MetalSucks

I keep hoping Slipknot will select “Gematria (The Killing Name)” as their next single, as the song is actually pretty friggin’ heavy. But hey, fuck do I know? They’re millionaires and I help run a website.

So the band’s new single is, in fact, “Sulfur,” which is a pretty good song itself. And I like the accompanying video. Slipknot is such a visual band that I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they constantly release cool videos, but, hey there ya have it.

-AR

The big frickin’ deal week before last was Metallica’s induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland. Last week, the focus of the Metal community’s honor is Metallica’s Lucifer, Dave Mustaine, at The Epiphone Honda Fury Revolver Magazine Golden Gods Awards. Anti-Metallica sentiment was aired freely and to shouts of encore! The name of Mustaine’s band was chanted pretty much all night (poor Atreyu guy). The event went down at Club Nokia in downtown L.A. on Tuesday night hosted by Rodrigo from Mr. Show (Brian Posehn). Honestly? It was pretty awkward and not very Metal. A ton of Metal people were there, mostly ticket buyers. The vibe started a bit chilly outside the venue, then spiked at Killswitch Engage and Maynard James Keenan (not together) before a nosedive from which even Megadeth could not recover. I had a GREAT TIME! Photos by Adam Haussman.

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Just because it makes me giggle.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]

Lamb of God and God Forbid dominated the metal charts in their Soundscan debut weeks. A quick look at the numbers of those and other notable releases after the jump with our own witty commentary, natch.

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Faith No Mania continues!

Following the news that the legendary Faith No More are, in fact, reuniting, it has just been announced that they will headline the opening night of this year’s Download Festival in the UK. Slipknot and Def Leppard will headline the following nights.

Oddly enough, the FNM-inspired nu-metal acts that Mike Patton has repeatedly professed hatred for, Korn and Limp Bizkit, will play earlier that same day.

Will Patton make fun of Fred Durst from the stage? Will Nikki Sixx throw a fit that Motley Crue’s umpteenth tour isn’t nearly as newsworthy? Can FNM’s performance even possibly live up to expectations? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.

On a side note: I know some non-European readers have been freaking out because the band allegedly has no plans to tour the rest of the world right now. All I can say is: chill. We have it from a good source that this reunion is going to last quite awhile. Just be patient.

-AR

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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Slipknot are out on tour with Coheed and Cambria right now, and I guess it’s like one big love-in or some shit, ’cause ‘Knot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan has done a remix of C+C’s “Kashmir” “Welcome Home,” which is currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page.

Look: generally I think re-mixes are a waste of time, a total wankfest, and, often, a chance to fuck with a perfectly decent song just because you can. And this one doesn’t really strike me as being any different; it doesn’t seem like Clown had any unifying thoughts behind this remix other than to drop acid and just go kuh-ray-zee with Pro Tools. And I say that as someone who generally thinks Clown is a pretty cool dude (his completely nonsensical rants aside).

Check it out and weigh in below.

Thanks to good1apollo for the tip!

-AR

So apprently Slayer are gonna announce their co-headlining tour mates this coming Monday, January 26. Of course, this raises the question: who will said co-headliners be?

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Even now that Slayer are Grammy winners, I don’t think any metalhead really gives a flying fuck about the Grammys. But, what the fuck – here are this year’s nominees for “Best Metal Performance”:

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Slipknot have announced a North American tour with Coheed & Cambria and Trivium. Like a lot of people, I was initially confused by this news – I mean, even taking into account that plenty of metalheads dig C&C, what the crap are they gonna do on a tour with Roadrunner’s elite? Can you really mosh to “Welcome Home?”

But then I thought about it some more, and ya know what? These bands have more in common than it might initially appear. Check it out:

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All is not lost in the world of metal; in fact, this past week brought some nice surprises, along with the usual mish-mash of shitty radio rock bands. Last week’s sales numbers, with our usual sardonic commentary, after the jump. (Hint: look at the tags below, and click “read more” if any of those bands interest you!).

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So yesterday I posted the Completely Unreadable Band Logo of the Week, as I’m prone to do, and readers’ entries started pouring into my inbox, as was bound to happen.

And someone guessed that the band logo in question belonged to Korn.

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“Dead Memories” was initially one of my least favorite songs on All Hope is Gone, the latest from Slipknot (which we’re giving away right now!), but it grew on me – I like that little dip the guitar does during the chorus.

I basically like the band’s new video, too – Slipknot are nothing if not a visual band and I generally think they make good videos – but I have no fucking idea what’s going on here. The tone is kind of inconsistent – it’s amusing but not really funny, creepy but not really scary – and… well… I guess Corey Taylor’s dead memories all have to do with chicks in their underwear. Which, come to think of it, doesn’t make him all that different from most dudes.

-AR

I’m having a shit day so I’ll make this fast: last week’s logo belonged to a band called Innocents Massacre. Not “Innocent Massacre” or “Innocents Massacred,” as many of you guessed. So Tracy Smith, Erin Harris, Mike Lang and Alex Christensen win our last (at least for now) four copies of Trivium’s Shogun. You who spawned the furies, enjoy.

This week, the masked marauders at Roadrunner have donated five copies of Slipknot’s latest, All Hope is Gone, for us to give away. It’s Slipknot. They’re one of the most successful metal bands in the world. ‘Nuff said.

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 four winners from everyone who gets it right, and announce his or her names next week.

I’d wish you good luck, but this week’s logo is so fucktardedly easy I might as well be giving these CDs away. Oh, wait…

-AR

Headbanger’s Blog has revealed that Slipknot’s Shawn “Clown” Crahan’s new project, Dirty Little Rabbits, have signed with The End. This is surprising insofar as up ’til now, most (if not all) Slipknot side projects have (logically) ended up on Slipknot’s label, Roadrunner; on the other hand, maybe Clown felt like The End was better suited to this particular project.

In any case, I haven’t heard Dirty Little Rabbits yet, but I’m curious to do so. I really liked Crahan’s last non-Slipknot band, To My Surprise. Crahan explains in the HBB interview why that group came to a demise, but before you go read said explanation, you should check out To My Surprise’s video for “In the Mood” below. If you’re expecting Slipknot Part Deux, prepare to be disappointed. But it bodes well for Dirty Little Rabbits.

-AR

Headbanger’s Blog — the proprietor of which was so kind as to hook me up last minute with a ticket to last night’s Children of Bodom / Testament / Black Dahlia Murder / Between the Buried and Me show — posted an awesome animated music video by the Hungarian band Blind Myself. The video was animated by 32-year-old Hungarian cartoonist Balázs Gróf and apparently took over a year to complete, featuring cartoon depictions of Slipknot, Metallica, Ozzy, and Michael Jackson. Enjoy.

-VN

Lord knows we are completely sick of talking about Metallica here at the MS Mansion despite the fact that a Metallica post is automatically good for 50-100 comments and we love watching you all duke it out. But damn, the fact that Metallica’s Death Magnetic sits atop the Soundscan charts for the 3rd week in a row, having moved over 130,000 units this week and 500,000 units in its abridged first week (due to a Friday release date), is certainly worth breaking our self-imposed Metallica hiatus for. In other weeks this year 131,000 wouldn’t be enough to tally a #1, but that’s part of the game; this week’s #2 Demi Lovato (who???) shifted only 88,000 copies. And any way you slice it, 131,000 is a damn respectable number.

Apparently Metallica is still relevant. And apparently nearly 1 million people think Death Magnetic is good enough to pay for it. Shitty mixing job be damned.

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This morning longtime MetalSucks Maniac Sammy sent us a link to the below YouTube clip of Korn’s Jonathan Davis covering Lil’ Wayne’s “Got Money,” noting that “Unfortunately, [Slipknot guitarist] Jim Root is part of this atrocity.” I’m not that surprised that Root was willing to work with Davis, given the ‘Knots ties to the world of nu-metal, although you’d think the dude would be better utilized; pretty much anyone could have played this guitar part.

Anyways, I agree with Sammy that the song blows. Then again, I don’t have a lot of love for Lil’ Wayne or Jonathan Davis, so a Davis cover was pretty much bound to be the aural equivalent of someone vomiting on you while someone else is already raping you.

I’m sure Korn fans think this is the shit and will applaud Davis for stepping outside of his comfort zone (but not really), but the thing about Korn fans is, they like Korn. So their opinions on this matter are gonna be kinda iffy at best.

I’m sure that Davis has a solo album or something where this cover will eventually appear, but I don’t know any of the details and I don’t care enough to do the research. If you actually like this shit, I’m sure there’s a MySpace page or something where you can get additional info.

-AR

Remember this past May when we gave away a few copies of Revolver’s 100-page issue devoted entirely to Tool, aka the best band to ever walk the earth? The issue was one of Revolver’s best-selling ever and sold out almost immediately. Reportedly there were copies on eBay going for $35; no joke.

But if you missed out on the Tool goodness the first time around, fret not; Revolver has re-issued The Book of Tool, and you can get it for only $9.99 at their online store. Alas, giant rolling paper Cheech and Chong style is not included; maybe next time.

And for any Slipknot fans in the house, you can also order a box set containing all 10 covers of the November 2008 Revolver issue; 1 for each of the 9 members and one of the full band. A damn fine deal for $39.99 if you ask me.

-VN

So remember two hours ago when we reported that Slipknot had missed the #1 Soundscan spot by a mere 13 albums to The Game? Apparently Roadrunner Records pulled an Al Gore and asked for a recount. Yup, really. And unlike the ill-fated and unfortunate display of electioneering and corruption of the year 2000, the results have been reversed. After much media hullaballoo and meticulous checking of hanging chads, Slipknot is officially #1, selling 239,516 units to The Game’s 238,382. Score one for metal!

-VN