The Internet is a treasure trove of data just waiting to be spliced and re-assembled in new and interesting ways.

A recent feature added to Got-Djent.com gave users the ability to indicate their favorite bands on their own personal profiles, so the keepers of that site have taken that information and produced a map “where the proximity of two bands on the map indicates how much their respective fanbases overlap.” Fascinating. Check it out: (click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

The results are fascinating.

Click to read more…

One final “Whip My Hair” video remix and then I promise to shut up about Will and Jada’s 9-year old offspring and her headbanging ways. For what it’s worth, this is definitely the best one I’ve seen yet.

Thanks to Bobby Tims for sending this one in.

-VN

Banner Designed by Cysquatch

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week, Anso DF suggested the Question of the Week; unfortunately, he did so before Slipknot announced that they’re headlining the Sonisphere Festival this year, so it doesn’t seem quite as relevant anymore. Still, it was a fun question to answer, so:

TO WHAT EXTENT WOULD A SLIPKNOT BREAK-UP BE BAD FOR METAL?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

For my opening salvo, I suppose I should mention that it has been a long break between blogs. I’ve been meaning to get back to it, but this summer has been a very busy one filled with the musical composition of the new God Forbid album as well as a new project I’ve been working on, in addition to the daily pursuit of living life and getting by. I hope to contribute more frequently in the near future.

If you’ve followed my articles in the past, you may notice that I often address music history, and pertaining to this site, heavy music specifically. I have a great respect for artistic pioneers and the roots of where the most admirable and brilliant music stems from. I was the type of kid who would read liner notes and interviews by my favorite bands to find out who influenced them. I would always want to climb that musical family tree to see where it lead.

In my process of discovery, there was a common thread that jumped out at me that has been consistent through metal and rock history.  There seemed to be an intercontinental ping-pong match between the USA and Europe in terms of trailblazing the cutting edge of whatever musical genre was the dominant force of the time. This goes way back before metal existed — and yet, it has helped shape the musical landscape that exists today. The torch keeps being symbolically passed from one shore to the other.

Click to read more…

The “djent” / bedroom producer-musician scene has gone from a tiny niche community on the Internet to a worldwide phenomenon in just a few years; in 2010, it’s a serious presence in the scene that any metal fan can feel. But how did it all get started? No one would know better than TesseracT guitarist Acle who’s been there since the very beginning. To that end, here’s Acle with a quick little history lesson:

It was probably back in 2002 / 2003 when the online community of producer-musicians who spawned the bands of this new wave of progressive metal, or “djent”, began to come together. A key unique factor that set this community / scene / then-to-be-genre apart from others is that it had no geographical base; people from all over the world were (and still are) sharing ideas, recording parts for each other and even jamming via the internet. Like punk came from the bars, clubs and rehearsal rooms of New York, this scene started in chat rooms, forums and home studios. This made it easy for many like minded people to find each other, something which would have been impossible without the internet.

Before I really had any recording experience I’d occasionally check the Meshuggah, Toontrack and Harmony Central forums. I’m sure there must still be some ancient posts on there! They were good places to pick up guitar technique tips, achieving certain tones and basic recording things. I learnt Meshuggah’s famous “djent” chord on their forum which is basically a normal power chord with an added 5th which gives that iconic “djenty” Meshuggah sound. The term “djent” just meant the sound of this “meshuggah chord,” not a scene.

Click to read more…

Sometime real soon Andy Rehfeldt, the guy who keeps turning metal songs into non-metal songs (see: the jazzercised Lamb of God and the Disneyfied Cannibal Corpse) and non-metal songs into metal songs (see:  metallicized Louis Armstrong and Conway Twitty and whatever you call this) is gonna hafta get a new schtick… I mean, it’s hard not to admire the amount of work he must put into these viral videos, but I think it’s time for him to take ‘em someplace new and show us something we feel like we’ve never seen before.

That being said… I love the doppler-effect riff of Meshuggah’s “Bleed” so much that it’s hard for me not to enjoy this smooth jazz version of the song. So we’ll let Rehfeldt’s return to the scene of the crime slide… for now. But I sincerely hope that Rehfeldt doesn’t turn into the Killswitch Engage of YouTubers.

-AR

There was something of a tornado here in Brooklyn yesterday, and even if you didn’t see the tornado itself you saw some of the craziest fucking weather ever. I know you folks out in Nebraska are thinking “So what?” but for us something like this happens about as often as an earthquake does for you. Shit was positively epic. Thankfully even the monkeys didn’t get all riled up like the dudes in the above video — although I think I saw Sammy hiding in the bathtub — and business carried on as usual as it did all week:

• We stroked ourselves just a little bit by celebrating our 10,000th post with a list of our top ten favorite posts ever.
• The return of Ask Oderus: You asked Gwar’s frontman your burning questions and he answered them. Also, Eyal wondered what makes a guitarist “great.”
• We premiered new tracks by Titan, Holy Grail, These are They and we premiered the new Firewind video.
• We spoke with Valient Thorr’s Valient Himself.
• Rumpelstiltskin Grinder changed their name to The Devil. Oh wait, no they didn’t.
• We ranked the Top 10 t-shirts worn by High on Fire frontman Matt Pike.
• We looked at new records by Drudkh and Winterfylleth and Skunk Anansie.
• We looked at our favorite new-school Iron Maiden jams and we wondered if Demolisher is the heaviest band on the planet.
• Tomas Haake may or may not have actually commented on my post about some dude covering Meshuggah’s “Bleed” by playing drums on his pillows. Tomas, if you’re reading this, I have mad respect for your drumming!
• Axl released Part 1 of his Daath in-studio report.

Hopefully no more tornados hit Brooklyn this weekend. Actually, if one could swoop right over Jerry Manuel’s home then hop-scotch over to Omar Minaya’s, I’d be OK with that.

-VN

Completely stripped down and bare bones, or as reader Ivan Petrov describes it, “how we do math-metal in Russia.” What’s remarkable and even sobering about this video is that it illustrates just how simple Tomas Haake ‘sdrum patterns actually are when you break them down (although those double-bass patters are by no means easy to execute). Lulz at the closing credits!

-VN

To the MetalSucks Maniac known as “Sacajewea,” we would like to say the following: YOU ARE A FUCKING RETARD. It’s incredible how retarded you are, you stupid fucking idiot mongoloid half-wit retard.

We send this message because in October of ’09, Sacajewea left a comment on the very first post we ever wrote, saying he was “Just here to dig up the past;” then he left another comment, just this past June, which read:

“I did it twice. Fuck I’m retarded. If anyone sees this please find me in a recent post and tell me how retarded I am.”

On December 26, 2006 — a date that will live in infamy — we did what professionals call a “soft launch” but we just call “the day we first posted on this blog.” Our slogan was “Smart About Metal,” a play on the slogan for Film Comment magazine.

We had these two stupid South Park caricatures that Axl made at his then-job when he was bored. (Axl forgot until just now that he had a really long goatee in ’06; Vince still had phantom Jew ‘fro, where some days he can feel it, man!) We only posted once or twice a day, throughout the week, pretty much when we had time/interest. We didn’t use tags. We often didn’t post graphics or videos. Our headlines weren’t capitalized. We interviewed members of Stuck Mojo and Twisted Sister, because that’s who we could get interviews with. Believe it or not, we tried to get an interview with God Forbid… and we failed.

Basically, we had no fucking idea what we were doing.

We can’t believe that this is our 10,000th post. We can’t believe we’re still doing this almost four years after we started. We can’t believe that so many of you are reading it. Seriously: WE WERE ONLY FUCKING KIDDING.

So…

Thanks to Kip (who has been here longer than anyone besides Vince and Axl!), Sammy, Gary, Anso, Satan (the MetalSucks contributor and the deity), Sergeant D., Bob, Leyla, Corey, Urbandale, Dave, Matt, Ferris, Dallas, Eyal, Sacha, Paul, Bulb, Arthur, Anton OyVey, Rich Hallford, David Bee Roth, Van Arseface, Mike Pattongill, Angela Gossowski, Joey V., and everyone else who has ever written for us… MetalSucks would not be where it is if not for all of you.

Thanks to everyone in the music industry who has helped us over the years, even as they must have been secretly hoping we would van flip.

And of course, thanks to all the MetalSucks Maniacs, Suckalos, annoying people who can’t use the “search” function, and dudes that have sent us death threats. We can’t tell you how grateful we are that you read our site. Thank you thank you thank you.

Now, with a complete lack of humility, Axl and Vince present their ten favorite MetalSucks posts of all time. Enjoy.

Click to read more…

If Horatio Alger were alive today, he’d be tempted to write about Slayer. Defying logic, popular fads and the moral majority, the band is an American thrash-to-riches story, having not just survived, but thrived on a regimen of non-compromise. Future musicologists will no doubt struggle to explain how four guys from Huntington Park forced Reign in Blood down the world’s collective throat, then went on to sell millions of records, win two Grammys, and amass a huge, rabid fanbase. And does any other band have a holiday dedicated to them?

As the curtain closes on their third decade in the music business, Slayer’s Dave Lombardo was good enough to shoot the proverbial shit with MetalSucks when the American Carnage Tour stopped in St. Paul, MN. Read the full transcript of our chat after the jump.

Click to read more…

Last week SMN posted a video of every Unearth song ever in ten seconds; now they’ve got one for Meshuggah. And, yes, it’s just as funny. And, no, just because you laughed doesn’t mean you’re a bad fan. I love Meshuggah too, but come ON, y’know?

-AR

Via Metal Injection, a great way to spend 9 minutes of your day. Great video quality, great sound quality, great band.

Remember when that guy at Anus.com said Meshuggah were for people who like to pretend they’re smart? Lulz.

First troll to say Meshuggah sucks will be a) banned, b) wrong.

-VN

Thanks God the United States team was finally eliminated from the World Cup this weekend. For one, it means an end to the annoying Facebook / Twitter / EVERYTHING updates we’ve all had to put up with; I’m relieved to not have to listen to my friends suddenly pretending to be extremely interested and emotionally invested in soccer despite having little to no prior knowledge of the players and the game. And secondly, the U.S. has no business having a good soccer team; we win at everything else, so can’t we just let the rest of the world have this one for themselves instead of mucking it up?

Anyhoo, this video is pretty well done. The best is Jens Kidman’s soccer character. Enjoy.

-VN

Thanks: Peter T.

UPDATE: The Deciblog has confirmed that the Cynic tour mentioned below is, in fact, the previously announced Decibel Hall of Fame Tour (even though Cynic are the only band on the tour to be honored in Decibel’s revered HoF). Cynic will be playing their entire classic album Focus on this trek. Check out a full list of tour dates and a nifty admat over at The Deciblog!

We really like our nerdy prog tours here at the MS Mansion; first it was the Meshuggah + Cynic + Faceless tour in February of 2009 which we dubbed “The Erection Tour” when it was announced, questioned whether it might be the best tour ever, then argued over which band gave the best performance. Then at the end of the year Between the Buried and Me announced they’d do an early 2010 run with Cynic, Devin Townsend Project and Scale the Summit; we immediately dubbed this “The Super-Orgasm Tour” and waxed ecstatic about it so much that we probably made those of you who aren’t into to prog metal (can you imagine such a thing???) sick of reading about it.

Get ready to become sick of us raving in anticipation of two more uber-proggy metal tours on the horizon, ’cause shit’s about to get real, son.

Click to read more…

In the last few years, something seemed to happen and I barely noticed. Suddenly, I’m no longer the young kid at the show. I’m one of the guys hiding out by the bar. I’m not crowd surfing, not covered in sweat with my shirt off, and I’m certainly not moshing. I’m also not randomly yelling “Slayer!”, but that seems to span all demographics. I became… (gulp)… an adult. I don’t know what the range is in the ages of the followers of MetalSucks, but I’ll assume that it’s a mix of younger and older metal fans. I am 29 years old, but I still feel relatively young and energetic considering my opening salvo. I’m the youngest member of my band, and younger than a good majority of my friends in bands and the industry.

With that said, I think there comes a time for all metal heads, and probably all adults for that matter, when you look at what is popular amongst the true youth culture (16-24), and you feel as if not only do you not relate to it, but it feels alien, as if it’s creation was not meant for your consumption (which it wasn’t) – and it also seems inferior to music that you grew up with. I’m only 29, and I’m already having “back in my day” moments. It kind of scared me, and I began to wonder if I was being obtuse and a little too set in my ways, or if my analysis was accurate.

Click to read more…

So claims reader “46andTool,” who insists that Barcelona’s (or, more accurately, “Barthelona’s”) Vortice “fucking destroy.”

Now…  I’ve said in the past that Meshuggah are just one of those bands that cannot be cloned. I always thinks bands that sound just like Meshuggah are ridiculous; they never pull it off, or really do anything other than make me wanna listen to Meshuggah. Of course I don’t mind if Meshuggah are an influence on your music, but… as a friend of mine likes to say, you have to think of your art as a Christmas tree: your influences can be the ornaments, but they can’t be the trunk. And Meshuggah are Vortice’s trunk – in fact, they’re Vortice’s entire fucking tree. Vortice don’t bring anything new to the formula. They just sound exactly like Meshuggah, except not as good, because no Meshuggah wanna-bes ever sound as good as the real thing.

Check out Vortice here and then feel free to disagree with me in the comments section. But I’m right.

-AR

It’s good to be in the AC/DC business. This week, the band released AC/DC: Iron Man 2,  a tie-in with next month’s blockbuster popcorn flick that’s really just a greatest hits package. There isn’t a single new song, or even a new recording of an old song, on the thing. It’s just some of the band’s most famous tunes with Iron Man and War Machine on the cover.

And it’s apparently on track to sell somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 copies in its first week of release. That seems like an insane number for an album with nothing new to offer. Are all of the people who bought this album kids who are just getting into AC/DC and found purchasing the collection to be cheaper than delving into the band’s discography? I might have believed this to be the case ten years ago, but today’s kids are way too savvy for that, aren’t they? They don’t really seem to care about album art, let alone a promo pic that’s readily available all over the internet; they’d just illegally download the tracks (AC/DC have yet to make their catalog available via iTunes) and make their own comp. So I have to think that the band’s older fans are the people buying this album in droves. To repeat: old people are running out and buying a bunch of songs they already own. WHY? Are they too lazy to rip all the songs and just make a mix? Do they not understand how to burn a CD (if people are still buying CDs I’m going to assume that they’re still burning them)? Or are they such loyal completists that they’ll sink money into anything with the AC/DC logo on it ? I’m not knocking AC/DC – I love their music, and good for them for once again being the richest dudes on the planet – but I really do find this to be a mystery.

While you ponder that, watch the below mash-up of AC/DC, Iron Man, and Dirty Dancing. The editing is kinda sloppy and obviously the special effects aren’t theatrical-release grade, but it’s still kinda funny.

The Iron Man 2 video game, which comes out May 4, which feature a lot more metal, with songs by Meshuggah, Soilwork, and a new Lamb of God track, “Hit the Wall.” You can watch a clip about the making of “Hit the Wall” after the jump.

Click to read more…

Musicians are strange creatures. Their work hours and habits are almost always odd, hygiene is often suspect, and sanity questionable.

If I had to point out one thing that ties all musicians together, it would be inspiration, often drawn from a simple but strong love for music. Inspiration comes from all varieties of thoughts and experiences though, and most will agree that it is a mystical and almost spiritual matter that is difficult to qualify. For me, personally, my inspiration is the most important thing I have in life because it guides all of my goals and efforts to blast through them. Although it may be oriented around music for whatever reason, the specifics of what I am inspired to do are not crystal clear. It is not instrument, genre, or socially based. It is just to create.

I have always been in awe of musicians that are able to look past the world’s conceptions of genre. For some bands, it is absolutely correct for them to do their thing 100% their way and use their tested process over and over, record after record. I don’t mean being stale, either… Development and growth between records is an assumed necessity for me to take a band seriously. Examples of bands that know their sound or process well and tend to stick to it (with great results) would include bands like Meshuggah, Megadeth, Behemoth, Muse, Deftones, and even more progressive bands like The Mars Volta, Opeth, and Dream Theater. But the musicians that REALLY get me thinking these days are ones who understand how to take a complete 180 degree turn: drop the world’s, or maybe just critics’, perception on its head, and use new influences from a completely different angle. It is almost as if they side-step into a bizarro dimension and are running two or more separate careers. Musicians that can accomplish this demonstrate a certain type of understanding and mental clarity that is all too rare. Here are some of my favorite examples:

Click to read more…

I don’t know why it bothers me so much when people rip-off some bands, like Tool and Meshuggah, but not that much when they rip-off other bands, like Slayer and Pantera. I mean, every fucking band in the world steals from Slayer on a regular basis, but I’m never like “Oh, fuck these guys, they’re no Slayer.” On the other hand, some band comes along that clearly wants to be Meshuggah, and I can’t be bothered. Are Meshuggah just so inimitable that I can’t handle anyone even trying to ape them? I dunno. I’ll bring it up in therapy this week.

While we wait to see what the good doctor has to say on the matter, here’s “High Pain Threshold,” the new video from Poland’s Neurothing, who clearly want so badly to be Meshuggah you wonder why they didn’t just name their band “Meshuggoh” or some shit. I wrote very briefly about how little I like this band when their album Murder Book came out last year, and this video hasn’t changed my opinion, which basically boils down to, “YOU’RE NOT MESHUGGAH SO JUST CUT IT THE FUCK OUT.”

At least the director found a clever way around his budgetary issues: just don’t light anyone.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

I am going to assume that a decent portion of the followers of this site are themselves musicians with bands of their own. That is generally how it goes with metal. There are seamless lines blurred between the “fans” and the “bands” because, like myself, many metal patrons represent both categories. Without this large sector of musician fans, technically proficient bands that cater directly to this base (like Dream Theater, Meshuggah, and Necrophagiast) would be much less successful. So to those musicians, I would like to use this blog to shine a light on one of the harsh truths in all music and entertainment that many musicians choose to ignore -

Image matters a lot in this industry. In fact, it’s probably just as important as the music.
Click to read more…