via Topless Robot

I would give anything for that to be the actual James Bond theme music from now on, wouldn’t you?

ANYWAY, here’s some shit we did this week:

• We spoke to Neige from Alcest and SL from The Devil’s Blood.
• Lazarus A.D.’s Jeff Paulick got pissed the Packers losing.
• We checked out the latest releases from Nails, Skin Like Iron, Fatal Birth, and No Tolerance.
• We previewed some more more Albums That Will Fuck Your Face Off in 2012: 7 Horns 7 Eyes, Crazy Lixx, Wormed, and Imperial State Electric.
• We got excited about the rumored line-ups for both Summer Slaughter and Mayhem Fest.
• We helped Godsmack, Staind, and Halestorm name their new tour.
• We enjoyed Juliet’s video for “My First Hardcore Song.”
• We suffered through a bad trip with The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato.
• We felt bad for Trivium — poor bastards have to go tour with Asking Alexandria.
• We pondered whether the shutdown of Megaupload was good or bad.

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the most up-to-date suckitude.

See ya Monday, folks!

-AR

Last week Vince posted the above totally epic picture of Trivium playing foosball against Ghost, and while we all had a good chuckle at the time, what we didn’t realize was that the stakes of the game were actually incredibly high. See, the winners got to go open for Mastodon and Opeth, while the losers had to open for.. Asking Alexandria. Brutal, right?

A source tells us that Trivium were incredibly confident in their foosball skills, but, alas, it may have been hubris: they lost, and do, indeed, now need to go be on a tour where they are not only going to be playing support for Asking Alexandria, but will find Dir En Grey, I See Stars, The Amity Afflication, and “Shitstain on the Ass of the Universe” alums Motionless in White as their tourmates. You know things are bad when the band you’re most stoked to be on tour with are Dir En Grey, for the simple reason that at least they don’t speak English, and will therefore most likely not bother you.

I’m not going to post dates for this wretched hellspawn of a trek, but you can get ‘em here if you really need to. Meanwhile, that awesome sounding Mastodon/Opeth/Ghost tour is still technically just a rumor, but we’ll post more details as we get ‘em.

-AR

This would’ve made a great entry for yesterday Photo Caption Contest, but hey, let’s have some fun with it anyway! Enter your comments below and I’ll send the winner one of my very own farts in a jar, vacuum-packed and sealed just for you.

There’s more where this one came from on the Facebook page of photographer Tim Tronckoe. Bizarre? Absolutely. Completely awesome? Definitely. I can’t imagine the circumstances that led to the specifics of this photoshoot during these two bands’ UK tour together in December (with In Flames), but I can only imagine it went something like this:

Tronckoe: Hey guys, so we’re gonna do a photoshoot. Any ideas?
Papa Emeritus:
Matt Heafy: Let’s play foosball!
Tronckoe: Uhh…
Nameless Ghouls:
Heafy: Foosball!
Papa Emeritus:

-VN

[via Heavy Blog]

UPDATED:

Hey, so you what did you guys think of the idea I posited last week for a new band ranking system? Thanks to Jason from IKILLYA for pointing out the existence of NextBigSound.com, a cool site that aggregates a lot of the data I suggested be included in the ranking, namely social network stats and other Internet metrics. While NextBigSound allows account holders to enter their own Soundscan data, I’d love to see all those things — along with torrents, merch sales, etc — combined into a single chart that’s published once a week and accessible to the industry, much like Soundscan is now. The grand picture is so much bigger than album sales now more than ever, and I think that needs to be reflected in the main chart people analyze. For the most part, it seemed like you guys were into the idea even if you questioned its feasibility.

Anyway, this week is pretty depressing sales-wise. One look at the top six records on this week’s Current Hard Music chart should make any metalhead cry. Since there weren’t many notable new albums released last week and you surely don’t wanna just read about Nickelsuck, I also included numbers of some older albums from earlier in 2011 that are experiencing holiday sales bumps.

Click to read more…

In 2006, Vince and I saw In Flames and Trivium absolutely destroy the Bowery Ballroom Webster Hall [Whoops! -AR] here in NYC (with some help from DevilDriver and Zao). The show was so good that Vince still has the poster hanging on his wall (I think — I haven’t been to the Neilstein Wing of the MetalSucks Mansion in awhile). It was the kind of show where you leave and you don’t know if that’s your sweat and blood you’re covered in or someone else’s but you don’t really care.

Now In Flames and Trivium have announced a co-headlining North American tour, so we can all re-live the magic. Of course, a lot has changed since that last time we saw the two bands share a stage, but I’m still optimistic about these gigs. Even if In Flames play a few tunes off of Sounds of My Interest Fading and No Sense of Purpose, it will just provide some sure-to-be-needed piss breaks. And support will come from Veil of Maya and Kyng to boot!

Dates are after the jump.

Click to read more…

I’m going to put about as much as effort into this introduction as Herman Cain does to sounding sane and logical.

We begin today with Machine Head’s video for “Locust,” which, in case the giant red logo in the upper right hand corner didn’t tip you off, debuted on Metal Hammer‘s website. The video ain’t too bad. The performance footage could maybe use some more oomph and I wish the Cronerbergian portrayal of what I assume is a locust or a locust-man had more payoff. Also the final apocalyptic shot looks not-very-convincing. But otherwise the depiction of the swarm is pretty friggin’ metal, and the song certainly rocks.

Click to read more…

The latest edition of Metal Injection’s “Ask the Artist” series — in which various artists are asked one uniform question (See what they did there?) —  poses the query “What are the best and worst stage moves in metal?” to various bands that were on this summer’s two biggest metal tours — Mayhem Fest and Summer Slaughter.

And it’s a great question to ask, because it’s certainly one that seems to come up in metallic circles quite a bit. Just recently, a publicist told me she understood that I didn’t like one of her bands because they played too much “breakdowncore,” and I told her the breakdowncore was silly, sure, but not as silly as they choreographed stage moves they used for each and every song. So it’s interesting to hear the thoughts of the musicians who actually have to be extra-conscientious of stage moves themselves.

Not shocking — a lot of the bands, including Trivium and Fleshgod Apocalypse, poke fun at crabcore and general scene-friendly stage moves. More shocking: so do Oceano.

Check out more of Metal Injection’s “Ask the Artist” videos here.

-AR

Last week I wondered aloud how Trivium’s first-week showing for In Waves compared to the first weeks of their past albums, and my secret Soundscam correspondent came through once again. Here’s how their past three albums performed in their first weeks of release:

The Crusade (released October 8, 2006): 31,156
Shogun (released September 28, 2008): 23,577
In Waves: 20,635

A downward trajectory to be sure, but 20,000 is still quite an impressive number in this day and age. I wonder how Roadrunner Records views it?

Onto other matters: Chimaira, Attila and Revocation all had big debuts last week. Let’s take a look.

Click to read more…

Last week wasn’t as big for new releases as this week is going to be, but we did see respectable debuts from Trivium, Adrenaline Mob and Fleshgod Apocalypse. Let’s see how those albums — and more — sold last week, after the jump.

Click to read more…

Mayhem Fest was in Dallas this past Wednesday night, and because Texas was Dime’s home state, and because Dime’s birthday would have been on August 20, headliners Disturbed did a cover of “Walk,” along with members of All Shall Perish, Trivium, and Godsuck.

Aaaannndddd… I thought you guys might wanna see it. So… now you can! Hoo-ray!

-AR

New albums from Trivium, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ceremony and thrash upstarts Diamond Plate get the Tuesday Treatment today. Let’s take a look at those and more after the jump:

Click to read more…

We’re just a couple of weeks away from the release of the new Trivium, In Waves. And so two new songs, “Built to Fall” and “Black” (the latter of which the band has already been playing live), have now been released to radio, which is just an old-fashioned way of saying they’re on YouTube. You can check ‘em out below. I neither love nor hate both tracks; I’m starting to think that Trivium albums are gonna be like the original Star Trek film franchise, where the even–numbered releases are the best ones.

But have a listen and decide for yourself. Here’s “Built to Fall”…

…and “Black” is after the jump.

Click to read more…

I wasn’t really feeling it with “In Waves,” the title track from Trivium’s new album — but I think “Inception of the End” is way, way betterer. It sounds to me like it could have come off of Ascendancy; I’m sure there are fans who argue that this fact makes the song a step backwards from Shogun, but I really don’t mind one bit. Ascendancy is probably still my favorite Trivium album.

Check out “Inception of the End” below and let us know what you think in the comments section. In Waves comes out August 9 on Roadrunner.

-AR

I’m going to put about much effort into this introduction as Vince Neil puts into having a designated driver.

First up today is Weedeater’s new video, for ”Mancoon/Turkey Warlock,” which debuted over at Brooklyn Vegan. Guys, this is probably the best video you’re going to see today. It’s done in the style of a silent film, which isn’t a new idea, but the execution is great. And the storyline to the video is funny — basically, there’s a giant racoon (Mancoon) who wants the band to… eat large sandwiches. Hm. Anyways, clip ain’t embeddable, but you can check it out by clicking on the below screen cap.

Click to read more…

Axls calleds me earlys thees mornings. Havents spokens ins a longs times.

“Hey, dude, check out the new Trivium song,” he says ins his disgustings accent. “There’s a section toward the end that sounds kinda black metall-y! Rad! Killer! Awesome! Okay, catch ya later!”

I thinks: “Dids he says ‘Trivium’ to mes?”

But Is listens to the song anyways.

Its wills be a longs time befores I speaks tos Axls again.

-NC

“Dusk Dismantled” appears on Trivium’s new album, In Waves, which comes out August 9 on Roadrunner.

I’m not a huge fan of the new Trivium single and title track for their upcoming album, “In Waves,” and based on the comments I’ve seen around the site, it seems like you guys aren’t that into it, either. But if you like me, you dig Trivium, and you’re hoping there’s gonna be some material on In Waves that does get your blood pumpin’.

And maybe it will be one of these songs! The band performed four new tunes at a recent show in Birmingham, three of which — “Capsizing The Sea,” “Dusk Dismantled,” and ”Black” — we haven’t actually heard before. And and because Apple hasn’t implemented a way to stop people from filming concerts on their cellphones just yet, footage of those songs is now on the internet, for your premature judgment.

So here’s “Dusk Dismantled”…

…and here’s “Black”…

Click to read more…

I really like Trivium, but their latest single, “In Waves,” is just not my cup of tea. That being said, I still feel the need to tip my hat to ‘em, because both the cover art for their new album, also called In Waves, and the video for that song are pretty cool. And I fucking hate everything and everyone, so the fact that I’m saying “Gee, I don’t really like this song but I still think this other stuff is neat” should come across as a glowing recommendation.

Here’s the cover art…

…and you can check out the video, which debuted earlier today on AP, after the jump.

Click to read more…

If you’re American, you already know it’s Memorial Day weekend, and, in fact, you’re probably either already on your way to the beach/a BBQ/a terrible summer movie/whatever, and are reading this after it was published. If you’re not American, all you really need to know is that we’re breaking out right now, and won’t be here on Monday. Usual tomfoolery will resume on Tuesday, May 31.

In the meantime, here’s how we kept busy this week:

• We debuted new music from Job for a Cowboy, Tombs, Unearth, and Vaulting.
• We spoke to Neil Fallon from Clutch.
• We continued to unveil our list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists.
• We checked out the latest releases from Dark Castle and Embers.
• Sergeant D. examined comedy metal.
• Leyla Ford examined Lady GaGa’s metal-ness.
• Anso wondered if Slayer pinball is better than recent Slayer albums.
• We got really excited about the new Gojira song.
• We got less excited about the new Bury Your Dead song.
• We watched you folks debated about the new Trivium song.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to put these tips for using the toilet to good use before I head out for the weekend. See ya Tuesday!

-AR

I’m gonna keep this short n’ sweet: Trivium released a new song over the weekend, called “In Waves,” and it’s pretty different for a Trivium song.

But that’s all I’m gonna say about it. I don’t want to influence the debate in the slightest. We got a lot of e-mails about it over the weekend, but, rather other oddly for MetalSucks Maniacs, no one expressed an opinion regarding the track’s quality. And given that this song sounds nothing like “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr,” or “Entrance of the Conflagration,” or “Kirisute Gomen,” I am really, really, really curious to hear what you all think of it. I imagine opinions will be, as is always the case with this band, both passionate and disparate.

So check it below, then engage in some friendly debate in our comments section. The new Trivium album is supposed to come out August 9 on Roadrunner.

-AR

Usually I really hate “trailers” for new albums, ’cause, uh, like, what? A trailer for an album? No no no no no. You make trailers for movies, not albums. It makes sense to show an audience only a snippet of footage ’cause you’re really selling a story and you need to see a whole story for it to make sense and that story will be best enjoyed if you know as little as possible going into it. But with an album, the teaser should just be the single. Just play me a song. It won’t ruin the rest of the album to hear one complete song, and if I like it, I will want to hear the rest of said album. So, yeah, album trailers are dumb.

All of that being said, there is an exception for almost every rule… and so I’m posting this Trivium teaser, ’cause it’s pretty awesome. For one thing, I dunno if the footage is for a behind-the-scenes DVD or what, but holy shit, it’s not ugly. For another thing, the bluesy acoustic guitar stuff that serves as the soundtrack is killer. Obviously the whole album won’t sound like this, but I hope this track appears on the record in some form or another, be it as an intro or an interlude or whatever.

By the way, in case you’re scratching your head going “Why the heck are Trivium recording on some weird ass farm?”, that’s the (in)famous Audiohammer Studios in Florida. It just looks like a weird ass farm.

Trivum’s new album will be out later this year on Roadrunner.

-AR