Of course when you set out to make a list like, say, the one we’re doing right now, of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, you are bound to piss a lot of people off — that just comes with the job.

But I always find it hilarious HOW those people get pissed off. For example, this week I saw a lot of complaints that the guitar players we’ve been selecting aren’t “modern.” And I can’t believe we have to fucking define the word “modern” for some of you idiots, but apparently we do. So:

So… which one of you jackasses would like to call up Alex Skolnick or Vernon Reid or Adam Jones and let them know they’re antiquated and obsolete? ‘Cause I saw Testament and Living Colour and Tool live just last year, and I would not want to make that call. Just because those dudes have been playing this game for awhile doesn’t mean their best days are behind them.

My point simply being: I don’t care if you hate our choices. That’s fine. But at least try to hate our choices based on an argument that makes sense, y’know?

And on that note, here are other ways we entertained ourselves this week:

• We debuted new music from A Pale Horse Named Death and Oakhelm.
• We checked out the latest releases from From Exile, Godstopper, and Cruachan.
• We wondered which is better, old music or new music?
• We philosophized about Google’s new cloud service.
• We fretted that metal may soon be blamed for terrorism.
• We got excited about The Faceless’ new demo.
• We bemoaned the current state of In Flames.
• We wept because Dave Grohl is not going to be on the new Mastodon album after all.
• We enjoyed a vegetarian cooking lesson from a dude in corpse paint.
• We questioned the logic of the new Avenged Sevenfold video.

Next week we unveil numbers fifteen through eleven on our guitar player list; the average age of those five musicians is thirty-one, whereas the average age of this week’s selections was forty-two. So maybe you can go back to being upset because you think they suck, not because you think they’re too old to be “modern.”

-AR

I’ve listened to In Flames’ new album, Sounds of a Playground Fading, three times now, and I can’t remember a single thing about it. In fact, I’m listening to it even as I type this, and all the songs still feel kinda like I’m just hearing them for the first time.

What I’m saying is, while it’s not a bad album, but it’s an incredibly mediocre one that is not at all memorable. I like it better than A Sense of Purpose. At least, I think I do. Come to think of it, that record made pretty much zero impression on me, too.

So. In Flames’ new single, “Deliver Us,” was released digitally yesterday. You can download it for a buck here, or, if you wanna preview it before you buy it, you can just stream it here. And I think it’s pretty representative of the new album as a whole — not terrible, but surely not the level of quality that all us In Flames fans were hoping for. However you personally feel about it is probably how you’re going to feel about the rest of the record.

I know it wasn’t realistic of me to expect another Clayman from IF, but I was really pulling for at least another Come Clarity. Oh, well.

Sounds of My Interest Fading comes out on Century on June 21.

-AR

Even though I thought A Sense of Purpose was pretty lame, I’m not ready to feel too cynical about In Flames’ new album, Sounds of a Playground Fading. Soundtrack to Your Escape wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, either, but the band followed it up with Come Clarity, an album I really like (power ballad and all!)… my point being that IF can still turn it around. They’re not in Metallica/”Why even bother getting your hopes up?” territory yet.

Unfortunately, their new, in-the-studio video only has a little bit of new music, and while the riff sounds cool enough, it’s not nearly enough to make even a snap judgment upon. But go ahead and check it out and see what you think — the music shows up around the 3:20 mark. The rest of the video is pretty standard stuff which I didn’t find that exciting, but of course you’re free to watch the whole thing, too.

Oh, and apparently this was made by Anders Bjorler, which explains why he was in the studio with In Flames that time we got excited that he might be their new guitar player.

Sounds of a Playground Fading comes out June 21 on Century.

-AR

Here’s the album art for the new In Flames album,  Sounds of a Playground Fading. It’s not terrible, but it’s not amazing, either. I guess I’m mostly grateful that it doesn’t have a giant angry vagina on it.

Sounds of a Playground Fading will be out June 21 on Century. I want it to be good so very very badly…

-AR

The reader known as “Fantasyoosh” e-mailed us yesterday to point out that Niklas Engelin is now listed as a member of In Flames on the band’s official Facebook page, which also features a band picture featuring the guitarist (above — Engelin is the second guy on the left).

Now, it’s not entirely shocking that Engelin got the gig — he’s toured with In Flames three times before, once from ’97-’98 after original guitarist Glenn Ljungström left the group, and again in both 2006 and 2009 while Jesper Strömblad took some time off (and then eventually a lot of time off) from the band.

What is surprising is that band never made a big announcement about Engelin officially joining the fold. I mean, it’s not like they aren’t aware that fans have been desperate to know who’d try and fill Strömblad’s shoes — they’ve been teasing us for months. Did it not occur to anyone that Engelin’s hiring should have warranted, like, a press release or something?

So, uh, yeah. Niklas Engelin, now an official member of In Flames. Congrats, Niklas!

-AR

Well, here was a fun e-mail to get from the reader known as Strapping Young Lad:

I grew up on Long Island on a horse breeding farm called Fast Break Farms. We’re pretty small; we usually only have enough room for about 10 horses. My parents were looking for a name for their new racing horse, and I suggested Cloudkicker. My parents loved it, and thought it was cute (?!). We’ve also had one horse named In Flames (who, much like the band, started off promising but sucks now) and another named Shagrath (Shaggy for short). I’m trying to get my parents to name all of our new horses after metal bands… I think it would be pretty sweet!”

We agree! So we asked SYL to send us some pics of the horses in question, and, yay for us, he obliged!

Cloudkicker

Click to read more…

The above quote appears right at the start of the new trailer for Mercenary’s forthcoming offering, Metamorphosis. And I guess if we’re talking about 11 Dreams or The Hours That Remain versus A Sense of Purpose or Soundtrack to Your Escape, well, uh, I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment. I think the quote is kinda confusing, though, both because I don’t know why Mercenary would want to lob at bomb at In Flames, and because I have no idea if it comes from a review of Metamorphosis or one of the band’s other albums. And if it refers to one of the band’s other albums, well, this version of the band has a 50% different line-up, so it doesn’t necessarily apply anymore.

I haven’t felt encouraged by what we’ve heard of Metamorphosis so far, and this trailer doesn’t do much to make me feel any more optimistic. But I’m super-curious to hear it. I don’t want Mercenary to fail; I just know how bad metal sucks.

Here’s the trailer…

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The above quote appears right at the start of the new trailer for Mercenary’s forthcoming offering, Metamorphosis. And I guess if we’re talking about 11 Dreams or The Hours That Remain versus A Sense of Purpose or Soundtrack to Your Escape, well, uh, I wouldn’t disagree with the sentiment. I think the quote is kinda confusing, though, both because I don’t know why Mercenary would want to lob at bomb at In Flames, and because I have no idea if it comes from a review of Metamorphosis or one of the band’s other albums. And if it refers to one of the band’s other albums, well, this version of the band has a 50% different line-up, so it doesn’t necessarily apply anymore.

I haven’t felt encouraged by what we’ve heard of Metamorphosis so far, and this trailer doesn’t do much to make me feel any more optimistic. But I’m super-curious to hear it. I don’t want Mercenary to fail; I just know how bad metal sucks.

Here’s the trailer…

Click to read more…

When  the line-up for this year’s Mayhem Fest was announced last week, we were told that more bands would eventually be announced. Not to sound like gloating pricks or anything, but we here at MetalSucks already knew that Trivium were gonna be on the bill, even if their involvement hadn’t been made public yet.

Well, now it’s public. Trivium are on the bill. They’ll be on the main stage along with Disturbed, Godsmack, Megadeth, Machine Head, and In Flames; the line-up is rounded out by second stage acts Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, All Shall Perish, Red Fang, and Straight Line Snooze.

When we saw the band at Mayhem in 2009, they were one of the dominant acts on the second stage; I will never forget wondering “Where the fuck is Paolo Gregoletto?” before realizing that he had jumped into the crowd and was playing amongst the thousands of rabid fans. And Trivium’s live show has increased in quality by 100% since they traded drummer Travis Smith for Nick Augusto last year. (Read Vince’s article on the matter here.) In other words: Trivium’s addition to the bill is a good thing.

Trivium are at Audiohammer Studios in Florida working on a new album with producer Colin Richardson even as I type this; I’ve heard that the goal is to get that record out in time for Mayhem. While we wait for more news of that release, here are Mayhem dates:

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I don’t think anybody ever really reads these little intros Vince or myself write every week, so I’m gonna dispense with one today, and if that makes you sad, uh, you’re weird.

Here’s how we got our pull this week:

• We debuted new music by Abysmal Dawn, Full Blown Chaos, and Årabrot.
• We spoke to Jeff Paulick from Lazarus A.D. and Ginger from The Wildhearts.
• We checked out new releases from Xasthur, haarp, and Hesper Payne.
• We watched a nerd’s video about seeing Sunn O))).
• We tried to understand why The Big Four are only doing one show in America.
• We debated the merits and demerits of this year’s Mayhem Fest line-up.
• We celebrated the way that metal makes everything better.
• We enjoyed some new All Shall Perish music (kinda).
• We prepared for Zakk Wylde to boldly go where no guitarist has gone before.
• We got even MORE excited for Meek is Murder’s Algorithms.

Next week we’re gonna, like, totally talk about metal n’ stuff. You should come back and read it, it will be fun.

-AR

The line-up for this year’s Mayhem Fest wasn’t s’posedta be announced ’til tomorrow, but Blabbermouth has posted it so I guess it’s go time. There are supposed to be more bands announced — I know of at least one group who are definitely doing this tour and aren’t on this list — but for now, here are the bands playing, and my thoughts on those bands (UPDATED with tour dates):

Click to read more…

When it comes to In Flames fans, there are two kinds: those who love The Jester Race and nothing else, and those who love the band’s middle period albums (Whoracle, Colony and Clayman)…. maybe you’ll find a stray fan here and there who prefers Come Clarity. Or so I thought until I read Cosmo Lee’s thoughts on the matter.

“I especially like their records after when they supposedly “sold out”, from Reroute to Remain onwards,” sez the Invisible Oranges mastermind. “The crisp, dry sound of their last two records is a marked contrast to the over-production to which their Gothenburg peers succumbed.” Woah, what? Crisp and dry, perhaps… but not over-produced? Cosmo then calls Reroute to Remain “adventurous,” which I’m pretty sure must just be code-speak for “what every mainstream alt-metal band in 2002 was doing.” Are we listening to the same records? Wait, did a tr00 guy like Cosmo really just say he likes three of the most reviled records in In Flames’ entire nine album discography? Blasphemy! I kid, of course; I may disagree, but I certainly respect Cosmo’s opinion.

But it got me thinking… maybe my opinions on In Flames are skewed. They certainly have experienced quite a surge in popularity since around the time Reroute to Remain was released, especially so after Ferret Records catapulted them into the U.S. metal mainstream with Come Clarity. So: what’s YOUR favorite In Flames record?

“BIG PANTS WASTE PRECIOUS FABRIC”

Step into my Nocturnus time machine and take a magical journey with me into a time long, long ago, an excursion into a world that scarcely resembles our own. In this world — we’ll call it Moshtopia — hardcore kids are known for wearing giant, baggy pants, not skinny jeans; there are people under 30 that know who Black Flag is; and metalcore bands worship Krishna, not Christ. This is not a fanciful episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adeventure fan fiction, my friends, — it is the strange and wonderful world of mid-90s hardcore!

Click to read more…

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week, we have our first ever reader-suggested QOTW, coming from MetalSucks Maniac Cougar Party:

WHAT BANDS DO YOU HATE THAT YOU HAVE SEEN LIVE MULTIPLE TIMES BECAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS OPENING FOR SOMEONE YOU LIKE?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Yeah, that Anders Bjorler, of At The Gates and The Haunted. Could it be that In Flames now has two men named Anders amongst their ranks?

That what the above picture, posted today on In Flames’ Facebook page, would seem to imply, as first reported by the stealthy Heavy Blog is Heavy. A cryptic but not really all that cryptic caption accompanied the photo:

Who’s this guy?

Now, we’re not ones to recklessly speculate… oh who am I kidding, of course we are! You may recall that longtime guitarist and founding member Jesper Stromblad departed In Flames last year to focus on treating his alcohol addiction, and that In Flames are currently in the studio recording a follow-up to 2008′s underwhelming A Sense of Purpose. So while it’s possible that Bjorler was just stopping into the studio to say hi, or just lent a guest solo to one track, it’s a lot more fun to think about the possibility of one legendary Swedish guitar player replacing another.

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For my opening salvo, I suppose I should mention that it has been a long break between blogs. I’ve been meaning to get back to it, but this summer has been a very busy one filled with the musical composition of the new God Forbid album as well as a new project I’ve been working on, in addition to the daily pursuit of living life and getting by. I hope to contribute more frequently in the near future.

If you’ve followed my articles in the past, you may notice that I often address music history, and pertaining to this site, heavy music specifically. I have a great respect for artistic pioneers and the roots of where the most admirable and brilliant music stems from. I was the type of kid who would read liner notes and interviews by my favorite bands to find out who influenced them. I would always want to climb that musical family tree to see where it lead.

In my process of discovery, there was a common thread that jumped out at me that has been consistent through metal and rock history.  There seemed to be an intercontinental ping-pong match between the USA and Europe in terms of trailblazing the cutting edge of whatever musical genre was the dominant force of the time. This goes way back before metal existed — and yet, it has helped shape the musical landscape that exists today. The torch keeps being symbolically passed from one shore to the other.

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Okay, so what videos have debuted since last night? Let’s find out!

First up we have “Charmer” from This or The Apocalypse, which our bro-bros at Metal Injection debuted. I gotta say, the choice of back-lighting the guitarist during his solo so you can’t see him playing was a excellent one. I mean, who wants to see a guitar player shred? This is metal, not fucking flamenco. Am I right or am I right?

[crickets]

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At the Accept show I went to last week, I had a pretty funny moment with the boy when I said that it sounded like they were singing “We are nice” instead of “Neon nights.” Which got me thinking: I mishear lyrics a lot. It could be because I’m deaf, or people just don’t enunciate, or that most of the bands I listen to don’t really know English that well so they probably are singing stupid shit. Or it could be that I’d rather hear something than what I actually do — I mean, Bob Ezrin wanted a new, edgy song to appeal to those hip youngsters and thought Alice Cooper was singing “I’m edgy,” instead of “I’m eighteen.” Personally, I’m way more entertained with what my brain, or other people’s brains (as I got some volunteers for this task), comes up with. So here are a few songs that made it to my Misheard Lyrics Hall of Fame.

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The mysterious Bird Lady of Redondo Beach relished the opportunity to show off her new BOO tattoo.

I always feel weird saying a really heavy band sounds a little less heavy to me than they used to, because, y’know, normal fucking people who don’t listen to this degenerate neanderthal music would never be able to tell the difference. People throw up their hands and are like, “Remember when In Flames were heavy?” or “Remember when Slipknot were heavy?” or whatever, and most of the population can’t tell the difference between Iowa and Vol. 3 or Whoracle and Come Clarity – it all sounds really fucking loud and angry to them. And the thing is, they’re not wrong; when metalheads complain that a still-heavy band isn’t heavy enough, they’re really just being macho assholes. I know, because I’m guilty of this myself sometimes — complaining about clean vocals or a lack of blast beats or whatever — and Vince makes fun of me for it on a regular basis.

So. Born of Osiris have posted a teaser for their new album on their MySpace page — it’s basically about sixty seconds each of three new songs — and while it’s almost impossible to make any intelligent judgments based on roughly three minutes of music, it does sound to me like the band is moving in a somewhat less heavy direction — but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna release a fucking Carly Simon album or whatever. Sure, save for the third song (which feels pretty The New Reign-ish to these ears) the music sounds less br00tal, with riffs that are aren’t as schizophrenic in nature and the keyboards taking a more central role. But it’s less br00tal the way All Shall Perish’s Awaken the Dreamers was less br00tal than The Price of Existence. Which is to say, the authority figures of my youth would still want to lock me in a room and hire an exorcist to check me out if they heard me listening to this.

Check out the teaser for yourself here. Presumably this album is coming out later this year via Sumerian.

-AR

Thanks to Ian Wilmot for the tip.

We’ve gotten a number of emails over the years about Australian heavy drum and bass group Pendulum arguing that they’re “metal,” or at the very least worth seeing live. And having finally seen the band live in New York last Summer I can say with certainty that both things are true. Though they’re a drum and bass band at heart, they are definitely a band — as in, lotsa guys up there on stage playing the music live as opposed to just a DJ and an MC or something — and they certainly incorporate elements of metal into their explosive, mind-blowing live show. They also covered “Master of Puppets,” a nod to their metal roots.

In the run-up to the new Pendulum record Immersion we’ve gotten a ton of emails that the record contains a a collabo with In Flames. In the metal world, seeing a “featuring” credit in a song-title is pretty rare — and yeah, In Flames recent output hasn’t been all that — but still, I was more than a little curious to hear this collaboration. Until now we’ve only gotten to see crappy live footage or we’ve been sent dead links, but finally, here it is: “Self vs. Self.” And it sounds more or less exactly like you’d expect — an In Flames song in all its dual-lead guitar harmony and Anders screaming glory — on top of a mild drum and bass backdrop. It’s pretty cool, and though I’m sure the rest of Immersion sounds nothing like this I’m still interested in checking it out.

-VN

Thanks: Raezzer