Heyyo y’all & happy impending-end-of-the-year!!!!  Sure, life sucks and you’re smelly/ugly, but things are looking up in 2012, I swear!

So if you’re one of those woe-is-me/the-world-owes-you-something negative Nancys, turn that frickin frown inside out and get positive for once.  Maybe you’ll meet the love of your life tomorrow……maybe a suitcase of cash will cross your path…….maybe you WON’T have herpes after all….  Anything is possible, and while we of course need to be prepared for the worst, let’s also not rule out the best.

This Kansas classic contains some of my favorite riffs of all time….

Holy G.I.Joe!!  Prog-thrashsters Carrion Sun have a ridiculous video for a ripping song that will give you one to grow on….  (check em out on Facebook for more music & details on their 12/17 Record Release Show at the House of Blues in Houston, Tejas)

Follow me past the jump for some more musical reasons to simply carry on, son….

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired by the ongoing disaster that is Lou Reed & Metallica’s Lulu, this week we asked our writers:

BESIDES METALLICA AND LOU REED, WHAT IS THE WORST COLLABORATION BETWEEN A METAL BAND/ARTIST AND A NON-METAL BAND/ARTIST? AND WHAT IS THE WORST ONE YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE IN YOUR WILDEST NIGHTMARES?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump!

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Word to the wise: don’t give up on the above video just ’cause it’s not metal. Stick with it. You will be pleased. Honest Injun.

And after you’ve watched, why not review some of our top stories from this week? For example –

• We debuted new music from Leprous and Ihsahn.
• Daath’s Eyal Levi declared that not all people are created equal.
• Francesco Artusato from All Shall Perish and Aaron Beam from Red Fang told us about their live rigs.
• We checked out the latest releases from Today is the Day and Eschaton.
• Vince, Anso, Gary, and Leyla unveiled their respective favorite albums of 2011 thus far.
• We started celebrating 31 days of Faith No More.
• We got an in-depth analysis of the genius of Crazy Town.
• We suggested that the Insane Clown Posse might wanna re-think their stance on concert security.
• We hired Manowar to play our next office party.
• We broke the news that Last Chance to Reason have parted ways with two members.

Next week we make the biggest announcement of our lives. Be there or be be square.

-AR

Now-bankrupt metal blog Metal Inquisition hired Manowar to play their office party in Moscow back in 2009… and would you just look at the expression of pure joy on the face of Roger from Accounts Payable? Brad from Marketing, in the black shirt to Roger’s right, was none too pleased that Roger spent MI’s entire 2009 ad revenue on hiring Manowar despite multiple warnings that “kids don’t listen to that stuff these days.” And now you know why Metal Inquisition isn’t around anymore and Sergeant D came to write for us.

-VN

Since summer and, thus, summer festivals are almost upon us, I thought I’d take a closer look at Sonisphere, one of the biggest European music festivals. Mostly because I wanted to do some research on it, since  it’s the only festival in which I am indulging this year. Probably.

(Note: I don’t much like festivals, especially ones that are outdoors. The bands I like never play for that long ,and unless I want to be stuck in the way back, I have to suffer through all the other artists just to get a decent spot. Not to mention, the weather. I hate hot weather. I swear to God I was born with menopause, because I’m always having hot flashes. I try to spend my summers carefully planning my routes with air conditioning and avoiding any chance of getting damp that isn’t shower or pool/sea/any body of water-related. But no one likes a cranky, sweaty bitch, and I split my time between two especially humid cities, so I grit my teeth and steel myself for my few months of personal hell.)

The Sonisphere Festival has been around only since 2009, when Stuart Galbraith joined the events company Kilimanjaro Live. His idea was to hold a series of events that would change and adapt to wherever they were being held. That’s what is really interesting about Sonisphere — unlike a traveling festival with one specific list of musicians and bands that tour the continent, they have a changing roster of artists for each “territory.” In 2009, the Germany date featured Die Toten Hosen and The Prodigy, adding a more punk and house air to the festival, while the Sweden shows featured The Cult and Primal Scream to suit their audience. Of course, there are bands that headline each show (in this case it was Metallica), but I’ve never seen audience preference be such a priority for a huge festival.

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Anyone who was unfortunate enough to have well-meaning-yet-clueless relatives knows the feeling of disappointment. After weeks of anticipation, staring at the shiny boxes under the Christmas tree and wondering what’s inside, you eagerly tear open your presents. What lies inside? GI Joes? Transformers?? A BB gun? A new Nintendo?!? Mind racing and adrenaline pumping, you open the first box and are brutally assaulted by reality: your hippie uncle got you some handmade, wooden train from his recent trip to Chile. And it only gets worse — grandma gave you a subscription to Highlights, and mom got you enough socks and underwear to last you through high school. Dejected, you retreat to your bedroom and pout while thinking about all the awesome presents the other kids must have gotten.

This is the same feeling I got all too often as a young metal fan in the late 80s/early 90s. Back then, without the internet, finding new bands was a real crapshoot — you really never knew what you were in for when you bought a new record unless you manged to catch them on Headbanger’s Ball. You did the best you could with what you had, but it wasn’t much to go on. Time and time again I was tricked by a cool logo, sweet cover art, or a name that sounded brutal — what I thought was going to be ass-ripping thrash or hardcore turned out to be dreadful hard rock, third-rate speed metal, or limp-wristed art rock. I tried so hard to be positive and enjoy the album that I had squandered my $8 on, but I just couldn’t do it.

In no particular order, here are a few of the dozens upon dozens of bands who I tried to like, but simply could not. What are yours??

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Usually I don’t like Euro-metal, but sometimes I make exceptions — for example Gut, Female Nose Breaker, and Mercyful Fate. You can add Germany’s cleverly-named Cunthunt777 to the list of Euro bands who get a pass from me (via our bros at Weedsteeler). In the groundbreaking video below, these angry bros in sweatpants walk around menacingly in what appears to be a shabby warehouse while  hardcore dancing and making wiggerish arm movements at the camera.

As you can see, there are enough puffy jackets to make Johnny Plague jealous, and nothing goes together quite as well as generic breakdowns and puffy outerwear! I suppose there is an outside chance this song is a joke (the band lists their genre on Myspace as “death metal/concrete/rap”), but in my experience Euros are far too simple and dimwitted to pull off something as sublime as this video for a joke. As evidenced by the existence of Manowar, All Around The World, Scooter, and jumpstyle, they seem to be completely lacking any sense of self-awareness, and are therefore incapable of irony. But if this is a joke, then hats off– you fooled me!

What is your favorite part of this video? Is this the ultimate expression of deathcore steez??? Do you think Johnny Plague is fuming with jealousy right now??? Can any of our German readers translate the lyrics???

-Sergeant D

-KW

Self-aware metal songs always hit that sweet spot for me. Manowar? Come on. Nothing beats a rousing singalong of “Fighting the World” (see also: every other Manowar song ever).

So when Suckalo “Clockwise Music” sent us a link to Toehider‘s “The Most Metal Song in The World” it was pretty much a no-brainer from the get-go that it was gonna be awesome. The unfortunately named Australians in Toehider are apparently releasing 12 EPs in as many months; I’m all for new and creative ways of releasing music, but that seems like a bit much, no? In any case it matters not, because this song rules. Check it:

Toehider are made of steel, not clay.

-VN

The fine folks at the unfuckwithable Deciblog have published a list of the Top 10 Manliest Metal Album Covers of all time, and the results are extremely manly indeed. I was thrilled at the inclusion of Accept’s super-studly Balls to the Wall, and not one but two Manowar covers. My only suggestion would have been Poison’s uber-hetero Look What the Cat Dragged In, but I’m sure Decibel would rather shut its doors forever than proclaim anything by Poison manly in the slightest.

On Accept, those German stud-machines, who came in at #4:

Uh, this album cover has been poured over by many a metalhead. What does it mean? What are Accept trying to communicate here? Should I feel slightly uncomfortable when I gaze upon this man’s sweaty/hairy tensed-up leg? Why is he holding a ball? What type of ball is it? It looks hard. How do I know this? Well, the man’s veins are showing. Not his main vein (thank Thor in a g-string!), but the veins in his hand. All these years and we still haven’t reached a conclusion. And, yes, even now we’re slightly uncomfortable.

Touche.

-VN

So I’ve been living in the UK for about four months now, and have managed to take in quite a lot of this “culture” thing they’re so fond of over here. I’ve been to nine countries, eight major metal festivals, and a handful of cities in Ol’ Blighty itself; I’ve gate-crashed hotel parties in Norway with the drummer of Swallow the Sun, stage-dived into a sea of muddy grind freaks in the Czech Republic, gotten roaring drunk with Wolves in the Throne Room in the Netherlands, met Gaahl’s boyfriend in France, gotten lost in Rome, watched Electric Wizard blow an amp in Manchester, lost my mind to Eyehategod at Hellfest, seen Manowar (‘nuff said there) – and that was just the first couple months. Between all the metal, mud, bruises, whiskey, calimocho, hard cider, and terrifying Czech liquor (Becherovka and Fernet are no fucking joke, even if it is Kevin Sharp and Danny Herrera pouring you a shot), I realized that, somehow, something was still missing.

To my immense chagrin, I had yet to take that all-too-necessary pilgrimage up through the Black Country and into the Unholy Land itself – to Birmingham, England. Every metaller worth his leather (and several million other music fans besides) knows exactly why this unimpressive, coal-smudged city matters so much. Birmingham is the ancestral home of heavy metal. Everything – whether it be doom, black metal, powerviolence, or even the plague that is deathcore – everything came from here. The famed Mermaid Pub provided a fertile breeding ground for extreme metal, nestled as it was in a dodgy part of town where the cops ignored the punkers and longhairs milling around out front as the early rumblings of a deadly new sound thundered away upstairs The city itself was the original stomping ground of the dirty sexy hard rock’n’roll of Led Zeppelin, the NWOBHM gods in Judas Priest, the crusty proto-grind of Sore Throat, the scummy grindcore forefathers of Napalm Death, the industrial noise terror of Godflesh, and the one and only BLACK FUCKING SABBATH.

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You bitched and moaned about daylight savings time, even though you were asleep when the clocks changed and you get an extra hour of daylight every day until November. You are all retards.

Here’s what else happened this week:

• Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima gave us another studio report (no naked Dr. Mikannibal pics, sorry), Early Man’s Mike Conte got his cheesesteak on, and Neuraxis’ Alexandre Leblanc gave us his final tour blog.
• We spoke with Darkane’s Christofer Malmstrom, Meshuggah’s Marten Hagstrom, Soilwork’s Peter Wichers and Ross the Boss (ex-Manowar)
• Our man-crush on Trent Reznor grew ever greater.
• You argued over who was the most important member of Metallica, past and present.
• We looked at new releases by Razor of Occam and Karl Sanders.
• It was a big week in the Norwegian courts… the Gorgoroth case was settled, and Varg was granted parole.
• Crazytown and Skunk Anansie are getting back together.

Next week Kip and I take off for Austin, TX on Wednesday. We’ll be live-blogging whenever possible. To everyone else, have fun not being there, suckazzz!!

-VN

As a guitarist, Ross “Ross the Boss” Funicello has had a significant role in the development of much of the music we’ve come to love over the last thirty years. For New York proto-punks The Dictators, he welded bare bones rock and roll and pop hooks with sneering attitude, though never gained the godlike status of fellow metropunks The Ramones. As a founding member of muscle ‘n’ loincloth legends Manowar, he provided chest-beating, anthemic fretwork for the band’s revered first six albums. Though he hasn’t been dormant by any means since his departure from the latter band, last year’s New Metal Leader - released under his own moniker with Manowar cover band Men of War (now known as the RTB Band) filling out the rest of the lineup – is a return to the balls-out trad/power metal his most famous band was known for. The album charted in Germany, and the band are working on a followup when not touring in support of it. During a recent interview with MetalSucks, Ross the Boss – equipped with a thick New York accent and a very strong set of opinions – discussed his thoughts on his legacy, reunions (of which he’s been a part with Manowar and The Dictators), his favorite guitarists, and how the current state of the music industry is screwing over bands.

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