“We’re captive on the carousel of time.” Jonathan Davis said that, and I believe it. The seasons, they go ’round and ’round, like Ratt, and people change, things change, and so sometimes bands we like have shifts in their line-up. For example:

• Melechesh have split ways with their bass player, Rahm Emanuel, who apparently wants to run for Mayor of Chicago. But I’m operating under the impression that guitarist/vocalist Ashmedi is the driving creative force behind this band, so I suspect that this will have roughly as much of an effect on the quality of their music as someone sneezing in Jakarta might.
• A Life Once Lost has hired Jordan Crouse to replace their recently departed (as in he left the band — he’s not dead) drummer, Justin Graves. In an interview with Metal Insider, ALOL guitarist Doug Sabolick says, “It’s good because with Justin, with the gap between where we live, it was hard to rehearse as much as we wanted to. Now with Jordan, we all live in the same town and we can practice as much as we want to.” So that’s an enthuastic endorsement.

-AR

When you find yourself getting really pumped while watching the new Melechesh video, for the track “Grand Gathas of Baal Sin,” keep in mind that it’s not just because the song is awesome. Check out the editing, too — each cut is timed so perfectly to the music, in order to ensure that the viewer gets the maxium ugh! gut-punch. This is a good example of taking a pretty basic performance vid and finding a way to make something dynamic and exciting out of it.

Although, yeah, I don’t know why these poor dudes are wading through water. But whatevs.

Melechesh’s latest, The Epigenesis, is out now on Nuclear Blast.

-AR

Seriously, if you haven’t read Vince’s epic story about how MetalSucks Maniac “whiskey” won last week’s last week’s photo caption contest, you need to go read it now. It’s pretty amazing. Whiskey’s mom even left a comment! We like to think of MetalSucks as something the whole fucking family can enjoy together, so that warmed the cockles of our collective heart.

Here’s some other fun stuff that happened this week:

• We debuted a performance clip from the new Shadows Fall live DVD, the new Intronaut album, and a new Madball song. PHEW!
• We spoke to Jeremy Creamer from Daath, Johnny Plague from Winds of Plague, Adam Warren from Oceano, and Ashmedi from Melechesh. Oh, and Anso unveiled part one of his massive two-part interview with Atheist’s Kelly Shaefer.
• We checked out new releases by Salome, Madball, Woe, and Arson Anthem and Ender. And a DWARR reissue!
• Greg Weeks from The Red Chord said good-bye to Randy Moss and hello to men wearing pink tights, Sacha Dunable from Intronaut contemplated the legalization of recreational marijuana use in California, and Eyal Levi from Daath discovered DestinAsian.
• Sergeant D. celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell. Wait, what?
• We couldn’t figure out why everyone was so surprised that ICP are evangelical Christians.
• We found out the hard way that Attack Attack!’s music could be even worse than it already is.
• We took a slow ride on Metallica’s Lightning.
• We laughed at one shit stain calling another shit stain “a shit stain.”
• And, oh yeah! Gary Suarez took over the site for a day.

Next week is CMJ here in New York! If you’re in the area and looking for some awesome metal, check out our handy guide to all the festivities — including not one but TWO showcases sponsored by MetalSucks. We’re not gonna lie — we are going to be very hungover and tired next week. But that just means we’ll be crankier than usual. We’ll still be here with lots of debuts, interviews, and other assorted nonsense. Bring your mom! It’ll be fun.

-AR

Melechesh‘s excellent new album, The Epigenesis, is mere weeks away from its October 26 release in the States (those lucky Europeans already have it), and while it’s been more than three years since the band’s last release, Emissaries, I’m happy to report that the wait was totally worth it. The Epigenesis feels like Melechesh’s most diverse and complete album yet, and a firm reminder of why this band manages to stay consistently interesting while so many other black metal bands fall into redundancies and self-parody.

I recently had the chance to e-mail some questions to Ashmedi, Melechesh’s founder and creative mastermind. After the jump, read his thoughts on the themes and meanings of The Epigenesis, how recording in Istanbul influenced the album, why we had to wait so darn long for new a new Melechesh offering, and more.

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I’ve been waiting more than three years to hear a new Melechesh song, and now one has finally been released into the world, and, hey, guess what? I just chucked a cat straight through the window, so it must be good.

By now you’re probably familiar with Melechesh’s particular chuck n’ jive — they’re like the Nile of black metal, melding the classic tropes of their genre with a wordly, Sumerian (not Sumeriancore) feel. And this track is no exception. So if you haven’t dug this band in the past, I don’t know if this will do anything to change your mind. But for me, personally, well… like I said. Kitty defenestration = good music.

The song is called “Grand Gathas Of Baal Sin,” by the way, and it’s streaming here. As is so often the case with this band, I don’t know what the fuck the title means, but I do fully endorse the use of the phrase “Baal Sin.” I know every sin I’ve ever committed has been a result of my baals, so this is some real shit that I can relate to, y’know?

Melechesh’s new album, The Epigenesis, comes out October 1 in Europe and October 26 in North America via Nuclear Blast.

-AR

So I’m really, really, really excited for Melechesh’s new album, The Epigenesis, which comes out October 26, and which has album art now. I don’t feel like I really “understand” that album art, though, and then I realized that I don’t even really know what “epigenesis” means, so I decided to Google that shit and see if I could make heads or tails of this cover.

So as it turns out, there are actually multiple definitions of “epigenesis” –

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Nothing! But I like both bands, and both bands have announced new albums, and neither band was nice enough to release a single or cover art or something that I can actually discuss in detail, so I’m making them share a post. My apologies to all who may be offended.

Here’s what we know about each new release:

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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.

Click to read more…