FEATURING MEMBERS OF GOD FORBID, AT THE GATES, DISFEAR, MACHINE HEAD, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, THE OCEAN, JUCIFER, THE BINARY CODE, HULL, DYSRHYTHMIA, INDIAN, AND DARKEST ERA

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 sixth 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.)

Click to read more…

I’ve never been nearly as big of a fan of Stone Temple Pilots as my main man Vince is, but I do, by and large, like their music, and their debut, Core, remains my favorite STP album. And while I never would have seen this coming in a million years, now The Binary Code have recorded a cover of a song off of that very album, “Wicked Garden” — with ex-Periphery front man Chris Barretto handling vocal duties, no less.

Noisecreep has the exclusive stream of the song, along with an interview with guitarist Jesse Zuretti. And lest you think STP is for pussies and The Binary Code should have covered Death or something instead, allow Zuretti to school yo’ ass:

“Stone Temple Pilots are just as important, if not more important, than most of my metal influences when writing music. The chord vocabulary Dean DeLeo built with each album they put out blows my mind. More than any flashy, 32nd-note, legato-filled, eight-string guitar solo I’ve ever listened to.”

BOO-YAH! He said “chord vocabulary.” Take that, son.

Like I said, you can stream the track at Noisecreep. In the meantime, here’s a still from the upcoming music video for the song, which is gonna blow up TRL like a motherfucker:

-AR

This morning I was reading an interview with Binary Code guitarist Jesse Zuretti, in which the artful shredder mentioned jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth as a major influence on his playing. Curious, I hit YouTube up for an Allan Holdsworth history lesson.

Check out this video of Holdsworth playing live; he doesn’t really get going until around the 2 minute mark, at which points he lets loose with a flurry of seemingly atonal out-of-key shred passages that just somehow work. Then around the 5 minute mark he goes bonkers, and here’s where I see the Zuretti influence; the quick, almost-sweep-like jazzy shred passages recall the solos in The Binary Code songs “Ghost Planet” and “The Story” (the latter of which is streaming on The Binary Code’s MySpace) in their almost Vernon Reid-esque insanity. Like Reid’s solos, it’s constantly as if the train’s about to run right off the rails but you know there’s a method to the madness underneath it all.

-VN

Without a doubt, New Jersey tech/death/prog outfit The Binary Code is one of my favorite – if not my absolute favorite – unsigned metal bands. I’ve been lucky enough to hear some of the new shit they’ve been working on, and this band just keeps getting more and more epic, brutal, and accomplished as musicians. I’m hesitant to call them Sumeriancore only because it might turn some of you off, but that’s the easiest generic categorization I can think of.

(Side note: the band also has sweet merch, which you can peruse and order here. In the great tradition of band members doubling as graphic artists, all the visuals are designed by guitarist Jesse Zuretti. So he’s a better guitarist and a better artist than you. Chump.)

Here’s a video of the band’s drummer, Umar Fahim, playing a new, as of yet still-untitled track. As you can see, the dude absolutely slays behind the kit. I had to watch it twice – once just to watch Fahim kill it, and once to try and listen to the actual song, which is typically awesome.

I’m hearing rumblings of this band getting on some pretty sweet tours later this year. While we wait for official word, check out more of their awesomeness on MySpace. And hopefully someone will have the good sense to sign them sooner rather than later.

-AR