Richmond, VA stoners ov death Cannabis Corpse are currently burning their way through the European continent, with planned raids on Russia and the UK coming up quick, and yours truly is along for the ride to hustle merch and document the madness. Full disclosure: I work with the band and their label, but I’m doing this tour diary not as a sneaky promotional trick, but because I’m in fucking Europe with a bunch of awesome death metal dudes and wanted to write about the experience. So here goes.

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What’s up with these black metal dudes turning out to be all refined n’ shit? First Gaahl launched a high-end clothing line for women, and now Satyr (né Sigurd Wong Raven) is apparently collaborating with Italian winemaker Luca Roagna on two variets of red wine, Rosso di Alleanza Nero Wong Raven 2009 and Unione di Nero Wong Raven 2006.

Says Swedish website From Beyond (excuse Google translator’s less-than-poetic interpretation of the original text):

“Black Metal Wine, now how can such a concoction taste? Blood and sulfur with the taste of metal and may, or may simply be the taste of sickness and musty decay you get on your tongue? This seemed so obviously important to sort out so I took home and ordered a bottle of Rosso di Alleanza Nero Wongraven2009 . What I can spontaneously say is that you, hoping that the wine would taste like hell will be disappointed.”

Then the guy goes on talk about the wine in greater detail, but I don’t actually know that much about wine so whatever.

The article does not include details on where one can order Satyr’s latest offering, but I’m sure enterprising fans can figure it out.

-AR

Thanks: Mick Stingley

So strongly does the sound of a crying baby bother me that I often fear that should I ever have children, I will be one of those horrible people who drowns the kid because “I just wanted him/her to stop crying!”

Luckily, our number one home boy, Bram Teitleman at Metal Insider, found this delightful instructional video on child rearing, which demonstrates that there is a way to make your baby chill out AND listen to some awesome metal at the same time.

Oddly enough, this is the exact opposite effect that playing Satyricon had on my last girlfriend.

-AR

Horned Almighty
Necro Spirituals
Label – Candlelight
Release date – January 25

Are there times when you just want to strip away the niceties of everyday life, flush away any remote sense of decorum, and turn off your brain? How often do you wish you had time to throw back a multitude of pints, curse out your God-fearing neighbors, and cause undeterred rampant chaos? Sometimes it’s best to revert back to your cavemanic id, and if you need a soundtrack to accompany your civil disobedience, listen no further than veteran Norwegian black thrashers Horned Almighty’s newest collection of instigation, Necro Spirituals.

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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.

“People tend to avoid people in capes. I know that’s not the case here… but look at these people.” —Paul Rudd, Role Models

Indeed, there are few (public) places on earth where capes are not frowned upon. The LARP-friendly park space in Role Models is one of them; another is evidently the V.I.P. beer tent at 2006’s Download Fest in Donington Park, England, ’cause I saw Satyricon’s Frost totally stroll through the morass of international “journalists” like he was ready to leap off a Hong Kong skyscraper.

(I know, the Batman comparison is reaching — Frost is more like the kind of guy who’d sew a cell phone bomb in your gunt.)

Anyway, his band’s 1996 full-length, Nemesis Divina — the latest honoree in our Hall of Fame, which is a lot easier to assemble when there are two people to interview — struts just as confidently in the shaky terrain between orthodoxy and abandon. Of course, superfans will know that there weren’t just two interviews to conduct — resident Darkthrone hiking advocate Nocturno Culto helped out on guitar and very nearly stuck around permanently. That’s just one of many intriguing nuggets surrounding the creation of Nemesis — Satyr discovered that Frost was nearly blind, and the titillating NSFW “Mother North” video was one of Norwegian black metal’s first.

Some (adults) would suggest that this was Satyricon’s last good record. Some (kids) have always found them clownish. Where do you guys stand?

-AB

You can order the January 2011 issue of Decibel here if you wanna read the Hall of Fame entry on Satyricon’s Nemesis Divina. But if you get a full subscription, not only will you never miss a Hall of Fame, but every month you’ll get an exclusive flexi disc of never-before-released music, too.

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

This week, Anso DF suggested the Question of the Week; unfortunately, he did so before Slipknot announced that they’re headlining the Sonisphere Festival this year, so it doesn’t seem quite as relevant anymore. Still, it was a fun question to answer, so:

TO WHAT EXTENT WOULD A SLIPKNOT BREAK-UP BE BAD FOR METAL?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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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.

In 1998, there was Lords of Chaos. In 2008, there was Until the Light Takes Us. Somewhere between that, aired amongst a bunch of shitty Victory ads on Headbangers Ball, there was this. One might logically conclude that, between this biography, documentary and $100-budget commercial, the history of black metal has been comprehensively documented.

Not so! With this much personality, talent, vision, rampant egotism and disdain for non-Aryans, the genre remains entertainingly unstable — the more you talk to its original practitioners, the more weird new anecdotes bubble up to augment a perpetually-contested whole. That — along with the need to finance multiple third-term back-alley abortions for the staff’s favorite strippers — is why we’ve concocted our second exclusive Decibel one-off, the Black Metal Hall of Fame issue.

Our staffers busted ass to bring you eight tales from black metal’s vast crypt. Three of them you’ve never seen before — touchstones from Burzum, Satyricon and Rotting Christ — and the Darkthrone feature was only previously available in our HOF anthology, Precious Metal. This monster’s not included with subscriptions and is only available online and at select indie record retailers starting around November 8.

The final roster is, as you can see above, Immortal, Burzum, Venom, Darkthrone, Emperor, Satyricon, Enslaved and Rotting Christ. I’m too lazy to copy and paste the album titles, but are there any bands you’d prefer for a prospective round two? (Bear in mind that everyone’s gotta be alive to do these things, so no dice on Bathory and Mayhem.)

-AB

Please help the staff of Decibel finance all the necessary third-term back-alley abortions for their favorite strippers by purchasing the special Black Metal Hall of Fame issue here. You can also help contribute to this tremendous cause by buying yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel or, better still, buying yourself a full subscription.

Metal fans have been buzzing for months about Until The Light Takes Us, but official screenings have been few and far between. Consequently, 99% of the film’s core audience hasn’t seen the saga of the Norwegian black metal scene as told by filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. That’s all going to change on September 28th, when Until The Light Takes Us finally gets DVD treatment. Luckily for me, my hookup Terrill, whose inventory is usually comprised of amateur porn, videocam bootlegs of current blockbusters and unreleased Tyler Perry films, somehow got his grubbies on an advance screener.

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Lovings your mommies is tr00. Shes the ones whos taughts yous hows tos bes ebil. Maybes yous evens borrowed her makesups thes first time yous puts ons corpse paints. Remembers hows shes mades yous cleans your rooms? Ebil. Ors hows shes tolds yous tos makes thes monsters face sos shes could brush yours teeths? Ebil. Ors hows she groundeds yous whens shes founds outs that yous burneds downs the church? EBIL. Ors hows she stoods ups for yous whens you coulds nots gets the parole fors killings your band mates? EBIL!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yous cans takes one days tos gos tos thes Hallmarks and buys a nice cards. It wills nots kills yous.

Most BM bands is toos muchs ofs pussys tos express their loves fors the mommies. Pussys pussys pussys. Heres the bests Is coulds dos. Nows Is ams goings tos give my mommies the necklace Is boughts ats thes T.J. Maxxs ands takes her tos the buffets ats the Holidays Inns ands to sees the Babies movie. Ebil, ebil, ebil.

-NC

In his review of The Underworld Regime, the debut album of “black metal dream team” Ov Hell, our own Sammy O’Hagar wrote the following:

With a group of dudes as impressive as this, all the great things about black metal are all but guaranteed to show up. And they do: the riffs are wall-to-wall excellent, Shagrath’s vocals — even despite the fact that I’m not particularly fond of Dimmu Borgir — are solid, and I’ll be damned if there’s a better drummer in black metal than Frost that’s not named Trym or Hellhammer (and even then, it’s a three-way tie). Ice Dale and Teloch even manage to throw in a spidery arpeggio every now and again to keep things from devolving into a haze of tremolo-picked minor chords. Yes, it’s cheesy, but like good power metal, it fully and unironically embraces it, transforming what most would make a groan-worthy affair into chest-beating awesomeness.

That sounds like something you’d wanna listen to, right? Well, now you can! Even though Prosthetic won’t release the album until April 13, our PLPs (that’s “platonic life partners”) at Metal Injection are streaming The Underworld Regime right now. Ov Hell features members of Dimmu Borgir, Gorgoroth, 1349, Enslaved, and Satyricon, so you just know it’ll be ebil. Listen now.

-AR

I suppose I distrust supergroups because it’s too easy. Throw a bunch of dudes in bands people like together and it should instantly equal something people like/something people will throw money down to hear. And while there are exceptions (Them Crooked Vultures, Shrinebuilder, Cream) to the eating-up-downtime/cash grab rule, it’s more often than not the standard (see: Damn Yankees, Chickenfoot, a library’s worth of other names). But occasionally bands fall right in the middle, where they’re not in it for breaking new ground but also aren’t in it to exploit listeners to get a new yacht (or a first yacht). And along with that comes a sense of nothing-to-lose, in that the bandmembers will have their more-successful day jobs when the project ends, so why not have a good time in the meanwhile? And this is the case for black metal dream team Ov Hell, which includes members of some of the most important bands in Norway. Jagged yet refined and mean but kind of fun, Ov Hell manage to sound pretty decent on their debut, The Underworld Regime. Not quite a classic but certainly more than a distraction, Ov Hell are some of black metal’s most essential dudes flexing their frostbitten muscle, and that’s certainly never a bad thing to hear.

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Poor Joey Jordison must get bored when he’s not busy with Slipknot; besides Corey Taylor and Clown, he’s easily the most visible member of the band, even when they’re on hiatus (as they are right now). This is extra-amazing when you consider the fact that, unlike Taylor or Clown, he doesn’t really have a side-project: the one he started, Murderdolls, released one album in 2002, did a whole bunch of touring behind it, and then promptly broke-up. (MD vocalist Wednesday 13 recently hinted at a possible Murderdolls reunion, but that doesn’t actually seem to be happening.) But Jordison constantly manages to stay in the spotlight, be it through producing gigs (3 Inches of Blood’s Fire Up the Blades) or, more often, guest spots with other well-known bands: he recorded some drums for Otep’s House of Secrets (as though Otep didn’t sound enough like Slipknot already), toured with Ministry, and did a few tour dates with Satyricon before a couple of their members got arrested on a kiddie-sex charge and that trek was canceled.

And now it’s been announced that Jordison will spend the spring and summer playing for Rob Zombie.

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It was back in December of ’08 that my man Vince first observed that E1 (then still called Koch) was signing every fucking metal band in the world. At that point, the label had recently made deals with or released albums by In Flames, Hatebreed, High On Fire, Satyricon, Otep, Throwdown and Straight Line Stitch; now there’s a rumor that they’ve added Black Label Society to their roster, too.

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Tomorrow is Halloween. This is great news, because it means that come Sunday (or Monday) people will finally fucking stop talking about Halloween. So sick of it already. When did I become so curmudgeonly? I’m gonna make a hell of an old man. Here’s what went down this week:

• Danzig drummer Chuck Biscuits died. Oh wait, no he didn’t.
• We debuted a new Mudvayne track and we posted live photos from Satyricon and Goatwhore/Eyehategod shows.
• We analyzed the business models of Earache and Roadrunner Records.
• The Boner Tour 2010 has been announced.
• Bison B.C.’s Dan And wrote two tour blogs for us while Horse the Band’s Lord Gold told us about women in diners.
• We spoke with Jucifer’s Amber Valentine and James Plodkin from Jodis.
• We’re giving away a buncha BTBAM shit and celebrating the release of their new album.
• We got all creative writing on your ass.

Our very own Corey Mitchell is gonna be on TV this weekend; he’ll be appearing on E!’s “20 Most Horrifying Hollywood Murders” on Saturday night at 6:00pm EST/5:00PM CST. In addition to his duties as the resident Mansion old fart, Corey writes books about true crime and is a respected authority on the matter so it should be an interesting (and br00tal) watch. Have a good weekend everyone.

New MetalSucks photographer Diana Lee Zadlo was on hand at The Trocadero to capture photos at Satyricon show last week in Philadelphia. Her stunning images after the jump! Also be sure to check out her photos of Eyehategod and Goatwhore from the previous night.

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So playing underground metal is interesting for various reasons. There’s a real hierarchy to it. It has its own set of stars. Its own celebs. Legends. Etc. But in the grand scheme of the music industry, it’s nothing but a drop in the bucket.

Forget Metallica and the huge bands. I’m talking about everything else. Maybe these days, when records don’t sell like they used to and metal sells like it always has, it’s a bigger drop in the bucket. But check this out. A metal band sells 100,000 units. I’ts something to open up champagne and do coke off of strippers asses over. Tour buses, flat screen TVs, WOW WE’RE ROCKSTARS. Do you guys realize that on a major label in the mainstream world, 100,000 units is an abject failure?

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As a man, I’m painfully aware that at any metal show the chances of me being squeezed between two sweaty fat dudes in the front row for 90 minutes is infinitely higher than me being near anything that remotely resembles a female. I say “resembles” because I still remember the time my buddy wrestled a “dude” to the floor of the Commodore Ballroom after they both caught either end of Jimmy Bower’s drumstick. The look on his face when he heard obscenities yelled at him in a screeched, soprano voice ranks pretty highly among my favorite concert memories.

This time the venue was familiar, the metal crowd certainly was not. Oh sure, I already expected the Cradle of Filth fans who can count more zippers, buckles and chains on their outfits than times they’ve heard their parents say they’re proud of them, but beyond platform soles and midnight blue dreadlocks there were many perfectly normal and some perfectly curvy women in attendance. Now, I’ve never really believed that Dani Filth could be a sex symbol for anyone old enough to buy beer, but I guess being the front man of a popular metal band can make even a hideous midget significantly more fuckable. Then again, the gals probably just came out to hear the music.

Oh yeah, you probably want to hear about the music.

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Finally… we have a capable, intelligent, forward-thinking new U.S. president. No, it’s not Dave Mustaine. Here’s what else happened this week:

• We wondered aloud and speculated about Slayer’s co-headline tour, New England Metal & Hardcore Fest, Scion Rock Fest (aka Atlanta Metalfest), and The Faceless’ headline tour. This spring just got awesome.
• We ran to the hills to avoid a shitty classic metal cover. Meanwhile, we found Iron Maiden in Iran and on the big screen.
• We got sexi(vious) with members of Cynic and Textures.
• We looked at new releases from Satyricon, Cattle Decapitation, 16 and Rumpelstiltskin Grinder.
• Maynard got all Jiu-Jitsu on our asses and Carcass played a wedding.

Axl, myself and our girlfriends (we have girlfriends… whowouldathunkit???) are going to see The Dark Knight on the IMAX tonight. Hopefully weed will be involved. Later, suckaz!!

There are at least a couple reasons to watch that silly drug movie Spun, directed by Roxette video auteur Jonas Åkerlund. The first, and only defensible one, is to peep that dreamy Rob Halford in a brief role as a porn store clerk. But our panel of judges will also accept a) Mickey Rourke as a meth cook; b) the acting-challenged but bejugged Brittany Murphy; and, c) three seconds of Satyricon!

Yep, somewhere among Spun‘s 100-minutes of narcoporn, we get a glimpse of Satyricon’s “Mother North” video on a scabby Patrick Fugit’s TV (with extra-weird dialogue overdubs here). Alas, Spun didn’t make Satyr and Frost mega-stars, but shit, a year later, they did manage to snag a major label deal for 2003’s Volcano followed by the polarizing Now, Diabolical in 2006. It seems the Norwegian duo had dared to expand – and occasionally abandon – the Black Metal palette, to a measure of outrage from (yawn) kvlt types. Well, that’s what I kept reading in magazines (and was told ad nauseum at last spring’s Behemoth/Dimmu Borgir show); as always, for but a few is the issue black or not black. For the rest of us, it’s good or not good. And Satyricon’s undercooked, perfunctory seventh album, The Age Of Nero, is totally not good.

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It seems like every day we get a press release here at the MS Mansion announcing that some respectable metal band has signed to Koch Records. High On Fire, Satyricon and Throwdown are the latest crop, having all signed to Koch within the past few weeks. Add that to the already formidable metal roster of In Flames, Otep, Hatebreed and Straight Line Stitch… despite a couple of admittedly terrible bands in that bunch, from a business perspective that’s some serious fucking firepower there, all added within the last year, give or take.

So what the hell is going on over there?

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