THE NCS READERS POLL: RESULTS

 Mosh Pit  38 Responses »
Jun 282012
 

About a week ago, I launched a poll on our site with the idea of getting feedback from readers on some questions that have been floating around in my head for a while, such as whether people would rather get one or two hand jobs from Phro. The poll is now closed, and as promised, I’m now reporting the results.

To be honest, this post is superfluous, since the polling software allowed anyone who filled out the poll to see the cumulative results, but most of you have probably forgotten about the poll anyway, so what the hell.

I found some of the results quite surprising, though others confirmed what I already suspected. Some of the results have given me food for thought about possible changes to the site, but since I move even more slowly than the beloved though sinister lorises here at the NCS compound, I don’t think you’ll be seeing any dramatic changes anytime soon.

Before getting to the results, I noticed that we had widely varying participation in the poll, depending on the question. I guess I should be happy that anyone bothered to fill out the poll at all, though many people obviously didn’t answer every question. And of course I have no way of knowing how many people had the attitude of our very own DGR, who apparently checked off every choice on every question, with this helpful comment: “I CHECKED ALL THE ANSWERS WHENEVER I COULD. FUCK YOUR POLL.” I will be docking DGR’s pay beginning tomorrow. So yeah, I make no claim that the poll results have any statistical validity.

I should also note that we got 126 comments on the original post about the poll, and even taking into account that I probably wrote half of them, that’s still got to be close to a record for our site. I got as much out of the comments as I did out of the poll results. They were a lot more entertaining, too. So, anyway, here are the results, with a few thoughts about each one: Continue reading »

BEARING WITNESS TO THE PROWLINGS OF THE BEAST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
Jun 272012
 

These are short notes about things I saw and heard over the last couple of days that I couldn’t make room for in any other post. And yes, I’m trying out yet another title for these posts. I confess that I’m still partial to “Brain Fuckerings! I Haz Thems!”, but the search goes on . . . In this post: Ensiferum, Testament, As I Lay Dying, and Beherit.

ENSIFERUM

I saw the artwork above. It definitely caught my eye, (a) because it’s for Ensiferum’s new album, Unsung Heroes, and (b) because it depicts the wise, godlike Väinämöinen from the Finnish Kalevala epic in gorgeous reddish colors with a forest and a lake and a vaulted sky of stars. Also a sword, a shield, and . . . what the hell is that thing he’s holding?  A harp of some kind perhaps?

Anyway, it’s a damned epic cover, and I expect no less from the music. The album will be released on August 27. As previously mentioned on this site, it’s available for pre-order at Finland’s Record Shop X (here), which ships worldwide.

TESTAMENT

I also heard a new song from Testament’s next release. It’s called “True American Hate”, and it will be on the group’s forthcoming album, Dark Roots of Earth, which is due on July 31 from Nuclear Blast Records. It includes kickass cover art, too. We featured it once before, but one good turn deserves another . . . Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: WILDERNESSKING — “…AND THE NIGHT SWEPT US AWAY”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Jun 272012
 

Wildernessking are a South African band with a memorable run-on name whose debut album (The Writing of Gods In the Sand) I gushed about passionately last February, comparing them to bands such as deafheaven, Agalloch, Wolves In the Throne Room, Krallice, Cormorant, and Enslaved. That’s some awfully fine company, but I thought the first Wildernessking album was awfully fine — a fusion of styles that produced an effective expression of power and emotion, a blending of light and dark, soft and hard, beauty and voraciousness.

Especially as the debut work of a young, unheralded band, the album left such a mark that I’ve been following Wildernessking’s progress ever since. This morning I saw that the band have now released a follow-on EP, …And the Night Swept Us Away, which is available for download on Bandcamp at a price of $5. Shoving aside other blog plans for today, I immediately paid my money and downloaded that three-track EP without even listening to the songs first, so great was my faith in this band’s talents.

I also discovered that the band simultaneously released their first music video, for the title track to the EP. My reactions to the music, plus the new video and a stream of the remaining songs, come after the jump. Continue reading »

IHSAHN: “EREMITA”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
Jun 272012
 

(Andy Synn follows his review of the new Gojira yesterday with this assessment of Ihashn’s new work.)

Perspective, obviously, in writing/reviewing can be a very helpful thing. Where sometimes you do feel the urge to be “first to market” with your ideas and opinions, other times you may benefit from a wider, more considered view.

Case in point: I’m writing a review for the new Ihsahn, having read several other accounts and also having discussed the album with a variety of friends and well-wishers. Though I had already formed my own opinions on the album, I had an urge to get out there and see what others thought, wanting to know if their agreement/disagreement with my opinion had the potential to give me any sort of enlightenment about the record in a greater context than just my own listening.

What I found was interesting – almost to a man, the trend was that those who felt After was a masterpiece were underwhelmed by this album, and those who fell in love with this album were, by and large, those who were unable to connect with After. So either way, this is going to be a divisive album. Continue reading »

70,000 TONS OF METAL 2013

 Metal News  8 Responses »
Jun 272012
 

Aw jeez, yet another metal armada is going to be polluting the pristine waters of the Caribbean with filthy music and even filthier passengers. Yes, all you swabbies and swabettes in the audience, 70,000 Tons of Metal is back for their third cruise, setting sail from Miami on January 28, 2013, for five days and four nights of heavy drinking and loud music.

It seems like a decade ago when this grand-daddy of the floating mosh pits embarked on its maiden voyage. (Can a three year old be a grand-daddy?), but it was only in January 2011.  Ah, well do I remember the fun I had with this concept when it was first announced. I made running jokes about it throughout 2010, and then had to eat crow when it turned out to be a blast (or so I heard). And then they did it again earlier this year, and now they’re starting to roll out news of the third installment.

Once again, the cruise operators are planning to have 40 metal bands on board playing non-stop, open mic nights, clinics, work-shops, metal karaoke, and of course bars that never close. They haven’t yet disclosed the island destination where the ship will vomit forth the pasty-faced black-clad throngs to horrify residents and unsuspecting tourists, but they have announced the first 10 bands who’ve signed on for the cruise this year. Talk about a strange, motley line-up:

ANACRUSIS
DIE APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER
DORO
HELSTAR
IMMOLATION
IN FLAMES
LACUNA COIL
NILE
SABATON
SUBWAY TO SALLY
Continue reading »

ENGEL: “BLOOD OF SAINTS”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Jun 272012
 

(DemiGodRaven reviews the latest album from Sweden’s Engel.)

Engel are a weird band in a weird place. They’re one of the bands who are pretty much epitomized by the much-maligned ‘modern metal’ tag because they try to hybridize so many different elements in their music in order to distinguish themselves from the rest of their scene. In that way they’ve always felt like a continuation of a few of the band members’ previous project, Passenger.

They’re not ashamed to write something that would be worthy of radio play and, likewise, pretty much refuse to stick with one genre for a whole song. They’ve also been very prone to work in many electronica elements, not just keyboards but also full-on trance-worthy segments in an attempt to add texture to their music. This has resulted in very jack of all trades, master of none, dynamic. Sometimes they will absolutely nail it and other times they come off a little too bland for their own good.

Surprisingly, I fell in love with the one time they really played it safe, in the song “Six Feet Deep”, but otherwise the group’s prior disc Threnody (and it’s 47 different releases) was a hit or miss affair that left just enough positive residue in my system that I was inclined to  look into their latest release, Blood Of Saints. Continue reading »

AGALLOCH: “FAUSTIAN ECHOES”

 SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Jun 262012
 

“I, Earnest Faust, do call on thee, Mephistopheles!”

(BadWolf brings us news and thoughts about the brand new EP by Agalloch.)

American black metal powerhouse Agalloch have been quietly recording a new EP through improvisational sessions for the past few months. Well, I use “quietly” in the loosest term, since their super-drummer, Aesop “Fucking” Dekker (Ex-Ludicra, Worm Oroboros) has been teasing the hell out of it for months, along with a side project of his. The wait is over, and Faustian Echoes is now streaming via Bandcamp, though you can listen to our embed below.

A history lesson: Agalloch have quietly gathered a collection of dedicated fans (staff members here included) for some time. The quintessential thinking man’s metal band—and I loathe that term—Agalloch led a career full of short-print albums with critical acclaim, sparse tours, and a discography loaded with obscure, poorly-promoted special edition odds and ends which always sold out seemingly before their actual existence and now sell for astronomical prices on eBay.

But in the past two years, Agalloch have really built up a heavy head of steam. In 2010 they signed to Profound Lore (still arguably the best metal label on this continent, despite some spotty releases this year), picked up Aes, and released an amazing album, Marrow of the Spirit. After that came a national tour where Agalloch proved—much to my surprise—to be a fucking amazing live band. As in one of the 5 best bands I have ever seen in any genre. They proved that again this past May in a coveted prime-time set during Maryland Deathfest. Continue reading »

GOJIRA: “L’ENFANT SAUVAGE” (A Review By TheMadIsraeli)

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Jun 262012
 

(Here’s the third of our three reviews of L’Enfant Sauvage. For the other two, go here and here.)

Alright, in my pantheon there are three kinds of metal: Fucking brutal, THALL, and Jens Kidman face.

Out of those items, I think it’s safe to say that if the metal in question is so brutal, so warping, and so filthy that it compels your facial muscles to create this expression, it’s the cream of the crop.

Gojira and I have had an odd relationship, in that I’ve never been able to decide whether I like them as a band.  There are aspects of the Gojira sound I’ve always loved: Joe Duplantier’s uninhibited, borderline primal-savagery vocal style, their sense of dissonance, and their dedication to writing some of the most crushing and mangled riffage known to man (“Ocean Planet” anyone?). Continue reading »

DEATH METAL SUNDAE: NECROVATION, MISERATION, AND AMON AMARTH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Jun 262012
 

As an interlude between our second and third Gojira reviews today, I have for you a big old death metal dessert: three big scoops of Swedish sweetness. You’ll have to find your own whipped cream and nuts (yeah, have fun with that line in the Comments), but I got you covered on the core of this three-flavored sundae.

NECROVATION

Of the three Swedish bands featured in this post, Necrovation is the least well known, and certainly a new find for me. I spied them because they have a new self-titled album that Agonia Records released today in Europe (it will be out in North America on August 14). This follows their album debut way back in 2008, which I haven’t heard, though it has the mouth-watering title of Breed Deadness Blood.

I’ve started listening to the new album, and so far it’s very impressive. Today, Agonia put up one of the new tracks for streaming on SoundCloud, and that’s the first big scoop of rich death metal in this dessert. The song is called “Sepulchreal”, and man, is it a trip. It begins with a deceiving instrumental, just a dreamy bit of ambience to get your guard down — and then it begins to rip hell with a blackened torrent of double bass and eviscerating guitar.

But there’s a lot more to come in the song, as it switches both tempo and style and lays out an attention-grabbing guitar solo before ramping up again for a blasting finish. Hope you like “Sepulchreal” as much as I did. It’s right after the jump. Continue reading »

GOJIRA: “L’ENFANT SAUVAGE” (A Review By Andy Synn)

 Album Reviews  9 Responses »
Jun 262012
 

(This is the second of our three reviews of L’Enfant Sauvage. Here, the author is Andy Synn.)

Certain albums you just know are going to be difficult, even controversial, to review. The new Gojira is one such album. Expectations are high no matter who you are, whether you already decided this album is the metal equivalent of the second coming, or if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool cynic who knows for a fact that the band’s signing to Roadrunner Records obviously signals a decline in their creativity and integrity.

So what do I think?

It’s good, very good, but not mind-blowing. Stunningly, almost cripplingly heavy, it displays a central struggle between familiarity and progression. BUT (and trust me, it’s a big but) this struggle itself  is extremely enlightening and has, perhaps more than any other of their albums, forced me to think deeply about the band, their motivations and their methods. While the pulse of the music still hits on a purely visceral level, it has a consciousness which captivates the imagination and should lead even the casual listener to think more carefully about the band’s place in the world. Continue reading »

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