Papa Roach have a new video for the song "Burn," from their most recent album, Time for Annihilation. (Did you know Papa Roach put an album out in 2010? Me either. It's a live disc with five new studio tracks, FYI.) The song's pretty good—they're one of the few bands that came up during the nü-metal boom that actually got better over time. And the video's cool, too; it's got fire, which is always a plus, and the end made me laugh. So here it is. Enjoy!


 

I've had mixed feelings about former Godflesh leader Justin Broadrick's band Jesu pretty much since the beginning. I really love some of Godflesh's albums—the band's music was unique, and uniquely powerful, on Streetcleaner, Pure, the "Cold World/Nihil" single, the Merciless EP and Selfless. But Jesu has always been too soft for me. Broadrick's guitar tone, which was maybe his greatest contribution to metal and/or rock, was frequently pushed down in favor of more psychedelic, poppier sounds, and the songwriting was less angry and more depressed/love-besot​ted than it had been with Godflesh. Jesu feels like Broadrick's attempt to be a '90s UK shoegaze act (think Ride, My Bloody Valentine, etc.). And if I didn't like that stuff back then, why would I like it in the 2000s?
Jesu has a new/old release out today, though, and it's pretty good. Maybe reuniting Godflesh for European festival shows has turned him back in a metal direction. Heart Ache & Dethroned combines Jesu's first EP, from 2004, and four brand-new songs on a two-CD set from Hydra Head, and it really shows the group at its heaviest. The two tracks on Heart Ache each ran about 20 minutes, and were performed entirely by Broadrick. The title track sounds like a Godflesh outtake (from the Pure era) for more than half its running time. As it goes on, it becomes more of a drifting, Cure/MBV thing, but the progression feels organic, like it's the sound of him transforming from one phase of development to another. The second track starts in a worrisome manner, with piano and acoustic guitar, before another Godflesh-esque riff comes in. This one doesn't get all lush until its last five minutes, and winds down with acoustic guitar and atmospheric keyboards.

The four songs that make up Dethroned are, again, crushingly heavy, but they're shorter—roughly seven minutes each. And while the vocals are clean (if treated with reverb and echo) rather than barked, the guitars (on the first two, anyway) are downtuned and the riffs grind like a bulldozer trying to dig itself out of a pit of wet gray clay: vintage Broadrick. The last two songs, "Aureated Skin" and "I Can Only Disappoint You," are softer and more depressive, but still good stuff. These songs were originally written and begun in 2003-2004, the same time-span as Heart Ache, but weren't finished until this year. Whether he's finished them and put them out in order to be done with them, or as a signal that this is the direction Jesu will be heading in future, is unclear. But I like these four songs, even the ballady "I Can Only Disappoint You," more than I've liked anything else by Jesu since the band's self-titled CD in 2005. So, recommended.
 

Here's some footage of Motörhead performing "I Know How to Die," a song from their forthcoming album, The Wörld is Yours, at a November 13 show in Wales.
On December 14, the album will be released in the UK as part of a deluxe package consisting of the CD and a special Motörhead tribute edition of Classic Rock magazine, retailing for 15 pounds (roughly $25). The regular edition of the album will reach UK record stores on January 17, and be available January 18 here in the US. During the recording process, guitarist Phil Campbell's father passed away, forcing him to return to Wales. He recorded much of his part from there, while Lemmy and drummer Mikkey Dee did their work in Los Angeles.

Here's the track listing:

01. Born to Lose
02. I Know How to Die
03. Get Back in Line
04. Devil's in My Head
05. Rock 'n' Roll Music
06. Waiting for the Snake
07. Brotherhood of Man
08. Outlaw
09. I Know What You Need
10. Bye Bye Bitch Bye Bye

And here's the album cover:


 

So there's this thing called Metal Club, started by the same people behind Record Store Day. Basically, it's an initiative to spur retail sales in independent record stores by offering limited-edition metal releases, in-store performances, and stuff like that. This effort is going to kick off on Black Friday 2010.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally known as the biggest shopping day of the year, and this year, it falls on 11/26, two weeks from today. Stores participating in Metal Club will be selling a variety of limited-edition items, including the following:

Metallica, Live at Grimey's CD/10"
Slayer, "World Painted Blood" 7" (with previously unreleased B-side "Atrocity Vendor")
Anthrax, Live at the Sonisphere picture disc
The Damned Things, "Ironiclast/We've Got A Situation Here" 7"/CD single
The Sword, "(The Night The Sky Cried) Tears of Fire" hexagonal picture disc
Job for a Cowboy, Ruination limited edition 3x10" vinyl/CD box set

Other releases by Monster Magnet, Ozzy Osbourne and more are planned, too.

Now to the giveaway. I've got a bunch of CDs from Metal Blade Records available, three of which (chosen at random) I will give to three people who correctly answer some trivia questions. The CDs are: Hail of Bullets, On Divine Winds; System Divide, The Conscious Sedation; Return To Earth, Automata; Allegation, Fragments of Form and Function; Bison BC, Dark Ages; Dawn of Ashes, Genocide Chapters; Lightning Swords of Death, The Extra Dimensional Wound.

So here are the questions:

1. What metal band (hint: they're one of the Big Four) has a song called "Black Friday"?
2. What's the name of The Sword's recently departed drummer, and what basketball player shares his last name (but is not related to him)?
3. Hail of Bullets' vocalist, Martin van Drunen, gets around; name three other bands he's fronted.

Email your answers to msnmetal@gmail.com. Winners will be chosen at random, as will their prizes. Contest ends in one week. Good luck!

 

November 11 is Veterans' Day in the US, but in Europe it's either called Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, and it's about remembering those who died in World War II, one of the most destructive and wasteful conflicts in human history. Motörhead's Lemmy has written many antiwar songs; unlike many metal lyricists, he's never glorified conflict and has always decried the waste of life that ultimately serves no one. So on Armistice/Remembranc​e/Veterans' Day, I can't think of a better song to showcase than "1916," the title track from Motörhead's 1991 album. They never made an official video for it, but this fan-made clip more than does the job.
Here are the lyrics:
16 years old when I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side, and a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero
And I marched and I fought and I bled and I died
And I never did get any older
But I knew at the time that a year in the line
Is a long enough life for a soldier
We all volunteered, and we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life and ahead of the game
Ready for history's pages
And we brawled and we fought and we whored 'til we stood
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder
A thirst for the Hun, we were food for the gun
And that's what you are when you're soldiers

I heard my friend cry, and he sank to his knees
Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother
And I fell by his side, and that's how we died
Clinging like kids to each other
And I lay in the mud and the guts and the blood
And I wept as his body grew colder
And I called for my mother and she never came
Though it wasn't my fault and I wasn't to blame
The day not half over and ten thousand slain
And now there's nobody remembers our names
And that's how it is for a soldier
 

See that? That's what happens when you piss off a local promoter. 

As I've mentioned here before, I got to see Ronnie James Dio perform live three times. The first was in 1986, when he headlined Madison Square Garden, with Accept opening up. The second time was twenty years later, and he was the middle act on the bill, between Motörhead and headliners Iron Maiden. The final time was with Heaven and Hell, on the Metal Masters tour with Judas Priest, Motörhead again, and Testament. I was also lucky enough to interview him once, and he was a terrific subject, insightful about his own art and the music he loved. I really hope his autobiography (due out in 2012) reflects the full range of his 50-year career, and doesn't just focus on the Rainbow and Black Sabbath years and everything after that. The guy started singing when rock 'n' roll was in its infancy. He saw every trend come and go, and he chose hard rock and metal. And metalheads rewarded his obvious love for the music with their own love and respect, for decades. 

Wanna see something really depressing? And no, I don't just mean the Brooklyn neighborhood where this clip was filmed. Nachtmystium has released an eight-minute video for the final track from this year's Addicts: Black Meddle Part II, and it's a real fuckin' bummer, man. Watch for  Yakuza's Bruce Lamont as one of the junkies; Nachtmystium main man Blake Judd plays the drug dealer. I can't get the embed to work, so click this link to check it out. Say no to drugs, kids.