CANOPY: MENHIR

 Album Reviews  35 Responses »
Aug 252010
 

Ten days ago, we included some extended comments in one of our MISCELLANY posts about a Swedish band called Canopy, and we also put up a video of a Canopy song off the band’s 2009 album, Will and Perception.

We also found out that the day before we put up those posts, Canopy had released a new album called Menhir. We were so taken with the songs we heard from Will and Perception that we immediately got Menhir and we’ve been listening to it off and on since then.

It constantly amazes us how many talented bands are turning out excellent metal in Europe (and elsewhere in the world, for that matter) but are virtual unknowns in North America. Canopy is a perfect example.

We hope that Menhir changes that picture, because it’s packed with memorable music — a very strong follow-up to Will and Perception, which is itself an album worth tracking down. (our review of the album, plus a track for you to hear, plus links for free downloads — all that, and more, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE SUMMER SLAUGHTER TOUR SLAUGHTERS SEATTLE AND PORTLAND – PART 2

 Concert Reviews  4 Responses »
Aug 242010
 

This is the second part of a two-part post about the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour’s performances in Seattle and Portland on August 20 and 21. In Part 1, we gave our impressions about the music and posted photos of about half the bands performing in Seattle.

Today, we have a random assortment of observations about our two days of metal in the Pacific Northwest, plus photos of all the bands at the show in Portland.

None of us here at NCS know what the fuck we’re doing with a camera. We like to justify our ineptitude by telling ourselves it’s just like the DIY ethic of underground metal. We also like to make excuses that divert attention from our complete lack of training, such as the constantly changing or almost non-existent light, the non-stop motion on stage, the distance from which we’re taking the photos, and — most important — the fact that we go to shows to listen to the fucking music, not to take photos, so there’s a limit to how much time we’re going to spend snapping away like a fucking tourist.

But, despite our manifold shortcomings as photojournalists, we think these pics are just barely good enough to share, so we’re sharing them — a lot of them, since 11 bands played in Portland and we didn’t miss out on any of them.  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

THE SUMMER SLAUGHTER TOUR SLAUGHTERS SEATTLE AND PORTLAND – PART 1

 Concert Reviews  13 Responses »
Aug 232010
 

This year’s edition of THE SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour was a celebration of death metal in some of its more brutal and technical flavors — and one out-of-place wild card that stole the show. In this case, “stealing the show” is a relative term, because the line-up of bands was so strong.

In fact, with allowances for the extremity of our musical tastes here at NCS, this was as consistently solid a line-up, from start to finish, as any tour in recent memory: Vital Remains, Animals As Leaders, Carnifex, Decrepit Birth, Cephalic Carnage, Veil of Maya, The Red Chord, All Shall Perish, The Faceless, and Decapitated.

In fact, we were so stoked about this tour that we decided to see it both in Seattle last Friday and again in Portland the next day. The tour’s last show is in San Francisco tonight, so we were catching the bands near the end of a long summer haul that no doubt wore them out. But you couldn’t tell that from the way they played. If we didn’t have day jobs and were closer to SF, we’d be tempted to take in a third performance — it was that good.

As usual, we took a crapload of photos at both performances. And in fact, most of them are crap. But we’ve been painstakingly sorting through them to find the least crappy ones that we wouldn’t be too embarrassed to share.

So, today, we’ve got some high-level reactions to what we heard from all the bands, plus photos from the Seattle tour stop. Tomorrow (now at this location), we’ll have some random observations about the scene and the crowds and a few other thoughts that aren’t really in the nature of a review, plus the best photos from the Portland show (which are a bit better than the ones we’re posting today).  (continue after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SLAUGHTERED

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 222010
 

Really a slow start here at NCS today. The three of us who put this thing together piled into a van at the crack of dawn yesterday and drove from Seattle to Portland, got settled in to the place where we were staying, and showed up early for the start of the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour.

About 9 1/2 hours later, we stumbled out of The Roseland Theater with aching body parts and heads filled with a complete deluge of metal. By the time we got something to eat and made it back to where we were staying, it was a really late night. And now it’s a really late morning.

The show was stupendously good, with no real weak spots in the performances from start to finish and lots of high points. We took a gazillion photos that will take some time to sort through and edit. We’ll put up the best of the bunch as soon as we can, along with photos we took when this same tour was in Seattle two nights ago.

For now, The Faceless is on my mind. I thought their performance and Animals As Leaders’ were the best of a very strong night. So, until we get our shit better together and put up a more complete post for today, there’s some Faceless music after the jump and a few more photos of the band performing last night in Portland. Continue reading »

“THAT’S METAL!” — BUT IT’S NOT MUSIC (No. 12): THE BULL, BOOBS, and BEER EDITION

 That's Metal -- But It's Not Music  4 Responses »
Aug 212010
 

A mental chime reminded me that it was about time for another edition of “THAT’S METAL!“. Or it could have been the microwave announcing the readiness of another gourmet meal. Or possibly the sound of a beer can hitting a stack of empties.

Anyway, I decided it was time to venture timidly forth from my carefully maintained informational cocoon into the fearsome world of, gulp, hard news, to see if there might be something that would cause me to exclaim, “Shit! That’s metal!”, even though it’s not about music.

Sure enough, I found a few items — even though I had to wade through some typically depressing news about shit like wars, unemployment, environmental catastrophe, legislative stalemate, and crime, to get there. I try hard to remain ignorant about current events because it’s so fucking depressing/nauseating. But duty to our readers trumps depression and nausea every time!

I did find some nuggets in the cesspool of current events though. They involve a bull leaping a wall and rampaging through seated fans at a bullfight, new ways in which boobs can be used to score some quick cash, and driving without a license — and without a tire.

And of course, we include our usual tasteless commentary plus musical accompaniment  (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

P.S.

 Concert Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 212010
 

SUMMER SLAUGHTER was in Seattle last night. I went with one of my NCS cohorts (Alexis) but left after Cephalic Carnage. Why? Because all the perpetrators of this site are  leaving at the crack of dawn to drive to Portland today. Why? To see SUMMER SLAUGHTER in Portland. Why? Don’t ask.

So, I’ll get to see the first 5 bands twice. For now, three words:

Animals. As. Leaders.

More words:

Cephalic. Carnage.

ARKHUM

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Aug 202010
 

We first stumbled across an unsigned Oregon band called Arkhum about six weeks ago. We were intrigued by the striking cover art for a yet-to-be-released album and included the band in one of our occasional EYE-CATCHERS features (here). At that time, the only music we had available to us were rough mixes of two songs for the forthcoming album and an earlier 2009 track. But those three songs certainly grabbed our attention in  a big way.

Much has happened to Arkhum in those six weeks. Today, the band officially releases its debut album, Anno Universum, and we can now report that they have been signed by the Vendlus Records label (home to such talented bands as Agalloch and Wolves in the Throne Room), which will begin distributing the album worldwide later this fall.

Arkhum was kind enough to give us an advance copy of the eight songs on Anno Universum and we’re happy to report that our earlier instincts about the band have proven to be correct: Anno Universum is stunning — one of the best debuts we’ve heard in 2010.

We got so excited about the music that we pestered Arkhum for an interview, and brothers Stephen and Kenneth Parker patiently answered our meandering questions. In the post immediately below this one, you can read that interview, which turned out to be pretty damned interesting.

In this post, we’ll try to explain why Anno Universum has made such a strong impression on us and why we think you’ll be hearing lots more about Arkhum in the months to come.  (more after the jump, including a song from the new album . . .) Continue reading »

ARKHUM: AN NCS INTERVIEW

 Interviews  3 Responses »
Aug 202010
 

Arkhum promo

ARKHUM (photo by Jessica Stover)

We were so excited about the just-released debut album by Oregon’s Arkhum — which we reviewed here — that after we got the chance for an advance listen, we asked if the band would subject itself to an e-mail interview.

Proving themselves to be kind-hearted as well as talented artists, guitarist Stephen Parker and his brother, vocalist and lyricist Kenneth Parker, agreed. They didn’t even try to back out after they saw our questions, which included such penetrating inquiries as what it’s like being in a band with your brother and whether they ever try to beat the hell out of each other.

In addition to getting the answer to that question, we also learned details about how Arkhum’s label-signing came about (which is breaking news all by itself), the science-fictional topics addressed in the album’s lyrics, Kenneth Parker’s recommendations about other bands, Arkhum’s future plans (including the next album), and more.

We thought the answers to our questions were interesting, and might be interesting to you, too. So, what follows after the jump is our interview of the brothers Parker from Arkhum. Continue reading »

PEACE, OR AT LEAST DISTRACTION

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  13 Responses »
Aug 192010
 

Do you ever feel that you’re caught in some cosmic game of whack-a-mole? You’re in a dark place, maybe one you put yourself in, maybe one somebody else put you in. You’re trying to climb out, and just as you get your head into daylight, a big rubberized mallet whacks you in the skull, and down you go falling again.

You try to climb out another way, and just as you struggle above the edge of the chasm, wham! It happens again. And again. It continues to the point when all you can do is cry out to the deity of your choice, “How ’bout a little mercy for a brother?!”

If you’re caught in that game, take heart. Eventually the wielder of that cosmic mallet will get bored and move on down the carnival midway to torment some other poor schlub in some other game of chance. Unless of course you’re hammering yourself in the head — in which case you’re fucked until you figure out that you’re the one that needs to put down the mallet.

If you’re caught in that game at the moment — and it does happen to all of us with varying frequency — music can sometimes help bring a little peace, or at least a little distraction from that shooting pain in your head while you wait for the torment to pass.

Our distraction of choice is metal, and for those of you who are currently caught in a whack-a-mole loop, we’ve got offerings from two bands with new/recent releases: Equilibrium (pictured above) (Germany) and Nattsol (Norway).   (there’s music after the jump — that’s the point, ain’t it?) Continue reading »

PRISTINA: AN INTERVIEW

 Interviews  No Responses »
Aug 182010
 

The music comes first. The people who make the music come second. That’s just the way it is. But when the music strikes a chord, you want to know more about the people who make it, and how they make it, because sometimes, it opens a wider window into what you hear. And sometimes it doesn’t. Like we’ve said before, musical talent doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with being able to express yourself in other ways.

We got an advance listen to Connecticut-based Pristina‘s forthcoming album on Trendkill Recordings, The Drought (Ov Salt and Sorrow), and were blown away. We posted our review of the album yesterday. In connection with our review, we asked vocalist/bassist “Evil” Brendan Duff if he would answer a few questions, and he foolishly agreed.

What started as a small handful of e-mailed questions to fill in a few blanks in our review turned into a mini-interview, and as more questions occurred to us, Brendan continued to answer (instead of telling us, “fuck off already!”), and it became something more full-fledged.

More than that, it was one of those genuinely window-opening conversations. We learned, among other things, about how this stunning album came to be, about some unusual aspects of how it was recorded, about how Today Is The Day‘s Steve Austin can come to resemble the demented shark-hunter in Jaws, about how the lyrics emerged from Brendan’s struggle to get clean from heroin, and about where this band is headed in their future music. In other words, we had a few of those days that make creating this blog truly worthwhile.

Our interview with Brendan Duff follows the jump, along with a few more tidbits of information about the band and the music. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries