MetalSucks

The most interesting headline to come across my RSS reader this morning was this one from SMNnews.com: “Fozzy Song ‘Martyr No More’ Streaming.” Fozzy is still around? Fozzy of wrestler Chris Jericho fame? No shit.

A side project for Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich Ward at best and a musical outlet for Jericho at worst, apparently Fozzy have a new album coming out called Chasing the Grail. I’m not sure I’d ever listened to a Fozzy song before today, but you know what? “Martyr No More” ain’t bad at all for what it is. Rich Ward is a great songwriter and a surprisingly tasty guitar player, and though his sound hasn’t changed much, or really at all in 20 years, you have to give the guy credit for being several years ahead of the rap-metal curve (for better or worse). Take latter-day Stuck Mojo and remove some of the cringe-worthy rapping (not for nothin’ I’ve actually dug some of Mojo’s later material) and you’ve got Fozzy, which is actually kind of an upgrade. If you can just ignore all the auto-tune on Jericho’s voice, you’ve actually got a pretty decent song here. Certainly not gonna reinvent the wheel, but a good song.

-VN

So. I love Stereomud. I’ve written about them several times on this here webernet site. For those with short memories: Stereomud was an early-2000s supergroup of sorts, featuring members of Life of Agony, Stuck Mojo, and Pro-Pain. I know, I know, they were bottom of the barrel, C-rate post-nu-metal… but I can’t help it! “Pain” and “Steppin’ Away” were just so good! No, I’m not being ironic. And their second record Any Given Moment, which resulted in the band being dropped from Columbia, was a damn fine effort too.

With that in mind, question not why I’ve been following the drama that recently unfolded when Stereomud vocalist Erik Rogers attempted to form what amounts to a new band under the “Stereomud’ moniker. When actual members of Stereomud put up a stink, he was forced to change the name of the new band to Dangerous New Machine and issued a protracted public apology.

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Recently re-united with his brothers, Sevendust co-founder / guitarist / background singer / musical genius Clint Lowery just released a record of his own, Chills, under the moniker Hello Demons..Meet Skeletons. The mostly acoustic record — on which Clint plays all the instruments and sings all the vocals — is a deep, dark, haunting album that reflects an equally dark time in his life. Written in spurts over the past year or so, the music on Chills stands on its own as a creative work in his own distinct style but is far different from anything Sevendust have ever done.

Lowery’s patience has been tested in recent years — after writing an entire new Dark New Day album that will seemingly never see the light of day, Lowery left the band to re-join Sevendust on the eve of a new album release he had no part in writing. Anxious to get some music of his own to the masses, Lowery elected to record a solo album on his own between Sevendust tours — with production, engineering and mixing help from his brother Corey [also of Dark New Day, Stereomud and Stuck Mojo fame] — and to self-release it on the Internet. After an online ordering snafu that was entirely my fault, I ended up on the other end of an email string with Mr. Lowery himself and he agreed to answer a few questions via email, making him the only person ever in the history of MetalSucks to be interviewed twice — about two separate bands, no less. Read the 7D interview from this past April here, and the new solo EP interview after the jump.

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I’ve always been a sucker for the minor hit song “Pain” by Stereomud, an early ’00s nu-metal supergroup of sorts that featured members of Life of Agony and Stuck Mojo. At a benefit show in Atlanta this past weekend, bassist Corey Lowery (now of Dark New Day) reunited with his former Stereomud bandmates who are now in the band Love Said No to play that song. Erik Rogers sounds pretty decent, no? Stereomud may never have amounted to too much but I still think this is a kick-ass song, haters be damned. Bring it on.

-VN