If I were in a metal band on EMI or any of their affiliated labels I’d be running for the hills. Metal Insider is reporting that the label group — one of the remaining “Big Four” major labels — has been purchased by Citibank. Yes, a label has been purchased by a bank. Too fitting in the dire record industry times and dire financial times of 2011.

On the surface this transaction doesn’t seem like it would have much impact on metal, but any major move involving one of the biggest label groups in the world, regardless of genre, is going to have a “trickle-down effect” on all segments of the industry, to borrow a term from my good friend Ronald Reagan. Many metal labels we know and love are distributed by EMI — Century, Season of Mist, Earache, and Willowtip among them — although I don’t expect this deal to really have much impact on those businesses; if shit hits the fan with EMI, I’m sure those labels can find other distributors for as long as distributors remain necessary (which isn’t very long). Moreso I’d worry that the absence of a major source of investment in music on the whole would just result in… less music.

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Seems like there’s been a spate of significant band signings over the last week in the world of metal. Despite all the industry’s woes, it’s good to know that labels are still investing in bands. But that begs the question… what kind of deals are these bands getting? Do their deals have advances? Do they include merch? Do they include mandatory monthly ass-fuckings? Inquiring minds would like to know.

After the jump let’s take a look at the new label homes of Chimaira, A Life Once Lost, Demolisher, Funeral for a Friend and Mercenary, and how those new relationships might work out.

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We’ve received some pretty gnarly demo packages here at the Mansion including this work of craftsmanship, a hand-bound, tied, color vinyl-printed from Wrought of Obsidian, but the demo package in the above photo, posted on Season of Mist’s Facebook page, is gonna be hard to top.

The coffin-shaped press kit is the best attempt by Colorado Springs-based Alabaster Morgue to get the label’s attention, and get their attention [and ours] it most certainly did; unfortunately a caption posted with the above photo shows where Season of Mist’s staff’s collective heads are at: “let’s just say it’s the best LOOKING demo ever…”

Sorry, dudes. Maybe you should try stamping it with gold foil next time.

-VN

So by now everyone and their mother knows that The Dillinger Escape Plan have parted ways with longtime label Relapse Records. But one of the big, nagging questions – especially coming off the tremendous success of Ire Works – has been “Why?”

Well, our friends at Metal Insider recently caught up with DEP guitarist Ben Weinman to get some answers. Here’s an excerpt:

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This interesting bit of news trickled down the Interwebs grapevine yesterday. Seems DEP’s contract with Relapse has ended, and the band will release their next record on Season of Mist in collaboration with their own Phonogetic Records.

Zuh?

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MetalSucks, MetalInjection and BITPOM, in conjunction with EMI Music’s Label Services unit (which serves such labels as Century Media, Nuclear Blast, Earache, Candlelight, Season of Mist, Willowtip and Crash Music), are bringing metal to the masses with an extensive “March is Metal Month” campaign with independent retailers across the U.S.

During the “March is Metal Month” campaign, we’ll be running a series of 3 weekly “Show Us Your Metal” contests. To enter, take a picture of yourself at a record store doing something metal; throwing up the horns, making sweet love to a David Lee Roth Crazy From the Heat EP, posing in front of a Beyonce endcap in corpsepaint, buying something that costs $6.66, etc. Be creative! Send all submissions to news AT metalsucks DOT net along with your full name and address by the deadlines listed below.

The prizes and deadlines are as follows:
Week 1, deadline March 12: Signed CDs and posters from In This Moment, courtesy Century Media (we know, we know… that’s what they offered.)
Week 2, deadline March 19: Cynic box set ($75 value) courtesy of Season of Mist
Week 3, deadline March 26: Signed CDs and posters from Necroptic and All Shall Perish, courtesy of Nuclear Blast.

Show us your metal!

So I finally got through this pile of CDs on my desk from French metal label Season of Mist. Other than being the label who released Cynic’s fantastic reunion album Traced In Air, turns out they’ve got a diverse roster of oddball metal bands. Rather than do you all a disservice by failing to accurately describe these truly unique bands, just check ‘em out for yourself. In a nutshell: Esoteric (stony, drony UK experimentation) and Psykup (SYL and Alice in Chains via Mr. Bungle) are the two I’ve been jamming lately. Check em out at the MySpace links above, but avoid the label’s dreadful website at all costs.

-VN