Maybe we shoulda called it MetaSucks?

ANYWAY, here’s some shit we did this week:

• The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley responded to Dr. Katrina McFerran’s study on teens, depression, and music. Then Dr. McFerran responded to Justin’s response. Then Justin responded to McFerran’s response to his response. Then I went permanently cross-eyed.
• We debuted new music by Keith Merrow’s Demisery.
• We spoke to Corey Lowery from Dark New Day and Eye Empire.
• We checked out the latest release from Astomatous and H20, Ringworm, Mindsnare, and Soul Search.
• We showed you some nice photos from both Day 1 and Day 2 of The Metal Suckfest.
• We counted down The Seven Most Metal Video Games Ever Made.
• We were bummed to learn that guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries are leaving Chimaira at the end of the year.
• We were even more bummed to see Chris Barnes shilling for used cars.
• We argued about the best metal albums of the 90s.
• We found something even worse than Lulu: LIVE Lulu.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I haven’t gotten blackout drunk in a week.

-AR

We’ve been telling you about Keith Merrow’s death metal side project Demisery for months now, and we’ve even given you a sample of what the album has in store. Today we give you the exclusive premiere of Hive of Mutation in full, evil riffs, searing solos, churning blast beats, bowel-rumbling death growls courtesy of Gord Olson, and all. You all should know by now that Merrow can work his way around a guitar, but that he’s able to execute a death metal record so well — with songs and riffs that actually stick in your brain, no less — shows just what a master of modern metal he is. Click “play” and let the grimness wash over you, then head over to Keith Merrow’s website to pre-order the record, which comes out on November 14th.

(Has nothing to do with Keith Merrow but might share a common goal with him?)

Metal instrumentalist savant Keith Merrow has been teasing his new death metal side-project Demisery for quite awhile now so it’s about damn time he gave us something concrete to listen to. I kid; Keith, like most musicians, probably has a real job and possibly even a family, meaning he’s got little time to devote to pleasing Internet Metal Nerds and owes us absolutely nothing. But “Thralldom,” the first track I’ve heard from the upcoming Demisery effort Hive of Mutation, makes me remember all over again just why I love all of Keith’s work so much in the first place — dude’s insanely fucking talented! “Thralldom” makes the majority of death metal we hear on a daily basis sound not only light in comparison but pedestrian in nature. Keith takes your death metal, rips it up, stomps all over it then shoves it up your ass. “Thralldom” has catchy riffs without losing track of the art of songwriting, and, needless to say (but I gotta say it anyway), flawless execution… and to thank this is just a side project. That’s Gord Olson on the growls; I think my bowels just shifted.

I can’t wait to hear more. Keith tells MetalSucks he hopes to have the record out by year’s end.

-VN

(BTBAM photo credit: Andrew Lipovsky)

Here’s a fun little tidbit to get the metalsphere salivating this afternoon: The Number of the Blog is reporting that MetalSucks-fave multi-instrumentalist Keith Merrow is teaming up with Lamb of God drummer Chris Adler and Between the Buried and Me axeman Paul Waggoner on a new side project. I contacted Keith this morning for comment, and here’s what he had to say about it:

As of right now, it’s a very casual collaboration. We have 3 or 4 song ideas we’ve tossed around over the past few months, and they are all really cool. Very different from any music you’d hear from each of us, individually. All of us are pretty busy these days, but this is a collaboration that we are all really excited about!

Click to read more…

When Keith Merrow posted a home studio walkthrough video last month he mentioned he was working on a death metal side project. This got internet metal nerds very excited, and since I’m an internet metal nerd… ya know.

Keith just sent me a recently uploaded video of himself tracking the guitars for said death metal side project, called Demisery, which he’s putting together with his friend Gord Olson. Given Merrow’s extraordinary talents shown on his solo work I shouldn’t be surprised that the guy can handle such complex death metal riffing so well, but still, I’m quite impressed! More impressive still is how different this stuff sounds from Merrow’s solo work; I have tons of respect for players who can handle multiple genres. According to Merrow, “There’s no core, no prog, no “djent”, this is a 100% Death Metal album.” By the looks of it, the man speaks truth.

No word yet on when the Demisery debut will come out, but as things tend to move pretty quickly in the home-recording world I’d wager it’s possible we see it by the end of 2011.

-VN

As previously reported here on MS, now that Nevermore has quit Nevermore, ex-guitarist Jeff Loomis (#7 on our list of the Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists) is working on his second solo album. We are very excited!

Our excitement was elevated to the next level today upon finding out the makeup of the band he’ll be recording with this time around:

• Dirk Verbeuren of Soilwork (drums)
• Aaron Smith of 7 Horns 7 Eyes (producer)
• Shane Lentz (bass)
• Christine Rhodes (guest vocals), who previously contributed to Nevermore’s Dreaming Neon Black album
• Jeff Loomis’ hair (guest guitar solo)

If you’re wondering who the hell Shane Lentz is, like we were, peep this quote from Loomis: “Up until about 2 weeks ago, I was planning on doing the bass parts myself but then saw this amazing bass player on YouTube and said to myself, ‘I need to have him on the record.” Awesome; Internet dreams really do come true!

It’d be awesome if Loomis invited Keith Merrow in to contribute a guest solo. Ya know, to return the favor.

Expect the new Loomis solo joint in Spring 2012.

-VN

We think we do a pretty dern good job of getting metal musicians to take us behind the scenes of their gear setups in our ongoing Rigged features, but we absolutely love it when artists take it upon themselves to do it on their own. Today’s do-it-yourself edition of Rigged comes from solo instrumentalist Keith Merrow, and I really can’t think of a modern metal musician this side of Misha Mansoor whose gear would be more interesting to aspiring Internet nerd-faces. Solo instrumentalists like Merrow are the ultimate gear geeks, and since most of them don’t play live the only thing limiting what they can fit into their “rig” is the size of the apartment or house they can afford. Here’s a video Keith put together in which he runs through his entire home recording setup; amps, processors, pedals, computers, software, interfaces, monitors, guitars… it’s all there.

Keith Merrow’s latest album Awaken the Stone King was released in January of this year and is still fucking my face off. Peep it here and listen to the song with a guest solo by ex-Nevermore shredder Jeff Loomis.

-VN

[via Got-Djent.com]

In decades past, musicians and bands lay shrouded behind a curtain of secrecy; music videos brought fans a little closer to their idols, but for the most part band members were still completely mysterious individuals whose mystique was part of their appeal. Even the music videos often added to a band’s mystique. All this changed, of course, with the Internet; all of a sudden fans had instant access to every aspect of their favorite band’s lives through constant updates about studio progress, tour blogs, Tweets, Facebook posts from band members’ personal profiles and instant access to music at any time (the latter of which we really take for granted already).

For younger metalheads who were in their teens during the MySpace era, it must be hard to imagine that once upon a time we did not know what the members of our favorites bands were doing at any given moment, and oftentimes didn’t even know what they looked like. We had to wait for a live show to come around to our area once every two or three years, or at best hope that MTV would decide to play their music video when we happened to be watching. If we were lucky our favorite magazine that we punked down hard-earned bucks for would have a feature where we could learn precious information about a band.

To me nothing is more emblematic of this shift, the transparency of the modern musician, than the current trend of “playthrough” videos.

Click to read more…

Axl was hangin’ out in the Vince Division of the Mansion yesterday afternoon, working alongside me like the butt buddies that we are. The soundtrack included Dawnbringer, which I was definitely late to the game on but Axl named as his #5 favorite album of 2011, and the new Keith Merrow joint Awaken the Stone King. Axl was suitably impressed by Merrow’s latest offering which should bode well for those of you who take any praise I heap upon talented instrumentalists with a grain of salt.

In any case, reader Neil Nalley sent us this version of an older Merrow track called “The Arrival” with vocals by the singer of Nancial, a band from Moscow. This guy is a pretty ok vocalist and this version’s aight, but why the need to ruin a perfectly good instrumental song by dumbing it down with lame metal vox?? Vocals in metal are the equivalent of putting heaps of sugar in a quality cup of coffee, there for the sole enjoyment of the lowest common denominator. Who the fuck needs them anymore? Haven’t we outgrown this crap? To hell with vocals, I say.

Whoops! Wrong video. Try this:

Click to read more…

Solo instrumentalist / one-man band mastermind Keith Merrow — whose praises we’ve sung on MetalSucks many a time — has come out with what by my calculation is the very first metal release of 2011, his new record Awaken the Stone King. Heavy Blog is Heavy was the first site to report on the release, which seemingly came out of nowhere, with a non-time-stamped post on December 31st… but we’re just gonna call a mulligan here and proclaim Stone King the first metal release of 2011.

“Merrow,” the moniker that the album cover would seem to indicate Sir Keith is now going by (a smart move, IMO) — has made Awaken the Stone King available as a $9.99 download on his website, where you can also listen to song samples from the whole record. If you can remember all the way back to December (hard, I know), you’d recall that Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis guest solos on a track; I definitely can’t wait to hear that one (which I believe is “Heart of the Sea Nymph”, track 2), but just from listening to these songs samples I’m already sold on this album… so far, so great, no hot-shot cameo necessary. Keith is a phenomenal musician whose composition and performance skills I can’t give enough praise. I’m sold; downloading now.

All of Merrow’s prior releases are available for free if you wanna catch yourself up his catalogue, which I highly recommend. Donations are welcomed.

-VN

The Internet is a treasure trove of data just waiting to be spliced and re-assembled in new and interesting ways.

A recent feature added to Got-Djent.com gave users the ability to indicate their favorite bands on their own personal profiles, so the keepers of that site have taken that information and produced a map “where the proximity of two bands on the map indicates how much their respective fanbases overlap.” Fascinating. Check it out: (click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

The results are fascinating.

Click to read more…

Keith Merrow is one of those super-talented dudes who writes and records full-fledged, pro-sounding instrumental metal records all by his lonesome in his home studio. After I featured him in Readers Choice exactly a year ago he reached out to me and sent me two of his records, The Arrival and Lonestar Transcend (in 320kbps no less! what a mensch), both of which quite literally knocked my socks off. Literally… my socks were promptly jettisoned from my feet upon pressing “play.”

But you know who’s better than Keith Merrow? Jeff Fucking Loomis. No disrespect meant to Mr. Merrow of course, but Loomis is pretty much a God amongst men when it comes to technique. I know what you beardo crusties are thinking… all chops, no soul… but you couldn’t be more wrong. Loomis has it all, motherfuckers!

So you know what’s even better than Keith Merrow and even better than Jeff Loomis? I think you know where I’m going with this… Keith Merrow and Jeff Loomis together on the same recording!! Holy fuckticles. Watch these outtakes Keith sent us of Loomis tracking a solo on Merrow’s forthcoming solo album.

A curious update posted on Keith Merrow’s website in October notes that he’s doing songwriting work for an undisclosed Century Media artist in the “pretty straight-forward metal” vein. I hope it’s not Vampires Everywhere or someone equally shitty. I mean, what metal bands needs songs written for them in 2010? Take that money and run, Keith!

-VN

Djent Guitar Dork Message Board Metal master Keith Merrow has a new track up called “Awaken the Stone King,” above. I really like this style of overdubbed performance video because it allows you to see not only how a particular part is played, but how it fits into the whole in terms of the multi-tracking structure.

After I profiled Keith in a Readers Choice column last year, Mr. Merrow was kind enough to send me his two albums The Arrival and Lonestar Transcend, and they’re both phenomenally written and produced. Definitely recommend getting your hands on those and listening to more Keith Merrow music at his MySpace page if you’re a music dork like me and a sucker for this kind of metal. [UPDATE: Or download it for free here! Thanks, Shep.]

-VN

Thanks: TNOTB

These are fun. You guys have been sending in a LOT of links… here’s the best of the best, in this blogger’s humble opinion.

• Painted in Exile: At first I was skeptical of Byron W.’s claim that this Sumeriancore act is “quite interesting”… but it’s true. They’ve got a unique slant to their djenty sound.
• Keith Merrow: An extremely well-produced one-man metal outfit based out of Portland, OR… if you like Periphery (Misha Mansoor), new Decapitated drummer Krimh’s solo stuff, or the Chronicles of Israfel (about whom I posted last week), you’ll definitely dig this. [Thanks: David Blanton]
• Ryashon: Says MS reader Jason Lawson, “they’re two brothers, not ‘bruthas’, from PA that are in seperate [sic] mediocre death/metalcore bands. But together they’re…well, they’re just awesome.” This is truth. Epic instru-metal.
• Dissipate: Quality brutal tech-death sent in by their drummer, Jeff.
• Eyeless: Another (1) talented French metal band… kind of Chimaira-y, maybe just a little bit more technical. Fitting then that Mark Hunter did some guest vocals on their new album; God Forbid’s Doc Coyle does a guest guitar solo, too. [Thanks: Djabthrash]