When Filter mainman Richard Patrick went into rehab in 2002, it marked the end of the industrial-rock band’s rad second line-up. That means it’s been about a decade since the Filter that made Title Of Record (super classic!) and The Amalgamut (epic!), and since then jeez I haven’t caught sight of Patrick’s old team like at all. Which is surprising, cuz drummer Steve Gillis is a stud (here) and guitarist Geno Lenardo co-wrote this phase of Filter’s biggest (here) and biggest-selling jamz (here).

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UPDATED:

Hey, so you what did you guys think of the idea I posited last week for a new band ranking system? Thanks to Jason from IKILLYA for pointing out the existence of NextBigSound.com, a cool site that aggregates a lot of the data I suggested be included in the ranking, namely social network stats and other Internet metrics. While NextBigSound allows account holders to enter their own Soundscan data, I’d love to see all those things — along with torrents, merch sales, etc — combined into a single chart that’s published once a week and accessible to the industry, much like Soundscan is now. The grand picture is so much bigger than album sales now more than ever, and I think that needs to be reflected in the main chart people analyze. For the most part, it seemed like you guys were into the idea even if you questioned its feasibility.

Anyway, this week is pretty depressing sales-wise. One look at the top six records on this week’s Current Hard Music chart should make any metalhead cry. Since there weren’t many notable new albums released last week and you surely don’t wanna just read about Nickelsuck, I also included numbers of some older albums from earlier in 2011 that are experiencing holiday sales bumps.

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Does anyone happen to know if Fred Durst believes in Underpants Gnomes or anything like that? I ask because I’m starting to notice an amusing little pattern: the vocalists for truly, irredeemably moronic bands often seem to hold ridiculous conspiracy theories in high regard.  ’Cause first we learned that Frankie Palmeri from Emmure believes in UFOs and Bohemian Grove and shit like that, and now Korn’s Jonathan Davis has apparently written a song about how President Obama is a member of the Illuminati, a.k.a. “the bad guys from that one really bad Tom Hanks movie.”

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Hollywood Undead’s “Hear Me Now” (lyric video above) is a terrible song, but I understand why white kids from Westchester or Toledo or wherever people go to raise children they don’t love would like it; it has angsty lyrics,  a strong hook, and rapping that is very slow and caucasian, and therefore non-threatening. It’s one of those pieces of music that I personally can’t stand, but the appeal of which is not a complete mystery to me.

On the other hand, if someone told me they enjoyed Jonathan Davis from Korn’s new remix of the song, I would be totally baffled, and my first instinct would probably be to submit them to shock therapy or something like that.

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“The ’90s were a challenging decade for metal,” opens Loudwire writer Joe Robinson. You got that right! ’90s nostalgia hasn’t firmly set in for metal yet; Limp Bizkit’s new record tanked, less people are interested in Korn than ever, and some of the more credible ’90s acts from Europe never even stopped to take a drink of water. But that hasn’t stopped Loudwire from publishing a “Top 11 Metal Albums of the ’90s” list. For once, I think this topic is quite ripe for list-making given metal’s widespread unpopularity during the decade. Sure, decades themselves are artificial constructs with which musical trends don’t neatly align (hair metal was still huge in ’90 and ’91 and the true stuff was already filtering back in by the end), but they do provide convenient language for discourse, much like metal sub-genres aren’t always perfect but give us some kind of approximation of what a band sounds like.

Loudwire’s list is actually pretty solid; it’s hard to argue that any of these albums shouldn’t be included on a best-of-the-’90s metal list, and I love the inclusion of Alice in Chains and Tool. I could do without Korn’s debut, but I know it was important to a lot of people and it certainly left its mark on the metal landscape. I have a hard time believing Anthrax’s Persistence of Time would’ve appeared on this list had the band not just released a new album. The list completely omits European bands, and I think In Flames’ The Jester Race, Whoracle or Colony — any one of ‘em — deserve a nod for all the impact they had on metal to come. For that matter, how about At the Gates? Or Refused’s Shape of Punk to Come? And what ’90s metal list is complete without Nevermore or Iced Earth, two bands that essentially flied in the face of “cool” and held up giant middle fingers?

But whatevs… it’s a list, and therefore cannot be perfect. Go check it out here, then come back here with your arguin’ pants on and tell us what you think the comments.

-VN

Thanks: Andrew Robbins

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired by the ongoing disaster that is Lou Reed & Metallica’s Lulu, this week we asked our writers:

BESIDES METALLICA AND LOU REED, WHAT IS THE WORST COLLABORATION BETWEEN A METAL BAND/ARTIST AND A NON-METAL BAND/ARTIST? AND WHAT IS THE WORST ONE YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE IN YOUR WILDEST NIGHTMARES?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump!

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Because unlike Limp Bizkit, Korn keeps finding new and innovative ways to be completely unlistenable. A press release for the band’s nu-dubstep-metal album, The Path Of Banality, claims that “this is unlike any Korn record.  It’s even unlike any record released before.” And that’s not just hype. Korn have reinvented the art of being the worst band on the planet, and, thus, become relevant again. We can ignore Limp Bizkit, who are still using the same tricks they were over a decade ago, only with diminishing returns; but nearly twenty years into their career, Korn are as deplorable as they ever were, genuinely competing with younger acts like Skip the Foreplay for the honor of making music so awful it may actually inspire rioting by anyone with a first grade education and functioning ears.

Bravo, Korn. Bravo!

The Path of Tonedeafality comes out December 6 on Roadrunner. The band will follow it up with an entire dubstep tour, which, again, is a completely brilliant move on their part. You can get dates on some other website.

-AR

To help promote their upcoming tour, on October 11 Judas Priest will release The Chosen Few, their umpteenth career retrospective, and one which does not feature any new material. The Chosen Few does have a hook, though — I mean, beyond the fact that the band members appear on the cover only as silhouettes, I assume at least in part to downplay the fact that a certain key member is no longer in the group.

No, the hook  (and this is actually a neat idea) is that the band has let a lot of other celebrity musicians — including Ozzy, Lemmy, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kerry King, Slash, and Vinnie Paul  – choose which songs would appear on the collection. And, yeah, it’s interesting to know that Zakk Wylde is way into “Grinder,” and and that Randy Blythe and David Coverdale might actually have something to talk about at a cocktail party, and that Joe Satriani likes his Priest heavier than I might have suspected.

But like I said, there’s no new material here, so I can’t quite imagine why anyone would want this album anyway. The coolest thing about The Chosen Few is seeing which dude chose which song, and you can do that after the jump. So, look, we just saved you ten bucks.

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If memory serves, the Spawn movie which came out in 1997 was pretty terrible, but we did get one great thing out of it: the soundtrack. It was pretty much like the Judgment Night soundtrack, only instead of combining metal bands with rap acts, it teamed up metal bands with electronica acts. And every song on it was innovative and amazing.

No, I’m totally kidding. The soundtrack sucked almost as bad as the movie.

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I like Suicide Silence, and I’m happy for them that they are now big enough to be able to get Korn’s Jonathan Davis to guest on a song. But I’m sad that they used their current stature to get Korn’s Jonathan Davis to guest on a song.

I guess in all fairness, the Silencers have always been open about their love of Korn, and I imagine it was a dream come true to have Davis appear on “Witness the Addiction,” which is definitely the second best song I’ve heard today that uses the word “addiction” in its title. Still, Davis’ presence pretty much ensures that this is my least favorite Suicide Silence song ever, or until they do a song with someone even worse than Davis, whichever comes first.

But feel free to check out “Witness the Addiction” here, then let us know what you think in the comments section. Suicide Silence’s new album, The Black Crown, comes out tomorrow on Century Media.

-AR

Alright, so I don’t know if anyone remembers this — hell, I didn’t remember it until I did search of the MS archives — but more than three years ago, Korn “guitarist” Munky announced the formation of Fear and the Nervous System, a new supergroup featuring Bad4Good‘s Brooks Wackerman and, INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTINGLY, Faith No More’s Billy Gould.

So. I’ve actually been listening to a LOT of Faith No More for the past week. I couldn’t figure out the origin of the sudden, uncontrollable urge to just put my FNM on “shuffle” and revel in its genius, until I realized it’s almost the one year anniversary of last summer’s glorious FNM reunion shows in Brooklyn. My brain is funny like that; it always recalls anniversaries, even if I’m not consciously aware of them.

And now Fear and the Nervous System have actually released a song, “Choking Victim.” And it’s fucking terrible. So my week has now been like the equivalent of Billy Gould taking me to a secluded private getaway for a long, romantic weekend, and then, right be fore we leave, spitting in my eye, grabbing me, shoved my nose directly into his ass, and farted.

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Reader John Schwarz alerted us to the existence of the Epicenter Festival, and if you told me that the show’s bookers designed it specifically to make sure that no one from MetalSucks attended, well, I’d believe it. Look at this shitfest:

There are a handful of insanely popular, maddeningly terrible modern rock acts not on the bill — Nickelback, Korn, Linkin Park, Godsmack, Creed, and Hinder all come to mind — which is too bad, because if they were playing this fest, we’d be like one major earthquake away from being done with some of the worst bands in the history of sound. The only good news about this thing’s existence is that it has made me aware of several awful bands I didn’t previously know, so that now if anyone is ever like “Hey, wanna check out Skillet?”, I can respond, “Couldn’t you just hammer a rusty nail into my penis instead?”

-AR

Best commercial ever?

ANYWAY, here’s how we filled our time this week:

• We mourned the loss of Anal Cunt’s Seth Putnam and Sirius XM Liquid Metal’s Mario Comesanas.
• We debuted new music by Intensus and, thanks to Decibel, Wormrot, too!
• Revocation’s Dave Davidson walked us through his live rig, and we spoke to Paul Ryan from Origin and Tommy “Two-Tone” Blankenship from My Morning Jacket.
• We checked out the latest release from Gigan.
• I told you which metal albums of 2011 have been my favorites thus far.
• We tried to figure out why people like August Burns Red.
• We discussed the new Machine Head single, “Locust.”
• We gave you The 16 Cardinal Rules for Running a Metal Record Label in 2011.
• We wondered who is dumber — Korn fans or Silent Hill fans?
• We pondered the upcoming Metallica/Lou Reed collaboration.

Next week is a big one — we’re debuting new tracks from two of our most favoritest bands, a video from one of our childhood heroes, reviewing a very, very, VERY highly anticipated new record (Hint: We definitely discussed it this week!), and we’ll have some other surprises in store for you, too. See ya then!

-AR

I can’t believe I’m about to stick up for Korn. I mean, I guess I’m not technically sticking up for them, but… the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend, y’know?

So. In case you don’t know, Silent Hill is a long-running horror video game franchise that has even been turned into a terrible a movie. And the latest installment in the series, Silent Hill: Downpour, is coming out later this year, and now Korn have been commissioned to write a theme song for the game. And apparently there’s a faction of hardcore Silent Hill fans who don’t want any Korn music in their game, because, well, Korn are a fucking awful band and an embarrassment to all that the human race is capable of achieving.

And normally I would be all for some good old fashioned nerd rage over such an issue, because, like I said, Korn blow entire herds of goats in a single sitting. Unfortunately, though, it turns out that these Silent Hill fans are idiots, too.

Below is the petition they wrote up protesting Korn’s involvement with their beloved franchise. Not only is it incredibly self-serious and written by people who apparently think that the Silent Hill games are a bastion of artistic integrity, but it’s use of grammar is, um, creative, to put it mildly.

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Butt rock reigns yet again, with Seether nabbing the top spot for the second week in a row. Boris and Cave In cracked the Top Hard Music charts with their new albums (hooray!), while Hollywood Undead and Asking Alexandria actually experienced sales gains for the first time since their new records debuted a few weeks back (boo!). Click on through to see what else charted and how much it all sold.

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“It smells like B.O. and shame…”

As is par for the course these days, Korn has received a shit-ton of grief for their recent collaboration with dubstep producer (and former lead singer of screamo act from First To Last) Skrillex, AKA Sonny Moore, for the song “Get Up.”

Regardless of what you all think of Korn circa 2011, video footage from this past weekend’s Coachella Festival (Korn is introduced at the 1:05 mark) appears to be evidence they’ve accomplished exactly what it is they set out to do – latch onto a new, somewhat hip musical trend; lure even more new listeners into their world; and hopefully, remind their former fans that they still exist.

You know, a blatant money grab.

I say, more power to ‘em.

-CM

Corey Mitchell is a best-selling author of several true crime books. I plan on listening to the new Explosions in the Sky extensively while working on my next one.

Join Corey at Facebook and Twitter.

Dubstep. Dubstep. Dubstep. That’s all I’m hearing these days. Fuckin’ dubstep. Someone please explain this phenomenon to me in terms I can understand.

Korn, badly in need of something, ANYTHING, to boost their ever-waning popularity, are the latest to hop on board the dubstep bandwagon. And I am being completely serious when I say it’s the best song they’ve released in years… maybe ever! Go listen to “Get Up,” featuring Skrillex, at Spin.com. Womp womp womp.

I love how Korn are so down and out these days that, unable to get any love from metal rags, they turn to that mainstream bastion of artistic integrity as a last resort… the mighty Spin! But even Spin doesn’t seem that interested; they seem way more excited about “Hot Los Angeles DJ Skrillex” than they do Korn. If you’re Korn you’re just itching for Limp Bizkit to finally release Gold Cobra and announce another Family Values tour so you’ve got at least something to look forward to in life.

-VN

I know that sometimes we, as a community, criticize certain metal singers — or, more accurately, a certain type of metal singer — for belly achin’ in their music about shit that happens to everyone and is of no real consequence even if it seems upsetting at the time it happens (e.g., “I hate my parents,” “I hate my job,” “My girl broke my heart,” etc.).

But at least Jonathan Davis never wrote a song about being really, really pissed-off when people brush his hair in knots.

Fucking. ADORABLE.

I hear Salome are looking for a new singer… can someone put this kid in touch?

-AR

Thanks: Chris

So the bad news is, I doubt that Vince and I will be invited to a Korn listening party ever again, and that makes me sad, ’cause I really, really appreciate free food and beer. And the good news is, it means I will never have to hear the rest of “Get Up,” the band’s new song, of which they are now streaming roughly thirteen seconds (below). Because there’s only three good things about this: 1) it’s so short that it’s over before you have a chance to find your cyanide pills, 2) you get listen to to Jonathan Davis make an ass out of himself in the intro and outro, and 3) the guitars actually sound like they’re saying “Blah blah blah.”

Holy shit, Korn, even your instruments are bored with you.

-AR

Thanks: Ashley Lee

I understand that musicians have bills to pay and mouths to feed like anyone else, and that if there’s a way — any way — for you to make your living by playing music, well, that’s pretty fortunate.

Still, I’m always a little put-off when a musician I admire either has to or chooses to squander his talent by playing with some crappy band. Does anyone really believe that there aren’t better ways that current Korn-holers Ray Luzier and Shane Gibson could be spending their time?

So. Recently two more dudes I admire have joined bands I could live without: Kris Norris, formerly of Darkest Hour, has joined Straight Line Stitch, apparently on a full-time basis, while Gil Sharone, formerly of The Dillinger Escape Plane, plays on the new Otep album, Atavist. (I don’t get the impression that he’ll be touring with the band or anything like that, though.)

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