NEILSTEIN SOUNDSCAM: ANIMALS LAY DYING AS LEADERS

It was a week of polar opposites: on one hand, butt rock ruled as Disturbed nabbed the #1 spot on the Current Hard Music charts with Five Finger Death Punch and Evanescence firmly entrenched in second and third place. On the other hand Animals as Leaders scored a big debut, a big victory in the name of all that is right in the music world. As I Lay Dying and Rush also sold well. Let’s take a look at those and more after the jump.

1 DISTURBED – LOST CHILDREN
Last week: 43,220
Cume: 43,415

2 FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH – AMERICAN CAPITALIST
Last week: 13,310
Cume: 165,895

3 EVANESCENCE – EVANESCENCE
Last week: 13,259
Cume: 219,633

Well THAT’s a depressing Top 3, isn’t it? We’ve been watching Five Finger Death Punch and Evanescence for weeks already, but Disturbed is a new entry. What’s worse, that’s a frickin’ B-sides and rarities collection… a Disturbed b-sides comp sells 43k first week! That’s insane.

4 RUSH – TIME MACHINE 2011:LIVE IN CLEVELAND
Last week: 11,235 (debut)

11,000 might not seem like a lot for Rush, but this is a live album. A nice start to the Roadrunner / Rush era.

5 MEGADETH – TH1RT3EN
Last week: 10,781
Cume: 52,758

74% drop in Week 2, but still higher than Metallica! The Dave Mustaine champagne party continues.

6 AS I LAY DYING – DECAS
Last week: 9,586 (debut)

That is a really solid number for a compilation album with only three new songs on it. These aren’t Disturbed numbers, but still, I’m impressed.

7 ANIMALS AS LEADERS – WEIGHTLESS
Last week: 6,120 (debut)

Holy shit! I’m so stoked for these guys. If you’d told me 3 years ago — when the self-titled record came out and sold 300-400 first week, when the only metal publication of note paying it any attention was MetalSucks — that an instrumental metal album with jazzy overtones would sell 6k first week, I wouldn’t have believed you. This is more than just a big day for Animals as Leaders; it’s a big day for quality music.

8 FOO FIGHTERS – WASTING LIGHT
Last week: 3830
Cume: 608357

I’ve stopped including this album in this column every week even though it continues to sell gangbusters, but that’s an 11% INCREASE in sales over last week in its 32nd week on the charts, definitely worth noting.

9 STEEL PANTHER – BALLS OUT
Last week: 3,620
Cume: 15,436

I am 100% certain that Steel Panther conspired to achieve a 69% drop in Week 2. Huh huh, 69.

11 REED*LOU & METALLICA – LULU
Last week: 3,150
Cume: 16,470

76% Week 2 drop. Mustaine, rejoice.

20 LIKE MOTHS TO FLAMES – WHEN WE DONT EXIST
Last week: 1,955 (debut)

24 PLEA FOR PURGING – LIFE & DEATH OF A PLEA FOR PURGING
Last week: 1,987 (debut)

Rise Records is basically printing money right now. Step 1: sign band with appropriate haircuts / dance moves / auto-tune choruses, Step 2: make CDs, Step 3: $$$. It seems like there’s some Rise Records band debuting on this chart every single week.

40 WHITECHAPEL – RECORRUPTED – EP
Last week: 1,140 (debut)

[UPDATE, 3:00pm EST: Whitechapel’s camp informs us that the above number just represents iTunes sales, and that they didn’t bother scanning the physical EP since only a few thousand copies were pressed.]

57 RUSSIAN CIRCLES – EMPROS
Last week: 757
Cume: 3,529

Including this mainly because I’m happy they’re doing so well. Great band.

98 RED FANG – MURDER THE MOUNTAINS
Last week: 361
Cume: 11,289

I’m guessing the current Mastodon support tour is responsible for this 52% jump back onto the charts, but holy shit, look at that cume number: I had no idea Red Fang sold so many albums. They’ve got to be Relapse’s third biggest band right now, after Baroness and Necrophagist (if they ever release another album). 

-VN