MetalSucks

In what’s become one of the most amusing metal soap operas since Axl vs. Weiland ‘07, Dillinger Escape Plan (presumably guitarist Ben Weinman) fired back at Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan after the two engaged in a war of words through the press a couple of weeks back (read Axl’s recap here for some hearty amusement). From the DEP MySpace blog:

The guitar player Dom Deluise or whatever his name is with the little peen complex from that band Disturbia or whatever they’re called thinks that we care about them. Old news, but still funny. Check it. “My Ferrari is better than your Honda!!! Our stages come apart and travel with us and yours don’t!!! We have thirty guitar techs and you have one!”. Coooool self esteem barometer douchebag. Wait…what’s that I hear? The sound of your band still sucking? Oh, right. Gotcha there, bud.

While the “we don’t care about them” bit always rings a bit hollow (after all, you’re writing about them… so you care. duh.), I can’t help but think this is mostly designed as a way to bait Dan Donegan (Dom Deluise!) into making more ridiculous statements. Take the bait, Dan! Take it!

-VN

There’s something inherently odd and funny about a bunch of tattooed metal dudes being all lovey-dovey with animals. Which makes the dudes in Dillinger Escape Plan all that much cooler for professing their love of animals and doing exactly that. The band members have been vocal in the past about their support of PETA and the fact that most (or all?) of them are vegetarians or vegans, and they recently shot an ad spot for PETA2’s “Angels for Animals” campaign, which you can watch below.

Animals are M E T A L.

-VN

See more from the Dillinger Escape Plan
at peta2.com

Long before the likes of Dillinger Escape Plan and All Shall Perish were doing it, Cinderella made spinning your guitar around your back cool. Ah, who am I kidding, it always was, still is, and will always be cool. As is having Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora do a cameo in your video.

If only someone had told my 10 year-old self that you need a wireless unit to perform the guitar spinning trick correctly, I would’ve been spared much befuddlement and wire tangles as a youth.

-VN

[Thanks to MetalSucks die-hard TTquick for the tip.]

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This review has been incredibly hard for me to sit down and write. Finally forcing myself to do so, I sat my ass down, pressed play on Protest the Hero’s latest album Fortress, and just sat listening without typing a word until halfway through the second song. Oh, I’ve listened to the whole album at least 10 times, probably more, all the way through. But Fortress is just so genre-defying, so outside the box, so off the wall, so virtuosic, progressive, heavy and melodic… us journalist types get all in a tizzy because we don’t know how to describe what Protest the Hero do. So let me start by describing it this way; fucking awesome. Protest the Hero incorporate every element of heavy music that I look for in a band while forging ahead in a direction completely their own, and Fortress is the strongest work to date of their young career making it an easy early contender for best metal album of 2008.

Click to read more…

With the amount of e-ink we’ve been giving Protest the Hero and Dillinger Escape Plan lately, not to mention “MetalSucks proverbial wet dream” Sikth, the young
Mukilteo, Washington 3-piece Fall of Troy really ought to be mentioned in the same breath. Fall of Troy are as good an example of the burgeoning post-prog-metal — or is it prog-post-metal? — genre, combining a post-punk attitude with metal grit, lofty arrangements and dazzling musical ability. Guitarist Thomas Erak artfully fretboard-taps up a storm, sharing vocals with bassist Frank Black (no, not that Frank Black), who alternate between melodious sung passages reminiscent of At the Drive In’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala and screamed vocals that actually sound, you know, yelled, not like a trained diaphragm technique version of a growl. The band changes it up constantly with drummer Andrew Forsman leading the way, weaving in and out of melody and dissonance, from one time-signature to the next. While eschewing the tired cliches of guitar chugga-chugga and my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours growling, Fall of Troy have managed to create something incredibly artful, progressive, and heavy all at the same time.

Fall of Troy’s most recent release Manipulator dropped in 2007 on Equal Vision Records. Here’s their video for “Ex-Creations”:

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[Fall of Troy on MySpace]

-VN

Dillinger Escape Plan have released the new video for the Faith No More-esque song “Milk Lizard” from their recent album Ire Works. The video was shot a day after guitarist Ben Weinman broke his foot while shooting the video for “Black Bubblegum,” but from the way he rocks out in this video, you’d never know he rolled up to the shoot in a wheelchair (check out Kip’s hilarious interview with Ben Weinman about his broken foot and why God hates the Jews.). As expected, this is a very creative video from a very creative bunch of dudes.

-VN

At the Drive In, Dillinger Escape Plan, Between the Buried and Me… Protest the Hero. If that doesn’t satisfy the art-metal snobs amongst you, then I highly recommend you get that stick out of your ass, pronto. Protest the Hero is a talented bunch, and if the first single “Bloodmeat” is any indication, their new album Fortress is going to be one hell of a beautifully crafty and brutal roller-coaster ride. Think also: new MetalSucks darlings Sikth.

Check out the video below for their first single “Bloodmeat,” (the best part: no cliche metal video bullshit), and listen to the band’s past work at their MySpace page.

Fortress drops January 29 on Vagrant Records.

-VN

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Remember SiKth, the best band of 2007 that didn’t actually release a record in 2007? Equal parts Meshuggah, Between the Buried and Me, Porcupine Tree, Dillinger Escape Plan and Tool, SiKth are really the artist’s artist — every single detail of everything has meaning and is thought out completely. Their 2006 release Death of a Dead Day has literally been blowing the minds of everyone I’ve played it for, which is pretty much anyone who lays foot in the MetalSucks Mansion. Yet why has no one in America heard of this U.K.-based prog-metal powerhouse?

Thanks to our boy Frank @ MetalInjection we’ve unearthed some of the band’s music videos and live clips. First, a proper story-telling narrative music video for the album’s first track “Bland Street Bloom,” then a video of live footage from various shows of the song “Flogging Horses,” which shows just how amazing the musicianship is. Word on the street is that the band needs two new singers — can someone get on that ASAP so we can see them live, please? Mmmkay, thanks.

-VN

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HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. Those were the only three words I could manage to conjure immediately following the insanity that was last night’s Dillinger Escape Plan show at the Blender Theatre here in NYC. And rarely has the word “show” so readily applied to a concert. DEP live inhabit a plane somewhere between the brutal, take-no-prisoners all-out-war of Henry Rollins-era Black Flag and the pyro-laden theatricality of Kiss in their prime. Put more simply: YOU HAVE TO GO SEE THIS BAND LIVE.

Click to read more…

Vince and I got to interview Dillinger Escape Plan front man Greg Puciato yesterday (there’ll be a full transcript up later this week), and at some point, the conversation turned the most brutal pits in metal, and Greg mentioned Suicidal Tendencies as being one particularly nightmarish war zone. Now, if a big dude like Greg can get freaked out by a pit – well, you just know it must be wild.

Since it thus occurred to me that Suicidal Tendencies is yet another band we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about around here, I thought perhaps we’d kick our Monday off with their video for “You Can’t Bring Me Down,” ’cause, well, it’s a good anthem to remind you not to off yourself (or any of your co-workers) on yet another shitty start of a shitty work week.

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-AR

Publicists send us shit all the time, and 9 out of 10 times it blows goats but we listen anyway because every now and then there’s that occasional gem that shocks you and makes hours of brain-drilling listening all worth it.. Sikth’s Death of a Dead Day — originally released in 2006 — is that fucking good.

UK-based Sikth’s own brand of progressive metal mixes the breakneck hardcore spazzes and jazz freakouts of Dillinger Escape Plan or Between the Buried and Me, time-warp rhythms of Meshuggah, metallic melody of Dream Theater and bone-crushing breakdowns of Hatebreed all into one neat little package. But the band possesses a sense of songwriting and melody, like their UK prog-metal brethren Porcupine Tree, in which those bands rarely indulge. The musicianship all around is stellar, and vocalist Mikee Goodman shows a surprisingly versatile vocal approach, ranging from singing to screaming, growling, shouting, and everything in between. (According to Sikth’s MySpace page Goodman has moved on and they are searching for a new frontman. Hear that, aspiring vocalists?)

What’s more, the band produced Death of a Dead Day entirely themselves, with a precision mix job coming from Bieler Bros. Records (helmed by Jason Bieler, ex-Saigon Kick!) go-to-guy Matt LaPlant (Nonpoint, Skindred, Burn Season).

Why has no one ever mentioned this band before to me or anyone at the MetalSucks Mansion? This. Record. Fucking. Rules. The #1 sleeper hit of 2007 in my book, even though it was released in June of ‘06. See for yourself, below.

Sikth – “Bland Street Bloom”

Sikth – “Part of the Friction”

-VN

(four out of five horns)

[Visit Sikth on MySpace]

Look: honestly, I’m just not that into mathcore. A lot of it just seems to be too up its own asshole for me. So as a result, like a total jackass, I didn’t listen to Dillinger Escape Plan’s recent release, Ire Works, until this weekend, after I read the January ‘08 issue of Decibel, where the album is named #3 on the magazine’s list of the top 40 albums of the year and J. Bennett – a dependable rock journalist if ever there was one – compares the tracks “Black Bubblegum” and “Milk Lizard” to Faith No More, a.k.a. one of the very best bands of all time.

As a result, I finally sat down and listened to Ire Works.

Then I listened to it again. And again. And again. And again.

Jesus. Fucking. CHRIST. This album is fucking great, dude. And, yeah, some of it sounds like FNM – but it’s never derivative. Mostly, it just makes you wonder how these dudes got it so right when an entire generation of nu metal bands got it so very, very wrong.

Click to read more…

The latest from these mathcore magicians doesn’t hit stores for another two weeks, but, things being what they are these days, the thing has leaked, natch. To be honest, DEP is one of those bands I’ve always known I should probably listen to, but never have. I mean, Mike Patton likes ‘em, so they must be good… right? Anyway, Metal Music For Ever has the album now, so we can both go ahead and listen to it over the weekend and discuss it next week. Sound good?

Ire Works drops November 13 on Relapse.

-AR