There once was a band from Bristol in the UK called Rosicrucian. The music they played was a marriage of tumultuous black metal blasting and sweeping ambient melody, part of it furiously ripping and part of it ethereal and sublime. They released a five-song EP in November 2011 called Beneath the Waves, which our Andy Synn gave a very positive review here. He called it a “flowing, tide-driven take on post-black metal dynamics”.

Rosicrucian are no more. But the band haven’t exactly broken up. Instead, they have a new name: Fever Sea. They have a new sound, too. So now we need to ask, what is Fever Sea’s take on post-Rosicrucian dynamics?

And we have an answer, because as of yesterday Fever Sea released their first EP — The Deluge — for free download on Bandcamp. There are only three songs on the Fever Sea EP, though they amount to more than 20 minutes of music — and they’re all very good. In fact, though I enjoyed Beneath the Waves, I’m liking The Deluge even more.

As for the style, the band have moved in the direction of a new kind of marriage — kind of a three-way between prog metal, melodic black metal, and at times the sort of dark, doom-weighted sounds I tend to associate with that Finnish triumvirate of Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, and Before the Dawn. Or at least that’s how I interpret it. The band seem to prefer the description “Atmospheric and Triumphant Post-Black Metal”. Whatever labels you might choose to afix, Fever Sea have made an auspicious start on their new life.

“Genesis In Retort” is a blaze of furious riffing, percussive blasting, and jagged vocals, but that’s mixed with ringing melodic guitar leads, a bounding bass line, and clean, high vocals that trade words with the bestial growls in a kind of call-and-response exchange.

“The King Immersed”, at almost 10 minutes in length, is a musical voyage across changing seas. The song’s beginning is a comparatively soft, dreamy segment marked by clear, clean vocals (which are much better than on Beneath the Waves) and an entrancing melody. The music briefly builds in intensity and then gives way to more ringing guitar arpeggios over a thumping bass-and-drum undercarriage, all of which is a prelude to the explosion of harsh vocals and attacking instruments that follows. That call-and-response motif marks this song until about the six-minute mark, when a slow, doomy, segment marked by cavernous vocals takes its place. Tinkling guitar notes provide a bridge to a powerful ending that draws together all of the preceding pieces. A very impressive song.

The final track, “Antideluvian”, builds a dramatic, even epic, atmosphere. No clean singing on this song, nothing but teeth bared in predatory roars and howls. Reverberating guitar notes mix with heavy pneumatic riffing and booming bass chords. There’s a dark, ominous, feel to the song, a sense of black power building overhead before the deluge is unleashed as massive, groaning chords appear near the end.

You can freely download the whole EP or individual songs at Fever Sea’s Bandcamp page via this link.You can find Fever Sea on Facebook here. Now, here’s the music:
 

I wasn’t planning to write any more posts for our site today, but then I had one of those synchronicity/serendipity moments that often make me think cosmic forces are trying to send me a message (and I’m not talking about the alien microwave transmissions, because all the foil I’ve used to cover the walls blocks those).

While taking a break from the work I’m supposed to be doing in order to justify my salary, I saw a a link from a friend on Facebook to a Jucifer video I hadn’t seen before. And then soon after that, I got word that Dukatalon had posted another video in their “Zimmer” sessions series. Both videos and both performances exploded my eggshell skull, wadded up the remains, and tossed them into a dimension where happy riff addicts go to smile away the hours.

But in addition to both of them being happily skull-rending, these two videos share another trait: They demonstrate that a massive amount of metal might can be created by (almost) nothing more than one talented guitarist and one talented drummer (and a fuckload of distortion). The fireball shred is icing on the cake.

JUCIFER

I’ll wager that those of you who ever have seen a live show by Gazelle Amber Valentine and her husband Edgar Livengood have become Jucifer fans for life. It only took me the one time. Oddly, it spoiled me so bad that I don’t listen to their recordings that much, because they fall so far short of capturing the live experience. It was, with no exceptions I can think of at the moment, the LOUDEST metal show I’ve ever attended, and it was also one of the most riveting/crushing/satisfying shows I’ve seen; at the same time as they’re inflicting a gigaton of sonic trauma, they have a magnetic stage presence that rivets your attention.

If you’ve seen them, you know that they’re backed by a massive, stage-spanning wall of amps. If you’ve seen them, you know that Amber can generate a spectrum of bludgeoning sounds from her guitar — it’s so goddamned heavy that she really doesn’t need a backing bass-player. And if you’ve seen them, you know that Edgar doesn’t need blast-beats and double-bass or even a lot of physical wizardry to make his drumming a fair match for Amber’s guitar magic.

This video for a song called “Contempt” from the Throned In Blood album — the one I saw for the first time this afternoon — does a nice job approximating the live experience, right down to the blurred vision. This is best experienced if you amp the volume until thick blood oozes from your ears.
 

Last month, Jucifer released a new video (much newer than the one I saw this afternoon), but I’ll include it here, too. It’s for a song called “Crossless”, taken from the band’s recently remastered and re-released 1994 EP Nadir. The video was directed by David Hall. It combines footage from a bunch of the band’s gigs and then twists it up with psychedelic effects.
 

DUKATALON

I only discovered this Israeli band three days ago. What hooked me in the gills and drew blood was the first of three planned music videos filmed at a live performance by the band in a venue they’re calling “The Zimmer”. That first video was for a song called “Vagabond”, and I included it in this post. This afternoon I found out that they’ve now released the second video, this one for a song called “Gate of Mind”. I was pretty eager to hear it, given how much I enjoyed the first one.

I think I like this one even better, though it’s a close call. I’m now even more impressed with guitarist Zafrir Tzori — though I was pretty fuckin’ impressed the first time around. Though his playing style is different from Amber Valentine’s (less psychedelic, among other things), like her, he can milk that guitar for a shitload of galvanizing, exploded-transformer riffs with great tone and feel. And in this video — which looks and sounds great — he also pulls the plug on a jet-fueled stream of fiery shred (that’s the cake icing I was talking about).

Drummer Yariv Shilo, like Edgar Livengood, adds significantly to the power and dynamics of the song, as he did on “Vagabond”, without frequent resort to the usual frenetic blasting of most metal drummers. What he adds is a second dimension to the song’s interest. (I don’t mean to put down Roy Ben Samuel’s bass playing — I know it’s there, but in part because of the mix, the star power belongs to those other guys). Here’s the latest “Zimmer session” video:
 

How things have changed. In April 2010 I wrote a THAT’S METAL! post mainly for the purpose of displaying photos of the magnificent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH’-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) volcano, which you may recall wrecked havoc on air transportation as far away as the UK and the European continent. But because this is a metal blog, I thought I ought to find some Icelandic metal as musical accompaniment for the rad pics.

I hunted and hunted across the interhole as it then existed, and I remember I didn’t find much. Of what I found, the best music was by a band called Changer, so I went with that. I’m sure there were many more Icelandic metal bands creating music back then than I was able to find, but it still struck me that the scene had a pretty low profile internationally.

It’s certainly much easier today to find music by a broad array of excellent Icelandic bands, and two of them in particular have become favorites at NCS — Atrum and Sólstafir. Hell, just last weekend I discovered another one — Severed Crotch (discussed in this post). Over the last few days I’ve been exploring two other Icelandic bands whose music is even more extreme than what I’ve heard from Iceland previously. Theirs is the kind of black/death metal that invokes the word “ritual” when performed live, or the term “apocalyptic metal”, or perhaps the phrase “death worship”. For English speakers, their names are also not nearly as easy to pronounce as those other bands’: Svartidauði and Vansköpun.

SVARTIDAUÐI

Svartidauði’s name means “Black Death”. That weird letter near the end is an “eth”, with a “th” sound. Between 2006 and 2010 they produced three demos and they contributed a song to a split in January 2012 with a Chilean band called Perdition (the eye-catching artwork for that split is up above), which was released by a German black metal label called the World Terror Committee.  They are now planning for the release of an album under the name Flesh Cathedral, which will be distributed in Europe by Terratvr Possessions and in the U.S. by Daemon Worship Productions. The artwork for that monstrosity is right after the jump.

So far, here’s what I’ve heard by Svartidauði:

1. “The Perpetual Nothing” — a song from the new album that was put up for streaming a few days ago and, courtesy of  Terratvr Productions, can be downloaded for free here. It appears to be a re-recording of a track from one of the previous demos.

2. “Flesh Cathedral” — a song from their 2010 demo, Those Who Crawl and Slither. Based on its name, I’m guessing a version of it will also appear on the new album.

3. “Sepulchral Stones” and “The Temple of Deformation” — these songs were originally included on the Temple of Deformation tape that the band recorded in 2006.

I’ll stream all four of these songs below (the last two are combined in a performance video). But first, a few words of preparation:

The music is scorching and weighted with black power. It’s a furious red-eyed assault on the senses, the guitars a razor-edged whirlwind of violent noise, and the vocalist roaring like a demon bear whose jugular has just been opened by a serrated blade. The bass and drums are especially riveting to hear. They’re distinctly audible and they’re played with blazing speed and with unusual creativity, especially given the overarching merciless strategy of the music. They’re also bone-cracking in their sonic power.

Creeping in here and there are buzzing lines of black melody that enhance the music’s fascination, and changes in rhythm and speed prevent the songs from becoming an unformed, unrelenting deluge of chaos. I also have to mention the distorted chimes of the guitar in the intro of “Flesh Cathedral”: it’s really fucking cool, and it returns again as the song progresses.

As a soul-wrecking celebration of black death, the music of Svartidauði will drive a spike deep in your skull. I want Flesh Cathedral, and soon. I haven’t seen a release date for it yet. I suspect the best way to find out is to follow Svartidauði on Facebook (here).

“The Perpetual Nothing”

“Flesh Cathedral”

“Sepulchral Stones” and “The Temple of Deformation”

VANSKÖPUN

Vansköpun appear to be a relatively new band. A UK label named Barghest released their three-song, 19-minute, debut EP Alsæla Gegnum Endurfæðingu on tape last November (the EP’s title apparently means “Ecstasy Through Reincarnation”). Yes, it appears people do still distribute music on tape!  The EP can also be streamed and downloaded for free via Vansköpun’s Bandcamp page (here).

The music creates a suffocating atmosphere of black doom — sludgy, distorted, sometimes ponderous in its pacing, and crafted around bleak melodies. Interestingly, as in the case of Svartidauði, the bass often plays a prominent role in the music, and there’s some interesting black-prog guitar noise to accompany the skittering tremolo melody in the EP’s long second track, which is my favorite. The title track is also quite dynamic, with dramatic changes in pace and intensity and more of that creative guitar dissonance.

This really is a very good EP and puts Vansköpun on the radar as a black metal band to watch. Here’s a stream of the EP:
 

Over the last 24 hours I saw different kinds of web teasers about new music from four bands whose past material I’ve really liked, and by coincidence I found out about all of them through Facebook posts by the French label, Listenable Records (even though Listenable is not currently the label for all the bands).  So it made sense to collect all those teasers in one post, right?

LIVARKAHIL

Last September I featured (here) the new official video from this French band for a song called “Above All Hatred”, which was then due to appear on their second album, Signs of Decay. The music reminded me of Behemoth-style blackened death metal with some DevilDriver groove in the mix, and man, did it have one motherfuckin’ head-smasher of an opening riff. Actually, the whole song was a sweet head-smasher. Signs of Decay was a wonderful album, too — one of many I just never got around to reviewing last year.

Livarkahil are following up Signs of Decay with a free digital EP named Wrath of God, which will be released later this month. I like that strategy of following a full-album release with a free EP.  Today, Listenable and the band started streaming a track from the EP called “Through Hatred and Devotion” — and yes, hatred is a consistent theme for Liverkahil. The song proves once again that Livarkahil know how to start a song strong — and how to follow the intro with pummeling rhythms, blistering vocals, and catchy melodies. Have a listen to this brutal beast right after the jump.
 

Follow Livarkahil on Facebook here.
 

DEW-SCENTED

This German killing machine is a long-running band we have inexcusably neglected at NCS. We’ll start remedying our negligence right here. With a revised line-up, they have a new album called Icarus that Metal Blade will be releasing in Europe beginning on July 27 and Prosthetic will release in North America on July 31. They’ve released a couple of studio album teasers, the second of which went up on Monday of this week. It includes excerpts of a few songs from the album that sound very nice — a mix of thrash, melodic death, and flammable accelerant.
 

Dew-Scented have a Facebook page at this location.
 

SYBREED

Unlike Dew-Scented, this Swiss band is one that’s received a fair amount of love at NCS over the years. I enjoyed their last album, The Pulse of Awakening as well as Antares (2007), though I think I still prefer Slave Design (2004). In fact, the song “Bioactive” from that album is usually one of the first that pops into my head when I get the yearning for a dose of techno/industrial-oriented metal.

Sybreed have been working on a new album to be titled God Is An Automaton. I haven’t seen official release info yet, though the album is at least through the mixing stage. Recently, Sybreed released a studio video, which is what I have for you below. You can’t tell a lot about the music — who knows whether the synth tracks that pop up here and there will be on the album? But it’s enough to get me interested in what’s coming. Maybe it will interest you, too.
 

Sybreed are on Facebook here.
 

ZONARIA

I’m a big fan of this Swedish band’s last album, The Cancer Empire, which was released by Century Media in 2008. Today, a press release announced that they’ve signed with Listenable for release of a new 11-track album entitled Arrival of the Red Sun, which was recorded with Jonas Kjellgren at the Abyss studios. It’s now scheduled to hit the streets on July 23 in Europe and on August 14 in North America.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any new music to share with you — so this is simply a print teaser. But since we MUST have music to accompany news, here’s the band’s last official video, for the song “At War With the Inferior” from The Cancer Empire. Four years have passed since the last album, and that’s a lifetime in the world of metal, so who knows how the new music will compare to this — but I’m goin’ with it anyway, because it’s an excellent song. Prepare for dark, symphonic, black/death.
 

Zonaria’s official web site is here.

A389 is a new discovery for me.  A389 is a DIY record label and distro based in Baltimore, Maryland.  I found out about them through a FB post by Masakari, a Cleveland band whose music you should get to know if you don’t already.

Truth is, I’m not familiar with the majority of the bands whose music A389 distributes, because the music tends to be in genres that I don’t follow closely. But I do know about some of them, and the ones I know about are adept at using music to split skulls and ignite the bloodstream.

A389 have just compiled a digital mixtape for free download. There are . . . wait for it . . . 52 tracks on this thing. It includes a mix of previously unreleased or forthcoming songs plus material from recordings that are already in circulation. As before, I didn’t recognize most of the bands on this comp, but the ones I did recognize are strong:

Ilsa
Ringworm
Young And In the Way
Gravehill
Full of Hell
Trapped Under Ice
Masakari

Now a comp this big will take up some room — 211MB on your hard drive. Fortunately, you don’t have to take the plunge blindly, because A389 is streaming every song on the comp. And after the jump, I’ve picked out a few songs to stream here — yeah, I downloaded this comp already, and I’m glad I did. It’s a mix of styles — death/doom, hardcore, crust-punk, d-beat, grind, and more — and it will beat the holy hell out of you.

To check out the full track list and the song streams at A389, go HERE (you’ll find the download link on that page, too). Now, here are a few tracks I picked out, focusing on some of the forthcoming and previously unreleased material.
 

SEVEN SISTERS OF SLEEP – “Slower Downer”
Taken from the upcoming self titled 7″/CD

ILSA – “Deadbeat’s Ballad”
Taken from the upcoming Intoxicantation 12″
(those who read today’s previous NCS posts have already heard this song, but it’s too good not to repeat)

GOD’S AMERICA – “Brain Numb”
Taken from the upcoming Our Bones Will Bleach In The Sun 7″

EMPIRE OF RATS – Untitled
Taken from the upcoming Empire Of Rats 12″

SHIN TO SHIN – “Don’t Lose Your Way”
Taken from the upcoming Costumes And Masks 12″

PHARAOH – “This House Is Doomed”
Taken from the upcoming This House Is Doomed 7″

MASAKARI – “Fight Back”
Forthcoming flexi – originally By Discharge

Andy Synn posted on NCS not long ago about a brief video teaser that suggested something is in the works concerning Norway’s Extol — a beloved metal band who have been on indefinite hiatus, with their last album released in 2005. The first teaser appeared on a Norwegian-registered web site called extolfilm.com.

This afternoon, “extolfilm” left a comment on Andy’s post tipping us to the fact that a second teaser has now appeared on the extolfilm.com site. Based on the latest teaser clip, it’s looking increasingly likely that what’s in the works is a documentary about the band, or at least a DVD compendium of live performances and commentary by others, because the clip features people talking about Extol. We don’t know who’s talking, because their heads aren’t shown in the clip (you can imagine why this was attractive to me).

Now, of course, even if this is a documentary or performance DVD, there might still be new music — or there might not be.  We shall continue to snoop around, because “nosy” is our middle name, and to report anything more concrete that may eventually surface. You can watch the latest piece of video titillation after the jump.

And for the hell of it, we’ll have some Extol music after the jump, too.

Teaser # 2
 

And now some Extol music, from early to late:
 

“Burial” — Burial (1998)

“Undeceived” – Undeceived (2000)

“From the Everyday Mountain Top” – The Blueprint Dives (2005)

As everyone who hangs around here knows, I’ve listened to almost nothing but metal for years. But every now and then I do dabble in other things, and The Dropkick Murphys are one of my non-metal pleasures. And among their many boot-to-the-ass songs, “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” is one of the best. If you’re not a fan, you may nevertheless remember it from the opening sequence in Martin Scorcese’s 2006 masterwork, The Departed.

Well, today I saw the news that Children of Bodom have recorded a cover of the song. It will be included on Holiday at Lake Bodom (15 Years of Wasted Youth), a COB CD/DVD that will be released on May 15. “Shipping Up To Boston” will be one of only two newly recorded songs on the CD, the other being a cover of  Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” (I’m cringing at the thought of that one).

A web site called CraveOnline premiered the “Shipping Up To Boston” cover today. Now, a song that good is very difficult to ruin, especially for a band as talented as COB (we’ll leave aside whether they’ve been coasting on that talent) — but it’s also very difficult to improve on a song that good, especially given the authentic sound of the original.

So, I guess with that preamble, it won’t surprise you to learn that I think COB neither ruin nor improve on the song, they just make it a bit moar metal. It’s worth a listen (after the jump), though I have to say I’ll stick with the original (which is also after the jump).

Children of Bodom: “Shipping Up To Boston”
 

Dropkick Murphys: “I’m Shipping Up To Boston”

Here’s the rest of the track list for Holiday At Lake Bodom:

‘Hate Crew Deathroll’
‘Shovel Knockout’
‘Hate Me’
‘Everytime I Die’
‘Needled 24/7′
‘I’m Shipping Up To Boston’ (*previously unreleased)
‘Sixpounder’
‘Warheart’
‘Roundtrip To Hell And Back’
‘Trashed, Lost & Strungout’
‘Living Dead Beat’
‘Deadnight Warrior’
‘Blooddrunk’
‘Follow The Reaper’
‘Are You Dead Yet?’
‘Silent Night, Bodom Night’
‘Jessie’s Girl’ (*previously unreleased)
‘In Your Face’
‘Angels Don’t Kill’
‘Downfall’

You can preorder the CD/DVD here.

(We’ve been following (and reporting) the news about Allegaeon’s new album very closely, and now we have TheMadIsraeli’s review of Formshifter.)

Melodic death metal has not really flourished in the U.S despite its popularity (which led to the metalcore movement) and ultimately hasn’t seen much action within its territories.  By my lights, only two melodic death metal bands have started in America who have ever been worth a shit — The Absence and Allegaeon.

The Absence have always been decidedly about blatant old-school worship (really fucking good worship) of past heroes, while Allegaeon sought to combine Swedish majesty with American grit, netting them a killer debut EP and an even more musically accomplished album debut, Fragments of Form and Function, which had titanic grooves, ferocious serpentine riffs, and epic melodies all about.  An debut as staggeringly strong as that puts a lot of pressure on a band to succeed the next time around.

Though it’s a cliche to say so, the sophomore release really is the most dreaded album of a band’s career. It is where a band either cement their status as a legitimate musical force or torch their progress to date, then and there.  Fortunately for Allegaeon and their fans, Formshifter is a bewilderingly powerful album that is an essential of the year.

A couple things are different this time around.  The band have switched to 8-string guitars, which often results not only in riffing that’s extremely technical and varied, but also in some of Allegaeon’s most brutal, fat, and consuming moments when the time arrives to throw down in a song.  This particular change has been really positive — with the switch to 8 strings, Allegaeon have written riffs that have quite a bit more majesty, pomp, and circumstance than ANYTHING they wrote on Fragments of Form and Function.

The songs are even better composed and more dynamic.  On this album you’ll find more hills and valleys as compared to the previous album, which mainly just blistered at full speed, obliterating the listener.  Nothing wrong with the way the debut did things, but Formshifter is definitely a more refined and sophisticated attack.

The second difference, as the band themselves have stated when asked, is that Formshifter is definitely a more groove-based album, though not as much as one might believe, depending on what you read.  Don’t think you won’t find plenty of moments that will blaze a trail of fire across your soul, because those are here in spades and more potent than ever.  But for the sake of dynamics, Allegaeon spare the speedy moments for times of emphasis, and trust me, when they come, they will send you into convulsive fits of neck-snapping antics.

“Behold (God I Am)” is a beastly opener: a clean intro with a grand sense of drama, a blistering post-intro riff that melts faces, and a following jack-hammer, rapid-fire attack of EMP charges and Gatling-gun fire.  The riffs have a slithering quality, combined with a badass Middle Eastern melodic basis.  Near the end, the song hits with an anthem-like march that I can see provoking venue-wide shout-along’s.

The next song, “Tartessos – The Hidden Xenochrist”, exhibits the more groove-oriented direction pretty well.  The song doesn’t really bother with speed, but the killer riffs combined with that badass alien sweep melody during the verse and the song’s solo’s make it a hypnotizing affair.

“A Path Disclosed” opens with a cool harmonized riff played with a clean tone and then bursts into more of a traditional melodic death metal attack (one of the few speed-oriented songs on the album).  The song’s bombastic chorus is awesome, with a strong waltz feel that may spawn images in your mind of a ballroom covered in fire.

“Twelve” is where the game changes on this album.  The first three songs are great, but the improved composition and notched-to-11 epic factor become present starting here.  The main riff opens with big, swelling octaves and droning thooms from the 8-string guitars, with the drums launching a bombardment  of machine-gun blast-beat fire.  The riffs are groovy, dark, and technical, with the right amount of balls to them.  The song is a hard-hitter, but the feature that truly makes it is the almost three-minute classical guitar outro, courtesy of lead-guitar wizard Greg Burgess.  It sounds like a tune straight out of a spaghetti western, which kicks fucking ass.

“Iconic Images” is a waltzing steamroller, calling to mind the heaviest of Nevermore’s output.  The riffs have a distinct Jeff Loomis color, full of low-tuned noodling wizardry and the sounds of a giant, coiling serpent preparing to strike.  It’s a titanic bruiser, full of perplexingly intricate drums accompanied by blistering double-bass assaults.  The solo’s in this song, including a badass dual-guitar solo that features astounding counterpoint, also rule.

“The Azrael Trigger” is a blazingly fast number that partially drops the melodic death metal for something more akin to the sound of Bay Area thrash.  The melodic character of the riffs is strongly reminiscent of early Exodus and Testament.  The chorus is melodic in a melo-deathy way, I suppose, a catchy dark melody that sticks in your ear.  I particularly dig the sharpness of the riffs in this song. A later song, “Timeline Dissonance”, which is also good, revisits this Bay Area thrash style.

“From The Stars Death Came” is the most traditionally melodeath song on the album, sounding like something that would’ve been on a 2.0 version of their debut album.  Catchy, intelligent, harmonized riffing and big guitar layers are the name of the game here, with a huge emphasis on ear-pleasing dual-guitar antics.

The final two songs are the best on this album by far.  The title track “Formshifter” is definitely my favorite.  Its epic intro hooks you, and the song then proceeds to deliver shredding cuts with riffing of a spidery sort.  A razor-sharp dance of death overcomes you, that is, until the song’s bridge hits — delivering a meteor-sized groove to the landscape with a bit of a djenty feel that gives me the Jens Kidman face and compresses all surrounding matter.  The second solo erupts, leading right into an epic breakdown, which later closes out the song.  Seriously, it’s fucking brutal.

More classical guitar begins the closer “Secrets of the Sequence”, an unforgettable opening that latches onto your brain.  The song is mostly centered on catchy melodic riffs, with a great chorus that’s adrenaline pumping.  The highlight of this song for sure, though, occurs when the bass gets a bit of solo action as it reprises the song’s intro by itself.  The ensuing dual-guitar solo is enrapturing, solidifying the case that Greg Burgess and Ryan Glisan are a guitar duo to watch.

The mix on this album is, in a word, meaty.  Nothing feels essentially compromised, but listening to this album is like being subjected to an assault with boulders.  The guitars sound massive, and the drums have a cold, thick, industrial tint to them.

The individual performances are all stellar.  The session drummer on this album obviously gelled with the band, as what he plays here perfectly complements the music.  Ezra Hayes does his traditional melodic death metal growl well, and the guitar/bass combo of Greg Burgess, Ryan Glisan, and Corey Archuleta is superb.  I don’t know of many guitar/bass sections of an American metal band composed of people who play off each other THIS WELL.

The lyrics are pretty established Allegaeon fare, a discussion of lots of science and philosophy that gives you something interesting to read besides a good listening experience, and the weird fantasy/sci-fi blend of the artwork will also be stylistically familiar to Allegaeon fans.

Highly recommended.  Pick it up.

(Formshifter is out now on the Metal Blade label, and Allegaeon can be found on Facebook via this link.)

Sexcrement.  Now THAT’S a motherfucking band name!  From the name alone I was drawn to the music, like a bee to honey, like a moth to flame, like a fly to . . . uh . . . wait . . . forget about that last metaphor, because this band’s second album Sloppy Seconds is really good.  And it wasn’t just the band’s name that suggested the kind of deviant intelligence I felt pretty sure would produce music to my liking. Get a load of the song titles:

“Heard It Through the Rape Vine”
“Chemical Handcuffs”
“Well Hungover”
“Heels Up”
“Trucker Bombed”
“Assisted Living Lapdance”
“Obestiality”
“Ride Johnny Ride”

You see what I mean? Deviant and clever, perverted and politically incorrect. I figured the odds were pretty high that I’d get some jollies from the music — though that wouldn’t necessarily mean I’d write about it here. No, dear brethren and sistren, believe it or not, I don’t write about everything I like. I do try to apply a quality filter, because even my rudimentary intelligence tells me that provoking spontaneous regurgitation isn’t a winning formula for holding on to readers. But in this case, I not only got some jollies, I also heard some fine metal worthy of your refined attention.

With a few notable exceptions, the music is mainly atonal, Florida-style death metal with a little thrash, a little death ‘n’ roll, and a lot of . . . deviance. It also includes a dash of grind, a dose of d-beat, a sprinkling of slam, and a fistful of groove. It’s fast-paced and in-your-face and as headbang material goes, it’s aces.

Sexcrement bring the gritty, dirty riffs and a hard charge of chugging. But they also work the rhythm changes on most of the songs, and they can get flashy with the guitar and drum work, especially on “Well Hungover” (which includes this memorable sample at the end: “I use alcohol not only to celebrate, but to forget. I can find just about any reason to drink”), “Trucker Bombed” (which is full of jumping, staggered riffs and ends with another nice sample: “and now if you don’t mind, it’s time for the liquor to take effect”), and the closing track (which I’ll come to eventually).

I dig the raucous flurry of riffing that begins “Heels Up” and the thumping bass notes that push that song along. I dig the tremolo nuttiness and the unstable rhythms in “Assisted Living Lapdance” and that song’s general aura of squealing, smashing mayhem. I like the cymbal crashes and the murderous double-bass on “Heels Up” (and elsewhere).

Shit, I like every damn song on the album. But I do have to make special mention of the closing track.

“Ride Johnny Ride” is more than 13 minutes long — though it includes around four minutes of silence at the end before a final nanosecond of a gang shout (which I can’t make out). It’s like some kind of tech-death manifesto, reminding me at times of bands such as Gorguts, old Pestilence, and even Origin. It includes a progressive winding down of the pace to the only truly slow instrumental interlude on the album; it includes a sweet little bass solo; it shifts into a repetitive jam session near the end that will snap necks; and I think there’s some cowbell in there, too.

I had so much fun with this album — which is more proof that death metal doesn’t have to be grim and corpse-strewn to arouse the metal-loving masses — that I decided to prolong the pleasure (not very manly of me, I know).

I’ve read raves on other metal sites about Sexcrement’s official video for “Trucker Bombed”, which was made by underground filmmaker Victor Bonacore, stars horror scream queen Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead, Silent Night Deadly Night), and includes cameos by members of Origin and Revocation, among others. But I haven’t seen it as of this writing. I decided to wait and watch it only after this post appeared on NCS.

You see?  An unusual display of deferred gratification. Here’s the video, which I’m sure will be disgusting and which I’ll be eagerly watching right along with you:
 

Sloppy Seconds will be released on May 29 by Comatose Records. Sexcrement will be hitting up the West Coast this June on the ‘West Coast Penetration’ tour (clever, eh?). Get the dates and places here. And now here are band links:

http://www.sexcrement.com

http://www.facebook.com/sexcrement

Through the good graces of Century Media, we sponsored a free ticket give-away for the DUAL DESTRUCTION TOUR of two of our favorite up-and-coming bands, 7 Horns 7 Eyes and Stealing Axion. The contest is now closed, and we had a random drawing for the winning entry.  Congratulations to Nicole B!  Nicole, we will be e-mailing you shortly with info about your ticket.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  Even though we aren’t getting you a free ticket, this will be a tour well-worth paying to see anyway. Check out the tour dates here.