Nov 012013
 

Halloween Day turned out to be quite a day for discovering new songs and video debuts. In our first post of this post-Halloween Friday, I collected five new videos that came out yesterday, and in this post I’ve got some other recommended new songs that I discovered on Halloween (or first thing this morning), presented in the order of discovery.

CRYPTICUS

Crypticus is a collaboration between American vocalist/guitarist/bassist Patrick Bruss and Norwegian drummer Brynjar Helgetun that I came across (and wrote about) through their 2012 EP, Insieme Verso Terrore. That was enough to land them a place on our recent list of the best Swedish-style death metal released in the last five years by newer bands. Their third album, The Barrens, is due for release on December 1 and can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp now.

To celebrate Halloween, Crypticus released a free Horror Grind Mixtape on Bandcamp, which they describe as “an original Death Metal mini-anthology”. It’s one nearly 11-minute adrenaline rush called “The Belasco Bequest”, the kind of expertly executed, blast-force chainsaw death metal (with surprises) that Crypticus do so well. Tasty riffs, tasty drumming, tasty lead guitar melodies, varying rhythms, carnivorous vocals — and it’s free! Continue reading »

Nov 092012
 

So good to be back in Seattle after a fucking 6-hour flight home last night. Did you know that your feet swell up something fierce after 6 hours at 40,000 feet? Did you know that this is really not a good thing if you’re trying to recover from a serious ankle sprain? Did you know that it could cause your toes to turn black and your ankle to turn red and blue even a week after your accident, so that it feels like weasels are ripping into it? Well, now you know.

Did you know that if your hearing is sort of shitty and you try to listen to metal at the proper head-wrecking volume on your earbuds during a 6-hour night flight that your neighbors who are trying to sleep will look at you like they want to set you on fire? Did you know that if enough neighbors look at you like that, and you’re a weenie, you will sheepishly remove the earbuds and lose out on the chance to catch up on new metal for 6 hours and instead drink heavily and become surly and morose? Well, now you know.

Did you know that when your body’s time clock is still in a time zone that’s three hours later than where you are, your body will wake up thinking that it’s 6:30 a.m. when in fact it’s 3:30 a.m.and you’ve only been asleep for 4 hours after being awake for nearly 24 hours and you will feel like day-old shit with your ankle throbbing and be unable to fall asleep again? Now you know.

Did you know that even when you’re a really important metal blogger and you’re mostly out of touch with metal for more than a day, metal is still happening, as if it did not depend on your paying attention in order to continue happening? Amazingly, that seems to be true.

Here’s what I found this morning in between hobbling trips to the coffee maker to recharge my bowl-sized Deathwish coffee cup: Crypticus (U.S.), Nidingr (Norway), and Arkhum (U.S.). Continue reading »