In 1968, Gary Moore (above, top left) was just 16 years old when he joined future Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott in the Dublin blues-rock quartet Skid Row*. So, Moore was a charter member of the Society of Overachieving Teen Guitarists that would later include Steve Vai (19, Frank Zappa), Zakk Wylde (19, Ozzy Osbourne), and Devin Townsend (19, Steve Vai). Pretty elite company.

After a pair of short stints in Thin Lizzy, Moore again reunited with Lynott in 1979 for the band’s seminal Black Rose: A Rock Legend (see Axl Rose’s Black Rose-themed tattoo here, upper left). More than twenty solo albums followed, including 2008’s Bad For You Baby.

British tabloid The Sun reports that Moore, 58, was discovered unresponsive by medical staff in a Spain hotel suite where there were “definite signs of alcohol.” The Sun also quotes a source at the hotel who has stated that Moore “seemed fine when he left [the hotel bar] around 11 pm.” A post mortem has been scheduled.

After the jump, check out the MetalSucks round up of tributes to Moore by members of Obituary, Opeth, Black Flag, Testament, Black Sabbath, and mo(o)re.

Click to read more…

So 70,000 Tons of Metal, the most metal cruise EV-AR, has now ended — but that doesn’t mean the fun is over. We’re gonna have a couple more Tons of Fun for you during the week, starting with the below video, taken during the cruise, of Testament’s Alex Skolnick, Exodus’ Tom Hunting, and Death Angel’s Rob Cavestany doing a karaoke version of The Eagles’ “Lying Eyes” onboard the ship.

Yep. We’re being totally serious.

We first saw this amazing video over at Metal Insider; they also have clips of karaoke performances from members of Fear Factory, Sodom, Ensiferum, Tyr, and Swashbuckle. So head on over to Metal Insider if you wanna see some of your heroes embarrassing themselves in the name of fun.

Also, our bro-bros at Metal Injection were actually on the cruise, giving constant live updates. Go here if you wanna read all about their adventures, or if you just wanna look at pictures of MI’s resident female, Noa Avior, in a bikini.

-AR

Banner Designed by Cysquatch

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Presumably inspired by this week’s announcement of a Big 4 show in the U.S., this week’s question was posed by MetalSucks contributor/author of the Reign in Blood entry into the 33 1/3 book series, D.X. Ferris. Mr. Ferris was even good enough to join us for this edition of QOTW! And his query was:

IF THE BIG FOUR WERE THE BIG EIGHT, WHICH BANDS WOULD BE THE NEXT FOUR IN THE GROUP?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

Scorched-Earth Policy
TBA
Label – Self-release
Release date – Spring 2011

Back in 2001, my first taste of Slipknot’s then-forthcoming sophomore album, Iowa, was a two-minute piece of “The Heretic Anthem.” The snippet was found on a wee little mini-CD from Roadrunner Japan alongside similarly abridged jams by Fear Factory, Ill Nino, Bat Cave, Sepultura, and, uh, Cairo, among others. The weird thing is that this CD5-shaped Reader’s Digest of macho gruntcore — clearly designed for overhead play at Japan’s CD superstores — stayed in heavy rotation at my place for months. Crazy, right? But you can see how, once distilled to its 120-second essence, no song could overstay its welcome or commit an unforgivable gaffe — even Ill Nino’s! And listening to them all was like taking a healthy bite of twelve different pizza slices, some undercooked, most boldly similar, and totally fun! Even Ill Nino’s!

Click to read more…

Vicious Rumors
Razorback Killers
Label – SPV/Steamhammer
Release Date – April 5, 2011

Sometimes, I judge bands by their names. To be perfectly honest, I always judge bands by their names. Which is why I had successfully avoided ever listening to Bullet for My Valentine. But then they had to go and open for Maiden. So — I first stumbled across Vicious Rumors because I saw their name somewhere and was intrigued. I thought they were hair metal.

I was mistaken.

Click to read more…

In a wise move, VH1′s fossil-rock chat program That Metal Show has expanded to sixty minutes for its sixth season. As a result, there’s a huge improvement to the ratio of guest interview content to idiot host blathering. Too much of the half-hour TMS format depended on rushed segments which pitted one host’s poorly-explained preferences against another’s; now, even a seemingly negligible amount of additional interviews/gabbing gives TMS an actual shot at resonant entertainment. Impossible before now were particularly inspired production moves like the booking of Tesla’s Jeff Keith (so smiley!) and Frank Hannon on the same episode as Testament’s Chuck Billy (above). If VH1 brass has any brains, they’ll holiday bonus the shit outta whomever was responsible for pairing these superficially different but geographically and alphabetically neighborly acts. It’s TV gold! Watch here and you’ll see that the two camps endorse the same sports team, play the same clubs, and share members (!). Best of all, Billy expounds on the fun CD-shopping quirk that sorta cosmically partners similarly-named bands, i.e. you have to go through the Tesla section to reach Testament. (And through The Cult to get to Curve, and, by design, through Megadeth to Metallica.) This stuff might seem like filler or minutiae, but priceless spontaneity and shared giggle sessions are the key to entertaining talk programming. Now all they have to do is replace host/Howard Stern wannabe Jim Florentine with an at-large correspondent who focuses weekly remotes on, oh, bands formed after 1983 maybe? I know just the dude!

-ADF

That Metal Show premieres new episodes Saturdays on VH1 Classic. View full episodes here.

Banner Designed by Cysquatch

Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week, we have our first ever reader-suggested QOTW, coming from MetalSucks Maniac Cougar Party:

WHAT BANDS DO YOU HATE THAT YOU HAVE SEEN LIVE MULTIPLE TIMES BECAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS OPENING FOR SOMEONE YOU LIKE?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

Click to read more…

There was an ebb in excitement levels surrounding Forbidden’s recent return to active status when the Bay Area thrashers unveiled mega-unimpressive cover art for Omega Wave (here), their first record since 1997′s Green. To echo at least one Blabbermouth wiseacre, I’ll ask who smoked up the packaging budget? Cuz despite guitarist Craig Locicero’s endorsement, the art looks cheap and needlessly reminiscent of Forbidden Evil, their debut (here). Imagery is not as huge a deal in the post-interslice age, but this “Where’s the rest of it?”-style art threw at least one fan into a panic (me), causing him or her (me) to wonder if the album’s sound quality would match its unflattering cover. Would Forbidden, once a post-Vio-lence Robb Flynn project and farm system for Testament and Slayer, fail to reclaim its near-fame thanks to penny-pinching and a cover concept that borrows heavily from those sparkly decals you get from gumball machines at the roller rink? Fuck!

I feel foolish now that the band’s Myspace is streaming “Forsaken At The Gates,” the first public taste of Omega Wave. The jam is incredible and its production sounds like a million bucks (even on Myspace). Along with Exhorder and Coroner, Forbidden always had the most deceptively clever (and presciently busy) guitar riffs in thrash metal, and the semi-tangible skill of putting them in order to achieve dynamic, impactful songs — the slapping of the face alternating with the zapping of the nuts, as it were; “Forsaken” is all that! (By the way, is anybody else reminded instantly of “Infinite” at every mention of the word “evil”?) And in retrospect, I should’ve known not to worry cuz the guys in Forbidden all still have good hair (above). That’s the starting point for all good metal.

-ADF

Forbidden’s Omega Wave is slated for an October 22 release on Nuclear Blast.

I was just thinking, “Say, we haven’t had a list to argue about in a long time,” and now, voila, it’s The Deciblog to the rescue!

Chris Dick has posted his list of “The Top 5 Thrash Metal Ballads of All Time,” which is a pretty brilliant idea for a list. Will thrash metal fans be offended by the categorization of these songs as “ballads?” These songs are obviously not “Love of a Lifetime” or whatever, but I don’t know what you call, for example, Testament’s “The Ballad” if not, uh, a ballad.

So I obviously just gave away one entry on the list, but I don’t wanna give away the other four. Head over to The Deciblog to check out all the entries, than come back here to fight about it. I actually take no issue with this list whatsoever, other than the fact that Slayer’s “Dead Skin Mask” didn’t make the cut.

-AR

P.S. That last bit about Slayer was a joke, you twits.

Eliran Kantor is on quite a roll this year: The cover art for Sigh’s Scenes from Hell, Atheist’s Jupiter, and now Sodom’s In War and Pieces have all kicked ass so hard that there’s now a spot on my butt that reads “Reserved for Eliran Kantor’s Boot.” And that’s to say nothing of the amazing work the artist has done in the past for bands like Testament and Gwar.

Check out more of Eliran Kantor’s work here. In War and Pieces drops November 23 on SPV.

-AR

MS photographic wiz Jacqueline Cheng has done it again. Her latest batch of mesmerizing photos capture Slayer, Megadeth and Testament on their American Carnage run when it stopped in New Jersey on August 12th. Check out her collection of shots from the show after the jump.

Click to read more…

So I feel like we’ve been talking about this Slayer/Megadeth tour FOR-EV-ER, and last night I finally got to see it. And despite my usual cynical instincts telling me that it might very well end up being a major disappointment, I gotta say… I had a really, really fun time.

Testament were great. That’s not really a surprise or anything — Testament have been great, Testament will be great, and if all else failed, I never really doubted for a second that they’d put on a killer show. If I don’t have much else to say about them, it’s because there was never really any suspense with regards to whether or not they’d be good. (But be advised: they went on shortly before 7 pm, so get to the venue early to make sure you don’t miss ‘em. There were far too many people not yet at the venue when they played, which was a damn shame.)

Megadeth… well, there’s really only one problem with Megadeth: Mustaine’s voice sucks. Like, at a James Hetfield level of suckitude — actually, he might sound worse than Hetfield, who can at least stay on-key or close-enough for 60% of the time. (Mustaine was almost on-key during an encore of “A Tout Le Monde,” and that was about it.) I seriously had to tune out Mustaine’s voice just to enjoy the music. He can still play guitar like nobody’s business, it’s great to have Ellefson back, and if we’re not gonna have Marty Friedman and Nick Menza in the band, than Shawn Drover and Chris Broderick are about as good as it’s gonna get, replacement-wise. But Mustaine’s vocals… it’s just embarrassing, man.

And then there was Slayer.

Click to read more…

Last week, Dave Mustaine said that Anthrax might play some dates on the upcoming American Carnage tour with Megadeth and Slayer, and I got all excited because the idea of a Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax/Testament line-up seemed even more appealing to me than the idea of a Metallica/Slayer/Megadeth/Anthrax line-up (y’know, ’cause Metallica sucks now). What I never even considered, though, was that there might be an entire second leg of the tour, and that Testament might not even be on said leg.

Which seems to be exactly what has happened – a whole bunch of dates with Slegadethrax have been announced, but the press release we received makes no mention of Testament. Which means that either a) someone fucked up or b) Testament aren’t on this leg of the tour (more likely). Which kinda sucks. I mean, Megadeth/Slayer/Anthrax is swell and all, but not as cool as tossing Testament in there, too.

Of course, I’m really complaining about an embarrassment of riches, so fuck me, I guess. Slayer will continue to play all of Seasons in the Abyss on this leg of the tour, and Megadeth will continue to play all of Rust in Peace, so if seeing Anthrax appeals to you more than seeing Testament, well… I suppose that, theoretically, you won’t be missing anything. Except Chuck Billy’s beautiful, beautiful punam.

Dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

West Coast be damned, I’ll be mighty disappointed if Devin “Poopy McNuggeteer” Towsend doesn’t end up announcing East Coast dates for his October U.S. tour. But whether he does or does not, it seems fairly certain that we won’t be treated to a special performance of Ziltoid in its entirety the way our Finnish compadres at the Tuska Open Air Metal Festival were. And even if the power of the skullet — now the hairdo of choice of the mighty Ziltoid himself — by some miraculous intervention decides to bestow the entirety of the Ziltoid album upon us, there’s no way Testament’s Chuck Fucking Billy will come out to do guest vocals as the Planet Smasher character on the song “Planet Smasher.” And hot damn, does Billy sound scarier than ever or what?

But hey, if that happened that’d really be something. Regardless, we’re pretty sure any Devin Townsend set brought east will tickle our testicles just fine.

-VN

Thanks: TNOTB

The prospect of a Big Four tour is titillating mostly for reasons of nostalgia; it’s exciting to think about seeing all these bands live together, but not as exciting as it is to think about seeing all these bands live together twenty years ago. (Or maybe even twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four years ago.) Different people, of course, have different opinions about which of these bands can still bring it live, but the most obvious weak spot that 99% of all metal fans will be able to agree are well past their prime are Metallica. I’ve seen Trujillo-era Metallica live and I’ve cheered for Trujillo-era Metallica live and I won’t pretend you can’t have fun at a ‘Tallica gig; but you should never listen to the live recording after, because you’ll surely realize that beer, adrenaline, and sentimentality played a big part in your enjoyment.

Click to read more…

I’ve already expressed my love of Levi/Werstler’s Avalanche of Worms (read my review here) so many times I’m running out of synonyms for “awesome,” so let me just put it this way: it’s one of the best albums of 2010 thus far. And as much praise has been heaped on Emil Werstler – whose day job is playing lead guitar for Daath – he deserves more. If you love great guitar playing, you need to hear this record, and then you need to bow down before Werstler with a cry of “I’m not worthy!” He is, simply put, the man.

Emil recently took time out from the writing and recording of the new Daath album – which, if all goes according to plan, will be out in the fall – to answer some questions for MetalSucks via e-mail. After the jump, learn how he started playing guitar, how he first hooked up Eyal Levi, his secrets for writing a great guitar solo, how he thinks the lessons of AOW will spill over into the new Daath release, and more.

Click to read more…

There’s so much streamin’ going on right now you’d think a bunch of dudes were peeing on you. So without any further bullshit, here are three complete albums you can listen to right now if you wanna get your metal on:

Click to read more…

Yep, we talked a lot of smack on Joey Belladonna this week, much to the chagrin of, well, an awful lot of you. I think we’re done for a little while… but I can’t make any promises. Our job at MetalSucks is to amuse ourselves first and foremost, and, well, we thought it was pretty damned funny. So ppppfffftttt.

Here’s what else went down this week:

• We debuted the title track from Nachtmystium’s new album, Addicts.
• Genetic’s Dallas Coyle called us “influential,” Disfear’s Tomas Lindberg shared some Maryland Deathfest memories, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley unveiled his top four Taco Riffs, Cynic’s Paul Masvidal got burglarized, As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa made some new revelations about L O S T, God Forbid’s Doc Coyle worried about turning into an old geezer, Daath’s Eyal Levi gave us a lesson in stage etiquette, and Batillus’ Geoff Summers gave us a new studio update.
• We spoke to The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne, Periphery’s Misha “Bulb” Mansoor, Testament’s Chuck Billy, and Sick of it All’s Lou Koller.
• We checked out new releases by Korn and Ufomammut and Year of No Light.
• Is Mastodon’s Brent Hinds a Mastodick?
• Sergeant D sez Cunthunt777 are your new favorite band.
• Don’t worry, baby, Dr. Danzig gonna cure what ails you.
• Hot chick loves Nergal, hates the Bible.
• Boy oh boy, do we love the new Limp Bizkit cover art!
• If you’re looking for new band members, don’t do this.

Alright. We’re gonna go get drunk and crank We’ve Come For You All in John Bush’s honor. Have a great weekend, everyone.

-AR

In the last few years, something seemed to happen and I barely noticed. Suddenly, I’m no longer the young kid at the show. I’m one of the guys hiding out by the bar. I’m not crowd surfing, not covered in sweat with my shirt off, and I’m certainly not moshing. I’m also not randomly yelling “Slayer!”, but that seems to span all demographics. I became… (gulp)… an adult. I don’t know what the range is in the ages of the followers of MetalSucks, but I’ll assume that it’s a mix of younger and older metal fans. I am 29 years old, but I still feel relatively young and energetic considering my opening salvo. I’m the youngest member of my band, and younger than a good majority of my friends in bands and the industry.

With that said, I think there comes a time for all metal heads, and probably all adults for that matter, when you look at what is popular amongst the true youth culture (16-24), and you feel as if not only do you not relate to it, but it feels alien, as if it’s creation was not meant for your consumption (which it wasn’t) – and it also seems inferior to music that you grew up with. I’m only 29, and I’m already having “back in my day” moments. It kind of scared me, and I began to wonder if I was being obtuse and a little too set in my ways, or if my analysis was accurate.

Click to read more…

In a way, Testament is like The Small Faces to Metallica’s Beatles and Slayer’s Rolling Stones: a band as virtuosic, productive, and creatively astute as their deified peers, but hamstrung by bad business breaks. Another factor is the absence of an outspoken know-it-all (Slayer, Metallica), a gimmicky mascot (Anthrax), or a Mustaine-esque diva (duh) to which Testament’s marketing efforts could be anchored. Aside from singer Chuck Billy’s serious illness a decade ago, the Testament story’s most noteworthy turns include little more than the defection of a jazz-crazy guitarist and a dickish but minor betrayal by metal’s most corpulent drummer.

Even if a hypothetical Testament: Behind The Music would clock in at about six minutes, an All-Star Tribute To Testament concert event could stretch across days to cover just the highlights of their dudless catalogue. (My personal best-of runs 175 minutes. Yeah baby.) And while the band is enjoying what guitarist Eric Peterson calls “a second wind” since the return of uber-guitarist Alex Skolnick and bassist Greg Peterson for the magnificent 2008 outing The Formation of Damnation, Testament remains supplicant to sexier tourmates Slayer and Megadeth in the opening slot on this summer’s rescheduled American Carnage Tour. That seems fine by the surprisingly affable (and occasionally merry) Chuck Billy, who spoke exclusively to MetalSucks about getting hammered in Europe, how Dave Lombardo’s enabled the awesomeness of The Gathering, the quest to control their back catalogue, and their exciting-as-fuck new setlist. Emphasis on “new.”

Click to read more…