even though they seem a little campy now, the George Romero/Stephen King Creepshow movies were some of my favorites.

So, needless to say, I’m head over heels in love with the new Black Dahlia Murder video for “Everything Went Black.” Not only is it a killer song, but the video, under the direction of David Brodsky, is a sweet recreation of the original Creepshow. Using that movie as a model for the video, the band is able to maintain their “We don’t take ourselves too seriously” vibe while making something considerably more impressive than their usual random-footage-of-the-band-acting-silly schtick (see: “Statutory Ape,” “What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse,” etc.).

Check out the video below.

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I feel like I’ve been hearing a lot about this band Whitechapel lately. I haven’t really heard any of their music, though – at least, not enough to really make any kind of judgement. I like the group’s name, though. Semi-clever serial killer references are always cool in my book.

Here’s David Brodsky’s video for the band’s title track from This is Exile, which will drop on Metal Blade on July 8. Two things I’m really digging about this video: i) it appears to have been filmed in Ted Bundy’s basement, and ii) the use of the color green… I mean, that particular shade, especially when contrasted with the corpse-white shade of the band members, the whole thing just looks so… diseased.

Anyways, Whitechapel are on the Summer Slaughter tour, so I’ll get to check them out next week.

-AR

Is this whole debate about whether or not Cryptopsy are sell-outs still going on? If so, that’s retarded. I still haven’t heard their new album, The Unspoken King, but I have watched David Brodsky’s mindfuck of a video (the only word for that camera work is “dizzying,” and I mean that as a good thing) for their new song “Worship Your Demons” (below), and even if there’s no Lord Worm and the music isn’t super-duper technical, it’s still heavier than being caught beneath a fuck sandwich made of Dom DeLuise, Sally Struthers, and Charles Durning. So I have to think that anyone who who claims these dudes are doin’ it for the cha-ching (as opposed to a genuine desire to explore new sounds) either has cum in their ears or shit in their brains.

The Unspoken King drops on June 24 on Century.

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Holy crap. After what seems like forever, God Forbid finally released their first DVD, Beneath the Scars of Glory and Progression, earlier this week (trailer and clip above).

And you know what?

It was totally worth the wait. Click to read more…

I’ve never met Matt Fox in person, but reading his answers to this all-too-brief interview I recently conducted with him via e-mail, I really, really want to. Fox comes across as intelligent, funny, and, as his band’s name would suggest, a knowledgeable and opinionated sci-fi geek; in other words, he comes across as exactly the kind of dude I’d wanna be friends with.

Shai Hulud’s latest cock punch of metallicized hardcore, the excellently titled Misanthropy Pure, hits stores today via Metal Blade, and if you haven’t heard it yet, well, you need to: it’s a vicious, wholly unique entry into a genre that seems to be growing more tired by the day, an album that genuinely doesn’t sound like anything else on the market right now. Above, watch Shai Hulud’s David Brodsky-directed video for the title track; after the jump, check out Matt’s thoughts on the writing process, the metalcore genre, and, of course, all things sci-fi.

Click to read more…

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.

Click to read more…

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

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