MetalSucks

A+ update Benjamin, A fucking plus.

For those of you goyim (that’s yiddish for “non Jews”) who aren’t familiar with the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur (which was this past Monday, hence Axl’s lack of posts that day), this video update from the Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman should serve as an excellent primer.

We also get an interview with producer Steve Evetts about new drummer Billy Rymer, and we get some footage of Weinman tracking guitars with the rest of the band’s tracks blaring behind him. Sounds like vintage Dillinger to me.

-VN

As one of the chief riff providers for swaggercore titans Every Time I Die, Andy Williams takes pride in making the discordant into catchy. For a perfect example of this, look no further than the band’s latest (MetalSucks-approved) album, New Junk Aesthetic. Distilling the band’s decade-plus essence into a tight half hour, it’s a satisfying mix of thunderous heaviness and easily the most appealing material the band have put to tape. But while he’s often overshadowed by vocalist Keith Buckley’s relentless wiseassery, it’s his and Jordan Buckley’s Skynard-by-way-of-Dillinger-Escape-Plan guitar work that make the band stand out and ultimately worthwhile.

A self-described “chatty Cathy,” Andy Williams was remarkably frank and refreshingly earnest in a recent interview with MetalSucks on the eve of the release of New Junk Aesthetic. Among other things, he discussed why he can listen to the new album and none of the band’s other material, his thoughts on the new Converge record, the changing landscape of the scene he came up in, and life over at ETID’s new label, Epitaph.

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After making two of the most influential records in the history of hardcore (1999’s The Opposite of December and 2002’s Tear From the Red), Poison the Well made a dramatic shift in style for 2003’s You Come Before You. The band have been expanding on this sound ever since, pushing their boundaries outward with 2007’s Version and this year’s lush and evocative The Tropic Rot. One of the navigators of this expansion is original member Ryan Primack, whose guitar methods inspired a generation of hardcore kids with feelings, only to challenge them as the decade went on. His blooming stylistic shifts have illustrated the band’s staying power, and perhaps served as an influence to those looking to move past metalcore. On the eve of Poison the Well’s tour in support of their new album (and on break from his last night of work before said tour), Ryan discussed his unique set of influences, advice for bands starting out, and the legacy of The Opposite of December in the wake of its tenth anniversary.

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