[This post is being live-updated. -Ed.]

This past weekend Metallica got all sneaky and sent out a “Save the Date” for a big announcement happening today at 2pm EST / 11am PST. And here’s the news, via their LiveStream (which started about 15 minutes late, featured a quick trailer announcing the fest, then cut to the band members in a room addressing the camera directly in an informal Q&A session).

Metallica are hosting their own 2-day festival, June 23-24, 2012 in Atlantic City, NJ called “Orion Music + More”. They will headline both nights and will have 22 other artists performing. The official website for the festival is here. The festival is in partnership with C3 who also does Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

Click to read more…

Hard to believe, but Paul Baloff, who many still consider the definitive Exodus front man, passed away ten years ago. So the band played a tribute show over the weekend, and Kirk Hammett showed up, hopping on stage to play “Whipping Queen,” a song he originally co-wrote and recorded for the band’s 1982 demo. And while I don’t forgive Hammett for “The Unforgive XIII” or whatever, I do think it was cool of him to come out and pay homage to Baloff, so… I won’t make fun of him until at least the next non-Exodus related Metallica post.

You can check out video of the event below. Former Exodus bassist Jeff Andrews joined the band for the tune, also, but no one cares about that guy. I mean, really, if the headline to this article had been “JEFF ANDREWS RE-JOINED EXODUS,” your reaction would probably have been, “Who?”

And here’s the original ’82 demo version of “Whipping Queen,” in case you’ve either never heard it before, or just want to stroll down memory lane for a few minutes:

-AR

[via The PRP]

Over the weekend, Metallica’s publicists sent out the below message to the media at large…

…as well as the below video, which reminds us that we’ve seen Metallica play lots and lots and worldwide festivals, “But you’ve never seen them…”, and then all the information above. That’s it. “But you’ve never seen them.” So, you’ve seen Metallica, but, like, you’ve never seen Metallica, dude.

WHOA. That’s deep.

Click to read more…

Records by Alcest, Bleeding Through, Liberteer and Riotgod top this week’s slate of new releases. Oh, and we suppose Metallica have a “new” record out too. Those and more after the break.

Click to read more…

It’s occasionally hard to tell whether we should cheer superstar wrestler Hulk Hogan as an unhinged eccentric or jeer him as a sideways freak who paws his own daughter on TV when not sweatily humping other half-nude guys on TV. Okay, shit, it’s not that tough to call actually — especially when the Hulkster pops round The Sun (UK) offices to cull the latest relationship gossip on Heidi Klum (silly!) and Cameron Diaz (really?).

Truly, the gentleman prefers blondes. Anyway, after casually implying his fandom of The Stone Roses — a major news item in England for their recent reunion — Hogan dropped these bombshells on The Sun:

Click to read more…

Remember last week when eight year old Juliet released her first hardcore song? Of course you do; you were one of 14 million people (!) who watched her video. Maybe you even bought a Juliet t-shirt (?!?).

And remember back in October when a full band of British eight year olds — The Mini Band — covered Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” prompting a response from the big guys themselves? Of course you do!

Now… here’s Mini Band guitarist Zoe Thomson ripping through a neo-classical instrumental shred tune called “Stratosphere,”  which I guess is originally by Stratovarius. Holy crap, she can play! When I was 8 years old I was still playing with Micro Machines and legos, and while I took music lessons too I certainly didn’t have the discipline or dexterity to tackle something like this. Little Zoe’s gonna be quite the accomplished musician some day… that is, if she wants to be. Until then I’ll continue to be jealous that an eight year old’s guitar abilities have topped my own.

-VN

Thanks: Hetal Bhatt

Banner Designed by Cysquatch

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Following the not-necessarily-logical-but-certainly-MetalSucksian conclusion that we need to counteract our recent Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012 series, in which we preview some albums coming out this year about which we are totally stoked, this week we asked our writers:

WHAT ALBUM WILL HIT YOU IN THE FACE WITH A LIMP DICK IN 2012?

Which is just a silly way of asking:

WHAT IS YOUR LEAST ANTICIPATED ALBUM OF 2012?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump!

Click to read more…

Yo! Have you guys signed up for our new e-mail list yet? If not, you can, and should, do so above. You’ll get occasional updates from the MS Mansion with breaking stories, special features, exclusive premieres, etc., delivered right to your inbox. Don’t worry, we won’t spam you — expect a newsletter-type of situation with updates once a week at most. And don’t forget to friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up-to-the-minute on all the latest suckage.

With that shameless plug out of the way, let’s look at some of the things we did this week, shall we?

• Maybe we should rename the site “Sports Suck?” God Forbid’s Doc Coyle taught us about the NBA and Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick taught us about the NFL.
• We spoke to Matt Halpern from Periphery and Bandhappy and Nick Cohon from Cormorant.
• We were saddened to report that legendary Black Sabbath guitarist has been diagnosed with lymphoma.
• Jason Richardson was saddened to learn that he has been fired from Born of Osiris.
• We considered ten possible candidates to replace Howard Jones in Killswitch Engage.
• We wagered that the new Metallica album is not going to sound like The Black Album despite what the band says.
• We passed judgement on the new Van Halen single and video.
• We got excited that Refused and At the Drive In are reuniting.
• We learned that Virgin Steele are from Long Island.
• We started to look at some Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012: new releases from Adimiron, Hypno5e, Ides of Gemini, Pallbearer, Sai Nam, and Samothrace.

Next week we’ll have even more Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off, interviews, premieres, and, of course, plenty of snark. ‘Til then, brothers and sisters…

-AR

Oh, Lars Ulrich, when will you ever learn? Metallica’s drummer has a special talent for saying things that a) make no sense and b) will almost certainly piss off fans, if not the moment he says them, than sometime in the future, when they turn out to be not at all true.

His latest verbal faux pas comes via an interview with Rolling Stone, in which he discusses the next Metallica album. Here’s the full quote, with my analysis to follow:

Click to read more…

So, hey, remember when that rumor started back in October that Metallica were gonna make some kind of 3D movie? Well, it’s not a rumor anymore. From the band’s official website:

“We’re here to tell you that, yes, there is indeed a 3D project in the very early stages of production! We wish we could tell you more right now, but we don’t have all the finer points nailed down just yet. What we can tell you is that we are planning on being in a theatre near you sometime in 2013.”

So we still don’t know if this is a concert film or what — personally, I am still hoping that this is like Metallica’s version of Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, with the Metallicats participating in some sort of ultra-corny hijinks — but we do know that producer Charlotte Huggins is involved. Personally, I don’t find the words “From the Producer of Fly Me to the Moon 3D” to be any more encouraging than I do the phrase “From the band that brought you St. Anger,” but you can make your own assumptions.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

video via Metal Insider

Today is the last day of regular posting on MetalSucks for the remainder of the year. We’ll still have some posts now and then — our annual Heavy Metal Hanukkah contest starts next week, we might have a series of cool new guest blogs from an old friend for you, and, of course, if there’s any major breaking news, we’ll cover it —  but most of your regularly scheduled programming is going on hiatus while we enjoy the holidays.

But until we’re back, have fun reviewing our top stories from this week, won’t you?

• We debuted a new video from Novembers Doom, new music by Nylithia, and, thanks to our pals at Decibel, new music from Autopsy.
• Lazarus AD’s Jeff Paulick nominated Marion Barber for president and Jonah Livingston from Ramming Speed told us about his live drum set-up.
• We spoke to Devin Townsend and Repulsion.
• We checked out the latest release from Kevin Hufnagel and some free shit from Australia.
• We listened to more previously unreleased material from Metallica’s Death Magnetic sessions.
• We got excited about the line-up for this year’s New England Metal and Hardcore Festival.
• We got even more excited to learn that Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin is a criminal.
• We accepted an apology from the world’s most pretentious metal band.
• The future ex-Mrs. Vince Neilstein serenaded us with a piano cover of Mastodon’s “Oblivion.”
• Dummy Nosenothing continued to know nothing. How come we don’t fire this idiot?

Thanks for another sucky year, gang. See ya in 2012!

-AR

UPDATED:

Hey, so you what did you guys think of the idea I posited last week for a new band ranking system? Thanks to Jason from IKILLYA for pointing out the existence of NextBigSound.com, a cool site that aggregates a lot of the data I suggested be included in the ranking, namely social network stats and other Internet metrics. While NextBigSound allows account holders to enter their own Soundscan data, I’d love to see all those things — along with torrents, merch sales, etc — combined into a single chart that’s published once a week and accessible to the industry, much like Soundscan is now. The grand picture is so much bigger than album sales now more than ever, and I think that needs to be reflected in the main chart people analyze. For the most part, it seemed like you guys were into the idea even if you questioned its feasibility.

Anyway, this week is pretty depressing sales-wise. One look at the top six records on this week’s Current Hard Music chart should make any metalhead cry. Since there weren’t many notable new albums released last week and you surely don’t wanna just read about Nickelsuck, I also included numbers of some older albums from earlier in 2011 that are experiencing holiday sales bumps.

Click to read more…

So as everyone and their mother is aware by now, at each evening of Metallica’s four-night thirtieth anniversary celebration at the Fillmore in San Francisco this past week, the band played a previously-unreleased song from the Death Magnetic sessions, and then e-mailed studio versions of those songs to the members of their fan club. But if you want those songs and don’t wanna pay $45-$60 per year to be in the Metallica fan club, you’re in luck, because the band is now selling all four songs in one nifty collection called Beyond Magnetic. You can DL it via iTunes for four bucks. You should note that these are still rough mixes.

You can read the band’s official statement on the EP release here, although the only info I didn’t just sum up for you is the fact that in January the band will be announcing “a special interactive fan event [to take place] in June of 2012.” Unless it’s “Berate Lars Ulrich with a Megaphone” day or something, I’m sure it will be disappointing.

And I wish I had some clever capper for this blog post, but I mostly wrote about this to avoid getting a million e-mails from people going “Hey, why aren’t you writing about this?” I’m not spending four pennies on these songs, let alone four bucks. But, y’know, enjoy the new tunes if they’re your kinda thing!

-AR

UPDATE: I know the links keep getting pulled. I’ll try to re-update the vids as often as possible. Sometimes I might have to use live vids instead of studio recordings, depending on what’s available. Apologies.

If my headline seems oddly dry and straightforward, it’s because I’m running out of things to say about these mediocre new songs from the mediocre Death Magnetic that Metallica played as part of their four-night  thirtieth anniversary celebration at the Fillmore in San Francisco. (You can listen to the first two here and here.) I guess it’s good to know Metallica wrote four extra songs in the gajillion years it took them to make Death Magnetic, because, uh, at least they were being productive.

Anyway, these both suck, but if you care –

“Hell and Back”

Click to read more…

Alas, this has already been taken down, but here’s a screen cap if you wanna check it out. Note Mr. Hetfield’s occupation as listed below:

Pretty brilliant, right? I can’t believe Wikipedia changed it!

-AR

[via The Metal of Honor]

Earlier this week, Metallica performed a previously unreleased song from the Death Magnetic sessions, “Hate Train,” as part of their four-night  thirtieth anniversary celebration at the Fillmore in San Francisco, and then e-mailed their fan club a rough mix of that song; now they’ve done the same for another tune that didn’t make the Death cut, this one called “Just a Bullet Away.” And, holy shit, they are making this too easy. Why don’t they just call a song “Everyone Hate Us Now?”

ANYWAY, I actually think this song is… not terrible. Don’t get me wrong, it has serious problems — namely, James Hetfield’s ongoing obsession with being the worst vocalist in the world, the incredibly crappy chorus, the bloated running time, and the lyric “suck, suck ’til it’s dry” — but the main riff is actually pretty catchy, and doesn’t immediately call to mind any other Metallica riffs. I even kinda like the slow, Gothenburg-y section. So congratulations to Metallica, it looks like another slightly-above-mediocre song was written and recorded for Death Magnetic. I wonder why this one didn’t make the cut?

By the way, if you haven’t been paying attention, ‘Tallica have been having all sorts of special guests at these shows, ranging from Jason Newsted (I can’t believe he had time to fit it into his busy schedule!) to John Bush to Scott Ian to Marianne Faithful to… Lou Reed. Yes, they performed songs from Lulu. I’m too lazy/don’t care enough to write about all that shit, but Metal Insider has plenty of coverage if you’re interested.

-AR

Hate is a train
That thunders aimless through my head
And hate is the fame
Chained to the wheel until I’m dead

And with these words, so begins “Hate Train,” a previously unreleased song from the Death Magnetic sessions that the band performed last night as part of their four-night thirtieth anniversary celebration at the Fillmore in San Francisco, and a rough mix of which has subsequently been e-mailed to Metallica fan club members (audio below). They’re the most achingly poetic, not-at-all trite lyrics the band has penned since “My lifestyle determines my deathstyle.” And I don’t care what anyone says, the main riff is absolutely not just a recycled version of the one from “Fuel,” the song from the Load albums that everyone tolerates because at least it’s not “Unforgiven II.” Furthermore, “Hate Train”‘s seven-minute-plus runtime is the very definition of “warranted,” and I’m really sick of people giving James Hetfield’s vocals a hard time, because, hey, can your dog sing this well? No? Then shut up.

I guess what I’m saying is, this song is so perfect in every way that I just can’t believe it didn’t end up on Death Magnetic. Surely, it was blessed by the hand of Cliff Burton himself.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

We at MetalSucks have dealt with the paradoxes involved with conducting a poll to determine great guitar players (read our 25 Best Modern Metal Guitarists poll here)! So we get that in a unweighted vote, the top-ranked axemen may just represent those liked by the largest number of voters; i.e. a dude who we agree is pretty good may score higher than each of our individual favorite dudes.

So when Rolling Stone magazine enlisted a who’s-who of classic rock personalities for their 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time cover story, we prepared for some wacky aberrations. Let’s check out a few of the RS list’s inconsistencies:

Click to read more…

After it was announced that director visionary director Darren Aronofsky would be helming a music video for Loutallica’s completely unlistenable piece of shit “The View,” I was optimistic that Aronofsky would come up with something that would be superior to the song itself. I don’t think I was alone in harboring this hope. I haven’t loved all of Aronofsky’s films — The Fountain and Black Swan were both pretty lousy, and, no, I don’t give two fucks how many awards the latter film won — but the guy’s work is usually, at the very least, thought-provoking. He has a unique point of view, and, really, what more can you ask for from an artist? Some people will inevitably love or hate the creator’s work, so, really, the creator’s responsibility is to be, for lack of a better term, interesting. It is, ultimately, the bare minimum we should require of artists, and the single thing so many of them completely fail to do. But whatever you want to say about Aronofsky, you can’t deny that the guy has a vision; he’s got heart, he’s got soul.

That’s why his video for “The View” is such a goddamn bummer. ‘Cause it’s really just a performance video. Is it slightly prettier than most performance videos? Sure. Aronofsky’s regular cinematographer, Matthew Libatique — who has been one of the director’s regular collaborators way back since π — is no slouch. But most of the imagery isn’t really that original or stimulating. Really, the “homemade,” handheld nature of it — that kind of “indie” quality — isn’t that far off from, say, a commercial for Levi’s jeans. Y’know, like this one:

Click to read more…

Banner Designed by Cysquatch

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired by the ongoing disaster that is Lou Reed & Metallica’s Lulu, this week we asked our writers:

WHAT WAS THE WORST METAL ALBUM OF 2011?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump!

Click to read more…