WATCH SÓLSTAFIR’S NEW VIDEO: “ÆRA”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  14 Responses »
Apr 282013
 

It’s nice to have an excuse to put Kim Holm’s artwork on our site again. Up above is the piece he created for the song “Æra”, which appeared on the magnificent 2011 album by Iceland’s Sólstafir, Svartir Sandar. “Æra” is on my mind because Sólstafir have just released an official video for that song. It’s a live performance at the 2012 Eistnaflug Festival in Iceland using footage shot by about a dozen camera wielders.

I’ve loved this song from the first time I heard it. The beat, the riffs, the vocals . . . all good. Always thought the hammering parts of the song would be a sure-fire mosh trigger, and it’s nice to see it happening in this video.

I really, really need to see this band on stage, someday, some way. The video is after the jump. Continue reading »

DEATH FUCKING METAL: JUST BEFORE DAWN AND CROCELL

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 282013
 

You get one guess about the theme of this post. It involves new music from two bands with forthcoming albums — Sweden’s Just Before Dawn and Denmark’s Crocell. Neither band mess around — they bring full-strength, undiluted, high-potency death metal that will knock you on your ass, but they do it with flair. Based on the new tracks that have recently premiered from both bands, these albums look like “must get” releases for fans of the genre.

JUST BEFORE DAWN

This is a legitimate death-metal all-star project. The band was founded by multi-instrumentalist Anders Biazzi (Blood Mortized, ex-Amon Amarth) in the summer of 2012, and he was later joined by vocalist Rogga Johansson (Paganizer, Bone Gnawer, Putrevore, Humanity Delete, Demiurg, etc., etc.). Originally intended as a two-man project, it expanded to include participation from a host of others in the recording of the debut album, including six more vocalists:

Jonas Lindblood (Puteraeon)
Mr. Hitchcock (Zombiefication)
Gustav Myrin (Blood Mortized)
Dennis Johansson (Plästerd, Headstoned)
Ralf Hauber (Revel in Flesh)
Tony Freed (Godhate)

The album, entitled Precis Innan Gryningen, also includes guest guitar solos by Jonas Lindblood, Gustav Myrin, and Rick Rozz (Massacre, ex-Death), and it features cover art by one of my favorite metal artists, Daniel “Devilish” Johnson. The album is now scheduled for release by Chaos Records on May 20. Continue reading »

CLEAN AND UNCLEAN: THE GREAT OLD ONES, ANTTI RAILIO, AND SHADE EMPIRE

 Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 272013
 

I had already put together one daily round-up of new metal for this Saturday (here), but since doing that I found more items I want to share, because sharing is caring (I spit up in my mouth as I wrote that, so it didn’t turn out as funny as I’d hoped). Part of what’s in here involves clean singing; and no, we aren’t entirely bigoted on the subject despite the site’s name. However, I’m sandwiching the clean in between slices of the unclean, just so no one gets the idea that the exceptions have become the rule around here.

THE GREAT OLD ONES

The Great Old Ones are a French black metal band who released their debut album Al Azif last year via Les Acteurs de l’Ombre Productions. To commemorate the one-year anniversary of that album, The Great Old Ones decided to record a cover of a Björk song. Probably wouldn’t have been my pick for a celebratory commemorative, but what the fuck, I decided to check it out — and it’s outstanding.

The band have preserved the song’s melancholy melody through a mix of vibrating tremolo chords and intensified its emotional power and dramatic punch with wrenching black metal vocals, heavy bass, and well-timed drum blasting. In retrospect, I can see how the song’s lyrics would lend themselves to a black metal cover: “I’m a fountain of blood . . . I’m a path of cinders burning under your feet . . . You’re the intruder hand / I’m the branch that you break.” Continue reading »

KVELERTAK, DARK TRANQUILLITY, NACHT, AND DEEK

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  7 Responses »
Apr 272013
 

Here are some things I saw and heard over the last 24 hours that gave me a lift.  Mayhaps they will lift you, too.

KVELERTAK

I liked Kvelertak’s first album, but I haven’t heard the new one, Meir. But Badwolf has, and he raved about it: “[T]hey throw parties to which their music is the soundtrack, and I cannot think of better party music”. Yesterday they premiered a video on various web sites for one of those new songs, “Kvelertak”, and today it went up on YouTube.  It’s an interesting name for a song.  In a subtle way it reminds me of the name of the band. It also reminds me of why I like rock music, because it fuckin’ rocks balls.

The video is also really good. Director Stian Andersen traipsed along with the band for a handful of shows on their recent tour of Europe, and he and his crew filmed parts of the ones in London, Cologne, Paris, and Oslo, plus some off-stage stuff, too (eg, shower scenes). And then he edited all that footage beautifully. Asses will be kicked by this; mine is black and blue. Watch it: Continue reading »

DE-TOURISM: HYPOCRISY AND ABORTED DROP OFF NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

 Metal News  3 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

May 14 was a day I was really looking forward to. That was the day that the “End of Disclosure” North American Tour featuring Hypocrisy, Krisiun, Aborted,  and Arsis was supposed to roll into Seattle and flatten it like a pancake. That line-up was so damned fine it was almost too good to be true. Turns out it was too good to be true. I received this press release from Nuclear Blast about half an hour ago:

Swedish death metal legends HYPOCRISY, have been forced to sit out their upcoming North American tour this May due to reasons beyond their control. The band members had received their visa approvals and everything was going as scheduled, until the embassy let them know that the earliest they could pick up their visas, get them stamped and so on, wasn’t until late June at the earliest. A regular procedure that would normally take just a few days to sort, takes much longer at the moment due to that current workload Homeland Security is experiencing.

“As we were getting ready to go get our visas stamped and ready for the tour we were informed that the earliest we could go initially was sometime in July,” explains guitarist/vocalist Peter Tägtgren. “We then immediately continued to call them, got the label to help with some letters, and put our lawyer to work etc. The best that got us was an appointment in late June. This is a HUGE blow to us, to our fans and everyone who has supported HYPOCRISY in North America. Sometimes there are battles you can’t win, and this is one of them. We will be back, I can promise that!”

Continue reading »

SUMMER SLAUGHTER 2013 SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

When last we mentioned this year’s edition of the SUMMER SLAUGHTER tour, we had the final line-up of bands but no dates or locations other than L.A. and NYC. Today, the initial schedule was announced, although more dates will be added. As a reminder, here’s the diverse group of bands who will be appearing on the tour:

The Dillinger Escape Plan
Animals As Leaders
Periphery
Norma Jean
Cattle Decapitation
The Ocean
Revocation
Aeon
Rings of Saturn
Thy Art Is Murder

VIP tickets will go on sale April 29 at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) and general admission tix will go on sale May 2 at the same time. For more details, go to this location. Now, here’s the schedule as it current stands: Continue reading »

NEW THALL: VILDHJARTA LIVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  No Responses »
Apr 262013
 

Sweden’s Vildhjarta are almost finished with their new concept EP, Thousands of Evils, which will be released by Century Media. They’ve previously unveiled the cover art, which as you can see is stunning. They’ve also previously released three teasers on YouTube with snippets of the new music (which can be heard here).  But now, bootleg videos have surfaced with entire songs from the new EP.

The performances were filmed at the Thallium Festival in Minsk, Belarus, on April 23, 2013. So far, I’ve seen three videos. The first two have very good picture quality, though the sound could use more bass pick-up . . . because it’s fuckin’ Vildhjarta, and you need to feel all that thall reverberating deep down in your colon. The third one includes one of the songs from the first video, but shot by a different fan from a different angle and with a bit more low-end oomph in the sound.

I don’t yet have a release date for the EP — apparently the band are still tweaking things, as they’ve been doing for many months. But based on what I’m hearing in these videos, the music sounds like a worthy follow-up to the band’s ridiculously successful debut album Måsstaden. Check out this new shit after the jump.

Thall. Continue reading »

WATCH THE NEW SOILWORK VIDEO FOR “SPECTRUM OF INFINITY”

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

As we have explained in multiple reviews, Soilwork’s new double-album The Living Infinite is one of their best ever. This morning Metal Hammer premiered the band’s official video for “Spectrum of Infinity”, which appears on that album. It’s an all-CGI creation, and it’s damned cool to watch. Apparently, it is visually reminiscent of Bioshock, though I wouldn’t know.

So, watch it after the jump. The song rocks hard, too. Continue reading »

HAILS ON RAILS!

 Metal News  21 Responses »
Apr 262013
 

Progress marches on! First, there were the land-based, fixed-location metal festivals. Then there were the transient, ocean-going metal festivals. What’s the next logical step in the evolution of metal festivaldom? That’s right! The transient land-based metal festival! The metal festival on wheels! HAILS ON RAILS!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, about two weeks ago HAILS ON RAILS set up a web site and made its appearance on Facebook, billed as “The World’s Biggest Rolling Metal Festival” — “3 Days, 7 Cities, 10 Bands, 400 Fans, 1 FREIGHT OF HATE.” This movable feast of metal goodness is supposed to start rolling across North America in the Spring of 2014, with band announcements to come . . . someday.

There aren’t any other details to share with you at this point, because HAILS ON RAILS hasn’t provided any other details, like where the trip starts and ends and how the hell you get back to where you started. However, this won’t stop us from filling in the information gaps with our own rank speculation. Half the fun of being “slow-rolled” on these marketing “roll outs” is guessing what’s coming, am I right? So, here we go. Continue reading »

WOE: “WITHDRAWAL”

 Album Reviews  13 Responses »
Apr 252013
 

There’s a sense of urgency that pervades Woe’s new album Withdrawal, the kind of urgency you might feel if an arsonist threw a gasoline bomb through your bedroom window at 3 a.m. Which is to say, it’s scorching, and it delivers the kind of adrenaline rush triggered by the fear of being burned alive. Speaking of being burned alive, Chris Grigg shrieks his way through the album as if that’s what was happening to him, crying out in astonishing pain or rage, or maybe both, his vocal chords seared by emotion until surely they reached the limits of their endurance by the time recording ended.

I don’t know about you, but I’m perfectly happy listening to music that sounds like it’s been fueled by an accelerant. The cathartic effect of hailstorm riffs and blasting drums coupled with barely human screams is a pearl of great price, even when I remember nothing of the experience after the fire has been extinguished. But if that’s all Withdrawal offered, it wouldn’t be one of the best black metal albums of the year — and it is.

Even on the first listen to the first song, it began to dawn on me that there would be surprises in store on Withdrawal. I began to anticipate them in each song, and I wasn’t disappointed. In both small and large ways, the music pushes beyond the boundaries of conventional black metal (and yes, by now what was once revolutionary has become conventional), warping the form into something not merely cathartic but also fascinating, and ultimately quite memorable. Continue reading »

 Older Entries  Newer Entries