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MS staffers have lives too, and as such we can’t always get to the record store the very day new releases come out. We’re guessing it’s the same for you guys, too, but that doesn’t mean you’re not interested in the week’s new releases, right? With that in mind, here’s Vic Vaughn on all the shit that came out yesterday including new records from Decapitated and Suicide Silence.
First it was my turn to take a vacation and now it’s Axl’s; I haven’t spoken with him since he left for the lake house last Saturday and that’s a good thing, not because I don’t love the dude but because it means he’s having fun instead of stressing about work. Hopefully as I write this he’s stoned out of his gourd and enjoying something tasty from the grill. But guess what? I’m gonna be away again this coming Monday and Tuesday conducting super-top-secret business in L.A., meaning it’ll just be Axl and the rest of our fine contributors for the early part of next week. But don’t worry; come Wednesday things will be back to normal with our usual Axl + Vince full frontal attack.
Meanwhile, here’s what Axl missed this week:
Adios.
-VN
The arrival of a new Earth Crisis album is a big deal for anyone who loves metallic hardcore. After all, the band — led by vocal straight-edge vegan activist Karl Buechner — was one of the sound’s most popular purveyors throughout the 90s. To The Death, their 2009 reunion record for Century Media, made clear that the group’s style and voice had not mellowed with age. And now, we’re just mere days away from Earth Crisis’ latest salvo, calculatingly titled Neutralize The Threat. Lucky you, though, as MetalSucks readers are getting first crack at hearing the entire record with this exclusive album stream!
If you like what you hear — and I know you will — be sure to pre-order your copy on CD and/or vinyl from CM Distro.
-GS
I love that “Tour Of Italy” sampler at Olive Garden where you get one of all their different appetizers!! I usually end up eating all the Parmesan Calamari Fritters first and being so full I can barely even get to the Tuscan Eggplant Fingers, but the point is that variety is the spice of life. I mean all of their appetizers are so good, how can you pick just one??? Each one is delicious in its own way, and the best way to enjoy them is by having a little bit of everything. And what is the only thing as varied, delicious and universally loved as Olive Garden? That’s right: fucking BREAKDOWNS!
Like the Tour Of Italy, there are a million different kinds of breakdowns, and they are all awesome in their own way. No single genre has a monopoly on it: there are breakdowns in pretty much every kind of music, and they all go hard. I think it’s a beautiful testament to how music brings us all together that whether you are into punk, hardcore, metal or whatever, we can all agree that breakdowns are the best part of every song!
In this post, I will share some of the greatest breakdowns throughout history, like the Tour Of Italy, only for moshing. It is far from a comprehensive list, just a sampler to get the conversation started. Check these out, post your favorite breakdowns in the comments, and help us answer the one of life’s big questions: what is THE BEST BREAKDOWN OF ALL TIME???
“BIG PANTS WASTE PRECIOUS FABRIC”
Step into my Nocturnus time machine and take a magical journey with me into a time long, long ago, an excursion into a world that scarcely resembles our own. In this world — we’ll call it Moshtopia — hardcore kids are known for wearing giant, baggy pants, not skinny jeans; there are people under 30 that know who Black Flag is; and metalcore bands worship Krishna, not Christ. This is not a fanciful episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adeventure fan fiction, my friends, — it is the strange and wonderful world of mid-90s hardcore!
You can’t talk about 90′s hardcore without devoting a substantial part of that conversation to the boys who put the sleepy town of Syracuse, NY on the map: Earth Crisis. For anybody who wasn’t in the hardcore scene back then, it’s hard to describe the impact they had or how controversial they were. You either loved them or hated them for bringing both metal and veganism into the hardcore scene, and I definitely loved them. I’ll save the discussion of their politics and all that for another time, and focus on what’s more important to me these days: their music.
Sometimes you hear about somebody doing something so unbelievably stupid that you feel stupider just having heard about it; that you wonder how that person’s parents ever managed to potty train him; that you wanna go out and sign a petition bringing back electroshock therapy in asylums everywhere, because holy SHIT, somebody needs to school this dude ASAP.
This is one of those times.
According to Lambgoat, yesterday’s Sound and Fury Festival in Santa Barbara was cut short before a handful of bands — including Earth Crisis and Bane — could even play, because what was either a small riot or a large fight broke out, apparently after some dude decided that this was a good idea:
And, uh, what did this guy think was gonna happen if he brought a motorcycle into the pit? Maybe Halford could get away with that shit, but not just some random dude. Dumb dumb dumb dumb.
I gotta say, if I went to a festival where Earth Crisis were playing and then I didn’t get to see Earth Crisis because someone pulled this shit, well, I’d be pretty pissed.
If any readers were there and have more details, drop us a line. In the meantime, read more at Lambgoat.
-AR
First things first: screamo is literally worse than the Holocaust in my book. With a few notable exceptions, I absolutely cannot stand this shit. That said, with bands like The Devil Wears Prada and Underoath selling out huge venues, putting out platinum-selling albums, and selling truckloads of cookie-cutter merch to every angsty suburban teen within driving distance of a Hot Topic, it’s hard not to pay attention to the genre. I might not like it, but Kids These Days certainly do. My biggest question: Where the fuck did this shit come from??
As someone who saw the birth of metalcore and “true screamo”/skramz firsthand in the 90s, I am highly confused when I listen to these bands. On the one hand, they are not so different from anything that could have been on Victory or Indecision in the 90s (Earth Crisis, All Out War, Bloodlet). Obviously there are some things that have changed over time, but the fundamentals of metalcore are still there (see my post “The 5 Kinds Of Music Teens Are Into” for more details). On the other hand, the kids in Alesana, August Burns Red, and possibly even As I Lay Dying have no fucking idea who those pioneering metalcore bands are, much less that screamy vocals were born in the tiny basement shows and vegan bakesales of the 90s DIY hardcore scene.
You probably know Century Media for their work with groundbreaking, legendary artists like Stuck Mojo and My Own Victim, but they are also home to lesser-known bands like Lacuna Coil, Arch Enemy, Nevermore, Warbringer, Terror, and deathcore sensations Winds Of Plague and Suicide Silence. In all seriousness, though, I’ve worked with CM in one form or another since the mid-90s, and have nothing but good things to say about the CM crew. In addition to Despise You frontman/ CM warehouse manager Chris Elder, one of the many great people at CM is A&R guy Steve Joh. With the label’s 20th anniversary coming up soon, I figured it would be a great time to catch up with one of the nicest guys in metal and give the label some much-deserved props. Thanks to Steve for his time and help, and thanks to CM for being cool enough to send me promos when I was a teenager with a fanzine back in the day!
Note: I am a fan of both WoP and Suicide Silence. Knowing that they are lightning rods for the (negative) attention of angry metal dorks, I included their names in the headline for this post in hopes of attracting maximum viewership, and therefore giving the most possible publicity to Steve and the bands. Thank you for participating in this exciting social media marketing initiative.
We’re less than halfway through the first month of 2010, but already we’re beginning to see the rumblings of quality hardcore to come in 2010. Case in point: First Blood. An unmastered version of “Enemy” was added to the San Francisco based band’s MySpace page today. This is the first track revealed from Silence Is Betrayal, the follow-up to the band’s Trustkill Records debut Killafornia. Though not leaps and bounds above the metallic sound mined on that aforementioned release, “Enemy” is reliably true to First Blood’s sound and assuredly characteristic of what to expect when the new record drops this Spring.
Currently on tour in Southeast Asia with fellow Bay Area denizens Alcatraz, First Blood will team up later this month with former Victory Records’ act Earth Crisis, whose first album in eight years To The Death inexplicably didn’t get much love on people’s year-end lists. (On a tangential topic, both First Blood and Earth Crisis are staunch vegans, a topic which EC’s frontman Karl Buechner discussed in a brief recent interview with Noisecreep.) All dates below:
Jan 15 2010 Hong Kong @ Warehouse*
Jan 17 2010 Philippines @ Ten O2 Manila*
Jan 18 2010 Thailand @ Overtone Bangkok*
Jan 20 2010 Indonesia @ Kanjuruhan Univercity Hall Malang*
Jan 21 2010 Indonesia @ Famestation Bandung*
Jan 22 2010 Indonesia @ Viky Sianipar Music Center Jakarta*
Jan 23 2010 Malaysia @ Number One Cafe Kuala Lumpur*
Jan 24 2010 Singapore @ Scape Lab*
Jan 27 2010 King Cobra Osaka**
Jan 28 2010 Huck Finn Nagoya**
Jan 29 2010 Drunkard’s Stadium Kashiwa**
Jan 30 2010 Citta’ Kawasaki Kanagawa**
Jan 31 2010 Shinjuku ACB hall Tokyo**
* w/ Alcatraz
* w/ Earth Crisis & Alcatraz
-GS
[Gary Suarez helps manage the Shadows FAIL blog. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]
We’re up to our eyeballs in work here at the MetalSucks Mansion, which is why we’ve been kind of behind on reviews. To wit: the new Earth Crisis album, To the Death, which we think is totally excellent, and haven’t had any time to give a write-up. Shame on us.
What we do have time to do is post the band’s kick-ass new video, “To Ashes,” which was directed/shot/edited/everything else by our favoritest extreme music auteur, David Brodsky, and his team at My Good Eye (And by “team,” I pretty much mean Allison Woest.).
Is this the first ever hardcore/metal video to be “based on a true story?” I honestly can’t think of another. Maybe Ron Howard will buy the movie rights…
-AR
I’ve never met Matt Fox in person, but reading his answers to this all-too-brief interview I recently conducted with him via e-mail, I really, really want to. Fox comes across as intelligent, funny, and, as his band’s name would suggest, a knowledgeable and opinionated sci-fi geek; in other words, he comes across as exactly the kind of dude I’d wanna be friends with.
Shai Hulud’s latest cock punch of metallicized hardcore, the excellently titled Misanthropy Pure, hits stores today via Metal Blade, and if you haven’t heard it yet, well, you need to: it’s a vicious, wholly unique entry into a genre that seems to be growing more tired by the day, an album that genuinely doesn’t sound like anything else on the market right now. Above, watch Shai Hulud’s David Brodsky-directed video for the title track; after the jump, check out Matt’s thoughts on the writing process, the metalcore genre, and, of course, all things sci-fi.
