SEEN AND HEARD: ORIGIN, WRETCHED, DEAD CONGREGATION, DOOM:VS

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  11 Responses »
May 072014
 

Over the last 24 hours I discovered (thanks in large part to tips from NCS friends) quite a lot of new music and news that I’d like to recommend to you — so much that I’m dividing the discoveries into two posts today, this being the first.

ORIGIN

I always look forward to new music from Origin. I know that, if nothing else, it will simulate the experience of wetting my finger and sticking it in a high voltage electrical outlet, except without the heart stoppage and the hair smokage.  And yesterday brought release details about the new Origin album — Omnipresent:

It will be released in North America by Nuclear Blast on July 8 (yet another birthday present for me!) and by Agonia Records in Europe on July 4. The cover art, which is visible above, is by Colin Marks (Nevermore, Kataklysm, Exodus), who also created the cover for the band’s Entity album.

Drummer John Longstreth, guitarist Paul Ryan, and bass-player Mike Flores are back, and this album will feature the Origin debut of ex-Skinless vocalist Jason Keyser. Colin Marston handled the mixing and mastering. Pre-ordering is available here for Agonia. This is a new band photo: Continue reading »

UNDERGROUND METAL FOR THE TRVE CURMUDGEON (DEATH AND DOOM)

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  8 Responses »
May 202012
 

(NCS reader, commenter, and occasional contributor SurgicalBrute volunteered to help educate me about death/doom.)

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these . . . sorry about that. Unlike some of the other guys here, I’m not a writer by profession. So when you combine that with my natural laziness . . . you end up with long periods of inactivity.

I actually requested the chance to write this post though. While I don’t really enjoy Traditional Doom (there are some exceptions), and I really have to be in the right mood for Funeral Doom. Death/Doom hits a sweet spot for me. Never so slow that I start to lose interest, it still manages to establish the crushing atmosphere that’s so important for this style of metal.

Now, I know Death/Doom can be a rather ambiguous term . . . I’ve seen it applied (and not incorrectly) to everything from the mid-paced death metal of Asphyx and Autopsy to the slow moving riffs of Ahab. For the sake of simplicity I’m going to limit this article to my own personal definition . . . where, more often than not, the pace is kept slower than the average Old School Death Metal band, but still quicker than any kind of Funeral Doom.

As usual, I’ll do my best to provide links for distros/labels that may still have merchandise available (and if anyone’s curious as to what Ive been spinning, you can find me on http://www.last.fm/user/Surgical_Brute)

Enjoy the music \m/ Continue reading »