[UPDATE: Now with actual pics included! Sorry. -Ed.]

Earlier this week we shared with you some photos taken by Alyssa Lorenzon at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia on December 17th, 2010, and those pics were some of the bad-assiest, hairiest, most metal pics of Skeletonwitch we’ve ever seen. Fellow MS photographer Mariel Pietrykoski was on-hand at the same show and snapped some excellent pics of the other bands on the bill, A Life Once Lost, Job For A Cowboy and Misery Index. Those pics after the jump!

Click to read more…

And so all our photographic coverage of 2010 will soon finally come to a conclusion — but we’re not done with last year yet! For example, peep these incredible shots of Skeletonwitch, witch (rimshot!) MetalSucks photographer/all-around badass Alyssa Lorenzon took at the First Unitarian Church inPhiladelphia on December 17, 2010. We weren’t able to be there with Alyssa that night, but judging by the photos, the show was a lot of fun, and a total hair tornado. Check out  all of Alyssa’s pics after the jump!!!

Click to read more…

Congrats to grand prize winner A.J. Gregory and runner-up Erin Wood; they correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to be Beatus. A.J. wins a sweet Helloween 7 Sinners denim jacket, PLUS a 12 x 12 7 Sinners poster signed by all the members of Helloween, PLUS a copy of the album; and Erin gets the same, minus the coat. MetalSucks: Where Kids Can Really Win!

This week we have another super-awesome prize to give away — a signed copy of Mosh Potatoes: Recipes, Anecdotes, and Mayhem from the Heavyweights of Heavy Metal, an incredible new book from Moth Eater bassist Steve Seabury that spotlights 147 (!!!) recipes for mouth-watering “opening acts” (appetizers), “headliners” (entrees), and “encores” (desserts), including dishes from such metal titans as Lemmy, Zakk Wylde, Joey Belladonna, Dave Ellefson, Jason Bittner, and Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal… PLUS lots of great backstage stories and other metal-related shenanigans. Seriously, I’m salivating just typing about the book!!!

All you gots to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. ALL ENTRIES WITHOUT AN ADDRESS WILL BE DISQUALIFIED. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner announce his or her name next week.

Of course, if you’re too pussy to play my little game, you can always just pre-order a copy of Mosh Potatoes before its release next week. Also, our pals at RED Distribution are having their own excellent contest, “The Metal & Meat SweepSTEAKS,” in which they’re not only giving away a copy of the book, but also a customized autographed Skeletonwitch Epiphone guitar and a $150 Gift Certificate to Omaha Steaks. You can enter that contest here. And that’s in conjunction with The World’s Loudest Metal Sale at f.y.e. presented by Revolver, which is offering a shitload of metal albums for just $9.99, including the most recent releases from Between the Buried and Me, Skeletonwitch, Kingdom of Sorrow, Within the Ruins, and more. So get on that shit.

This week’s logo was recommended by reader John Lindmeier… thanks, John!

-AR

Izzy Stradlin is not actually from Memphis. He’s not actually the writer of this song, either.

Okay, let’s keep this roadshow a-rollin’, shall we? Today MetalSucks reader Ian Youkin has recommended some bands from the Memphis area. I chose Ian’s e-mail today because none of the bands’ names sounded like the monikers of “core” outfits, but I could be wrong. Let’s find out together, shall we?

Click to read more…

“Bringers of Death” is a song Skeletonwitch recorded during the Beyond the Permafrost sessions but was previously available only as a b-side outside of North America; now it’s on that nifty new Adult Swim/Scion A/V free sampler, and it has a video and everything. Check it out below.

I have no idea who directed this video, but I do feel fairly confident that he or she was completely fucked up at the time of its design; it’s far too crazy to have been conceived by a sober mind. Which is to say: I really, really love it. Zombies and giant plush animals fighting for control of the mighty Skeletonwitch? What’s not to like?

Speaking of fucked up videos with giant animals — “Bringers of Death” reminded me of the below. It doesn’t really have anything to do with metal, but if you’ve never seen it before, hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Click to read more…

‘Cause two excellent free samplers have been released within the last 24 hours:

• Good Fight have released a free sampler featuring songs from Cancer Bats, Son of Aurelius, The Contortionist, This or the Apocalypse, and more. None of the music is new, but if you’re not familiar with these bands, well, here’s your chance to become familiar with them, all for the the low low price of free. Get it here.
• Adult Swim and Scion A/V have also released a free sampler, and this one includes a new Withered song, “Extinguished with the Weary,” plus “rare or unreleased” tracks from Jesu, Skeletonwitch, Death Angel, Kylesa, Torche, Ludicra, and more. I haven’t had a chance to listen to any of it yet, but, again, it’s new or rare music from a bunch of awesome bands and it will cost only the energy it takes for you to click the “download” button, so go get it here.

-AR

I’ve never seen Skeletonwitch do a full headlining set. But assuming that they up the intensity even further from their support and festival slots, I’d have to imagine that such a gig would leave many audience members maimed or killed, a la Dethklok.

And I’m all for a good metal maiming. Really. If music can’t fuck your shit up, then what’s it good for?

So. Skeletonwitch have, indeed, announced a full headlining run, with Withered and Landmine Marathon doing support. That is an awesome, awesome bill. The PRP also says that the band have been working on new material, “and tentatively plan to debut some of it during the tour.” So, y’know. You’ve already pretty much bought a ticket in your mind, right?

The only bad news is it’s kind of a short tour. Still, if you can go and you don’t, I’m not sure that we can be friends anymore. Just putting that out there.

Here are dates, again via The PRP:

Click to read more…

Few bands today personify pure, unadulterated, no bullshit FUCKIN’ METAL the way Skeletonwitch do, and their most recent Prosthetic release, Breathing the Fire, was one of our most favoritest releases of 2009. Which is we why here at MetalSucks are totally stoked to be debuting their righteously evil new video, “Submit to the Suffering,” which was directed by Don Tyler (Mastodon, Ringworm). Check it out below!

And, hey, guess what? Breathing the Fire is on sale for just $8.99 RIGHT NOW. You can order a copy here. If you don’t own this awesome album, may you burn in the fires of false metal hell!!!

[This exclusive has now ended.]

I couldn’t find an appropriate wedding cake for this story, so this birthday cake will have to do. Sorry.

Earlier this year, Charles Ray proposed on-stage at a Fear Factory concert. And while I don’t like Fear Factory, I know plenty of intelligent people who do, and the fact that he got to pop the question in the middle of the show in front of Dino and God and everyone makes it pretty special.

But if he had just proposed on the floor of the show without any help from the band, well, no one would care. In fact, Charles would probably be considered déclassé for not at least, like, taking his lady to a nice dinner or something and proposing there.

And it is for this reason that I can’t understand why anyone would wanna get married at Ozzfest, unless the wedding was being officiated by Ozzy, or took place on-stage during Ozzy’s set (or someone’s set), or was going to be attended by Ozzy, or in some way, shape, or form,involved Ozzy or another band on the bill.

Yet Melinda Dolezal at Metal Insider tells us that this year Ozzfest is offering an “Unholy Matrimony” VIP package that goes for $266 per person and offers the following not-very-exciting-sounding features:

Click to read more…

So unless you managed to stay away from a computer this entire weekend – and good for you if you did – you’ve probably already seen the line-up for Ozzfest 2010, which was unveiled this past Friday evening. While our source was right that this year’s incarnation of the tour would be scaled back – it’s only hitting six cities over the course of about a week and half – a whole lot of the bands we’d heard would be playing the fest aren’t. In fact, if you can’t quite consider it a stellar line-up, that’s probably only because so many great bands were already swept up by other big package tours; maybe I’m being too nice because a large chunk of the second stage consists of bands I really like or at least respect, my feeling is that if this line-up doesn’t send anyone running for tickets, well, it’s not exactly something to be scoffed at, either. My own thoughts on all the bands and artists after the jump… plus dates, natch.

Click to read more…

Like a lot of people, I first became familiar with Brian Posehn because of his time on David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s brilliant HBO sketch comedy series, Mr. Show, for which he was also a writer. A few years after that show went off the air, my then-roommate and I went to see Posehn do some stand-up at a comedy club here in New York. I don’t think we were even there to see Posehn specifically – if memory serves, David Cross was the actual draw for us – but he was so funny that I actually laughed so hard I became winded and fell out of my chair. Since then, he’s been on a very, very short list of stand-ups that I never miss the chance to check out when they come through town. Mr. Show sketches about a fictional band called “Titannica” led me to believe that someone on the series’ writing staff was a metal fan, but I didn’t know that it was Posehn until later – and the revelation that he was just as obsessed with metal as I was only made him that much cooler.

Fart and Wiener Jokes, Posehn’s second album for Relapse, comes out today (and you can order a copy here). Like its predecessor, Live: In Nerd Rage, it features not only recordings of his brilliant stand-up, but also an original song he co-wrote with Anthrax’s Scott Ian (“More Metal Than You”) to poke fun at some of metal’s more regrettable foibles. It also has a metal cover of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” and between the two music tracks, Posehn has managed to rope in guest appearances by such all-stars as Jamey Jasta, Mark Morton, Mark Oseguenda, John Tempesta, and Russ Parrish. Assuming you love great comedy and great metal, there’s no way you’re not gonna dig Fart and Wiener Jokes.

A few weeks ago I got to talk to Posehn about putting comedy albums out on a metal label, what it’s like to be friends with some of his boyhood heroes, the state of metal today, his take on the Anthrax vocalist situation, and more. He even turned the tables at the end and asked me a question! Read the complete transcript of our chat after the jump.

Click to read more…

The MetalSucks co-sponsored Evisceration Plague Tour kicked off last night in Orlando last night… and 1349 weren’t able to be there (although, at least as far as I’m aware, headliners Cannibal Corpse and support acts Skeletonwitch and Lecherous Nocturne all played without issue). According to a statement from the band, both visa issues and that pesky Icelandic volcano are to blame, but whatever the cause, it’s a bummer, ’cause 1349 put on one heckuva show. The band hopes to join the tour in progress, but, alas, can’t make any promises that this will happen.

But here’s a pretty good consolation prize: Stereogum – who are really killing it today – are streaming 1349′s new album, Demonoir, in full. I honestly haven’t had time to check it out yet, but it’s 1349, so I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict that it’s full of black metal badassery. Go here to give it a whirl.

And even if, Satan forbid, 1349 don’t make it across the ocean for the Evisceration Plague Tour, well, Cannibal Corpse, Skeletonwitch, and Lecherous Nocturne are obviously still worth the cost of the ticket. Get tour dates here.

-AR

Which tour would that be? Why the MetalSucks and Decibel-sponsored Evisceration Plague Tour, of course! Featuring Cannibal Corpse (duh), 1349, Skeletonwitch and Lecherous Nocturne, this tour is guaranteed — as Axl so eloquently put it — to make audiences suffer and cum blood, leaving them stripped, raped and strangled, disfigured with hammer smashed faces, a skull full of maggots and their decency defiled. If you’re not excited about this tour then you must actually be sane and well-balanced and you’re no friend of ours.

Check out Cannibal Corpse’s new video for “Priests of Sodom” and read about why we ranked them the #10 Greatest Band to Inadvertently Ruin Metal.

Full list of tour dates after the jump. You Florida folks can finally stop bitching because you’ve got FOUR dates on the tour (new Ft. Lauderdale date just added!). And for the love of God people, we don’t book these tours… we just sponsor ‘em… so don’t blame the messenger!

Click to read more…

Cannibal Corpse are one of death metal’s founding fathers and the most br00tal band in the history of br00tality. And they just keep getting better with age: their latest album, Evisceration Plague, may be their best yet.

MetalSucks is proud to be teaming up with Decibel to present The Evisceration Plague Tour, Cannibal Corpse’s first headlining run since they destroyed the Hot Topic stage on 2009’s Rockstar Mayhem Festival. And with support coming from 1349, Skeletonwitch, and Lecherous Nocturne, these shows are guaranteed to fuck crowds all over North America with a knife, making them suffer and cum blood, leaving them stripped, raped and strangled, disfigured with hammer smashed faces, a skull full of maggots and their decency defiled. PHEW!

Seriously, these shows are gonna kill. (SHIT, I DID IT AGAIN!) Pre-sale tickets and VIP Premium Packages will be available through Artist Arena starting this Wednesday, Feb. 17th at 3 PM local time, while supplies last. Get complete dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

Prosthetic Records, home to such artists as Gojira, Skeletonwitch, The Acacia Strain, and Through the Eyes of the Dead, has filed suit against Razor & Tie, Billboard reports. I don’t wanna re-type or misinterpret any of the legalese, so I’m just gonna cut and paste the nitty gritty from Billboard:

Click to read more…

It’s been a while since our bro-bros at Metal Injection posted any solid live footage, but now they’re kicking off the new year with a plethora of sick clips featuring Skeletonwitch, Municipal Waste, and Coliseum.

Here’s a sample… Skeletonwitch doing “Fire from the Sky.” I think this footage does a pretty good job of conveying why Skeletonwitch are one of the most fun live bands out there right now:

Head over to Metal Injection for more excellent footage of Skeletonwitch, plus Municipal Waste and Coliseum!

-AR

Photographer Jason Nakleh was on hand at the Skeletonwitch / Black Anvil show this past Saturday in Brooklyn, part of the 3-day “Blackened Weekend” festival at which we saw a ton of awesome bands. We unfortunately had to miss Saturday’s show, but Jason was kind enough to contact us and let us live vicariously through his photos, offering to let us share them with our readers as well. We like the unique quality of these photos — dirty and raw, just like the bands. Check out the gallery after the jump.

Click to read more…

This past weekend was “The Blackened Weekend” here in NYC, a 3-night series of metal shows put on by the same folks behind the Mastodon / Neurosis show a couple of winters back and the Pig Destroyer / Brutal Truth / Repulsion joint this past summer. Krallice headlined Friday’s show with support from Liturgy, Malkuth and Orphan, while Black Anvil teamed up with Skeletonwitch to destroy the very same venue (Brooklyn’s Union Pool) on Saturday night. Last night’s weekend-ending show was the grand poobah of The Blackened Weekend headlined by the grand poobah of doom supergroups, Shrinebuilder. The band put on an energetic show to a packed house at Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge — a curious choice of venue for a metal show but by no means a bad one — that, as expected, highlighted elements of all of the band-members’ respective “other” bands in the best possible way.

Friday night’s Krallice show was a rager — Union Pool was packed to the gills and even spawned a moshpit, a rarity for these types of shows. Though I had some difficulty with Krallice’s recent release Dimensional Bleedthrough, the band absolutely smoked live and proved that their show-stealing set at last winter’s Scion Rock Fest wasn’t an anomaly. Check out some fan-filmed footage from right up-front below; I doubt anyone’s going to sit through all 20 minutes, but at least watch a sample or let the audio play in the background while you go about your morning routine. The audio quality is even pretty decent.

-VN

Krallice | NYC @ Union Pool | Friday 13th November 2009 from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

With Converge’s critically acclaimed Axe To Fall still commanding the attention of the metallic hardcore faithful, this week’s release of a new album from Belgium’s Rise And Fall could naturally be overlooked. However, that would be to the detriment of those currently enjoying that higher-profile record. An intelligent, intense burst of recorded vehemence, Our Circle Is Vicious–which you can and should buy now–was (like so many Deathwish Inc. albums) produced by Converge’s Kurt Ballou and stands as a considerable improvement on 2005′s Into Oblivion. Listen to “Built On Graves” and “In Circles” at the band’s MySpace page.

The band play a few U.S. shows this week before heading back to Europe for a month-long tour with Iron Age, whose recent album The Sleeping Eye we streamed back in August and is on Vince’s “Best Of 2009″ shortlist. That tour culminates in Rise And Fall’s hometown of Gent, with a final show that also features Goatwhore, Skeletonwitch and Toxic Holocaust. The band will wrap up 2009 with a December tour through Australia, only to kick of the new year with a few gigs with labelmates The Hope Conspiracy. All dates are below.

Click to read more…

Not that we had any doubt Baroness’ Blue Record would have a strong debut, but it’s always nice to see the proof. And Skeletonwitch’s ripping new record Breathing the Fire had a great debut too; I’m elated to see the band sell as many records first week as they did. Elsewhere it was the usual radio rock / alt-metal suspects dominating the charts. Click through to see chart positions and sales figures.

Click to read more…