Here we are with another edition of MISCELLANY, in which I listen to bands I’ve never heard before and report the results, whether they be good, bad, or indifferent. The ground rules:  We keep a running list of bands who contact us, or who are recommended to us, or who seem interesting based on things we read. When time permits, I grab a handful of names off the list, I listen to at least one song per band, and I write about my reactions. Then, I let you listen to what I heard so you can make up your own minds.

Them’s the rules, and I usually (though not always) stick to them. For today’s post, I picked two bands who were recommended and one who contacted us: Illuminatus (UK), Arkona (Russia), and Satevis (US).

These bands turned out to be significantly different from each other, and the musical variety was a good reminder of the diversity that metal has to offer. The music also turned out to be quite good, though given my own tastes, I did have a favorite. So, with that preamble, follow along after the jump and please do let us know what you thought of this music after you’ve heard it.

At the risk of boring our longer-term readers, here’s a reminder about how this MISCELLANY game works:

We keep a constantly evolving list of new bands whose music we’ve not yet heard, based on various sources, including band e-mails we get, reader recommendations, press releases, and stickers left on urinals at metal clubs we frequent. Whenever I can manage, I pick a few names off the list, I listen to at least one of their songs, I write about what I heard, and then I stream the same track(s) so you can make up your own mind about whether to explore the bands further.

It’s a good way to discover new music, and I wish I could do it more often. But it’s a bit risky for readers, because even if I hear something I wouldn’t normally recommend to you, it still goes in these MISCELLANY posts. For today’s edition of this dice-roll, I listened to Deus Otiosus (Denmark), Shangren (Australia, I think), and Forever Revenge (China). Here we go . . .

DEUS OTIOSUS

This Danish band e-mailed us late last month and gave us the chance to check out their 2010 debut studio album, Murderer (the band also released a live album in 2010, preceded by a split and a demo). According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, the band’s name is Latin for “idle god” and refers to a “theological concept used to describe the belief in a creator god who largely retires from the world and is no longer involved in its daily operation.”

I’ve always thought this was an interesting concept, and it does provide an answer (if you’re a Deist at least) as to why the human world has been such a brutally fucked up place for thousands of years: The creator had some kind of inexplicable fun creating the earth, and then checked out.  (more after the jump . . .)

More than six weeks have passed since my last MISCELLANY post, and I’ve been kicking myself black-and-blue for not writing them more regularly. In case you’ve forgotten, I use this MISCELLANY series as a vehicle for checking out bands whose music I’ve not heard before. We keep a list of MISCELLANY candidates, based on messages we get from bands or things we’ve read, and then when I’ve got the time, I pick a few bands from the list, listen to one or two songs, not knowing whether I’ll like the music or not, and then write about what I’ve heard. I also stream for you the same tracks so you can decide for yourselves whether it’s your kind of thing.

This installment of MISCELLANY diverges from the usual form in a couple of respects.  First, the selection process wasn’t quite as random as usual — this time, I decided to pick bands who I knew were all within the genre of black metal. Second, I already knew and liked the previous releases from one of the bands I picked — Aosoth — though I hadn’t yet heard anything from their newest release, so that’s a bit of a cheat on the usual rules.

So, with that preamble, here we go. The music I sampled for this post came my way from Progenie Terrestre Pura (Italy), Aosoth (France), Falloch (Scotland), and Towering Filth (U.S.). It’s all black metal, but the styles of music turn out to be quite different. Black may be the absence of light, but these bands prove (and prove well) that there are shades of black after all.

Well, this is embarrassing. My last MISCELLANY post was on April 28. I’ve let far too much time pass between these installments this year. I have no excuse, other than the undeniable fact that I’m easily distracted and have trouble following any kind of schedule. I’ve made a resolution that I’m going to pick up the pace and do these posts more often. Unless I get distracted.

Given how much time has passed since the last one, maybe it’s worth reminding you what MISCELLANY is about. We keep a running NCS list of bands whose music we haven’t heard before but who look interesting for one reason or another. We create this list based on messages from bands, recommendations from readers, and our own sporadic web browsing. This list is now longer than the Great Wall of China.

At unpredictable times, I randomly pick a few bands off the list and listen to a song or two from each one, not knowing for sure whether the music will be appealing. And then, I write about what I heard and put the songs in the post so you can form your own opinions.

For today’s MISCELLANY session, I picked three bands: Spearhead (UK), Dead Trooper (Norway), and Super Happy Story Time Land (U.S.). In a nutshell, the music speared me in the head, left me for dead, and made me super happy. (more after the jump . . .)

Man, it’s been more than a month since our last MISCELLANY post. Time has gotten away from me. ‘Course, that’s just a figure of speech, because I never had hold of Time in the first place. I just do my best to run along with it, but it’s been leaving me behind, choking on its dust. I need to make an effort to catch up before it’s too late and I become nothing more than an antiquated relic of the past.

Where was I? Oh yeah, MISCELLANY. Well, it’s been so long that it might be worthwhile to provide a refresher on what these posts are all about: We keep a running NCS list of bands whose music we haven’t heard before but who look interesting for one reason or another. And then, at unpredictable times, I pick a few names randomly off the list and listen to a song or two from each one, not knowing for sure whether the music will be good. And then, I write about what I heard and put the songs in the post so you can form your own opinions.

For today’s MISCELLANY session, I picked Disma (U.S.) and Solstorm (Norway), and I threw in a new Autopsy song for good measure. Not to spoil the suspense, but this turned out to be a fucking great musical expedition: two winners, without doubt. (more after the jump . . .)

We’ve got an NCS reader and commenter who uses the nom de plume “Surgical Brute.” Every now and then in his post comments, he’ll mention a band whose music is new to me. I usually try to check out those bands, and so far, he hasn’t steered me wrong.

Recently, I invited him to send us five new recommendations, because it’s pretty clear to me that my tastes and his coincide to a significant degree. He responded with five bands whose music I’d never heard. I’ve been saving up those recommendations for a MISCELLANY post, which is the series that recounts my adventures into the musical unknown. I’m splitting up those five bands into two MISCELLANY posts, with the second one to follow next weekend, if not sooner.

So, here we go: For each band, I’m including Surgical Brute’s brief description of the music, my own reaction to a single song (or two) picked at random from each band, and then the song itself for you to hear and judge for yourself. Here’s the line-up for today, in the order that Surgical Brute described them to me via e-mail: The Stone (Serbia), Graveyard Dirt (Ireland), and The Wakedead Gathering (U.S.). Bear in mind that I hadn’t heard the music before sitting down to listen for this post. It turned out to be quite a varied offering of music.

THE STONE

This Serbian band formed in 1996, originally under the name Stone To Flesh, and in the following years they’ve produced quite a lot of music. Their most recent full-length — the band’s fifth — is called Umro (which seems to mean “died” or maybe “dead”). It came out in 2009 on Folter Records. (more after the jump . . .)

For new readers (and yes, we do seem to be picking up new readers steadily, astonishing as that may seem), here’s how these MISCELLANY posts work: We maintain an evolving list of music from bands we’ve not heard before that look interesting. At irregular times, I pick a few names off the list and check out a song or two from each band, not knowing in advance what they’ll sound like, and then record the experiences in an installment of this series. Finally, I add the songs themselves so you can decide for yourself if it’s your kind of thing.

Lots of the music on our MISCELLANY list are band submissions to our humble site. If I had more time, I would like to write full reviews of all of them (or at least all the ones I think would be worth your time), but sadly, it’s just not possible. This series remains the best way I have to spread the word about music that may be as new to you as it is to me.

The caveat is that I don’t know in advance if the music will be good — though in the case of band submissions, I figure the process of self-selection improves the odds that I’ll like it: Any bands who know anything about this site aren’t likely to send their music our way unless they think it will suit our taste in extremity. Unless they’re too high to think straight, which is always a possibility.

Today, all the music is from band submissions. Unlike most of these MISCELLANY forays, I didn’t listen to all of them in one sitting, but instead, spread it out over a few days. But I did listen to them in this random order: Destroying Divinity (The Czech Republic), Dire Omen (Canada), and Wake (Canada). After the jump, my impressions about the music . . . and the music itself.

Yeah, I did one of these MISCELLANY posts just two days ago, but I’m doing another one now anyway. See, I’ve been getting e-mails from one of the original co-founders of this site, IntoTheDarkness. He doesn’t write for NCS any more despite my nagging, but he does send me e-mails periodically with new music to check out. He seems to hit times in his life when he just consumes massive amounts of new metal for what must be hours, if not days, and then I hear about it.

So, this post is a variation on the usual MISCELLANY, because none of these bands came off the “official” NCS list of new music to check out (that would be the list I keep on scraps of paper, post-it notes, and crayon-scrawlings on the wall). Instead, I’ve pulled bands off the rush of e-mails ITD sent me over the last week. Still, they’re two bands I’ve never heard before, so they do fit that part of the MISCELLANY rules.

And to cap off this post, I’m adding music from two more bands I’d not heard before that were recently sent my way by NCS readers. So, yes, it’s a lot of music, some of it pretty wild, but I think you’ll find it worth exploring.

After the jump, my brain-scrambling experience with songs from Monumental Torment (Russia/Arizona), Kakuna vs Metapod (Australia), Blut Aus Nord (France), and Walking With Strangers (Sweden).

We don’t usually start the week with one of these posts, but I got jammed up with non-blogging life over the weekend and didn’t get it done for Sunday. I hate when life does that.

So, here we are, late as usual. But the rules of MISCELLANY haven’t changed: I look at the NCS running list of bands we’re interested in checking out, compiled from e-mails, press releases, MySpace friend requests, and the whisperings of my cat. The thing about the list is, it’s limited to bands whose music we haven’t heard. I stab names off the list, more or less at random, and I go listen to a song (or maybe two). I record my reactions (to make myself feel important), and then make the songs available for you to hear, too (given the remote possibility that you might feel like making up your own minds about the music).

For today’s foray into the unknown, I listened to a new track from Monolith Deathcult (Netherlands), a couple new songs by Neongod (Norway), and new music from The Doomsday Prophecy (New Jersey).

MONOLITH DEATHCULT

I’m not sure why it took me so damned long to listen to this Dutch band. They’ve produced four full-length albums since 2003 — though the most recent (The White Crematorium 2.0) was a re-recording of the band’s second album. I’ve read about them here and there, but never took time to listen, even after the controversial buzz generated by 2008′s Trivmverate. (more after the jump . . .)

It’s time for another MISCELLANY post. Actually, it’s way past time. If I had any hope of checking out all the bands I’d like to check out, I should be doing this every day.

Most of you know the rules: We keep a running list of bands to check out, and I impulsively pick names from the list and listen to a song or two, and dutifully report my impressions — while giving you the chance to hear exactly what I heard, because I’m not high enough on my own opinions to think you will — or should — just take my word for it.

In this edition of MISCELLANY, I’ve got three finds for you — and holy fuck, are there some prize-wnners in this group. Before I sampled the tunage of these three bands, I didn’t know what to expect. In the first two cases, it was a spine shuddering experience — the kind of music that makes me proud to be a metalhead. A true, motherfucking bonanza. In the third case, the music was just so demented that I found myself strongly attracted against my better instincts. Shit, to be brutally honest, it makes me proud to be a metalhead, too!

I can be faulted for an excess of exuberance, but to the extent I’m capable of being objective, I don’t think I’m off the mark on the first two bands. In the third case, I may have simply lost all my bearings. But you be the judge:

From Poland, a band called Nomad (which includes Behemoth guitarist Seth); from Massachusetts, a band called Sentinel; and from the Czech Republic, a band called . . . gulp . . . Mincing Fury and Guttural Clamour of Queer Decay.  (my listening log, and the songs for you to hear yourselves, follow after the jump . . .)