Jan 192011
 


Yesterday’s installment in our week-long attempt to catch up on album reviews by being atypically brief was a blast of bleak brutality from Contaigeon. Today, we’re swinging the pendulum back over to the more melodic end of the metal spectrum with an unsigned band from Montreal called Erimha, whose music we heard after getting a MySpace friend request from them.

Every band has to start someplace, but some bands (few of them) start fast. With their debut album, Irkalla, Erimha bolts from the starting blocks like they’ve been shot from a gun. Irkalla is an epic blend of melodic black-death metal — dramatic, haunting, memorable, and remarkably assured both in the songwriting and in the execution.

If references help you, the music reminded me at different times of Insomnium, Keep of Kelessin, and even Behemoth. There’s a grim grandeur to the musical style. It achieves dramatic power through its dark melodies without ever veering into cheese, and it manages to retain an icy edge despite its often panoramic sweep. I could be justly accused of excessive enthusiasm over many things, so you may have to take this with a grain of salt, but I’m completely taken over by this music.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 182011
 

Yeah, I know I’m taxing your attention span with our third post of the day, but I continue to see eye-catching items and just can’t resist. But I will keep this one short and sweet. It’s about breaking news from three of our favorite bands.

ITEM ONE

You’re looking at Item One: The just-released cover art for Amon Amarth‘s new album, Surtur Rising. Talk about a fucking metal album cover. The art is by Tom Thiel. The album will be released in North America on March 29, 2011 via Metal Blade Records.

The track listing for the album is out, too, and includes such juicy titles as “Destroyer of the Universe”, “Live Without Regrets”, “For Victory Or Death”, and my favorite: “A Beast Am I”. I’m expecting epic levels of epicness.

Did you know that Surtur was (is?) the leader of the fire giants of Muspelheim (“flame land”) and the oldest being in the nine worlds of Norse mythology? Oh, fuck me, sorry about that; I said I would keep this short. On to the next item (after the jump). Continue reading »

Jan 182011
 

I go through stretches when I fall behind in reading other metal blogs because I get too distracted by other things, like this blog — which I know all of you read every day, without fail, even if it means skipping a meal or a shower or letting your cat/dog fend for itself. Yeah, right. But I do always read Steff Metal‘s regular feature called Linking Horn because there’s always something interesting in there that I’d otherwise miss.

Her current Linking Horn feature linked to a Metal Insider piece I hadn’t seen which summarized a recent Nielsen Music and Midem report about music consumption habits. Some of what’s in that report wasn’t surprising — like the data showing that almost 50% of online users obtain their music from the internet without paying; the report found that neither digitally downloading a full album nor a single track reached 20%. What a shock.

But one item did surprise me: The survey showed that 58% of online users consume music by watching music videos through the computer and 20% watch music videos on their mobile phones. Granted, the survey wasn’t limited to any particular musical genre, and the numbers could be entirely different if you were to conduct a survey limited to metalheads. I know I don’t watch metal music videos that often because, mainly, they suck.

Usually, the videos are so bad that they detract from good songs and do nothing to make mediocre songs better. Instead, they seem to function more as bait than actual entertainment — a way of luring you into listening to a song or  a band for the first time out of curiosity (because it’s faster than downloading), though sometimes I’ll watch one for a song I already know just to see what the band looks like. But I don’t claim to be like most people, and the study seems to verify that most people like to consume music (and probably print) when they can see pictures at the same time — which is why moving pictures make such attractive bait.

All of which is a windy lead-in to the real point of this post. Over the last couple of days I took the bait and watched some new just-released music videos, and for different reasons, I thought they were worth sharing.  They feature music from Vreid (Norway), Stigma (Italy), Semargl (Ukraine), and members of Dreaming Dead (U.S.).   (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 182011
 

New albums have been stacking up here at NCS at a rapid pace, and lots of gems have been sparkling in that pile. However, it’s become obvious that as much as we’d like to write full reviews of all those gems, there just ain’t enough fucking time. So, rather than just give up and say nothing, over the next four days we’re going to write briefly about four of the albums that have grabbed our attention in the last couple of weeks.

Don’t be misled by the brevity of our verbiage — these albums are worth your close attention, and there should be something in here to almost everyone’s liking, because the genres in play cover a goodly spectrum of extreme metal. For today, we have something for those of you asylum-dwellers who like your metal especially brutal, scalding, sometimes dirge-like, and gloriously, atmospherically evil from end to end.

CONTAIGEON

One of our readers highly recommended Contaigeon to us within the last 60 days. I usually make a note of where music tips come from so we can provide approprite acknowledgments, but I failed do it this time, and now I’ll be fucked if I can remember. Whoever you are out there, I owe you a big thank-you because this band is just crashingly brilliant.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 172011
 

Some of you old-time readers will remember that this site, and its name, were the direct spawn of our crushing disappointment/pissed-off-edness over the voluntary departure of Mat Bruso from Bury Your Dead, his replacement by vocalist Myke Terry, and BYD’s ensuing transition from a heavy-ass, metal-infused hardcore band to generic metalcore with lots of clean singing. And if you’re not an old-time reader, you can catch up by going here.

Fast forward to December 22, 2010, when none other than Mat Bruso posted a very nice comment on our Contact page, which ended with these words: “Keep your standards high and your vocals low.” And that led to a further e-mail exchange in which Mat made it clear that we should keep our ears open, because he intended to continue singing and we would be hearing from him in the future.

Now fast-forward to a bit earlier today, and the official announcement that Myke Terry was exiting Bury Your Dead — and that Mat Bruso has rejoined the band to provide vocals on the new BYD album now being recorded.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 172011
 

Our UK contributor Andy Synn returns with another edition of The Synn Report.

Hello everyone. For those of you who enjoyed my last column, I’m back again with another band recommended and dissected – this time it’s the turn of THE GREAT DECEIVER.

The band have been active since the late 1990’s and feature in their ranks two particularly famous men from the Swedish metal scene. Whilst you may well recognise the name Tomas Lindberg (vocals) quite easily, you may not be aware that guitarist Kristian Wåhlin is also known by the name “Necrolord” and has famously produced cover art for many of metal’s elite, from Dissection, At The Gates and Emperor, to newer bands such as The Black Dahlia Murder and Becoming The Archetype.

With a musical foundation in both the Swedish hardcore and melodic death metal scenes, coupled with an intense fascination for the moody post-punk atmospheres of Joy Division (of whom vocalist Tomas Lindberg has claimed to be an avowed fan), the sound of The Great Deceiver is difficult to precisely pigeon-hole.

Whilst the guitars have a distinctly metal edge to them, the song structures and tempos lend themselves more towards the hardcore-leaning listener, albeit coupled with a distinctly odd use of twisted melody. The use of heavy tremolo-pedal distortion on the guitar leads and ringing chords is perhaps the most distinctive and consistent motif throughout the band’s work, on a par with the distinctive vocal delivery of Mr Tomas Lindberg himself. (more after the jump, including sample tracks from the band’s discography) Continue reading »

Jan 162011
 

I had way too much fun last night. This morning, I feel like I’m being punished in a circle of Hell far worse than anything Dante imagined in The Inferno. But despite a hangover of galactic proportions, I’ve got something for you. Two somethings, actually. They served as a reminder that no matter how much I want to kill myself today, there are reasons to Keep . . . Living.

When we rolled out our list of 2010’s most infectious extreme metal songs, Part 2 of the series paired up songs from two of our favorite bands, Keep of Kalessin and Living Sacrifice. By coincidence, yesterday I saw two brand new performance videos that feature both bands, and they’re both good.

KEEP OF KALESSIN

Last year, Keep of Kalessin made their debut in the Eurovision contest, riding the song “Dragontower” to a third-place finish in the Norwegian finals.  Even though “Dragontower” was the most accessible song on Reptilian, KoK’s third-place finish in the national contest was further proof that Norway and the U.S. are so different that they might not really be co-existing in the same universe.

But yesterday, there was more proof. KoK made a guest appearance on the nationally televised semifinal round of the 2011 Norwegian Eurovision song contest, performing another song from Reptilian — in a duet with Alexander Rybak. I tried to think of a U.S. parallel, and the first thing that popped into my head was Immolation showing up on American Idol to perform with Justin Bieber.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 152011
 

It’s January, not December, so many months will pass before we turn again to compiling a list of the year’s most infectious extreme metal songs. But if we were to do it now, ten songs on the list would come from Hate‘s new album, Erebos. It’s death metal heroin, a charged syringe of addiction, a heatseeking missile headed for the hottest part of your brain.

Hexen can flat-out fly on the drums, creating an aura of chaos without losing control, rumbling and rocking, inflicting the blasts and the double-bass at just the right moments, jolting you hard as he marks the time signatures.

Adam the First Sinner and Destroyer are galvanizing guitarists — dextrous, fiery, capable of generating a variety of tones with a variety of techniques, applying hacksaws to your spine, triggering helpless convulsions, swarming, swirling, sawing, whining, but never veering far from a foundation of industrial-strength hammering.

Mortifer‘s playing is taut and icy, his bass running underneath in a rumbling thrum and then syncing up with the guitar rhythms to infect those quasi-industrial riffs that won’t let you stay still.  (more after the jump, including a track . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 142011
 

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve been hearing the name Scribe repeatedly since we started exploring Indian metal last year, so we asked our contributor from India, Siddharth Darbha, if he would give us an introduction to the band and its discography — and he obliged, with the following post.

Scribe is a box full of fun-filled pink chocolate confetti hiding a venomous snake beneath its contents. Yeah, that’s what Scribe is.

One of the most original bands found in this era, Scribe is not just two guitars, a bass, a throat, a drum kit and five pseudo-humans. No, definitely not Scribe. A concoction of auditory mutilations, pseudo glitter-infected personae and temporal hallucinations; that’s more like what Scribe has meant to the Indian crowd since its debut offering Have Hard. Will Core., which came out in 2005. A super-group of sorts, they took the nation hostage, winning quite a few national competitions and audiences all around.

Sounding like a not-so-distant progeny of SikTh, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and other mind-enhancing drugs, they incorporate a wide variety of genres into their play. As their debut EP suggests, hardcore is one of them. Frequently setting up djent tones, they also use electronic music. Time signatures fly here and there, but that is not what Scribe is about. Like the music of SikTh, the songs often feel like they are a part of something larger.   (more after the jump, including music . . .) Continue reading »

Jan 132011
 

We have a multiple choice quiz for you. We’re capable of many awesome things here at NCS, but reading your minds isn’t one of them (yet), so don’t worry — you won’t be graded. Here’s the question: What do eating, fucking, and listening to good metal have in common? Please select from the following answers:

(a) None of them is as much fun when your parents are in the room.

(b) All three are performed with your mouth open like a big-mouth bass (the fish, not the instrument)

(c) All three cause the release of dopamine in the brain

(d) I wouldn’t know because (so far) the only thing I’ve had sex with is my hand

(e) Stay out of my life, you fucking NCS perverts

Did you make your pick?

Okay, this was sort of a trick question, because the only definitely wrong answer is (e). Three of the other answers — (a), (b), and (d) — could be winners, but that all depends on you. The only definitely right answer, according to a recent scientific study from Canada, is (c).  After the jump, we’ll look at a story about that study — and of course we’ll add our typically tasteless commentary. Continue reading »