Without question, Trapped Under Ice is one of the biggest bands in hardcore today, an impressive coup given their relative newcomer status compared with established scene leaders like Hatebreed, Madball, and Terror. Through hard work, hard touring, and undeniable talent, the Baltimore band have somehow managed to fight their way to the top riding the wave of their 2009 game-changing LP Secrets Of The World. Their forthcoming follow-up, the ominously titled Big Kiss Goodnight, has already garnered considerable excitement among hardcore fans. A few days prior to this past weekend’s This Is Hardcore festival (review here), I seized the opportunity to speak in depth with TUI frontman Justice Tripp about the new album. That interview is available for your enjoyment below the cut.

Click to read more…

It might be hard for all you self-righteous, 22 year-old turds and haters to believe, but back in the early 90s, it wasn’t at all cool to be into metal and hardcore. If you never got mocked by your HC/punk friends for listening to Immolation, Obituary and Morbid Angel like I did (let alone Gut, Excruciating Terror or The Meatshits), you probably don’t remember a time when metal and hardcore weren’t virtually synonymous. The fact that the twos genres now go hand-in-hand is thanks to bands like All Out War, who paved the way for the new breed of bad seeds who fill the pages of MetalSucks these days (did you see what I did there?).

It’s hard to believe AOW has been a band for nearly twenty years now — partly because they’ve largely flown under the radar — but they’ve been going strong since 1991. Along with contemporaries like Merauder, Overcast, Starkweather, Candiria, and Mayday, they were one of the very first bands to combine NY-style hardcore with death metal, creating the blueprint for legions of riff-salad deathcore bands today.

I hadn’t talked to AOW singer Mike Score in about ten years, but I was really happy to catch up with him. Aside from being a really nice, smart guy, he’s also one of the few people our age who is able to both fondly remember the old days and respect what the current generation of kids are creating — something that MS readers who can’t read the words “Suicide Silence” without getting worked up into a frothy rage might want to learn from.

Anyway, AOW has a new album, Into the Killing Fields, out now on Victory. You should check it out (buy it on iTunes here). And thanks to Mike for taking the time to talk with me!

Click to read more…