Jul 282021
 

 

Finland’s Bonehunter just keep getting better and better, continually evolving in astute ways and zeroing in on an identity that’s now unmistakable and completely self-assured. Especially through their new album Dark Blood Reincarnation System, they’ve positioned themselves as preeminent purveyors of blackened-speed-metal-punk, indisputably maniacal and savagely lustful but also skilled in crafting songs that are immediately addictive.

As is so often true, even for music of such fire-storming extremity and riotous depravity, the quality of the music is rooted in the songwriting, and not just in the presence of riffs galore but in the dynamism of the music across the album and the head-hooking and blood-pumping nature of all the ingredients. We’ve got a prime example of this in “Parasite Eve“, the song were premiering today in advance of the album release by Hells Headbangers on August 20. Continue reading »

Jul 132021
 


Bonehunter

 

(Our Norwegian friend and long-standing NCS supporter eiterorm steps up today with a round-up of new music, and we’ll let him give his own explanation of it. [And yes, we were trying to trick him, and yes, it worked.])

“Shades of… wait, what? That’s not a thing! And why is this black metal dude sending speed metal all of a sudden?”

That is how I started my latest e-mail to Islander, which contained a few recommendations about new music. I send him such e-mails from time to time, but I haven’t done so in a little while, because lately I’ve had a bit of a music backlog. So by the time I’ve gotten to the news, they have already been posted on the blog, or they’re no longer “news”. And this blog seems to cover most of what I’d recommend even if I don’t send tips as quickly as usual. It’s almost as if I’m not the only person following great labels like World Terror Committee, Iron Bonehead, Ván, etc…

This time, however, Islander wanted to post my message as a guest post on the blog, for some reason. (I think he’s trying to trick me into writing more posts for the blog.) The e-mail I sent him didn’t quite suffice as a blog post, though, so I decided to add a few more words to what was mostly a list of links to recommended music.

Now, to answer that opening question: I’ve been listening to a lot of speed metal lately, which is why this post is all about the speedy stuff. It’s not at all unlike me to listen to that kind of music, but not so much that it outweighs everything else. And coincidentally, some bits of speed metal news surfaced lately, so I thought I’d round them up here. Well, not all of it is news at this point, but none of it has been featured on the blog, so you’re getting it anyway. Let’s go through them in order of newsiness: Continue reading »

Jul 132018
 

 

This is obviously a big end-of-week round-up. Today the size of the round-up will be in inverse proportion to the volume of words in my descriptions of the music, because I have three premieres to write and there would have been more except I exercised some rare restraint and started saying No.

What is it about this day that makes it so popular for premieres and releases? Could it be that there is only one other Friday in 2018 like it (and that one occurred three months ago)?

I arranged the music in alphabetical order by band name because I couldn’t think of a more logical way to stitch these sounds together.

BONEHUNTER

This time Bonehunter chose to keep the rampaging bear’s penis less prominent on the magnificent cover of their new album (rendered by Joe Petagno), to the disappointment of some and the relief of others (as long as they don’t look to closely at that tongue). But how does the music on Children of the Atom compare to the tunes on this Finnish band’s more prominently erect last record, Sexual Panic Human Machine? Continue reading »

Jul 072017
 

 

Thanks in part to the push provided by Hells Headbangers, Bonehunter’s debut album Evil Triumphs Again hooked a hell of a lot of fiendish listeners. It was a fairly unabashed tribute to the earliest works of Bathory, but this Finnish trio’s new second album pushes beyond that envelope, and does so in ways that pushes me to say, hell yes, evil triumphs again.

As an aside, nothing says metal like a werewolf with a big angry dick on the cover of an album, am I right? Unless it’s an album with an erect werewolf on the cover that’s called Sexual Panic Human Machine. An English grammarian might quibble with that stitching-together of words, but when you listen to the music, it makes perfect sense.

Take, for example, the song we’re premiering today — “Digital Evil” — in advance of the new album’s Hells Headbangers release on August 4th. Continue reading »

Apr 202017
 

 

Yeah, I know I did two of these round-ups yesterday, but I’m drowning in new music — but it’s the good kind of drowning, where you see the bright white light at the end of the tunnel and will never figure out in your moment of euphoria before the void takes you that it was just some dude with a flashlight trying to find your corpse in the pond you fell into while wasted.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I’m drowning in good new metal. However, I’m running out of time before I have to tend to my fucking day job, so I’m just going to pick quickly, one each from Columns A, B, C, and D from the genre menu, and cut back on the usual verbosity. Expect another round-up tomorrow.

DYING FETUS

Here’s a video that appeared today for “Fixated On Devastation”, a track from the new Dying Fetus album, Wrong One To Fuck With. It was filmed by Mitch Massie live at the Voltage Lounge in Philadelphia, PA, on March 17th. Continue reading »

May 172015
 

 

Happy Sunday. I thought I would recommend a few new songs. No, not that new Lamb of God song — I like it, but I figure almost every metalhead in creation already knows about it, and I’d rather focus on some things you might not have heard about.  But by all means, feel free to share your thoughts about that song in the Comments, along with any reactions to the following four items.

BLOODWAY

Costin Chioreanu is probably best known in metal circles as an incredibly talented graphic artist whose work appears on the covers of a wide array of excellent albums (including releases by At the Gates, Sigh, Arcturus, Mayhem, and Darkthrone). But he’s also the vocalist/guitarist of a Romanian band named Bloodway, whose fine debut album Sunstone Voyager and the Clandestine Horizon was released on February 27th 2014, by I, Voidhanger Records. Continue reading »