After 13 years as a band and eight studio albums, Thrice have decided to take a break. My interest in Thrice has waned over the years — and I’m sure I’m not alone in that amongst metalheads — but I always respect a band that’s constantly changing, evolving, and pushing new boundaries, and Thrice were most certainly one of those (rare) bands.

No one fucked anyone’s girlfriend, got in a fight on the bus or became a pill-popping psycho; on the contrary, the reasons the band gives are pretty standard. Tired of being on the road, desire to settle down, wanting to spend time with family, etc. No drama. Here’s part of a statement from singer/guitarist Dustin Kensrue, posted on Noisecreep:

Thrice is not breaking up. If nothing has broken us up by now, I doubt anything ever could.

However, we will be taking a break from being a full-time band, and the upcoming tour in the Spring will be the last one for the foreseeable future.

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Just a few releases this week including phenomenal new records from Opeth and The Atlas Moth, as well as some less phenomenal releases from Thrice and more. All the details after the jump.

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Thrice aren’t metal or really even close anymore, yadda yadda, we’ve already been down that road. Last time I posted about Thrice a number of you commented that you were fans, and a few even mentioned discovering the band when we extensively covered their Alchemy Index album suite back in 2007/2008. And so:

Thrice’s new album Major/Minor is streaming in full at AOL Music (still a thing). It continues along the same fork in the road Thrice suddenly swerved onto starting with 2005′s Vheissu, which is to say it’s more like edgy / heavy indie rock than it is the post-punk / screamo the band built their foundation on. This is certainly nota bad thing; I’ve enjoyed some modern-day Thrice even though Artist in the Ambulance is still “it” for me. And I’m enjoying Major/Minor. Some of these songs are super-catchy; I’m on my second full listen and I’m already humming along with the melodies.

Major/Minor comes out today and is available for purchase on CD, Vinyl and Mp3 at Amazon. Thrice will kick off a headlining tour with Moving Mountains and others on September 30th. Dates follow:

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[UPDATE, 3pm EDT: Now including Thrice track embed.]

MetalSucks is nothing if not diverse in our taste in metal, so much so that it’s not uncommon to see comments calling us hipster douchebags and mainstream panderers in the very same post. Hey, we can’t help it if we enjoy all sorts of metal. We also enjoy chicken, red meat, vegetables, fruit AND seafood: go figure!!

In order from least to most heavy, let’s listen to brand new tracks from Thrice, Saviours and Century:

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It’s a little known fact that MetalSucks co-jefe Vince Neilstein (pictured here with partner Axl Rosenberg) is a power-mad tyrant who controls the MS writer corps with manipulation and implicit threats of violence. Yeah, he seems like a cool guy, really, but would you believe that he can intercept my brainwaves via mobile phone? Or that I’m certain he is responsible for the invisible helicopter that’s been following me since St. Patty’s? Oh, you think I’m crazy? And paranoid? So, okay, I see you’d have me believe it’s just coincidence that my favorite toothpaste went on sale the day after I bought a tube. Wake the fuck up, dude. It’s all Neilstein. He’s everywhere and nowhere, an evil puppet master always wanting more, more, MORE from the once-mighty writers whom he has enslaved. Cross him and pay the price.

Well, mind control must be draining Neilstein’s lifeforce lately because the usual neighborhood dogs haven’t accosted me and barked his commands since last month, when an unleashed great dane warned me to “rop riting arout rAerosmith ror relse.” No, now he’s keeping it simple, all casually mentioning The Apex Theory in MetalSucks last week as though he had no knowledge of my secret, shameful plans to revive print discussion of that very band on this very site. Sure, an unsuspecting reader will see his Apex piece as an innocent bit of pithy writing, oblivious to the coded messages within that order us MS underlings to forgo rest and hygiene to write endlessly about stuff like the impact of Steve Vai-era Whitesnake and The Top 10 Worst Metal Bands Whose Cumulative Age is 95. How can you all be so blind?

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The Bled are streaming their entire new album Heat Fetish on their MySpace page and it’s everything I’d hoped it would be. Most importantly it’s fucking heavy, by far the heaviest thing this band has ever done. It’s a lot of other things as well, but you’ll have to check it out for yourself to find out.

This record’s got equal heaping of early Thrice and modern Dillinger Escape Plan, and because The Bled are above just ripping off their heroes there’s plenty of their own flavor on The Heat too. I’m especially digging the tracks that we’re just now hearing for the first time. “Need New Conspirators” and “Shouting Fire in a Crowded Room” are rocking my speakers at the moment, but nearly every song so far’s got something to offer. I can’t wait to get my hands on this record and really learn it. Definitely one of my favorite records so far released in this young year of 2010.

-VN

Another day at Harpo’s Theatre in Detroit: white metal bands, black neighborhood, beefed-up security, and glaring eyes – nothing says “Welcome to Michigan” like playing here. Although forward-thinking on the racial front is lackluster at best, we still have a very prominent and devoted metal crowd ready to use the few dollars they have left to buy a ticket and get shit-faced.

It is here, during the MetalSucks co-sponsored Thrash & Burn tour, that I recently had the opportunity to interview a band that seemingly everyone at MS has been jizzing their pants over: Periphery.These guys just got signed with Sumerian, and THANK GOD. They can absolutely shred, and even if you’re not too keen on clean vocals, I think you need to get the stick out of your ass and check these guys out ASAP.

Their soon-to-be “mass appeal” is more then I would normally advocate. Nonetheless, just because they will most likely be your younger sister or brother’s favorite new band (if your sister of brother is totally bad-ass), they may also be yours as well. There is no way you can deny their talent. Everything about this band is correct. Everything is in motion. They are insoluble. They are the lime in your tequila. They just… work.

The band’s founder, Misha Mansoor, is not only super-talented, but also gives his music away. For free, as Kip Wingerschmidt recently informed us. And not just one or two songs, either – over one-hundred tracks, in studio-quality audio. If that doesn’t convince you to check them out, then you need to check yourself off. Get it?

Either way, Misha and go-guitarist Alex Bois were so very gracious to sit down with me in their conversion van and tell me all about how they got to where they are now, and where they are going to go. I would assume they might dominate most of the Sound Scan posts here at MS in 2010. But hey, to be fair, so will Miley Cyrus. So don’t listen to me, I just have a vagina and I am really, really cool and super smart.

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Last Tuesday was a huuuuge week for new metal releases. Megadeth, Black Dahlia Murder, Shadows Fall, Living Colour, Dying Fetus, Porcupine Tree, Every Time I Die, Thrice and Ace Frehley all released new albums, and all charted in the Top 200! After the jump, let’s look at where they all ended up.

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Thrice are something of an enigma, a band that’s refused to ever stay the same. The Irvine, CA-based foursome started out as a metal-influenced heavy punk band that incorporated more and more progressive elements into their music with each album. 2005′s Vheissu took a complete left turn by adding indie and electronic elements, a path down which the band ventured even further on their 2007/2008 4-part album suite The Alchemy Index. Beggars, their latest offering, incorporates all of their prior influences and stretches their indie wings still wider, still experimenting with new sounds and expanding their fanbase.

A few weeks ago I spoke with drummer Riley Breckenridge about the band’s constantly evolving career arc, public and critical perception of this change, the new album Beggars and its super-early leak, consuming music in the digital age, and what the band hopes to accomplish in the near and distant future. Our chat follows.

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Behemoth vs. Winds of Plague; Poland vs. America; Corpsepaint vs. wigger hats; ugly men vs. hot chick; real metal vs. deathcore; substance vs. gimmick. Who won????

The answer, as well as more of this past week’s metal Soundscan chart positions and sales figures, after the jump.

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Is Twitter the new Facebook (if Facebook was, in fact, the new MySpace)? MetalSucks isn’t gonna wait to find out, and has now officially joined 2008 by signing up for Twitter (follow us!). In case you’re over the age of 20 and not yet hip to Twitter, Twitter is a social networking site that’s basically just the “status update” section of Facebook with everything else stripped away. Users can update their profiles with short messages and links with quick updates about what they’re currently doing (140 characters or less), from a web interface or from their mobile phone. Musicians have begun dabbling in the world of Twitter, and, naturally, this provides loads of entertainment for us.

Aside from the obvious humor inherent in a bunch of br00tal metal dudes doing something that’s called a “Tweet,” some notable metal musicians are already ensconced in the world of Twitter. And what’s cool about it is that you know, at least until marketing department heads become hip to it, that you’re getting a direct link to the actual person. When Vernon Reid Tweets about the guy that designed his custom pedalboard, you know it’s him. When Fred Durst Tweets about a tattoo of Frankenstein he’s getting… uh, you know it’s him, for better or worse. Let’s look at what some notable quotables in the metal world are saying on Twitter:

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Today is the third big Tuesday in a row, and it’ll be the last for a while; new releases in the metal world are at a minimum over the coming weeks with a few notable exceptions (among them Textures). But fear not, because some truly awesome music came out today.

It’s a big day for death metal; to start, we have Arsis with their long-awaited We are the Nightmare (read our interview with bassist Noah Martin) and Soilent Green’s Katrina-inspired Inevitable Collapse in the Presence of Conviction (read Axl’s interview with Soilent Green’s Brian Patton). Embrace the End released Ley Lines, and Thine Eyes Bleed released their self-titled disc (read Axl’s review). In the melodic death category we have Blooddrunk from Children of Bodom, which is as solid a Bodom album as any (read my review).

Apocalyptica, the cello metal band who cut their teeth covering Metallica, put out their first album of all originals (minus one), Worlds Collide, with the single “I’m Not Jesus” featuring Corey Taylor; the song is apparently the #6 charting song on Active Rock radio (who knew?). Emo-turned-metal-turned-avant-garde-rockers Thrice released the third and fourth parts (Earth & Air) of their Alchemy Index concept album suite, and the results are exceptional.

Some of you might also like to know that Rush released their double live-disc Snakes & Arrows Live as well. Yee-haw.

What’s your favorite release to come out today?

-VN

Parts I & II (Fire and Water) of Thrice’s Alchemy Index suite were two of the most impressive release of the second half of 2007. The band is readying the third and fourth installments — Air and Earth — to be released together on April 15th, and from the samples available on their MySpace page these mini-records look just as promising as the first two.

When Thrice announced they’d be releasing a four-part concept album based on the four basic elements I was a bit skeptical; would the band continue some of the excessive noodling of Vheissu or would they tie it all together in a more cohesive form? So far they’ve been remarkably successful with the latter, and I’m greatly looking forward to hearing the second half of their ambitious project.

The Vagrant Records webstore currently has a pre-order available for only $8.99.

-VN

Hard-emo-core turned crazy prog rockers Thrice have a new video for “Digital Sea” from the Water disc of their recent double disc release, The Alchemy Index: Vol I & II.

I’m not quite sure what this video is implying… that our habitual supermarket shopping makes us slaves to the 1′s and 0′s of the digital world? Something like that. Visually it’s quite simple, but damn cool. I love the one camera angle approach. And the stop-motion stuff is classic.

-VN

[coming back soon - stand by] 

Monday is usually a day off, which on tour usually means a very long drive day…so it’s usually pretty chill in the van. Lots of sleeping. We love Thrice, and this one, off of The Alchemy Index Vol . 1 & 2: Fire & Water, is perfect to just kick it, pass a pipe around and relax.

Thrice – “The Whaler”

Visit Arsonists Get All the Girls on MySpace.

For better or for worse, oftentimes bands abruptly change directions after releasing one or several albums, prompting fans that have been with the band from the very beginning to ask “What the fuck?” Thrice is such a band. After their 2002 breakthrough The Illusion of Safety Thrice released The Artist in the Ambulance in 2003, a more polished and cohesive piece that was the next logical step in the band’s development. But what followed was a complete about-face that left many of the band’s original fans feeling betrayed — 2005′s Vheissu was a sprawling, experimental album that explored many different styles and textures, of which the band’s original post-hardcore / proto-emo sound was only a small part (The Alchemy Index, of which Vol I & II were released this October, follow in that direction). Enter Tucson, Arizona’s The Bled, who appear to have taken the melodic post-hardcore torch from Thrice, creating an album in Silent Treatment that could well stand in as a heavier modern day Thrice release — had that band not gone off the creative deep end.

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The new Thrice album The Alchemy Index, an ambitious four part concept piece, comes out today. Well, half it anyway — Volumes I & II, entitled Fire and Water (Vagrant), are in stores today, while Earth and Air are expected some time in Spring 2008.

If you’re not sold on Thrice’s awesomeness from their first few albums, listen to Fire and Water in their entirety on the band’s MySpace page (up for a limited time only). I recommend the scathing “Firebreather.” While the vocals may be too emo-y for some, I can’t emphasize enough the complexity of this band’s music and arrangements — they are really, really excellent songwriters and musicians. Not to mention, heavy as all fuck when they want to be.

Existing fans of Thrice might also want to check out this audio interview that was conducted last night by our pals over at JamNow.com.

-VN