I don’t hate Soulfly as much as some people — in fact, I quite enjoyed 2005′s Dark Ages, and that Greg Puciato sections of that one song from the last album — but I can’t find a nice thing to say about the album art for the band’s upcoming eighth full-length, Enslaved. It looks lo-fi, but not in a cool way, like the cover Terrorizer’s Hordes of Zombies. And why are the edges blacked out? And why are the edges on the left side more blacked out than the edges on the right side? It just doesn’t seem like that much thought went into this thing.

Enslaved comes out March 13 on Roadrunner. It has some pretty cool guests on it, like Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan and Dez Fafara from DevilDriver (and, uh, Coal Chamber), so it should really go without saying, but if the music on the album is good, then it really won’t matter what the cover looks like. Although the band’s new bass player is the dude who used to be in Static-X, so that doesn’t bode well, does it?

-AR

…Max Cavalera recently revealed during a radio interview (video above) that he’s working on his autobiography with British journalist Joel McIver, who has previously penned such metal-themed tomes as The Bloody Reign of Slayer and Justice for All: The Truth about Metallica. The forward will apparently be written by Dave Grohl, who collaborated with Cavalera as part of his Probot project back in ’04.

Click to read more…

Everyone whose parents raised them correctly loves Gojira, and so everyone whose parents raised them correctly has been eagerly anticipating the band’s seemingly-forever-in-gestation Sea Shepherd EP since, well, seemingly forever.

But now it looks like we might actually be getting close to its unveiling! Last week we got to hear a new song, “Of Blood and Salt,” which features guest appearances from Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal and Devin Townsend’s Devin Townsend; now Gojira’s guitarist/vocalist/mastermind, Joe Duplantier, has given an interview with Metal Hammer in which he reveals that Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe (who previously appeared on the group’s “Adoration for None”), In Flames’ Anders Friden, and some dude named Max Cavalera are all going to appear on the release, too.

Click to read more…

“Ooh no!”

“Macho Man” Randy Savage has perished. My father and I were actually at his first wedding, which is to say, we were at Summer Slam ’91. Vince and I are so bummed right now… I don’t think I can even go outside. I need to curl up with YouTube and remember a time when the “Macho Man” really did seem invincible.

We’ll never forget you, Mr. Savage.

Maybe this will cheer you up?

• We lied and said that Iwrestledabearonce were becoming a black metal band. Then, depending on your perspective, we either made it better or made it worse by debuting a new track from the band.
• We also debuted a stretched-out version of Hammerfall’s “Hearts on Fire.”
• Our list of the The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists continued.
• We spoke to Max Cavalera from Cavalera Conspiracy and Soulfly, Dean Herrera and Henry Selva from The Human Abstract, and the dudes from Noisear.
• We enjoyed a series of exclusive tour blogs from both The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley and Woods of Ypres’ Shane Madden.
• We gushed over Anaal Nathrakh’s Passion.
• We wondered why elitists find some deathcore bands acceptable and others unacceptable.
• We declared metal the winner in the war on grunge.
• We expressed our enthusiasm for Victory Records’ latest sign, Design the Skyline.
• We gave you a detailed analysis of the lyrics for the new Limp Bizkit single.
• We declared drinking to be for pussies.

Next week crack the top ten of our ongoing guitarists list, and, at least to the best of my knowledge, do not aid any bands in playing a prank on the public. And hopefully no one else we liked better than Fred Durst dies.

-AR

Max Cavalera is a name you’ve probably heard recently. His band, Cavalera Conspiracy, has been making waves in the metal world with their latest release, Blunt Force Trauma, and are currently on tour in the U.S. But here’s something you might not have known: he’s been at this for decades.

Max, along with his esteemed colleague and brother, Igor, made some of the most beastly and innovative thrash in the mid 80’s and 90’s in the highly influential, underground metal outlet, Sepultura (Portuguese for “grave”). Unfortunately personal differences in ’96 drew him away from the band. Upon relocating to the States, he focused his talents on a new project, the still-running Soulfly (English for “Mighty-Spirit-Mosquito”).

For years Max worked tirelessly with the group, releasing seven studio album’s and gradually building a cult following in the process. Now with a new band and his brother back at his side, the world is finally taking notice.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with the bearded bellower to get the skinny on the new album and see what he makes of his recent success.

Click to read more…

Below is fan-filmed footage of Sepultura performing a new song, “Seethe,” during a recent live show. The quality isn’t that great, but the song actually sounds kinda, I dunno… promising? It’s definitely not awful. But then again, I don’t think post-(Max) Cavalera Sep has ever been awful… it’s usually just kinda boring.

But I guess we’ll see! Kairos, the band’s new album, will be out later this year on Nuclear Blast… and it would actually be kinda funny if it ended up being superior to Cavalera Conspiracy’s recent Blunt Force Trauma.

Your thoughts, my very good friends?

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

So I’m listening to the stream of the new Cavalera Conspiracy album, Blunt Force Trauma, as I type this, and…some of it is  pretty good, and some of it is just fine. None of it is terrible, so that’s cool, but there’s really only one song that I love — “Torture.” It’s the second song on the album, but it should have been the first — it makes me wanna kick someone hard in the nuts, as opposed to the actual album opener, “Warlord,” which just kinda makes me wanna tap my foot while I do busy work.

What happened? I listened to Inflikted again over the weekend to make sure I wasn’t remembering the band’s debut in a sunnier light than it deserves — and I’m not. Inflikted is awesome. It’s basically everything you’d ever want from a modern day Sepultura album. It’s overflowing with piss n’ vinegar. But only occasionally do CC seem to reach the same level of I AM GOING TO BREAK YOUR FUCKING JAW-ness on BFT. It feels like too much Soulfly seeped into this one.

Headbang here, then let me know if I’m crazy or what in the comments section. Roadrunner will release the album fo’ reals tomorrow.

-AR

Readers, I have failed you.

I feel obligated to tell you that there’s another new Cavalera Conspiracy song out (“Thrasher,” below) because it’s the Cavaleras, but I’ve listened to it three times trying to find something to say about it, and then I was like, “Oh I wanna listen to Chaos A.D.,” and then I just put Chaos A.D. on.

It’s not that I hate the Cavalera Conspiracy song or anything, it’s just that none of what we’ve heard so far socks me in the bread basket the way Inflikted did (when it was like “HOLY SHIT THESE BOYS CAN STILL WRITE SEPULTURA SONGS AFTER ALL!!!”), and, besides, like I said, I have access to Chaos A.D. And Beneath the Remains. And Arise! I should find some quality time with Arise real soon, it’s been awhile.

C&C Music Factory’s latest, Blunt Force Trauma, comes out March 28 on Roadrunner. Despite the fact that none of the songs we’ve heard so far have fucked my face off, I am going to listen to it all the way through at least once.

-AR

I wasn’t so hot on “Killing Inside,” which was the first official tack debut from Cavalera Conspiracy’s new album, Blunt Force Trauma; but now the band has released the title track, and it’s wwwwaaaayyyyy better. It basically starts off like an old Sepultura song, which is FANTASTIC, but even when it gets more modern and Gothenburgy, it’s still really, really cool. Check it out below and see what you think.

Blunt Force Trauma comes out March 28 via Roadrunner.

-AR

Cavalera Conspiracy are giving away a new song, “Killing Inside,” for free download here (you gotta give up your e-mail address to get it, natch). It’s the first song we’ve heard from the Cavalera brothers’ eagerly anticipated new album, Blunt Force Trauma, and… I think it’s kind of a bummer.

Correction: half a bummer. Everything from Marc “Why the fuck is he wearing that backpack?” Rizzo’s guitar solo onwards is exactly what I want from CC — which is to say, it sounds appropriately like old school Sepultura, with plenty of thrash elements and lots of awesome shredding. (I may not like that Rizzo was once in Ill Nino, but I can’t fault his skills as a musician.) But the first half of the song is incredibly meh. I hate to sound like the typical lugheaded metal fan, but the shit needs to be faster and more vicious — even the superior second half doesn’t hold a candle to anything on the band’s debut, Inflikted. The riff that powers “Killing Inside” is slow and redundant and kinda reminds me of the riff from the Murderolls’ “Dead in Hollywood.” Which I doubt is what Max and Igor were going for.

Download the song here, and then let us know what you think in the comments section. Blunt Force Trauma comes out March 29 on Roadrunner; I’m holding out hope that this song isn’t representative of the quality of the remainder of the record.

-AR

Cavalera Conspiracy have released the cover art for their new album, Blunt Force Trauma, and all I can say is: What the fuck is this shit?

And don’t say “Oh, it’s a continuation of the visual style from Inflikted.” Yes, I know it’s a continuation of the visual style from Inflikted, but guess what? That album cover sucked, too.

I know it’s ultimately the music that matters most, and I’m optimistic that the music on Blunt Force Trauma will be cool… but I likes me some cool album art, too.

-AR

I can’t even fucking believe this. Max Cavalera has been calling for a reunion of the classic Sepultura line-up for awhile now, first blaming Andreas Kisser and then Paulo Jr. for the fact that it hasn’t happened yet; and then the current Sepultura line-up released a video in which they just killed the idea dead, dead, dead. And that should have been the end of it.

Unfortunately, it’s not. From Blabbermouth:

Click to read more…

Clever headline for a post about a viral video of penguins moshing, eh? Alas, it ain’t mine. I stole it from Metal Insider, where I first saw the video (below), and Metal Insider apparently stole it from Videogum after happily retired MI writer Dan Rodriguez brought it to their attention.

So I can’t even take credit, and, unfortunately, the pun is the best part of the joke. Yeah, the video is kinda cute, for all ten seconds, but then it goes on for another thirty-three. And it’s not even set to an awesome song. I mean, “Convicted in Life” is easily my favorite post-Max Cavalera Sepultura song, but that’s not saying much, and besides, it’s not like there aren’t approximately 8,675,439,414,173,509 other metal songs that could have been utilized.

But, yeah, enjoy it guys.

-AR

So Max Cavalera has been running around saying he wants to do the Sepultura reunion, but it ain’t gonna happen because Andreas Kisser is a dick, or, no, wait, Paulo is a dick, or, really, your mom is a dick and it’s all her fault that the reunion isn’t happening. And up ’til now, to the best of my knowledge at least, the remaining Sepulturians have kept their mouths shut about all of Max’s smack-talking.

Well, no more:

Now, of course, you should never say never, but that seems to be pretty definitive, at least for the moment. Maybe if Max points the finger at Igor next, though, he can really make this happen.

-AR

So back in May, Max Cavalera blamed Andreas Kisser for our current lack of a Sepultura reunion. And while I took Max’s side at the time, Anso schooled me right proper just a couple of days later, proposing that Max might be, um, less than honorable. And now that Max is changing his story just seventh months later, it’s getting really, really hard not to think that Anso nailed it right on the head.

See, all of a sudden, Max is on an anti-Paulo Jr. campaign. Last week he told Revolver that Paulo was “the only musician that didn’t improve much” during the classic Sepult-era, even going so far as to allege that Paulo didn’t record any of the bass tracks on any Sep releases prior to Roots. I didn’t think much of it at the time; for one thing, I don’t think that Paulo is anyone’s favorite member of Sepultura, and for another thing, even though it might seem weird that Max is asserting that for roughly a decade the band has a bass player so untalented that he couldn’t record his album tracks and no one ever thought to replace him, I’m sad to say that I’ve heard stories like that before, so it actually seemed entirely plausible.

But now Metal Insider has brought it to my attention that Max is once again talking smack on his former bandmate, this time saying it’s all Paulo’s fault, and not Andreas’ fault, that there hasn’t been a Sep reunion. He tells Sonic Excess:

Click to read more…

So last night’s question was tricky — so tricky, in fact, that only one person got it right! Necro’s real name is Ron Braunstein, and, yep, he’s Jewish. And despite his name, Darkest Hour’s Mike “Lonestar” Carrigan is, indeed, half-Jewish. I was caught off-guard when I saw Igor Cavalera included in this article at The Gauntlet (where a picture of From Exile’s Eric Guenther, who is not Jewish, is used for the entry on Daath’s Eyal Levi, who is… but I digress), but some research unearthed that fact that the former Sepultura drummer apparently converted when he got married. His brother Max also married a Jew, although I don’t think he converted. In any case, that just leaves Poison’s C.C. DeVille.

I understand why people would think that C.C. DeVille (né Bruce Johannesson) is Jewish, given that he’s loud, from Brooklyn, and has a big schnozz — hell, I used to assume that he was Jewish — but, alas, he’s not. So mazel tov to reader Joe Caperon, the only entrant who correctly answered the question. Joe wins a mystery prize courtesy of Century Media, and a dreidel, courtesy of us. Go Joe!

Here’s the question for night three:

• What is the name of infamous metal-themed music retailer in Tel Aviv?

E-mail your answer to axl [at] metalsucks.net with the phrase “HEAVY METAL HANNUKKAH – NIGHT 2″ in the subject line. All entries should include your name and mailing address in addition to your answer, and are due by 5 pm tomorrow (Saturday, December 4) evening. Shortly thereafter we’ll announce the winner and post night 4’s trivia question. And while you don’t have to be Jewish to enter the contest, you do have to live in the U.S. We need to conserve moolah to get all the MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys their Hanukkah gifts!!!

-AR

Longtime reader “RB” sent us the below clip from Brazilian MTV’s 2009 documentary about the country’s metal scene, Ruído das Minas (Noise from the Mines). I’ve never seen (or even heard of) the doc before (and without subtitles I wouldn’t be able to learn much from it anyway), but the clip shows Sepultura performing the song “Antichrist” live in 1985, the same year the song was including on their EP, Beastial Devastation. The thing is, the band is wearing corpse paint during the performance!

Although I’ve never seen footage of the band in corpse paint, the fact that Sepultura experimented with the stuff in their earliest days isn’t a exactly secret — in fact, I thought this footage might actually be of the band with their original vocalist, Wagner “Antichrist” Lamounier (later of Sarcófago fame)… and I’m honestly still not sure that it isn’t. That sure does look more like Lamounier than Max Cavalera to me, and, given his nick name, I’ve always assumed that Lamounier had something to do with “Antichrist.” But some investigation shows that he has no songwriting credit on the track, whereas Cavalera does, sooooooo… maybe someone with more knowledge than myself regarding Sep’s pre-Morbid Visions days can clear this up.

In any case, the footage sure is interesting!

And here’s what is apparently Sepultura’s first promo pic, with Lamounier:

Click to read more…

As always, I have to preface any judgment made based on a bootleg by pointing that any unofficial (and in this case probably illegal) release is not the best work by which to judge an artist.

But this audio recording of Cavalera Conspiracy performing a new song, “Warlord,” is not hitting my g-spot.

What I — and I think most people — liked about Inflikted was that it sounded an awful lot like pre-Roots Sepultura. And awesome pre-Roots Sepultura at that. If the Cavaleras had actually reunited with Sepultura, we really couldn’t hope for anything better. Not only did it blow every post-Max Sepultura release out of the water, it blew every Soulfly release out of the water, too.

And this song sounds a lot more like Soulfly than it does anything on Beneath the Remains.

Listen to it and tell me I’m wrong. I actually WANT to be wrong about this. I want the new Cavalera Conspiracy album to come out and make me eat my hat. I actually don’t own a hat right now (weird, right?), but I would happily purchase one specifically for the purposes of Cavalera-inflikted consumption.

-AR

[via]

Holy shit, is it seriously August already? It’s gonna start getting cold soon. Motherfucker. Here’s what we did this week when we should have been enjoying the sunshine and fresh air:

• We’re streaming Dementia/Dyslexia, the Metal Blade debut of Fleshwrought,  a new project from Animosity/Animals as Leaders’ Navene Koperweis and Job for a Cowboy’s Jonny Davy.
• We debuted an EPK for Iron Thrones’ The Wretched Sun.
• We also debuted “Fear, Emptiness, Decibel,” a new column from the editors of our favorite metal rag.
• We had a little beard on beard action with Andy Williams from Every Time I Die and Liam Wilson from The Dillinger Escape Plan. We also spoke to Avenged Sevenfold’s Johnny Christ, The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Jeff Tuttle and Pathology’s Dave Astor.
• We checked out the latest releases from Chimaira and Decrepit Birth.
• We schooled Korn’s Jonathan Davis on the BP Oil Spill.
• We questioned the sincerity of Max Cavalera’s claim that his collaboration with Fred Durst is all Ross Robinson’s fault.
• We questioned Glenn Danzig’s sanity. Again.
• We got pissy that Eddie’s not on the cover of the new Maiden album.
• We got boners watching 72 minutes of pro-shot Gojira footage.
• We did not get boners looking at Emmure noodz.
• We found the best bass player in the history of forever-ever-ever.

We’ll be hanging out at the Summer Slaughter show this Sunday here in NYC; if you spot us, please bring us presents. We like presents. Thanks.

-AR

As much as I love Max Cavalera, Soulfly basically started as a nu-metal band (and Roots is a nu-metal album… sorry, kids), and it’s sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Cavalera had Fred Durst do a guest rap on SF’s 1998 self-titled debut. I tend to ignore it because a) the friend of my enemy is not necessarily my enemy, and b) Max has worked with plenty of dudes I  don’t like (Jonathan Davis) and plenty of dudes I do like (Greg Puciato, Chino Moreno), so, y’know, shit happens.

But the topic of working with Durst came up in a recent interview with PyroMusic.net, and… well, Cavalera basically places the blame for Durst’s appearance on producer Ross Robinson’s shoulders:

Click to read more…