Here’s some not-at-all shitty news: Unsane are releasing a new album, Wreck, on March 20 via Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label (album art above, duh). And right about now, you can probably feel the blood rushing to your sexual organs, but get ready for a full-on orgasm: the band is doing a tour with the Melvins, and will release a split 7″ with ‘em, too, on which Unsane will cover a to-be-announced Melvins song, and the Melvins will cover a to-be-announced Unsane song.

The split is only going to be available on the tour, so if for some reason you needed even more incentive to go check this shit out, well, there ya have it.

Tour dates are after the jump; hopefully Unsane will debute some new music to Wreck our ear drums real soon.

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Children of Bodom are lucky that their song “Was it Worth It?” is pretty good, because the new video for said song makes no fucking sense whatsoever. The band is performing in front of some giant lights, and then there’s these dudes skateboarding around them, and, uh, that’s it. At one point one of the guys lights his skateboard on fire before riding it, which is cool in theory, but it’s not even filmed in a way which really allows you to see it. Gene Kelly used to insist on being filmed from head-to-toe when he did dance numbers, so people could really observe what he was doing, and understand how much skill it took; that would have been a good policy when shooting these skateboarders, but, alas, no such luck.

And what do skateboarders have to do with something being “worth it” anyway? I can’t help but think that a simpler, funnier version of this video would be just endless clips of skateboarders getting injured — then at least the visuals, when paired with the song’s title, would seem amusing. But I guess someone already made that video.

Children of Bodom’s latest, Relentless Reckless Forever, comes out March 8 on Spinefarm. Despite the crappy video, I’m still anxious to hear it.

-AR

Unsane’s 1995 LP Scattered, Smothered and Covered is a classic in the Amphetamine Reptile discography, and one of the truly essential noise rock recordings. Surely you remember the “Scrape” music video! So when the band announced they’d be performing the album live in its entirety for a select series of North American shows, I finished in my pants. Having witnessed Unsane decimate a sold out Union Pool in Brooklyn some months back, I can’t stress enough how powerful and loud this savage trio are after all these years.

Even better, Keelhaul open nearly all the dates, which is awesome since their latest Hydra Head album Keelhaul’s Triumphant Return To Obscurity fucking rules nations. (If you like aggressive and slightly weird metal, this is your bag, baby!) Other openers (depending on the date) include Unsane member Dave Curran’s side-project Pigs, and fellow noise rock legends Today Is The Day. The New York City date, which takes place on Thursday August 5 at Andrew W.K.’s Santos Party House (tickets here) also features a set from Disappearer, the band that topped my Top 20 Albums of 2009. The tour culminates in an appearance at the opening night party that precedes the sold-the-fuck-out Amphetamine Reptile festival in Minneapolis. Dates and details are below.

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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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The same night that Antonin Skullia, Esq. and myself saw Hot Tub Time Machine, I scolded him for missing the incredible Unsane show at Brooklyn’s Union Pool. At which point he rightfully scolded me for having completely forgotten about Unsane’s video for “Scrape,” which is really just three minutes and twenty-one seconds of footage of dudes falling off their skateboards in ways that look incredibly painful. (There’s a little bit of performance footage, too, but it’s not why anyone cares about this video.)

So we watched the video on YouTube and we laughed. Hard. “This is the best music video ever made,” Antonin declared. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it might very well be one of the five best videos ever made.

It doesn’t hurt that song rules, either.

-AR

video taken by (((unartig)))

Initially, it wasn’t all that clear why Unsane chose to play a one-off show this past Friday in Brooklyn. They had no new album to promote, nor any major news to announce, yet the devoted crowd at a sold-out Union Pool seemed perfectly content when frontman Chris Spencer suggested that they were just there to “hang out.” Fortunately, that meant a lengthy set from the iconic New York noise rockers stuffed with classics as well as more recent work. Kicking off with “Against The Grain,” a vicious track off 2007′s underrated Visqueen, the essential trio of drummer Vinnie Signorelli, bassist Dave Curran, and guitarist Spencer set a bizarre mood for the remainder of the night. During songs like “Scrape” and “Body Bomb,” Unsane were unhinged and bestial. Yet between tracks the guys acted playful and lighthearted, with Signorelli showing off rhythmically while Curran and Spencer shared some borderline bromantic moments. This dichotomy of catharsis and camaraderie spread quickly to the audience, of which I was an active participant at the front of the stage. Though most of the between-song banter was friendly, Spencer experienced a significant mood shift as he introduced “Only Pain” which he described as some sort of love song. His lyrics steeped in agony, Unsane’s founder roared his heart out on the gut-wrenching chorus, adding new dimensions to an already solid track. The band closed with a long slogging noise jam version of “Get Off My Back” (off 1995′s essential Scattered, Smothered & Covered), which astounded with its primitive wall of sound approach to devastation.

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I don’t know what we did to deserve this, but New York noise rock legends Unsane have given us the best Valentine’s Day gift of all: an intimate one-off concert at Union Pool in Brooklyn tonight. The band’s first local show in two years, the bill also features the incredible Made Out Of Babies, savage hardcore supergroup United Nations (dropping a new 7″ on Deathwish this year), and some other band called Dark Vibe that doesn’t have any music on their Facebook page (tsk tsk). The super-low-budget video above is for “Against The Grain,” one of the many brutal tracks off 2007′s devastatingly violent Visqueen, and after over two decades of being together it’s clear that Unsane haven’t lost their edge.

If for some reason you didn’t buy advance tickets, I strongly recommend getting your pimply ass there at 8pm in the hopes that you can gain entry at the door. This venue is fucking tiny (it used to be a pool supply store) and the building will likely collapse by the end of the night thanks to the crushing nature of the lineup.

-GS

[Gary Suarez usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. He recently quit Twitter.]

Way back in March, I expressed my sheer delight at the promise of Celan, a new group that unites Unsane frontman Chris Spencer with Oxbow guitarist Niko Wenner. The other week, the formidable noise rock combo quietly released its debut Halo (buy it buy it buy it) on Exile On Mainstream Records (whose site was recently hacked) during a month that yielded far more publicized metal albums from dinosaurs like Megadeth and Europe, as well as an embarrassingly over-promoted record from (ugh) Shadows Fall. Of course, my role on this website (other than indulging my love for 90s grunge acts) is to expose you to the kind of awesome stuff you probably missed or haven’t even heard of. Celan is one such example.

Europeans who read this site should be forewarned that Celan is about to begin a three-week tour of the continent that hits cities in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. No word yet on U.S. dates, but perhaps if some of you go out and buy the album, we may have a chance.

-GS

[Gary Suarez is madly in anger with you. He usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

16 is a fucking brutal band on Relapse that doesn’t get nearly enough coverage here, largely due to the band’s apparent refusal to embark on a lengthy tour to promote its latest collection of furious violent outbursts Bridges To Burn, which our own Satan Rosenbloom reviewed back in January. I actually dig this album way more than my colleague, and it ranks among my favorite records released this year thus far. In order to express my love for this band, in the hopes that you’ll check 16 out and become a fan of its de-motivational music, here’s an update on the group’s current goings-on.

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Andrew W.K., I Get Wet (Island, 2002)
Andrew W.K. – vocals
Jimmy Coup – Guitar
Erik Payne – Guitar
Frank Werner – Guitar
Gregg Roberts – Bass
Donald Tardy – Drums
Produced by Andrew W.K., John Fields, Scott Humphrey, TSD, Frank Vierti

It has been suggested by some of our commenters that I don’t belong here. Be it my distaste for deathgrind, my inability to appreciate the tr00 kvlt nature of Norwegian black metal, or the fact that I don’t give a flying fuck about Protest The Hero, I’ve always felt like an outsider around you people. Yet at no point did I feel so out of place than during the countdown of the 21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century… So Far. Sure, I participated. I submitted a list. I presumed many of my picks would never make the cut (Unsane’s Visqueen; Zozobra’s Harmonic Tremors), but also acknowledged less esoteric favorites of mine from the past nine-and-a-half-years (Boris Pink; Down’s III: Over The Under) that I thought had a shot. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the sheer disappointment these past few weeks when none of my favorite albums made the goddamn list.

Rather than be mature about this sad state of affairs, I am now going to explain why everyone who voted in this poll is a fucking butthole for not selecting Andrew W.K.’s 2002 masterpiece, I Get Wet.
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I’m very pleased to share with y’all the exciting news that San Francisco’s bad-ass motherfuckers Kowloon Walled City will release its new album with Perpetual Motion Machine, home to other rad acts such as The Catalyst. Boasting a sound that gives noise rock royalty like Unsane a run for its money, the sludgetastic band has been blogging away about at its website about the recording of this as-yet untitled album, which will be available in LP and CD formats. From the studio photos I’ve seen, they’re subsisting primarily on Easter candy and energy drinks, though I’m sure there’s some Rice-A-Roni around there somewhere.

If you weren’t paying attention the last time I talked about this awesome band, you can still download a free copy of the Turk Street EP. Or, you can continue to be a fucking douchebag and not get wise to one of the best contemporary acts representing The New Wave Of American Noise Rock.

-GS

[Gary Suarez would really like to know whatever happened to predictability. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don't you follow him on Twitter?]

I’ve got a bit of a cold, so I’m not really up for writing some long drawn out post replete with nautical allusions, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t try and turn you on to a stellar post-hardcore band I’ve only just discovered. City Of Ships is a Virginia-based trio that recently signed to Translation Loss Records. Due out this June, the full-length debut Look What God Did to Us was produced by Andrew Schneider at Brooklyn’s Translator Audio, a studio that has served such Scraping Genius… faves as Made Out Of Babies and Zozobra, as well as the upcoming Celan (Chris from Unsane) album I’m so fucking stoked about.

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The lack of new music from New York’s noise rock royals Unsane has been a source of sadness for me considering the vicious and vibrant Visqueen record on Ipecac a few years ago. Every few months, I find myself visiting their MySpace page in the hopes that we might get a news of another album or even some tour dates. Thankfully, as I learned today, its members have gone on to new and interesting projects. Vinnie Signorelli drums for the talented post-metal combo A Storm Of Light, while bassist Dave Curran is making some cool shit with his fellow Pigs. I already knew about those two, but I was especially pleased to discover that Unsane’s founder Chris Spencer has a new project called Celan, which unsurprisingly bears a sonic semblance to the project he’s been toiling in since 1988. Check out tracks like “One Minute” or “All This And Everything” from the band’s upcoming album for Germany’s Exile On Mainstream Records and tell me they wouldn’t be out of place on an Unsane album. Other members of the band include Niko Wenner from Oxbow, so needless to say, I’m pretty fucking pumped for the forthcoming debut Halo, which will hit America officially this coming September.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be watching the Lambhouse bonus DVD from Relapse and laughing my ass off at the abundance of SKATEBOARD FAIL in the classic “Scrape” video.

-GS

My stars and garters, there sure are some super-spectacular noise rock bands plowing through their local scenes these days, a number of which remain criminally unsigned. Boston’s Disappearer is one such unseemly gang of morally bereft marauders, performing hard charging tunes that recall Unsane’s best moments cut with a moderate dose of stonerdom and even some Jesu-type metalgaze. The Stephen Brodsky produced demo (which you have no choice but to download for free!) will leave you dizzy with rage and hazy with bewilderment. The band is due for some shows soon in Allston Student Ghetto, MA and New York with such fine artists as Zozobra and prior “Why Haven’t You Heard Of…?” featured act Gods And Queens, the latter having recently released a sweet-as-hairpie debut on Robotic Empire.

-GS

[Gary Suarez can't believe it's not buttsecks. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No.]