Goreaphobia have a pretty interesting little story: the band formed in the late 80s, broke up in the early 90s, reunited in 2007, and then finally recorded their first full-length, Mortal Repulsion, in 2009. So, a slow start, but… glad to have them around in whatever capacity!

So. The band’s second full-legnth, Apocalyptic Necromancy, is coming out on August 9, and now The Deciblog is streaming a new track from that album, “Xurroth Rreeth N’ves Helm,” which apparently translates to “I Forgot the Fabric Softener.” Hm.

ANYWAY, it’s good stuff — dirty, nasty, old school deathrash. Guitarist John McEntee is, but of course, also in Incantation. Goreaphobia don’t really sound like Incantation, but I’m hoping the connection makes you feel that much more motivated to check this shit out.

Like I was sayin’ before, Apocalyptic Necromancy comes out August 9 on Dark Descent Records.

-AR

I pride myself on being open minded, so it is very important to me that I consider both sides of an issue before I decide what I think about something! For example, I have always thought that “melodic metal” was a very confusing idea. To me, melody and metal are like oil and water: no common ground. In fact, I have always thought of them as polar opposites — it was always my basic rule that if a song is melodic, then it is by definition not metal.

That said, I know that not everybody feels the same about this as I do, so I thought that I should look into this issue a little more. I don’t like to make snap judgments, so in the interest of intellectual honestly I intend to take a FAIR AND BALANCED LOOK at MELODY IN METAL! In this post, I will share a few examples of both successful and unsuccessful uses of melody and let YOU be the judge — WE REPORT, YOU DECIDE!

You tell me: is there a place for melody in metal????

Click to read more…

Hey dudes and ladies! After a couple years of sporadic appearances, drunken conversations with various MS staff members, and a lot of babbling about black metal, I’ve finally settled in to do a proper column for this joint. Vince and Axl have given me free reign to write about pretty much whatever I want, poor bastards.

My main drugs of choice are fucked-up black metal, filthy sludge, hopeless doom, occult death metal, and virulent grind/crust/d-beat, with the odd exception here and there, so expect to see a bit more ugly, primitive, hateful music lurking around on MetalSucks from here on out.

Here are a two bands I’ve been digging a LOT lately. If you’re unfamiliar with them, check ‘em out. If you already know and love them, we’ll probably get along great.

Click to read more…

This weekly column from our brethren at Decibel — the only metal magazine still worth caring about — was supposed to run earlier today. But Axl fucked up and forgot to run it! A million apologies. Now here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli to school your ass.

You’re probably already on your way to spend six hours in your bedroom listening to Xasthur while your dad and uncle fart their way through the Lions and Cowboys games, so I’ll keep it brief. Top 40 time. Gobble gobble. No, I’m not reprinting the list, which has probably leaked already. Take it easy — or hard —on us. Just leave the wife-beater and half-sleeve at home.

Reminder/plug for something that can’t be fucked with: the January issue marks the premiere of our limited-edition monthly flexi series. Brutal Truth detonate two never-before-released tracks (lyrics appropriated from Sharp’s Grinding It Out column — just kidding). As with all future editions of the series, once these things are sold out, they’ll never be repressed. Not to mention, sweet Christ, that cover.

If that’s not enough to keep you occupied over the long weekend, you can make some “loved one”’s Friday much, much blacker with our exclusive Hall of Fame edition of Onward to Golgotha. To celebrate Incantation’s sick Chicago/NYC/Cleveland run, we’ve hooked up with Relapse to press 1,000 copies of the classic. The 180-gram special edition comes with an exclusive woven patch and album cover sticker. Boom, your shopping’s done. Little sis is pumped.

Have a stellar Thanksgiving, commenteriat. See you at Love and Other Drugs, or at least in the Parking Lot for Real Drugs.

-AB

You can order the January issue of Decibel here, but the only way to ensure that you never miss the mag’s sexcellent new monthly flexi disc series to get a full subscription. You’ll be thankful you did!!!

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

Axl was rad enough to mention it on Tuesday, and many of you have probably seen our newsletter already, so we’ll just reiterate the basics super fast:

• The Decibel Flexi Series will commence unlubricated face-decimation with the January 2011 issue (out in early December).
• Flexis are clear vinyl incorporated into the actual magazine.
• Every month a new band will drop never-before-heard awesomeness on said flexi.
• “Never-before-heard” means unreleased tracks, covers, liveage, demos, alternate takes or re-recordings. Who knows, maybe even a skit like the kind Type O used to open albums with. I’m sure, like, Pig Destroyer have been dying to cover “Skip It.”
• Brutal Truth are doing the first one. Enslaved are doing the second.
• Only subscribers get to handle these super collectible, extremely limited, most brutal of truths.

That much you probably already know. As for the future, trust us, there’s no shortage of bands being considered for this series. But right now that’s mostly just in-house fantasy draft stuff. Now would be a good time to hear from you guys: Who would you like to see in this thing? Got any dream covers? Know of anything crazy-rare that would blow minds if it just finally fucking got out there? Please tell us, in the spirit of Ludacris and weak-ass gamer puns, what’s your vinyl fantasy?

P.S. A particularly badass one might be Incantation smashing through Golgotha live, which you can check out for yourself on their Decibel Hall of Fame mini-tour , which kicks off tomorrow at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago.

-AB

Like the man said, the only way to get these awesome flexi discs is to subscribe to Decibel, so get off your tuchus and do that. You can also buy the flexi-less-but-still-killer December 2010 issue here.

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

While the free world breathlessly awaits the results of Decibel editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian’s NLCS bet with Exhumed frontman Matt Harvey — and even down 3-1, it’s way too early to start taunting the boss with “black black black black number ooooooone” — the rest of team dB has moved on to give you a Very Special December issue.

Yes, that’s one of extreme music’s most polarizing mugs on the cover. (You know what, let’s say “polarizing figure”; there’s nothing polarizing about Phil’s facial expressions, which all clearly fucking rule.) As usual, the man has a billion things going on. Sadly, one of them is not the fourth Down record (yet), although a new Arson Anthem slab and the 20^th anniversary of Cowboys From Hell are pretty sick placeholders. For a dude that’s been somewhat, um, contentious in interviews, Anselmo is crazy gregarious with our man J. Bennett. Like Mustaine or Lars, whether you love or hate the guy, he gives great copy. And I promise that the anecdotes about early Pantera — especially pertaining to Seagal-caliber bar pummelings — will do you right.

As for the rest of the issue, there’s plenty more radness that you can see for yourself on the cover, but one thing you can’t that I’ll spoil right now is Rod Smith’s review of the Amphetamine Reptile 25^th anniversary show. Shannon Selberg of the Cows is wearing mousetraps as earrings. ‘Nuff said. This fucker will be on newsstands next week, but we wouldn’t mind picking up our Secret Santa anal beads before Black Friday, so help us out by grabbing it early here.

Oh yeah, if you’re getting pumped about the Incantation Onward to Golgotha Hall of Fame shows that I’ve been babbling about the last month or so, the New York one just moved. It’s no longer at Rebel on November 20, but Club Europa, which evidently is here:

Europa Night Club
98 Meserole Ave. (corner of Manhattan Ave.)
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Shit will rule. Snap ’em up.

-AB

Like the man said, you can buy yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel here. But we’ll love you better if you just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription. Trust us, it’s totally worth it!!!

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

Most metalheads with half a cerebrum know that Golgotha — translated awesomely as “the place of the skull” — is the site where Jesus was crucified. There are two kinds of music appropriate for contemplating this seismic historical happening: this and this. While both have their merits, we at Decibel happen to be a little tighter with Incantation than “Yakety Sax” composer “Spider” Rich, so only the former will be ripping through their undisputed masterpiece on a New York stage in late November.

But you know all that already. What you don’t know is that a) the mighty Mortician (!!!) will be opening the New York date on November 20 at Rebel, and b) Incantation have added two more super-exclusive Hall of Fame dates: November 19 at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago and November 21 at Peabody’s in Cleveland. Fatalist and Funerus will open all three dates to whet your appetite for Christ-crushing chaos, and, of course, Relapse will have a limited-edition HOF version of Golgotha on vinyl for y’all -shuns of bitches. Christen the afterbirth and start spreading the news.

-AB

Buy yourself a copy of the October 2010 issue of Decibel here, or just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription here. It comes down to about two bucks an issue for a one-year subscription, which is roughly thirty-six dollars more a year you could be spending on your Church group’s trip to “the place of the skull.”

We’ll announce the winner of the Decibel Hall of Fame contest next week; in the meantime, here’s the latest installment of “Fear, Emptiness, Decibel,” the new MetalSucks column from the editors of our favorite magazine — duh — Decibel.

So, right around this time last year, we had a release party for our Hall of Fame compilation Precious Metal (working title: It Puts the Metal in the Basket or Don’t You Make Me Hurt Your Dog, Mister!). For those of you lucky enough to live in or around Brooklyn, you probably had multiple chances to clothesline hipsters en route to the Masonic Temple, where Brutal Truth and Pig Destroyer opened for Repulsion, who were gnarly enough to play their unfuckwithable inductee Horrified in its entirety. Rad times were had by all but yours truly, as I stayed home to knit and discover the subtle wonders of my Enya box set.

Obviously, we’re not the first magazine to think that great bands playing great records in sequence is a sweet idea (although I’m the first managing editor that would endorse Waking the Cadaver playing Perverse Recollection of a Necromangler in Sergeant D’s driveway), but we’re the only one making it happen on a semi-charmed kind of regular basis. Hence the shunniest of the shunners, the mighty Incantation, will be riveting 1992 death metal masterpiece Onward to Golgotha into NYC’s collective dickhead on November 20. The br00tality will commence at Rebel (251 W. 30^th), and if that isn’t cool enough, Relapse will release a limited Decibel Hall of Fame edition of OTG to coincide with the show. Expect two additional Golgotha shows to be announced soon, as well as ticket info. Yeah, you’re fucking welcome. (I had nothing to do with this, as usual.)

-AB

Buy yourself a copy of the September 2010 issue of Decibel here, or just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription here. It comes down to about two bucks an issue for a one-year subscription, which is roughly thirty-six dollars more a year you could be spending on that cream you need.

If all Richard Christy ever did was play drums on Death’s phenomenal final album The Sound of Perseverance, it would be enough to secure his place in heavy metal Valhalla. That death metal classic gained so much from Christy’s nuanced performance that it’s almost criminal that he isn’t mentioned alongside your Lombardos, Reinerts and Dailors as one of the most creative drummers in extreme music. But you won’t find Christy complaining about lack of recognition, especially since he’s been so busy in the decade since Death’s demise. To fill in the gaps between his film directing and acting gigs (Christy played a Ku Klux Klansman in Harold and Kumar Go To Guantanamo), Christy has drummed for Iced Earth, Incantation, Acheron and Demons and Wizards. Of course that was all before he began his tenure as the resident prank caller on The Howard Stern Show. In fact, the only thing missing on Christy’s CV is a successful musical project of his own. That’s all looking to change with the forthcoming debut album by Charred Walls of the Damned, his new metal band with the ridiculous lineup of guitarist Jason Suecof (member of Capharnaum; producer/mixer for The Black Dahlia Murder/Trivium/All That Remains), bass god Steve DiGiorgio (Sadus/Death/Autopsy) and caterwauling vocalist Tim “Ripper” Owens (Judas Priest/Iced Earth). Christy took some time to yak with MetalSucks about his many career paths and the truly bizarre genesis of that band name.

Click to read more…

Noisecreep have unveiled their list of the Top 10 Death Metal Debut Albums (although the list is in no particular order), courtesy Friend of MetalSucks, Carlos Ramirez.

And for once, I don’t actually have any complaints. The list is pretty good.

That being said, I’m sure you folks will find something to bitch about, so… have at it!!!

-AR