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

As much as I love Max Cavalera, Soulfly basically started as a nu-metal band (and Roots is a nu-metal album… sorry, kids), and it’s sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Cavalera had Fred Durst do a guest rap on SF’s 1998 self-titled debut. I tend to ignore it because a) the friend of my enemy is not necessarily my enemy, and b) Max has worked with plenty of dudes I  don’t like (Jonathan Davis) and plenty of dudes I do like (Greg Puciato, Chino Moreno), so, y’know, shit happens.

But the topic of working with Durst came up in a recent interview with PyroMusic.net, and… well, Cavalera basically places the blame for Durst’s appearance on producer Ross Robinson’s shoulders:

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I looked it up, and that’s not Mike Shitoda.

After they reunited with C.C. DeVille circa 2000, one of the most brilliant things Poison ever did, business-wise, was to put together those summer shed tours where they take out three other prominent glam bands (e.g. Cinderella, Warrant, Faster Pussycat,Dokken, Slaughter, etc.) and only charge like thirty bucks a ticket. They were like the Ozzfest main stage, exclusively for hair bands. Talk about playing to your target audience! And I think it’s only a matter of time before Limp Bizkit follow suit. Fuck trying to win over new fans by touring with young, hip bands — just take out a few other bands that sounded kinda like you and were big at roughly the same time as you, and watch the nostalgia dollars roll in.

Why do I mention this? Because Crazy Town are reuniting for this August’s SRH Fest in California, and while I’d never heard of SRH Fest before, once I had a glance at the line-up, I realized that this basically was the shed tour of my nightmares. Kottonmouth Kings? (hed) p.e.? Unwritten Law? Did the promoter lose a bet or what? (I’ve never heard of a bunch of the other bands on the bill, but based on their names — Zero Authority, Big B., etc. — I assume that I’d hate them, too.)

How long can it be before some clever industry peeps put together a full tour with some of these bands? I bet with the right headliner, a (hed) p.e./Crazy Town bill would attract every High-School-Bully-turned-Gas-Station-Attendant within driving distance.

-AR

There’s still no official release date for Gold Cobra, the most heavily anticipated recording in the history of music and sure to be the highest selling release of all time — or, at least, since Chinese Democracy. (I’ve heard that executives throughout the industry feel confident that Cobra will single-handedly revive CD sales. “There’s nothing out there right now with this kind of scope,” an unpaid intern who just started in the Interscope mailroom, and thinks he has a really bright future with the label, told me.) And while the anticipation is killing me, at least I know when I can run to Walmart and get my hands on the new Linkin Park album: the band has announced a September 14 release date for their latest offering, A Thousand Suns. It was produced by Rick Rubin, the man who made Metallica totally cool and relevant again.

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Holy crap. I don’t even really mind some of Eminem’s older stuff, which can be a lot of fun, given the right circumstances (namely forties, weed, and a bunch of white dudes feeling nostalgia for ten years ago). But this if AWFUL. I mean, it’s still better than Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, mostly ’cause Eminem is a wwwwaaayyyy better rapper than Fred Durst or Mike Shitoda, but that’s like saying it’s better to lose your finger than your entire hand, y’know?

-AR

[via Metal Army]

Can you imagine if everyone to whom we give endless amounts of shit followed Dino’s example? We’d have Rose Funoral cards and Tommy Lee faking his own death and Fred Durst pulling a Billy Madison and pics of Joey Belladonna with his twig and berries tucked back. That’s the kinda world I wanna live in. I believe we can make it happen if we try.

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

• We did a second installment of Cooking Contaminated.
• We’re streaming new tracks by Son of Aurelius.
• Eyal gave us a Daath studio update.
• We spoke to Max Cavalera and Ratt’s Bobby Blotzer.
• We suckered Decibel‘s Andrew Bonazelli into writing about the Metal Mets for us.
• We checked out some new German cheese metal releases.
• We called out David Draiman.
• We watched some great music videos, some awful music videos, and some really awful music videos.
• We made fun of the most annoying little kid in the world.
• We were sorry about Abacabb breaking up, but really happy about BOOBS!!!

Speaking of Eyal and studio updates: on Sunday I’m flying down to Atlanta to visit Daath in the studio. If you never hear from me again, assume I’ve been lost amidst a cloud of ATL purp smoke and awesome metal. But what a way to go!!!

-AR

And by “nightmare,” I mean “I actually think it’s pretty bad-assed.” I know that admitting you enjoy A7X is high treason to some metal heads, but fuck’s the fun of having a website if you can’t be honest?

And if this had almost any other band’s name on it, you’d all think it was the fucking shit. Now, you might argue, “Sure, but if it had Limp Bizkit’s name on it, you’d slam it,” and I suppose that could be true – I am definitely biased against certain bands. But I’d like to take this moment to say that Limp Bizkit have honestly never had an album cover this cool, and do you really think I enjoy enjoying Avenged Sevenfold? They call themselves things like “Zacky Vengeance” and “Johnny Christ,” for fuck’s sake! And they wrote a pro-Bush anthem! And they dress like douche bags! I see guys dressed like that sometimes, and I judge them. It’s hard to reconcile thinking that people are idiots with thinking that they’re talented. But it happens, so. Yeah.

Nightmare comes out July 27 on Warner Bros.

-AR

Our friend Amy Sciarretto from Noisecreep reports that Birmingham City University (in England, not Alabama) is naming an award after everyone’s favorite heavy metal grandpa: the Ozzy Osbourne Development Award “will be bestowed upon the student that makes the most significant progress on their degree in the Media and Communication/Music Industry degree.” I assume that the Osbourne family donated a nice chunk of change to get the award named after him, but this doesn’t really make that much sense to me. For one thing, I don’t know if Ozzy has really shown any musical development in, oh, the last hundred years or so, and as much as I admire a lot of his past work, you’ll never convince me that the bulk of the credit doesn’t lie with his collaborators – especially given that the dude doesn’t actually play an instrument. And beyond that, fuck has Ozzy got to do with media and communication? If we’re talking about his work with various reality shows and what have you, well, then, shouldn’t the award be named after Sharon, since we have her to thank for Ozzy’s wonderful non-music endeavors.

But whatever. This piece of news got me thinking: what other awards could we name after heavy metal musicians? And so, after the jump, my suggestions for new university kudos monikered in honor of various other members of the heavy metal community.

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Did you know that we have lives outside of the metal world? It’s true! And sometimes, that life gets distracting. I LOVE writing for MetalSucks more than I love certain members of my mother’s family, but like any job, there are gonna be days when there’s some out-of-office shit going on and it’s really hard to just sit at your desk and concentrate.

Alas, today is one of those days. Thus, I present four stories that you might find of interest, but about which I have little to say. My sincerest apologies.

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Yep, we talked a lot of smack on Joey Belladonna this week, much to the chagrin of, well, an awful lot of you. I think we’re done for a little while… but I can’t make any promises. Our job at MetalSucks is to amuse ourselves first and foremost, and, well, we thought it was pretty damned funny. So ppppfffftttt.

Here’s what else went down this week:

• We debuted the title track from Nachtmystium’s new album, Addicts.
• Genetic’s Dallas Coyle called us “influential,” Disfear’s Tomas Lindberg shared some Maryland Deathfest memories, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley unveiled his top four Taco Riffs, Cynic’s Paul Masvidal got burglarized, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa made some new revelations about L O S T, God Forbid’s Doc Coyle worried about turning into an old geezer, Daath’s Eyal Levi gave us a lesson in stage etiquette, and Batillus’ Geoff Summers gave us a new studio update.
• We spoke to The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne, Periphery’s Misha “Bulb” Mansoor, Testament’s Chuck Billy, and Sick of it All’s Lou Koller.
• We checked out new releases by Korn and Ufomammut and Year of No Light.
• Is Mastodon’s Brent Hinds a Mastodick?
• Sergeant D sez Cunthunt777 are your new favorite band.
• Don’t worry, baby, Dr. Danzig gonna cure what ails you.
• Hot chick loves Nergal, hates the Bible.
• Boy oh boy, do we love the new Limp Bizkit cover art!
• If you’re looking for new band members, don’t do this.

Alright. We’re gonna go get drunk and crank We’ve Come For You All in John Bush’s honor. Have a great weekend, everyone.

-AR

I mean, how did they come up with this? There’s no gold cobra, no suggestion that the phrase “gold cobra” is a euphemism for cock, and no indication that this is a music CD. Thank God someone thought to put the band’s name and the album title on there somewhere (it’s in the center of the image, but it’s blended-in pretty well – look carefully and you should be able to see it), or otherwise I think people might have seen the sword and the girl in the Princess Leia bikini touching herself and assumed that this was the new High on Fire record.

To the dudes in Limp Bizkit: I applaud you. This is some really abstract, thought-provoking shit right here.

-AR

After I actually shaved a decade off my life by listening to the new Limp Bizkit song last week, a lot of you e-mailed me to indulge in major LULZ about Limp Bizkit’s announced tour with Snoop Dogg. And I didn’t write anything about it ’cause, y’know. It’s Limp Bizkit and Snoop Dogg.

But then yesterday Snoop put down the pipe just long enough to come to his senses and drop off the tour, and today it was announced that he’ll be replaced by… Ice Cube.

In case anyone has forgotten, here’s what came of the last collaboration between Fred Durst and Mr. Cube:

According to Box Office Mojo, The Longshots made a little less than $12 million dollars worldwide. I don’t know what the production budget was on that movie, but I’d wager it was higher than that. So, y’know. Somebody lost their job over that little investment.

Still, that was a shitty kids’ film and this is a shitty grown-men-who-act-like-kids’ tour, so things will probably run much more smoothly this time.

-AR

Moby is one of those guys, like Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, who has never made it a secret that he has a proclivity for metal. But up ’til now, he’s never really gotten involved in the game; I mean, he almost produced Chinese Democracy, but that doesn’t really count for any number of reasons, not least of which is that everyone almost produced Chinese Democracy. MetalSucks intern Dave Mustein almost produced Chinese Democracy and I think he was still in diapers when they started recording it.

But now Moby is looking to enter the metal world at least semi-for reals, teaming up with two dudes I’ve never heard of (including some fruit who calls himself Tomato) and Dave “King of Metal” Hill, who has done some hilarious work for Metal Injection, to form Diamondsnake, a new band that seeks to combine “such disparate influences as rock, hard rock, metal, and heavy metal.”

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I don’t know. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. I’ll bring it up in therapy this week.

In any case, I am now about to listen to this song for the first time, and just type out my thoughts as I do. Should I get high for this, take the edge off a little? I think I’m gonna get high for this. Be right back.

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What? Is dids nots gets to plays Aprils Fools joke.

-NC

The weather is beautiful out, it’s the weekend, and I have a ton of new albums to listen to. I’m gonna put some shit on my iPod, get stoned, go eat some ice cream, and crank some shit. It’s a rough life, but someone’s gotta lead it.

Before I do that, here’s a wrap-up of crap that happened this week:

• We spoke to Phil Anselmo, former Killswitch Engage/current The Empire Shall Fall vocalist Jesse Leach, and the dude who proposed to his girlfriend on-stage at a Fear Factory concert.
• We debuted a new column by Cynic’s Paul Masvidal.
• We’re streaming Unleashed’s new album, As Yggdrasil Trembles.
• Vince’s heavy metal road trip re-cap continues!
• We love Meek is Murder, and we’re not being sarcastic.
• Refused are reuniting! Well, they’re not, actually, but Far is!
• The end is nigh.

Okey dokey… sprinkles here I come! Have a good weekend everybody.

-AR

When it comes to music (and other things really), I tend to play devil’s advocate. If everyone is shitting on a certain band, for some reason, I become more attracted to that band and seek them out. I don’t know what it is about my personality, but I think it stems from the same perspective that inspired me to write the antagonistic blog about rethrash. It may be a character flaw, but I’m sure it has something to do with a need to be an individual. From what I gather, this website is inhabited mainly by “true” metal heads. What I define as “true” are people whom are purists in the realm of metal and usually scoff at any band or trend that reeks of premeditated commercialism or an overt play for popularity, and who usually demand a certain level of musicianship and underground credibility. These fans usually hate every Metallica record after …And Justice For All, and for that matter always prefer any particular band’s older releases, which usually have a more raw and unrefined recording quality, as well as more abstract, less traditional song writing. For example, they will prefer Carcass’s Necrotiscim to Heartwork, or Morbid Angel’s Blessed Are The Sick to Domination. Oh yeah, and these guys gave up on In Flames and Soilwork years ago.

I have a good deal of that purism in my bones, but it always seemed short sighted and close minded. You have no idea how many arguments the Adler brothers from Lamb of God and I have gotten into over the merits of a particluar Metallica or Megadeth record. If you even bring up Disturbed or Limp Bizkit on MetalSucks, it is mocked and disregarded 100% of the time. I think metal heads often have a sheep mentality because of the fear of being viewed by their peers as less credible for liking bands that aren’t considered “true” or “real” enough. We all have guilty pleasures, but the real question is “Why should we feel guilty about something we enjoy?”

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So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

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A reader known only as “Jonas” sent us the below video of 55 Escape, a Norwegian band whose biggest influences seem to be Korn and Linkin Park, not Enslaved and Immortal.

Here’s why I find this band kind of interesting. (And moving forward, please be aware that “interesting” and “good” are not the same word.) When you think about it for a second, nu-metal seems to be a predominantly American phenomenon. Off the top of my head, I’m having a hard time even naming a nu-metal band from any part of Europe, never mind Norway. Jeff Killed John were British, but they didn’t get famous ’til they swapped the nu for core and rechristened themselves Bullet for My Valentine. Am I forgetting a really, really obvious band? Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Godsmack, Evanescence, Staind, Static-X, Creed, Hed P.E., Snot, P.O.D., Puddle of Mudd, Drowning Pool, Saliva, Coal Chamber, Methods of Mayhem, 40 Below Summer, Sevendust, Ill Nino, Dope, Papa Roach, Soil, The Union Undergound… ALL AMERICAN. What the hell? No wonder the terrorists hate us.

Anyway, thanks to these sperm clots for doing their part in making America look good. Hoo-rah.

-AR

In February of ’07, while he was absolutely not just biding his time until Limp Bizkit got back together, Wes Borland taught a series of guitar clinics in such glamorous locales as Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Jakarta and Bangalore. And while I kid about those places, it’s as reassuring to me to learn there is some kind of metal scene in Jakarta as it was to learn that I have a distant cousin who is a rabbi in Dublin (I’m not making that up, by the way.). Peeps get around, yo.

So here’s a Jakartan (is that right?) band called Vendetta, doing a cover of Lamb of God’s “Now You’ve Got Something to Die For.” It’s serviceable but not great, but like I said, it’s cool that there are kids are trying to get shit done in Jakarta, and it’s cool that 75% of this group consists of chicks. At least, I think they’re chicks.

-AR

Thanks to Will Morley for the tip!