As you probably know by now, Jucifer live on the road — literally! A truly mobile unit, the savage sludge metal duo are North American nomads who rest their head nightly in the same RV that gets them from show to show. So I was surprised to learn that Jucifer were crossing the pond for a headlining tour of Europe and Russia, which, unless they plan on hopping a ferry, implies that they’d be leaving their trusty vehicle behind. That’s probably as close to a vacation as Jucifer ever get!

The full list of dates are below, and most are supported by Italian metallers The Orange Man Theory, whose latest record was produced by Today Is The Day figurehead Steve Austin. There are a few festivals in the mix as well, including Wroclaw, Poland’s Asymmetry Fest (with Electric Wizard and the reunited Godflesh) and the Belgian Durbuy Rock Festival (with Korpiklaani and Triptykon). If you’re lucky enough to live close to any of these cities, here’s a super-duper rare opportunity to catch one of the noisiest bands around. Buy some merch from them as well, so they can buy souvenirs and finance a forthcoming re-release of the 1994 cassette-only Nadir EP, re-mastered by Scott Hull.

Now how are they gonna get all those amps overseas? Hmmm…

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The #4 album in the country last week came from Social Distortion, yet that album failed to register on the “Top Hard Music” chart I usually cover in this column where it would’ve been #1 by a long shot. I mean, I know Social Distortion aren’t exactly splitting eardrums anymore, but come on, Mike fucking Ness! Bizarre? Yeah, but this is the music industry we’re dealing with, the same group of retardos who regularly send us MP3s for review without any artist, label or track name labels whatsoever and who make us jump through flaming hoops to download them. So, surprising? Not at all.

Anyway, let’s look at said Social Distortion-omitting Top Hard Music chart for the week ending January, 25th, 2011. The new Times of Grace project featuring ex-Killswitch Engage vocalist Jesse Leach and current KsE guitarist Adam D. charted respectably in its debut, but there wasn’t a whole lot else out there in the metal world that was big enough to chart in its debut week (aside from Electric Wizard) despite a decent list of new albums. As such, there’s a lot of greatest hits packages leftover from the holiday rush showing up on the charts (Aerosmith, Ozzy, Van Halen, etc) and perennial butt-rock sellers like Nickelback, Disturbed, Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, etc. Let’s take a look at a few notable releases:

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Ghost’s Opus Eponymous, out this week on the CD format in the U.S., has garnered quite a bit of praise and has even drawn the ire of Sarah Palin.

New releases from Ghost (in the U.S.), Electric Wizard and Acid Witch make this week a great one for fans of psychadelic, doom, stoner and the like, while KsE side-project Times of Grace finally hits the shelves and NJ slammy death metallers Abacinate deliver their ripping tribute to fallen vocalist Jason “Plunger” Sica. Our previews of those releases and others coming out this week after the jump.

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Electric Wizard’s Black Mass came out in Europe last year — in fact, MetalSucks’ own King of Reviewers, Sammy O’Hagar, has already reviewed the album and included it on his 2010 year end list — but most North Americans won’t have access (or, at least, legal access) to it ’til January 18, when Metal Blade releases the album here.

So depending on your scruples, you may or may not have already heard the title track, which the band has now officially released as a single (below). But if you haven’t heard it yet, well, by all means, you should listen now, ’cause it rocks. (But don’t forget to get stoned first. I mean, you could listen to Electric Wizard sober, but, really, why would you?) And if you have already heard it, well, you might as well listen again, ’cause it rocks. (But don’t forget to get stoned first. I mean, you could listen to Electric Wizard sober, but, really, why would you?)

-AR

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

If you could pick one band that should have action figures, it’s gotta be Watain, right? And I don’t mean those creepy roided-out Todd McFarlane things that are at, like, Spencer’s and Suncoast for fat suburban virgins. Original Star Wars-size is sufficient… although that makes me think #1 should be Immortal, since a Blashyrkh playset would be cooler than the Death Star and Unicron combined. (The actual Death Star playset being total bullshit, of course.)

I never considered Electric Wizard for this dubious, infantilizing honor, but after reading Bennett’s cover story on them, they absolutely qualify as a fuck yeah. Not when they were a trio, but today, seeing as how they’re comprised of a married couple, another dude who the better half of said couple “can’t imagine… in my wildest dreams doing an interview anywhere, let alone on the phone,” and another dude with a full facial tat, which recalls either, well, you know or Fuckface Enigma from the Jim Rose Circus (who my friend and I randomly saw in a downtown Cleveland mall 15 years ago, which prompted him to turn to his dad and remark, completely nonplussed, “Hey… Fuckface Enigma.”) Anyway, whether you’re a Dopethrone head or just catching up/dropping out via Witchcult Today and Black Masses — and come on, it’s all the same (amazing) song — you’ll see these delightful degenerates as collectible plastic after reading the piece, too.

Further incentive: the second-ever Decibel Flexi Series entry — this time a live version of 2008’s “The Watcher” from the mighty Enslaved — as well as the worst cover typo we’ve ever let slip by (other than “Queens of the Stone Age: The Coolest Band of the Year Every Year”). That said, Josh Homme would definitely make a sweet-ass action figure. He pretty much dresses like Han Solo already. Any other suggestions?

-AB

The February 2011 issue of Decibel comes with a fully movable kung fu grip, but the only way to ensure you get one of them there flexi discs every month is to get a full subscription!

Allow me to shill for a beat before the weekend: If you haven’t already bought one of our new, limited edition shirts, go get yours now!!! They’re selling fast, and soon they will be the title of a God Forbid album. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Here’s some other fun stuff we did this week:

• Valient Thorr’s Valient Himself gave us the rundown on Fun Fun Fun Fest, The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks found the CFL fun and confusing, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable talked about the best and worst drives in the U.S., and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley is the latest to weigh in on free metal from Scion.
• We debuted new music from Murder Construct.
• We spoke to Pentagram’s Bobby Liebling and Christopher Drew from Nevershotnever and Eatmewhileimhot.
• We checked out the latest releases from Riotgod, Electric Wizard, Rimfrost, and First Blood and Killing the Dream.
• We asked you about old school bands you wanted to like but couldn’t.
• We joined Gene Simmons, Slash, and Dave Navarro in having NOH8 for gays.
• We laughed at both Kirk Hammett and the little girl he kicked.
• We also laughed at Sebastian Bach’s frail ego.
• We got really excited about the new single from The Human Abstract.
• We also got really excited about Decibel‘s new flexi disc series.

Have a nice, relaxing weekend gang. We’ll miss you muchly, but we’ll see ya Monday.

-AR

The issue with Electric Wizard’s 2000 classic Dopethrone was that it seemed to require smoking a Herculean amount of marijuana to properly enjoy it. And though saying one needs weed to enjoy something is usually a slight against the something in question — oh, how many post-rock and post-metal bands have become significantly less interesting to me once I’ve sobered up? — in Dopethrone’s case, it just seemed like a natural fit. Aside from having “dope” in the title, the album’s hazy sludginess — especially on the iconic closing title track — made one itchy to be high if they weren’t already. And although the band has matured, that sense is still there on their latest, the excellent Black Masses. Still sounding like Sabbath stoned to the point of being red-eyed and practically asleep, the band are more than a bunch of stoners in love with the sound of their (admittedly awesome) amps. Beneath the smoky veil draped over the album, there’s a bunch of excellent songs that bloom upon return. Like always, you don’t NEED to be high to enjoy it, but good Lord, it wouldn’t hurt.

Click to read more…

UPDATE: It’s come to my attention that this album was only released overseas today… here in the States, Metal Blade will be releasing the album in January.
Well, don’t I feel like a schmuck? In the absence of any press releases and I guess my failure to keep up with this shit when a label/band doesn’t actually try to tell me about it, Electric Wizard have a new album, Black Masses, out today on Rise Above Records.

And this is total news to me. I mean, I feel like I read in Decibel at some point that the band was in the studio, but I literally had no idea that the album was coming out today. Whoops.

Oh well. This isn’t really bad news; it’s more like a pleasant surprise. Like I woke up, and someone left a gift on my door step. I’m actually kinda glad. I had nothing to look forward to today, and now I do — I can get high and listen to the new Electric Wizard album. There. Afternoon gone.

Whether you’re a yutz like me and this news take you by surprise or you actually have your head screwed-on straight and you’ve known about this for weeks if not months, you can check out the new track “Black Mass” here. It sounds like Electric Wizard, which, y’know, isn’t a bad thing.

And major thanks to “brandonmetal” for opening my eyes.

-AR

“In times of trouble, go with what you know.”
- Red Tank, Scorched Earth

A few weeks back, I spent some time sketching out an idea about discovering the greatest Taco Riff in the world. My friend Lao Tzo is wont to say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step right over to your music collection, so that seems a prudent place to start. I’ve been spending time with some favorite records and, as with most metal types, I keep coming back to the Big Four. So let’s just get into it – the Big Four Taco Riff records.

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Did you know that if you eat before you start slamming shots, you’ll get a little less drunk, but you’ll also have something to vomit up later? It’s true. Also, sometimes when you smoke weed, you get the munchies. These are just two great reasons why you should care about Hellbent for Cooking: The Heavy Metal Cookbook by Annick “Morbid Chef” Giroux. Showcasing “a varied menu of over a hundred recipes from thirty countries,” Hellbent for Cooking features recipes by members of Accept, Anthrax, Anvil, Armored Saint, Brutal Truth, Death, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Gwar, Judas Priest, Kreator, Mayhem, Melechesh, Nuclear Assault, Obituary, Repulsion, Saint Vitus, Sepultura, Sigh, S.O.D., Slough Feg, Thin Lizzy, Toxic Holocaust, and about a trillion others (you can get a complete list of contributing bands here).

MetalSucks is teaming up with Bazillion Points Publishing to give away three (3) copies of Hellbent for Cooking. All you have to do to win is create a picture that somehow connects metal to food and post a link to someplace we can view said picture in the comments section below. Use Photoshop to create an image of Lemmy eating a hot dog, use MS Paint to do a portrait of Metallica as the pepperonis on a pizza, whatever you want – it just has to be both food and metal related, and it has to amuse us. Vince and I will choose the three pics that make us laugh the hardest and those pics’ creators win the book.

This contest will end at midnight EST on Monday, December 14. Please note that this contest is open to U.S. residents only, as shipping costs are a bitch. And if you’re too lazy to participate, you can always just order a copy of the book here.

Good luck, and good eats…

-AR

So I’ve been living in the UK for about four months now, and have managed to take in quite a lot of this “culture” thing they’re so fond of over here. I’ve been to nine countries, eight major metal festivals, and a handful of cities in Ol’ Blighty itself; I’ve gate-crashed hotel parties in Norway with the drummer of Swallow the Sun, stage-dived into a sea of muddy grind freaks in the Czech Republic, gotten roaring drunk with Wolves in the Throne Room in the Netherlands, met Gaahl’s boyfriend in France, gotten lost in Rome, watched Electric Wizard blow an amp in Manchester, lost my mind to Eyehategod at Hellfest, seen Manowar (‘nuff said there) – and that was just the first couple months. Between all the metal, mud, bruises, whiskey, calimocho, hard cider, and terrifying Czech liquor (Becherovka and Fernet are no fucking joke, even if it is Kevin Sharp and Danny Herrera pouring you a shot), I realized that, somehow, something was still missing.

To my immense chagrin, I had yet to take that all-too-necessary pilgrimage up through the Black Country and into the Unholy Land itself – to Birmingham, England. Every metaller worth his leather (and several million other music fans besides) knows exactly why this unimpressive, coal-smudged city matters so much. Birmingham is the ancestral home of heavy metal. Everything – whether it be doom, black metal, powerviolence, or even the plague that is deathcore – everything came from here. The famed Mermaid Pub provided a fertile breeding ground for extreme metal, nestled as it was in a dodgy part of town where the cops ignored the punkers and longhairs milling around out front as the early rumblings of a deadly new sound thundered away upstairs The city itself was the original stomping ground of the dirty sexy hard rock’n’roll of Led Zeppelin, the NWOBHM gods in Judas Priest, the crusty proto-grind of Sore Throat, the scummy grindcore forefathers of Napalm Death, the industrial noise terror of Godflesh, and the one and only BLACK FUCKING SABBATH.

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So Keith Bergman at Blabbermouth gave Bigelf’s latest, Hex, a perfect score in his review of the album. I don’t think Bergman gives those out so easily and I respect him as a critic, so I checked out the band the way one does these days – that is to say, I paid a visit to the their MySpace page – and it all just sounds like really generic, uninteresting stoner rock to me.A little help here? Can anyone explain to me what’s such hot shit about this band? ‘Cause, seriously, I’d much rather listen to some Hidden Hand or Electric Wizard. I mean, seriously – look at that band photo. Doesn’t that just annoy the shit out of you?

-AR

Our pals over at Crustcake have posted a retrospective on ’90s UK doom masters Electric Wizard, recently reformed after breaking up in 2002. Back with a new lineup in which Jus Oborn is the only original member (though he’s added his wife, Liz Buckingham on guitar), the band released a new record last month, Witchcult Today on Candlelight Records.

Head on over to Crustcake for some mp3s that will make your bowels rumble (actually… maybe it’s the coffee I just drank…) and a more detailed look at the band and their new album.

-VN

Hey man….

(pause)

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Huh?

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(pause)

What?

-KW/Cheech & Chong

Saturday Song To Get Stoned To: Electric Wizard -”Funeralopolis” (from Dopethrone)