Today we have Part 2 of this year’s list of the most infectious extreme metal songs, as determined by me and myself, but not the other parts of my fractured personality. To understand what this list is all about and how it was compiled, you may read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS-2011.

Today’s first song should come as no surprise to anyone around these environs. Although Surtur Rising has been neglected on most year-end lists I’ve seen, I thought the album was a solid addition to Amon Amarth’s discography, with variety in the mood and pacing of the songs plus a satisfying helping of what we’ve all come to expect from a new release by Amon Amarth: catchy, galloping, Scandinavian melodic death metal suitable as accompaniment for fighting frost giants, or a night of raping and pillaging among close friends — or simply getting tanked to your eyebrows on hornfulls of mead.

Some have criticized Amon Amarth for being too predictable in their sound, but I guarantee you, if they changed the formula too much their fans would start burning shit to the ground like those Vikings on the album cover. Besides, it’s a winning formula in my alchemy book.

Surtur Rising includes several strong candidates for this list, but my favorite, and the one I think most infectious, is “War of the Gods”. In fact, I think it will take a rightful place in the pantheon of Amon Amarth classics.

As well-known as our first pick is, our second song today is from a band that’s considerably more obscure — though that’s already changing.

Norway’s Blodsgard haven’t even released an album yet, only three demos. When I found out about the band in September, the most recent demo — a four-song offering called Solve et Coagula — hadn’t even been released for public distribution, and the band had no plans to do so. I got a chance to hear it and then obtained permission to provide a link to a special 3-song download for our readers, which included two tracks from Solve et Coagula plus another even more recent song, as a companion to our review.

Since then, the band have made the decision to release Solve et Coagula for download on their web page (here), which also includes the opportunity to buy a previous demo called Nuclear Extinction.

What I’ve heard from Blodsgard to date ranges from solid to superb. The music is definitely nekro, rooted in the hallowed traditions of Trve Norwegian Black Metal, but guitarist/vocalist Fredrik R is a talented songwriter, and what he creates is much more than the typical hate-filled, clawing-to-the-bone that you might expect. There’s one song in particular to which I’ve returned many times — “Mentalt Minefelt”. I’ve become addicted to the bleak, moaning melody, the kataclysmic drum explosions, and Fredrik R’s positively harrowing vocal style. This song is kvlt — and it’s also tremendously infectious.

I think these two songs sound unexpectedly sweet when played back to back, so I’ve grouped them together below.

“War of the Gods”

“Mentalt Minefelt”

Yesterday my fucking day job actually demanded that I work instead of blog. Amazingly harsh that they actually expected me to do something I’m being paid to do. How fucking medieval! The result is that this round-up of news and new music is appearing a day later than it should have. Like hemorroids and lung cancer, these things happen.

Despite a waning of some of the excitement that comes with being first and fast out of the shute, and instead being late and resigning yourself to watching the buttholes of all the other horses that got the jump on you, I’m forging ahead anyway, waiting for that massive kick around the last turn that will leave the buttholes in the dust.

BLACK TUSK

Yeah, the black fucking tusk, with the John Dyer Baizley cover (above) for their new album, Set the Dial. This Savannah band’s 2010 album, Taste the Sin, was one we liked and wrote about last year (here), so we’ve been waiting for a taste of the newness, which we got yesterday. It’s a new song called “Bring Me Darkness”, which coincidentally is my order of choice at the bars I frequent. (more after the jump . . .)

The beginning of this song blew my head off, and then the riff-fest that followed finished off the rest of my headless body in a bouncing jam of balls-to-the-wall brawl. If the bass riffing alone in this song doesn’t put a smile on your face, then you’re way too grumpy today.

GODSIC

Godsic is another band we’ve written about before (right here). They’re a relatively new band from Sweden composed of former members of Construcdead and current members of Carnal Forge. They’ve created a debut album called As the Heavens Burn, and the last tiume we checked with them, they’d released two songs for streaming — “Scars Inside” and “Premeditation”. Both were fucking good pancake.

Now they’ve discharged a third song from the album, a pre-release version of a tune called “Stillborn Life”. Based on the title, I concluded this wouldn’t be a party song. But I’ll tell you what, it’s a motherfuckin groove machine that jammed itself inside my head and wouldn’t let go. I even liked the clean vocalizing in the chorus, which struck connections with latter-day Soilwork. This thing is drecnched in catchy.

THE CROWN

We follow up Godsic with another Swedish band. But not just another Swedish band. As befits their name, they’re a kind of Swedish royalty, and who gives a fuck if King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia don’t invite them to state dinners. Our man Andy Synn reviewed their 2010 album, Doomsday King and called it “a masterpiece of wild fury and calculated aggression.”

Yesterday’s news is that the band have welcomed back to their line-up vocalist Johan Lindstrand. The last time Lindstrand provided the vocals was 2003′s classic album, Possessed 13. We’re not complaining one bit about the vocals of Jonas Stålhammar on The Doomsday King, but yet we have to confess that we’re mighty interested to hear what The Crown does next with Lindstrand behind the mic. Here’s the band’s statement about the change:

“”We would like to thank our metal brother Jonas Stålhammar for the amazing teamwork for the last couple of years!!! Respect!!! Next week we’ll start rehearsing new material (6-7 news songs written at this point). We hope to enter the studio early 2012.”

And here’s what Lindstrand had to say: “Yeah, from now on I am the lead singer in this classic death metal outfit called THE CROWN. Damn! That feels good to say. I will also take some time here to thank Jonas Stålhammar, ’cause he did an amazing job on ‘Doomsday King’. You rule, dude! Other than that I have to say: THE ORIGINAL FIVE HAS RETURNED!!! Go hide your children.”

And here’s what I have to say: Listen to this song, picked totally at random from Possessed 13, because all the songs on that album rule. Here’s “Deliverance”:

DREAMING DEAD

The last time we wrote about Dreaming Dead, almost a year ago, it was with these words: “Dreaming Dead is a death metal band from Los Angeles that incorporates a multitude of styles into their music. They also have the distinction, whether they want this kind of attention or not, of being one of those few, good extreme metal bands with a female vocalist (Elizabeth Schall) — who is also an inventively killer guitarist.”

What I saw yesterday was the news that Dreaming Dead are putting the finishing touches on a new album to be released this fall, and that a demo version of the first song from the album could be heard on the band’s Facebook page, in exchange for a like.  I already like them, so this cost me nothing. The song is called “Midnightmares”. It surprised me when I heard it, because it’s unabashed, undisguised black metal — and fucken good black metal at that.

It starts fast — a dose of black thrash, with superb vocals by Schall — and then it kicks into an extended instrumental that maintains the pacing but rivets the attention with tempo shifts and flurries of lead-guitar and strong-bass blizzardry. It’s a waterfall of acidic thrash with melodies that echo off the roar of the falling water. I am really liking this.

Go check out the Dreaming Dead facebook page here and like them, please. Here’s the song:

AMON AMARTH

We close out this collection of miscellaneous items that caught our interest with a live performance video from Amon Amarth — a band who need no introduction, a band who most metalheads like, regardless of what else they like, a band who know how to make you bang your fucken heads.

This is decent-quality video footage of the band’s August 13, 2011 performance at Metropolis in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was originally premiered exclusively by Musik Universe. It’s a medley of three songs. On the one hand, it was frustrating that none of the songs finished before the next one began. On the other hand, each fragment is a reminder of how great this band’s songs are. Check it out below.

UPDATE: And below the clip from the Montreal show, I’ve added two clips from AA’s Baltimore show on the same tour. The beginning of “Pursuit of Vikings” is particularly awesome.

On July 24, 2011, Amon Amarth played the Tuska Open Air Metal Festival in Helsinki Finland. The first song on their set was “War of the Gods”. The video after the jump records the performance from just behind and to the left of drummer Fredrik Andersson. It helps if you know the song already — as well you should — because the sound of the other instruments and Johan Hegg’s vocals are muffled on the audio track, given the camera’s position — but this is still very, very cool.

I don’t know shit about drumming. Basically, to me, watching any capable extreme metal drummer in action is like witnessing a form of supernatural achievement. This is no different. Maybe what Andersson is doing on this song would be basic, ho-hum stuff to a metal drummer watching it. To me, it’s phenomenal.

But that’s only part of the attraction. That supernatural quality is enhanced in this clip by the eruptions of flame that occur throughout the video, as if ejected from the drum kit itself, and by the smoke that eventually enshrouds Andersson before ultimately clearing near the end. True Viking shit.

This gave me a giant [insert slang term for erect penis]. It fucking [insert verb] my [insert testicle reference]. I shot [insert semen idiom] all over my computer screen.  Video after the jump.

I just saw this. Looks like it went up yesterday. It’s the new official Amon Amarth video for “Destroyer of the Universe”, one of the tracks from the absolutely wonderful Surtur Rising. It’s a live video that was shot on the band’s May 6th stop in Philadelphia, PA at the Theatre Of Living Arts.

The first YouTube comment I saw beneath this video cracked me up. But, figuratively speaking, it pretty much captures my reaction to the video: “its 4am. ive been watching porn for the past 2 hours. i decided to come to youtube and i saw a new video from amon amarth. and guess what. i came in 2minutos.”

I’m a day or two late reporting the schedule for Amon Amarth‘s European tour, but I forgive myself. What other U.S. metal blog is going to say anything about a European tour at all?

Exactly.   So there.

Yes, Amon Amarth will be embarking on a 15-country tour of the UK and the Continent beginning on October 12 in Stuttgart, Germany. Can you guess who will be supporting them on that tour? Go ahead — close your eyes so you don’t see the answer and take a guess.

If you guessed As I Lay Dying, then you’re a fucking genius. I sure wouldn’t have guessed that match-up, even though I like both bands and they’re both in the Metal Blade stable. If you do a word-association exercise, and you say the first band that comes to mind when someone says “AMON AMARTH!”, the odds are you’re not going to say “AS I LAY DYING!”

A band like Entombed would have been closer to what I would have guessed. But as it happens, you can sort of have that cake and eat it, too, because LG Petrov of Entombed provided guest vocals on “Guardians of Asgard” with Amon Amarth when the band played the Metalfest festival in Switzerland on May 29 — and of course it was captured on video. This is fan-filmed footage, so the audio quality isn’t ideal (though it isn’t terrible), but the video quality is pretty good.

Plus, I mean, it’s LG Petrov singing with Amon Amarth on “Guardians of Asgard”. If you’re as big a metal geek as I am (no need for you to confess out loud), you know you have to watch this, just so you’ll be able to die happy if you get flattened by a beer truck while crossing the street today. So, after the jump — Euro tour dates and that video.

AMON AMARTH / AS I LAY DYING EUROPEAN TOUR

Oct. 12 – Stuttgart, Germany – LKA
Oct. 13 – Strasbourg, France – La Laiterie
Oct. 14 – Passau, Germany – Metal Invasion Festival
Oct. 15 – Berlin, Germany – Huxleys
Oct. 16 – Leipzig, Germany – Hellraiser
Oct. 18 – Bremen, Germany – Aladin
Oct. 19 – Luxembourg, Luxembourg – Sportzentrum Differdange
Oct. 20 – Neu-Isenburg, Germany – Hugenottenhalle
Oct. 21 – Oberhausen, Germany – Turbinenhalle
Oct. 22 – Hengelo, Netherlands – Metropol
Oct. 23 – London, UK – HVM Forum
Oct. 25 – Rennes, France – L´Etage
Oct. 26 – Eindhoven, Netherlands – Effenaar
Oct. 27 – Lille, France – Aeronet
Oct. 28 – St. Etienne, France – Le Fil
Oct. 30 – Bilbao, Spain – Rock Star *
Nov. 01 – Lisboa, Portugal – Incrivel Almadense *
Nov. 02 – Porto, Portugal – Hard Club *
Nov. 03 – Santiago de Compostela, Spain – Capitol *
Nov. 04 – Madrid, Spain – Heineken *
Nov. 05 – Barcelona, Spain – Razzmatazz 2 *
Nov. 07 – Zürich, Switzerland – Komplex 457
Nov. 08 – Treviso, Italy – New Age
Nov. 09 – Bologna, Italy – Estragon
Nov. 11 – Lausanne, Switzerland – Les Docks
Nov. 12 – Kaufbeuren, Germany – All-Kart Halle
Nov. 13 – Graz, Austria – Orpheum
Nov. 15 – Ljubljana, Slovenia – Cvetlicarna Media Park Club
Nov. 16 – Zagreb, Croatia – Bogaloo
Nov. 18 – Sofia, Bulgaria – Yubilena Hall
Nov. 19 – Bucharest – Arenele Romane
Nov. 21 – Budapest, Hungary – Club 202
Nov. 23 – Linz, Austria – Posthof
Nov. 24 – Wien, Austria – Gasometer
Nov. 26 – Prague, Czech Republic – Masters Of Rock

“GUARDIANS OF ASGARD” LIVE VIDEO

I really needed a palate-cleanser after that last post about the Revolver “Golden Gods” Award, and man, did I find one: good quality film of Amon Amarth‘s performance in Denver on April 17.

They played Seattle on the night of April 20. My two NCS co-founders Alexis and IntoTheDarkness were at that show and reported that it was indeed epic. I was out of town and missed it. I am not happy about that.

I’m having to console myself with these Denver clips. The first one is the band playing “Destroyer of the Universe” and the second is “Tock’s Taunt – Loke’s Treachery Part II”. Both songs are from Amon Amarth’s new album, Surtur Rising, which is one of our favorites of the year-to-date. Check them out after the jump. Fuck yes.

Sometimes, the Internet is a very bad thing. It offers temptations, sometimes temptations that I find irresistible. And I’m not talking about porn. I’m talking about . . . what you’ll find in this post.

The backstory: Amon Amarth was one of the bands on that 70,000 TONS OF METAL cruise that we started making fun of more than a year ago. In fact, in the first of several posts about the cruise, as it was being announced and promoted, we said this on February 2, 2010, imagining what we would be asking a year later as the cruise ship limped back to port:

Is there anything left of the ship?

“70,000 Tons of Metal” — but what was the total tonnage of weed smuggled on board?

How many people went over the side, never to be seen again?

How many people were hospitalized along the way?

How many passengers are still in jail on Cozumel?

How many tourists signed up for this, thinking it was just a normal Caribbean cruise?

Did Amon Amarth eat any of those tourists?

Was the bilge big enough to hold all the projectile vomiting?

Did anyone actually go up on deck into the sunlight?

Have photos surfaced on the interwebs?

Well, the cruise is now over, and as far as we know, Amon Amarth didn’t eat any wayward tourists. But Johan Hegg did do a karaoke performance of the best song on System Of A Down‘s Toxicity album, “Aerials”. And yes, his performance did surface on YouTube, and it was, and is, a wondrous thing.

So wondrous, in fact, that Amon Amarth is including a cover of the song as an iTunes-exclusive bonus track on the forthcoming Surtur Rising album. Wanna hear it? Stay with us after the jump, then . . .

To do this topic justice, you first need to watch John Hegg’s karaoke performance. Now, either this dude really loves the song, so much so that he could rip this awesome vocal off the top of his head — or, the band was planning this song as a cover for Surtur Rising before the cruise started.

Pretty damned good, huh?

Well, let’s not stop there. Let’s hear the song as it will appear on the iTunes version of Surtur Rising. (Yes, this is where the evil of the Internet comes into the story). This song is so badass I can hardly stand it. I am so looking forward to consuming the rest of this album that I can hardly stand it. Listen:

I’m sorry to say that this is likely to be the high point of my day, and yours. Come what may, it’s probably all downhill from here.

And our Surtur Rising watch continues . . .

Just hours ago, Metal Hammer debuted the third song from Amon Amarth‘s forthcoming album. This song is called “For Victory Or Death”. Amazingly, the song sounds like Amon Amarth, which means it’s another immediately recognizable melodeath gallop. I’m not quite as enamored of this one as I was of the first two (both of which we slapped up on this site as fast as humanly possible after their release), but I do like it, and it certainly does nothing to dim my enthusiasm for this album.

I couldn’t hack the Metal Hammer site in a way that would allow me to embed the song here at NCS — but I then discovered that the song made its way to YouTube about one hour ago.  So . . . click past the jump and you can hear “For Victory Or Death” without leaving the grasping claws of NCS.

You can’t say no one gave you a Valentine today. Not only did we give you one, in the form of an Amorphis video and a nice skull-with-flowers card, but Amon Amarth have given you one, too.

It’s evident that Amon Amarth is a huge favorite at this site, so we thought it was worth alerting you to the fact that within the last hour, Metal Blade has released another track from Surtur Rising — the new album due for release on March 29. This one is called “Slaves of Fear”. Here’s what AA’s drummer Fredrik Andersson had to say about the song:

“‘Slaves Of Fear’ is not the all-typical Amon Amarth song. It was one of the last songs we finished for the album and what makes this song a little bit different is the collaboration between me and [guitarist] Olavi [Mikkonen] as songwriters. Usually, most songs are written by Olavi and [guitarist] Johan [Söderberg]. It’s definitely one of the darkest songs we’ve ever written and the main/intro riff is my personal tribute to the passing of Ronnie James Dio as the riff came to me after listening to Holy Diver. Lyrically, it’s about how religions keep people under its control and  from thinking for themselves. It includes some of the most angry lyrics [vocalist] Johan [Hegg] has written and they kind of remind me of ‘The Sound Of Eight Hooves’ [off 2001's The Crusher full-length] in a way. It works exceptionally well with the melancholic feel of the riffs.”

I sure wish we could stick the song right here for you to hear, but that will have to wait — because for now, it’s streaming exclusively at the Deciblog. But much as we hate to ever send you away from NCS, you really ought to hear this song. So — here is the link.

UPDATE: Now we’ve got the song for you to hear at NCS –right after the jump.

This will be quick, but it will be good, I promise.

Everyone knows that Amon Amarth has a new album on the way –“Surtur Rising”. I am very much looking forward to it. Very much.

This past weekend, the first track from the album — “War of the Gods” — debuted on Full Metal Jackie’s nationally syndicated radio show. And as I had hoped, someone has now uploaded the track (which includes Jackie’s quick intro) onto YouTube.

It is classic Amon Amarth — which means if you’re not a big fan, this won’t change your life. But if you are a big fan (as I am), it is just a fucking killer way to start the week. It’s a phalanx of raging Vikings pounding down at you at a full charge, with Johan Hegg barking like a big wolf. It’s got a massively infectious little melody grooved into it, and a boiling guitar solo to boot.

UPDATE: After the jump, we now have the official stream of “WAR OF THE GODS” — not the version ripped from the radio on YouTube, with its imperfections.

Go past the jump and listen . . . and then get your battle ax out of the closet and run into the streets looking for a worthy foe to butcher!

Not long after we put up this post in its original form, we got a press release announcing the advent of an official Amon Amarth “landing page” for the new album (here), which includes a stream of “War of the Gods” in embeddable form. Naturally, it’s better than the YouTube version down below. Here you go:

Amon Amarth “War of the Gods” by Metal Blade Records