MetalSucks

Okay. I started SYL in 1993 after hearing Soul Of A New Machine. I saw Fear Factory open for Sepultura with Clutch, and I remember running around the venue telling everyone: “THAT is what I want to do, except with extra chaos…”

My creative process is directly tied to my emotional development. There are some folks that make music by picking up a guitar until they have a riff that is defined by the musical roads they choose to hone. They then sculpt it into that framework and voila, Metallica, Slayer, Priest etc. I think that’s awesome, and in some ways I’m envious of that. In many cases, if you mix that with tenacity and a certain amount of talent and luck, you can sustain a decent career.

That’s not how I create, again… as it is tied to life and circumstance, my music has generally been cathartic observations of what life presents, and each new record in many ways is a reaction to the one before. So in the most blunt of terms, I make music to better understand myself as I change.

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Max Cavalera and Soulfly are back in the studio, working on their seventh (shit, time flies!) album, tentatively titled Omen, and those cool motherfuckers at Metal Injection got Mr. Cavalera himself to do an in-studio video update. Check it out:

Not to be disrespectful to Max Cavalera or nothing, but while you happen to be in a studio with Logan Mader, do you think you could give your brother a call and get crackin’ on a new Cavalera Conspiracy album, too? I’d be much obliged if ya did.

-AR

You know how I know things aren’t all terrible in the metal world right now? The people who run iTunes think there’s enough money to be made that they’ve now created an entire metal section.

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In honor of Alaskan metalcore band 36 Crazyfists’ new DVD, Under a Northern Sky (in stores October 27), a list of 35 other famous, metal, heavy, and/or crazy fists:

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Mere hours before Gojira played the best show of 2009, our friends at Metal Injection interview G to the Jira main man Joe Duplantier, and even got him to pick his favorite metal videos. No shock: the man has good taste. So, needless to say, this is pretty awesome.

Vince’s own interview with Joe should go up sometime next week. You’ll wanna read that, too. Trust me.

-AR

I’m usually anti-cover album – what’s the point, really? – but I have to admit that I’m more than a little curious to hear Children of Bodom’s Skeletons in the Closet… but mostly for non-metal or not-really-metal reasons. I mean, I’m sure that COB can pull off Slayer and Sepultura songs without breaking a sweat, but what’s it gonna sound like when Alexi and company do Creedence? Kenny Rogers? Pat Benatar? Their Brit-Brit cover (which will be on the new disc) sounded surprisingly Bodom-like, as though the Reigning White Trash Queen of Pop had never even existed. And can you think of another melodeathrash band more suited to do hair metal covers of Poison and W.A.S.P.?

So. Skeletons in the Closet comes out September 23 on Spinefarm. The band is now streaming two new re-makes, of Suicidal Tendencies’ “War Inside My Head” and Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell,” on their MySpace page. Throw back a few shots and play ‘em loud. That’s how COB would want it, motherfuckers.

-AR

Gee. Sepultura are really giving this A-Lex bull pucky the full court press, huh? They just released one mediocre video less than a month ago, and already they’re on to the next one – this “live” clip for “What I Do.”

I gotta say, I’ve never seen the Derrick Green version of Sep live, but this actually does make the show look kinda fun. Almost makes me wish they were playing this song instead:

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Not to be a dick or anything, but if you ask me (and you didn’t but you’re reading this so fuck you), my good friend Sammy O’Hagar was too easy on Sepultura’s latest, A-Lex. The album is a mess, and there’s only one really decent song it – “We’ve Lost You.”

So: the good news is, Sep had the good sense to use “Lost” as the single for their new video. The bad news is, the video’s a mess. A-Lex, as you’re probably aware, is inspired by Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of that novel. But this video just tosses in as many recognizable bits from Kubrick movies as possible: the Korova Milk Bar* from Clockwork is there, sure, but so are the creepy twins from The Shining, and the Venetian mask orgy crowd from Eyes Wide Shut, and the cowboys from… actually, Kubrick never made a movie with cowboys, so I dunno what the fuck that’s about. I guess they couldn’t afford the ape outfits from 2001 or something.

ANYWAY, the video seems to demonstrate and complete lack of understanding of Orange: putting the kid in a Beethoven shirt is all well and dandy, but having him beat the shit out of a rapist – e.g., Alex turning out to be someone who is violent with good reason – is bullshit.

After the jump, I’ve included Slipknot’s video for “Spit it Out.” It’s a cheap video for a not especially great rap-metal song, but as far as Kubrick-inspired metal videos go, at least the ‘Knot’s shows a sense of humor.

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U.K. prog-death-thrashers (yeah, I said it) Sylosis are without a doubt one of the young bands that interest me most in 2009, thanks in no small part to the urging of several MetalSucks readers. Their Nuclear Blast debut Conclusion of an Age is a refreshing burst of modern thrash and death metal, rolled into a nicely accessible little package and sprinkled with prog influences that show the maturity and restraint of a band twice their young age. We’ll post an official MetalSucks review shortly, but in the meantime I was able to catch up with guitarist Josh Middleton to ask him a few questions about the formation of the band, the events that led to their deal with Nuclear Blast, their upcoming touring plans and their metal heroes.

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In my review for AC/DC’s Black Ice, I wrote about how certain trademarks of an artist or band – Michael Jackson’s falsetto, Axl Rose’s gravelly throat, Angus Young’s dirty blues rock pecking – suck me in immediately, even despite their use for blatantly nostalgic purposes. The punch in the gut of Andreas Kisser’s muddy-but-monolithic power chords at the beginning of “A-Lex I,” the opening track on Sepultura’s eleventh album, A-Lex, pull me right back to being seventeen and getting lost in the ridiculous grooves of the band’s punk/thrash classic, Chaos A.D. Of course, when making this comparison, I meant it positively toward Black Ice. And though A-Lex doesn’t necessarily suckle at the leathery teat of nostalgia, it doesn’t lift off in the way the intro track implies. Though the album is packed with primo Sepulturaness, it’s also packed with directionless filler, bloating it from a tight groove metal record to an overly/questionably ambitious record that’s practically impossible to get through in one sitting. Their lack of self-editing ultimately mars the record, but the bits of it that are good – and don’t let my misgivings fool you, because there’s quite a bit that’s pretty fucking good – make you glad they’re still here, even if they are completely without the Cavalera brothers for the first time since the band’s inception.

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Two new Sepultura songs, “The Treatment” and “We’ve Lost You,” are now avail on the band’s MySpace page. The tracks come off of A-Lex, Sep’s forthcoming, Cavalera-less, A Clockwork Orange-themed album. Since we’re nothing if not dorks here at MetalSucks, I thought it would be fun to needlessly dissect, judge, and argue about the two tracks. After the jump, read my thoughts, and then tell me why I’m a genius/asshole in our comments sections.

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I never would have known had Blabbermouth not told me, but apparently Sepultura performed at the Latin Grammy Awards last night (Something else I never would have known: there’s a Latin Grammy Awards. Are the regular Grammys too good for Latin music? I don’t understand.). After performing a brief cover of “Girl from Ipanema” (Um… why???), the band launched into “We’ve Lost You,” a song which will appear on the band’s forthcoming album, A-Lex.

A-Lex is a concept album which apparently takes its cues from Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange (And, presumably, Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of that novel.). I’ve read Burgess’ book and seen Kubrick’s film, and what the fuck the album cover art has to do with either is not clear to me at this time; in fact, it makes me kinda worried that Sepultura are about to join the club of a few million people who seem to have somehow completely missed the point of the story.

But I digress. This new song – the first we’ve heard from A-Lex – sure does sound heavy and Sepulturian, which is not to say its good; in fact, it seems kind of generic. As much as I enjoyed Sep’s last offering, Dante XXV, I already find my optimism for A-Lex being any good draining. But I guess I should give the band the benefit of the doubt.

After the jump, check out Sepultura’s performance of “We’ve Lost You” (And, um, “Girl from Ipanema.”).

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I wonder what the Cavaleras think of this?

Sepultura have a new album coming… yawn… excuse me… Sepultura have a new… oh, who gives a shit?

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

The below video, of a dance group called Spiritwo covering Sepultura’s “Inner Self,” was posted on Blabbermouth over the weekend. Now, I don’t wanna come off as one of those overzealous/undereducated Pantera fans who gets sand in his vagina just because Fall Out Boy covered “Walk” or Madonna played two bars of “A New Level” or MetalSucks points out that Phil Anselmo is a racist, but, seriously, the world’s Sepultura fans should all get together, track the lead singer of this band down, and cut her (and while you’re at it, do something about that fuckhead in the white dress). I mean, I’ve seen knife fights break out over the whole Max Cavalera versus Derrick Green thing, so this shit should definitely be cause for some neanderthal violence.

After the jump, wash the taste of piss, shit and cum out of your mouth by watching the actual video for the actual Sepultura performing the actual “Inner Self.”

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MetalSucks Maniac Zac Clarkson correctly identified last week’s logo as Short Bus Pile Up. I mean, LOTS of you correctly identfied last week’s logo as Short Bus Pile Up, since it was one of the easiest logos we’ve ever done, but Zac got picked in the random drawing of all potential winners, so he wins a super-duper deluxe double disc edition of Soulfly’s, um, Soulfly. Rock out with your cock out, Zac.

This week we’re giving away a nifty single-CD with two albums on it, Sepultura’s post-Max Cavalera releases Against and Nation, courtesy the extremely attractive men and women at Roadrunner Records. You might think a Max-less Sep isn’t worth your time, but I think that poor Derrick Green takes too much shit. I mean, c’mon. It’s not his fault that he wasn’t born Brazilian.

ANYWAY, all you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail with your answer, your name and address at axl [at] metalsucks.net. We’ll randomly select one winner from everyone who gets it right, and announce their name next Monday.

Good luck, honkies. It’s a hard one this week.

-AR

Well, well, well.. at least one person thought Apocalypto was a good movie, and his name is Max Cavalera.

The below, Gibson-esque video is for “Unleash,” the new single from Cavalera’s Soulfly, which will be the former Sepultura main man’s second release this year, after Cavalera Conspiracy’s Inflikted. It features guest vocals by Pantera’s Phil Anselmo Throwdown’s Dave Peters, and while I think it’s an okay song, it lacks that Sepultura-ness that made Inflikted such a nice surprise.

Check out the video and then weigh in in our comments section. Soulfly’s new album, Conquer, drops July 29 on Roadrunner.

-AR

Is the world ready for a new Soulfly album? It seems like Cavalera Conspiracy’s Inflikted just dropped, and it turned out to be so killer, I don’t see any reason Max Cavalera couldn’t just chill for a beat before giving the world its next dose of Cavalera Lovin’.

Max isn’t just gonna chill for a beat, though; he’s the kinda guy who thinks metal is like Chinese food, so he’ll release Conquer, Soulfly’s latest, on July 29 via Roadrunner. I’ve heard at least one insider say that it’s superior to Inflikted – but that person also thinks that Cavalera Conspiracy sounds too much like old Sepultura, which is exactly why I like it so much. So take that for what you will.

ANYWAY, here’s Soulfly performing a new song, “I and I,” “Blood Fire War Hate,” [My bust - AR] at the XIII Festival Arte-Nativo Viña Rock 2008 festival earlier this month in Spain. It sounds pretty fuckin’ heavy… but I’ll reserve final judgement for when I hear the proper studio version.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Well, this is fucktarded.

Sepultura have announced a new contest, “Be A Part Of The Next Sepultura Record.” Said contest will allow fans to submit a single sentence or catch phrase related to Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange – the basis for the band’s new album – and the winning phrase or sentence will be used for a song that the band will write and record in 24 hours and then include on their forthcoming album.

First of all, I just think the whole idea of this contest is idiotic to begin with. But for argument’s sake, let’s pretend that it is, in fact, neat-o to be able to name a Sep song or supply Derrick Green with a lyric or whatever. Why is the band limiting themselves to 24 hours to create this song? What if it takes 36 hours to write something decent? Wouldn’t it be better not to set such a strict time limit if it makes the difference between having a shitty track and a decent one on their new album? Unless the band is cheating and already has a song written and is just searching for the perfect phrase to insert into their lyrics. But that would make this contest a sham, and Sepultura would never manipulate their fans that way… right?

ANYWAY, my entry is “A Bit of the Old In n’ Out Burger.” Now that’s a fuckin’ winner right there.

-AR

Blabbermouth tipped us off to the below footage of Sepultura rehearsing a new song for their upcoming album, which is apparently a concept album based on Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange (which was – duh – also the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s controversial classic film). This new album should provoke a lot of interest (if not record sales), ’cause it’s the first Sep album ever to feature neither of the Cavalera brothers.

So will it be any good? The riff in the video is okay, even if it doesn’t exactly knock my socks off. But the band’s last album, Dante XXI, was good enough that I’m curious to hear what Andreas Kisser and the fellas come up with.

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So… what do y’all think? Let’s get some premature judgements up in here!

-AR

Infliked, the new album by Cavalera Conspiracy, may have turned out to be a pleasantly awesome surprise (read our review here), but the band’s video for first single “Sanctuary” is, alas, not nearly as cool.

The concept isn’t bad: at a photo shoot for the band, a 28 Days Later-style monster goes on the rampage and kills pretty much everyone in the room (save for the band, who, I suppose, are saved by the sheer power of their rocking). The clip is even filmed in lo-fi video to give it some sense of “realism.”

Unfortunately, it’s also shot in first-person shakey cam, a la The Blair Witch Project and the more recent Cloverfield, a.k.a. The Blair Monster Project. The result is that you can’t really see anything, and I don’t mean in a Jaws being-suggestive-is-more-scary-than-being-gory kind way; I mean, really, you can’t see very much.

So, y’know, that blows.

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-AR