MetalSucks

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:

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There’s a lyric in the song “Hour of Rats” from Fed Through the Teeth Machine, the album by The Red Chord, and this particular lyric has really taken hold in my brain as of late: “WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER TOO LONG TO BE FRIENDS.” What a simple, beautiful statement that I can 110% relate to these days. Hm.

Speaking of The Red Chord…

• We’re streaming The Red Chord’s new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, through Monday! It’s awesome, so definitely give it a listen, then go buy it when Metal Blade releases it on Tuesday, October 27! We also spoke to The Red Chord’s Mike “Gunface” McKenzie.
• We got a European tour wrap-up from Chimaira’s Mark Hunter, had a nice chat with Kowloon Walled City’s Jason Pace, and even played nice with Oceano’s Andrew Mikhail.
• Lord Gold from Horse the Band graced us with another awesome tour blog, Eyal discussed physical CDs, and Dallas explored the evolution and importance of deathcore.
• We checked out new releases from Converge, Ancestors, and Smite the Righteous.
• Janet Reno quit Attack Attack!
• We’re fairly certain that Dave Mustaine is still a Megadick. Actually, we’re positive.

Have a good weekend everyone…

-AR

Photo by Mart Reinson

While winding down their recent European trek with Unearth, Daath and Throwdown, Mark Hunter, vocalist of perennial MetalSucks favorites Chimaira, was cool enough to answer some questions via e-mail. After the jump, get Mark’s thoughts on European audiences versus American audiences, eating at McDonald’s abroad, the joys of Don “The Dragon” Wilson, showers in Germany, and more.

And by the way, there’s a NSFW image in this interview. You were warned.

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If you read this site regularly, you’re already aware that I’m a huge Chimaira fan. In fact, I pride myself on knowing way too much about them.

I guess I haven’t officially reached stalker status yet, though, because until I read this interview with Chimaira lead guitarist Rob Arnold, I had no idea that the dude had another band – The Elite.

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I listened to The Infection over the weekend for the first time in a little while. Guess what? Still kills. I can’t wait to see some of this shit played live.

Here’s a not-so-great quality bootleg of the band playing the first cut off the album, “The Venom Inside.” As Vince says, “This song just makes me happy.” What a killer way to open the show. Sounds like the crowd is almost as loud as Mark Hunter.

Friendly reminder: Chimaira are on tour right now with Hatebreed, Dying Fetus, Toxic Holocaust and Winds of Plague. Then they head to Europe in September with Unearth, Throwdown, and our friends in Daath. You can get all the tour dates here.

-AR

For some reason it makes sense that Mark Hunter from Chimaira is a martial artist and fan of MMA. Furthermore it also makes sense that one of his favorite fighters is the one and only Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva, who is known for being both aggressive and technical. Mark had this to say to MMA Insider about “The Axe Murderer”:

“When I watch him, I try to emulate him quite a bit. He’s got the staredown to end all staredowns.”
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Chimaira have never made the same exact album twice, so the only thing a listener can assume about a new Chimaira record is this: it’s going to be crushingly heavy. This band makes truly unpleasant, misanthropic Metal with a capital fucking “M.” Fuck, their most famous song is all about how they don’t like you very much.

The Infection is no exception. It sounds at once both distinctly like Chimaira and yet not precisely like anything the band has ever made before. The dichotomy of it, though, is that the vitriol is wrapped the catchiest and, in some ways, most optimistic music the Cleveland sextet has ever created.

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I still haven’t heard Chimaira’s The Infection. But because I’m a Chimaira dork, it was with great excitement that I listened to the fifteen second samples of each of the album’s ten songs on Amazon this morning. After the jump, my completely unfair snap judgement on thsi 150 seconds of new Chimaira music.

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“Secrets of the Dead” is so fucking good that it’s just made us that much hungrier for Chimaira’s for new album, The Infection. So hungry, in fact, that last week we posted crappy-quality fan filmed footage of another new song, “Destroy and Dominate” – footage so weak that you could barely hear the actual music.

Well, no need to stick your ear up to the computer speaker anymore: after teasing fans earlier today with the cryptic message “3 pm EST,” the band just posted a link to a free download of the mp3 for the actual studio version of “Destroy and Dominate” on Twitter. You can download the song right now, right here. [UPDATE: Looks like the song is down now. I'm sure clever Chimaira fans will be able to seek it out from their peers - Ed.]

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A big big BIG thanks to MetalSucks Maniacs Cincitucky and Shep, who just brought to my attention that Chimaira have jumped the gun and released a new single, “Secrets of the Dead,” hours before its scheduled release of 3 pm EST today (unless there’s something ELSE cool coming at 3 pm… but I assume this was the big surprise vocalist Mark Hunter promised us).

And hey, guess what? Chimaira didn’t disappoint. Mark Hunter told me when I interviewed him that this album is a little slower than we’re used to from the Cleveland sextet, and he wasn’t lying; this is some pure elephants marching to war shit.

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Looks like I’m gonna hafta post two Chimaira stories today. The band is supposed to have some big cool thing at 3pm EST today – we’re assuming it’s the release of a new single from their forthcoming new album, The Infection. While we wait to find out for sure, the below video was posted on the band’s website over the weekend – I’m assuming as part of their spread-the-infection viral campaign. It’s a little long, but… God DAMN, somebody put a solid amount of work into this clip.

The Infection will be released on April 21 via Ferret here in the States and Nuclear Blast everywhere else. Fingers crossed that we get to hear some new music a little later today…

-AR

P.S. I command you to read my interview with Chimaira’s Mark Hunter!

Talk about truth in advertising – I wanna hear Chimaira’s The Infection so badly it makes my skin itch. Seriously.

Patience is a virtue, though, and it looks like I won’t have to wait much longer to at least hear a lil’ sumpin’ sumpin’: yesterday afternoon, vocalist Mark Hunter left the following sorta but not really cryptic on Chimaira’s official website:

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Few bands in modern metal are as exciting as Chimaira. That’s because few bands constantly undergo such a dramatic and undeniable evolutions from album to album – and do so with a bare minimum of line-up changes. From their 2000 self-released debut, This Present Darkness, right up to 2007’s Resurrection, Chimaira have never made the same album twice. Elements of thrash, death, groove, black, and even prog metal and punk abound, and, ultimately, the only thing you ever know for sure about a new Chimaira album is this: it’s gonna be heavy as a motherfucker, and just as catchy.

As the band – which includes guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries, bassist Jim LaMarca, drummer Andols Herrick, and keyboardist/sampler Chris Spicuzza – anticipates the April 21 release of their sixth album, The Infection, we were lucky enough to snag an exclusive e-mail interview with vocalist Mark Hunter. After the jump, read Mark’s thoughts on the group’s latest offering, the ongoing metamorphosis of their sound, reuniting with longtime producer Ben Schigel, the internet as a marketing tool, the state of his pure hatred, and more.

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Well, no, not really.

The above photo of alleged “song titles,” all references to MetalSucks’ favorite construction paper-animated satirical sitcom, comes from a studio blog the band has just launched to keep fans in the loop with regards to progress on their new album, which will be produced by Jason Suecof and released in ‘09. The band explains the silly song titles thusly…

Click to read more…