This week in Soundscan, supergroup Chickenfoot shifted a ridiculous number of records. I’m baffled too. Elsewhere, Iron Maiden had a solid debut and bands like Nickelback, Hollywood Undead, Shinedown, Slipknot, and Metallica continued on with business as usual.
So I just watched Faith No More’s Download Fest perf. I only saw one pair of boobies, and they were terrible boobies. On the other hand, FNM killed it and played “Take This Bottle” and Patton did part of “We Care A Lot” while doing sit-ups with the mic in his mouth, so ya take the good with the bad.
Speaking of the good with the bad: we started to unveil the results of our 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century… So Far poll/list this week, and as usual, y’all had something to say about it:
Next week we’re countin’ down albums #16 through #12. The picks are clearly either gonna make you guys really fuckin’ happy or really fuckin’ mad. I’ll give you a hint, though: they’re all metal albums.
-AR
We recently polled a wide array of musicians, managers, publicists, label reps, and writers from within the world of metal to find out what they thought the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century So Far have been. Eligible albums were released between January 1, 2000 and April 1, 2009. Each panelist turned in a ballot, with their #1 album worth 21 points, their #2 album worth 20 points, and so on and so forth. The ballots are now in and we’ll be counting down one album a day until we reach #1. We begin today with the #21 album, coming in with a total of 104 points…
Slipknot, Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses (Roadrunner, 2004)
Corey Taylor – Vocals
Mick Thomson – Guitars
Jim Root – Guitars
Paul Gray – Bass
Joey Jordison – Drums
Shawn Crahan – Percussions
Chris Fehn – Percussions
Sid Wilson – Turntables
Craig Jones – Samples, Media
Produced by Rick Rubin
It’s always good when you stir shit up right out of the gates, y’know?
Am I the only person who thinks the pairing of Heaven & Hell with Coheed & Cambria for a tour this summer is fan-fucking-tastic? All the emails we’ve gotten so far about the tour of the “wtf are they thinking?!” nature, but to me this lineup seems perfectly natural. Ronnie James Dio sings about demons, evil, and sorcery; Claudio Sanchez has written all of his band’s material about some crazy fantasy story no one who actually has a life can make heads or tails of. Dio has a skullet; Sanchez has beautiful, flowing, curly man-locks. Tony Iommi laid the blueprint for stoner metal with his epic, tasteful playing; Sanchez takes the torch and runs with it, never a showboat. Both bands are fucking awesome and make great music, which, truth be told, is pretty similar to one another. What am I missing here?
Slipknot taking out Coheed & Cambria… now that was a head-scratcher. But Heaven & Hell? It’s a no-brainer. If there’s such a thing as a modern version of Dio-era Sabbath, Coheed & Cambria are that band. Count me in as psyched; I’ll be there rocking out while the rest of you suckers stay home. Full list of confirmed tour dates after the jump.
-VN
[via Revolver]
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.
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.
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.
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?
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”:
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:
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!).
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.
“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
Advertisements:
