MetalSucks

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.

Click to read more…

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.

Click to read more…

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.

Click to read more…

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.

‘Cause the muthafuckin’ man himself, Trevor “Heartburn” Strnad, is going to call in. He’ll be discussing BDM’s excellent new album, Deflorate (in stores now!), taking questions from other callers, and participating in MI’s patented “Death or No Death” game, where you try to guess which death metal band names are real, and which ones are fake. The last time Rob Pasbani and the gang played that game, it was with The Red Chord’s Gunface, and he won. Can one Metal Blade artist who likes to act silly out perform another Metal Blade artist who likes to act silly? You’ll have to tune in to find out!

The show starts at 8 pm EST tonight; you can listen by going here. The Metal Injection Livecast is on Wednesday nights now, not Fridays, so you’re shit out of excuses to miss it!!!

-AR

GOOD MORNING! I’ve got good news, very good news, great news, and really great news. Ready? Okay, here we go:

Click to read more…

Meet Meek is Murder, the new (by way of old) project featuring guitarist Mike Keller (ex-The Red Chord), drummer Frank Godla (Empyreon, Dividing Light) and bassist Sam Brodsky (sorry dude, I’m sure you were in some cool bands too but I can’t find any info about them). Here’s their new video for “Hope Springs Eternal”; as Kip might say, it’s batshit crazy. Bands this talented and creative don’t come along often. The song’s only 1:23 long, so just click and listen… what have you got to lose?

Meek is Murder’s debut album Mosquito Eater drops this fall.

-VN

Where the hell does the time go? The year is more than half over already! Sheesh.

ANYWAY, here are, in alphabetical order, albums that have really knocked my socks off so far this year…

Click to read more…

Like the characters in Martin Scorsese’s awesome cops n’ gangsters undercover thriller The Departed, Greg Weeks is from Boston. He doesn’t actually have one of those great MA accents, but, hey, you take what you can get.

Which must why our hetero life mates at Metal Injection selected Weeks to go undercover at this year’s Maryland Deathfest, going into the crowd “to get the fans to explain to him what metal is tr00ly about.”

The results are, needless to say, hilarious. Check it out:

-AR

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! How ya doin’? Good, good.

You know what’s better than coffee? Another bootleg of a new song by The Red Chord! This one was filmed in Budapest. I have no idea what the song is called, but it will be on the band’s new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, which Metal Blade will release later this year.

And even if you don’t dig The Red Chord for some reason, you should watch the beginning of this clip just for Guy Kozowyk’s on-stage musings. The dude might be second only to Frank Mullen and Mikael Åkerfeldt for stage banter.

You can watch a clip of another new song by The Red Chord, “Floating Through the Vein,” here.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

Metal Blade will release The Red Chord’s new album, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, later this year. In the meantime, guitarist Mike “Gunface” McKenzie is shooting and editing an in-studio diary for our friends at Metal Injection.

Watch part four below. You can check out part one here, part two here, part three here, and a new song, “Floating Through the Vein,” here.

-AR

The Red Chord’s new album now has a name, Fed Through the Teeth Machine, which is, um, interesting.  Metal Blade will release the album later this year, but in the meantime, guitarist Mike “Gunface” McKenzie is shooting and editing an in-studio diary for our friends at Metal Injection.

Watch part three below. You can check out part one here, part two here, and a new song, “Floating Through the Vein,” here.

-AR

Not much to say here: Metal Injection captured The Red Chord performing a new song, “Floating Through the Vein,” at Maryland Deathfest a couple of weeks back. And, uh, here it is!

The Red Chord should have a new album out later this year. Get excited.

-AR

The Red Chord guitarist Mike “Gunface” McKenzie is shooting and editing an in-studio diary for our friends at Metal Injection chronicling the making of the band’s new album, which will hopefully drop later this year.

Here’s part two; you can still check out part one here.

-AR

The Red Chord guitarist Mike “Gunface” McKenzie is shooting and editing an in-studio diary for our friends at Metal Injection chronicling the making of the band’s new album, which will hopefully drop later this year.

When we interviewed Red Chord bassist Greg Weeks last year, he described the band’s writing and recording process thusly:

“We all get in a room and yell at each other about stupid shit and then painstakingly put riffs together even though it kills us a little bit each time… We argue, we each want it done our way, we smell, we curse, we bleed all over the place, I kicked someone, let’s eat, we yell, we hate the way other people breathe, cannon ball, kitchen craft, we ignore suggestions, we’re ugly and Santa was there, too.”

Hopefully we’ll get to see some of this insanity in upcoming episodes of Gunface’s diary. In the meantime, here’s his first entry, which documents some drum tracking:

-AR

Metal Injection just posted this video interivew with Guy Kozowyk from The Red Chord. Vince and I were standing just off-camera, obnoxiously watching the interview take place when we probably should have been minding our own business, and at the time, I thought it was one of the funniest, most honest interviews I’d seen recently; I’m glad to have now discovered that it holds up even if you’re not in the room. Guy is not only insanely entertaining, but he’s brutally honest in a way a lot metal musicians would never be – to wit, see his thoughts on Suicide Silence and deathcore in general. Even if you don’t agree with him, you gotta admit, this is some funny shit.

Also, clearly “The Panteradactyl” should be the hot new dance move in the mosh pit.

By the way, in case you’re somehow not in the know, Metal Injection has loads more cool interviews and live footage and lotsa other shit. Go visit them. It’s what all the cool kids are doing.

-AR