Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

And now, it’s the time of the week you’ve all been waiting for: the three-hour window your folks are out of the house, allowing you to jack off comfortably Decibel’s monthly Guess Next Month’s Cover and Win a Decibot Shirt Contest! I’m going to predict this will be the first “FIRST” to get the answer right —provided, of course, that the band/musician/farm animal we’re spotlighting is in fact typed out below the “FIRST.” Unless the first person who sees this types in “System of a Down,” just to be a dick/radical. That said, it’s been a few years since System of a Down proper existed — although who hasn’t enjoyed the “Five Serj Tankian Solo Albums Nobody Cares About/Bassist ‘n’ Friend Randomly Beating the Shit Out of Brent Hinds Era” — so they could ostensibly be rocking spiked wristbands now.

But no, it’s not System of a Down. There’s your hint.

-AB

Decibel’s June 2011 issue, which features Ghost, Killing Joke, Mastodon, Hate Eternal, Gorguts, Protest the Hero, Born of Osiris, and Scale The Summit is available here, or make your mama proud and just get a full subscription.

Well, if you don’t, here’s a hot tip: do not read the rest of this post. It ends badly for you.

If you do, then, swell! ‘Cause guess what? Here’s the band playing “Toxicity.”

Sure does sound like “Toxicity,” doesn’t it? So there’s a real shock.

System of a Down will be playing songs you remember the way you remember them for the rest of the month. Get remaining dates here.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

If you asked me to make some suggestions for bands Amon Amarth might want to consider covering, well, I don’t think it would ever occur to me include System of a Down on that list. I love both bands (in different ways, obviously), but when I think of giant bearded viking dudes, my mind doesn’t then go right to politically-minded Armenian-American alt-metal.

Which is probably why Amon Amarth wanted to cover SOAD in the first place! Their version of “Aerials,” from the latter band’s nu-classic Toxicity, will be available as a downloadable bonus track when fans purchase AA’s latest release, Surtur Rising, through any FYE outlet in America (here’s an order link in case you wanna get on that). The cover is now available on YouTube, and you can check it out below — it’s pretty sweet. They’ve managed to make the song sound simultaneously like no other Amon Amarth song, and JUST like an Amon Amarth song.

Surtur Rising, which ten different kinds of awesome, by the way, comes out March 29 (a week from today!) on Metal Blade.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

Hey studs and foxes, Anso here. Please accept my most gracious hugz in return for partying with me these last two days. Running this site in the absence of Axl and Vince has been so superfun thanks to you, our cherished MetalSucks readership. I learned a lot of stuff too, for example that I should hereby refrain from “ass fucking [my] boyfriends cock” [sic]. K I’ll work on that while you all re-live some hilarious, informative, and sexy moments from this week:

• We debuted new music by Maruta.
• We spoke to Rob Arnold from Chimaira/Six Feet Under/The Elite, Jack Strong from The Acacia Strain, Varg Vikernes of Burzum, and Takis Kinis from prog-thrash legends Realm.
• We checked out the latest releases from DevilDriver and Wino. Plus, hot hardcore 7″s and all the stuff that Corey Mitchell rocked in February.
• We reveled in official confirmation of the System of a Down tour story we broke ahead of everybody.
• We proffered scientific evidence that to be in a band is a poor life decision.
• We were wowed by Evan Brewer, player of two basses!
• We peeped Devin Townsend’s nod to Sinatra and incredible new jams from Scale The Summit, Between The Buried And Me, Graviton, and All Shall Perish.
• We cheered Taylor Momsen and her desire to “fuck for Satan.”
• We met the new Dragonforce singer. It’s not Corey Taylor.
• We took a stand against D.R.U.G.S.

You’ll have a couple days to de-Anso yourselves, but please do rush right back to MetalSucks on Monday for more hot action when the bosses return from muling heroin in from Ecuador their business trip and we resume our regularly-scheduled action. You may now put your pants back on!

-ADF

As first reported on MetalSucks two weeks ago — despite various other websites not giving us credit – System Of A Down have announced the North American tour dates everyone expected they eventually would. The exact locations of some of the tentative dates we’d reported have changed, but the general routing is the same. From SystemOfADown.com:

5/10/11: Edmonton, AB – Rexall Place (on-sale Sat 3/5, 10am MST)
5/12/11: Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena (on-sale Sat 3/5, 10am PST)
5/13/11: Seattle, WA – Key Arena (on-sale Fri 3/4, 10am PST)
5/15/11: Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre (on-sale Fri 3/4, 10am PST)
5/18/11: Denver, CO – Comfort Dental Amphitheatre (on-sale Sat 3/5, 10am MST)
5/19/11: Albuquerque, NM – Journal Pavilion (on-sale Fri 3/4, 10am MST)
5/22/11: Las Vegas, NV – The Pearl (on-sale Sat 3/5, 1pm PST)

Support will come from Gogol Bordelo, an odd choice but an eclectic one consistent with SOAD’s tastes. Our original batch of tentative dates included two Southern California shows on the tail-end of the above run, so when SOAD say on their website that “more touring news” will “follow very soon,” we can only guess that news will include those dates. An East Coast leg would be nice too.

-VN

It occurred to me sometime this afternoon that Frankie Palmeri may very well read what I wrote about him earlier today, and decide the best course of action is to invite me onto his tour bus to settle our conflict through calm, intelligent discussion, only to sucker punch me when the bus door opens. Thus, I have come with a new rule for life: NEVER GO ONTO A TERRIBLE DEATHCORE BAND’S TOUR BUS. Seems simple enough!

While I contemplate Thanos Bison Reignz coming after me during a solar apocalypse, here’s a rundown of some of the fun shit we did this week:

• We broke the news of new System of a Down tour dates! I’m very proud of Vince for his investigative journalism skills on this one. He’s a regular Carl Bernstein, that one.
• We enjoyed another excellent tour blog from Eluveitie.
• We checked out the new release from Derek Roddy’s Serpents Rise.
• We wondered, “Is Hatebreed the best hardcore band of all time?”
• We whined about the Grammys.
• We made you a totally romantic Valentine’s Day mix.
• We learned the value of telling women we like metal up front.
• We discovered djentstep.
• We likened a Deftones concert riot to a Mad Max movie, ’cause we’re sensitive like that.
• Our friends at Decibel let you hear the previously unreleased Lamb of God tune “Hit the Wall.” Say “Thank you, Decibel.”

So, one last reminder: next week sees the release of Volume 2 of NYC Sucks, our totally free comp collecting awesome bands from the New York area. But if you’re a total sour puss and awesome free music does nothing for you, we’ll have some other fun shit, too. ‘Til then…

-AR

A highly reliable anonymous tipster has informed MetalSucks that System of a Down are indeed planning a U.S. tour this year — as we all speculated they would — and has provided us with a list of tentative dates. In other words, the tour is definitely happening (barring any unforeseen circumstances) in roughly this order and during this timeframe, although some cities/venues could still be changed. Count on it happening, though… like I said, our source is reliable. You heard it here first.

And now, exclusively here at MetalSucks, System Of A Down 2011 U.S. Tour Dates, after the jump:

Click to read more…

Last week, we posted a mash-up of Coldplay and System of a Down that’s actually quite good; subsequently, a reader calling himself Bayon Etwork sent us a link to a mash-up of Coldplay and Dethklok that, while not as good as the System of a Coldplay song, still works pretty well. Check it out and see what you think:

And now, if you listen carefully, I think you can actually hear Charles Foster Ofdensen filing legal papers.

-AR

Reader Hetal Bhatt sent us a link amash-up of System of a Down’s “Toxicity” and Coldplay’s “Fix You,” asserting that “It sounds like a catastrophe on paper, but the shit really works!” And, hey, Hetal is right! This is actually pretty cool. Even SOAD bassist Shavo Odadjian digs it. Kind of amazing, ’cause I would have assumed that this would just suck whale cocks.

The dude who made the track (who appears to be all of eleven years old) isn’t currently allowing embeds, but you can check it out here… pretty rad stuff.

-AR

At least, it was my last time. I feel like I shaved years off my life drinking that crud. Yucky!

Here’s what else we did this week:

• The Human Abstract’s A.J. Minette kicked off his new MetalSucks column, Periphery’s Misha Mansoor checked in from The Legacy Tour, and The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks thinks that Scott Stapp will sore.
• We spoke to R. Loren of Sailors with Wax Wings and White Moth fame.
• We checked out the latest offerings from Deathspell Omega and Nekorgoblikon.
• Speaking of The Legacy Tour: if you’ve ever wanted to see what the blood in Revocation front man Dave Davidson’s head looks like, well, here’s your chance!
• We did our annual bitchfest about the Grammy noms.
• We got lost in a Map of Metal.
• We speculated about which label will land Between the Buried and Me.
• We were envious of the music criticism skills of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Jeff Tuttle.
• System of a Down are getting back together! Just don’t call it a reunion.
• We spent way too much time talking about Slipknot.

The third night of Heavy Metal Hanukkah is coming a little after 5 pm. Have a good weekend, folks.

-AR

I’m tired of hearing about this System of a Down “reunion.” Not because I don’t like the band; I’m quite happy they’ll be playing shows again, in fact. But because it’s not a reunion. System never broke up. Therefore they cannot get back together.

It’s been 5 years since System of a Down released new music. Here are some other bands that often take a very long time to release new albums:

• Metallica (5 years between St. Anger and Death Magnetic)
• Tool (Always take at least 5 years)
• Nevermore (5 years between This Godless Endeavor and The Obsidian Conspiracy)
• Machine Head (4 years between Through the Ashes and Blackening, will be at least 4 years before a new album)
• Iron Maiden (4 years between A Matter of Life and Death and The Final Frontier)
• Ozzy Osbourne (6 years between Ozzmosis and Down to Earth, another 6 years between Down to Earth and Black Rain)

In all those cases not a single person cried “Eureka!! They’re getting back together!!” when they decided to make new music, nor will anyone do so when they write and release new music in the future.

Click to read more…

‘Cause earlier this week, Billy Howerdel sent out the below tweet:

Click to read more…

Were System of a Down the first band to use either the phrase “hiatus” or “indefinite hiatus” instead of the phrase “breaking up?” It certainly seems like they were trend setters in that regard. Now let’s see if they can set a trend of reuniting in a half decade or less.

Yes, SOAD — confirming rumors that have been floating around for damn close to a year – have announced tour dates for 2011.

Click to read more…

Like Porcupine Tree’s clip for “Bonnie the Cat,” Serj Tankian’s new video, for the song “Left of Center,” is clearly inspired by Tool’s classic “Sober” video, and as was the case with said Porcupine Tree clip, I’m totally fine with that. ‘Cause the director (I’m not sure who that is, unfortunately) has put enough of his own spin on it for the video not to seem like a total rip-off, and ’cause, as regular readers know, I’m all for awesome animation in music videos.

Of course, this is Serj Tankian, so there’s a lot of not-at-all-thinly-veiled political imagery in the clip (e.g., an eyeball made from jewels, an over-stimulated, texting teenage gamer being swallowed whole by a snake made from the very technology he utilizes, etc.). But at least I can tell what the hell Serj is getting at, which is more than I can say for the lyrics to some System of a Down songs (What the fuck does leaving my keys on the table have to do with anything again?).

“Left of Center” comes off of Tankian’s latest solo offering, Imperfect Harmonies, which comes out September 21 on Serjical Strike/Reprise. If you haven’t already done so, you should check out Vince’s excellent interview with Serj here.

-AR

I hate to sound like Bob Lefsetz, but you can’t manufacture fan endorsements. A fan endorsement — a.k.a. “word of mouth” — is probably the best advertising your product can get. The fastest way anyone will ever check out a band is when their friend comes them and says, “Yo, have you heard the new Such and Such record? It fucking rips, dude!”

And people are stupid, but they’re not that stupid. If, for example, I see a tweet from Gary Suarez where he says “Just downloaded the new Oceano, it rocks! DL here,” and then includes a link to the download, well, I know that Gary didn’t write that tweet. I know it’s something he had to do to download that song. I know this in part because I know Gary’s “voice,” and that ain’t it, but I also know because all official Gary Suarez tweets end with the hash tag “#srsly.” But the record label doesn’t know that, and they can’t make that adjustment to their stupid auto-tweet, so the whole thing just seems like a lame ploy. Which it is.

So. Scars on Broadway are offering their fans (all ten of ‘em!) a free download of their new song, “Fucking,” through one of these very programs whereby fans have to help the band spam other people, and I’m not even gonna give you the details, ’cause fuck that shit. Fuck it right in the ear. Besides, Blabbermouth posted the song, and there’s an embed code, so you can just listen to it below.

It sucks anyway. I’ve enjoyed some SOB in the past, but this just sounds like a lame band from Long Island trying to sound like System of a Down. Yech.

-AR

Here we had this entire week devoted to hair metal, and I feel like we only scratched the surface. Let’s do this again real soon, okay?

Here’s some of the fun we had this week, be it hair-metal related or not:

• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal taught us to be mind-less, Antagonist’s Carlos Garcia taught us about the song “Sasha Grey,” and Trap Them’s Ryan McKenney taught us more about corporate-sponsored live shows.
• Anso and Allyson from Bring Back Glam! counted down the Ten Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums.
• We counted down the Top Ten Bands Most Often Miscategorized as Hair Metal.
• Vince spoke with Serj Tankian, Gary spoke with Frankie from Emmure, and Sergeant D. spoke with Samantha Maloney from Brother Clyde/Shift/Hole/Motley Crue/every band ever.
• We debuted a new track by The Binary Code!
• Leyla Ford counted down the ten worst and best hair metal band names.
• Sammy checked out the new release by Eibon.
• Dave Mustein checked out The Cool Tour.
• Someday, this little girl is going to make Sergeant D. very, very unhappy.
• I can’t tell the difference between all the members of Mushroomhead, can you?

I wanna especially thank Allyson from Bring Back Glam! for all her help this week — we love you, Allyson! Come back anytime.

Monday we return, but we’ll have a little less Aqua Net in our hair, a little less eyeliner on our lids, and a lot less skip in our step. See ya then.

-AR

Going into my chat with Serj Tankian I already had a high opinion of the man as a singer, a musician, and as a member of System of a Down, a band whose body of work I hold in high regard. But through the course of the interview, the picture of the man behind the music only became more clear: Tankian is a true artist, a man who considers himself extremely lucky to be able to do what he does for a living and, as such, feels continually inspired to constantly push himself and his art forward.

Our talk touched on obvious subjects such as Serj’s forthcoming new solo record Imperfect Harmonies and the differences between his solo projects and his work with System of a Down, but we also spent a lot of time talking about ways in which he’s constantly striving to push his art forward by trying new things: recording the new record with an orchestra and bringing its 25 extra musicians out on the road with him, what it means to him to let politics and music intermingle, and some non-traditional projects he’s working on such as his new poetry book, a musical that’s opening next year, a symphony he’s writing, a museum project he’s putting together and much much more.

Click to read more…

I had completely forgotten about Vince’s love of Bob Ross until his post yesterday. It would have been awesome if Bob had done an all-metal edition of his show, in which he discussed the joy of Ed Repka and Paul Romano. Learning about your craft is so metal! Thanks for reminding me, Vince, about what an inspiration Bob should be to us all.

Here’s some other things we did this week:

• We spoke to Anthrax’s Joey Belladonna, the legendary Wino, Harvey Milk’s Creston Spiers, and Cruel Hand’s Chris Linkovich.
• Vince, Axl and Gary discussed their favorite albums of 2010 so far.
• We’re giving away a free mp3 of Fistula’s “Ohio Death Toll Rising.”
• We checked out new releases by Kvereltak, Misery Index, Watain, and Parkway Drive.
• Anso reviewed the Big Four Live from Sofia, Bulgaria movie theater satellite thingy.
• Vince did a really a good job of impersonating Axl.
• Vince also discovered two new Sumeriancore bands that stink, and one that doesn’t.
• He also wondered: What is it with drummers wearing basketball jerseys?
• Guess what Serj Tankian thinks borders are?
• DEVIN TOWNSEND HEADLINE TOUR! DEVIN TOWNSEND HEADLINE TOUR!!!

A week from today, Vince and I see Faith No More in Brooklyn. So expect lots and lot of pointless pondering about FNM next week, ’cause that’s pretty much all I’m gonna be able to think about.

-AR

… well, if you know anything about Serj Tankian I’ll bet you can closely guess what Serj Tankian thinks of the random lines that separate our countries. But he tells you anyway in his brand new song “Borders Are,” for which the lyric video can be streamed below:

Is it coincidence that the last border to rise is the U.S. / Mexican border? I’m guessing this video was produced by someone at Serj’s label, but I wouldn’t put it past him to make a statement like that.

“Borders Are” comes from Serj’s new album Imperfect Harmonies, available September 7th via Warner Bros. Records. More info is available at Serj’s website. I guess it’s still gonna be a while until SOAD inevitably come back together to make new music, but I dug Serj’s last solo record and will certainly be giving this one a listen.

-VN

Back in January, System of a Down bassist Shavo Odajian caused quite a stir when he seemed to suggested that metal’s most famous Armenian American band was finally reuniting after a hiatus of what seemed like for-ever. Then, the next day, he basically sent out another tweet taking it back, and vocalist Serj Tankian finally stated that  ”we have not decided to do anything as of yet,” and that the band would continue their “indefinite hiatus.”

I was hoping that this was just Serj trying to throw fans off the scent – we’ve seen a lot of musicians deny reunion rumors right before the official announcement – but I guess not, ’cause Scars on Broadway, the SOAD side-project that only I liked, are getting back together for a show in May.

Click to read more…