Oct 292012
 

This is just a quick note about three full-album streams, two of which began today and one that started last Friday. In my humble opinion, these are albums worth hearing. They provide, after all, a better vehicle than any review for deciding whether the music is worth getting.

DRAGGED INTO SUNLIGHT

I’m very high on Widowmaker, the new album by UK’s Dragged Into Sunlight. I explained why in this review. I also pointed out that the album is really best considered as one long song divided into three parts. At the time of my review, the only thing available for public streaming was a preview clip. That was better than nothing, but for an album conceived and executed as a single work, there’s really no substitute for hearing it in that way. You can (and should) do that at the Terrorizer site: HERE

A BAND OF ORCS

We’ve written quite often about California’s A Band of Orcs. Because we are no fools. Because when the Domination comes, only select humans will be spared. By sucking up relentlessly, I figure we’re improving our odds of survival. Orcs are mercurial and prone to unpredictable behavior when their blood is up, so there are no guarantees. So I’m performing a further act of obeisance by telling you that the Orcs’ debut album is now streaming in full. Continue reading »

Oct 292012
 

(UK-based NCS writer Andy Synn delivers these thoughts on “The Retinal Circus”, Devin Townsend’s tour de force show on October 27 at the Roundhouse in London, with video clips at the end — including a high-quality stream of the entire show.)

Steve Vai. Metaphysical musings. Harold. A gospel choir. Anneke Van Giersbergen. A white suit and top hat. Sexy cat-people. Angry monkey men. Religion, War. Flame-throwers and angle grinders. Ziltoid. The 6th Dimensional Planet Smasher (and his hot slave girl).  Mrs Ziltoid. Giant green vaginas. Baby Ziltoid!!! Vampires, drink, and drugs. Clown-midgets. Aliens!!!

[Takes a breath]

Unexpected acoustic ballads. Shameless hippy sing-alongs. Lighters in the air, arms-waving stadium-rock. Steve Vai’s abusive, talking skull. Jed Motherfucking Simon. STRAPPING YOUNG LAD.

Cherry blossom trees and proposals of marriage. Life. A wedding soundtracked by an utterly stunning rendition of “Kingdom”. Devin’s inner demons. Aerial acrobatics. Love? Fan-waving and pole dancers. Torrents of confetti. Going from Heavy to Big. Glorious “Grace”. A down-home finale with couches, bearded ladies, and a miniature marching band like some sort of off-the-wall take on the end of Lord of The Rings.

That was The Retinal Circus. Continue reading »

Oct 292012
 

Early this morning, October 29, 2012, the moon was full. In certain older civilizations in the Northern Hemisphere, this full moon in what we know as October was a celebrated event. In olde England, it marked the beginning of winter and was known in the Anglo-Saxon tongue as “winterfylleth” — winter full moon (and yes, now you know where that wonderful English black metal band got their name).

Native American tribes in what is now the northern and eastern United States called it the Full Hunter’s Moon. It was a time when the leaves were falling from the trees and the deer were fattened for the winter — a good, well-lit time to hunt and store up meat for the bleak months ahead.

It has also been known as the Blood Moon, which of course makes it metal. This year it may really be a blood moon in the eastern U.S. With the moon in its full phase, high tides on Earth will rise about 20 percent higher than normal, and NASA experts say this will significantly amplify the storm surge that Hurricane Sandy will bring to the eastern part of the country, exacerbating what are already expected to be life-threatening floods that this super-storm will inflict on our shores.

To our brothers and sisters in metal who live in the vast swath of territory likely to be impacted by Sandy, and who probably can’t read this because their power is already out, be careful and stay safe. Looks like today will be ugly.

So, not so much in celebration of the Blood Moon as in commemoration of it and in respect for the power of nature, I’ve rounded up new music and a video, from these bands: Occultation, Guttural Secrete, and Chrome Division. Of course, there’s some Winterfylleth at the end, too. Continue reading »

Oct 292012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the debut album by a Michigan band known as Konkeror.)

Sometimes it just baffles me how a breakout band doesn’t get noticed when their debut absolutely slays, like, everything.  Konkeror are definitely one of these bands. Not only have they released a debut of extremely rare killer-quality material, they very well may have one of the best albums of the whole year.

Konkeror are extremely no bullshit, no frills, ballsy, thrashy, Middle Eastern death metal from the outskirts of Detroit who bring riffs that tame serpents, create sand storms, and slay prophets of old, accompanied by feral snarling vocals and a killer drummer whose got a sense of regality and Middle Eastern groove in his work.  It’s an album loaded with influences from Melechesh, Nile, Vader, Obituary, and Immolation.

To repeat: It’s a wonder to me how a debut as killer as The Abysmal Horizons has flown under so many people’s radars.  These guys are the real deal.

All of this is immediately apparent in the ass kicker of an opener, “I, Monolithic”.  A foreboding acoustic intro followed by a doom riff with badass solo work ushers in a torrent of blackened death metal ferocity.  The riffs here just catch your ear, attach to your memory like leeches, and mummify you from the inside out. Continue reading »

Oct 282012
 

Hey, happy Sunday. It’s THAT’S METAL! time. Time for pics, videos, and news items that I thought were metal even though they’re not music.

I have seven items for you today.

ITEM ONE

The first item is that horrifying creature at the top of the post. Actually, it’s not really a monster. It’s an Old English Bulldog named Coraline. Sexy beast, isn’t she?

I’ve used some pics by photographer Seth Casteel in a previous THAT’s METAL! installment. He takes photos of people’s pets. But he also takes pics of dogs like Coraline underwater, usually while they’re going after a tennis ball. Dogs are like that. If you threw a tennis ball into a pool for a cat to chase, the cat would look at you as if to say, “Really? You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”

Since the last time I used some of Seth Catseel’s photos from his Underwater Dog series, he’s come up with some new ones, and he also now has a book of them for sale. In addition to the fact that the quality of the underwater photos is amazing, they continue to capture man’s best friend looking really scary and really alien, which of course makes them really metal. Continue reading »

Oct 282012
 

Here’s a smattering of powerful music and eye-catching album art I heard and saw yesterday that helped make a wet, gray, cold Seattle day more tolerable — despite the fact that all of the music displays the results of blackening.  But I still want my summer back.

VASSAFOR AND PAROXSIHZEM

I was snooping around the Dark Descent web site looking for news about a release I’ve been expecting. While I was there I spied the two album covers you see at the top of the post. I knew little about the bands, but I thought the album covers were very cool. If you click on them, you’ll see larger versions.

The one on the left is for an album entitled Elegy of the Archeonaut, which collects selected tracks by an Auckland, NZ band named Vassafor. The album will be released at the end of this month and includes music from Vassafor’s early releases as well as unreleased versions of songs and covers. Coincidentally, one of those covers is Vassafor’s version of Beherit’s “Beast of Damnation”, which was also covered by Beyond Mortal Dreams in their excellent EP that I reviewed earlier this week. The killer album cover was created by Aaron Aziel, who’s also from Auckland.

I learned that Vassafor released an album earlier this year named Obsidian Codex, and I found two tracks from it on Soundcloud, both of which can be downloaded for free HERE. More about those after the jump.

The art on the right is for a forthcoming, self-titled debut album by a Toronto blackened death metal band named Paroxsihzem. It’s also scheduled for release by Dark Descent at the end of the month. I haven’t yet found who created the artwork. The artwork was created by the band’s vocalist, Krag. Intrigued by the artwork, I found a Paroxsihzem track called “Nausea” for streaming on Bandcamp. Continue reading »

Oct 272012
 

I received the following e-mail today, with the word “urgently” in the subject line.  I replied to it urgently.  Because although not one of these people has ever followed through and sent me money, I know that one day it will happen, because people are generous and good and will eventually recognize all the wonderful things I can do with a few million dollars, such as enhance the electrification of the fencing around the loris compound and install the Grolsch beer fountain and pay Fleshgod Apocalypse to move to Seattle and play music for me whenever I want and buy a head so that Phro will stop making fun of me.

From: Mr Jackie Gallop“<mr.jackiegallop75039@yahoo.com.ph>
Date: October 27, 2012 8:09:42 AM PDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: urgently
Reply-To: <jackiegallop27@yahoo.com>

Dear Client,

Report : Investigation revealed that you have received Lot of Payment Notification with requests to secure funds Transfer Documents, Pay Diplomatic fees, Transfer Charges etc, yet all effort to receive the Compensation/Lottery payment lawfully entitled to you, have been to no avail. With the help of the best Internet investigators, The International Monetary Funds IMF we have taken out time in screening through your Compensation/Lottery payment project as stipulated on our protocol of operations.

Prior to series of reports (Email, Fax, Telephone and Mail Post) from beneficiaries across Asia, Europe, America just to mention a few, urging us to investigate these irregularities, Special International Dept Settlement Officers attached to this honorable Institution, The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI was deployed to various Compensation payment Centers around the world so as to carry out proper.
Continue reading »

Oct 272012
 

In June I included the stupendous cover art you’re looking at (sans the band and album names) in a post about new metal artwork.  Then, I didn’t know who the artist was, but now I do:  Mark Cooper (a/k/a Mindrape Art). He created this piece for the cover of a new album by Rings of Saturn named Dingir (din-jeer), and that leads us to a sordid tale of woe, the moral of which is a reminder that the community of metal still includes people with no morals.

In June, when the album art was released, the band’s label (Unique Leader) also provided a teaser clip of samples from the album and a tentative release date: November 20. The recording and production work on the album was apparently finished. What remained was the promotional run-up to the release.

And then Dingir ran into some potholes on the road to its release. First, as disclosed by the band last night, undisclosed “legal issues” arose which led to a delay in the album’s release from November 20 to February 5. I’ve seen no explanation of these issues. Undoubtedly, that extra two months of waiting for release was a source of frustration for the band.

But second, and more important, an unfinished, unmastered, pre-production version of Dingir leaked yesterday, apparently appearing across a variety of metal blog spots and torrent sites, as well as on YouTube. And that drove the band to take unplanned action to limit the damage. Continue reading »

Oct 262012
 

I made this.

For the last 24 hours we’ve done nothing on the site but play videos and write about videos, so why stop now? Maybe we’ll do something different tomorrow, but let’s have one more video before we stumble headlong into the weekend.

I don’t know about you, but most metalheads I know inhale their food. They devour it like hyenas who know that any minute the lions will be dropping by for their turn at the carcass. Just shoveling the food in and swallowing, without bothering to expend much energy on needless activity like chewing.

I don’t mean to exclude myself from this description. I try damned hard never to eat when there’s a mirror in the vicinity, for fear of scaring the shit out of myself.

But this is not how we’re supposed to eat. Nutritionists and weight-loss specialists say that you should eat slowly, using small bites and chewing the food well. They theorize that this gives your body time to realize that you’re getting food into your stomach and produce those hormones that tell your brain, “STOP, YOU GLUTTONOUS FUCK!  YOU’RE FULL!” As opposed to getting those signals only after you’ve rapidly eaten twice what an entire tribe in the Amazon consumes in a week.

Also, when we inhale food, we don’t really taste it. Of course, given the utter crap food that many of us eat, maybe that’s not a bad thing. Continue reading »

Oct 262012
 

 

Two combined bits of coolness: Bloodshot Dawn have released a new single for download named “Theoktony”, and they’re contributing all sales proceeds to a worthwhile charity. Details to follow . . .

I’ve written a lot about this UK band and their self-titled 2012 album, which remains one of my favorite releases of the year. In addition to my January review, in April we featured an official video for a track from the album called “Visions”, and in August we featured another official video for “Godless”, which is still available for free download at the Bloodshot Dawn Bandcamp page, where you can acquire the whole album, too.

But what we have today is a new song that’s not on the album, and a new video to go along with it. Both the song and the video kick massive amounts of ass.

The music is signature Bloodshot Dawn — an explosion of blast-furnace death metal packed with thunderous grooves, spidery prog-style guitar soloing, and howling wolf-pack vocals. With a sharp-edged modern production, it sounds uber-powerful. The lyrics can be found here.

The video is split-screen footage of the band recording the song in the studio, and it’s loads of fun to watch. Here you go: Continue reading »