Look, if someone says to you, “Hey! The Acacia Strain are touring with Terror, Stray from the Path, and Harm’s Way!”, you’ll know in three seconds whether or not you’re interested in going to that tour. ‘Cause maybe you’re a fan of those bands, and maybe you ain’t. And if you are a fan, you could just go here, where we premiered an awesome live track by Terror yesterday, and see in another three seconds if the tour is coming anywhere near you. So I guess what I’m saying is, in theory, there’s really no reason for you to watch the below video of TAS front dude Vincent Bennett hyping said tour.

Except that the video is only two minutes long, and it’s funny as hell. The best part is Bennett discussing how “We might be coming to your town, we might not be coming to your town,” and going on to say “it’s really out of our hands,” because, well, TRUTH. I know every time we sponsor a tour people are like “Why isn’t it coming to [whiney reader's town here],” and they don’t realize how many different factors going into making those decisions, and how little say 98% of everyone involved in the tour had in said decision… but Bennett’s explanation is way more entertaining.

BONUS: Here’s a fun drinking game — do a shot every time Bennett says the name of all four bands on the tour. You will be no longer be feeling feelings by the time the video is over.

Like I was saying, you can get dates for the God Damn tour, whatever it’s called, here.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

So let’s say you need to make a music video but you don’t have a very big budget — how can you spice your clip up so it’s not just another performance vid?

A Day To Remember came up with a pretty clever solution: they got all their friends to be in the video, taking turns looking right into the camera and lip synching along for a few moments. Oddly enough, a lot of those friends are metal royalty — including The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk, Trivium’s Matt Heafy, As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis, The Acacia Strain’s Vincent Bennett, and whomever is playing Andrew WK this week — despite the fact that A Day to Remember aren’t metal at all.

This was a smart move if you ask me, ’cause otherwise a misanthropic metal d00d such as myself probably never would have watched the video, let alone actually kinda-almost smiled. It looks like everyone is having fun, and fun begets more fun, y’know?

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

I’ve seen Terror live a few times, and they definitely know how to put on a fun show. I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention to front man Scott Vogel’s stage banter, though, ’cause I don’t recall hearing him say anything especially noteworthy — yet someone has started a website, called Vogelisms, that is nothing but ridiculous quotes from the hardcore superstar. Who the hell is following Terror so closely that they have an abundance of Vogel quotes? I have no idea, but the site is funny as hell. Here are some gems gleaned from just the few minutes I’ve been looking at it:

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Yesterday I praised whomever came up with the moniker for The Acacia Strain’s upcoming “To Catch a Predatour” trek with The Red Chord and The Contortionist as a genius; today I know that it was Mr. Vincent Bennett, vocalist for TAS. For the band’s new, David Brodsky-directed video for “The Hills Have Eyes” is a parody of the infamous “news program” that outs kiddie fuckers (or, at least, would-be kiddie fuckers) on camera. And so, Mr. Bennett, I say again: YOU ARE A FRIGGIN’ GENIUS.

My other not-so-deep thought about this video is that it’s a million times better than that one The Malloys made, where Metallica are performing a very poorly written and produced song about a clogged toilet for the inmates of San Quentin. Maybe it’s “cooler” to go film at a real maximum security correctional institution where the inmates might get loose and rape Kirk Hammett at any moment, but Kirk has been getting raped by Hetfield and Ulrich for three decades anyway, so who really gives a shit? I’ll take Matt Pike (not that one, this one) as a reporter over Robert Trujillo droppin’ a deuce any day.

“The Hills Have Eyes” comes offa The Acacia Strain’s latest and greatest, Wormwood, which is out now on Prosthetic.

-AR

The Acacia Strain, Wormwood
The New England band’s latest collection of heartfelt ballads to punch your girlfriend in the face to, Wormwood reiterates The Acacia Strain’s deathcore dominance. Showcasing a truly noticeable progression in the group’s sound, these twelve tracks cover such edgy topics as religious cults (“Jonestown”), serial killers (“Ramirez”), and domestic terrorism (“Unabomber”), all set to a barbaric barrage of brutal breakdowns. “Nightman,” a surprisingly faithful cover from the classic It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia musical episode “The Nightman Cometh,” displays an intentional humor so rarely present in this scene that so frequently takes itself far too seriously. By keeping his lyrics intelligible and insightful on cuts like “BTM FDR,” vocalist Vincent Bennett excels where so many frontmen in deathcore fail:

We are the atomsmashers
We do what can’t be done
You are the baby killers
We will explode the sun

Sure, they’re no Emmure, but they’re still pretty great.

(4 out of 5 horns)

Click to read more…

Even though “wormwood” just sounds like the name of a death metal band, it’s actually a type of plant that they used to put into absinthe; it’s what gave that drink (which, if you’ve never had any, will fuck you up right proper even if it doesn’t have wormwood in it, because it has a RIDICULOUS amount of alcohol by volume) its hallucinatory properties and made it an alleged creative enabler of everyone from Toulouse-Lautrec to Hemingway to Marilyn Manson (who claims to grow his own wormwood for just that purpose). It’s also a star (or possibly an angel – there seems to be some debate) referenced in the New Testament.

Why am I telling you this? Because, in the below video, The Acacia Strain’s Vincent Bennett announces Wormwood as the title of the band’s new album, but declines to give any further explanation. So is the band making reference to a fallen star, or to a plant that will make you see Underwear Gnomes n’ shit? Until we get to hear Mr. Bennett’s lyrics for the new album, we probably won’t know – and even then, the subject may be open to debate. Still, this is MetalSucks, so everyone should feel free to speculate.

Bennett also unveils the album’s cover art in this video. Check it out:

Wormwood comes out July 20 on Prosthetic.

-AR

A little over a year ago I was invited to go see The Acacia Strain play a sold-out show at the Palladium in Worcester. I wasn’t able to make it, but everyone I spoke to who did said it was INSANE. All caps like that, dude: INSANE.

Luckily, David Brodsky and his crack team of metal video makin’ nutjobs were there to capture the action, and the concert flick will be included on The Acacia Strain’s new DVD, The Most Known Unknown, which now has February 16 release date via Prosthetic.

Click to read more…

As much as I love metal feuds, they usually don’t actually go anywhere. Kerry King and Dave Mustaine can trade barbs in the press all they like, but we all know they’ll never actually get into any kind of altercation; in fact, Slayer and Megadeth just announced another string of Canadian dates together. Metal doesn’t have its own Tupac/Biggie story because rarely do these dudes show any actual desire to hurt one another. And even when they do, it usually goes nowhere (see: Vince Neil versus Axl Rose).

Well, Lambgoat is reporting that The Acacia Strain’s Vincent Bennett and Emmure’s Frankie Palmeri have now crossed that line, apparently beating the shit out of one another at last night’s Emmure gig in Clifton Park.

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If I was a betting man, I’d wager that at some point in their lives, the members of The Acacia Strain have been stuck with that most awful of labels – “wiggers” (I betcha thought I was gonna say “deathcore,” didn’t cha?). So there’s probably a deep, sociological statement being made with their new, David Brodsky-directed video, “Skynet,” which forgoes any obvious Terminator references in lieu of imagining a world where all the members of The Acacia Strain are African-Americans.

But, of course, you can also just enjoy the clip as a funny video powered by a br00tal death metal song. Your choice.

If you haven’t done so already, check out our interview with The Acacia Strain vocalist Vincent Bennett here.

-AR

I reviewed The Acacia Strain’s latest album, Continent, a couple months back and I remember being suitably impressed by its seamless integration of death metal intensity and hardcore attitude (both flavors of breakdowns, too). It might still be the only record I’ve heard that really makes sense to be called “deathcore” in a descriptive, non-pejorative way. After having said that, however, I am just glad that vocalist Vincent Bennett was on a different continent (hah) at the time of our interview, or he might have just terminated me. Read more from Vincent’s emailed responses about the dirty d-word and touring in Oz after the jump.

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