SHORT BUT SWEET: DE PROFUNDIS — “FREQUENCIES”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jun 022014
 

(Andy Synn reviews the forthcoming EP by the UK’s De Profundis.)

De Profundis have always been one of the more… unique… bands on the UK metal scene. And that’s something that’s been both a blessing and a curse for the band, as their diverse and distinctive style of Progressive Extreme Metal has long been both instantly recognisable and yet frustratingly hard to pin down.

Over the years the band’s sound – doomy, progressive, blackened, deathly – has changed and mutated in a number of ways, yet their artful amalgamation of disparate influences – coupled to an always impressive, intricate instrumental flair – has always remained constant. Despite this, though, many people, myself included, have struggled to define or describe the band in any useful way, without simply resorting to an array of vague references to a multitude of other bands.

And trying to fully elaborate and elucidate precisely what it is that makes the band so special, without falling back on the crutch of these predictable, often ill-defined, comparisons, has been a problem for a while now.

But I can confidently say that Frequencies solves this problem with aplomb, and it does so without sacrificing any of the band’s carefully crafted identity or hard-won credibility. Continue reading »

NEW NASTINESS FROM AUROCH, DE PROFUNDIS, AND CREST OF DARKNESS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 092014
 

I’m in a tug of war with my fucking day job, but I pulled it into the slop long enough to throw together this small collection of nasty new songs and a video. Now it’s my turn to get pulled into the slop — see you on Saturday when we will have… something… probably something covered in slop.

AUROCH

As previously reported, Vancouver’s Auroch have a new album named Taman Shud that will be released on June 24 by Profound Lore, with vinyl coming via Dark Descent. I’ve been very high on this band based on their past efforts, and the new song that debuted yesterday is a strong sign that Taman Shud will be a worthy successor. “Noxious Plume” is the name of this ode to all things poisonous and wantonly destructive. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: EYEHATEGOD, KLONE, DE PROFUNDIS, SLASH DEMENTIA

 Free Shit, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  9 Responses »
Sep 062012
 

Here we are, still rounding up new music (and a new video) that debuted yesterday or early this morning. If you missed the last post because you were doing something unimportant by comparison, like performing open heart surgery, there are killer new songs from other bands in that one, too. In this one we have new music from Eyehategod (New Orleans), Klone (Poitiers), and Slash Dementia (Äänekoski), plus a new video from De Profundis (London).

EYEHATEGOD

NOLA sludge legends Eyehategod have released a new 7″ single via A389 Recordings, who will sell it to you here on laser-etched green vinyl. Its title is “New Orleans Is the New Vietnam”, and it’s apparently the first new track the band have released since the demo tracks on 2005’s Preaching The End Time Message.

The song is now streaming on the A389 Bandcamp page. It’s a cool song, and by “cool” I mean it will punch you in the spleen. Fat stoner riffs duke it out with pachydermal stomps and Mike Williams somehow rises up in the middle of all that heaving weight spewing pure pissed-off punk invective. Give it a listen after the jump, and begin preparing yourselves for the band’s next album, which is in the works. Continue reading »

DE PROFUNDIS: “THE EMPTINESS WITHIN”

 Album Reviews  7 Responses »
Jul 022012
 

(In this post, Andy Synn reviews the new album by London’s De Profundis.)

Despite two previous impressive albums, with this latest taking them to a total of three, along with a host of European festival appearances under their belts, De Profundis remain something of an unknown quantity to many in the metal scene. In quiet solitude the UK quintet have spent years honing their craft, both as individuals and as a group, mastering both their instruments and their progressive muse, emerging periodically with a new release or a series of startling live appearances.

With a manic, melting-pot approach to song-writing that reminds me of Canada’s Into Eternity, in frenetic style if not in sound, it takes a steady hand and a keen eye to keep a complex machine such as this from spinning off the rails. Thankfully, this sort of attention to detail and knack for clear composition is something the band have in spades, accenting their material with hints of Emperor’s promethean grandeur, Death’s inhuman technical flow, and Opeth’s blackwater dynamics.

 

Though a consciously complex band, the quintet aren’t afraid to go hell-for-leather when the occasion calls for it, as the opening to “Delirium” can attest, moving from a grand metal riff in the oldest tradition through a blizzard of blast-beats and weaving tremolo guitars, before settling into a twisted arrangement of catchy riffs and spiralling solos. The track matches its ferocity with a mid-song break into calm acoustics and warping, bass-led melody lines. Cleanly spoken vocals add to the melancholic atmosphere, while a simple yet precise solo plays a mournful refrain, before the track climaxes in a blackened storm of fiery notes and snare beats. Continue reading »

2012 METAL IN THE FORGE (PART 3)

 Forthcoming Albums  10 Responses »
Mar 022012
 

For a change, I actually remembered on the second day of the new month that that the preceding month had ended; usually takes longer than that. My creditors would be happy, except I think their bills need to age a while longer. But yes, February is history — and that means its time to post our usual monthly round-up of news about forthcoming albums. Today’s list is a little more comprehensive than the half-assed job I did at the end of January, which means it’s about three-quarters assed. One of these days it will be fully assed.

Here’s how this round-up usually works: In these METAL IN THE FORGE posts, I collect news blurbs and press releases I’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like at NCS (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, I cut and paste those announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

Remember — THIS ISN’T A CUMULATIVE LIST. If I found out about a new forthcoming album earlier than the last 30 days, I probably 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.

Having said all that, please feel free to leave Comments and tell all of us (me and your fellow readers) what I missed when I put this list together, because I’m abso-fucking-lutely certain that I missed all sorts of shit. So let us know about albums on the way that  you’re stoked about, even if you don’t see them here! Continue reading »

MORE 2010 SICKNESS

 Forthcoming Albums, Listmania, Metal News  No Responses »
Feb 022010
 

No, we’re not talking about the swine flu, or the avian flu, or the next animal virus that decides humans would be a nice host environment upgrade. We’re talking about new metal that has the potential to be sick.

On the first day of the New Year, we posted a round-up of new extreme metal albums forecast for release 2010, along with our list of the 21 we most wanted to hear.

One month has now passed, and we’ve discovered some forthcoming releases we didn’t know about on January 1. Seems like a good time for an update! So, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs about forthcoming albums from bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Needless to say (but we’ll say it anyway), these are bands that fit the profile of music we cover on this site (with a couple of Exceptions to the Rule).

So, in alphabetical order, here’s our list of cut-and-pasted blurbs from various sources over the last 31 days about forthcoming releases we missed in our January 1 list:

AGALLOCH: “So what can we expect from the band’s long-awaited follow-up to Ashes Against the Grain? According to an interview songwriter John Haughm gave to German TV last May, ‘expect the unexpected.’ Haughm says that the next release will be ‘completely different’ from its predecessors — ‘a bit darker,’ closer to black metal, but with the same kind of dynamics that Agalloch is known for.  As for when we can expect the new album, Haughm said that he hoped it would be out by May 2010.”

APOCALYPTICA:  “Finnish rock cello quartet APOCALYPTICA has entered Sonic Pump studios in Helsinki to begin recording its new album for a spring/summer release.” [This is one of those Exceptions to the Rule.]

APOSTASY: “Four new songs from the Swedish black metal act APOSTASY are available for streaming on the band’s MySpace page. The tracks will appear on the group’s forthcoming third full-length album, Nuclear Messiah, which will be released later in the year.”  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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