Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Decibel Deleted Scenes time. We couldn’t quite cram this into the splattered entrails of January’s Cryptopsy HOF, but Adrien Begrand compiled some stirring None So Vile testimonials from the technical death metal legends’ peers. Here are those musicians’ choice cuts on our latest inductee.

John Longstreth (Gorguts, Origin)

“Slit Your Guts”—what an amazing death metal song, right? That screamy, shrill intro piece—it sounds like they were paying homage to a drill press. The stop at 0:25, the solo is beautiful, the opening lyrics are “Pardon, please…” Holy cow, what went wrong with these guys? Some sort of rotten black brilliance was causing some serious torment in these dudes’ heads. How else could it be written? Definitely a poignant and early representation of how nail-biting, nervous and strung-out death metal would come to sound. A definite influence for me and Origin. Thank you for this song and album! Congratulations, gentlemen! You deserve it!

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Between the inclusion of Paul Ryan on our Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists list, the release of their latest album, Entity, and their co-headlining tour with Hate Eternal, which begins tonight, Origin have been crowding the metal spotlight of late. I took some time to talk with Ryan about the new album, the current metal scene, the band’s progress, and the tour. Read our complete conversation after the jump!

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“How do you feel about joining Origin, Jason?”

Well, hey now!, it was just last month that we were wondering, “Whatever happened to Skinless?” We weren’t really able to get a satisfactory answer, other than that the band was hoping to finally make a follow-up to 2006′s Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead this year.

Well, I’m thinking it might be another hot minute before that actually happens, because Skinless front man Jason Keyser has just been announced as the new vocalist for Origin.

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For some reason, internet metal nerds love to talk about drummers, even if they themselves do not play drums. Whether it’s “Who has the fastest double bass/blastbeats?”, “Should I use one bass drum or two?” or “What does Pete Sandoval’s drum throne smell like?”, there are few things more tiresome than the topic of metal drumming. What that in mind, in this post I will put the discussion of this topic to rest forever by conclusively saying all that there is to say about metal drumming. After this post has been published, anyone who still debates these points is as foolish, ignorant and stubborn as people who believe the Earth is flat or that God exists. So if you have anything to say, say it now, because this is it — this is your chance to become part of the moment in which we closed the door on dorky, redundant debates about metal drumming.

This is THE FINAL WORD on metal drumming!!!!

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So Vince and I checked out Gorguts, Portal, and Krallice (and, yes, some of Bloody freakin’ Panda) last night… needless to say, it was an all-around excellent experience. I’m gonna try and get a review of Portal’s performance up later today, because I think they specifically deserve some attention, so unique is their stage show. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t show Gorguts and Krallice some love, too, ’cause those bands kill.

The good news/bad news of the evening was that Gorguts mainman Luc Lemay announced from the stage that while he and the rest of the group’s current line-up (which includes Dysrhythmia’s Kevin Hufnagel on guitar, Krallice/Behold… the Arctopus’ Colin Marston on bass, and Origin’s John Longstreth on drums) are working on a new album (as expected), they won’t hit the studio until “late fall” or “Christmas,” which means this release obviously won’t see the light of day ’til 2011.

But they did perform a new song, which, for now, is simply called “Number Three;” and they’ve been performing it this entire tour, I guess, ’cause our buddies over at Metal Injection have some righteous footage of the band playing it in Boston earlier this week. Check it out:

Gorguts, Krallice, and Portal all play Philly tonight and Maryland Deathfest this weekend. You absolutely should not miss them.

-AR

MetalSucks recently had the opportunity to have a quick chat with Origin guitarist Paul Ryan on the set of the band’s shoot for their new video, “Finite.” Ryan had some interesting things to say about life on the road, the band’s new album, Antithesis (read Axl’s review here), and what lies ahead for these death metal masters. Above, watch the David Brodsky-directed video for “Finite;” after the jump, read the full transcript of our chat with Paul.

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