[EXCEPTION TO THE RULE WARNING]

Quite recently, our old pal Islander asked us, “What’s in a name?” I found this pretty amusing, because I had actually planned on addressing this sort of subject in this review, albeit with a more limited scope. Specifically, I was going to address those rare instances where a band’s name is directly evocative of the music that they make. I don’t mean the sort of band names where it’s fairly easy to guess what sort of music they make, like how a band with a pluralized noun is probably a djent band, or a band with a Verb/Gerund The Noun name is probably metalcore/deathcore, or how a band with a name that doesn’t appear to be a real word is probably a black metal band.

No, as you might guess, I’m talking about a name like Diablo Swing Orchestra. I’ve been trying for a while to think of a band whose moniker is more perfectly suited to them, and I really haven’t found one. If for some reason you are unfamiliar with them, Diablo Swing Orchestra mix metal with a smorgasbord of orchestral music styles to create something that is truly unique. They have one of the most interesting back stories I’ve ever read, and while it may or may not be historically accurate, it certainly does a nice job setting the stage for their music. They live up to their name, sounding like the Glenn Miller Orchestra if they were doing a gig as Lucifer’s house band.

I’ve been following the band since I first happened upon their stunning debut, The Butcher’s Ballroom, where the mix of elements blew me away, not only because of the different styles, but also how smoothly they were mixed. DSO’s sophomore release, Sing-Along Songs For The Damned And Delirious, was certainly its predecessor’s equal, maintaining the same level of ferocious weirdness without running it into the ground. And now, we get Pandora’s Piñata, the DSO’s eagerly-awaited third album, and once again, these eclectic Swedes do not disappoint, delivering one of the year’s most creative releases thus far.

(Continuing his string of reviews this week, TheMadIsraeli provides this explosively enthusiastic assessment of the [stupendous] new album by Cattle Decapitation.)

May 8 was an extremely good day.  Why?

Because this album and the new Allegaeon come out on May 8.

Cattle Decapitation and I have had a very torrid love affair, full of many ups and downs.  While the music has been consistently stellar deathgrind (with the exception of their horrific debut Human Jerky), I’ve found that this band usually killed what were great albums in the making with mixes so horrific it made my ears bleed.  If you are a long-time Cattle Decap fan, you might guess that I like To Serve Man and The Harvest Floor best since you can ACTUALLY MAKE OUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.

I’m not being a new-age-all-production-must-be-slick-and-pristine nazi at all, but when you have a band like Cattle Decapitation who play music this fast, this furious, and this fuck-nuts-sanity-shattering, anything less than a stellar, tight mix will lose the music in translation.

Luckily, not only is Monolith of Inhumanity their best-sounding record to date, it’s also their musical pinnacle thus far. By making a little trip back to the drawing board after The Harvest Floor (an album I mostly enjoyed, but felt was a little weak at points), Cattle Decap have done themselves quite a bit of good, as Monolith Of Inhumanity may be one of the top five albums in the death metal/grindcore realm all year.

(Our UK-based writer Andy Synn reviews the highly anticipated new album by Australia’s Be’lakor.)

Be’lakor have become, it seems to me, immune to criticism in the underground press. I say this to let you know that this isn’t going to be a fawning, sycophantic review of the band’s latest album; I have tried my very best to stay impartial, even though the temptation was to simply love this album merely for its existence. That being said, while I have no major criticisms of the record (and have fallen head over heels in love with some of the tracks), I have come out of the experience with a few concerns preying on my mind.

Let’s get one thing straight first though, you’ve probably already formed your opinions that this is going to be good – hell, I’d wager that most people formed their opinion about the album without even hearing a single note – but the question is, how good?

To get the obvious comparisons out of the way, neither as heart-wrenchingly melancholic as recent Insomnium, nor as shamelessly audacious as latter-day Omnium Gatherum, the main criticism I can level at Of Breath and Bone is that while it is characteristically and distinctively a Be’lakor album (falling ultimately somewhere between The Frail Tide and Stone’s Reach), there is a certain spark missing from a few of the tracks, which impacts the experience of the record as a whole.

More restrained and perhaps a more consciously considered record than its predecessor, this factor is both a blessing and a curse for the band. It allows their multi-layered melodies room to breathe and expand, but softens the impact of some of their more fiery moments. At their most epic and nuanced, this restraint works wonders, allowing the band to express their melodic palette fully, yet at their most aggressive this often serves, paradoxically, to limit their full expression. Fundamentally the album is very much a companion piece to Stone’s Reach, introverted where that album was extroverted, restrained where it was unfettered.

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by The Safety Fire.)

So it’s time for my first true Exception to the Rule in quite a while. I decided at some point I would try to avoid breaking our site’s moniker as much as I could, but I feel this album deserves the occasion.

The Safety Fire have been picking up quite a bit of steam lately, introducing an interesting sound that has me slightly baffled, yet plenty fascinated. They mix in the low-tuned brutality and odd time signatures of bands we’ve come to know and love such as Textures, CiLiCe, and yes, Meshuggah, with technical, highly interwoven counterpoint dual-guitar mind-fuckery and add a heavy-handed dose of post-rock to taste.

To say that their sound is jarring would be a bit of an understatement, but also considering that I saw them live at The Masquerade in Atlanta last month and experienced this material full force (which convinced me to buy the album on the spot), I’d say this is a band to watch in the future. However, the future is currently irrelevant. What’s relevant is now, and Grind the Ocean is an impressive, technically adept, and progressive morsel of delightfully unorthodox taste.

The album’s opener “Huge Hammers” is immediately indicative of this. A subdued riff plays in the background, only to crash forth into the song’s gravitas-inducing, disorienting verse riff. It’s full of low-tuned rumble, high-end micro-shredding, and lots AND LOTS of pinch harmonic squeals and badass moments of harmony and interplay on the guitar front.

(Here, Andy Synn reviews the new album from those French nihilists in Reverence.)

As you may know, I like my metal like I like my women – black, blasphemous, and cold to the touch. Reverence’s newest album brings all these cards to the table, but ups the ante with a distinctively industrial edge.

Staking their claim to the barren lands somewhere between the crippling insanity of The Axis Of Perdition and the warped humanism of Glorior Belli, the band have been successfully fusing the angular chaos of the former with the sinuous darkness of the latter for years now, with this, their most recent release, taking pride of place alongside the arcane experimentation of Blut Aus Nord and the ritualistic self-loathing of Deathspell Omega.

Opening track (and de facto album intro) “Earth” has a slow, menacing build up, its haunting ambience coalescing into a rippling stormfront of cryptic strings, marching, martial drums, and morbid vocals. The more overt, metallic elements creep, rather than leap, into the fray, predatory, chugging guitars and restrained blast-beats chomping at the bit to be unleashed.

(TheMadIsraeli recently went on a reviewing rampage. We may have one from him every day this week. Today’s review focuses on “The Giant”, the new album by Germany’s Ahab, which will be released by Napalm Records on May 25.)

Doom metal is a genre that is often hard for many to accept or buy into.  I get why.  I didn’t even start to appreciate it until only last year when I forced myself to sit down and really listen.  In the end, I found it to be ideal contemplation music, music to which I could meditate about my life.  It’s not so much depressing as I find it to be the soundtrack to introspection, often the introspection of one’s mortality and shortcomings.

Funeral doom, however, is where my love for this style really shines.  If you aren’t going to be chaotic and frantic, you best be as morose and macabre as possible.  Four bands have accomplished this for me with the most powerful of results: Mournful Congregation, Colosseum (R.I.P), Pantheist, and Ahab.

Ahab’s new album The Giant continues their tradition of seafaring melodic death doom.  Their music has always penetrated my soul to its very depths, but The Giant is a whole other beast entirely.  An added strong presence of stoner vibes is evident throughout, creating something of an otherworldly experience akin to drowning yet not feeling or experiencing any of the fear, pain, or frantic desperation.  You are simply accepting.

The Giant is only six songs long.  That may not sound like much, until I tell you the shortest song is about eight minutes and the longest is about thirteen.  Ahab have taken a much more introspective and dynamic heavy approach this time around, crafting a journey that leaves the listener feeling like that lone shipwreck survivor holding onto a single plank of wood, floating in the middle of the ocean, hoping he’ll find land soon.

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by the reconstructed Six Feet Under. The album is set for North American release on May 22, 2012 through Metal Blade Records.)

I can just envision all of you fuckers rolling your elitist holier than thou eyes at me. I see every single one of you from here on out disregarding my opinions as a music critic with the explanation that “he likes Six Feet Under”. Check your opinion at the door, let me do my thing, and hear me out.

Six Feet Under have sucked. Oh fuck, have they sucked. I don’t think anyone can watch the video for “Amerika The Brutal” and take it or the song itself seriously. After putting out six terrible albums of the most painfully bland and sloppy death’n roll ever to exist, Chris Barnes apparently finally had the revelation that maybe people didn’t want Graveyard Classics Vol. 218843284832483-fucking-2. Something changed once the band’s seventh album Commandment came out. The music was meatier, dark as fuck, and even had a bit of a doom characteristic in some of the song’s pieces, such as the chorus in “Doomsday”.

After being persuaded to give them a shot after hearing good things about their latter output, I subsequently actually enjoyed Commandment as well as Death Rituals — good hefty slabs of some beastly, groovy death metal. Undead is a startlingly strong new album that seems even more of a progression in SFU’s journey to death metal legitimacy, no doubt helped by the band’s recent new addition of Chimaira’s Rob Arnold, who left his longtime outfit to become the band’s new ax man. Not only have SFU completely ditched the bullshit death’n roll elements for good, but they’ve become even groovier, while Rob Arnold has made the riffage quite a bit more sinister sounding.

(DemiGodRaven checks in with this review of the Sacramento stop of the THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS tour, featuring All Shall Perish, Carnifex, Fleshgod Apocalypse, The Contortionist, and more.)

First off, before I really begin, I need to give a huge shout out to the folks at CapitalChaos and RockHardLive. Whilst at the moment they are both competing with each other at least in one sense, we’re all able to reap the rewards because they both had people out at this show recording it, and as a result we have some decent live videos on both ends. Check out both the Capital Chaos and Rock Hard Live youtube pages, because both of them have been doing more for Sacramento than anyone could imagine. Believe me, if a band has played here recently, there’s a pretty good chance the live footage you see pop up on youtube is because of one of those two groups. They deserve far more credit and love than what they get.

Now then. I arrived at the show late. I actually had it planned where I would get there around 6:30, believing that since the doors opened at 5:30, there would be about an hour delay (as has been standard fare at the other shows at Ace that I’ve been to) so I could get there right as things were kicking off. This provided me an opportunity to enjoy some fine 20-year old hooch that my friend’s Grandfather had made at his Dad’s birthday. Meanwhile, my friend is over in Japan teaching. I am nothing if not an appreciator of weird social situations.

I was looking forward to this show for a few reasons. I’d finally get to see The Contortionist. (Okay, I’ve actually seen them before, but it was at something like 1 am in The Boardwalk. I was so fucking tired I actually found myself dozing off in the corner of the venue. I couldn’t believe it, you could’ve been blasting grindcore in my face and I still would’ve dozed off.) I’d finally get to see All Shall Perish, and as part of a touring cycle for an album I enjoy the hell out of. I’d get to see Conducting From the Grave on a larger stage than The Boardwalk’s.

Oh, and Fleshgod. Did I mention Fleshgod? Because I’d finally get to see Fleshgod Afuckingpocalypse in a live setting. I could’ve listened to two hours of Hare Krishna bullshit as openers if it resulted in me getting the solid forty or so minutes I did of Fleshgod on stage.

Long-time readers may remember my repeated praise for a Vancouver, BC, grind band called Burning Ghats (the latest of multiple posts about the band can be found here). It turns out that two of the guys in Burning Ghats (Cam and Kevin) are in another Vancouver band called WTCHDR (along with members of other area bands, Spirals and Memorial). Last month, they released a self-titled debut EP, which you can stream and download for free on Bandcamp (HERE).

I had high hopes for this EP because I lost so many brain cells listening to the Burning Ghats releases and I’ve found that life is more enjoyable now that I’m able to comprehend less of it due to brain cell loss. But, to be brutally honest, I was also kind of afraid. I could stand to lose some more brain bits flying out my ears and nose, but if one or both of my eyeballs exploded out of their sockets, that would complicate important daily activities such as being able to locate the toilet paper and getting a beer out of the fridge for a big swig instead of the hot sauce.

So I tied a blindfold really tight, to provide some extra reinforcement, and started listening to this EP. Seven songs raced by in less than 11 minutes and left smoking tread marks across my face. The ingredients: Distorted guitar and bass chords tuned to subterranean levels of low, alternately slamming hard and dragging the listener through pools of filthy sludge; bursts of squalling lead guitar and ear-splitting feedback; a vocalist being strangled by barbed wire; percussion that sometimes pounds like a massive sledge and sometimes attacks with d-beat fury.

On Monday night, April 30, 2012, a group of friends and I eagerly made our way into Showbox SoDo in Seattle to watch and hear Opeth, Mastodon, and Ghost. By the end of the night, we all agreed that it had been an excellent show from start to finish. The acoustics and sound quality in this venue were superb, and each band was firing on all cylinders.

I brought my Samsung TL500 camera with me, which in my clumsy, untrained hands is still more of a mystery than a comfortable tool. Nevertheless, I took pictures of each band — though not for long, because I wanted to immerse myself in the sights and sounds rather than fuck around with the camera. But the damned thing is nearly idiot-proof, and I got some decent pics, considering who took them. The best ones decorate this post.  You can imagine how bad the others look.  But first, a few notes about the performances.

GHOST

I saw this Swedish band a few months ago in a smaller venue, and this performance was virtually a carbon copy of the previous one — except this time I didn’t get to hear them play their cover of “Here Comes the Sun”. After that earlier show, half-drunk and fully delirious, I posted a status on our FB page that to this day has received more “likes” than any of our notices about NCS content: “Any band who can make ‘Here Comes the Sun’ sound evil deserves a blowjob.”

That’s really Ghost’s trick in a nutshell: They write and perform these really catchy, quasi-psychedelic pop-rock songs that would have been right at home when Flower Power was king (except with a heavier low end), yet make them sound infernal. Their costumes and stage presence and the lighting really underscore that satanic aura in a live setting. The visual display is just a kick in the ass to watch. But make no mistake — whoever these dudes are, they are talented musicians, and the Pope has a killer set of pipes.

I don’t know how many people in this packed audience knew what Ghost was about before this show, but I heard lots of grinning metalheads talking about them throughout the night.