Being someone who is kind of stuck in their own little bubble most of the time, I tend to forget how ridiculous the outside world can be. Since my teen years, I’ve been disgusted, yet morbidly fascinated with mainstream culture. It’s like a flaming car wreck, for lack of a better analogy. I can’t watch any kind of television without feeling like I can see right through it, and being offended that so many people’s lives in one way or another revolve around corporate-funded programming, whether it’s for entertainment or information. I lost interest in owning a television years ago.

Anyway, the most recent offender is a show called “America’s Got Talent.” Have you SEEN this shit? It should be called “America Gets Told What To Think.” Never before have I been so compelled to stick needles into my eyeballs, take a shit on a studio audience’s collective head, and leap face first off a bridge all at once. This is the very epitome of mainstream media programming minds to reject anything outside their comfort zone. Here I am trying to get a little innocent bro time with my stepdad over the weekend (this actually happened a couple months ago), getting riled up enough to, uh, write a blog entry on Metalsucks.net.

Click to read more…

For real: Intronaut’s forthcoming album Valley of Smoke is going to absolutely smoke your valley. It’s a crushingly heavy and doomy/stoney but adventurously progressive journey. It’s that rare album that can excite both the hardcore/mosh-types of metalheads and the musical-ability-first, progressive nerd-types of metalheads (other bands that do this: Mastodon, East of the Wall). Intronaut are that rare band that readers of both Pitchfork and Shredders R’ Us Magazine can get giant boners over, and they’re a band that will blow your mind whether you’re stoned to the point of decapacitation or you’re perfectly sober. Valley of Smoke is fucking awesome no matter how you cut it up, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite albums of 2010.

We’re working on convincing guitarist Sacha Dunable to rejuvenate his Blogronaut column on MetalSucks, but in the meantime the band is offering these “making of” studio webisodes that provide a nice little glimpse into the making of Valley of Dongs Smoke. Just listen to the first riff in the video below and tell me you aren’t instantly sold.

Valley of Smoke drops October 12th via Century Media, and it’s available for pre-order in a variety of package deal configurations here.

-VN

A remarkable number of people I’ve told about this Friday’s pending Cynic / Dysrhythmia / Intronaut tour stop in NYC have greeted me with quizzical looks of “Really? THIS Friday? Cynic?” which is pretty crazy because the tour’s been announced for months, Cynic are playing Focus in full, those support bands are killer and… come on man, really? You’d rather see Torche and Boris in Brooklyn that night? I mean, those are mighty fine bands too… but c’mon! Well, whatever, the Bowery Ballroom will surely be sold out and it’s gonna be a helluva night and you’re gonna miss it. Too bad for you.

I mention this right now not just because I’m excited for Friday but because Sacha “Blogronaut” Dunable wrote up a fun post for Decibel in which he lists and discusses the four best things about touring with Cynic. I won’t give away Sacha’s bag o’ tricks, but I will tell you that if you know what a Steinberger guitar is you’ll find the post very funny.

While we’re on the Intronaut tip, check out their new song “Elegy” over at Invisible Oranges; it’s highly worthy of the hand gesture after which the blog hosting the song is named.

-VN

photo by Travis Shinn (www.travisshinn.com)

When he’s not stirring up passionate debate across the blogosphere, MetalSucks’ own Blogronaut, Sacha Dunable, is fronting one of our favorite modern metal acts, Intronaut. The band has a new album, appropriately titled Valley of Smoke, tentatively due for release October 12 via Century Media; now they’ve debuted a final, unmastered mix of a  track from that album, “Elegy,” over at Cosmo Lee’s Invisible Oranges.

As usual, I can’t think of anything to say that’s as elegant as what Cosmo wrote about the song, so I’m just gonna steal from him:

It plays to Intronaut’s strengths: a ridiculously limber rhythm section, expansive guitars, and did I mention a ridiculously limber rhythm section? Like his position onstage, Joe Lester’s bass is front and center. Danny Walker pushes and pulls against it with crisp, colorful percussion.

The new element is singing. This also happened to a band Intronaut is often compared to, Mastodon. Unlike Mastodon’s, however, Intronaut’s singing is firm but understated, and reminds me of Fugazi.

Cosmo also spent a night in the studio with the band, and has a comprehensive write-up of what he saw. Head over to Invisible Oranges to hear the track and read Cosmo’s report!

-AR

Last week, as part of his recurring MetalSucks column, Blogronaut, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable asked the question: “Are corporate-sponsored metal shows killing the live concert market?” The blog garnered a large and impassioned response, not just from our readers who left comments, but from industry insiders who e-mailed us their thoughts directly. One of those people was Trap Them vocalist Ryan McKenney, who, with no prompting whatsoever from us, wrote the below. And since we like to think of MetalSucks as a place where all kinds of points of view can be weighed and considered, we’re running it! We hope you enjoy…

Long time reader, first time caller… that’s how they say it, isn’t it? I’ve gone through great efforts to not invest too much time into internet blogs and messageboards regarding extreme music of any genre. I’m more of what they call a troll, I believe. Except, I never say anything at all, while many will at least chime in once in a while to give an opinion that is consequently ripped apart.

I’d like to at least make an attempt at responding to Sacha Dunable’s write up about corporate fests and whether they are ruining the live concert market. I consider it an important issue on many fronts. The truth is, ask a hundred people their opinion on this, and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers. Unless, of course, you ask the question to people in groups of five or more… if you do that, the odds are only one or two people will give their honest view and then the rest will just say, “Yeah… what he/she said.” I’d like to put my two cents in on the subject. Some may understand what I’m saying, and some may consider me an asshole, which I’m okay with. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard it lately (or even today).

Click to read more…

Just so you know, when Vince and I cuddle, he’s usually the big spoon.

Here’s what happened in MetalSucks Land this week:

• Misery Index’s Jason Netherton joined us for the latest edition of Cooking Contaminated.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable wondered if corporate-sponsored metal shows are killing the live concert market.
• We chatted with Soilwork’s Peter Wichers, Mantric’s Ole Halvard Sveen, and Black Army Jacket’s Carlos Ramirez.
• We checked out new releases by Norma Jean and Lightning Swords of Death.
• We celebrated the excellent year currently being enjoyed by Metal Blade Records.
• Korn played to the largest audience they deserve. (That would be an audience of zero.)
• New BOO means debates by you.
• Poison the Well poisoned our week.
• We were on the Metal Injection Livecast!
• Booty shake.

Next week is hair metal week! We’ll still be reporting on regular metal, too, so don’t freak out too hard. See ya Monday.

-AR

Have you guys heard about this sweet ass fest happening in LA next month? Goatsnake, Animosity-lineup Corrosion Of Conformity, From Ashes Rise, Repulsion, Trap Them, Coliseum, and like 20 more rad bands for FREE, thanks to corporate sponsor Converse. Unfortunately, I will be on tour at the time, but if I was around I’d totally be at this. Goatsnake are the creators of at least six or seven of my favorite heavy riffs ever, Repulsion are like the AC/DC of grind, and even I would most likely be on board with pretending to care about the COC/Animosity thing (Eye For An Eye was way better, in my opinion). I’d probably even get drunk enough to blindly accept that a band like From Ashes Rise are playing a corporate-sponsored “event” like this. If something like this went down in their heyday, I can’t even imagine what the repercussions would be from their ultra-punk fans. I mean sure, I guess Converse All Stars are part of the punk rock non-conformity uniform, but it’s still (unless there’s something I don’t know) a corporation taking advantage of overseas cheap labor so they can make a larger profit off of “subcultures” they’re marketing to (see: this fest’s attendees).

Times must be tough for aging punk bands, where they can only make real money when sponsored by shoe or car companies. Sarcasm aside, I know that times are tough for all bands, and that is why these free, corporate-sponsored shows are starting to pop up more and more. At first, it was cute that Scion would fly bands out to LA every couple months and pay them a few grand to play a show. Lots of us are unemployed, so it’s nice to get a show for free once in a while. Now, the Scion Fest is an annual thing, their shows in L.A. happen every other month, and I’d be willing to bet that this won’t be the last we hear of Converse sponsoring “A free event that honors fans and musicians of ‘heavy music’ of all ages.”

Click to read more…

But he, like, totally had it coming. He was the singer for some band called Beneath the Sky.

I’m kidding. I don’t endorse violence against untalented people. Just front row games of Uno.

ANYWAY, here’s some other shit we happened this week:

• We’re streaming Watain’s Lawless Darkness and the Monolith/Voyager split.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable talked about his new band and Sick of it All’s Lou Koller concluded his “Quintessential Guide to Hardcore.”
• We spoke to Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd and Heaven Shall Burn’s Maik Weichert.
• We checked out Thou’s Summit.
• We met the world’s youngest Nile fan.
• We wondered if Opeth ripped-off Immortal.
• We came up with awards that could be named after metal stars.
• Vince isn’t that into Kylesa, and has some advice for Portal, too.
• Anso thinks that No Prayer for the Dying is the worst Maiden album ever.
• As it turns out, Fred Phelps is still an idiot.

Next week we get to debut that video we were supposed to debut this week, and we have another stream, and some other stuff I’m probably forgetting. ‘Til then, enjoy your weekend!

-AR

A few weeks ago I asked you guys for help with naming a new band I started with my good pals in National Sunday Law, and the response was literally overwhelming. Thanks so much to everyone who replied! Some were good, some were hilariously bad, and some were just hilarious. We ended up debating for another month, and decided on the name Graviton (not Gravitron, as I just discovered MS had reported (smoke weed)) [We've since fixed it! Sorry.  -Ed.], which was inspired by MS reader Nate’s suggestion of Hadron. Thanks for turning us onto string theory as a band theme, Nate! Email me at sachadunable [at] gmail [dot] com with your address and I’ll be sure to send you all kinds of crap.

Honorable mention should definitely go to reader Dave B, who provided such gems as Hella Smelly Belly, GuhGuhGuts, Sweatpants Surprise, and Don’t Injure Car Keys (D.I.C.K.). I don’t know you Dave, but I know we’d get along. Send me your address for some crap as well.

Anyhow, we’ve posted two full Graviton songs for you to check out on our Myspace, Bandcamp, Twitter, and if you’re too lazy to open a new window and require colorful moving pictures along with your music, Youtube:

Click to read more…

Technical sludge/doom outfit National Sunday Law — who The Blogronaut name-checked last year and whose free 4-song EP we featured here just this past April — are calling it quits. Cerebral Metalhead is reporting that jack-of-all-trades Darin Tambascio is moving back to his home state of Maryland:

After playing over 50 shows with some of our favorite bands (Intronaut, Mouth of the Architect, Irepress, Behold…The Arctopus, Dysrhythmia, Exhausted Prayer, Solar Wimp, Hurt Model, Fight Amp and so many more), we are taking a break from National Sunday Law. Due to a dire financial situation and ongoing employment issues, Darin will be moving back to his home state of Maryland in late June. Therefore, the band will be on an indefinite hiatus after two more shows.

Click to read more…

EVERYBODY SING WITH ME NOW: “I FEEL PRETTY, OH SO PRETTY, I FEEL PRETTY, AND WITTY, AND BRIIIIIIIGHT!”

No West Side Story fans in the house? No one? Okay, fuck it. Here’s what happened in the world of FUCKING METAL this week:

• We’re streaming Mantric’s The Descent in its entirety.
• We’re giving away new tracks by Nevermore and Heaven Shall Burn.
• We debuted a new video by Karma to Burn.
• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal meditated on unexplained healings, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa gave us a refresher on L O S T, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley thinks it’s okay to enjoy music by scumbags, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable wants your help naming his new band, and Eyal from Daath and Levi/Werstler wants you to start ordering CDs online.
• We spoke to Mike Patton and Brian Posehn.
• Slayer and Megadeth are both doing full album performances on their American Carnage tour; Testament, not so much.
• Rose Funoral just can’t live down their past.

Next week brings so many interviews and exclusives it’ll make your head explode. See ya then!

-AR

I’ve always been a crappy band namer. I’m crappy at naming anything, really. I come from a long line of people who were bad namers as well. My parents named me Sacha for fuck’s sake. We have absolutely no Russian in our gene pool. My mom already had a cat named Sacha when I was born. She either really liked the name, or just wasn’t creative enough to think of something else to call her first-born child. Thanks to her, I was constantly asked by my peers if I knew that “Sacha is a girl’s name,” which probably led to me getting into heavy metal, which most definitely led to me eventually writing this blog entry for MetalSucks. So yeah, thanks Mom.

Back to the band name thing. Yeah, I suck at it. I’ve never named a single band I’ve ever been in. God damn it if I haven’t tried, though. And god damn it if it isn’t the most pathetic, embarrassing, and unnecessarily vulnerable experience a group of musicians will ever put themselves through. You spend all week thinking of a name you believe to be unique, and to have meaning, then present it at rehearsal the next day only to have it written off after 15 seconds of consideration with a “nah, man…” while everyone stares away at the ground and/or quickly changes the subject.

Click to read more…

A long, long while ago, “Blogronaut” Sacha Dunable shared his favorite unsigned bands with us and mentioned a Los Angeles band called National Sunday Law. Sacha, being the aspiring Metallica ghost-writer that he is, wouldn’t lead us astray — National Sunday Law are a fierce sludgy, doomy, proggy duo who make noise like there are twice the amount of dudes in the band than there actually are. Their mix of technicality and sludge/doom reminds me of Intronaut in certain ways — I see why Sacha took a liking to them — but by no means are they aping Sacha’s style.

National Sunday Law are giving away their 4-track EP for free on their Bandcamp page — no reason you shouldn’t at least give it a shot. Intronaut bass wizard Joe Lester lent his skilled hand to the bass tracks on the EP. If you like what you hear but have a jones for that physical disc, hard copies will soon be available here. You can also buy their full length CD and T-shirts.

If you’re digging National Sunday Law you might also dig Knut, a Switzerland-based doomy post-hardcore band cut from the same cloth.

-VN

So Vince is now out of town. Again. Luckily, we really do take after our namesakes; he loves to be out there among the people, partying like he might die tomorrow, and I am a grumpy, mean-spirited recluse. So expect lots of Axl crankiness next week.

In the meantime, here are some things that happened this week:

• Genetic’s Dallas Coyle discussed the importance of positive thinking, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa pondered the various timelines on L O S T, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable listed the five raddest sets of teeth in metal, Eyal Levi from Daath and Levi/Werstler wondered if anyone cares about guitar solos, and adult film actress Bobbi Starr told us the ten metal bands she wishes would gangbang her.
• We debuted new music by The Dillinger Escape Plan, Landmine Marathon, and Jucifer.
• MetalSucks readers interviewed Dark Tranquillity’s Mikael Stanne and Vince interviewed Sevendust’s Clint Lowery.
• Sammy O’Hagar reviewed Ov Hell’s The Underworld Regime.
• Is Nergal from Behemoth going to jail for destroying a Bible?
• The singer from DragonForce is available for a White Lion reunion.
• We raged against “Rage.”

And that’s it! Next week will see the debut of our irritating new list, as well as some other fun shit. Have a nice weekend…

-AR

“Why would you do a Raddest Teeth In Metal list? I mean, who thinks about that stuff? Isn’t this kind of lame?”

Yes it is! Let’s do this! [Perhaps our article on Ben Falgoust's chompers subliminally inspired him. -Ed.]

5th place – The douchebag singer from that vampire band

I’m almost ashamed to admit that this guy was the inspiration for this blog entry (and I won’t even give them the extra google search result by printing his or his band’s name here), but will you just look at those pearly whites? Before mommy and daddy bought him his first rackmount auto-tune processor and showered him with enough love and self-confidence to make such embarrassing music, they must have spent a fortune on braces and regular dental visits. At least he might make up for his band’s crimes against humanity’s eardrums by promoting good dental hygiene to the 5th graders who make up his fanbase.

Click to read more…

I haven’t been able to shake this cold, and so I’ve actually been playing a lot of on-line Scrabble with a friend this week (because I’m just that cool). It would be really hard to play Scrabble at a metal show, though, not least of all because so many metal d00dz can’t spell.

When we weren’t beating this whole Uno debacle to death like it had just heckled us, here’s what was happening in the world of metal:

• We streamed Mutiny Within’s self-titled debut album, and premiered a track by Dallas Coyle’s new project, Genetic.
• God Forbid’s Doc Coyle defended mainstream metal, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa discussed the cliffside cave list on L O S T, and, yeah, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable and Daath’s Eyal Levi each weighed-in on a certain incident involving a certain card game.
• Each of the MetalSucks writers endorsed a finalist for the Scion No Label Needed Contest.
• We checked out new albums by The Breathing Process, Hayaino Daisuki, and Bane and Rhinoceros.
• We debated the morality of a label head posting a link to an album leak.
• We are woman, hear us roar.
• We looked at Mike Patton’s penis, and are now increasingly happy our shrink is coming back from vacation next week.
• Our homeboy Corey Mitchell is co-authoring Phil Anselmo’s autobiography!

Okay. Back to Scrabble! See ya Monday. Stay warm.

-AR

I’m not generally one to say negative things about other bands and the choices they make (publicly, at least), but I feel that this really deserves some attention. I can only hope that young metal musicians who read this site can learn from someone else’s mistakes and hopefully one day make the metal world a little less embarrassing to be a part of.

A harsh reality of being in a band, or making music, is that some people won’t like it. ESPECIALLY in the heavy metal world, where people are almost unreasonably opinionated. What other type of music has the kind of audience who heckle a band they don’t like at a show, or argue for days in the comments section of an internet blog about why a certain band sucks? Once you put your music out there to be heard, you are, without a doubt, going to get some negative feedback. The way you handle it, however, is going to determine what kind of longevity your band will ultimately have.

I’m not a fighter at all, so I can’t really speak from experience on when violence is justified, but I know that a relatively meaningless heckling incident is not it. If you consider yourself a professional, you should act like one and think about how your actions affect the outside world’s perception of you and your band. I can think of one particular show as a perfect example of how to and how not to handle yourself in a situation like this.

Click to read more…

I don’t know what it is, but ever since I was a young guy I’ve typically had an aversion to trends, especially in music. Going to punk shows during my high school years, I’d laugh to myself at all the kids with the same spiky hair and leather jackets, who were obviously into the fashion or “scene” aspect of the music, rather than the music itself (of which, I’ll admit, I’m somewhat embarrassed to have been such a purist). More than a decade later, I haven’t really changed at all. I can’t help but write off many new bands these days, whether it’s a retro-thrash band named after an old Anthrax song, a long winded “post-metal” band with nautical themes, a bubble-lettered stoner rock band, a flat-brimmed nu-deth-shuggah band, or, quite possibly the most hilarious of them all, any black metal band still wearing corpsepaint that isn’t Immortal. All of this stuff comes off as tired and derivative to me, and with any style of music that becomes trendy, the posing is just too obvious.

But, I’m not here today to talk shit on popular bands. I’m here to talk to you all about a once relevant subgenre of music known as power metal, that couldn’t be further from “cool” right now. A friend of mine once referred to power metal as “the new punk rock” as if to say that at least playing punk music these days will get you laid. If someone is playing power metal, it’s probably because they are 100% down with that shit, regardless of how silly they may look to the rest of the world. And that, I have nothing but respect for.

Click to read more…

I understand that the music industry as we’ve known it is in somewhat of a bind. The ease of “illegal” downloading coupled with a crappy economy has cut off much of the flow of income a record label is built to generate. In this position, any sensible business would find a way to adapt in order to survive.

Last week I read about a certain metal label trying out something called a 360 deal, where instead of mainly collecting revenue from record sales or other intellectual property rights (publishing, licensing, etc.), the record label takes an agreed-upon cut of merchandise, concert ticket sales, and I suppose just about anything else having to do with the band. Actually I’m sure deals like this already existed, but this label got even more “WTF” with it and announced they would be giving this new band’s album out as a free download. I honestly think this is a great idea. Giving away the music for free since it holds little value to consumers, then sending the band on tour and collecting a decent percentage off nightly guarantees and t-shirt sales since people still pay full price for those – going where the money is. Sure, it’s a business.

What confuses me is how any band would be ok with this. They signed to a record label who isn’t actually putting out or distributing a record. They’re promoting intangible recorded material so that there’s a reason for the band to tour and sell stuff for them, while the band makes even less money on the things they would have been sustaining themselves on in an old school record deal. So, why do you need a record label then?

Click to read more…

Hey all, its been a while since I’ve updated this blog. We’ve been super busy over the past few months, most recently with the tour we just finished with Mastodon and Kylesa. This was without a doubt one of the most awesome tours we have ever been a part of. I’d like to publicly thank everyone in Mastodon and their crew for going out of their way to be helpful and make us feel welcome. It’s nice to see that all the success hasn’t jaded you guys. It was also a pleasure to meet and bro down with Kylesa for five weeks. I hope we can all do this again some time.

Here are some highlights:

Click to read more…