via Topless Robot

I would give anything for that to be the actual James Bond theme music from now on, wouldn’t you?

ANYWAY, here’s some shit we did this week:

• We spoke to Neige from Alcest and SL from The Devil’s Blood.
• Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick got pissed the Packers losing.
• We checked out the latest releases from Nails, Skin Like Iron, Fatal Birth, and No Tolerance.
• We previewed some more more Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012: 7 Horns 7 Eyes, Crazy Lixx, Wormed, and Imperial State Electric.
• We got excited about the rumored line-ups for both Summer Slaughter and Mayhem Fest.
• We helped Godsmack, Staind, and Halestorm name their new tour.
• We enjoyed Juliet’s video for “My First Hardcore Song.”
• We suffered through a bad trip with The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato.
• We felt bad for Trivium — poor bastards have to go tour with Asking Alexandria.
• We pondered whether the shutdown of Megaupload was good or bad.

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the most up-to-date suckitude.

See ya Monday, folks!

-AR

OH MY GOD I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW. Godsuck, Suckd, and Halesuck are all going on tour together this spring — and no, that’s not the part I’m happy about. Holy shit, that tour is one more awful band away from signaling the coming Apocalypse. No no no, the reason I’m happy is ’cause the bands are asking for fans to suggest the name of the trek. You can do so by leaving a comment under this post on Godsuck’s Facebook page or this post on Suckd’s FB page; the interns for each band’s managers will then pick the top five choices from each post on Thursday, and people can vote on the name of the tour.

And this is A++++++++ WDBWA AGAIN news for two reasons:

1. It’s pretty much the best trolling opportunity ever. You can leave any number of sophomoric, fucktarded, barely-even-clever-or-funny suggestions for tour names on the bands’ pages, and while the chances that the bands themselves will ever see it is pretty slim, the chances that you will seriously enrage some nitwits who actually like these three groups is, like, eight-bajillion percent. And as we all know from the mere fact that I am writing and you are reading this post, THERE IS NOTHING FUNNIER THAN NERD RAGE.
2. The actual, serious, completely unironic names that the aforementioned nitwit fans are suggesting are, of course, totally hilarious. I could look at these all day, no joke. Here are some of my favorites so far… some of these are so bad, I have to believe that they were created by actual music industry professionals:

The “Top Hard Music” Chart I’ve been using for this column for the past couple of years is a mixed bag; on one hand, a lot of the “Top Hard Music” albums are really old albums that continue to sell (Metallica’s Black Album, various greatest hits collections, catalogue albums of whatever big band happens to be on tour at the time, etc) which paints a skewed picture of what I’m really interested in, namely the new stuff. On the other hand, it’s interesting to see how those older albums continue to sell.

I was recently alerted to the existence of a different chart, “Current Hard Music;” I’m not sure what the criteria is for what constitutes “Current” as some albums on this chart have been on for 90+ weeks and some artists are certainly not “current” by any means, but it does seem to paint a much better picture of the sales of newer albums. Without perrenial classics and greatest hits comps hogging up precious chart space, fewer units need to be sold for a band to get into the Top 100 on the “Current” chart. I am contemplating a move to focusing on that chart in the future. For now, I’ll stick with Top Hard Music with some added albums from the bottom of the other chart. What do you guys think?

Anyway, this week we’ve got big debuts from Pearl Jam and Opeth, big second week drops from a number of artists (Anthrax, Dream Theater and more) that still have pretty big sales numbers, and a look at some albums that came out earlier this year (Black Dahlia Murder, All Shall Perish, more).

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Last week was a big, big sales week for new metal releases, I’d imagine one of the highest cumulative tallies of the year so far. The #1 through #6 entries on the Top Hard Music charts could all be considered smashes in today’s relative terms, with Dream Theater, Anthrax and others making big splashes. Arch/Matheos, Vader and Wolves in the Throne Room also had nice debuts. Let’s look at the numbers:

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If you’ve been pining for music that sounds like old Korn only with the dude from Nickelsuck singing the clean vocals instead of Mike Patton on barbiturates, boy oh boy, do we have a treat for you: “Paper Wings,” a new song by Staind.

I remember the first time I heard this band — I think it was around the time they did that power ballad with Fred Durst acting as hype man — I thought, “Man, it is going to be SO GRATIFYING when these dudes still have a career in ten years.” And I was right. It is. It is so very gratifying to know that there are enough people in the world who love this band for them to be able to continue making their wholly unique brand of rawk.

And the fact that they’ve made zero adjustments to their sound since first breaking onto the scene… this is why they have so much street cred. Because they never, ever strayed from their roots, no matter how close to a septic tank those roots have been planted.

So let’s have a hearty golf clap for Staind, the best band of this, or any, generation. Not only am I going to purchase their new, self-titled album when it comes out on September 13, but I am personally going to deliver a truck full of edible bouquets to each and every Atlantic Records employee who worked on the album.

-AR

In the mere year-and-a-half I worked at Atlantic Records I witnessed more than enough facepalm-inducing behavior to compile at least two sequels to Dan Kennedy’s brilliant, true-story account of the foibles of a major record label in the digital age. (Side note: if you work or have ever worked in the music industry, his book — Rock On! — is an absolute must read! hilarious hilarious hilarious. Buy here.)

One of my favorite and most telling moments at the company came when Staind were on the verge of releasing a new album, their umpteenth since becoming adult contemporary radio schlock, and we, the lucky attendees of the weekly marketing meeting, got to hear the brand new single, hot off the presses! New Staind! Easy-riding, units moving through retail! A surefire radio smash! The sparkling energy of the label personnel amping up to do what they do best — peddling shit music to people who live in Red States — was palpable under the uniform glow of the conference room’s flourescent lights.

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Reader John Schwarz alerted us to the existence of the Epicenter Festival, and if you told me that the show’s bookers designed it specifically to make sure that no one from MetalSucks attended, well, I’d believe it. Look at this shitfest:

There are a handful of insanely popular, maddeningly terrible modern rock acts not on the bill — Nickelback, Korn, Linkin Park, Godsmack, Creed, and Hinder all come to mind — which is too bad, because if they were playing this fest, we’d be like one major earthquake away from being done with some of the worst bands in the history of sound. The only good news about this thing’s existence is that it has made me aware of several awful bands I didn’t previously know, so that now if anyone is ever like “Hey, wanna check out Skillet?”, I can respond, “Couldn’t you just hammer a rusty nail into my penis instead?”

-AR

A reader known only as “Jonas” sent us the below video of 55 Escape, a Norwegian band whose biggest influences seem to be Korn and Linkin Park, not Enslaved and Immortal.

Here’s why I find this band kind of interesting. (And moving forward, please be aware that “interesting” and “good” are not the same word.) When you think about it for a second, nu-metal seems to be a predominantly American phenomenon. Off the top of my head, I’m having a hard time even naming a nu-metal band from any part of Europe, never mind Norway. Jeff Killed John were British, but they didn’t get famous ’til they swapped the nu for core and rechristened themselves Bullet for My Valentine. Am I forgetting a really, really obvious band? Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Godsmack, Evanescence, Staind, Static-X, Creed, Hed P.E., Snot, P.O.D., Puddle of Mudd, Drowning Pool, Saliva, Coal Chamber, Methods of Mayhem, 40 Below Summer, Sevendust, Ill Nino, Dope, Papa Roach, Soil, The Union Undergound… ALL AMERICAN. What the hell? No wonder the terrorists hate us.

Anyway, thanks to these sperm clots for doing their part in making America look good. Hoo-rah.

-AR

It seemed as if Slipknot was destined for their first-ever #1 album on the U.S. Soundscan charts. Not so, thanks to hip-hop artist The Game, whose new release LAX sold 238,285 copies, a whopping 13 more than the 238,272 units shifted of Slipknot’s All Hope is Gone — still an extremely respectable and awesome number. And yes, these numbers include full albums purchased digitally.

It was a big week for Roadrunner all around; Dragonforce’s Ultra Beatdown debuted at #19 with 23,977 copies sold. We hope the RR braintrust throw a kegger for all the fine folks working over there; and we hope we’re invited!

Elsewhere, radio mainstays Kid Rock, Staind and Disturbed unsurprisingly continued to sell a lot of records in Middle America.

-VN

I guess so. And apparently they have a new album coming out in August. It’s called The Illusion of Progress.

I mean, they have to change that title. That’s just too easy a target right there.

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