The website was founded in December 2006 by authors Ben Umanov and Matthew Goldenberg. In a 2012 interview to
Invisible Oranges Vince Neilstein (Umanov's pen name) recalled that he and Axl Rosenberg (Goldenberg's pen name) have been friends since childhood, and the blog started as a
WordPress site. In, 2009, MetalSucks had leaked the album
Axe to Fall by
Converge onto the internet prior two weeks before its official release, and had assumed responsibility for doing so.
The Metal Suckfest In November 2011, MetalSucks organized The Metal Suckfest, a two-day
music festival in
Gramercy Theatre. It was the first U.S. metal festival organized and co-sponsored by a metal blog.
Municipal Waste and
Cynic were announced as headliners, with 18 additional artists including
Magrudergrind,
This Is Hell,
All Pigs Must Die,
Obscura and other bands performing.
Manifesto In 2016, MetalSucks published the MetalSucks Manifesto, a declaration released in November in response to
Donald Trump’s presidential victory that reaffirmed their commitment to supporting artists who share the site’s values and to opposing racism, sexism, and other forms of hate within the metal community. In 2022, MetalSucks was acquired by entertainment company
The Orchard, a subsidiary of Sony. On April 29, 2026, Sony reportedly laid off the entire staff. ==References==