Just yesterday we got our first look at the album art for Megadeth’s forthcoming TH1RT3EN, as well as the cover art for the first single from that album, “Public Enemy No. 1.” Now the song itself has made it out into the world! Check it out below.

I’ve only had a chance to listen once, but I’m digging it. It sounds like vintage Megadeth, which is obviously a good thing. Endgame, Megadeth’s last album, was a real return to form for Dave Mustaine and company*, and my fear — and, I’d wager, the fear of many a Megafan — was that the band wouldn’t be able to pull it off a second time. But assuming every song on TH1RT3EN is this good, we may be in for a real treat. Amazing. If you’d told me five years ago that Megadeth would have a creative renaissance, I’d of written you off as an old clinging too tightly to the past. Just goes to show ya…

It also seems worth noting that this is the band’s first recording with bassist Dave Ellefson in a decade. I honestly did not miss him on Endgame, but I imagine his return will make some folks dig this tune all the more.

TH1RT3EN comes out November 1 via Roadrunner.

-AR

*I know some people thought that The System Has Failed and/or United Abominations were returns to form, but I don’t think ‘Deth quite stuck the landing on those releases.

[via No Clean Singing]

We got an almost funny number of e-mails complaining about the title of Megadeth’s new album, TH1RT3EN*, after it was announced. And, yes, it’s a very silly album title, and, yes, it seems to be stolen and only slightly altered from the name of a very boring horror movie. But, really, what does it matter? I thought The System Has Failed was overrated, but United Abominations was pretty good, and Endgame was a complete return to form for ‘Deth. If Mustaine and company can maintain (or maybe even surpass) that level of quality, they could call the album We <3 Hollywood Undead and it wouldn’t bother me that much.

Now the band has unveiled the cover art for TH1RT3EN, and, uh, okay. I know I’m one of the last .0001% of the population that actually cares about cool album art, and like I was just saying, if the record is good it really doesn’t matter, but… yeah this is pretty much a total bummer. The concept isn’t necessarily terrible, but the execution… maybe it’ll look better when the large, high-res version is released, but right now it looks like someone who isn’t very good at Photoshop (like me!) cut out the image of Vic and pasted it onto something else. This is the kind of sloppy thing unsigned bands usually send us — not legends like ‘Deth.

In fact, I actually prefer the cover art for the first single from the album, “Public Enemy No. 1″:

Click to read more…

That’s right, kids: On Tuesday, September 13 — the evening before The Big 4 show at Yankee Stadium — MetalSucks is teaming up with our pals at Metal Injection, Metal Insider, and Metal Army to throw a massive Big 4 pre-party at our favorite bar, Idle Hands. As you can see from the poster above, there’s gonna be $4 drafts starting at 7 pm, and you should really and try and get so drunk so as to be still drunk at the show the next day, ’cause four bucks is approximately 1/1,000th the cost of a beer at Yankee Stadium.

And to make the whole affair that much more fun, John Jospeh from Cro-Mags is DJing! And a little birdie told me there may some other very special guests may be on hand. So whether you’re coming to NYC specifically for the event, or you’re just looking for an awesome hang to get the party started a little early, Idle Hands is the place to be the night before the show.

Get more details from Idle Hands’ website. See ya there!!!

-Axl & Vince

I hail Roadrunner Records for their success at landing major label-weened acts like Megadeth, Ratt, Dream Theater, and as of today, fuckin’ RUSH. These are high-performance, self-steering acts with little need for career guidance or image interference, and who shouldn’t allow their profits’ to be diverted to cover losses incurred by ten shitty signings this year by Belinda the 22-year old A&R prodigy whose aged bf got her the job or Dan the radio personality’s son who spent $19 million on promotions for an Amerie collection.

Anyway, how about some exciting details of Rush and Roadrunner’s deal?! First, know that a RR press release states that a live album will come out ahead of new set Clockwork Angels; also, it calls this deal a “partnership,” which I’ve seen translated to “distro services and profit share.” But in an email today, RR A&R super-stud Monte Conner told me that Rush will be worked like any other RR band (i.e. publicity, promo, the whole whack). I also asked if RR bought out “Caravan” and “BU2B,” the jamz that Atlantic released as a single last summer; Conner said that the songs will appear on the album as planned. Next I’ll ask him how he plans to repair the rip in the fabric of time caused by having Rush, Dream Theater, and Opeth on the same roster. Stay tuned.

-ADF

Rush’s freaking 19th studio album Clockwork Angels is slated for 2012 release. Get “Caravan” b/w “BU2B” here. 

No. No he is not.

Mustaine’s latest declaration sure to elicit responses only of “Okay, sssssuuurrre, Dave, whatever you say,” from all rational people was delivered to a Dallas Radio station earlier this week:

“I’ve talked to Lars and James about me and David [Ellefson] doing a supergroup record with Lars and James. Well, James said ‘no,’ but it’s still kind of out there in the air. I’m gonna keep hammering on him. It’s on my bucket list.”

Click to read more…

Would you like have any and all future listenings of Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction ruined for you? Then, by all means, please check out “Fantastic Love,” the debut video from the Fanta band, featuring Marty Friedman on lead guitars.

Of course, this is not the first time that Mr. Friedman has worked with Fanta, but it is way, way more likely to create sufferers of PTSD than his previous commercial for the soda brand. Fanta must know it, too — they’ve disabled commenting from the YouTube page on which the spot appears. ‘CAUSE DON’T YOU SAY NUTHIN’ BAD ABOUT FANTA!!!

-AR

Thanks to Chris for the tip!

Spurred by a lazy crossword clue in The Onion (36 down, four letters: “Faith No More’s only hit”), MetalSucks contributor Anso DF dedicates every single day in August to celebration and exploration of the San Francisco alt-metal greats. Here we prove that history’s greatest band landed more than one commercial hit (crossword answer: “Epic” natch), we revel in FNM’s embarrassing wealth of winning album tracks (themselves often fit for chart topping), and we dip into the staggering best of the b-sides (ditto). Along the way, we survey the context of FNM’s big break (amid similarly seminal acts Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, and Ween) to the post-Nevermind, panic-based recording industry in which the brilliantly versatile, fearless powerhouse band operated until their 1998 demise. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Song “From Out Of Nowhere”

Written by Patton (L); Gould, Bottum (M)

Released 1989

Appears on The Real Thing album

Produced by Matt Wallace

Guitars by Jim Martin

Key lyric ”Don’t know if I’ll laugh or cry.”

Single? Yes, The Real Thing’s first. And so life began.

Click to read more…

I was listening to an interview with Sarah Vowell last weekend, in which she proclaimed that, as a writing exercise, she did not allow herself to use any F-bombs in her new book, Unfamiliar Fishes. I decided to do her one better this week — I did not swear at all. Unless you count “crap,” “drek,” or “sucks” as swear words, which I do not.

So that was fun.

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

• We debuted new music from All Shall Perish and Thou.
• We debuted new videos from Valient Thorr and Meek is Murder.
• Unearth’s Buz McGrath, Hatebreed’s Wayne Lozinak, and In Flames’ Peter Iwers told us about their live rigs.
• We spoke to Aaron Turner from Isis and Helms Alee.
• We checked out new releases from The Bronx Casket Co. and Bedlam of Cacophony.
• Even though Dime would never approve, we made fun of some poor kid.
• We continued to sing Spotify’s praises.
• We voted on our favorite album from The Devin Townsend Project.
• We were sexually aroused by the prospect of Disturbed breaking-up.
• We wondered whether or not the return of Megadeth’s Gigantour is a good thing or not.

Alright, we’re out. Have a nice weekend, gang!

-AR

Last Thursday we offered our readership a chance to win the most excellent prize of a Wayne’s World DVD, so naturally today we’re announcing our three winners. And they are:

• Christopher Ott: “Guess the owner didn’t realize what the car wash meant when they said his car sure could use Abbath.” [Editor's note: L-O-fucking-L, amirite?]
• Sacajawea: “Dimmu Fourthgear”
• nonameisfinetoo: “Imp my ride.”

Good jobs, kids… enjoy the DVD, especially longtime commenter / multiple-Caption-Contest-winner Sacajawea (who claims to have never seen Wayne’s World, as unfathomable as that may sound).

As you probably already know, Megadeth released a special 25th anniversary reissue of their classic album Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? last week. To celebrate, we’ve got two beautiful hologram flats of the original artwork signed by Mr. Dave Mustaine himself. To win, just leave a comment with the funniest caption to the photo below. Remember to use a real email address (or post it along with your comment if you’re using FB Connect).

A bunch of big records came out last Tuesday: Suicide Silence, Fair to Midland, Sepultura and Decapitated. After the jump we’ll take a look at how those and a few recent releases sold over the past week.

But first, a follow-up on a question I asked in last week’s column: how do the numbers for Arch Enemy’s Khaos Legions stack up against their past releases? I don’t have week-by-week breakdowns for each album to compare to Khaos Legions‘ cumulative total of 13,944 after five weeks, but these total sales figures for Arch Enemy’s best-selling albums should provide some frame of reference:

Anthems of Rebellion: 74,712
Doomsday Machine: 108,036
Rise of the Tyrant: 55,812
Wages of Sin: 71,688

With Khaos Legions falling off the charts in week six, that means they sold less than 1,092 units last week, the minimum number required to crack the Top 100 Hard Music Chart. Based on that I’d say it’s going to be a tough climb for Gossow, the Amotts and co. to match their past success this time around.

ANYWAY, back to last week’s big releases:

Click to read more…

The Metalnets are aflutter with today’s news that Megadeth’s Gigantour will return for a fourth run in the summer of 2012 following three years of lying dormant. The travelling festival will feature only one stage (as it did in 2008), as opposed to the two-stage format of the 2005 and 2006 editions. The return of Gigantour after a three year hiatus begs the question: do we really need this?

Click to read more…

I LOLd for an hour straight on Tuesday cuz my Twitter was blowing up with metal people’s reactions to the Casey Anthony verdict (announced around 4PM EDT). It’s a serious situation, so dudes are mad and lending their two cents. That’s natural. But man, some people think dumb. Actually, know what? I’m just gonna c+p some metal celebrity tweets below. Remember, most of the following mini-declarations are wrought in awful logic, but not everybody on the internet is ignorant and high-horsing this shit to death. Um yeah just go ahead and keep reading and oooh the suspense…

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Dave Mustaine might be a drama queen, but he’s no idiot. So when Megadeth played a new song called “Public Enemy Number 1″ live in Hamburg last night — before which he proclaimed, “We’re gonna play a new song for you. This song is from our new record. It’s never been played anywhere. It’s never been heard by anyone but us,” — he had to know that some audience member(s) would film it and have it up on the youtubes by night’s end. And that was probably his intent; play it live, let the Interhole gossip machine do it’s thang, and sit back and watch as the hype for Megadeth’s new album builds all on its own. And hey, look, that’s exactly what’s happening!

Check out the above footage of the new song being played live in Hamburg, courtesy of MS Reader GK3. The song sounds good; I love that classic-sounding riff that comprises the main part of the verses, although the chorus feels a bit stock. Mustaine’s voice… well, if you’ve seen Megadeth live in the past few years you should well know how bad it sounds. Still, the song is good enough to hold my interest in the forthcoming Megadeth album, on which Mustaine will have as much time and technology as he needs to make his vocals sound right.

-VN

Gotta hand it to Megadeth — they really seem to have connected with the video game market. A few years ago, they unveiled their single, “Gears of War,” as part of the launch for the game of the same name; then last year they recorded a new song, “Sudden Death,” exclusively for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock; and now they’ve got ANOTHER new song in ANOTHER video game. The game is called Never Dead, and the song appears in the trailer, which you can watch below — the trailer begins at the 22:22 mark, but the song doesn’t kick in ’til the 24 minute mark.

And I gotta say, I think exploiting video games as a promotional outlet is a really smart move (and Dave Mustaine must feel the same way, or he wouldn’t keep doing it over and over again). I have no idea how these songs do as singles (or, in the case of “Gears of War,” as parts of a larger album) sales-wise, but presumably the band gets a nice paycheck just for including the tune in the game. And if it attracts a new generation of fans, well, all the better.

ANYWAY, it’s a little hard to really listen to the song with all the audio from the trailer laid over it, but, uh… it basically sounds okay to me. Check it out, then weight in with your thoughts in the comments section.

-AR

Thanks to the anonymous reader who sent this in!

IMO the most important part of being a true metal fan is knowing your roots. There is nothing worse than a newjack poser who doesn’t know or care about the older bands who paved the way for the generations after them. For example, IMO you can’t consider yourself a real fan of Avenged Sevenfold without also being a fan of Pantera and 18 Visions/Velvet Revolver. I mean I love A7X but obviously they are pretty much just taking what those two bands did, only doing it a lot better. On the other hand, it also sucks when someone gets older and they stop liking stuff. I mean if you like Suffocation then you should also like Devourment, right?? But contrary to what you would expect, older metal fans do nothing but hate on newer bands.

Which one is right?? The younger fans, full of energy and enthusiasm, but unaware of the shitty bands that people used to like?? Or the jaded, bitter has-beens, with seemingly endless knowledge of irrelevant, music that nobody really cares about anymore??????

In this post I will do my best to tackle this topic and answer the question of which is better, NEW MUSIC or OLD MUSIC. I know it’s hard to compare things from different eras, but I think it will help all of us grow as metal fans!!

Click to read more…

Last December Dave Mustaine shocked anyone who was under the impression that he had relevant taste in modern metal by not only endorsing, but announcing his own collaboration with, DeuxMonkey, former Anthrax guitarist Dan Spitz’s horrendous new project.

And now we have good news, bad news, really bad news, and really, really bad news concerning these events:

Click to read more…

So we’re now five axe slingers deep into out list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists. We predicted that the list would get a lot of you angry, and, no shock, it has. Funny thing is, reading the comments, as of yet not one of you has correctly predicted which guitar player is gonna be #1. So, just lettin’ you know… you may be even angrier in the coming weeks, or maybe you’ll be less angry, but so far, it seems like you guys just do not see it comin’.

While you chew on that, here’s some other fun things we did this week:

• We premiered new music from Hate Eternal, Arch Enemy, and Nader Sadek.
• We enjoyed a new episode of “Cooking Contaminated,” this one featuring King Fowley of Deceased.
• We checked out the latest releases from Benighted and Zubrowska.
• We wondered if Metallica and friends have gone too far in their quest for the Big Fortune.
• We checked out some *real* hardcore.
• We weighed Donald Trump’s claim that President Obama was the first drummer for Overkill.
• We wondered why talent can’t be passed down via genetics.
• We weighed, compared and contrasted multiple metal concerts showcasing female-fronted bands.
• We prayed for Kurt Cobain to rise from his grave and off Miley Cyrus.
• We wondered whether or not Dave Grohl is gonna be on the new Mastodon album.

And so, in conclusion… I am going to get a slice of pizza now.

See ya next week.

-AR

Few of us are so naive as to expect the members of a huge band like Metallica to retain any connection to reality. If we, the fans, have learned anything from rock docs and hammy celebrity bios, it’s that mega-success ensures isolation, and constructs a treadmill for goal-crazed egomaniacs forever in search of their next round of applause. Hey, that’s human; we search out what feels good, even if we must disregard what is right.

And there is little right about Monday night’s announcement of ticket pricing structures for the upcoming Big Four gig at Yankee Stadium. At best, or least, a would-be ticketbuyer shells out about $100+ to squint stageward from a neighboring zip code, and possibly even provide band management with advance notice of impending weather changes. At worst, leather coat and V-neck sweater types can populate the “front general admission” area in exchange for $225 (plus the above- and below-table fees affixed by each link in the live music production chain).

Click to read more…

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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In news that should shock no one , following last week’s highly-discussable first-ever U.S. Big Four (I’ve decided I’m not writing “Big 4″ anymore, no matter what the posters say. I’m a grown up and I can take 2 extra seconds to actually type out a number.*) show, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax have announced another concert — this one on the East Coast. It will take place at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, September 14.

A Wednesday in September. What a bunch of fucking assholes.

Click to read more…