MetalSucks

Holy crap, has it really been three years (almost to the day!) since Melechesh released their last album, Emissaries? That’s too long, man. Way too long.

Hopefully, it looks like the band is finally working on something new: Blabbermouth posted the below footage of them performing a new song, cleverly titled “New Song” (make sure Metallica doesn’t sue you, Ashmedi!), in Rotterdam this past weekend. I’m assuming Ashmedi is going to put lyrics and vocals over it at a later date, but maybe it’s an instrumental? In any case, it sounds pretty awesome. I really, really hope this band gets a new album out this year.

-AR

I barely remember the lost weekend I once spent in Baltimore. Was I bored, or just doing what I do? I dunno. I dunno.

Looks like I might be going back, though: D.R.I. have been added to the already stellar line-up of the 2010 edition of Maryland Deathfest. This is just the latest in a long line of good reasons to attend, not least of which is that it is, at least as far as I’m aware, currently the only scheduled U.S. appearance of Australia’s Portal, whose new album Swarth is currently frightening metalheads across the world. Throw in Converge, Magrudergrind, Entombed, Obituary, Watain, Melechesh, Jucifer, Gridlink, Gorod, 16, and a plethora of other awesome bands, and I think I could have a weekend in Baltimore even more lost than my last.

Get Maryland Deathfest’s complete line-up-to-date after the jump.

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Did you know that if you eat before you start slamming shots, you’ll get a little less drunk, but you’ll also have something to vomit up later? It’s true. Also, sometimes when you smoke weed, you get the munchies. These are just two great reasons why you should care about Hellbent for Cooking: The Heavy Metal Cookbook by Annick “Morbid Chef” Giroux. Showcasing “a varied menu of over a hundred recipes from thirty countries,” Hellbent for Cooking features recipes by members of Accept, Anthrax, Anvil, Armored Saint, Brutal Truth, Death, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Gwar, Judas Priest, Kreator, Mayhem, Melechesh, Nuclear Assault, Obituary, Repulsion, Saint Vitus, Sepultura, Sigh, S.O.D., Slough Feg, Thin Lizzy, Toxic Holocaust, and about a trillion others (you can get a complete list of contributing bands here).

MetalSucks is teaming up with Bazillion Points Publishing to give away three (3) copies of Hellbent for Cooking. All you have to do to win is create a picture that somehow connects metal to food and post a link to someplace we can view said picture in the comments section below. Use Photoshop to create an image of Lemmy eating a hot dog, use MS Paint to do a portrait of Metallica as the pepperonis on a pizza, whatever you want – it just has to be both food and metal related, and it has to amuse us. Vince and I will choose the three pics that make us laugh the hardest and those pics’ creators win the book.

This contest will end at midnight EST on Monday, December 14. Please note that this contest is open to U.S. residents only, as shipping costs are a bitch. And if you’re too lazy to participate, you can always just order a copy of the book here.

Good luck, and good eats…

-AR

Shame on me for having never heard of Australia’s Portal before. I just got their new album, Swarth (which apparently means “land covered with grassy turf”… metal teaches me a new word again!), last week, and it’s blowing my mind. I don’t even know how to describe it; it’s death metal, I guess, but it’s really pushing the limits of what “music” as a concept is. It almost reminds me of Hate Eternal, but that’s not really fair to Portal or Erik Rutan. They are just a really, really unique monster.

And I do mean “monster.” Like I said, this is really pushing the boundaries between music and noise. It’s just fucking evil, man. I’ll try to write a review one of these days, but in the meantime, I implore you to check out Portal on MySpace and buy Swarth for yourself – it just came out this week on Profound Lore.

And, oh yeah, apparently they wear costumes. Here they are doing the song “Glumurphonel” from their 2003 debut, Seepia.

For the time being it seems that Portal live shows are restricted to their native land, but they have been added to the already amazing Maryland Deathfest 2010 line-up, which will also include Converge, Eyehategod, Melechesh, Obituary, and grind gods Gridlink.

-AR

Tonights starts Yom Kippurs. I was gonna plays some Jewish black metals, but the onlys Jewish black metals bands I knows is Bishop of Hexen, and they sucks major matzos balls. So I am cheatings with Melechesh. They ares not Jewish, but they is Israeli. And they rules.

-NC

Reader Josh Kidd just tipped us off to the existence of an Israeli black metal band called Dagor Dagorath. And I, uh, actually can’t tell if they’re really Jews or not. For one thing, there are other Israeli black metal outfits with no Jews (see: Melechesh), and for another thing, Wikipedia tells me that “Dagor Dagorath” is ” is a fictional battle described in the legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien.” (And, yes, I did have to look it up. I am indeed a dork about many things, but Tolkien bores me to tears.) So, nothing Jewey about that.

I also Wikipedia‘d (it can be a verb, right?) the name of DD’s new album, Yetzer Ha’Ra, and it does have Jewish connotations:

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Israeli (but not Jewish!) outfit Melechesh might be one of the most underrated bands in metal today – I feel like I rarely hear people talking about them, but their last album, Emissaries, was a fucking beast.

So I’m kind of surprised that someone has made a documentary about main man Ashmedi (who has also been doing some guest blogs for The Deciblog). It just seems like the band’s lack of fame would make this a hard sell, when I imagine making back any money invested in metal documentaries that don’t star Metallica is already an uphill battle.

But I’m now officially really, really curious to see this thing – and if it gets some of you to listen to Melechesh, all the better.

Visit Melechesh on MySpace.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

In a just future, heavy metal will be exalted not only for pushing musical extremes but also keeping alive interest in forgotten mythologies. What other genre of music engages so seriously the Norse lore of Enslaved, the ancient Egyptian myths of Nile, the Kabbalic fascination of Averse Sefira and the Sumerian (by way of Lovecraft) gods invoked by Morbid Angel? For every blasphemous black metal band that hates Christ through song, there’s another one singing blastbeaten praises to pre-Christian gods and goddesses.

Which you prefer may depend on how yer mommy raised ya. But for the times you’re feeling reverent towards a deity that Father O’Flaherty doesn’t know shit about, there is always Absu, longtime blackened dabblers in “mythological occult metal.” Ignore the lyrics to this Texan band’s eponymous fifth album at your own peril. While the music is more than strong enough to stand on its own, there’s something comforting about knowing that the 13 skintight jams on Absu go out to Mesopotamian spirits Bakaxikhekh and the mountain lord Enlil. This is positive music, meant to embolden gods and strengthen spells, not to destroy humanity. Plus, if there’s a god that takes delight in Absu’s blackened metal swarm, you definitely want to worship it, because it has great taste.

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