Ever since the dawn of the nuclear age, mankind has been fascinated with The Bomb and its terrifying capabilities. Even before The Manhattan Project bore fruit, countless nuke-themed songs, movies, books, and of course, good ol’ propaganda flooded the American consciousness and captivated our over-reactive imaginations. Some truly masterful books (Level 7, Alas, Babylon, A Canticle for Liebowitz) and truly abominable pulp fiction novels were written, the government cheerfully advised its citizens to build bomb shelters out back and stockpile creamed corn “just in case!” (better an oblivious populace then a nation of protestors, right?), and Bert the talking turtle advised kiddies on the best way to protect themselves during an atomic blast (hide under your desk and cover your head, and everything will be swell!).

Click to read more…

So 70,000 Tons of Metal, the most metal cruise EV-AR, has now ended — but that doesn’t mean the fun is over. We’re gonna have a couple more Tons of Fun for you during the week, starting with the below video, taken during the cruise, of Testament’s Alex Skolnick, Exodus’ Tom Hunting, and Death Angel’s Rob Cavestany doing a karaoke version of The Eagles’ “Lying Eyes” onboard the ship.

Yep. We’re being totally serious.

We first saw this amazing video over at Metal Insider; they also have clips of karaoke performances from members of Fear Factory, Sodom, Ensiferum, Tyr, and Swashbuckle. So head on over to Metal Insider if you wanna see some of your heroes embarrassing themselves in the name of fun.

Also, our bro-bros at Metal Injection were actually on the cruise, giving constant live updates. Go here if you wanna read all about their adventures, or if you just wanna look at pictures of MI’s resident female, Noa Avior, in a bikini.

-AR

Last year (and the year before), I got way too busy with this thing called life and ignored this other thing called metal. As a result, I missed out on a lot of quality music.

I am here to rectify the error of my ways, month by month. Hopefully.

Here are the January 2011 releases that got under my skin, burrowed their way into my brain, made my ears bleed, or simply tickled my unmentionables:

JANUARY ’11 BLEEDERS

These are the keepers. I expect to spin these throughout the year and longer.

Click to read more…

Banner Designed by Cysquatch

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Presumably inspired by this week’s announcement of a Big 4 show in the U.S., this week’s question was posed by MetalSucks contributor/author of the Reign in Blood entry into the 33 1/3 book series, D.X. Ferris. Mr. Ferris was even good enough to join us for this edition of QOTW! And his query was:

IF THE BIG FOUR WERE THE BIG EIGHT, WHICH BANDS WOULD BE THE NEXT FOUR IN THE GROUP?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

[Welcome to our new column, Shit That Comes Out Today. If you need any further explanation as to what this column is about and when it will be published, please consult the Yellow Pages for your nearest neurosurgeon. -Ed.]

With the holiday doldrums of Christmas music and “Best Of”s behind us, 2011 is off to a roaring start in this first official week of album releases. Check out the list of new releases on shelves and e-shelves everywhere starting today from Engel, Sodom and more after the jump.

Click to read more…

Last week I criticized the cover art for the new Onslaught album, Sounds of Violence, because of its utilization of Nazi-inspired imagery. I specifically wrote that “I don’t think Onslaught are Nazis, or anti-semites, or bigots of any kind,” and basically said that I just curious what the point of using such imagery could possibly be. But some MetalSucks readers, clearly being of the rocket scientist or brain surgeon professions, still somehow thought I was accusing the band of being anti-semites. So just to be clear once and for all: I do not now, nor did I ever, think that Onslaught were Nazis. I am aware that many bands have used Nazi imagery over the years. I just think it’s worth considering the meaning of these images.

And, hey-o!, lookit that: I found an e-mail from Onslaught’s manager, Tommy Morriello, in my inbox on Saturday. Unlike some of the people who left comments under my original article, Morriello actually seems to understand what I was getting at, and presented a pretty clear explanation for the album’s cover. Read his full e-mail to me after the jump.

Click to read more…

Eliran Kantor is on quite a roll this year: The cover art for Sigh’s Scenes from Hell, Atheist’s Jupiter, and now Sodom’s In War and Pieces have all kicked ass so hard that there’s now a spot on my butt that reads “Reserved for Eliran Kantor’s Boot.” And that’s to say nothing of the amazing work the artist has done in the past for bands like Testament and Gwar.

Check out more of Eliran Kantor’s work here. In War and Pieces drops November 23 on SPV.

-AR

Congrats to reader Nick Lynn, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band  Rotten Stigmatosis. Nick wins any two CDs and/or DVDs from whatever the hell we have lying around the mansion this week. Nick, please check your e-mail for your list of choices!

This week we’re teaming up with the folks at SPV to give away three copies of a super-duper awesome double gatefold vinyl LP of Better Off Dead, the classic album from teutonic thrash titans Sodom. In addition to featuring the original record, this vinyl includes three bonus tracks — “The Saw is the Law (Splattling Version),” “The Kids Wanna Rock,” and a live recording of “Stalinhagel.” Pretty rad, no?

(And don’t forget that Sodom recently released a DVD, Lords of Depravity, Part 2, and reissued their album Agent Orange. So while we’re on the topic, you might as well just go ahead and order those here and here.)

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 three winners and announce their names next week.

This week’s logo comes from Completely Unreadable Uber-recommender David Foust…

-AR

Y’know what would be awesome? If the Teutonic Big Three (that would be Kreator, Destruction, and Sodom) all toured together. “Take that, American Big Four!” the line-up would seem to say, followed by spitting and some curses mumbled in German. And then everyone in the crowd would eat schnitzel and chug hefeweizen. I’d be so down for that, even if German people scare me the way change scares a redneck.

I came up with this ridiculous fantasy while watching the below excerpt from Sodom’s new DVD, Lords of Depravity, Pt II, in which they grace us with a performance of “Outbreak of Evil.” It debuted on Metal Injection today, and it looks pretty rad. And Kreator certainly killed it when we saw them live earlier this year. I’ve never seen Destruction live, but assuming they’re as good as these other bands, I think we could have a real night of fun drunken debauchery on our hands.

Lords of Depravity, Pt II was filmed at Sodom’s 25th anniversary (!) show at Wacken in 2007. It comes out July 27.

-AR

#5 – Necrophagist

Technical German death metal that crushes!

Click to read more…