We’re not the only ones scratching our heads at the incredible (and well deserved) good fortune bestowed upon Intronaut by the mighty Tool in the form of a string of opening gigs: guitarist/vocalist and MetalSucks contributor Sacha Dunable is just as awestruck. In a tour diary for L.A. Weekly, Dunable shares some of the expected dream-like scenarios of suddenly finding yourself playing in an arena for 8,000 people after a lifetime in bars, dives and dirtholes — pre-show jitters (or lack thereof), Tool’s 12-truck entourage, etc — and also offers this nugget of wisdom:

Tool are one of the most awesome live bands I’ve ever seen. Someone I know recently made the statement that they are “the Pink Floyd of our generation,” and fair enough. They are the masters of the ultimate full on audio/visual performance. It’s inspiring to see a band go to the lengths they do in order to provide that experience for their fans. It’s also interesting to watch the after-show load out done by the team of maybe 100 locals and touring crew. If I were to imagine Egyptian slaves building the pyramids, it would look a lot like Tool’s end of night tear down.

Truer words = never spoken (although I’ve yet to personally bear witness to their load-out). Point being: if you’ve somehow never seen Tool live and our incessant declarations of Tool as the best live band on the planet haven’t yet convinced you, take it from Sacha and go see Tool on tour right now. Do it.

-VN

Evil Bells aka Slay Bells by guitarstevecc

I’m not one for Christmas music, but I enjoyed the above doom interpretation of an Xmas classic very much. Click “play” while you catch up on this morning’s news:

• Tool have announced the opening acts for their string of winter 2012 dates… and it’s wonky stoner-prog outfit Intronaut (as rumored) on the first half of the tour and doom metal titans Yob on the second half! It’d be easy enough for Tool to take out a commercial hard rock band because their agent or manager said so, an established act that could help put some butts in seats, or no one at all… but nope, they march to their own drum and chose Intronaut and Yob, two acts that will seem completely out of left field to most of Tool’s fanbase. That’s Tool for you; just one of 1,697 reasons I love this band so much.
• Paganfest will come back to America in spring 2012 for its third U.S. incarnation. Despite the pagan/folk metal trend being long over, Paganfest III actually features a really cool lineup: Turisas, Alestorm, and Ex Deo are the bigger bands, and they’ll take along with them Arkona and Huntress, neither of whom I know much about. Get dates here.
• Gwar’s Oderus Urungus and Balsac the Jaws of Death review the new Spielberg movie War Horse for NextMovie.com on video.
• Alternative Press readers have chosen Asking Alexandria’s Ben Bruce as “Guitarist of the Year” for 2011. MetalSucks editors have nominated Alternative Press readers as having the “Worst Taste in Metal” for eternity.
• Gory death metal vets Exhumed have posted their entire live set from Maryland Deathfest 2011 on NPR’s website. Stream it here. And oh hey look at who wrote that article! (hey hey)

via WWTDD

So much of this week ended up being devoted to the Big Four that I honestly don’t wanna think about any of those bands again for at least the remainder of the year. So to wrap this shit up, here’s everything Big Four-related we did this week:

• We live snarked the Big Four show at Yankee Stadium.
• We went to an Anthrax press conference.
• We went to the Metal Masters clinic and saw Phil Anselmo jam some Pantera with various Big Fourers.
• We debated the merits and demerits of Anthrax’s Worship Music.
• We listened to Lars Ulrich on Howard Stern.
• We had fun at the expense of Dave Mustaine’s faith.
• We had a Big Four edition of Show Us Your Metalsucks.
• We helped Metal Injection with their Big Four-themed Livecast.
• I also made an appearance in Metal Injection’s Big Four video recap, which you MUST watch because a) it’s awesome and b) I’m so handsome!

A veritable force within the pantheon of doom, the mighty YOB have recently unleashed their most focused album to date, Atma. Once again, they do not disappoint, offering the listener a soul-crushing, transcendental experience of balls-heavy doom/sludge. YOB possess that rare triple-threat quality of producing consistently excellent recordings, performing flawlessly live, and bringing forth an intelligent, complementary aesthetic to their music. I caught the band on their recent US tour with Dark Castle, which if you missed, means you receive an F in life. The band is about to head across the pond to Europe with Dark Castle and Kongh, captivating new audiences and destroying speakers along the way. I

had the chance to catch up via e-mail with YOB founder Mike Scheidt, where he gave his insight on the band’s growing popularity, working with Scott Kelly, and YOB’s unique inspirations. So spark up some hash, put Atma on your speakers, and enter the devastating world of YOB.

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

This week ‘s question was suggested to us by the reader known as “Cougar Party”:

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE RIFF OF 2011 THUS FAR?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump.

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Getting back into the flow of things this week we have a good number of new releases to listen to as we head out of the summer release season. New stuff from Yob, Chimaira, Revocation and Today Is The Day are probably the biggest releases this week, with some lesser-known gems in the herd as well.

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(Wolves in the Throne Room. Photo by Alison Scarpulla)

I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that NPR is now endorsing metal, despite the fact that it’s been going on for months already. I love NPR and all they offer (especially for news), but this is the chosen music medium of my 65 year-old parents, not exactly a hotbed of youth culture. What’s even more puzzling is the particular aesthetic of metal that NPR has given their blessing; I don’t know how to say this without sounding condescending (and I really don’t mean it that way), but you’d be way more likely to hear the metal bands NPR gives their seal of approval emanating from a Bushwick loft than you would a suburban bedroom in Ohio, or even a basement World of Warcraft mancave. I guess what I’m saying is, with the gigantic mainstream reach NPR has, I wish they would widen the range of metal bands they’re covering; the whole doom/black/crust/stoner/Scion axis is just one small piece of the overall puzzle. But so it goes.

One thing is for certain, though: at least the NPR Metal Czar has good taste. When you’re streaming the first new track from Wolves In The Throne Room’s upcoming album Celestial Lounge and the entirety of Yob’s new doom-tastic opus Atma at the very same time, it’s hard to generate any ill-will at all, even in the way of missed opportunities (like, for example, the new Revocation and Fleshgod Apocalypse albums). If you like good metal and know what’s good for ya, head on over to NPR at the above links to check out new Wolves In the Throne Room and Yob. And be glad that metal is getting a national stage at all.

Yob just wrapped up a run with Dark Castle, but Wolves In the Throne Room go on tour all over North American starting later this month. Last time I saw WITTR was at SXSW 2009; “epic” would be an understatement. Dates after the jump:

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[Read my Day One recap here. -Ed.]

If Kvelertak aren’t rich men by the time they release their next album they’ll have seriously blown it. Based solely on the power of their incredible live performances at SXSW, the first of which took place Thursday afternoon inside Emo’s at the annual MS-sponsored Full Metal Texas event, these six Norwegians had major U.S. record labels drooling, kissing the ground they walk on, drinking their piss, shoveling poop down their own throats and throwing gobs of money at them. Expect a major bidding war to erupt over Kvelertak; it’ll be interesting to see where their next album lands. But the truth is, it’s all deserved; Kvelertak RIPPED. Video after the jump!

Day 2 of SXSW also featured the live debut of T.R.A.M., an improvizational jazz/metal supergroup featuring Animals as Leaders’ Tosin Abasi and Javier Reyes, Suicidal Tendencies drummer Eric Moore, and former Mars Volta saxophone player Adrian Terrazas at the WSOU showcase (along with Ultrageist and Meek is Murder). We also caught performances by Goes Cube, Yob and The Red Chord at Full Metal Texas.

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Trying to keep up with the changes at a music festival is like trying to herd a pack of rabid cats. The South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival is the biggest musical kitty corral of them all. That’s why you have me here to help you make heads or tails of all your SXSW metallic/hard rock/punk rock/experimental/etc. needs.

There have been plenty of line-up changes since my last SXSW music post over a week ago. First on the list is the welcome news that NOLA-sludgekings eyehategod will team up with doom metal pioneers Pentagram to close out the conference on Saturday, March 19 (both bands will be going on after midnight, so, technically, they are playing on March 20) at the Scoot Inn. They’ll be joined by a stellar group of bands including Cough and Naam.

Other notable additions include YOB, Slough Feg, and Zoroaster.

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Hey dudes and ladies! After a couple years of sporadic appearances, drunken conversations with various MS staff members, and a lot of babbling about black metal, I’ve finally settled in to do a proper column for this joint. Vince and Axl have given me free reign to write about pretty much whatever I want, poor bastards.

My main drugs of choice are fucked-up black metal, filthy sludge, hopeless doom, occult death metal, and virulent grind/crust/d-beat, with the odd exception here and there, so expect to see a bit more ugly, primitive, hateful music lurking around on MetalSucks from here on out.

Here are a two bands I’ve been digging a LOT lately. If you’re unfamiliar with them, check ‘em out. If you already know and love them, we’ll probably get along great.

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Not that I trust the opinion of Ben Ratliff more than I do my main man Vince – but while he’s still doing this whole Heavy Metal Road Trip thang, we probably ain’t gonna get a proper review of the show.

So it’s Mr. Ratliff at the New York Times to the rescue! This being the Paper of Record, a lot of the prose is pretty flowery (and by “flowery,” I mean “bordering on pretentious and meaningless”), but it still gives you some sense of how the show went down. Here’s an excerpt:

“What a generation ago would be called hardcore punk is now routinely a part of metal festivals, slotted in as grindcore. Magrudergrind, a trio from Washington, brought a fantastic standard of it: speeding, screaming bullets of songs, squalid and economical two-beat frenzies with quick turns and no bass player. (They don’t need one.) This was at Circus, a smaller club. But over in the smallest of the four — the tiny, dingy basement club Bernie’s Distillery — the Texas black-metal band Absu was going at it with dark eye makeup, horror-house gothic vocals and no letup in its music’s clattery, narrow, obsessive drive. Metal is deep and wide. Between this and Yob lay two miles of college-town strip and an aesthetic galaxy.”

Read the rest here.

-AR

On Sunday night we caught the Beard Destroyer 2009 tour with Hull and Batillus (sadly for us, Salome didn’t play that date). It crushed even harder than we thought it would, so we asked our friend, Batillus skinsman Geoff Summers, to do a tour wrap-up for us. We hope you enjoy!

So, here I sit with a mild case of PTD (post-tour depression) writing up this wrap report for the so-called Beard Destroyer tour featuring Salome, Hull, and my band, Batillus. We had some good times, and we had some bad times. It rained. A lot. Everywhere we went. Fortunately, though, the good dwarfed the bad. Let’s recap…

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At the beginning of the year I wrote a piece highlighting the sudden abundance of awesome metal festivals in the U.S.. Though our friends across the pond still retain an advantage in metal festivals in both number and size, 2009 saw a whole host of upstarts in the U.S.: Scion Rock Fest, L.A. Murderfest (in its 5th year), California MetalFest, Texas Metal Up Your Ass, Dudefest and of course long-established destinations such as Maryland Deathfest, New England Metal and Hardcore Festival and Dirtfest. SXSW and CMJ both made surprisingly strong showings for metal this year, too.

The party keeps on rolling into the fall with another brand new festival, Planet Caravan, to take place September 18th and 19th at the Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina. The lineup is headlined by Clutch and Pentagram, with Orange Goblin, Kylesa, Burst (!), Yob, Wino, Astra, and Revolution Mother rounding out the bill. I haven’t heard of Taddy Porter, Orchid, or Pick Up the Snake, but even if all 3 bands are terrible (highly unlikely) that’s still a fucking killer lineup!

MetalSucks is co-sponsoring the event so we’ll have more news as it’s available. Check out the press release and festival details after the jump.

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As reported here previously, on Tuesday March 24, 3/4 of the incomparable Soundgarden reunited onstage at a Seattle concert venue. Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, and Ben Shepherd tore through a short but potent set that featured three classic tracks: “Hunted Down”, “Nothing to Say”, and “Spoonman”. On the microphone was none other than MR. TAD DOYLE, the Seattle legend that previously brought us TAD and HOG MOLLY, two heavy ass projects that demolished any attempt to define the so-called grunge sound. (His latest endeavor BROTHERS OF THE SONIC CLOTH continues in that awesome tradition.)

Some reporters would have hounded absent frontman Chris Cornell for comment (full disclosure: I sent him an unanswered tweet), but being me I knew the man I really needed to talk to was Tad himself. Thankfully, he was gracious enough to reply to my inquiry and we efficiently arranged a call. If I learned anything from my twenty minutes on the line with him last week, it’s that your musical heroes can sometimes turn out to be totally awesome, down-to-earth people. Tad Doyle is a rock star devoid of ego and bursting with passion and sincerity under an otherwise laid-back personality. As you’ll discover for yourself below, he totally fucking rules.

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