I can see that The Damned Things are gonna be the next point of contention here at the MetalSucks Mansion. Vince likes ‘em, but they just sound like more more boring corporate rock to my ears. And a new track streaming on the band’s Facebook page, “Friday Night (Going Down In Flames),” isn’t doing much to change my mind. I don’t think the band is terrible or anything; I just feel really meh about them. (Although I definitely like the Foo Fighters-style of this song better than their last track, “We’ve Got a Situation Here.”) If they weren’t a supergroup, would anyone care? Why does already being famous earn you the right to now be mediocre?

Meanwhile, the group has unveiled the cover art for their debut, Ironiclast. And I’m looking at this thing, and I’m thinking, “Gee, this looks familiar.”

And then it hit me! Remember Damnocracy, that very short-lived supergroup from that stupid VH1 reality show Scott Ian did with Sebastian Bach, Ted Nugent, Evan Seinfeld, and Jason Bonham? Of course you do… how could you ever forget? Well, remember what that band’s logo was? Here, I’ll remind you:

Click to read more…

Here’s a fun story. The interwebs were aflutter on Saturday after Every Time I die posted two messages on their official Facebook page which seemed to suggest that they were breaking up. Here are screen caps of the posts in question:

So it’s easy to see how fans might misconstrue those messages to mean that the band were done.

Click to read more…

Somewhere, a satisfied school marm is smirking, “I told those Buckley boys if they weren’t careful they’d get into real trouble some day!”

So. Recently, I haven’t been paying as close attention to Twitter as perhaps I ought to. But I guess the dudes from Every Time I Die were were posting bogus re-tweets from celebrities in order to promote their new DVD, Shit Happens. Some examples, according to Lambgoat:

“RT @AndyDick i did the Jimmy Kimmel show w/ @evereytimeidie in 08, they’re cracking me up, get their dvd”

“RT @peeweeherman: New ETID DVD in stores 10/26! I sure hope they play THAT in a dark, seedy theater!”

“RT @JimmyFallon @everytimeidie this is brilliant, you guys need to come play my show to promote your new dvd!”

Well, hey, guess what? Some of these celebs — or, at least, their handlers — got wind of the little prank, and ETID is now facing legal action: The band has revealed via Twitter that they’ve received “seize [sic] and desist papers” (I assume they mean “cease and desist papers”), that “saying that most of those tweets were fake didn’t appease the celebs,” and that the band is “getting taken to court.”

Click to read more…

OMFGz!!!! Members of Anthrax and Every Time I Die are sullying their cred by palling around with dudes from Fall Out Boy!!! What ever will we do?!?!

Listen to the new track “We’ve Got a Situation Here,” of course, which is not nearly the catastrophe all the readers who sent us outraged emails when The Damned Things supergroup was announced seemed to think it would be. Seeing as the band’s two guitarist are Anthrax’s two guitarists, it sounds plenty metal. Seeing as Keith Buckley is the singer, it’s got plenty of rock n’ roll swagger. And seeing as dudes from Fall Out Boy are in the band, yeah, it’s catchy. Shocking, I know, that a band actually equals the sum of its parts. But this is not a bad thing. If this song appeared on a new Anthrax album and had John Bush’s vocals (not Belladonna’s… yuck) I’d probably love it. And so would you. What’s not to like? It’s a good song.

There goes my cred… oh well! I never had any cred anyway; I’ve been raving about “shitty” bands you all hate since we started this site back in December of 2006, only back then no one seemed to care.

Stream “We’ve Got a Situation Here” at Metal Insider, then come back here and tell us what you think.

-VN

Holy shit, is it seriously August already? It’s gonna start getting cold soon. Motherfucker. Here’s what we did this week when we should have been enjoying the sunshine and fresh air:

• We’re streaming Dementia/Dyslexia, the Metal Blade debut of Fleshwrought,  a new project from Animosity/Animals as Leaders’ Navene Koperweis and Job for a Cowboy’s Jonny Davy.
• We debuted an EPK for Iron Thrones’ The Wretched Sun.
• We also debuted “Fear, Emptiness, Decibel,” a new column from the editors of our favorite metal rag.
• We had a little beard on beard action with Andy Williams from Every Time I Die and Liam Wilson from The Dillinger Escape Plan. We also spoke to Avenged Sevenfold’s Johnny Christ, The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Jeff Tuttle and Pathology’s Dave Astor.
• We checked out the latest releases from Chimaira and Decrepit Birth.
• We schooled Korn’s Jonathan Davis on the BP Oil Spill.
• We questioned the sincerity of Max Cavalera’s claim that his collaboration with Fred Durst is all Ross Robinson’s fault.
• We questioned Glenn Danzig’s sanity. Again.
• We got pissy that Eddie’s not on the cover of the new Maiden album.
• We got boners watching 72 minutes of pro-shot Gojira footage.
• We did not get boners looking at Emmure noodz.
• We found the best bass player in the history of forever-ever-ever.

We’ll be hanging out at the Summer Slaughter show this Sunday here in NYC; if you spot us, please bring us presents. We like presents. Thanks.

-AR

Exclusive beard+shlong nature noodz pic brought to you exclusively for this interview by Jessica Curreri!

Last week I conducted a very special interview I’d been looking forward to for some time: Andy Williams and Liam Wilson, two of metal’s best beards, together on one conference call with me, self proclaimed Best Beard of metal writers. With the express purpose of talking about beards exclusively.

Pure hilarity ensued. Beard stories, beard grooming tips, the love adorned upon beards by loving fans (including a blood-soaked grab by a drunk, beaten-up homeless man), all-time beard heroes, and all sorts of other assorted beard talk. Since both Every Time I Die and The Dillinger Escape Plan are currently out on Warped Tour, the guys also shared their thoughts on the “punk rock daycare” nature of Warped and talked just enough trash about purple-pant wearing “boy bands.” Plus their unexpected newfound love for The All American Rejects.

Read our beardtastic talk after the jump!

Click to read more…

Every Time I Die have been releasing these 5-minute tour diary shorts in weekly installments to promote their current stint on Warped Tour, and since the dudes in ETID are about as funny as they come I’m hoping we get to see some true comedy. The first episode was mainly an introduction, but the second episode, released yesterday, is where things really start to heat up… literally.

Among other things — a van breakdown fixed by velcro, another fixed via jump-start, and yet another one fixed by… I’m not sure how they fixed that — in the latest episode we get to see what happens when one band member and another random partier stick a hot sauce-soaked piece of paper up their ass and urethra, respectively. Curious? There’s no embed code, so go watch it here.

Look forward to many more poop and fart jokes, the bread and butter of life in a metal band on the road, every week with Shit Happens.

-VN

It’d be easy to categorize the rant Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley wrote for Alternative Press as “old guy sour about kids these days” if everything he’s saying about the current young crop of bands on the Warped Tour wasn’t so damn on-point. At a relatively ripe 30-ish years old (I think) compared to the haircutcore multitudes, the lads in Every Time I Die, Dillinger Escape Plan and a small handful of other bands on Warped have earned the right to be crotchety old men; their music has stood the test of time in this crazy, ever-changing scene and has proven itself to be more than just a passing fad. And while Buckley lays it straight in his vitriolic rant and it’d be easy to say “he just doesn’t get it” with regards to today’s youth’s music choices, it’d be hard for any self-respecting music fan to argue with his points. Sample:

The problem is that kids here at the Warped Tour don’t know that half of these “bands” play to an iPod track or that most “artists” don’t even write their own songs. They don’t realize that the singer of Never Shout Never is just a poor man’s Justin Bieber or that most of these “moshcore” bands that use 808’s to really BEEF UP their bass tone are the most recent manifestation of nu metal. Really guys? The dude from Milli Vanilli KILLED HIMSELF because he was so ashamed at being outed as a phony and yet on a daily basis I walk out into the crowd and hear autotuned vocals in a live setting. What the fuck has happened to us? Don’t we want more than this? Music once made me want to play music. Now there are days that it makes me want to never listen to it again.

Buckley’s rant is really something you’ve got to read; it’s the kind of article that’ll have you pumping your fist and yelling “yes!” to yourself constantly. The final blow:

Put your ear to the ground, take off your stupid fucking neon shirt and get a haircut. Oh, and what happened to throwing tomatoes at people onstage that just plain sucked? I say we bring that back. As a matter of fact, I think Breathe Carolina are playing soon…

Zing! We wait for Never Shout Never and Breathe Carolina’s responses with baited breath. It’s been a while since we had a good feud ’round these parts…

-VN

Thanks: Brent Hicks

The Damned Things have been a source of gossip and interest ever since their formation was announced, even though no one had heard any actual music – ’cause when you have a band with members of Anthrax (Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano), Every Time I Die (Keith Buckley and now Josh Newton), and fucking Fall Out Boy (Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley), well, you’re gonna get people’s attention.

It seems that the band are finally ready to unveil themselves to the world right proper, though, as they’ve posted rough-mixes of two tracks, “We’ve Got a Situation Here” and “Ironiclast,” on their MySpace page in advance of kicking off a mini-tour tonight at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn.

So what’s the verdict?

Click to read more…

We haven’t talked much about Every Time I Die’s New Junk Aesthetic since its Fall 2009 release, despite a 4-out-of-5 horns writeup by Sammy O’Hagar and a fun follow-up interview with guitarist/beardo Andy Williams. But New Junk Aesthetic was pretty (pretty, pretty) good. I guess ETID just haven’t given us much to talk about lately.

I’m usually not a fan of music videos that just stitch together a bunch of road footage, but the new ETID video for “After One Quarter of a Revolution” has a twist; it’s all shots off dudes stage-diving while the band is playing. Glorious, dangerous, brutal stage-dives, including two nakee dudes who were apparently wasted or psyched enough to show their peen to an entire audience (and now, the world). There are also some great shots of dudes doing flips into the audience, “walking on water,” and yes, there’s the obligatory dude who’s WAY too big to crowd surf falling flat on his face. Awesome idea for a video.

-VN

Scott Ian will do just about anything for a buck. It all started with those VH1 talking head appearances and Anthrax’s “reunion” tour with Joey Belladonna… since then he’s lent his face to the failed Nonelouder.com, wrote a comic book, and God knows what else. If nothing else, you’ve got to respect our favorite Big Four Jew for staying motivated.

But this is the last straw. Ian, along with fellow Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano, has teamed up with Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley, and Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley and bassist David Karon to form the new supergroup The Damned Things. Groan…

Click to read more…

Monday (actually sun down Sunday, but whatever) is Yom Kippur, which is the Jewish day of repentance. As you can imagine, I have a lot to repent for, so I won’t be doing any writing. Vince may or may not be here to give all the goy their bored-at-work dose of entertainment.

In the meantime, here are some fun things that happened this week:

• Dallas Coyle talked about “borrowing ideas” and talking shit, while Eyal Levi contemplated greener grass (not that kind of grass).
• We spoke to Every Time I Die’s Andy Williams and some of the dudes from Periphery.
• We suffered through the worst Metallica cover ever recorded.
• We wondered if Juggalos should be considered a gang.
• And it’s Gojira and Burst live FTW.

See ya Tuesday.

-AR

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…

Click to read more…

As one of the chief riff providers for swaggercore titans Every Time I Die, Andy Williams takes pride in making the discordant into catchy. For a perfect example of this, look no further than the band’s latest (MetalSucks-approved) album, New Junk Aesthetic. Distilling the band’s decade-plus essence into a tight half hour, it’s a satisfying mix of thunderous heaviness and easily the most appealing material the band have put to tape. But while he’s often overshadowed by vocalist Keith Buckley’s relentless wiseassery, it’s his and Jordan Buckley’s Skynard-by-way-of-Dillinger-Escape-Plan guitar work that make the band stand out and ultimately worthwhile.

A self-described “chatty Cathy,” Andy Williams was remarkably frank and refreshingly earnest in a recent interview with MetalSucks on the eve of the release of New Junk Aesthetic. Among other things, he discussed why he can listen to the new album and none of the band’s other material, his thoughts on the new Converge record, the changing landscape of the scene he came up in, and life over at ETID’s new label, Epitaph.

Click to read more…

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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Those that felt underwhelmed by Every Time I Die’s The Big Dirty (a company of which this writer is a part) need not worry – New Junk Aesthetic, their new album, has the energy, texture, and savagery the prior record lacked. And this isn’t to say The Big Dirty was a massive, St. Anger-style failure; it was just an alright album in the company of the splendid Southern-fried rock of Gutter Phenomenon or their debut, the up-there-with-Jane Doe lost metalcore classic Last Night in Town. And when viewed in retrospect, Big Dirty appears to be the band’s “growth” record: where they fumbled around, sounding somewhat bored and uninspired (though admittedly still pretty entertaining), perhaps even unsure of what to do next. New Junk Aesthetic is a band completely comfortable with itself, and pushing different boundaries because of that. Vocalist Keith Buckley belts out ridiculously catchy vocals hooks with his same refreshingly smarmy lyrical approach, while guitarists Andy Williams and Jordan Buckley tone down their Southern riff attack to eschew the risk of sounding like a novelty. The album finds the band at its most likable while occasionally incorporating a riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on their debut. If you liked Every Time I Die before, you’ll probably find reasons on this record to like them more. Click to read more…

Congrats to the winners of last week’s funny photo caption contest who will each receive a copy of Protest the Hero’s new Live DVD/CD Gallop Meets the Earth and a PTH t-shirt. The winners are:

• Hammer_Smashed_Hurtt: “Reeses cups $1.00. Bottled water $1.00. Inbreeding………………….Priceless.”
• I’m not racist, but I hate Oceano: “Every Juggalo knows Reese’s Cup is code for anal sex and bottled water is code for a blowjob. Why anal sex and a blow job cost the same amount of money we’ll never know.”
• \m/Eluveitie\m/ [in response to the above]: “Because for most Juggalos, you can’t tell one hole from the other.”

This week we’re giving away 2 prize packages, each containing Every Time I Die’s new record New Junk Aesthetic (out next Tuesday!) and a really sweet matching t-shirt. Just come up with a funny caption to the below photo (from AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com).

Here’s the band’s video for the title track from their new album, Wanderlust.

Am the only one who found The Big Dirty kinda disappointing? Gutter Phenomenon was awesome and I really liked Hot Damn!, but… I dunno. There was just something missing from Dirty – that certain “oomph!” that’s really made this band pop for me in the past. Hopefully Wanderlust will be a return to form.

Wanderlust comes out September 15 on Epitaph.

-AR

I’ve never been that into Every Time I Die (nothing against ‘em… just never really got into them) but for some reason I have this gut feeling that they are about to release an excellent album. New Junk Aesthetic comes out September 15 (check out the awesome artwork in full here), and the band has just posted a new song called “Wanderlust” for streaming on their MySpace page. It’s not as raw and dirty as some of their prior material, but it’s still pretty fucking cool.

Inevitably the MS Haterade Mafia will come out in droves for this one accusing me of pimping the latest “shitcore” band (I’m looking at you, Zilty) but I really don’t see anything “core” about this band, so fuck off. Listen with your ears and not your brains, fuckos, and enjoy this for what it is.

No word yet on the state of Andy Williams’ beard.

-VN

Yesterday, at 10 a.m., our friends at Metal Insider reported that Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz has recorded guest vocals for the new Every Time I Die album.

This morning at 1 a.m., they reported that ETID drummer Mike Novak has split from the band due to “personal conflicts.”

Coincidence?

While you ponder that, enjoy the new ETID song below, entitled “The Marvelous Slut.” Metal Injection discovered it floating around on YouTube. It originally appeared on a recent Hurley-Epitaph Records compilation, which you can download here.

And, yes, that is Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato doing guest vox.

-AR