And now, another installment of the hardcore festival news round-up known as Pit Romney!

Over the weekend, the folks behind Seattle’s Rain Fest made their initial line-up announcement, being the first of the Spring/Summer season’s crop to do so. In addition to performances from 2011 fest alums Losing Skin, Oblivion, Rotting Out, Wisdom In Chains, Wreck, and Xibalba, 2012′s iteration will also boast sets from Backtrack, Clarity, CodeXRed, Cold World, Dead End Path, Earth Control, Expire, FocusedXMinds, Incendiary, Soul Search, Strain, Trapped Under Ice, and Twitching Tongues. So far a solid lineup, though noticeably missing legacy acts or headliners. (Last year’s fest featured 7 Seconds, for example.) Another round of acts will be revealed February 15, at which time the 3-day passes for this May 25-27 event will go on sale.

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Sai Nam
TBA
Label – Reaper Records
Release date – Winter 2012

Wanting to close out 2011 right, I hit up New York’s Highline Ballroom for the almighty Cro-Mags’ annual end-of-year gig. I arrived at the venue earlier than anticipated, my curiosity piqued over the first act of the night: Sai Nam. A so-unlikely-it-just-had-to-happen collaboration between Mike Dijan (Breakdown, Crown Of Thornz, Skarhead), Lou Medina (Breakdown, All Out War), and Justice Tripp (Trapped Under Ice), the group played its debut show to a receptive if docile audience–save for a little boy who appeared to be Dijan’s son. As this past summer’s sick sick sick teaser track “Comeback” promised, Sai Nam’s set showcased a hard NYHC aesthetic deftly blended with Tripp’s rapid-fire vocals. I have little doubt that once people become familiar with the material, the crowd response will soon reflect the stage-diving pit mania of a TUI gig.

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FEATURING MEMBERS OF LACUNA COIL, TRAPPED UNDER ICE, ALLEGAEON, CULTED, MILLIONS, BIRTH A.D., AND NIGHTFALL

Every year year, MetalSucks asks musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year have been. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of nine to ten musicians at a time twice a day for the whole week.

After the jump, check out the first group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

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Trapped Under Ice, Big Kiss Goodnight (Reaper)
Baltimore isn’t the first city that comes to mind when talking about hardcore. Yet the brisk, fulminant rise of Trapped Under Ice compels us to take notice of Charm City. You don’t listen to Big Kiss Goodnight; you benchpress it, each of the thirteen cuts a document of Justice Tripp’s eyes-wide-open rage. More to do with NYHC than that of nearby D.C., Trapped Under Ice appear to be the long-awaited spiritual successors to Madball’s empire. The issues Tripp covers certainly aren’t the exclusive domain of his hometown; they’re the same problems countless young Americans are struggling with today, where politicians’ inability to govern leaves an entire generation saddled with no foreseeable future. On “Victimized”, when Tripp shouts “The American Dream is a lie / That’s why I say ‘I was born to die’” you know he believes it. So do the band’s followers.

(4 out of 5 horns)

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News flash: radio rock still sells. While most readers of this site will probably be disappointed to see the HUGE numbers sold by this week’s #1 and #2 Current Hard Music chart-toppers, there’s better news elsewhere in the form of debuts from Skeletonwitch, Charred Walls of the Damned and a ton of other bands you see listed down below in the “tags” field. Click through to learn more.

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Friendly reminder: as of RIGHT THIS SECOND, the legendary Richard Christy from Death, Iced Earth, Control Denied, and, oh yeah, The Howard Stern Show, is at the MetalSucks/Vertebrae 33  booth at New York Comic Con signing copies of Charred Walls of the Damned‘s ridiculously rocking new album, Cold Winds on Timeless Days, which is out NOW on Metal Blade Records. He’ll be there ’til 7 pm, so there’s still time for you to hop on a bus, subway, or in a cab and get your ass down there — we’re booth #2625. Myself and/or Vince are also there now, and will be there tomorrow and Sunday, too, and we may have some other special guests in store for you yet. So come on by, pick up some free swag courtesy of Indie Merch and Metal Blade, hang out, whatever. It’ll be a blast! Get all the details here.

And now, some other fun shit we did this week:

• We premiered a new live recording of Death’s “Leprosy” and new music from Trapped Under Ice.
• We spoke to Grutle Kjellson from Enslaved, Rex Brown from Kill Devil Hill/Pantera/Down, producer Shane Frisby, and Skateboard Marketing’s Munsey Ricci.
• Valient Thorr’s Valient Himself occupied Wall Street, GWAR’s Dave Brockie gave us the blow-by-blow on the NFL, and Eyal Levi from Dååth and Levi/Werstler and Audiohammer Studios got all Pacino-in-Heat on us.
• We checked out the latest releases from Warbringer and Årabrot.
• We continued The Countdown to The Metal Suckfest and launched a contest in which you can win some sweet swag and a meet and greet session at the show.
• We watched some inter-Emmure drama unfold.
• We begged Sasha Frere-Jones from The New Yorker to stop writing about metal forever.
• We enjoyed the use of Nine Inch Nails in the new trailer for The Avengers.
• We got excited about Cynic’s new line-up + song.
• We celebrated the best Dragonforce cover ever.

Have a terrific, relaxing weekend everyone. See ya Monday, if we don’t see ya at NYCC!

-AR

We have a decent amount of new stuff this week, including quality releases from Skeletonwitch, Black Cobra, Hull, Fuck The Facts and more. This writer’s opinion on all of it after the jump.

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Over the long weekend, I seized on the opportunity to snag a copy of Trapped Under Ice’s sophomore effort Big Kiss Goodnight at their New York City release party. The record, stuffed with beefy riffs and instantly memorable hooks, quickly found its way into heavy rotation in my home. But what kind of guy would I be if I didn’t share the love with you all?

Here, then, in all its streaming glory is “Outcast”. One of the darker tracks off the record, the cut has a real classic Madball vibe throughout, both musically and lyrically. I’ll have a lot more to say about this record later this week when my review goes up on the site. But don’t wait until then–check out “Outcast” immediately and be sure to cop Big Kiss Goodnight today on CD or vinyl.

-GS

via Badass

Reading the comments under our announcement of The Metal Suckfest has been a lot of fun — mostly because the predictions regarding which other bands will be on the bill have been so very, very wrong. Hopefully we’ll get to announce a few more bands next week, but in the meantime, you cats need to try harder and be a little more imaginative when speculating.

And while you do that, here’s how we kept ourselves amused this week:

• We debuted new music by Today is the Day, Monstro, and, thanks to our friends at Decibel, Skeletonwitch.
• We also debuted a new video by Venia.
• Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable and Borknagar’s Jens Ryland both weighed in on the Century Media/Spotify drama.
• We spoke to Chimaira’s Mark Hunter, Dead Letter Circus’ Kim Benzie, Trapped Under Ice’s Justice Tripp, and three of the dudes from Fleshgod Apocalypse.
• We checked out the latest release from Wizard Smoke.
• We examined the evolution of deathcore.
• We felt bad for the sixteen year old who just got fired from Design the Skyline.
• We got excited about the Black Sabbath reunion, until we found out that it’s not confirmed yet.
• We carefully examined the first promo photo of Metallica with Lou Reed.
• We continued to count down  31 Days of Faith No More.

Until next week… eat your vegetables, stay in school, don’t drink and drive.

-AR

Without question, Trapped Under Ice is one of the biggest bands in hardcore today, an impressive coup given their relative newcomer status compared with established scene leaders like Hatebreed, Madball, and Terror. Through hard work, hard touring, and undeniable talent, the Baltimore band have somehow managed to fight their way to the top riding the wave of their 2009 game-changing LP Secrets Of The World. Their forthcoming follow-up, the ominously titled Big Kiss Goodnight, has already garnered considerable excitement among hardcore fans. A few days prior to this past weekend’s This Is Hardcore festival (review here), I seized the opportunity to speak in depth with TUI frontman Justice Tripp about the new album. That interview is available for your enjoyment below the cut.

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S.O.S. are a bonafide hardcore supergroup featuring current and former members of Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Madball, Terror, and Trapped Under Ice. And, for once, a supergroup has lived up to expectations, and is more than just the sum of its parts. S.O.S.’s forthcoming EP, I Owe You Nothing, seems like a love letter to hardcore, a respect-laden tribute to the bands that inspired and creatively challenged its membership. Or, put more simply: this shit rips.

MetalSucks is proud to debut “Never a Brother,” one of the tracks from I Owe You Nothing, which you can stream below. The album comes out today via Goodfight Entertainment (as we exclusively reported it would back in March). You can order it from Good Fight in a variety of editions here, or get a vinyl version from Reaper Records here. And if you haven’t already, be sure to check out our interview with S.O.S. guitarist Matt Henderson (also of Agnostic Front, Blind Approach, and Madball fame) here.

[this streaming promotion has ended]

At this year’s Black N Blue Bowl, performers gave shout-outs to Trapped Under Ice so consistently that it became absurd that the Baltimore hardcore act wasn’t even playing the event. (They did play a rather memorable set at last year’s fest.) The band’s rise can only be described as meteoric these past couple years, but apparently that’s not enough for these guys. Drummer Brendan Yates fronts the SGT D APPROVED Turnstile, which recently released the Pressure To Succeed 7″ on Reaper, while guitarist Sam Trapkin is part of S.O.S., the supergroup we can’t stop talking about featuring dudes from Hatebreed, Madball, and Terror.

Now, TUI frontman Justice Tripp has gotten into the act with SAI NAM, a new project featuring two notable names in the world of NYHC: guitarist Mike Dijan (Breakdown, Crown Of Thornz, Skarhead) and drummer Lou Medina (Breakdown, All Out War, District 9). Justice first hinted about this project some months back via Twitter, but this week the band unveiled one of their tracks via Soundcloud and Facebook. “Comeback” is a barbed-wire wrapped brick of a track, and if this is what SAI NAM is all about, then I’m game for the pit beast of an LP these guys have in them. Check it out below.

Comeback by SAI NAM Band

-GS

Agnostic Front. Blind Approach. Madball. Guitarist Matt Henderson made his mark on all of them, and in doing so, on the still-thriving institution that is hardcore. It seems downright criminal that his name isn’t mentioned in the same sentence as Greg Ginn, given that most bands in the scene these days sound more like 90s Madball than Black Flag. Not that it matters to Matt, mind you, as I learned in my chat with this down-to-earth guy. Industry-hardened yet still affable, he’s more interested in S.O.S., the project he’s formed with members of Hatebreed, Terror, and Trapped Under Ice. The veritable supergroup’s forthcoming I Owe You Nothing EP seems like a love letter to hardcore, a respect-laden tribute to the bands that inspired and creatively challenged its membership. While we have to wait until June 21 for the Good Fight / Reaper release (pre-order here and here), Matt’s answers regarding the band as well as his place in the history of hardcore are worth reading.

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S.O.S., the new hardcore supergroup featuring current and former members of Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Madball, Terror, and Trapped Under Ice, have a new song, “Part of the Disease,” streaming over at Stereokiller. And while I do not really spend all that much time listening to hardcore these days, I gotta say, I’m digging this. It’s simple , it’s catchy, and it’s short. Kinda like that midget in Vegas who gave me the clap.

You’re moshing here. As our own Gary Suarez exclusively reported in March, S.O.S. have signed with Goodfight Entertainment, who will releases the band’s debut, I Owe You Nothing, on June 21; Reaper Records will release a vinyl edition that same day.

-AR

Last month, I told you about S.O.S., a bonafide hardcore supergroup featuring current and former members of Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Madball, Terror, and Trapped Under Ice. Obviously, a band with that sort of pedigree surely couldn’t stay unsigned for very long. You’ll read it here first, folks: S.O.S. has partnered with Good Fight Entertainment, home to The Chariot, Disembodied, and, oh yeah, Madball.

Sometime in late Spring/early Summer, Good Fight will drop S.O.S.’s first release, an as-yet untitled CD-EP. (Hardcore elitists, fear not, Reaper Records will cover the vinyl.) But you can finally hear what the band sounds like in this awesome (and yes, exclusive) video below featuring the band recording with producer Dean Baltulonis (Goes Cube, Madball, Sick Of It All) at Wild Arctic Studios in Queens, NY. This short preview should leave no doubt in the hearts and minds of hardcore fans that this is going to be fucking solid.

-GS

The change was imperceptible to those not paying attention. The rugged MF Doom-dominated hip-hop soundtrack that had prevailed in-between opening sets shifted abruptly as the opening squall of The Afghan Whigs’ “Honky’s Ladder” unexpectedly burst from above, signaling the imminent onstage arrival of Baltimore’s Trapped Under Ice. Members milled about onstage giving the gear last minute strums and bangs as Greg Dulli’s menacing lyrics poured from Santos Party House’s booming PA system. The crowd, most of whom in 1996 would have been watching Barney And Friends rather than appreciating the raucous yet soulful sounds of the Whigs, hardly seemed to notice. During the final minute of the song, frontman Justice Tripp emerged, goading audience to move up and fill the wide-open space near the front of the stage.

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As a world-renowned music journalist, I am subjected on a daily basis to a barrage of emails from bands and publicists, all pleading for me to type something on their behalf. Each morning after my standing massage appointment, I set aside some time (usually 6-8 minutes) to quickly scan devote considerable attention to these promotional notices in case one would for make a juicy MetalSucks blog post. Lo and behold, in the latest Reaper Records update I found such a newsworthy item.

If you’ve read the headline of this post, then you’re already ahead in the game, kiddo. It seems that Terror frontman Scott Vogel and drummer Nick Jett have joined forces with Hatebreed bassist Chris Beattie, Trapped Under Ice guitarist Sam Trapkin, and noneother than Matt Henderson formerly of Madball and Agnostic Front. (If you don’t recognize who Matt Henderson is and why this is a big deal, catch up on your hardcore history here.) The most unexpected hardcore supergroup since Hazen Street, the appropriately named S.O.S. have yet to release any music, yet their very existence will bring excitement to all who care about metallic hardcore. Rumors of the group’s existence have been circulating for some time and the band’s Facebook page (which doesn’t even mention who’s in it!) is more barren than the cast of Sex And The City 2. A 7″ is due out this May on Reaper.

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Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

Click to read more…

Well, the line-up for this year’s New England Metal & Hardcore Festival — one of the oldest and most revered extreme music fests in the U.S. — has been announced, and it’s… interesting. The fest returns to a three-day format after being only two days last year, but if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that the initial day will be a Thursday, not a Friday. And as reader Brian Kessler pointed out to us via e-mail, there are two noteworthy aspects to the lineup:

• It seems like metal and hardcore have been further segregated on the bill — Thursday appears to be almost entirely dedicated to deathcore and crabcore bands, Friday seems to be entirely devoted to hardcore bands, and Saturday is dominated by metal bands. There are pros and cons to this approach — the pro being that if you’re only a fan of one particular style of extreme music, you can cherry pick which day you’re going to attend, and the con being that new fans are less likely to be exposed to bands with whom they were not already familiar.
• There seem to be fewer “big name” acts. Sure, Hatebreed and Biohazard are on there, but that’s still a far cry from years’ past. In fact, plenty of big name who have new albums scheduled to come out this year — like Amon Amarth, DevilDriver, Arch Enemy, In Flames, and Children of Bodom — aren’t playing the fest.

Please note that I’m not knocking the fest — in fact, I think Saturday, April 16 is full of killer bands — and I don’t think every fest needs to be headlined by a band of Megadeth’s stature. I just think this particular line-up is… interesting.

Anyway, here’s the full bill:

Click to read more…

If you’re one of those people who read this site every day (God bless you, you fucking masochists!), you may have noticed a lack of premium content from yours truly these past couple of weeks. That’s because I’ve been in Japan soaking in neon, dining on fresh sushi, and recoiling in horror at the perverse underbelly of otaku. I did manage to hit up a few rock bars in Osaka (Rock Rock — check out who else has been there!) and Tokyo (Beat Cafe), but otherwise this was a pretty metal-free trip–and that’s okay with me.

So, shit, man. Quite a bit happened in the wonderful world of hardcore while I was away! Ruiner broke up. This Is Hardcore 2010 finally revealed its drool-inducing lineup and sold out in less than two days. (I wasn’t able to get my tickets in time, sadly.) Unsane announced a series of U.S. dates where they’ll play 1995′s awesome Scattered Smothered & Covered live in its entirety. Notable releases included Ceremony’s Rohnert Park, for which I’ll be posting a review later this week. Some pretty awesome tours were announced as well. Check out the dates for some of these below.

Looking forward to your “Welcome Back” sentiments in the Comments section!

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