UPDATE, 11:35 P.M.: Arif has confirmed that it’s just a shirt. Oh well. I’ll definitely buy one when it comes out, though!

Proving that Pig Destroyer can be quiet after all, tidbits about the band’s desperately-anticipated new album keep almost falling through the cracks. First, they performed some new songs live at a Seattle concert in February, footage of which somehow only just came to our attention; now, this little nugget of info almost got away from us, too. Seems that last Wednesday, while most of United Statesians were already checked out for Thanksgiving, Wormrot front man Arif was making this little announcement to the world via his Facebook page:

Click to read more…

Major, major, MAJOR props to reader Brian Koz for sending us this footage of Pig Destroyer playing three new songs at a Seattle concert, and thus ensuring that we start our week off right. The video has apparently been online since September, but somehow, the entire world completely failed to pick up on. As far as I’m concerned, new Pig Destroyer warrants the President disrupting the prime time schedule in order to hold a live conference on television, y’know?

As Brian puts it, “the quality of the footage is pretty crappy but fuck you, it’s new Pig Destroyer.” Well said, Brian. Well said.

Pig Destroyer will release the best album of next year via Relapse.

-AR

Justin M. Norton over at Invisible Oranges has been killing it this week. Yesterday, he wrote a really great piece about entitled “Why Ghost Matters,” which you should definitely check out, especially if, for some reason, you’re still not convinced that those Swedes are the real deal; now, he’s unveiled his list of the Top 10 Metal Lyricists, which, I imagine, will cause exactly the kind of shit storm that makes the internet so damn fun in the first place.

And, hey, I don’t agree with all of his inclusions (although I certainly agree with some of ‘em, like one Mr. J.R. Hayes from Pig Destroyer). But, again, the debate is what’s so much fun about these kinds of things. Lists don’t really “mean” anything — they’re just the opinions of one individual or a group of individuals. But what’s great about them is that they get people thinking; even if you disagree with the choices, you have to figure out a way to articulate exactly why you disagree with the choices, to hopefully come up with a retort more sophisticated than “You’re wrong and you’re a douche for disagreeing with me.” (Although, clearly, some internetters fall back on that “reasoning,” too.)

Check out Norton’s list here, then come back and let us know who your own favorite metal lyricists are in our comments section. Two of my personal poetic heroes who I think definitely deserve to be on this list: Tool’s Maynard James Keenan and The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk. How about you cats?

-AR

1) Be nicer to Sebastian Bach
2) Compare penis sizes with Tommy Lee
3) Hire Phil LaBonte as a vocal coach
4) Hire Billy Milano as a personal trainer
5) Hire Tripp Eisen as a baby sitter
6) Sleep with present-day Tawny Kitaen
7) Help Danzig clean up his motherfucking bricks, bitch
8) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about politics
9) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about romance
10) Listen to Ted Nugent talk about Ted Nugent

Click to read more…

First it was my turn to take a vacation and now it’s Axl’s; I haven’t spoken with him since he left for the lake house last Saturday and that’s a good thing, not because I don’t love the dude but because it means he’s having fun instead of stressing about work. Hopefully as I write this he’s stoned out of his gourd and enjoying something tasty from the grill. But guess what? I’m gonna be away again this coming Monday and Tuesday conducting super-top-secret business in L.A., meaning it’ll just be Axl and the rest of our fine contributors for the early part of next week. But don’t worry; come Wednesday things will be back to normal with our usual Axl + Vince full frontal attack.

Meanwhile, here’s what Axl missed this week:

• We premiered new music by ’90s hardcore legends Earth Crisis and new Metal Blade signees Battlecross, and we premiered a new video from Last Chance to Reason
• We spoke with In Flames’ Bjorn Gelotte and IKILLYA’s Jason Lekberg.
• Landphil pondered the best wrestling “shoots” of all time.
• We looked at new releases by After Oblivion, Doctor Midnight and the Mercy Cult and Michael Monroe while Corey Mitchell gave us the rundown of his bleeders and blowers for June.
• We checked out Mastodon’s “different” new album artwork.
• Sergeant D wondered whether or not melody has a place in metal.
• Periphery lost guitarist Alex Bois while Pig Destroyer gained drummer Adam Jarvis.
• The metal world chimed in on the Casey Anthony verdict; we chimed in on the metal world.

Adios.

-VN

Adam Jarvis of Misery Index!

Waitaminutehere… I didn’t even know PxDx had parted ways with now-former drummer Brian Harvey. But, there you have it… Adam Jarvis is the new Pig Destroyer drummer, as posted on Scott Hull’s Facebook and picked up by Metal Injection. Whether this means Jarvis has left Misery Index isn’t clear, but it doesn’t seem likely: Pig Destroyer shows are few and far between, making their drum throne exactly the kind of gig that another active drummer could handle.

I’m not nearly the Pig Destroyer fan Axl is, but I know that Axl and the legions of PxDx die-hards will be quite excited with this news, as it probably means recording for a new record will soon begin. Expect a new Pig Destroyer album in early 2012 via Relapse Records.

-VN

This doesn’t really have anything to do with metal, but I found it kinda funny so I’m running with it.

A Scottish band called Found has released what is, at least as far as I’m aware, the first-ever edible 7″ — more specifically, a 7″ made from chocolate. According to Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci  (who came up with a headline far superior to my own):

“The first attempt was to pour chocolate over a pressed record, but the music created by the chocolate record was backwards. Instead they poured chocolate into the record mold, and presto, an edible single.”

I don’t know nearly enough about, like, science n’ shit to understand how this could possibly work, or what the band’s fans are supposed to do if they actually wanna keep the record, be it because they like the music, or because they think it’s gonna be a collector’s item, or whatever. (How easily would this thing melt? You’d have to at least keep it refrigerated, I’d imagine.)

I would, however, like to suggest that metal bands start trying this gimmick to sell their own shit. Of course, they would not necessarily have to use to chocolate. Here are some examples of what I think would be good cuisine-to-band matches:

Click to read more…

MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed…

Scott Hull might be the genre’s most verisimilitudinous exmaple of metal, for, surely, there is no one more metal than he. He has a job, so he isn’t dependent on music to make his living, so he has never had to commit that sin which most offends metal fans  – the compromise of artistic ideals. And that job just happens to be doing IT stuff for the government, which might not sound interesting, until you hear Hull use the phrase “The classified nature of my work,” at which point you realize that Holy shit Scott Hull knows where you live and what porn you download and the codes for the bombs and you had better not fuck with him.

Of course, while these two facts certainly add to Hull’s metalness, they are far too superficial to be the actual source of his metalocity. For no one would give a hoot about Scott Hull the Government IT Guy who Makes Music on the Side if not for the fact that his guitar playing has the ability to endanger entire species.

Click to read more…

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In other news that proves there is no God, THERE’S STILL NO GODDAMN RELEASE DATE FOR THE NEW MOTHERFUCKING PIG DESTROYER ALBUM.

-AR

In a lot of ways, Francis Ford Coppola is to cinema as Metallica are to metal. He directed four incredible movies (the first two Godfather films, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now), all of which still hold up as examples of the craft at its finest, and then he devolved into self-parody. (The Godfather: Part III is pretty much his version of “The Unforgiven IV,” and if you don’t remember Jack, consider yourself lucky.) He basically sired one of Hollywood’s royal families (His children, Sofia and Roman, are also film directors, and his nephew is Nicolas Cage, who changed his last name in an effort to achieve success based on his own merits), and these days, Coppola makes his money via his winery (I’ve had some of his wines, they’re actually quite good!), and then self-funds small, personal art films, like 2007′s Youth Without Youth and 2009′s Tetro. These movies generally open to middling reviews and are seen by an audience of about ten people, but it doesn’t really matter, because Coppola is doing what he wants and he seems happy.

Why am I rambling on about this dude? Because he recently gave an interview to The 99 Percent in which he basically advocates illegal downloading, and the concept of the artist as an unpaid worker:

Click to read more…

It’s time: MetalSucks, in association with Chuck E. Cheese, needs to sponsor a symposium of metal’s greatest up-and-coming critical thinkers — the Albert Mudrians and Cosmo Lees of the future, if you will. Obviously, The Crud Wizard should be right at the top of the speaker’s list; and, Kevin Stewart-Panko’s son, Sam, has been doing some brilliant work over at The Deciblog, so he should obviously get an invite, too. But this is metal, so the event shouldn’t be allowed to get too stodgy; there needs to be, like, a Minister of Partying or something, someone to really get the booties shack-a-lack-a-lackin’ in the ball pit.

Enter the young men in the below video, sent to us by a reader calling himself simply “Scott.” Scott is not the father of these five- and three-year-old grind freaks — he’s not even a blood relative, apparently — but surely, he is the boys’ favorite “uncle” nonetheless.

Part of me thinks these little dudes are too young to be listening to Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, the same way they’re too young to see A Clockwork Orange and Silence of the Lambs — I mean, they’re great works of art, but not intended for people who don’t yet know what the phrase “tuck it back” means.

But the other part of me just now wants a son really, really bad.

-AR

I’ve been listening to Graf Orlock’s Doombox EP so much these past couple of weeks that I can now recite a movie quote from a movie I’ve never seen (that would be Harsh Times). The whole thing is under twelve minutes long (read Sammy O’Hagar’s rightfully-glowing review here), so it’s easy to listen to as an aid for short bursts of disrupted internet service/”FUCK YOU TIME WARNER CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!”-inspired rage. I’m so obsessed with the EP, in fact, that I now outright hate the people of Tacoma, Vancouver, and Portland, as those are the only three towns Graf Orlock will be hitting up on their upcoming mini-tour with the also-awesomeOwen Hart (whose contributions to this year’s second edition of Scott Hull-curated This Comp Kills Fascists were two of the highlights of that collection). Hopefully these dudes make it to other parts of the country in the not-too-distant future, ’cause I’m dying to see this shit played live.

So while we usually try not to cover regional tours ’cause so few of you will ever get to go, my envy of people who can attend these shows is such that I am going to post all three dates:

Dec 17 – Tacoma, WA @ The Redroom
Dec 18 – Vancouver, BC @ Garbage Mountain
Dec 19 – Portland, OR @ Branx

Go if you’re lucky enough to live in that part of the country.

Meanwhile, The PRP tells me that Scott Kelly and Wino are gonna be doing some shows together next year. They call the itinerary after the jump the “initial dates,” so hopefully there will be more soon, ’cause that sounds like a show that many of you might enjoy.

The aforementioned “initial dates” are…

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.

Axl was rad enough to mention it on Tuesday, and many of you have probably seen our newsletter already, so we’ll just reiterate the basics super fast:

• The Decibel Flexi Series will commence unlubricated face-decimation with the January 2011 issue (out in early December).
• Flexis are clear vinyl incorporated into the actual magazine.
• Every month a new band will drop never-before-heard awesomeness on said flexi.
• “Never-before-heard” means unreleased tracks, covers, liveage, demos, alternate takes or re-recordings. Who knows, maybe even a skit like the kind Type O used to open albums with. I’m sure, like, Pig Destroyer have been dying to cover “Skip It.”
• Brutal Truth are doing the first one. Enslaved are doing the second.
• Only subscribers get to handle these super collectible, extremely limited, most brutal of truths.

That much you probably already know. As for the future, trust us, there’s no shortage of bands being considered for this series. But right now that’s mostly just in-house fantasy draft stuff. Now would be a good time to hear from you guys: Who would you like to see in this thing? Got any dream covers? Know of anything crazy-rare that would blow minds if it just finally fucking got out there? Please tell us, in the spirit of Ludacris and weak-ass gamer puns, what’s your vinyl fantasy?

P.S. A particularly badass one might be Incantation smashing through Golgotha live, which you can check out for yourself on their Decibel Hall of Fame mini-tour , which kicks off tomorrow at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago.

-AB

Like the man said, the only way to get these awesome flexi discs is to subscribe to Decibel, so get off your tuchus and do that. You can also buy the flexi-less-but-still-killer December 2010 issue here.

Image from J. Randall’s blog. I’m assuming he made this; the car model is actually called the “Hako.”

Hey, remember yesterday, when we told you about that free EP that Magrudergrind are giving away in conjunction with Scion? Well Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s J. Randall apparently isn’t too happy about Magrudergrind associating themselves with the corporate entity — or any metal band associating themselves with the corporate entity.

In a recent blog, Randall criticizes Integrity for failing to live up to their name “w/ their recent Scion showcase at the ROXY,” and then takes Magrudergrind to task for working with Scion, too: “Heres a band that was to ‘punk’ to give Relapse a record but is down to float a fuckin’ ‘SCION’ logo on the front of their album cover? WTF?” Randall doesn’t even think Scion is getting anything out the deal:

Click to read more…

Decibel is cooler than we are, which is why we’ve kidnapped their kitties and told them we’ll drown the fuckers if they don’t write a weekly column for us. Lucky for all cats involved, they agreed to the terms. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

It actually took some doing this time around, but congratulations to commenter du jour “Mat” for correctly guessing our November Hall of Fame, Angel Witch’s self-titled 1980 nut-crusher. As aforementioned, he scores a free six-month subscription to Decibel, not to mention — should he deign to drop me a line — a Rapegoat sticker and maybe some additional ludicrous extreme ephemera.

The Angel Witch HOF isn’t even the big highlight in our November issue, as you can see from the image above. I mean, we’ve all seen the new video by now, and thumbs up to Mordecai 9000 for the Han Solo dig in the comments, but this get-up’s a little more Queen of Naboo IMHO. And while Shagrath at no point in our cover story mutters, “So, this is how liberty dies — to thunderous applause,” maybe he explains the sikk new threads a little. You’ll have to see for yourself.

Of course, if you’re in the Dimmu-sucks-and-we’re-homos-for-putting-them-on-the-cover camp, you can always feast on a creepy Michael Gira interview, Kylesa backlash in the reviews, Q&A heaven with Dave Wyndorf, a Pig Destroyer studio report, and a Red Chord tour report, featuring Guy Kozowyk’s delightful memories about this very site! Now bow your heads in respect for the Mets’ recent tragic number acquisition and give us your money so we can sell you some fucking cars and shit.

-AB

If you don’t buy yourself a copy of the November 2010 issue of Decibel or, better yet, buy yourself a full subscription, Andrew Bonazelli will send the dude who played Jar Jar Binks to your house to annoy you ’til you wanna kill yourself.

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

There weren’t any real hot button topics this week, so we decided to just play a fun game that used to keep Vince and Axl occupied for many a lunch period when they were kids:

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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After the Pig Destroyer girl divorces me, I am totally gonna marry the Suicide Silence booty shake girl. (Warning: I guess this video is technically NSFW, even if there’s no actual nudity.)

Thanks to Cody for the tip!

-AR

Holy crap, was that awesome Faith No More show really a week ago already? I think I may be suffering from post-FNM depression. We’re seeing Maiden on Monday night, and I’m more excited to hang out with my friends than to see Bruce, Steve and the gang. I just wanna go see FNM again… is that so wrong???

Luckily, there’s plenty of stuff going on in the metal world to keep me distracted from dreams of Mike, Mike, Billy, Roddy and Jon. For instance:

• Bulb from Periphery got his groove back, and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley consulted with the dudes from Aquarius Records as he continued his search for the perfect Taco Riff.
• We debuted new music from Asher.
• Sergeant D spoke to Miss May I’s Ryan Neff and Sammy O’Hagar chatted with Rasyid from Wormrot.
• We checked out new releases from Soilwork, Allegaeon, and Sister Sin.
• The possibility of new Beavis and Butt-Head episodes gave us a collective boner.
• The hippies in Phish got aggressive and covered Rage Against the Machine.
• We looked at a plethora of terrifically terrible music videos, and Vince wondered if the medium was even a relevant tool for promotion anymore.
• Vince also took time out of his busy schedule to find me a new woman. Yowza!

Next week we’ll have a song debut from our fellow stoner nerds, an interview with a power violence band, and some other shit. Plus, Question of the Week will finally return. ‘Til then… enjoy your weekend!

-AR

There’s still no official release date for Gold Cobra, the most heavily anticipated recording in the history of music and sure to be the highest selling release of all time — or, at least, since Chinese Democracy. (I’ve heard that executives throughout the industry feel confident that Cobra will single-handedly revive CD sales. “There’s nothing out there right now with this kind of scope,” an unpaid intern who just started in the Interscope mailroom, and thinks he has a really bright future with the label, told me.) And while the anticipation is killing me, at least I know when I can run to Walmart and get my hands on the new Linkin Park album: the band has announced a September 14 release date for their latest offering, A Thousand Suns. It was produced by Rick Rubin, the man who made Metallica totally cool and relevant again.

Click to read more…

Thanks: Juggalo Bob