I’m going to put about as much effort into this introduction as…

Yeah. THAT much effort.

ANYWAY, we begin today with ”Illumination,” the video for the title track for the free EP Immolation are giving away right now via Scion A/V. This not-especially-spectacular performance video debuted on Noisecreep, but, again, it’s Immolation and  Get Out of Jail Free card and really who cares you should go download the goddamn EP because it’s great and did I mention it’s free?

Scion A/V Presents: Immolation “Illumination” from Scion A/V on Vimeo.

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As you might guess from the header image, I am anything but a Christian. That said, I’ve always been a huge fan of both Christians and their music — the vast majority of them are genuinely nice, thoughtful, considerate people who are great to be around and a positive influence on everybody. I love them! And when it comes to music, for whatever reason, they’ve always been a little ahead of the curve — I can only assume it’s because they had wealthy, supportive parents, unlike those of us who were raised by broke, alcoholic losers who ‘didn’t believe in organized religion.’ Thanks, mom :/ #losing

Anyhow, the truth is that many of the best metal and hardcore bands of the last 10-15 years are Christian, and I think it’s time we gave them the credit they deserve. Let’s put aside the dull, redundant debate over whether Christianity has a place in music or not (hint: the correct answer is “who gives a fuck”) and focus on what is important: these bands rly know how to MOSH 4 CHRIST!

In this post, I will list a few of my favorite Christian bands. I will skip many of the obvious, big names that all of us know about and focus on the older, smaller bands that haven’t gotten enough props- and as always, there will be a few bands who probably should be on here, but couldn’t be included because I ran out of space and/or my memory failed me.  Thanks to Christian Hardcore Records blog for refreshing my memory on a lot of this stuff– check it out if you are into any of these bands!

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Remember when Adam D.’s hair looked like this? Good times.

Times of Graces, the Alive or Just Breathing-era Killswitch Engage reunion that doesn’t play any songs from Alive or Just Breathing, will spend their summer doing support of Underoath. (I’m sure there’s a “Underoath is Not-” joke to be made, but I’m not quite sure what it is. Underoath are Not-Botch? Underoath are Not-Good? I’m open to suggestions.) Other bands on the bill will be Stray from the Path and Letlive. Or, put more simply: I’m not going to this tour.

But you can! No judgments. Okay I might judge you a little but not so much that we can’t still be friends. Jesse Leach can still sing his ass off and Adam D. is still entertaining as hell to watch. I’m just a grumpy old man who wants to hear “Life to Lifeless” more than he wants to hear “Live in Love,” and doesn’t want to hear Underoath, Stray from the Path, or Letlive at all.

But if you’re not like me — and, statistically, a lot of you are not like me — here are dates. Enjoy the show!

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While most new releases have trailed off into Christmas Music oblivion, there were still a few notable new metal albums trickling in last week. After the jump, a look at the meaningless sales numbers generated by new ones from After the Burial, Metallica, The Chariot and Yngwie Malmsteen with a look at a few other charting releases as well (take a look at the tags below if you wanna know who). Snarky commentary included, natch.

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With the holidays right around the corner — and all the best of, greatest hits and holiday comps that come therewith — this past Tuesday was the last big date for new album releases in 2010, though there are still a few stragglers coming down the pipe. The world of hard rock and metal made a big showing last week, with new releases from Underoath, Dio, Cradle of Filth, Oceano, Gwar, Helloween, Volbeat and a smattering of others making the Soundscan charts. Rankings, sales figures and commentary after the jump.

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Okay! Time to check out some more new videos from various metal outfits. Ready? Let’s do this thing.

First up we have “In Division” by Underoath. Have Underoath’s Spencer Chamberlain and Norma Jean’s Cory Brandan always sounded like the exact same person and I just never noticed? In any case, this video is actually kinda cool; I don’t know if there’s a thematic connection between the lyrics and the upending of gravity or if they just did it because it worked for Inception, but at least the clip ain’t boring. Almost makes me wish I enjoyed the music.

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Underoath are streaming a new song, “Illuminator,” on their official site. The best thing about it is that there’s this hypnotic gif that appears to be spinning and changing shapes (non-headache inducing version above), which is makes it fun to look at for a second or two, and I imagine for much longer if you’re high.

As for the song itself, I liked it better when EVERY OTHER METALCORE BAND IN THE FUCKING WORLD ALREADY RECORDED IT FOREVER AGO. This thing is about as formula-free as an episode of Scooby-Doo. I’m not saying it’s terrible, I’m just saying it’s organic like Gene Simmons’ face.

Underoath’s new album, Ø (Disambiguation), comes out November 9.

-AR

Here we had this entire week devoted to hair metal, and I feel like we only scratched the surface. Let’s do this again real soon, okay?

Here’s some of the fun we had this week, be it hair-metal related or not:

• Cynic’s Paul Masvidal taught us to be mind-less, Antagonist’s Carlos Garcia taught us about the song “Sasha Grey,” and Trap Them’s Ryan McKenney taught us more about corporate-sponsored live shows.
• Anso and Allyson from Bring Back Glam! counted down the Ten Best Must-Have Glam Metal Albums.
• We counted down the Top Ten Bands Most Often Miscategorized as Hair Metal.
• Vince spoke with Serj Tankian, Gary spoke with Frankie from Emmure, and Sergeant D. spoke with Samantha Maloney from Brother Clyde/Shift/Hole/Motley Crue/every band ever.
• We debuted a new track by The Binary Code!
• Leyla Ford counted down the ten worst and best hair metal band names.
• Sammy checked out the new release by Eibon.
• Dave Mustein checked out The Cool Tour.
• Someday, this little girl is going to make Sergeant D. very, very unhappy.
• I can’t tell the difference between all the members of Mushroomhead, can you?

I wanna especially thank Allyson from Bring Back Glam! for all her help this week — we love you, Allyson! Come back anytime.

Monday we return, but we’ll have a little less Aqua Net in our hair, a little less eyeliner on our lids, and a lot less skip in our step. See ya then.

-AR

I was pretty skeptical when I first saw the Cool Tour lineup. Actually, I was more than skeptical: I was pretty much positive that I wasn’t going to attend. It seemed to break down as 50% Christian screamo, 25% hardcore, and 25% good bands, which meant that there would be a lot of obnoxious hardcore, scene, and straightedge kids. But when the opportunity arose to go to the tour, I just decided to do it despite the high scene-kid-to-normal-metalhead ratio, because I had never seen either BTBAM or As I Lay Dying live.

As it turned out, I made the right decision. Although I did skip the first four bands (War of Ages, Cancer Bats, Architects, and The Acacia Strain) because I’m not a fan of any of them besides Architects, I hear that all of them save for War of Ages put on a pretty solid showing. The Acacia Strain apparently managed to work the crowd into more of a frenzy than any other band, probably because it was a hometown show for them.

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First things first: screamo is literally worse than the Holocaust in my book. With a few notable exceptions, I absolutely cannot stand this shit. That said, with bands like The Devil Wears Prada and Underoath selling out huge venues, putting out platinum-selling albums, and selling truckloads of cookie-cutter merch to every angsty suburban teen within driving distance of a Hot Topic, it’s hard not to pay attention to the genre. I might not like it, but Kids These Days certainly do. My biggest question: Where the fuck did this shit come from??

As someone who saw the birth of metalcore and “true screamo”/skramz firsthand in the 90s, I am highly confused when I listen to these bands. On the one hand, they are not so different from anything that could have been on Victory or Indecision in the 90s (Earth Crisis, All Out War, Bloodlet). Obviously there are some things that have changed over time, but the fundamentals of metalcore are still there (see my post “The 5 Kinds Of Music Teens Are Into” for more details). On the other hand, the kids in Alesana, August Burns Red, and possibly even As I Lay Dying have no fucking idea who those pioneering metalcore bands are, much less that screamy vocals were born in the tiny basement shows and vegan bakesales of the 90s DIY hardcore scene.

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The Metal Sucks staff may have more “-stein” and “-berg” surnames than the trading floor of a Wall Street investment bank, but I know Axl and Vince are open to exploring the entire spectrum of global faiths. I am sure we can also agree that music is the one common thread that unites all of us, so what better way to learn about Jesus Christ than through my favorite thing: BREAKDOWNS!

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When we announced the Summer Slaughter 2010 line-up last week, Vince wrote the following:

“Summer Slaughter is by far the best metal tour of Summer 2010. Rockstar Mayhem is lame, Ozzsharonfest is surely gonna be lame, and ‘The Cool Tour’ is, uh, not cool at all save a couple of bands.”

At least one reader asked, “What the heck is the Cool Tour?” While rumors of the package trek have been floating around the net for weeks, it was only officially announced at midnight: The Cool Tour seems to be the next of what could reasonably be called “The Ozzfest Second Stage Tours” – basically mid-sized package tours that take the best part of Ozzfest (the second stage – duh) and do away with the rest. And while any tour with that many bands on it is bound to have at least a few you don’t like (this year’s Summer Slaughter being a pretty remarkable exception to that rule), I have to agree with Vince: The Cool Tour does not really seem all that cool.

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If the you young ‘uns don’t know Stryper, well, they were like the Underoath or Demon Hunter of their day. Which is to say, they played Christian metal. Their songs had names like “To Hell with the Devil,” and “Calling On You,” and for their 1985 album, they even covered “Battle Hymn of the Republic (Glory, Glory, Hallelujah),” which may still be the single lamest metal cover of a non-metal song ever, which is really saying something.

Now the band is working on a covers album, which will include their take on songs by the homos in Judas Priest, the blasphemous, drug addled guys in Black Sabbath, and the Jews in Kiss.

I don’t really have much else to say about this… it just made me laugh. Fingers crossed that they add a song by Slayer or Mayhem to the mix…

-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

Despite what you may think, I don’t have a problem with Christian metal as long as any religious message isn’t too overt. If you’d never told me that As I Lay Dying and Norma Jean were Christians, I’d have no idea. They don’t let their personal beliefs distract from the music.

But Sergeant D. posted the below Underoath song on Stuff You Will Hate this morning, and… wow. I don’t know Underoath that well and apparently this isn’t really how they sound anymore, so I guess I can give them a pass for how fucking horrible this song is. But the pro-life lyrics – which includes such poetic gems as “Babies die everyday because of a pro-choice made” – really rub me the wrong way. Big time.

You can read all the lyrics over at Stuff You Will Hate. Then come back and tell me why I’m an asshole for being pro-choice, or how politics have no place in metal, or whaaaaa whaaaaa whaaaa.

-AR

Actually, we don’t have to pirate our own articles. Plenty of other websites do that for us, often without giving us credit or linking back to us. Once upon a time someone even accidentally included one of our bylines in their cut and paste job. Said “writer” apologized but then went on to shamelessly rip us off many more times, which was nice, because it shows his apology was sincere. You know who else tried to pass off someone else’s work as their own? The guy who went on to shoot Dimebag. So good company you keep, fellas.

Here are other ethically questionable decisions people made in the metal world this week:

• Hasidim moshed, we made punny jokes.
• Matt Heafy and Paolo Gregoletto of Trivium asked fans to illegally burn and share the band’s music.
• We’re streaming God Dethroned’s entire new album until Tuesday; listen now! We also debuted new tracks from Animals as Leaders and Burning Human.
• Arch Enemy choose to re-record old material; we choose to stop talking about this project from hereon out (starting… now!).
• Tyson vs. Holyfield 3 Underoath vs. Avenged Sevenfold! We love this kind of shit.
• Some Russian high school black metallers headbanged for show and tell, and we pondered how to improve our corpsepaint skillz.
• The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato sounded off against President Barack Obama. You sounded off against each other.
• We looked at new releases from Chimaira, God Dethroned and Goes Cube.

Next week brings more contests, more interviews, more new music streams you won’t be able to hear anywhere else, and at least one confrontation with a singer Axl once gave a terrible review. Come back and read more. You know you want to.

-Vince and Axl

I really couldn’t give a fuck what some dude in Underoath says about Avenged Sevenfold, but lots of you have been emailing us about this and besides, this is the kind of shit-kicking we specialize in around here, no? So apparently Metal Hammer was out with Underoath in Austria and Italy and got this choice nugget out of guitarist Tim McTague:

“People might associate us with Avenged Sevenfold because they’re pissed republicans and ‘so metal’, but they’re a gimmick, they’re a circus. They can play [corrected] but they can’t write songs. What’s worse is the way they look. If you need to have make-up and crappy names like Synyster Gates to sell records, then you shouldn’t be here.

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MetalSucks recently had the opportunity to have an all-too-brief chat with Underoath bassist Grant Brandell at the Rockstar Mayhem Festival’s stop at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Brandell had some interesting things to say about the tour, hanging out with other bands at the fest, and the band’s plans for the future. Check out the full transcript after the jump, then read David Bee Roth’s review of Underoath’s new album, Lost in the Sound of Separation, which was released earlier this week!

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It wasn’t that long ago that we interviewed The Red Chord bassist Greg Weeks via e-mail, but since a) that interview turned out to be one of the best we’ve ever done and b) we love The Red Chord, we just couldn’t resist the chance to sit down with vocalist Guy Kozowyk at the Long Island stop of the Rockstar Mayhem Festival. Guy was happy, or at least very good at pretending to be happy, to talk to us about the tour, playing in front of such huge crowds, and the already legendary Ladder Up an Ass project, but, like his bandmate, he was also cool enough to humor Axl Rosenberg when he asked a stupid question on behalf of his girlfriend. Check out the full transcript of our chat after the jump.

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I will be the first to admit that Underoath are a band that were judged by closed-minded, ultra-critical, pretentious metal heads like myself long before I even heard one note being played. Instead I heard “Christian” and “emo” and got a brief glimpse of their fan base. That was all I needed to declare “I probably wouldn’t like them” and move on, sifting through the heavy music morass for something else, never to give them a second thought until my very recent exposure to their newest record Lost in the Sound of Separation.

Surprise! Being instantly judgmental of a band’s hair style and personal beliefs has once again set me up to be disappointed when I can’t spend a whole page lampooning their art. Instead I am forced to begrudgingly admit that this is something of quality.

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