MetalSucks

The Faceless’ Planetary Duality was one of our most favoritest albums of 2008, making both Axl’s (#2)and Vince’s (honorable mention) year-end lists. Since its release the band has been touring non-stop opening up for pretty much everyone — Meshuggah/Cynic, Cannibal Corpse, Obscura/Neuraxis, Misery Index, Atheist… these are all tours that have taken The Faceless out as openers over the past year, and that doesn’t even include stuff they’ve done outside the U.S. Jeez! It’s finally time for the band to headline their own tour (or at least co-headline with Dying Fetus), the Planetary Depravity Tour, which starts this Saturday night. If Warbringer are any indication, the scheme of having a young band support every band under the sun in order to build a fanbase can actually work, but I’ll still bet The Faceless camp are just a tad bit nervous to finally headline.

SO. The Faceless have announced via their MySpace page that they’ll be playing Planetary Duality in its entirety every night on the Planetary Depravity Tour:

Click to read more…

Congrats to skoal, the proud new owner of Amon Amarth, Gwar and Ravage CDs from last week’s contest. The winning caption to the photo at right:

“Don’t do it Darth!!!!!! Its the latest plot from Gunface to steal the deathstar!!!!!!!”

MS inside joke for the win! This week we’re giving away two copies of Dying Fetus’ latest CD Descend Into Depravity courtesy the good folks at Relapse Records. Just come up with a funny caption to the below photo [sent in by MS Reader "geddy lee"] and it shall be yours.

Well, the headline pretty much says it all. It was pretty brave (or stupid, I guess, depending on your point of view) for this dude to do this, but you gotta love that everyone goes nuts as soon as he starts headbanging. I assume most of them are applauding the act of doing something so outrageous (at least by high school standards) for a talent show and not the actual music, but, hey, support is support.

-AR

Thanks to our friend Bob for the video!

Luckily for Five Finger Death Punch, being total assholes who completely lack any musical talent isn’t hurting their record sales: their new album, War is the Answer, is apparently going to sell to somewhere between 35,000 – 40,000 copies in its first week of release… and that’s just here in the U.S. That probably sounds like a lot of units moved, and you’re right. It is a lot of fucking units moved. To put it in perspective with the sales of some awesome albums that came out this week…

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Last Tuesday was a huuuuge week for new metal releases. Megadeth, Black Dahlia Murder, Shadows Fall, Living Colour, Dying Fetus, Porcupine Tree, Every Time I Die, Thrice and Ace Frehley all released new albums, and all charted in the Top 200! After the jump, let’s look at where they all ended up.

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“Shepard’s Commandment,” the new video from Dying Fetus, is pretty typical death metal shit. But it’s still totally worth watching. For one thing, the song is pretty good, but also – bassist Sean Beasley finger taps! When was the last time you saw a friggin’ bass player do any tapping? For shame, metal bassists who aren’t Beasley. For shame.

“Shepard’s Commandment” comes of Dying Fetus’ new album, Descend into Depravity, which is out now on Relapse.

-AR

You would think that the new album from a band called Dying Fetus would have funnier song titles. I’m not judging their music, mind you. Nor am I disregarding the fact that a few thousand thirteen year old boys are about to actually go pull the dictionary off their parents’ shelves so they can look up words like “coercion” and “insurrection.” (I imagine that pretty much every kid immediately understands the basic concept behind “Fucked with a Knife.”) I’m just surprised that a band with such a vivid moniker doesn’t trade in songs called “Montezuma’s Revenge in Your Eye Sockets” or “Disgorged from My Dick” or whatever.

So. Funny song titles or no, Dying Fetus have a new album coming out this Tuesday on Relapse. It’s called Descend into Depravity, and it’s streaming, in full, right now. So once you’ve listened to Endgame a few dozen times and you’re ready for something new, head over here to stream the record. It’s very heavy, pretty traditional American death metal. It’ll put hair on your chest.

-AR

I listened to The Infection over the weekend for the first time in a little while. Guess what? Still kills. I can’t wait to see some of this shit played live.

Here’s a not-so-great quality bootleg of the band playing the first cut off the album, “The Venom Inside.” As Vince says, “This song just makes me happy.” What a killer way to open the show. Sounds like the crowd is almost as loud as Mark Hunter.

Friendly reminder: Chimaira are on tour right now with Hatebreed, Dying Fetus, Toxic Holocaust and Winds of Plague. Then they head to Europe in September with Unearth, Throwdown, and our friends in Daath. You can get all the tour dates here.

-AR

Here’s a neat little widget with the cover art and some new music from Dying Fetus’ forthcoming Descend into Depravity. The album comes out September 15 on Relapse. I can’t guarantee it will be better than Max Payne the video game, but I can guarantee it will be much better than Max Payne the movie.

-AR

Darkest Hour are currently out on the road doing the MetalSucks co-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour, and they’re doing a video tour diary for our gay lovers at Metal Injection. Check it out below.

It’s good to see that Lonestar is growing his mega-beard back. It’s also good to see his package.

ANYWAY, I’ve seen enough of the touring lifestyle to know that I don’t ever want to go on tour. But then again, it looks like these dudes are having so much fun…

Look for more Darkest Hour tour diaries at Metal Injection throughout the rest of the summer. And you can Summer Slaughter tour dates here. In addition to Darkest Hour you get Suffocation, Necrophagist, Ensiferum, Dying Fetus, Origin, Born of Osiris, Winds of Plague, and a bunch of other cool bands, so definitely check it out!!!

-AR

Well, it’s, like, totally summer now. The girls here in New York are dressed like whores, regardless of whether or not they have the bodies for it. It smells like dog shit and hot garbage everywhere you go, unless you go to New Jersey, where the air will just kill you anyway. The bars are unnecessarily crowded, so everyone with rooftop access and half a brain is just getting drunk someplace real fuckin’ dangerous to be drunk at. There’s a lot of total shit at the cinemas (X-Men Origins: Fuck You, Terminator Rape Your Face, Night at the Shit in Your Dead Mother’s Mouth 2) and some fun shit, too (Drag Me to Hell, The Hangover, Up. Yeah, Pixar, bitches.). There won’t be any new L O S T until like 2072 or some shit. And Summer Slaughter is in full effect, muthafuckas.

We are, of course, proudly co-sponsoring this tour, and our fellow co-sponsors at Metal Injection just happened to capture some footage of two new Dying Fetus songs at the Summer Slaughter tour stop in Richmond last night. The one below is called “Your Treachery Will Die With You,” and I’d like to dedicate it to Mr. Dick Cheney. I’ve really enjoyed this most recent press tour, Dick.

Go to Metal Injection to check out another new Dying Fetus song, “Shepard’s Command.” And go here to get all remaining dates for Summer Slaughter. If you don’t go, we’re sending the dudes from Dying Fetus over to your mom’s house to serenade her with these songs.

-AR

So the line-up for Summer Slaughter – a.k.a. the big summer package tour that isn’t Ozzfest, Mayhem, Warped, or Sounds of the Underground (R.I.P.) – has been announced, and, pretty much as expected, it’s totally solid. Yes, there are a few bands on the bill I don’t care for (I’m looking at you, Winds of Plague), but the presence of co-headliners Suffocation and Necrophagist, plus Darkest Hour, Origin, Born of Osiris, Dying Fetus and Blackguard pretty much guarantees this will be a day (well, late afternoon at least) worth your time and money. Especially since, unlike the aforementioned summer fests, this one plays smaller venues and comes at a cheaper price.

Also kind of advantageous: you’re basically just dealing with death metal on this tour. So… you pretty much know if you’re the audience or not for this tour.

No dates yet… stay tuned for more details.

-AR

I’ve never actually caught Daath live (at least not yet), so I don’t know how the band handles soloing duties – but I do know that guitarist Eyal Levi is kind of the public face of the band and it’s de facto leader, so people may forget that there’s another super talented guitarist, Emil Werstler, in the band.

But the below video of Werstler shredding his ass off should throw the dude in the spotlight at least for a hot minute. Fucker has chops, that’s for damn sure.

Daath’s new album, The Concealers, will be out later this year. While you’re waiting patiently, don’t forget that you can download an exclusive Daath death metal metal medley consisting of covers of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Dying Fetus right here at MetalSucks.

-AR

This coming Monday the entire MetalSucks staff will each release Top 10 lists for the entire year in metal of 2008. Get psyched! Things have been slowing down here at the MS Mansion as the holidays approach, but we still found ways to keep it fun this week:

• Axl Rose finally did some press to support Chinese Democracy… but as usual, there’s an asterisk.
• We debuted a new, exclusive Daath track — a medley of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Dying Fetus covers.
• We interviewed members of Clutch, Bison B.C., Dir En Grey, and Fear Factory / Arkaea.
• Job For a Cowboy’s Jonny Davy blogged about urination and hotel trashing, while Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum’s guest blog claimed that Entombed’s Uprising and Morning Star are two of the most underrated albums of all time. Oh, and The Haunted’s Peter Dolving blogged about sleep.
• Gojira’s Joe Duplantier orders you to stop the killing of baby seals but apparently has no problem with ripping New York City a new arsehole.
• Meshuggah + Cynic + The Faceless = The Erection Tour of 2009.
• The metal industry lost a kindred soul. R.I.P. Adrian Bromley.

While in the studio recording their new album, The Concealers, the members of Daath decided to record a medley of classic death metal songs by Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Dying Fetus (see behind-the-scenes video above). Charmingly dubbed “Fecal Finger,” the track won’t actually appear on the band’s new album, so they decided to let us pass it on to you… for free!

Daath drummer Kevin Talley explained the genesis of the track to us via e-mail:

“Fecal Finger”… a beautiful name for a beautiful piece of music. One day we jammed some death metal songs and we jokingly said we should play them at a show… so we did. We chose the DYING FETUS song because I wrote and recorded it with them and many people never saw me play it live. Matt DeVries [Chimaira] and I used to jam that MORBID ANGEL riff a couple years ago so we brought that in since it is crushingly brutal. And you can’t jam a jam without Jim Carrey’s favorite death metal band CANNIBAL CORPSE. We recorded this freakin shit because kids these days need to recognize who influenced the newer bands they listen to. After hearing the originals for so many years, it’s weird hearing these songs with a newer style recording. But Sean Z’s vocals are fucking sick and Jonny Davy’s (Job for a Cowboy) guest vocals on the MORBID ANGEL part are amazing. This recording is finally growing on me and it’s actually my favorite thing to listen to right now.

-Kevin Talley

And so, without further adieu…

Daath, “Fecal Finger”

The Concealers will hit stores sometime in early 2009.

-MetalSucks

Monday was a crazy night for metal in the city, with no less than 4 awesome shows happening simultaneously. Yours truly chose to attend the most eccentric, with Keep of Kalessin, Eluveitie and Dying Fetus opening for metal stalwarts Kataklysm.

The night’s biggest calling card for me was Norway’s Keep of Kalessin; their recent release Kolossus is a fierce slab of fast, psychedelic black metal, an album I’ve jammed several times and really, really like.

For anyone not familiar with Keep of Kalessin, I would describe them thusly: four dudes that look like a goth version of Legolas from Lord of the Rings — on heroin — playing passionate, fast, psychedelic black metal. The following description would also be accurate: Enslaved on an 8-ball of cocaine.

Click to read more…

Obituary have called have their spring tour “for reasons beyond our control.” That’s a bummer, but really, I’m pissed ’cause Origin were supposed to be one of the support bands for the tour (along with Dying Fetus and Thy Will Be Done), and I was really looking forward to seeing those dudes live.

If you haven’t yet heard the new Origin album, Antithesis,  well, it’s killer (we’ll have a review – and an interview with the band – soon). I hope these dudes find another tour to get on ASAP (is there any room left on Summer Slaughter?). In the meantime, here’s Origin’s video for “Portal.”

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/VDAh2ti8u18" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Their new video will be much cooler. Bank on it.

-AR