MetalSucks

The MetalSucks sponsored Night Eternal Above America Tour featuring Moonspell, Divine Heresy and Secrets of the Moon launched yesterday in Tampa, FL and will be winding its way through the US until November 6th in San Antonio. We’re bummed that Book of Black Earth had to drop off the tour but there’s still a solid lineup in place. Who knows, you may even be able to see Dino eat a baby!

Full list of tour dates and venues after the jump. Please note that the October 31st show in San Marcos, CA has been moved to the Ramona Mainstage in Ramona, CA, despite what the above poster says.

Click to read more…

Why oh why are By Any Means Necessary still unsigned? Their three-song demo/EP or whatever rocked. I know they’re young, but so are half the bands out there right now. And most of them aren’t as good as BAMN (there’s an awesome abbreviation if ever there was one).

Hopefully this news will lead to good things, though: the band will be playing support for Divine Heresy and Gigan (featuring former members of Hate Eternal) on six tour dates next month. I’ve still never seen this band live, but if their shows are as good as their songs, I’d wager it’ll be a lot of fun – way more fun that, say, Divine Heresy.

By Any Means Necessary recently completed tracking for their new EP and are currently mixing those songs. Hopefully we’ll more updates on that soon; in the meantime, get tour dates after the jump, and please check these guys out if you can.

Click to read more…

I’m not just speaking in the general sense. I mean, in this video, he announces “I’ve got something for all you,” then lets one rip.

What do you think that smelled like? I’d guess half-digested babies.

-AR

Thanks to Manfred Nuggets for the link.

I don’t know if Willie Gardner is officially associated with a band known as The Douche Lords or not, but he has their name in his e-mail address and sent me a link to the band’s MySpace page this morning.

Why is this band of interest? As it turns out, they were Dino Cazares’ first band (In case ya haven’t figured it out by now, that’s Dino above).

Click to read more…

I’ve gotten a few e-mails today from people asking me where Vince is. Well, the truth is, Vince can’t write because he’s ill. And he’s quitting the site. No, really, he quit. We didn’t fire him. Swear it. We stand by that statement.

Here’s some other shit that happened in the world of metal this week:

• We’ve heard the new Alice in Chains album, and it is good.
• Gwar’s Oderus Urungus answered some of your questions, and will answer more in the future.
• John Bush is coming back to Anthrax because Dan Nelson quit. Oh, wait, no he didn’t. Yes he did. He probably didn’t, though.
• We spoke with Poison the Well’s Ryan Primack and Sunn O)))’s Greg Anderson.
• We checked out the latest releases from He Is Legend, Magrudergrind, Novembers Doom, and Clutch.
• Unfortunately, the 10th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos really is a real thing.
• Baby-eater Dino Cazares must be stopped!!!

Alright. Time to go buy a vaporizer of my very own. See ya Monday.

-AR

Divine Heresy get a lot of somewhat undeserved hate: calling the band out for not being very good would be like calling this writer out for not hitting .458 for the Dodgers. This isn’t to say that the band necessarily deserve defense; in fact, I can’t imagine a solid argument for their existence. But their brand of technical nu-deathcore works surprisingly well, in that it’s not so much awful as it is awfully bland. And while perhaps it’s not fair to commend a band for not being as terrible as they could be, it’s not fair to decry them for not being amazing. If you were expecting them to be a slightly edgier Fear Factory, Bringer of Plagues, their latest album, delivers exactly what you’d think: 42 minutes (strangely enough, to the second) of surgically precise mechanical riffs, big yet terribly obvious grooves, pretty bad nu-metalcore vocals, and nothing particularly memorable.

Click to read more…

“Will someone please tell Dino that his lunch has arrived?”

Holy shit. This is officially my favorite feud of the year.

Click to read more…

I was never a big Fear Factory person so someone please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but did anyone ever really care about any of the members of that band who weren’t Burton C. Bell or Dino Cazares?

I ask because after about a year of speculation that the original Factory would be reuniting, it’s been announced that, yes, Bell and Cazares will now be working together again – but as a new band with a different, still to be determined name.

Click to read more…

Ponder the Freudian nature of Metallica’s new album artwork as you grill hot dogs this weekend. I know I will. Here are the key headlines from the week:

• Very old Italian friar fronts a metal band, makes most of today’s scene kids look like pussies.
• Metallica released the album artwork for Death Magnetic, which in fact does look just like a hairy old vagina.
• Whitechapel’s new record scanned over 5,000 units in its first week of release… zuh??
• We launched a new mini site-redesign. (BIG ups to our pals at Metal Injection for their help!)
• Tommy Vext and Dino Cazares scuffle backstage at a show; Dino’s wife gets caught in the crossfire and receives some wicked bruises.
• The Haunted’s Peter Dolving blogs for MetalSucks.
• Jucifer gets booted from the stage at a Brooklyn show.
• Snot get back together, hiring Tommy Vext to fill the shoes of the late Lynn Strait. No word about who will fill the shoes of Lynn Strait’s dog.

I know we’re a bit late on this, but this is just the kind of low-brow, tabloid shit we thrive on and I just can’t resist! Adding fuel to the fire that has been the ongoing feud between Dino Cazares (ex-Fear Factory) and now ex-Divine Heresy singer Tommy “Vext” Cummings (now in the recently reunited Snot), Cummings apparently attacked Dino and has wife backstage at the Rockstar Mayhem Fest this past weekend. According to the MySpace blog of Mrs. Cazares: [sent in to us by Noah Skape, among other readers]:

Last night @ The Metal Mayhem Festival, Having a great time with awesome friends backstage. Out of no where comes a beer and fist straight to my face (so horrifying and painful) that…..somebody (Tommy Vext). He has my husband by the hair (it all was so sudden) next thing you know the live nation guards pushed us all over stopping everything and it took several guards to take Tommy down, they took him down and he hit his head on the ground cutting his head open, and even then he was still pulling my husband’s hair, and not letting go.

Click to read more…

Back in April, I bemoaned the inevitably of a Snot reunion, and a whole bunch of you came to the group’s defense. So while I weep, you can all rejoice: guitarists Mikey Doling and Sonny Mayo (who is in need of some cash after getting his Sevendust pink slip), drummer Jamie Miller and bassist John “Tumor” Fahnestock (worst nickname this side of “Shit Stain”) are reuniting under the Snot moniker for two shows later this year, presumably with more to follow. I’d tell you about those two announced shows, but I don’t want you to go. I’m petty like that. Click to read more…

According to the “status” post on Fear Factory’s MySpace, the band will have a “New Album and World Tour in 2009!”

I guess this was inevitable, despite Burton C. Bell’s claims when we interviewed him a few months back that he doesn’t even like metal. Whatwith the Divine Heresy soap opera, the relative failure (commercially) of Bell’s Ascension of the Watchers, the rest of the dudes doing God knows what, and reports of Burton and Dino kissing and making nice at a show in LA a few weeks ago (I can’t find the source, but I remember reading that they chatted), the time seems ripe for an FF reunion.* I’d think there will be plenty of interest too, judging by the fervency of Fear Factory fans who comment on our site.

-VN

*After I published this article, Axl pointed out to me that this news does not necessarily mean that Dino is back in the band. Good point.

It’s been a rough, rough week for the fellas of Divine Heresy. First, as Axl reported on Tuesday, there was an altercation over the weekend at the band’s show in Poughkeepsie, NY the night before New England Metalfest, in which a shoving match ensued on-stage between vocalist Tommy “Vext” Cummings and guitarist Dino Cazares. Iann Robinson of None Louder reported:

“From what was being spread around the monitors were out and vocalist Tommy Vext couldn’t hear himself. After eight songs and fearing his voice might blow Vext requested the band cut the set short. Ex-Fear Factory member Dino Cazares shoved Vext and a physical altercation ensued. As far as we know the band is no more but that could change.”

The band subsequently canceled their appearance at Metalfest. Yesterday Cazares issued a statement through Headbanger’s Blog about the fight:

“He gave us 10 different reasons why we should stop — ‘My microphone doesn’t work, I got diarrhea, the monitors are f–ked up’ — whatever he could think of… And we decided that’s not fair to the fans. We wanted to give them a full show. We felt that he wanted to end the show early to go hang out at the New England Metal Fest, which we were supposed to be performing at the next day.”

Cazares also announced Cummings’ dismissal from the band and that the band was holding auditions for a new singer. The most recent twist is a video response from Tommy himself through Metal Injection. In the 8:45 minute exposition, Cummings explains the situation with the monitors, the altercation, and had this nugget to say:

“I’ve been suffering the indignities of Dino’s massive ego for as long as I’ve worked with him, and unfortunately everything I’ve heard about him had eventually come to fruition, and he is exactly as he’s been portrayed as by his ex-band members. And this happening now is the same reason why he’s not in Fear Factory anymore. It was a stepping stone in my life and I’m moving on.”

Soap opera time! It’s funny how years ago this would have all taken place through the press over a series of weeks or months, but now it happens in a matter of days with the wonders of the Interwebs. He goes on to say “It was the Dino Cazares show” and that he verbally and physically pushed members of the band around.

Watch Tommy’s full video response after the jump.

Click to read more…

Iann Robinson at None Louder is reporting that Divine Heresy broke-up on stage at this past weekend’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival:

“From what was being spread around the monitors were out and vocalist Tommy Vext couldn’t hear himself. After eight songs and fearing his voice might blow Vext requested the band cut the set short. Ex-Fear Factory member Dino Cazares shoved Vext and a physical altercation ensued. As far as we know the band is no more but that could change.”

There’s been no official statement from the band or their label, and everything looks hunky dory on the band’s MySpace page; still, we consider Robinson a very reliable source, so I’m inclined to believe that this is real.

I’m sure that Fear Factory fans will celebrate this news as evidence that a full-on FF reunion is in the works (especially after Dino was spotted hanging out with Burton C. Bell a few weeks ago). Still, even if Divine Heresy were to break up, I’d hope it would be in a somewhat more amicable manner than this; when we interviewed the band back in November, they seemed like genuinely nice dudes who were really enjoying working together, and for former bouncer/security guard Vext, getting to front Dino’s new band must have seemed like winning the lottery.

Divine Heresy are suppposed to kick off their next U.S. tour May 9 in Philly; presumably we’ll get some kind of official word before then.

-AR

Gotta love these cool package tours. As you may have heard by now, Arch Enemy will be doing a North American headlining run in the spring, and if the chance to see these cats live isn’t enough to get you excited, well, they’ve thrown in melodic death metal heavyweights Dark Tranquillity, Dino Cazares’ Divine Heresy (read our interview with the band here), and one of our favorite power metal acts, Firewind. In other words, this is going to be an awesome show.Check out a complete tour itinerary after the jump.

Click to read more…

At some point, I would really love it if someone could explain to me what makes the Japanese so fucking special that they always get extra tracks with their album releases. Since I was a kid, I was perpetually aware that Japanese albums are superior to American ones, because they always have extra music on them. What’s the fucking deal?

ANYWAY, Divine Heresy are one of the many, many, many bands that have a bonus track on the Japanese version of their release, Bleed the Fifth, that was not released here in the States. Luckily for all the Dino Cazares fans out there, the band is now streaming the track, the typically upbeat monikered “Purity Defiled,” which means it’s only a matter of time until someone rips it into mp3 format, thus allowing all the group’s non-Japanese fans to have it on their iPods, too.

And while we’re on the topic: don’t forget to check out our interview with Divine Heresy. ‘Cause we did an awesome job, if I do so say so myself.

-AR

As the founding guitarist in Fear Factory, Dino Cazares became one of the most influential and important figures in metal in the 90s. By the time FF split up in 2002 (and later re-formed without him), he’d also developed a passionate following for his death/grind side project, Brujeria, and, later, Asesino. Little wonder, then, that such a popular, diverse talent should be hand-picked by Monte Connor to be a “team captain” for the all-star Roadrunner United project in 2005, and his almost surprisingly poppy power ballad, the Matt Heafy sung “The End,” became that album’s first and only single and a surprise hit.

Now the tireless Cazares is back with Divine Heresy, a band that combines the sheer brutality of Brujeria with the more mainstream instincts of Fear Factory. Formed with super drummer Tim Yeung (ex-Hate Eternal, Vital Remains) and featuring newcomer Tommy Vext (né Tommy Cummings) on vocals, the band released their debut album, Bleed the Fifth, earlier this year to critical acclaim. Adding ex-Nile bassist Joe Payne to the fold for their live show, the band has begun the process of bringing the message to the people via tireless touring. Axl and Vince recently sat down with Cazares, Yeung, and, later, Payne to discuss Bleed the Fifth, the baggage of fans’ expectations when coming off such popular previous bands, and DH’s current tour supporting Chimaira alongside Kataklysm and Terror.

Oh, and by the way – Dino told us to use that headline.

Click to read more…

Just a few hours before Chimaira hit the stage for the second date of their current tour, guitarist Rob Arnold was telling us* that the first night in Norfolk, VA had been plagued with technical difficulties, and that the ensuing show was, as a result, “terrible.” The poor dude must’ve been pissed then, when literally two notes into the first song of Chimaira’s set, the fire alarms at the Blender Theater (a.k.a. The Gramercy) here in NYC went off and shut down the band’s entire show before it even got started.

Rob can take comfort knowing that once said alarms were fixed and the concert resumed, Chimaira – the last band on an exhausting, exhilarating bill that also included Canadian thrashers Kataklysm, hardcore superstars Terror and Dino Cazares’ latest project, Divine Heresy – absolutely destroyed, playing a blistering ninety minute set that proved yet again that this band is one of the most effective, vicious live acts of their generation.

Click to read more…