Heyyo y’all & happy impending-end-of-the-year!!!!  Sure, life sucks and you’re smelly/ugly, but things are looking up in 2012, I swear!

So if you’re one of those woe-is-me/the-world-owes-you-something negative Nancys, turn that frickin frown inside out and get positive for once.  Maybe you’ll meet the love of your life tomorrow……maybe a suitcase of cash will cross your path…….maybe you WON’T have herpes after all….  Anything is possible, and while we of course need to be prepared for the worst, let’s also not rule out the best.

This Kansas classic contains some of my favorite riffs of all time….

Holy G.I.Joe!!  Prog-thrashsters Carrion Sun have a ridiculous video for a ripping song that will give you one to grow on….  (check em out on Facebook for more music & details on their 12/17 Record Release Show at the House of Blues in Houston, Tejas)

Follow me past the jump for some more musical reasons to simply carry on, son….

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It feels a little odd reviewing stuff like the Pyramids/Horseback split and the new House of Low Culture release for a site with “metal” right there in the goddamn name. They aren’t “not metal” in the “they’re almost more of a shoegaze band” sense, but are aggressively unconventional in terms of even basic popular music construct. In fact, the only thing even slightly metal about either of these releases is less than two-and-a-half minutes at the beginning of Horseback’s only solo song on the aforementioned split. And theoretically, that’s fine: there’s no rule on the books that says being involved in heavy bands — as members of House of Low Culture have been and are — means you can’t take part in projects that are the antithesis of metal altogether. Or at least there shouldn’t be.

But these two releases pose a very interesting question: does a project’s mere existence in contrast to its creators’ most well-received work make it worthwhile? Or, in this case, does it make it even listenable?

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Kenneth Thomas, in a tunnel.

If you care about heavy music and still believe that art should trump commerce every time, you owe it to yourself to check out Blood, Sweat & Vinyl: DIY in the 21st Century. I’ve written about Kenneth Thomas’s music documentary in these e-pages before. After watching the film a second time, I’m even more convinced of its importance as both a document of bands that you rarely (if ever) got to hear from outside of the concert hall, and argument for the importance of underground music makers, making music underground. Thomas chose to keep the focus tight, centering on the musicians, artists and label heads associated with three independent labels that are doing things their own way: Hydra Head, Neurot Recordings and Constellation. While there are certain characters that emerge as the spiritual ballast for the film – Aaron Turner of Isis & Hydra Head, Steve von Till of Neurosis & Neurot, and Efrim Menuck of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, in particular – the overwhelming sense is of a giant inter-connected family of passionate people, united by nothing other than a desire to pursue truth and clarity through music.

Aside from a couple off-camera giggles during an adorable scene with Justin Broadrick (Jesu/Godflesh), Thomas himself doesn’t show up in his film. So we figured we’d find out what the director had to say about his opus.

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One of the things that I love most about underground metal is that so many diehard fans fulfill so many roles within the metal community. A lot of the kids that you see at the grind show are also in bands. The dude rockin’ out at the front might own a distro. That girl might run the screenprinting service where all the locals get their band shirts made. Another guy might be taking photographs for his blog, or promoting the show, or running a small label on the side. Extreme music requires extreme commitment.

Filmmaker Kenneth Thomas is one of those extremely committed folks. He’s a filmmaker with 15 years of experience, mostly in documentary work but also in producing music videos and EPK footage for Isis, Neurosis, Queens of the Stone Age and tons more. Back when he was living in Los Angeles, I would see Thomas at most every show I went to. Sometimes he had a film camera with him; sometimes he was just rockin’ out with everyone else. After five years of work, he’s just about to release his latest project, Blood Sweat and Vinyl: DIY in the 21^st Century.

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I was listening to an interview with Sarah Vowell last weekend, in which she proclaimed that, as a writing exercise, she did not allow herself to use any F-bombs in her new book, Unfamiliar Fishes. I decided to do her one better this week — I did not swear at all. Unless you count “crap,” “drek,” or “sucks” as swear words, which I do not.

So that was fun.

ANYWAY, here’s some stuff we did this week:

• We debuted new music from All Shall Perish and Thou.
• We debuted new videos from Valient Thorr and Meek is Murder.
• Unearth’s Buz McGrath, Hatebreed’s Wayne Lozinak, and In Flames’ Peter Iwers told us about their live rigs.
• We spoke to Aaron Turner from Isis and Helms Alee.
• We checked out new releases from The Bronx Casket Co. and Bedlam of Cacophony.
• Even though Dime would never approve, we made fun of some poor kid.
• We continued to sing Spotify’s praises.
• We voted on our favorite album from The Devin Townsend Project.
• We were sexually aroused by the prospect of Disturbed breaking-up.
• We wondered whether or not the return of Megadeth’s Gigantour is a good thing or not.

Alright, we’re out. Have a nice weekend, gang!

-AR

Pretty slow week in metal releases, seeing just some new releases from Queensryche, the bass player from The Faceless, and also some band called Limp Bizkit. Details on this week’s latest metallic offerings after the jump!

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I have a friend who swears that the basement of her workplace is haunted by a g-g-g-g-ghost… She also mentioned an affinity for reality shows about paranormal activity. So naturally I asked her if the ghost at her workplace came before she started watching said reality shows or vice versa. What do you think her answer was?

My humble apologies to the apparition-believers among us — I don’t mean to sound so skeptical. As a matter of fact, I suspect there are plenty of cosmic/extrasensory phenomena I have faith in that many of you might scoff at.

Destiny?

Fate?

G-d?

Unicornzzz?

MS Mansion Monkeys????

(That last one is undeniably real)

In any case, it’s hard not to appreciate m-m-m-m-music about g-g-g-g-ghosts, right?  Let’s get our spook on after ze jump…

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This month of mega-releases continues with the latest offerings from Alestorm, Isis, A Pale Horse Named Death, and more. Get the deets on each and everyone of ‘em from our man Vic Vaughn after the jump!

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The great Isis may have called it quits, but they’re leaving fans with pretty much the best parting gifts anyone could ask for — namely, not one, not two, but FIVE killer, digital-only live albums, documenting performances from 2001 to 2006, which will be released every two-weeks through the end of July. May 31 saw the release of the first album; this Tuesday, June 14, the band will unveil its follow-up, ISIS Live II 03.19.03, which was captured (and “captured” is really the only appropriate word) in 2003 in Stockholm, Sweden.

But you don’t have to wait ’til Tuesday to hear the album — ’cause we’re streaming it below right now, this very second! Play it loud, play it proud, and then go here to pre-order it (and all the other Isis live releases) in one of a variety of attractive packages. And in case that isn’t enough of an Isis fix for you, we’ll have a new interview with the band in the very near future!

And now, without further ado, enjoy ISIS Live II 03.19.03…

[this streaming promotion has ended]

Lotsa stuff happened over the long weekend while we were away, so yesterday we did our best to catch ya’llup. But Vic Vaughn would never leave you hanging, and as such here’s his take on all the new metal hitting the waves this week.

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In 2001 I went to the now-defunct NYC venue Brownie’s to catch Cave In, who I’d recently discovered, and ended up catching Old Man Gloom and Scissorfight in the process. The way I viewed heavy music was forever altered, the show a railroad switch that sent my descent into the gnarlier side of metal over the edge.

All three bands took lengthy hiatuses shortly after peaking mid-decade. Cave In, as we know, got back together in 2009 to record Planets of Old and have a new album White Silence due on May 24th. Old Man Gloom — whose members include Aaron Turner of Isis, Nate Newton of Converge, Caleb Scofield of Cave In and Jay Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed, among others — are jumping on the reunion bandwagon too (did they ever officially break up? whatever); according to Gun Shy Assassin, producer (and Converge guitarist) Kurt Ballou posted a Facebook message that his next project is a new Old Man Gloom record. Good news indeed.

So where are Scissorfight in all of this? Word on the street is that frontman Ironlung is totally over it. We beg him with all our granite hearts to reconsider. Axl and I jammed Potential New Agent for Unconventional Warfare no less than 30 times (seriously) whilst driving around in L.A. a few weeks back, in part because it was the only CD we had and in part because sick fucking riffs dude! C’mon, Scissorfight… do it, do it, do it!

-VN

More than twenty years ago I was interviewed by The Daily Texan, the University of Texas school newspaper, for my role (along with my still best friend, Ray Seggern) as co-host of “The Metal Show” for KTSB (now KVRX), the student-run radio station. One of the quotes I made then that still holds true to this day was that 85% of heavy metal was “crap,” and that the joy in being a metal DJ was finding the other 15% of diamonds in the rough and sharing it with others.

If anything, the crap quotient is probably a bit higher these days, what with so many people of less than stellar skills having cheap access to means of production and simple ways of distribution. Unfortunately, the level of song-writing skill hovers around the same mark, as least on a per capita basis. In other words, more bands simply means more crap to sift through.

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There’s nothing I shouldn’t like about 1349′s latest album, Demonoir: it’s the band at blazing black-metal-at-grindcore-speed again, and its experimental parts feel appropriate, even necessary. But something feels about it hollow: the flesh, bones, and organs are all there, but is there any soul (even a black one) beneath them? How could an album with so much in common with one of my favorite black metal albums ever — the band’s 2005 eviscerator Hellfire – leave me cold?

Then it dawned on me: Revelations of the Black Flame, the album between the two. A dull, pointless affair with experimental black metal (and I even LIKE the genre from time to time: Wold’s Screech Owl and Leviathan’s A Silhouette in Splinters got quite a few spins back in the day), I tore it a new asshole back in ’09 and still stand by that action; after the straightforward destruction of Hellfire, it was a confoundingly sharp left turn for a band doing so much right. The parts on Demonoir that I would usually enjoy felt empty because of this, in that perhaps they were being employed to get back into the good graces of the fans they’d possibly alienated. There’s nothing tangibly wrong with Demonoir, but I can’t help but feel its revived sense of purpose is cold and calculated.

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FEATURING MEMBERS OF ISIS, MUNICIPAL WASTE, ELUVEITIE, WORMROT, LAST CHANCE TO REASON, ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA, GOD DETHRONED, OWEN HART, NIGHTFALL, HORSEBACK, AND OCTOBER TIDE

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 fourth 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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Stephen Kasner, the extremely gifted artist who has done work for, amongst others, Justin Broadrick, Isis, Sunn O))), and integrity, has fallen on hard times, and needs your help. He’s apparently a very private guy, so the particulars of his medical condition are not being publicly disclosed, but he has released the following statement, which our friend Rich Hall brought to our attention via Invisible Oranges:

“Stephen Kasner has recently been diagnosed with some serious medical issues. Like many artists who lack the benefit of medical insurance, he pushed the situation aside until it became unavoidable. Emergency care has been initiated, but he is not out of the woods yet, and his continued care is extremely necessary – hence this call for aid to friends, admirers of his art, and comrades alike.”

Now here’s how you can help:

• You can make a PayPal donation to kasner@stephenkasner.com. If you take a screenshot of your donation and e-mail to Invisible Oranges’ Cosmo Lee at invisibleoranges at gmail dot com, Cosmo will enter you in a drawing to win a hardcover edition of Kasner’s book Works: 1993 — 2006, which you can also check out here.
• You can purchase some Kasner’s work — Lee says that Kasner “has two stores, a main one and one for his Blood Fountains musical project.”  So there are albums and album art and posters and silk screens and books… you get the idea.

Obviously this is a very worthy cause… we’re sending out good thoughts to Kasner, his friends, and his family, and strongly encourage you to donate today, if it’s just a few bucks.

-AR

Oh, sure. A whole slew of awesome bands seem to be “taking a break” (see: Coalesce, Isis, and Buried Inside — and that’s just since May), but fucking Disturbed will live on forever and ever.

Here’s the statement from the band:

“So, after twelve years of being a band, countless tours around the world and records being released, we have made the decision to take some time to explore other interests in our lives. We’ve all reached a point where we feel like we need to take a step back from the band and pursue other things. PTW has been an all encompassing, full-time thing for such a long period that this isn’t an easy thing to do. We want to thank everyone who has supported us in anyway, whether it be buying a record or a shirt, to the occasional robbery from time to time. Once again, thanks for everything and we couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

So this is one of those non-breakup breakups, which still hurts as bad. Like when your ex told you “It’s not you, it’s me.” Yeah, well, whomever the fuck it is, I don’t get to see you naked anymore, and that hurts me. Hurts me deep inside.

Mourn in the comments section.

-AR

[via Gun Shy Assassin]

Dio died. Isis broke-up. Bret Michaels is back in the hospital. And I just used Dio, Isis, and Bret Michaels in one thought-stream, which, I’m sure, offended somebody.

Luckily, we did manage to have some fun this week:

• Sick of it All’s Lou Koller is counting down his top ten hardcore albums, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa is counting down to the end of L O S T, Batillus’ Fade Kainer is counting down ’til the band can get the fuck outta the studio, Agenda of Swine’s Pete Benumb is counting down to MDF, and Cynic’s Paul Masvidal is counting down to achieving a higher level of being.
• We spoke to Steve Joh from Century Media, Tara Johnson from Disembodied, Emil Werstler from Daath and Levi/Werstler, and Travis Stever from Coheed & Cambria.
• We checked out the latest release from Rosetta.
• Sergeant D. has new slamz 4 u.
• The best music video ever of the week is by… Goldfrapp?
• There are plenty of things we’d rather do than listen to a new Attack Attack! song.
• Endorsement of the new Avenged Sevenfold single = flame war.
• You guys are still arguing about my Korn review. Seriously?
• I’m still upset about John Bush leaving Anthrax again. Seriously.
• We used to love Sweden, but we had to kill it.

And hopefully no one awesome will die or break-up next week.

-AR

All bands end eventually and if you had to pick the best way for a band to go out, you couldn’t come up with something much better than what Isis said in yesterday’s announcement. They have done what they wanted, are all still healthy and engaged, feel gratitude to those they have met and stand by what they have done. Folks may feel sad or dramatic about the impact of this – “Isis is breaking up!” – but you’ve got to hand it to those guys: they’re ending it about as well as anyone could.

Tthink for a second about the thirteen years that Isis has been around and you’ll realize a lot has changed for the better in the world of music. Over that near decade and a half, the world at large has come to a different understanding of “metal.” Through the persistent work of a bunch of people the music that falls under that ever-broadening genre description is now understood to be a vast landscape of possibilities. You say “I’m in a metal band” and lots of folks will say ”Okay, what kind of metal band?”

Even the most “I-only-love-Steel-Panther-and-there’s nothing-ironic-about-it” fan has to appreciate that this means more people listening to, making and drawing appreciation from this expanding type of music. And Isis has been one of the most vital forces for this change. They’ve created and presented heavy music that was contrary to expectations – not macho, not fantastic, smart about design and abstraction, focusing less on technique and more on structure, but never too far from a roaring power that could straight-up destroy. When they started they were often lumped into a small box with one or two other oddballs bands on some fringe. The world has come around but it’s only because Isis’s dedication has been so, so persistent and compelling.

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It’s not really a surprise that Isis broke up. Their last Decibel cover story had the members alluding to at least a hiatus, and if you heard the band’s last two albums, something wasn’t the same. Even Cosmo Lee was taking (imaginary) bets on it. But that didn’t make hearing Isis’ decision to call it a day any easier: despite Wavering Radiant not being on par with the band’s first three full lengths, it still hinted at what could be a new beginning, with a renewed sense of collaboration evident in the album’s songs. Of course, it wouldn’t suit the band to go out with a whimper in lieu of a relative bang, and perhaps that album’s team spirit best suits their mental state at the nadir of their journey: five guys who were alright with eachother, but had just run out of stuff to say. The instinct to want a band to flog its potential to its bones comes with being a fan, but almost any Isis enthusiast knew that the they wouldn’t go out like that. Still, there’s something kind of sad seeing them go, in that in the increasingly predictable metal world, the band, even when not at their best (see: In the Absence of Truth) still promised something different. The rigid rulebook of metal was something they didn’t want to play by, which won them their fair share of slavish fanboys (see: Sammy O’Hagar) and confused and irritated detractors. You could say “we need them now more than ever” when any important band calls it a day, but it feels a little more apt with Isis.

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Obituary coming.