video via Metal Insider

Today is the last day of regular posting on MetalSucks for the remainder of the year. We’ll still have some posts now and then — our annual Heavy Metal Hanukkah contest starts next week, we might have a series of cool new guest blogs from an old friend for you, and, of course, if there’s any major breaking news, we’ll cover it —  but most of your regularly scheduled programming is going on hiatus while we enjoy the holidays.

But until we’re back, have fun reviewing our top stories from this week, won’t you?

• We debuted a new video from Novembers Doom, new music by Nylithia, and, thanks to our pals at Decibel, new music from Autopsy.
• Lazarus AD’s Jeff Paulick nominated Marion Barber for president and Jonah Livingston from Ramming Speed told us about his live drum set-up.
• We spoke to Devin Townsend and Repulsion.
• We checked out the latest release from Kevin Hufnagel and some free shit from Australia.
• We listened to more previously unreleased material from Metallica’s Death Magnetic sessions.
• We got excited about the line-up for this year’s New England Metal and Hardcore Festival.
• We got even more excited to learn that Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin is a criminal.
• We accepted an apology from the world’s most pretentious metal band.
• The future ex-Mrs. Vince Neilstein serenaded us with a piano cover of Mastodon’s “Oblivion.”
• Dummy Nosenothing continued to know nothing. How come we don’t fire this idiot?

Thanks for another sucky year, gang. See ya in 2012!

-AR

Boy oh boy, do we have a real treat for you today, kids: a video interview with legendary death-grind pioneers Repulsion, which was conducted by the metal community’s current number one patron, Scion A/V. Members Matt Olivo, Scott Carlson, and Marissa Martinez walk you through the band’s history, which if you’re not familiar with it… well, it has to be one extreme music’s most fascinating stories pretty much ever. The band only has ONE album, 1986′s legendary Horrified, and yet they’ve managed to be one of the most influential acts in the history of the genre. And here they pledge not to ruin that legacy with a reunion album, which oughta make you breathe a sigh of relief.

Check out the interview below, and then sing Repulsion’s praises in our comments section.

When I look back at the last twenty years, there is perhaps no more important musical entity in my life than England’s EARACHE RECORDS (srs). Back when I was a little kid on a quest to find the fastest, most cock-smashingly brutal music I could get my hands on, I stumbled across a copy of the legendary Grindcrusher compilation, and I’ve been hooked on death metal ever since. As my gateway to metal, Earache will always have a special place in my heart– and when you care for someone as I do for Earache, it hurts to see them lose their way, stumble, and fall as Earache did in the 90s and 00s. I had written them off as yet another band/label/artist who has a brief moment of brilliance, burns brightly, then fizzles out before dying in undignified circumstances [via Vincent Van Gogh]. But I am happy to report that I couldn’t be more wrong! Earach is back on the horse, stronger than ever, and signing more relevant, exciting bands than ever (srs).

In this post, I will briefly recap the label’s history in three sections to bring newer readers up to speed on Nottingham’s finest export. I will then share my thoughts on their current signings and solicit suggestions on which bands the label should sign next– hopefully Dig is reading!

Click to read more…

Earlier this week I had a dream that I was working with Atreyu. I don’t know in what capacity I could possibly find myself “working with” Atreyu, since I’m not a manager, nor a publicist, nor a label rep, and they’re about as likely to end up doing a guest column here as I am to give the new In This Moment album a perfect 5-horn review, but, hey, the subconscious works in mysterious ways. Why did I have Atreyu on the brain? Was my mind trying to tell me “The glass is half-full?” Do I have  a hankering to re-watch The Neverending Story? Did I just ingest too many different substances that night? I’ll have to bring it up in therapy next week.

Here’s other shit that happened this week, some of which, believe it or not, is even more terrifying than the thought of working with Atreyu:

• Freddy Madball is counting down his favorite hard and heavy non-hardcore bands of all time, TesseracT’s Acle walked us through the history of djent, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley spoke to Converge’s Kurt Ballou about Taco Riffs, The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks made some suggestions for losing NFL teams, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable contemplated the ways in which technology has changed touring, Daath’s Eyal Levi wondered, “Is this it?”, and a wide array of metal stars previewed the just-begun NHL season.
• We spoke to Kirk Windstein from Crowbar/Down/Kingdom of Sorrow, Sean Z. from Daath, Daddy X and Dirtball from Kottonmouth Kings, and Yoshiki Hayashi from X Japan.
• We checked out the latest releases from Abysse and Deafheaven.
• We contemplated trancecore.
• As the headline says, we heard the worst thing ever.
• We reviewed the history of terrible Limp Bizkit cover songs.
• We had fun with misheard song lyrics.
• We bemoaned the signing of another re-thrash band.
• We applauded Slayer fans’ desire to help the physically disabled.
• We had yet another laugh at Winds of Plague’s expense.

We have a special surprise for you next week. I can’t promise you’re going to like it, but I can promise you’re going to have a strong reaction to it. See ya then.

-AR

So right now you’re probably thinking 1) “Hey, assholes, the NHL season actually started last night so this can’t really be a ‘preview’ in the traditional sense of the word,” and 2) “Hey, assholes, at least one of these artists isn’t actually signed to Relapse Records.” And, yes, we know we’re a little late, but this is metal, so who the fuck is ever on time? And, yes, we know that at least one of these artists isn’t actually signed to Relapse Records, but most of them are, and the fine people at Relapse really did all the work in putting this together, so ppppfffffttttt.

So. After the jump, you can find previews of how the freshly-begun NHL season is looking for the favorite teams of members of 3 Inches of Blood, -(16)-, Buried Inside, Cephalic Carnage, Cretin, Dekapitator, Exhumed, Fuck the Facts, Gravehill, Hero Destroyed, Indian, Misery Index, Mortuous, Repulsion, and Toxic Holocaust. Enjoy!!!

Click to read more…

Did you know that if you eat before you start slamming shots, you’ll get a little less drunk, but you’ll also have something to vomit up later? It’s true. Also, sometimes when you smoke weed, you get the munchies. These are just two great reasons why you should care about Hellbent for Cooking: The Heavy Metal Cookbook by Annick “Morbid Chef” Giroux. Showcasing “a varied menu of over a hundred recipes from thirty countries,” Hellbent for Cooking features recipes by members of Accept, Anthrax, Anvil, Armored Saint, Brutal Truth, Death, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Gwar, Judas Priest, Kreator, Mayhem, Melechesh, Nuclear Assault, Obituary, Repulsion, Saint Vitus, Sepultura, Sigh, S.O.D., Slough Feg, Thin Lizzy, Toxic Holocaust, and about a trillion others (you can get a complete list of contributing bands here).

MetalSucks is teaming up with Bazillion Points Publishing to give away three (3) copies of Hellbent for Cooking. All you have to do to win is create a picture that somehow connects metal to food and post a link to someplace we can view said picture in the comments section below. Use Photoshop to create an image of Lemmy eating a hot dog, use MS Paint to do a portrait of Metallica as the pepperonis on a pizza, whatever you want – it just has to be both food and metal related, and it has to amuse us. Vince and I will choose the three pics that make us laugh the hardest and those pics’ creators win the book.

This contest will end at midnight EST on Monday, December 14. Please note that this contest is open to U.S. residents only, as shipping costs are a bitch. And if you’re too lazy to participate, you can always just order a copy of the book here.

Good luck, and good eats…

-AR

Completing their coverage of this past summer’s super-awesome grind show at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple (featuring Pig Destroyer and Brutal Truth), our brovers (half brothers, have lovers… purrr) at Metal Injection have posted five pro-shot clips of Repulsion’s first-ever NYC performance. If you’re one of the many sad (and possibly suicidal!) people who wasn’t able to be at this incredible show, here’s your chance to live vicariously through the magic of cameras and editing.

Below, enjoy “Slaughter of the Innocent;” you can check out more br00tal footage here.

-AR

Besides a pair of performances by Gojira, Pig Destroyer’s Brooklyn show with Brutal Truth and Repulsion was one of the best gigs I’ve attended this year. And, but of course, those hairy apes from Metal Injection were on hand to capture the insanity on tape, so that those of you who couldn’t make can see how awesome it was, and weep for what you missed.

So here’s PD playing “Loathsome” off of Phantom Limb. Check back with Metal Injection throughout the week for more grind-tastic footage of the show.

And, oh yeah: check out Blake Harrison with the power tools. Rad.

-AR

If you’ve been reading this site on a regular basis, you’re aware that I’ve been very, very, very excited for this past Friday night’s Brutal Truth/Pig Destroyer/Repulsion show, and I was not let down.

There were some minor hiccups – Repulsion went on nearly an hour later than scheduled, which might not have been so bothersome if the Brooklyn Masonic Temple wasn’t hotter than the fucking sun, or even if you didn’t have to wait on not one but two lines to get a drink (one to get your drink ticket, the other to get your actual drink). Plus, when Repulsion started playing, they seemed to be having sound issues for a few songs (compounded by the fact that moshers kept slamming into the soundboard which, for reasons beyond me, was on a platform on unlocked wheels), and no one thought to bring down the house lights until part way through the set. Also, I felt a little bad for Brutal Truth – they killed, as expected, but a substantial portion of the crowd filed out following Pig Destroyer, who ended up being the night’s true headliners.

Then again… of course Pig Destroyer ended up being the night’s true headliners. Not only did they kill as expected (and their 45 minute-ish set felt wwwaaaayyy too short), but Blake Harrison had power tools on stage for the express purpose of making needless semi-pyro. Power tools!!!

ANYWAY, there was a whole lotta stage divin’ throughout the night. But during Pig Destroyer’s last song, it seemed like there were at least a dozen people on stage, all going nuts and stage diving at once. Below you can watch some not-so-great footage of the event that I found on YouTube (thanks, presspass!). If anyone has any better footage of this or any other part of the show, hit me up!

-AR

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m very, very, very excited about tonight’s Blackened Music Series show with Brutal Truth, Pig Destroyer and Repulsion (And it’s a book release party for Decibel’s Precious Metal, which I have read, and which is totally worth the dough). And thus, as I count down the final hours to what I’m 99.9% sure is going to be one of the best, if not the best, shows of the year, I’m gonna post some live clips of the bands playing.

First up we have the legendary Repulsion. If ya don’t know Repulsion, well, shame on you. Learning about them is the easiest thing in the world: they only have one full-length, 1986′s Horrified, which is pretty short (it is a grind album, after all), and which pretty much influenced all grind that came afterwards. Decibel even named Horrified the best grind album of all time earlier this year; I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it does rule, hard, and the band – in their first New York concert ever – will be playing it in its entirety tonight.

Here they are doing the track “Bodily Dismemberment” in 2003.

-AR

When I read that Repulsion, Pig Destroyer and Brutal Truth are all playing a show together at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on July 31, my head literally exploded. I don’t mean “literally” the way some people misuse that word; I mean I am actually typing this right now sans melon. Pretty crazy, I know.

Click to read more…

It’s gonna be a slow news day. I can tell. So here’s a clip of Repulsion, grind band 2,376,897 that we don’t give enough attention to around here because it’s much more fun to make fun of crappy bands than to praise good ones, playing “The Stench of Burning Death” live in 2003. Be careful, ’cause it may make your computer explode!

-AR