A DGR REVIEW COLLECTION (PART 8): CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Dec 142018
 

 

(Our Sacramento-based colleague DGR concludes a week-long effort to catch up on reviews before immersing himself in year-end LISTMANIA, with one last write-up today.)

Hey, have you heard of this place called Sacramento?

This one won’t be as much a review as previous pieces as it is a simple heads-up and a chance to reminisce a bit. If you had told me that in 2018 I’d be talking about Sacramento “too metal for the core kids, too core for the metal kids” band Conducting From The Grave‘s first album When Legends Become Dust without having to invent some sort of opportunity to do so, I would’ve laughed. But here we are. Continue reading »

SHOW REVIEW: CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, AENIMUS, FLUB, JOURNAL, THE BROTHERHOOD OF ELLIPSIS (MAY 1, 2015)

 Concert Reviews  1 Response »
Jun 022015
 

 

(DGR reviews a recent show from Sacramento, California, featuring Conducting From the Grave, Aenimus, Flub, Journal, and The Brotherhood of Ellipsis.)

It is rare these days for a show to line up perfectly with my schedule. It has also become rare these days that the guys in Conducting From The Grave, a group I’ve seen a whole bunch and reviewed for this site before, play live now, so the fact that the two lined up on a Friday felt like the planets aligning.

Conducting From The Grave just recently re-recorded their first EP Trials Of The Forsaken themselves and re-released it under the name Revival Of Forsaken Trials and were celebrating that fact. It was a ten-year anniversary show for that EP and one that also saw the reunion of some old band members to the fold for a limited run. Also on the docket for this show were The Brotherhood Of Ellipsis, Journal, Aenimus, and Flub — many groups I would be seeing for the first time, and that was exciting.

Unfortunately, Entheos had to drop off the bill as they had been a late addition to another tour and the routing made it impossible for them to make it. That was a bit of a bummer because they would’ve been exciting to see live — I get the sense they’re slated for big things. As it stood though, that night was still going to be an assault on the senses spread across five bands — with two of them being on very different ends of the instrumental spectrum. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD (PART 2): PARADISE LOST, NIGHTRAGE, SYMBOLIK, CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, HOPE DRONE, MIRACLE OF SOUND

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  5 Responses »
Apr 242015
 

 

This is the second of today’s round-ups of newly discovered music. This one should probably be called “Seen and Heard by DGR“, because it was he who linked me to everything collected here (except the final song) over the course of this week.

PARADISE LOST

Paradise Lost is such a “name” that after four days out in the world, their new song “No Hope In Sight” has probably been heard by every sentient creature (and many non-sentient ones) who know of the band. But we haven’t featured it here yet, and since many of our readers are not earthlings, we thought a few of them might not have discovered it yet. So, here it is. DGR says: “It was good sound”. What do you think? Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: HORNED ALMIGHTY, HYPERIAL, CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 202014
 

In this round-up I’ve collected a few new songs and videos I noticed over the last 24 hours from a variety of metal sub-genres. I really like all of ’em. Hope you will, too.

HORNED ALMIGHTY

This Danish black metal band have recorded their fifth album, and the first since 2010’s Necro Spirituals. The new one is named World of Tombs and it’s projected for release waaaay down the road on September 1, 2014, by the band’s new label, Scarlet Records. Yesterday brought a stream of one of the new tracks, “Diabolical Engines of Torment”, and it kills.

It kills in two ways — with electrifying thrash riffs and punk rhythms (which will grab you by the neck right from the first second), and with a down-paced pounding so irresistible that heads cannot help but bang. The vocalist alternately sprays acid and roars like a death metal beast, and the production makes the music sound especially powerful (and clear). Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, BRETUS, DEATH I AM

 Exceptions to the Rule, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Mar 292014
 

This is the second round-up of newly discovered music for this Saturday. One just wasn’t enough for what I found yesterday.

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

My comrade DGR rightly praised this Sacramento band’s self-titled 2013 album in a review last September. And how, we wondered, might the band follow up that monster of a disc? Well, now we have our answer: by covering a West Coast rap song from 1994 by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. I’m not lying.

Actually, “Natural Born Killaz” is a pretty natural choice for a metal cover if you think about it. To quote The Font of All Human Knowledge: “The song has satanic and occult undertones and covers such subjects as mass murder, Sarah Connor from the Terminator films, Al Cowlings’ tight bond with O. J. Simpson, schizophrenia, Charles Manson, the attack on Reginald Denny during the Rodney King riots, strychnine poisoning, flagellation in Singapore, Jeffrey Dahmer, Kurt Cobain’s suicide and psilocybin mushrooms.” Continue reading »

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, FALLUJAH, AWAITING THE APOCALYPSE, SOMA RAS, ALTERBEAST, LIFEFORMS: LIVE AT THE BOARDWALK (Oct 5, 2013)

 Concert Reviews  8 Responses »
Oct 132013
 

(In this post DGR reviews the CD release show of Conducting From the Grave (with friends) at The Boardwalk venue in Orangevale, California, on October 5, 2013.)

Saturday (Oct 5) was exciting for a several reasons. First, it was my chance to see Conducting From The Grave take the stage fresh off the release of their new disc. Second, I also got to see Soma Ras again. Third, I’d get to see the newly christened Alterbeast and find out if my generally high opinion of them from their GBAA days would still hold up. And finally, and I swear this is true, I would finally get to see Fallujah — more on that later.

The whole show was basically a celebration for the Conducting guys, and they were treated like conquering heroes the whole night, with a pretty packed Boardwalk venue and a crowd receptive to every band who took the stage. Also, holy shit, were there a lot of cameras at the venue too; I guess quite a few people wanted to have their own bootlegs of the show that night.

One of them was right next to me for the whole show, someone who I would later find out was working for clothing/media company Atrocious Works (Home site and Facebook page) and has been posting the material online as he has uploaded it. You should obviously check them out because they’re adding to the huge archive of live shows on the net that are out of Sacramento venues, and a huge thanks to them for that. Right now, the videos consist of front-row views (and damn good sound quality) of Alterbeast, Lifeforms, and Conducting From The Grave. Continue reading »

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE: “CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
Sep 232013
 

(In this post, DGR reviews the forthcoming self-titled album from Sacramento-based Conducting From the Grave.)

The time has come; after much label politics, a nail biter of a Kickstarter, and a three-year wait, Sacramento locals Conducting From The Grave are about to release their latest disc, an album that they aptly decided was going to be their self-titled effort.

The group’s discography prior to this has ranged from excellent to pretty good, and after one impressive EP and two strong yet very different major label releases, there was really no way of telling which way the band were going to go next. However, the group’s lead-off single of “Honor Guide Me!” was strong enough to generate a definite air of excitement surrounding their potential third release. It was a song that was more traditionally death metal than what the band had done before and it melded together so many differing elements to create the chaotic, whirling mass of riffs for which many people got into Conducting From The Grave in the first place.

The group have been pounding it out for years now and amassed quite the fanbase, some more familiar with the group’s second release Revenants than their label debut When Legends Become Dust. Conducting From The Grave are now an entirely different beast, attempting to hybrid the two together and create something entirely new and much, much heavier. Continue reading »

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE: “INTO THE RABBIT HOLE” PLAYTHROUGH

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Aug 042013
 

(DGR wrote this feature about a new video from Sacramento’s Conducting From The Grave.)

You may remember that the last time we checked in with the Conducting From The Grave guys, they were neck deep in their kickstarter campaign and had just released a song entitled “Into The Rabbit Hole”. Well, the band succeeded, garnering close to 19k out of the original goal of 15,000 and have since announced that the disc will likely see a late-September/early-October release as they figure out how to get the merchandising side of things taken care of.

A few days ago the band also uploaded a playthrough video of the aforementioned “Into The Rabbit Hole” song that rotates between guitarists Jeff and John and bassist Jordan. I think playthrough videos are interesting as hell because you can really learn how to play a song yourself by studying them, or in my case just rest your head in your hands as you’re reminded you’re not even half the musician that these guys who are just shredding away are. I don’t even play guitar and watching these guys fly along to the song is fascinating.

I have heard bits and pieces of the full self-titled release and it’s a pretty good one to look forward to. It has a metric fuckton more guitar playing than Revenants, so if you missed that element from that disc, it’s back, and hybridized with a much more death-metal focused sound. Until we get more to show off from that disc though, you’ll just have to be satisfied with another take on this song. Continue reading »

A DGR ROUND-UP: MECHINA, THE AMENTA, TYRANT OF DEATH, CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE, STEVEN WILSON

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Jun 162013
 

(DGR provides this round-up of artwork, new music, and new videos.)

Apparently nobody else got the memo that last week was E3 week and, goddamnit, that I was going to be away from the computer, because holy crap did the news updates come fast and furious throughout the week of June 10th. A lot of these bands are going to look very familiar to readers of the site because a lot of them are in fact the same groups featured in my last round-up. However, here at NCS we try to stick with really substantial stuff since a tracklisting usually means dick to the reader unless it has something attached to it.

This week, these bands delivered in spades – some with cover art, most with new songs or videos, one with a whole new release. Regardless, it was a smattering all across the board if you love music and love shit just being heavy as hell. I’ll attach my thoughts along the way, of course…otherwise this article is going to look all sorts of wacky.

MECHINA

That picture you see above is artwork for Mechina’s upcoming Xenon release, which the group stated in this here post would be hitting on 1/1/14. Continue reading »

DGR FAMILIARS: THE GRAVESTARTER COMMENCES, RAINBOWDRAGONEYES, MECHINA, AND TYRANT OF DEATH RELEASE DATES

 Metal News  4 Responses »
Jun 062013
 

(Here’s a newsy round-up by DGR.)

You may recognize a lot of these names because I have personally written about each group a ton of times here at NCS. Instead of infecting other news posts with my bullshit, though, I figured I’d do you guys a favor and lock them all up in one news post that I’d reserve for myself. That way if you have musical tastes similar to mine, then you can jump on this post and enjoy its spoils (with the exception of the Conducting Kickstarter, that’s almost charitable), and if anything in this post interests you but you haven’t heard the rest, maybe do yourself a favor and check out the other bands!

Now I know that some of you may be wondering why these groups have been popping up so much lately, and it’s because they’ve been releasing substantial updates at a pretty consistent clip and they’ve all been very busy. I’ve tried to archive a bunch of the news that may have been drip-fed into this big post as well, to really bring people up to speed.

CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE

You’ll remember that late last week we posted news about the plans of Sacramento, California’s Conducting From The Grave to launch a Kickstarter to help cover the physical/merchandising aspect of their new disc, with a goal set of $15,000 – which has been the common goal for bands that have been doing these as of late. The group had posted a video – the same one they would be using as an intro to the project – in order to get the word out as well as share a new song entitled, ‘Honor Guide Me!’. Consider this an additional update, as the group’s Kickstarter has finally launched and we can now see whether they were on the right track with this idea and what some of the rewards for ponying up “that cheddar” may be. Continue reading »

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