Fred Durst has tweeted that Limp Bizkit’s long delayed reunion album/latest attempt to make people wonder if pouring Drano in their ears will make it stop, Gold Cobra, is actually going to be TWO albums.

We don’t know if they’ll be titled Gold Cobra I and Gold Cobra II or just Gold Cobra and something else (Fuzzy Warm Wet Tunnel, perhaps?), but unless neither one of them contains any actual content besides the sounds of Durst, Wes Borland, and the rest of their crew being raked over hot coals, it’s not going to matter what they call it. It will exist. And it will be awful.

This band is going so far out of their way to give me an aneurysm, I imagine they’ll be announcing a tour with Winds of Plague and Emmure any second now. In fact, Vince recently mistook a new WoP song for Limp Bizkit, so, y’know, have all your affairs in order and the cyanide pills at hand for when that inevitably happens.

-AR

[via Metal Insider ]

I don’t have a problem with nerd metal — I mean, to some extent, ALL metal is nerd metal, but what I really mean is, I don’t have a problem with the idea of nerds making metal about computers or other such dorkery. Hell, Meek is Murder’s Algorithms, which we’re very, very happily releasing next month (pre-order it here), deals by and large with computer code. So obviously, I have no problem with metal that draws on such a geeky topic for inspiration.

But it’s only Monday, and I still have to imagine that The Unhandled Exceptions‘ “Random Access Memory” is the worst thing I, you, or anyone either of us knows will hear all week. I mean, I suppose it’s possible that Johnny Plague and Frankie Palmeri could release a new duet cover of “Close My Eyes Forever,” but it would still be a million times better than this. (Actually, come to think of it, I really, really hope that Plague and Palmeri do just that. I know for a fact that people who work with the band read this website; fellas, please make that happen.)

If I thought the band was in on the joke, I might not have any problem with this; but it feels completely, and painfully, sincere. Maybe that just means that they are kidding and they’re more clever than I am, but, uh, no I don’t think so.

You should really check out their website, too, ’cause it provides plenty of additional lulz.

-AR

Thanks to Kurt Hansen for the tip. Kurt promises “to make it up with an excellent suggestion in the future.”

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP MOTHERFUCKERS??? WINDS OF PLAGUE BACK AGAIN, STILL RUNNING SHIT!!!

In case you missed it, there is a new single from the one and only WINDS OF PLAGUE [via leading independent music retailer CENTURY MEDIA]. Don’t sleep on this one, it is a fucking banger — bump this shit in the club, in the whip, at the gym, whatever! Run and grab your momma’s skirt, it’s going down!!! Oh, and in case it didn’t already slap hard enough, did I mention it features a guest appearance from Mattie Montgomery of our bros FOR TODAY??

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We can’t believe that this is really happening. To paraphrase John McClane in Die Hard 2, “How can the same shit happen to the same band twice?”

More than two years ago, Winds of Plague’s then-keyboardist, Kristen Randall, took a picture of herself topless — and the picture subsequently found its way onto the internet (you can see it here). Since then, Randall has been replaced not once but twice with different young ladies, presumably because WOP need an attractive woman in the band at all times, lest their fans notice the band’s lack of talent.  The gimmick has gotten so silly that following the announcement of Randall’s latest successor, Alana Potocnik (formerly of The Breathing Process and Abigail Williams) was announced, Vince joked that maybe someday she’d have leaked nudie pics, too.

Well, guess what? Now she does. They were apparently first posted at Is Anyone Up, but were sent to us by an anonymous reader. And because we’re mental midgets who still find both female and male nudity hilarious  (don’t forget that we’ve posted pics of Rose Funeral’s Dusty Boles thrusty pole and Lars’ little Ulrich, too) we find them amusing. Needless to say, they’re NSFW.

There are three pics, but only one of them displays Ms. Potocnik’s face, so the other two could be fakes, but, uh, maybe not. In any case, we’re starting to wonder if Potocnik and Winds of Plague are doing this on-purpose; it’s just too big a coincidence that the female members of Winds of Plague keep enduring the same scandal. ‘Cause if they’re not doing it for the publicity, then, uh, well, that’s just sad.

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It goes without saying that an attractive women at a metal show is about as common as a MetalSucks reader who’s seen a vagina somewhere other than the internet. That’s why things like Revolver‘s “12 Hottest Chicks In Metal” calendar are little more than a cheap lie: a more honest title would be “Complete List of Hot Chicks in Metal.”

With such a shortage of ass, metal hotties are in high demand, and men are forced to make tough choices — and what tougher choice is there to make than the classic game of FUCK, MARRY, OR KILL? If you aren’t familiar, FMK is a game in which you are given a list of three names and must choose which one you would fuck, marry and kill. I figured it would be good practice for readers to choose which metal hotties they would eff, marry and kill — check out the menu after the break!

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Winds of Plague have released the below Christmas video, which includes a too-brief sample of a new song, “Refining the Fire.” The band is scheduled to release a new album on Century next year.

It will be interesting to see how the Decibel Hall of Famers and New York Times profilees fare with new keyboardist Alana Potocnik stepping in for the departed Kristen Randall, who was, as we all know, a cornerstone of WOP’s sound and songwriting process. A little birdie tells me that this album will be a return to the band’s tr00 thugcore roots a la Decimate the Weak, and the music below would certainly seem to confirm that. But however it sounds, here’s hoping that these critics’ darlings can finally find the mass audience their reviews suggest they so richly deserve.

-AR

After the Burial released their new album In Dreams on November 23rd just before heading out to California for their current tour with Winds of Plague. On the day of the album’s release I caught up with ATB guitarist Trent Hafdahl by phone; we chatted about the new album, new vocalist Anthony Notarmaso and his role in the writing process, what really went down when they dropped off the Bleeding Through tour this fall, their plans for 2011 and, of course, Sumeriancore. Our chat after the fold.

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While these days metal fandom is basically just a contest to see who can fap harder and faster to obscure technical death metal, it wasn’t always that way. In fact, many of the bands that internet metal nerds regard as legendary icons today were either hated or ignored when they were at their peak — fellow oldz will know exactly what I’m talking about. In this post, I will remind us all what fickle, trendy conformists metal fans can be by taking a stroll down memory lane and recalling vintage popular opinion of a few of your pet bands (hint: it wasn’t good!).

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Seriously, if you haven’t read Vince’s epic story about how MetalSucks Maniac “whiskey” won last week’s last week’s photo caption contest, you need to go read it now. It’s pretty amazing. Whiskey’s mom even left a comment! We like to think of MetalSucks as something the whole fucking family can enjoy together, so that warmed the cockles of our collective heart.

Here’s some other fun stuff that happened this week:

• We debuted a performance clip from the new Shadows Fall live DVD, the new Intronaut album, and a new Madball song. PHEW!
• We spoke to Jeremy Creamer from Daath, Johnny Plague from Winds of Plague, Adam Warren from Oceano, and Ashmedi from Melechesh. Oh, and Anso unveiled part one of his massive two-part interview with Atheist’s Kelly Shaefer.
• We checked out new releases by Salome, Madball, Woe, and Arson Anthem and Ender. And a DWARR reissue!
• Greg Weeks from The Red Chord said good-bye to Randy Moss and hello to men wearing pink tights, Sacha Dunable from Intronaut contemplated the legalization of recreational marijuana use in California, and Eyal Levi from Daath discovered DestinAsian.
• Sergeant D. celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell. Wait, what?
• We couldn’t figure out why everyone was so surprised that ICP are evangelical Christians.
• We found out the hard way that Attack Attack!’s music could be even worse than it already is.
• We took a slow ride on Metallica’s Lightning.
• We laughed at one shit stain calling another shit stain “a shit stain.”
• And, oh yeah! Gary Suarez took over the site for a day.

Next week is CMJ here in New York! If you’re in the area and looking for some awesome metal, check out our handy guide to all the festivities — including not one but TWO showcases sponsored by MetalSucks. We’re not gonna lie — we are going to be very hungover and tired next week. But that just means we’ll be crankier than usual. We’ll still be here with lots of debuts, interviews, and other assorted nonsense. Bring your mom! It’ll be fun.

-AR

Some people turn into bellicose, impetuous boneheads at the very mention of deathcore on this site. Case in point, many wont even get past that first sentence before scrolling down to the Comments box and firing off a few foulmouthed, grammatically incorrect lines about how much it sucks and how awful I am for even bringing it up. Yet those who can restrain this impulse may very well find this interview with Winds Of Plague frontman Johnny Plague eye-opening.

Unlike the boastful meatheads that litter this scene, the man I spoke to was very down-to-earth and brutally honest when speaking about the unexpected reaction the fans had to last year’s The Great Stone War, a labyrinthine concept album crammed into a thirty-seven minute time frame. It was a bold move for the band’s second record for Century Media, and a departure that he acknowledges did not go over well. Below, Mister — not Doctor, as you’ll see — Plague, discusses how that factored into their touring behind the release, as well as his love of East Coast Hardcore and Halloween.

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Earlier this week I had a dream that I was working with Atreyu. I don’t know in what capacity I could possibly find myself “working with” Atreyu, since I’m not a manager, nor a publicist, nor a label rep, and they’re about as likely to end up doing a guest column here as I am to give the new In This Moment album a perfect 5-horn review, but, hey, the subconscious works in mysterious ways. Why did I have Atreyu on the brain? Was my mind trying to tell me “The glass is half-full?” Do I have  a hankering to re-watch The Neverending Story? Did I just ingest too many different substances that night? I’ll have to bring it up in therapy next week.

Here’s other shit that happened this week, some of which, believe it or not, is even more terrifying than the thought of working with Atreyu:

• Freddy Madball is counting down his favorite hard and heavy non-hardcore bands of all time, TesseracT’s Acle walked us through the history of djent, The Austerity Program’s Justin Foley spoke to Converge’s Kurt Ballou about Taco Riffs, The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks made some suggestions for losing NFL teams, Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable contemplated the ways in which technology has changed touring, Daath’s Eyal Levi wondered, “Is this it?”, and a wide array of metal stars previewed the just-begun NHL season.
• We spoke to Kirk Windstein from Crowbar/Down/Kingdom of Sorrow, Sean Z. from Daath, Daddy X and Dirtball from Kottonmouth Kings, and Yoshiki Hayashi from X Japan.
• We checked out the latest releases from Abysse and Deafheaven.
• We contemplated trancecore.
• As the headline says, we heard the worst thing ever.
• We reviewed the history of terrible Limp Bizkit cover songs.
• We had fun with misheard song lyrics.
• We bemoaned the signing of another re-thrash band.
• We applauded Slayer fans’ desire to help the physically disabled.
• We had yet another laugh at Winds of Plague’s expense.

We have a special surprise for you next week. I can’t promise you’re going to like it, but I can promise you’re going to have a strong reaction to it. See ya then.

-AR

Playing jokes on Winds of Plague is funny. Playing jokes on whoever happens to be occupying the carousel wheel of interchangeable female keyboardists for Winds of Plague at any given time is even funnier.

The latest shenanigan comes from Periphery tour manager Justin Gosnell who decided to mess with current WoP keyboard seat-warmer Alana Potocnik on their summer tour with Fear Factory. It started with a picture of Justin’s spread ass cheeks set as the wallpaper on Alana’s phone, and since I don’t wanna ruin it for you I’ll just say it progressed from there. Watch:

I’m not sure I can get behind Justin’s claim that this is “the best tour prank of all-time,” but it’s a pretty good one. Supposedly some kids at the show thought it was real and it to WoP’s Wikipedia page, although it’s since been removed. Nice work!

-VN

I hit up Warped Tour yesterday to check out Fight Fair, Breathe Carolina, Of Mice & Men, and some of my other favorite Hot Topic bands, and one of the things that struck me was how much deathcore merch the kids were rocking. I think I saw like twenty teenage girls in Suicide Silence, Bring Me The Horizon or Whitechapel shirts, which was kind of weird. Wigged-out symphonic deathcore mainstays Winds of Plague were also repped heavily by the kids, including these these interesting-looking teens who I accosted:

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Kirk Windstein is a poet. Of this, there can be no doubt. Since Kingdom of Sorrow took over our site on Tuesday, Vince and I have decided we really, really wanna take a trip to New Orleans and just go eat with the dude (well, probably get high and then go eat with the dude). But secretly, I have aspirations of someday being able to pay the man to teach my children how to speak good. I can dream, can’t I?

Here’s some other shit that went down in the Mansion this week:

• We debuted a clip from The Haunted’s new DVD, Road Kill.
• We also debuted new music by Early Graves.
• We spoke to Stephen Carpenter from Deftones.
• Ken Sorceron from Abigail Williams doesn’t wanna talk shit about Winds of Plague, so instead he just left a comment on our site saying “it its embarrassing to once again see our name next to theirs on another metal news site.” Way to not talk shit, Kenny!
• We checked out a new release by Black Pyramid.
• Sergeant D taught us about the history of metalcore and screamo.
• We engaged in debate about the new Maiden song, the new Maiden setlist, and the old Maiden album art.
• The new Methods of Mayhem song is the worst thing ever.
• Rose Funoral finally spoke out about the Uno Incident.
• Vince thinks the BP oil spill is Korny.

Next week will bring some more streams, interviews with Max Cavalera and Bobby Blotzer, and more self-righteous rage over fairly trivial topics. ‘Til then…

-AR

We love a good feud ’round the Mansion, and since Burton and Dino kissed, made up and had a fancy baby-eating party last year we haven’t really had much to get excited about. Enter Winds of Plague; the deathcore outfit’s constantly rotating arsenal of girls who stand on stage looking pretty female keyboard players is the stuff that’s made of legends (they’ve now had six!) all on its own, and a recent podcast on The Gauntlet has added some fuel to the fire.

The Gauntlet had Abigail Williams singer/guitarist Ken Sorceron and guitarist Ian Jekelis in the studio for their June 6th podcast (available here), and when the interviewer asked what happened with ex-keyboard player Alana Potocnik – who abruptly left Abigail Williams to join Winds of Plague mere hours before a tour in November of 2009 — he got a whole lot more than he’d bargained for with tales of shit-talking, deception and secret love affairs!

Fun! A quick transcription of a portion of the interview after the jump.

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You probably know Century Media for their work with groundbreaking, legendary artists like Stuck Mojo and My Own Victim, but they are also home to lesser-known bands like Lacuna Coil, Arch Enemy, Nevermore, Warbringer, Terror, and deathcore sensations Winds Of Plague and Suicide Silence. In all seriousness, though, I’ve worked with CM in one form or another since the mid-90s, and have nothing but good things to say about the CM crew. In addition to Despise You frontman/ CM warehouse manager Chris Elder, one of the many great people at CM is A&R guy Steve Joh. With the label’s 20th anniversary coming up soon, I figured it would be a great time to catch up with one of the nicest guys in metal and give the label some much-deserved props. Thanks to Steve for his time and help, and thanks to CM for being cool enough to send me promos when I was a teenager with a fanzine back in the day!

Note: I am a fan of both WoP and Suicide Silence. Knowing that they are lightning rods for the (negative) attention of angry metal dorks, I included their names in the headline for this post in hopes of attracting maximum viewership, and therefore giving the most possible publicity to Steve and the bands. Thank you for participating in this exciting social media marketing initiative.

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Of course members of glorified solo bands comes and go, but we’ve given Winds of Plague a lot of shit over the past seven months or so because of their insistence that their keyboard player slot be filled by a cute chick at all times. It’s the very definition of “gimmick” – it doesn’t matter who the best person for the job is. That job must be held by a woman at all times, lest adolescent boys’ interest in the music wane with their diminishing hard-on.

But then today I saw that The Smashing Pumpkins have a new bass player, Nicole Fiorentino (pictured above). And it hit me: “Holy crap, The Smashing Pumpkins are the Winds of Plague of their day.”

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Usually I don’t like Euro-metal, but sometimes I make exceptions — for example Gut, Female Nose Breaker, and Mercyful Fate. You can add Germany’s cleverly-named Cunthunt777 to the list of Euro bands who get a pass from me (via our bros at Weedsteeler). In the groundbreaking video below, these angry bros in sweatpants walk around menacingly in what appears to be a shabby warehouse while  hardcore dancing and making wiggerish arm movements at the camera.

As you can see, there are enough puffy jackets to make Johnny Plague jealous, and nothing goes together quite as well as generic breakdowns and puffy outerwear! I suppose there is an outside chance this song is a joke (the band lists their genre on Myspace as “death metal/concrete/rap”), but in my experience Euros are far too simple and dimwitted to pull off something as sublime as this video for a joke. As evidenced by the existence of Manowar, All Around The World, Scooter, and jumpstyle, they seem to be completely lacking any sense of self-awareness, and are therefore incapable of irony. But if this is a joke, then hats off– you fooled me!

What is your favorite part of this video? Is this the ultimate expression of deathcore steez??? Do you think Johnny Plague is fuming with jealousy right now??? Can any of our German readers translate the lyrics???

-Sergeant D

“But seriously, why don’t people respect me for my musical ability???”

Kristen Randall’s biggest contribution to music is a leaked photo of her boobs, and when she left Winds of Plague last year, the world responded with a resounding “whatever” as the band proved that one cute chick keyboardist is as enticing to male suburban virgins as another.

So, following the same line of completely 110% sound logic that dictates that men should not be interested in breasts, Randall is taking the next logical step in her career and launching a solo project.

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No, this isn’t an article about boobies. Sorry.

Sergeant D. recently conducted an interview with Born of Osiris for Substream, and, as is often the case, there was a chunk of the interview that the magazine didn’t run. The Sarge has now posted that chunk at Stuff You Will Hate, and while some of it is over my head (Did you know that Johnny Plague apparently wears a lot of puffy vests? Yeah, me neither.), I did appreciate the revelation that BOO drummer/primary songwriter Cameron Losch has dabbled in rap music:

Sergeant D. compares him to Andy Samberg’s “Blizzard Man” character from Saturday Night Live, which I think is going too far. Blizzard Man’s lyrics are more authentic. “How’d I get so good at killing bitches/Well, nobody knows?” Seriously? There a lotta gangstas on the rough streets of Palatine, Illinois, aren’t there?

Read more at SYWH.

-AR