Thanks: Sam R.

If you still have any doubts that being in a band is for losers, watch Why You Do This, the documentary by Car Bomb’s Michael Dafferner. It is a cold, hard bitch slap of reality. Including interviews with Richard Christy, Randy Blythe, Joe Duplantier, Ben Falgoust, and a bunch of other cool dudes, Why You Do This premiered last year at the Queens World Film Festival, and is now streaming online in full. Check it out:

If you enjoyed that, you can order a DVD right here.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

Today is seemingly “news about albums that are coming out in early 2012″ day. To that end:

• Soilwork are writing a new album called The Living Infinite. Generic quote time: Speed Strid says that “people can expect a continuation of the intensity and presence of The Panic Broadcast, only taken to a higher level” and wishes us all a merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Gee, thanks, Speed!
• Gojira have issued their third studio update video, this one showing bassist Jean-Michel Labadie laying down his tracks. Labadie is the member of Gojira I feel like I know the least about; I’d love to get to know that guy! Gojira are presumably all done or close to done recording their album by now… very exciting.
• Lamb of God released a new trailer for their new album Resolution (January 24th, Epic Records), and it features a good chunk of a previously unheard song. Check it out above, and listen to the first single “Ghost Walking” here if you haven’t yet.

It’s been a long while since Roadrunner signed a reputable metal band on the up and up. Megadeth, Dream Theater, Rush and Opeth, some of their most recent signees, are all great bands to be sure, but all four were many albums into their career before moving over to Roadrunner. You’ve got to go all the way back to Trivium or possibly Killswitch Engage to find a metal band that Roadrunner scooped up from the underground and turned into a household name. Gojira are already established to some degree, sure, but while they’re loved and adored by the metal underground (relatively speaking), they’re not as well-known to mainstream metal crowds. Signing with Roadrunner signifies that both parties are ready to change that.

Can Gojira be the next household name in metal? They’re certainly good enough and have all the good-will of the metal underground backing them. Signing with a major label worked for Lamb of God and it sorta worked for Mastodon, but it was disastrous for Shadows Fall.

Anyway, Axl totally knocked it out of the park with an incredibly informative in-studio interview with Joe and Mario Duplantier last month; if you haven’t read it yet and you’re a Gojira fan, you owe it to yourself to do so right now. Decibel Magazine recently checked in with the latter, too, and got a juicy tidbit out of him about Gojira’s writing process. Unlike most bands these days who live in different cities and send files back and forth to write, Gojira actually still assemble in a room and jam everything out the old fashioned way! Quote:

Click to read more…

So, hey, remember a couple of weeks ago how I interviewed Joe and Mario Duplantier from Gojira about their new album? And I told you that when I arrived at the studio for my interview, Mario was drumming on the door?

Well, some footage of that has found its way into the band’s second studio webisode, which you can check out below. The video fails to convey how incredibly LOUD Mario’s drumming was, but it’s still pretty cool to see.

Cooler still: we actually get to hear some very, very small snippets of new Gojira music. It’s not nearly enough to tell us anything concrete about the new album, but at this point, I’m such a Gojira fiend I’ll take a hit however tiny, y’know?

Gojira’s Roadrunner debut will be out sometime next year.

-AR

Yep, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. So we’re leaving the MetalSucks Mansion now. We’ll be back Monday, at which point we’ll make it up to you with some very special posts… honest Injun!

‘Til then, here’s some shit we did this week:

• We spoke to The Brothers Duplantier from Gojira about their new album, signing with Roadrunner Records, and more.
• Abysmal Dawn’s Charles Elliott gave us a guided tour of his live rig.
• We debuted new-old music by Coalesce.

Y’know. It was a short week.

Okay see ya Monday by-eeeeeee!!!

-AR

photos by Gabrielle Duplantier

November 12, 2011. I’m in Long Island City, heading towards Spin Recording Studios, where the mighty Gojira have recently begun recording their new album with producer Josh Wilbur. It’s a big deal because a) it’s Gojira’s first album in more than three years, b) the band has just announced that they’ve signed with Roadrunner Records, and c) Gojira fucking rules, and I’m a massive, massive fan.

I’m still a good block-and-a-half away when I hear it. It’s so incredibly LOUD and metallic, it almost sounds like machine gun fire — but it’s too rhythmic to be a weapon. I decide it must be a street performer, banging on some sheet metal or something… except that I can see the street all around me, and it’s completely deserted. If it is a street performer, he’s very well concealed, and is apparently playing to an audience of no one.

By the time I arrive at the front door of Spin Studios — a large, steel entrance — the sound has become deafening. And as I peek through the small, submarine-like door window, I finally see the source of the sound: it’s Gojira skinsman Mario Duplantier, drumming on the door like the thunder god that he is.

Click to read more…

When I visited Paris last year I carved a little time out of my busy schedule of eating, eating and more eating to do something else I really love doing when I visit any far away land: walk around while listening to music written by bands from the area. My de facto French listening party kicked off with, of course, Gojira; The Way of All Flesh and From Mars to Sirius didn’t not work in the context of the hustle and bustle of the city, but they didn’t fit in especially well either or give me any new insight into the creative energy behind the music. Perhaps this is because Gojira aren’t from Paris — or even a big city — but from a small country village outside of Bayonne. Alcest aren’t from a big city either — Wikipedia tells me they’re from Bagnols-sur-Cèze, a town in southern France with a population of roughly 18,000 — but for some reason their haunting, atmospheric black metal resonated perfectly with the cold, wintry, dark spirit of Paris in late December. Listening to Écailles De Lune on my earphones put everything in perspective, and I felt like I understood more of what the band members were feeling when they wrote the music than I had before.

Alcest are now working on — or have possibly already finished — their third album, “Les Voyages De L’Âme” (English:”The Journeys Of The Soul”), set for release in January 2012 on the following dates via Prophecy Productions: January 6 in Germany and Austria, January 31 in North America, and January 9th in Europe and everywhere else. Those images above are two different versions of the album cover — the one on the left is for the CD edition (painted by Fursy Teyssier), and the one on the right is the artwork of the vinyl edition (photo shot by Andy Julia). Since there’s two, naturally you’ll want to pre-order both of them! Do so right here. I look forward to listening to it in deepest, darkest, coldest January in New York City.

-VN

It’s been a big week for us Gojira worshippers. First, the band announced that they were in the studio working on a follow-up to the best album of 2008, The Way of All Flesh; then my man Vince Neilstein got all Woodward n’ Bernstein n’ shit and broke the story that the band has signed with Roadrunner a full 24 hours before it was officially announced. (Props to all the websites that used the story and didn’t credit Vince.)

Now Gojira have released a brief video of drummer Mario Duplantier in the studio, and you kinda-sorta get to hear some new music, but no not really. Actually all this video really tells us about the new Gojira album is that Mario’s drums will be awesome. As though there were any doubt…

-AR

Thanks to Ashley Lee for the tip!

[UPDATE, 9:48am EST, 11/8]: Spin Studios has removed the above post from their Facebook page, which would seem to confirm that they goofed by posting it.

Original post:

After reporting this morning that Gojira were in NYC recording a new album and then speculating about what record label was funding the effort, the same anonymous Internet sleuth that tipped us off to the location of the recording sessions (Spin Studios in Queens) noticed a post on the Spin Studios Facebook page confirming that Gojira have landed with Roadrunner. Check the screen cap above, which also tells us that Josh Wilbur (of Lamb of God’s Wrath fame) is producing, and not Greg Fidelman or Rick Rubin.

So, there you have it: Roadrunner. Gojira. Josh Wilbur. Early 2012?

-VN

[UPDATE, 11:47am EST]: An anoymous tipster tells us they’re at Spin Studios in Long Island city. Spin Studios’ Facebook page “Likes” Roadrunner Records. All signs point to Gojira signing with RR.

Original post:

The last bit of non-news we got from Gojira regarding the Sea Shepherd EP suggested the long-awaited collaboration was finally nearing release after some of the session files had been lost on a crashed hard drive. The band also let us know that they’d finished writing an entire new record… and based on today’s news, it seems like we might get that new album before we get Sea Shepherd. Not that I’m complaining — new Gojira is new Gojira, no matter the form — but the band whipped us into a frenzy regarding Sea Shepherd and it now seems possible that it may never come out. I guess we’ll see.

But anyway, new Gojira is coming! The band landed in New York on Thursday, November 3rd and got right to work in the studio. They’ve posted a few photos from this past weekend’s session on their Facebook page, including a shot of New York City that would place the recording studio somewhere near the Union Square vicinity (those are the Zeckendorf Towers on the right). Which begs the question:

Click to read more…

Not Seth Putnam

One mind-blowing aspect of Devin Townsend’s Deconstruction album is its coterie of guest personnel. A who’s-who of pivotal screamers, the list includes that awesome dude from Gojira, legendary super-stud Ihsahn, and extreme metal’s loveliest alto, Tommy Rogers from Between The Buried And Me. And though Townsend rightly rushes to downplay the distraction/sketchy motives of high-profile guest contributions, it’s exciting as shit for metal fans to have those guys — plus studz from Meshuggah, Cynic, and Gwar — all in one place.

Likewise, I super-hail Chino Moreno and his 2005 Team Sleep record, which finds the Deftones frontman enlisting the non-metal voices and pens of Helium’s Mary Timony and Rob Crow of Pinback (above). Each sings awesomely on at least two of the self-titled album’s jamz (e.g. “Our Ride To The Rectory” with Crow here). Just like Townsend’s gang on Deconstruction, Crow’s and Timony’s presence legitimizes the album (ie. busy, inspired aces wouldn’t appear on some hack shit) and helps it to achieve a specialness, like the NBA All-Star game or the time I ate a pizza that a bag of Cheetos had spilled onto (aka Cheetzza©). Best of all, it makes me feel in sync with another human being (Moreno) who happens to ass-worship Timony and Crow and um Moreno. It’s like finally somebody put my needs first when making an album!

Okay here we are at paragraph three, so I bet my editors would like me to deliver on the headline’s promise :) Speaking of Team Sleep MVP Rob Crow, you love the dude cuz he’s awesome (see also: Optiganally Yours’ Exclusively Talentmaker!), and cuz he’s metal (see: his non-serious doom metal project, Goblin Cock), and cuz on his new solo album He Thinks He’s People, he offers an affectionate tribute to Seth Putnam, the recently deceased Anal Cunt mainman and author of history’s best song titles. Check it out and chuckle after the jump!

Click to read more…

Ten days now from now will mark the third anniversary of the release of Gojira’s The Way of All Flesh, and in December of that same year, Joe Duplantier said that the band would be recording an exclusive track to benefit Sea Shepherd. But by April of 2010, that song still had yet to materialize, and the band announced that they were, instead, doing an entire EP on behalf of that environmental organization, complete with special guests. Which was great news, of course! Especially so when the band declared that they were finally entering a studio to record that EP last October. And then, when an awesome new Gojira song featuring Devin Townsend and Fredrik Thordendal emerged this past May, well, it seemed as though, SURELY, the EP was finally ready for release.

And yeah so here we are and it’s October again and we don’t gots no Gojira EP.

Well, hey, news but no not really at all! The band has now posted an update on their Facebook page which provides almost no actual information!!! Check it out:

Click to read more…

Last week, a shitty translation of a news story from a French website told us that Gojira told them that Rick Rubin was producing the band’s new album. We’ve been trying to get confirmation to no avail, but now another shitty translation of another news story from another French website tells us that Gojira told them that Rubin isn’t the producer — Greg Fidelman is.

Click to read more…

That’s what a horrible translation of a story from the French site Spirit of Metal tells us, but we have no official confirmation.

Still, let us take a moment to ponder this possibility. For this is MetalSucks, and we are nothing if not ponderers.

So.

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Man, I really, really hope that some day, some Korean animators see fit to make a short about MetalSucks. And that it is one-eighth as awesome as the above video.

ANYWAY, here’s how we kept ourselves entertained this week:

• We debuted new music by Revocation, White Arms of Athena, Goreaphobia, and Sixx A.M.
• We did not debut, but got really excited about, new music from Mastodon and Opeth.
• Unearth’s Ken Susi and Dethklok’s Brendon Small told us all about their live rigs. BONUS: Brendon Small also gave us the skinny on his new solo album!
• We spoke to All Shall Perish’s Fracesco Artusato and Kaoru and Die from Dir En Grey.
• We checked out the latest releases from All Pigs Must Die and Axel Rudi Pell.
• We were easily able to come up with twenty-five things we’d rather do than listen to the new Five Finger Death Punch song.
• We tried to figure out which label will snag Gojira.
• Gary Suarez urged metalheads to cut the shit and stop supporting Burzum.
• Sergeant D. wondered if breakdowns are the new guitar solos.
• Corey Mitchell discussed his ten favorite albums of the year thus far.

It’s been over two months since the new Gojira song “Of Blood and Salt” crushed our nuts into peanut brittle with promises that the long-awaited Sea Shepherd EP would finally soon see the light of day, and still we’ve got bupkes as far as a potential release date. Even so, that the EP eventually comes out seems a formality at this point; we know the recording is done, and since the band is self-releasing it and donating all the proceeds to Sea Shepherd (the anti-whaling organization seen on Whale Wars) there’s no record label red tape to navigate through. That doesn’t make the waiting any easier for us, but “soon” seems promising at this point.

Of much greater import is what will happen to Gojira in the long term now that their U.S. deal with Prosthetic Records has ended, and, if I’m not mistaken, their European deal with Listenable too. Gojira are free agents, and as one of the most talked-about and beloved metal bands of the past several years they’ll have their pick of the label litter.

It’s been three years since The Way of All Flesh was released; what in the F is taking so long to announce a new deal? Word through the grapevine is that Gojira are asking for hella money upfront and that a few labels have already balked at such a hefty advance. So, oh faithful MetalSucks reader… with which record label will Gojira end up??? I’ve tried to include realistic choices so some labels are omitted; for example, I love the bands on Seventh Rule but I don’t think there’s any possibility Gojira will sign there… and likewise, Tooth & Nail won’t suddenly decide to break secular.

…so says Australian charter boat operator Matt Waller, who has experimented with different types of music in underwater caged speakers, and found that sharks would get all zen and mellow when he blasted AC/DC.  In the future, Waller plans to try out tunes by Zeppelin, the White Stripes, and Ozzy.

The funny thing is, none of those are too br00tal……something tells me a little Gojira might make the great whites seriously hungry for flesh.

Read the full article here.

Thanks to Jessica V. for the tip!

-KW

Devin Townsend has so much explaining to do. As a tireless songwriter and producer, he’s set to release two albums on June 21, Ghost and Deconstruction, to complete the Devin Townsend Project cycle that he started with 2009′s Ki and Addicted. That’s four full-length records, 43 songs, and 260 minutes of music unleashed over about two years. But for Townsend, discussion goes beyond song ideas and his exhaustive studio work required to bring them to life; he could talk all day and yet only touch on the subjects of touring, sales, and modern music industry calamity; and, shit, his back catalogue is too huge and varied to even approach in a Q&A of any reasonable length.

You see, being a modern musician and being Devin Townsend are not the same thing. Sure, he grinds out records and then tours like everybody. However, our latest MetalSucks interview with Townsend reveals an artist unbound by the limits of imagination, but pretty aware of averse reactions to his art; his self-expression is total and unapologetic — until fans and media misinterpret him or disapprove of his humor. He’s confident as a person, but shakeable as a virtuosic guitar player, a theater and puppet enthusiast, and a production wiz. He lets no truth about his world go unexpressed, beit via the hair-raising cacophony of Deconstruction (think Strapping Young Lad’s Alien: The Ride) or Ghost‘s murmuring calm. He puts himself out there all the way; now, let him explain why.

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Everyone whose parents raised them correctly loves Gojira, and so everyone whose parents raised them correctly has been eagerly anticipating the band’s seemingly-forever-in-gestation Sea Shepherd EP since, well, seemingly forever.

But now it looks like we might actually be getting close to its unveiling! Last week we got to hear a new song, “Of Blood and Salt,” which features guest appearances from Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal and Devin Townsend’s Devin Townsend; now Gojira’s guitarist/vocalist/mastermind, Joe Duplantier, has given an interview with Metal Hammer in which he reveals that Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe (who previously appeared on the group’s “Adoration for None”), In Flames’ Anders Friden, and some dude named Max Cavalera are all going to appear on the release, too.

Click to read more…