If you’re the sort of person who gets excited about 30 seconds of new music, then boy are you gonna be happy about this: Amazon has posted 30 second samples of every song from the new T.R.A.M. and Veil of Maya albums, as is de rigeur these days a couple of weeks in advance of any album’s release. T.R.A.M. Lingua Franca consists of 6 songs adding up to 29:49 while Veil of Maya’s Eclipse clocks in just a shade over 28 minutes with 10 songs, meaning both just barely cross the 25-minute threshold for full “LP” status. We’re sure they’ll both pack quite a punch, though; these days I’m actually grateful for shorter albums — “more killer, less filler” takes on a whole new meaning in the digital age of picking and choosing tracks.

And oh hey, is this the first look the world’s getting at the T.R.A.M. album cover? I don’t think I’ve seen it before, but I could’ve easily missed it. The wonky artwork perfectly fits the band’s wonky music, and I like that they bothered to write out the names of the musicians who comprise the band’s acronym name.

Listen to the T.R.A.M. album samples here and a full song called “Lingua Franca” here, then check out the Veil of Maya album samples here and full song “Vicious Circles” here. Both albums come out on February 28th via Sumerian and can be pre-ordered here.

-VN

The Faceless have been confirmed for Summer Slaughter 2012. That’s not shocking news, seeing as the band — like the fest’s previously announced co-headliners, Cannibal Corpse and Between the Buried and Me — have been rumored to be participating in the tour for three weeks now.

But it is still good news! Anyone who complains about a show where they’ll get to see Cannibal Corpse, BTBAM, and The Faceless should be hit in the head with a Halestorm album. Plus, there’s still at least seven other bands still to be announced; assuming the rumors continue to be true, those will include Job For A Cowboy, Veil of Maya, and Hate Eternal, all of whom are also awesome. And Vince and I got word of yet ANOTHER great band set to be on the tour over the weekend. So, yeah, everyone is going to this.

The next band will be officially announced on Sunday via the Summer Slaughter Facebook page.

-AR

The rumors are true: Cannibal Corpse and Between the Buried and Me will co-headline this year’s edition of the Summer Slaughter festour. BTBAM and The Corpse obviously play very, very different forms of death metal, but they’re both great. It’s hard to imagine any metal fan who isn’t a total fun-hating grump not being excited about this bill.

None of the other rumored acts — which include The Faceless, Job For A Cowboy, Veil of Maya, and Hate Eternal — have been confirmed yet, and, as Lambgoat reports in a tone I very much appreciate, “Unfortunately, it looks like the Summer Slaughter people are going to string this out, with remaining participants to be announced each Sunday (one-by-one) via Facebook.” The past two Summer Slaughters have featured ten bands apiece, so we should know the full line-up by the end of March.

In any case, between this and the solid line-up Mayhem Fest has put together this year, it looks like it could be a really fun summer…

-AR

Earlier this week, we got our first taste of new Veil of Maya in the form of the song “Vicious Circles;” now the groups has performed another new tune, “Punisher,” live, which means, of course, that it’s on the internet. The quality is obviously not top-notch, but it does sound a lot more traditionally Sumeriancore-ish than “Circles” did, so… maybe my speculation that the band was trying to move away from that sound was premature. I guess we’ll find out when the band’s latest offering, Eclipse, is released on February 28.

While we wait, check out “Punisher” below:

-AR

[via The PRP]

Out of all of the big summer package tours, Summer Slaughter has easily become our favorite; it’s so much fun every year that we’re even willing to forgive the to-be-expected presence of some bands we can’t stand (e.g., Oceano, As Blood Runs Black, etc.), because the rest of the line-up built around them is usually so fantastic that having a few built-in beer breaks isn’t the worst thing in the world (as opposed to some of SS’s competitors, where the beer-break-to-cool-band ratio makes the whole endeavor just not worth it). So, yeah, we’re on the edge of our seats to see who makes it onto the bill this year.

To that end, prog metal social network czar Alkahest of Heavy Blog has done it once again, today with some pretty juicy rumors about the lineup for Summer Slaughter 2012.

Click to read more…

Veil of Maya have released “Vicious Circles,” the first single from their new album, Eclipse.The Born of Osiris-esque keyboard bits and the massive chugga-chug section at the end aside, the song actually steers clear of Sumeriancore tropes in favor of playing up a more classical, At the Gates/melodeath influence. I wonder if this is the beginning of the band trying to distance themselves from that sound, the way, for example, Job for a Cowboy eventually distanced themselves from the deathcore sound?

Check out “Vicious Circles” below and see whatcha think:

Eclipse is out February 28 on Sumerian.

-AR

[via The PRP]

In the absence of actual new music or substantial information of some kind, I find it kinda hard to get psyched up about the announcement of an album release date in all but a few special cases. But there have been a number of big release date announcements and rumors in the past few days, so I figured I’d lump ‘em all together and, as if you expected anything else, share my thoughts, hopes and dreams for each. Here we go:

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[UPDATE, 1:50pm EST: Low res version of the cover artwork for Eclipse is posted below (Thanks: Jeffrey F.) - Ed.]

Seems like Rob at Metal Injection has caught the entire Metalnets napping by reporting the already two day-old news that Veil of Maya’s third album, Eclipse, will be released on February 28th. How did we all miss the news that one of Sumerian’s biggest non-sucky bands (read: non-Asking Alexandria) is releasing a new album only 6 weeks from now? I’m not sure, but, welp, there it is! The news was announced on Monday via a press release that focused more on VoM’s upcoming tour with In Flames than the new album — hence having glossed over it — which strikes me as a little odd… as does the 6-week release window, which is very short compared to most album marketing plans. But again, there it is. New Veil of Maya on February 28th!

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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.

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It’s a good day to be an After the Burial fan: the band has released not one but two music videos, plus additional dates for their previously-announced Crush ‘Em All trek with Veil of Maya, Misery Signals, and Within the Ruins.

So, let’s start by considering these videos, “Cinemetal Round-Up” style, shall we?

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While I would generally prefer it if all of metaldom would stay as far away from the phrase “Crush ‘Em” as possible from now until the sun dies and all of humanity is forgotten forever, there’s no denying that the Crush ‘Em All Tour II has a pretty solid line-up — After the Burial, Veil of Maya, Misery Signals, and Within the Ruins is not a bad night at the opera. The support acts which will appear on select dates — I The Breather, Structures, Volumes, and Your Memorial — are bands that I’m alternately less familiar with or less excited about, but whatever, this is still a totally solid bill.

Now the initial round of dates for the tour have been announced. There are pretty large gaps in this itinerary, so don’t freak out just yet if you don’t see a show on this list that you can attend. Unless you live in Bumblefuck, where metal tours never ever stop. Then you just have shitty luck and there’s no hope for you until you get the hell outta Po’dunk. Sorry.

ANYWAY, those dates, courtesy The PRP:

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IMO the most important part of being a true metal fan is knowing your roots. There is nothing worse than a newjack poser who doesn’t know or care about the older bands who paved the way for the generations after them. For example, IMO you can’t consider yourself a real fan of Avenged Sevenfold without also being a fan of Pantera and 18 Visions/Velvet Revolver. I mean I love A7X but obviously they are pretty much just taking what those two bands did, only doing it a lot better. On the other hand, it also sucks when someone gets older and they stop liking stuff. I mean if you like Suffocation then you should also like Devourment, right?? But contrary to what you would expect, older metal fans do nothing but hate on newer bands.

Which one is right?? The younger fans, full of energy and enthusiasm, but unaware of the shitty bands that people used to like?? Or the jaded, bitter has-beens, with seemingly endless knowledge of irrelevant, music that nobody really cares about anymore??????

In this post I will do my best to tackle this topic and answer the question of which is better, NEW MUSIC or OLD MUSIC. I know it’s hard to compare things from different eras, but I think it will help all of us grow as metal fans!!

Click to read more…

Metal drummers put off by our current Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists countdown, don’t be distraught; today we’ve got something just for you.

Just in time for the MS-sponsored 2011 version of Summer Slaughter, our hip-bro-potami over at Sick Drummer [via Got-Djent.com] have unveiled some multi-angle drum-cam footage from last year’s festival that will either inspire young metal drummers to better their craft through endless practice or immediately discourage them from ever picking up their sticks again. Don’t be discouraged, though; Navene Koperweis and Sam Applebaum are two of the best in the biz and got to where they are through years of hard work. Just because I can’t throw a knuckleball like R.A. Dickey doesn’t mean I’m gonna quit trying. OK, so maybe it does.

The clips feature a couple of songs each of Animals as Leaders’ and Veil of Maya’s sets. Watch AAL’s Koperweis below, and Veil of Maya’s Sam Applebaum after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDn7TnBqXhE

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I’m gonna keep this short, because our feelings about thieving dickheads are pretty well known. The following message was posted on Veil of Maya’s Facebook page yesterday:

So that obviously SUCKS. Here’s the picture of the trailer/van. Seriously, if you do live in the area, keep your eyes peeled and let’s catch this asshole:

-AR

Thanks: Anson Wong

Props to Heavy Blog is Heavy for catching this interesting update from Sumerian Records’ official Facebook page:

As HBiH notes, this sounds like it’s going to be a release (or releases) in the vein of Roadrunner United and Nuclear Blast All-Stars — basically a “who’s who” team-up of musicians signed to the label. Those offerings actually ended up being, by and large, pretty cool (I mean, of course there were some missteps, but I don’t look back at those albums and think, “Well, that was ill-advised”), and Sumerian’s current roster is one of the strongest in metal (The Faceless, Animals as Leaders, Periphery, Veil of Maya, After the Burial, etc., pretty much make up for their creatively vapid bands like Asking Alexandria and Upon a Burning Body), so it makes sense that they’d wanna do something like this.

Question is… what form, exactly, will it take? I almost don’t care, as long as Bizzy Bone is involved. Hey, it could happen.

-AR

So this is pretty cool… in theory at least. Last week, the videogame Homefront was released (I haven’t played it so I have no idea how it is, although I read some decent reviews), and yesterday, the makers of the game started giving away a FREE compilation of metal bands doing covers of war-appropriate songs, sometimes by other metal bands, sometimes by non-metal artists. You can download it here, and should get on that ASAP, as they’re only giving away 25,000 of the free downloads. As of this writing, DLs are still avail, though. Also, I’m sure this thing will remain all over the internet forever and ever, so don’t freak too hard if they’re all gone by the time you get there.

Another reason no to freak out too hard if you don’t get to download this puppy? Even though this is 100% free, like most cover albums, it’s not actually all that amazing. Let’s take a look at what the album has to offer, shall we?

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Kip W. and I arrived in Austin, TX the night of Tuesday, March 15th. We’ve never flown in before Wednesday, the official start of the music portion of the festival, but that we felt compelled to be there for all of Wednesday’s day-time activities speaks to the volume of metal at this year’s festival. It was amazing and even overwhelming at times, but too much metal is never a bad problem to have. After a tasty burger at the Jackalope and some delicious but incredibly spicy chicken-wings that would leave our arseholes tingling the following morning, we headed to bed to rest up for the madness to follow. Sleeping is metal. Kip’s righteous snore is definitely not metal, but thank Odin for earplugs.

There was a lot of action on the first day of SXSW: face-punching hardcore via the Brooklyn Vegan day party, a ripping set by recent Ironclad signees Turbid North, and of course the MetalSucks-sponsored Sumerian Records showcase featuring Animals as Leaders, Veil of Maya, The Faceless and more. There was even the somewhat odd but nonetheless fun sight of watching Phil Anselmo play a guitar in his old-school hardcore project Arson Anthem. Deetz and videos after the jump.

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Props to reader Nico C. for reminding us about the Darkest Hour Legacy Tour contest we hosted back in November and December. Ya see, uh, you all know we like to partake in the green herb from time to time and that said herb can have an effect on the memory. Well, umm… we just straight up forgot to choose a winner.

But fear not! Good things come to those who wait; in this case “good things” are one t-shirt from each of the bands on the tour — Darkest Hour, Veil of Maya, Periphery and Revocation — and “those who wait” is our lucky winner Shaun Reeves. We asked “Which Darkest Hour song is your favorite of all-time, and why?” and Shaun answered thusly:

Convalescence. Sure it’s not their heaviest or most technical, but it was one of the first metal songs I had ever heard. The first time I heard it was when I saw the video for it on a victory records sampler. I straight up laughed the first time I saw it, I thought it was terrible, and the lead singer looked like an angry nerd who got beat up in high school too much. As I gradually started getting into heavier music, I watched it again, and it changed my life. It was the heaviest thing I had ever heard, yet it was so melodic. Kris Norris instantly became my icon, his solo was the greatest one I had ever heard. That song not only turned me into a metal head, it turned me into a metal guitarist.

So, congrats Shaun, and sorry for the delay. Enjoy those shirts. Darkest Hour’s new jam The Human Romance is out now.

You know how sometimes you will get completely obsessed with a band, and you’re all “ZOMG CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO THEM!!!”? That is how I am right now with THE ACACIA STRAIN — I probably listen to Wormwood at least three times a day, and when I’m not listening to it, I am singing it in my head.

It’s always awesome to get the chance to see a band when you are at the peak of being into them, so I was very stoked to check out the DEATHCORE ACROSS AMERICA tour when it rolled through my town the other day: I Declare War, Whitechapel, Veil of Maya and The Acacia Strain = YOU’RE FUCKING MOSHING! I also got a chance to chat with TAS bassist Jack Strong [mirin that name, sounds alpha as fuck].

In this post I will share the three reasons why TAS is my favorite band at the moment, as well as a few words from Jack to support my points: 1. Their diverse fanbase 2. They are punk 3. Last but not least, TAS are fucking heavy as fuck.

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We told you last week about our very own SXSW “South By South Death” day party on Friday, March 18th at Headhunters, featuring the very excellent lineup of Kvelertak, Havok, Red Fang, Wormot and Meek is Murder, and also sponsored by Roxwel.com and NARM. MS contributor and Texas native Corey Mitchell has been doing a fine job keeping you abreast of other metal happenings at SXSW 2011.

Now we’ve got one more event to add to the fray. MetalSucks is proud to be sponsoring the official Sumerian Records showcase on Wednesday, March 16th, featuring some of our most favoritest bands: The Faceless, Veil of Maya and Animals as Leaders. The awesome lineup, which will play the Habana Bar backyard, is rounded out by Upon a Burning Body, Struc/tures, and NY up-and-comers Ultrageist. Be there!