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I’m tired of posting the same old high-charting consistent sellers (heyo Disturbed, Linkin Suck, etc) and I’m sure you’re even more tired of reading about them, so this week I’d like to focus on the Top Hard Music Albums charts with a special emphasis on debuts. This week’s notable sales numbers with my own snarky comments (natch) after the flip.
Seriously, if you haven’t read Vince’s epic story about how MetalSucks Maniac “whiskey” won last week’s last week’s photo caption contest, you need to go read it now. It’s pretty amazing. Whiskey’s mom even left a comment! We like to think of MetalSucks as something the whole fucking family can enjoy together, so that warmed the cockles of our collective heart.
Here’s some other fun stuff that happened this week:
Next week is CMJ here in New York! If you’re in the area and looking for some awesome metal, check out our handy guide to all the festivities — including not one but TWO showcases sponsored by MetalSucks. We’re not gonna lie — we are going to be very hungover and tired next week. But that just means we’ll be crankier than usual. We’ll still be here with lots of debuts, interviews, and other assorted nonsense. Bring your mom! It’ll be fun.
-AR
Full confesstion: I had never even heard of Uphill Battle before this summer, when Empyereon/Meek is Murder drummer Frank Godla turned me onto them after this past August’s Cynic/Intronaut/Dysrhythmia show. I think what happened was, I said something about how much I love Danny Walker’s drumming in Intronaut, and Frank said, “Oh, you’ve heard Uphill Battle, right?” Turns out Walker was in Uphill Battle before Intronaut ever existed. Needless to say, upon learning this information, I told Frank I needed to hear something ASAP. Wreck of Nerves (Relapse, 2004) has been, like, wrecking my nerves pretty consistently since that night.
When I was in the tenth grade, back in 1997, someone in my school’s administration decided to lump me in with the 30 or so fuck-ups, or, sorry, “at-risk” group of kids. My grades weren’t terrible, and I didn’t really get into trouble or use drugs that much. However, I did wear shirts from bands like Cannibal Corpse and Anal Cunt just about every day, so I suppose they were justified in thinking that I had emotional problems. I never complained though, because once a week I got to skip class and go to some special room with my fellow flunkies and have what I can only assume is the equivalent to an AA meeting. It was interesting to hear these kids talk about smoking crack, the pleasures of meth, and beating people up over bad weed deals. I don’t think I ever had what it takes to lose myself to substance abuse, but if I did, I’m sure this helped me stay on a positive course. Sometimes we’d have guest speakers come in to these meetings. There are two that I remember most vividly. One being Robert Downey Jr., who was presumably there as part of some community service he had to do. The other was some woman who had a lengthy discussion with us on how marijuana will never be legalized in our lifetime.
That woman is either dead or choking on her own foot now, because in November, California will be voting on proposition 19. If passed, it will legalize marijuana for recreational use in our state.
In a recent issue of Decibel Magazine, some writer who thought it’d be clever to base his writing alias on the name of our own esteemed Satan Rosenbloom summed up East of the Wall’s highly excellent 2010 release Ressentiment thusly: “Put simply, East of the Wall have written a minor prog-metal masterpiece without being assholes about it.” The same could be said for Intronaut’s Valley of Smoke; we cannot reiterate enough how good this album is.
Alright, maybe Intronaut are being assholes just a little bit… all three members are leaps and bounds better than you at their respective instruments — and at putting together prog metal masterpieces — and they want you to know it, but for the most part they don’t do so without losing track of what matters most, the song. Valley of Smoke is just challenging enough; four or five listens in and I still haven’t completely wrapped my head around this album, but like your morning brain state after each successive cup of coffee things are slowly coming into focus. And what’s in focus is absolutely phenomenal. That’s just the way music should be; challenging. You’re not always supposed to “get it” the first time through; what’s the point? If that’s what you want you may as well just crank Linkin Park to 11, dudebro. Each time I listen to Valley of Smoke things come just a little bit more into focus, facilitated by Josh Newell’s positively crushing, lush, and strikingly clear production. And it’s all worth it, because holy smokes is there a lot of great shit to listen to on this album.
Or, to put it more succinctly: “A++++ would do business with again great seller fast shipping! highly recommend”
Stream Valley of Smoke in its entirety below. Pre-order it here before it comes out tomorrow, along with some killer t-shirt designs.
[this promotion has ended]
Earlier this week I had a dream that I was working with Atreyu. I don’t know in what capacity I could possibly find myself “working with” Atreyu, since I’m not a manager, nor a publicist, nor a label rep, and they’re about as likely to end up doing a guest column here as I am to give the new In This Moment album a perfect 5-horn review, but, hey, the subconscious works in mysterious ways. Why did I have Atreyu on the brain? Was my mind trying to tell me “The glass is half-full?” Do I have a hankering to re-watch The Neverending Story? Did I just ingest too many different substances that night? I’ll have to bring it up in therapy next week.
Here’s other shit that happened this week, some of which, believe it or not, is even more terrifying than the thought of working with Atreyu:
We have a special surprise for you next week. I can’t promise you’re going to like it, but I can promise you’re going to have a strong reaction to it. See ya then.
-AR
Intronaut’s Valley of Smoke comes out this Tuesday, October 12! Are you excited??? You should be. It’s awesome.
And here’s another chance to get yourself psyched for it: Stereogum are streaming the track “Core Relations.” While there’s plenty of heavy heavy heavy on this record, “Core Relations” showcases Intronaut’s more introspective side. And when your band is called “Intronaut,” of course there’s going to be room to get introspective. I personally would love to see a version of the classic film Innerspace scored completely by Intronaut.
But I digress.
Once you’ve listened to this song and heard its glory, go here to pre-order Valley of Smoke in a variety of attractive formats and packages. And if you haven’t done so already, read the latest “Blogronaut” from Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable.
-AR
Now, here’s a candid look into the decadent and debaucherous life of a working musician: it’s 10pm on Friday night and I’m sitting in my stepdad’s home office, getting all the business-y crap out of the way for our tour that starts in six days. I always come here to print out everything we’ll need for the trip (hey, free paper and toner) like itineraries, immigration stuff, and the bane of my entire fucking existence, roadscans. For all you normal people out there who are lucky enough to never have to deal with these things, they are these sheets you have to fill out at each show on tour to track how many CD’s and LP’s you’re selling so they can count toward Soundscan, which dictates how big and bad you are in the eyes of people who care how many records you sell. Anyway, you have to fill out all this crap and have a venue representative sign it, and then fax them all in by 9am each Thursday morning or else you get guilt tripped by the label (fuck you, Jon Hughes!!!!). I know it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of work, but getting someone to sign something and looking for a fax machine totally sucks when it’s 1 a.m. and you’d rather just be hanging out or whatever.
Anyway, I just discovered and downloaded this app for my phone that takes a photo of a document, turns it into a PDF, and either emails or faxes it to wherever you want it to go. This will put an end to so much of my stress on tour. I haven’t felt affected by any technological breakthroughs this greatly since Intronaut started touring in 2006. At this point, touring in the pre-cell phone and email age seems so impossible to me even though I did live through some of that.
In case you can’t tell by all the posting I’ve been doing about the soundtrack, I really wanna see The Social Network. It’s just like the story of how MetalSucks was created, only we didn’t go to ivy league schools, we’re not billionaires, and we haven’t sued each other (yet). How dare David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin steal our life story!
Speaking of our life story, here’s how we amused ourselves this week:
Have a good weekend, folks. See ya Monday!
-AR
Being someone who is kind of stuck in their own little bubble most of the time, I tend to forget how ridiculous the outside world can be. Since my teen years, I’ve been disgusted, yet morbidly fascinated with mainstream culture. It’s like a flaming car wreck, for lack of a better analogy. I can’t watch any kind of television without feeling like I can see right through it, and being offended that so many people’s lives in one way or another revolve around corporate-funded programming, whether it’s for entertainment or information. I lost interest in owning a television years ago.
Anyway, the most recent offender is a show called “America’s Got Talent.” Have you SEEN this shit? It should be called “America Gets Told What To Think.” Never before have I been so compelled to stick needles into my eyeballs, take a shit on a studio audience’s collective head, and leap face first off a bridge all at once. This is the very epitome of mainstream media programming minds to reject anything outside their comfort zone. Here I am trying to get a little innocent bro time with my stepdad over the weekend (this actually happened a couple months ago), getting riled up enough to, uh, write a blog entry on Metalsucks.net.
For real: Intronaut’s forthcoming album Valley of Smoke is going to absolutely smoke your valley. It’s a crushingly heavy and doomy/stoney but adventurously progressive journey. It’s that rare album that can excite both the hardcore/mosh-types of metalheads and the musical-ability-first, progressive nerd-types of metalheads (other bands that do this: Mastodon, East of the Wall). Intronaut are that rare band that readers of both Pitchfork and Shredders R’ Us Magazine can get giant boners over, and they’re a band that will blow your mind whether you’re stoned to the point of decapacitation or you’re perfectly sober. Valley of Smoke is fucking awesome no matter how you cut it up, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite albums of 2010.
We’re working on convincing guitarist Sacha Dunable to rejuvenate his Blogronaut column on MetalSucks, but in the meantime the band is offering these “making of” studio webisodes that provide a nice little glimpse into the making of Valley of Dongs Smoke. Just listen to the first riff in the video below and tell me you aren’t instantly sold.
Valley of Smoke drops October 12th via Century Media, and it’s available for pre-order in a variety of package deal configurations here.
-VN
The cover for Intronaut’s upcoming Valley of Smoke has to be one of my favorites of the year. It’s hard to make something look metal and stonerish and yet somehow like a classy tapestry my Italian-Catholic-Buddhist shrink might have hanging in his waiting room, but that’s exactly what artist David D’Andrea has done. Mr. D’Andrea, I do tip my hat to you, good sir.
Valley of Smoke comes out October 12 on Century, but I’ll be listening to it for the first time around 4:20 this afternoon. While the rest of you wait with baited breath (cough, cough), here’s a video teaser for the album:
A remarkable number of people I’ve told about this Friday’s pending Cynic / Dysrhythmia / Intronaut tour stop in NYC have greeted me with quizzical looks of “Really? THIS Friday? Cynic?” which is pretty crazy because the tour’s been announced for months, Cynic are playing Focus in full, those support bands are killer and… come on man, really? You’d rather see Torche and Boris in Brooklyn that night? I mean, those are mighty fine bands too… but c’mon! Well, whatever, the Bowery Ballroom will surely be sold out and it’s gonna be a helluva night and you’re gonna miss it. Too bad for you.
I mention this right now not just because I’m excited for Friday but because Sacha “Blogronaut” Dunable wrote up a fun post for Decibel in which he lists and discusses the four best things about touring with Cynic. I won’t give away Sacha’s bag o’ tricks, but I will tell you that if you know what a Steinberger guitar is you’ll find the post very funny.
While we’re on the Intronaut tip, check out their new song “Elegy” over at Invisible Oranges; it’s highly worthy of the hand gesture after which the blog hosting the song is named.
-VN
photo by Travis Shinn (www.travisshinn.com)
When he’s not stirring up passionate debate across the blogosphere, MetalSucks’ own Blogronaut, Sacha Dunable, is fronting one of our favorite modern metal acts, Intronaut. The band has a new album, appropriately titled Valley of Smoke, tentatively due for release October 12 via Century Media; now they’ve debuted a final, unmastered mix of a track from that album, “Elegy,” over at Cosmo Lee’s Invisible Oranges.
As usual, I can’t think of anything to say that’s as elegant as what Cosmo wrote about the song, so I’m just gonna steal from him:
It plays to Intronaut’s strengths: a ridiculously limber rhythm section, expansive guitars, and did I mention a ridiculously limber rhythm section? Like his position onstage, Joe Lester’s bass is front and center. Danny Walker pushes and pulls against it with crisp, colorful percussion.
The new element is singing. This also happened to a band Intronaut is often compared to, Mastodon. Unlike Mastodon’s, however, Intronaut’s singing is firm but understated, and reminds me of Fugazi.
Cosmo also spent a night in the studio with the band, and has a comprehensive write-up of what he saw. Head over to Invisible Oranges to hear the track and read Cosmo’s report!
-AR
Last week, as part of his recurring MetalSucks column, Blogronaut, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable asked the question: “Are corporate-sponsored metal shows killing the live concert market?” The blog garnered a large and impassioned response, not just from our readers who left comments, but from industry insiders who e-mailed us their thoughts directly. One of those people was Trap Them vocalist Ryan McKenney, who, with no prompting whatsoever from us, wrote the below. And since we like to think of MetalSucks as a place where all kinds of points of view can be weighed and considered, we’re running it! We hope you enjoy…
Long time reader, first time caller… that’s how they say it, isn’t it? I’ve gone through great efforts to not invest too much time into internet blogs and messageboards regarding extreme music of any genre. I’m more of what they call a troll, I believe. Except, I never say anything at all, while many will at least chime in once in a while to give an opinion that is consequently ripped apart.
I’d like to at least make an attempt at responding to Sacha Dunable’s write up about corporate fests and whether they are ruining the live concert market. I consider it an important issue on many fronts. The truth is, ask a hundred people their opinion on this, and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers. Unless, of course, you ask the question to people in groups of five or more… if you do that, the odds are only one or two people will give their honest view and then the rest will just say, “Yeah… what he/she said.” I’d like to put my two cents in on the subject. Some may understand what I’m saying, and some may consider me an asshole, which I’m okay with. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard it lately (or even today).
Just so you know, when Vince and I cuddle, he’s usually the big spoon.
Here’s what happened in MetalSucks Land this week:
Next week is hair metal week! We’ll still be reporting on regular metal, too, so don’t freak out too hard. See ya Monday.
-AR
Have you guys heard about this sweet ass fest happening in LA next month? Goatsnake, Animosity-lineup Corrosion Of Conformity, From Ashes Rise, Repulsion, Trap Them, Coliseum, and like 20 more rad bands for FREE, thanks to corporate sponsor Converse. Unfortunately, I will be on tour at the time, but if I was around I’d totally be at this. Goatsnake are the creators of at least six or seven of my favorite heavy riffs ever, Repulsion are like the AC/DC of grind, and even I would most likely be on board with pretending to care about the COC/Animosity thing (Eye For An Eye was way better, in my opinion). I’d probably even get drunk enough to blindly accept that a band like From Ashes Rise are playing a corporate-sponsored “event” like this. If something like this went down in their heyday, I can’t even imagine what the repercussions would be from their ultra-punk fans. I mean sure, I guess Converse All Stars are part of the punk rock non-conformity uniform, but it’s still (unless there’s something I don’t know) a corporation taking advantage of overseas cheap labor so they can make a larger profit off of “subcultures” they’re marketing to (see: this fest’s attendees).
Times must be tough for aging punk bands, where they can only make real money when sponsored by shoe or car companies. Sarcasm aside, I know that times are tough for all bands, and that is why these free, corporate-sponsored shows are starting to pop up more and more. At first, it was cute that Scion would fly bands out to LA every couple months and pay them a few grand to play a show. Lots of us are unemployed, so it’s nice to get a show for free once in a while. Now, the Scion Fest is an annual thing, their shows in L.A. happen every other month, and I’d be willing to bet that this won’t be the last we hear of Converse sponsoring “A free event that honors fans and musicians of ‘heavy music’ of all ages.”
But he, like, totally had it coming. He was the singer for some band called Beneath the Sky.
I’m kidding. I don’t endorse violence against untalented people. Just front row games of Uno.
ANYWAY, here’s some other shit we happened this week:
Next week we get to debut that video we were supposed to debut this week, and we have another stream, and some other stuff I’m probably forgetting. ‘Til then, enjoy your weekend!
-AR
A few weeks ago I asked you guys for help with naming a new band I started with my good pals in National Sunday Law, and the response was literally overwhelming. Thanks so much to everyone who replied! Some were good, some were hilariously bad, and some were just hilarious. We ended up debating for another month, and decided on the name Graviton (not Gravitron, as I just discovered MS had reported (smoke weed)) [We've since fixed it! Sorry. -Ed.], which was inspired by MS reader Nate’s suggestion of Hadron. Thanks for turning us onto string theory as a band theme, Nate! Email me at sachadunable [at] gmail [dot] com with your address and I’ll be sure to send you all kinds of crap.
Honorable mention should definitely go to reader Dave B, who provided such gems as Hella Smelly Belly, GuhGuhGuts, Sweatpants Surprise, and Don’t Injure Car Keys (D.I.C.K.). I don’t know you Dave, but I know we’d get along. Send me your address for some crap as well.
Anyhow, we’ve posted two full Graviton songs for you to check out on our Myspace, Bandcamp, Twitter, and if you’re too lazy to open a new window and require colorful moving pictures along with your music, Youtube:
Technical sludge/doom outfit National Sunday Law — who The Blogronaut name-checked last year and whose free 4-song EP we featured here just this past April — are calling it quits. Cerebral Metalhead is reporting that jack-of-all-trades Darin Tambascio is moving back to his home state of Maryland:
After playing over 50 shows with some of our favorite bands (Intronaut, Mouth of the Architect, Irepress, Behold…The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Exhausted Prayer, Solar Wimp, Hurt Model, Fight Amp and so many more), we are taking a break from National Sunday Law. Due to a dire financial situation and ongoing employment issues, Darin will be moving back to his home state of Maryland in late June. Therefore, the band will be on an indefinite hiatus after two more shows.
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