As part of our sponsorship of The Legacy Tour, featuring Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation, one member from each band will be penning an exclusive blog entry for MetalSucks to run during the tour (get a full list of tour dates here). Our first entry featured Veil of Maya guitarist Marc Okubo taking us on a run-through of his entire live rig, and the second entry was an update from Revocation’s Dave Davidson. Here’s Periphery’s Misha Mansoor on his new live rig setup (the idea for which he first mentioned in a prior column) and how that’s working out for him:

So a little while back I posted a column about going direct with the guitars on a future tour, and that tour just so happens to be this tour we are on now with Revocation, Veil Of Maya and Darkest Hour. The idea behind going direct is that instead of having an amp/rig that goes through a cabinet then gets mic’ed up, you just take an audio signal direct to the board and skip the whole cab and mic. This allows for a simpler and cleaner signal chain, as removing the cab, mic and mic-placement variables makes the signal extremely consistent every night. Now we are going direct with our Fractal AxeFX Ultras which is an absolutely phenomenal unit for direct tones.

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Periphery’s mastermind and resident nerd-face Misha Mansoor wrote a killer series of columns for us earlier this year in which he geeked out about various gear that he uses; I think it’d be fair to dub him the reigning “Metal Misha” at this particular point in time. But the original Metal Misha got wind of his competition at the MetalSucks-sponsored Darkest Hour Legacy Tour stop in NYC last weekend, and apparently was none too pleased about the situation. Thankfully, the rights to the “Metal Misha” crown come cheap.

-VN

Well, funny you should ask that question, because Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum and Periphery’s Misha Mansoor just got together to jam and filmed it for ya’ll. This is topical, of course, because both bands are touring together as part of the MetalSucks-sponsored Legacy Tour along with Veil of Maya and Revocation.

Mike and Misha are two extremely talented writers and guitar players with distinctly different styles, so the concept of a collabo is pretty cool to me. Seeing as they’re both D.C. natives, maybe they’ll get together to record a proper shred record at some point in the future? Based on this video I certainly think that’d make for an interesting album. Make sure you sit through the intro stuff in this video to watch the jam sesh at the end… or just skip to around 1:50, you impatient prick.

Also: how stoned does Mike look in this clip?

-VN

It’s sad that gear getting stolen is a not-uncommon occurrence in the metal world — but the fact that it seems to happen so frequently never makes me any less pissed-off about it. And now it’s happened to a very direct member of the MetalSucks family, so… you might imagine that we’re fuming, and you’d be right.

A post from Periphery’s official Facebook page:

Since it seems that at least two of these guitars are rare/one-of-a-kind, hopefully they’ll be recovered quickly, as was the case with Katatonia’s stolen gear last month. And then hopefully someone will make the thief eat his own nuts.

While we wait for a happy resolution to this woeful tale, read Periphery guitarist Misha “Bulb” Mansoor’s “MetalSucks.net/Gear_Geek” column and learn why the idiot who took this guitar will never do as much good with it as Periphery would.

And don’t forget that Periphery will part of the MetalSucks sponsored Legacy Tour along with Darkest Hour (playing a “best of” set from their fifteen year career), Veil of Maya, and Revocation. Get dates here.

-AR

Which should surprise absolutely no one, ’cause the Periphery dudes themselves are super-nerdy too (not that that’s a bad thing). Check this short video mash-up  that we found on Metal Injection of Periphery’s three guitar players describing their rigs. It’s, um, entertaining:

If you’d like more Periphery nerdery, check out Misha Mansoor’s three-part MishaSucks.net/Gear_Geek column that he wrote for us a few months back. Dude knows his shit.

Periphery are touring with Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya and Revocation on the MetalSucks-sponsored Legacy Tour this fall.

-VN

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.

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Alight guys, sorry I haven’t posted an article in a while, but I’m here now with something I think is kinda cool and rarely gets talked about in the metal world: Groove.

Some of you guys may know just how much I love a rhythm that grooves, something that just makes you want to bob your head to it, and there’s more to it than just getting playful with the accents or syncopating a beat. There are the more subtle aspects, the kind that sometimes don’t translate so well to recordings. I mean, what is groove exactly and what gives it that “feel”? Who in the band really affects the level of groove — is it just the drummer, the drummer and the bassist, or the band as a whole?

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Tosin Abasi is undoubtedly one of the few guitarists in modern metal that I’d classify as a musical genius. I mean, there’s lotsa dudes that can play… but not very many dudes who can really play and who have a true, fundamental, natural understanding of the instrument the way Abasi does. Abasi is like that young hitter your team calls up from the minors, the guy who possesses the raw strength to smack a home run over the wall but who also understands and appreciates the nuance of the game, can hit curveballs, and can make adjustments to wily pitcher tactics within an at-bat (hey Ike Davis!). He’s that good.

I’m not sure how I missed the fact that his band Animals as Leaders has released a new single yesterday exclusively on iTunes called “Wave of Babies,” but there ya have it, as reported by SMN News. Since I luurrrrved Animals as Leaders’ self-titled debut album so much that I called it the 12th best album of 2009, this was an instant purchase for me (buy here).

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If any of you guys know me, you know that I have a permanent hard-on for my Fractal AxeFx Ultra, and although some of you may hate my tone, you would be silly to think that you couldn’t dial in a tone that your weird ears like, and then some. This one is for the gear nerds out there.

This is more than a Fractal plug, I swear. Let’s call this more of an open test/experiment in progress because I am in the midst of quite an awesome dilemma at the moment. I am stuck between deciding on how best to use my AxeFx in a live situation, because both options it affords are amazing.

We just did a little tour in Australia with Dillinger and Maylene, and on that tour we were getting amps from backline companies (read: different amps every day). So we figured the best way to get some consistency would be to plug our AxeFxs into the effects loop return of the amps and use them for their tube power sections. This worked out pretty damn well for the most part; you could hear how each different poweramp had its own distinct sound, but when it was awesome, it was AWESOME. Only at one show did I actually get the amp I had asked for, and that was an Engl Invader (150 to be more precise) and that EL34 poweramp sounded so godly that I thought perhaps that was the way to go. Or at least something similar: a good tube poweramp (may make more sense for a rack unit ala Fryette 2/50/2 or Mesa 2:90) through a 4×12 cabinet. Good old Preamp->Tube Poweramp->Cab->Mic->PA in a live context, which is what 99% of bands do nowadays. And with this setup you get that amazing feel of a tube amp and that response they are known for.

However there is another option with the AxeFx, and that is going direct.

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Yep, we talked a lot of smack on Joey Belladonna this week, much to the chagrin of, well, an awful lot of you. I think we’re done for a little while… but I can’t make any promises. Our job at MetalSucks is to amuse ourselves first and foremost, and, well, we thought it was pretty damned funny. So ppppfffftttt.

Here’s what else went down this week:

• We debuted the title track from Nachtmystium’s new album, Addicts.
• Genetic’s Dallas Coyle called us “influential,” Disfear’s Tomas Lindberg shared some Maryland Deathfest memories, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley unveiled his top four Taco Riffs, Cynic’s Paul Masvidal got burglarized, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa made some new revelations about L O S T, God Forbid’s Doc Coyle worried about turning into an old geezer, Daath’s Eyal Levi gave us a lesson in stage etiquette, and Batillus’ Geoff Summers gave us a new studio update.
• We spoke to The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne, Periphery’s Misha “Bulb” Mansoor, Testament’s Chuck Billy, and Sick of it All’s Lou Koller.
• We checked out new releases by Korn and Ufomammut and Year of No Light.
• Is Mastodon’s Brent Hinds a Mastodick?
• Sergeant D sez Cunthunt777 are your new favorite band.
• Don’t worry, baby, Dr. Danzig gonna cure what ails you.
• Hot chick loves Nergal, hates the Bible.
• Boy oh boy, do we love the new Limp Bizkit cover art!
• If you’re looking for new band members, don’t do this.

Alright. We’re gonna go get drunk and crank We’ve Come For You All in John Bush’s honor. Have a great weekend, everyone.

-AR

Dudes like Misha Mansoor are the future of the music industry. For the time being let’s not even talk about his band Periphery (who we happen to like very much), but the manner in which he’s making things happen for himself. Mansoor recorded his band’s album in his apartment — aka cheap — and because he spent years honing his recording skills, it sounds fantastic. Then he took the finished product and got it signed to five different record labels worldwide, yet he retains the ownership of his masters. That’s called smart business whether you like his band or not, and as new technology and the Internet make business models like this possible, expect more bands to follow suit in the very near future.

In my 20-minute phone chat with Misha on the eve of Periphery’s album release, we talked all about how he created his own little empire and what the implications may be, both for Periphery and the music industry as a whole. What you’ll find is a dude that “gets it” and whose expectations are firmly rooted in reality despite the fact that his band is blowing the fuck up. Our chat after the jump.

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A few hours ago authorities evacuated Times Square for the second time in a week after someone found a “suspicious cooler” on the street. Of course, everyone was just being overly cautious, but as long as it doesn’t infringe on my civil rights, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. I think Vince was in Michigan when 9/11 went down, but I was here, and if I never see another tank rolling down my street again or run all over the city because there’s no cell service and I need to make sure that all of my friends and family are still alive, well, I’ll be good.

While I nurse my PTSD, here are some happier, metalier things that happened this week:

• We’re streaming Keep of Kalessin’s new album, Reptilian. We also debuted new music by Lamb of God and The Funeral Pyre.
• We also also also debuted new videos by Soulfly and Cancer Bats.
• We also also also also debuted our new cooking show, Cooking Contaminated.
• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal discussed the shape of silence, Periphery’s Bulb taught you how to get that “big” studio tone, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa had some questions about L O S T, Matt from Rumpelstiltskin Grinder fondly recalled Maryland Deathfest, and Batillus bassist Willi Stabenau gave us a studio update.
• We talked to Darkest Hour’s Mike Schleibaum, Reign Supreme’s Jay Pepito,  Jackyl’s Jesse James Dupree, and unveiled part one of our massive two-part interview with Buzz Osborne.
• We checked out the latest release by The Howling Wind.
• Does the fact that Mike Portnoy is touring with Avenged Sevenfold make you wanna see ‘em?
• We don’t want Joey Belladonna to return to Anthrax. Seriously.
• Sergeant D. wants to know if u mosh 4 Christ???
• Damnocracy’s Evan Seinfeld and his porno Howdy Doody also do bar mitzvahs.
• We wish there was really such a thing as a Slayer burrito.

Next week brings even more betterer br00tal goodness – interviews, debuts, guest blogs, all that shit. It’s gonna get real up in this bitch. See ya then.

-AR

MOAR IST ALWAYS BETTER!!!!

Ok guys, so since we started off with some live tone tips last time, I figured for this column we’d talk a bit about my experience in the studio. I say “my experience” because unfortunately there are few absolute truths when it comes to anything having to do with art, as it is all painfully subjective blahblahblah… so please feel free to take all this info with a grain of salt. This is just some info that I really wish I had known about when I was just starting to record; instead I had to figure it out the hard way, so maybe this can save some time and trouble for a few of you guys!

I’m sure some of you guys already know the stuff I am about to cover in the next few paragraphs, but a select few will bother reading the whole damn thing anyway and then complain that you know it all already and that it was a waste of time reading, etc. If I am describing someone that sounds scarily similar to you, I recommend not reading this column. Just stop right here and you’ll save that many minutes of your life! You’re welcome!

The first thing I want to talk about is quad (or more) tracking and some of the misconceptions that surround it. A lot of people ask me if I quad track and if it is indeed the key to getting a “big” sound when recording guitars. The answer is tricky, as I wouldn’t say it makes recordings sound big in the traditional sense. Two important side effects (sometimes desirable, sometimes not) are 1) for lack of a better word “squishier” sounding guitars, and 2) an almost chorus-like effect on the guitar. The reasons for this are pretty simple: when you have 4 or more guitars playing the same part, because of the nature of trying to do exactly the same thing but not quite achieving it because you are a human being, the attack of the transients doesn’t always line up. This is the case with 2 guitars, but it’s exponentially harder to achieve with 4. Your attack ends up getting sort of “averaged out” between the 4 note attacks, and it makes the result not hit quite as hard. Because of the minute differences in the 4 takes, those differences really add up. Especially if you tend to pick hard, the guitars will chorus against each other because of the minute pitch differences at every spot.

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We need to come up with a new genre name for one-man, instrumental, groovy, Meshuggah-influenced bedroom projects. Pioneered by dudes like Misha Mansoor and Tosin Abasi and proliferated amongst the myriad guitar message boards of the Internet, the metal micro-genre is a force to be reckoned with that’s spawned many bands/projects we’ve written about — such as Keith Merrow, Chimp Spanner, Cloudkicker, etc — and hundreds more we haven’t. This is not Sumeriancore, though that genre is akin to something of a cousin. “Djent” is stupid. “One-man, instrumental, groovy, Meshuggah-influenced bedroom projects” is way too long. “Groovy progressive instrumetal” doesn’t have a good ring to it. Halp.

The latest example is Tre Watson of the Baltimore band Carthage. Tre emailed us last night to tell us that he just released a solo album under his own name that he’s made available for free download [updated link] to the masses (side note: putting up your album for free download is totally the “IN” thing to do in this scene). Then The Number of the Blog‘s deseee posted about it this morning with an embedded stream of the track “Conflicting Intentions” from the album. Don’t let the super thrashy intro fool you; about a minute into the song things get mighty groovy and progressive.

What can we call this genre? ‘Cause lord knows the need to categorize exists in the human psychology and we at MetalSucks certainly aren’t above pigeonholing. So let’s go… give it your best shot. Anyone who answers “crap” (or similar) gets an e-slap on the face.

-VN

Shockwaves Ripples emanated throughout the metal blogosphere last month when Sumerian young guns Periphery announced that vocalist Chris Baretto had been replaced by Spencer Sotelo. It seemed like Periphery were just getting into the groove with Baretto having been singerless for so many years, on the heels of successful Summer Slaughter and East Coast headline runs, and with their Sumerian Records debut slated for release this Spring. And not for nothin’, Baretto is a talented singer and an enthralling frontman capable of energizing any audience…. the move was a bit of a head-scratcher.

But fear not, Chris Baretto fans. Haunted Shores, an instru-metal band we featured here this past October, have tapped Baretto to fill their vacant vocalist spot.

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Djent flag-wavers and recent Sumerian Records signees Periphery are taking my advice and hitting the East Coast next month for a string of headline dates, welcome news to those of us who saw them absolutely decimate the crowd on this Summer’s hit-or-miss Thrash & Burn Tour despite an asscrack-of-dawn stage time (relatively speaking). To say that Periphery were the standout act of Thrash & Burn would be an understatement; they completely tour up a room that had to be for the most part unfamiliar with them. It was also immensely satisfying for me to finally see a band live that’s been e-famous for years.

The 9-date headline tour also features This or the Apocalypse and Roadrunner young guns Mutiny Within, starting November 8th in Richmond, VA and wrapping up November 16th in Providence, RI. If you don’t live in any of these limited markets, fear not — the band will definitely be touring a helluva lot in the coming months/years.

Full list of dates after the jump, and of course you can listen to the band on MySpace. Also check out our interview with Periphery’s Misha Mansoor and Alex Bois as well as this video of drummer Matt Halpern laying down some ridiculous grooves in the studio.

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When MetalSucks correspondent Angela Gossowski interviewed recent Sumerian Records signees Periphery last month she asked them about the word “djent,” a phrase that appears on some of the band’s t-shirts (pictured above). Guitarist / band-mastermind Misha Mansoor answers thusly:

It’s basically just a guitar sound. It’s not even a word I invented, but it has become synonymous with the band. It’s something we appropriated because of the way we play our power chords. If you play guitar and you play a power chord and you use four notes… you use a big power chord and you palm mute really hard, it makes it really metallic sounding. There are some guitars and amps and pick-ups that are really conducive to that sound, which I’m a very big fan of. So I started describing things that I liked as “djenty,” because they had that characteristic. Just like you would say ‘bright,’ ‘dark,’ or whatever. It just seemed to have caught on for some reason. I actually heard the term from Meshuggah. They’re the ones who coined the term as far as I know. But for whatever reason people have been associating it with us… So if you’re in standard tuning, for all you guitar nerds out there, it would be 0-2-2-4. Or if you’re in drop tuning like we are, it would be 0-0-0-2.

So, Djent. It’s a term I’ve been hearing more and more lately as a result of the fact that it’s a sound I’ve been hearing more and more lately. It’s a staple of the Sumeriancore sound. And I can 100% get behind it! (for now). Here are a few bands that our readers have sent in that I’d definitely classic as djenty.

• Fuge - Scott Bahash sent this one in and wants us to know that it’s “just some guy from Hungary who makes some tracks at home but they blow away any progressive/djenty bands.”
• CiLiCe – Sent in by BTK 666. “Better than Tesseract??” he asks. Maybe so.
• Haunted Shores – The instrumental tracks up on this band’s MySpace page were actually produced and mixed by Mr. Misha Mansoor himself. They sound damn fine, and damn djenty.

Djent djent djent!

-VN

Another day at Harpo’s Theatre in Detroit: white metal bands, black neighborhood, beefed-up security, and glaring eyes – nothing says “Welcome to Michigan” like playing here. Although forward-thinking on the racial front is lackluster at best, we still have a very prominent and devoted metal crowd ready to use the few dollars they have left to buy a ticket and get shit-faced.

It is here, during the MetalSucks co-sponsored Thrash & Burn tour, that I recently had the opportunity to interview a band that seemingly everyone at MS has been jizzing their pants over: Periphery.These guys just got signed with Sumerian, and THANK GOD. They can absolutely shred, and even if you’re not too keen on clean vocals, I think you need to get the stick out of your ass and check these guys out ASAP.

Their soon-to-be “mass appeal” is more then I would normally advocate. Nonetheless, just because they will most likely be your younger sister or brother’s favorite new band (if your sister of brother is totally bad-ass), they may also be yours as well. There is no way you can deny their talent. Everything about this band is correct. Everything is in motion. They are insoluble. They are the lime in your tequila. They just… work.

The band’s founder, Misha Mansoor, is not only super-talented, but also gives his music away. For free, as Kip Wingerschmidt recently informed us. And not just one or two songs, either – over one-hundred tracks, in studio-quality audio. If that doesn’t convince you to check them out, then you need to check yourself off. Get it?

Either way, Misha and go-guitarist Alex Bois were so very gracious to sit down with me in their conversion van and tell me all about how they got to where they are now, and where they are going to go. I would assume they might dominate most of the Sound Scan posts here at MS in 2010. But hey, to be fair, so will Miley Cyrus. So don’t listen to me, I just have a vagina and I am really, really cool and super smart.

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Ever since energy drinks became the new weed, there are so many goddamn gears to be done grindeded…….and Bethesda, MD’s BULB aka Misha Mansoor aka guitar player for rad tech-prog band/recent-signee-to-Sumerian-Records Periphery (who Vince has raved about previously here and here) is crankin em out left and riggity-right…

This dude Misha seems to be so prolific that one awesome band outputting an ample amount of material is not nearly enough, so under the moniker Bulb (an old defunct band name) he continues to make tons of tracks and give them away for free online…….says-eth the young man himself:

Myspace doesn’t let you download songs for free anymore, and I’m all about
giving away ideas and demos and whatever for free, so you guys can
enjoy the songs, put them on your mp3 player, burn CDs for you and
your friends and just generally enjoy the music I enjoy making!

GO HERE: http://www.soundclick.com/bulb or http://www.soundclick.com/periphery

It’s the same site, but both names work for it in case you forget one!

There are about 130 songs/clips/random ideas up on there now and they are all up for download.

You do have to sign up if you aren’t already registered, but it’s quick
and FREE, and totally worth it since you can have tons of our music to
pick and choose from!

There’s no catch, all I ask is that in exchange you burn a bunch of cds
for your friends and help spread the word about Bulb and Periphery!!

Enjoy!!

-Bulb

I’m not gonna try to pick one that can represent this dude and his cannon, so follow the links above and check out his music.

If you are so inclined, you may also visit Bulb on MySpace, visit Periphery on MySpace, or read about the infamous MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys…….take your pick.

Now go get those gears a grindin!!

-KW