FEATURING MEMBERS OF ISIS, MUNICIPAL WASTE, ELUVEITIE, WORMROT, LAST CHANCE TO REASON, ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA, GOD DETHRONED, OWEN HART, NIGHTFALL, HORSEBACK, AND OCTOBER TIDE

For 2010, we decided to do something special as part of our regular end-of-year festivities here at MetalSucks — namely, ask musicians from across the vast spectrum of the metalsphere (or, in a few cases, the almost-metalsphere) what their favorite albums of the year were. Death metallers, thrash metallers, black metallers, stoners, grinders, and djenters alike graciously contributed lists to MS, and we’ll be running them in groups of ten to eleven musicians at a time twice a day for the rest of the week.

After the jump, check out the fourth group… we hope you enjoy seeing what some of metal’s heaviest hitters were into this year as much as we have!

(And please note that these are musicians and that they, um, have a lot on their minds. So some of ‘em named albums that actually came out last year. Please don’t freak out.)

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… sort of!

The above photo was sent in by Zappa Plays Zappa bassist Pete Griffin, who’s already been featured in our ongoing Show Us Your MetalSucks contest series — in which you send in a fun/funny picture of yourself donning your MetalSucks merch and in return we send you a buncha free shit.

Griffin befriended Portnoy on last year’s Progressive Nation tour and the two have been buds since. The above photo was snapped after the ZPZ set at the High Voltage Festival in London, where Portnoy was playing with Transatlantic and then immediately flying back to the US to do the first gig with Avenged Sevenfold the next night. Says Griffin, “He once again sat and watched our entire set, singing and air drumming along.” The dude on the left is ZPZ drummer Joe Travers and the dude on the right is ZPZ guitarist Jamie Kime, both of whom are in Griffin’s other project Gryphon Labs.

So, while Portnoy might not be wearing that bad-ass Jewified MetalSucks shirt… it’s probably the closest he’ll ever get to doing so. Thanks, Pete!

-VN

The second annual Progressive Nation Tour — featuring a re-jiggered and suddenly worth seeing lineup of Scale the Summit, Bigelf and Zappa Plays Zappa supporting Dream Theater — hit New York’s historic Beacon Theater on Sunday night. This year’s proggier leaning lineup (last year’s had Opeth, BTBAM and 3 in the support slots) brought out an older-skewed audience, but as is always remarkably the case with Dream Theater there were plenty of youngins in attendance. In fact, the most frequently spotted band t-shirt I saw all night was for The Faceless; stew on that one for a second.

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Back in March I bitched that this year’s Progressive Nation lineup — featuring Pain of Salvation, Beardfish, and Zappa Plays Zappa supporting Dream Theater — was decidedly less metal than last year’s lineup (which featured 3, BTBAM, and Opeth supporting DT — killer show) and wasn’t worth the price of admission to anyone under 50. A press release delivered good news to the MS Mansion earlier this week, announcing that Bigelf and Scale the Summit have replaced Pain of Salvation and Beardfish. Suh-weet!

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When Mike Portnoy announced that there would be a 2009 edition of last year’s bonerrific Progressive Nation Tour — which featured Opeth, Between the Buried and Me and Three in support of Dream Theater (read our show review) — one would naturally assume the lineup would be pretty fuckin’ killer just like its predecessor, no? While our heads swirled with the possibilities of what might be in the cards (Protest the Hero? Muse? Porcupine Tree? Gojira??), today our expectations hit the floor with a mighty thud. Zappa Plays Zappa. Pain of Salvation. Beardfish. Um… who?

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