MetalSucks

Haven’t done one of these posts in a while because, well, there hasn’t been a Tuesday this important in quite some time. The following albums are available for legal, legit purchasing today:

• Killswitch Engage – Killswitch Engage: The band everyone hates to love or loves to hate. Prediction: this record goes Top 10 first week, possibly even Top 5.
• Suicide Silence – No Time to Bleed: Deathcore upstarts attempt to [suicide] silence the naysayers with their second Century Media full-length. This writer thinks they’ve done it.
• Obituary – Darkest Days: O.G. death metallers return with their eighth full-length.
• Ex Deo – Romulus: Roman-themed metal helmed by Kataklysm frontman Maurizio Iacono. We think the tunes are solid and the music video is beyond epic.

Oh hey look, rock’s resident asshole Ted Nugent also has a CD/DVD out today! Killer! Psych.

If you’ve already heard these albums tells us what you think of them in the comments. We’ll report the sales figures for all of these albums as soon as we get them in next Wednesday. In the meantime, go n’ buy some music so some broke-ass dudes can eat! Except Ted Nugent, unless you want your money to go straight to the NRA.

-VN

Last week we told you about the epic, Roman-themed band Ex Deo, spearheaded by Kataklysm’s Maurizio Iocono. You could be a hipster-metal fart-knocker and roll your eyes at yet another pagan metal band, or you could take my word for it and click “play” on the fittingly epic video for “Romulus,” the album’s title track, below. This shit is epic. Did I say “epic” enough times yet? Grand. Colossal. Monolithic. All of these adjectives describe both the band and this video.

The video (and song) tells the ancient Roman tale of Romulus and Remus, and was filmed by director Stanimir “Staca” Lukic in Belgrade, Serbia. Romulus comes out on June 19th in Europe and June 30th in North America on Nuclear Blast Records. Catch Ex Deo on the Paganfest Europe tour this fall.

-VN

When news of Ex Deo, the new band featuring Kataklysm’s Maurizio Iacono, first began to bubble this winter, I yawned. I’ve always thought of Kataklysm as a solid, serviceable but not especially interesting group, so the prospect of a side-project of a band I’m not especially into in the first place wasn’t all that appealing. But now that new tracks from the Ex Deo debut Romulus are starting to surface I’m being forced to reconsider.

This shit is epic!

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Monday was a crazy night for metal in the city, with no less than 4 awesome shows happening simultaneously. Yours truly chose to attend the most eccentric, with Keep of Kalessin, Eluveitie and Dying Fetus opening for metal stalwarts Kataklysm.

The night’s biggest calling card for me was Norway’s Keep of Kalessin; their recent release Kolossus is a fierce slab of fast, psychedelic black metal, an album I’ve jammed several times and really, really like.

For anyone not familiar with Keep of Kalessin, I would describe them thusly: four dudes that look like a goth version of Legolas from Lord of the Rings — on heroin — playing passionate, fast, psychedelic black metal. The following description would also be accurate: Enslaved on an 8-ball of cocaine.

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It always happens this way; you wait and wait and wait for a band you love to come around, and when they finally do they’re playing at the same time as that other band you’ve waited and waited and waited for. So it is tonight in NYC, FOUR-fold. So if you’ve still got an open card for the evening, check out at least one of these awesome shows, and if you’re ambitious and have deep pockets lined with cab money, check out all four! It’s a great night to be a metal fan in NYC, with headliners Wetnurse, Origin, Amorphis and Kataklysm sitting atop 4 totally well-rounded and deep tour bills.

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Summer Slaughter Tour Terrorizes Texas on Independence Day

One problem with being an Old Fart in the metal scene is that you have to do Old Farty kind of things, like celebrating 4th of July with your family and friends. The problem arises when said celebration coincides with one of the biggest concerts of the year – the Summer Slaughter Tour.

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Canada’s Kataklysm are one of those bands that don’t necessarily do very much different from album to album – which is not to say that they don’t do things better from album to album. So while fans probably know what to expect from the band’s latest, Prevail (released yesterday on Nuclear Blast) – more thrashy, groove laden melodic death metal – they won’t be prepared for how much fun it is to listen to.

Kataklysm have always made Fuckin’ Metal with a capital “F-M,” and Prevail is no different. If the lyrics like “Prevail/Like a venomous snake/Ready to strike and dominate” turn you off, then this ain’t the album for you. But if you’re looking for straightforward, crushing metal that is in no way, shape, or form ashamed of its metalness, Prevail should be right up your alley.

Every song on the album is pretty fuckin’ good, but as I’ve stated before, I personally find the band to be at their most powerful when they slow things down; tracks like “Blood in Heaven,” “Taking the World by Storm” and “To the Throne of Sorrow” lumber like wooly fucking mammoths that trample every living thing in their path. While every thrash and death metal band in the world has spent the past two decades following Slayer’s First Law of Faster is Better, Kataklysm seems to understand how much more painful it can be to slowly crush an enemy’s head in a vice rather than just brain him right there on the spot.

At the end of the day, Prevail isn’t a masterpiece, and it probably won’t change your life. But like I said, it is a fuckuva lotta fun to listen to.

(three and a half out of five horns)

-AR

Why wait for my (or any other critic’s) review of Kataklysm’s Prevail? There’s only so many synonyms for “awesome” and “brutal” I can use, and besides, right now the band is streaming the entire album on their MySpace page. Which means you can write your own review!

Lettin’ fans hear the whole album prior to its release is just good promotin’ skills, but it takes some balls, too; the album doesn’t hit stores/iTunes/whatever ’til May 27 (here in the US; Europe gets it on May 23). If it sucked, that would give everyone a week and a half to spread the bad buzz. But, duh-hickey, it doesn’t suck, and the band obviously knows that, so, voila, they’re letting you listen to it early.

So check it out already. “Blood in Heaven” is my favorite song on the disc thus far; how about all’a y’all?

-AR

Am I the only one whose favorite Kataklysm songs are the slow ones? I mean, don’t get me wrong, these Canadian deathrashers can do the speed metal thing as well as anyone, but there’s just something about those chunky, churning, elephants-marching rhythms on songs like “Slither,” “Crippled and Broken,” and “The Road to Devastation” that’s so… brutal. Like, the band doesn’t wanna pummel you to death; they want to skin you alive. Slowly.

“Taking the World by Storm,” the first single off the band’s forthcoming Prevail, is one of those songs, and I loved it the second I heard that colossal riff. The video was helmed by MetalSucks fave David Brodsky, who does his usual top notch work here (the colors, dude, the colors!), and I don’t care what those “Videos are Dead” naysayers think – the clip is as effective a marketing tool as any metal band could wish for.

Prevail drops May 23 in Europe and May 27 here in the States on Nuclear Blast.

Kataklysm – Taking The World By Storm

-AR

And now for something completely different…

Kataklysm, “The Chains of Power” – from Prevail (Nuclear Blast)

This is pretty much the most brutal song I’ve ever heard this band do… we can only hope the entire album is this crushing.

Prevail, the latest from our favorite Canucks, comes out May 27. It features guest appearances from members of Cannibal Corpse, Overkill, and Jason Suecof, who is also mixing the album. Then the band hits the road for one of the best tours of the summer.

In the meantime, check out our interview with Kataklysm front man Maurizio Iacono.

-AR

Earlier today, Nick at The Deciblog posted the below video of the dudes from Kataklysm attempting – and repeatedly failing – to shoot a message to their Australian fans during their recent tour down under. As Nick pointed out, the highlight is undoubtedly front man Maurizio Iacono’s spit take at the 1:21 mark. Hilarious.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/W6mMu-NtI1s" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-AR

Iron Maiden have Eddie, Megadeth have Vic Rattlehead, Kataklysm has the Heart Beast, and Kalmah have… this weird old guy. Whatever, this album is still gonna own your ass.

For the Revolution drops April 2 on Spikefarm.

-AR

Vince and I didn’t get to interview Kataklysm vocalist Maurizio Iacono during the band’s New York stop on their current tour with Chimaira, Terror and Divine Heresy – the poor guy’s press schedule was already too jam packed – but we did get to meet him after the show, and he seemed like a super cool dude. So cool, in fact, that he agreed to answer some questions via e-mail to make up for the missed chat. After the jump, enjoy the complete transcript of Maurizio’s thoughts on the current tour, Kataklysm’s forthcoming new album, and the upcoming Paganfest America tour.

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Just a few hours before Chimaira hit the stage for the second date of their current tour, guitarist Rob Arnold was telling us* that the first night in Norfolk, VA had been plagued with technical difficulties, and that the ensuing show was, as a result, “terrible.” The poor dude must’ve been pissed then, when literally two notes into the first song of Chimaira’s set, the fire alarms at the Blender Theater (a.k.a. The Gramercy) here in NYC went off and shut down the band’s entire show before it even got started.

Rob can take comfort knowing that once said alarms were fixed and the concert resumed, Chimaira – the last band on an exhausting, exhilarating bill that also included Canadian thrashers Kataklysm, hardcore superstars Terror and Dino Cazares’ latest project, Divine Heresy – absolutely destroyed, playing a blistering ninety minute set that proved yet again that this band is one of the most effective, vicious live acts of their generation.

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