“Scheduling has been a nightmare for a long time,” says guitarist Rob Caggiano about Temple Of The Black Moon. That seems like hyperbole, but gosh maybe not: TotBM drummer John Tempesta has been dashing between The Cult and Testament tours; singer Dani Filth’s full time job is Cradle Of Filth; Caggiano is bound to Anthrax’s rigorous itinerary, and his TotBM writing partner, Tom Cato Visnes, has been involved with Sahg, I, Gorgoroth, and Ov Hell outings in just the last five years.

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Say, are you one of the three people in the world who not only thought that metal needed another supergroup, but also thought that metal needed another supergroup featuring Anthrax/The Damned Things guitarist Rob Caggiano? If so, have we got a band for you!

They’re called Temple of the Black Moon, and in addition to Caggiano, the group features Cradle of Filth vocalist Dani Filth, former Gorgoroth bassist King ov Hell, and drummer John Tempesta, who has played a gajillion different bands, including both White Zombie and Rob Zombie’s solo group, Exodus, Testament, The Cult, and Helmet. It seems safe to assume that Caggiano played a significant role in putting this project together — not only did he produce two Cradle of Filth releases (2004′s Nymphetamine and 2006′s Thornography), but Tempesta has also worked as a drum tech for ‘Thrax — but between the two bands he’s already in and the producing he does, I can’t believe he felt like he had too much free time. Maybe Worship Music is seriously never coming out.

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FEATURING MEMBERS OF INTRONAUT, DARKEST HOUR, THE RED CHORD, KYLESA, GORGOROTH, CORMORANT, RETURN TO EARTH, KRIEG, LAZARUS A.D., HAIL OF BULLETS, AND BLOODHORSE

For 2010, we decided to do something special as part of our regular end-of-year festivities here at MetalSucks — namely, ask musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year were. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of ten to eleven musicians at a time twice a day for the rest of the week.

After the jump, check out the fifth group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

(And please note that these are musicians and that they, um, have a lot on their minds. So some of ‘em named albums that actually came out last year. Please don’t freak out.)

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Full disclosure: I own a pair of Converse. They’re my favorite sneakers. They cost forty bucks, have no shoelaces, and provide roughly the same amount of comfort and protection as wrapping my feet in tissue paper would have done. Cheap, pointless, and comfortable: now that’s fucking metal.

So. I was catching up on my Deciblog this morning when I saw this piece that Jeanne Fury wrote on Heavy Metal Holiday, a new short film/long commercial that Converse has produced in an apparent bid to… uh… well, presumably, to win over the metal crowd, although I’m not entirely sure why, or how they think this completely fucking bizarre thing will accomplish that goal. As Ms. Fury so eloquently puts it:

“You can be damn sure Converse spent good money on Heavy Metal Holiday, traveling to London and Venice, renting that fancy hotel room with the giant chandelier, and paying for food and stuff. But why? Yeah, it’s amusing… But couldn’t they have filmed that shit in Baltimore or Cleveland? Is this supposed to be artsy? Or, worse, is it supposed to be funny?”

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Metal fans have been buzzing for months about Until The Light Takes Us, but official screenings have been few and far between. Consequently, 99% of the film’s core audience hasn’t seen the saga of the Norwegian black metal scene as told by filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. That’s all going to change on September 28th, when Until The Light Takes Us finally gets DVD treatment. Luckily for me, my hookup Terrill, whose inventory is usually comprised of amateur porn, videocam bootlegs of current blockbusters and unreleased Tyler Perry films, somehow got his grubbies on an advance screener.

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In his review of The Underworld Regime, the debut album of “black metal dream team” Ov Hell, our own Sammy O’Hagar wrote the following:

With a group of dudes as impressive as this, all the great things about black metal are all but guaranteed to show up. And they do: the riffs are wall-to-wall excellent, Shagrath’s vocals — even despite the fact that I’m not particularly fond of Dimmu Borgir — are solid, and I’ll be damned if there’s a better drummer in black metal than Frost that’s not named Trym or Hellhammer (and even then, it’s a three-way tie). Ice Dale and Teloch even manage to throw in a spidery arpeggio every now and again to keep things from devolving into a haze of tremolo-picked minor chords. Yes, it’s cheesy, but like good power metal, it fully and unironically embraces it, transforming what most would make a groan-worthy affair into chest-beating awesomeness.

That sounds like something you’d wanna listen to, right? Well, now you can! Even though Prosthetic won’t release the album until April 13, our PLPs (that’s “platonic life partners”) at Metal Injection are streaming The Underworld Regime right now. Ov Hell features members of Dimmu Borgir, Gorgoroth, 1349, Enslaved, and Satyricon, so you just know it’ll be ebil. Listen now.

-AR

I suppose I distrust supergroups because it’s too easy. Throw a bunch of dudes in bands people like together and it should instantly equal something people like/something people will throw money down to hear. And while there are exceptions (Them Crooked Vultures, Shrinebuilder, Cream) to the eating-up-downtime/cash grab rule, it’s more often than not the standard (see: Damn Yankees, Chickenfoot, a library’s worth of other names). But occasionally bands fall right in the middle, where they’re not in it for breaking new ground but also aren’t in it to exploit listeners to get a new yacht (or a first yacht). And along with that comes a sense of nothing-to-lose, in that the bandmembers will have their more-successful day jobs when the project ends, so why not have a good time in the meanwhile? And this is the case for black metal dream team Ov Hell, which includes members of some of the most important bands in Norway. Jagged yet refined and mean but kind of fun, Ov Hell manage to sound pretty decent on their debut, The Underworld Regime. Not quite a classic but certainly more than a distraction, Ov Hell are some of black metal’s most essential dudes flexing their frostbitten muscle, and that’s certainly never a bad thing to hear.

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I don’t know what, if any, kind of persecution Gaahl has faced since coming out, but even if he’s been met with nothing but kindness and tolerance, I’d imagine he’s aware of the poor treatment homosexual receive all over the world. I mean, he met his partner, modeling agent Dan DeVero, approximately a year and a half before he came out, and common sense tells us that he was gay long before that – so why didn’t he come out sooner? Even if he wasn’t afraid of how people might react, he has said that DeVero was. So it’s not like he thinks there aren’t homophobes in the world, many of whom commit violent acts against gay men and women.

So mightn’t one assume that awareness of the effects of persecution would give Gaahl a new perspective on violent attacks against those whose beliefs and preferences are different from his own? You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d think wrong. Chris Harris at Noiscreep reports:

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You know how I know things aren’t all terrible in the metal world right now? The people who run iTunes think there’s enough money to be made that they’ve now created an entire metal section.

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Sometimes it’s goods just to have fruits for brunch. Fruits salads.

-NC

You bitched and moaned about daylight savings time, even though you were asleep when the clocks changed and you get an extra hour of daylight every day until November. You are all retards.

Here’s what else happened this week:

• Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima gave us another studio report (no naked Dr. Mikannibal pics, sorry), Early Man’s Mike Conte got his cheesesteak on, and Neuraxis’ Alexandre Leblanc gave us his final tour blog.
• We spoke with Darkane’s Christofer Malmstrom, Meshuggah’s Marten Hagstrom, Soilwork’s Peter Wichers and Ross the Boss (ex-Manowar)
• Our man-crush on Trent Reznor grew ever greater.
• You argued over who was the most important member of Metallica, past and present.
• We looked at new releases by Razor of Occam and Karl Sanders.
• It was a big week in the Norwegian courts… the Gorgoroth case was settled, and Varg was granted parole.
• Crazytown and Skunk Anansie are getting back together.

Next week Kip and I take off for Austin, TX on Wednesday. We’ll be live-blogging whenever possible. To everyone else, have fun not being there, suckazzz!!

-VN

MS Maniac Kye has alerted us to the fact that Gorgoroth’s official website has posted an update regarding the long-brewing Gorgoroth naming rights battle, in which Gaahl and King ov Hell attempted to trademark the Gorgoroth name shortly before quitting the band. And…. the verdict has come down in favor of Infernus:

Oslo City District Court has today delivered a verdict on the main question in the Gorgoroth trademark case, which took place at the end of January 2009. The court has decided that King ov Hell’s trademark registration # 243365 of the band name Gorgoroth is NOT valid and shall therefore be deleted. The court states that King ov Hell and Gaahl excluded themselves from the band Gorgoroth when they tried to fire Infernus in October 2007. The court further states that Infernus cannot be excluded from Gorgoroth, unless he himself decides to quit. Infernus is very pleased, but not surprised, by this verdict. The remaining issues concerning financial matters and such are yet to be decided upon.

I’m not a big enough Gorgoroth fan to care much one way or the other, but presumably some of you will be extremely excited/outraged about this development. Battle it out in the comments section.

-VN

So words like pagan, heathen and folk get thrown around in metal pretty indiscriminately and most of the time bands who describe themselves thus usually don’t have more barbarian blood than what I’ve got circulating in my foreskin.

Now this Wardruna project, masterminded by ex-Gorgoroth drummer Einar Kvitrafn and featuring vocals from the big gay anti-Christ himself, this might just be as close to real pagan sound as we’re gonna get. Musically it’s the monotonous pounding of hand-made drums, with some awesome choral chanting and accented by unusual instruments including but not limited to: goat horns, the hardanger fiddle, flutes, mouth harps, stones, trees and fire. Yeah seriously. Parts of their debut, Runaljod – Gap var Ginnunga, were apparently recorded outdoors fulfilling the lifelong fantasy of every fucking black metal hermit one-man band since the inception of the genre.

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I am bat-shit obsessed with this Puppy Cam. I’ve literally had it open in a tab in my browser for days now (apparently 14,858 people do too) and I check it hourly. Currently two of the puppies are scrapping with each other. Earlier, momma came in and they all fed from her teets, and right after that we saw the legs of the man who must be the owner. Mostly they just lie there, sleeping, looking adorably cute.

ANYWAY, hows about we counteract the Puppy Cam with some metal? This is possibly one of the finest metal moments ever put to video. Ever.

First commenter to relate the stroking of the glass to the stroking of something else gets banned.

-VN

The Phillies won the World Series, it’s Halloween, and we have a U.S. presidential election coming up in less than a week. But what’s happening in metal is obviously way more important:

• Living Colour ruled. As always.
• Mastodon announced the title and tracklisting of their new album.
• We spoke with Cynic’s Paul Masvidal and Today Is the Day’s Steve Austin, the latter of whom practically gave us his life story.
• Gaahl publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. Black metal bigots everywhere cried outrage, but we thought it was pretty cool (kvlt/br00tal/tr00/etc).
• Slayer released a new song which sounds just like the old song(s). And that’s a good thing.
• Someone with way too much time made an AC/DC music video in an Excel spreadsheet

Happy Halloween, mofos.

So after “metalsucks,” “metal sucks” and “metalsucks.net,” “gaahl gay” is now the most common search phrase bringing people here from search engines. So, uh… You guys will probably think it’s a big deal that Gorgoroth frontman Gaahl (né Kristian Espedal) has finally officially spoken on the record about his sexual orientation in a recent interview with Rock Hard magazine. While there have been reports and speculation for months, this is the first time Gaahl has spoken publicly and directly about the matter.

And it IS a big deal, one that has certainly thrown the black metal community for a loop and that we’ve seen manifest itself in our own comment threads. What I loved most when this news first surfaced a couple of months back was reading the ignorance and denial in our readers’ comments on Axl’s article:

“I don’t believe that Gaahl is a gay or bisexual. This is just another cheap way to get huge publicity around the globe. I guess that Gaahl will “straighten” the facts after few weeks, so in that way he gets to be in the spotlight of media once again…”

“I dunno if any part of this ever actually says he’s gay.”

“WTF????
IF HE IS GAY, HE WOULD BE ANOTHER PROBLEM FOR THIS PLANET AND DONT BELONG ANYMORE TO THIS KIND OF MUSIC
HAIL INFERNUS!!!”

“The fashion thing seems out of character for Gaahl and that photo looks doctored. I’ll wait till further comment is made and anyone who isn’t gullible as hell should do the same.”

“Even if he is not gay, since the article is a little vague, I don’t think he is concerned about sexual relationships. He just seems like a guy who is neutral.”

“He is not fucking gay! its just you whi whant to fuck Gaahl in the as! it is just some bullshit you have taking up! send up a fucking picture ther Gaahl kissing an ather guy then i belive you!”

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I still can’t believe that there was ever a time when people didn’t know that Rob Halford was gay – but I’d be lying if I said that the revelation that Gorgoroth front man Gaahl (né Kristian Espedal) “had a close relationship” with modeling agent/fur connosieur Dan DeVero, whom he told “he had strong feelings for,” didn’t catch me off guard.

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From the evil genius brains of Metal Inquisition. No other explanation needed.

-VN