[Hats off to Lazarus A.D.'s Jeff Paulick for stepping in when we needed him this year to take over the Unnecessary Roughness column and doing a fantastic job with it. Thanks for playing, dude! -Ed.]

Well, the Super Bowl ended pretty much how I anticipated it would. It was a great game, and congrats to New York. I was a naysayer when they entered the playoffs, but when you beat Green Bay, San Francisco and New England, that’s beating the best teams in the league this year. I wish I could argue against that, but I can’t!

I’m sure everybody watched the game so I’m not gonna recap it. There were a couple key mistakes that the Patriots made, otherwise they surely would have won. I thought they outplayed the Giants, and their defense surprised me. But in the end, the Giants took care of the ball better and they made plays when they needed to; that’s been their MO all year.

First I want to get to the debate of Eli being an elite quarterback. Nobody really wants to throw him in that discussion because he doesn’t play with the same passion as his brother or as Tom Brady, but he does win — twice now. That’s very impressive. I don’t like the guy, I think hes a dork on and off the field. He’s just awkward, and football isn’t an awkward sport. It’s a fucking brutal high tempo gauntlet where steroid filled behemoths try to all but kill each other. And Eli looks like he should be hosting Blues Clues, not commanding Big Blue. He has something that you can’t teach, something special about him, though. Something I can’t explain, something nobody else can explain. There’s just something else there that his brother doesn’t have, call it magic if you will. When he hucked that ball to Mario Manningham, immediately I said to myself, if this guy catches that ball this is fucking magic, and he caught it. You can’t script shit like that, you can’t count on having a play like that to keep you alive and win the game, but he always does it. And he did the same shit last time in 2008 with David Tryee. Luck is thrown out when you do this more than once. Little Eli is clutch, and he’s just one bowl behind Brady and already one ahead of his brother. Hats off.

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via Topless Robot

I would give anything for that to be the actual James Bond theme music from now on, wouldn’t you?

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

• We spoke to Neige from Alcest and SL from The Devil’s Blood.
• Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick got pissed the Packers losing.
• We checked out the latest releases from Nails, Skin Like Iron, Fatal Birth, and No Tolerance.
• We previewed some more more Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012: 7 Horns 7 Eyes, Crazy Lixx, Wormed, and Imperial State Electric.
• We got excited about the rumored line-ups for both Summer Slaughter and Mayhem Fest.
• We helped Godsmack, Staind, and Halestorm name their new tour.
• We enjoyed Juliet’s video for “My First Hardcore Song.”
• We suffered through a bad trip with The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato.
• We felt bad for Trivium — poor bastards have to go tour with Asking Alexandria.
• We pondered whether the shutdown of Megaupload was good or bad.

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the most up-to-date suckitude.

See ya Monday, folks!

-AR

I’m not gonna dedicate this blog to how or why the Packers totally fucking blew it. I’m gonna tell it how it is. And by the way, I could give less of a shit who wins this week or who wins the Superbowl as I’m super bitter right now and I will be until training camp next year.

The first game this weekend was by far the best game of the bunch, and probably the best game all year. The Saints turned it over like five times in the first half and STILL were not only in the game but were only one score away from winning. It just shows how fucking good the Saints offense really was this year. Five turnovers, and they still just kept on rifling the ball down the field; they weren’t gonna change their style of play just because San Francisco was having success stopping them. And that is something that is rare in the NFL. Teams get scared and start to try to overcompensate for mistakes and start doing things out of character. The Saints didn’t, they played their ass off and made a game out of what shouldn’t have been a game at all. But all respect goes to San Francisco; they played the best offensive team that I’ve seen since the undefeated regular season Patriots, and they made them look silly. Everyone knew their defense was good, but they played exceptionally well, and when it’s crunch time, that’s when you need to play your best. The final couple of drives where Alex Smith ran the QB draw and then followed up with an amazing TD pass to Vernon Davis, that is winning at its finest. Great play calling, perfect execution, and basically defying all the odds to win the game. It was so great to see Vernon Davis crying after he caught the catch to win the game, because that is a real player playing for the right reasons. There are so many NFL players who do not deserve the size paycheck they get — that goes for all sports really — and you can’t do anything but love Vernon Davis for showing that emotion. Money didn’t matter, that was a team effort on the field, and I hope they win it all.

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Yo! Have you guys signed up for our new e-mail list yet? If not, you can, and should, do so above. You’ll get occasional updates from the MS Mansion with breaking stories, special features, exclusive premieres, etc., delivered right to your inbox. Don’t worry, we won’t spam you — expect a newsletter-type of situation with updates once a week at most. And don’t forget to friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up-to-the-minute on all the latest suckage.

With that shameless plug out of the way, let’s look at some of the things we did this week, shall we?

• Maybe we should rename the site “Sports Suck?” God Forbid’s Doc Coyle taught us about the NBA and Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick taught us about the NFL.
• We spoke to Matt Halpern from Periphery and Bandhappy and Nick Cohon from Cormorant.
• We were saddened to report that legendary Black Sabbath guitarist has been diagnosed with lymphoma.
• Jason Richardson was saddened to learn that he has been fired from Born of Osiris.
• We considered ten possible candidates to replace Howard Jones in Killswitch Engage.
• We wagered that the new Metallica album is not going to sound like The Black Album despite what the band says.
• We passed judgement on the new Van Halen single and video.
• We got excited that Refused and At the Drive In are reuniting.
• We learned that Virgin Steele are from Long Island.
• We started to look at some Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012: new releases from Adimiron, Hypno5e, Ides of Gemini, Pallbearer, Sai Nam, and Samothrace.

Next week we’ll have even more Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off, interviews, premieres, and, of course, plenty of snark. ‘Til then, brothers and sisters…

-AR

And so much for my predictions! I went 1 for 4, pretty terrible, but I was hoping for a few upsets and only ended up getting the one nobody saw coming! This weekend held classic NFL Playoff action, but ultimately ended with every home team being the victor. Let’s take a look.

The Bengals traveled to Houston and got just plain outplayed in every aspect. Cincinnati made way too many mistakes on offense and defense for Cincinnati, and they gift-wrapped a victory for Houston. Not to say the Texans didn’t play impressive football, because they surely did; their first ever playoff appearance and win is huge for that franchise. They will now travel to Baltimore to play the Ravens, who will undoubtedly fight a lot harder than Cincinnati did. I like Baltimore at home, they play with a different energy, and should lock down a win against Houston this weekend.

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via Badass Digest

Hey! We have a brand new email list! Sign up above for occasional updates from the MS Mansion with breaking stories, special features, exclusive premieres, etc, delivered right to your inbox. Don’t worry, we won’t spam you — expect a newsletter-type of situation with updates once a week at most. And don’t forget to friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up-to-the-minute on all the latest suckage.

First week back from the holidays, and already the vocalist for one of the most famous metal bands of its generation has split from the band. What drama does the rest of the year hold? Pontificate in the comments section while you enjoy these stories from earlier in the week:

• We debuted new music by Liberteer.
• The Safety Fire’s Dez Nagle gave us a tour of his live rig, while Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick kept us up-to-date on all things football.
• We spoke to Rick Jimenez from This is Hell and comic book author Matt Fraction.
• We checked out the latest releases from Face Reality, No Sir, and Step Aside, as well as The United States of Toil.
• We learned that in 2012, it’s cool to be tr00.
• We discovered the best worst new band of 2012 so far.
• We said good things about this band so other ppl will know them and they will get sucess andwe will all be all happy!
• We mourned the loss of The Human Abstract.
• We got a primer in how to start a djent band.
• We made a Stuff You Will Hate mixtape.

Next week brings more debuts, our special brand of 2012 release previews, and maybe, just maybe, if you’re real lucky, some snark, too. Weird for us, I know.

See ya Monday!

-AR

The regular season has sadly come to an end, and I emphasize SADLY, because I have no idea what the hell I’m gonna do every Sunday for the next four months when its fuckin -6 degrees, ugh. The final day didn’t really post any surprises for me, as all of the teams I picked to make it did so; with only two seeds being incorrect (pats self on shoulder, slams a shot of whiskey). So lets take a look at the matchups coming up this weekend.

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Sorry for the delay everyone! I had to awaken from my food coma over this past week. I really enjoy how America has turned every holiday into an excuse to overeat and drink. But who the hell am I to say that’s wrong? I indulged. I indulged in watching football as well. This week wasn’t as much as a shocker as last, but the AFC race is fuckin’ jacked right now to say the least. Tennessee is still in the hunt somehow, crazy.

I like the Patriots to win the No. 1 seed. Buffalo dismantled Tebow this week, but they won’t have that luck on Brady. But I still don’t see them making the Superbowl, their defense gives up way too much, just like the Packers. Here we have a case where both the would be No. 1 seeds are probably going to be knocked out. Both offenses are lethal, but if either have an off day, neither can rely on their defense to win. (However, the Pack do lead the league in interceptions, which helps their case.)

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You hear that whistle in the intro? Yeah, that means business. And business was not as usual this week in the NFL. I predicted a few weeks back that if the Pack was gonna lose, the Colts were gonna win the same day, otherwise there is no balance, dammit! But seriously, NOBODY saw the Pack’s loss directly to the Colts coming. There are only two weeks left, and we are starting to see the identity, or lack thereof, of our playoff teams.

Lets start with the Packers. The Chiefs outplayed them, no question. But there were two key things that usually occur in our wins this season that didn’t this week. First, the defense didn’t cause a single turnover, and we thrive on that momentum shift as we usually turn them into points. And second, we dropped as many balls yesterday as all season. Rodgers was off target, the receivers dropped a lot of easy catches, and the focus just wasn’t there. And this just proves how much of the game is mental. Let’s take a team that has nothing to lose, who just fired their head coach because they can’t win, bring in the best team in the league, and let’s make a statement. And they did. I’m not fretting, and nobody else should either. The last two games may be rocky for the Pack, but once they lock up home field advantage its going to be hella tough to win in Green Bay, especially as some key players come back from injury.

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video via Metal Insider

Today is the last day of regular posting on MetalSucks for the remainder of the year. We’ll still have some posts now and then — our annual Heavy Metal Hanukkah contest starts next week, we might have a series of cool new guest blogs from an old friend for you, and, of course, if there’s any major breaking news, we’ll cover it —  but most of your regularly scheduled programming is going on hiatus while we enjoy the holidays.

But until we’re back, have fun reviewing our top stories from this week, won’t you?

• We debuted a new video from Novembers Doom, new music by Nylithia, and, thanks to our pals at Decibel, new music from Autopsy.
• Lazarus AD’s Jeff Paulick nominated Marion Barber for president and Jonah Livingston from Ramming Speed told us about his live drum set-up.
• We spoke to Devin Townsend and Repulsion.
• We checked out the latest release from Kevin Hufnagel and some free shit from Australia.
• We listened to more previously unreleased material from Metallica’s Death Magnetic sessions.
• We got excited about the line-up for this year’s New England Metal and Hardcore Festival.
• We got even more excited to learn that Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin is a criminal.
• We accepted an apology from the world’s most pretentious metal band.
• The future ex-Mrs. Vince Neilstein serenaded us with a piano cover of Mastodon’s “Oblivion.”
• Dummy Nosenothing continued to know nothing. How come we don’t fire this idiot?

Thanks for another sucky year, gang. See ya in 2012!

-AR

Another week of football, another week of amazing finishes and blowouts. Indy lost, the Packers won, and that seems to be the only constant this year. After starting the season strong, the Chiefs, Bills, and Bucs can’t seem to win anymore, all getting blown out on Sunday. But these are relatively young teams, and it takes getting through years like this one to gel. Pretty much every other game was a nail biter at the end, so let’s dissect.

The Vikings looked straight terrible against the Lions on Sunday. Rookie QB Christian Ponder threw three INT’s and lost a fumble, and he was ultimately pulled in the 3rd quarter for second year man Joe Webb. He led the Vikings back into the game by throwing two touchdowns, and almost won it on the final drive of the game. On the last play of the game, Webb was flushed out of the pocket and fumbled; the Lions scooped it up and the game was over. However, there was a blatant no-call — a facemask –which would have given the Vikes 1st and goal with no time left, but a game can’t end on a penalty. I would have loved to see them try one more play; the refs screwed them out of a win — more importantly a Lions loss — that shouldn’t have been missed.

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(from Unpopular Opinion Rick Perry)

Whew, what a week. I don’t know where you all are, but here in NYC it’s 5pm and it’s already been completely dark outside for a while. FML. Here’s what happened this week:

• Corey discovered that our “Best of 2011″ lists weren’t as bad as you thought they were with fancy mathematicals to back it up.
• Axl and Vince live-chatted it up with y’all and fielded all your stupid questions… and a few good ones.
• We interviewed Giant Squid’s Aaron Gregory, Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, and Nikki Sixx.
• We premiered new music by Lamb of God, Whores, Abysmal Dawn, and Nothnegal.
• We laughed at the BBC’s distorted view of metal culture not once but twice.
• We announced that we’re retiring some of our older t-shirt designs and that we’re having a fire-sale to get rid of them; get ‘em while you still can!
• Vince pondered a new ranking system that could supercede Soundscan.
• We cracked jokes about another laughable Rolling Stone Top 100 lists of guitarists.
• We introduced Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick as our new NFL columnist; please direct your hatred of the Packers his way.

Vince out.

-VN

What’s up, everybody! First and foremost I wanna say thanks to the MS staff for giving me this opportunity. I know a decent amount about football and my TV rarely sees any show other than SportsCenter, so this is gonna be really fun every week. A little sports background information on me: I grew up a Packers fan my whole life (and Wisconsin sports in general), so the past couple years have been really fuckin awesome for us. I never played football, but I played basketball and have been super competitive throughout my life. I love a good rivalry and a good shit-talking session, as long as you’ve got the facts to back it up. So here we go!

TGIT (“Thank God It’s Thursday”) just started, and if you’re fortunate enough to have the NFL Network you can watch one extra-shitty game every week. Marshawn Lynch ran well for the Seahawks, busting tackles left and right, but Vince Young played even better. The Eagles are a sorry squad this year; I’m so happy they didn’t pan out. “Let’s spend all the money we can on free agency and say we’re the Dream Team with our talent level.” The only dream they’ve got now is breaking .500. See ya later Andy Reid, leave now and go to a city who won’t boo you every time you play at home.

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FEATURING MEMBERS OF CANNIBAL CORPSE, OBSCURA, FORBIDDEN, LAZARUS A.D., GIANT SQUID, PYRAMIDS, WOLVHAMMER, BENEATH OBLIVION, HALCYON WAY, AND GADGET

Every year year, MetalSucks asks musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year have been. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike have graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of nine to ten musicians at a time two to three times a day for the whole week.

After the jump, check out the next group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

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I really enjoyed “Living Weapon,” the new Warbringer track the band debuted last month; I’m enjoying the new new Warbringer song the band has just released, “Shattered Like Glass,” less. I think it boils down to the very simple fact that I don’t like the riff in the new new song as much as I like the riff in the old new song.

But it’s not a bad song, and there were bound to be some tunes on Warbringer’s new album, Worlds Torn Asunder, that I liked more than others, soooo… yeah, you should definitely check out this little ditty for yourself and make up your own mind. In fact, I’m curious to see what other Warreceivers (That’s what the band calls their fans, right?) think of “Glass” in comparison to “Weapon.”

Worlds Torn Asunder comes out September 27 on Century Media. The band will follow its release with a North American headlining run featuring Lazarus A.D., Landmine Marathon, and Diamond Plate as support. Get dates here.

-AR

(photo from old_skool_metal_head’s Flickr)

Axl and I went to Summer Slaughter in NYC yesterday. That second bottle of whiskey was a really bad idea. But before said second bottle we got to see Darkest Hour… and any time I see Darkest Hour I have an incredible urge to listen to nothing but Darkest Hour the following day. Thanks to Spotify I have their entire discography instantly at my disposal and I’m letting Undoin Ruin rock away my hangover at this very moment. If anyone else at the show had the same urge they could do the very same thing instead of being driven to piracy (because we all know people are cheap-asses and ain’t gonna shell out for DH’s ENTIRE discography at once), so at least Darkest Hour gets paid something instead of nothing at all.

What kind of ass-backwards world do we live in where Victory Records is doing something right and Century Media isn’t? Can I get an “AMEN”???

ANYWAY, the metalnets have been surprisingly quiet when it comes to bands voicing their opinions on Spotify, especially if those bands are on Century. Maybe they’re afraid to speak up, maybe they’re against Spotify and don’t wanna look like this generation’s Lars Ulrich, maybe they just aren’t sure yet; I don’t know. But Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick (whose band and label are on Spotify, btw) has broken the silence and come out in support of Spotify in a guest blog for Metal Insider, specifically with regards to the whole Century situation. What I like about Paulick’s rant is that it seems very representative of the new, young generation of musicians that understand and accept music is not going to be a huge source of income in their lives. Here’s the money quote:

I am not depending on selling music for my income. In fact, I have two jobs when I’m not touring to help with my income. I’ll take a page from a good friend of mine Buz McGrath of Unearth. On one of our first tours he told me that he wasn’t in the music business, but that he was in the ticket and t-shirt business, and there is nothing closer to the truth than that.

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Warbringer are streaming a new song, “Living Weapon,” on Hails and Horns, and I gotta say, literally within seconds of it beginning, I liked it a million times better than anything from Waking Into Nightmares. In fact, I think I liked it better than anything I’ve heard the band do since One by One, The Wicked Fall, their free EP that we were giving away back in the early days of MetalSucks.

Now, is the song ACTUALLY better than anything the band has recorded in several years, or am I just over  being over  the whole rethrash thing? It seems like the band was playing here in New York once a month for awhile there, and, honestly, it started to feel like overkill after awhile — so maybe the fact that I haven’t actually seen them in at least a year is helping my opinion of the music. But both the riffs and John Kevill’s vocal performance sound a lot more vicious to me than the material on their last couple of albums. But I dunno, maybe this is just the cloud of jadedness lifting.

ANYWAY, check out the track here, then debate its quality in our comments section. Warbringer’s latest offering, Worlds Torn Asunder, comes out September 27 on Century Media. The band will follow its release with a North American headlining run, natch; Lazarus A.D., Landmine Marathon, and Diamond Plate are playing support. Get dates here.

-AR

So Warbringer have a new album coming out, which means, of course, that it’s time for a tour! And while I feel like I’ve seen Warbringer live approximately eighteen gajillion times (is there any other band that tours as much as these dudes?), support is going to come from Lazarus A.D., who are great live, Landmine Marathon, who are GREAT GREAT GREAT live, and Diamond Plate, who I’ve never seen before but I know are beloved by our own Bob Cock.

So if you love Warbringer, you’re obviously going to this, but even if you don’t, I’d encourage you to check out Lazarus A.D., Landmine Marathon, Landmine Marathon, and Landmine Marathon. Stand near the front, and Grace Perry may even jump into the crowd and knock a few of your teeth out. That lady has force, dude.

Here are tour dates:

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As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Metal Injection has launched this great new video series, “Ask the Artist,” in which they give you helpful tips for getting out tough stains. No, I’m kidding, they ask fucking artists things, that’s why it’s called “Ask the Artist.”

ANYWAY, the latest installment of the series has the MI dudes posing the question “What band got you into metal?” to current and former members of Dying Fetus, Killswitch Engage, Job for a Cowboy, Cephalic Carnage, Revocation, The Ocean, Lazarus A.D., and more.

My personal favorite answer probably comes from A Life Once Lost’s Doug Sabolick, not because I have any special affinity for the album he cites, but because a) it’s a pretty unique answer and b) I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard that album, and I like thinking that while I was rocking out to it with Vince in my parents’ living room, Sabolick was somewhere having his mind blown and his life forever changed. I like that we have that connection now. We’re like Fievel and Tanya from An American Tail, singing “Somewhere Out There.” Only not really at all.

Check out the rest of Metal Injection’s “Ask the Artist” series here. And, hey, while we’re on the topic, feel free to discuss the bands and albums that got you into metal in our comments section below.

-AR

The days when a musician stands a chance of making a living as a musician may very well be coming to a close. It’s one thing for the members of Crowbar Abortion to have to get jobs at the mall when they’re not on tour, but when even the dude from Guns N’ Roses is giving guitar lessons on his down time, you know times are tough.

Which gives a little extra edge to the below video, in which our doppelgängers at Metal Injection ask various musicians what they’d do with their lives if they weren’t in a band. Because that’s a question most metal musicians should probably ask themselves at some point or another.

Best answer comes from Revocation drummer Phil Dubois-Coyne, although I’m down the response A Life Once Lost’s Doug Sabolick and Bob Meadows provide, too.

This video is the first in a new series Metal Injection is doing, called, cleverly enough, “Ask the Artist.” Go here to make sure you stay up-to-date on all future installments, as I’d wager that they will continue to be this entertaining.

-AR