You’ve gotta feel for melodic death metal bands in 2011. They’re like the birdhouse builders of metal: sure, building a birdhouse isn’t an easy thing, and takes time to master your craft. But then after years of making quality birdhouses, suddenly Home Goods and Wal-Mart are shitting them out by the thousands, and people just go there to get them instead of to you, because they‘re cheaper and get the job done (the job here being housing birds). Then one day, here you are, a decent-enough birdhouse maker in a world that doesn’t care enough to spend money on handcrafted birdhouses, and you theoretically have to start over at 53, when all you were really good at was building birdhouses. So your options are make a half-assed attempt at another career, or continue being fairly good at making birdhouses in an ever-increasingly limited market. If you’re lucky, the economy will improve and people will arbitrarily decide that birdhouses are a thing at which to throw their money. But can you afford to bet on that kind of luck?

Crafting competent melodic death metal isn’t easy, either– let alone good melodeath — and if you’ve put enough time into your band, you have to stick with what you know. So, basically, Nightrage’s Insidious is an album that would have taken 2003 by storm that sounds perfectly fine now, just a little lifeless after years of its genre of choice being pounded into the ground. How many more times can we hear straight-up melodic death metal riffs with a lacquer of big-ass studio production and still be interested? Nightrage are fine at what they do, but before the inevitable melodic death metal revival of 2016, they need to be doing more to justify their existence.

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Ever since Jim Malone announced that Arsis would be touring without him — the Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, the Trent Reznor of NIN, etc — we’ve been scratching our heads. Would it be weird? Would it be good? Would it still even be Arsis? If you were to replace all the boards of a ship one at time, would it still be the same ship? If not, at what exact point does it cease to be the same ship?

I saw Arsis Without Arsis open for Firewind in NYC a couple weeks ago, and although the band was ridiculously tight and sounded fantastic it was definitely really fucking weird to watch. I’m sure a few kids there had no idea anything was amiss — perhaps those kids will go on to become huge Arsis fans — but to me it was a strange sight. On a night where Arsis played without Arsis, Firewind were great but played in a venue way too big for them, and the crowd seemed disinterested in Nightrage, White Wizzard — whoever the fuck is in the band this week — were actually the most normal / best thing about the entire night. How crazy is that?

Anyway, here’s Arsis Without Arsis performing a new song called “Sense the Shadows” in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. Like I said before, really tight, sounds great… just weird to look at.

-VN

Thanks: Fuzzy Dunlop

Regular MetalSucks readers already know Empyreon; featuring Meek is Murder drummer Frank Godla (although it’s worth noting that they sound nothing like Meek is Murder), they’re one of NYC’s finest melodic death metal acts, and were on our free NYC Sucks comp earlier this year. And while we eagerly await their new full-length next year, the band has blessed us with a little taste in the form of a demo of “No Peace No Light,” which you can check out here.

Even in such rough demo song, it’s a prime example of why we love this band so much, and why we’re so stoked for their new full-length. It’s heavy, it’s fast, it’s catchy, and it’s fucking EPIC. Seriously, make sure you check that shit out.

While we continue to wait impatiently for the band’s new album, they’ll be opening next week’s New York stop of the currently-in-progress Firewind/Arsis/White Wizzard/Nightrage tour. We’re giving away two free pairs of tickets here; you can also buy a special ticket package from the band, which includes a copy of the new single and some sweet swag, right here.

-AR

Lotsa new metal hit the interwebs this week that we didn’t have a chance to report on because there was just so much going on. Make sure you’ve got plenty of time to crank this new stuff before continuing, because it’s all great! Let’s go:

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You know him and you love him; Gus G., mastermind and guitarist of Greek metallers Firewind, who also happens to be the newest addition to the band of some guy named Ozzy. We’ve got a Gus G. ESP Gus-200 Signature Series guitar to give away to one lucky MetalSucks reader who comments with our favorite answer to the following question:

What’s your favorite Ozzy guitar solo of all time, and why?

Firewind will be on tour in North America with Arsis, White Wizzard and Nightrage this October. Get a full list of tour dates here.

Remember like just a couple of posts ago, when I said that you needed to “like” Nightrage on Facebook if you wanted to hear their new song?

Well, yeah, reader Tim Bartolini tells me that’s not true. Not that I should be shocked or anything. But you can stream it below.

It’s called “Insidious,” by the way, and features guest vocals from the great Tomas Lindberg. And it’s pretty good! As Mr. Bartolini points out, it gets better as it goes along (I also enjoyed it more after a couple of repeat listens), so don’t give up if the beginning doesn’t immediately knock your socks off.

“Insidious” is the title track from Nightrage’s new album, which comes out September 27 via Lifeforce.

-AR

If you’ve been pining for music that sounds like old Gloria Estefan only with guitars being played by a retard as part of some “music therapy” program in place of Casio keyboards, boy oh boy, do we have a treat for you: “What You Want,” a new song by Evanescence.

The song has been taken down by Wind-Up Records. If you didn’t get to hear it, consider yourself truly blessed.

I mean, I could be writing about the new Nightrage song that just came out, but I’d have to “like” them on Facebook to do so. So I am just so very, very grateful that Amy Lee and whomever is taking money from Amy Lee right now have come to my rescue and provided me with something of SUBSTANCE to listen to instead, y’know?

-AR

Note: Seeing Firewind live will not cause actual breaking of fire wind.

Hey, so remember last month when we told you that Firewind were doing a North American headlining tour with support coming from Arsis, White Wizzard, and Nightrage? Well, that tour has an itinerary now, and that itinerary is after the jump. No need to thank me, I get paid to do this.

In all seriousness: Besides a very small handful of dates last fall, this is the first time Firewind has visited this part of the world in quite some time, so I imagine there’s a reasonable amount of you who have never had the chance to see them live before. You should take advantage of this opportunity. Not only is Firewind fun (I don’t even really like power metal and I like Firewind), but this your chance to see Gus G. shred his brains out without an old man frog hopping around the stage and ruining it for everyone.

Also, Arsis! White Wizzard! Nightrage! Okay so I’ve never really been that into Nightrage, but still! Strong line-up.

And so, the tour dates…

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I get kinda bummed when we hafta write about tours with no dates yet, because it seems like kind of a cocktease — what’s the point of getting excited when you don’t even know if the trek is coming to your town yet? — but these two tours both seem pretty noteworthy. And so:

• Avenged Sevenfold will headline this year’s Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival. Sevendust are also on the tour. And I’m going to pretend that that’s the entire line-up. Yep, just A7X and Sevendust. Two of the best modern pop metal bands touring together, with no one else. What a great bill!
• Firewind are FINALLY gonna do a proper North American headlining tour, with Arsis, White Wizzard, and Nightrage in tow. Not only am I stoked that Firewind are actually touring, but I think it’s really cool of them to have a diverse range of acts as their support. I bet these shows will be a lotta fun.

And we’ll post dates for at least one of these tours as soon as we get ‘em.

-AR

Yeah, I dunno why I chose that headline, either.

ANYWAY, here’s Nightrage’s video for “Wearing a Martyr’s Crown.” It seems to have a nearly identical concept to that Novembers Doom video I posted yesterday: performance footage of the band made to look all static-y ’cause the director had no other ideas about how to make the visuals interesting. The difference is that this clip has a slightly more professional glean about it than the ND vid, but that ain’t saying much.

This is the title track from Nightrage’s latest, which is out now on Lifeforce.

-AR