MetalSucks

I’m going to talk about Metallica and their new record.  Now, I’m sure this topic has been beaten to death in metal social circles by now, judging from all the opinions on this site alone, but I am going to offer something that no one has so far – a solution.

I read Dallas Coyle’s recent blog on this very subject, and while I share his level of adoration for this band, I’m going to have to refute one main point he made; arguing that Death Magnetic is a good album.  It really isn’t, in my eyes.  It wasn’t in the eyes of many others either, based on a quick skim of MetalSucks.  But let me ask, did you really expect it to be?  The last time everyone liked the latest Metallica record, the first Bush was in office.  I haven’t expected anything resembling greatness out of this band in a long time, because I know that they’ve lost their edge.  That’s not an insult, its an ironic occurance in life, not unlike waiting twelve years to grow hair on your balls, only to lose it on your head fifteen years later.  Just like pretty much every once-great rock musician ever, that flame of inspiration has been blown out by age, money, Bob Rock, or whatever else that will make you a different person than you were when you wrote the good shit.

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[Welcome to the first installment of Blogronaut, in which the accomplished Intronaut guitarist pontificates on life, the world, life in the world, and the over-abundance of bad actors in L.A. We hope you like his writing as much as you do his music. - Ed.]

Hello, MetalSucks readers! Welcome to the semi-official Introblog. I throw in the “semi” due to there already being an Introblog, which is the fully official Intronaut news blog, located at http://blogronaut.blogspot.com. Anyway, that’s enough plugging my own endeavors (like Intronaut’s new album Prehistoricisms which came out 9/16 and is in stores now!) for today.

I want to thank the dudes at MetalSucks for giving me this opportunity to shorten the gap between me and the rest of the world, allowing me to make known what I need to make known. I look forward to throwing some seriously scathing verbal blows at the unsuspecting surfers of the world wide web. Fortunately, since I just got off tour and am on the hunt for a new job, I have plenty to gripe about.

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The only person I know who loves Intronaut more than MetalSucks’ own Kip Wingerschmidt is Rob over at Metal Injection. That must be why those two are so gay for each other.

ANYWAY, point is that Intronaut have a terrific new album out, Prehistoricisms, and Metal Injection are celebrating with some awesome live footage and, natch, an interview with the band. Watch MI’s footage of the group performing the title track off their new album, and then head over to Metal Injection for more Intronaut-y goodness.

-AR

Congrats to our winners of last week’s Funny Photo Caption Contest who will each receive an Aborted “Evidence Bag” prize pack containing an autographed copy of Strychnine.213, an autographed poster and an Aborted t-shirt. The winning entries:

• Villanj1: “The subsequent scream bellowed by a then Prince Diamond led to his portly aide to suggest to him a calling in life.”
• havoc21: “There’s so much evil surrounding this descent that I can actually feel Satan’s balls!”

This week we have a few special prize packages provided by the good men and women of Century Media; 1 grand prize winner will receive a gatefold double-LP vinyl of Nachtmystium’s amazing Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1 pressed on beer-colored vinyl and limited to 2,000 copies (read Sammy O’Hagar’s glowing review of the album. Two runners up will each receive CD copies of Into Eternity’s The Incurable Tragedy (read David Bee Roth’s review) and Intronaut’s Prehistoricisms, which was just released yesterday. Alls ya gotta do is come up with a funny caption for the below photo and post it in the comments, and one of these packages could be all yours! (Ghaal jokes automatically excluded for lack of originality.)

[Thanks: Zarko M.]

It’s bloody amazing how much more accepted intelligent aggressive music has become, doncha think? Of course there are always still the outright pussballz in any audience who start trembling every time a vocalist strays ever so slightly away from straight-up singing into yelling, screaming, or dare I even say *growling* territory (I’m sadly lookin at so many of the GFs out there, mine included)–but it seems like these daze everyone and their mom’s moms–even the grimier-than-thou hipsterati–have caught on to rocking significantly harder than “hard rock”. And so it stands to reason that the smartie-fartie Encyclopedia Browns of the world, on both the musician and fan side of the monitors, are proudly representing brainiac metal with their hearts and (large) minds, even if the music is not always so accessible as a result of dem der smarts.

Take Intronaut, for example — who incidentally have a brand-new album, Prehistoricisms, out TODAY (look for my review later in the week) — in my esteemed opinion one of the most intelligent of the heady metal bands out there nowadays: skilled, fluid players who are comfortable grooving in all sorts of odd time signatures…these guys have been called “the future of metal” by Decibel Magazine (or Revolver, honestly can’t remember, please forgive me) and deservedly so, but really how far can the band’s scope reach with so much bloomin… headiness in tow?

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This might read like the opening line of a badly written press release for a shitty local band, but fuck it: in a musical climate where even the most distinguished metal bands are easily associated with a particular sub-genre or movement, it’s incredibly refreshing to hear a band that succumbs to no cliches and creates a sound that is truly unique. The L.A.-based quartet and recent Prosthetic Records’ signees Scale the Summit do just that, creating a sound that’s completely one of a kind.

The songs on the band’s MySpace page from their self-released 2007 album Monument pummel, pound, and artfully weave and bob their way through myriad sonic landscapes and musical ideas. The band’s heady musical approach fuses the dynamics (and instrumental take) of Russian Circles’ proggier and heavier moments with the jazz-metal complexity of another California band pushing new boundaries, Intronaut — and injects it with a youthful exuberance only capable of emanating from dudes who really, really love their craft. The album they’re currently recording for Prosthetic is one of my most eagerly anticipated new releases from a new band in 2009.

-VN

[Scale the Summit on MySpace]

In 2006, San Francisco’s Giant Squid released Metridium Fields, which is, to put it mildly, a fucking doozy of an album. Lucky for all of us, then, the band has just completed work at that record’s follow-up, as singer/guitarist Aaron Gregory tells us in a press release:

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If not, you should be; this extremely progressive stoner jazz metal band (got that?) recently signed with Century Media, and their new album Prehistoricisms is set to drop on September 16th. Our own Kip W. has been raving about this band for some time, and their Challenger EP even made his 2007 year-end top albums list. The band is fucking fresh; unique and inventive, br00tal and talented through and through.

Lucky for you, GuitarWorld.com is hosting a full mp3 download of “Australopithecus” from the new album. Enjoy it below. Also check out some videos of the band jamming on their official website, and check out their MySpace for some older (but no less awesome) tunes.

Intronaut – “Australopithecus”

-VN

There’s a new interview with Sacha Dunable from Intronaut – a.k.a. the band Kip Wingerschmidt puts on when he’s ready for lovin’ – over at Crustcake. There’s a lot of cool info in the interview, but the biggest revelation may be that band’s love of Wesley Willis:

“We are all huge on Wesley Willis. To pick one [favorite] song is tough, but some I can think of that come on in the van regularly are Outburst, Bolt Thrower, Fuck With Me And Find Out, and any of the ones where he’s like ‘SUCK A CHEETAH’S DICK! SUCK A KANGAROO’S NASTY ASS BALLS!’”

I can’t find the song Dunable is referring to, but here’s a video for the Willis classic “I Whooped Batman’s Ass.” Whilst you enjoy it, click here to read the rest of Crustcake’s interview.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/aBgR-H2OA_k" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-AR

Seriously, brah. These guys are amazing. Better than amazing. By far my favorite new band I’ve heard since I discovered the indisputable champions of progressive metal about 6 years ago. And Intronaut is fucking young(ish); I kinda feel like we can expect a pretty healthy career from them, knock on boner. If I found such a symbiotic musical relationship as these guys have, I would fight to keep it going for as long as possible. That said, already in its first year and a half, the band has changed out a member or two, but judging by the new track (from the band’s upcoming The Challenger) recently posted on its myspace page, the focus and direction hasn’t changed a damn bit.

The song below, the first cut off of Intronaut’s full-length Void, is so fierce, and yet so organic; how could you not be thankful for musicians as accomplished as this? I still get completely blown away every time I hear this track, which has easily been a hundred times since last winter. And the way it sets up the next brutal track on the album, which in turn perfectly sets up the following gem….in my humble opinion, the first three songs off of Void ought to be listened to one after the other every single time, but I guess you’re just gonna have to pick up a copy of the record to find out for yourself, and learn exactly what I’m talkin bout. Just remember when yr jaw hits the fucking floor, that Wingerschmidt told ya so!

I just decided right now, while writing this, that the first time I get to see these guys play live, I am going to personally deliver a round of whiskey shots to each member of the band right before they start their set.

-KW

INTRONAUT – “A Monolithic Vulgarity“, off of Void