Sure, it’s been a shitty week for Kvelertak and their stateside fans: We reported Saturday that the Norwegian scream-rockers got separated from vital travel documents right before departure for their first-ever US tour dates (including the MetalSucks co-presented SXSW super-jam). That bums me out cuz duh those fuckerz jam (which is good for concertgoers), but moreso because I was pumped for the band’s imminent chance to, like, collect on their roaring buzz here (which is good for them). Okay sorry about that mixed metaphor. But the point is that if I were a member of Kvelertak (please can I be a member of Kvelertak?), I’d want to further enable American rockers to pony up some cash for the record that about a billion of us have possessed/loved for months ahead of its proper US release. All is not lost cuz a bonus track-laden US version of Kvelertak still drops Tuesday, but I can’t help but lament the fact that a string of ballsack-singeing live sets would’ve cranked open a lot more wallets a lot wider. And deservedly so.

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This is easily some of the best prog metal I’ve heard all year… which is an incredibly grand statement in a year when Scale the Summit, Protest the Hero, Devin Townsend, Mastodon, Dream Theater, Opeth and Meshuggah all have albums coming out or already out. (Side note: holy shit! 2011 is going to rule).

The band is stOrk, and if you’re a super prog-dork like me who revels in every Mike Portnoy side project, Ty Tabor jam session and Devin Townsend bowel movement then I can guarantee you will like this band.

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…Iron Maiden, for the song “El Dorado,” and Them Crooked Vultures, for the song “SERIOUSLY WHO GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THEM CROOKED VULTURES YOU OLD FAT FILTHY FUCKS?”

So the thing is, if you look up the word “meaningless” in the dictionary, you will find a picture of a Grammy. There’s really no reason to be bummed about this. And while I don’t think “El Dorado” is a very good song, I’m glad that Maiden won as opposed to, say, Korn. Actually, I would have been okay with any of the nominees that weren’t Korn winning.

But for Them Crooked Vultures — or, really, any of the bands that weren’t Alice in Chains — to win just proves what a joke these awards are. I don’t even feel like I have to type anything else to prove my point — just the words “Them Crooked Vultures” should make you automatically say through your yawn, “Next!”

-AR

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…

I’m one of those dipshits who has shamefully mumbled, “I kind of liked the first two Korn albums…” in casual conversation. The karmic penalty has been paid frequently over the last 15 years, from the time a 5’1” girl punched me in the dick during “Faget” at the Cleveland Odeon to every time I have to endure someone trumpeting that they were raised on Morrisound death and never listened to that “poser shit.” The latter of which being just so fucking annoying — the first band (or “band”) everyone got into was either a) something nightmarish your folks played every day, like the Eagles, b) some variation of a boy band, or c) GN’R, which is the most realistic best-case scenario.

Anyway, Korn and Limp Bizkit are the focus of an exceptionally well-written ongoing Onion AV Club series called “Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation,” and just seeing that pic of Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst under their umbrella triggers many still-unreconciled memories for perhaps a few of you guys, and quite a few Decibel staffers. Shane Mehling is among the latter — if “All in the Family” were actually available in a karaoke book, I have no doubt that we could perform it without looking at the screen once. He doesn’t just own up to this on the Deciblog, but even serves up a super classy yearbook photo cementing the sickness. Luckily, this paean to idiocy was preceded by Adrien Begrand’s typically sharp/mercifully not novel-length Justify Your Shitty Taste on Iron Maiden’s The X Factor!, a lifetime contender for most disquieting, yet not even close to cool album cover. Shit, it must be 1995 week on our blog, because evidently Chris Dick just let Dez Fafara write 550 words about, uh, redheads.

We’ll end on a much radder note. If you snap up a dB subscription by Monday at 5pm, we’ll throw you a Valentine’s Day boner — an exclusive, downloadable printable Valentine’s Day by the great extreme cover artist Paul Romano (Mastodon, Hate Eternal, Withered, other highly shitty bands, although a plenty of bands are highly shitty compared to those three).

-AB

You can buy the March 2011 issue of Decibel here, or get a full subscription to get down with the sickness each and every month.

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Last week we asked you, oh beloved readers, to suggest some QOTW, and there were actually a number of good queries posited. So we kinda just picked one at random, and then we’ll do some others in the coming weeks. In the meantime, this week’s question, from Tim, is:

WHAT ALBUM ORIGINALLY GOT YOU INTO METAL?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Fieldy ain’t no Scotty Griffin.

There’s no actual connection between these two stories, besides the fact that they both made me laugh. And so:

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

For the last “Question of the Week” we decided to counterbalance all these year-end “best of” lists with some good old fashioned negativity:

WHAT IS THE SINGLE WORST ALBUM YOU HEARD IN 2010?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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It seems like the number of “Why did you ban me from commenting?!?” e-mails from readers has increased as of late, and the gist of those e-mails is often “Whassa matter, can’t take it when someone tells you you suck?” or whatever. And we’ve never banned anyone for disagreeing with us. We don’t give a shit if you disagree with us. We don’t agree with one another half the time — that’s part of the fun of MetalSucks.

Here’s what really happens: you use a word which is on our “no-no” list, and it gets stuck in our spam filter. Some of these words we actively do not allow on MetalSucks (e.g., slurs against minorities), and some of them just get stuck because so many actual spammers use them (e.g., “rape”). We try to be diligent about checking the spam filters and making sure none of you are getting caught in there, but sometimes we miss a few. And sometimes we ultimately don’t allow the comment onto the site (e.g., “I hate this album, this band is fucking gay” will never survive). But even then, we don’t BAN people from commenting. I think I can count on one hand the number of people we’ve banned in four years, and most of them were spammers and/or former Megadeth guitarists. So if your comment isn’t going through, consider first if you used a word we don’t allow, and if you didn’t, just shoot us a POLITE e-mail and we’ll investigage the problem ASAP. M’kay?

And on that note, here’s what we did this week:

• Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum gave us our latest Legacy Tour diary, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable worked out his black metal daddy issues, and The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks offered to write a song for any sports team that’s not from New York.
• We spoke to After the Burial’s Trent Hafdahl and American Hardcore author Steven Blush.
• We got the skinny from Darkest Hour’s Ryan Parrish about why DH and Veil of Maya got kicked off their own tour bus, and asked Jucifer’s Amber Valentine about Sean Yseult’s claim to being the only woman in metal during her tenure in White Zombie.
• We checked out the latest release from The Unraveling.
• Sergeant D. schooled us in uber-kvlt metalcore bands.
• We contemplated the worst metal albums of 2010 and the best metal songs of 2010.
• We mourned on the six year anniversary of Dimebag’s murder.
• We celebrated Ozzy Osbourne’s terrific taste in modern metal (he put Korn above Firewind).
• We had mixed feelings about the retirement of Judas Priest.
• We got excited that At the Gates are playing more shows in 2011.

Alrighty then. Next week is our last week of regular posting before we shut down for the holidays. You know what that means – YEAR END LISTS! Get ready to argue like your entire sense of self-worth depended on everyone agreeing with you all the time with no exceptions ever.

-AR

So Yahoo! has Ozzy Osbourne’s personal list of the Top Ten Metal Albums of 2010, and it may or may not surprise you to learn that it’s a really, really interesting mix of terrible and brain dead. (By the way, if you don’t like MetalSucks articles where I can really, really, really angry about something of less than no importance, then you should stop reading now.)

Okay so check out his list, and then I’ll tell you my thoughts. And before we begin, I should point out that it’s theoretically possible Ozzy didn’t actually choose these release, but, rather, than one of his handlers did it for him. But since it’s being labeled as “Ozzy’s list,” I am going to treat it as though it were written by Ozzy.

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Shelby Cobras of Illogical Contraption must be trying to stir up shit, or as we so fondly call it in Interhole jargon, trolling. Because some of his choices on his “Top 20 Shittiest Metal Releases of 2010” list are just downright infuriating: Tryptikon is shittier than Korn? Nachtmystium is shittier than both? REALLY?

Of course we take these things in stride here at the MS Mansion because we’re professional trollers ourselves. But some of you will most certainly take things quite seriously which always makes for interesting comment fodder. It’s like pulling puppet strings, I tells you.

Wait until you see what his #1 Shittiest Metal Album of 2010 is. Go read the list, then come back here and argue.

What’s your #1 shittiest metal record of 2010???

-VN

The Grammy nominations have been announced, and, as per usual, they’ve got nuthin’ to do with nuthin’. This isn’t a shock; the Grammys have been a meaningless award, and will remain a meaningless award. But if you’re morbidly curious, as I am, as to who old white dudes think are the créme de la créme of our music of choice, the nominees, and some more snarky commentary from yours truly, are after the jump.

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Unless you count current metalcore bands with a wiggerish slant (Emmure, Winds of Plague, Acacia Strain, etc.), the genre of nu-metal is all but dead. Once a nearly-unstoppable juggernaut of Kikwear pants, eyebrow piercings, and chinstrap beards, today it is but a dessicated husk, barely clinging to life. At its peak, nu-metal filled the airwaves coast-to-coast, but these days you’re most likely to hear it on a beat up boombox in the corner of a windowless basement printshop or third-rate auto parts store on the outskirts of town.

While the tastes of fickle music consumers may have changed, nu-metal has never sounded better. Many kids these days are too young to have experienced this unique genre the first time around, so I figured I would share some of nu-metal’s best artists that fly a little under the radar of current tastemakers — I’ll skip the big names that we all know (Korn, Kid Rock, Bizkit) and focus on the unsung heroes. And mark my words, you’ll see indie rockers ironically listening to hed(pe) within the next few years!

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The Smoking Gun has posted a list of the per-gig earnings of some of the highest paid artists that toured this year, and a number them may interest you, our beloved Suckalos.

It will shock absolutely no one to learn that Kiss are number two on the list, and take home $500,000 a night, or that radio stalwarts Buckcherry and Shinedown respectively earn $100,000 and $85,000 per performance.

More surprising, to me at least, is that Bret Michaels gets $64,000 a night even without Poison (which means all those reality show appearances are good for something!), and that Warrant — FUCKING WARRANT — get $12,000 per show. I know $12,000/gig probably doesn’t seem like much when you consider what Kiss is getting, but I can assure you that it’s wwwwwaaaaayyyyyy more than pretty much all of your favorite metal bands are earning (unless you exclusively listen to Metallica or Korn or whatever). And that’s for a band who haven’t had a hit in two decades, and who are currently touring without their original singer, who also happens to be their most recognizable member.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that it pays to have a radio hit. As long as there’s someone who wants to hear “Cherry Pie” and “Heaven” live, Warrant will be richer than you.

Look at the complete list here.

-AR

[via Gun Shy Assassin]

I hate Disturbed’s music, but the fact that he’s a hypocrite who lacks any real talent aside, David Draiman strikes me as a very intelligent guy. A reader, calling himself simply “Matt,” sent this to me awhile back, and now that Lemmy has re-raised the issue, I think it’s worth discussing even if I don’t really have a solid “answer” per se.

So. This is a Blabbermouth excerpt from a recent Revolver magazine interview with Draiman. I’m going to run the entire excerpt after the jump, and then I’m going to share my thoughts.

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When Randy Blythe was nineteen years old and Jamey Jasta was thirteen years old, a really silly white dude who is named Rob Van Winkle but insisted on calling himself “Vanilla Ice” released a song entitled “Ice Ice Baby,” which was a huge megahit. There can be no doubt that Blythe and Jasta were aware of the song’s existence, for such was its prevalence in pop culture. Of course, we have no way of knowing what these someday-modern metal legends thought of the track, but I think we can reasonably assume that at no point did the thought “Someday Vanilla Ice will come see me perform and we will hang out backstage after the show” cross their respective minds.

And yet, this:

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Holy shit, is it seriously August already? It’s gonna start getting cold soon. Motherfucker. Here’s what we did this week when we should have been enjoying the sunshine and fresh air:

• We’re streaming Dementia/Dyslexia, the Metal Blade debut of Fleshwrought,  a new project from Animosity/Animals as Leaders’ Navene Koperweis and Job for a Cowboy’s Jonny Davy.
• We debuted an EPK for Iron Thrones’ The Wretched Sun.
• We also debuted “Fear, Emptiness, Decibel,” a new column from the editors of our favorite metal rag.
• We had a little beard on beard action with Andy Williams from Every Time I Die and Liam Wilson from The Dillinger Escape Plan. We also spoke to Avenged Sevenfold’s Johnny Christ, The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Jeff Tuttle and Pathology’s Dave Astor.
• We checked out the latest releases from Chimaira and Decrepit Birth.
• We schooled Korn’s Jonathan Davis on the BP Oil Spill.
• We questioned the sincerity of Max Cavalera’s claim that his collaboration with Fred Durst is all Ross Robinson’s fault.
• We questioned Glenn Danzig’s sanity. Again.
• We got pissy that Eddie’s not on the cover of the new Maiden album.
• We got boners watching 72 minutes of pro-shot Gojira footage.
• We did not get boners looking at Emmure noodz.
• We found the best bass player in the history of forever-ever-ever.

We’ll be hanging out at the Summer Slaughter show this Sunday here in NYC; if you spot us, please bring us presents. We like presents. Thanks.

-AR

MetalGF and I are about halfway through Season 3 of AMC meth-fueled drama Breaking Bad… which means we’re just about caught up. Shit is real, son. It was recently brought to my attention that mega-hunk Aaron Paul (who plays lovable fuck-up Jesse Pinkman on the show) had a pre-Breaking Bad career of various fledgling roles including the main character in Korn’s video for “Thoughtless.” So I looked up the video… oh yeah, this song! “Thoughtless” was one of only two Korn songs I ever liked (the other: “Make Me Bad”) and though I’d never seen the video before it was fun to see Paul in a different albeit somewhat similar role. Ladies, try to keep from grabbing at him through the screen.

-VN

When Korn announced they would be boycotting BP on their current summer tour I laughed; Jonathan Davis’ desire to hurt the oil giant was cute but ultimately misdirected, an overly simplistic gesture for a very complex issue. But this recent interview with SuicideGirls.com [via Bmouth] just underscores the fact that Davis has no fucking idea what he’s talking about.

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Just so you know, when Vince and I cuddle, he’s usually the big spoon.

Here’s what happened in MetalSucks Land this week:

• Misery Index’s Jason Netherton joined us for the latest edition of Cooking Contaminated.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable wondered if corporate-sponsored metal shows are killing the live concert market.
• We chatted with Soilwork’s Peter Wichers, Mantric’s Ole Halvard Sveen, and Black Army Jacket’s Carlos Ramirez.
• We checked out new releases by Norma Jean and Lightning Swords of Death.
• We celebrated the excellent year currently being enjoyed by Metal Blade Records.
• Korn played to the largest audience they deserve. (That would be an audience of zero.)
• New BOO means debates by you.
• Poison the Well poisoned our week.
• We were on the Metal Injection Livecast!
• Booty shake.

Next week is hair metal week! We’ll still be reporting on regular metal, too, so don’t freak out too hard. See ya Monday.

-AR

Thanks: YouTube user / MS Maniac artlimbman