MetalSucks

That’s we told MS Intern David en route to this summer’s Mayhem Festival when he asked us what other bands he should listen to if he likes Gojira (and boy, the kid sure does love Gojira… we taught him well!). ‘Cause Gojira borrow a helluva lot from Morbid Angel; Joe-Jira himself will even tell you this. We then proceeded by blast Domination whilst mercilessly stuck in Dirty Jerz traffic.

This live video posted by Crustcake today was filmed at Wacken in 2006 which means that yes, that IS Erik Rutan on guitar!

-VN

Shame on me for having never heard of Australia’s Portal before. I just got their new album, Swarth (which apparently means “land covered with grassy turf”… metal teaches me a new word again!), last week, and it’s blowing my mind. I don’t even know how to describe it; it’s death metal, I guess, but it’s really pushing the limits of what “music” as a concept is. It almost reminds me of Hate Eternal, but that’s not really fair to Portal or Erik Rutan. They are just a really, really unique monster.

And I do mean “monster.” Like I said, this is really pushing the boundaries between music and noise. It’s just fucking evil, man. I’ll try to write a review one of these days, but in the meantime, I implore you to check out Portal on MySpace and buy Swarth for yourself – it just came out this week on Profound Lore.

And, oh yeah, apparently they wear costumes. Here they are doing the song “Glumurphonel” from their 2003 debut, Seepia.

For the time being it seems that Portal live shows are restricted to their native land, but they have been added to the already amazing Maryland Deathfest 2010 line-up, which will also include Converge, Eyehategod, Melechesh, Obituary, and grind gods Gridlink.

-AR

I was seriously worried about the fate of Demiricous, and with good reason, I’d say. The best band ever to sound exactly like Slayer that aren’t actually Slayer, the Hoosier quartet made two killer albums on Metal Blade (produced by Zeuss and ERIK FUCKING RUTAN, respectively) and were endorsed by no less a figure than Mr. Kerry King himself. But then they were, at least as I understand it, more or less completely ripped-off by their then-manager, and they finally parted ways with Metal Blade last year. No one could blame them if they broke up. Bands break up over much less these days.

But now Lambgoat is reporting that Demiricous is, in fact, alive and well, and will enter the studio in November to record a new five-song demo with Gates of Slumber drummer “Iron” Bob Fouts. They still don’t have a label and “will issue the material themselves.” That part confuses me a bit – I mean, I’m thrilled to get to hear new Demiricous music, but is it a demo to try and land them a new label, or is it a self-released EP…? Whatever. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?

Here’s the band’s video for “Vagrant Idol.” Holy shit, this song is heavy.

-AR

I couldn’t have put it better myself. I’ve been head-over-heels for Goatwhore ever since I first saw them on the stage. Dimmu Borgir might look a bit silly in their assorted armor and spikes, but these Louisiana boys strutted straight out in the lights decked out for battle and with such confidence it was frightening. I’ve rarely seen a band before or since so sure of themselves in their own delivery, and it’s no doubt a direct result of their relentless touring which is due to pick up again next week and end… oh, probably never. I’ve been so excited about their newest release, Carving Out the Eyes of God, that I was willing to brave a phone interview with imposing vocalist Ben Falgoust II (also of legendary forward-thinking Southgrinders Soilent Green) at the shockingly early time of 8:30 a.m. My groggy head was soothed, however, by the talkative monsieur’s charming Louisiana accent as we discussed strippers, New Orleans and SATAN!!! Click to read more…

Seriously. If you don’t know who Paul Mazurkiewicz is, you probably shouldn’t be reading this website.

First of all, I just wanted to say thanks so much for the Centuries of Torment DVD. It’s not only the best band DVD I’ve ever seen, but it’s also the best crash course on Cannibal Corpse anyone could have expected.

Cool, man. Glad you like it.

Yeah definitely, but I was wondering, how does an ambitious project like that comes to fruition?

We were thinking about possibly doing just a piece on the Kill tour and we knew of this Denise Korycki girl who ended up doing the whole thing herself. When we decided to do something in any regard, like maybe on the road with Cannibal Corpse for Kill, she was going to come out for a week at the end of the tour. So she did do that, but it turned into, upon talking to Metal Blade [Records] and talking to us, she actually came up with the idea: “It’s going to be your 20th anniversary, what do you think about expanding on this and making it more of a history of Cannibal Corpse? I can get more in-depth.” And we said “Hey, if you’re willing to tackle a project like this, then sure. let’s do that.” Metal Blade were down with it and all that. So when we decided to do that then she came with us on Kill for the last week of the tour and then it took off from there. Then it was like she’s going to be coming to Tampa a bunch and we were going to Buffalo and she’s going to do all the interviews and finding people and all that. So when it did come to fruition and it was a go, it was really all Denise that was the one. Obviously we had to compile some footage and things like that from our archives, but it was really all her just going here and there interviewing the people that needed to be interviewed and just taking control of the whole project. It was great that she wanted to do it because it might not have come to light if she didn’t really push it. So basically that’s what happened.

Click to read more…

Here’s Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster talking about his band in the January 2009 issue of Decibel:

“We’ve gotten a little more musical though the years and I think it’s a gradual and natural progression. We’ve always been trying to improve ourselves as players and songwriters. If you compare out first record and this one, the difference is enormous; but fromalbum one to album to 11, it’s been a slow progression.”

I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that maybe Mr. Webster was talking some bullshit hype, as musicians are prone to do when promoting a new release. But not only does Webster speak the truth – he could just as easily be talking about his peers in Napalm Death.

Click to read more…

I am going to include exclamation points and some kind of onomatopoeiatic grunting noise in every Cannibal Corpse headline from now until the time I review their new album. Just deal with it.

ANYWAY, The Deciblog dudes have a short clip from the making-of DVD that will accompany Cannibal Corpse’s new album, Evisceration Plague. And in case hearing the title track didn’t make you go from six to midnight right quick, this video oughta finish the job. ‘Cause not only does the music sound sick, but it’s got Erik Rutan! I haven’t typed the dude’s name in caps for a couple of weeks, so once more with feeling – ERIK FUCKING RUTAN! Plus, as The Deciblog notes, the band’s Centuries of Torment DVD was very possibly “the greatest thing ever,” so there’s reason to be confident that this could be an above average “please please please buy a physical copy of the album” filler DVD.

Check it out here.

-AR

Someone e-mailed me the other day to tell me how shitty the cover art for the new Cannibal Corpse album is (I know there’s at least one major grammatical error in that last sentence, but fuck it.). And they’re not wrong; it’s not Iron Maiden’s Dance of Death bad, but we know that CC are capable of so much more.

Click to read more…

We recently asked Job for a Cowboy vocalist Jonny Davy to write a tour blog for the band’s MetalSucks co-sponsored headlining trek with Hate Eternal, All Shall Perish, Animosity and Annotations of an Autopsy. Davy’s short but giggle-inducing blog is below. Enjoy!

ITS RAINING TEARS!

Well, another tour… Again, in the freezing cold. So far we’ve been lucky, no snow. No worries of “VAN FLIP/NO CARE/FIRST POST.” Well, Rutan’s kidney is fucked up, forcing Hate Eternal to drop off of our current tour. My only comment for Rutan is this: “Get better, fix you kidney and party on Wayne.”

Click to read more…

By now you may have heard that Hate Eternal have been forced to drop off their slot on the MetalSucks co-sponsored trek with Job for a Cowboy, All Shall Perish, Animosity, and Anatomy of an Autopsy, because guitarist/vocalist/producer/all around main dude Erik Rutan is in the hospital.

Click to read more…

This past spring, the opportunity presented itself for me to do a phoner with Steve Austin, mastermind for Today is the Day. Since I a) think Today is the Day is brilliant and b) knew that Austin had recently started his own label, Supernova Records, I jumped at the chance. And when I called him, I thought I was gonna get the usual ten to fifteen minute chat full of the usual B.S.

Boy was I wrong. Not only did Austin stay on the phone with me for close to an hour, but he answered every question with a level bridge-burning honesty not usually found by even the most hardcore of the most hardcore. It should go without saying that Steve’s opinions are his own and not necessarily those of MetalSucks, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find the dude fascinating. After the jump, read his thoughts on pretty much any and every topic under the sun.

And, uh, oh yeah: this is easily the longest interview we’ve ever done. Fair warning.

Click to read more…

MetalSucks is jizz-in-our-pants excited to announce that we’re co-sponsoring this fall’s nationwide tour with Job for a Cowboy, Hate Eternal, All Shall Perish, Animosity, and Annotations of an Autopsy. Now, if any two of these bands were touring together, it would already be worth the price of admission and then some – but with all five bands, it’s THE can’t-miss extreme metal tour of the season.

Job for a Cowboy. All Shall Perish. Animosity. Annotations of an Autopsy. These bands are the future of death metal. And then there’s Erik Fucking Rutan’s Hate Fucking Eternal. The Elder Statesman. The Fucking Man Himself.

Get excited about this one, boys and girls. It’s gonna melt your face off.

Get a complete list of tour dates after the jump, and stay tuned to MetalSucks for more info as we get it…

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MetalSucks is thrilled to be able to debut an exclusive clip from Cannibal Corpse’s forthcoming DVD Centuries of Torment which comes out July 8th on Metal Blade Records. In this clip we get behind-the-boards insight from producer (and MetalSucks fave) Erik Rutan (ex-Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal), who produced the band’s 2006 record Kill.

Centuries of Torment drops July 8th; pre-order it here.

- The MS dudes

Are you guys seriously not excited about the MetalSucks sponsored Metal Blade Fresh Meat tour? If that’s the case, then I’m fairly sure it’s just because you’re not down with The Absence, and by “down with,” I mean “have heard at least one of their songs.” ‘Cause if you’ve ever heard a song by The Absence, then you’d know that, in the words of MetalSucks reader attackmole, the band is “tiiiiiiiiiiight.”

So below is the video for the title track from their Erik Rutan-produced 2005 Metal Blade debut, From Your Grave. Produced by the legendary Erik Rutan, it is one of the best European melodic death metal albums I’ve ever heard by a band not actually from Europe. ‘Cause this band is actually from Florida, where they recorded this album with producer Erik Rutan. Also, did I mention it was produced by ERIK FUCKING RUTAN?

MetalSucks.net presents The Metal Blade Fresh Meat Tour w/ The Absence, The Destro, Epicurean, and Rose Funeral (more dates TBA):

06/19 Richland, NJ – Memories Lounge
06/20 Baltimore, MD – Sonar
06/21 Albany, NY – Valentines
06/22 Niagara Falls, ON – The 4555
06/25 Sarnia, ON – Polish Alliance Hall
06/26 Laporte, IN – The Next Level
06/27 Troy, OH – Staunton Garage
06/28 Detroit, MI – Fischer Hall
06/30 Minneapolis, MN – TBA
07/01 Des Moines, IA – Vaudeville Mews
07/02 St. Louis, MO – Rockstar Nightclub
07/03 Tulsa, OK – The Pinkeye
07/05 San Antonio, TX – TBA
07/06 McAllen, TX – Smokin’ Ace

-AR

Look: after nearly 20 years of making brutal death metal, Deicide ain’t exactly trying to reinvent the wheel. So while “The Beginning of the End,” the opening track of their latest offering, Till Death Do Us Part, is kind of surprising (it’s a slow, moody instrumental, as foreboding as the title would suggest, that is unsettling and in no way beautiful, like the negative version of the intro to every American New Wave album this century), everything after is exactly what you’d expect from these fearsome Floridians. Chuck Klosterman once suggested that the reason the Sunshine State spawned so much awesome death metal is because constantly being surrounded by old people makes one think about death all the time; maybe all that ponderin’ of the great beyond also makes these dudes desperate to maintain their youth, and so they just keep making the same album they did in 1990 over and over again.

In any case, it’s a moot point, ’cause like AC/DC before them and Children of Bodom after, the fact that they’re usually pretty good slides them from the “boh-ring” column to the one labeled “dependable.”

Click to read more…

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It’s a cold winter night (technically morning) in January. Somewhere in a warehouse in the bowels of Brooklyn, Axl and Vince have infiltrated director David Brodsky’s set for the new Hate Eternal video, “Bringer of Storms,” in order to nab an interview with the death metal God known as Erik Rutan. Hate Eternal are having one hell of a day – after a personal loss and a vehicular mishap, they just barely made it to their gig in Manhattan that night to play a killer, if abbreviated, set, and now they’re doing this video shoot until six or seven a.m. before they have to squeeze back into their van and start the long haul to Baltimore (which is geographically closer to where they started their day than it is to where they’ve ended it!) for another show tonight.

Surely, the dudes in Hate Eternal would have every right to be in terrible moods, and trying to grab the dude for a ten minute interview in between set-ups should be cause enough for the monstrous demon Rutan to reign death down upon our intrepid reporters. But Rutan and company actually turn out to be a group of down-to-earth, soft-spoken, incredibly nice guys, and their fearless leader – he who was part of arguably the best line-up Morbid Angel ever had, he who has produced already legendary albums for the likes of Cannibal Corpse, Vital Remains, Goatwhore, Six Feet Under, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Demiricous, The Absence, and Pain Principle, he who has persevered with his labor of love, Hate Eternal, in spite of every seemingly insurmountable obstacle thrown in his path – is only all too happy to indulge these puny fanboys with their precious interview.

Above, check out the clip for “Bringer of Storms,” directed by David Brodsky. It comes off of Hate Eternal’s new album, Fury and Flames, which hits stores February 19 on Metal Blade.

After the jump, check out the complete transcript of Axl and Vince’s interview with the mighty Erik Rutan.

Click to read more…

I love “Where the Slime Lives,” because it actually sounds like slime.

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Don’t forget that Erik Rutan’s Hate Eternal have a new album, Fury and Flames, out February 19. We’ll have an interview with Rutan later this week…

-AR

Vince and I were mortified when we arrived at BB King’s Blues Club in Times Square last night. Not because we were at BB King’s (not always the best venue for a metal show) or because we were in Times Square (a place of interest only to tourists and other assorted nimrods), but because it was only 8 pm and 3 Inches of Blood were just taking the stage after an “introduction” by Dr. Rockso, the Rock N’ Roll Clown who does cocaine. How the fuck had we managed to miss Hate Eternal? According to the venue’s website, doors had opened at 7, and it seemed highly improbable that openers Decrepit Birth and Hate Eternal had both already played their sets within an hour; since we were at the show largely to check out Erik Rutan and the boys, the thought that we might not get to see them was upsetting, to put it mildly.

Click to read more…

Having now heard a new track from Hate Eternal’s forthcoming Fury and Flames, I’m even more excited than I already was for the latest offering from Erik Rutan – I mean, the song is just fucking BRUTAL. My newly quadrupled enthusiasm works out pretty well, since Vince and I are going to see Hate Eternal’s show with The Black Dahlia Murder and 3 Inches of Blood tonight at BB King’s in Times Square tonight (NY readers – seek us out and buy us a drink… Vince is the dude with the huge beard, I’ll be the guy in the Lamb of God shirt who looks fucking miserable and totally unapproachable)… and, if everything works out, we’ll get to interview the dude sometime in the wee hours of the morning, after the gig.*

ANYWAY, here’s a clip of Hate Eternal playing “I, Monarch” from their DVD, The Perilous Flight. They sound pretty MASSIVE, if you ask me…

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-AR

*By the way, as I type this, I think Vince is doing a phoner with one of the dudes from Bullet for My Valentine. And, yes, I am aware of the humor in the fact that we may interview Hate Eternal and BFMV in the same 24 hour period, given that those bands’ respective fan bases would probably kill one another if given half a chance.