Feb 122013
 

a photo of Enslaved that I took last night

A nice coincidence:  Last night I saw Enslaved perform at a bar in Seattle. This morning, Enslaved were nominated for Best Metal Album of 2012 in Norway’s version of the Grammy awards, which are called the Spellemann awards.

The other nominees in that category are Nekromantheon for Rise, Vulcan Spectre and El Caco for Hatred, Love and Diagrams. You gotta love a country where fuckin’ Enslaved and fuckin’ Nekromantheon get nominated for Grammy’s. Songs from each of their albums made our list of 2012’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Hell, last spring I even wrote about a song from El Caco’s album (here) — though the song is more hard rock than metal.

Contrast this with the American Grammy Awards: Although there were 81 award categories for 2012, there is no award for Best Metal Album. As close as we get is an award for Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance. And Halestorm won that award two nights ago. Uh huh. Continue reading »

Mar 102012
 

I remain short on blog time, but haven’t run out of the urge to headbang. “Hatred” feeds that need quite nicely. It’s a song by a Norwegian band called El Caco. It’s the first track released from a forthcoming album called Hatred, Love & Diagrams. It’s also the first El Caco song I’ve ever heard. I gather it’s different from what the band has done in the past, because they say so:

“On their new album, El Caco “push the envelope even further than they have done before,” according to a press release. “Having explored the melodic aspects of rock and metal for more than a decade, this album shows us yet another side of this multi layered band.”

I will say this: Based on this song I want to listen to more from that new album, which was released in January by Indie Recordings and is available from iTunes and Amazon mp3. The song has been turned into a music video, which appears after the jump. I’m afraid that’s all I have time to say, except . . . bang yo head. Continue reading »