How do a dude dressed like a clown, the slow motion vomiting of Jägermeister run backwards and forwards, the inside of the human body, and the inside of a motor relate to each other from a thematic standpoint? And, for that matter, how do they relate to “A Coward’s Existence,” one of the songs from Fuck the Facts’ killer new album, Die Miserable?

I honestly don’t really know right now, and a cursory examination of the song’s lyrics isn’t really clarifying things for me. But that combination of elements certainly makes the band’s just-released, Michael Panduro-directed video for the song an unusual viewing experience, and a very, very welcome change of pace from the unimaginative metal videos we see so frequently. You can check out the clip, which debuted earlier today on Metal Injection, below. I don’t think it’s technically NSFW, but there is some kinda gross and fucked-up imagery in here, so use your best judgement.

Fuck the Facts’ Die Miserable is out now on Relapse.

-AR

Okay, so I’m not a punk, and never claimed to be. My punk cred is spotty at best (though I do have sweet Amebix neck tattoos!), and my knowledge is far from encyclopedic. However, I do love the fuck out of crust punk, d-beat, fastcore, powerviolence, 80’s hardcore, and grindcore, so you’re going to have to deal with me writing about it within the context of this series, because a) there are tons and tons of badass female musicians within those scenes, and b) duh, this shit rules! Of course, lumping all those disparate genres together is a little lazy on my part, but you’ve gotta admit that punk and grind go together like peanut butter and chocolate (or whips and chains).

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When I was fifteen years old, I had to sneak out of my parents’ house on a Friday night to go see GWAR and the Misfits play a Halloween show. Then I had to conceal my clothing from my parents, seeing as it was, y’know, soaked in blood, urine, and semen.

Here we are all these years later, pretty much right at the anniversary of that show, and GWAR are on a popular, mainstream late-night talk show. And yet, somehow, they seem no less rebellious than they ever were.

Which is all my way of saying, “GWAR rules.” And they do. They rule. Hard.

ANYWAY, here are some things we did this week:

• Speaking of GWAR, Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie himself provided us with more insights into the NFL. Meanwhile, several members of the Relapse Records family gave us the skinny on the new NHL season, and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley pondered the pros and cons of new technology in music.
• We debuted Jucifer’s new video, for the song “Hiroshima.”
• We got exclusive specs on Contain Us, the new box set from The Devin Townsend Project.
• We spoke to Steel Panther and Niilo Sevänen from Insomnium.
• We checked out the latest release from Carnifex.
• We continued the Countdown to the Metal Suckfest and defended Danzig.
• We counted down the eleven cardinal rules of attending a concert.
• We wondered if nu-dethcore is the next big thing.
• We cried because even ex-members of Metallica make bad music now.
• We argued about the best debut albums of the past twenty-five years.

And that’s it! Have a delightful weekend, gang. We’ll see ya Monday.

-AR

We had a lot of fun last year doing an NHL preview with our friends at Relapse Records – so much fun, in fact, that we wanted to do it again this year!

Unfortunately, we got a little distracted with some other business, and so this year’s edition is a) somewhat less comprehensive than last year’s, and b) not really a preview at all, seeing as the NHL season actually began two weeks ago. Still… we got some fun people weighing in, including members of Misery Index, Fuck the Facts, 16, and Hero Destroyed. Read ‘em all after the jump!

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If you’re reading this now and you live in/around NYC, it’s not too late to come drink FREE BEER (from 6-7pm) and party with us as Skeletonwitch, Kvelertak, Barn Burner, Turbid North and Battlecross melt faces at the 2011 MetalSucks / Metal Injection / 1000 Knives CMJ Showcase! And two weeks from this very moment, Day 1 of The Metal Suckfest will be underway — holy shit! For the rest of you who don’t live anywhere near here… either get your asses over right quick or be jealous. Very jealous.

Meanwhile, it was another week o’ fun at the MS Mansion in which the Monkeys had to work overtime to fling poo at all who dared attempt to infiltrate our walls:

• We interviewed Topon and Mel from Fuck the Facts, Threat Signal’s Jon Howard and Evile’s Ol Drake.
• We continued Counting Down to the Metal Suckfest with All Pigs Must Die’s Adam Wentworth, Today is the Day’s Curran Reynolds, 3′s Billy Riker, Fight Amp’s Mike McGinnis and Howl’s Timmy St. Amour.
• We listened to Metallica and Lou Reed’s LuLu and enjoyed a few parodies.
• We reviewed Cynic’s new EP, Satan Rosenbloom Freeloaded new ones from Nemesis Complex and Honduran, and Corey belatedly rated his August Bleeders and Blowers.
• We showed you guys all the fun we had nerding out at Comic Con.
• The re-booted Beavis & Butt-Head will have metal music videos after all; rejoice!

See ya’ll next week.

-VN

Axl has blathered quite a bit in recent months about the awesomeness of the new Die Miserable album from Canadian death-grind-punk-whozit-whatsit-galore band Fuck the Facts. It’s left me quivering in the fetal position a few times, too, so we figured it was high time we found out what the band had to say about it? Read on for all the facts you could ever want to fuck from the band’s guitarist/founder Topon Das and vocalist Mel Mongeon.

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Hats off to reader Wayne Mendel.  He correctly identified last week’s logo as beloning to the band Astral Oath, and for his troubles, he wins five CDs from the MetalSucks Mansion Archives. Enjoy ‘em, Wayne!

This week we have another ridiculously great prize for you cats: two, count ‘em two, copies of Die Miserable, the incredible new album from Canadian grindcore masters Fuck the Facts. I’ve been singing this album’s praises for months now, so hopefully you’re already dying to check it out; I can pretty much guarantee that it’s going on my year-end list in December. It’s really just a beast of a record, and it will make you feel like this. So either get off your ass and order a copy, or enter this contest and keep yer fingers crossed!

All you gots to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name a week from today.

We have a great logo this week, courtesy of reader Nikolai Gawin. Thanks, Nik!

-AR

We have a decent amount of new stuff this week, including quality releases from Skeletonwitch, Black Cobra, Hull, Fuck The Facts and more. This writer’s opinion on all of it after the jump.

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Fuck the Facts’ new album, Die Miserable, is one of those records that I’ve written about so much over the past couple months that I am now at the point where I don’t know how else to express my love for the music. So I’m going to politely suggest that, if you love grind, and you love yourself, you check out the full-album stream, which is now available right over here. I’d argue that there’s been a steady increase in quality in the band’s output over their past few releases, and this is the pinnacle of the increase.

So headbang here, then come celebrate the album’s joyous release in our comments section. Die Miserable actually fo’ reals comes out October 11 via Relapse.

-AR

photo by Justina Villanueva

Guys, this new Fuck the Facts album, Die Miserable, is seriously kicking my ass. I seriously hope the band members are all really proud of what they’ve achieved, ’cause they have definitely taken shit to a whole new level. Like, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but the last time I got to see the band live, vocalist Mel Mongeon was so pregnant she looked as though she seriously might go into labor at any time, and she was still screaming her guts out*, and it was pretty much the most metal thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And Die Miserable feels like the band got together and said, “Let’s see if we can make some music to out-metal the metalness of that tour.” And then they did just that.

So. The latest track to emerge from this painfully great record is “Alone,” which is streaming over at The Deciblog, and which I am going to insist you check out right now. Go on. I’ll wait here.

…

…

Fucking SWEET, right? Now make a pledge to purchase Die Miserable when Relapse releases it on October 11. It’s totally worth it.

-AR

*In fact, that photo above is from that show; I was standing directly to the right of Ms. Justina Villanueva when she took it. You can’t see that Mel is preggers, but you can see how intense her performance was, so now just keep in mind that her stomach was the size of a watermelon and you’ll get the idea of how fucking nuts the show was.

When I think of the act of drifting — and I mean, like, while relaxing on a lake or whatever, not that thing that street racers do — I think of soothing relaxation, letting my muscles go limp, and generally putting no effort whatsoever into what I’m doing. And the new Fuck the Facts song, “Drift” — which our friends at Brooklyn Vegan are streaming right now — certainly does not seem like the sound of soothing relaxation and limp muscles.

It does, however, seem like the sound of awesome, furious, face-melting grind. Which is probably a good thing, because if Fuck the Facts released something that sounded like, say, Buckethead’s “Whitewash” — let alone released such a track on an album called Die Miserable — we would all probably feel kinda confused.

Jump in the pit here, then come back and let us know what you think (as though you needed an invitation). Relapse will release Die Miserable on October 11.

-AR

Listen up, you dweebs: “A Coward’s Existence,” the new Fuck the Facts song, is totally ridiculous. Yes, that’s a compliment.

The first half of the song sees the band continuing to earn their status as one of the best grind bands on the scene today (if the section at the 1:03 mark, which has an airplane-taking-off quality to it, doesn’t make you wanna jump through a window, you must have no pulse), and then the second half of the song is just, like, totally epic. I thought the band’s most recent release, last year’s Unnamed EP, was fantastic, and I think this song already blows that whole record out of the water. It’s just fucking great.

Headbang here, then fuck get a circle pit going in our comments section. Fuck the Facts’ new album, Die Miserable, comes out October 11 via Relapse.

-AR

Ridiculously awesome Canadian grind quintet Fuck the Facts have released the album art for their upcoming offering Die Miserable*, and in the words of the anonymous reader who tipped us off to the event, “I have no idea what is on that cover.” I have made my screen as bright as I possibly can in order to try and make it out, and I just can’t.

And yet… I get this feeling from looking at it… so maybe that’s the point. Maybe you’re just supposed to let the image wash over you. Maybe you’re just supposed to look at it and really feel as though you’re going to die. Miserable.

Whatever the fuck is going here, I’m sure the album is gonna be great.

Die Miserable comes out October 11 on Relapse.

-AR

*I would really like to be a family gathering with a member of Fuck the Facts, preferably when they are meeting someone’s new significant other for the first time. “And what do you do?” “I sell insurance.” “Really?” “No, I’m in a band called Fuck the Facts.” “Called Fu…?” “Yeah, and our new album is called Die Miserable.” “Oh… oh…”

Can I make one thing clear? The debut Bravest Man in Metal column wasn’t designed to be provocative. Nor was it designed to make fun or denigrate those of you who enjoy the mind, body, personality and sexual function altering properties of alcohol. That came more from the title that Ol’ Neilstein saddled said entry with. Granted, coming on to the internet to not rip on people for who they are, what they do, the choices they make and the music they listen to is like breathing to most people, but not something I like to spend my time engaging in. “Fuck, dumb ass, why even log on to the ‘net then? Dumb ass!” I hear a number of you ask. Good question! But my little corner here isn’t designed to point fingers or rip on anyone but myself and my like-minded friends so as to possibly display to the prejudicial part of the world that still believes metal is all about blood, guts, lawnmower decapitations and listening to records backwards that metal isn’t about blood, guts, lawnmower decapitations and listening to records backwards (well, not entirely, anyway) via my own nerdish and geeky proclivities. And those of KEN Mode, the Winnipeg noise rock/metal band I roadied and slung merch for on a recent North American tour.

If you read the first instalment, you’re already aware that the amount of drinking on this tour clocked in at a humiliating low. This should be an indicative hint that the amount of drug use was even less. Actually, it was nil. I don’t know about the circles you roll in, but I don’t really think any of my drug-addicted friends aren’t drinkers. One kind of goes with the other, like a doctor’s office and waiting or public figures getting caught in “sex scandals” and denial. But this pairing of myself and KEN Mode was a boring dude’s match made in heaven. In fact, one of the first questions I was asked by the band’s members upon hauling myself into their van the first morning of my tour tenure was if I wished to partake in a wolfing down ritual of a couple gummi vitamins and vitamin C tablets. Granted, getting sick on tour is a recipe for being sick for a long, long time and one should take whatever measures possible to avoid illness, but group morning vitamin chugging in the parking lot of a rainy suburban Buffalo, NY motel doesn’t exactly scream metal the last time I checked. Not only that, but even after having only first met me about 12 hours earlier, the band were genuinely expressing concern about my decision to scarf a day-old muffin and donut. Caring for your fellow man, having empathy and compassion? What the fuck?

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I stole this photo from Invisible Oranges.

I wasn’t a big fan of last year’s Maryland Deathfest: The Movie. But I haven’t seen Maryland Deathfest: The Movie II, so for all I know, filmmaker David Hall knocked the ball out of the park the second go-round. And one way or the other, I respect that Hall is trying to do something different from most metal concert films, and I respect that Hall is working with some very cool bands (he’s also directed films for Today is the Day and Fuck the Facts) for what I’m assuming is pretty much no money. If your goal is to be a wealthy man, you don’t make documentaries about death metal festivals. Clearly, Hall loves his subject matter.

So I was pretty bummed to read “Don’t Be a Dick: A Tale of Indie Filmmaking, Extortion and MDF,” a guest post he wrote for The Deciblog today in which he tells the completely awful and depressing story of why the footage he shot at last month’s Maryland Deathfest 9 will never see the light of day.

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Because two young upstart blogs have put together a few for your listening pleasure. I haven’t had a chance to check any of these out myself yet, but, like the headline says, they’re free, so it seems worth mentioning, because what have you got to lose, right?

Here are the deets:

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Remember Greber, the guitarless grind project that features Fuck the Facts’ Marc Bourgon? Well, the other half of that awesome outfit is drummer Steve Vargas. Prior to hearing Greber, I honestly wasn’t familiar with Vargas or his other band, The Great Sabatini. But I have since checked out said Sabatini, and guess what? They’re great! (I mean, that shouldn’t be a shock, giving the quality of Greber’s work, but it’s not like I’ll ever bitch ’cause I learned about another excellent band.) They’ve got kind of a hardcore vibe to them, but they’re not quite like any other popular band in that genre right now; for example, their song “The Widow’s Son” features gang shouts and harmonized backing vocals (which, at least as far as I can tell, are not synthetic). It’s raw, catchy shit, and you should definitely check it out.

And then, once you’re officially a fan, you can get stoked that the band is about to embark upon a North American tour. I’d be super stoked to check ‘em out live, but, alas, they’re not coming anywhere near us. So you guys should all go and then e-mail us and tell us how it was. Seriously. Someone who goes to one of these shows, please let me know how it was.

The band is also prepping the release of their new 7′, Napoleon Sodomite, which will come out on their own Sludge Hummer imprint. (Great fuckin’ name for a label, by the way.) You can get more info here.

And here are tour dates for ya:

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The above band pic of Fuck the Facts may have all the verve of a portrait of teenagers who don’t wanna be visiting with grandma on a Sunday, but don’t let that fool you — the only word to describe these Canadian grindsters’ live show is “exhilarating.” The last time I saw the band, vocalist Melanie Mongeon was so preggers that if her water had broken on-stage, I don’t think anyone would have been surprised — and she still screamed her fucking guts out. I can literally think of nothing more metal. And that’s just one member of the band.

So. Hard to believe, but Fuck the Facts are apparently ten years old, and they’re celebrating the big anniversary with a tour, which will include a stop at this year’s Scion Rock Fest. It’s hard for me to imagine that these gigs will be anything short of FUCKING NUTS, especially now that Mongeon is unencumbered by a baby bump. So you miss them at your own peril.

Seriously, don’t miss them, you fucking chump.

Here are dates:

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Word of who was gonna be on the bill for this year’s Scion Rock Fest, the totally free annual metal super-show, got out yesterday — hell, Wormrot even decided to just go ahead and confirm their presence at the festival. So in that regard, the official announcement of this year’s fest is a little anti-climactic.

Until you realize, holy shit — there really is gonna be a free festival with Morbid Angel, Obituary, Death Angel, Municipal Waste, Agalloch, Wormrot, Kvelertak, Atheist, Black Breath, Nails, Fuck the Facts, and tons more awesome bands. That is a fact about which one ought never to complain.

You can RSVP for the event here starting tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the finalized poster:

-AR

Back in November, I praised Greber, the new, guitarless grind project from Fuck the Facts bassist Marc Bourgon and The Great Sabatini drummer Steve Vargas. And I was pleased to see, upon skimming the comments section, that you guys were pretty into the band, too.

Well, good news then, friends: Greber are now streaming their entire debut offering, Hometown Heroin, here. They’re also selling digital downloads of the album via the nifty pay-what-you-like model (the minimum is a buck Canadian) that seems increasingly popular for bands that are just getting started and are looking to get their name out. Of course, you also have the option to buy a physical copy for a perfectly reasonable seven dollars.

So check out Hometown Heroin if you haven’t already. The band is also doing a nine-date Canadian tour later this month; you can get dates here.

-AR

Thanks to Matt McPhee for the tip.