MOVING PICTURES: KRISIUN AND ELITIST

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  2 Responses »
Apr 302012
 

In this post, I have a few videos to start off your school-week, work-week, looking-for-work-week, or completely-fucking-off-week with a bout of headbanging. Because nothing sweetens up schooling, working, fruitlessly job-hunting, or fucking off like headbanging, am I right?  Yes, I am right.

Brazil’s Krisiun is currently finishing up a U.S. tour with Sepultura and Death Angel (the remaining dates are here). On April 15, they played Englewood, Colorado, and Superskum filmed a big chunk of the set. After the jump, I’ve embedded three of the song performances: “The Will To Potency”, “Ravager”, and “Combustion Inferno”. The video and sound quality are very good, and the music is pure spinal trauma.

In February I reviewed the 2011 album by Portland’s Elitist, Fear In A Handful of Dust. Among other words, I penned this immortal line: “Heavy fuzz, slamming or massively groaning chords, beefy bass, tremolo needling, and psychedelic swarming: these are among the implements of a wrecking machine that’s utterly heartless and wholly engulfing.” Today the band uploaded a video of their performance in Portland on April 28. The video includes two songs, “Tower of Meth” and “A Howling Wind”.

The video was filmed by Nick Gattman, and he did a helluva job. The band played this set on the floor of the venue, with no breathing room between them and the tightly packed crowd, and the camera viewpoint makes you feel like you’re right there in the middle of it. I love it when a band play on the floor, though I don’t get to see that happen much. Doesn’t take much for a vocalist to be consumed by a mosh pit, as happens in this video. It also exposes the band to loving caresses from audience members, which also seems to be happening in this video. But there’s no love in the music . . . it’s a mix of doomed, corrosive sludge and rancid death-grind blasting. Much fun to watch . . . after the jump. Continue reading »

ELITIST: “FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF DUST”

 Album Reviews  17 Responses »
Feb 092012
 

I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I prefer to believe that, in person, Portland’s Elitist aren’t as inhumanly corrosive as their music. Yes, they say, “Our fucking lives ended when we started this band”, but they probably love their parents. Unless they killed them and ate their fingers like french fries.

Despite the fact that the music sounds like helpless bodies being dragged through a trough of broken glass and then dumped in a pit of salt so the lacerations will burn like a motherfucker before Elitist pee on them, they’re probably loyal friends and gentle lovers.

The jagged slurry of metallic slag that flows through these songs surely doesn’t flow through the veins of the band members. The tortured screams and ghastly howls in the music surely don’t come from the bleeding throats of caged demons within their bodies. If you were having a beer with Elitist, they wouldn’t really go for your throat like famished hyenas. They’d probably even buy a round.

This is what I prefer to believe — but after listening a few times to the band’s 2011 Season of Mist album, Fear In A Handful of Dust, I wouldn’t bet on any of it. Continue reading »

MORE 2011 SICKNESS (PART 5)

 Forthcoming Albums  6 Responses »
May 022011
 


What the hell is that big yellow thing up in the sky? It looks vaguely familiar, but it’s appeared so rarely here in The Emerald City over the last six months that we’re having trouble placing the name. Well, maybe the name will come to us. The great wheel of the seasons surely must continue to turn someplace, but in Seattle it seems to have been stuck on Winter since, like, forever. In some parts of the world, April showers bring May flowers, but here, April showers will probably bring . . . May showers.

Okay, enough whining. At least we don’t get tornados dropping from the sky like atom bombs and wiping whole towns off the map. And even though the weather hasn’t been our friend, we have metal to make up for the cold shoulder — and there’s a bunch of new metal headed our way.

What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last month about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. Continue reading »