The latest edition of Metal Injection’s “Ask the Artist” series — in which various artists are asked one uniform question (See what they did there?) —  poses the query “What are the best and worst stage moves in metal?” to various bands that were on this summer’s two biggest metal tours — Mayhem Fest and Summer Slaughter.

And it’s a great question to ask, because it’s certainly one that seems to come up in metallic circles quite a bit. Just recently, a publicist told me she understood that I didn’t like one of her bands because they played too much “breakdowncore,” and I told her the breakdowncore was silly, sure, but not as silly as they choreographed stage moves they used for each and every song. So it’s interesting to hear the thoughts of the musicians who actually have to be extra-conscientious of stage moves themselves.

Not shocking — a lot of the bands, including Trivium and Fleshgod Apocalypse, poke fun at crabcore and general scene-friendly stage moves. More shocking: so do Oceano.

Check out more of Metal Injection’s “Ask the Artist” videos here.

-AR

As we mentioned yesterday, this past Friday, Miikka Skaffari,  our newest member of the MetalSucks Photo Squad, went to the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour in San Francisco… and boy oh boy, did Miikka ever deliver for his first-ever MS assignment. Dude captured some really, really awesome pics of a bunch of the bands on the bill, including headliners The Black Dahlia Murder (above), Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Dying Fetus, Six Feet Under, Oceano, and As Blood Runs Black. Check out all of Miika’s photos after the jump! And don’t forget that Summer Slaughter — which also features Fleshgod Apocalypse, Powerglove, and Within the Ruins — is still making its way across America right now! Get dates here.

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I’ll keep this brief, ’cause we’ve written about all of these releases at length before. But in case you’re interested (and you probably should be):

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This has to be the best-yet edition of “Ask the Artist,” the new video series in which our partners in crime at Metal Injection ask musicians to answer one uniform question. This week, the question is “How easy is it to score girls while on the road?” And, confirming what Sergeant D. has been telling us all along, the answer seems to be, “Not very easy at all.” Check it out:

Don’t forget that you can watch more episodes of “Ask the Artist” at Metal Injection.

-AR

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Metal Injection has launched this great new video series, “Ask the Artist,” in which they give you helpful tips for getting out tough stains. No, I’m kidding, they ask fucking artists things, that’s why it’s called “Ask the Artist.”

ANYWAY, the latest installment of the series has the MI dudes posing the question “What band got you into metal?” to current and former members of Dying Fetus, Killswitch Engage, Job for a Cowboy, Cephalic Carnage, Revocation, The Ocean, Lazarus A.D., and more.

My personal favorite answer probably comes from A Life Once Lost’s Doug Sabolick, not because I have any special affinity for the album he cites, but because a) it’s a pretty unique answer and b) I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard that album, and I like thinking that while I was rocking out to it with Vince in my parents’ living room, Sabolick was somewhere having his mind blown and his life forever changed. I like that we have that connection now. We’re like Fievel and Tanya from An American Tail, singing “Somewhere Out There.” Only not really at all.

Check out the rest of Metal Injection’s “Ask the Artist” series here. And, hey, while we’re on the topic, feel free to discuss the bands and albums that got you into metal in our comments section below.

-AR

The days when a musician stands a chance of making a living as a musician may very well be coming to a close. It’s one thing for the members of Crowbar Abortion to have to get jobs at the mall when they’re not on tour, but when even the dude from Guns N’ Roses is giving guitar lessons on his down time, you know times are tough.

Which gives a little extra edge to the below video, in which our doppelgängers at Metal Injection ask various musicians what they’d do with their lives if they weren’t in a band. Because that’s a question most metal musicians should probably ask themselves at some point or another.

Best answer comes from Revocation drummer Phil Dubois-Coyne, although I’m down the response A Life Once Lost’s Doug Sabolick and Bob Meadows provide, too.

This video is the first in a new series Metal Injection is doing, called, cleverly enough, “Ask the Artist.” Go here to make sure you stay up-to-date on all future installments, as I’d wager that they will continue to be this entertaining.

-AR

“Yep, that’s what Dying Fetus covering Bolt Thrower would sound like.”

That was the thought that ran through my mind as I listened to Dying Fetus’ new cover of Bolt Thrower’s “Unleashed Upon Mankind,” which is now streaming here.

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I finally had to make myself stop listening to The Black Dahlia Murder’s new album, Ritual, on such a regular basis (e.g., twice a day for however many days since I’ve had it), because as a blogger I have a responsibility (or something) to listen to a wide variety of metal releases in order to discuss them on the site (or so I’m told).

My point being simply that the album is good to the point of total fucking distraction, and you should be prepared to be totally fucking distracted upon its release. And one such way to prepare yourself is to watch the twelve-minute-plus “making of” video the band has released to Bloody Disgusting. There’s some cool shit in there — Shannon Lucas being the sick drummer we all know him to be, Ryan Knight putting half the other guitar players in modern metal to shame, a live, real, flesh and blood violinist recording the album intro, and, of course, no small amount of BDM tomfoolery.

The video isn’t embeddable, but you can watch it by clicking on the below screen cap of guitarist Brian Eschbach’s ass forever traumatizing Jason Suecof’s dog, Stinky.

Ritual comes out June 21 on Metal Blade, and then TBDM hit the road to headline the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour along with Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Six Feet Under, Dying Fetus, As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Powerglove, and Within the Ruins. Get dates after the jump!

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As regular readers are aware, I’m usually dead-set against cover albums, which tend to feature meaningless, generally inferior versions of great songs the listener already owns in their original, classic forms.

But I’m willing to give Dying Fetus the benefit of the doubt that if they’ve made a covers album, it’s worth listening to. They’ve earned that much. Why? BECAUSE THEY’RE DYING FUCKING FETUS, that’s why. Duh.

So. In celebration of both their twentieth anniversary and their stint on the year’s edition of the MetalSucks-sponsored Summer Slaughter tour, this July the  band will release History Repeats…, which will not only feature the band re-imaging tracks from some of death n’ grinds finest (Napalm Death, Cannibal Corpse, Bolt Thrower, etc.), but will also feature “Rohypnol,” a brand new song. You might know rohypnol as “roofies,” or “the date rape drug.” So this tune is probably a charming power ballad in the vein of Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses.”

History Repeats… comes out July 19 on Relapse, and is limited to 5,000 copies. You can get it a f.y.e. stores, or just pre-order it directly from Relapse.

The full track list for this bad mother is after the jump, along with those Summer Slaughter dates. Other bands on the bill are The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Six Feet Under, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse, As Blood Runs Black, Powerglove, and Within the Ruins.

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Teenagers are always doing stupid, embarrassing shit in public, especially the ones who listen to metal. One of the most popular (and potentially humiliating) things a kid can do is enter their high school’s talent show, in particular if they make the mistake of playing a metal song in hopes of impressing their peers. For example, when I was in 9th or 10th grade, I was in a horrible band that played a Black Flag song in front of our school. Nobody thought it was cool, they just laughed at us. Thank god Youtube didn’t exist then, like it does for these dumb kids who embarrassed themselves by trying to be cool in front of their peers.

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Remember when this year’s Summer Slaughter (which we’re sponsoring!) was announced, there was this fan poll to determine who the last band added to the bill should be?

Well, Within the Ruins have been announced as the winners! They’ll join The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Darkest Hour, Six Feet Under, Dying Fetus, As Blood Runs Black, Oceano, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Powerglove for all dates on the trek. Our own Dave Mustein wrote of the band, “WTR don’t suck live; their performance is nearly as good as on record, which is pleasantly surprising due to the ferocious technicality of their music.” So the band’s presence should just enhance your Summer Slaughter excitement.

Here are dates again, in case you need ‘em:

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When I was growing up, summer Slaughter meant a hot July night listening to Mark Slaughter complain about Vinnie Vincent’s body odor between songs at your local Enormodome. But life in America is awesomer now (not srs) and Summer Slaughter now means extreme metal piled eyeball-high and ballz-deep, plus your chance to make kissy faces at Mike Schleibaum, not Dana Strum. And since MetalSucks is an official Summer Slaughter sponsor, you can give us your thanks for the fun. We’ll pass them on to the other sponsors, promise. Dates after we jump you:

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MetalSucks is proud to once again be sponsoring the best mega-package tour of the summer — Summer Slaughter, of course! As you can see from the above poster, the mini-fest’s organizers have once again put together line-up that show cases a who’s who of the current metal scene.

And they’re taking it one step further this year — they’re letting YOU, the fans, decide who the last band added to the bill should be! Go to the official Summer Slaughter Facebook page to cast your vote.

Cities and dates for the tour will be announced on 4/20. ‘Til then… get ready to get slaughtered…

Starting this past January, Relapse Records began reissuing albums from Dying Fetus’ back catalogue, re-mastered, re-packaged, and bonus-trackified. First came 1995′s Infatuation With Malevolence early demo compilation and 1996′s Purification Through Violence; next up on the docket are 1998′s Killing on Adrenaline and 1999′s Grotesque Impalement EP, set to be re-issued next Tuesday, March 1st. Both of the latter are currently streaming at DyingFetus.info.

Whether you’re an old-school death metal lover or newcomer to the scene who’s a fan of modern DM of any kind — tech-death / Sumeriancore / deathcore / bree / whatever — you owe it yourself to check out these reissues. Truth be told, I didn’t really get into death metal until later on in my metal evolution (metalvolution?), and this is my first time hearing these older Fetus records. These guys were doing it at kind of a weird time for the genre, after the early ’90s explosion but before death metal became cool again. Much respect to any band who soldiers through an era when their brand of music isn’t popular at all. Listening to these records now, it’s obvious how much influence Fetus had on today’s death metal scene some 15 years later. We’ll forgive them for using the Papyrus font on the cover of Grotesque Impalement; it was only 1999, after all.

Stream both records here, and pre-order them here (Killing…) and here (Grotesque…).

-VN

Why, it was just a couple of days ago that we learned that bassist Terry Butler and drummer Greg Gall have both quit Six Feet Under, and already, the band has announced a replacement for Gall: Kevin Talley, who is joining the group as part of his apparent bid to play with every band ever at least once. (Already on his resumé: Daath, Chimaira, Misery Index, Dying Fetus, Hate Eternal, Suffocation, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Red Chord, and probably fifteen other bands I’m forgetting about.)

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Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

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Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

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In brief: Relapse is offering a free sampler for download to anyone who goes to their Facebook page and hits that little ol’ “like” button. As you can see from the track list below, there’s a ton of good shit on it, including new songs from Abysmal Dawn, Red Fang, and Noisear, plus some remastered Death, plus great stuff from Baroness, Revocation, Cephalic Carnage, Dying Fetus, Misery Index, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Brutal Truth, Murder Construct… the list goes on and on. This could very easily be the soundtrack for your New Year’s Eve partying.

Go here to download the sampler. Happy fucking new year.

-AR

Have you ever wanted something so badly that your whole body aches, even down to your taint??? That’s how much I’ve wanted to see Devourment, but I guess they all have “real jobs,” so they don’t tour much, and I would rather smash my penis into paste with a filthy cinder block than attend one of the festivals they played at, so I never got a chance to see them until now.  Thanks to the good people at leading beard-metal label RELAPSE RECORDS, I finally got to check out Devourment after over a decade of fandom — and let me tell you, it was worth the wait!

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Kind of amazingly, I haven’t seen Cannibal Corpse live since they absolutely wrecked the Rockstar Mayhem Fest’s second stage last summer — but I’m dying to do so. That was just a thirty minute set, after all, and you need way more than a half hour to really enjoy the Corpse.

And I’ll get my shot this fall: the band has just announced another headlining trek, this time with Dying Fetus, Vital Remains, and Devourment in tow. Devourment is the only one of those bands I’ve never seen live before, so I can vouch for Dying Fetus and Vital Remains — those bands put on killer shows. What an excellent line-up. If I close my eyes and think about this tour, I can already feel the stench of dude sweat permeating my nostrils.

Dates after el jumperoo.

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