MetalSucks is proud to once again be sponsoring the best mega-package tour of the summer — Summer Slaughter, of course! As you can see from the above poster, the mini-fest’s organizers have once again put together line-up that show cases a who’s who of the current metal scene.

And they’re taking it one step further this year — they’re letting YOU, the fans, decide who the last band added to the bill should be! Go to the official Summer Slaughter Facebook page to cast your vote.

Cities and dates for the tour will be announced on 4/20. ‘Til then… get ready to get slaughtered…

Why, it was just a couple of days ago that we learned that bassist Terry Butler and drummer Greg Gall have both quit Six Feet Under, and already, the band has announced a replacement for Gall: Kevin Talley, who is joining the group as part of his apparent bid to play with every band ever at least once. (Already on his resumé: Daath, Chimaira, Misery Index, Dying Fetus, Hate Eternal, Suffocation, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Red Chord, and probably fifteen other bands I’m forgetting about.)

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I remember when Allegiance came out in 2006, people were talking about As Blood Runs Black like they were the second coming. Along with groups like The Black Dahlia Murder (who were already much more well-established by then) and All Shall Perish (whose own, and in my opinion superior, breakthrough, The Price of Existence, came out the same year), they were supposed to be the future of death metal, one of the bands that would update the sound without straying too far from their influences. By now, they should have released at least two more albums, and, in theory at least, be enjoying their status as one of the godfathers of deathcore.

But something went hideously awry. I honestly don’t know what, because I thought Allegiance was fine but not great, and I didn’t pay as close attention to ABRB as maybe I should have. I kept hearing about line-up changes, but, like I said, I wasn’t paying very close attention. In any case, it seems like at a certain point everyone stopped talking about this band, and then I wasn’t even sure that this band existed anymore.

But they do! And they finally have a new album, Instinct, coming out next year. And now you can listen to a song from that album, “Resist,” by going to the band’s Facebook page and clicking the “like” button.

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Metal Injection posted this video of The Black Dahlia Murder’s lead guitarist, Ryan Knight, gettin’ jiggy wit it (or whatever the white kids who wish they were black are saying these days) at the wedding of the band’s former tour manager. And let me please be clear: I am laughing with Knight, not at Knight. I wish I lacked the self-consciousness to have this good a time on a dance floor. I mean, I’m sure ten or twenty drinks helps, but still.

If BDM don’t somehow incorporate this into their next video, they’re fools.

-AR

I’m sick. Not in a scary way; more in a “Went to the doctor yesterday and got on antibiotics and didn’t do any posting or checking of e-mail” kinda way. Consequently, the limited amount of posting I’m going to do today will probably be even more ineloquent and vitriolic than usual. (I’ve already responded to several e-mails this morning with the rudest possible reply I could concoct.) My apologies in advance.

Some e-mails that won’t be getting any misplaced rage caused by my current condition: the approximately 18,000 messages alerting us to the fact that Nergal has, at last, found an appropriate bone marrow donor. This is great news for a guy who really is sick in a scary way, and I couldn’t be happier. Here’s an official statement from the man himself:

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At the Accept show I went to last week, I had a pretty funny moment with the boy when I said that it sounded like they were singing “We are nice” instead of “Neon nights.” Which got me thinking: I mishear lyrics a lot. It could be because I’m deaf, or people just don’t enunciate, or that most of the bands I listen to don’t really know English that well so they probably are singing stupid shit. Or it could be that I’d rather hear something than what I actually do — I mean, Bob Ezrin wanted a new, edgy song to appeal to those hip youngsters and thought Alice Cooper was singing “I’m edgy,” instead of “I’m eighteen.” Personally, I’m way more entertained with what my brain, or other people’s brains (as I got some volunteers for this task), comes up with. So here are a few songs that made it to my Misheard Lyrics Hall of Fame.

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Three cheers for Crack Hitler, who I think did a very admirable job of running the site on Friday. Sure, he only did six posts, but as I understand, he has a very busy job working at a hospital, which is certainly far more noble and important than running a snarky metal blog. And he brought some excellent music to our attention. Crack Hitler, sir, I applaud you.

Now back to the regular shit. Here are two cool tours that were announced while we were letting a reader from Perth call the shots:

• The Black Dahlia Murder have announced a headlining tour with Goatwhore and Arkaik. I don’t know Arkaik, but you had me at “Black Dahlia Murder and Goatwhore.” Vince has never seen BDM do a full headlining set, and, by Satan, I am going to make sure he finally breaks that cherry, ’cause these dudes kill live. These shows will provide enough fun to justify enduring all the B.O. that comes with a modern death metal sausage fest. Get dates here.
• Speaking of Goatwhore: For obvious reasons, Behemoth had to cancel their headlining run with Watain, Black Anvil, and Withered, so the former two bands are now doing their own tour with the sluttiest of all capra aegagrus hircus. Which, even without Behemoth and Withered, is still a really, really kick-ass line-up.  Get dates from The PRP.

-AR

Reader LETTHEDEATHMETALFLOW sent in a bunch of excellent footage he (or she… but let’s not kid ourselves… he) shot of The Black Dahlia Murder playing at Baroeg in Rotterdam, Holland last week. If you’re disappointed by Trevor Strnad’s lack of shirtlessness in the first clip, don’t worry… the shirt comes off soon enough and Trevor’s beauteous man-gut gets its time under the lights.

Believe it or not I’ve never seen a proper BDM headline set, so this footage is pretty exciting for me. The video and sound quality are great, too.

-VN

Parts 3 and 4 after the jump…

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This really needs no introduction. If you were stationed in Iraq, you’d need to blow off steam, too.

Thanks to Crispen for the link.

-AR

Ryan Schutte sent us an e-mail with the following subject line:

better then black dahlia could ever ever hope to be

There was no text in the e-mail besides a link to the below song, “Ever Again,” by the now-defunct As Eden Burns. Ignoring Mr. Schutte’s grammatical errors, I gave it a listen…

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I’ve always hated top-whatever lists. Best guitarist, best band, best blowjob, best double anal with a horse, whatever. I think that those lists are pretty much all slanted by politics, or bought and paid for. I first got that idea in my head when Titanic won as many Oscars as it did. There were so many movies that year that were far more deserving of the title that my faith in the award system died.

Jump forward about ten years. I just got back in town from the Revolver Golden God Awards. I’ll just say that I’m stoked they exist. Metal needs that in the U.S. I have no issue with their nominees and obviously you can’t pick everyone so this is definitely not directed at them. Again, THIS IS NOT DIRECTED AT REVOLVER MAGAZINE, but the concept of picking “best shredder” or “shredder of the year “is just one of those things you can’t accurately do with the amount of talent that’s out there. You want to nominate Zack Wylde or Dave Mustaine? Okay. That’s cool. Those guys have earned it. But when you leave the circle of greats and legends, how exactly do you pick a BEST shredder? I mean am I alone in thinking that when so many amazing guitarists are overlooked that the award itself loses its meaning? What guitarists am I talking about? Okay… I’ll name a few. In my opinion these guys should be winning all the awards. If I left someone out, it’s because either I haven’t heard of them, I’ve heard them and I don’t think they’re among the very best, I forgot to mention them, or I’ve heard them and I know for a fact that what you think is shredding is just studio trickery.

So here it is. My personal list of whom I think should be winning all the metal guitar awards. Am I biased? Maybe. But I’d like to also think that considering what I do for a living that I’m a good judge of competency in the field. This is in no particular order. These guys all rule for different reasons. (DISCLAIMER: Sorry that there aren’t videos for every dude I mention, but sometimes finding quality footage is tough.)

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One of the most prolific artists in the metal scene is Mark Riddick. He has created a tremendous amount of art for such bands as Beneath the Massacre, The Black Dahlia Murder, Gravehill, Internal Bleeding, and hundreds of others. He could quite possibly be the Norman Rockwell of zombie art. His lavish black and white illustrations take the viewer to a twisted land of corpses, demons and intestines. But what his work does not tell you is that he is a really nice guy, who is very supportive of other artists and a devoted family man. This interview was conducted via email, and I am astounded that he got back to me so fast, especially after hearing the rundown of an average day for Riddick.

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Hello MetalSucks readers! I realize that most of you don’t know who I am, so I figured I’d take some time to tell you and maybe shed some light on the subject of why I’ve been asked to write a few fun pieces for all of your enjoyment.

My name is Bobbi Starr and I am a girl who over the past three and a half years has made a living off of all of you who buy pornography and blow your loads to the site of my asshole being impaled by the giant members of pornography legends such as Lexington Steele, and I thank you for that.

Now, those who steal porn off of bit torrent and tube sites: shame on you, and I just might hunt you down, cut your wiener off, put it on a post and do a little, non-sexual, dance, ridding you of all porno-steeling-desires. Granted, at this point you would be without a penis, but you should of thought of that before you stole my porno.

I’m just kidding. In reality, I’d probably tell you that you are a very bad boy, and then suck you off.

Anyway, back to metal. Some of you may know, I’ve pretty much always been a music nerd, and therefore a fan of the ye ol’ metal. I think those important people at MetalSucks picked up on this and thought, “We should get this chick to write nasty things for our website! That would be awesome!” I love delving into the dark, slimy depths of the music world, and sinking my teeth into some crunchy metal bands.  It may be an acquired taste for many, but I must admit that I constantly find myself craving more of those down-tuned riffs and growling vocals.

Not only is it my desire to explore the music of each band, but also my primal urge to become intimately acquainted with the nether regions of all of the band members as a whole. So, I figured, what the hell, why not make a list of the top ten metal bands that I’d like to get gangbanged by? Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of them will come through for me.

And so, in no particular order…

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What the hell, dude? First Marduk front dude Mortuus hit a kid who jumped on stage to try and hug him, then The Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad followed suit; now some guy jumped on stage during a recent Kittie performance and tried to kiss front lady Morgan Lander… and she cracks him in the balls! So for once, a fan got a beat down and he actually deserved it.

Only problem is, it’s not a fan this time – it’s Tyler Whore, bassist for Sucked by a Sucking Suck. He’s apparently friends with the band. Guess Lander didn’t recognize him? Either that, or it was, uh, a Freudian slip, I guess.

Here’s video of the incident, courtest Hardtime.ca:

Thanks to the always-helpful Saul Hudson for the tip…

-AR

Why would Trevor Strnad punch this kid in the face? That’s the only thing I can keep asking myself after viewing the below video, which The PRP posted last night:

I mean, it doesn’t seem like the kid did anything that warrants a punch, other than touch Strnad. But Strnad’s the lead singer of a metal band – he must be used to kids reaching out and touching him while he’s on stage all the time, right? So was Strnad just startled, and his karate action punch mechanism kicked in on instinct? When we interviewed him last year, he seemed like the most laid-back dude in the world. But that was a ten minute interview – it’s not like I know the guy. So maybe I’m just making excuses for him ’cause I wanna like him.

In any case, watch for The Black Dahlia Murder to tour with Marduk sometime soon.

-AR

So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

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I rocked Deflorate for the first time in at least a month yesterday, and, yep, still slays. I can’t believe I still haven’t gotten to see BDM on this touring cycle. What the fuck, me? Get off your ass and do it!

While I wait for the band to come back to town (or within driving distance at least), I can live vicariously through five new live clips out bro-bros over at Metal Injection filmed at the Crazy Donkey in Farmingdale, NY. Here’s “Black Valor,” the opening track from the aforementioned Deflorate; you can watch four, count ‘em four, other live vids here.

Deflorate is out now on Metal Blade.

-AR

For some reason I thought John Kempainen was one of those “I hate touring” dudes, and that said hatred of fart boxes and no pay was one of the key reasons behind his split with The Black Dahlia Murder. But I guess I thought wrong, because Metal Injection tells us that Kempainen is teaming with original BDM drummer Cory Grady to form a new band, Graves Ablaze. They don’t have a vocalist yet (or a bassist or rhythm guitarist), but there’s an instrumental demo streaming here.

Kempainen is obviously a really talented guy and I was sad to see him leave BDM – his solos were one of my favorite parts of that band. That being said, Ryan Knight (ex-Arsis) has obviously turned out to be a more than able replacement, and I think Deflorate is probably BDM’s best album yet. And this Graves Ablaze demo doesn’t knock my socks off. It’s not bad – it’s just not jizz-inducing or whatever.

What does that say about their future? Very little. Maybe the time just wasn’t right yet for them to post a demo – maybe they need to wait ’til they’re further along in their evolutionary process. For now, I’m just glad that Kempainen is out there trying to make new metal…

-AR

I can’t even believe that shit like this still happens in America in 2009, but that’s progress for you. Reader Andrew Morales sent us a link to this story from the Examiner – which I gather is either a Christian publication, or one where the reporters are very, very biased – that reports on a controversy brewing with regards to Toxic Holocaust and The Black Dahlia Murder playing at a Christian-run venue in Nashville last night. The biased writing of the article makes the whole thing inadvertently hilarious – check out some excerpts:

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It’s the guitar solo on “Christ Deformed” that really gets me (go to 1:52ish). And not just the solo part of the solo – although Ryan Knight is playing a killer solo – but also what the rest of the band is doing during the solo. That whole start-stop thing makes me wanna stab someone in the neck with a screwdriver or pen every time I hear it, and I mean that as a compliment.

And listen to that crowd, man! The chanting! Few things are more metal than a good chant. It’s part of the fundamental dichotomy of being a headbanger: we’re supposed to be sullen, serious people, but we love  a good opportunity to all cheer in unison like some date raping fratboy at a kegger.

Deflorate is out now on Metal Blade. There are a lotta other good songs on it, too. If you have a favorite that isn’t “Christ Deformed,” why don’t you share with the group?

-AR