Props to reader Nico C. for reminding us about the Darkest Hour Legacy Tour contest we hosted back in November and December. Ya see, uh, you all know we like to partake in the green herb from time to time and that said herb can have an effect on the memory. Well, umm… we just straight up forgot to choose a winner.

But fear not! Good things come to those who wait; in this case “good things” are one t-shirt from each of the bands on the tour — Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation — and “those who wait” is our lucky winner Shaun Reeves. We asked “Which Darkest Hour song is your favorite of all-time, and why?” and Shaun answered thusly:

Convalescence. Sure it’s not their heaviest or most technical, but it was one of the first metal songs I had ever heard. The first time I heard it was when I saw the video for it on a victory records sampler. I straight up laughed the first time I saw it, I thought it was terrible, and the lead singer looked like an angry nerd who got beat up in high school too much. As I gradually started getting into heavier music, I watched it again, and it changed my life. It was the heaviest thing I had ever heard, yet it was so melodic. Kris Norris instantly became my icon, his solo was the greatest one I had ever heard. That song not only turned me into a metal head, it turned me into a metal guitarist.

So, congrats Shaun, and sorry for the delay. Enjoy those shirts. Darkest Hour’s new jam The Human Romance is out now.

Remember all the way back on Monday (put down that bong!) when we reported that Darkest Hour and Veil of Maya had been kicked off their shared tour bus just before the Dallas stop of their Legacy Tour with Periphery and Revocation? We caught up with DH drummer Ryan Parrish yesterday and he gave us the full scoop on what went down to result in his band’s eviction from their home on wheels:

Well, okay, here’s the thing: the bus driver is a total douchebag — like, just a cocksucker.  He was OCD as shit.  He was always coming on the bus and we’d be partying and shit and he just didn’t like it.  He didn’t think that we cleaned up, which we cleaned every single day, but he was such a dick that he would say that we weren’t cleaning everything just to start drama and shit.  If there were like 2 beer cans on the table, he’d take a picture of it and send it to his company saying that we were destroying the bus lounge.

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As part of our sponsorship of The Legacy Tour featuring Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation, one member from each band will be penning an exclusive blog entry for MetalSucks to run during the tour (get a full list of tour dates here). Our first entry featured Veil of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo taking us on a run-through of his entire live rig, and the second entry was an update from Revocation’s Dave Davidson, and in the third Periphery’s Misha Mansoor talked about his new direct-to-PA live amp setup. For the fourth and final entry, here’s Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum resuscitating his “The Underrated” MetalSucks column:

LETS GET THIS BAND BACK TOGETHER: CURSED

Greetings from a rat infested parking lot in Lubbock, TX, AKA the road! While I could write about the military strategy Lonestar and Ryan used to get the Whiskey A Go Go dancers on the bus this week in LA or how the 5150 (3′s) made by Fender/EVH might just be the ultimate high gain amp, I’m not. Rather I have decided to litter the internet with yet another opinion-related piece.

Since I have written in the past of unsung heros or overlooked records, I thought I might do that once more. Living on tour every day keeps us surrounded by music and fresh sounds (good or bad) assaulting our ears every day. Still, it’s important not to forget great bands and records that for whatever reason have their little notch in time. So I’ll just plug our new record, The Human Romance, out Feb 22, 2011 on E1 and then I’ll use this space right here to tell you about a band that should not be forgotten: Canada’s Cursed.

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(click to enlarge)

The above photo is of Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya and their respective crews after being booted from their own tour bus early Saturday morning; apparently an overbearing bus driver had had enough of their hard-partying ways, booted the bands, and drove his bus home. Thankfully they were already in Dallas for Saturday night’s show so they continued the party by setting up their own shanty town in the venue parking lot until show time. At present time we’re not sure whether the bands were successful in finding another bus to complete the tour in time for the next show.

Gossipy details to follow as soon as we have ‘em!

Remaining tour dates are posted here.

While this is technically “safe for work”… it’s probably not safe if you’ve got a weak stomach and don’t want to vomit all over your employer’s keyboard. This is bloody and gross. Extremely bloody. So procede with caution.

Still with us? Great! ‘Cause blood is metal, and Revocation guitarist Dave Davidson would surely tell you so too. Ya see, Dave was good and drunk at the Cleveland stop of the MetalSucks-sponsored Legacy Tour with Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation, and he decided it’d be a great idea to stage dive during Darkest Hour’s set… only it didn’t go as planned. Here’s Dave on the matter:

Shortly after our set at Peabody’s I proceeded to get annihilated and during Darkest Hour’s set I decided to go stage diving. My first dive into the crowd went without incident but on my second attempt I slightly over shot my jump, and luckily my head broke my fall. After a quick trip to the ER and 8 staples later I was back in business. Good times!”

Without further ado, the video, and then some “aftermath” pics of his stapled up head after the jump:

Feeling sick to your stomach yet? Great, now let’s look at Dave’s stitched-up dome:

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As part of our sponsorship of The Legacy Tour, featuring Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation, one member from each band will be penning an exclusive blog entry for MetalSucks to run during the tour (get a full list of tour dates here). Our first entry featured Veil of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo taking us on a run-through of his entire live rig, and the second entry was an update from Revocation’s Dave Davidson. Here’s Periphery’s Misha Mansoor on his new live rig setup (the idea for which he first mentioned in a prior column) and how that’s working out for him:

So a little while back I posted a column about going direct with the guitars on a future tour, and that tour just so happens to be this tour we are on now with Revocation, Veil Of Maya and Darkest Hour. The idea behind going direct is that instead of having an amp/rig that goes through a cabinet then gets mic’ed up, you just take an audio signal direct to the board and skip the whole cab and mic. This allows for a simpler and cleaner signal chain, as removing the cab, mic and mic-placement variables makes the signal extremely consistent every night. Now we are going direct with our Fractal AxeFX Ultras which is an absolutely phenomenal unit for direct tones.

Click to read more…

We’re shuttering the Mansion gates early today for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving holiday, ’cause let’s face it: you’ve all gone home already and have long since put up your “I am out of the office. If it’s urgent, call my cell phone” auto-responders. Please, people: no one cares about you. Get over it!

Here’s what happened in this abbreviated week while might or might not have been checking your Blackberries:

• Two bears reviewed Daath’s new record and called us faggots.
• Haste the Day decided to hang it up, as did Chimaira’s Jim LaMarca.
• Two Greeks showed us the only proper way to react to a brass band busking on the street.
• All of J.S. Bach’s organ works are available for free download; know your metal forefathers, son!
• Revocation’s Dave Davidson kept us up to date with the latest shenanigans to befall The Legacy Tour with Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya and Periphery, while Daath’s Eyal Levi thinks the picture looks bleak for today’s unsigned metal bands hoping to make it big.
• Are there single songs you like by bands you otherwise abhor?
• Crowbar released a new jam!
• Bob Cock spoke with Slough Feg’s Mike Scalzi.
• We Contaminated our Cooking by making baked mac and cheese and collard greens with Woe’s Chris Griggs.

We’ll be stuffing our faces full of food and booze tomorrow and recovering all day Friday. See ya Monday!

-VN

As part of our sponsorship of The Legacy Tour, featuring Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation, one member from each band will be penning an exclusive blog entry for MetalSucks to run during the tour (get a full list of tour dates here). Our first entry featured Veil of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo taking us on a run-through of his entire live rig. Now here’s Revocation’s Dave Davidson with an update from the road:

Hey guys, Dave from Revocation here, checking in from the Darkest Hour Legacy tour.

It’s been a little over a week since we’ve been out and we’re currently in Cleveland getting ready to play at Peabody’s. So far the tour has been going great, all the bands are killing it every night and all the dudes are cool as fuck. Everyone’s been getting along really well right off the bat so we’re stoked that we still have three more weeks left to rage.

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Periphery’s mastermind and resident nerd-face Misha Mansoor wrote a killer series of columns for us earlier this year in which he geeked out about various gear that he uses; I think it’d be fair to dub him the reigning “Metal Misha” at this particular point in time. But the original Metal Misha got wind of his competition at the MetalSucks-sponsored Darkest Hour Legacy Tour stop in NYC last weekend, and apparently was none too pleased about the situation. Thankfully, the rights to the “Metal Misha” crown come cheap.

-VN

As part of our sponsorship of The Legacy Tour, featuring Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation, one member from each band will be penning an exclusive blog entry for MetalSucks to run during the tour. The tour kicks off this Friday, November 12th in Worcester, MA and runs through the U.S. and Canada for a full month before wrapping on December 12th in Richmond, VA. Get a full list of dates here. Our first entry comes from Veil of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo:

What’s going on guys!? My name is Marc Okubo with Veil of Maya, and today I’m going to give you guys a run down of my live gear list, and let you know what’s “under my hood” if you will. I’m pretty picky about the gear I use simply because it’s part of my job to make sure VOM sounds 100% on stage and to make sure every single note cuts though live… being the only guitar player I must re-create live all the sounds that I used on the record. The gear that I’m currently using has been my personal selection of choice for quite a while now.

Click to read more…

As you should well know by now Darkest Hour are headlining the MetalSucks-sponsored Legacy Tour, on which they’ll be playing a “best of” set highlighting their 15-year career and bringing Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation along for the ride. That tour kicks off next week, and you can grab dates here.

To celebrate the Legacy Tour, we’re giving a prize package of four t-shirts — that’s one t-shirt from every band on the tour! — to one lucky MetalSucks reader. Simply comment below — remember to fill-in a valid email address in the appropriate field, or include it in your comment if you’re using FB Connect – telling us which Darkest Hour song is your favorite of all-time, and why you like it so much. Axl and Vince will pick their favorite answer at the end of the tour and the winner will be contacted by email.

Well, funny you should ask that question, because Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum and Periphery’s Misha Mansoor just got together to jam and filmed it for ya’ll. This is topical, of course, because both bands are touring together as part of the MetalSucks-sponsored Legacy Tour along with Veil of Maya and Revocation.

Mike and Misha are two extremely talented writers and guitar players with distinctly different styles, so the concept of a collabo is pretty cool to me. Seeing as they’re both D.C. natives, maybe they’ll get together to record a proper shred record at some point in the future? Based on this video I certainly think that’d make for an interesting album. Make sure you sit through the intro stuff in this video to watch the jam sesh at the end… or just skip to around 1:50, you impatient prick.

Also: how stoned does Mike look in this clip?

-VN