Meshuggah recently revealed during an online chat that they’d be embarking on a North American tour with Baroness and Decapitated starting in May, and it turns out they were lying — the tour actually starts at the end of April. GOSH, MESHUGGAH, GET IT TOGETHER!

I’m kidding, of course. This tour is gonna be awesome. And, much like the just-confirmed Mastodon/Opeth/Ghost tour, I don’t really think there’s much else I need to say about this — the chances that any of you need to be sold on checking these shows out is about as likely as the chance that Cliff Burton is going to be on the next Metallica album.

And so, without any further bullshit, here’s the tour itinerary:

Click to read more…

Axl wore his most vile death metal shirt in an attempt to avoid being selected as a juror in this great City of New York, but lo and behold, his plan backfired and he was chosen anyway. So it’s been the Vince party over here since Wednesday with plenty of help from all of our most excellent contributors — special big ups to Anso DF for pitching in extra! Here’s what went down:

• We lost Riot guitarist Mark Reale. R.I.P.
• We premiered a new track by Pyscroptic, one by Exotic Animal Petting Zoo and all of Primal Fear’s new album Unbreakable.
• The Rockstar Mayhem Festival announced the first slate of bands on its 2012 lineup. Slipknot later spilled the beans that High on Fire are confirmed too.
• Ihsahn is guesting on the new Jeff Loomis solo joint and Jeff Loomis is guesting on the new Ihsahn solo joint. Will those two get a room already?
• The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman went all anti-drug on our asses.
• Tours and rumours of tours: The Mastodon / Opeth / Ghost tour is really gonna happen, Meshuggah, Decapitated and Baroness will hit the U.S. together (no dates yet), dates were announced for the Decibel Magazine Tour featuring Behemoth, Watain, The Devil’s Blood and In Solitude, while All Shall Perish, Fleshgod Apocalypse and other cool bands announced a tour too.
• Sammy O’Hagar reviewed Lamb of God‘s new album while Gary took a look at new hardcore 7-inches by Daylight, Unholy Majesty and Wrong Answer.
• We realized that Maynard James Keenan poops and pees and eats just like the rest of us.

We’ll be back next week for Axl’s triumphant return to the blogosphere. See you then.

-VN

UPDATE, 4:29 p.m.: MSN/Terrorizer/Decibel scribe Adrien Begrand tells us via Twitter, “I can confirm the Meshuggah tour, I talked to Tomas [Haake, Meshuggah drummer] last night. It’s happening in May.” HOLY SHIT! Major props to Adrien for the info. Follow him on Twitter to thank him, okay?

UPDATE #2, 5:10 p.m.: The PRP now tells us that you can watch the video in which the tour is discussed online right here. The part of the video with the relevant info comes at roughly the 31:40 mark.

Meshuggah just completed a live Q&A video session, and according to reader Dan Wolfson, the band did, indeed, say there was going to do a U.S. tour with Decapitated and Baroness.

We don’t have confirmation of this yet, but if it’s true… holy shit, what an amazing line-up that would be. Unusual, sure — Baroness seem way outta place there, no? — but awesome.

More details as we get ‘em. In the meantime, fingers crossed…

-AR

Yesterday, I saw this incredible video online of a plane flying from New York to Warsaw making an emergency landing… with its wheels still up:

What I didn’t know until Metal Underground reported it this morning, though, is that Decapitated were on the plane.

Click to read more…

Decapitated’s MetalSucks-sponsored Carnival is Forever Tour with Decrepit Birth, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Rings of Saturn hasn’t made it to New York yet, but I’ve heard nothing but good things — not shocking, given the line-up. A reader recently e-mailed me to say that he’d nearly broken his neck in the pit, and I always take near-death experiences as the sign of a good show. So, yeah, you need to go to this.

But in case you were somehow not convinced, you should check Sick Drummer‘s below drum cam footage of Decapitated skinsman Krihm playing the song “Pest” from Decapitated’s recent comeback album/the tour’s namesake/one of the best albums of 2011, Carnival is Forever. ‘Cause rarely is the phrase “Sick Drummer” as appropriate as when applied to Krihm.

I mean that’s so good it’s just silly, right?

Here are remaining dates on the trek:

Click to read more…

As those of you who have attended the first four nights of the MetalSucks-sponsored “Carnival is Forever Tour” featuring Decapitated have probably already noticed, The Haarp Machine haven’t been in attendance. It’s yet another example of a band from abroad not being able to get their U.S. work visas in time. Getting visas must seem simple to those who haven’t been through the process, as you’d think these bands have plenty of time to prepare. But let us tell you, even with several months notice and paid experts helping out, these things get caught up in bureaucratic red tape all too often as there are several government offices the applications need to pass through. Our government does not make it easy, unfortunately. Most of all this sucks for The Haarp Machine, who probably already booked and paid for flights, gear rental, van rental, etc, and now have to forfeit a good portion of that money.

Anyway, fear not: the tour is trucking on as planned for Decapitated, who still have the most-excellent lineup of Decrepit Birth, Fleshgod Apocalypse and Rings of Saturn in tow. Remaining dates after the jump.

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HELL YES. As previously announced, MetalSucks is proud to present the 2011 Carnival is Forever North American tour, Decapitated’s first headlining tour since releasing their mind-blowingly good comeback album, Carnival is Forever, this summer. And while the chance to see the always-incredible Decapitated alone should be enough to get your ass to a show, just to make extra, extra sure that this tour absolutely crushes, the band is brining along fellow death metal luminaries Decrepit Birth, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Rings of Saturn, and The Haarp Machine for the ride.

And the tour starts TONIGHT in Rochester. This bill is unfuckwithable, and there is absolutely no way these shows aren’t gonna be SICK. Check out the complete itinerary after the jump and make sure you don’t miss your chance to go, ’cause you will seriously never forgive yourself if you do miss it.

Now here are those tour dates again:

Click to read more…

Richmond, VA stoners ov death Cannabis Corpse are currently burning their way through the European continent, with planned raids on Russia and the UK coming up quick, and yours truly is along for the ride to hustle merch and document the madness. Full disclosure: I work with the band and their label, but I’m doing this tour diary not as a sneaky promotional trick, but because I’m in fucking Europe with a bunch of awesome death metal dudes and wanted to write about the experience. So here goes.

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Last year (and the year before) I got way too busy with this thing called life and missed out on a lot of quality music. I am here to rectify the error of my ways, month by month.

Here are the July 2011 releases that got under my skin, burrowed their way into my brain, made my ears bleed, or simply tickled my unmentionables:

Click to read more…

Here’s some news which ought to absolutely make your day: MetalSucks is proud to present the 2011 Carnival is Forever North American tour, Decapitated’s first headlining tour since releasing their mind-blowingly good comeback album, Carnival is Forever, last month. And while the chance to see the always-incredible Decapitated alone should be enough to get your ass to a show, just to make extra, extra sure that this tour absolutely crushes, the band is brining along fellow death metal luminaries Decrepit Birth, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Rings of Saturn, and The Haarp Machine for the ride.

Yep. This tour is unfuckwithable. There is absolutely no way these shows aren’t gonna be SICK.

The tour kicks off in September. Get a full list of dates after the jump!

Click to read more…

Hopefully, you Suckahs have been following my Bleeders’ Lists this year. If not, you can play catch-up here – Missed Albums Finally Listened to from the First Half of 2011, June, May, April, March, February, January.

As of the end of June, I have listened to 356 new releases this year — each one all the way through. I have listened to several live releases and re-releases but did not include most of them on my lists. Surprisingly, just under 29% are Bleeders (or the best each month). This is nearly 15% higher than I expected, so that’s the first good thing. The second is that those 103 Bleeders comprise a vast array of what we call “heavy metal” and have made for a stellar year already.

Being a lifelong metalhead, there are obviously going to be certain acts I just don’t like — number one amongst those this year is Ghost. But my Bleeders’ Lists aren’t about what I don’t like, but rather what gets me stoked. I’ve listened to, literally, more than 10,000 metal releases and been to more than a 1,000 metal concerts. In other words, I’m jaded. So, when something excites me, I want to share it with everyone. Thankfully, I’ve been able to do that 103 times this year.

Below you will find my Top 10 of those 103 Bleeders with their original mini-reviews plus updated commentary.

Of course, I just heard the new Decapitated and have a sneaking suspicion it will be be firmly entrenched on my 2011 Top 15 list come December.

Enjoy. Despise. Eviscerate.

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A bunch of big records came out last Tuesday: Suicide Silence, Fair to Midland, Sepultura and Decapitated. After the jump we’ll take a look at how those and a few recent releases sold over the past week.

But first, a follow-up on a question I asked in last week’s column: how do the numbers for Arch Enemy’s Khaos Legions stack up against their past releases? I don’t have week-by-week breakdowns for each album to compare to Khaos Legions‘ cumulative total of 13,944 after five weeks, but these total sales figures for Arch Enemy’s best-selling albums should provide some frame of reference:

Anthems of Rebellion: 74,712
Doomsday Machine: 108,036
Rise of the Tyrant: 55,812
Wages of Sin: 71,688

With Khaos Legions falling off the charts in week six, that means they sold less than 1,092 units last week, the minimum number required to crack the Top 100 Hard Music Chart. Based on that I’d say it’s going to be a tough climb for Gossow, the Amotts and co. to match their past success this time around.

ANYWAY, back to last week’s big releases:

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Last week bassists did like a million things wrong and one thing right, but I was optimistic that this week all would be well in Four String Land again.

Oh well.

Apparently pre-dating any of those other bass players’ moves to be poopy, bassist Filip “Heinrich” Hałucha apparently split with Decapitated earlier this month… although I haven’t seen it reported anywhere. (In all fairness, it seems to have happened while I was on vacation; but a Google search didn’t turn up any results, so I’m assuming that this is news which just fell through the cracks.)

Decapitated guitarist/general mastermind Vogg explained to some Polish website the cause of the split; here’s Google’s translation of that account, which doesn’t really read like English but I think is close enough that you should be able to understand the gist of it:

Click to read more…

MS staffers have lives too, and as such we can’t always get to the record store the very day new releases come out. We’re guessing it’s the same for you guys, too, but that doesn’t mean you’re not interested in the week’s new releases, right? With that in mind, here’s Vic Vaughn on all the shit that came out yesterday including new records from Decapitated and Suicide Silence.

Click to read more…

Hopefully, between Sammy O’Hagar’s glowing review of Decapitated’s Carnival is Forever, and my own declaration that it’s one of the best metal albums of 2011 thus far, you’re now really, really excited to hear the album. Actually, you were probably already excited before we declared the record to be officially killer, since a) it’s Decapitated, b) it’s their big comeback album, and c) it’s motherfucking Decapitated.

But if for some reason you weren’t excited, hopefully the new song from Carnival that is now streaming over at Guitar World, “Homo Sun,” will do the trick. And if it still doesn’t, well, uh, go decapitate yourself. ‘Cause this album rules, and this song rules.

Headbang here, then exchange e-high-fives in our comments section below. Carnival is Forever comes out July 12 on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

MetalSucks tipster extraordinaire Hetal Bhatt sent us the below video, and while it has nothing to do with metal, it did make me laugh, and I did forward it to friends. So, enjoy:

And on that note, here’s some stuff we did this week:

• We debuted new music by Chimaira, Cannabis Corpse, and S.O.S.
• We debuted a new music video from Sleeping Giant.
• We got new gear tips from Periphery’s Misha Mansoor and Revocation’s Dan Gargiulo, and we spoke to Michael Amott from Arch Enemy.
• We checked out the latest releases from Decapitated, The Black Dahlia Murder, Limp Bizkit, and Wormrot.
• We pondered a world in which concertgoers can’t film shows with their iPhones.
• We marveled that anyone finds Tosh.0 to be funny.
• We wondered which deathcore frontman has the best tattoos.
• We found the worst line-up for a festival ever.
• We chose our favorite extras from the new Annotations of an Autopsy video.
• We broke the bad news that vocalist Chris Clancy and keyboardist Drew Stavola are both out of Mutiny Within.

You’ve got one more week with me and me alone before Vince comes back. Deal with it, fuckers.

See ya Monday.

-AR

Is it possible to judge Carnival is Forever, the new Decapitated album, solely on its own merits, and not by the events leading up to its inception? Yes and no. Yes, in that it’s a killer metal album with nothing but top-shelf, groovy tech-death riffs one after another (seriously, it gets a little absurd after a while). But no, in that one can’t help but wonder in the album’s more ruminative moments if guitarist Vogg is reaching tendrils out to his audience, expressing a deep sadness in losing two-thirds of the permanent lineup of the band he founded in his teens, including the death of his brother, beloved and influential drummer Vitek. Whether or not a black veil is lowered over the album is beside the point; it’s there from our point of view.

But this isn’t a funereal affair in the slightest, and the band doesn’t get lost in angsty navel-gazing. A new Decapitated release that didn’t have the verve and balls of Carnival would be an insult, and Vogg knows that. Even if the record (through no fault of its own, really) runs the risk of being known as the Resurrection Album, he certainly didn’t reform Decapitated with all new guys just to cash in on a traumatized fan base: Carnival is Forever is overflowing with intent and purpose, getting an eyeful of the sun in the shadow of the legacy of the band that made it. Phoenixes and ashes aren’t exclusive to Hate Eternal, after all.

Click to read more…

Of course you do! You love Decapitated, right? And besides, earlier this week, I told you I think it’s one of the best albums of 2011 thus far.

Which is why you should check out the preview below. It’s a very, very small taste of what you’re in for, but in case you doubt that this band is about to pull off a major (and hard earned, to put it mildly) comeback, well, it should be enough to assuage your fears.

Carnival is Forever comes out July 12 on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Thanks: Jon Litz

Alright so we’ve got good news and we’ve got bad news.

The good new is, at long last, Decapitated are getting ready to release a new album. And Vince and I were fortunate enough to hear a couple of songs from this album a few weeks back, and we really, really liked what we heard. We think this band could be coming back in a really, really big way.

The bad news is that the album has a not-terrific title, Carnival is Forever, and some even-less-terrific album art. I know some people thought that the cover for Devin Townsend’s Deconstruction looked too nu-metally; I actually think this looks way nu-metallier (this immediately comes to mind). It’s not, like, the worst album art ever, it’s just… you’d envision something way more epic and classically DM for Decapitated’s big return to the scene, right?

But it really doesn’t matter what the album is called, or if they stick a picture of Gene Hoglan naked on the cover, so long as the music rocks. And, again, we have to reserve final judgment until we’ve heard the entire disc, but the two songs we did get to hear were very, very, very promising. So hopefully in a few years we’ll look back at this as “That incredible Decapitated album with the forgettable album art.”

Carnival is Forever comes out July 12 on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Lost in the fracas of new Devin and new Protest and new Scale the Summit and new this and that and the other thing is the fact that the mighty Decapitated are recording a new album with an expected release date this year. That’s pretty significant methinks, no? The MS Mansion Monkey in charge of Polish Death Metal has been promptly demoted and revoked his privilege of access to the finest Costa Rican bananas. Bad, Wilfred, bad!

It turns out that recording of the new record is just about done, according to band mastermind Vogg in a recent statement made via SickDrummer.com. Sick Drummer has also debuted footage of new drummer Krimh laying down the brootalz, which you can and should watch here:

While Rafal finishes up vocals and Vogg adds a few solos, Daniel Bergstrand has already begun mixing the record. I’d think we can expect this thing to come out sooner rather than later, then; I can haz br00tal blasts this summer plz?

-VN