MetalSucks

In no particular order…

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Here’s The Dillinger Escape Plan’s fifth webisode chronicling the making of their forthcoming album, Option Paralysis. And sorry if I got your hopes but, no, James Hetfield (Hatfield?) is not actually on the album. Just watch, it’ll all make sense.

The best part of watching these remains the all-too-brief teases of new music the band keeps feeding us. But everything we’ve heard thus far seems to be in the vein of classic, Calculating Infinity-style DEP mathcore, and while there’s nothing wrong with that at all, I am starting to wonder if there’s going to be any Ire Works-style Faith No More pop. I’d love for the band to continue to strike a balance between the two styles (as they did on Ire and, to a lesser extent, Miss Machine), but… who knows. I’m obviously speculating based on next to no concrete information, so… “Dead as History” fans shouldn’t lose sleep just yet.

-AR

So not only is Rose and whatever four to sixty-two musicians he’s calling “Guns N’ Roses” these days really returning to wreak more havoc upon Canada, but it looks like one of the tour stops will be Montreal.

Anyone remember what happened the last time GN’R played Montreal?

The above news report is completely correct, of course. The rioting was caused by the injuries sustained by James Hatfield (NOT Hetfield), and not because after Hatfield sustained said injuries, Axl Rose failed to play a complete show. Sure sure.

Anyway, dates after the jump. Here Today… Gone to Hell, which is about as close to an official fan site as GN’R has these days, says the band currently consists of guitarists Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Dj Ashba, and Richard Fortus, bassist Tommy Stinson, drummer Frank Ferrer, and keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman. Hey, some of those dudes have actually played on a Guns N’ Rose record!

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I’m not convinced that any live DVD filmed after about 1992-ish will be particularly flattering to Metallica, but maybe I’m wrong. I haven’t seen them on the Death Magnetic tour – I haven’t seen them since 2006, actually – so maybe they’re killing it out there. Maybe James’ voice is 100% and Lars Ulrich took drum lessons. I dunno.

I guess I’ll find out November 23, when the band releases Francais Pour Une Nuit, a DVD documenting a French concert from this past July. But here’s the kicker: the DVD will only be available in retail stores in… France. Everyone else will have to order it from the band’s website. So, uh, yeah. Not sure what the benefits of doing that are – more profit into the band’s pocket, less shared with retailers, I guess – but there you have it.

You can watch a trailer for the DVD here (it’s not embeddable because Metallica don’t love their fans anymore). After the jump, get details of the various editions of the DVD, plus the complete track list.

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I actually think that Metallica’s Live Metallica website is a cool idea. Even if James’ voice sounds like shit and I’m pretty sure Lars is literally confused about what those sticks some roadie just shoved into his hand are for, a high-quality recording of a show you recently attended is both a cooler and cheaper souvenir than, say, and $400,000 t-shirt (or whatever arena rawk bands charge for merch these days). And I fully support their recent decision to allow single-song downloads. Yes, it’s kind of ironic given the Napster mishegoss, but, y’know, whatever. Metallica aren’t the titans of metal that they once were, but every now and then they do something right.

Now Metal Insider tells us that they’ve launched an iPhone app version of the site, called – duh – Live Metallica:

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This video is from ‘94, but still… I’d never seen it before and found it, well, not funny, but, uh, interesting? Let’s say interesting.

I guess Cantrell and company weren’t too offended, though, ’cause in 2006, they performed with Hetfield:

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Why, it was just yesterday that Rob Trujillo was saying if the Big Four tour goes down, “there’d be a lot of egos” to deal with, but that all the beef would be between Megadeth and Slayer, not, say, Megadeth and Metallica.

And then this morning we got a link to this clip from MS Maniac Manfred Nuggets:

Not that Hetfield’s voice sounds so good these days, but holy shit, is that fucking funny. And proof that there’s no love lost between Hetfield and Mustaine.

Sorry, Rob.

-AR

If any two of the big four bands tour together, I think it’d be a pretty sweet show. Any three? Fucking amazing. But all four? That would have to be some kind of miracle, right? I mean, half these dudes hate each other. King and Mustaine practically make their living talking shit about Metallica – and one another, for that matter. So it’ll never happen, right?

Well, King now tells Metal Hammer otherwise. Sort of.

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So what was your entre into the world where denim, leather n’ demonology reign supreme? Where you adore the goat and sway to the symphony of deee-struction? Every man (or woman) has a tale to tell. Here’s mine. You’re gonna hear a lot of names you might be unfamiliar with, especially if you’re a member of Attack Attack! (Or just plain anyone under 23!) You’re gonna be thinking, “Damn, this fucker is old!” Yeah, well just remember that I’ve seen seen stuff that would make you shit Perrier with jealousy. I’m definitely old enough to have seen Minor Threat, Cliff Burton-era Metallica… the list goes on… before most of you were a tadpole in yer pappy’s population paste.

Let’s start at Discharge. I could go back and trace the whole history of early 80’s hardcore for you, but neither of us have the time or attention span. Let’s just say, the minute I heard these Stroke-on-Trent monsters of the nuclear reactor riff on the monstrous Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing album, I nearly pissed my pants. It was the gateway to something far heavier than I had ever heard on a scratchy 7” from the new record store that had opened in Boston called Newbury Comics.

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Speaking of our friends at Metal Injection: they found these groovy clips which collect all the metal-celeb guest appearances on Metalocalypse. In case ya don’t know, everyone from Hetfield and Hammett to Corpsegrinder to King Diamond has done voice work for the show… one of many reasons why it’s worth your time.

Here’s the clips from season 1; check out season 2 after the jump. And don’t forget that Dethklok have a new album coming out, to be immediately followed by a ridiculously awesome tour with Mastodon, Converge, and High on Fire.

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Not that it would wake him from his creative stupor (although it would be awesome if it turned out that all Metallica needed to make incredible records again is a little bit of pie), but, assuming he didn’t kick my ass afterwards, it would a) make me feel better about how let down I feel by Metallica and b) it would be a funny story to tell.

But the people in the below video aren’t throwing pie at Hetfield because he’s a mere whisp of his former self – they’re doing it to celebrate his 46th birthday.

Fuck me. Hetfield is 46.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Nah, that’s not fair. Hetfield doesn’t sound this good live.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

CORRECTION: PRATO’S QUESTION COMES FROM HERE. MY APOLOGIES TO PRATO. NO APOLOGIES TO MUSTAINE.THANKS TO BORIVOJ AT BLABBERMOUTH FOR SHOWING ME THE ERROR OF MY WAYS.

It has been a fantastic summer for feuds. Just, really top notch. Isis is mad at Revolver and I’m fairly certain that Revolver is mad at MetalSucks. Fear Factory would be like the new Van Halen, if Van Halen wasn’t still the new Van Halen. And I think it’s safe to say at this point that, pretty much no matter how this whole Dan Nelson/John Bush drama plays out, no one will ever take Anthrax seriously again (assuming they were still taking Anthrax seriously at all).

And now this. Ladies and gentleman, key founding members of three of the Big Four are now all ready to throw down. This is a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I wish you could all see my face right now, ’cause rarely am I this happy.

It’s a long story, and, as is so often the case, I am really just playing The Daily Show to Blabbermouth’s CNN. Here we go:

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A few weeks back, on the Metal Injection Livecast (still shilling!!!)Rob Pasbani and company played me Ja Rule’s “We Did it Again,” a song using Metallica outtakes from St. Anger (including some truly ridiculous Hetfield vox that sound totally out of step with the rest of the song) that I had successfully managed to avoid these past few years.

Problem is, ever since I heard it, I often wake up in a cold sweat, screaming “YEAH WE DID IT DID IT DID IT!” This is what it must have been like to survive ‘Nam.

In all seriousness: gotta love* how Metallica keep thinking up new ways to shit all over their legacy.

You can listen to the song here, assuming you don’t value your sanity. In the meantime, here’s some behind-the-scenes shit about the track, which appears as one of the deleted scenes on the Some Kind of Monster (a.k.a. Live Action Metalocalypse) DVD.

-AR

*And by “love,” I mean “loathe.”

There’s something reassuring about knowing that people one sometimes considers cooler than him or herself were not, in fact, always so cool.

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Have you ever popped in a CD that you knew nothing about beforehand, had no expectations of whatsoever, and were so completely blown away by what lay within the “grooves” that you were forced to reconsider everything you thought about the state of heavy metal?

Nah, me neither.

That is…until I heard Mantic Ritual’s Executioner.

The Pittsburgh, PA thrash band, formerly known as Meltdown, have recently earned raves from the Godfather of Thrash, one Mr. James Hetfield*. That may be damning with faint praise these days, but the Metallica frontman is absolutely, 100% correct in his assessment that Executioner is the “Best Debut Thrash Album” of 2009.

I’ll go much further and stake my claim that Mantic Ritual’s Executioner is the best debut album by a band of any musical genre since the aforementioned Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All was released way back in 1983.

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Invisible Oranges posted this pretty incredible footage of Metallica rehearsing in the summer of ‘92 with Metal Church’s John Marshall, who was the band’s guitar tech that was called up to step in on rhythm guitars when Hetfield suffered severe burns from a pyro accident on the band’s stadium tour with Guns N’ Roses. I think it’s pretty surreal to be reminded that Metallica have to rehearse just like everyone else.

Invisible Oranges also pointed the way to this blog by Marshall about attending Metallica’s induction to the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame a few weeks back. It’s a fun read, but it also has an actual photo of Pushead, who I’ve never seen before, and who in no way, shape, or form looks the way I’d imagined. THE ILLUSION IS RUINED!!!

-AR

Usually when you see a video with performance footage, the original studio recording of the song is still layed over the imagery. But the new Metallica video, for “Broken, Beaten and Scarred,” actually uses audio of the band playing the song live.

It’s actually kind of a gutsy move, and I sincerely appreciate what ‘Tallica was trying to accomplish. But Hetfield’s voice doesn’t sound all that great to me (no shock there), and the song itself only sounds kinda sorta okay.

Watch below, then weigh in with your thoughts.

-AR

U.K. prog-death-thrashers (yeah, I said it) Sylosis are without a doubt one of the young bands that interest me most in 2009, thanks in no small part to the urging of several MetalSucks readers. Their Nuclear Blast debut Conclusion of an Age is a refreshing burst of modern thrash and death metal, rolled into a nicely accessible little package and sprinkled with prog influences that show the maturity and restraint of a band twice their young age. We’ll post an official MetalSucks review shortly, but in the meantime I was able to catch up with guitarist Josh Middleton to ask him a few questions about the formation of the band, the events that led to their deal with Nuclear Blast, their upcoming touring plans and their metal heroes.

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On Sunday night Vince and myself, through circumstances too depressing to go into here, ended up having dinner with my folks. And the thing about Mr. & Mrs. Rosenberg is this: they’re old and they’re bat shit crazy. I’m sure some of you can relate: you get a call saying “Oh, we saw this wonderful movie last night,” but then they can’t remember the name of the movie, what it was about, or who was in it. It’s quite thrilling, really.

ANYWAY, so there we were, attempting to enjoy our meals, when my parents began to insist that that they’d see a movie on television the night before that starred klepto-hottie/former Page Hamilton shtupper Winona Ryder and Shakespeare in Oh MY God is This Shit Almost Over?’s Joseph Fiennes… and featured a cameo from Metallica.

So, naturally, I assumed they were out of their fucking minds.

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