Only 10 days ago I expressed my wish that The Haunted frontman Peter Dolving would resume writing his intellectually stimulating / Internet flame war-starting MySpace blogs; and lo and behold, this morning I awoke to a new blog entry in my RSS readers simply titled “On Religion.”

Dolving on religion… yup, I knew this was gonna be a good one before I even read it. And big shocker, Dolving thinks religion is bunk and suggests those who follow it be committed for mental illness. But ever the positive thinker, Dolving also offers reason, logic, and some theories of his own. Rarely have I ever read someone’s thoughts on religion that so closely resemble my own:

However I have a question and a thought; When Life in itself is so perfectly chaotic and out of our hands, why not just enjoy the ride?

The wondrous random glory and enchanting playful harmony; Improbable, yet most observable sweetness of this universe is astonishing beyond words. So why soil it with such trite gibberish as religious ritual, faith-based law or even the utterly ridiculous and pathological humbug that is religion. Any religion. At all.

I believe powerlessness, fear, and sorrow is the reason for man’s weird makebelieve psychosis.

Written by the hand of a skilled lyricist in prose that perfectly captures the issues at hand. Of course, if you disagree you could always just ask ICP what they think about scientists and magnets.

As if you needed an invitation… comment with your thoughts below. The Haunted’s Road Kill DVD is out now; we’re streaming a clip from it here and giving away a copy here.

-VN

Kirk Windstein is a poet. Of this, there can be no doubt. Since Kingdom of Sorrow took over our site on Tuesday, Vince and I have decided we really, really wanna take a trip to New Orleans and just go eat with the dude (well, probably get high and then go eat with the dude). But secretly, I have aspirations of someday being able to pay the man to teach my children how to speak good. I can dream, can’t I?

Here’s some other shit that went down in the Mansion this week:

• We debuted a clip from The Haunted’s new DVD, Road Kill.
• We also debuted new music by Early Graves.
• We spoke to Stephen Carpenter from Deftones.
• Ken Sorceron from Abigail Williams doesn’t wanna talk shit about Winds of Plague, so instead he just left a comment on our site saying “it its embarrassing to once again see our name next to theirs on another metal news site.” Way to not talk shit, Kenny!
• We checked out a new release by Black Pyramid.
• Sergeant D taught us about the history of metalcore and screamo.
• We engaged in debate about the new Maiden song, the new Maiden setlist, and the old Maiden album art.
• The new Methods of Mayhem song is the worst thing ever.
• Rose Funoral finally spoke out about the Uno Incident.
• Vince thinks the BP oil spill is Korny.

Next week will bring some more streams, interviews with Max Cavalera and Bobby Blotzer, and more self-righteous rage over fairly trivial topics. ‘Til then…

-AR

Describing Swedish melodeath supergroup Witchery back in May, Vince wrote that “their sound is decidedly thrashy; think faster Slayer-style with hints of death metal influence.” Maybe that explains why, as much as I admire these dudes’ day jobs, I’ve never gotten that into Witchery. I don’t think they’re bad; they just don’t do much for me. It’s telling that my favorite Witchery song is “Ashes,” a trick which is in no way indicative of their sound.

The band also plays up the melodeath aspects of the music on “From Dead to Worse,” the new song they’re streaming on MySpace, which must be why I like it. It’s not nearly as epic as “Ashes,” and I may very well forget how the chorus goes ten minutes after I finish writing this. But it’s definitely a good song.

Check it out for yourself. Witchery’s latest, Witchkrieg, is set for a June 29th North American release via Century.

-AR

Holy shit, you guys are sad. NO CORRECTLY IDENTIFIED LAST WEEK’S LOGO, which belonged to a band a called Proctalgia. But literally, every single person got it wrong. Oh well. At least no one guessed it was Slipknot’s logo.

So. That means I still have two copies of The Haunted’s new DVD/CD set, Road Kill, to unload. (And in case ya haven’t seen it, we have an exclusive clip from the DVD here.) So you fuckers better try harder this week!

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select two winners and announce his or her names next week.

Because you guys are pussies who can’t handle your shit, I’ve chosen a really, really easy logo this week, which was suggested by reader Ryan Schutte. Don’t fuck it up.

-AR

If you read MetalSucks regularly, then you already know how much we love The Haunted. Which is why we’re stoked to bring you this exclusive clip from their new DVD/CD, Road Kill, which was released in North America yesterday via Century. In case ya hadn’t heard, this two-disc set comes with On the Road with The Haunted, a 65-minute documentary directed by guitarist Anders Bjorler; a 40-minute live set from Amsterdam; six music videos; and a CD with the audio from the Amsterdam show, plus five bonus tracks. If you’re a fan of awesome Swedish metal (and who isn’t?), then you need a copy of this. Order a copy here.

And now, without further adieu, enjoy the clip…

[This exclusive has now ended.]

About two hours before I was scheduled to interview The Haunted’s Peter Dolving at the 2009 incarnation of New England Metal & Hardcore Fest, Van Arseface gave me a pot cookie. The homemade kind that’s loaded with green oily goodness and stinks up the entire room. I ate one. And then I pulled the classic “this isn’t working, let me eat another” move after half an hour… and so I ate another. And thirty minutes after that I was flying. FLYING. The kind of flying you experience only from eating too many pot-infused desserts, where your brain turns to mush and you feel it actually disconnect from your body. And I had to somehow keep it together to interview Dolving, the man I was most looking forward to speaking to at the whole festival, in less than an hour. Yikers.

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Horns up for Ashley Foster, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the awesome grind band Owen Hart. Ms. Foster wins a copy of 20 Years of Century Media: 1991 -1995, the first of four planned comps celebrating the illustrious label’s anniversary. Congrats, Ashley!

Now, because The Haunted’s new DVD, Road Kill, is coming out in North America a week from today, and because it was such a popular prize the first time we gave some away, we’ve got more two copies to unload this week. In case ya hadn’t heard, this two-disc set comes with On the Road with The Haunted, a 65-minute documentary directed by guitarist Anders Bjorler; a 40-minute live set from Amsterdam; six music videos; and CD with the audio from the Amsterdam show, plus five bonus tracks. If you’re a fan of awesome Swedish metal (and who isn’t?), then you need a copy of this.

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select two winners and announce his or her names next week.

This week’s logo was suggested by MetalSucks Maniac Gerrito Dreher. Thanks, Gerrito!

-AR

Last week we offered up two copies of the super-sweet limited edition clear vinyl Monolith/Voyager split that’s coming out June 8th on new label Science of Silence Records. For their witty captions to the photo at right, the following two MS readers are the lucky ones who will receive this prize in the mail:

• SourDeez: “I see my ex-girlfriend hasn’t gotten over her thing for skinny blond guys.”
• Mutt Weiler: “While you were shouting at the devil, I was in the living room with Satan.”

These week we’re offering up five copies of The Haunted’s new Road Kill DVD; it actually doesn’t hit North American stores until June 8th (though it’s already out in Europe). Just come up with a funny caption to the below photo, and make sure to comment with (or include in your comment if you’re logged in through FB connect) a real email address.

Okay, straight-up, I am always seriously disappointed in you cats when so few of you are able to actually identify a band logo. Last week I had two copies of The Haunted’s awesome new DVD, Road Kill, to give away, but only one entrant – reader Alex Aguiar – was able to correctly identify the band in question as Ultimo Mondo Cannibale. So Alex wins a DVD, and now I still have one to give away this week. GET IT TOGETHER, PEOPLE!!!

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select one winner and announce his or her name next week. Even though Road Kill is already out in Europe, it doesn’t come in North America ’til June 8, so please note that the prizes won’t ship until a week prior to that date.

Reader Elijah Bliss sent in this week’s logo… thanks, Elijah!

-AR

Horns up for MetalSucks Maniac Alec Goldberg, who correctly identified last week’s logo as belonging to the band Excrement Cultivation. I don’t know why you’d wanna cultivate excrement, but, uh, there ya have it. Alec wins a copy of Brian Posehn’s awesome new Relapse release, Fart and Wiener Jokes. Don’t hurt yourself laughing, Alec – that CD is dangerous.

This week our friends at Century Media have donated a couple of copies of The Haunted’s upcoming DVD, Road Kill, to give away! This two-disc set comes with On the Road with The Haunted, a 65-minute documentary directed by guitarist Anders Bjorler; a 40-minute live set from Amsterdam; six music videos; and CD with the audio from the Amsterdam show, plus five bonus tracks. If you’re a fan of awesome Swedish metal (and who isn’t?), then you need a copy of this.

All you have to do to win is identify the name of the band whose logo appears below, then shoot me an e-mail at axl AT metalsucks DOT net with your answer, your name, and your address. From everyone who gets it right, we’ll randomly select two winners and announce his or her names next week. Even though Road Kill is already out in Europe, it doesn’t come in North America ’til June 8, so please note that the prizes won’t ship until a week prior to that date.

This week’s logo once again comes from Mr. David Foust…

-AR

At the Gates’ new, triple-disc DVD, The Flames of the End, was released in Europe earlier this year, but we finally get it here in North America tomorrow. And I can tell you, it’s a must-own: the first disc consists of an incredible feature-length documentary, Under a Serpent Sun: The Story of At the Gates, which was directed by guitarist Anders Bjorler ; the second disc is the band’s complete reunion performance from Wacken ’08 (clip above); and the final disc is a whole heap of other live footage, some of it dating as far back as 1991. It’s an amazingly comprehensive package that no At the Gates fan can afford to miss.

Back in February, Bjorler actually flew to New York for a special screening of the Serpent Sun documentary, and a few hours prior to said screening, I got to meet Bjorler at his hotel for an interview. As I said, I hadn’t actually seen the film yet at this point, so I was only able to get so specific with the questions. Still, Bjorler turned out to be an honest, interesting, and deeply sarcastic (and deadpan) interview subject. Read the full transcript of our chat after the jump…

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I’m really, really disappointed in you, male MetalSucksians. After reader Ashley sent in some epic photos of herself in a MetalSucks hoodie and not very much else, I predicted we’d get an identical pic from a wise-ass dude by the end of the week. Nope. Either no one thought of it, or no one had the balls to do it. For shame. And now what are the three ladies who actually read this site to look at? Pics of Lars Ulrich’s dick?

Oh well. Here are some other things that happened this week:

• We debuted new music by Daughters, Woe of Tyrants, Stigma and Nails.
• As I Lay Dying’s Nick Hipa wondered “Who is coming to the island on L O S T?”, while Eyal pondered whether it’s better to burn out or fade away.
• We listened to the God of War EP and new releases by Shining, Burzum, and H.I.M.
• Antonin Skullia taught us about the law of Metalocalypse.
• Did this shitty Matthew Fox show steal The Haunted’s logo?

And next week I expect you, our beloved readers, to be back up to your usual level of witty repartee.

-AR

Okay, so in all fairness, this isn’t really the L O S T star’s fault – but I don’t know the name of the graphic designer/marketing genius who did this, so I’m unfairly placing the blame with the dude whose face is on the cover. And if Matthew Fox thinks that’s unfair, I’m sure his millions of dollars and fucking of strippers will ease his pain.

ANYWAY, you’re familiar with the logo for The Haunted, no? In case you somehow are not, here it is:

And are you aware that prior to L O S T (but after Party of Five), Matthew Fox appeared on a television series called Haunted? You’re probably not, since it was cancelled in 2002 after just twelve episodes. But those episodes are coming to DVD, and I just saw the cover art for said collection. Ready? Here it is:

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Last week, during one of my daily perusals of this very blog, I came across a rather scathing recounting of Killswitch Engage’s self-titled album, which came out earlier this year. This caught me a bit off guard, as I considered it to be one of my favorite albums of the year and a step in the right direction from Daylights Dies, which was at first very disappointing but grew on me after some time. I was even more surprised when I saw that most user comments tended to agree with the blog entry.

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Vince is in Kentucky scouting land for a SECOND MetalSucks Mansion and against the advice of Gary Suarez and my own instincts, I’m off to see Terminator Salvation. We shan’t be posting Monday ’cause it’s Memorial Day, but we’ll be back Tuesday. In the meantime, here’s some shit that happened this week:

• We did a video interview with IWRESTLEDABEARONCE! We also spoke with The Haunted’s Peter Dolving, God Forbid’s Doc Coyle, and Unholy.
• We stole Daath’s Eyal Levi away from Headbanger’s Blog.
• Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima graced us with another totally excellent studio blog.
• Corey Mitchell says this is the best album of the year so far.
• Fuckface Durst finally went too far.

As Baz would say, “I’ll be Bach.”

-AR

I should’ve known that my interview with The Haunted’s Peter Dolving would come off as more of an armchair philosophy session than a by-the-numbers band interview. But that’s where I was hoping the interview would go, and that’s where it went. Dolving is your atypical metal frontman, as anyone who reads his blogs on the regular should be able to infer. Dolving was thoughtful, measured and articulate in his thought, pausing frequently to make sure the words he uttered carried the meaning he intended, and was anything but the macho metal man you might expect if your only exposure was seeing him perform on stage with The Haunted.

Dolving sure had a lot to say. He spoke about why touring musicians are inherently dysfunctional, what he did while the brothers Bjorler toured with the reunited At the Gates (“Cried a lot… I really did spend a lot of time last summer in a little crawled up package whimpering with a lot of snot involved.”), what it was like for him to go through therapy, what he hopes to accomplish via his controversial writing, the interactive nature of the Internet and how that affects communication, the haters on Blabbermouth (“… there is so much ignorance involved in the internet community.”), and the difference between having knowledge and being smart. Like I said, a philosophy session.

I’d eaten a “special” cookie a couple of hours before the interview that took a while to kick in, and I was kind of worried I wouldn’t be able to hold it together… but I think I pulled it off. This was the interview I was most looking forward to at the festival, and I’m quite happy with the results. Read our whole chat, after the jump.

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Seriously. Ever since Metal Hammer gave us that Web of Death thing, I’ve been knee-deep in pussy. Incredible. It’s amazing that I’m even able to type right now, I’m so worn out. And that’s why you start a website. For the groupies.

Which brings me to my next point: now that we’re famous, we don’t want to be friends with you anymore. Don’t take it personally, we just prefer to rub elbows with other fabulous, famous people. You were great on the way up, but now? Fuck you. M’kay?

Here’s what else went down this week:

• We spoke with Lacuna Coil’s Christina Scabbia, and managed to get through it without embarrassing ourselves too badly.
• Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima wrote another awesome guest blog from the studio, begging the question: is Dr. Mikannibal’s diet hot or not?
• The Haunted’s Peter Dolving lashed out against Lamb of God; you lashed out against Peter Dolving.
• NEW CONVERGE SONGS! NEW CONVERGE SONGS! NEW CONVERGE SONGS!
• Someone actually played IWRESTLEDABEARONCE’S “Tastes like Kevin Bacon” for Kevin fucking Bacon.
• How many Andrew WKs are there, anyway?

Alright. I’ve got like ten girls clawing at me right now, beckoning me back to bed. I’ll see you Monday, if they’ll give me a rest, already.

-AR

Dallas may be laying off the haterade as of late, but thankfully Peter Dolving is always there in a pinch to take a big, giant swig of the Internet’s favorite, venomous beverage. In his latest rant sent to us in a press release, The Haunted frontman tells you why you should come see his band on their MetalSucks-sponsored North American tour (also featuring Merauder and The Agonist), and takes a swipe at Lamb of God as being part of the big, bad, generic, corporate metal machine:

Seriously folks. You could go out and see any of a number of bands in the next four weeks. What you’ll receive will of course be generic deliverance of generic metalcore by the numbers and certainly you won’t be more than slightly disappointed. The big one this time around out there being the Lamb Of God tour. Which will according to business-planned management crawl itself around the North Americas for the next year and a half or so like a big snake. You could dig that shit and think ‘Holy mutherfucking hell! That shit rocks!’ or you could go and see the Haunted once and for all prove what metal is all about. But only if you want to have a good time. Only if you want to feel alive. Only if you like that feeling of actually realizing everything is not fucked utterly and beyond belief. But I guess if you are a sad, self-pitying son of a bitch you won’t go. Oh what the hell, really, don’t go. Most of those who read this don’t really give a shit anyway do you? You’d rather stay in a saline filled tank fed intravenously with a constant intake of whatever, whoever carries the biggest gun and wad of dollars has to say wants to feed you.

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Seriously, does anybody have worse luck than this poor dude? First Nachtmystium weren’t able to complete last year’s tour with Opeth, then they’re kicked off of the free Scion fest for some bullshit about Nazis (which, for the umpteenth time, is NOT TRUE), and now the band has to drop off their upcoming, MetalSucks-sponsored tour with The Haunted because Judd has broken his leg. Says the band:

“Sorry to anyone hoping to see us in April! After this whole bullshit fiasco with the Scion Rock Fest a few weeks back, and now this, it’s been one thing after the other around here. Fear not, we will be back soon enough.”

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By all accounts, the Meshuggah / Cynic / The Faceless tour earlier year was exactly the masturbatory dude-fest it promised to be from the get-go. With a lineup like that, how could it be anything less than completely mindblowing? Before the show I had the opportunity to catch up with Meshuggah guitarist Marten Hagstrom. I asked him about the touring lifestyle, how the band’s sound has evolved and changed over the years, Meshuggah’s now near-legendary cult status, and one question that really got his goat about the hoardes of Swedish melodic death metal bands that have grown to popularity in recent years. Our chat, after the jump.

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