MetalSucks

Shortly after the band finished their mind-bending set opening for The Black Dahlia Murder, Testament and Children of Bodom at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom, I had the chance to talk with Between the Buried and Me singer Tommy Rogers and bassist Dan Briggs. The guys spoke about the band’s new DVD Colors Live, their rigorous touring schedule in support of Colors, sharing the stage with their heroes in Dream Theater on the summer’s Prog Nation tour, and what the next Between the Buried and Me record is going to sound like. The full interview transcript, after the jump.

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Before Meshuggah was Meshuggah-ing and mind-fucking the feeble confines of what was rhythmically acceptable to our once feeble metal minds, Dream Theater was pushing the boundaries of mind-fuckery with their crushing masterpiece “The Mirror” on their 1994 album Awake. The section in question is the first minute of the song and the verses, in which John Petrucci plays the same simple chugga-chug pattern throughout while Mike Portnoy constantly changes the rhythm beneath. I think that’s called a polyrhythm (but I could be wrong). Get really stoned and try to wrap your head around this one… it ain’t easy.

Dream Theater – “The Mirror” (Awake)

“The Mirror” was way ahead of its time; it also is probably the heaviest Dream Theater song to date, or was at least until Train of Thought came out. Regardless, it fuckin’ kills. Enjoy.

-VN

No… no, there isn’t. Even in those rare moments when he’s just playing a simple beat he’s so deep in the pocket it’s fucking ridiculous.

Apparently this comes from a DVD called Drums of Thought, which features Mike’s Drum-cam footage from Dream Theater’s Train of Thought recording sessions.

-VN

In the spirit of our infamous Cripple on Cripple and Beard on Beard interviews (with Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman and Killswitch Engage’s Justin Foley, respectively), we here at the MetalSucks School of Rabbinical Studies would like to introduce a new feature we hope will be ongoing but fear won’t, due to the, err… somewhat limited pool of jews in metal. Our first target was Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy, a Long Island jew if ever there was one; dude flat out denied the interview request. Feh. Thankfully Eyal Levi from Daath was there to save the day like Moses parting the Red Sea. Eyal, ever the mensch, was even so kind as to bless us with an mp3 of Daath’s brand new song “Sharpen the Blades” from their new album The Concealers, which should hit stores some time in ‘09. After the jump, read my [Jewish] exchange with Eyal and download the new track for the price of a mouse click.

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Watch ex-Necrophagist drummer Marco Minnemann go nuts on the kit. Sick. As in both “holy shit is this guy amazing” and “the quick camera cuts and pans are making my stomach ill (more feet and hand closeups please!).” But still… This ought to be enough to make any aspiring drummers in the MS readership consider putting down the sticks for good, the way I get all depressed and never want to touch my guitar again every time I see John Petrucci play live.

-VN

[Thanks: Jess Z.]

Guitar Hero III featured Slash and Tom Morello as bosses and pretty much used Slash as the entire basis of the video game’s ad campaign; I guess now it’s Zakk Wylde’s turn, as the Ozzy/Black Label Society axemaster is now being featured in a trailer for Guitar Hero World Tour, which will be released on October 26.

Oddly enough, while there’s a BLS song in the game, Wylde played on neither of the original recordings of the included Ozzy songs, “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley.” I don’t know if they’ll be using re-recorded versions featuring Wylde for the purposes of the game or if they’re just depending on Guitar Hero’s younger (read: target) audience not know the difference between Wylde and Randy Rhodes.

In any case, here’s the trailer:

As is usually the case with Guitar Hero, there’s a whole lotta metal included in this edition’s “set list,” including three Tool songs and offerings by Metallica, Van Halen, System of a Down, Dream Theater and Lacuna Coil. Should be fun if you like these rhythm games.

-AR

And I mean that in absolutely the most loving, adoring, fan-boy way possible. Watching three members of Dream Theater (Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess) and the indomitable Tony Levin (bass, ex-King Crimson) play two solid hours of instrumental, mind-fucking, skull-bending, so-good-I-may-as-well-never-touch-an-instrument-again prog metal was a true treat. To see these masters of their fields up close in such a relatively small venue was an honor. All the people in attendance — check that, there were about 2 women there. all the DUDES in attendance — couldn’t help but be utterly fascinated and fixated on the always impressive but never pretentious top-flight musicians on the stage. It was truly a sight to behold.

What’s fun about side projects like Liquid Tension Experiment is that they allow the musicians to really stretch out and have fun beyond what they’re obligated to play with their “day job” bands. Playing “Metropolis” for the 1567th time has got to lose it’s luster, and I’d imagine the members of Dream Theater that comprise LTE look forward to getting together to play other material. What’s more, they don’t even have to worry about a singer or writing real songs — just pure, musical, unadulterated bliss, a pleasure in which they mightily indulged last night. This kind of wankery would never fly for a primary band, but for a side project that hasn’t been touched in 10 years it works out perfectly.

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Well, not for lack of tryin’, but no one got last week’s logo, which belongs to an outfit called Slam-O-Ram-A. Several of you did e-mail me, however, to ask if the logo was just a total joke – which, apparently, it is not.

So. Let’s try this again:

This week, the fine men and women at Roadrunner Records have bestowed upon us three copies of Dream Theater’s latest offering, Systematic Chaos, to give away. All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail with your answer, your name and address at axl [at] metalsucks.net. We’ll randomly select three winners from everyone who gets it right, and announce their name next Monday.

This week’s logo comes to us from MetalSucks reader Mark Moritz-Rabson, who won two weeks in a row, so he knows from completely unreadable band logos. Good luck, and may the force be with you.

-AR

Judging by the massive success of the inaugural 2008 edition of Progressive Nation, Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy has already declared in a statement that he plans on resurrecting Progressive Nation for a 2009 edition “with a great list of bands that I am already considering.” Which is great news to us, because this year’s lineup of DT, Opeth, Between the Buried and Me and Three was fucking stellar. Allow me to make some suggestions to Mr. Portnoy for the 2009 run that have no basis in reality whatsoever:

• Protest the Hero
• Textures
• Sikth (bring ‘em back from the dead!)
• Arsis
• Dillinger Escape Plan

Anyway, back to reality: Portnoy also said the band plans to release a DVD later this year and that he aims to be working on a new album towards the end of the year (”when the kids return to school in September”).

Here’s a recent interview from Metal Injection with keyboardist Jordan Rudess, filmed at the first night of the Prog Nation stop in NYC.

-VN

First thing’s first: let’s all take a sec to pat MetalSucks readers Mike Harmon and Mark Moritz-Rabson on the back. They correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to Lapidate. That was a hard one, and for their efforts, Mike and Mark (who is winning for the second week in a row – somebody stop this dude!) each win a copy of The Best of Obituary. Congrats, kids.

This week, the fine men and women at Roadrunner Records have bestowed upon us three copies of Dream Theater’s latest offering, Systematic Chaos, to give away. Vince, Kip and I all saw Dream Theater live last week, and it was nothing short of a religious experience, so trust me when I tell you that you want a copy of this album.

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail with your answer, your name and address at axl [at] metalsucks.net. We’ll randomly select three winners from everyone who gets it right, and announce their name on Monday (our new day for Unreadable Band Logo!).

This week’s logo comes to us from MetalSucks reader vitruvianApe, and it’s a fucking doozy. So good luck, everyone. You’re gonna need it.

-AR

The 5-man “drum off” in the middle of Dream Theater’s headlining set — at the first night of the Progressive Nation tour in NYC — was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen all year. Axl, Kip and I watched, stunned (and stoned), as the 5 drummers for each of the bands traded places, often two at a time at Mike Portnoy’s behemoth drum kit, in a maelstrom of drummers each amazing in their own right, trying to outdo one another. At a show where musicianship was the focus it stood out as the climax amidst amazing sets by Three, Between the Buried and Me, Opeth and Dream Theater, at a tour that lived up to its billing as one of the best touring lineups of 2008.

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Who’s psyched to see 4 incredible bands wank on their instrument all night long at the Progressive Nation Tour tonight featuring Dream Theater, Opeth, Three and Between the Buried and Me?

THIS GUY RIGHT HERE!!

Axl, Kip and myself will be at tonight’s show at Terminal 5 in NYC. Will you? Come say hello. I’ll be the dude in the Insomnium t-shirt and have a rather large beard, Axl has glasses and a neatly coiffed chin-strap beard, and Kip is taller than both of us and has blondish hair despite his Semitic ancestry. We’ll be the three dudes masturbating simultaneously to John Petrucci’s guitar solos.

And of course tomorrow we’ll be clad in our finest Viking helmets, steins raised high in the air at the final stop of the MetalSucks co-sponsored Paganfest (minus Kip).

It’s a fucking great week to be a metal fan in NYC.

-VN

The Progressive Nation tour hits New York City for two sold-out dates at the relatively intimate Terminal 5 next week, and we are beyond psyched. We’ve been talking about this damn tour since November for chrissakes, well before dates were announced.

A lot of folks I know that are going to Progressive Nation are least excited about the tour’s headliner, the mighty Dream Theater (the tour also features Opeth, Three, and Between the Buried and Me). To thee I say, you guys are fucking fools. Get over the need to prove yourself br00tal and enjoy one of the best, most enduring, and talented progressive metal bands of all time.

Take their cover of Pantera’s “Cemetery Gates,” featuring a battery of guest musicians and a Mega-special guest solo. What other band would choose this Pantera song as their homage? Few could even pull it off, let alone with this degree of awesomeness.

-VN

Aletheian can certainly play their instruments, and there are some pretty cool musical passages on their Ironclad Recordings / Metal Blade debut Dying Vine, out today — but unfortunately their musical ambitions end up being like a gun to the foot. To be sure, the seeming ease at which these four dudes have honed their crafts is pretty impressive; The Pennsylvania-based quartet work their way around a progressive death metal shell, weaving in elements of melodeath, progressive metal, and classic metal into their multi-pronged attack. But despite the quality of the ingredients, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 ends up equaling something less than four as Dying Vine — which was independently recorded and released in 2005 — falls short in the songs department. The album ends up being a somewhat tedious 40-minute listen, as each of the ten songs suffers from a severe case of ADD that makes it rather difficult to pinpoint any of them as standouts. I totally “get” the idea of not being bound by writing within a traditional song-structure, but the specific way Aletheian have chosen to defy convention is ultimately to their detriment as there is neither much of anything to latch onto or any groundbreaking, new ideas. Some moments offer promise; the solo in “Open Grave,” middle section of “Call to Arms” and Opethian classical acoustics of “How Could I” (among other songs), but those moments are fleeting and far between. Where bands like Opeth and Dream Theater have done this with great success, as have bands like At the Gates and Death on the other side of the coin — all of whom have no doubt influenced Aletheian — Dying Vine just doesn’t hit the right balance and ends up a frustrating, wandering trip in a large, expansive metropolis.

-VN

(one and a half out of five horns)

[Aletheian on MySpace]

And he wants to make sure you know that.

-VN

[Thanks to whoever sent this in - I forget, sorry.]

This is another one of those “jesus christ, the Internet is amazing” moments (Thanks to MetalSucks reader Leo L. for the tip). Yes, there is actually a website called MetalMommies.com, and yes, it’s for moms who like metal and was started by a mom who, oddly enough, loves metal (from Mommyville, New Jersey. Where else?). And though the forum has a whopping total of 28 posts, I’d imagine that once metal mommies worldwide get wind of this site they’ll be well on their way to rocking the cradle. From the mission statement on the Metal Mommies MySpace page:

Life changed 3 years ago when my daughter was born. I met tons of other mom’s [sic] but none of them were really like me. I am a fan of metal! I decided to start Metal Mommies so other mom’s [sic] like me could have an online community. A community where you can talk about your love of metal music but also talk about your kids. The website is in the works. I am planning on a April 1, 2008 launch date. I will keep you all posted.

That says it all, doesn’t it? Stay tuned for the prospective May launch of Metal Daddies, hosted by infamous MetalSucks commenter Sammy. It’ll be like a Dream Theater show; all sausages.

-VN

The good denizens over at Metal Injection just released an interview and live footage of Between the Buried and Me. Though the Internet hype-it-then-forget cycle may have already chewed up and spit out BTBAM, we sure haven’t; Colors was one of the most exciting and impressive records of 2008. In the interview the band talks about dressing up like rednecks on Halloween, the shit-tastic guitar tone on Alaska, their side-project Plant Vochestra and a slew of other topics. Tommy Rogers farts into the microphone in his latest attempt at avant-garde art. And it’s all intercut with awesome live footage of the band playing in NYC.

Psyched for the Progressive Nation Tour with Dream Theater, Opeth, Between the Buried and Me and Three yet? We are.

-VN

Another fine metal Tuesday of new releases is upon us.

The most talked-about release today is In Flames’ controversial new album A Sense of Purpose. Does it represent a step towards current trends or the next logical evolution of the band? Read Vince’s Sunday Spotlight feature on In Flames for a career retrospective of the band up until this point.

Sevendust release their seventh record Chapter VII: Hope & Sorrow today, less than a week after announcing the return of original guitarist Clint Lowery, making this album kind of irrelevant. It’s the third Clint-less album, and hence the third to sound exactly the same. But it’s Sevendust, and there are a few gems within. Read Vince’s long review and short review.

Dream Theater release the aptly titled Greatest Hit and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs 2-disc retrospective set. Ironically, the one “greatest hit” has been remixed and robbed of its originality.

Retro-Sabbathian metallers The Sword release their new one Gods of the Earth today; Kip W. will have a full review shortly, but preliminary reactions have been so-so.

Elsewhere, Ministry finally release their covers album Cover Up after embarking on their farewell C U LaTour with Meshuggah. Apparently Joe Satriani has a new album out, and though we haven’t heard it we’re pretty sure we know what it sounds like. And experimental art metallers Nadja have a new one too; color me interested to hear it.

So hit your local record store (at least one city, Seattle, still has an awesome one called Everyday Music that I visited this weekend), iTunes, or your favorite torrent legal music download service and get these new jams.

Dream Theater have a “best of” album of sorts coming out on April 1st entitled Greatest Hit and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs. The title, of course, is a nod to the fact that the band really only ever had one song that could even loosely qualify as a hit, the classic “Pull Me Under” from 1992’s Images & Words. So it certainly comes as a surprise that the band went out of their way to re-mix perhaps the most important track of their entire career for inclusion with this two-disc set.

The remixed version of “Pull Me Under” basically amounts to a de-’80s-ification, but the end effect is that all of the life and character of the original mix have been sucked out. The first thing that jumps out at you is that the keyboards in the intro (and elsewhere) now sound completely lifeless and devoid of character. Worst of all, that trademark reverbed snare has been de-reverbed — or even sound-replaced, god forbid — robbing the recording of the life and character the original had. Petrucci’s guitars sound clearer and crisper and James LaBrie’s voice sounds better too, but it’s hard to care given this song basically sounds nothing like it once did.

What the fuck? Why mess with the original? I understand the band probably resented the ‘80s sound of the whole thing, but you can’t re-write history, and those dated old nuances are endearing to me. In short; this mix is fucked. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if you’re going out of your way to tout this song as your “Greatest Hit” sure as hell don’t go altering it, because this is not the song that was a hit in the first place.

Listen to the re-mixed version of “Pull Me Under” at the Rhino website, or listen below.

Dream Theater – “Pull me Under” (remix)

-VN

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.

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