The Internet is a treasure trove of data just waiting to be spliced and re-assembled in new and interesting ways.

A recent feature added to Got-Djent.com gave users the ability to indicate their favorite bands on their own personal profiles, so the keepers of that site have taken that information and produced a map “where the proximity of two bands on the map indicates how much their respective fanbases overlap.” Fascinating. Check it out: (click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

The results are fascinating.

Click to read more…

It’s really difficult to get a sense of what’s going on overseas, but the beauty of the Internet is that our oceans suddenly matter much less (although record labels who still stagger release dates might beg to differ… gotta keep selling those overpriced $15 CDs!!!). The UK’s The Arusha Accord are a band I first wrote about last June, and since that time we’ve gotten more than a couple of emails about them. This tells me something’s percolating.

We’ve finally got a new video to judge them by. The song “Dead to Me” highlights what I remember liking best about this band last time around; their combination of Sikth-style whackiness and something a touch more accessible. Metal elitists purists might cringe at the band’s sparse use of clean vocals in the choruses, but I find it to be done tastefully and in a way that adds to the song as a whole. As for the video itself, it’s very simple but I really like the aesthetic of it; it just shows the band rocking the fuck out in a way that’s easy on the eye, and though playing in front of a white screen isn’t the most original idea ever it’s at least 100x better than a warehouse.

-VN

Thanks: Ozy

Sometimes we end up on press email lists for like, some underground hip-hop promoter or indie rock publicist who’s obviously never checked out our website. It’s super annoying (first world problems!). But lots of MS readers send us tips of new bands we should check out, and for the most part you guys have pretty good taste / know what we like; shocker! Here are a few that’ve impressed me the most lately.

Black Sun Aeon: In the Swallow the Sun / Agalloch / Daylight Dies / Moonsorrow school of dark, aching, melancholic metal, but, ya know, slightly different. [Sent in by Alexander S.]

White Arms of Athena – This band sent us a message on MySpace rife with faulty grammar and spelling mistakes which is usually a surefire sign for “suck.” But good God, this band fucking rules. They’re like a hardcore version of the myriad tech-death bands on the market right now… so I guess that makes them tech-core. Or is that just “mathcore”? I don’t fucking know… to me it’s good-core.

Outcast: Call it “The Gojira Effect,” but France seems to be pumping out quality metal bands at a phenomenal rate — or maybe they’ve been there all along and we just started noticing. MS Maniac “JTquake” describes Outcast as “full of musical bad-assery and [they] sound like the best parts of Neuraxis and Beneath the Massacre mixed up and twisted together.” I would’ve said Meshuggah and Machine Head, but I guess that just shows my (and his) age.

The Arusha Accord: Taking the Sikth torch and running with it, adding perhaps a touch more melody. Sent in by “J.”

Keep sending in those tips to news [at] metalsucks [dot] net.

-VN