For Today To Release 'Immortal'!

Christian metalcore band For Today have announced their 4th studio album entitled Immortal! The album is due to release on May 22nd, with a single titled 'Fearless' due out March 22nd.

Pete Dolving Quits The Haunted

So, this is a bit of unfortunate news, although that might depend on how you view the band The Haunted. I for one am a much bigger fan of Pete Dolving as vocalist than Marco Aro, but that's just me. Regardless, according to some Facebook posts...

In Which I Stole A Metalsucks Title

So in light of the fact that I haven't posted much lately I decided to post a quick update on things happening around my end. It's Midterms, so things have been piling up and I haven't had much time to write on here, which leads to my next point, I became a writer for Emurg, which reviews more independent Metal and Rock, which was pretty exciting in my opinion. Whenever a review of mine gets posted there, I'll link to it on here so you guys can check it out! (Also check out the other reviews on there, some great stuff can be found!) I'm still keeping this blog because I don't do all that much independent stuff save for the Bandcamp posts, so not much will change here.

That's pretty much it.

Oh and I just bought Veil Of Maya's new CD, look for a review soon.

Thanks!

-Alex

Make Them Suffer 'Neverbloom' Trailer!

Make Them Suffer, who were recently signed to Roadrunner Records (Which is awesome) have debuted a trailer for the music video of the first single off their debut album Neverbloom. This traielr is awesome and almost seems like a teaser trailer for a film. Check it out!

New Demon Hunter Album Will Be Truly Defiant.

Bad joke aside, Seattle based Christian Metalcore band are unleashing their sixth and newest album on us entitled True Defiance. This is the follow up to 2010's fantastic The World Is A Thorn. (Which is their best since The Triptych in this guys opinion.) The album is slated for April 10th, 2012 via Solid State Records.

Allegaeon Post Studio Update And Single!

Allegaeon posted a studio update of them at Lambesis Studios in California recording their new album Formshifter, which is due out May 8th via Metal Blade Records. It's shaping up to be even better than their first album Fragments Of Form And Function which is a hell of an album.

The Devil Wears Prada Part Ways With Keyboardist

The Band, Baney is far left.

The Devil Wears Prada announced today that they've parted ways with long time keyboardist and co-founding member James Baney. As it seems to happen to a lot of bands, it would appear he is going to take time now to spend with his family.

Derelict Posted 'Perpetuation'!

Derelict posted the title track for their upcoming album Perpetuation a few days ago! I'm a bit late on this, as I just noticed it after stumbling across through their facebook, but the new is exciting none the less! Check out the song, it's pretty awesome:

Make Them Suffer Small Update!

Australian Symphinc Deathcore band Make Them Suffer entered the studio recently to record a follow up to their awesome ep Lord Of Woe, which I did an article about. The band posted the studio update to their facebook, so I can't link post the video here, but here is the link to it, it's definitely worth checking out.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3002858265238&set=vb.103675192736&type=2&theater

Also if you haven't checked out Lord Of Woe, it's on their Bandcamp and it's on Spotify, so get to it!

Meshuggah 'Do Not Look Down'!

Meshuggah had a hand in crytipcally leaking a track recently, but this time around things were less leaked, and more officially posted to the internet. The new track called 'Do Not Look Down' is faster paced than the previous leak, and has a pretty solid solo about two minutes in. The riff, like most every meshuggah song is repetitive, but actually very catchy. It's a pretty solid song overall. I'm looking forward to Koloss. Anyhow, give the song a listen and see for yourself!

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Trailer

This Trailer has been out for a few weeks, but I finally got around to watching it. It's a ridiculous story, but it's so ridiculous it might just work. I've never read the book, and I'm not sure I'll get around to it before the film releases, but I'm very interested in seeing this.

New Spawn Of Possession Song 'Bodiless Sleeper'!

It's a good week for Tech Death it would appear! As with Gorod, Spawn Of Possession have posted a track from their upcoming album Incurso, due out March 13th, entitled 'Bodiless Sleeper'. Check it out:

New Gorod Track!

Gorod are easily one of the best tech death bands around, and they are finally releasing their new album A Perfect Absolution in Europe in March and in the US in May. They posted a new track entitled 'Birds Of Sulpher' which you can listen to here!

Oh Hey, Unearth Made A Video!

Unearth made a video for their song 'Watch It Burn' from last years Darkness In The Light. Which is my favorite track from a pretty solid album overall. The video itself isn't anything amazing, a collage of death and destruction intercut with the band playing, but the song is awesome.

Check out Darkness In The Light if you haven't already, it's good stuff!

Hour Of Penance Making Of Video!

Hour Of Penance have posted a video showing the drum tracking for the new album Sedition. It also serves as a bit of a sneak peek into how the new album will sound, and from what I can tell, we should expect it to be awesome.

DevilDriver Are Writing A New Album!

DevilDriver, who since 2002 have released six albums and made quite the name for themselves are going a bit ahead of their average two year cycle and have begun writing a followup to 2011's Beast. (An album, I liked, but sort of forgot about to be honest. It also didn't appear on too many year end albums lists.) There isn't much more to report than that, but it's nice that we can look forward to another solid groove metal album later this year.

Keep an eye out for studio updates and such!

New Meshuggah Track!

So a new Meshuggah track has been leaked onto the interwebs. This track is from their upcoming album Koloss, which will undoubtedly be one of the biggest albums in the metalsphere this year.

Check it out: iamaleak by gregoriev_suckalotsky

The production on it is fantastic. This son gin particular is rather slow in tempo for these guys, but it's more than likely one of the slowest on the album.

Koloss is due out March 27th!

Plundering The Depths Of Bandcamp! Point Below Zero - Self Titled EP

(It's my 100th blog post!)

This weeks discovery is a technical deathcore band called Point Below Zero with their just released self titled EP. The band describes themselves as moderately technical and moderately humorous deathcore, of which is a pretty accurate description. What you'll find on the album though is good stuff. These guys have been a band since 2007, but this is their first official release. They've been able to play alongside of The Contortionist, which is a pretty awesome thing. The album is 7 tracks, which is a comfortable medium between EP and LP.

Chronicle - Film Review

The found footage film genre is one that is a bit outdated when it comes to novelty, but somehow garners quite an audience still. Many found footage films fail in the sense that they try to pass themselves off as an actual representation of some sort of anomaly in the world. Recent films like Apollo 18 and The Devil Inside didn't do particularly well because they are pretending to be actual events.

Chronicle on the other hand is refreshing in that the filmmakers know this sort of thing isn't real, and they are not trying to make you believe it's real. Much like Cloverfield, they are just playing with the styling's of the genre and it serves them very well in the end.

Chronicle follows the story of 3 high school kids who stumble upon a mysterious object that upons interacting with gives them telekinetic abilities. Much like working out a muscle the characters have to be careful not to overdo it or their noses start to bleed heavily. We see them start out small, but they grow stronger over the next hour or so.

The film centers heavily on Andrew, played by Dane DeHann, who is the youngest of the three boys who is also filming almost the entire movie. He buys a camera to document his abusive father, played by Michael Kelley, but Andrew becomes obsessed with filming and brings the camera around with him everywhere he goes.

His cousin Matt, played by Alex Russell, is his only real friend at the start, and the most likable character in the film. He is for all intents and purposes in this film Andrew's big brother.

Steve, played by Michael B. Jordan, is the last of the three, and is a friend of Matt. He's one of the more popular kids in school and probably wouldn't have played a huge part in either Matt or Andrews life if they hadn't gained super powers. although he's the comedic relief in the film and a likable guy.

Overall all three characters are played well, however I feel like the character of Andrew gets a little bit unbelievable towards the end, and throughout the film he's a bit hard to connect to as an audience member. He's not liked in the story, doesn't really try to be liked, and while we pity him for being abused, I feel his reactions go way to far. Then again, there would not have been much of a film if he didn't take things to far, and it could be explained away as the new found abilities taking a toll on his mental state, which is pretty plausible.

The story deals with the idea that power corrupts, or in the case super power corrupts, and shows both sides of the coin in dealing with the questions we've all thought about at one point or another; 'If I had super powers this is what I'd do...'

The special effects were relatively noticeable, this being due to the really low budget or $15 million dollars, which pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions spent on films like Transformers, Avatar, and the Xmen films. It's even half the budget they had for Cloverfield. Although they are a slight bit on the cheesy side, they aren't b-movie effects, the are well above passable and eventually you get over them.

The film overall is very enjoyable, and is a nice refreshing blend of found footage and superhero origin story.

There's A Trailer For The New Spiderman Film!

As most of you know there is a new Amazing Spiderman movie coming out this year starring Andrew Garfield as my favorite superhero. The film is a darker approach than the previous series, and not dark as in bad emo dancing dark.

This film looks awesome. We're going to have a hell of a superhero summer between this, The Dark Knight Rises and Avengers.

I'M EXCITED.

Gamers Need To Check Out 'Metal Effect'!

I'm still working on a new Bandcamp Plunder, but in the meantime I found this awesome Djenty cover project of the Mass Effect soundtrack! It's by a guy called Little V, and it's pretty awesome stuff.

Oh and it's free to download! Always a good thing!

Any fan of Mass Effect needs to hear this.

Here's the link to his bandcamp:  http://littlev.bandcamp.com/album/metal-effect