With all due respect to Mark Hunter — a talented vocalist, extraordinary Tweeter, and Chimaira’s lone original member — this footage of three new[ish] members of Chimaira rehearsing together is about as exciting as this story’s headline makes it sound. While some would say this is “rehearsal” footage, it’d probably be a lot more accurate to call it “learning” footage. It looks like Daath’s Emil Werstler — Chimaira’s senior-most member with a 10-month silver coin – is running the show here and teaching the two new guys how to play Chimaira songs. These guys are all talented musicians and I’m sure the finished product will sound great, but at what point in the mass exodus of members does a band stop being that band? Watching a bunch of men in different bands learn songs so they can go up on stage and pretend to be some other band is just weird! On the other hand, if some kid who knows nothing of all the member swaps goes to a show and loves it, does it even matter? Does life even matter?? Aren’t we all gonna die eventually anyway?!?!?

Maybe Hunter is trying to go the Chris Barnes route; shit, Barnes has been doing it for years and Six Feet Under are still going strong… so I guess fans really don’t care. Speaking of Six Feet Under, former members of Chimaira just wrapped up their Six Feet Under cover band recording sessions and are currently in the mixing process! Now the former members of Six Feet Under just need to join up with Eyal Levi in a reconsituted version of Daath and this three-band circle jerk will be complete.

-VN

Over the weekend, Chimaira’s Mark Hunter posted four demos from the band’s most recent release (and one of my favorite albums of 2011), The Age of Hell. Two of those demos are for songs which appeared on the finished product, “Clockwork” and the bonus track “Scum of the Earth,” and those are kinda interesting to listen to for the same reason all demos are kinda interesting to listen to — because it’s fun to compare and contrast with the finished product.

More exciting, though, are two demos for untitled tracks which, for whatever reason, did not actually make it onto Hell. And they’re both pretty good, but one of them is REALLY fucking good, hitting that sweet groove G spot the way only this band can. I’d love hear Chimaira finish this one up someday, although if now-departed guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries had a hand in writing it, that may not be possible…

Unreleased Age Of Hell Demo by MarkHunter108

Pretty sweet, no?

Check out the other demos after the jump.

Click to read more…

So it looks like Chimaira kept pretty busy while we were away.

First: as announced in November, last week’s twelfth annual Chimaira Christmas marked the band’s final performance with guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries. And, unfortunately, DeVries’ parting gift to vocalist Mark Hunter – who is now the band’s sole remaining original member — was to knock him over in the middle of “The Age of Hell,” resulting in Hunter taking a nasty spill and spraining his ankle. You can watch video of the incident below courtesy of The PRP (the fall comes just after the 1:18 mark), and see a photo of Hunter’s swollen ankle here.

Potentially better news is that while Hunter had thus far remained mum on his plans for Chimaira’s future, the band has since announced replacements for Arnold and DeVries.

Click to read more…

First, read vocalist — and now sole remaining original member — Mark Hunter’s statement on the matter. My own thoughts follow.

I would like to start off by thanking our fans for a great tour. This last run was a blast, and truly the most fun we’ve had in a long while. The energy from the audience was exactly what we needed, and a welcoming return. Thank you guys!

Unfortunately, as much fun as we were having, behind the scenes we were aware of some unfortunate realities that prevented us from “living the dream” and having the time of our lives. We had another bomb to drop on the fans.

Early in July we were informed that Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries would be leaving Chimaira at the end of 2011. Of course this was a huge blow, but there were no hard feelings. We understand that life invades art, everything runs its course, and we have to take different paths.

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In news that will shock no one who follows him on Twitter (or enjoyed the slow-but-brutal grooves on The Infection, for that matter), Chimaira vocalist Mark Hunter likes to smoke weed. And, like so many of us who enjoy herbal refreshments, Hunter has now had a run-in with 5-0. Last night he was arrested in San Antonio for possession; as a result, he missed last night’s Chimaira show, and keyboardist/fellow marijuana afficionado Sean Z. filled-in on lead vocals again.

Hunter seems to be in surprisingly good spirits about the incident, though, if the tweets he’s been sending out since his release are any indication:

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Well, here’s some shit luck: Chimaira’s U.S. tour in support of their excellent new album, The Age of Hell, LITERALLY just started, and vocalist/Tweeter Laureate Mark Hunter has already fallen ill. That means that, unfortunately, he was forced to bow out of last night’s show at the Sonar in Baltimore, Maryland.

The silver lining, though, is that Chimaira now counts Dååth’s Sean Z. amongst its ranks — technically, he’s the band’s new keyboard player/sampler/electronic noise dude, but, of course, that motherfucker can scream his guts out with the best of ‘em. And so, as part of a noble effort to see to that the fans at least kinda-sorta got what they paid for, Chimaira took the stage with Mr. Z handling lead vocal duties, and, as The PRP affectionately puts it, “became more ‘Chimairååth’ than ever.”

Here’s video from the show:

Click to read more…

So, clearly, Mark Hunter wins V.I.P. of the week, and probably the month, and possibly the year for his exploits on Twitter this week. So for the third and final time, I encourage you to follow him and if you have a question, ask it. ‘Cause, holy shit, I dunno if you guys realize how amazing this opportunity is. Do you know how I would have felt if I could have asked Chris Barnes a question back in the day and gotten an honest response pretty much in real time? My fucking head would have exploded. These are truly amazing times in which we live, and I hope more industry folk follow Hunter’s lead and start using social networking platforms for a useful, intelligent dialogue like this one.

Also, while I’m on the topic, check out Chimaira’s new album, The Age of Hell. It’s possibly in Best Buy, definitely on iTunes and Amazon, and certainly on Spotify. And it’s fucking good.

And on that note, here’s some shit we did this week:

• We debuted a new live track by the mighty Terror.
• Dream Theater’s Mike Mangini, Arch Enemy’s Sharlee D’Angelo, and DevilDriver’s Mike Spreitzer all took us through their live rigs.
• GWAR’s Dave Brockie kept us up-to-date on all things NFL, and Eyal Levi from Dååth talked about the value of not wasting time.
• We spoke to Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher, Warbringer’s John Kevill, The Crown’s Marko Tervonen, and the legendary Michael Monroe.
• We checked out the latest releases from Machine Head, Bush, Komondor, and Rotting Out and Homicidal.
• We celebrated the life of the late, great Cliff Burton and bemoaned the horribleness of Loutallica.
• We watched an amazing short documentary about Juggalos.
• We also watched Tom Morello on Real Time with Bill Maher.
• We took Tori Amos out back and beat the shit out of her.
• We applauded Korn’s ongoing innovations in being terrible.

-AR

This is a really long post and I apologize in advance. I’ve tried to edit it down and this is as short as I can make it without sacrificing any of the points I’m trying to drive home. Sorry.

I got home last night around 11:30 pm, and to my surprise and delight, Chimaira’s Mark Hunter was STILL GOING on his tweeting tear (new topics of discussion include the very depressing realities of touring in a van versus paying for a bus, and how a band’s road crew can sometimes make more money than the band itself does), continuing to answer HUNDREDS of fans’ questions on all facets of the music business, and pulling yet even more industry insiders, like DevilDriver’s Dez Fafara, into the mix. In fact, Hunter was still going as of about 3 a.m. EST this morning, hours after I’d finally hit the sack, and literally just as I started typing this, I noticed that he is now awake and at it again. And I would like to re-emphasize the amazingness of this conversation. Not only should you be following Mark on Twitter, but you should also read this really, really incredible interview that Metal Insider published earlier today on the whole topic — not only is it another nice summation of much of what Hunter has been discussing, but it goes into even greater depth on many of these topics.

ANYWAY, my contribution to this ongoing discussion was to express surprise that no one had brought up the topic of publicists yet; Mark promptly did address the topic (and discusses it a little more in the aforementioned Metal Insider interview), and I’m going to publish his thoughts after the jump. But I also want to take some time and express my own thoughts on the important role publicists play in this industry. ‘Cause, as I said on Twitter last night, your band does not need to be signed to have a publicist, and, yes, if you can afford one, a good PR rep is totally worth having.

Click to read more…

Photo by Todd Bell

I was updating MetalSucks’ Twitter account yesterday when I noticed that Chimaira vocalist Mark Hunter was in the middle of an absolute Tweet-a-Thon, answering literally hundreds of fans’ questions about the music business. (He also got some other musicians and industry insiders, including including Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe, GWAR front man/MetalSucks columnist Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie, and Metal Blade’s Brian Slagel involved.) And this wasn’t just non-specific generalizations, either — Hunter was being incredibly forthcoming on his thoughts about record labels, streaming services like Spotify and YouTube, how much Chimaira makes from physical CD sales, physical DVD sales, and touring, and much, much more. In fact, Hunter went on for so long that he actually EXCEEDED the limit of tweets that Twitter would allow him to send for a day, at which point he moved the conversation over to his Facebook account. I followed the back-and-forth for as long as I could, but had to bow out at a certain point to attend to other things, and made a mental note to write about it all today. And, hey, guess what? As of at least five hours ago, Hunter was still going. Wowza.

So now I’d like to go over a few of the highlights. Even if you’re not a Chimaira fan, this is worth checking out, ’cause, again, it pertains to the music industry, and is not all Chimaira-specific. And so:

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via Badass

Reading the comments under our announcement of The Metal Suckfest has been a lot of fun — mostly because the predictions regarding which other bands will be on the bill have been so very, very wrong. Hopefully we’ll get to announce a few more bands next week, but in the meantime, you cats need to try harder and be a little more imaginative when speculating.

And while you do that, here’s how we kept ourselves amused this week:

• We debuted new music by Today is the Day, Monstro, and, thanks to our friends at Decibel, Skeletonwitch.
• We also debuted a new video by Venia.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable and Borknagar’s Jens Ryland both weighed in on the Century Media/Spotify drama.
• We spoke to Chimaira’s Mark Hunter, Dead Letter Circus’ Kim Benzie, Trapped Under Ice’s Justice Tripp, and three of the dudes from Fleshgod Apocalypse.
• We checked out the latest release from Wizard Smoke.
• We examined the evolution of deathcore.
• We felt bad for the sixteen year old who just got fired from Design the Skyline.
• We got excited about the Black Sabbath reunion, until we found out that it’s not confirmed yet.
• We carefully examined the first promo photo of Metallica with Lou Reed.
• We continued to count down  31 Days of Faith No More.

Until next week… eat your vegetables, stay in school, don’t drink and drive.

-AR

If I’m not mistaken, Chimaira vocalist Mark Hunter has now been interviewed for MetalSucks more times than any other musician — which is fine by me. Not only is he one of my favorite front men all of modern metal, but I always come away from these interviews feeling like I actually learned something about a band I love. In a world where it increasingly feels like too many folks are giving what I’d call “paint by numbers” answers to interview questions, Hunter’s willingness to be so sincere is always refreshing.

And, besides, Chimaira’s new album, The Age of Hell (out today on eOne — stream it here, buy physical copies here, or download it from iTunes here), is not only totally awesome, but it arrives admist a flurry of drama and controversy, as the band changed fifty percent of the line-up in the intervening years since 2009′s The Infection. So there was certainly plenty to discuss this go-’round!

After the jump, read the full transcript of my most recent chat with Hunter, in which he discusses those line-up changes, Hell‘s creation, the band’s upcoming tour plans, and much, much more.

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Chimaira have released a video for “Year of the Snake,” one of my favorite songs from their new album, The Age of Hell. It’s a performance video, but it was directed by Todd Bell, which means it’s, like, a trillion times better than the vast majority of all other performance videos. (The slo-mo mic swinging is especially bad-ass.) Perhaps even more importantly, though, it’s the fans’ first chance to hear an awesome new Chimaira track. I mean, that section right after the second chorus? TOTAL ELEPHANTS MARCHING MADNESS. That thirty-seven seconds of music alone should be enough to make your day.

Interesting side-note about the video: earlier this week, I interviewed vocalist Mark Hunter, and he told me the following about the shoot for the clip:

Click to read more…

Photo by Todd Bell

NOTE: We were all set to premiere this song this morning, but someone blew their load early and released it over the weekend. Luckily for whomever decided that person was, we have some awesome new Chimaira music to serve as an outlet for our rage, so his or her life is most likely still safe… for now. In any case, assuming you didn’t get to hear the tune yet, well, here it is!

The Age of Hell is almost upon us.

It’s no secret that these have been (ahem) hellish times for Chimaira. But if their new single, “Born in Blood” (below), is any indication, than they haven’t missed a beat creatively. A rager in the vein of the band’s anthems “Power Trip” and “Resurrection,”  ”Born in Blood” is Chimaira music at its best: more vicious than a slaughter house, and just as full of hooks. To put it simply, Chimaira have, once again, stuck the fucking landing — and they seem to know it, too.  ”There is no more doubt,” vocalist Mark Hunter bellows in simultaneous acknowledgment and dismissal of the sextet’s recent travails. “We won the war inside our minds… nothing can stop us now.” Yeah, no shit, dude!

So turn you speakers way, way, WAY up — if your walls are shaking and the neighbors are complaining, you’ve got it almost loud enough! — and then check out “Born in Blood” below. Then go here to download the track, which features a guest appearance by Whitechapel’s Phil Bozeman. You can download another new single from the band, “Trigger Finger,” here. Both songs will appear on The Age of Hell, out August 16 via eOne. We can’t wait.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

It’s kind of a weird time to be a Chimaira fan — we know the band is working on a new album for a new label (eOne), and we’ve even gotten to hear the slightest sliver of new music, and yet the band has shed half its line-up since November. (Drummer Andols Herrick just announced his split with the group yesterday.)

I’ve said time and again that I’m really not worried about the ongoing quality of the band’s music, since none of the now-departed members were known for being the songwriters in the group, and, let’s be real, at the end of the day, it really is all about the quality of the songs. That being said, I understand why some Chimaira fans are feeling kinda anxious right now; as fans, these are musicians we’ve come to know and love (and Todd Bell’s various behind-the-scenes DVDs do a really incredible job of making fans feel like they know each member of the band, regardless of whether or not that’s actually true), so, yeah, one might find it a little disconcerting to see these guys fly the coop.

The band understands your concern, though, and are planning to address those concerns in a live chat tonight at 9pm EST/6pm PST. Says vocalist Mark Hunter:

“In addition to answering questions about the new album, we will discuss the past, the present, and the future. We’re looking forward to seeing you all, and please help spread the word. Thank you!”

You can watch the chat here. I’m not sure if I’m gonna be able to be near a computer at 9 pm tonight, so, um, everyone please watch/participate so you can fill me in later!

-AR

[via The PRP]

Alright, so I was out of the office this afternoon at a meeting, and I walk out and check my e-mail on my phone to find like a thousand e-mails from readers pointing us towards this post on The PRP, in which drummer Andols Herrick announces his departure from Chimaira.

Here are some excerpts from Herrick’s statement:

Click to read more…

UPDATE: Vocalist Mark Hunter has addressed fans’ concerns that this means the end of electronic elements to Chimaira’s music: “there are definitely samples, keys, electronics, and all sorts of other wizardry on this record. we’ve spent the past 12 years creating the atmospheric side of chimaira, and we can’t imagine listening to us without those cool bits either.” Read his full statement here.

I always say that no two Chimaira albums are alike, and while we’ve only heard just the teensiest lil’ bit of the band’s forthcoming release, we already know one huge difference their new album and 2009′s The Infection: not only will bassist Jim LaMarca no longer be in the band, but neither will keyboardist/programmer Chris Spicuzza.

Here are some excerpts from a statement Spicuzza released to The PRP:

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Alright, so I have no idea who the YouTube user known as  Music121791 is, but he’s made my day by posting the below video, which shows Chimaira’s longtime producer, Ben Schigel, working on the band’s new album in the studio (peep vocalist Mark Hunter texting in the corner) — which means we get to hear roughly sixty seconds of new music.

And what a sixty seconds it is! That is a classic Chimaira riff right there — fully of groove, heavy as fuck, and retardedly catchy. I need to hear more of this album, and I need to hear it, like, yesterday.

Amazingly, this video — which was not sanctioned by the band — has been on YouTube for over a month, but it was only just brought to my attention by a reader calling himself “Butters” (obviously a Chimaira die-hard like myself).

And weirder still is that in the “suggestions” column next to the above video was a link to ANOTHER video with some MORE killer new Chimaira music in it, which has ALSO been up since February. This one’s audio quality is even worse than that of the first vid, because some dude filmed the band working on Ustream right off his monitor. But if you’re like me, new Chimaira music is new Chimaira music and you’ll take it however you can get it.

Second vid after the jump…

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We’ve known that Chimaira and filmmaker Todd Bell were working on a new full-length DVD pretty much since the recording of The Infection – heck, we’ve even seen a small preview of its contents. But now that DVD has a name, a release day, and – bonus! – a CD component: Coming Alive will be released on July 20 via Ferret. In addition to a new four-part, Bell-directed documentary that covers a year and a half in the life of the band, the DVD will feature a concert film of the band’s tenth annual Chimaira Christmas hometown show from this past December, the awesome “Making of Resurrection” doc that was part of the bonus DVD for that album, plus a documentary made up of forty minutes of home video footage. And, oh yeah, then there’s that CD, which is the audio from the Chimaira Christmas concert.

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I love the end of the year. I mean, I hate the cold fucking weather, I hate the getting fucking dark outside early, I think the holidays are fucking retarded, New Year’s is a total fucking pain in the pass, and then starting in January no good movies come out for a least a month or two. So that all blows.

But the lists… Ah, the lists! So much arguing to be done over what is really just the opinion of one person or possibly a congregation of a few people! Behold as all the frail egos collapse under the need to have their opinion justified by someone they will never admit they perceive as “important” regardless of the fact that everyone eats and breathes and shits the same way! OH MY GOD, I HAVE SEEN THE MADNESS, AND THE MADNESS IS FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC.

So. We’re still more than a month away from publishing our own year-end lists here at MetalSucks, but by n0w all those big glossy analog blogs will have collected their staffs’ lists (’cause they gotta get that shit done way in advance, whereas us nerdonauts can procrastinate like we was gettin’ a one-time-only blow job from Bobbie Brown circa 1990), I know of at least one other blog with a looming deadline for all such lists, and now Metal Hammer has proclaimed that “Every day from now until Christmas, we will be revealing a different band/member of a band’s top albums of the year.”

You can see all the lists here. Musicians who have weighed in thus far include Lamb of God’s Chris Adler and Chimaira’s Mark Hunter. Hey, both those dudes were also cool enough to vote in our 21 albums poll! Awesome! So now you can go give Metal Hammer shit for a change.

-AR

Today I want to talk about acrostics. For those of you who didn’t waste ridiculous amounts of money on a college English degree, an acrostic is when the first letter of each line of a text spell out a message. For example, below is an acrostic from lines 510-514 of book nine of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost:

Scipio the highth of Rome. With tract oblique
At first, as one who sought access, but feard
To interrupt, side-long he works his way.
As when a Ship by skilful Stearsman wrought
Nigh Rivers mouth or Foreland, where the Wind…

This is pretty neat, and, needless to say, it’s not a coincidence. Milton was a smart guy – he read himself blind, for crying out loud. And, of course, acrostics have been used in lots and lots of other pieces of literature.

The reason I bring this up is two-fold:

1. Yesterday former The Panic Channel vocalist/MTV VJ Steve Isaacs tweeted about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto of a California legislative finance bill. It seems that the Governator used an acrostic to tell the California State Assembly “FUCK YOU.” Take a look for yourself here.
2. I re-tweeted Isaacs’ tweet, which in turn lead to longtime reader Saul Hudson shooting me an e-mail pointing out an acrostic in the lyrics to the title track from Chimaira’s Resurrection (video above).

If you’re not familiar with Resurrection, here’s a little background you need for the acrostic to make sense: the album was the band’s first after their acrimonious (or at least semi-acrimonious) parting with Roadrunner Records, and the lyrics to said title track (example: “Free at least/Finally tasting happiness”) are generally accepted as being about the split.

With me so far? Okay. So here’s the acrostic from the song:

Click to read more…