Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

Click to read more…

Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

Click to read more…

This post will be very concise and to the point: The other day I realized that nearly all metalcore/screamo/post-hardcore videos take place in a grassy field, and I will use this space to list several examples. I don’t know if you have ever tried to make a Wikipedia entry, but it’s really hard because some pedantic nerd/ass hole/etc. will delete it in like two minutes (like when I tried to make a Wiki for wigger slam back in the day), so I feel like MetalSucks is the best venue to document this phenomenon.

[Thanks to tween expert/post-teenager Elise from Reign In Blonde for a couple of these examples]

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Let’s pretend I wrote an intro and put it here and now you’ve read it and we can move on.

First up we this snow filled day we have Mychildren Mybride’s video for “Jonathan Davis” — err, sorry, “King of the Hopeless” — which debuted on Metal Injection.

At first I was like, “Wait, haven’t I seen this video before?” And then I was like, “Wait, I HAVE seen this video before!”

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Nevermore, Kingdom of Sorrow, Nachtmystium, Watain, Heaven Shall Burn, Whitechapel…. and, uh, Attack Attack!. All these bands released records last week, and after the jump we take a look at how all of those records performed. Metal Insider‘s Zach Shaw has done a fine job of collecting the data, but you’ll have to visit Metal Insider to get his cheeky commentary. The numbers — with my own cheeky commentary, naturally — after the jump.

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Last week we told you about the awesome Burgers & Bowling tour, which will be headlined by The Red Chord with support to be provided by Mychildren Mybride, Those Who Lie Beneath, and Chelsea Grin. Well, today we’re proud to announce that we’re sponsoring the tour, which means we can personally guarantee it’s going to be kick-ass. But, then, The Red Chord have the Midas touch – everything they come into contact with turns to kick-ass.

Get a complete list of dates after the jump. We’re so excited for this thing we can’t even tell you.

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Holy shit, do I wanna see The Red Chord play a full headlining set. If you ask me, Fed Through the Teeth Machine was the best album of 2009, and I wanna hear them play a substantial portion of it – but I also wanna hear them play a substantial portion of their other records, too. That’s gonna take more than thirty minutes I think.

Luckily, the band has announced a headlining trek: the Burgers & Bowling tour will find TRC with support from Mychildren Mybride, Those Who Lie Beneath, and Chelsea Grin, who, for better or worse, I once made fun of while playing “Thrash It or Trash It” on the Metal Injection Livecast. Oh well.

The tour doesn’t seem to have any dates especially close to the Mansion, so I’m considering driving to South Hackensack, NJ. SOUTH HACKENSACK. The Red Chord will make a man do crazy things.

Complete list of dates after the jump.

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