MetalSucks

I think I’ve mentioned like a bajillion times already that my favorite song on my favorite album of 2009, The Red Chord’s Fed Through the Teeth Machine, is “Hour of Rats.” And because sometimes life is a bitch, I haven’t gotten to see the band since that album was released, and, consequently, have yet to see a live performance of the song. But those hep cats at Metal Injection got some live footage of the band during a recent stop on the MetalSucks sponsored Burgers & Bowling Tour, and so now at least I can live vicariously through a camera.

This is also the first live footage we’ve seen of the band since original drummer Mike Justian returned to the fold. Needless to say, it sounds like he’s doing a pretty good job.

You can watch more footage from this show at Metal Injection.

And there are still three dates left on the Burgers & Bowling tour! Get ‘em after the jump! If you have a chance to go see these guys live, you definitely need to!

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As I’ve stated many times in the past, I’m a huge fan of Guy Kozowyk’s lyrics. So I know the words to The Red Chord’s “Demoralizer” pretty well, and I think I have a pretty good understanding of the meaning – or at least a meaning – of the song. And I think I understand the meaning – or at least a meaning – of the new video for the song, which recently debuted on Bloody Disgusting.

What I don’t entirely understand is how the meaning of the song, at least as I understand it, and the meaning of the video, at least as I understand it, intersect. And I’m not sure that they intersect in an obvious, linear way – I know that Kozowyk is a big fan of double and triple meanings.

But I’m willing to watch this video dozens of more times to try and figure it out. Director David Brodsky found a pretty awesome way to ensure that the performance footage wouldn’t just be the same old same old, and artist Tim Kellen – who has previously collaborated with Brodsky on the videos for Suffocation’s “Cataclysmic Purification” and Born of Osiris’ “Now Arise” – created animation (which serves as narrative aspect of the clip) that is grimey and gritty and unique and distinctly “home made,” for lack of a better term. And Bloody Disgusting says that Kellen “used charcoal, meat, grape jelly, and chicken-guts in his illustrations,” which is metal as fuck.

So even if the exact “meaning” of the video isn’t of importance to you… well, you’ll probably still enjoy this video, because a) the song is great and b) visually it’s incredibly stimulating, and puts 99% of other recent metal videos to shame.

The Red Chord are currently headlining the MetalSucks co-sponsored Burgers & Bowling Tour with My Children My Bride, Chelsea Grin and Those Who Lie Beneath. Get the remaining dates after the jump!

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Well I had a heckuva afternoon, what with a horde of Veil of Maya fans all e-mailing me at once to express their upset that VOM’s new song wasn’t up at the time we said it would be. But it’s up now, and we think that the track, “Namaste” – not “Dexter,” as our stupid audio player says – is terrific. You can listen here and join in on the fun.

Here are some other fun things that happened this week:

• We did a Jew on Jew interview with Orphaned Land’s Kobi Farhi and released the audio of Vince’s confusing interview with Andrew W.K.
• One of As I Lay Dying guitarist Nick Hipa’s theories about L O S T was correct!!!
• Bob Cock thinks Armour are AWESOME.
• Dave Ellefson has returned to Megadeth!
• The Ultimate Warrior rules, and The Red Chord agrees.
• Anthrax’s Worship Music finally a release date: the fifth of never.
• If you have a child, don’t do this.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

-AR

Do you like burgers? Do you like bowling? Do you love The Ultimate Warrior and have a strong desire to listen to loud, obnoxious death grind and kill every fucking thing in your fucking way? Well then you’ll love the MetalSucks co-sponsoried Burgers & Bowling tour! It’s being headlined by The Red Chord, who are one of our most favoritest bands in modern metal, and My Children My Bride, Those Who Lie Beneath, and Chelsea Grin are on all on the bill, just to sweeten the deal. Plus, if you don’t go, we’re sending The Ultimate Warrior to your house to fuck your mom and put you in traction. Just throwing that out there. Y’know. No pressure.

Complete list of dates after the jump. These shows are gonna be INSANE.

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MAJOR props to MetalSucks Maniac “jwaal,” who e-mailed me about this wwwaaaayyyy back in October. I always meant to write about it but basically completely forgot to, even though it’s a brilliant observation.

So let’s back it up for a minute. When I was a kid, before I discovered metal, I was a HUGE wrestling fan. I guess I always liked big sweaty dudes with long hair and lots of make-up, I dunno. But my two favorite wrestlers were Lex Luger in the WCW – who we named our family dog after (no shit) – and The Ultimate Warrior in the WWF. I guess that’s why I have no problem with the concept of corpse paint.

The Warrior was a madman, capable of bouts of berzerker rage that would annihilate all in his path. The man beat Hulk Hogan, which, believe you me, was a big, big deal at the time. And because I was a young ‘un, I didn’t really realize that very little of what he said actually made any sense. To wit, this highlight reel of some of The Ultimate Warrior’s finest quotes:

How does all of this relate to metal, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you how: because of the brilliant poetic mind of Guy Kozowyk, front man for The Red Chord.

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Last night it was announced that drummer Brad Fickeisen is out of The Red Chord, but we had no idea why he was out of The Red Chord. Well, Brad just e-mailed us the following statement explaining the split:

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For reasons I do not currently know, drummer Brad Fickeisen is out of The Red Chord. That’s a bummer, ’cause the dude is a good drummer, and played on Clients, Prey for Eyes, and Fed Through the Teeth Machine.

The good news is that Mike Justian, the band’s original drummer who played on Fused Together in Revolving Doors, has re-joined the band, at least for now. And anyone associated with Fused is okay in my book.

None of this will effect the band’s upcoming MetalSucks-sponsored Burgers & Bowling Tour, which will start kicking ass and taking names this Thursday. So get out to one of those shows if you can and help welcome Mr. Justian back to the band!

-AR

Alright! After an initial slow news week, 2010 is finally start to get back into the swing of things. Here are some highlights from this week:

• Vince got an exclusive interview with Obituary/ex-Andrew W.K. drummer Donald Tardy about the AWK conspiracy mystery. We also spoke to Richard Christy and Pelican’s Larry Herwig.
• We debuted new music by The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza, Karnivool, and Blood of the Tyrant.
• Dallas is giving away free music, Eyal’s faith in metalheads has been restored, and Justin pontificated on the format wars.
• These Arms Are Snakes are done…
• …but System of a Down are reuniting! Or maybe not. But maybe.
• The dude from Weedeater shot himself in the foot. Literally.
• We’re sponsoring The Red Chord’s Burgers & Bowling tour!
• Underoath don’t like abortions.

Next week we’ll have some previews of 2010 releases we’re stoked on for you. And Vince is gonna be in sunny Los Angeles, so you poor-ass muthafuckas is stuck with me. BWA-HA-HA-HA!!!

-AR

Last week we told you about the awesome Burgers & Bowling tour, which will be headlined by The Red Chord with support to be provided by Mychildren Mybride, Those Who Lie Beneath, and Chelsea Grin. Well, today we’re proud to announce that we’re sponsoring the tour, which means we can personally guarantee it’s going to be kick-ass. But, then, The Red Chord have the Midas touch – everything they come into contact with turns to kick-ass.

Get a complete list of dates after the jump. We’re so excited for this thing we can’t even tell you.

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Holy shit, do I wanna see The Red Chord play a full headlining set. If you ask me, Fed Through the Teeth Machine was the best album of 2009, and I wanna hear them play a substantial portion of it – but I also wanna hear them play a substantial portion of their other records, too. That’s gonna take more than thirty minutes I think.

Luckily, the band has announced a headlining trek: the Burgers & Bowling tour will find TRC with support from Mychildren Mybride, Those Who Lie Beneath, and Chelsea Grin, who, for better or worse, I once made fun of while playing “Thrash It or Trash It” on the Metal Injection Livecast. Oh well.

The tour doesn’t seem to have any dates especially close to the Mansion, so I’m considering driving to South Hackensack, NJ. SOUTH HACKENSACK. The Red Chord will make a man do crazy things.

Complete list of dates after the jump.

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Photographer Jacqueline Cheng (who also took awesome shots of Rob Zombie for us last month) was on hand at Gwar’s show with The Red Chord and Job For A Cowboy on December 13th at New York’s Irving Plaza (we refuse to call it “Fillmore”!). Gwar were their usual, interesting-looking selves while apparently Guy and Greg Weeks from the Red Chord now think they’re in Iron Maiden and are wearing their own band t-shirts on-stage. JFAC had lots of tattoos and stretched earlobes and metal faces. Pics after the jump!

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I’ve really been digging The Red Chord’s Fed Through the Teeth Machine lately. REALLY digging it. It was impressive on first listen, sure, but it’s also a grower. I was over in the Axl Annex of the Mansion earlier this week with the vaporizer, and Axl pointed shit out to me that I’d never heard in the music before. Gotta love an album that you’ve listened to a dozen times in which you can still find new shit you’ve never noticed before. This is a record that I found impressive from the get-go, but the more I listen the higher up it goes on my already-crowded year-end list.

Cosmo Lee [Chris Rowella! Thanks guys.] at Invisible Oranges rightly identifies Fed Through the Teeth Machine as a big step up from The Red Chord’s previous effort Prey for Eyes. He also rightly identifies Fed Through the Teeth Machine as fucking awesome, only he uses bigger/more words and actually tells you why he thinks so. Go read his review of the record, and as a bonus stream two tracks from the record over at Invisible Oranges.

Seriously, guys: great fucking record. Don’t be a sucker and miss out.

-VN

Vince and I finally got to see Revocation live a few weeks back, and not only are they just as good in-person as they are on record, but they just look like a bunch of normal dudes – which we love, being relatively normal-looking dudes ourselves. Seriously, just to look at this band, you’d never really know what they recently released one of the best metal albums of 2009. (That would be Existence is Futile, in case ya didn’t know.)

This weekend the band filmed a video for the track “Dismantle the Dictator” with director David Brodsky (Who had a very busy weekend – he also did the video for The Red Chord’s “Demoralizer” in the same forty-eight hour period!), and now our fellow metal connoisseurs at Metal Injection are giving away a FREE download for the mp3 of that song. It’s totally killer, so go get it, suckas!!!

Existence is Futile is out now on Relapse.

-AR

There’s a lyric in the song “Hour of Rats” from Fed Through the Teeth Machine, the album by The Red Chord, and this particular lyric has really taken hold in my brain as of late: “WE’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER TOO LONG TO BE FRIENDS.” What a simple, beautiful statement that I can 110% relate to these days. Hm.

Speaking of The Red Chord…

• We’re streaming The Red Chord’s new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, through Monday! It’s awesome, so definitely give it a listen, then go buy it when Metal Blade releases it on Tuesday, October 27! We also spoke to The Red Chord’s Mike “Gunface” McKenzie.
• We got a European tour wrap-up from Chimaira’s Mark Hunter, had a nice chat with Kowloon Walled City’s Jason Pace, and even played nice with Oceano’s Andrew Mikhail.
• Lord Gold from Horse the Band graced us with another awesome tour blog, Eyal discussed physical CDs, and Dallas explored the evolution and importance of deathcore.
• We checked out new releases from Converge, Ancestors, and Smite the Righteous.
• Janet Reno quit Attack Attack!
• We’re fairly certain that Dave Mustaine is still a Megadick. Actually, we’re positive.

Have a good weekend everyone…

-AR

Last week we gave Fed Through the Teeth Machine, the incredible new album from death/grind/prog pioneers The Red Chord, four out of five horns, and, honestly, we’re not even sure that that’s a high enough rating. Certain to make many year-end lists, Fed Through the Teeth Machine displays The Red Chord doing what they do best: defying expectations, breaking genre conventions, and tearing the listener a new asshole.

Metal Blade will release Fed Through the Teeth Machine this coming Tuesday, October 27, but as always, MetalSucks has ya covered: we’re streaming the entire album now through Monday, so you can hear how awesome it is before you buy it. We hope you love it as much as we do.

And while we’re on the topic, why you don’t read our interview with The Red Chord’s Gunface about the making of the album?

[This promotion has ended. -Ed.]

If there’s any justice in the world, The Red Chord’s excellent new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine (read my four out of five horns review here), will cement Mike “Gunface” McKenzie’s status as one of his generation’s great guitar gods while introducing his truly unique playing to scores of new fans. Now The Red Chord’s sole axe slinger, Gunface really steps up his game on Teeth – the riffs and solos on this album are easily some of the year’s very best.

That being the case, I was very, very excited to have the opportunity to e-mail some questions to Gunface earlier this week. He follows bassist Greg Weeks and vocalist Guy Kozowyk as the latest member of The Red Chord to humor me by answering some truly idiotic (and hopefully a few intelligent) questions (I’m sure we’ll get to drummer Brad Fickeisen sooner or later). After the jump, get Gunface’s thoughts on the creation of Fed Through the Teeth Machine, writing solos, his various side projects, the value of the Death Star, and more.

Fed Through the Teeth Machine is out October 27 on Metal Blade.

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Pretty big week here at the MetalSucks Mansion. We laughed, we cried, we fired someone, we rocked out with our cocks out. Here’s a rundown of the highlights:

• We debuted a new song by The Devin Townsend Project, a new video by Skeletonwitch, a new song by Javelina, and the cover art for Sigh’s new album.
• Horse the Band’s Lord Gold blogged about Nawlins and cocaine, God Forbid’s Doc Coyle gave us an exclusive statement about that whole cup throwing incident, Dallas Coyle is giving away music for free, and Daath’s Eyal Levi talked about a run-in with the Polacks and drum triggers.
• We spoke to Dethklok’s Brendon Small, Converge’s Jacob Bannon, Gojira’s Joe Duplantier, and Liturgy’s Hunter Hunt-Hendrix.
• We checked out new releases from Baroness, The Red Chord, Skeletonwitch, Immortal, Vains of Jenna, Vampire Mooose, and Javelina. Also, some asshole really likes Oceano.
• We’re sponsoring the incredibly awesome Tyrants of Evil North American Tour 2010 with Arch Enemy, Exodus, Arsis, and Mutiny Within!

Alright. I’m going to see Where the Wild Things Are now. I’m fairly certain that it is going to make me weep like Gary Suarez. See ya Monday.

-AR

Only history will tell us for sure, but I suspect that The Red Chord’s 2002 debut, Fused Together in Revolving Doors, will end up being regarded as one of the most influential metal records of its time. Its title is truly appropriate; it’s not a death album, it’s not a grind album, it’s not a hardcore album, it’s basically just a “play whatever the fuck we want album.” There are now hordes of bands aping it, and most of them are doing a shit job.

Meanwhile, three albums, seven years, and a whole bunch of line-up changes later, The Red Chord are just as uncompromising and self-assured in their vision. I have no idea what a teeth machine is – apparently it has something to do with zippers – but Fed Through the Teeth Machine certainly makes me feel as though that’s exactly what I’ve experienced.

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Axe to Fall, Converge’s once-again excellent new album, is yet another stylistic shift: the majority of it is devoted to the band playing harder and more technically than they have in their post-Jane Doe era, while the closing two songs finding them venturing further away from their comfort zone than they ever have before. But even though guitarist Kurt Ballou darts all over the fretboard more than usual, vocalist Jacob Bannon changes nothing about his performance, from the breathless rambling on opener “Dark Horse” to his trademark pterodactyl-like shriek over the course of the album. But this isn’t to say that he’s in a state of creative stasis while the rest of the band moves outwards: Bannon’s hellacious scream is just as much a part of Converge’s uniqueness as is Ballou’s nimble riffing. Bannon’s work on Axe to Fall is as savage as it’s ever been, and once again adds weight and disturbing depth to the album’s metallic hardcore-fueled chaos.

Jacob Bannon’s place in metal, hardcore, and—for better or worse—metalcore is massive, with his trademark vocals incalculably influential and lyrics favoring the abstract over the melodramatic. Even outside of Converge, Bannon manages to be prominent, with a successful visual art career and running hardcore label Deathwish Inc. A surprisingly normal sounding (at least in terms of how he sounds on record), introspective guy, Bannon comes off as both wise about the metal and hardcore world while still impressed by and interested in it. In a lengthy interview with MetalSucks, he discussed the musical and lyrical intricacies of Axe to Fall, his approach to artwork in comparison to his vocal work, and people’s changing attitudes toward heavy music as they age.

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The Red Chord’s new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, is every bit as brutal and baffling as its title would suggest. And I mean “baffling” as a compliment, by the way. This band has zero interest in doing anything besides whatever the fuck they want to do, and they’ve yet to run out of steam. Fed Through the Teeth Machine will continue to cement their reputation as innovators – leaders, not followers, of the genre. If they even fit into one genre. Which, really, they do not. This is very much still the band that made Fused Together in Revolving Doors, even if the line-up is different.

Our Broman Polanskis* at Metal Injection are now streaming a brand new track off the album, “One Robot to Another.” It’s actually one of my favorite songs on the record. So please stop reading this now and go listen to it.

Still here? I said GO LISTEN TO THE FUCKING SONG, dick.

Fed Through the Teeth Machine comes out October 27 on Metal Blade. I’m gonna try and get a review up before the end of the week.

-AR

*Full credit to Ben Apatoff at Metal Injection for coming up with that. The man is truly a comic genius.