And now, another installment of the hardcore festival news round-up known as Pit Romney!

Over the weekend, the folks behind Seattle’s Rain Fest made their initial line-up announcement, being the first of the Spring/Summer season’s crop to do so. In addition to performances from 2011 fest alums Losing Skin, Oblivion, Rotting Out, Wisdom In Chains, Wreck, and Xibalba, 2012′s iteration will also boast sets from Backtrack, Clarity, CodeXRed, Cold World, Dead End Path, Earth Control, Expire, FocusedXMinds, Incendiary, Soul Search, Strain, Trapped Under Ice, and Twitching Tongues. So far a solid lineup, though noticeably missing legacy acts or headliners. (Last year’s fest featured 7 Seconds, for example.) Another round of acts will be revealed February 15, at which time the 3-day passes for this May 25-27 event will go on sale.

Click to read more…

If you live near Baltimore and you just can’t wait for Maryland Death Fest, great news: there’s ANOTHER ridiculously cool fest coming to destroy your town next week! Its’s the A389 Recordings VIII Anniversary Bash, and as you can see from the above poster, the line-up is disgusting: Eyehategod and Integrity are co-headlining, while other bands on bill include Gehenna, Pulling Teeth, Magrudergrind, Weekend Nachos, and a ton of other excellent artists.

It’s a very rare occurrence that I wish I lived in Baltimore. This is one of those times.

Tickets are currently on sale here, and if for some reason you don’t know these bands or you’re not sold on the line-up, you can listen to a sweet, sweet A389 Recordings VIII Anniversary Bash playlist at Stereokiller. Heck, you might just wanna listen to it even if you can’t make it to the show, ’cause it’s an awesome playlist.

Finally, you can also go here to get more info on A389 Recordings.

-AR

So, hey, I dunno if you guys heard, but earlier this month we put on this totally rad festival, The Metal Suckfest? No big deal, it was just twenty awesome bands in two days, whatever.

So ANYWAY, our brahs over at Metal Injection were there to film another edition of their awesome “Ask the Artist” series, in which they — duhskis! – ask a variety of artists one particular question… in this case, “What sucks about metal?” Check out the answers from the bands that played The Metal Suckfest — plus a couple of incredibly handsome non-musicians (cough, Vince and I, cough, cough) below:

And don’t forget that you can check out more awesome installments of “Ask the Artist” right here. DO IT!!!

-AR

So, uh, hey, did we happen to mention that The Metal Suckfest took place this past weekend at the Gramercy Theatre here in New York? Well… it did! And we had an awesome time. Twenty incredible bands all kicked our asses and shredded our reproductive organs; we are truly exhausted, and can’t wait to do it again.

In case ya weren’t able to attend, our friend Justina Villanueva was there to capture all the action. After the jump, check out some killer photos of Municipal Waste, God Forbid, Today is the Day, This is Hell, Howl, Black Tusk, Magrudergrind, All Pigs Must Die, and Ramming Speed. We’ll have some more great pics from night two of the fest later this week!

Click to read more…

The Metal Suckfest is this weekend!!! And in case you’re not familiar with, or are somehow not sold on, the twenty incredible bands we’ve booked to play THE party of the year, we have scoured YouTube for recent live footage of ALL the artists playing the fest… so you can have a little taste of the madness we have in store for ya! (The exception is Prime Evil, who are actually reuniting after being dormant for some time. So their live footage is from back in the day.) Today, we’re posting clips of all the bands playing on Friday, November 4; tomorrow, we’ll post clips of all the bands playing on Saturday, November 5.

And don’t forget: TOMORROW and TOMORROW ONLY, ALL TICKETS TO THE METAL SUCKFEST ARE JUST $25 EACH with no added fees, regardless of whether you buy tickets online, or just walk up to the box office at the Gramercy Theatre. So if you don’t already have your tickets, make sure you take advantage!!!

And now, without further ado, enjoy concert footage of all the bands playing Day One of The Metal Suckfest!

MUNICIPAL WASTE

More after the jump!

Click to read more…

The Inaugural Metal Suckfest is almost here!!!! Twenty bands will DESTROY The Gramercy Theatre on November 4 and 5, PLUS there’s an awesome, five-band pre-party at the venue the night before, making this THE can’t-miss hang of the year.

Tickets are on sale now right here, and you can hit up the fest’s official website for more info on the shows, including the complete line-up. In the meantime, we’re counting down to this weekend of chaos and debauchery by speaking to one member from each band on the bill. We continue today with guitarist R.J. Ober of Magrudergrind, whose most recent release, the EP Crusher, was released last year via Scion A/V.

Read our chat after the jump. And don’t forget to check back in the coming days and weeks for interviews with more of the musicians participating in this awesome event!!!

Click to read more…

I meant to remind you guys yesterday but I’m a dick so I forgot — Arch Enemy’s North American Khaos Tour, which we here at MetalSucks are very proudly co-presenting, is now underway! I’ve been trying to find fan-filmed footage from last night’s kickoff show in Baltimore to no avail, but I hear the concert was great… which is really no shock. Especially given that the three support bands — DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch, and Chthonic — are all as much fun as Arch Enemy! You can get dates here. If anyone is gonna be at the NYC show tonight, come find us. I’ll be the really, really not-sober guy in the back screaming for them to play “Savage Messiah” over and over again.

Now, here’s some stuff we did this week:

• We debuted new music from Black Cobra.
• We also debuted an outtake from the movie Hesher and a clip from Fantomas’ new live DVD.
• We spoke to Charlie Benante from Anthrax and Avi Kulawy from Magrudergrind.
• We checked out the latest releases from Brutal Truth, Wolves in the Throne Room,and Bloodsoaked.
• We debated the merits of new songs from Mastodon, Opeth, and Megadeth.
• We launched The Third Annual “Run MetalSucks for a Day” contest.
• Vince listed “The Top Fifteen Reasons Metallica are the Yankees of Metal,” and then The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley offered a retort.
• We fucked Bret Michaels in the motherfucking eye.
• We voted for Sergeant D.’s acoustic cover of The Acacia Strain.
• We almost had to kill a puppy.

And, oh hey, did we mention that tickets for The Metal Suckfest are on sale now? We did? Okay, swell!

Have a good weekend, y’all. See ya Monday.

-AR

That’s right! Tickets for The Metal Suckfest — the two day festival with a line-up so ridiculously awesome we can’t believe we actually put this thing together — are ON SALE RIGHT NOW.

You can buy tickets to Day 1 (November 4) or Day 2 (November 5) individually for thirty bucks a pop — that’s just three dollars per band!!! — or, for your best value, buy a THREE DAY PASS! for seventy-five bucks.

“Wait, there’s a THIRD day?” you ask. That’s right! On November 3, the night before the fest officially kicks off, we’re hosting The Metal Suckfest Pre-Game, which will be headlined by legendary black metallers Mayhem and will also feature Keep of Kalessin, Hate, Abigail Williams, and Woe. Individual tickets to that show cost twenty-five dollars, but with your Metal Suckfest 3 Day Pass, you get a ten dollar discount. Pretty sweet, eh?

So GO BUY TICKETS NOW. The full line-up is after the jump, in case you forgot… do not forget that four more bands are still yet to be announced!!!

Click to read more…

In what seems like really not that much time, Magrudergrind have become one the most popular bands in all of grind — and it’s easy to see why. Not only do their albums kick ass all up and down the boulevard, but their live show is truly something to behold. Last year, a friend of mine who didn’t “get” the appeal of Magurdergind’s recordings saw them live and was promptly won over by them, which, really, is the highest compliment that can be paid to a band’s live act.

Whether you’re already aware of how great they are live or you still need to have your Magrudercherry popped, you’re in luck — the band’s nine day tour with the legendary Despise You begins tomorrow night (get dates here). We couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to e-mail Magrudergrind front man Avi Kulawy some typically irritating MetalSucks-style questions. Lucky for us, he was a good sport about it!

After the jump, get Kulawy’s thoughts on what makes this particular tour special, which member of Magrudergrind has the stinkiest van farts, vocal warm-ups fit for grindcore, and more.

Click to read more…

Click to enlarge the ridiculously sweet poster art by Rodney Githens from Vertebrae 33 and Metal Band Art

When we first announced The Metal Suckfest, we promised you that it was NOT just a bunch of tours already-in-progress, routed so that they all converge for one event. That it was NOT just bands that all sound alike and one would normally expect to find on the same bill. That it would be a wholly unique concert in which some truly incredible artists are coming together JUST to play THIS ONE SINGLE EVENT.

And now you know — we weren’t lying.

We are SO PROUD to announce the line-up for the inaugural Metal Suckfest, which will take place November 4 and November 5 at The Gramercy Theatre in Manhattan. As you can see, the bands range from thrash to death to grind to prog to noise rock to NWOAHM to stoner to we don’t even know what you call it, but they all have one thing in common — they are all fucking awesome, and they are all 110% MetalSucks approved. This fest is gonna be so great, we keep having to pinch ourselves to make sure it’s real.

Tickets go on sale Friday at LiveNation.com at 10 am. 12 noon. We’ll be announcing the final four bands on the bill shortly, but trust us — you don’t wanna wait to get your ticket.

Here’s the rest of the line-up:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4
Municipal Waste
God Forbid
Today is the Day
This is Hell
Howl
Black Tusk
Magrudergrind
All Pigs Must Die
Ramming Speed
Prime Evil

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Cynic
Obscura
The Red Chord
3
A Life Once Lost
Scale the Summit
Last Chance to Reason
Fight Amp
Rosetta
Ultrageist

-Vince, Axl, and Everyone at MetalSucks

Magrudergrind and Despise You are teaming for a too-brief tour this September, and while I know that a very small amount of you live in locations that will allow you to attend, I wanna make sure that those of you who can go to one of these shows do go. Because these bands are awesome, and doubly so live. Hopefully you already know that, or are open to learning it, ’cause it’s undeniable truth.

So, to review: Magrudespiseyou tour, MetalSucks readers who live in the area attend. Simple simple simple.

Here’s a great promo video for the tour made by Sean “Spleen Latifah” Gresens from Metal Injection…

…and tour dates are after the jump! As a bonus, some of these shows include other amazing bands, too, like Cannabis Corpse and Defeatist. So, really, just go. Did I mention that you should go? ‘Cause you should.

Click to read more…

Eyehategod are playing Europa in Brooklyn tonight with Misery Index, Magrudergrind, Strong Intention, and Mutilation Rights; that’s a sweet, sweet line-up, and the last time Eyehategod played Europa, they basically tore the place right the fuck apart. (There’s also something kinda funny about Eyehategod playing a venue that is, quite literally, right next door to a police station.)

Alas, I won’t be there, and I don’t think Vince will, either. But at least we can console ourselves with this footage of the band playing a new song in Philly on Wednesday night. And it sounds quite Eyehategod-like. The band is supposed to have a new album, called Whiskey Drink, out later this year, and this bodes well for it being appropriately scummy. Check it out…

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

Last week our friend Justin Foley from The Austerity Program made a very impassioned and well-reasoned argument as to why Magrudergrind shouldn’t have agreed to work with Scion. I really enjoyed reading Justin’s piece, and I agreed with almost none of it. For me, this really comes down to two issues:

• Yes, metal shows would happen whether or not Scion paid for them, but free day-long metal shows headlined by bands like Neurosis and Cannibal Corpse probably would not. To the kid who just walked in for the cost of nothing (as opposed to whatever they have to pay for, say, Ozzfest), the question “Who’s footing the bill for this?” is moot. Not hurting is that, in my experience, the actual advertising for Scion at Scion shows is incredibly non-invasive, especially when compared to the corporate sponsorship for most festivals.
• Yes, metal albums would get made whether or not Scion paid for them, but the more time talented and creative people get to spend being talented and creative instead of doing whatever they do at their day job, the more we all benefit. I’ll never complain that someone made it possible for an excellent band to make music instead of taking my order unless they ask that band to compromise their art in order to do so, which, clearly, was not the case in this instance.

And on top of all that, there’s the simple fact that Magrudergrind’s resulting EP, Crusher, is awesome. Awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome. I’m so happy to have it, and I really don’t give a fuck who paid for it. I can promise you that at no point during my initial listens of the album did I think about cars. All I thought about what how fucking much I love this band.

And on that note, you can now stream Crusher below. I thought that Brooklyn Vegan was gonna stop giving away the album for free download after the weekend, but it looks like it’s still up, so go grab it if you haven’t already. You can also get it in CD or vinyl form here.

-AR

Allow me to shill for a beat before the weekend: If you haven’t already bought one of our new, limited edition shirts, go get yours now!!! They’re selling fast, and soon they will be the title of a God Forbid album. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Here’s some other fun stuff we did this week:

• Valient Thorr’s Valient Himself gave us the rundown on Fun Fun Fun Fest, The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks found the CFL fun and confusing, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable talked about the best and worst drives in the U.S., and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley is the latest to weigh in on free metal from Scion.
• We debuted new music from Murder Construct.
• We spoke to Pentagram’s Bobby Liebling and Christopher Drew from Nevershotnever and Eatmewhileimhot.
• We checked out the latest releases from Riotgod, Electric Wizard, Rimfrost, and First Blood and Killing the Dream.
• We asked you about old school bands you wanted to like but couldn’t.
• We joined Gene Simmons, Slash, and Dave Navarro in having NOH8 for gays.
• We laughed at both Kirk Hammett and the little girl he kicked.
• We also laughed at Sebastian Bach’s frail ego.
• We got really excited about the new single from The Human Abstract.
• We also got really excited about Decibel‘s new flexi disc series.

Have a nice, relaxing weekend gang. We’ll miss you muchly, but we’ll see ya Monday.

-AR

I looked at BBG this morning and saw that they had some free music available by Magrudergrind. I’m not too familiar with the band, but was a bit surprised to see that they have released the record through Scion, the car company. And when I say “a bit surprised,” I mean the kind of surprised that reminds you of what you had for breakfast because it’s figuring on making a repeat appearance.

Before I begin, please let me note a few things. First, these are people with whom I am generally simpatico – they play abrasive, heavy music, they take the time to think about what they’re doing, and they’re not doing stuff that, on the face of it, is simply wrong (like lobbying for the weapons industry or hiring scabs or kicking puppies). They seem like nice guys. And really: this is small, small potatoes in a world that includes starvation, disease and the cultural cancer of Dancing with the Stars. I also recognize that this stuff is interesting to talk about because it cannot be reasonably argued by appealing to absolutes; this topic is a world of various shades of gray (which, by the way, doesn’t mean that things can’t be right or wrong). So let’s all take this with a grain of salt, right? Perfect.

That said, this Scion record stuff is gross and I think Magrudergrind is dead wrong for doing it.

Click to read more…

Image from J. Randall’s blog. I’m assuming he made this; the car model is actually called the “Hako.”

Hey, remember yesterday, when we told you about that free EP that Magrudergrind are giving away in conjunction with Scion? Well Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s J. Randall apparently isn’t too happy about Magrudergrind associating themselves with the corporate entity — or any metal band associating themselves with the corporate entity.

In a recent blog, Randall criticizes Integrity for failing to live up to their name “w/ their recent Scion showcase at the ROXY,” and then takes Magrudergrind to task for working with Scion, too: “Heres a band that was to ‘punk’ to give Relapse a record but is down to float a fuckin’ ‘SCION’ logo on the front of their album cover? WTF?” Randall doesn’t even think Scion is getting anything out the deal:

Click to read more…

Well, this is some happy-making news.

Magrudergrind, who are surely one of the best grind bands out there right now, have recorded a new EP, entitled Crusher — and are giving it away for free.

It’s being released through Scion A/V, apparently as part of Scion’s ongoing quest to be known as the least-douchiest corporate entity ever.

There are two formats for the six-song EP — CD and 10″ purple vinyl — and if you’re willing to pay six bucks for shipping, you can order your free copy right now, right here. (To Live a Lie Records will also be free copies of the CD version with any order.) But hurry, ’cause this is a “while supplies last” type deal, and I have to imagine supplies won’t last long. So go get it.

-AR

Major thanks to Seven Caso for the tip!!!

Fuck the Facts are doing one last tour this year before they start writing their next album, and you should really go see them, ’cause Fuck the Facts are fucking awesome. Plus, it seems like, whenever possible, they’re doing these shows with other excellent bands — the NYC gig, for example, features both Magrudergrind and Defeatist, who are, respectively, totally killer in their own right. But I’d go even if they weren’t playing with other cool bands. In fact, I’m tempted to get on a plane and go to Sydney, NS, just to see a band called “Fuck the Facts” play a venue called “Christ Church Hall.” ‘Cause, Jesus, that’s kinda funny.

Here are dates:

Click to read more…

2008′s Scott Hull-compiled This Comp Kills Fascists was pretty much the best thing ever; it seemed to feature half the world’s best grind/powerviolence/hardcore/whateverthefuck bands (Brutal Truth, Magrudergrind, Insect Warfare, etc.), and even introduced me to at least one awesome band with whom I was not previously familiar (Weekend Nachos). Also, the album art had a picture of George W. Bush with a swastika made out of cocks coming out of his head, so it’s hard not to get behind that as one of the greatest artistic achievements of the modern age, or possibly just recorded history in general.

Now Hull is curating (can you curate a metal comp?) a second volume, which Relapse will release in North America on June 22, and in Europe on June 28. You can pre-order a copy here. The tracklist hasn’t been released just yet, but announced bands include Lack of Interest, Noisear, Drugs of Faith, Apartment 213, Despise You, Triac, Social Infestation, and Crom. Some of those bands I already know and some I don’t, but it doesn’t matter – Scott Hull has impeccable taste. This comp is going to kill a lot more than just fascists.

No word on which political figures will be getting the genitalia treatment this time out.

-AR

Back in January I got to see the mighty mighty Magrudergrind play a killer (but all too short) set at Cakeshop here in NYC; and by “see,” I mean “hear and occasionally get a glance of the tops of their heads.” See, if you’ve never been there, Cakeshop is basically a basement venue, and this show was pretty crowded, and while I don’t think I qualify as “short,” I’m definitely not tall.

But the band sounded pretty good.

Luckily, my man Sean “Spleen Latifa” Gresens from Metal Injection managed to capture the performance on video, and has now posted footage of the song “Pulverizing Hate Mongers,” so now I can see what I previously only got to hear.

You can check out more clips from this gig here, and the rest of Sean’s live shit here. The man is tireless in his quest to get footage of every good underground band that comes through NYC, so it’s definitely worth keeping up with him…

-AR