MetalSucks

For those of you not from the U.S. and somehow completely unaware of this, the Fourth of July is a pretty big deal here in America. On that day, we celebrate winning our freedom by kicking the British’s ass. Of course, they later gave us Hugh Grant, so I guess they had their revenge in the end.

So there won’t be any posts tomorrow; on Monday, we’ll unveil the last albums on the list. In the meantime, here’s some things that happened this week in the world of MetalSucks:

• We continued to countdown the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century… So Far. You continued to engage in, um, intelligent debate. Yeah, let’s call it intelligent debate.
• We spoke with Goatwhore’s Ben Falgoust and Black Math Horseman’s Sera Timms.
• We checked out new releases from Killswitch Engage and Havok.
• Daath’s Eyal Levi took a break from worrying about dying in fiery plane or car crash to worry about getting shot.
• We debated the merits of the new Alice in Chains song.
• We laughed at high school year book photos of past and present members of Metallica.

I plan to not be sober for the next 72 hours. See ya Monday!

-AR

I couldn’t have put it better myself. I’ve been head-over-heels for Goatwhore ever since I first saw them on the stage. Dimmu Borgir might look a bit silly in their assorted armor and spikes, but these Louisiana boys strutted straight out in the lights decked out for battle and with such confidence it was frightening. I’ve rarely seen a band before or since so sure of themselves in their own delivery, and it’s no doubt a direct result of their relentless touring which is due to pick up again next week and end… oh, probably never. I’ve been so excited about their newest release, Carving Out the Eyes of God, that I was willing to brave a phone interview with imposing vocalist Ben Falgoust II (also of legendary forward-thinking Southgrinders Soilent Green) at the shockingly early time of 8:30 a.m. My groggy head was soothed, however, by the talkative monsieur’s charming Louisiana accent as we discussed strippers, New Orleans and SATAN!!! Click to read more…

Some time back we got an angry email from a MetalSucks Maniac accusing us of giving nary a mention to Louisiana legends Eyehategod. And it’s true; there just hasn’t been very much to say about the band in the past couple of years. But this weekend a press release arrived at our doorstep via stork announcing the formation of Outlaw Order, a band whose makeup consists of all Eyehategod or ex-Eyehategod members:

Michael D. Williams (Eyehategod, Arson Anthem) – vocals
Brian Patton (Eyehategod, Soilent Green) – guitar
Gary Mader (Eyehategod, Hawgjaw) – guitar
Joey LaCaze (Eyehategod) – drums
Justin Grisoli (ex-Eyehategod) – bass

The band sounds precisely like what you’d expect; sludgy, swampy, raw aggression fueled by metal, punk rock, beer, and hurricanes. Check out four tracks on Outlaw Order’s MySpace page. The group plans to release their debut Dragging Down the Enforcer before the end of the year on Season of Mist Records with a tour to follow.

-VN

Congrats to MetalSucks reader “In all seriousness,” who wins copies of Shai’s Hulud’s recent Misanthropy Pure, Fate’s Vultures and Hatchet’s Awaiting Evil for coming up with the following winning caption to last week’s Funny Photo Caption Contest:

“Sarah Jessica Parker Bares All for Vanity Fair.”

Well said! This week we’re giving away another awesome three-pack from Metal Blade Records: Hate Eternal’s Fury & Flames, Soilent Green’s Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction, and another copy of Fate’s Vultures. All you have to do is come up with a funny caption for the below photo and post it in the comments. Get crackin’.

Open Letter To Light This City

Tonight was the last night of the “In Thrash We Trust’ tour with Death Angel, Arsis, Soilent Green and Light This City. The first thing I want to do is thank every single person who came out to this tour and rocked out with us. Some shows were packed and some shows weren’t but in the end none of that matters. The shows we played were for the people who came out to rock! I sound like a broken record but we get to play a show every day. Most of the people who come out to the show make this their one time of the week, their one time of the month — hell, their one time of the year to escape and lose themselves in some heavy fucking metal!

To those people, I THANK YOU!

After this six week run a lot of things have happened. No matter how many tours you do you never have the same story. You are always surprised. It could be the people you encounter that you haven’t seen in a long time. It could be the new bands you meet on tour who become new friends. There is a bond that is established between everyone on tour; from crew, to promoters, to bands, to fans. It really is an amazing animal. Honestly, if any of you out there are scientists in behavior you’d do well to do a study of the rhythm and mechanisms of a tour. I bet you’d find some anomalies that may coincide with the patterns of weather currents.

It is true energy.

Unfortunately, Light This City had to leave this tour early. It really sucked because I really liked everyone in the band. When a band leaves a tour prematurely it can affect you. Soilent left the tour early to do the Dethklok/Chimaira tour. I was happy as hell for them because that tour is kicking ass and they deserve to play for new people. When Soilent left we felt it. It was a blow. It was like our package had to reset itself.

Click to read more…

So over the weekend our bastardly brothers over at Metal Injection posted some footage of everyone’s favorite New Jersey metal mammoths, God Forbid, playing a brand spankin’ new song live during a recent stop on their current “In Thrash We Trust” tour with Death Angel, Soilent Green, and Light this City (and sometimes Arsis). And while the audio quality is, admittedly, not the greatest thing ever, well, it’s a new song by God Forbid! Those dueling Doc n’ Dallas Coyle guitar solos alone make giving it a listen worth your time.

Is it weird that I’m more excited about the new God Forbid album than I am about the new Metallica album (or, for that matter, the new Anthrax album)?

-AR

So while it was rumored for awhile that this year’s edition of Ozzfest would be a two day event – but it has now been announced that it’ll be just one single day, on Saturday, August 9, at at Pizza Hut Park* in Dallas, Texas. The line-up will be as follows:

Main Stage
OZZY OSBOURNE
METALLICA
SERJ TANKIAN
HELLYEAH
JONATHAN DAVIS
CAVALERA CONSPIRACY
SHADOWS FALL
APOCALYPTICA
IN THIS MOMENT
All-Star Tribute To “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott

Second Stage
SEVENDUST
DEVILDRIVER
KINGDOM OF SORROW
SOILENT GREEN
WITCHCRAFT
GOATWHORE

Texas (Third) Stage
THE SWORD
DROWNING POOL
RIGOR MORTIS

Actually, that is, by no means, a terrible line-up; if the stages are staggered at all (and I imagine they will be), it would be plenty easy to keep oneself occupied during sets from In This Moment, Jonathan Davis, and HellNo. And I guess it’s honorable of Metallica to let Ozzy play last, even though, at this point, a) they’re much bigger than Ozzy and b) Ozzy has to be in bed by 8 pm. I mean, if I was Ozzy, and I’d spent recent Ozzfests getting blown off the stage by the likes of Maiden and Priest, I certainly wouldn’t wanna follow Metallica. But, y’know, nice of Ulrich and Hetfield to step aside for one night and let the Ozzman cometh.

Click to read more…

Here’s the thing about Ray Mazzola, vocalist for New York’s own Full Blown Chaos: the guy has a natural born gift for storytelling. I learned this back in February, when I was lucky enough to be invited to dinner with the members of Soilent Green, music video auteur extraordinaire David Brodsky, and Allie Woest, Brodsky’s partner/producer/sometimes editor/general right hand. Full Blown Chaos were on a temporary hiatus from touring at the time (a hiatus which, their fans will be pleased to know, is now over), and so Ray joined us, and within seconds of sitting at the table, he was trading war stories from the road with Soilent Green/Crowbar drummer Tommy Buckley. And, as nice a guy as Buckley is and as many good stories as he had to tell, he just couldn’t keep up with Ray; I won’t repeat any of Ray’s stories second hand ’cause I could never do them justice, so I’ll just say that I can never again hear Napalm Death’s “The Code is Red” without bursting into hysterical laughter.

So after dinner I interviewed Soilent Green guitarist Brian Patton (and some of the dudes from Car Bomb, who also showed up at some point), and then Ray was cool enough to sit down and let me pick his brain for a little while – and to share one of his special stories with our readers. To say that the story is a doozy would be to put it mildly. Little wonder this dude is such a charismatic front man.

Above, watch the David Brodsky-directed video for Full Blown Chaos’ “Halos for Heroes,” from their album Heavy Lies the Crown; after the jump, read the full transcript of my conversation with Ray.

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For reasons I’m not entirely clear on, Soilent Green will no longer be playing all of the dates on the “In Thrash We Trust” tour with Death Angel, God Forbid and Light this City. That would be a serious bummer (not that Death Angel and God Forbid alone shouldn’t be enough to get your ass out of the house, but the more the metaler), but luckily Arsis are stepping in to save the day on those select dates. Affected shows are as follows:

June 04 – St. Louis, MO @ Pop’s
June 05 – Columbus, OH @ Alrosa Villa
June 06 – Mokena, IL @ The Pearl Room
June 07 – Detroit, MI @ Harpo’s
June 08 – Toronto, ON @ Opera House
June 09 – Montreal, QC @ Foufounes
June 10 – Quebec City, QC @ L’Anti
June 11 – New York, NY @ B.B. King Blues Club

The MetalSucks posse will be at the June 11 show, if anyone wants to buy us some beer, some weed, or some hookers.

If for some reason you’re not listening to Arsis, you should definitely check out their latest, We Are the Nightmare (read Vince’s rave review here). And while you’re at it, why not check out our interview with Arsis bassist Noah Martin? You’ll like it, and it will make us happy.

-AR

So everyone and their mother is going bat shit crazy over the new Death Angel album, Killing Season, and now Headbanger’s Blog has debuted the video for the first single, “Dethroned.” It’s a pretty cool clip, and the song certainly makes me want to throw a bottle of beer against a wall and scream for no real good reason.

And don’t forget that Death Angel are hitting the road with God Forbid and Soilent Green this summer. If that line-up doesn’t get you stoked, you must be suffering from a pretty serious head injury.

-AR

Today is the third big Tuesday in a row, and it’ll be the last for a while; new releases in the metal world are at a minimum over the coming weeks with a few notable exceptions (among them Textures). But fear not, because some truly awesome music came out today.

It’s a big day for death metal; to start, we have Arsis with their long-awaited We are the Nightmare (read our interview with bassist Noah Martin) and Soilent Green’s Katrina-inspired Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction (read Axl’s interview with Soilent Green’s Brian Patton). Embrace the End released Ley Lines, and Thine Eyes Bleed released their self-titled disc (read Axl’s review). In the melodic death category we have Blooddrunk from Children of Bodom, which is as solid a Bodom album as any (read my review).

Apocalyptica, the cello metal band who cut their teeth covering Metallica, put out their first album of all originals (minus one), Worlds Collide, with the single “I’m Not Jesus” featuring Corey Taylor; the song is apparently the #6 charting song on Active Rock radio (who knew?). Emo-turned-metal-turned-avant-garde-rockers Thrice released the third and fourth parts (Earth & Air) of their Alchemy Index concept album suite, and the results are exceptional.

Some of you might also like to know that Rush released their double live-disc Snakes & Arrows Live as well. Yee-haw.

What’s your favorite release to come out today?

-VN

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“Man, do I feel sorry for you,” Brian Patton tells me as he chain smokes his way through what must be at least his seventh cigarette in the last hour. “You gotta transcribe this with my accent!” He’s referring to the Nawlins drawl which gives Patton and his Soilent Green bandmates – vocalist Ben Falgoust (also of Goatwhore), drummer Tommy Buckley (also of Crowbar), and bassist Scott Crochet (also of Hostile Apostle) – the easygoing air of southern gentlemen. It’s a little off putting, actually, considering that a) these dudes make some fucking furious death/grind/sludge and b) have endured about as much hardship as a band possibly could, including line-up changes, label changes, murder/suicides, and, of course, the wretched effects of Hurrican Katrina on their native turf.

But the band seems unphased, and with good reason: they have an awesome new album, Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction, coming out on their new label, Metal Blade, on April 15; and just twenty four hours prior, they completed shooting performance footage for the video of their new single, “Antioxidant,” with director David Brodsky (it’s that clip above, and you should definitely watch it at least twice – it’s arguably Brodsky’s best work to date).

I was lucky enough to fulfill every fan’s wet dream of having dinner with the band the night after the shoot; afterwards, Patton let me grab a few minutes to pick his brain about the new album, producer Erik Rutan, the state of metal today, the influence of non-metal music on Soilent Green’s work, and more. Read the full transcript after the jump.

Click to read more…

Well, this is a friggin’ weird, but totally awesome, line-up: cartoon band Dethklok will do their first headlining tour this summer, with support from MetalSucks faves Chimaira and Soilent Green. This is the first chance that most of us will get to check out Dethklok live, since their last tour was exclusively on college campuses. Plus, Chimaira and Soilent Green absolutely kill live. Tour dates after the jump.

Click to read more…