MetalSucks

Kreator’s twenty-fifth anniversary tour, which features the very strong supporting line-up of Voivod, Nachtmystium, Evile, and Lazarus A.D., rolled through NYC on Saturday night, and, yeppers, I was there. I don’t have tons to say about it, but I did wanna give you a quick run-down, in the event that you are somehow on the fence about whether or not to buy a ticket when the tour comes to your town… so here are some quick thoughts about all the bands, in the order in which they appeared:

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Following my post yesterday about Metal Hammer’s Dimebag tribute album, Earache Records has sent out a press release confirming that Evile’s cover of the Pantera classic “Cemetery Gates” was, indeed, late bassist Mike Alexander’s final recording with the band before he passed away. That means the track has obviously taken on new meaning for the band – both because of the lyrical content (a study in death and grief) and because what was intended to be a tribute to one fallen brother will now also serve as a tribute to another.

You can watch video of the band recording the track above; after the jump, read a quote from Evile’s lead guitarist, Ol Drake:

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It’s hard to believe that Dime has been gone for five years, but December 8 will be the anniversary of one of metal’s bleakest moments. To cash-in on commemorate the event, Metal Hammer have enlisted a bunch of well-known acts to record Pantera covers (but not Damageplan covers, because, y’know, let’s get real here) for a CD that will come with the magazine. Metal Hammer has done this a few times in the past – I remember they had they entire Master of Puppets album re-recorded by various bands, including Mastodon, Machine Head, Chimaira and Trivium when that album reached its twentieth anniversary, and some of it was pretty good.

Get the complete track list for Metal Hammer’s Dime tribute disc after the jump, along with my thoughts in bold.

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It was a fuckin’ busy week, no? Either shit was crazy this week or I’ve really got to get outside of the MS Mansion more often. Here’s what went down:

• We announced a Winter U.S. tour featuring four bands TBA, and we revealed them day by day via anonymous interviews. So far we’ve revealed Mutiny Within, Arsis and Exodus (click the band name for the interview). Who will the headliner be? Read the interview here and try to guess.
• Eyal got burnt out on the music he loves and explained the financial realities of being a metal musician.
• We spoke with 3 Inches of Blood’s Shane Clark and White Wizzard’s Erik Kluiber.
• Horse the Band’s Lord Gold blogged about being bored on tour.
• We argued about drum triggering in metal.
• We streamed the asshole-ripping new record by The Destro and a webisode from Steel Panther.
• We said goodbye to Evile bassist Mike Alexander. R.I.P.

Ax and I are going to see 3 Inches of Blood in Brooklyn tonight, so hopefully that’ll provide just the head-clearing I need. See you guys Monday.

-VN

First of all, for our non-Chosen readers: groyse metsie is Yiddish for a bargain. Don’t say I never taught ya nuthin’.

So. For the month of October (or “Rocktober,” as some clever marketing types are dubbing it), Earache is offering a whole bunch of truly righteous albums from their catalog for download on iTunes at a retardedly low price: $5.99 in the U.S., £4.49 in the U.K., and 4,99EUR in Europe. (The press release tells me that “prices may vary in other regions.” Ha-ha.) Now, I know that most of us music snobs don’t like iTunes because the audio quality isn’t as high as it could be, and there’s a better-than-average chance that a lot of you own most of these albums anyway. But if you can get past the whole “IT’S NOT AS GOOD AS FLAC! Snort snort” thing and/or for some reason DO NOT already own most of these albums, it’s a really, really killer deal.

A complete list of available albums after the jump. At least six or seven of these are classics, and nine or so are still awesome and could be classics, so they’re totally worth the six bucks or whatever.

And then one of them is by Oceano.

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I’ve just received an e-mail from Earache Records alerting me that Mike Alexander, bassist for U.K. thrashers Evile, has passed away. He was thirty-two years old.

Evile members Matt Drake, Ol Drake and Ben Carter have released the following statement:

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Wouldn’t it be awesome if that was an actual product? I know that the conceit is a little bad 80s movie, but, seriously, if you could just send someone a box full of evil-pronounced-with-an-Alan-Rickman-accent, wouldn’t you? They’d be all, “Oh, someone sent me a gift, I wonder what it is,” and then they’d open it and SURPRISE! They’re fucked.

I suppose we can settle for this new Evile video, “Infected Nations.”

Evile’s Infected Nations comes out on Earache on September 21 in Europe and September 22 here in the U.S.

-AR

Noisecreep kindly invited me to be a guest on their weekly podcast last week, so I trekked into Manhattan on my bike in the 90° heat to take part at the AOL Music headquarters. The panel consisted of Noisecreep Editor-In-Chief Seth Werkheiser, writers Chris Harris, Amy Sciarretto and Jon Weiderhorn, John and Oliver from UK thrashers Evile, and myself. That’s me on the far right in the white (metal!) shirt, sporting a douchie mustache. So now you can tackle me at shows just like you do Rob from Metal Injection.

We discussed a whole lot of topics ranging from the then-latest in metal news (Dani Filth being chucked with a bottle, news of a new Austrian Death Machine album, etc), the latest records to come out (Burnt by the Sun, Emmure, Otep) and Jon did an interview with Evile. Laughs were had and many bands were shat upon (mostly by me, with nervous laughs from everyone else). Watch it below. Thanks again to Noisecreep for the invite; I hope to do it again soon.

-VN

Our friend Carlos Ramirez has posted a list at NoiseCreep of the “Top 10 New School Thrash Bands.” There are some really sweet bands on this list – Municipal Waste, Skeletonwitch, Warbringer, and Merciless Death all made the list – but I imagine many of you will be pissed by some of the exclusions (Lazarus A.D., Evile, etc.).

Check out the complete list, then come back and argue about it right here at “Fuck You” headquarters.

-AR

UK retro-thrashers Evile don’t do much for me, but I’m aware that a lot of you are fans. So I’m doing my bloggerly duty and telling you that they have a new song, “Infected Nations,” now streaming on their MySpace page. It’s the title track for the band’s new album, which Earache will release on September 22.

Generally speaking, I think it’s a pretty good song. But I don’t feel very passionate about it. Tell me why I’m an idiot in the comments section below.

-AR

There’s lots of talk about thrash these days. Amidst killer “comeback” records by the likes of old-schoolers Testament, Exodus, and Death Angel, there’s been a spate of signings of young up and comers who hawk the thrash sound. Muncipal Waste, Warbringer, Bonded By Blood, Evile, etc are all young bands that ape the classic thrash sound to some degree. Not to take anything away from these bands, because they’re certainly talented — but the mass signing of old-school sounding thrash bands begs the question: is this a true revival, or a passing trend?

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Gotta please the metalheads too, right? Rock Band, the full-band cousin of Guitar Hero, will continue releasing downloadable weekly upgrade packs featuring new songs for the game. In addition to plenty of predictable releases, this one caught our eye: the week of March 4th will see the release of the “Thrash Three Pack,” featuring “Blinded by Fear” by At The Gates “Thrasher” by Evile “Shadow World” by The Haunted.

We’re shocked too. Sure, a few enterprising headbangers will be psyched to hear this news, and At the Gates are pretty legendary in a certain segment of the metal community, but I can’t see this being a big seller to a crowd that would rather sing “S.O.S.” by The Police for the 169th time. In any case it’s pretty damn cool, and I hope my richer friends who have Rock Band will spring for the Thrash Three Pack. After all, I’ve always wished I had long hair, lots of tattoos, was awesome at guitar, played in front of thousands of people… oh yeah, it’s just a video game.

-VN

If you’re not sick of the thrash revival yet, Evile’s Enter the Grave should scratch your itch for a little while. Like Merciless Death, Dekapitator and their ilk, Evile isn’t one of those bands that updates the thrash sound – they’re one of those bands that sounds exactly like an 80’s thrash act. In other words, this album is completely unoriginal, which is not the same thing as saying that it’s not good.

Enter the Grave was produced by the legendary Flemming Rasmussen – he of Ride the Lightning and, yes, Master of Puppets fame – and, well, it sure shows. The guitars have the same satisfyingly crunchy tone as those albums, the drums and bass are just as sharp, and the guitar solos, by Oli Drake, may be even more blistering.

And since Demiricous take so much shit for sounding like Slayer, it’s worth noting that lead singer/rhythm guitarist Matt Drake sounds exactly like a young Tom Araya. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing.

(three out of five horns)

-AR