I’ve seen The Binary Code live a bunch of times, and they just keep getting better and better and better. They could always play, but they’ve really come into their own as performers; I feel like I’ve watched them go from a caterpillar to a butterfly! A total wicked butterfly that plays awesome progressive technical death metal.

If you live in the Northeast and you’ve never checked these dudes out, well, here’s your chance – they’re doing a show in Brooklyn next week with Lair of the Minotaur and Elks, and then a Northeast tour with The Gloominous Doom. (One date will even include Rumpelstiltskin Grinder and Total Fucking Destruction. I’ve never wished I lived in Hamburg, PA so badly in my life.) I’ve never seen The Gloominous Doom live, but after seeing their video for “Portal Potty,” which made its debut on Metal Injection earlier this week (and which Vince already wrote about, but I just now watched ’cause I’m slow that way), I really, really want to; not only is it a funny clip for a good song, but I’d love to see how a tech-death crowd reacts to reggae parts. Because, yes, they have reggae parts.

Bottom line: they are two really, really creative bands, and these shows are gonna be a lot of fun. Get tour dates after the jump!

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It’s a busy season for new metal, but we all need to make sure that Lair of the Minotaur’s Evil Power doesn’t get lost amid the plethora of excellent new releases this month. It’s an apt title – the record really does sound like it’s running on Durahell batteries.

I’ve yet to hear a Lair of the Minotaur song I don’t like, but “Let’s Kill These Motherfuckers,” the second cut from Evil Power, is a metallic masterpiece. It’s so fucking simple it’s almost punk rock, a vibe enforced by the vague-but-political lyrics (“All our lives we lived in shit, fighting for our king,” “We did what we were told by the master’s whip,” etc. ). But it makes me wanna break a beer bottle over someone’s head every time I listen to it. For me, it conjures images of LOTM mainman Steven Rathbone leading an angry, screaming, and very violent mob as through Washington, D.C., killing all members of both parties. But that’s just me. Maybe the song will just make you wanna smack your boss, piss in your dad’s mouth, or grab your significant other and drag him or her into the middle of oncoming traffic. Whatever tickles your pickle, y’know?

Lair of the Minotaur’s Evil Power is out now. You can watch a totally bitchin’ NSFW video for the title track here. Our own Etan “Satan” Rosenbloom also did an interview with Mr. Rathbone for an upcoming Decibel feature, but you can read the full transcript right now at Etan’s own blog, Cerebral Metalhead.

-AR

Bob Cock loves Wolf and we love Bob Cock, but coming on the heels of Lair of the Minotaur’s latest cinemetallic opus, Wolf‘s video for “Hail Cesar” gets a massive “meh.” The concept isn’t really clear – performance footage is intercut with behind-the-scenes footage which is intercut with clips from old gladiator movies, for no particular reason. Clearly what happened is that the band didn’t have the budget to make a video that was appropriate to the lyrics of “Hail Cesar” in the most literal way, but they didn’t just wanna make a “band life” video that didn’t acknowledge the title of the song, so they just kinda did a little bit of both concepts. And both concepts suffer as a result.

Bummer, ’cause it’s a pretty epic song. Even if the style is as recycled as the movie clips.

-AR

Lair of the Minotaur must be a bunch of really fucked up dudes; they seem to be obsessed with brutal videos depicting gruesome violence against women. Either that or they just know that sensationalist blogs like this one will always link to a video involving metal, violence, gore and boobies. Probably the latter.

And at that, Lair of the Minotaur win again. Their new extremely NSFW video for “Evil Power” — from the album of the same name coming out on April 13th via their own record label — is currently being premiered by the fine folks of The Deciblog.

I actually don’t think this video is quite as brutal as the video they made for “War Metal Battle Master,” but it’s still plenty gory and fucked up. Check it out below, then head over to The Deciblog to read some interesting behind-the-scenes facts about the video provided by vocalist/guitarist Steven Rathbone.

Lair of the Minotaur are doing a quick Midwest and Northeast tour from April 16th to 21st. New Yorkers can catch ‘em April 21st is the dungeonous Charleston in Brooklyn. Dates here.

-VN

Back in January, Mayhem announced a tour with some ridiculously awesome support acts, including Ludicra, Krallice, and Tombs; then, in true Mayhem fashion, they cancelled the tour just a couple of weeks later. And I think pretty much everyone had the same reaction: “Ludicra, Krallice, and Tombs should just tour without Mayhem.” Because it was still an incredibly strong bill even without the black metal legends.

Well, hey, guess what? Ludicra are doing just that! They’ve announced the wittily monikered “De-Cancellation Tour 2010,” which will find Krallice doing even more dates than they were scheduled to play with Mayhem, and even has Tombs tagging along for a handful of shows. Various shows will also feature support from a diverse line-up of other kick-ass bands, including Lair of the Minotaur, Slough Feg, Ocean (not The Ocean, but still a great band), and Kowloon Walled City, so I’d say “To hell with Attila.”

Get dates after the jump. And it’s worth noting that Ludicra’s excellent new record, The Tenant, is available now on Profound Lore Records via the label’s website. Sooner or later I’ll try to write something a little more proper about that album, but for now I’ll just say “Buy it.” It has the MS seal of approval.

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LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR. This band is so heavy, just typing their name makes my fingers hurt. This band is so metal they can’t travel by plane, ’cause they set all the alarms off when they try to go through security. True story, that.

ANYWAY, the band has announced the forthcoming release of a new album, Evil Power, which sounds kinda cheesy until you realize how completely fucking metal it is. Some grandma is gonna find a vinyl copy of something called Evil Power with what I’d wager will be some pretty sick cover art, and she’s gonna shit her pants and send her grandson away to church camp or something. Just you watch.

Evil Power is coming out on April 13 via The Grind-House Records, a new label started LOTM (hurts too bad to type the full name!) members Steve Rathbone and Chris Wozniak and Josh Diebel, lately of Alleysweeper Records. Their distro deal is with LOTM’s original label, Southern Lord, so expect this album to be just as tr00 as ever.

-AR

Saying your metal band’s got “The Bloodiest Music Video Ever” is kind of like saying your metal band’s new album is the most br00tal, pummeling, and best work to date; it’s certainly possible but we hear that shit all the time, and mostly it ends up being a load of crap. So if your label sends out a press release declaring you’ve got the absolute bloodiest video of all time and you even go so far as to register bloodiestmusicvideoever.com to debut the video, you better be able to back that shit up!

Fortunately for Victory Records’ Wretched (recent recipients of a MetalSucks 2.5-out-of-5 horns rating for their album The Exodus of Autonomy) their new video for the track “A Preservation of Immortality” is indeed really fuckin’ bloody — as well as twisted, morbid, dark and all that jazz. Whether it’s actually the bloodiest video ever made we can’t say, but we’d certainly think this video gives it a run for its money (plus: boobs!).

So, is Wretched’s new video the bloodiest ever? Head on over to bloodiestmusicvideoever.com to watch it, then tell us what you think in the comments. And be sure to include links to your own nominees for bloodiest music video ever.

-VN

Before their Spring show at NYC’s Knitting Factory with The Ocean, Kylesa and Withered, Axl, Vince and Kip triple-teamed Lair of the Minotaur mastermind Steven Rathbone to ask him questions about his band, their new album, the motivation behind their fantasy-tinged lyrics, and of course the band’s ridiculous BEST MUSIC VIDEO EVAAAR (warning: NSFW) for “War Metal Battle Master.” Read our interview after the jump (and also check out our interview with The Ocean’s Robin Staps from the same evening).

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Back at the end of May, Vince and Kip stormed into The Ocean’s show at New York’s Knitting Factory with an arsenal of questions for the band’s mastermind/guitarist Robin Staps (above, far right). So many questions, in fact, that combined with Staps’ incredibly verbose and articulate answers, we ended up with a fucking book instead of the normally terse interview pieces we do, which is the reason it’s taken us so long to transcribe (well, part of the reason anyway!). But for fans of The Ocean — and I know there’s a lot of you who read MS — the wait will be well worth it when you read what Staps had to say about his band, his thoughts on touring in the U.S., the writing and recording of the band’s incredible album Precambrian, and a whole assload of other shit. Enjoy!

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When I think of metal and food, I usually think of microwavable burritos, overpriced festival vendors, and terrible, life threatening, ass ripping diarrhea.

Luckily for all of us, that will now change.

See, I’ve never been to The Windy City, but now I have reason to go: Chicago restaurant Kuma’s Corner, which features burgers and sandwiches named after every band from Sabbath to Metallica to Slayer to Maiden to Pig Destroyer to Lair of the Minotaur to Mayhem to Mastodon, whose honorary burger, pictured left, comes topped in BBQ Sauce, cheddar cheese, bacon, and frizzled onions.

Fuck. Now I’m hungry.

-AR

[thanks: Thomas C. Willis]

That much should be obvious just from listening to The Ocean’s latest album Precambrian, a sprawling, well thought-out work that is clearly the result of some heady, intense writing and a very active brain. When we interviewed Robin before The Ocean’s headlining gig at The Knitting Factory on Monday, May 26th, this became even more apparent; Robin was extremely well-spoken and articulate and had a hell of a lot to say (we’ll be publishing that interview soon enough). A recent column Robin did for MetalKult further exemplifies just what a smart dude he is. But before we get to that, I’d like to reflect on the aforementioned show for a moment.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Opening bands Withered, Lair of the Minotaur and Kylesa were pretty good and all… but The Ocean took the stage to finish off the night and made all of the openers look like little sissy amateurs. Seriously, it was that big of a difference. The Ocean’s level of professionalism and polish dwarfed everyone else’s, their stage presence was 10x greater, and their spartan but effective light show (consisting of nothing more than a few strips of LEDs hooked up to a midi sequencer) added to the drama, brilliance, and awesomeness of the show. A fucking brilliant US debut for The Ocean.

Anyway, back to Robin being a smart dude. It’s no secret that America is a pretty backwards place in a lot of ways, and that while we may lead the world in terms of certain cultural tastes, America is lightyears behind Europe when it comes to certain civil liberties and general common sense. After the jump, read what Robin (who is from Germany but has lived in and spent time in America) has to say on the matter.

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Earlier this week Axl wrote a post plugging the new Lair of the Minotaur video for “War Metal Battle Master” without having seen it yet; well, today I finally watched it. Holy. Shit.

If ever there is a video worthy of two posts in a week, this is it. If Lair of the Minotaur’s new video doesn’t win the award for sheer bad-assery, I don’t know what will. And if there’s no such thing as an award for sheer bad-assery then there should be, and this video should win it. I mean for fuck’s sake, the video features men in armor pulverizing each other with enormous swords and other assorted medieval weaponry, blood spewing from decapitated torsos, and naked chicks eating flesh off of severed legs and dead bodies.

I’m going to write that again, put it in bold and underline it in case any of you are skimming this article and missed it: men in armor pulverizing each other with enormous swords and other assorted medieval weaponry, blood spewing from decapitated torsos, and naked chicks eating flesh off of severed legs and dead bodies.

Get your attention yet? Oh, and there’s some metal in it too, and dudes playing guitar or something. Prepare to summon your inner Beavis whilst watching. Go view it here (no embedding allowed).

-VN

Although I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, there’s a new Lair of the Minotaur video for the title track from the band’s new album, War Metal Battle Master. If you haven’t heard the album yet, it’s roughly as heavy as having a pile of bricks dropped on you like in one of the those old Looney Tunes programs, which is to say, it’s very, very good.

Plus, the uncensored video has “nudity and violence,” which means it will probably go down in history as one of the better metal vids ever produced.

Check the clip out here.

-AR

Look. Lair of the Minotaur are awesome. They’ve got a new album coming out on Southern Lord on March 4, the excellently titled War Battle Metal Master, and they’ve released an mp3 of a new song off that album, the also excellently titled “Horde of Undead Vengeance.” So getcha free download below, and listen to what you been missin’…

Lair of the Minotaur, “Horde of Undead Vengeance” 

-AR

If we can get just one of you to start listening to Lair of the Minotaur, then the work that Vince, Kip and I all put into MetalSucks is totally worth it. This Chicago trio, who are fucking Metal with a capital “M,” have a new album coming out, entitled War Metal Battle Master (See? I told you they were fucking metal!), and the first new track off the album, “Horde of Undead Vengeance,” has now been posted on their MySpace page. And unless you’ve already listened to obZen this morning, I can pretty much guarantee this is the best new music you’ll hear this week.

War Metal Battle Master comes out on Southern Lord on March 25. Get fucking ready.

-AR

I have no idea if this is true or not, but someone recently told me that Steve Austin (the legendary musician, NOT the pro-wrestler and NOT the Six Million Dollar Man) made current Today is the Day drummer Derek Roddy wear a bullet proof vest during his audition for the band so that Austin could shoot him as he played in order to test his skill under pressure. That seems incredibly extreme and totally fucking fuck nuts if it’s true, especially since Roddy’s skills have already been tested in Hate Eternal, but, uh, hey, it’s still a pretty cool story.

ANYWAY, Austin taking his band out on the road is always cause for excitement, but the fact that’s he taking a rotating support line-up of some of our favorite bands out there right now with him – including Rwake, Lair of the Minotaur, Fuck the Facts, and our friends in the most excellent At All fucking Cost – just makes this tour that much more worthy of your time and money.

After the jump, get a complete list of tour dates, along with a list of which bands will playing which shows.

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Lair of the Minotaur are the SHIT. They’re so fucking metal that after I listen to them, I usually shit lead for a week; so fucking metal that you could kill someone just by dropping a CD copy of Cannibal Massacre on them from a second story window. Seriously, I’ve done. Cracked a fucker’s skull wide open. It was cool.

So I’m elated to announce that the band have completed work on their new album, War Metal Battle Master - and if that name doesn’t get you excited, you have no soul. Sadly, the album – which will feature songs with such totally wicked titles as “When The Ice Giants Slayed All,” “Slaughter The Bestial Legion” and “Black Viper Barbarian Clan” – won’t come out ’til Spring of ’08 sometime, but, hey, we all need something to look forward to.

If for some reason you don’t know this band, go check ‘em out on MySpace pronto – or, at least, check out their video for “The Ultimate Destroyer,” from last year’s album of the same name, after the jump.

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