MetalSucks

I am going to assume that a decent portion of the followers of this site are themselves musicians with bands of their own. That is generally how it goes with metal. There are seamless lines blurred between the “fans” and the “bands” because, like myself, many metal patrons represent both categories. Without this large sector of musician fans, technically proficient bands that cater directly to this base (like Dream Theater, Meshuggah, and Necrophagiast) would be much less successful. So to those musicians, I would like to use this blog to shine a light on one of the harsh truths in all music and entertainment that many musicians choose to ignore -

Image matters a lot in this industry. In fact, it’s probably just as important as the music.
Click to read more…

Call me crazy, but new Exodus music always interests me ten-thousand-fold more than new Slayer music. It’s like, with new Exodus there is at least the chance that you’ll hear something a little different instead of the same old (not that there’s anything wrong with the same old… but still). Maybe it’s because of all the line-up changes through the years. I mean ok fine on this last Slayer record we actually got a slow Kerry King solo which was at least something of a departure.

So Exodus have a new record on the way, Exhibit B: The Human Condition, the artwork for which Axl posted the other day. They’ve just posted a demo of track from that record called “Hammer and Life” on their MySpace page. I know it’s just a demo, but I really dig the dry (yet clear) mixing job. Musically speaking it seems a little thrashier in the vintage sense than anything on Exhibit A, but it’s definitely too soon to make any sort of sweeping judgment. Either way, I likee very much. More please.

Exhibit B: The Human Condition comes out on May 18th.

-VN

Hello MetalSucks readers! I realize that most of you don’t know who I am, so I figured I’d take some time to tell you and maybe shed some light on the subject of why I’ve been asked to write a few fun pieces for all of your enjoyment.

My name is Bobbi Starr and I am a girl who over the past three and a half years has made a living off of all of you who buy pornography and blow your loads to the site of my asshole being impaled by the giant members of pornography legends such as Lexington Steele, and I thank you for that.

Now, those who steal porn off of bit torrent and tube sites: shame on you, and I just might hunt you down, cut your wiener off, put it on a post and do a little, non-sexual, dance, ridding you of all porno-steeling-desires. Granted, at this point you would be without a penis, but you should of thought of that before you stole my porno.

I’m just kidding. In reality, I’d probably tell you that you are a very bad boy, and then suck you off.

Anyway, back to metal. Some of you may know, I’ve pretty much always been a music nerd, and therefore a fan of the ye ol’ metal. I think those important people at MetalSucks picked up on this and thought, “We should get this chick to write nasty things for our website! That would be awesome!” I love delving into the dark, slimy depths of the music world, and sinking my teeth into some crunchy metal bands.  It may be an acquired taste for many, but I must admit that I constantly find myself craving more of those down-tuned riffs and growling vocals.

Not only is it my desire to explore the music of each band, but also my primal urge to become intimately acquainted with the nether regions of all of the band members as a whole. So, I figured, what the hell, why not make a list of the top ten metal bands that I’d like to get gangbanged by? Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of them will come through for me.

And so, in no particular order…

Click to read more…

If the you young ‘uns don’t know Stryper, well, they were like the Underoath or Demon Hunter of their day. Which is to say, they played Christian metal. Their songs had names like “To Hell with the Devil,” and “Calling On You,” and for their 1985 album, they even covered “Battle Hymn of the Republic (Glory, Glory, Hallelujah),” which may still be the single lamest metal cover of a non-metal song ever, which is really saying something.

Now the band is working on a covers album, which will include their take on songs by the homos in Judas Priest, the blasphemous, drug addled guys in Black Sabbath, and the Jews in Kiss.

I don’t really have much else to say about this… it just made me laugh. Fingers crossed that they add a song by Slayer or Mayhem to the mix…

-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…

Here’s the poster for this summer’s Sweden Rock Festival. You tell me what’s wrong with this picture:

Are people really like “Man, I can’t wait to see Slayer and Mastodon and Suicidal Tendencies… and Rick Springfield!”? Do we think there are a lot of Swedish Behemoth  and Watain fans who are also totally stoked to check out BTO? I guess I can see some of the over-forty set being just as excited to sing along with “Jesse’s Girl” as they are “Round and Round,” but if you’re the kind of person afflicted with that particular virus of 80s nostalgia, I don’t know what the hell you do while Danzig are on-stage. Grab a beer and wait for W.A.S.P., I guess?

Your thoughts?

-AR

Even though we’re always up in Cosmo Lee’s bidness, it’s worth noting that some other awesome writers also post at Invisible Oranges.

Case in point: Chris Rowella, who has published a list of his Top 5 Metal Moments in Movies over at Invisible Oranges.

He’s included all sorts of great cinemetal moments on the list, but my personal favorite is one I love for sentimental reasons – namely, it takes me back to being a kid, when the Gremlins movies were pretty-much the be-all, end-all of awesomeness. Yes, I’m talking about this immortal sequence from Gremlins 2: The New Batch:

Chris doesn’t mention it and I can’t seem to find a clip online, but some of you may recall that Faith No More’s “Surprise! You’re Dead!” also appears in Gremlins Deuce.

Check out the full list here; then come back and let us know what some of your personal favorite metal movie moments are.

-AR

No one can fault Dave Mustaine for putting together a tour in lieu of the stillborn American Carnage trek. But as always the Megadeth frontman aims for maximum annoyance and as such his new tour is a brazen approximation of Carnage minus Slayer. As a member of Slayer, Kerry King must be distressed to find that there’s a nearly identical alternative to his tour on the market — complete with Testament and Exodus, for a total of three thrash metal greats, just like Carnage — that’s sure to distract ticket-buyers and cool walk-up sales. And in light of the recent King-Mustaine cuddlefest at T.G.I.Friday’s, one could argue it’s yet another of Mustaine’s unconscionable and self-destructive backstabbings, at which he is only second to Eddie Van Halen in proficiency. (Unlike lead guitar playing, at which Mustaine is second in proficiency to dozens. Cheap shot alert!)

To make matters worse, ‘Staine and Megadeth will use the new tour to celebrate their last great record, Rust In Peace, y’know, to add a sack-tap to this already historic cockblock. So it was already getting silly by the time the announcement came yesterday that Megadeth’s only other real member, the embittered former Mustaine bum chum David Ellefson, he of history’s greatest metal bass performance and reams of anti-Mustaine bitching, would return to the pasty creases of the Mus-taint for bass duties on the big tour. Yet more juice for the non-Slayer shows. What’s next, the return of RiP guitarist Marty Friedman? (Um please?)

Click to read more…

So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

Click to read more…

Following its postponment last month due to Tom Araya’s need for back surgery, Megadeth, Slayer and Testament have re-scheduled the dates for their American Carnage Tour. The shows will now take place this summer, which strikes me as somehow more appropriate… I don’t know why. I’d just rather go watch these three bands in warm weather than nice-to-mediocre weather.

And, uh, that’s it I guess. Get the new dates after the jump!

Click to read more…

The Austerity Program play this Sunday January 31, in Brooklyn at Public Assembly (70 N 6th St) with White Suns, Immanent Voiceless, Daniel Malinsky. You should go, goddammit!!!

I did not get into metal until relatively late in life. My teenage years were spent buying everything that came out on Touch & Go and Amphetamine Reptile. I’d see long-haired wasteoids hanging out in suburban playgrounds and think “Look at those chumps who’ve got it so bad for Reign in Blood while I know that Atomizer is really where it’s at. (Actually, I still pretty much feel this way.) At that point, MetalSucks was not a website, it was a personal belief.

Still, I was not unaware of what the metal kids were up to, even around fourth grade. A few of them that I invited to my birthday that year party chipped in and bought “Shout at the Devil;” since I only had about twelve records at that point, I figured that I’d listen to the record once a day because what else are you going to do? And it kind of freaked my parents out, and that was cool. And it had a pentagram on the cover which I spent a lot of time trying not to look at because I was worried something might happen to me.

Click to read more…

Well, ya gotta hand it to Dave Mustaine. He’s trying real hard to give the people what they want.

Following the postponement of the American Carnage tour with Slayer and Testament, Megadeth have announced a Rust in Peace twentieth anniversary tour of North America, to kick off in March. Not only will the band play Rust in Peace in its entirety, but they’ll have Testament (still playing The Legacy in its entirety) and Exodus playing support. In other words: whomever put this thing together is tugging on the same nostalgia strings that the Slaygadeth tour was supposed to pull on. Maybe Exodus don’t sell as many records as Slayer, but they’re still a hugely important part of the American thrash metal movement, and anyone who isn’t excited about this tour just because Slayer aren’t on it is probably pretty dopey.

Why, I just saw Exodus play the other night! And they killed! No less so than Megadeth and Testament (and Slayer), Exodus are experiencing a second golden age of their career.

Of course, there is something kinda funny about getting excited to see Megadeth do the entire Rust in Peace album when Dave Mustaine is the only remaining member of the Rust in Peace-era line-up. It’s like if someone were excited to hear Axl Rose and whatever other dudes he’s currently calling Guns N’ Roses play all of Appetite for Destruction, an album with which they have no actual association. That being said, this Mega-line-up is great, and Rust might be my favorite Megadeth album of all time… so I’m not gonna bitch too much. Maybe just a little. Okay I’ll keep quiet.

Get tour dates after the jump. And just as an FYI – the press release announcing this tour also promised that next week would bring new information on the rescheduling of those American Carnage dates, so if you’re such a sissy cry baby face that Exodus and the complete Rust and Legacy performances doesn’t substitute for Slayer, well, just sit tight. Click to read more…

Alright, so Vince is back Tuesday, which means the balance between light and dark should be restored here at the MetalSucks Mansion. What Vince doesn’t know is that I had Higgins make some… adjustments to Vince’s wing. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be sitting on the shitter when ya flush it, Vinnie. BWA-HA-HA!!!

Here’s what we did while Vince has been away:

• We spoke to the legendary Jello Biafra and DevilDriver’s Dez Fafara.
• God Forbid’s Doc Coyle broke down the breakdown, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley ruminated some more on the format wars, andVertebrae33’s Rod Githens analyzed the best album covers of 2009.
• We checked out new releases by Six Feet Under, Valkyrja, Brainstorm, Trapped Under Ice and Sons of Azrael.
• Our staff chose some albums that will fuck your face off in 2010.
• The line-up for Mayhem Fest 2010 got the kids all riled up.
• Dave Mustaine and Kerry King <3 T.G.I.Friday’s.

Have a good weekend, everybody!!!

-AR

We’ve all been there. Tensions are high in some packed, sweaty venue, sparked by feverish excitement and the potential for violence. These people paid good money to enjoy some type of cathartic release. The frontman for whatever hard-nu-death-crab-metal-core outfit is brazen and demanding. Can you believe this shit? You PAID to be entertained, and this guy is telling YOU what to do! The speech goes something like this: “I want everybody in this room moving! Front to back, side to side, NO ONE STANDS STILL! When this part kicks in, I want total [Insert destructive word here like "chaos," "mayhem," or "bedlam" if you're witty]. If the person next to you isn’t moving, MAKE THEM MOVE!” Than, if the action is not adequate, this screamer/pep rally organizer calls YOU some variation of “pussy” or “faggot” or really anything to make you feel like a soft, womanly bitch of a man in order to get in that pit and kick another grown man in the face, all in the spirit of making this band look like they are awesome. But then something happens, as if the air is sucked out of the room at the moment of impact – when those glorious staccato chugs kick in, the crowd is almost always powerless to its charms regardless of the obvious lack of substance. Like junk food and reality TV, we have a love affair with breakdowns.

Click to read more…

Dave Mustaine posts so many “updates” about what Megadeth is up to, upcoming announcements of major upcoming announcements, and the color of his stool that I feel like I know more about what’s going on in his life than I do about what’s going on in Vince’s life. But his latest, which I just read on Blabbermouth, is interesting for two reasons:

1. It seems that he and Kerry King are trying to be pals again.
2. These two metal legends chose to meet at the single blandest restaurant chain in America, if not the world.

Here’s the skinny from Mustaine:

Click to read more…

Here’s kind of an interesting story from Vice:

Last night some idiot went round bombing “SLAYER” all over shops, pubs, offices and, most dramatically, bins near our offices in Old Street. You’ve got to hope that the guy who did it isn’t over 16, because if they’re some 20-something Hoxton-metal dude, it’s tragic. The local shop owners are getting in a right tizz about it, and have been scrubbing their walls all morning.

Click to read more…

A lot has been made of the “big four” shows happening this Summer in Europe, and with good reason: Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax were some of the biggest and most influential metal bands of their era. Somewhat miraculously they’re all still around touring and making new music today.

While seeing old favorites live is a no-brainer, new music from legacy acts isn’t necessarily. Anthrax haven’t released new music since 2003, so for the sake of this poll we’re going to include Testament as an honorary “big four” member (and really, shouldn’t they be part of a “big five”?). So, of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Testament, consider which band is still putting out the best music today.

Of the aforementioned bands’ most recent releases, which is the best?

UPDATE: Booking agents for both Slayer and Megadeth are already hard at work to see if these dates can be rescheduled, so those holding tickets are asked to sit tight as more info will be announced as progress is made.

Well, it didn’t take long for the long awaited American Carnage Tour to fall apart… it didn’t even have a chance to start. What’s falling apart is actually Slayer bassist/vocalist Tom Araya’s back; according to Lambgoat, Araya’s condition has worsened to the point where he needs to undergo surgery. His back problems previously forced the rescheduling of the Canadian Carnage dates with the same bands, which will now once again need to be rescheduled too.

Ah well… what can you do other than wish Mr. Araya a healthy and speedy recovery? When we interviewed Araya last summer he seemed like a really chill guy who genuinely loves what he does, and I highly doubt there’s any tomfoolery or cover-ups happening here. Best of luck, Tom, and get well.

-VN

You know we have nothing but respect for Dave Lombardo, but he just did this video interview with our friends at Noisecreep, and he said some disparaging things about two of metal’s greatest icons. Check it out:

Click to read more…

Yesterday a little fight broke out in the comments section of our bit on the mysteries of Andrew W.K., and not that a little fight breaking out in our comments section is unusual, but this fight wasn’t really about Andrew W.K. – it was about the piano, which AWK plays.

And the piano is awesome. There should be doubt of this. Good pianists should be respected, even if the phrase “good pianist” sounds kinda funny.

As if to prove this point for us, Maniac “musicalsnob” posted a link to a YouTube user going by the handle “vkgoeswild.” She does some pretty rad piano covers of metal songs. Check out her take on Carcass’ “Corporal Jigsore Quandar,” for example:

After the jump, check out vkgoeswild as she does Slayer’s “Raining Blood,” and actually makes Marilyn Manson sound pretty.

Click to read more…