We’ve got good news and not so good news on the Abigail Williams front. The good news is that the band’s forthcoming album, Becoming, is now streaming in full at Hails & Horns, accompanied by an interview with AW’s Ken Sorceron. We got a very early listen to this album back in November, and published what (as far as we know) is the first review of Becoming, written by NCS scribe Andy Synn. (here).

In a nutshell, this is an unusually compelling album, one that should vault this band into the upper echelons of American black metal, one we expect will be on many people’s Best of 2012 lists when this new year draws to a close. We’re not the only people who feel that way — Becoming is already racking up a slew of advance rave reviews. But you don’t have to take anyone else’s word for it any more. GO HERE to listen to the entire album while the stream lasts. Becoming will be released by Candlelight Records on January 24, and pre-orders are being accepted at this location, as well as on iTunes.

Now for the not-so-good news: Although no official statement has yet been released, word is already out that Dark Funeral is canceling its headlining North American tour, which was scheduled to begin on January 29 in Springfield, Virginia. Plans for the tour were already impacted by Belphegor’s exit from the line-up due to frontman Helmuth Lehner’s surgery last fall, which caused the band to cancel all performances through this May. Now, it appears the tour will be shelved altogether.

However, we’ve learned that Abigail Williams — who were to be part of that tour along with Inquisition and Gigan — are doing their best to schedule replacement dates. They need help from interested venues and local bands. More about that after the jump.

November is done, and the countdown begins to the end of 2011 and he beginning of the New Year. We’ve been so focused this week on the year behind us, since 2011 Listmania is now in full swing, that we almost forgot that there is a future, and it will be filled with metal.

So, here’s the deal:  In these METAL IN THE FORGE posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month (November) about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — THIS ISN’T A CUMULATIVE LIST. If we found out about a new forthcoming album before November, we wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier.

This month’s list begins right after the jump. As usual, this list is half-assed rather than comprehensive. So, feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what we missed when we put this list together. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about!

(Andy Synn has had the chance for an advance listen to the next album from Abigail Williams — Becoming — which is not due in stores until January 24. As you’ll see from Andy’s review, it made quite an impression.)

Very much an album of music put together as an individual artistic statement, Becoming effortlessly embodies that central paradox of black metal; the more the bounds and prescribed rules of orthodoxy are stretched, the more the central tenet of the genre, “do what thou wilt”, is given shape and form.

Throughout the 55+ minutes of music contained on this disc, the group weave a tapestry of their influences together into a sound that, whilst still woven through with slender, gossamer threads which tie it to the past, is fuller and more realised, yet at the same time more dream-like and unearthly, than anything that has gone before.

The venomous ire of the vocals remains undimmed, each spiteful tirade and scornful diatribe spat forth with vehement fury like flames from the mouth of hell itself, raising them above the empty cascades of hollow invective that  spill from the mouths and minds of so many of their so-called peers.

The scathing incandescence of the guitar work melds restrained technicality with devastating, brazen intensity, the guitarists thrashing, scratching and clawing at their instruments like those possessed, underpinned throughout by serpentine bass-lines which flow and undulate seductively through the warp and weft of the music and by the towering drums of Zach Gibson, who gives a varied and multi-faceted performance whose monstrous speed and colossal power is matched only by its unyielding grasp of the many intricate subtleties and nuances of performance and restraint required to give breadth and depth to the lengthy and complex structures of each piece.

In addition to all this, however, it is the group’s use of real strings and piano work that is one of the strongest and most distinctive elements on the entire album, manifesting in a manner which eschews the predictable “symphonic” approach in favour of more subtle and refined compositions. This more classically inclined ideology sees a wealth of keyboard tones and stringed accompaniments employed as singular instruments in and of themselves, each designed to contribute in a specific and precise way to each song, adding another voice to the choir of rapturous instrumentation without ever succumbing to the devilish temptations of symphonic pomp and excess.

October is over, except for Halloween, which continues to go on and on here at the metallic island that NCS calls home. Your humble editor spent the end of the month and the beginning of this new one grinding away at his fucking day job, which explains why this installment of METAL IN THE FORGE is late. It also explains why it’s more than typically incomplete, but more on that later.

Here’s the deal:  In these posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — THIS ISN’T A CUMULATIVE LIST. If we found out about a new forthcoming album before September, we wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier.

This month’s list begins right after the jump. I fell down on the job of monitoring the interhole and press releases to catch news about new albums that looked potentially cool to me, so I know I missed announcements of new releases that should be included here. So, feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us what I missed. Let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about!

(Here’s an update from Andy Synn about Abigail Williams’ work on their next album.)

Some of you may know (or may not, hell, I don’t know how much any of you pay attention) that I’m a big fan of Abigail Williams. You might also know that since we opened for them a few months back I’ve been in pretty regular contact with Ken “Sorceron”, keeping tabs on their various tours and the writing and recording of their upcoming third album.

The band recently completed drum-recording at Keene Machine Studios in LA, with the irrepressible Michael Keene (of The Faceless fame) engineering. The rest of the record is being recorded at the group’s own home studio, with frontman Ken Sorceron acting as producer (as, contrary to popular belief, he has done on both the group’s previous records). With that in mind, I thought it the perfect time to issue a bit of an update on how things are going and collect together the various hints and bits of info that I’ve managed to glean so far . . .

First things first, as you may have seen, the band are collaborating with drummer Zach Gibson, who originally appeared with them way back on the Legend EP (btw – if you can track down “Watchtower: Revisited”, the re-recording of one of the debut EP’s best tracks, I recommend you do). Mr Gibson has been appearing of late with “Phobia” and “Gutrot”, delivering short spasming blasts of grindcore devastation. As he says in the video you’ll see at the end of this post, he’s had to adapt his style a bit to the new AW material… (more after the jump)

September is behind us. Here in Seattle, it was such a beautiful month that it seemed like nature’s compensation for how late the summer started. Unfortunately, with September’s end, we’re on a short track to the onset of winter, which means about six months of short, cold, grey, ceaselessly wet days. Ain’t that just fuckin’ great?

Well, bitchin’ about the winter ahead won’t change one fucking thing. I prefer to think instead about the deluge of new metal that’s headed our way and try (momentarily) to forget about the deluge of rain on the horizon. Which brings us to the latest monthly edition of METAL IN THE FORGE.

You know the drill:  In these posts, we collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including occasional updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know their music yet. In this series, we cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — this isn’t a cumulative list. If we found out about a new album before August, we wrote about it in previous installments of this series. So, be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported earlier. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. As usual, also feel free to tell us about how we fucked up by omitting releases that you’re stoked about.

As a public service, I thought I’d let you know about two North American tours I just noticed yesterday, plus two others announced earlier but not previously mentioned at NCS. The first of the newer ones is advertised by the poster above. What caught my eye, in addition to the name Korpiklaani, was the fact that Russia’s Arkona is on this tour. Arkona is a recent discovery for us here at NCS, thanks to our friend Trollfiend, who provided a guest review of the band’s new album Slovo. Also included on the tour are Polkadot Cadaver and Forged in Flame. I don’t yet know anything about those two bands, but I’m very tempted to see this show simply because of Arkona (though I like Korpiklaani, too), especially because the Seattle stop will be at a relatively small club.

The second tour is the 2011 edition of Thrash and Burn. This has been a summer tour since its inception, but it was a no-show in the summer just past and now appears to have emerged as a re-branding of Winds of Plague’s fall headlining tour. Following in the footsteps of Summer Slaughter, Winds of Plague and the promoters of this tour nominated a group of bands to fill the last tour slot and let fans vote for a winner. A couple days ago, the winner was announced, and it’s Volumes. Interestingly, Volumes was also one of the nominated bands on the Summer Slaughter ballot, but didn’t make the cut that time and instead were included on the Slaughter Survivors Tour. Volumes has a new album called Via that’s getting some buzz, though I haven’t heard it yet.

The rest of the bands on this version of Thrash and Burn are Chelsea Grin, As Blood Runs Black, For the Fallen Dreams, Upon A Burning Body, In the Midst of Lions, and Like Moths to Flames. In other words, the tour should be renamed Deathcore and Burn. No tour schedule has yet been announced.

I must admit that among the fall tours we haven’t yet mentioned at this site, I’m personally more interested in the Mastodon/Dillinger Escape Plan/Red Fang tour and the Mayhem/Keep Of Kalessin/Hate/Abigail Williams tour (which will be joined by Woe on 13 dates not yet specified). The schedules for the Korpiklaani tour and those others I just mentioned are after the jump.

OK, time to court some (albeit minor) controversy. To compare and contrast with the “Wintermoon Wednesday” piece on post-millennial black metal by Tr00 Nate (unseen at the time of this writing) over at TheNumberOfTheBlog, I’ve decided to list my own picks for the prize.

I’ve left out the obvious choices, so no Satyricon or 1349 – even though the former have transformed themselves post-2000 very successfully, courting both success and controversy in equal measure, while the latter have pushed their hyper-blast style beyond the breaking point, only to discover a new lease on life through their exploration of gnarled, twisted atmospherics.

No Rotting Christ? Or Samael? Nope. I love both of them, but they both had long pre-millennial careers and spent much of the post-2000 stage of their careers exploring less focussed, less black metal sounds — although both have recently released masterful examples of their own focussed and distinctive brands of black metal.

I have left out records which are perhaps less “purely” black metal — records for which a strong case can be put forward that they belong more as “blackened” examples of another genre — so there’s no place for Altar Of Plagues or Withered, both great bands in their own right. No Akercocke either, the sheer weight of their crushing death metal heft disqualifying them for this list.

I have also by choice left out artists/albums I have covered recently. Therefore, no Iskald (though The Sun I Carried Alone IS one of the best black metal albums of the last ten years), or Elite (see HERE for my thoughts) or The Axis Of Perdition (HERE), even though I’d argue that each of them has at least one example under their belt of near perfect post-millennial black metal.

So who have I chosen? Well look upon my choices dear reader, and despair…

(Andy Synn had a full, black (metal) weekend (except for the fact that he missed Enslaved on Sunday). Before jumping the ocean waters to visit Oslo for that Dimmu concert he wrote about yesterday, he spent a night with Abigail Williams, Thulcandra, and Iskald in England, and has kindly provided us with a report. You should know that he started that night, not in the audience, but on stage roaring with his band Bloodguard.)

On Friday the 27th of May, my band and I were lucky enough to open the show for three extremely talented black metal acts. Though the crowd was small, they were all passionate about their love of the genre and equally appreciative of all the bands’ efforts. Each of the three bands demonstrated a different facet of the black metal template, be it the proggy, thrashy approach favoured by Iskald, the streamlined melodicism of Thulcandra‘s Dissection-worship, or the tense, introverted catharsis of Abigail Williams.

Openers Iskald played a short, tight set, delving into material from all three of their albums.”Under The Black Moon” off their latest (phenomenal) album was a sumptuous delight of crunchy guitars and awkward, obscure rhythms, while “A Breath Of Apocalypse” pummelled and grooved with a refreshing directness and power. Throughout their set, thrash-style speeds and an at-times death metal aesthetic wrapped around soaring, crystal clear melodies, intelligent, driving drums and rough, propulsive Immortal/Enslaved-style riffage.

Sharp and icy, the band delivered time and time again, with each song bearing a different and distinct flavour. Songs like “Domesdag” (introduced as “a true Norwegian song”) and “Det Stilner Til Storm” brought a fiery passion to match the cold melancholy of their icy melodies, their moody, progressive diversions and impressive, yet restrained, technicality demonstrating exactly why Iskald deserve to be held amongst the elite of modern-day black metal. In particular, their most recent material demonstrates more growth and ambition than most latter-day members of the black fraternity can muster, unafraid to explore different textures and impressive, forward-thinking structures. (more after the jump . . .)

I’m a bit behind in my reading of Blabbermouth, and therefore missed some orgasmically good news that appeared late yesterday. But thanks to some info last night from my collaborator IntoTheDarkness and then a pathetically sad post today by DemiGodRaven at The Number of the Blog, I now know that Rotting Christ is coming to NorthAm in a headlining tour next spring. And may I say just how fucking happy I am?  I believe I will.  I am just soooooo fucking happy!

This almost makes up for the deep depression I experienced when learning that THE DECIBEL DEFIANCE TOUR, featuring Suffocation, The Faceless, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Decrepit Birth, and Fleshgod Apocalypse would be playing Tulsa but not Seattle — the sort of mortification that DemiGodRaven expressed upon learning that Rotting Christ would be playing Seattle but not Sacramento.

Brother, I feel your pain. Well, not really.  It’s more accurate to say that I would feel your pain except that I’ve managed to get over THE DECIBEL DEFIANCE TOUR’s snubbing of Seattle and I’m now in a painless state of bliss just thinking about the chance to see Rotting Christ in about six short months when they stop here.

There are some other bands on that tour — Melechesh, Hate, Abigail Williams, and Lecherous Nocturne — and that’s a pretty strong set of supporting acts. I’m especially interested in listening to Melechesh play their unique brand of Mesopotamian metal in the flesh. But — and no disrespect is intended to any of those other bands — I would gag my way through a supporting lineup of Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and Nelly as long as Rotting Christ was waiting at the end.

I am soooo fucking happy. (The tour dates and places are after the jump.)