New releases by Deicide, Neuraxis and Total Fucking Destruction top this week’s list of new metal albums available in the States. While the new one from Emmure is guaranteed to outsell them all (combined!), we can take solace in the fact that there a smattering of other great new releases too from the likes of Ava Inferi, Darkest Era, Rabbits, The Famine, and a whole lot more. Vic Vaughn breaks ‘em all down after the fold.

Click to read more…

MetalSucks is celebrating the season of the witch with the Munster Mash, a(n almost) weekly spotlight on metal covers of the Munsters theme. During the thrash/crossover era, every band and their moms busted it out at some point, either as a live staple or a hidden track.

This week’s take on the song is “Munster Mosh” by Virüs , pioneers of the ironic umlaut-U. The UK thrash band formed in 1986, split in ’91, and reunited in 2008. The TV-tune cover appeared on the band’s sophomore LP, 1988’s Force Recon, as a hidden track. Lead guitarist Coke McFinlay told MetalSucks how it became the band’s biggest sorta-single.

Click to read more…

Last week, we told you about Zakk Wylde’s contribution to “Addiction,” an awful new song by the awful band Dope. The song now has a music video, which was directed by Kevin Custer and MetalSucks Maniac hater Dale “Happy-Go-Lucky Sunshine Fun Time” Resteghini.

Here are things about the video that I find really, really fucking weak:

1. Edsel Dope is in it.
2. Virus is in it.
3. The song.
4. That uninformed viewers may come under the impression that Virus is playing Zakk Wylde’s part.
5. How the members of Dope now dress like the members of Black Label Society instead of the members of Marilyn Manson or, more shockingly, themselves.
6. That Edsel Dope is actually wearing a Black Label Society jacket.

Here are things about the video that I like:

1. Big Fake Titties.
2. Big Fake Titties actually gets a costume change.
3. That watching it will steal less than three minutes of your life away.

The video itself can be viewed after the jump. It’s not really safe for work, and definitely not safe for human ears, so… consider yourself warned.

Click to read more…

I had the displeasure of seeing Dope live once (don’t ask). They were playing at Don Hill’s, a club here in NYC that holds about 300 people, and, to my surprise, they actually managed to pack the place pretty full. So after the band before them concluded their set, Dope kept the crowd waiting for 45 minutes while their roadies set up elaborate stage dressing fit for an arena show: extra platforms and a new PA system and lighting rig (I guess the house systems weren’t good enough for the band) and giant wooden backdrops and a chain link fence (!) and who the fuck knows what else. This kind of shit really isn’t necessary for a small club gig, but it might have been forgivable had the band come out and rocked the kids’ faces off; instead, they came out and played for… 45 minutes. To repeat: the band played for as long as they kept the crowd waiting for them to play. In hindsight, it seems clear that all the rigmarole was really because without the fancy lights and props, the band knew they didn’t have much to offer.

I’m telling you this story because Dope will be opening for Black Label Society and Sevendust on their upcoming tour, which still strikes me as an odd package – that Zakk Wylde, who once proclaimed “Fred Durst can eat a dick” on his band’s DVD, would share a stage with not one but two nu-metal bands just seems weird.

Weirder still: Wylde has now recorded a track with Dope. Let me type that again, lest you think your eyes are failing you: DOPE HAVE A SONG ON THEIR NEW ALBUM WITH ZAKK WYLDE ON GUITAR.

Click to read more…