The rumor was that this year’s edition of Mayhem Fest would feature Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, As I Lay Dying and Whitechapel; yesterday, we got confirmation that Slipknot are indeed headlining the outing, and now all the other bands have been confirmed, too. In fact, the only band on the bill that WASN’T rumored to be in the line-up is Asking Alexandria. I’m assuming the festival’s organizers kept that one top-secret on purpose; I mean, I wouldn’t want people to know I was working with Asking Alexandria, either.

All kidding aside, the only bands here I’d consider a total miss are The Devil Wears Prada and the aforementioned Asking Alexandria, and I’m aware that, yes, while I personally may loathe those bands, they will put butts in seats. The rest of the line-up is great; this is obviously Slipknot’s big U.S. comeback tour, and the combination of them and Slayer alone should pretty much guarantee that every metal fan in the country shows up for this thing.

Dates are after the jump, courtesy of Metal Inejection.

Click to read more…

Earlier this week, rumors began to circulate about the line-up for the 2012 edition of Summer Slaughter, and if they’re even kinda-sorta true, the package tour may have put together its best bill ever. Now, The PRP is reporting unconfirmed rumors about the line-up for the 2012 edition of Mayhem Fest, and it sounds like the organizers of that tour ain’t slouching, either: Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, As I Lay Dying and Whitechapel are all said to be possibilites for this year’s installment of the festival.

Like I said, these are currently unconfirmed rumors, and even The PRP says that “a grain (or more) of salt should be taken” with ‘em. But can you imagine if that line-up is real? I actually think the bill has been on the weaker side for Mayhem for the past couple of years, but even with The Devil Wears Prada (who are horrendous) and Whitechapel (who aren’t horrendous but just really are not my thing) on the tour, having Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, and As I Lay Dying all on one show would make it unmissable. And I have to imagine that those would all be mainstage acts, which means there would still be X number of potentially awesome slots available on the secondary stages.

The actual, official line-up will be announced on January 25, so this time next week, we’ll know whether or not these rumors were not really rumors at all. Fingers crossed…

-AR

I mean, who hasn’t, right?

Well, today is our lucky day, friends! ‘Cause that’s just what this group, Porkka Playboys, did, thus generations of untapped artistic desires. And don’t be too scared by the fact that they’re naked; you don’t actually have to see their peens or anything like that.

But wait! It gets stranger! ‘Cause they also covered Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”… entirely while sitting in a small car.

Click to read more…

Last month it was confirmed that Gigantour would be back for a 2012 go-round shortly after Dave Mustaine let it slip that Megadeth would be touring with Motorhead, Volbeat and Lacuna Coil. Dates for the trek were released today, which you will find after the jump. But I’m still not sold on the idea of this tour as “Gigantour,” though; what’s so “gigantic” about it?

In 2005 and 2006, Gigantour’s first two years, the fest featured a two-stage / all-day format, not dissimilar to what Rockstar Mayhem does now and Ozzfest did back then. So how is the 2012 Gigantour any different than any Megadeth + special guests tour? The lineup is sweet, sure, but there’s nothing gigantic about this tour. As Axl claimed all the way back in January of 2008 when the Megadeth / In Flames / Bodom / High on Fire / Job For A Cowboy edition of Gigantour was announced, calling this thing “Gigantour” is false advertising. One’s thing for certain: with those bands on the bill the ticket price is certainly going to be gigantic.

I guess it all comes down to marketing; perhaps Mustaine and his handlers have discovered that they can sell more tickets with the Gigantour brand than they can with the Megadeth name atop a show flyer. If that’s the case, well, I guess they deserve a pat on the back for finding a clever way to get their fans to plunk down their hard-earned Benjamins when they otherwise might not.

Those tour dates after the jump:

Click to read more…

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

Goatwhore’s Carving Out the Eyes of God settled in at #27 on our Top 40 Albums of 2009 list, and in the accompanying write-up, Liz Brenner enthused that the blackened-death clusterfuck was the sort of “neck-bulging, fist-extending sort of heavy that makes it hard to breathe freely or form sentences that don’t start with ‘fucking.’” I know we tend to get hyperbolic about NOLA sludge at dB, but… hold on, let’s get to a period. Fucking a. (You go, Liz.)

It’s so cool and gratifying when a solid, hard-working veteran band starts lurching towards greatness—unless you have your shit together from note one of song one on album one, evolution and development are pretty great things—and now we’re all psyched about album numero cinco, due in 2012. This month’s installment in the dB Flexi Series isn’t a sneak preview per se, but it’s the first piece of new music you’ve heard from Goatwhore in a long time—a cover of Motörhead’s self-explanatory and totally correct “(Don’t Need) Religion,” off 1982’s Iron Fist. The gents banged out the cover during sessions for the as-yet-untitled new Metal Blade LP, and you can stream it right here in advance of the hard copy, which will—as always—be available to subscribers only in the December Decibel.

Goatwhore “(Don’t Need) Religion” (originally by Motorhead) (dB012) by Decibel Magazine

-AB

The December 2011 issue of Decibel also features Megadeth, Municipal Waste, Animals as Leaders, Absu, and Russian Circles,and can be ordered here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss one of these awesome flexi discs?

Last week Dave Mustaine let it slip that Megadeth would be touring with Motörhead, Volbeat, and Lacuna Coil “this year coming up,” and now Noisecreep has confirmed that that tour is, indeed, a go, and is, as we suspected, the newest incarnation of Gigantour. Of course, in a day and age where there are routinely massive multi-band package tours like Mayhem and Summer Slaughter, there’s really nothing gigantic about it, but, hey, the line-up is good enough that there’s no point nitpickin’ the name.

And the really good news is, the tour will apparently take place from January through March, so our concerns that this was gonna be yet another big summer tour are now eased, and we have something to look forward to in the cold winter months. Also, it’s a safe bet that Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia, who voice is good enough that she’s still in the band despite looking like the kid from Mask, will probably be doing “A Tout Le Monde” with Megadeth every night, and I’m all in favor of anything that will mean Dave Mustaine has to do less singing.

There are no dates yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as there are, natch.

-AR

Back in July, Dave Mustaine announced that he was bringing Gigantour back in 2012, and now, in an interview with Street Date (above – skip to the 3:00 mark), Mustaine claims that Megadeth will soon be touring with Motörhead, Volbeat, and Lacuna Coil “this year coming up.” That’s a pretty loose time frame ,so it’s not clear if he’s referring to Gigantour or just a regular Megadeth tour. Although, come to think of it, Gigantour hasn’t had a second stage since 2006, meaning it’s usually just been a four or five band package anyway, so, uh, I’m not really sure what would differentiate this from a “proper” Gigantour.

Click to read more…

To help promote their upcoming tour, on October 11 Judas Priest will release The Chosen Few, their umpteenth career retrospective, and one which does not feature any new material. The Chosen Few does have a hook, though — I mean, beyond the fact that the band members appear on the cover only as silhouettes, I assume at least in part to downplay the fact that a certain key member is no longer in the group.

No, the hook  (and this is actually a neat idea) is that the band has let a lot of other celebrity musicians — including Ozzy, Lemmy, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kerry King, Slash, and Vinnie Paul  – choose which songs would appear on the collection. And, yeah, it’s interesting to know that Zakk Wylde is way into “Grinder,” and and that Randy Blythe and David Coverdale might actually have something to talk about at a cocktail party, and that Joe Satriani likes his Priest heavier than I might have suspected.

But like I said, there’s no new material here, so I can’t quite imagine why anyone would want this album anyway. The coolest thing about The Chosen Few is seeing which dude chose which song, and you can do that after the jump. So, look, we just saved you ten bucks.

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.

We haven’t done one one of these all summer, but we came up with a fun one for this week:

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND PLAY ANY METAL BAND/MUSICIAN SOME OF THEIR MUSIC AND/OR SHOW THEM PHOTOS/VIDEOS OF THEMSELVES FROM THEIR FUTURE (OUR PRESENT), WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

Have you ever noticed that the bands who metal nerds fawn over today were universally-despised rage magnets just a few short years ago? For example, trashing Pantera in 2011 is asking to get chased with torches and pitchforks — the polar opposite of 1993, when you would be hard-pressed to find a band that metal nerds hated more. Or how everybody jizzes over Suffocation now, but in the mid-90s you couldn’t read two pages of Metal Maniacs without someone pissing and moaning about “Suffoclones.” Are metal nerds crazy, or is there some rhyme and reason to their seemingly-contradictory behavior?? I believe that there is indeed a way to understand metal nerds, but it’s not what you might think!

Psychologists have long compared metal nerds to women. The similarities are certainly undeniable: like the fairer sex, they are fickle, emotional, and irrational. They even have long hair! However, my research suggests that, unlike women, they actually operate by a primitive form of logic and are highly predictable. After the break: my SCIENTIFIC MODEL OF METAL NERD PSYCHOLOGY, the FOUR KINDS OF METAL BANDS, and an exclusive METAL NERD CHEAT SHEET that reveals a foolproof formula for whether you should like a band or not!

Click to read more…

According to MSN, Michael “Würzel” Burston, who was the guitarist for Motörhead from ’84 to ’95, has passed away from “ventricular fibrillation, caused by cardiomyopathy, better known as heart disease.” He was 61 years old.

We’ve written so many obituaries this year, and… there’s never really anything you can say other than “That’s terrible.” 61 is really not that old in this day and age, and Burston should have had many more good years ahead of him still. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Here’s video of Burston performing the song “You Better Run,” from the album March ör Die, with Motörhead in Sweden in 1993. Watch it in his honor, and then share your remembrances of the man in our comments section.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with vocalist Neil Fallon of the legendary Clutch. Fresh off some oddly-matched but nevertheless successful tours, first with Children of Bodom and Black Label Society then with Motorhead, Clutch were gearing up for a U.S. headlining run and the re-release of their classic album Blast Tyrant. We talked touring, said reissue, and the band’s success with and thoughts on running their own record label, Weathermaker Music. Our chat, across Beale Street.

Click to read more…

I’m at the point where I pretty much prefer animated movies to live-action ones. I passed up some big deal, hotshot movie that came out recently, whose name I don’t even remember, to see Rango. I’m usually a pretty good judge, too, because I knew Rango was going to be awesome ,and it was. It looks absolutely amazing, and if you’re a nerd for animation detail, the gross, crusty animals will thrill you. Not to mention the classic movie references from Chinatown to Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s also damn violent for a “kids movie.” And well, I’m a movie nerd with a deep love for filmic violence. My dad didn’t have any sons, ok? He raised me to love his Fab Four; Arnold, Bruce, Sylvester, and Jean-Claude. And Dolph, on days he felt generous.

This might be odd, but I always liked to think about what various characters’ personalities would be like. Down to their music and movie taste. I especially try to pick out the metalheads, because I want to find my animated brothers and sisters in arms. It was while musing on the subject on Twitter that I found out the talented Ms. Elise over at Reign in Blonde kind of does the same thing. Apparently, all my acquaintances are online these days. She actually compiled a list of the most metal Disney characters, and with her help, I’ve expanded the list. Here are the Ten Most Likely Metalheads in Animated Movies (excluding anime and other international releases, as the author has not done enough research on the subject.)

Click to read more…

In case it isn’t readily apparent from the giant logo in the lower right hand corner, we “borrowed” this photo of the gig from Prefix.

I’ve never met anyone that outright hated Motorhead. There are people who are indifferent or don’t really like them, but full-on vitriol-spewing hate? Nuh-uh. Motorhead are amazing and wonderful and remind me why I love metal. I’m sure nay-sayers exist, and I pity them, for they have no joy in their cold, hard hearts. I, however, delight in gruff dirty rock n’ roll played really, really fast, and so I was psyched to see them live.

Click to read more…

So Lambgoat tells me that Prosthetic Records’ latest sign is a band from Chicago, Black September. And trying to be a dutiful blogger, I’m listening this band for the first time now, and while their brand of black metal is nothing you haven’t heard before, it’s also pretty good stuff — nice riffage, appropriately vitriolic vocals, some songwriting chops… I could imagine this band being really fun live, too.

All of that being said, I really, really wish this band didn’t have the same moniker as the Palestinian terrorist group that kidnapped and murdered eleven Israeli athletes in addition to a West German police officer at the ’72 Munich Summer Olympics.

Click to read more…

MS photographic whiz Jacqueline Cheng was on-hand at NYC’s Best Buy Theater to shoot Motorhead on the fine evening of February 28th. Of course she was there… where else would she be on such a glorious night of rockage? Check her shots after the jump.

Click to read more…

Sure, it’s been a shitty week for Kvelertak and their stateside fans: We reported Saturday that the Norwegian scream-rockers got separated from vital travel documents right before departure for their first-ever US tour dates (including the MetalSucks co-presented SXSW super-jam). That bums me out cuz duh those fuckerz jam (which is good for concertgoers), but moreso because I was pumped for the band’s imminent chance to, like, collect on their roaring buzz here (which is good for them). Okay sorry about that mixed metaphor. But the point is that if I were a member of Kvelertak (please can I be a member of Kvelertak?), I’d want to further enable American rockers to pony up some cash for the record that about a billion of us have possessed/loved for months ahead of its proper US release. All is not lost cuz a bonus track-laden US version of Kvelertak still drops Tuesday, but I can’t help but lament the fact that a string of ballsack-singeing live sets would’ve cranked open a lot more wallets a lot wider. And deservedly so.

Click to read more…

Like Axl said we’re getting on a plane shortly, so let’s make this shit quick. Some emo haircut band called D.R.U.G.S. (just typing that makes me queasy) sold a lot of records, and Devildriver and Darkest Hour did pretty well too. Numbers and commentary after the jump:

Click to read more…

Allo allo alohoyus out there. Here’s a vid update from the beginning of the tour with Motorhead and Clutch. We are quite behind on these because EVERY SINGLE night is a totally sold out insane fury of sweat, smoke, booze, friends, fans, women, and loud rocknroll jams! So – getcher self a taste here and stay tuned for more updates and shit asap.

Beard love from Detroit,
Valient Himself

If you don’t understand what that headline is a reference to, you’ve probably got the intelligence of the average fan of said band. And you probably believe in real-life transformers, characters from Street Fighter and the planet Nibiru.

Elsewhere, Deicide had a solid first week while Motorhead and Crowbar had solid second weeks on the Soundscan charts. Let’s check those out and see what else was poppin’.

Click to read more…