NEILSTEIN SOUNDSCAM: A KOLOSSAL DEBUT

Holy crap — last week was a huge one for new metal releases! New records from Meshuggah, Overkill, God Forbid, Ministry, 3 Inches of Blood, Wretched, OSI, Black Breath, Hour of Penance, Angel Witch and more all charted in the Top 100 of the Current Hard Music chart. Let’s down to bizzy:

1 SHINEDOWN – AMARYLLIS
Last week: 106,132 (debut)

Well I think everyone saw this coming, but I don’t think anyone predicted over 100k; wow! It’s a good record, too. Not as good as The Sound of Madness, but still good!

2 THE USED – VULNERABLE
Last week: 31,794 (debut)

The Used: apparently still very much a thing!

3 MESHUGGAH – KOLOSS
Last week: 18,737 (debut)

A press release touts this as the highest ever chart rank (it’s #17 on the overall chart) and biggest single sales week ever in the history of Nuclear Blast’s USA office. It’s a killer record, and totally deserved. The legend of Meshuggah only grows with time.

6 VAN HALEN – A DIFFERENT KIND OF TRUTH
Last week: 6,886
Cume: 338,755

Ninth week on. I guess this will pass 500k sometime this summer.

7 OVERKILL – THE ELECTRIC AGE
Last week: 6,698 (debut)

I haven’t had a chance to listen to this record yet, but in the abstract that strikes me as a really great debut number for Overkill.

8 IRON MAIDEN – EN VIVO!
last week: 6,583 (debut)

Live albums are only for the diehardiest of the diehards, and this one is no different; Maiden’s last proper full-length album sold 63k copies first week. I wonder how the DVD/Blu-Ray fared?

14 GOD FORBID – EQUILIBRIUM
Last week: 3,529 (debut)

Earthsblood debuted with around 5.4k albums sold back in 2008. That was four years ago, and the industry’s changed. I’d be really happy with this first week number if I were the GF dudes.

16 MINISTRY – RELAPSE
Last week: 3,160 (debut)

Lotsa folks still care about Ministry, I s’pose.

3 INCHES OF BLOOD – LONG LIVE HEAVY METAL
Last week: 2,506 (debut)

I don’t have access to prior 3 Inches of Blood chart debuts, but that’s a really solid number for such a niche band. Long live heavy metal indeed!

28 OSI – FIRE MAKE THUNDER
Last week: 1,955 (debut)

1,955 IMNs.

59 WRETCHED – SON OF PERDITION
Last week: 836 (debut)

67 BLACK BREATH – SENTENCED TO LIFE
Last week: 892 (debut)

Rankings on the Current Hard Music chart are weird and sometimes the ranks don’t correspond to actual number of units sold, as with the above two releases. I think it’s got something to do with pre-orders counting, or pre-orders not counting, or something. What the fuck, Soundscan?

87 HOUR OF PENANCE – SEDITION
Last week: 619 (debut)

88 ANGEL WITCH – AS ABOVE SO BELOW
Last week: 604 (debut)

92 BORKNAGAR – URD
Last week: 531 (debut)

-VN