After posting our own year-end lists for 2011, we asked you, oh ye MetalSucks faithful, to tell us what you thought the best metal album of the year was. And the winner by a landslide was The Devin Townsend Project’s all-star spectacular, Deconstruction, which got more than twice as many votes as its nearest competitors, Revocation’s Chaos of Forms and Protest the Hero’s Scurrilous. (Kind of amazingly, Mastodon’s The Hunter got one vote. ONE. Sheesh.)

We’d like to congratulate MetalSucks readers for once again demonstrating excellent taste. Now we can all stop arguing about what sucked so bad about 2011, and start arguing about what’s going to suck so bad in 2012!

And don’t forget to read our latest interview with Mr. Townsend himself, which was just published an hour ago right here.

As the season winds down, this column continues to be shorter (and my workload easier). Just a few new things today, as well as the Devin Townsend Project box set. 2012 is going to have to really impress to match the number of awesome things we’ve seen this year…

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…Devin Townsend recently performed an acoustic version of the song — the first time he’s dipped into the SYL catalog since that group disbanded in 2007 — and hol-ee shee-ite, does the song just sound that much sexier with Devy whispering sweet nothings in your ear. See what’s all the fuss about below:

In semi-related news, Townsend just announce The Retinal Circus, a ridiculously-awesome sounding concert set to take place in London on October 27, 2012. There are a LOT of cool goings-on involved with this show — so many that I probably should have just written a whole post about it, but oh well — so just go here to read the press release, get all the details, and find out how you can buy tickets. This sounds like the kind of thing that might actually get me on plane to London.

-AR

[via Heavy Blog is Heavy]

Who wants to see some awesome photos of The Devin Townsend Project performing at Slim’s in San Francisco last month?

[loud cheers]

I SAID WHO WANTS TO SEE SOME AWESOME PHOTOS OF THE DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT PERFORMING AT SLIM’S IN SAN FRANCISCO LAST MONTH?!?!

[DEAFENING cheers]

Well, good, ’cause that’s what we have for you, courtesy of MetalSucks photographic master Miikka Skaffari! Miikka captured Heavy Devy making plenty of more awesome, silly, and awesomely silly faces like the one above. So check ‘em out after the jump! And don’t forget that Townsend’s sweet new box set, Contain Us (say it out loud), comes out November 29 via InsideOut Music; it’s super limited edition, so go pre-order yours now or risk the heartbreak never ever owning one. Also, remember that Devy is on tour in Europe right now, before he begins another North American headlining trek in December; get all of his upcoming tour dates here.

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When I was fifteen years old, I had to sneak out of my parents’ house on a Friday night to go see GWAR and the Misfits play a Halloween show. Then I had to conceal my clothing from my parents, seeing as it was, y’know, soaked in blood, urine, and semen.

Here we are all these years later, pretty much right at the anniversary of that show, and GWAR are on a popular, mainstream late-night talk show. And yet, somehow, they seem no less rebellious than they ever were.

Which is all my way of saying, “GWAR rules.” And they do. They rule. Hard.

ANYWAY, here are some things we did this week:

• Speaking of GWAR, Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie himself provided us with more insights into the NFL. Meanwhile, several members of the Relapse Records family gave us the skinny on the new NHL season, and The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley pondered the pros and cons of new technology in music.
• We debuted Jucifer’s new video, for the song “Hiroshima.”
• We got exclusive specs on Contain Us, the new box set from The Devin Townsend Project.
• We spoke to Steel Panther and Niilo Sevänen from Insomnium.
• We checked out the latest release from Carnifex.
• We continued the Countdown to the Metal Suckfest and defended Danzig.
• We counted down the eleven cardinal rules of attending a concert.
• We wondered if nu-dethcore is the next big thing.
• We cried because even ex-members of Metallica make bad music now.
• We argued about the best debut albums of the past twenty-five years.

And that’s it! Have a delightful weekend, gang. We’ll see ya Monday.

-AR

Hey, so, remember when Devin Townsend promised that, following the completion of all four albums in The Devin Townsend Project’s Ki/Addicted/Ghost/Deconstruction cycle, there would be a “monumental box set” containing “eight records plus a DVD?” Well, as you are most surely aware by now, all four albums have been completed and released — which means it’s time for the super-duper-awesome box set.

MetalSucks has exclusively obtained specs on the collection, which will be entitled Contain Us.  (Please note that the details outlined in the below document are not 100% final, but they’re pretty close — for example, there will actually be 5,000 copies worldwide, not 2,500 as the sheet says, and the vinyl featuring two exclusive tracks will be a 7″, not a 10″.) The so-incredible-sounding-it-has-us-drooling-already packaging was designed by Tom Bejgrowicz from manAlive Design; you probably already know Bejgrowicz from his work with God Forbid, Rolling Stone magazine, and the also-so-cool-it’s-silly coffin box set he designed for the Misfits. But, frankly, this new piece for Heavy Devy sounds like it’s gonna blow that Misfits thing right the hell out of the water.

Click on image of the specs below to enlarge, download, and get all the details for yourself, and start saving up for it now, because they are going to be limited edition, and you are definitely going to want one. Contain Us is scheduled for release later this very year! More details as we get ‘em!

We missed a whole lotta new videos while we were out on Friday, so I’m gonna post ‘em — and my snarky and not-so-snarky commentary, of course — now. Please excuse my lack of a traditional introduction about little effort I am going to put into this introduction.

First up, we have The Devin Townsend Project’s video for “Juular,” which was directed by David Brodsky. And holy poo, this video is GREAT. The animation is fantastic, and the way the camera moves, swooping in and out of shots… it’s just a totally epic visual expression of an awesome, awesome, awesome song. Also, anything where an old man is blowing something phallic is a-okay in my book. This is definitely a contender for Video of the Year.

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Just yesterday, Vince reported a rumor that The Ocean would be opening for Devin Townsend on his October headlining run; now it’s confirmed, thanks to both the release of the actual dates for said October trek, and that nifty poster you see above. The Ocean actually won’t be on the first three dates, but still — not only is this a fantastic bill, but it must make up for the sting of The Ocean’s previously-scrapped U.S. tour plans.

There’s really nothing else to say… if you know anything about anything, you will absolutely NOT miss any tour with both Heavy Devy and The Ocean. Here’s the itinerary:

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Last week Vince and I saw Devin Townsend open for Children of Bodom. And at the end of the show, Devy was like “We’ll be back in a few months!” And we could have done some investigating and tried to find out all about his new tour, but we were all, “Nah, MetalSucks readers won’t care. They HATE Devin Townsend.”

And now the tour has actually been announced, and I don’t even know why I’m telling you guys. ‘Cause every time we write about Devin Townsend, the comments section sounds like this. I mean, I don’t think there is a single artist MetalSucks readers are LESS interested in than Devin Townsend. We’d get more traffic writing about Ian & Sylvia.

But whatevs. Here are the dates for the two of you who care. Support acts should be announced shortly.

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Everyone whose parents raised them correctly loves Gojira, and so everyone whose parents raised them correctly has been eagerly anticipating the band’s seemingly-forever-in-gestation Sea Shepherd EP since, well, seemingly forever.

But now it looks like we might actually be getting close to its unveiling! Last week we got to hear a new song, “Of Blood and Salt,” which features guest appearances from Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal and Devin Townsend’s Devin Townsend; now Gojira’s guitarist/vocalist/mastermind, Joe Duplantier, has given an interview with Metal Hammer in which he reveals that Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe (who previously appeared on the group’s “Adoration for None”), In Flames’ Anders Friden, and some dude named Max Cavalera are all going to appear on the release, too.

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Devin Townsend is giving away two new songs for free download — the first from his new album Ghost, the second from his other new album, Deconstruction — here. All you have to do it tell your Facebook buddies how much you like Devin, which they probably already know but hey fine okay whatevs.

I’m not even sure which songs he’s giving away, ’cause it don’t say on the page and I already have the albums (Who wants to fucking touch me?!?) so re-downloading these songs seems silly. But it doesn’t matter. Whichever two songs it is, it’s totally worth it, and you need to go download them right now.

Both of Heavy Devy’s new albums will be out June 21 via InsideOut.

-AR

Last month Heavy Devy unveiled the album art for Ghost, the soft, purdy, tongue-bath-from-a-tall-Canandian album in The Devin Townsend Project’s four-record cycle; now he’s unveiled the cover art for Deconstruction, its heavier-than-a-really-heavy-thing counterpart. It’s some real nutty shit, but that’s totally appropriate for the album, which is also completely fucking bonkers. Check it out below…

Both Ghost and Deconstruction come out June 20 on InsideOut Music. I don’t know why it’s taken us so long to gloat, but, yes, we’ve heard them, and, yes, you are going to need a mammoth box of tissues to clean up all the splooge.

-AR

Yep yep! Before we start bitching about the all the shit that’s wrong in the metal world this week, we can take a moment to appreciate something that’s oh-so-right: the slipcase art for Ghost, the final album in The Devin Townsend Project’s four album cycle. In case the rain drops against a leaf didn’t tip you off, this is the mellow album.

There’s still no release date for Ghost, or for Deconstruction, the third album in the cycle and the one that’s supposed to be heavy as a really heavy thing. But both releases are expected next year… so you have another reason not to jump off that bridge just yet!

-AR

Thanks to everyone who e-mailed us the image!

I’m so fucking hungover right now that I wanna put in a gun in my mouth and blow my brains all over the wall just to make the headache stop. So you watch this latest video updated from Devin Townsend while I go try to get my shit together and write snarky metal blog posts for the rest of the day. It’s not like there’s anything I could write to really convey Devin’s Deviness anyway.

And here’s a message from Devin which goes with the video:

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Video from the show by Bmoviesandmetal

I’d like to think I’m an okay girlfriend. I don’t do the whole creepy baby talk thing, I’m not a “woo girl” (I’m watching How I Met Your Mother while writing this and Christ. This episode is making me so happy I went to art school, because now I can handle pretentious douches so much better than drunk sorority girls who hoot at Every. Goddamn. Thing), and I don’t yell at the boy if he’d rather play a Star Wars role playing game than hang out with me. Hey, sometimes you gotta go kill an errant Jawa.

So it’s with some smug pride that I believe I lived up to the title of good girlfriend this past weekend. You see, my boy has loved Devin Townsend since high school. What better birthday gift than tickets to his show as well as entrance to the special VIP meet and greet? To top it off, we would laugh at, rather than be one of, the “metal couples.” You know who they are. Standing in a tight clinch and glaring at anyone who dares breathe their air. Haha, jerks. Whoops, just jostled you.

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Graphic for the Rock Band Network Ziltoid by Rohan Voigt, who is also doing the Ziltoid comic

I haven’t picked up my colored-button toy guitar in some time, but here’s something which may very well motivate me to play Rock Band again. From Devin Townsend’s official Facebook page:

Good news, right? But wait! It gets even better!

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So this normally where we write some fairly meaningless bullshit as an intro to our weekly recap, but reader Sean Williams sent us a link to the below video update from one Mr. Devin Townsend, and we really can’t think of a better way to kick-off the weekend. As Sean put it, “Deconstruction AND Ghost as a double record? Holy fucking shit!” And it gets “Holy shittier” when we get to hear a little bit of new music…

Here are some other fun things that happened at MetalSucks this week:

• We debuted Joe Satriani’s first Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards webisode and new music by Sweet Cobra.
• Gwar’s Oderus Urungus answered more of your idiotic questions, The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks got unnecessarily rough, Daath’s Eyal Levi pondered the meaning of sacrifice, and Rumpelstiltskin Grinder’s Shawn Riley taught us how to make delicious hot wings.
• We spoke to producer/engineer/mixer extraordinaire Mark Lewis, The Contortionist’s Jon Carpenter, and Shred Sean from Blessed by a Broken Heart.
• We checked out new releases from Dawnbringer and Merkaba.
• We helped A Day to Remember struggle with young adulthood.
• We gave Jason Newsted a shoulder to cry on.
• We got excited that Byzantine are making a new record.
• The kid of the dude from the E-Street Band is out of Madball.
• We’ve decided that when we die, we want our ashes to be pressed into vinyl.
• Can you please help us find Elote 5?

Until Monday… don’t get alcohol poisoning…

-AR

To the MetalSucks Maniac known as “Sacajewea,” we would like to say the following: YOU ARE A FUCKING RETARD. It’s incredible how retarded you are, you stupid fucking idiot mongoloid half-wit retard.

We send this message because in October of ’09, Sacajewea left a comment on the very first post we ever wrote, saying he was “Just here to dig up the past;” then he left another comment, just this past June, which read:

“I did it twice. Fuck I’m retarded. If anyone sees this please find me in a recent post and tell me how retarded I am.”

On December 26, 2006 — a date that will live in infamy — we did what professionals call a “soft launch” but we just call “the day we first posted on this blog.” Our slogan was “Smart About Metal,” a play on the slogan for Film Comment magazine.

We had these two stupid South Park caricatures that Axl made at his then-job when he was bored. (Axl forgot until just now that he had a really long goatee in ’06; Vince still had phantom Jew ‘fro, where some days he can feel it, man!) We only posted once or twice a day, throughout the week, pretty much when we had time/interest. We didn’t use tags. We often didn’t post graphics or videos. Our headlines weren’t capitalized. We interviewed members of Stuck Mojo and Twisted Sister, because that’s who we could get interviews with. Believe it or not, we tried to get an interview with God Forbid… and we failed.

Basically, we had no fucking idea what we were doing.

We can’t believe that this is our 10,000th post. We can’t believe we’re still doing this almost four years after we started. We can’t believe that so many of you are reading it. Seriously: WE WERE ONLY FUCKING KIDDING.

So…

Thanks to Kip (who has been here longer than anyone besides Vince and Axl!), Sammy, Gary, Anso, Satan (the MetalSucks contributor and the deity), Sergeant D., Bob, Leyla, Corey, Urbandale, Dave, Matt, Ferris, Dallas, Eyal, Sacha, Paul, Bulb, Arthur, Anton OyVey, Rich Hallford, David Bee Roth, Van Arseface, Mike Pattongill, Angela Gossowski, Joey V., and everyone else who has ever written for us… MetalSucks would not be where it is if not for all of you.

Thanks to everyone in the music industry who has helped us over the years, even as they must have been secretly hoping we would van flip.

And of course, thanks to all the MetalSucks Maniacs, Suckalos, annoying people who can’t use the “search” function, and dudes that have sent us death threats. We can’t tell you how grateful we are that you read our site. Thank you thank you thank you.

Now, with a complete lack of humility, Axl and Vince present their ten favorite MetalSucks posts of all time. Enjoy.

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Why, it was just Wednesday that Devin Townsend promised “Videos and clips of Ghost next week;” but genius knows no schedule, and so, as it turns out, by “Next week,” Mr. Townsend meant “within forty-eight hours.” ‘Cause this morning, he posted the above four-and-a-half minute clip of himself and some of his cohorts working on Ghost. He also posted this message:

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2009 was a pretty awesome year to be a Devin Townsend fan. First, he released two new albums, Ki and Addicted, neither of which sounded at all like the other and both of which were incredible. Then, he embarked on his first tour in a half a decade and pretty much slayed everyone in his path. Townsendy goodness rained down like mana from the heavens.

Well, break out your umbrellas, kids, ’cause Heavy Devy released a statement on Friday afternoon which pretty much lays out all his plans for 2010 – and it sounds like it’s gonna make 2009 feel like a little hiccup on the Townsend Scale. The complete statement is after the jump, but here are the highlights:

• He’s going to perform Ziltoid in its entirety, “complete with a really awesome performance,” at the Tuska Festival in Finland this July.
• He plans to do a North American headlining run in October, which means we finally get “more than 30 minutes!”
• He’s still working on the next two albums in The Devin Townsend Project’s four-album cycle, Deconstruction and Ghost. He calls Deconstruction “a triumph for me” and promises that it will be heavy, but not the way you’re thinking: Devy predicts that “it will surprise quite a few foliks that expect my current vision of ‘heavy’ to be like me in my mid 20′s or early 30′s. Deconstruction sounds like someone’s angry dad.”

I actually think Devin’s being too modest in that last part. I’ve made my dad angry quite a few times in my life, and I promise that these moments never resulted in Old Man Rosenberg making anything as awesome as a Devin Townsend album.

Here’s Devin’s statement in its entirety:

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