1) Be nicer to Sebastian Bach
2) Compare penis sizes with Tommy Lee
3) Hire Phil LaBonte as a vocal coach
4) Hire Billy Milano as a personal trainer
5) Hire Tripp Eisen as a baby sitter
6) Sleep with present-day Tawny Kitaen
7) Help Danzig clean up his motherfucking bricks, bitch
8) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about politics
9) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about romance
10) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about Ted Nugent

Click to read more…

Yep, it’s finally here — Dream Theater’s first song with new drummer Mike Mangini.

Vince is really the resident Dream Theater expert, and even Anso is a bigger fan than I am, so I feel weird talking about it. The short version is, I feel the same way about it I feel about most Dream Theater, which is that it’s just swell until James LaBrie and his stupid vagina voice comes into the song.

Insofar as the Portnoy versus Mangini question goes… I don’t have an opinion. I’m sorry, I just don’t. I know Portnoy is a great drummer, but Magnini is obviously no slouch, so, again… I’ll leave it those of you who are really enamored of this band to decide whether or not this lives up to the band’s other material, or if they need to get Portnoy back STAT.

Stream “On the Backs of Angels” here. The band’s new album, A Dramatic Turn of Events, comes out September 13 via Roadrunner.

-AR

I wasn’t really familiar with Eden’s Curse before today, but I assumed they were a dork metal band. I made this deduction based on the following facts:

• They’re called “Eden’s Curse.”
• They recruited Dream Theater’s James LaBrie (Fun fact: his name is French for “the cheese”) to do vocals for their new single, “No Holy Man.”

Luckily, the band has now released the shittiest animated video this side of Motley Crue’s “Hell on High Heels” for that song. So, y’know, that should totally disprove naysayers like me. Yep, no reason for the band to feel embarrassed by this high quality promotional clip!

-AR

While we were gone for the holidays, Mike Portnoy asked to re-join Dream Theater after being let go by Avenged Sevenfold, surprising no one. We’ve stated our case for siding with Portnoy in this whole ridiculous public drama, but it seems awfully hypocritical of Portnoy to ask back in so soon after everything that’s gone down. Dream Theater accordingly rebuffed Mike, as they should have. Meanwhile, rumors have been flying around about Marco Minnemann being the new Dream Theater drummer, a story which we were the first to report several weeks back.

Portnoy for his part is staying busy; Metal Insider reports that he’s announced a new project with guitarist Steve Morse (Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs), multi-instrumentalist Neal Morse (Transatlantic, Spock’s Beard), bassist Dave LaRue (Dixie Dregs) and vocalist Casey McPherson (Alpha Rev, Endochine) with recording commencing shortly. That should be pretty effin’ cool and nertastically progariffic.

But in the meantime the big question on Dream Theater fans’ minds is: what will the next Dream Theater record sound like?? Will it be any good? Was Portnoy the mojo that kept the band going or was he dead weight??? John Petrucci just tweeted that the band is now in the studio, so I’m assuming that they’re writing the record on-the-fly again as they have with the past several releases.

What do you think about a new DT record?? Weigh in below.

Preface: I love Dream Theater and anything DT-related with all my heart. But this is just too easy!

A media war of words between the remaining members of Dream Theater and the recently departed Mike Portnoy was bound to erupt sooner or later, right? Here’s where things get really nasty, so that once the inevitable occurs and Portnoy re-joins the band he helped form, at least there’ll be some good sound bites for Behind the Music or whatever the Metal Injection equivalent of it is in the year 2014, right?

But before the media sensationalized JUICY GOSSIP, a quick update from the Portnoy front. Metal Insider is reporting that in a recent interview Portnoy claimed he’d remain with Avenged Sevenfold for the remainder of the Nightmare touring cycle. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone as it wouldn’t make sense for A7X to switch drummers mid-tour, but it does call into question Portnoy’s motives for leaving Dream Theater. Didn’t he want a break so he could pursue other musical projects? Obviously A7X qualify as a musical project (now’s your chance for a snarky comment about A7X… hyuck, hyuck!), but I got the impression he wanted to spend more time on side projects and didn’t want to be on the road constantly. The touring cycle for an album by a band of A7X’s stature usually lasts 1.5 to 2 years… so expect Portnoy to be out on the road with them until this time next year, or later. That’s not gonna leave much time for anything else.

But you want the JUICY GOSSIP, right?? Well, click on through to see what James LaBrie had to say about Portnoy, and what Portnoy said back:

Click to read more…

Believe it or not, folks still buy CDs. I know… I’m shocked too. But the weekly Soundscan numbers released by Neilsen actually do include digital downloads too. I know what you’re thinking… people still pay for music? I s’pose so. Here are the most recent week’s charting hard rock and metal releases, with my own snarky commentary, natch. Check those tags down yonder for a list of covered releases.

Click to read more…

Now that I’ve had a good 24 hours to process the news that Mike Portnoy has quit Dream Theater, I’m ready to opine on it. And my opinion can be summed up thusly:

RUFKM????

No, no… obviously it’s way more complex than that. Allow me to elaborate.

Click to read more…

The new James Labrie solo effort “One More Time” — streaming today on Noisecreep — starts out much like you’d expect from a side project of a member of Dream Theater; deep, rich guitar tone (heyo John Petrucci), a pounding, driving but intricate drum beat (heyo Mike Portnoy), some proggy time shifts here and there and even a Johny Myung-esque bass solo mid-song. And… screaming vocals. Zuh???

Not that this is a bad thing. It just caught me completely by surprise. The screams come courtesy of guitarist/keyboardist Matt Guillory, and Labrie’s trademark pipes comes back into play in the choruses. The effect is a good cop / bad cop vocal scheme which, in concert with the music, really has a melodic death metal feel with a very slight technical edge. This is exactly what Soilwork would sound like if they had James Labrie singing for them instead of Speed Strid… now that’d be a cool duet, wouldn’t it?

Static Impulse comes out on September 28th via InsideOut. Stream “One More Time” at Noisecreep; it’s addictively catchy.

-VN

It’s not that I think that the members of Napalm Death and Dream Theater have a limited musical palette. Quite the contrary; I’d imagine the musicians that make up these particular bands probably have very diverse tastes.

Still. If I found out that Alex Webster listened to a lot of Roni Spektor, I wouldn’t expect a collaboration between the Russian chanteuse and the death metal legend, y’know?

So. Tom Fassnidge sent us this video of Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway teaming up with some of the dudes from Dream Theater to cover Metallica’s “Damage Inc.” It’s an old video – lookit Barney’s hair!!! – but neither Vince nor myself had ever seen it before. And it’s pretty awesome – look at how much fun Petrucci and Portnoy are having! And, yes, I know that DT have covered entire Metallica albums live in concert before. But it’s the “WHAT THE FUCK IS A MEMBER OF NAPALM DEATH DOING UP THERE?” of it all that makes this video truly worthwhile, in my opinion at least.

Extra bonus: for those of us who find James LaBrie to be a big gaping vagina, we now get to see what DT might be like with singer who isn’t a eunuch.

-AR