So it looks like Chimaira kept pretty busy while we were away.

First: as announced in November, last week’s twelfth annual Chimaira Christmas marked the band’s final performance with guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries. And, unfortunately, DeVries’ parting gift to vocalist Mark Hunter – who is now the band’s sole remaining original member — was to knock him over in the middle of “The Age of Hell,” resulting in Hunter taking a nasty spill and spraining his ankle. You can watch video of the incident below courtesy of The PRP (the fall comes just after the 1:18 mark), and see a photo of Hunter’s swollen ankle here.

Potentially better news is that while Hunter had thus far remained mum on his plans for Chimaira’s future, the band has since announced replacements for Arnold and DeVries.

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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:

• We debuted a performance clip from the new Shadows Fall live DVD, the new Intronaut album, and a new Madball song. PHEW!
• We spoke to Jeremy Creamer from Daath, Johnny Plague from Winds of Plague, Adam Warren from Oceano, and Ashmedi from Melechesh. Oh, and Anso unveiled part one of his massive two-part interview with Atheist’s Kelly Shaefer.
• We checked out new releases by Salome, Madball, Woe, and Arson Anthem and Ender. And a DWARR reissue!
• Greg Weeks from The Red Chord said good-bye to Randy Moss and hello to men wearing pink tights, Sacha Dunable from Intronaut contemplated the legalization of recreational marijuana use in California, and Eyal Levi from Daath discovered DestinAsian.
• Sergeant D. celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell. Wait, what?
• We couldn’t figure out why everyone was so surprised that ICP are evangelical Christians.
• We found out the hard way that Attack Attack!’s music could be even worse than it already is.
• We took a slow ride on Metallica’s Lightning.
• We laughed at one shit stain calling another shit stain “a shit stain.”
• And, oh yeah! Gary Suarez took over the site for a day.

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

Jeremy Creamer is a crazy motherfucker, and I mean that in the best possible way. He’s often the quietest guy in the room, but his mind is always working, working, working. When he speaks up, everybody listens. I’ve mentioned this before, but, at least during my time vising Daath in the studio this past June, his ideas were the ones most quickly and consistently adopted into the music. It’s the old cliché: The man who speaks the least is actually the most worth listening to.

And Creamer is worth listening to. After the jump, get his thoughts his particular place in the scheme of the band, the ills of modern metal production, why he doesn’t like to plan things out too far in advance, and a remix/reimagining of Daath that will hopefully be released for free in the not-too-distant future.

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Because there is. It’s also called Daath. And we love it. And we’re very excited for you to hear it. And we know that some of you think we’re biased because we’re friends with Eyal, and all we can say is, you’re right. We would never actually be friends with a talented person who is a member of a good band, only a hack whose album we can promote because we don’t really believe in it. Eyal was actually, like, our eighth choice of guest columnists, after members of Attack Attack!, The Devil Wears Prada, Oceano, Bring Me the Horizon, and this band, amongst others, turned us down.

SO. While two tracks have already been released — “Destruction/Restoration” debuted right here at MetalSucks, and “Indestructible Overdose” is streaming on the band’s MySpace page — now you’ve got a chance to hear a third: “N.A.T.G.O.D.” has just debuted over at Metal Injection. Go here to listen.

And now that you’ve heard approximately 23% of the album and you’ve come to realize that we’re not just biased and this album really does rule and you’re so excited to hear the rest of it that the October 25 release date can’t come soon enough, go here to pre-order the thing.

And while you’re jonesin’ to hear the remainder of the record… Skulls N’ Bones have now completed their series of in-studio videos chronicling the creation of Daath, and I’ve collected them all right here for you, ’cause these are really fun and I’m a nice guy like that. Here’s the one centering on Eyal…

And here’s the one about drummer Kevin Talley…

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Whether you realize it or not, you probably own an album that Mark Lewis has worked on. He started working with Jason Suecof at the already-legendary Audiohammer Studios for 2005′s Roadrunner United collection; since then, either working with Suecof or on his own, he has produced, engineered, and/or mixed a ridiculous number of major metal releases, including albums by Death Angel, Chimaira, The Black Dahlia Murder, DevilDriver, Trivium, Six Feet Under, Whitechapel, Demon Hunter, Charred Walls of the Damned, The Autumn Offering, and more. Hell, just last week we debuted a Holy Grail track, and didn’t even realize that Mark mixed the song until after the fact!

Mark is obviously ridiculously good at what he does, but he also happens to be a super cool dude — which is probably why artists are so ready to work him over and over again. In fact, Daath’s self-titled album, which Century Media will release on October 25 (pre-order it here), is his second time working with guitarists Emil Werstler and Eyal Levi (who co-produced and co-engineered the album with Lewis) just this year — he was also on-board for their excellent Avalanche of Worms album (and wrote a great guest blog for MetalSucks upon that album’s release).

When I was in Atlanta for a few days this past June visiting Daath in the studio (read my report here), I managed to pull Mark away from his console for a little while to pick his brain on the creation of this ridiculously good album. Read the full transcript of our chat after the jump.

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Eyal Levi’s studio resides in the basement of his family’s home in suburban Atlanta. It’s a small room that couldn’t comfortably hold more than five, maybe six people; if your only mental image of a band making a record comes from A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, it might be a little off-putting. You’re perpetually aware that you’re actually in the middle of someone’s house; various non-local metal denizens (including this blogger) populate the guest beds and couches, while members of Daath who live within driving distance but aren’t necessarily needed at the moment come and go as they please to share meals, jokes, vape rips, and the work-in-progress. It’s only when you really look around and soak in the details of your surroundings — the box full of copies of Daath’s self-released debut, Futility; the Misery Index vinyls; the post-it note by the door that makes reference to an incident involving Arsis’ James Malone, the house security system, and the local police department — that you realize: Oh, yeah. I’ve got albums on my iPod that were recorded in this room!

Daath have returned here to make their new, self-titled album after recording 2008′s The Concealers at producer Jason Suecof’s Audio Hammer Studios in Florida. The relaxed and homey environment was chosen deliberately for this outing. The name of the game this time is “creative freedom,” and the atmosphere at Eyaland (the studio doesn’t have an official name) definitely seems to breed open thinking — which is key, given that the group has only written and demoed skeletal versions of the songs, with the flourishes that, frankly, make Daath Daath still-to-be-added.

The decision to work this way came about because the band has felt, in the past, as though sometimes their preproduction demos “would sound better than the records we released,” Eyal explains. ”Lots of times we’d feel we were making better-sounding-but-more-stale-versions of what we did [on the demos], because lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place… This time we didn’t allow that. We got the songs to the point where we’re comfortable hitting ‘record,’ and we’re taking them to the next level in the studio.”

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Well, we’ve been talking about it for some time, but now you get to hear some of Daath‘s new, self-titled album and make up your mind for yourself — we’re giving away “Destruction/Restoration,” the second cut off the record, as a FREE download.

It should go without saying that we love this song. It sounds like Daath have been let off the leash: Emil Werstler is playing insane shit which should make guitar geeks everywhere cream their pants, Kevin Talley is going absolutely nuts and playing anything but what’s expected, the production, by Mark Lewis and Eyal Levi, is filthy, and the music is darker than Vince Neil’s liver and more misanthropic than Glenn Danzig at a doctor’s office. “Destruction/Restoration” is only about two-and-a-half minutes long, but you’ll never be able to appreciate it after just one listen; it’s just too layered and crazy for that. So download this one on us, get a good pair of headphones, and blow your ear drums to smithereens.

Daath comes out October 25 on Century.

DAATH – “DESTRUCTION/RESTORATION”

Daath – “Destruction/Restoration”

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I think bassist Jeremy Creamer may be the biggest question mark for most Daath fans; he’s not front n’ center like vocalist Sean Z., and unlike guitarists Eyal Levi and Emil Werstler and drummer Kevin Talley, his work outside of Daath is not, at least currently, that well-known by the metal community (very likely because his work outside of Daath is often not metal music). But he’s an insanely cool dude and an insanely talented dude, and… I’m not gonna tell you more ’cause I’m gonna run an interview with him as part of the massive behind-the-scenes series I’m working on. So for the time being, just watch the below video that Skulls N’ Bones posted of him laying down bass for Daath’s new, self-titled album, which comes out October 26 on Century.

Daath has also released the track list for the album. Even with a band I love (like this one!), I don’t usually find track lists all that interesting, ‘case song titles don’t actually tell you much, but this being Daath n’ all, I’m gonna run it anyway. Check it out after the jump.

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So in metal it seems like one of the highest honors your band can get is to score some high rankings on the brutalometer. If you hear “THAT WAS FUCKNG BRUTAL MAN” and the dude is covered in sweat and looking at you like you have led him through war victoriously, you have won him over via metal.

It’s really amazing to me that music can be described as brutal. What an emotion to try and communicate. I can’t think of anything more cathartic than playing a brutal show where the band and audience are 100% on their game (It’s a two-way street, dudes.). But the other part of the brutal coin isn’t as much fun or psychologically rewarding. I wonder before every tour about which injuries I’m going to come home with. What new permanent marks will I have to add to the collection?

Well this past time it was a whole amazing array of bruises all over my body and random cuts on my hands and wrists and last but not least, a broken rib. Yes, a broken rib.

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